Gardening 2010

[celiathepoet]

Yes, it is mid-January and I am dreaming of this summer's garden. I made a list last night:

onions
broccoli
zucchini
eggplant?
sweet potatoes
red peppers
jalapenos, maybe other peppers
spinach
bee balm

and I'd like to grow some flowers, too, but lack ideas. I do mostly container gardening with a number of small beds for herbs.

Have you given thought to your next garden?

[Jules]

I'm dreaming already too. In fact, I've already ordered seeds, but I think our growing season starts earlier than yours.

I ordered from Burpee this year:

Romas
Some other heirloom tomato than Brandywine, as I still have those seeds from last year.
Anchos
Jalapenos
Cayenne
Serrano
Yellow Bell
Onion
Garlic
Peaches and Cream corn
a pole bean
Pickling cucumbers

I'll buy some stuff locally, like zucchini and peas. I may get to making the asparagus bed this year, if we get the ten yards of topsoil we're planning on. And I plan to make a cold frame to start the seeds under, as they were a little cool and dark last year. If I can't find an old window, I'll just make the top out of clear plastic and replace it each year.

I don't know if we'll get to fruit trees this year. We're a little wrapped up in building pens for chickens and sheep right now. I'm fully obsessing about food production though.

[Sara]

I am so excited-- we had a very mild winter here in Seattle and all my rose bushes in pots are still alive! They're putting off shoots. It's especially nice because they were all spindly plants I bought on clearance at Home Depot and nursed to health. Garden win!

[celiathepoet]

Awesome, Sara! Do you feed them rose food?

[Saxfire]

My aerogarden was started a couple of weeks ago with some nice herbs - majoram, thyme, basil, chive and dill. I bought some jiffy pellets and started several of them with rosemary and cilantro next to the aerogarden to suck up the extra light. I have to wait another month or so to start the sweet red pepper and jalepeno seeds in the same way.

Once spring actually appears, I'll bring out my upside down tomato gardens for romas and grape tomatoes, with some green beans and sugar snap peas on the top. The peppers will go out to the big front flower beds. I hope they tomatoes do better this year - I think moving them off the radiant heat from the patio will make a better harvest than last year - it's hard to keep them from frying. I usually have a volunteer grape tomato or two that finds it's way into the pepper garden, and I let them go.

There will be leaf lettuce and radishes put out early in the smaller raised front flower bed and as soon as they are done the flowers will go in (June.) The aerogarden will switch over to lettuce for the hot months of summer. It will be my first time with lettuce in it - I'm hoping it will be as good a harvest as the herbs are.

I joked today on FB - I put in my status that I planted seeds hoping for spring and someone asked what kind. I said SNOWBLOWER seeds - and I hope they grow FAST! It's been a helluva winter here, snow records abound. Can't wait to get some warm dirt between my fingers and plant something!

[Niki]

I need to start thinking about this myself. I don't know if I want to do container gardens or plant beds.

[Jules]

Ron finished the cold frame, so this weekend I'm going to paint it and start the seeds. I think my onion and garlic sets are on their way too, but I won't be touching the garden itself until after the sheep are here. I'd rather graze it down than till it under while it's long. The sheep are waiting on the finishing of the chicken coop, as we have to go through that pen to get to the chicken yard, but after that we'll pop the rest of their fence up and I'll go shopping at the livestock auction.

[celiathepoet]

I bought some seeds: broccoli, broccoli rabe, relleno pepper, holy basil. Still doing to be a while.

I messed up the sweet potatoes last year but I think I will try again.

[Queen Bee]

We live in a metro area but I'm wanting to do a kitchen herb garden with some fresh oregano, thyme, chives, basil, etc.

I'm also dreaming about setting up a small potted heirloom tomato colony on our back porch.

[Rapaz]

I have been saying that I will start a garden for three years now. Maybe this will finally be the year? If so, I need to get serious and put in some beds fairly soon...

[blau]

Last year was a total wash...literally. July 2009 was the rainiest month in Ottawa's recorded weather history. Nothing thrived. I got, like, four beans. My tomatoes, which I put out in April, didn't mature until late October, then the frost killed off the couple of green tomatolets.

But I am determined to try again. I am going to add a healthy dose of vermiculite into the garden boxes this year, in case we get another damp summer. I am also going to trim back some of the branches that overhang our yard so more sun can get through.

I started some herbs to keep in the dining room (kitchen's too small) yesterday. Fingers crossed!

[fuzzyjelly]

I got a very happy surprise today when I happened to look down as I came out of the house!! Spring is coming! It's not just a myth!

[ecaron]

We live in a metro area but I'm wanting to do a kitchen herb garden with some fresh oregano, thyme, chives, basil, etc.

Same here. I decided to do a kitchen garden as my project for the Kitchen Cure, to take advantage of the newly cleared counter and window space. I'm apprehensive, because my black thumb is legendary, but my mom's been excitedly talking about her garden for weeks now and I'm mad to have some fresh greenery of my own. Her garden is glorious, and also 500 miles away from me.

[CabbageCabbage]

My tip for black thumb basil growers: put your pot of basil (plastic with the drain holes or clay or whatever) into a larger bowl and keep that bowl filled with water. If the bowl goes dry, fill it up. Basil seems to dry out really quickly but if you keep it really watered and sunny, it is happy forever.

My smug sister, the good gardener, has begun sprouting her seeds indoors so her fabulous garden will once again lap mine in production and quality. It's ok though. I'm getting a wedding. I'm not jealous. I have seeds that I've ordered and I am waiting for my lawn to thaw, drain and have no possibility of freezing. Last years half assed garden was good, so I'm excited to see what happens if I actually fertalize in the beginning and plant things at the appropriate times.

[Jules]

Ron plowed my garden this week and even planted some stuff while I was at work. I had to hold him back from planting everything; the soil's not warm enough for corn yet! He really loves that corn.

He made me a cold frame and it's working great. The cucurbits are almost ready to plant and the peppers have sprouted.

[Lucky]

Jules, how did you start your original garden? Did you till the existing soil and fortify it with compost, minerals, etc? Or did you build on top of the existing soil? I've got to get ON THIS like in the next week, and I'm still waffling over how to build the beds.

[Jules]

With this particular garden, we got a late start last year. We just tilled the original soil, which is sort of a clayey sand. I'd spread out some rotten hay that the previous homeowner had left, but that's all the amending we did at first.

It's a pretty fertile area though; this used to be cow pasture. I used to ride my horse right around the edges of what's now this subdivision.

We didn't even really make beds, except for tromping down paths between the planting areas. We're raising them a little more this year, but I probably won't ever do true raised beds in this garden. I've done it in two others, but it's too hard to till if you use a tractor, and even horsing a rototiller in a raised bed is awkward. Besides, I'm changing the locations of the beds this year, and I'd be stuck with what I hurriedly installed last year if I'd gone with a more permanent garden.

But I planted shallots today! They go with the onions, garlic, and peas. I'm also going to try starting corn in the cold frame in little peat pots.

[themis]

I bought tomatoes to plant, help, you guys, I have never grown tomatoes before. What kind of soil? Do they not like to be next to certain plants? I got one heirloom variety and one Roma. All I know is that they do not make it through the summers here, they burn up, so I am actually starting a little late.

I am starting to think I may have done something really stupid, because I think my CSA will come with tomatoes as well -- I, frankly, have never really liked fresh tomatoes, because of the bitter refrigerated grocery store types. I have only recently discovered the joy of fresh, sun-warm, home grown tomatoes. There's salsa, sauces, and then caprese; then what the hell can I do? I am going to have to learn to can, I think.

[Jules]

themis, my tomatoes seem to like compost soil, but they've done ok without it too. They're pretty hardy. I haven't heard of things that they don't like to be planted next to, but I have heard that putting the basil near them can help keep some pests down.

Which reminds me, if I'm not going to start basil, I should buy some to put next to the tomatoes.

As far as using them, nothing beats them fresh out of the garden, maybe with a little salt to me, but if that's not your thing, there's a lot of other stuff to do with them. I made a ton of gazpacho last year; ate it almost every week last summer. I also like a chunkier salad with most of the same ingredients - more cucumbery than a caprese, but that's good too. And hey, the basil's right there!

I didn't know how well salad tomatoes were going to can, but they did fine. I made a lot of pizza sauce and plain tomato sauce. They just took a hair more cooking down than a paste tomato would have. Tomatoes, with their high acid content, are a great beginner canning item. Water-bath canning is fine for them while you have to use a pressure canner for most other vegetables.

Speaking of gardens, my back was sore so Junior put most of my plants in this week. I have 14 assorted salad tomatoes, 10 Romas for canning, and two or three tomatillos. The onions and garlic are going gangbusters but the shallots declined to grow. I think we crammed twice as much produce in the garden this year. I've got peas, two kinds of cucumbers, yellow squash and zucchini, a cantaloupe, tiny pumpkins, potatoes, corn, and eggplant planted. The peppers aren't quite ready to go in the ground yet, but there's an easy two dozen of at least six varieties growing. I'll keep planting corn in cycles and the green beans have to fit somewhere too. Oh, and we made an asparagus bed in the front of the backyard.

I suspect I'm forgetting part of it. Oh! Two kinds of lettuce and green onions in the little herb bed by the pool. The actual herbs, I haven't got in the ground yet.

[Jules]

I forgot to ask; themis, did you buy some tomato cages too? Most salad tomatoes really want something to climb on, or at least some judicious staking and tying. The two I left loose last year sprawled all over the ground and I lost a lot of tomatoes that way.

[Cerberus]

I got the usual bug to try growing herbs again this spring but after losing another crop to, basically, darkness, I broke down and bought a nifty LED-based grow light. And it's actually working! They're growing leaves and stuff!


Plants

Planted them on April 24th, and set up the light on the 28th when Thyme started poking through.


Closeups
Lavender, Basil, Mint,
Savory, Parsley, Thyme.

Thyme, the first one to sprout, managed to fall over into the soil when I added water. Hopefully some better established seeds will appear later. Basil is definitely in the lead now, Parsley and Lavender are getting established. Savory and the notorious Mint have finally appeared.

It's all very exciting since I basically have no idea what I'm doing. Usually I get spaghetti-length stalks with tiny cotyledons at the end. I'm saving the vegetable and sunflower seeds for the advanced round or if I ever decide to try hydroponics.

[Trecino]

Every year I try to grow something new, and this year it's radishes. Little radish sprouts are coming up in rows, and I take the thinnings and rinse them to eat. So crunchy and good in a sandwich or fried up in a little olive oil.

[eefah]

You guys almost have me rethinking the plan to put down new stones or a deck... But I know I don't have the necessary dedication to gardening. Would radishes grow in pots?

[Niki]

I planted 3 containers for something this year since the planned idea of a garden in the yard is off the tables. I have one tomato, bell pepper, jabanero, basil and two cilantro. Next step is the cages for them and hopefully things will go well.

[ecaron]

My plants came up! I had to re-seed them twice because I am just that bad at this. I started them in the kitchen window, but the light there just isn't good enough, and I was afraid of overwatering so I underwatered them instead. I finally broke down and moved them to the bedroom window with the full-day exposure and after a couple of good, sunny days (spent under plastic wrap, to simulate a greenhouse), I started to see little bits of green. The tomato is the healthiest so far and practically doubles in height every night. The basil is doing really well also, and the parsley and oregano have just started pushing up out of the soil. The strawberry, not so much, but I can live with one loss.

I'm so psyched about cooking with my own fresh herbs.

[badverb]

I have finally brought home the first two pieces of my planned container garden: a lovely silver sage (which already needs repotting) and a basil. I am so looking forward to pesto!

Next up: some kind of viable small tomato plant. I am still reading up on which kind to get. I need to get it soon, whatever it is.

[Trecino]

The radishes were good but the slugs nibbled at the parts that protruded above the soil. Oh well. My favorites were the deep reddish-purple Easter egg shaped ones.

Zucchini is growing well and the first tomatoes have been picked. However, the cats are not as gaga over the fresh catnip leaves as I'd thought.

[celiathepoet]

My zucchini plants gave me several lovely squashes and then went to rot at the root and blossom. Sad, but I think they are done. Now I just have herbs (basil and oregano, really, and chives and mint) and 3 kinds of peppers.

[Jules]

The tomatoes are pathetic. The few ripe ones hanging below about two feet get picked off by the garden chickens the day before I get to them. The sweet corn wasn't very sweet. And I don't think we've had a hot pepper yet.

The cucumbers finally took off though. They're good. And the onions did well.