Garden Notes

Wow! Has spring sprung up with full force!  With these beautiful sunny days, it’s the perfect time to find the ideal spot in your yard for a garden.  Keeping in mind that the sun will shift a bit over the growing season, by chronicling the sun’s trek across your yard, you can see where the sun shines the most, and where unexpected shade appears.

The ideal minimum amount of sunlight for a garden is six hours.  Some greens, like spinach, will grow with just four hours of sunlight, but they really do struggle with such a small amount of sun.  Any spot where you can pretty much guarantee six hours of sun will work- more is obviously even better.  But even then, some shade isn’t necessarily a bad thing either.  Lettuces, for example, like to bolt when it gets too hot.  A bit of shade will slow the bolting and extend the lettuce season for you.

So what I like to do when planning a garden is to choose landmarks in the yard and make a simple spreadsheet on a piece of paper.  Choose a day when you expect abundant sunshine, and when you can be around to check the yard every half hour.  Mark your paper in half hour increments down one side, and across the top label with your landmarks- the landmarks would be potential spots for a garden location.   Then every half hour, check on each landmark and note whether that spot is in full sun, some sun, full shade- as well as what is shading that spot.   Once your day is done, go through your chart and add up the time.  As I mentioned, you want six hours of sun at minimum, so any space that is less than that should probably be eliminated unless that’s your only option.  (And in that case, you’ll want to focus on shade gardening, something I’m not as familiar with.)

Keep in mind, as you’re choosing a spot this time of year, that the trees are naked of leaves yet.  It’s amazing how much shade a scrawny little tree will provide, so note that down as well.  We’ve found that having trees on the north side of the garden can provide more shade than you would think from overhead.  Sometimes this can be good, but sometimes a few branches may need to be pruned.

But now you should have an idea where you should place your garden.  Next, you’ll want to think about the type of garden you want to plant.  A garden planted directly in the ground is good, traditional, and does work.  A raised bed can be much easier to work with, but it does require some planning ahead and more materials than planting in the ground.  Critters should also be considered.  Where we live, our gardens must be fenced- yes, there is wildlife even here in the city.  I also need to cover newly planted soil with bird netting or the squirrels will dig and decimate.

One of the beauties of gardening is that you can go as small or as big as you like.  As you’re considering your spot, consider the size.  If you’re opting for a raised bed, you really don’t want them any wider than four feet in one direction, as you need to be able to reach into the middle of it.  After that, they can be as long as you like.  My gardens are ten feet long, four feet wide, and absolutely perfect for me.  An in-ground garden can be wider, but you will want to account for walking paths- allow a good foot-and-a-half inbetween rows- two feet would probably be better.

There are many books and websites out there dedicated to raised bed growing- the most popular probably being Square Foot Gardening.  I love square foot gardening, but for anyone who is considering building a raised bed, I have yet to see a step-by-step tutorial as thorough as the one over at Pioneer Woman’s website.

So choose a spot wisely, choose your gardening method, and also start considering what kind of vegetables you would like to grow.  Up next, I’ll talk a bit about soil and what you need to know.

As my thoughts are fully focused on the coming gardening season, I thought it was high time that I took the blog space to really detail how to make a vegetable gardening- right from the very beginning.  It’s February, and while we can’t work in the yard yet, we can plan, and that makes this the perfect time to take you step-by-step through the process of planting vegetables.

It’s not hard.  It’s really not, armed with a few basic tools, seeds, and dirt, anyone can plant a few seeds and reap a harvest.   I hope to take some of the mystery out of the process and inspire others to take up vegetable gardening. There are few hobbies out there with such wonderful rewards- there’s nothing like pulling a carrot out of the dirt and handing it to your child.  There’s nothing like pulling a tomato warm off the vine and sinking your teeth into it like an apple.  There’s nothing like sweeping aside a few leaves of a cucumber plant, only to discover a whole army of delicious cucumbers just waiting to be sliced.

Let’s garden together, shall we?

My dwarf tomato is doing beautifully.  It’s really happy in my window, even though we’ve had more grey and gloomy days than sunny days.   I really like the pot it’s in too- bottom watering is great!

My ghost peppers have finally sprung forth.

I was so excited when I saw a sprout finally start poking out, only to have it quickly joined by seven others.  I swear, I planted seven seeds, and I have eight peppers.   I have plans to put two in my garden, one plant in a pot, one plant goes to my dad, one plant is to give to a friend… but beyond that… I have three plants that are going to need homes.  I feel like I need to be responsible with these peppers- I don’t want to give them to anyone with pets, or with small children who could be curious.  The heat of these ghost peppers can be painful… So we’ll see where these end up.

I also have some Thai Basil sprouting up.

I’m really anxious to start garden planning!  I have all the tomato seed I’m going to get.  I think.  I still have two seed orders to put in, as I have plans to grow a lot of beans and lettuce this year.  I have at least six different varieties of romaine that I want to try, as romaine is our favorite lettuce.  I can’t tell you how many kinds of beans I have- mostly pole beans, but some bush beans.

And eggplant.  I’ve remembered that I want a few eggplants this year, so I have a few new, small varieties to start.

I’m excited!  I didn’t even come close to maximizing the potential of my garden this past year.  I’ll be able to harvest from my rhubarb plant as soon as it produces, and I’m excited to see what the blackberries, raspberries and asparagus do.   I definitely have some dirt amending to do in the raised beds, so that will need some attention first thing.

It’s going to be a very good, very productive year.  I’ll be going through seeds in the next week or so here.  It will be something to do while we wait for warm weather.

January.  Synonymous with cold, snow, frigid temperatures, and dark days.

And yet there are the little things that brighten our days and get us through this long month as we wait for seed-starting season.

Take this tomato plant, for example.

A gift from the Minnesota gardeners, this is a dwarf tomato which seems very happy to be in my care.  Rumor is that it will produce tomatoes for me before I can even think about working in the dirt this spring.  I’m very excited to see how it does.  It grew a lot last week, despite the fact that it was grey and gloomy out all week long.  Yesterday and today we’ve had some sunshine, and it’s really looking good.

I also have started just one round of seeds.  I was also gifted with some Ghost Pepper seeds this Christmas.  I gave these super-hot seeds an eight hour soak in warm water and then put them in a pot of seed starting mix.  I have seven seeds in this pot.

They could take a good three weeks before emerging, but I’m hopeful that the soak in water gave them a bit of a jumpstart.  I have the pot in front of the fireplace for now- it’s keeping them toasty without being too toasty.   These can take a full 160 days to harvest, and since the can be so slow to germinate, I wanted to give them a good head start. One of these Ghost Chilies has a date with the salsa pot.  Just one.  The rest?  Gosh, they scare me just thinking about them, but I’ve recently become obsessed with finding out what kind of flavor these super-hots actually have.  One of THE hottest in the world with scoville units off the charts, I may be insane for even thinking about trying them.

I can’t wait. 

Not bad.  Yesterday I went out to the greenhouse and harvested a few chard leaves to add to a stir fry.  I found both the chard and the kale to be a bit weepy, which tells me that it has indeed frozen in the greenhouse overnight.  But, the greenhouse is acting as a giant coldframe and the greens perked up a bit.  They’re still good enough to eat, and were a delicious addition to last night’s dinner.

The seeds that I planted way back when have sprouted, but they’ve been stuck in sprout mode ever since.  It just doesn’t get warm enough I guess.  They’re not dead though, so we’ll see what happens.  I truly have no clue how greenhouse gardening actually works, so every bit of observation is helpful.

If you would have told me, though, that I could still be harvesting Swiss Chard on December 6th, I’d have thought you were nuts.  It does make me wonder if having the chard in the greenhouse will get it to behave like the biannual it actually is.  I would love to be able to harvest fresh greens in the early spring, and maybe gather my own seed at the other end of it.

Oh yes.  We went there.

This week Andy had some extra time off and he really needed a project.  I asked him to make a simple plant stand for my rosemary plant, and somehow over the three days he didn’t work, that turned into a greenhouse for Garden Bed Number One.  Here’s some pictures.

There is still kale and swiss chard thriving in this bed, and a few carrots that need more time to mature.  In addition, one lone Lemon Drop cherry tomato plant is still plugging along.

Today Andy put the door on and then put a thermometer inside.  When the sun was bright and shiny it was 76 degrees, despite the 45 degree exterior!  So that got me thinking, and it didn’t take me long to decide I needed to play around and see just what a greenhouse could do.

Of course I planted something!  I planted three varieties of radish, a bit of broccoli raab and then a bit of spinach.  I guess I’m not sure what to expect of any of them- I suppose that will depend on how the temperatures go for the next while.

To be completely honest, I’m not sure what to expect.  I’ve read quite a bit about growing in a greenhouse, but never actually expected to give it a shot, so we’ll see what happens.  I’m thinking that I’ll be able to use it to extend the season by about  a month on either end of the growing season.  I’m really not expecting much out of the seeds I planted, but I guess you never really know until you try.

Planting in October?  You bet!  A few weeks ago Andy finished assembling a small raised bed for my garlic.   I think that ideally, I should have planted the garlic three weeks ago, but I don’t think the bed was ready at that time, and I also really haven’t had two seconds to myself to do so.  But today I did.  I had purchased a huge sack of garlic at the Minneapolis Farmer’s Market back at Labor Day that has just been waiting for planting.  I’ve used a good deal of it, but happened to save the perfect amount of cloves to fit into the bed.

Of course, you can’t see anything but the bed and dirt, but the cloves are in there.  It’s a Siberian variety- delicious and crispy- the bulbs are compact and on the small side- most have only between 4-6 cloves of garlic.  I’m looking forward to seeing how the next generation turns out!  I topped my freshly planted cloves with a nice layer of homemade compost, and here’s to hoping that next fall I am busily braiding my own string of garlic!

I also took a minute today and dug up my Tarragon and my Rosemary plants.  I transplanted them into pots with some compost, and I’m hoping I can keep them alive in the house over the winter.  We’ll see, I don’t have very much sun in the windows, but I’m hopeful.   I need a small plant stand or two to set in this corner window for them.

I expect the Sage, Lemon Thyme and Thyme to survive the winter intact.  The Lovage I think I’ll be harvesting and drying.  But maybe if I find another pot with a bottom I’ll dig it up and add it to the indoor collection.  My Summer Savory died quite a few weeks back- even before it got cooler out,  so I’m not sure what happened there.   If I get a chance I would like to make a batch of pesto out of the basil, but I’m not sure when and if I’ll have time.

The rest of the garden is still hanging out, though I have some clean-up to start focusing on.  I have beets and carrots all over the place that I will think about harvesting soon.  The kale is looking gorgeous, as is the chard, so I’ll just leave those and pluck them as I desire.  I still pick a few handfuls of green beans here and there- plenty for the kids to snack on, so they’re happy.  And I’m also still harvesting tomatoes- and quite a few at that!

They’re not the prettiest- they’re pretty much all cracked, but once you cut the cracks off, they’re perfect for adding to soups or stews.   The Lemon Drop cherries and the Black Cherries are still going, so we’re still delighting in snacking on those as well.  Today my Woodle Orange plant surprised me with a cluster of four ripe and orange tomatoes.  Those ones are not cracked- so we’ll have a few slicers out of those ones.

My leeks are continuing to struggle, and I’m unsure if I should harvest them and use them as babies, or let them winter over and see if the come back in the spring.  It just wasn’t a good year for them, I guess.

While the gardening season is meandering to a close, my thoughts are already turning to next year.  What to plant, what to plant, that is the question.  I’m researching the possibility of joining a CSA when we get our tax return in the spring.  Then, we will utilize the CSA veggies for everyday eating, and then I can use the garden to focus on what I would like to preserve.  Like planting onions, peppers and tomatoes for salsa, cucumbers and dill for pickles, and cucumbers and tomatoes for eating fresh out of hand.  We’ll see.  I have to find out more about the CSA that has a drop off just a few blocks from our house.

Off the top of my head this morning, I have to make some notes about some keepers from the garden, and some that I will never grow again.

Tomatoes: Black Cherry and Lemon Drops will be garden staples.  They are both prolific and tasty. I knew the BC were good, but the Lemon Drops surprised me.

I will not grow Purple Calabash or Romas again.  Blech.  The Purple Calabash are just plain awful.  I have some sitting on the counter that I don’t know what to do with.  They have a sour, almost fermented flavor that is really unpleasant.  The romas taste like styrofoam.

Purple Cherokee is on my waffle list.  Mine have had a sweetness that I don’t care for.  There are enough other good tomatoes, that this one probably won’t make the list.

Aunt Ruby’s German Green is a keeper!  This ranks right up there with the Malakite tomato.  The flavor is spectacular, and the plants have put out great effort.

Hot Peppers: Aji Crystal is awesome!  It has this amazing crisp texture, and it definitely added a fruitiness to the salsa I made with it.  The heat level is up there, but it’s not the hottest I’ve grown this year.  Definitely a keeper.

I don’t think I’ll grow the Bulgarian Carrot Pepper again.  They are stunning to look at, and the flavor profile is good, but they’re tough.  It is difficult to chop them up for cooking with.  The only thing I could really see doing with them is making a fermented hot sauce, where you need to grind them up and let them sit and do their thing.   I would consider growing them if I was doing market gardening, because they are gorgeous in color and unique.  But for home use, not so much.

Greens: Arugula has to be one of the worst tasting things ever.  Escarole is close to that, though I may give the escarole another chance in some cool spring weather next year.  I’m annoyed that I bought all these seed packets for unusual greens, because most of them are simply awful.

Mizuna, though is a gem of a green.  It’s got a slight peppery-ness to it, but none of the bitterness that the other greens have.  It made a fabulous addition to sandwiches and salads, and the plants never bolted.  It’s cousin, the Ruby Streaks was also tasty, though that variety bolted once it got hot out.

And no more Salad Mix.  I must hunt down more romain varieties, because tha’s our preference.  These floppy greens are not desireable for a tossed green salad.

That’s the beginning of my list for the year.   Every time I walk out to the garden, these things roll through my head.  I decided to get them down in the notes so that I can focus my attentions elsewhere and make other discoveries.   There is still plenty chugging in from the garden!

Unscientific because there are way too many variables at stake with these two tomato plants.  However, the results of this experiment are definitely enough to make me pause and give some thought to next year’s garden.

Far and away, THE healthiest tomato plant in my garden is the one that’s not in the garden.  It’s my Valiant.  The one that was extremely anemic, so it didn’t even merit planting in the garden.  On a lark, I planted it, along with several others in the side garden bed, just to see what would happen.  They were summarily snapped or nibbled off by rabbits.  The Valiant was the lone survivor- but even he was snapped off at the soil line.  There was no plant- just a stub of stem.  I wrote it off, but then a few days later discovered that this little plant was struggling to sustain life- it had a new branch and teeny-tiny leaves.

And now?

It’s absolutely beautiful.  It is the healthiest plant in my yard, and it is loaded with large clusters of good-sized tomatoes.  The soil here has been worked two years in a row with composted manure, but it still has a long way to go.  And yet, this tomato plant is just thriving!  It is loaded with large, tennis-to-softball sized fruit.

My Valiant plant in the garden, however is anemic and struggling.   It’s put out very little fruit, and what is still on the plant is small- no bigger than a baseball, but probably closer to a golf ball.

Same yard, same composted manure, same fertilizer schedule going on here.  But there is one majorly big difference.  The awesome Valiant plant is planted directly in the ground.  The wimpy Valiant plant is in a raised bed.   I’ve long known that tomatoes prefer to be in the ground versus in pots, but in-ground versus raised beds isn’t that different.  Especially when the beds are like mine- directly on the soil.

I don’t have a die-hard conclusion here, just observation.  On the one hand, the awesome plant experienced major trauma- supposedly tomato plants thrive with a bit of trauma in their lives.  That alone could explain the vibrancy of the plant.

And yet I cannot dismiss the idea that maybe my struggling tomato plants simply don’t like the raised beds.

But on the other hand, last year my plants were in the ground and produced practically nothing.  Though the soil was dismal at best last year.

So we’ll see.  Maybe next year will be a hybrid of some tomatoes in raised beds, and some directly in the ground.  But that means this must be given serious thought now- as I have several bulbs of garlic to plant this fall, and I’m unsure where those will grow best.

This is my favorite time of year- and for the first time, I have a bumper crop of heirloom hot peppers! But first, a few other pictures.

This is my little tomato plant that could.  It had been completely snapped off by rabbits- and I mean completely.  The stem was snapped at the soil line- and had completely vanished.  I wrote it off, but a few days later saw a tiny bit of new growth and decided to see what it could do.  This thing has about a dozen tomatoes growing on it now, and also plenty of blossoms.

These are my scarlet runner beans.  It took a little bit of a cool snap for them to really take off, but now they’re growing like crazy and looking beautiful.   (That’s the neighbors corn patch behind the fence.)

This amused me.  It’s a little late for a melon to actually grow and become ripe before it frosts, but it’s the first one to do so.  These melon plants have really taken over the bed…note to self: give melons their own bed if you really want to grow them.

And now for some peppers.  So far, I am beyond pleased with the peppers I got  from Seed Savers Exchange.  Their flavors have been good, and they definitely have a bit of heat to them.  This first picture is of the Bulgarian Carrot pepper.  I haven’t tried this one yet, as they’ve just begun the process of turning orange this week.

This next one is the Maule’s Red Hot.  These definitely have some heat, and made some spectacular first batches of salsa.  SSE recommends them for drying or for making hot pepper sauce.  I’m thinking about that- I certainly have enough peppers to do so with this year.

We haven’t tried this one yet either.  This is Joe’s Round, and these peppers are surprisingly tiny!  They are literally less than an inch round.  SSE says these are very hot, so I’m not sure what I’ll do with them.  There’s enough here I could probably pickle a jar, but we’ll see.

Next is the Hinkelhatz.  This one resembles an habanero in shape, but not heat.  SSE lists it as simply hot- we haven’t tried this one yet either.

I didn’t take pictures of my Aji Crystal as I picked the biggest ones for salsa making already.  I picked them at their yellow stage- and they were AMAZING.  They had great flavor, quite a bit of heat, and the salsa made with them is really fruity and wonderful.

The Georgia Flames are just beginning to turn red, and the Cascabellas really want to be used or pickled too.   My jalapeno is doing well, as are the serranos.  The plant we’ve been affectionately calling “Mutant Pepper” I think I’ve determined to be an Anaheim pepper.  My peppers started blushing orange in the middles, and looked more like Anaheims than Banana Peppers.  The only heat in my peppers were in the seeds and membranes- once removed they were like sweet peppers, and made a nice mild salsa for the kids.