My Garden, 2009

My Garden, 2009

Feeling the need to expand my garden, I decided to cut out a segment of our back lawn. I’m doing this because I realized, last summer, that the most sunlit portion of my backyard is devoted to grass, which is nuts. I started yesterday to cut out a new and relatively sizeable chunk of lawn (outlined in photo, below, with string). I plan to put in up to 12 tomato plants in Texas Tomato Cages; this area will be also good in that I’ve never grown tomatoes in this plot of earth before (nor, I suspect, has anyone).To thrive, tomatoes need to be rotated yearly; experience has born this out; so I’m always looking for new locations to plant my favorite fruit/vegetable.



About cutting out the lawn, it is the hardest damn garden work I’ve ever done. It’s not that it’s heavy lifting, but cutting out each hunk of sod is very laborious and tortures the hands. The small part of lawn seen in the above photo took well over an hour. My plan is to do a little every day. Then, hopefully by Good Friday, I can rototill the whole garden area, working in peat and getting everything ready for planting by May 1.

Looking around my yard, I ask: Can I turn this or that stretch of land into garden? The thin strip next to the garage seems promising territory, but during the summer, it will be in sunlight only about 4 hours a day (the garage eclipses the sun after about 1:30PM). I’ve been researching what plants might do well with less light, and I’m toying with the idea of planting lettuce up there; I’m hoping that though growth will be slow, bolting may come later in the summer, which would be a good thing. If anyone has experience growing vegetables in less than optimal sunlight, I’d love to hear about it.



When I was young and foolish, before I even knew how to gracefully link and label a web address like I am doing now, I thought Salad Is Stupid. Now, I like salad well enough to eat it daily, and speaking of lettuce and sunlight, I’ve previously used my Square Foot Garden as a lettuce patch, letting it bolt as it will and then using the flowers from arugula, etc., to add a bit of interest to summer salads. It occurred to me that putting my lettuce in the part of my garden that gets some of the best light is (also) stupid; I should really have used that space for zucchini or something that benefits from big light – unfortunately, zucchini also needs more space. Let this be a lesson to those planning a square foot garden: think about the amount of light really needed by the plants you plan to put in the SFG. Had I been thinking with enough foresight, I might have put the SFG in a spot that gets a little less light. Then I could have used that real estate for plants that really need light.



In the above, note rustic branches along back fence. Now that I have minimally mastered the basics of gardening, I’m starting to think more aesthetically, and I plan to line the back fence with Kentucky Wonder Beans (a fabulous legume) and have the bean shoots trail up the tree branches as well as the fence behind them. I think this will work and it should look pretty nice, creating a privacy barrier and making the garden feel more like an enclosed green space.

I find that we use a lot of peppers (Ancho, Melrose, Cubano, etc.), so this year, I’m radically expanding our pepper patch. I plan to put in maybe 14-20 plants in this area (photo below) which also gets incredible light all summer long (there used to be a 100 foot cotton wood here; we cut it down three years ago, and there’s still a big stump not far down into the earth, so I need to plant stuff that has a short root system and that, obviously, grows the fruit above ground. I don’t believe peppers need to change locations yearly; I hope not, but if you know about this, I’d be interested in your opinion.



This morning, I enjoyed a breakfast that included the first produce from my garden: these beautiful little chive shoots , scrambled into Farmer Vicki’s eggs. The tender tendrils were sweet and strong and spring-like.



Put in my order to Seed Savers last night, and am getting a few dozen interesting varieties, including Chiogga beets (with alternating red and white layers within), Romanesco broccoli (with little pagoda and parapet bulbs as opposed to crowns), and Forellenschuss lettuce (the name means, “trout, self-enclosing"; i.e., it’s speckled; it's supposed to have superb great).

Ready for spring, already,

David “Sod-buster” Hammond

David, I do believe you should rotate annually - they are like tomatoes in that they shouldn't be in the same place more than once every 3 years. Is it essential? Not if you haven't had problems with diseases. I always did in the past, but I had lots of room, so don't have any personal horror stories. But, in the city, many of us have such small spaces we have a hard time rotating. Even in the suburbs, you may not have the light you need - as your space by the garage shows - to rotate as you want to or should.

Removing dead stuff, removing volunteers, immediately removing diseased plants all helps.

ViewsAskew wrote:David, I do believe you should rotate annually - they are like tomatoes in that they shouldn't be in the same place more than once every 3 years. Is it essential? Not if you haven't had problems with diseases. I always did in the past, but I had lots of room, so don't have any personal horror stories. But, in the city, many of us have such small spaces we have a hard time rotating. Even in the suburbs, you may not have the light you need - as your space by the garage shows - to rotate as you want to or should.

Removing dead stuff, removing volunteers, immediately removing diseased plants all helps.

It'd be easy enough for me to rotate peppers somewhere else, so that's what I'll do. I actually thought rotation was more an issue of not depleting soil of nutrients needed by a specific plant. Pests have not, as I far as I can tell, been a problem, but I have the room to rotate and so I will.

I planted by green and poblano pepper seeds on Wednesday with a heat source and a plastic dome and have not seen any of the seedlings come up yet. The broccoli planted at the same time already has seedlings that are over 2 inches high. These are currently sitting under my home made light stand...

Should I be worried?

KevinT

KevinT wrote:I planted by green and poblano pepper seeds on Wednesday with a heat source and a plastic dome and have not seen any of the seedlings come up yet. The broccoli planted at the same time already has seedlings that are over 2 inches high. These are currently sitting under my home made light stand...

Should I be worried?

KevinT

no.

It's pretty amazing that I woke up freezing and was still able to be working the garden in warm sunlight by 4:00PM.

KevinT wrote:I planted by green and poblano pepper seeds on Wednesday with a heat source and a plastic dome and have not seen any of the seedlings come up yet. The broccoli planted at the same time already has seedlings that are over 2 inches high. These are currently sitting under my home made light stand...

Should I be worried?

KevinT

I didn't have a heat source, just a 20W CFL close above my seeds, and the bell pepper seeds took close to three weeks to start sprouting, while the cukes were about 5 days (and are now rootbound already). Meanwhile, my thyme sprouts, which came up gangbusters, all disappeared. Probably shouldn't have fertilized the herbs.

Broccoli is a much colder-climate crop. I've got Chinese Broccoli (gailan/kailan) that I want to plant outside, but it says it needs at least 65-degree soil to sprout. Certainly not this week, but two weeks ago it seemed like it might have been the right time.

Seeds in the mustard family, which includes broccoli, tend to germinate very fast even under cool conditions. Peppers are at least subtropical by nature and need both warmth and time to germinate. Tomatoes are also in the nightshade family but germinate a lot faster than peppers.

Cucurbits need some warmth to germinate as well as at least moderately warm soil to grow. If planted using bottom heat, three weeks before setting outside is about as early as one should go. Larger plants will have greater transplanting shock and may well produce later than ones that were direct sown. Once the soil is workable, putting clear plastic sheeting over the area where the plants will grow will warm the soil and get direct seeded plants off to a good start. Cucurbits generally benefit from floating row cover for both warmth and keeping cucumber beetles and other insect pests out. It is possible to overdo the warmth in late June. In any case the floating row cover needs to be removed once blossoming starts to let pollinating insects in.

Crop rotation has many benefits in terms of soil tilth, nutrients, disease control and pest management. Rotation is about the only control for many soil-born diseases. Members of the nightshade family are affected by many of the same soil-born diseases and should not go into the same soil two years in a row. This includes peppers, tomatoes, potatoes and eggplant.

Anyone growing pole beans should consider Fortex, which is a French filet type. Fortex is not for producing haricots vert as the beans quickly grow to six or more inches long. I have found Fortex is both more productive and has a lot better flavor than Kentucky Wonder. Seeds were available at at least one of the home centers I checked out this spring if you don't want to order from a place like Johnny's.

This is too late to help Hammond, but fall spading of ground is a tremendous help when you are gardening in heavy soils. Freeze-thaw cycles plus battering by rain drops really replace a lot of tillage work. Fall spading is particularly good when going from sod to any kind of garden because it tends to kill the grass and convert all the grass to organic matter. Likewise, spading under chopped leaves in the fall lets them compost in place.

Lettuce grown in some shade will hold later into the summer. Market gardeners often use shade netting for their later plantings. Afternoon shade is much better than morning shade if you have a choice. Start new seeds every three or four weeks (two if you are harvesting as mesclun) to mid-June. Some varieties are better than others for warm weather. Batavia, also called summer crisp and French crisp, lettuce is a class that takes a lot of heat but pretty much requires mail order for seed. Jericho romaine (bred in Israel) has pretty good heat tolerance. Little Caesar isn't quite as heat tolerant as Jericho but produces nice smaller heads. Salad Bowl, Green Ice, Red Sails and Red Salad Bowl have pretty good bolting and bitterness resistance under heat. Black-seeded Simpson is good for early green leaf lettuce but becomes bitter with the first hot weather.

ekreider wrote:Crop rotation has many benefits in terms of soil tilth, nutrients, disease control and pest management. Rotation is about the only control for many soil-born diseases. Members of the nightshade family are affected by many of the same soil-born diseases and should not go into the same soil two years in a row. This includes peppers, tomatoes, potatoes and eggplant.

Thanks for the advice, ekreider. I've decided that I'm going to rotate everything, but here's a question for you: If I want to move a tomato or other nightshade plant to another part of the garden, can I move it just a few feet away or is there some minimum number of feet that I should I move it?

In an ideal world there would be at least a few feet. In practice in a small urban garden, don't sweat it too much. I have been using a two-year rotation between north and south halves of the garden for over thirty years without serious problems except for some buildup of tomato leaf blights.

David Hammond wrote:It's pretty amazing that I woke up freezing and was still able to be working the garden in warm sunlight by 4:00PM.

Ah, it IS spring, then. That wouldn't happen in the winter.

The weather forecast said 27 tonight, but then it's a heat wave! 44 tomorrow and up in the 50's after that for almost 2 weeks. Only one night below 37 (30).

So around 6 tonight, I rented a rototiller and bought several sacks of manure and peat. My plan was to spread the manure and peat and rototill it all into the gardens tomorrow. When I got home, it was still light, so I thought I’d try to get through one of the smaller of four garden areas in my yard. 18-year-old Boy heard the crackle and roar of the rototiller and came right out.

Now, earlier this week, in a completely innocent though upon reflection a kind of Tom-Sawyerish-gosh-it’s-fun-whitewashing-Aunt-Polly’s-fence monologue, I extolled to Boy the joys of rototilling, which I expressed sincerely. So when I brought home the machine, he was ready to go. I did a few rows and turned it over to him, and within the space of about 60 minutes, he had rototilled all four garden areas, while I humped to dump manure and peat into the furrows, staying just a few steps ahead and sometimes behind him. I had thought I could probably have done all this in 5-6 hours of working alone, so obviously I was overjoyed to see it finished wthin an hour. Boy wanted to keep going, to just keep rototilling the same areas, but pizzas arrived and so he was torn. Plus, we were basically done rototilling and it was getting dark. So, after eating a stunning amount of pizza, Boy asked us to turn on the floodlights so he could edge the lawn. He had that much energy…which, when it comes to yard work, helps a lot.

That sounds like a wonderful evening, David. I'm a bit envious.

David,

Impressive feats in gardening!

Last weekend I visited LTH'r razbry after feasting at her church's monthly dinner. Earlier in the day, she planted 150 gallon pots of blueberry plants in her backyard. She said it only took her 2.5 to 3 hours. I was speechless, because the same feat would take me days. When we met her, she was quite perky and full of energy. I guess country air offers strength to conquer such feats that urban living does not provide.

Can I borrow The Boy?

Regards,

On Friday of this week, after the ground has dried out, I’m planning to plant the following seeds, all of which Seed Savers assures can be planted “as soon as soil can be prepared in the spring":

• Dragon Carrot
• St. Valery Carrot
• French Breakfast Radish (a perennial favorite at our house)
• Helios Radish
• Strawberry Spinach (a very cool leafy plant that sprouts edible red mulberry-like berries)
• Arugula (or, as the usually-quite-well-informed VI insists, Rocket…but which if you’re a linguistic purist is probably more correctly called Roquette, accent on second syllable)

• Micro-greens (this one from Botanical Interests, and it’s mild, to balance Arugula)
• Beets, Gourmet Blend (also from Botanical Interests, a nice mix of yellow, Chiogga, etc.)

I may also plant the following, which the packets say does well when soil temperature is below 80 degrees:

• Mascara Lettuce (dark, dark red leaf, dramatic looking)
• Tango Lettuce
• Forellenschuss Lettuce (an Austrian heirloom I’m really looking forward to)

I’m tempted to put in some Five Color Silverbeet (also called Rainbow Swiss Chard) – ground needs to be at least 40 degrees, which I assume it is.

In a first for this year, I’m planning to plant some flowers from seed, Calendula, a type of marigold which looks nice, allegedly repels veggie loving local fauna (rabbits), and can be spread on salads (still can’t bring myself to plant things just because they look pretty; I want to taste them).

More than a little concerned about the level of rainfall we're getting. If only it were balanced with a some drying sunlight, but this everyday rain -- coupled with cool temps -- had better change soon or the garden this year will suffer.

I couldn't agree more. I am thankful I'm in containers, actually, but have still had problems. I am also thankful I got a late start on my tomato plants; I don't have blooms yet to contend with. That is good, otherwise they'd be dropping, I'm sure. This is not weather for many of the things we northerners like to grow!

So, here's to more sunshine and at least daytime temps of 75 and nightime temps not below 60.

What a year to have set up the rain barrels, David! So far, I imagine all you've done is watch water overflow out of them. I'm sure they will come in handy soon, though.

ViewsAskew wrote:What a year to have set up the rain barrels, David! So far, I imagine all you've done is watch water overflow out of them. I'm sure they will come in handy soon, though.

With the barrels, I'm frequently faced with a conundrum; if it rained yesterday and will rain tomorrow, do I release water from the barrels today and effectively over-water the garden so that tomorrow the barrels will not overflow (right near the foundation of my house) when it rains again.

looking at the bright side of things, lettuce loves this weather. oddly enough my tomatoes look fantastic. but the peppers and cucurbits are in a state of suspended animation.

My lettuce is happy, my spinach bolted anyway (day length?), my tomatoes are growing, but my okra is dead. Wet feet and cold....it hated it and kept losing leaves, so I just pulled it and tossed it.

I keep meaning to replant it, but it won't warm up and dry out!!!! I haven't bothered with beans yet...keep waiting for the warmer weather. Guess the warm weather will get here eventually and I'll be picking beans in Septemer, grrrrrr.

It's been a weird growing season so far, for sure.
My snap peas mostly didn't come up and I had three or four weak little sprouts... now I've got four very strong vines going, because of the cold, wet weather.

The only heat we had was the two days immediately following transplanting my original seedlings... the majority wilted faster than I could water. I got a couple tomatoes left, one very week-looking jalapeno, and my basil. I've since supplemented with nursery stock, but I don't have any cukes any more (they were overgrown, underwatered in the seedling state, had gone from overgrown to flowered and minimal leaves in a short distance just before I'd planted -- I didn't expect much from them), but I can live with that.

Every year, there are some things that do very, very well, and some that are 'meh,' at best. This is *not* a basil year, for sure, though I'm tempted to throw a packet of seed for 'Siam Queen' out in the front garden and see what happens. I haven't lost any chiles or tomatoes, but the chiles in particular don't look very happy with me, especially the Bulgarian Carrot, which hasn't grown a lick in two weeks, despite 8+ hours of theoretical sun every day. Ouch.

On the other hand, the from-seed fennel is now well over a foot tall, as is the self-seeded dill. The self-seeded chervil is already about to perpetuate itself again, as is the flat-leaf parsley. Also, I had the unusual experience of finding five healthy self-seeded seedlings from a Bolivian Rainbow chile. I've *never* had a chile self-seed in 40+ years of gardening! Quite an event, IMO. And if you planted something that just never came up, be of good cheer - I planted gourds in the back container garden over a month ago, which suddenly decided to sprout robustly this week! Go figure. The seedlings are already 2" tall - and I'm guessing that they have developed a nice root system, or are at least very well-rested for the long trek til the fall harvest.

Oh, and the hyssop.....*sigh* I guess the 2,349,890 plants - the offspring of but two! - will be fabulous when they bloom again, and every bee in town will be around til frost, but jeez. Hyssop: the Duggars of the plant world.

sundevilpeg wrote:Every year, there are some things that do very, very well, and some that are 'meh,' at best. This is *not* a basil year, for sure

Glad/sorry to hear that my basil is not alone. I have eight or so plants, and they are all funky: brown/black spots on the leaves, small and sad. A few days of brilliant sunlight would help, but I'm losing hope.

Just a little update from out in the "sticks" (DeKalb Co.). It has been a very bad year (weather wise) for the farmers. There are many....many fields left unplanted this year due to the wet fields. I've lived a long time (all my life) out here and have never seen a year quite like this one. Another indicator of the strange factor is that I had two 30' pine trees (20 years old) up and die on me because of root rot (too much water!). Note: if anyone has a chainsaw you can join me in a chainsaw party sometime this summer! Finally, the weeds...worse than last year (and I thought that was bad). Just unbelievable fast and prolific growth of the buggers. I think Cilantro must be part weed as it has spread over my entire garden and is growing like mad. I've given bags of the stuff away. That's it...my report from the boonies.

The saga of the basil-loving squirrels:
I managed to get basil growing from seed but a squirrel came along and made a lunch from it. I was quite surprised by this but learned that the weird weather conditions this year caused them to search for alternate food sources early in the season. What other herbs can I put in the same container with what's left of the basil? I'm thinking of cilantro. I love fresh mint but will put that in another pot since it seems to grow like weed. In another container, I put a pepper plant and tomato plant together. The tomato plant is looking rather anemic and I doubt it will bear fruit. The pepper plant seems to be doing much better. I put a stalk in the pot to support the height.

David Hammond wrote:

sundevilpeg wrote:Every year, there are some things that do very, very well, and some that are 'meh,' at best. This is *not* a basil year, for sure

Glad/sorry to hear that my basil is not alone. I have eight or so plants, and they are all funky: brown/black spots on the leaves, small and sad. A few days of brilliant sunlight would help, but I'm losing hope.

The basil that was doing so poorly before? Now I have so much I'm making frozen basil cubes quite regularly. It happened so fast, too. One day I had scrawny basil that was a couple inches high....and a week or so later, I had these lush, gorgeous plants.

I hope that you both had plants that were able to hang in there until the sun came out.

You know, you should be able to plant another basil and still get a lot during the season. Give it another try - or stop by a farmer's market and get a plant. Cilantro probably did really well up until now, but as soon as it gets hot, it will bolt practically right from the seed.

My thyme, oregano, sage, and lavendar seem to be thriving.