quiltbeagardens

2012-02-08T09:19:00.000-08:00

Its early Feb and I'm thinking of spring. I know its several weeks away in my neck of the woods in Maine, but who can't help thinking of sowing seeds when all the lovely seed catalogs arrive in the mail.
I've placed my orders and await their arrival. Today I'm going to reorganize my seed packets in the fridge. Some of them will be past their life date so I want to get rid of those. I'm thinking I'll just dump those seeds in the wildflower garden area and if anything comes up, that's a bonus. Otherwise, there's no loss.
For the others, on the front of the packets in black marker, I'm going to add the date of purchase by year and the year they expire, like "11-16" for tomatoes bought last year, "11-14" for bush beans and "12-17" on the new tomato packets that arrive this spring. This will make it easier to weed out the oldies another year.
I have a list of viable life dates on most of the crops I grow. I'm glad that lettuce has a 5-6 yr life rate since I bought so many in 2010. I plan on sowing many varieties this spring in my cold frame and A-frame so the family can have salads each and every day.
Its always nice to have something to do that pertains to my love of gardening.
HAPPY GARDENING PLANS!

Wintersowing! I'm trying it.

2012-01-24T19:15:00.000-08:00

Its deep in the middle of winter with no pretty green garden in sight, but there are still things to try.
One of them is WinterSowing. That's something I recently learned where you can sow seeds in containers and leave them out in the winter cold and snow and hopefully in the spring, they will be sprouting young plants.
I thought I'd try it today, the 24th of January.

I started 3 varieties in 3 plastic bottles. The idea is to cut the bottle so that the bottom can hold 3-4" of potting soil, which I did. I cut almost all the way thru all around, leaving a little tab of plastic to keep it connected. I added the potting soil, wet it thoroughly so water ran free thru the bottom, and then added seeds and covered them lightly with more potting soil.

In the clear one I started Packman Brocccoli, in the orange label I started Fremont Cauliflower and the red labeled bottle holds Titan Parsley seeds. The tops of the bottles were put back on with packing tape holding the top and bottom sections together. The tops are left open for air and rain and so that should there be any hot days they don't cook. I understand they can just be left outdoors now until early spring when they should be germinating and producing little plants inside the bottles with no other care from me until then. They stay there is cold, wind, snow and rain.... all the elements of Mother Nature in the winter.

We shall see how this experiment works. I might try a few more bottles of other crops or flowers to see what works and what doesn't.
This venture will have to satisfy me until I start my cool-season seeds next month in tiny soil blocks on a heat mat, then in my basement under lights when they germinate. In the meantime, I'll keep you posted on how Wintersowing works for me.

Still dreaming of my garden.

2012-01-10T09:58:00.000-08:00

This month of January is the hardest for me to get thru in regards to gardening. I have my seed catalogs and my lists are made for new seeds and my garden plan is in black and white. I may change a couple of things, but I'm pretty much done for gardening this month. Next month I'll start seeds for broccoli, cabbage, parsley, and cauliflower. I may even try Brussels sprouts again, at least one plant, since I found another recipe that promises to take the taste of b sprouts to its maximum. Since no one in the family likes the crop, I'm game to try something new. Maybe I'll just buy some at the store and try them first so I don't use up space in my garden otherwise. That might be the wiser course of action.
HAPPY GARDEN DREAMS!

I've made my final seed list for 2012

2012-01-02T10:15:00.000-08:00

My lists are finalized. I got my Johnnyseeds catalog and after choosing a few things that work well in Maine, I added the seed starter mix, tomato twine, and liquid seaweed. Then it was on to Comstock Seeds and Baker Creek (also known as Seedsavers.com) for a few more seeds. I have many toms and peppers I saved from my own crops of last year and some leftover seed packets from last year, so I've still got plenty of healthy seeds.
Remember to order early this year. I've read that seed purchases increased about 30% last year and will increase another 20% this year. There are more folks wanting to grow their own foods that are chemical-free, and fresh, and that taste ultra-good and not bland like many store-bought crops. They also love the idea of saving money in the produce departments.
So make out your seed orders early if you are starting your own.
In my neck of the woods, that means starting seeds the first week of Feb for cool crops like broccoli, cabbage, and parsley and then start cauliflower a week later. I plan to use covers to keep frost at bay.
Last year I started at the normal time and lost most of my cool crops due to high temps that killed them before we had a chance to harvest. This year I'll start earlier and depend on covers and cloches to protect the cool crops against light freezes. As long as I can get out in the garden and its not too wet to plant, I'll be putting out seedlings and sowing carrots and spinach really early this year.
HAPPY GARDENING!

Its winter time. Catalogs are arriving.

2011-12-18T07:02:00.000-08:00

My gardens are sleeping now that winter is upon us. We had snow much too early this season.

October 29th brought over 9 inches of snow, our first of the season. This is my flower garden, buried.

Son's golden and my corgi loved every inch of it. Luckily we have Daisy, the golden, to break a path for my Penny's short corgi legs. She follows along quite nicely after Daisy's 'plowed' for her.

I'm happy to say that my seed catalogs started arriving in December which keeps me happy. I make lists and cross off and add more seeds as the catalogs mount up. My favorite catalog comes from Johnnyseeds (because they deal so well with varieties for the colder states like mine) so I really can't formulate my final list until I've seen what I want from there. Then I add with a few from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, Seeds Savers Exchange, The Cook's Garden (seeds and plants), Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, Territorial Seeds (seeds and plants), and there's a new place I can shop online if I want to just try a few seeds with costs staying as low as a dollar or dollar and a half for seeds, try: http://sampleseeds.com/ for small portions. For potatoes, garlic, shallots, and onions, go to http://mainepotatolady.com/.

This is a fun time of year for exploring the possibilities. Like the eggplant, Applegreen, I want to try that produces a small plant which may work well in containers. I like using containers when I can. It extends my garden area. This year it was dwarf peppers which grew large fruits on small plants,

Dwarf Feherozon. These produced a half dozen nice-sized peppers in their first flush, and then more later in the season.

As you can see, they grow quite large for the small size of the plant itself. Ideal for pots.

So while winter storms rage and snow covers the ground and my garden being off limits, I shall dream of garden produce and make lists....and more lists. Make a garden plan and change it several times before the final planting begins. It will make for a pleasant winter.

Harvested my Worm Compost Today!

2011-10-21T17:33:00.000-07:00

I had planned on making a quilted tote today, but it turned out so lovely outside, in the 60s and sunny, that I changed my mind. We won't be getting many more of this great weather this fall season. What a great day to harvest worm compost and restock a clean condo with my red wigglers.

The Wigglers were often in clusters of many dozens as I scooped out compost.

With my bad back I found it easier to scoop worms and compost onto a bucket lid and sort them, placing the worms in the new, clean bed with the finished compost going into the bucket.

Note: That's my camera strap hanging down in the photo.

I scooped the finished compost into a 28# bucket. I've just begun here. When I was thru, I had a whole bucketful of rich, worm compost for my garden and over 3000 red wigglers getting comfortable in their clean quarters with fresh bedding and kitchen scraps. You can just see their fresh quarters to the right of this bucket with damp strips of old newspaper and a little finished compost (for the micro-organisms that help maintain a fresh bed) for their bedding. I'm happy to add they were all looking healthy.

DRYING PUMPKIN AND SUNFLOWERS SEEDS

2011-10-16T08:33:00.000-07:00

Many of us have pumpkins and sunflowers and love the seeds. What do you do with them? I dry them for eating later. Read this article from the National Food Safety Database and enjoy your own dried seeds.

Drying and Roasting Pumpkin and Sunflower Seeds

Drying and roasting pumpkin seeds are two different processes. To dry, carefully wash pumpkin seeds to remove the clinging fibrous pumpkin tissue. Pumpkin seeds can be dried in the sun, in a dehydrator at 115 to 120 degrees F for 1 to 2 hours, or in an oven on warm for 3 to 4 hours. Stir them frequently to avoid scorching.

To roast, take dried pumpkin seeds and toss with oil and or salt and roast in a preheated oven at 250 degrees F for 10 to 15 minutes.

Sunflower seeds are usually left on the flower to dry. The flower may have to be wrapped with cheesecloth to prevent the birds form eating the seeds.

To roast sunflower seeds, place a single layer of raw dehulled kernels in a shallow pan. Roast in a 300 degree F oven for 30 to 40 minutes or until brown and crisp. Stir occasionally. Remove from the oven. One teaspoon of melted margarine may be added if preferred for each cup of seeds, stirring to evenly coat. Place the seeds on absorbent paper. Salt to taste. Store in tightly covered container.

For salted in the shell seeds, cover unhulled seeds with salted water in the amount of 2 quarts of water to ¼ to ½ cup salt. Bring to a boil and simmer for 2 hours. Drain and dry on absorbent paper. Seeds can also be soaked overnight instead of boiled. Proceed as for roasted kernels mentioned earlier.

Source: National Food Safety Database

A few crops picked after 3 days rain.

2011-10-05T11:45:00.000-07:00

We had rain, rain, rain for 3 days. Went into my garden this morning to add to my compost pile and check for produce. Was able to harvest a dozen tomatoes and 4 cukes. There are 2 red cabbages ready to harvest but we're not ready for them yet. Also 4 green Gourmet peppers which I'm trying to grow a little larger. I'll have to cover them tonite. Expecting 31*F tonite, but in the 40s and 50s for the next week of evenings so after tonite I'm hoping to keep them going.
In my potted garden, I have my herbs still producing and one dwarf Feherozon sweet pepper coming into its 2nd crop.

In this photo in front there's my Feherozon Dwarf sweet pepper in the turquoise pot. Its into its 2nd crop now with itty bitty peppers on it. I got 6 from the original crop. To its right is my thyme potted plant with the flag in it. I'll be bringing these indoors soon to keep going as long as I can. To be sure they are safe I'll bring them in for the nite and put them back outdoors in the morning.

This is the smaller of my 2 potted Basils......

...and this is my larger Basil plant.

In Parsley, I have this Curled Parsley....

.......and this Italian Flat-leaf parsley in pots.

In the center here I have my Rosemary.

I didn't get into every kind of herb this year since I don't like all of them. I have chives in my Square Foot Garden and will transplant a section to a pot to see if I can grow some inside after it drops to freezing temps.

I'm thinking I'm pretty much done with my crops this year. I planned to start some winter-crops in my coldframe this fall but health issues arose and I wasn't able to get them started in time. That's something I'll put on the back burner til next fall. I still plan to plant my garlic around Columbus Day so I can get another crop next summer.

Next I'll be sampling the freezer pickles I put up a couple weeks ago as soon as they thaw in the fridge today. Hope to have good news about those.

HAPPY GARDENING!

The garlic is bagged!

2011-09-30T22:16:00.000-07:00

I tried growing garlic last October and harvested it this summer. I got some nice ones which I cured in the workshop and just dried and bagged then 2 days ago.

The ones on the right I'll use in my kitchen. The ones on the left I'll save to plant this fall in my raised beds. This time I'll put in more bulbs for next year. It was a fun experiment and it was nice harvesting my own this year.

Around here in zone 5a, we plant garlic around Columbus Day and can harvest the following July.

HAPPY GARDENING!

Still more to harvest!

2011-09-27T11:25:00.000-07:00

I did some harvesting in the last two days. Yesterday in my home garden, not much, but a few Amish Paste Tomatoes, Lemon cukes and the last of my carrots.

The little stubby carrots are Lil Fingers and are supposed to look like that.

At the community garden I got one pickling cuke, some fall broccoli, 2 pie pumpkins, 4 butternut squashes, one green savoy (wrinkly) cabbage, some tomatoes from a late unknown variety volunteer plant that came up near my garden rows, and some later bush beans. The pumpkins have to cure for about 10 days before they can be used, but I've already got over half a dozen in the workshop ready for my daughter-in-law to make pumpkin pies.

I checked my freezer and I have many quart freezer bags of roasted tomatoes to help us thru the winter. I didn't realize I'd made so many.

The freezer pickles will be ready to try next week since they have to freeze at least 2 weeks before letting them thaw in the fridge and then eating them the next day. I'll keep you posted on taste.

HAPPY HARVESTING!

Freezer Pickles!

2011-09-19T11:02:00.000-07:00

I've never pickled before but got this easy recipe and thought I'd try it. Since they are packed in freezer bags, I consider them easier.
Thank you, Square Foot Garden Forum, for this recipe.

Ingredients:
2 quarts thinly-sliced Pickling Cucumbers ( about 3/16" thick)
1 Cup thinly-sliced onion (yellow or sweet)
1/2 Cup Green Pepper, chopped
1/2 Cup sweet Red Pepper, chopped
1 Tablespoon canning or Kosher Salt
1 Cup Apple Cider Vinegar
2 Cups Sugar (or substitute 1 Cup Splenda for half the sugar)
1/2 teaspoon Mustard Seeds
1/2 teaspoon Celery Seeds
1/2 teaspoon ground Turmeric

Preparation:
1. Place Cukes, Onions, and Peppers in a large non-reactive (glass, stainless steel or plastic) container. Sprinkle with the Salt and mix together well. Let stand for 2 hours at room temperature, stirring occasionally. Place in colander and drain thoroughly, but DO NOT RINSE.

(Draining the pickle mixture).

2. Heat the Vinegar in a microwave oven for 30 seconds or warm it slightly on the stove top. Combine the warmed Vinegar, Sugar, Mustard Seeds, Celery Seeds and Turmeric in a small bowl, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Pour over the veggie mixture and stir together well.

(The brine mixture)

3. Pack the mixture into small freezer containers or bags, dividing the brine amongst the containers. Seal tightly and freeze. Store the pickles in the freezer for up to 6 months. Be sure to write the date on the containers.

(Packing pickles in freezer bags before adding the brine)

4. For best flavor wait at least 2 weeks before using. Thaw the bag in the refrigerator or under running water. Once thawed, use them within a week or before they lose their crispness.

Yield: About 6 Cups

Tips: Slicing/burpless cucumbers work just as well with this recipe. Choose fresh-picked, small ones (about 1") in diameter for better crispness.

Use a mandolin or food processor for quick slicing.

To kick it up a notch, add a pinch of red pepper flakes and thick slices of garlic cloves.

It's important that the pickles be covered with the brine, as that's what keeps them crisp. For best results pack 1 Cup of pickles in pint-size zipper freezer bags and then divide the brine among the bags. Press out air and seal. Lay bags flat to freeze.

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Mine are in the freezer and I've marked the date to try them on my kitchen calendar. I'll be back to let you know how they tasted at that time. If all goes well, I plan to sow more pickling cuke plants next year and do more pickling.

HAPPY GARDENING!

Harvest Time!

2011-09-09T12:06:00.000-07:00

After all the rain we've been having, I finally got into my Square Foot Garden to see what I could harvest. Many of my small tomatoes split with all the rain but I got some foodstuff today.

I sorted them on the picnic table. I got several tomatoes of many varieties, some eggplants, white Casper and purple Gretel, a couple of sweet peppers, Feherozon Dwarfs, a red cabbage, Super Red 80, one turnip, some green beans, and cukes of the yellow Lemon variety and a few green Burpless ones, along with 3 varieties of carrots, Nantes, Lil Finger and White Satin.

The Lemon cukes are yellow and round, but they taste like normal cucumbers. The White Satin carrots were small and did not do well in the square I alloted them this year. It doesn't pay to try strange varieties sometimes. I think next year I'll stick to the regular ones, like Nantes types.

I picked pumpkins and a watermelon from my rows in the local community garden.

The small green round fruit among the orange pie pumpkins is a Sugar Baby watermelon. Its been too wet lately but I harvested one of them to see what its like.

It was small, about 2.5 lbs, but very sweet. Mmmmm good. I have 4 more in the garden which I'll leave a bit longer. Watermelons don't like to be watered the last 10 days of their growth and we've had lots of rain the last week. I hope they gain a little size in the next couple of weeks and also that we don't get a frost.

I hope other gardeners are getting a good harvest this year despite the extremely hot days we've had thru the summer and then the drenching rains. I'm pretty happy with my bounty but will plan things a bit differently next year.

Such as putting all the eggplants in one raised bed where I can control the heat during the nites. We had mostly nites in the 50sF rather than the 60sF. They prefer 60F and above. I'll cover them with plastic each summer evening so the temps don't drop too low and they can grow. I wasn't happy with the numbers this year. Very low.

Also the cool-weather crops need to be in the same raised beds so I can cover them with shade cloth against high temperatures during the day. We had very unusual heat this late spring, in the 90s, and I lost most of my broccoli, cauliflower and all but 3 cabbages. With a little planning, I hope to lower my losses next year if we get another unusually hot spring.

I also want to reserve my limited garden space to varieties that grow well here in Zone 5a and are prolific. I've saved seeds from several tomato types that did well for me and others I won't grow at all, like Stupice, and the black ones like Black from Tula and Black Prince and also Lithuanian and Dixie's Sweet did not do well here. Huge tomatoes, but only a few. Not worth the space. The cluster types, Millefleur and Yellow Centiflor were abundant and Sugar Cherry kept producing loads of fruits right thru the season. Some I will grow, not that they were prolific, but they had great shapes and unusual colors with terrific flavor, like Valencia.

Here's Valencia in full ripeness, bright orange like the fruit, meaty, tasty, and a lovely round shape without cracking. The tomatoes are great in a salad. These were bagged so I saved seeds from these babies for next year.

One always learns when one is a gardener. Its best to grow varieties that work well in our own climate and that are bountiful. Tweaking the temps a bit with coverings, plastic, etc all help to increase our harvests.

HAPPY HARVESTING!

ROASTED TOMATOES TO FREEZE

2011-09-07T07:25:00.000-07:00

This is a wonderful recipe that has rave reviews by all that have used it, and at last count that was a half dozen of my quilter friends. My own family notices the difference in soups, stews, and chili when I add a quart pack of frozen toms to a dish.

Here's a lined cookie sheet with roasted tomatoes.

ROASTED TOMATOES
By Melissa d'Arabian of Food Network

INGREDIENTS:
Whole Tomatoes, sliced in half. Any variety or a mixture of varieties.
Olive Oil
Garlic, Sliced, one or two depending on taste
Salt and Pepper to taste
Dried Thyme , approx. 1 teaspoon

Preheat oven to 275F degrees.

1. Place the sliced tomatoes in a large bowl. Add olive oil, sliced garlic, salt, pepper and thyme over the tomatoes. Toss to coat well.

2. Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil. Spread tomatoes evenly across the sheet cut side DOWN. Place sheet in oven.

3. After one hour, turn tomatoes so they are all cut-side up.

4. Remove sheet after the 2 total hours. Allow to cool 20-30 mins.

5. Label freezer bags before adding tomatoes. Fill bags as desired. Remove all the air and seal. Place in freezer til needed.

If desired, you can use them in a sauce dish right away or as a side-dish to a meal. They are very good.

When using the frozen tomatoes, just add them frozen to your sauce dish to cook til completion of the dish. If they are used in pizza, you will have to allow them to nearly thaw out first.

You can double-bag them or place several smaller freezer bags into a larger 1-gallon or 2-gallon size freezer bag. I sometimes bag the varieties separately and other times I just put an assortment in a bag. It really doesn't matter. They all taste delicious.

HAPPY FREEZING!

My First Pumpkin is picked along with tomatoes.

2011-08-27T10:18:00.000-07:00

Today I harvested my first pumpkin, a New England Pie pumpkin.

Also picked 3 large Dundoo zukes and a small Lungo Bianco light green zuke along with some cukes.

A whole grocery bagful of tomatoes, from cherry to beefsteaks were harvested as well. We have Hurricane Irene expecting to arrive tomorrow so I wanted to get whatever I could from my garden before her arrival.

These are Carol's Beefsteak heirloom tomatoes in my extra large mixing bowl where I tossed them with olive oil, salt, pepper and thyme after cutting them in half. They will be laid on a large foil-lined baking sheet all cut-side down to roast at 275F* for one hour, then turned over and roasted another hour, removed from the oven to cool for a half hour then placed in freezer bags for later use in sauces, chili and even on pizza. Roasted tomatoes are also tasty as a side-dish as soon as they come from the oven, which we will be eating tonite wtih supper. This variety is a very meaty, large, slicer and very flavorful. A good addition to any garden. They have cracking around the tops, as do many heirlooms, but I just cut away the top half inch of tomato and use the rest to eat or roast.

Hornworm damage.......Someone said to me "I don't kill all the horworms because I don't mind losing a few leaves to them because they turn into lovely moths."

For those of you who think they don't do damage, here are just two of the tomatoes I found in my garden yesterday.

On one of them was a voracious hornworm eating its fill. Yes, they do eat the tomatoes and can do lots of damage. If you don't remove them they can destroy your tomato plant within a week and nibble on every one of your growing tomatoes, both ripe and green. If you want a good harvest, you must remove and destroy these beasties.

Happy Gardening!

Tomato Ripening Tips!

2011-08-23T06:24:00.000-07:00

Here's an assortment of ripening stages and varieties sitting on my kitchen counter where I'm sorting those for ripening and those for saving seeds. And yes, they taste as good as vine-ripe tomatoes when ripened this way.

How to Ripen Tomatoes on the Vine

Standard-sized tomatoes take 20 to 30 days from blossom set to reach full size--commonly called "mature green"; they take another 20 to 30 days to ripen, that is begin to change color. A tomato can be picked when it begins to change color--from green to red, pink, yellow, or orange depending upon the cultivar.

The optimal temperature range for tomato ripening is 68°F to 77°F; tomato ripening is slowed when temperatures are cooler or warmer than the optimum range. Tomatoes stop ripening when temperatures are less than 55°F and greater than 85°F. Once a mature green tomato has begun to blush or turn color, it can be brought to full color or full ripeness off the vine at room temperature--70°F to 75°F. A tomato will be equally flavorful brought to full ripeness on or off the vine--once it has moved beyond "mature green" to color change.

Estimated days to maturity, fruit size, and color can be used to estimate the harvest time for your tomato crop. Temperatures outside the optimum range can delay harvest. Tomatoes can not be forced to maturity more quickly than nature will allow. However, there are to expedite the tomato harvest when temperatures are right.

Once tomatoes on the plant begin to reach mature green, here's how you can quicken the overall ripening of fruit on the vine:

• Harvest daily. Pick fruit as soon as it starts to show color; this will allow other fruit on the vine to gain size and come to harvest more quickly. Tomato fruit picked at first sign of color can be ripened at room temperature. Fruit ripened off the vine will be just as tasty as those left to mature on the vine. Cut or gently twist off fruits supporting the vine at the same time. Don't leave overripe fruits on the vine; they decrease productivity and may spread disease.

Here's a Sophie's Choice and a couple of San Marzano Nano's picked before they are fully ripe.
• Remove flower clusters. Pluck new flower clusters from tomato plants that have already set fruit. Removing flowers will direct the plant's energy into ripening the fruit already maturing on the vine. Remove flower clusters no later than a month before the first expected frost to ensure fruit on the plant makes it to harvest without frost or cold damage.

from: Harvest To Table

My Pumpkin is turning orange!

2011-08-06T11:52:00.000-07:00

My gardens are providing us with lots of lettuces, green beans, sugar snap peas, cukes, zucchini and tomatoes along with the herbs basil, curly and flat parsley, thyme and rosemary. I've been watching the melons, and my New England Pie Pumpkin, the first one, is now turning orange. The others are still green and smaller.

Here's that first orange baby.

Since I've been picking an occasional Zucchini, I've been gathering my zuke recipes as well.

ZUCCHINI CASSEROLE

Ingredients:
6 Good size Zucchini
3-4 Summer Squash (optional---or add a couple more zuccini)
2-good size Onion--(sliced)
Chicken Broth
Scant salt (optional)
Several dots of butter
Directions:
1. Slice the Zucchini and Squash (not toooooo thin) and boil with the onions in chicken broth until the Zucchini etc are cooked but not tooo soft. Drain well for a good 1/2 hour.
2. While they are draining, mix well one can of cream of mushroom soup and one small container of sour cream (if you don't like mushroom soup you can use cream of chicken soup)
3. Add the Zucchini to the soup and sour cream mixture. Put into a well-greased casserole dish and cover with PEPPERIDGE FARM or your favorite other STUFFING MIX. dot with butter and bake at 350 until it bubbles. 15-20 min tops.
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Chocolate Zucchini Cookies
Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter ( or butter flavored shortening)
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 3/4 cups grated zucchini
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets.
2. In a medium bowl, cream together the shortening, white sugar
and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Combine the
flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt; gradually stir into the creamed
mixture. Fold in the grated zucchini. Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto
the prepared cookie sheets.
3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Source:www.allrecipes.com
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Enjoy, and Happy Gardening!

More food for the table.

2011-07-29T11:44:00.000-07:00

Today I finally harvested a Purple-top turnip from my home garden. The bush beans are just beginning, so I picked 3 of the Bush Lake variety. As for tomatoes, left to right are 2 Harvest Luck, which I have since sliced and saved the seeds, a Beaverlodge Slicer and 2 Olivade F1 hybrids. I also harvested lettuce for the family's supper salad, but forgot to get a photo. Its from the 3rd cut of leaf Simpson's Elite which is still growing in its shallow pot beside the garden bench where it gets nice shade a few times a day. Now I'm trying for a 4th growth from the same 4 transplants in that pot.

At least I have a photo of the lettuce 2 days ago before I cut it.
Happy Gardening!

More tomatoes and beans and the first peas.

2011-07-28T11:22:00.000-07:00

I harvested the first of the late-sown sugar snap peas today. I thought the heat would have ruined the crop, but I think watering twice a day in the 90 plus days helped. The sugar snap pea crop won't be a bonanza, but it'll be ok and the bush beans are heavy with pods. I only picked the largest ones leaving the others to get bigger.

In this colander are some purple-podded bush beans and the last of the early sugar snap peas along with the 2 first Sun Gold tomatoes. By the way, the purple beans turn green upon cooking. Very tasty the other nite.

Here are an assortment of tomatoes. Left to right: Three San Marzano Nano (paste type), a dozen Early cherry and in the forefront a bright red Harvest Luck. The larger one is the first Siberskiy Sokorospelyi with a small Glacier, my first picked of this variety, to its right. The peas are from the late-sown sugar snap peas which are just coming into maturity as the early ones are petering out completely.

With these 3 carrots I picked yesterday to check to see if they were getting big enough, I plan to enjoy my supper of chicken and veggies tonite. There is fresh lettuce just waiting to be picked in my garden to go with these, but I pick my lettuce at the last minute to keep it crisp.

Happy Gardening!

More garden produce ripening!

2011-07-26T16:30:00.000-07:00

I just love all my peppers and tomatoes today. After a good rain of 6/10ths inch thru the nite, they didn't need any watering.

My 2 Feherozon Dwarf sweet peppers are doing very well. They are very short plants normally 12-15" tall but they develop approx 7 peppers with the first flush of growth. They change from cream to orange to red when fully ripe.

Above is a sweet Doe Hill just starting to produce.

Above, Early Hungarian, another sweet, with babies.

This single itty bitty pepper above is a sweet Antohi Romanian.

Among the tomatoes, I'm getting several spouting pink or green fruits now.

Harvest Luck above is a clustering indeterminate with its first fruits. Since they were isolated, I'm saving these first ones for seed for next year. I want to wait for a few days before harvesting so they are nice and ripe.

About 5 days ago I harvested 6 Early Cherry toms, determinates in a pot, and saved the seeds. Today I rinsed them thru a fine mesh strainer so they could dry off and I can save the seeds. These above are more of the Early Cherry babies after I ate 3 off the vine. They are doing very well and are tasty.

These above toms are San Marzano Nanos ripening. Its another potted determinate from which I am saving seeds.

The potted determinates seem to be producing quicker but then they were planted before those in the raised beds. This is Siberskiy Sokorospelyi above with good-sized tomatoes just starting to ripen.

Finally we have New Girl F1, an indeterminate hybrid just starting to gain color.

It is wonderful to go into the garden and see my plants producing.

Happy Gardening!

More red tomatoes!

2011-07-21T11:26:00.000-07:00

Aren't these Early Cherry tomatoes lovely? I've got more red ones today. I'll have to pluck a couple off for supper tonite and save the seeds for next year if they taste as well as they look. They are the first tomatoes to come to maturity this year in my Square Foot Garden.

Here's one of two pumpkins I have in my New England Pie Pumpkin patch at the community garden today. Its the largest. My DDIL loves making pumpkin pies so I had to put them in this year. The 3 vines are large and beautiful.

The pumpkins are hidden under those leaves somewhere.

Here's my first Sugar Baby watermelon on one of the 4 vines I have, this one from a started seedling this year. The variety is very sweet and ice box size.

These are two Homemade Pickling cucumber cages filled with blossoms and a few itty bitty babies as well. I attribute the healthy crops to the fact that they were covered with light-weight insect barrier row covers as soon as insects were seen attacking, keeping invading insects away. By the time the plants started blossoming and the barrier needed removal for pollination, the plants were big enough and healthy enough not to be very bothered by the insects that hadn't found a new home earlier.
I highly recommend using insect barrier cloth to deter insect damage.

Here are those same two cages surrounded by insect barrier cloth on June 26th when the plants were still very young.

To see what a difference it can make....

I have 3 towers of Bushy cukes here. The one on the right is very small compared to the two on its left. It was bombarded by pests very early in the season which luckily for the others, kept the ones on the left from being devastated. I was able to still save it by enclosing it in the insect barrier cloth and its coming along just fine, though far behind its healthy neighbors. So you see, insect barrier really helps a lot.

I hope to get enough cucumbers to make refrigerator pickles and lots of potato salad which I love with fresh cucumbers in them.
Happy Gardening!

I'm seeing red!

2011-07-18T07:47:00.000-07:00

Hooray, seeing red means tomatoes are starting to ripen.

In my home garden, these are the potted Early Cherry tomatoes, an organic determinate heirloom, I had in an isolation bag. They are half-ripe so far. Soon they'll be completely ripe so I can pick them and save seed for next year.
After scooping out the seed innards, I intend to eat the tomatoes and see how I like the flavor since its a first-timer for me.
This plant was transplanted May 24th so that means its taken 55 days to get to this point. Hooray, Early Cherry. You are nearly on schedule since maturity time is 55 days on the package.

I also have a Violet Queen Cauliflower forming its head. I hope the heat doesn't send it bolting.
At the community garden I found this little Sugar Baby Watermelon forming on one of my plants from a seedling. I'm thrilled. Its amazing how one can feel so good just seeing a baby crop starting to form.

Among my 3 Bushy variety cucumber cages, I found 2 tiny Bushy cukes forming.

And among the two Homemade Pickling cuke cages, this little darlin'. I'm sure there are more forming within the canopies of leaves, but I just wanted to take a picture for my blog. There are lots of yellow blossoms making me hopeful that I'll get a good harvest this year. I've also seen lots of bees buzzing around in this garden.

Last year I had a shadier set of rows at the community garden and nothing produced as I'd hoped. They just didn't get enough sun. This year my rows are in a very sunny section of the garden and doing marvelously well. It certainly proves that crops need that 6-8 hrs of sunlight a day to produce well.
Happy Gardening!

I've got Peppers!

2011-07-17T11:32:00.000-07:00

Its so nice to see peppers popping up on my plants now.

I have 2 Dwarf Feherozon peppers in pots and both have little peppers on them.

I have 2 Sweet Banana peppers but only one has fruit yet.

Tangerine Dream is another of a pair of sweet peppers showing fruits.

A few of my eggplants are showing fruits starting to grow. This is one of a pair of Millionaire hybrid eggplant. White Casper is also showing fruiting. I'm also growing Gretel, Ping Tung and Bianca Rotanda eggplants. I hope to get a few eggplants even though my nights here in Maine aren't actually as warm as they like. They prefer nites in the 60s but we've had only the 50s for a few weeks now. I'm hoping the heat of the days will make up for that shortcoming. I also water them twice a day in these warm summer days.

I lost several of my brassicas to the heat wave we had in the spring, but I still have 2 Super Red 80 cabbages doing well. That's a relief.

To prevent that disaster in another year, I plan to buy some overwintering crops that are now available, like Purple Sprouting Broccoli sown in Sept and harvested in spring, January King Cabbage that is planted in the fall and harvests in the cold of January, Maystar Cauliflower that overwinters and is harvested in April or May, Merida Carrots that also overwinter and Kwiek Lettuce that can take cold enough that it can be planted in the fall and harvested in early winter and in some cases can overwinter and be harvested in the spring. I'm willing to experiment if it means fresh food for my table for a longer period of time.

And on an unusual note, I bought some green and blue Aracuna eggs this week. They are truly in those shades as you can see below. The hen is also known as the Easter Egger chicken.

Happy Gardening!

Watermelon and pumpkin!

2011-07-15T09:10:00.000-07:00

My raised beds at home can't handle large-space items like pumpkin and watermelon, so I lease two personal rows at our local community garden which are straight 30' long rows. I raise my rows by hilling them up down the center so I get better drainage. The garden is fully organic so we can only use organic seed or orgainic home methods of pest control.

Here are 3 hills of New England Pie Pumpkin with blossoms. Until a couple of days ago, I had these covered with light-weight insect barrier cloth which really helped keep the bugs away from my seedlings. Yesterday I saw bees walking across the blossoms so pollination is in progress.

Here is one of my Sugar Baby watermelon plants with blossoms. I have 4 plants so hope to get at least 4 small watermelon this season. They average around 6 lbs but last year I got ones that were as large as 12 and 14 lbs. They were all deliciously sweet.

I have a couple of towers of Homemade Pickling cucumbers which I planted earlier than my varieties at home so I can stretch out my harvest time.

I also have tomatoes in this community garden. I have bagged each variety with isolation bags to save seeds for the community garden members next year. I have the indeterminates Moskvich, Sugar Cherry, Stupice, Carol's Beefsteak Heirloom, and also Zarnitsa, a determinate from which I'm saving seeds. I even have a couple of Sun Gold hybrids because I heard good things about them but being hybrid I can't save seed from them.

The best thing about this community garden is we share with the local Food Pantry. We have several rows beyond our personal rows that we maintain and harvest for the Pantry all season.

Here's a view of just under 50% of our Sharecropper Rows (dubbed such because we share in the harvest with the local farmer who lets us use his land beside our community garden plus buys the seeds). He either seeds with his automatic seeder or we hand sow or transplant as needed. For maintenance we water and weed the crops and pick off bugs during the growing season. The Food Pantry is only open 2 days a month so we harvest twice a month for the Pantry and in between we can bring home crops for ourselves and our family after the farmer harvests for his small local farm stand. All in all a win-win situation for us all because we Sharecrop so many different crops, like sugar snap peas, bush beans, beets, turnip, lettuce, carrots, butternut squash, zucchini, corn, pole beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, and also fall crops of broccoli and cabbage.

Today I sowed some cauliflower seeds in my home beds for a fall crop since my spring crop was a dud with the 90* plus temps we had in the spring. I also plan to sow some spinach, carrots, and fancy filet Nickel (the whole thing is edible raw) bush beans in my empty squares for fall harvest.
Happy Gardening!

My tomatoes are still green.

2011-07-12T08:29:00.000-07:00

I keep hoping to see red, but my tomatoes are still green. I've got lots of them now, but the color needs to change soon to put another smile on my face. All my potted tomatoes are determinates, bushy varieties that come to maturity all at about the same time.

This one, Black Prince, a vining indeterminate, is in my raised beds with its isolation bag still over the new tomatoes. I'll be removing it today and tagging the branch of tomates with red yarn to save later in the season.

Among my potted tomatoes, here's Ensalada, a hybrid, doing very well but still green.

San Marzano Nano, another potted determinate, has several green babies.

Potted Siberskiy Skorospelyi has several tomatoes that are gaining good size.

Amazingly, the plant with the largest tomatoes is on the smallest potted determinate. This is Sophie's Choice and she's less than a foot and a half tall right now. That big tomato looks like it'll be turning red soon. I can hardly wait.

I have several tomato plants with tomatoes in different stages of greenery and they all seem to be in good health right now.

They're needing watering daily with all the heat we've been having. Today is another hotty with temps close to 90 right now and the humidity is high so its a good day to stay inside and do other things than gardening.

I checked one of my garlic plants to see what's happening.

I pulled one plant and got three, but they are small as you can see by my hand. I think I'll leave the others for another couple of weeks. These were planted last October from organic garlic bought at the local farmer's market. I just had to try garlic in my raised beds.

Among my peppers, this is my biggest, a Sweet Banana in its isolation bag. The other varieties are either smaller or just blossoms right now.

Today's welcome visitor was a swallowtail butterfly.
Til another day, Happy Gardening!

How about a few lovely roses to view....

2011-07-03T15:54:00.000-07:00

I love roses. They are one of my all-time favorites with iris, peony, and gladiolus not far behind. All my roses are David Austin English roses because they are easier to grow than hybrid teas.

This is Camisole, an apricot with a bright yellow overcast. Very pretty.

Fair Bianca is the whitest of whites and has a nice, light rose scent.

For the best of scents, I love Gertrude Jeckyll. The aroma is outstanding and the pink is so bright, I just love it.

Noble Anthony is a lovely pink, but there's no scent. It looks great in a vase though.

I have other roses but they haven't bloomed yet. These are my earliest bloomers. There will be more varieties blooming in mid-July.

And just to finish the flower show, here's my mauve orchid that's starting to bloom again.

Happy Gardening!

Good Lady Bug versus Bad Lady Beetles

2011-07-02T18:26:00.000-07:00

Of the thousands of varieties of Lady Bug, all carniverous and eating other insects, there are only two that eat our crops.

They are:

Mexican Bean Beetle

Description: These bugs always have 16 black spots on their back, eight on each wing section. They can be bright red to rusty brown to golden yellow. To determine if its a crop eater, count the black spots. If there are 8 on each wing section, destroy the pest.

It feeds on all the bean family crops.

Squash Lady Beetle

Description: This one always has 14 black spots on its back, 7 on each wing section.

Color ranges from straw or cream as a youngster, but it darkens to orange brown with bronze tones as it becomes an adult. To be sure, count the spots. If there are 7 on each wing section, destroy it. It feeds on all the squash family crops.
Both species have larvae that is yellow and spiny.

I hope this article will clarify the facts about the destructive Lady Bug!
Happy Hunting!

I love seeing things growing!

2011-06-28T18:45:00.000-07:00

My garden is starting to produce more and more and I'm lovin' it.

A Purple Top turnip and some sugar snap peas for starters today.

Another quart plus of strawberries today. That's nearly 4 quarts in the last couple of weeks. And they are sooooo good as shortcake snacks in the summer evenings.

Inside the bag you can see the largest of the little tomatoes forming on this Sophie's Choice potted determinate tomato. The isolation bag will guarantee that the seed has not been cross-pollinated so I can save the seeds of the toms on this branch at season's end.

Some little Siberskij Skorospelyi tomatoes inside an isolation bag are forming nicely.

This is my Olivade F1 hybrid tomato with lovely little green babies. Not all my plants are OP (open-pollinated) and capable of producing the same seeds the following years. Hybrids are crosses between other varieties and will not breed true the following year if seed is saved so I don't bother. I only save heirloom and open-pollinated seeds.

This is a Sausage tomato. The itty bitty long tomato is forming inside the bag. Its longer than it is wide and should be about 7" long mature.

This is San Marzano Nano, a potted determinate tomato that was bagged but with fruits formed, I removed the bag and tied a piece of red yarn to the stem so I know which tomatoes to save for seed later in the season.

Even my Sweet Banana pepper has a baby forming inside its isolation bag. I'll be saving seeds from both tomatoes and peppers this year for next year and beyond.

Yes, it sure feels good to have fruits forming and harvests coming into the kitchen now. Its a shame the cool-weather crops, broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower fared so badly with the heat we had, but I'll have another chance to grow some for fall so that's alright.

Happy Gardening!

Today's harvest.

2011-06-26T13:17:00.000-07:00

I harvested two of the Chinese cabbages today.

They were nice and mature so had to be pulled today.

Also picked a quart of strawberries today.

I have Quinaults and Sequoias so I did a taste test. You can easily tell the difference between them because Sequoias are more elongated in shape.

Top row are Sequoias and bottom row, Quinaults.

My taste buds chose Sequoia as the sweeter of the two. There's a definite taste difference with Quinault being a bit more tart. With both in a bowl with shortcake, they make a great taste pair.

Happy Gardening!

I got my first sugar peas!

2011-06-26T11:34:00.000-07:00

It was nice to stroll thru my garden today after all the rain of the last 3 days (1 1/2" of the wet stuff) and see sugar peas finally growing.

I picked a few to take a photo, along with some radishes. I had to go to the community garden today and see how things are working out there so didn't pick many before leaving.

Its nice to see the garden producing either blossoms or a crop of one kind or another. The Chinese cabbages are all matured so I have to get those harvested today. I also have lots more strawberries to pick before any more rains come. I feel like having strawberry shortcake again today.

I hope those with gardens are seeing some results about now in the New England states. We in Maine usually have to wait the longest, but its always well worth it.
Happy Gardening!

Isolating Peppers!

2011-06-23T11:18:00.000-07:00

I made larger isolation bags, 18" square, for peppers so I could cover them over all the branches.

This is one of a pair of Doe Hill Sweet Peppers I have. I bagged this one today over all the branches and closed the drawstring right up against the stem of the plant. This way I can harvest any of the peppers once they produce. All will have been saved from any cross-pollination.

This is one of my Sweet Banana peppers. Again, covered all over the branches. That will also keep any eating insects off my leaves at least until the fruits start growing. I hope the fruits come before the plant gets too big for the bag.

Strawberries!

2011-06-23T06:52:00.000-07:00

I picked over a quart yesterday morning. I find that the Sequoia variety are more elongated in shape than my Quinaults.

Now lets check size difference. On the left over the quarter is a normal-sized Quinault berry. On the right are some Alpine strawberries with a nickel above them. The yellow ones are Pineapple Strawberries and yes, they do indeed taste like pineapples. The Alpines are very small, but they produce all summer-long and are a nice tart snack while working in my garden.
They grow in a small mound of greenery and will decrease their numbers after 3 years so its good, at that time, to allow the few runners that are produced to replace the originals.

This year I'm seeing some runners so they are taking care of themselves in reproduction. I tried to start some from seed, but they didn't 'take' so I'm going to depend on their own natural reproduction instincts to increase for replacements.

Here's my little patch of Alpines this month with blossoms and mulched with straw for the season. Those are new runners forming at the very top of the photo.

I foresee many strawberry shortcake desserts in my family this season. Luckily, all the gals just love them, but the guys don't like them at all. More for us.

My regular patch is a little over 16 feet long and there are lots of berries still forming.

Happy Gardening!

Isolation Bags are working.

2011-06-20T07:10:00.000-07:00

My isolation bags seem to be working. Today I was able to un-bag a fruiting stem and mark it for later seed saving.

The tiny fruits of 2 San Marzano Nano tomatoes have formed so I removed the isolation bag. It took 17 days from bagging to this nice fruit.

I'm using red yarn to tie gently onto the fruit's stem so I know which fruit to save when the fruit is nice and ripe.

The good thing about saving seeds is you can remove the seeds and still eat the tomato.

If you want to see a tutorial on the isolation bags, its in the list on the right. I will continue with a tutorial of the seed saving process itself in the fall.

Happy Gardening!

Crops are starting to grow.

2011-06-18T09:24:00.000-07:00

We've had a long, cold, white winter and then the spring we were hoping for was cold or rainy or both. Some crops were hard to get in on time with this strange weather. My eggplants were very late getting transplanted and now I have to cover them most nites because temps drop below 60. I've got towels and sheets handy for the purpose.

Here's one of the raised beds, Bed #1. Tomatoes staked on the left and snow peas in the back row. Small Bell Peppers and eggplant with cauliflower, Swiss chard and parsnips.

This is bed #2, which has a cucumber tower and the cukes are germinating. There's also onion chives, eggplant and broccoli with tomatoes strung in the back row. I have pansies (edible) and red geraniums in a couple of the squares for added color.

In this bed #3, I already harvested 2 broccoli because of the heat and the peas are growing up the trellis. I'm hoping for several little broccolis popping up on the mother plant now that it's cooled down a bit. The rare 90-degree days seem behind us. Tomatoes on the left haven't been in the ground awfully long. That's an eggplant 2nd block from front left and a couple of Tangerine Sweet Peppers.

This bed #7, has Chinese cabbage, cauliflower, turnip, pansies, peppers, spinach and tomatoes strung along the back row between fence posts.

I've transplanted some of the lettuces in this coldframe beside taller crops in the raised beds. The shade of the taller crop leaves should keep them cooler and prevent bolting too soon so we can harvest lettuce a lot longer than usual. There's also Mizuna, front 2nd from left square, in the coldframe. I've never eaten it before.

I actually harvested 3 strawberries from the bed. Had them with my oatmeal for breakfast. Mmmmmm soooo good! There are hundreds of them ripening beneath the netting and I hope this year to have them for me and the family instead of the birds.

In Bed #11, between the coldframe and very tiny Alpine strawberries, there's 2 Bush Baby zucchini hills. We love our zucchini.

In the strawberry bed in front of the raised beds, I have hundreds of blossoms turning into fruits. Happy Days! This was taken a few days ago when the insect barriers were over some plants in my raised beds.

A small sampling of strawberry blossoms.

It sure feels great to walk into the garden an actually see green things growing.

Happy Gardening!

My tomatoes are lookin' good.

2011-06-14T16:23:00.000-07:00

Our weather has gone back to normal, with 60s days and 50s nites. No more 90s until at least August, if at all, I hope. In Maine we're very lucky that way. Rarely do we reach the 90s.

Because of the oppresive heat so early in our season, I had to harvest 3 broccoli heads. One was a decent size but the other two were very small but had all the signs of starting to bolt so I harvested them. There's also some Bloomsdale spinach underneath that was heading for flowering so I had to cut those as well.

Luckily some of the broccoli and all of the cabbage and cauliflower still look in decent shape and with the cooler weather, I hope it checked their need to bolt so I get some good harvests later. I know I'll be sowing seed for a fall crop this year because the family loves broccoli.

A few of my tomato plants. The orange bags are isolation bags on open-pollinated varieties so I can save my own seed this fall.

More tomatoes with that are stringed instead of staked and a couple here are bagged as well.

As you can tell, I've got lots of tomatoes but I wanted several varieties to save seed from this year and it was hard to keep down the numbers.

The center tomato here is Olivade F1 which I won't be bagging because its a hybrid, but the ones to either side are open-pollinated heirlooms so I'll be keeping a close watch for the start of blossoms so they, too, can get bagged.

Even the potted determinates, which are all heirlooms, are getting bagged. Hopefully these tomatoes will develop nicely and I have luscious ripe tomatoes from which to save seed the end of the season.

The lettuce I have planted in the shallow pots are doing great. They spend the morning in the shade and seem to be thriving. I'll be cutting them back again for dinner tomorrow nite.

I'll end the post with one of my favorite Irises, Copyright. I've had several of these blooming already and the shade of yellow is exquisite.

HAPPY GARDENING!

My cherry tree is having babies!

2011-06-08T09:26:00.000-07:00

The cherry tree I have featured at the top of my blog blossomed fully this year, its 3rd. Now the dwarf Alamaden Duke Cherry is having babies from the blossoms.

See those little bits of yellow on the long stems? They are future cherries. I'm thrilled since this will be the first year with fruit for this tree. This tree was pretty much chewed by deer its first year so I was worried about its future. I can see that its a strong one, because its making a comeback.

This is a DiCicco Broccoli forming a head. Its the largest of the ones I've planted for my spring crop this year.

This little bitty purple thing in the center is a Violet Queen Cauliflower just starting to form. These are very tasty so I made sure I planted more for the family, who loved them last year.

These two squares of sugar snap peas I planted the earliest, and are getting some growth now. The ones planted later nearby are still small so I can spread out my harvest. I am actually going to sow another 4 squares for and even later harvesting.

Today I planted my cucumbers, five varieties; Early Russian, Lemon, Miniature White, Summer Dance and Burpless Beauty. Later today more bush beans will be going in and some sugar snap peas on the other trellis. Its a lovely day today, sunny and it'll get into the 80s today so I may wait on the sowing until after three when it starts to get cooler.

I still haven't transplanted my eggplants yet.

My peppers are in.

2011-06-07T10:13:00.000-07:00

My home garden is coming right along. I got my peppers in yesterday. They and the tomatoes are doing fine.

This is a Yellow Brandywine and a Valencia tomato and the peppers are an Anaheim and an Early Jalapeno. I have a total of 11 sweet peppers and 4 hot peppers in my raised beds.

Now if only the nites would warm up a bit so I could transplant my 9 eggplants to the garden. They are sooooo ready for the move.

Among the potted tomatoes, I have this Early Cherry which is covered with an isolation bag. I want to save the seeds so am making sure there is no chance of cross pollination by wind or bees. I've also isolated some blossoms on my San Marzano Nano determinate tomato beside it.

These are my potted determinate tomatoes and at the very end in two separate pots, are two dwarf peppers, Feherozen. This is my first try with dwarf peppers in a pot.

Most of my strawberry blossoms are now turning into berries. I will have to cover them with netting in a day or two to keep the birds from harvesting my crop this year. They enjoyed a feast at my expense last year and I don't want that to happen again.

This year I decided to pot my herbs so here is a German thyme in a hanging basket on a shepherd's crook by my kitchen door and my yellow Copyright Iris are nudging right up against it.

I'm really feeling good about my gardens this year. Its been a lot of work since starting seeds in March right up to transplanting currently. The only things left to transplant are the eggplant and I have the cucumber seeds to sow.

The zucchini and the straightneck squash seeds germinated so they are coming along as well. The bush beans are peeking thru the soil and some of the greens I'm trying this year in the A-frame are growing, like arugula, claytonia, and Tokyo bekana. I've transplanted a young lettuce seedlings beside each brassica (broccoli, cabbage and cauliflowers in my case), and they are doing well in the shade of the larger plants. I don't see the shallots doing anything since they've been planted so I'm crossing my fingers that they start growing soon. And later today, though its quite late in the season, I'm going to plant a few white onion sets if I can find a bare square. I can't plant them beside the asparagus, beans or peas so I'm very limited in where they can settle.

Happy Gardening!

I've got flowers!

2011-06-02T17:02:00.000-07:00

I have a few blossoms outside now that the days have warmed up.

My tree peony is doing well with lovely large flowers.

This is the first of the Immortality irises. Several more have swelling buds so there will be several this year.

A double Hemstitch iris. I love the purple around the white edges.

I see my Snowball bush is full of white snowballs but haven't yet taken a picture. I'll do that tomorrow.

Its always nice to see flowers blooming all summer. I can't wait for the roses to begin, though many were devastated by the Japanese beetles last year.

I wish the cold nites would warm up a bit.

2011-06-01T09:00:00.000-07:00

Due to expecting nites in the 40s on Thurs and Fri and then in the 50s on Sat, I'm holding off on transplanting my peppers and eggplants.

The peppers are getting tall and need to go in the ground.

The eggplants are thick and lush and really need more root room.

I'm hoping that in a few more days, I can safely put them outside. I think that next time I'll put all the crops nearby one another so that if I need to cover them for the nite, I can do so easily. With them in different raised beds, its difficult to do that. I do it this way so that if something damages one or two side-by-side the others won't be affected. Maybe I'll just gather more old bath towels and sheets for the purpose instead.

The potted lettuce is doing fine. The ones on the left, Simpson Elite, were transplanted there from the coldframe on May 27th. The ones on the right were harvested down to an inch above the soil on May 22. As you can see, they are growing very well in just a short time and I'll be harvesting them again in the near future.

Temperatures in our neck of the woods were a lot higher in the afternoons than usual this past week though nites were cool. When it reaches 91 on a May afternoon, that's darn rare for us. The next day it was 87 for a high. Much too warm for me. I'm in Maine because I adore the cooler springs and decent summers. The 60s and 70s is usual this time of year and much appreciated.

All my tomatoes are in!

2011-05-31T09:42:00.000-07:00

Finally, all my tomatoes are transplanted in my Square Foot Garden beds. I finished transplanting the last ten this morning before it got too warm. They predicted 70*F as the high today but I can tell you that at noon it is 84*F. Much warmer. I'm glad I was out early. The humidity is low so it doesn't feel too badly out there, but much to warm for me to work in the garden. I don't like heat.

Here's Yellow Brandywine, Valencia with a spinach plant in front of it, DeBarao, and Black Prince (behind the insect barrier cover).

There's a story about that spinach. I sowed seeds in that square before I realized I put it in the wrong place in April. I left them there to sprout and grow until I needed it for a tomato. Yesterday I transplanted the other 3 Bloomsdale spinach plants into the coldframe where I had a spare square. I left the one in the front because I didn't think it was in the way and would be harvested before the tomato needed the space. We shall see how that works out in the next few days.

Here are my pots of determinate tomatoes. I have seven here and the only things I shall add are two pots of Feheroza Dwarf pepper plants next week when I feel its warm enough. I like this area for the pots. Its the gravel apron where the pool once stood and I won't have to move the pots when the lawn is mowed. It gets sun all day long so I think the tomatoes will enjoy this space.

My flower garden hasn't done too much so far this year. The lilacs have bloomed but the bushes are young so not many blossoms. Just the same, the scent in the air is marvelous.

Lilacs to me are always a springtime treat.

The tree peony that had only one blossom yesterday, now has a full-fledged flower and 2 more blossoms starting to open. I can't wait til its in full bloom.

My very first Iris is just starting to bloom. Its not even fully opened yet. This is Hemstitch. I love her coloring, but then I love all my Iris, one of my favorite flowers.

My asparagus bed shares some space with zucchini and squash plants. I've got Lunga Bianca and Raven Zucchini here and Straightneck Squash. The cut-off milks jugs beside the seedlings are cloches I use to cover the new seedlings from late afternoon thru the nite. The jugs trap a little more heat for the evenings.

In another bed I just planted 2 hills of Bush Baby Zucchini this morning. We love zucchini and grate it to freeze for dishes during the winter.

In these squares you have to look closely to see the pole beans starting to come up. I have different varieties in each block. Left to Rt: Purple-podded, McCaslan, Marvel of Venice, and Northeaster Sugar Beans. I've never grown pole beans before so this is an experiment for me.

Now that spring has officially arrived, other things will soon be going outside, like peppers both sweet and hot, and eggplant. The strawberries have lots of blossoms so I expect I'll be covering them with netting soon to keep the birds from getting the berries this year. Last year they got almost all my berries. I hope to save some for me and family this year.
Happy Gardening everyone!

I transplanted tomatoes in the garden today!

2011-05-26T20:14:00.000-07:00

It felt really good to be out there early this morning putting my seedlings into my raised beds before we reached our high of 82 today, warmer than expected.

This is Harvest Luck, Millefleur, and Garden Peach. The Garden Peach claims to look and feel like a peach (fuzzy) with the peach color and a pink blush. I can't wait to taste it.

This one is a Russo's Sicilian. I put in eleven today with 7 more to plant but the others are still a little small tho I had them outside today hardening off. They were started by someone else for me but later than I started mine.

Look at the difference a couple of weeks makes. The ones started by others in our community garden greenhouse are in the front in the trays. I have 3 of MY tomatoes along the back, the tall ones, that are going into my flower garden. They sure are dramatically bigger.

Not to be outdone, our crabapple tree is in full bloom.

I love when she's in her formal prettiness. It means spring is really here.

In the coldframe, different things are sprouting.

Three kinds of lettuces, spinach, mache (corn salad) and mizuna. I transplanted several of the lettuces beneath my broccoli and cauliflower plants where they will get needed shade from the heat of the sun and hopefully have a longer growing time.

We'll see what tomorrow brings in the garden.

The day cleared so I got busy.

2011-05-24T14:33:00.000-07:00

I didn't want to waste any time when the skies cleared and the temps rose. I was out there laying out newspaper between my raised beds and then layering them with straw. I love the straw. No weeds seeds to worry about like there is with hay.

I had the strawberry bed mulched with the straw 2 days ago but was waiting for a good day to soak and spread out the newspapers I've been saving since last fall.

I've got a few blueberries on two of my blueberry bushes. I'm thrilled about that. I have 5 bushes so hope to have some blueberries this year.

Next I potted 3 of my determinate tomato seedlings.

Here are left to right; Glacier, a potato-leaf variety, Ensalada and Early Cherry with their cages. These won't grow too big so the pots should be sufficient for them. I have 5 more to put in pots and I also want to pot up 2 dwarf Feheroza peppers but they need warmer weather, though I guess I could bring the peppers inside in the evenings. The tomatoes will be fine outside now. I've had them hardening off for over a week.

If the weather cooperates tomorrow, I want to also try to get some of my indeterminate tomatoes on the string. They should be safe outdoors now after hardening off over a week outdoors.

Please Mother Nature, send those rain clouds elsewhere!

My own compost.

2011-05-22T14:15:00.000-07:00

After a long, white winter when my composter was buried in a yard with 3 ft of snow most of the time, I just wasn't able to bring my kitchen scraps out there nor to tumble the darn thing.
When spring came, I just added some new kitchen scraps and with a spading fork, turned only the top of the compost. It was too hard to turn the tumbler itself. I had filled it a little too much I suppose.

I had the black tumbler, but the green one you see here was given to me, for which I'm thankful. It has a hand crank which makes it a lot easier to tumble than the black one. My son patched it where necessary and I'm putting it to good use.

I thought I'd remove the compost from the black one and shovel it into the green monster. Lo and behold, when I got to the bottom of the barrel, there was lovely finished compost.

Mother Nature didn't need me to use muscle to turn the compost. She did it for me herself. So I brought out the wheelbarrow.

I hadn't made my screened sifter yet but I saw a young man who gardens using a kitchen veggie stacking bin and I had one of those hanging around the house. Imagine my surprise at how well it works. Its not unweildy and its easy to sort of bounce the compost in it like you would a fry pan to turn over cooking veggies. The compost sifts right thru it and when I got to the thicker and unfinished stuff.....

About like this.....I dumped the residue into the green monster for finishing with the new batch.

I added some fresh cut grasses for the greens for today and started the process by turning the crank. With me out in the garden daily. its easy to give the crank a few more turns. This green monster should finish compost much quicker thru the season.
When its filled about halfway, I'll stop adding to it and put the new scraps in the black tumbler where it will await its turn after the other batch finishes.

Today I transplanted two Beaverlodge Slicer determinate tomatoes into my A-frame. They can be easily protected if we get very cold nites by closing the flaps.

Here's one on the inside. The other is across the raised bed from this one.

The view inside the A-frame. Radishes in each front square. The tall greenery is garlic planted last Oct. Basil and tomato seedlings in the middle awaiting transplanting. Between the garlic on the other side is carrots, scallions and some greens.

These particular tomatoes are here to harden off, then they will go into pots this season. I want to get them transplanted in the next day or so. Those can easily be brought inside the house if we get a bad cold snap.

I also planted shallots today in the A-frame and radishes were put in beside the cabbages in my raised beds. Yesterday I transplanted lettuces from the coldframe alongside each of my broccoli and cauliflowers so they will get shade from the larger plants.

And best of all, today I had my 2nd harvest. My first was parsnips that overwintered, but this is my first crop from this year.

I had 4 heads of lettuce in a shallow pot and they needed cutting so I just lopped off the tops of two of the heads, leaving about an inch of lettuce above the soil so they can regrow new leaves. That thinned the area out a bit so the other two can grow larger.

I guess spring has finally sprung and I'm a happy gardener!

Finally, Tomatoes are hardening off!

2011-05-18T12:08:00.000-07:00

Its still overcast and all morning we had a drizzly wetness coming down from the sky, but now its stopped so I hurried to get my tomato seedlings outside to start the hardening off process.

Here are 3 trays of them. That's 4 of my lettuces in the pot on the left. They are growing very well.
Don't be concerned about the tall grasses you see in these photos. I like to cut my grasses by hand and chop them smaller, dry them, and use them as dry mulch in my veggie beds and around my strawberry bed. So there's a method to my madness of allowing them to grow in the bare spots between the perennial bushes.

Here's the 4th tray of tomatoes outside. I'll let them have a few hours since its not sunny at all and its in the low 60s and no breeze. They should do well with that today.

These are some Hailstone white radishes in the A-frame. They are doing well so maybe in another week or so I'll harvest some radishes.

There are lettuces in the coldframe along with mache, spinach, and mizuna.

From this coldframe I am going to transplant some of the lettuces beneath the broccoli and cauliflower seedlings in the raised beds. They'll be protected from the sun that way and will be harvested before the bigger plants need all the nutrients in the soil around them.

Our forecast is for 70s this weekend. I hope the rain stays minimal during the next few days. My crops need some sunshine.

I've still got peppers and eggplant seedlings under the lights but they will stay there another couple of weeks before my daring to put them out to harden off. They are less tolerant of lower temperatures that tomatoes.

My seedlings are really getting big.

2011-05-16T09:50:00.000-07:00

If it wasn't raining today, I'd have them out hardening off, but unfortunately, we had 1 1/2" of rain yesterday and more today and for the rest of the week there's going to be 50% chance of rain every day and nite. Ugh!
That means the seedlings have to stay inside a little longer than I'd hoped.

As you can see here, my tomato plants are getting big. They are in 16-oz cups and 5" 2-litre soda bottles that have air-pruning slits to prevent the roots from getting rootbound.

Here are more toms under more lights and to the right I have eggplant and pepper seedlings.

More eggplants and peppers here. I think I'll have enough for me, my daughter and a few left for the plant sale in early June.

I'm really itching to get them outdoors, but I'll have to be patient. I don't want them drowning.

Don't forget to check the Video List on the right for helpful videos that are worth a watch!

I added a Video list to my site.

2011-05-15T19:12:00.000-07:00

I know how helpful videos can be.

I've hunted YouTube for videos that were clear and helpful and will make a list of those I think merit watching.

The first one is on suckering tomatoes. The video shows strung tomatoes, but the method works with staked and caged tomatoes as well. The instructions are clear, the camera work easy to watch, and the expert is so knowledgable, one can learn from her.

Please check the list on the right and look for "Suckering Tomatoes" and give it some attention. This is good for newbies and experienced alike.

They're growing!

2011-05-14T13:20:00.000-07:00

It seems like we've waited forever but now some of the seeds are sprouting and things are growing. We've had some cold nites, in the 30s and 40s and the days were pretty nice for a few, in the high 60s, but now its back to the 50s again. I was thinking of putting my tomatoes out to harden off, but I think I'll wait til this 3 days of 50s passes.

My Alpine strawberries are starting to blossom. I tucked a few pansies in among them for added color. These are very tiny berries, but tasty. A treat for the gardener when going thru to see what needs watering, what weeds need to be pulled. A bonus I really enjoy on my rounds.

In the coldframe, lettuces and spinach have started and even the Mache (corn salad) and mizuna are poking their greens above ground.

In the A-frame that's garlic on both ends planted last Oct. They are doing well. In the squares in front are carrots, spinach, scallions, arugula, claytonia and at the top side are 2 outside sqs of radishes. I'm saving space on the side beside the garlic for my two Beaverlodge Slicer determinate tomato plants. They are growing great indoors under the lights and I'll be putting them out to harden off this week along with several other tomatoes.
I need to wait a bit longer on the peppers and eggplant. They don't like it too cool so I'll be patient with them.

My son patched this green compost spinner for me. It was given to me and I am very grateful. It will make compost faster than the black one in the background which I have to pull forward by hand to turn it. My muscles aren't as good as they used to me so I have a harder time with that one. I hope to get more compost made this season with the addition of the spinning composter. That's piles of dried leaves from last fall near the black composter. They make an excellent brown ingredient to the compost.

As for the flower gardens, on the rather shady hill beside the deck I grow hostas but I also have a couple of bleeding hearts. This is the large pink one just starting to bloom. I love the color.

Near my kitchen door is the large white bleeding heart, also just beginning to share its blossoms.

A favorite of mine is my Epimedium plant, the Yubae variety. The blossoms look like tiny fairies flitting among the green leaves. Too bad it doesn't last very long. Its an early spring pleaser.

I can see the peony bushes are sending out their long shoots and the roses are starting to add some green leaves.

Even the rhododendrums, Little Gem, that I rescued from the half-price table at Home Depot last year are giving me blossoms.

My Almaden Duke cherry, a dwarf tree that was ravaged by deer 2 yrs ago in its youth, is making a comeback and is covered with blossoms this year. Maybe this is the year we'll get some cherries. I hope so. Its a survivor. I hope hanging Irish Spring soap in net bags nearby continues to keep the deer at bay. I put new soap in the bags in the spring. I understand only an anti-perspirant soap works. Well, its worked for me last year and so far this year.

If you're troubled with deer, try this. It works for me.

Now its just a waiting game in my garden. Waiting for warmer days and nites. Waiting to bring seedlings outside to harden off. Waiting for warmer nites to put out the eggplant. Waiting for blossoms in the regular strawberry beds. Waiting for blueberries to show up on my 5 young blueberry bushes.

And waiting for this darling, a wild Lady's Slipper, to show her colors.

She hides in the woods on the other side of our parking area and brings forth only one bloom every year. I'm eager to see it again this year. I placed a little white picket fencing to mark her home so no one would walk over it in their rambles.
HAPPY GARDENING!

I'm growing my herbs in pots this year.

2011-05-08T17:49:00.000-07:00

I want to reserve my raised bed space for more veggies, so this year the herbs will all go into pots along with a few cherry tomatoes and maybe a dwarf pepper and a Gretel eggplant which is quite small as well as some greens. Most are 10" pots but the tomatoes will go into 12" pots.

Arugula recently seeded in a pot is doing well.

German Thyme in a hanging basket.

Curled Parsley

Italian Parsley

Rosemary

Spicy Globe Basil

Four heading lettuce in a shallow pot doing extremely well.

I'll have to harvest a couple to make room for the other 2 to grow larger.

Using pots this year will free up several squares in the raised beds of my Square Foot Garden this year for more eggplant, peppers and tomatoes. I've even potted up flowers; pansies, ranunculas, calendula and nasturtiums. In the raised beds I also have 2 squares of pansies and one of nasturtiums. Pansies, calendula and nasturtiums are edible and I just loved the red color of the ranunculus.

The Ranunculas beside the strawberry bed.

I still have to set up a deck pot with some basil and parsley so its handy whenever my daughter-in-law needs to few cuttings for cooking.

I'm so glad that spring has finally arrived.

The Sugar Snap Peas in the raised bed sown on Apr 18th are really popping up after the warm rain we had the last 2 days. They really surprised me.

Hooray for Spring!

I up-potted several tomatoes and cauliflower.

2011-05-05T19:11:00.000-07:00

The seedlings in their 2" pots are doing well. Some are so well-grown I had to up-pot them to 4" air-pruner pots and 16-oz cups when I ran out of the others.

These are cauliflower and tomato seedlings in the 2 types of pots.

These are all tomatoes in 4-5" air pruner pots I made from soda bottles.

Here are many still in their 2" soil blocks for now.

And more......

and more. Among all these are eggplants, peppers, and more tomatoes. Some can wait another week, some a little longer, before transplanting them into larger containers.

The time to plant warm-weather crops is after the last frost-free date or a week after and I don't want to hurry. I've found that if you plant them too early and it gets cool, the growth stops and won't start again til it warms up. I find that just waiting for warmer weather the plants get a good healthy start and they can catch up and even surpass seedlings planted when its not warm enough. This year I'm going to wait a little longer.

May 1st, things are starting to grow.

2011-05-01T16:23:00.000-07:00

I just love gardening and seeing the green itty bitties break thru the soil to greet the sun.

They're small, but I love 'em. These are sugar snap peas sown April 19th and breaking ground.

Here's a closeup of one sown April 12th. They are starting to grow.

In the cold frame, there are lettuces; Devil's Tongue in front and Crispino in the rear square.

In the A-frame my radishes, Cherriette and Scarlet Globe are popping.

In the raised beds themselves, my broccoli and cabbages are doing well. These are just 2 of them.

The strawberry bed has been composted. That's a Ranunclus plant in the turquoise pot.

In a shallow pot, 4 Crispino head lettuces are growing well.

Arugula is just sprouting from seeds.

Inside, under lights, I have another tray like this, plus 3 smaller ones, filled with eggplant, pepper and tomato seedlings in 2" soil blocks. They still need to be transplanted one more time to larger containers. I'll need some for myself and my daughter's house, but the rest will be up for grabs among the community gardeners, some of them newbies this year. What's left over will be given to the libary for their plant sale the 1st wk of June.

I spent most of my day at our local community garden helping to move a greenhouse to another spot and then enclosing it with poly plastic. It was a big job but there were 13 adults helping so it went well. Soon the seedlings can get transferred to that greenhouse, except for those that I will be keeping for myself and my daughter.

I hope you all had a wonderful gardening day today, this first day of May.

I planted my asparagus bed today.

2011-04-29T14:53:00.000-07:00

Finally, a day of sunshine and no t-storms threatening so I was out early planting my asparagus crowns.

My raised bed is a little over 3 ft wide so I dug trenches about 6 inches deep, 18" apart down the row. Three weeks ago I had added an inch of compost to this bed. Today when I dug the trench, I added 3 scoopsful of compost to the hole, mixed it together with the soil with my trowel, then raised the center portion on which the crown will rest. The roots of the crowns will hang over into the trenches on both sides as you can see here. The spacing between the crowns is 8" as per instructions with the order.

Next I covered the crowns with 2 inches of soil, leaving a bit of trench to fill in later as the asparagus grows.

For Jersey Knights, you don't have to have the 12" deep trench as for the older Washington varieties. Jersey Knights only need to be buried 6" deep. They also produce more asparagus because they are mostly male plants which makes for larger harvests.

The buckets marching alongside are filled with removed soil so as the asparagus grows, I'll be replacing the soil and burying the asparagus a little more.

I ordered 20 plants but they sent 21 so I used them all.

I didn't have to use the whole bed, so on the far side I'll be putting in a couple of zucchini plants. They need the room.

Later, after these old bones rested some, I finished composting my strawberry bed on the other side of the garden. Its been a lovely spring day, a good day to work outside.

HAPPY GARDENING!

I've got lots of 'babies' under lights now.

2011-04-21T11:38:00.000-07:00

The last couple of days I've been transplanting my itty bitty 3/4" soil blocks into the midi 2" soil blocks and putting them under lights.

Here's one tray of 2" soil blocks of eggplant, pepper, and tomato seedlings.

Here's another tray.

I even have a half dozen more. Actually I have a few cauliflower seedlings among them, but not many, and I think they may be too late to transplant outdoors when they are big enough, but we shall see what happens.

I'm surely going to have enough survive for myself, my daughter's garden and for the library's plant sale the first Sat in June. I've got several varieties I've not grown before which I'm curious about. Some are organic, some heirlooms and some hybrids among all these. On the heat mat I still have some mini 3/4" blocks that are just starting to lift their tiny heads so they will be transplanted to 2" blocks in the next day or two, also.

Outdoors its overcast, sometimes sunny, but windy as the dickens. I'm not working outside today except for earlier when I filled 4 plant pots with potting soil for herbs and added potting soil to my coldframe where I plan to grow my lettuces this year and some arugula. Its a place that can easily be covered with cheesecloth against too much sunlight, which causes lettuce to bolt. That way I can save squares in my raised beds for more eggplant since I have so many.

Tonite we're expecting temps will drop to 25*F so I've got old towels in the workshop ready to cover my new seedlings that have been put out so far this week. Other seedlings are still hardening off in my A-frame before transplanting. Tomorrow and the rest of the week will see warmer nights, in the mid- to high 30s which is fine for my cool-weather seedlings already outdoors.

Here's some broccoli and cabbages already transplanted into a bed.

I have a particular garden plan and plant accordingly. In most cases, the same plant is not side-by-side, except for peppers which love rubbing shoulders with another pepper plant. Its also a good way to be sure the same crop doesn't grow where it grew last year and using up all the nutrients for that particular crop's needs.

My asparagus shipment arrived yesterday so those 20 Jersey Knight crowns have to be planted tomorrow when the day is expected to be a bit cloudy and in the 50s. I've reserved one of my raised berms behind my 9 raised beds for their permanent home since they need a place to stay for the next 15-20 years. I'm looking forward to a great day for planting a few more things tomorrow.

HAPPY GARDENING FRIENDS!

GROWING TOMATOES!

2011-04-19T15:09:00.000-07:00

They come in all shapes and sizes these days, from tiny currant tomatoes to bonanza Brandywine and Dixie Sweets weighing a pound or more. Colors, too, are variable. They are ripe in yellow, green, purple, pink and reds. Taste varies as well and there are sweet slicing tomatoes to delicious paste tomatoes to make your own tomato sauces. This is a crop that nearly everyone can use.

It's that time again. In Maine we're 6 weeks before last frost date so we have to get our seeds started now if we're starting them indoors.

Germinates in 6-8 days in a warm place around 75-80* so most cases tomatoes need a heat mat on which the seeds can warm.

Things to remember in your garden.....Don't plant tomatoes where you've grown eggplant, peppers or potatoes the year before. If your avid about companion crops, avoid planting beside dill, fennel, pole beans and potatoes. They like asparagus, bush beans, cabbage family crops, carrots, cukes, garlic, head lettuce, onion, and peppers as their neighbors.

You can always utilize the space by planting leaf lettuce below a staked tomato plant. The lettuce will have been harvested before the tomato grows so large it blocks out all the sun and the lettuce thrives before it gets too hot.

To start seeds, you can use cell packs or soil blocks 6 weeks before the last frost-free date for your area. Those seedlings can be transplanted outdoors on the frost-free date or a week later.

Sow your seeds in your seed-starting medium. Place in a warm place or on a heat mat and keep the soil moist til they germinate. Once germinated, move the containers under lights. Shop lights with daylight bulbs in them are very suitable for this step.

The lights should stay on 14-16 hours a day and be only 1 1/2" - 2" above the tops of the seedlings.

As tomatoes grow, they need to be transplanted into 4" or 5" pots to make room for their growing roots. Whenever you transplant a tomato, bury it deeper than it was in its earlier container.

A week before you plan to transplant them outdoors, begin to harden them off. That just means getting the plant used to Mother Nature outdoors. Place your containers outside for an hour the first day, out of direct sunlight. The 2nd day put them outside about 2-3 hrs, out of direct sunlight. Each day extend the outdoor time for your plant. By the end of the week, start putting it in the sunlight for some of the time. After a week your seedling should be ready to go into the garden.

For the Square Foot Gardener, allow 1 square foot per tomato plant on the north side of your raised beds.

For the tradional row gardener, allow space according to instructions on the tomato seed packet.

Dig a hole for your plant, adding compost or composted manure to the soil and mix it in well. Then smooth it out and dig a hole for the plant itself. You want to bury that tomato plant right up to the top set of leaves, so dig your hole deep. Remove all the branches from the tomato up to the top few. Place your plant in the hole and fill up the hole to within a couple inches of the top leaves.

Place 3 toothpicks around the plant, right up against the stem itself. Bury the toothpicks halfway into the soil. This will prevent cutworms from winding around the stem and breaking off your tomato. Water well. Place plant markers so you know what variety you're growing.

If you are staking your tomatoes, place your stakes into the soil now. You don't want to wait til the plant grows and thereby damaging the roots if you plunge the stake in when its bigger.

If you are stringing them, you have about a week before you have to have those strings in place.

Do not mulch your tomatoes until the soil warms up, then mulch with straw or grass clippings to keep the plants from over-heating in the summer and to retain moisture around its roots.

These are staked tomatoes have been growing a couple of weeks. Tie tomatoes to the poles with strips of soft cloth or garden ties.

Removing suckers is another garden chore with tomatoes. You would be wise to remove all the bottom stems to clear the space near soil level to keep the plant clean and easy to weed. Suckers are the little green bits that start growing in the vee of branches. Don't start removing upper suckers until your tomatoes start to blossom. You want to remove only the suckers below the blossoming branches or you might nip off a blossoming branch by mistake.

I would suggest going to YouTube and view videos on the subject so you can see how its done.

A sucker is a new plant and if you leave them to grow, they take energy from the existing plant which is trying to grow a crop. Remove the suckers and your tomatoes will grow abundantly. If you want to start a new plant, you can do so by cutting out the sucker and placing it in a jar of water til it roots.

Watering: They need 1" of water a week. If Mother Nature doesn't provide it, you must. Water them more when they are blossoming.

Water needs are moderate to high during growth, low during harvest.

You can feed your tomatoes with compost tea or fish emulsion (kelp) every 2-3 weeks.

This is the dreaded tomato hornworm. It grows large and its appetite is huge when it comes to tomatoes. It can strip a tomato plant in a couple of days.

The best way to prevent loss to this creature is to pick them off your plants and crush them. Be careful or you will spurt green liquid on yourself.

Since they are the same color as the plant itself, feel under the leaves for it. It will be soft and you can pull it off before it does more damage.

Harvesting: Pick tomatoes as soon as they ripen to keep the plant producing. After the first tomatoes are picked, side-dress the plant with compost.

Remember, do NOT put tomatoes in your refrigerator. They keep their best flavor if kept out on the counter at room temperature.

As frost date approaches, remove bottom leaves, flowers and any fruits that will not ripen in time, like any hard solid green or small fruits. This leaves those that are ripening with more energy to grow quickly. Any with the least bit of pink will ripen.

Pick your partially-ripened fruits and wrap them in a piece of newspaper. Place in styrofoam container in a warm spot. Add a piece of apple. They will finish ripening for you.
Green tomatoes make a great green tomato relish and fried green tomatoes.

If you have a bonanza of ripe tomatoes, now is the time to save tomatoes to freeze and make tomato sauce to freeze. You can sun dry them or freeze them. You can roast your tomatoes in their skins and put them in freezer bags. They are delicious in your sauces, chili, and pizzas later.

HAPPY GARDENING!

I BUILT AN EASY COLDFRAME.

2011-04-16T10:54:00.000-07:00

My coldframe is finished. It was easy to make so I want to share it.

Here's the finished product.

Supply List:
Base:
One 12' lumber 2" x 12" cut into 2' and 4' lengths
Two sets corner braces (8) about 2 1/2"
Lid:
Two 6' long poles, 1"x2"
One set of four, 1 1/2" corner braces
Vinyl plastic (for cover) 5' by 2 1/2' rectangle
Thumb Tacks

Note of interest: I wanted my coldframe tall enough that it would take my winter sowings as the plants grew to size. I plan to get lots of use out of this tool. I'm sure a shorter one could also be useful, but I think 12" is needed also to harden off seedlings in the box before they are put outdoors. Therefore, try to use 12" lumber if you can.

I had Home Depot cut the 12-ft long lumber into two 4' and two 2' lengths.
Two corner braces were screwed into all four of the inside corners.
This made the base.
I slanted the soil on which I placed it so the north side (left, long side) was a bit
higher. To do this I dug out the soil in the south and added it to the north end.

I placed mine over a raised berm so I'll only need to add some potting soil for my seedlings. You can add whatever soil you need for yours.
Next I had to make the lid......

I bought two 6' long pine poles that are 1" x 2" in widths. I laid them out on the picnic table in the same shape as the coldframe base.

I screwed corner braces into all four corners to make its shape.

I laid the plastic over the lid and pulled it taut, then tacked it. I wanted overhang on all four sides. This will give added draft prevention when the lid is in place over the coldframe base.

Here it is finished with the lid atop the coldframe base. I like the plastic overhangs preventing drafts from entering the box.

I have bricks to stabilize the top during windy days and nites.

I also found that placing a brick at the back of each end, laid on the base itself and with the lid laid atop the bricks, gives air flow so the coldframe doesn't overheat.

I've put a photo tutorial in my Tutorial Listings.

It was a good planting day today.

2011-04-12T20:53:00.000-07:00

I was busy outdoors sowing seeds. I did sugar snap peas, 2 types of lettuces, 4 kinds of carrots, including White Satin and Atomic Red, just for kicks, scallions, and 2 types of radishes. In my raised berm beside the coldframe I sowed some Alpine Alexandria Strawberry seeds to expand that small bed. They are good and tasty berries, tho very small.

The lettuces are in the coldframe, Devil's Tongue in the front square and Iceberg Crispino in the back square. I cover my new rows with vermiculite so I can see where they should be germinating but also because it gives them a nice light covering so they can push thru the top to germinate.

Here's the A-frame with its rows of seeds sown today. It reached 61F and sunny today, but tonite will drop to 36* so I closed the plastic covers on both coldframe and A-frame for the nite. We're expecting lots of rain the next 3 days so keeping it closed will keep the seeds from being washed away.

I also sowed a short stretch of sugar snow peas today. I don't sow them all at the same time so I can spread out the harvest by sowing them every 10-14 days instead.

I'm so happy to be doing things outside and sowing seeds. Another growing season has finally begun for me.

HAPPY GARDENING!

Yippee! Spring is here and its 64*F today

2011-04-09T10:54:00.000-07:00

The sun is shining and its hit 64*F so I've been outside getting things done in my garden.
The first thing I did was put up my A-frame over bed #9 as I did last year.

In this bed from last year are two squares with 4 garlic planted last Columbus Day week.

As you can see, they came thru winter just fine and they are sprouting green. I have two squares in 2 other raised beds as well and they, too, are doing great. Its so nice to see anything sprouting in my garden.

This past week my son built my 2' by 4' coldframe for me and today I placed it at a slant in my hilled bed #11. I dug away the soil in the front (rt in photo) and hilled it further in the back (left) so it would angle down facing south, just a little. The soil in the hilled bed is rich and dark.

Until I can build my top frame for it, I've just covered it with plastic held down with rocks so the soil can heat up a little more. I like working with 12" wide lumber. It makes it easier for my old body to work in the beds and deeper beds mean crops with longer roots grow nicely.

This coldframe will have lots of duties. Among them a place to harden off young seedlings before they are planted in the garden. A great spot to place pepper seedlings that need some cooler nites before they are ready for the garden itself. During the season, a perfect place to start lettuces and other greens that I can transplant open spaces in my raised beds as they become available.

This week I'm going to choose some lettuce seeds to start in the coldframe.

The best thing for me, I think, will be a place to extend my harvests into early winter in the coldframe. Things like late spinach, arugula, mache (corn salad), mizuna, claytonia are greens that can withstand some cold if they are given enough cover. In the coldframe and with a wall of insulation along the sides and a double layer of plastic over the top, they should give us greens thru a good part of the winter.

Speaking of harvest, I got my first harvest today. Parsnips! They were planted in 3 adjoining squares last year and most were left to overwinter. They lived thru 2 feet of snow burying them thru the last 3 months.

Parsnips improve in flavor if left thru a couple of frosts and even to overwinter into spring. The greenery you see are more parsnips which I will have to harvest this week, before they lose their flavor from new growth.

I hope other New England gardeners are as happy as am I with the spring weather finally arriving.

HAPPY GARDENING!

GROWING PEPPERS!

2011-04-07T11:20:00.000-07:00

Beautiful, colorful peppers. There are all colors now and varieties in both sweet and hot cultivars for anyone's preference.

This warm-season crop can sometimes be difficult to grow in Maine so takes a little care, and starting them can be even harder if you want bountiful crops.

Rotation: Do not follow behind eggplant, tomatoes and potatoes.
Avoid: Fennel, Kohlrabi
Good Companions: Carrot, Onion, Parsley, Peas
Preferred Soil Temps: 70-85*F         Preferred PH 5.5-7.0
Seed Life 2-3 Years
You can intercrop carrots with peppers. Just sow a few carrot seeds between the pepper plants.
Starting:
You can start seeds indoors 7-8 weeks before your last frost date. Start 2 seeds in 2" pots with air temps 70-75*F. Use a heat pad to maintain heat even under the pots placed under lights 12 hrs a day at 75 degrees. Keep the soil moist but not wet.

After they germinate, remove the weaker plant but cutting at soil level. Never pull it out.

As soon as true leaves appear, transplant to 4" pots and lower soil temp to 70*F days and 60* nites.

When 3rd set of true leaves appear, lower nite temp to 55* for 4 weeks. A coldframe will probably be best for this step since your home or basement will no doubt be too warm by this time.

Planting:
For Square Foot gardens, spacing is one plant per foot square. Peppers like to rub shoulders with another pepper, so plant 2 of the same type, sweet or hot, side by side a foot apart.
If row gardening, give them 18" of space apart.

I understand its best to keep sweet and hot varieties separated from each other because they can affect each other's flavor, but I'm not sure if that's true. Just the same, its best to be safe than sorry. I keep mine separated.

Plants should be ready for the outdoor garden when they are 4-6" tall. Use a plastic mulch to warm up the beds a couple weeks before planting. Harden off the plants a week before planting them outside.

If blossoms appear before the move to garden beds/rows, remove them now and a week after transplanting outdoors. Soil needs to be 60* or more so this is usually 2-3 weeks AFTER your last frost date.   Don't rush them. They like heat.

If you buy seedlings from the nursery or box stores, they, too, should be planted outdoors 2-3 weeks AFTER your last frost date.

Dig your holes 8" deep, fill with composted soil to 3" from the top.   Set plant at least 2" deep, packing soil firmly about the roots. Add enough soil to be level with the surface.

If you are going to add a support, like one of those wire stakes with the small circle at the top, do it now. You don't want to injure the roots later. Place the support in the soil with the circle turned away from the plant itself. When the plant grows up far enough to need the support, just give the circle a turn inwards and slide the stem inside the circle.

Water the new seedlings.

Place mulch around each plant leaving about a 5" circle open at the base. You can use straw, dried grass, or newspaper. For newspaper mulch use 4 layers of paper. Cut a 12" square with the center removed.   Cut one side of the newspaper from edge to center so you can encircle your plant easily. Weight it down around the edges with soil.   Just be sure the soil in this patch of garden has warmed before you cover it with mulch.

To protect the young seedling from cutworm, break a toothpick in half and place one half, pointed end down, into the soil right against the side of the stem and the other half in the soil on the other side of the stem. This will prevent the cutworms from girdling the stem and killing the plant. As the plant grows, it will easily dislodge the toothpicks later.

To give your seedling added warmth, place a cutaway gallon milk jug (the bottom is cut away) over the plant with the spout cap removed. Any cloche will do. In late afternoons, replace the cap on the jug to keep the accumulated heat inside during the cooler nites. Just be sure you remove those caps in the morning before the sun heats up or you could cook your pepper before its time.

Watering:
Water moderately, about an inch of water a week until fruits set.
They need less water as the plants mature.

Harvesting:
Sweet peppers get sweeter as they turn from green to red, or the color for their variety, which these days can be yellow and orange as well.
Hot peppers get hotter as they turn from green to red.

Peppers hot on the vine.

If you pick your peppers as they attain table size, they will keep producing more peppers, so its best to pick them while still green early in the season. If you let them ripen to their final color, production will cease.

Cut them from the vine, don't pull, leaving a half inch stem. As you cut your first peppers, its time to side-dress (add compost around each plant) to keep up production.

Allow them to mature to red only at the end of the season so their stopping production will not matter.

If a frost is predicted, pick all the fruits or pull out the plant by its roots and hang it upside down in a cool, dry place to ripen its last fruits.

Freezing Peppers:
Slice them raw and place in freezer containers or dry hot peppers. Do NOT blanch them.

Stuffed peppers in several colors.

Enjoy your fresh harvest. The flavor can't be beat by store-bought peppers.
HAPPY GARDENING!

Garden not quite ready yet.

2011-04-07T09:25:00.000-07:00

I took a stroll thru my veggie garden raised beds and they are not quite ready for growing things. For one thing, its too darn cold and the nites are dropping to the low 20s. Too cold for even cold-weather crops.

My boxes are now pretty much free of snow except for a couple. The winter rye I sowed last fall to add green manure to my beds is green and robust. I can foresee a difficult time getting that cut back to soil level and worked into the top couple inches. Even under 2 feet of snow most of the winter, the rye is coming up green and thick. Ugh.

Three of my raised beds I covered with plastic before the last storm last week so the soil can warm up quicker. I'm getting anxious to put in some seedlings as soon as the daily temps stay up where the plants can live with it.

One long berm is covered in preparation for planting asparagus crowns when they arrive in the mail. To all these beds I need to add compost before starting any sowing or planting at all. My personal store of compost is depleted and my composter hasn't been turned all winter (couldn't get to it thru the high snows) so there's not much there to use. I'll have to get some at Lowe's or Home Depot or even Walmart, but they don't even have any in stock here yet. Still reeling from the long, white winter, I guess.

Along the driveway, which is my dwarf fruit tree orchard, I found the Fuji apple planted last year has a broken leader branch. That can very well mean I'll lose the tree completely. I'm hoping it survives.

The others, the Amalden Duke cherry, Granny Smith, and Honey Crisp apples seem to have fared just fine. The snows were even deeper than you see them here after several warming days that melted the snows down a bit.

I have a dwarf Red Haven Peach tree arriving this week to be planted in that tree line. I'll have it shoveled out and my grandson will be digging the hole as soon as needed.

With all the setbacks so far this season, I'm still hopeful I'll get rolling soon and there will be green things to harvest in May, like lettuces and spinach, if nothing else. The broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower seedlings await their transplanting when the weather improves.

HAPPY GARDENING DREAMS!

Ugh! More snow today.

2011-04-01T12:35:00.000-07:00

Its beautiful, I know, but as a gardener who has been starting seeds indoors in the hopes of transplanting them out in my raised beds this month, I'm not a happy camper.

Even my flower garden isn't happy. The heavy snow has laid low branches on roses and perennials without regard. The Iris I saw sprouting just yesterday, is buried under a fresh 8" of snow and more falling.

I don't dare start my peppers and eggplants because if they get any growth at all under my lights, I won't have anywhere outdoors to plant them.

I'm afriad an early start this year just isn't in the cards. I'll try to be patient and get outside in my garden when Mother Nature deems it the right time.

HAPPY GARDENING PLANS!

My seedlings are doing well.

2011-03-30T12:01:00.000-07:00

I have seedlings under lights right now and they are doing well, most of them.

These are broccoli seedlings, DiCicco, Apollo, and Munchkins.

They are all in 16-oz cups for now.

These cabbages are mostly Super Red 80s which are minis and a Parel. They are still in 2" soil blocks. I'll put them in 16 oz cups later today. They need more room to grow.

Among my Cauliflowers in 2" soil blocks are Cheddar, Snowball and Violet Queen. They, too, need to be up-potted to 16-oz cups today.

My Michihili, Chinese cabbage, in its own 8" pot doesn't seem to be doing too much. I've never grown them before and I started this much too early inside, but kept it and put it in its own 8" pot to grow inside. It may not work out as planned. We shall see what time brings.

In the meantime, I bought my lumber and had it cut for a 4 by 2 foot cold frame. I haven't found any glass to cover it yet so may go with plastic tacked to a 1" x 2" frame.

I made myself a garden apron.

2011-03-28T16:56:00.000-07:00

I wanted a garden apron that would hold ALL the stuff I like to carry at one time in the garden. I don't like going back and forth from the workshop to pick up another tool when needed.

Here is is hanging on my design wall, a little crookedly in the pinning to the wall, but it's really fine to wear.

The longer side pockets are out of the way and can carry hand cultivator, hoe, scissors, pruner, soil thermometer, garden gloves.

Closeup view

The center pockets consist of two rows. The back row are all narrow pockets for pen, pencil, jack knife, plant labels, plant markers, dibble and narrow things not longer than about 6" or so, and the front two wider pockets hold my small garden notebook, tape measure and a pocket to hold several seed packets.

I'm ready for spring.

Now if only Mother Nature would cooperate and melt the ice-covered snow that seems to be a permanent fixture around here.

HAPPY GARDENING!

Up-Potting some seedlings today.

2011-03-22T15:04:00.000-07:00

I know I've said we have long, white winters, but enough is enough. Yesterday and today both we had more snow. Not much, but it means the foot or more over my garden beds is accumulating as I write. That's a little too much. By now we should have clean yards and I should be out there prepping for spring. No such luck. I've got asparagus plants on order and I'm expecting them anytime and nowhere to plant them. And around April 5th my dwarf New Haven Peach is arriving. Ugh! Problems for gardeners around here this year.

All this bad weather means I had to up-pot some of my soil blocks to containers.

I took some 16-oz plastic cups I had and cut slits in 4 places around it, from just about halfway up the cups to the very bottom, for air-pruning and water drainage.

I took some of my 2" soil blocks and placed the seedlings in the cups. I've got Broccoli: Apollo, DiCicco (from seed 4 yrs old) and Munchkin and one unknown Parsley seedling. The 2 larger pots are my Genovese Basil disks under the lights.

I also took the Chinese cabbage 2" block I kept and put it in an 8" pot. I started the Chinese cabbage, Michihili, much to early. I didn't realize they should be started later than normal cabbages so I kept only one of the seedlings to try in a pot.

Here's the Michihili

If it ever warms up enough outside, I will put the pot outside to finish its growth, so this is an experiment. Will it, or will it not, grow well in a pot until harvest time? Time will tell.

I've got some cabbages, both Primax and the mini Super Red 80, and a Basil still in 2" blocks for now. I'm sure I'll be up-potting those as well. I don't foresee me in my garden in the next 3 weeks. I want to see if I can find some larger plastic cups before I up-pot any more seedlings.

Because of the bad weather this spring, I haven't even started my peppers or eggplant. I don't dare.

I saved some cauliflower starts and up-potted them to 2" blocks just in case I can use them this year. One never knows when it comes to weather.

For Cauliflower I've got Snowball and Violet Queen here and 2 Munchkin Broccoli.

One can only hope Mother Nature smiles on us sometime soon.

Happy Gardening!

GROWING EGGPLANT

2011-03-17T12:57:00.000-07:00

Eggplant is a warm-weather crop that has to be started from seed indoors or you can buy seedlings at the nurseries and home improvement stores.

Eggplant comes in a variety of colors and shapes but they pretty much taste the same. Choose the ones that appeal to you and start sowing seed indoors, or you can always buy started seedlings from nurseries and home improvement stores if you'd prefer, though choices will be very limited.

Start sowing seed indoors 7 weeks before the last frost date in your area. These and any you bought elsewhere, can be transplanted outdoors 2 weeks AFTER last frost date.

Here are many seedlings growing under lights.

If starting your own, soak seeds in water overnite before starting them. Bottom heat should be around 80*- 90*F for the 8-10 days they need to sprout. A heat mat will fulfill this step or a heated greenhouse.

If seeds are started in flats, transfer seedlings to individual pots once they reach 3" tall.

When outside nite temps are above 50*F gradually expose them to the outdoors to harden off. Keep transplants in larger pots until outside air and soil is at least 70*F.

Be very careful transplanting. Roots are highly sensitive. Keep row covers handy for frosty nites.

As planting holes are dug, add a handful of bonemeal to each one and a little liquid manure. Liquid manure: Use well-aged or composted manure and put a cupful in a large bucket. Add two gallons of sun-warmed water. Swirl it around with a skewer or stick and then pour into a jar or old unused pitcher thru a small sieve or cheesecloth to strain it and pour about half a cupful of liquid around the new seedlings. This isn't absolutely necessary, but it gives a good boost to new seedlings.

Transplant the seedlings a little deeper than they were in the pot. Protect from cutworms with a half toothpick buried in the soil beside the seedlings on two sides. Water well and pour 1-2 cups of compost tea around each plant. Mulch lightly immediately after transplanting to decrease weed growth.

Compost tea: Place a cupful of well-aged compost in a pitcher of 8 cups of water. Stir well and pour thru strainer or cheesecloth.

To get more crops per space, interplant with an early crop such as lettuce, between eggplants.

When eggplants bloom, apply more liquid fertilizer in the form of compost tea or liquid seaweed according to directions, and repeat monthly.

They need 1" to 1 1/2" of water weekly.

Increase Production: Pinch with your fingernail above the 5th leaf when the plant has 6 or 7 leaves. This spurs the lateral bud to bear flowers and fruit.

Young eggplantas just starting to sprout.

Harvesting: Liquid feed weekly once the eggplant starts producing.

Harvest in ongoing once it begins. They are ready to pick when skin has a high gloss. Test for Ripeness: Gently press thumb into fruit. If shiny skin dulls and stays a bit dented, its ready. Cut stem with sharp knife or pruning shears with 1" of stem attached.

Pick when fruits are young and only 1/2 to 1/3 their full, mature size for good taste.

They will continue to produce thru September. They keep well in the fridge for about 2 weeks.

If cut open and seeds are brown, its past its prime and may taste bitter.

Eggplant Parmesan is always a family favorite.

HAPPY GARDENING!

My Basil disks are germinating.

2011-03-13T13:43:00.000-07:00

This year I bought a package of 3 Genovese Basil disks from Territorial Seed. I hoped for an easier way to start Basil. Last year starting them from seed didn't work for me. I ended up buying from Home Dept.
On Mar 5th I planted 2 of the disks as instructed. I put the 6" pots right under the lights. By Mar 9th nothing had happened so I moved both pots to my heating mat. Lo and behold, little green things began popping up their heads on Mar 12th on the heat mat.

Here's those little green heads. I love it. I don't do well with herbs so this is a breakthrough for me. They are now in the furnace room, under the lights, where it is a steady 66* day and nite.

I can almost feel spring in the air. The days have been in the 40s the last few, and the snows are melting, melting, melting. I may be able to see my raised beds next week.

I've started Broccoli and Cabbages.....

2011-03-12T15:35:00.000-08:00

I love this time of year. I get to start my seeds, germinate them, and put them under lights to grow enough to be transplanted in my Square Foot Garden later.

I've got 14 seedlings started in 2" soil blocks here. Four Super Red 80 mini cabbages, 1 Michihili Chinese Cabbage (I've never tried them before), 1 Basil, 1 Parsley, and 7 assorted Broccolis; Apollo, Munchkin and DiCicco.

I've started some herbs and Cauliflower in smaller 3/4" soil blocks but they aren't ready for their 2" blocks yet.

In two 6" pots I placed a Genovese Basil disk to see how that works. They are on the heat mat right now. I tried them under the lights for almost a week but nothing happened, so I put the 2 pots on the heat mat and they are starting to perk up the tiniest bit thru the vermiculite.

Don't you just love the herald of spring!

Are You Wondering What to Grow in Your Garden?

2011-03-12T15:06:00.000-08:00

Your list needn't be long nor your garden very big. If you Square Foot Garden you can get your needs into 3 or more 4' by 4' raised beds and enjoy fresh, healthy, tasty crops all summer long. Even one 4' by 4' raised bed, a salad bed, can give you your salad makings throughout the summer, lettuce, tomatoes, basil and even cucumbers.

Here's a few ideas.....

As you decide what vegetables to grow in your garden, the most important question to ask is DOES MY FAMILY EAT THIS? If you don't like it enough to buy, cook, and serve it to your family, chances are you will just be frustrated when you plant, nurture, and harvest it only to be rejected at the dinner table.

I'm not discouraging you from trying something new--but maybe limit your experiments to one or two vegetables per season. If you discover a new favorite, by all means add it to the garden and try something new next year!

Here is a list of suggested vegetables for first-time gardeners.

Lettuce
Lettuce is great because it grows quickly, and you can harvest the outside leaves while it's growing. It does best with cooler temperatures, and can tolerate shade. Unlike some vegetables, everyone knows how to eat lettuce.

Green Beans
Once they emerge from the soil and develop four true leaves, not much bothers bush beans. They don't tolerate freezing temperatures, and will mature mid-summer. These are delicious raw (with Ranch dip!) or steamed (with butter).

Basil
Basil grows quickly and easily, and harvesting leaves and/or pinching off the ends actually promotes more growth! It is the easiest herb to grow, and unlike Thyme and Rosemary, I find lots of uses for it while cooking.

Green Onions
Growing onions for storage can be full of misadventures, but it's almost impossible to mess up green onions. Plant sets or transplants (not seeds) purchased at a local nursery or home and garden store. They can tolerate cool weather, but will continue to grow during warmer temperatures. Green onions are great in salads, stir fry, soups, and more!

Snap or Snow Peas
In my opinion, there is nothing better than fresh peas! The snap and snow varieties allow you to eat the shell, so you get more bang for your buck. Plant these early, as soon as you can work the soil. It's best if they have a trellis for support. Again, peas are great in soups and stir fry, in salads or with dip.

Zucchini or Summer Squash
Let's face it, zucchini grows like a weed. I think one plant is more than enough for a family of four. The problem with zucchini is not growing it-it is the most fool-proof of all vegetables. The real challenge is finding enough recipes to eat it all! Try zucchini quiche, Ratatouille, brownies, and patties in addition to the standard bread.

Tomatoes
I put tomatoes toward the end because they are not the easiest to grow, but I consider them an essential element of any garden. Your success is greater if you try growing grape or cherry varieties. Tomatoes cannot tolerate cold temperatures AT ALL, in fact the night time temps must be warm enough or it won't flower or set fruit. Be careful not to use too much fertilizer, or you'll have large, leafy plants and no tomatoes!

Choose a variety based on how you want to eat them-cherry, slicing, salad, paste. I love them in salads, cooked with basil on pasta, in fresh salsa, YUM!

Cucumbers
Cucumbers are relatively easy to grow, but they take up a lot of space. You can let them sprawl, and then hunt for your harvest, or trellis them. The secret to cukes is to keep them in full sun, but give the roots some shade. Harvest and use them on sandwiches, salads, or plain with salt or rice vinegar.

Beets
Last but not least, I include beets. I put it last because, really, who eats beets? However, they are easy to grow and don't take long between planting and harvest. If one crop fails, you have a chance to try again (and again) before the summer is over.

If you don't love beets for the root, grow them for the greens. They are a great and healthy addition to any salad, and with enough butter, even I can enjoy them lightly steamed.

The first thing to do is choose a few things and get started. Spring is just about here.

PLANT MARKERS FROM PAPER CLIPS

2011-03-05T12:24:00.000-08:00

I wanted to make some plant markers that were smaller than popsicle sticks or the cut venetian blinds I use outside, for my 3/4" soil blocks and 2" blocks I start inside.

I came up with bending paper clips and cutting cardstock 1/2" wide and double the length I need to write in information since I fold it in half.

The new markers are in the block on the right, my mini cabbage Super Red 80, Cauliflowers Cheddar and Early Snowball and some Italian Flat-leaf parsley.

I started by bending a paper clip open except for the small end.

Here is the beginning of the marker.

Then using the tip of my scissors to hold the bottom in place, I bent the long end up and over.

I did this twice to get a double loop. This will now hold your printed information. Cutting some cardstock a half inch wide and about 2 1/2" long, I doubled it over and stuck it in the clip.

Here are 3 ready to mark.

For my larger 2" blocks and larger pots I made some from the larger paper clips. The thin prongs slip easily into the soil just fine and the cardstock can be as long as you need it to fit in all the information you might need later.

Try it, you'll like it.

GROWING ASPARAGUS

2011-03-02T18:32:00.000-08:00

ASPARAGUS

Perennial Germinates 5-7 Days at 77 degrees F

Likes soil 60-70* PH 6.0-7.0

Rotating: Do NOT follow onion family plants.
Avoid: Onion family, chives, leeks, garlic
Likes: Basil, Calendula flowers, Parsley, Tomato

Asparagus is a plant that keeps on giving. Plant it once and you'll have vegetables for the next 20 years.

SOIL PREPARATION:

A sunny location is best. Remove weeds first.

Add composted manure, about 6", then some bone meal and green sand which needs to be mixed in. Read instructions on packages of amendments for amounts to add. Top with about 3-4" of peat moss.

Work all these into the top few inches of soil at least 2 weeks before planting.

Plant 1-yr-old crowns for the best results. Older plants will just mean more setback time and sowing seeds takes too long. Buy 1-yr-olds and plant them 4 weeks before your last frost date.

Shipping Notes: If not transplanted immediately, keep them in their package or wrap in spagnum moss that is slightly damp, not wet. Plant as soon as weather permits.

Make your rows 8" apart with spacing for plants within rows at about 18 inches.

You can make a trench 12" deep and about 15" wide, add a few inches of compost to the bottom and cover with soil. Make a hill in center and drape the crown over the hill. Refill hole with 2" of soil over the crown.

As plants grow continue to refill trench with more soil.

Keep bed watered and free of weeds.

Problems:

Asparagus beetle; Pick them off and destroy any dead stalks at end of season.

Asparagus Rust; common, but modern varieties are rust resistant.

Harvest:

Don't pick the puny spears the first year. Leave it to turn to foliage to feed the roots.

Asparagus foliage

Do not cut down foliage till late winter or let it die down on its own, even if it turns yellow.

End of winter, cut down old foliage and dump it or haul it away. Do not compost it because it might harbor disease.

2nd Spring:

Pick only those spears as thick as your finger.

Water and mulch the bed, top dress with compost or manure or liquid fertilizer after harvest and again in fall each and every year.

3rd Year:

More spears will have sprouted.

Its okay to pick them this year, but only those finger-sized and only for 2-4 weeks.

Subsequent Years:

Pick all the finger-sized ones you want for 6-8 weeks or until weather is hot and spears are coming up thin and spindly.

To harvest some early in the season, pull mulch away from plants to warm in the sun to let them grow sooner.

Roasted Asparagus:

Drizzle asparagus with olive oil.

Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Lay evenly on baking sheet

Bake 12 mins at 400 degreesF, shaking the pan once.

Now that your bed is in, you only have to enjoy the harvest year after year with minimum care in between.

Happy Gardening!

My mistake with Chinese Cabbage

2011-03-02T12:28:00.000-08:00

I finally looked up Chinese cabbage on Google and found that you cannot start it as early as regular cabbage indoors.
The info states it should be transplanted 2-3 wks before last frost date when its not more than 4-5 wks old. If my math is correct, that means I should start Chinese cabbage seeds indoors 7-8 wks before last frost date.

They are a cool weather Brassica crop that needs to reach maturity early in summer so its best to start them indoors or buy seedlings from a reputable dealer to plant outdoors at the right time.

Well, I started my seeds indoors 11 wks before and they are looking good but they will be much too old by transplanting time. Also, I should have started them in 2" soil blocks so their roots are disturbed as little as possible.

In their 3/4" soil blocks, they are looking good as baby seedlings right now (on the left) with the red mini-cabbages, Super Red 80s, to their right and beginning their growth on time.

I might try transplanting a Chinese into a pot later and keep it under lights indoors to see if I get a plant. It will be an experiment. I like to experiment and gain more hands-on gardening knowledge.

I'm hoping to have more plants indoors especially in the late fall and early winter when I bring herbs inside this year.

At the proper planting time, I will again sow Chinese cabbage seeds indoors so they can be transplanted outdoors at the correct time.

It pays to check into these things before one gets too eager and begins much too early. Luckily its just a few seeds that I'll lose and not large seedlings. Oh well, I always learn from my mistakes. I won't forget this for next year.

Besides, I've copied the information and put it in my garden notebook for future reference.

My Broccoli seedlings, which I planted at the correct time, are also doing well under the lights in their 2" soil blocks.

HAPPY GARDENING EVERYONE!

Growing Basil, an annual herb.

2011-02-27T11:02:00.000-08:00

Basil is a tender annual herb that needs well-drained, limey soil in full sun.

Sow seeds outdoors after all danger of frost has passed.

When 6" tall, pinch off flowers to keep leaf production going. Leave a few flowers to feed the bees.

Basil loves heat and needs cutting often to prevent it going to seed.

Pinch off its tops for most succulent growth.

To grow indoors in winter, either sow seeds or root from stem cuttings before first frost.

If leaves pale, soil is not rich enough. Add fish emulsion.

Harvest:

To dry, cut before blooming and dry on trays or screen in dark, well-ventilated place.

Freezing or packing them in oil preserves more flavor.

Makes an excellent herb vinegar (use red wine vinegar for best flavor).

Make sure you bring a pot of new cuttings inside as winter approaches to extend your harvest indoors.

Uses:

Put leaves whole, into salads, especially salads of sliced ripe garden tomatoes.

Chop the leaves and put them into sauces, soups and eggplant casseroles.

Puree great handsful of them in the food processor along with Italian parsley, olive oil, pine nuts, garlic and Parmesan cheese to make pesto----that glorious Italian sauce that turns a simple bowl of pasta into a delicacy.

Herbs and their General Care

2011-02-26T17:37:00.000-08:00

Herbs are a large category of assorted plants, with different starting times, spacing needs, leafy or woody growth habits, and annuals and perennials. Today we will cover herbs in general and touch on specific varieties at a later date.

Herbs are not fussy but enrich the soil with organic matter.

Herbs require full sun but they don't require as much water as regular vegetables so water only half as much.

Cultivate (weed) with a 3-prong cultivator gently. You don't want to disturb the herb's roots.

Grow herbs in pots whenever possible. If they are perennials you can take the pots inside when it gets cold.

To reduce watering needs, sink the pots in the ground for the season and pull out in fall to bring indoors. The water evaporates more quickly thru clay pots and the plastic ones heat up and cause quicker evaporation. If the pot is buried in the garden soil, it won't evaporate as much and requires less watering.

Indoor herbs in winter need 5-6 hours of light a day so a grow light works better than a cold window sill.

Do NOT plant coriander or dill in pots. They grow too leggy.

Put perennial herbs in large pots at least 10" in depth.

Thyme and Sweet Marjoram trail, so they can go in hanging baskets.

Make sure Mint is in a sunken container. It will take over your garden otherwise. Mints must be contained.

Calendula and Nasturtiums are edible so keep some in pots to bring inside when winter arrives.

Chervil, Dill and Parsley will self-sow for the following year so plant those is a permanent spot in your garden.

Its best to reserve space near the kitchen door for easier access to your herbs.

When planting seedlings, allow them space so they can fill in later in the season. You'd be surprised how big some herbs can get in a couple of months.

Half-Whiskey Barrels make great herb gardens, but make sure you use good soil in any container.
A good mix is 1/3 garden soil, 1/3 peat moss and 1/3 compost.
You can plant several plants together, remembering to place Thyme and Sweet Marjoram along the outside edge so they can trail down the sides of the barrel.

A good plan for a large container by your back door is to put a tall perennial Rosemary as the focal point and bring it indoors in winter. You can put other shorter annual herbs around the rosemary during the growing season.

There are other containers sold that group your herbs in one place making it easy to gather leaves and stems for a meal and having them in one contained small space.

Remember the popular strawberry barrels of yore? They make nice herb gardens for your patio or kitchen door yard.

Containers like those above are best for annuals that will grow and be harvested and then die back in the winter.

You'll need to dig up and divide perennials from time to time. As they get large cut back at least 2 times a year.

Tarragon you want to cut back in midseason for drying purposes and another cut back in early fall for tarragon vinegar.

Next time we will touch on a specific herb or two. They all have their particular needs and habits it would be well to know beforehand.

Transplanted seeds today and started more.

2011-02-25T13:08:00.000-08:00

I took the seeds that germinated in their 3/4" soil blocks or rather those that might have a chance to make it, and transplanted them into 2" soil blocks today. Some might not, but that's a chance I'll take.

This group has Apollo, DiCicco and Munchkin broccolis.

This has mini Cabbage, Super Red 80s and a large Primax cabbage. along with Superbo Basils, an Apollo Broccoli and an unknown Parsley. I knocked some of the blocks over with my picker and broke them so couldn't tell which one I may have saved. Its touch and go with it anyway.

Then I thought I'd start more seeds in case some of the others don't make it.

On the left I started 10 Toscana Basil and 10 Green Pearl Parsley and on the right there's 10 Michihili Chinese Cabbage and 10 mini Super Red 80 cabbages. I usually cover my new seeds with a light layer of vermiculite, but this time I'm trying something I heard Barbara Damrosch say on her show Gardening Naturally when starting her seeds in 3/4" soil blocks. She leaves them uncovered. We'll see how they fare this way.

Outside the snow is falling and we've got more than the 6" predicted so far. I couldn't open my doorway to the outside without shoving hard to get it open enough to get my broom around the door and shove away some of that white stuff. We have to expect it, tho, since its still Feb.

I'm starting a lot more seeds than I need but they won't go to waste. I belong to an organic community garden and the excess can be used there for our Food Pantry rows and in early June we have a plant sale at our local library and I give them started seedlings to sell in order to buy more books. It also guarantees that I'll have enough for my own square foot garden.

It almost feels like spring is in the air for me today.

Broccoli and Cabbages germinated.

2011-02-25T09:37:00.000-08:00

I couldn't believe it on Tues when I found broccoli and cabbage babies peeking up thru the soil blocks after only 2 days. I'm not ready for them. I'm still using my tables in the furnace room for quilt projects so have to get out the shop lights and set them up today.

The broccoli and cabbages are in the front with basil and parsley in the rear which haven't come up but I will forfeit them. I wanted to get the whole tray under the short gow light I keep in the entryhall for my house plants. Actually there are a couple of basils that have popped up since Tues. The furnace room is also about 6 degrees warmer than my apt with the furnace and water heater there. I keep my apt at 60*F day and nite. The added warmth they find in there should help the little green things. I'll transplant these into 2" soil blocks and start some other basil and parsley seeds to replace those lost here.

It sure feels good to see something spring-like this week.

Right now we're experiencing another snowfall with 6" expected.

I hope by March our temps outdoors start rising from the 20s in the days and below or near zero at nite to something dramatically higher. I'm getting really tired of this long, cold, white winter we're having this year and the heating bills aren't pleasant, either.

I'm also itching to get into my garden so I can lay plastic over the beds to help warm the soil to start things a little earlier as I did last year.

HAPPY GARDENING!

Broccoli and Cabbage seeds started today.

2011-02-21T14:10:00.000-08:00

I've been so antsy waiting for this date so I could start some seeds for my veggie garden.

I started broccoli, cabbage and thought I'd start some herbs, too, so I also started basils, chives, parsley and stevia.

Some of those seeds are ultra tiny and hard to grasp with one's fingers so I put some seeds in a jar cap, wet the tip of a pencil and touched a single seed so it would adhere to the tip or the side of the lead. That works just fine for small and medium seeds so no more wasted seeds.

Then I rubbed it off in a soil block. Sorry for the blurry picture. I was too close and forgot to set my camera for a close shot and it was too late when I realized it. I had finished seed starting for the day. Anyway, you can get the idea. Stick the point in the dirt so it falls into it. Then I covered the seeds lightly with vermiculite and spritzed them with a black tea concoction I made this morning. I used a very misty setting so it didn't move the vermiculite and disturb the seeds beneath.

Seed Starting Tea:

Brew youself a cup of black or green tea.

Let it steep for 7 mins.

Remove the tea bag to another cup of warm water.

Drink the first cup. Mmmmm good.

When the 2nd cup has steeped for 7 mins, pour the tea into a spritzing sprayer bottle.

I read about this online last year and tried it. It seemed to work. I didn't have any damping off which is the claim so I'm trying it again this year.

Here are my veggies along with basil and parsley under a dome on a heat mat.

The basil will be potted up this year instead of in my raised beds for the most part, except for two spaces I made available in the raised SFG beds.

The parsley will also be potted with only one slot set aside in the raised beds for parsley this year. I want more room for veggie crops and I understand herbs can grow very well in 10" pots all summer long and then be moved inside when it gets too cold for them, so I'll try that. I'm not very good with herbs for some reason. I hope to remedy that this year.

I also started two 4" air-pruning pots; one with 20 seeds of Chives and one with 7 seeds of Stevia.

I wasn't able to get Stevia to work for me when I sowed it outside in a container last year, so I'm hoping if I start them inside and then put the whole thing in a larger pot outside in the summer, that might work. We shall see. I started chives inside to do the same thing. I want to keep a pot for inside this fall though I grew them fine outdoors last year, but it'll be nice to have fresh chives handy for early winter.

I know I'm a little early doing all this but I find that using heavy-weight row covers, and even blankets and towels, can give me earlier crops when freezing cold nites threaten. Besides, broccoli and cabbage are transplanted outside 5 weeks before the last frost date, so they can take a good amount of cold weather.

I'll start more seed for broccoli and cabbages in a few weeks for a succession crop.

Soon it'll be time to start my Cauliflower.

When the snow melts, I'll be making myself a cold frame and along with my A-frame, I expect I'll have some early crops again this year and in the fall, the cold frame will extend my harvest into things like claytonia, a winter lettuce, mizuna and even spinach since I plan to put a tunnel experiment into effect. Its all a life's joy to improve my meals with healthy, fresh, tasty foods.

GROWING BRUSSELS SPROUTS

2011-02-18T12:44:00.000-08:00

BRUSSELS SPROUT is a Brassica and cool-weather crop.

Soil Temps of 60-65*F PH 6.0-6.8

Seed Life 3-5 Years

100 Days to Maturity.

ROTATING: Avoid following any cabbage family plants, which include broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower or Brussels sprout.
AVOID: Kohlrabi, Pole Bean, Strawberry.
LIKES: Bush Bean, Carrot, Cucumbers, Lettuce, Nasturtiums, Onion Family, Spinach and Tomato

PLANTING:
Start seeds indoors 4-6 weeks before last frost date.
Sow seeds 1/2" deep in both indoor starting pots or outdoors in the ground.
When seedlings are 5-7" tall, space or thin them to 2 feet apart.
In a Square Foot Garden, you can thin to one sprout seedling per one square foot.

Plant outdoors when soil reaches 60*F.
Add a handful of lime to each planting hole before putting in the seedling.

Plant deeper than they grew in the cell packs or starter pots with the lowest leaves just above the soil
Firm the ground around the plant and water well.
Mulch to retain moisture and hand pull any weeds to avoid damaging the shallow roots.

Brussels sprouts in raised bed June 8th.

The leaves will turn yellow as plants mature; remove these leaves as they fade to give sprouts room to develop.
The sprouts, which look like mini cabbages, form along the 2- to 3-foot stem under umbrella-like foliage, and need up to 100 days to mature.

Foliar feed lightly once or twice a month with compost tea or seaweed extract.

FALL CROP:
The hardiest cabbage-family crop, brussels sprouts survive freezing temperatures better than hot spells. Time your plantings so that overnight fall frosts will bring out the sprouts' sweetness.
You'll find that you want to plant your fall crop quite late, after you've set out your warm-season crops like peppers and squash.
To determine the timing of fall planting, count back the number of days to maturity from your first expected fall frost-----that's the date to set transplants in the garden.

Brussels sprouts, Bubbles variety, on June 17th.

HARVEST:
Harvest from the bottom of the plant upwards when golfball-size, though sprouts about an inch in diameter are the tenderest.
Remove with a twist of the stem.

Brussels sprouts Oct 9th after a frost and still growing.

Pinching off the plant tops forces sprouts to mature faster so at the end of season, cut off top 6" of stem and bottom leaves to stop further growth so energy goes to producing side sprouts.
Just before a severe freeze, uproot the plants, remove any remaining leaves, and hang the 'logs' upside down in a cool place for a few more weeks of harvesting.
HAPPY GARDENING!

Saving Seed from your seed packets.

2011-02-17T19:41:00.000-08:00

Each year most gardeners buy seeds and don't get to use them all. Can you save them? Yes, of course you can, but you must remember a few things.

Seeds sprout when they get too warm so don't keep them in a closet or a bedroom drawer. They also get freezer burn if put in the freezer.

Here's how I've saved my seed:
You need to assign one of your crisper drawers in the refrigerator for seed saving.
Any opened pack of seeds can be stapled shut. Many of them even reseal when closed. If you save seed from your own crops, put them in small plastic baggies. I get the ziptop 2"x3" poly bags from Staples and mark them accordingly.

Place these seed packets into either screw-lid glass jars or zipper baggies. They need a dessicant inside as well, to keep any moisture from invading your seeds.

To make your own dessicant:
Place 1 heaping teaspoon of instant dry non-fat milk in the center of two facial tissues. Fold up the tissue one side over the other into a strip with the dry milk centered. Fold the top and bottom ends over each other and staple thru these last folded parts so the dry milk does not escape.

Put one dessicant pack inside each jar and zippered baggy. Change the dessicants every 6 months. I toss one or two dessicants into the crisper drawer itself.

When you are using your seed to start new plants or sow seeds directly in your garden, keep those in the packet or baggies as cool as you can. Keep them in the shade outdoors, never in the sunshine. Place the packets back in the fridge as soon as you can. They need to be kept cool to survive.

I've planted 3-yr old peas and they all germinated well. Last year I planted 4-yr old broccoli seeds and other 3-yr old seeds that germinated just fine.

Seed life depends on the crop itself, so check the Seed Life Estimates Chart I posted on January 30th. Copy and paste it for your own future reference.
HAPPY GARDENING DREAMS!

I'm going to garden on fabric.....

2011-02-09T17:25:00.000-08:00

Its a long, white winter for us in the Northeast. I'm a quilter first and a gardener second so when a member of the Square Foot Garden Forum mentioned I should make a SFG quilt, I liked the idea right away. I don't know why I never thought of it myself.
Since Square Foot Gardening is gardening crops in one-foot squares in raised beds, often 4' by 4' square, that's the design I adopted. My own nine beds are that size and 12" deep as you can see in the picture at the top of my page.
I decided to try this in replique, which is upside-down applique, and a favorite method of mine.

This is the drawing of my SFG bed with a pot on the left for Nasturtiums since they help keep pests off the crops and I will be putting several pots of nasturtiums and herbs around my garden beds this year.

The next thing I had to do is draw a crop in each of the squares with a basil and 3 tomato plants along the backside of the bed. There's one crop each of several things just as in my own garden beds, like a cabbage, broccoli, eggplant, sweet pepper, hot pepper, cauliflower, lettuce and the like, with each block being a different crop. I used my own garden plan for this year as a starting point.

If you're wondering what the heck is replique, here is a sample of one.

I made this very small wallhanging for a good friend who had a narrow wall space she wanted to fill and who loves yellow roses. This really worked well. I personally love the stained-glass look.
This replique method, minus the stained glass, is the one I will use with my Square Foot Garden wallhanging which is much larger, measuring 26"W and 36" L at this point in my drawings. Some things may change a little, but not much I don't think. I spent the whole day making changes and have now started selecting the fabrics I need to continue. This will be my early spring garden project this year, even before I start my seeds the end of the month.
For me, this is Happy Gardening!

Growing Cauliflower

2011-02-05T10:44:00.000-08:00

Cauliflower is a brassica, like Brussels sprout, cabbage and broccoli. Its a cool-weather crop so should be among the first started from seed each year.

Start seeds indoors 10 weeks before last frost date. Keep the bottom heat at around 70*F for optimum germination.

Transplant seedlings outdoors in the garden 4 weeks before last frost date.

Spacing: In Square Foot Gardening, space your seedlings one per one-foot square. In row gardens, space your seedlings 18"-24" apart.

Growing: Things to remember about cauliflowers is that you should not plant them where a brassica has grown the year before. The ingredients in your soil that grew last year's crop will have been depleted so find another spot for your cauliflower.

Hopefully your soil has been amended with plenty of compost or composted manure early in the season or last fall. If a cover crop has been sown last year, cut it back to soil level and cover with compost, and in this way you allow the cuttings to enhance your soil.

Dig your hole for your seedling and add a handful of limestone to the hole and cover with some soil. The limestone helps prevent clubroot. Plant the seedling a little deeper than it was in its pot. Cover with row cover to protect from pests.

Weed carefully as they have shallow roots. Its best to feed monthly with a light feeding of fish emulsion or compost tea. To speed growth, feed every 2 weeks.

Watering: Water 1" per week, soaking the soil to a depth of 6" for good growth.

In August, water early morning and again early afternoon.

Blanching: If you are growing a white variety, its best to blanch the heads. To do this, you pull the leaves up around the white head when its about 3" across to protect it from the sunshine. I use spring-type clothes pins but you can use string or elastic bands to cover the heads. I find that clothes pins are gentler on the surrounding leaves.

Start blanching on a sunny day, when the heads are dry and they are about 3" across. Pull the leaves up around the top of the head and clip or tie the leaves together to cover the head completely. This will help keep the heads nice and white.

Do not splash water on the heads when blanching. Water from below. After a rain, open the tops so they can dry, then pull up the leaves again. Check them every few days.

This will keep the heads nice and pleasingly white.

There are some varieties that don't require blanching which will be noted on the seed package. Also, the purple varieties, like this Violet Queen, don't need blanching.

Violet Queen is a purple head and tastes slightly different than the white ones, and better actually, according to all in my family. They lose their purple color when cooking.

Fall Crop: Start seeds in July in a cold frame. Use shade cloth, if necessary, on hot days. It likes to mature in the cool of fall.

Harvesting: When ripe, head is compact, very firm, snowy-white and even across the top, probably 6"-12" across. The buds are tight and unopened.
As soon as its mature, it does no more growing.

Cut the head off at its base. Pull the whole plant out of the soil and place the leftover plant in a trash bag, do not compost. Roots may contain clubroot.

Use your crop right away. To keep up to several days, allow a whorl of leaves to remain around the head to keep it fresh a bit longer. Wrap in waxed paper and keep in fridge until used.

To store for about a month, pull up the whole plant by its roots and hang upside down in a cool place.

After Harvest: Add fallen leaves to the bed and chop with a hoe and dig them in. Fallen leaves dug into the soil lure garden worms to the bed where they can do their work and enhance your soil during the long winter.
Add compost to the bed. Add lime to raise the PH for the next rotation crop.
Sow cover crop for next year's green manure crop.
HAPPY GARDENING!

How's this for a snow view.

2011-02-02T15:13:00.000-08:00

The picnic table in the back yard. There's a demarkation line you can see if you look closely, but the snow on top is the new snow. Ugh.

Here's the snow on the swimming pool deck. Another Ugh! I'm glad the snow has stopped and only another 1-2" expected tomorrow morning, then none til more snow on Sat nite. We've had over 60" in our area and 51" in the city so far this winter.

I think I'll watch some TV, but not the weather. ha ha

We're having a blizzard today.

2011-02-02T13:32:00.000-08:00

We're used to lots of snow here in Maine, but this year I think we will beat the last few years in volume. We had 4" of new snow yesterday and then a breather, but this morning we woke to more snow and expecting 14"-18" more of the white stuff.

Here's my corgi unable to see over the top of the snow covering my flower garden outside my kitchen door.

Here's a view up the slope toward the driveway (far upper left and can't be seen here) across the lawn. The bushes you see are my rose bushes, Monarda, and across the covered lawn, tall pines with their mantles of white.

I measured ten inches of newly fallen snow today a couple of hours before this pic was taken and its still persistently coming down, though slower now. The pathways for the dogs are about filled in again after our white stuff mid-January that hasn't melted since our days don't seem to get above the high 20s and our nites below zero F. Its been a long, cold, white winter so far.

Today I spent my day in the sewing room preparing an online quilting class on replique, upside-down applique, this Friday on HGTV forum which was a lot better than watching it snow.

I'm Dreaming of a Green Spring somewhere in my future!