Gestating and Germinating

Tags

direct sow, garden, raised bed, spring, start indoors, vegetables

I am very excited to start the official planting season this month, along with the fun and exciting challenge of also preparing for a new family member (this time the human variety). CFO and I are busy making preparations for our little sprout to arrive early August, which means all my other preparations have to be done in less time and with significantly less energy. Pregnancy and preparing for a baby are two things of which I have no knowledge, and no matter what anyone tells, you there is no amount of book learning that can get you there. I know because I have read ALL the books. I am still confounded as to what I really need to do. And yes I have had every man, woman and child TELL me what I need to do and every single one of them has contradicted the other. The only thing I know about having a baby is how to accumulate things. Somewhere in this picture is a crib, I swear.

Where my skill set lies is in how to ready a garden and grow some food. At least, I have had relative success in the past. My garden planning is fairly immaculate, if I do say so myself. I have charts, and more charts, and schedules, and timers. Planning is one of my top attributes; I once planned a seven-day trip to Paris all in 15-minute increments. It was a phenomenal experience. The problem is, I can’t plan the unknown, and everything has been an unknown since Thanksgiving. Here is how my schedule is working out so far:

• February 18 – Start celery and leek seeds indoors. ON TIME.
• March 4 – Start kale and cabbage indoors. DELAYED.
• March 25 – Seed outdoors arugula, fava beans, colish greens, peas and spinach. DELAYED. Start tomatoes and peppers indoors. ON TIME!!…DIED…DELAYED.
• April 1 – Seed outdoors lettuces, endive and radicchio and harden kale and cabbage transplants. DELAYED.
• April 8 – Seed outdoors beets, carrots, parsley, chard; transplant cabbage and kale; start eggplant and celery root indoors. DELAYED.

My list is starting to resemble a United Airlines departure board at O’Hare International Airport. The new plan is, April 15 do all of the tasks above. I am about halfway there. I finished seeding the spring raised bed this morning, and will hopefully sneak an hour to do the rest tomorrow, followed by the transplants this weekend and finally get those eggplants going.

On top of my own garden chores, I have the community to think about. In the fall, I started the Master Gardener program here in SE Wisconsin, which requires me to complete 24 hours of educational outreach in the county by September. This amount of time, 24 hours, seems reasonable, but considering that its garden outreach and most of the work is…well, WORK, and done during the growing season, AKA 7 and 8 months preggo season, this has proved to be a bit more challenging. I’m trying to volunteer at every home show, garden show, and potting event I can while my shoes still fit and I can see my own feet.

How is your garden growing?

February, Quite Contrary, How does your Garden Grow?

Tags

fruit, garden, grow lights, pruning, raised bed, spring, vegetables, winter

My Google calendar recently alarmed me to the official start of the gardening season, this past weekend of February 17. After a brief, but restful, garden dormancy over the past 2.5 months, it is time to begin it all again. Apparently, nature had some other plans and time traveled ahead by 3 months to spring time highs of 65°F and sunshine, complete with scampering animals and chirping birdsong. This, friends, is 30°F over the average blistering February temps. But please…global warming is a hoax.

While I have enjoyed the unseasonable weather for dog walks and weekend outdoor excursions, its worrisome if any of my dormant perennials get too excited and wake up from hibernation, just to be killed off by a surely expected March freeze. I shall keep an eye out for any early risers and smother them with straw mulch. The silver lining in all of this, of course, is a much more hospitable environment to begin some late winter tasks, such as pruning and trimming. February is a great time to give a hair cut to the fruit trees, and a great opportunity to clean out any vegetation I left in the beds over the winter.

Though I am enjoying the respite from the cold, the major garden work is done in the basement under grow lights. The weekend kicks of the business of seed starting, with some celery and leeks, and a through review of the weeks and months ahead.

Always up for new adventures, I added some new fun items this year based on my culinary preferences. New this year for produce I am adding leeks, an assortment of fresh herbs, and strawberries to the garden. I am expanding the varieties of everything else from asparagus to tomatoes. I have also made the executive decision to move certain plants strictly to a fall-harvest cycle. Broccoli, cauliflower, celeriac, rutabaga and turnips have proved too challenging with the unreliability of spring weather. All in all there will be 136 varieties of fruits and vegetables on our one-acre homestead. If I can pull this off, it will be quite a boon for this four-mammal household.

March/April plotted plan for the early spring garden. 

As is in my nature, I have plotted and planned the timing of starting, transplanting and sowing based around my travel schedule. With a little assistance in watering from CFO, we should be enjoying fresh salads by late April. Having a little OCD in gardening does make a difference in success rates. By first identifying realistic times when I can tend to my little spouting babies, I don’t overwhelm myself and make tasks unreasonable. Yes, garden upkeep is no different than maintaining anything else like clothing and upholstery, but organization makes anything possible. I also really like binders.

This year I am taking a different rotation approach. Yes, you should rotate beds by type of vegetable. Yes, you should not overcrowd your plants. But, given limited space, I have limited rotation and spacing capabilities. Instead of proper form, this year I am rotating by garden “season.” I will have one bed for spring produce, which will be ready to replant for the fall garden. Three beds will be summer produce (which often lasts well into fall). One bed for blueberries, one for strawberries, and an assortment of other planters for items that need a bit more separation and attention. I also to work in as much companion planting as I can within each bed. In such a small space, companion planting has been beneficial in my short experience. While I see plenty of the bad bugs, they have yet to demolish entire sections. Attracting the good bugs and very aggressive birds helps as well. While I do not like the birds hovering about my cherry tree, I audibly cheer when I see them circling the garden. For new plantings I will use row covers, but after that its open season on caterpillars.

Well, I better get to work before old man winter returns this upcoming weekend. I hope your garden planning is off to a great start!

Mr. Jack prepares for the return of winter.

A Year of Backyard Food: A Study

Tags

cost savings, direct sow, fall, fruit, garden, heirloom, homemade, raised bed, spring, start indoors, sustainability, vegetables, winter

INTRODUCTION

Its that day once more, that day the ends the annual cycle of time, also known as my sister’s birthday. Happy birthday sis! It’s a pretty popular event; people all around the world celebrate by drinking profusely, declaring how the next year will be the one, and making out at midnight. I prefer to celebrate by eating dinner around 6pm and falling asleep promptly at 9pm once again disappointing CFO. He’s a party animal.

I’m not one for making these so-called resolutions, because I feel that it is a system of preplanned failure. If you ever bought a gym membership in January, you are not my people. But I respect your choices. I prefer to think upon the last year and note what worked, and what didn’t, and make some informed decisions of how I might make better decisions going forward. For example, last year I evaluated how much I have zero interest in cleaning my house, and how I have lots of interest in paying people to do it instead. That’s a “resolution” I am happy to keep going in 2017.

When it comes to the garden, I think about what worked, and didn’t work a lot in January. Mainly because its time to order seeds and get planning. One of my goals from last year was to keep track of what I grew and what I harvested. I was sure that growing food in the backyard is a financially stable way to eat better, but I have no evidence to support the statement. I wanted to do a season-long very unscientific study to prove my point, mainly to CFO, but also to the 22 people that might read this post. I am happy to say that not only did I complete my project, but also I am here, on December 31 to report the results.

HYPOTHESIS

Growing vegetables in one’s own backyard provides a cost savings over purchasing the same food in a grocery store. I know this might seem obvious, but food in this country is shockingly cheap. I felt as if my work was cut out for me.

METHODOLOGY

In order to report the findings as accurately as possible, I had to consider the costs to grow said food, as well as the market value of the food I harvested. I factored in all of the things I use to grow food: cedar for beds, compost, seeds, transplants, fertilizer, mulch, water, and also the grow light system I purchased to start my own. The only thing I did not include was labor. I mean, let’s face it. If I weren’t willing to donate my time this whole adventure would be pointless. I also think that the time I spent in the garden probably equals the amount of time I would otherwise navigate the produce aisle at my local store, which is about as easy to shop as a new IKEA during the grand opening.

For the harvest itself, I had to find a way to quantify the value of what I had, and the only way I could think was to compare it to the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service produce commodity averages. This is an average of the countries produce costs at retail, and is published weekly. It worked pretty well for the common items, but for those odd duck veggies I grow (parsley root anyone?), I had to get more creative. I found an online co-op that published produced prices daily, and used that for a reference. Also, because I practice the general “organic” growing system, meaning I do not use anything on my crops that requires a gas mask, I opted to compare the produce to the organic rates. I know, I know…kind of unfair because I don’t normally buy organic produce, but I grow it and this is my study.

DATA ANALYSIS

The grand total of my garden expenses was…. $1284. Yikes. Last year had some expensive costs to be fair: CFO finished building the remaining garden beds and I invested in a growing system for the basement. Ideally, those two purchases will not be on-going costs. Using cedar, the beds should last 10 years, and since I received 3 shipments of broken growing lights, the supplier sent me about 12 bulbs at no cost in order to maintain his positive EBay rating. I should be good for a while. Based on annual expenses like seeds, compost, mulch, etc. I realistically spend about $250 a year, which seems much more reasonable. Maybe this wasn’t the best year for my study. Meh.

In 2016, I grew a total of 87 varieties of 54 different fruits and vegetables. I began the harvest the week of April 17 with asparagus, and ended the harvest the week of Thanksgiving with sage, kale, and Brussels sprouts. That’s 8 months of food! That’s a win in my book. I had some winners and some losers. I was giving away tomatoes, squash, basil and berries, but the melons and eggplants eluded me due to my unpreparedness with the late cabbage and unwieldy tomatillos. My peppers were a flop again for the third year. But I won’t be giving up on them just yet. Overall, I think this year was my most successful garden year. I figured out the watering system and my rotation and spacing scheme worked out very well. I didn’t have any problems with transplants because I grew them self. In order to properly assess the produce harvest, I used a kitchen scale, and weighed 470 lbs of vegetables for a grand total cost of….

Drum roll please…

$1250!!!!!

And yes. I know that is $34 in the red.

RESULTS

So okay, I technically didn’t make money on the garden, but if you consider I “spent” $34 for 470 lbs of vegetables, many of which are still stored in my freezer or canned and in the pantry in various forms, I think I did pretty darn good. And what a fun project. At its height, the garden was astounding, and received comments and questions from the neighbors (possibly some grumbling and complaints that I tuned out) and also kept me outside for a good chunk of the summer. I got to make farm dinners for family and friends that visited, we grilled vegetables I didn’t know could be grilled, and reduced our grocery expenses to the point where I could justify buying lobster for dinner. I even liked keeping track of all the produce; my charts and files have provided me solid information to make better planning for next year. I think I will keep this going if I can.

CONCLUSION

I conclude that 2016 was a good year in garden for me. I have already started plotting the changes and new vegetables and varieties to try, and making my informed decisions to better myself.

Next year will be…the Year of the Salad (because I have 10,000 lettuce seeds to start).

I hope you have a wonderful New Year and have grand adventures in gardening!

How to Determinate the Indeterminate (Tomato)

Tags

garden, indeterminate, pruning, tomato, vegetables

I have Instagram. I love Instagram. If you keep up with my Instagram, you know that my Instagram lately has been a collection of tomato pics, because my garden is a collection of real life tomatoes, to date 50 pounds of tomatoes. Because it’s August. And that’s what happens in August. But…let me rewind a little.

I didn’t always have 50 pounds of August tomatoes. I once had 2 pounds of August tomatoes, and lots of frustration and determined reflection. That was three years ago. Here is a summary:

Year One: I planted four tomatoes and used those inverted conical hoop cages that seem all the rage. Thought I could plant one tomato plant per square foot LIKE A MORON. Tomatoes quickly filled the cages, and then some, lifting the cages out of the soil and wrapped tomatoey vines in and out of the wire, soon around each other, giving the appearance that one gargantuan tomato plant ate four tomato cages. If I was lucky, I think I got 3 tomatoes.

Year Two: I planted four kinds of tomatoes but I knew something now. No cages. I staked them! Using wire, I tied the stems to 6-foot bamboo poles. I kept tying to the poles as they grew. And grew. And grew past 6 feet so I had nothing to tie them to. Then they went all psycho tomato like the previous year. I did manage to wrangle a decent haul around 10 pounds, enough to eat fresh.

Clearly, my first two years of tomatoes were not what I thought they would be. I remember listening to acquaintances and neighbors go on about their tomato harvests like “ohhh there are soooo MANY I just don’t know what to do” and thinking, “ohhhh well I HATE you. And I will take your extra tomatoes, please.” Why were my tomatoes not working? Tomatoes are supposed to be the friendliest of the garden vegetables, that’s why everyone grows them.

I did a little reading and quickly learned that you can’t just tie them to the poles, you need to actively prune them. Good lord, more work. So I set about this year determined to plant, stake and prune my ten tomato plants. And plant, stake, prune I did.

To prune a tomato plant there are a couple things you want to do:

1. Always prune out any leafs/stems that grow in the crotch of the main stem and a leaf branch. The stems that grow in the crotch will are called “suckers” but I call them parasites.
2. Prune away all leaf branches below the first foot of the plant. One the plant starts blossoming and setting fruit, these lower leaves might just yellow and drop off anyways.
3. Don’t just take my word for it, photo google “tomato pruning” and the diagrams will come forth.

These are the basic pruning methods I use for my indeterminate tomatoes. Most of my tomatoes are indeterminate. All that this means is that they will continuously set fruit until their tomato life has ended, whether by frost, deer, or overwhelmed gardeners. If a tomato plant is determinate, it means it will produce fruit all at one time. These guys usually stay manageable and small, but there are much fewer tomato options for determinate types. I grow tomatoes in a very tight space, about a 6’ x 4’ square, so I should grow determinate types. But I don’t. What can I say? I bring on my own demise.

Something crazy happened this year, year three. I set about planting, staking, tying pruning my ten plants and one night, not wholly unexpectedly, one of my tomato plants lost his head! I mean this literally. A deer (I feel safe in assuming this) made off with the very top of one of my Pink Brandywine tomato plants, when it was a mere 4 feet high. I thought for sure it was a goner. It had already blossomed and had 4 small green tomatoes, so I was upset at the prospect of losing the fruit. Quickly, I made a dash to get a temporary fence in place to prevent further damage to the rest of the vines.

Writing off this one plant, I thought “this is why you always have a backup” and I focused my attention on the rest of the tomatoes. But…something happened. The deer-mangled tomato plant did not die. It did not grow. But, it did keep plumping up those tomatoes. I harvested all four 1.5 pounder Pink Brandywines from that 4-foot tomato and was really impressed with the little-tomato-that-could attitude. I thought to myself…what if I topped off all my tomatoes? (Imagine me with a cocked eye brow and slightly evil smirk.)

Young Pink Brandywines from a deer-mangled vine.

You know what I did? I deer-mangled my tomatoes my own self! I waited until the remaining plants were at or above 7 feet (at which point I have trouble reaching), and lopped off the growing tips. Just like that! I will admit, I was a little scared, but each plant had a good amount of fruit coming in. Worst case scenario, I would get a good crop of green tomatoes. Fortunately, my risk paid off…in 50 pounds and counting. Not only did my tomatoes stop growing at whatever point I cut, but they put their focus on setting fruit, and setting fruit they did.

For all intents and purposes, I determinated my indeterminate tomatoes. Once I finish harvesting all the fruit, the plants will be done because I stopped any further growth. I am okay with this, seeing as how I spent a full 10-hour day making frozen roasted tomatoes, sun dried tomatoes, fresh marinara sauce, tomato soup, and zesty tomato salsa. I feel that I have lived a true tomato August and I am ready for an overwhelming harvest of something else. Come at me tomatillos.

If you prefer to let your tomatoes sprawl, this process is not for you. I have heard it said that when you pole stake your tomatoes, you get a small yield. To that I say, how many more tomatoes can a person use? Pole staking, tying and pruning works well in a small garden space as I have, and topping the tomatoes off after they have a good set of blossoms affords a little more sanity during the bumper crop season.

How are you handling the August tomato rush?

 

Fall Gardening, Take Two

Tags

direct sow, fall, garden, vegetables, zone

I’m gearing up for the fall garden. Gearing up means 1) figuring out what to plant, and 2) taking special precautions against the wildlife, to avoid a situation like last year. For item two, CFO and I installed a temporary barrier around the garden until we find a permanent fence style that is the trifecta: effective, inexpensive, and not hideous. In the meantime, I am hoping that the one-two punch of invisible mesh and roaming coyotes will keep the deer at bay long enough to get some Brussels sprouts. 

To address item one, you want to consider that fall garden planning can really start when all the other spring and summer garden planning happens. For me, the planning doesn’t really have a start or stop date, its just an amorphous thought bubble constantly hovering over me. For normal people, maybe in February. At the very least you want to identify your expected first frost date for your zone, so you can determine when to start with the planting.

Generally speaking, the fall garden will look a lot like the spring garden but in reverse. Peas, lettuces, radishes, beets, etc. can all be sown in late summer and will produce as the weather starts to cool. In some cases, it is almost easier than dealing with the spring because you are less likely to have random 90 deg days like you do in the May (I am talking to YOU Milwaukee Spring 2016!).

Chiogga Beets.

We like think of “fall vegetables” as rootstock like carrots, parsnips, turnips, rutabaga, etc. and for good reason. Soil is a great storage method, and the tasty root will hold up through some very cold temps. In fact, I have read via the highly regarded and scientifically supported internet that you can fabricate your own make-shift root cellar with a bucket full of sand. (Disclaimer: if you try this and end up with a weird food-borne infection from sand-bug contaminated turnips, please send all legal inquiries to aforesaid internet).

One bonus of the fall garden is that, in my climate (zone 5B), many of the spring veggies I had to transplant in May, can be directly sown in August, and will be ready to harvest come fall. One exception to this, of course, is the wildly underappreciated Belgian brassica, the Brussels sprout. My coworker once traveled to Brussels and upon her return raved about the fantastic sprouts that looked like little cabbages, and were unlike anything she had ever seen. They sounded amazing. But, I digress. I recommend starting this one indoors in spring, and transplanting out late July. They usually take anywhere from 100-120 days from transplant and taste best after having experienced some character-building freezes in November. If you haven’t got your tiny cabbages started, you may be out of luck in the north this year and you will just have to meander around the village looking the steal the Brussels sprouts of better prepared neighbors.

Brussels Sprouts.

By mid-August, I will have seeds sown for broccoli, cauliflower, mizuna, carrots, parlsey root, parsnip, turnip, and rutabaga, and in September the short season lettuces and leafy greens and radishes that can handle a cooler germination period will be sown.

What are you growing this fall?

Ben Franklin and Raised Beds (Have Mostly Nothing In Common)

Tags

garden, homemade, raised bed

Benjamin Franklin, founding father, genius inventor, French speaker, and all-around smart guy, is credited with the oft-quoted (and oft-misquoted) “by failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” I mean, if any one knows about proper planning and preparation, surely Ben is the guy.

This quote, and its frequent re-imaginations of it, is my personal mantra that I use constantly. Work, home, play…it always applies. Maybe it is because of my inherent laziness, and without a focused, single-minded organizational goal, my life would literally be buried in piles of take-out and weeks of laundry. I learned early in college that if I was going to accomplish anything other than day drinking and waiting for meal times, I would need to set goals in writing and work a process. (This would seem an appropriate time for an AA joke…but I am not always sure where my audience sits.)

Anyways, my whole point here is that if Ben were a passionate urban farmer, I feel like he would have a plan. Probably a genius, world-changing plan. I, on the other hand, have purchased tools. One of the best investments I have made is a subscription to an online garden planning software. There are a lot of them out there, and I use GrowVeg.com, which is $45 for two years. It makes it super easy to plot out your plan, with locations, equipment, plants, etc., and even has the ability to do succession planning and year-to-year crop rotations. Full disclosure, they are NOT offering me any money for supporting them (but I am very open to it). I just happen to like the program. With it, I created a three-year plan to expand my garden, so it would grow as my skill in managing the garden improved. Eventually it would look like this:

As is typical of my finely-tuned, well-developed and thoroughly-researched home plans, it did not meet CFO’s expectations, as he was not interested in spending the next three years involved in garden construction. So…he bumped up the timelines a little…to now. In 72 hours, we went from modest suburban veggie garden, to raised bed city. Fortunately, one of the great benefits of a good plan, is the ability to adapt and modify. CFO did a few trips to the lumber yard, and over the course of a weekend built me an additional 4 raised beds, ready to install.

Raised beds are my preferred gardening style. We live in heavy clay, with poor drainage, and lots of water in the spring. It would take years to get our soil to the plant-friendly loam I need. Raised beds allow me the benefit of top notch soil (because I choose it), and also put up walls to the unrelenting weeds. Another great benefit, is the lack of tilling needed. Each spring I can rake in some fresh compost, and be good to go. When I first began this garden-adventure three years ago, I broke my back installing the first beds by ripping up the sod to install the first bed. What a waste of a good back. This method is super easy to do.

Step One: Build the Bed.

A good blueprint to follow is at this website: http://www.sunset.com/garden/backyard-projects/ultimate-raised-bed-how-to. Pretty straight forward and I don’t think I could describe it any simpler for basic construction. You do need access to a saw (12” is ideal, but I have made less work) and drill. For these you can beg, borrow, or steal (with permission) from friends or family. My standard size of garden bed is 4 ft x 8 ft, and I use 2×6 rough sawn cedar stacked to make the edges 12” high. Rough sawn wood is not planed as many times, the corners are not rounded, the measurements are more true-to-size and you will get one million wood slivers when you touch it. Because of this you can purchase it at a slight cost savings. I use cedar because I like the smell and it has more natural rot-resistance than some other woods. Cedar should last around 10 years. Pine is a much less expensive alternative, won’t last as long, and you should be cautious about the old green treated lumber. It’s not for food-stuffs.

Step Two: Install Bed.

If you were a smart cookie, you would have a plan for where you want your bed to go. Someplace with at least 6 hours of sun, preferably 10. Also, someplace on your property. I used to spend a lot of time removing vegetation, leveling, making things look neat and tidy…no more. Place the bed where you want it to end up, mark where the corner posts will sit with something, I use landscape staples. Move the bed (actually, try to have someone move it for you because its heavy, while you enjoy a cold beverage), and dig up some holes for the corners. My corner posts are about 4” high, so I dig an area roughly 5” x 5” x 5” to be safe. Set the bed in place, stand on each corner and jumpjumpjump to let it settle

Step Three: Smother the Grass.

I know what you are thinking…its pretty, but its full of grass and weeds! Stick with me young grasshopper. Its important you read this little how-to so you can prepare this step in advance. I used to line my beds with black landscaping cloth, but that adds some more costs to the project and its really unnecessary. If you are like me, you insist on ordering the Sunday newspaper for the coupons and as a result have stacks and stacks of unwanted papers lying around. Newsprint is completely biodegradable and even the ink is made out of soy. Take that stack and completely cover the grass/weeds in the bottom of your bed. This will smother the unwanted green stuff, and will eventually break down into your soil. You can take a hose and wet the paper down, but I didn’t do that because I am always in a hurry and it seemed like an unnecessary step and also my outdoor water was not hooked up yet.

Step Four: Protect your Crop

You might think all you have to do is add some dirt, but this step is kind of important if you want to see any carrots at all. Line the inside of the bed (on top of that newsprint) with 1/2” hardware cloth. Hardware cloth is not cloth, but a metal netting, similar to chicken wire. I am sure it has uses outside of garden beds but who cares. It is perfect to keep moles, rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, etc. from tunneling under the frames and stealing your root veggies just as they become ready. This step is kind of putzy, as it does involve sharp scissors or wire cutters. I try to find a roll that is the same width as my bed. Roll it out, cut to size, and use landscape staples to tack it down around the inside edge. If a little critter was desperate, he could make it inside your raised bed. But, if the little guy was that hard up for food he probably needs it more than you anyways. Most won’t bother because getting stuck makes them very open to becoming food themselves. If you neglect this step, thats cool too, but you could regret it some day.

Step Five: Fill ‘er Up!

This is the fun/backbreaking part. I recommend tricking asking someone else to do the heavy lifting in this step also. You need to fill up your new garden bed with some good quality black gold. My preferred medium is a half-and-half mixture of top soil and compost. I have always purchased this mix from a local compost facility at a great steal at $25/yard, but some other gardeners caught on, leading the composter to advertise their “organic-ness” and rebrand themselves. Same good stuff, and now even more cost! But, I digress. About 1 yard of material (give or take 32 cubic feet) will be enough for a 4x8x1 ft bed.

Step Six: Go nuts, Get Planting.

Hey look! You have a garden! Not so bad for an afternoons work. Now you can fill it with veggies and fruits to your hearts desire. Here are some baby tomato plants I started in my basement.

The total cost for this style of garden can vary depending on materials. Where I live, I can make a 4×8 cedar raised bed for about $100 a piece, including the soil, but not including the vegetables. At a 10-year investment, that is not so bad. And once you make one, it’s really hard to stop. A garden after Ben Franklin’s own heart.

Oh Internet! Lest We Forget

Tags

cost savings, garden, grow lights, heirloom, spring, start indoors, vegetables

There was a time once, back before free two-day shipping and cat videos, back when a high-speed connection allowed for ten minute coffee breaks during page loads, and back when surfing mandated a prior notice to family members in case they tried to make a phone call while you were chatting on AIM. Those days are gone, but not forgotten, because some things don’t change. While the internet was somewhat of a major sensation in the first decade of the millennium, my mother, a very dedicated physical therapist, thought to use it to find a larger patient a mobility walker and entered “obese walker” into an internet search bar.

Take a minute.

…

Ponder what else “obese walker” could drum up in an early 2000 Internet search.

…

It wasn’t a medical device.

…

Porn. It was pornography. See, some things never change. Can you believe the Internet is STILL full of porn? It’s just more expensive and probably more vulgar (I assume).

I thought of this story as I was searching for light fixtures to begin my new challenge for the year: indoor seed starting. How do you find the best options and types for grow lights? Simple. You Google search “best grow lights.”

Take a minute.

…

Ponder what comes to mind when a non-vegetable gardener someone says “grow lights.”

…

Weed. It was marijuana growing supplies. The funny thing about modern day internet, is that nothing is lost and now my poor husband will probably have to contend with unwanted pop-up “recommended” items on his Amazon page until I can dilute the search history. Woe is the life of a gardener! He did ask, “What did you think you would find if you searched for “grow lights”? Errmm…as a smart woman I struggle to answer that.

Please friends, save your self the trouble and search for this “T5 fluorescent lights, 6400K.” T5’s are supposedly the closest to actual sunlight, and that’s all we really want: you, me, our seeds, and the friendly neighborhood dealer.

I am starting out small, and purchased two Hydrofarm fixtures, each containing a single tube. These were about $50 a piece on EBay from a third-party seller. I like them, they are easy, but truthfully all of these are made in China so please don’t have high expectations. Upon arrival, one of the light tubes was broken. I contacted the seller, he had the manufacturer ship me a replacement. I got two fluorescent tubes. Both broken. I again contacted the seller, but by this time, I needed more light. My broccoli starts had gone to sprout stage. The only one happy about this was the rabbit. While waiting for the replacement of the replacement, I decided to order a set of T5 tubes from a different company, one with a stellar shipping reputation and promptly received 5 unbroken T5 tubes. Four days later I received four replacement tubes form the original supplier, all unbroken. And now I have ten grow lights. Some folks may think there is more going on in my basement than tomatoes.

Because everything looks the same at this stage, you will have to take my word for it. In the little trays I have broccoli, kale, cauliflower, cabbage, celery, celeriac, and asparagus to add to my asparagus bed, and just started are my tomatoes, peppers and tomatillos. All heirloom varieties, specifics located in the 2016 Garden Plan page. I found a boatload of these little coconut coir pellets on closeout over the winter, and bought them out. In total I got 200, at about $0.06 a piece. That beats the going heirloom transplant rate of $5/plant in this area. I used coconut coir pots last year, and had the best kale harvest yet, so I am curious to see how my little green family will do. I started about twice the number that I want to plant out, in case there are any poor performers or seedlings that just don’t make it in this world. Ironically, this is how real farmers did family planning back in the day. Take a look!

DIY Guide to Trimming Trees with Questionable Results

Tags

fruit, garden, winter

They say the best way to learn how to do something is to try it out. I don’t know who “they” is, but I certainly hope they are experienced fruit tree-trimming professionals in this particular case. CFO has been asking me for four years now to trim back my unruly pear and cherry trees. For four years now, I have had very convincing reasons to leave the dwarf-turn-giant trees untouched, most of them sounding like “I can’t because its damaging to trim the trees in [insert current season], but I will definitely do it next season.” I managed to get away with this excuse for four years only because he rarely commits my excuses to long-term memory.

Why have I been so resistant to tame the wild timbers? Trust me, it is not because of some deep-seated belief that the trees are of nature and nature shall run its course. This is what I use to explain why I refuse to weed my lawn. No, the truth is that I am terrified of trimming those trees. The discovery that we had fruit trees, long before the garden was installed, was like a beautiful amazing gift. It wasn’t mentioned in the home sale, in fact, none of the landscaping was mentioned in the home sale. (Home buying tip: if landscaping is not described as a selling point, that generally means it is the opposite of a selling point). What if I did it wrong? What if instead of cutting the dead wood, I cut off all the blossoming wood? Our neighbors had a peach tree when they moved in, that had a booming crop one year, and three years later, that tree is but a shadow of its former self, and has never had a single fruit since. Our neighbor is an aggressive tree trimmer. So while I have no evidence he trimmed the tree to death, in my mind that is the cause of his peach-less summers.

Alas, CFO is no fool, and this past summer he did a little of his own research and told me that winter was the best time to trim trees and those trees NEEDED a haircut. I had my “its way to cold” excuse all lined up to go, when behold, we had a freak warm-up weekend mid-February and temps rose to a balmy. Excuses out the window.

I headed out to take a look. I had armed myself with tree reading, and printed off a cheat sheet, and my tools. These trees are approximately 18 feet at this point, which means there will be a lot of looking up.

The three step approach I read about includes:

1. Trim dead, diseased or dying branches, watersprouts, and any limbs below the grafted point.
2. Thin out the branches so that there is 6-12” of air space around each branch, making sure that branches do not cross each other. Trim the least healthy branches.
3. Cut back 30% of all new growth from the previous year.

Sounds simple enough right? Well…the thing is, READING about something is much different than DOING something. Here is a more realistic DIY tree-trimming primer:

1. Does it snap off when you bend it? Its probably dead or dying, or you’re really strong. Either way you have accomplished step 1. For higher up branches, hope for the best.

Would it surprise you to know, that ALL tree parts look the same? The only way to tell a dead from dying branch is to either have x-ray vision or speak native tree language and ask the damn thing. Wood looks like wood. You know how I know a dead branch from a live branch? Because one is on the ground and one is on the tree.

Dead or Alive? Look closely. 

2. Keep the prettiest looking limbs and branches, and cut everything else off.

I mean, how do I know what is the “healthiest” branch in a jumble of branches? How is that even advice? I went for aesthetics, and also thought about where fruit would be the easiest to pick. I did make sure to trim back any crossed limbs, that at least was easy enough.

3. Cut back 30% of new growth…oh hell, skip this part because that is a $#!+ ton of trimming to do.

New growth?!? If I can’t tell dead wood from live wood, how can I possibly be expected to know what “new growth” looks like? What a ridiculous proposition. I think the tree-trimming community has really over-estimated the general population’s detailed attention to trees. For the record, this is what new growth looks like.

Do you see that tiny little wrinkle, and the subtle color change on the bark (this has been color enhanced)? That is what you are supposed to look for, and then trim 30% of each of these little branches…and they are 10 ft above your head. Let’s just stop here.

Check out the before…

Before…

Before…

Before…

 

Follow my steps and…

After!

Ta-da! Fully trimmed trees. There is approximately equal chance that I killed these little guys as I helped them, and I am hoping for the latter.

As one step below a tree-trimming novice, I can’t in good faith recommend following my advice, but I can safely say I know the proper way to trim trees: hire someone.

Stay tuned for pear and cherry photos (or lack there of ) later this year…

Live to Eat, Eat to Live

Tags

diet, garden, health, nutrition, vegetables, winter

It has been a while, dear garden blog friends, and so much has been happening. This summer has been a little nutty and rather busy and now its over, dead, gone and my lawn is strewn with brown decaying leaves. Ah, autumn and its beauty.

The garden, this year, has been productive in many ways, and less successful in others. For example, my irrigation system worked better than I could have imagined and took all the guesswork out of watering. I set up a timer, which was just supposed to last for the month I was traveling in July, but it was so darn handy I never took the thing off. Sure it has its flaws, like it leaked a bit and the water-encroachment caused it to reset every once in a while, but the time-savings and reduced stress while traveling was worth it. Another success was my insect management program this year. I inter-planted the crops in order to “trick” the bad bugs, and generously spread marigold seeds around the garden border, specifically to manage the fiendish Cabbage Moth and friends. I also opened the garden up to the 4700 wild birds in the yard. The moths were able to find the brassicas after a month of searching, but barely a kale leaf was sacrificed. I loved watching the robins and bluejays and sparrows and chickadees and warblers dive-bomb the bushy plants. Hell hath no fury like a hungry birdy.

What didn’t work so well this year? Well, I opened up the garden to the 4700 wild birds in the yard, and doing so, opened it up to other hungry critters. After a year of not seeing any deer on the property, they have returned, and they returned with empty bellies. Without the bird-tight netting, the garden offered a 24-hour Vegas-style buffet without the two-hour time limit. The deer, sight-unseen, feasted and left the garden in shambles in the course of one night in late August. It was official, the white (tailed) walkers were back, and winter was coming. Would you like to know the damage tally?

• Corn: gone
• Tomatoes: gone
• Swiss chard: gone
• Pole beans: interestingly, leaves were gone, but the beans remained.
• Winter squash: leaves gone, too early for fruit
• Peppers: gone
• Fall seedlings (cauliflower, Brussel sprouts, broccoli): trampled

What they didn’t take: kale, carrots, basil, fennel, eggplant, parsley. This leaves the score, Deer: 7, Me: devastated.

The only saving grace was the eggplant, which is needed to fulfill one of my New Years resolutions, to eat as much eggplant as possible. They left me the five plants untouched, undamaged, maybe because they know they are toxic, or maybe because they got too full on the tender greens. The tomatoes were hurtful. Seeing my four ready-for-the-picking, full-fruited, prized tomatoes gone in the course of one night was like being stabbed in the shoulder and thigh. It doesn’t kill you, but it is really f-ing painful.

I am not going to lie; it was hard to not be thoroughly angry at the deer. I put a lot of time and thought into that garden, and a lot of sweat and blood. No, that’s not a metaphor. There were a few times I bled into that garden. But, in the end, what was I going to do about it? The deer were doing what deer do: survive the Hunger Games that is their life. The truth is, their entire species has had a tough go at it in Wisconsin. Cronic Wasting Disease is no fun, and neither is the reintroduction of the gray wolf and the coyote. Seeing as how many deer starve to death in the winter, I have to meditate this away, and find acceptance. The garden will continue to grow, and they will continue to feast, and maybe we can find a happy medium.

Swiss Chard after the deer.

Leaf-stripped pole beans. Makes the bean picking easier.

In other news, after an embarrassingly unhealthy summer of travel eating, I am reaffirming my commitment to vegetablism. What is that you ask? Who knows, I just made it up. I love all things nutrition, and I love reading books on new diet fads, and trends. Can’t get enough! I mean, all fad diets are absolutely, completely ridiculous, but as a student of life-knowledge I want to know about them all. It is my personal belief that any “diet” that requires a person to take handfuls of vitamin supplements is just not cutting it. Neither is any diet that tries to mimic the diet of our Neanderthal ancestors. We all know that Neanderthals went extinct right?

I used to try these diets a lot in my twenties and the only change they caused was the onset of food-anxiety. I have accepted that I will never be the 120 lbs I was on my wedding day, but that’s okay because the papers were signed and half of CFOs money and property is mine whether I later go on to star on TLC’s 600-lb Life or not. I remind him of this routinely.

But in all seriousness, part of my love of gardening is that I have learned over my life that I feel best when my diet consists of mostly vegetables and fruits and other plant foods. I do love meat too, and would find it challenging (and a little sad) to be fully vegetarian. (Being vegan is not remotely possible because I live in Wisconsin, and if I don’t meat the minimum criteria of 250 lbs of cheese consumption a year I will lose my benefits card.) I don’t need to eat meat all the time, or even every day and I also think the American obsession with protein is a little wackadoo, when clearly the people that can afford to eat only bacon and steak are not the sub-group at risk of protein deficiency. But I digress…

I recently read the China Study by T. Colin Campbell and found its premise fascinating: all diets that are not vegan will give you cancer and kill you. Okay, maybe that’s a broad generalization, but I think that some of the info presented has merit. An animal-free diet was found to significantly reduce the risk of many cancers, heart disease and diabetes and other acquired health diseases. Now, because of the aforementioned Wisconsin benefit card, I will not shun all animal products quite yet. The study does provide me with some merit for my pro-vegetable lifestyle, and validation always feels good. If you were not aware, the China Study is the basis for the book and documentary Forks Over Knives, which advocates not using olive oil or drinking wine. To that I say, I don’t need to live forever.

Now that the garden is heading to its close for the year, keeping seasonal produce the foundation of my diet will get challenging, but for health and personal satisfaction its important to me. So, I am reaffirming my commitment to this semi-vegetarian vegetablism, right after I use up the 245 lbs of venison meat in the freezer.

Sucessful Absentee Parenting: A How-To Guide

Tags

garden, heirloom, vegetables

This summer has been a whirlwind of activity, so much so that all the activities have pulled me away from the garden during a critical time in my garden’s life: adolescence. This year, CFO and I elected to take a summer vacation which is a rarity for us. We are more in favor of enjoying the 12 weeks of decent weather in southeastern Wisconsin, and saving big trips for the less desirable months. This month, however, we could not pass up the chance to head to Hawaii. My presence was required in Honolulu for work (yep, you read that right, my job is amazing and pays me too), and CFO was able to sneak away from his job to join me afterwards to prance about and see amazing things that I had previously only seen on movies like Jurassic Park (not surprisingly, filmed in Hawaii). Thus, I was away for most of July.

July, not surprisingly, is arguably one of the more crucial months in a young plant’s life. The once small seedlings grow up so fast and if you blink, or spend the month in Hawaii, you will miss it. While I am a self-proclaimed lazy gardener, I do tend to dote on my beds probably more than what is healthy. I like to visit every day, talk to them, brush their leaves, check for soil dampness, encourage them when they look wilted and depressed, pick out any weeds that are being bullies. You know, all the typical helicopter-parenting stuff.

When I left for my work assignment, I arranged for a babysitter via a watering timer on the drip irrigation system. I had been watering for 6 hours every 4 days, but the timer can only handle 4 hours, so I scheduled it for 4 hours every 3 days. I thought that would be appropriate given an unknown rain schedule. I tested this in the week leading up the the trip, and apart from putting our house drinking water supply at risk due to improper water backflow protection, everything was looking good.

I left for my trip on a Saturday, and I am going to be honest here, as soon as I touched down on the island of Oahu, my mind rarely went back to the garden. I was more focused on things like this:

Sunset in Waikiki

and this…

Sparkling waters of Hanauma Bay

and this…

Waipio Valley on the Big Island

and probably this…

Hiking across a lava lake, new life growing out of the hardened lava.

oh, yeah, and the work too.

I completely put my babies out of my mind, until the day to fly home arrived, and I touched ground in Milwaukee. Naturally, I assumed that much of the garden would have suffered, and I was willing to make that sacrifice. I mean, traditionally farmers had lots of kids crops in case a few disappeared, right? To be quite honest, any sacrifice in the garden I think was worth it, and I would probably make the same sacrifice again if pressed (or asked, or hinted, or…I would go back literally this second, sell my house, and live in a van selling pineapples and coffee beans).

So, you can imagine my surprise when I was greeted home by a bounty of food in the garden, so large and overwhelming, that I questioned if the secret to a successful garden was to just stay away. I spent a good portion of a day after my return bagging the edibles that were bursting out of the beds.

From top left, clockwise: Giant from Italy Parsley, Amish Snap and Golden Peas, Genovese Basil, Lemon Basil, Dill, Cilantro

Front left, clockwise: Mizuna, Mantilia lettuce, Winter Density lettuce, Five-Color Silverbeet Swiss Chard, Chiogga and Golden Beets, Pak Choi, Sage, De Cicco Broccoli Florets

Most of this didn’t fit in the refrigerator, so much is destined for freezer storage, like the shopping bag full of chard and the raspberries (not shown). CFO was very concerned about the raspberries, which are his favorite in the garden, and also a favorite of the birds. Fortunately for him, we have so many berries that even the birds cannot handle the task of eating them all. Unfortunately for me, I have to spend days in the raspberry patch picking them all by hand, enduring thorns in my skin. Granted, I would have done this anyways.

I get asked somewhat often, what my secret is, what is the magic, to my garden. My little absentee experiment has solidified the fact in my mind that, clearly, I am not a secret underground master gardener and the concept of a “green thumb” or a “black thumb” is utter nonsense. I doubt very much that my singing or brushing does anything for the plants, and quite possibly annoys them. What I do know is you can’t do much damage when you stick to the winning trifecta of compost, sun and water. All together. All the time. No exceptions. You may send me the $50 consulting fee at your convenience.

Here are some photos that I snapped in the days after my arrival to demonstrate the results of my absence/compost/sun/water experiment and Hawaiian escapade. What were immature leafy plants when I left, are grown-up vegetables when I got back.

Black Satin Blackberries beginning to ripen

Gorgeous, juice raspberries ready to be piled onto Angel food cake, topped with fresh whipped cream.

Black Hungarian hot pepper. When I left, blossoms in the double digits were on this little plant. Alas, only one pepper came through.

Chocolate Beauty bells coming right along.

Beautiful Empress of India Nasturtium. Edible flowers, and tasty, per Ms. Jessica Rabbit.

Whoops! I forgot to thin these Hollow Crown Parsnips before my trip. Looks like bunny food to me.

Large-sized Chadwick Cherry Tomatoes. Still green, but full of possibilities.

Not surprisingly, the Five Color Silverbeet Swiss Chard is hanging in there just fine. Chard everyday.

Lovely Little Fingers Eggplant blossom. I have five eggplant plants, various heirloom varieties, all with lavender blossoms right now.

Tough to see, but Black Beauty Zucchini are growing in numbers. Still small, but I suspect not for long.

Lots of Poona Kerna Cucumber blossoms on the vine.

One of the best parts of summer! Climbing French pole beans ready to pick, I also have Sultan’s Golden Crescent pole beans on the trellis.

Looking forward to this one! Blue Jade Sweet Corn silks have started. I hand-pollinated these to be safe, as we have a large corn field a block away.

Luscious Lemon Basil, bring on the cocktails!

Fragrant Thai Basil, with lovely purple blossoms.

The cream of the crop: large-leafed, bold, Genovese Basil. This will make some badass pesto and Caprese salads.

*Sigh* Time to let them go, and plant my fall seeds before it gets too late in the year.