Still Harvesting

cucumbers, beans, tomatoes

 I discovered a pile of harvest photos that I haven't yet shown off this morning.  Most of the tomatoes are nearly green in the pics because I have been picking them at first blush.  Now that it's mid-September I've actually managed to harvest quite a few of them, and even my first couple of Fairy Tale eggplants, which are small but still tasty.

cucumbers, tomatoes, jalapenos.

After mowing the lawn a few days ago i discovered the blackberry vines growing over the fence from the neighbor's yard had a conciliatory harvest for me... probably in hopes that the bribe would keep me from cutting them.  It wasn't much of a harvest but I also didn't put much effort into clinbing around in the busshes looking for more.  Mina had them on her ice cream and said they were delicious.

Blackberries!

 Not sure if I already mentioned the results of my potato growing or not.  The 3 potatoes I planted never bloomed, but I was sick of waiting on them so I turned over the 3 gal. pots they were in and low and behold I had potatoes!  There was a total of about a dozen baby potatoes, and some tiny ones that were just developing.  I ate them!  The tiny ones are being saved for spring planting though, maybe I won't have to purchase seed potatoes again.

Beans, tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers.

 Eventually all those blushing tomatoes end up looking like the ones below and I use them fresh or cook them up for salsa or spaghetti sauce.

Tomatoes, green peppers, jalapeno, onions, garlic, and lime.  Ready for salsa!

Cooking the salsa.

Cherry tomato bowl.  Plus a couple eggplants.

 So despite the slow end of August and beginning of September harvests, things have kind of picked up as the days are growing shorter and the garden is getting more shade.  We've been seeing temperatures in the upper 80s and occasional 90s the past couple weeks, but that ends this week and temps will continue to get cooler.  So far the tomatoes have managed to prove their worth, even though I haven't yet seen enough at any time to preserve.  The huge fat San Marzanos are driving me crazy though, they are so thick with tomatoes the branches are breaking through the string holding them to their stakes, but not a single one has ripened yet.  Maybe the change in weather will give them a nudge to finish up before they die?

Custom cabinetry.

 The last item to share is that we finished up the final touch on the kitchen before we put in the new floors... the custom cookbook shelf on the end of the island.  I need to pick up a few more little shelf brackets for the tiny shelves, but otherwise it is done.  I think it looks great!  And it's much handier than digging around in the dining room cabinets to find a recipe.  Also, the shelves are designed to contain and hide the electrical outlets for the island, which aren't visible in this picture because they face in toward the oven. 

I have been house hunting this week and found a great place with a lot of potential, including garden potential, just waiting on a response from the bank and needing to finish up the work at this house and we'll be ready to dive into buying a house!

Holy Crap! It's Summer!!

The Oregon summer finally hit on the 4th of July.  We've had a steady few days of 75 degree and up weather and not a cloud in sight. 

Nearly all of the hot weather plants are in the ground now, just holding out on a few last cabbages before the final four plants go in the ground.  This week has been a frenzy of harvests of peas, strawberries (still!), last lettuces, cauliflowers, cabbages, carrots and onions.  Today will be spent blanching and freezing the veggies picked throughout the week.  Normally I would do this immediately after harvesting, but it was such a busy week i barely had time to pick them, rinse them and throw them in the fridge. 

Garden this week.  The tomatoes and peppers are still small so the beds look kind of bare.

My harvest total for this first week of July has hit 10 lbs.  That's nearly half my June monthly total in one week!  No tomatoes yet though; and the tomatoes and squashes will be my largest harvests by weight.  July is looking like it might just pay for the whole garden.

According to my current calculations my garden veggies are costing me around $20/lb.  Of course, the grow room was a big part of the costs this year and it will last me for many years to come.  Just one 30 lb pumpkin will bring me down to $10/lb so I'm not too worried about my costs balancing out anymore.  As long as I get something from my hot weather plants I think the garden will pay for itself.

Harvest Monday 6/11

Harvest Monday is sponsored by Daphne's Dandelions, and the letter B.

This weekend was a big harvest, but I am an idiot and failed to take pictures, the only one I have for this week is below.

Part of a harvest of kale, Swiss chard, and green onion.

This morning however, I got sick of waiting on things so I pulled up a couple lettuces, some celery, and green onions to take over to my mom.  Total weight 22 oz. 

I filled in my empty squares this morning with tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and eggplants.  Just waiting on the rest of the brassicas to finish up before all of my second planting goes into the ground.  The tomato starts have been besieged by some sort of fungus and I'm really hoping that moving them into the garden where it's less humid and they get better nutrition will improve things.  /fingers crossed

Harvest 6/11: lettuce, celery, green onion, one tiny strawberry for mom.

I will have to post an update later today, or possibly tomorrow since I took a bunch of pictures this morning.  But right now, me and my little man are going to Grandma's and then to the playground to play in the fountain.

Have a lovely day everyone!

Cole-Ture

Brassicas, sometimes called cole crops or cruciferous vegetables, are a genus of plants in the Mustard family.  It is remarkable for containing more important agricultural and horticultural crops than any other genus.  Most Brassica species are annual or biennial.  The genus is native to Western Europe, the Mediterranean, and temperate Asia.

Some of the agricultural species of brassica today include: rutabaga, turnip, kohlrabi, cabbage, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, mustard, cress, bok choy, and rapeseed (or, in the U.S., canola).

The brassicas provide high levels of nutrients, including Vitamin C, soluble fiber, and several anticancer agents.  To maximize the nutritional value of these plants avoid boiling them, and instead steam them for 3-4 minutes.

The ten most commonly eaten cruciferous vegetables are in a single species B. Oleracea, and only differ by cultivar.  Check out the Taxonomy Chart at Wikipedia to see just how closely related these plants are.

What follows is a brief description of the culture of the cole crops I am most familiar with:

Bolting broccoli

Broccoli was first introduced to the United States by Italian immigrants but did not become widely known until the 1920s.

Broccoli: broccoli is an annual, it will sprout from seed, grow, flower, and seed all within one year.  Like most of the popular cole crops, broccoli can be over-wintered in a sunny spot with a mild climate.  Light frost will not harm it, and in fact, too warm temperatures in Spring and Summer may cause it to bolt, going from dense green (or purple) heads to yellow flowers nearly overnight.  Once broccoli heads begin to flower they become very bitter.  Plants grow in an upright manner, unlike their cousins the cabbages.  Seeds can be started as early as December indoors, then planted outside once soil temperatures reach 50 degrees.  The earlier broccoli is transplanted, the better, as it will be more likely to produce large heads before the weather warms too much.  Broccoli can be planted as a Spring crop or direct seeded in summer for a Fall crop.  It prefers cool, moist soil; it is not susceptible to molds for the most part.  The primary scourges of broccoli, and most other cole crops  are slugs and cabbage moth caterpillars.  Removing plants after harvest can reduce the damage of caterpillars, as can row covers early in the season (preventing moths from laying eggs), and keeping plants indoors until they have at least two sets of true leaves will help with slugs.  Slugs
will eat holes in the leaves but if plants are large enough this is only cosmetic and won't affect the harvest.

Imported Cabbageworm, A.K.A. Cabbage moth larva.

 The best thing about broccoli is that it takes very little care, it is not disease prone, not particular about its soil (though it does best in Nitrogen high soil) and can be grown nearly all year in many climates.  The downside is that it tends to be hit or miss at harvest time, if you wait too long for the head to reach it's full size you may end up harvesting some very bitter broccoli that is ready to flower.  Also, once the main head is harvested many broccolis will put out side shoots; I have found though that unless I have an entire bed of broccoli these side shoots do not make a large enough harvest to be worth the wait and all the space they take up in the garden.

Cauliflower head.

The first reliable reference to cauliflower is found in the writings of Arab Muslim scientists between the 12th and 13th centuries.


Cauliflower:  cauliflower is similar to broccoli in many ways, it is annual, prefers cool weather, is mostly disease-free, and shares the same pests.  Cauliflower is usually planted early in Spring, or in the late summer for Fall harvest, along with its cousins broccoli and cabbage.  Cauliflower tends to be more picky about heat and drying out though, I have heard many a gardener bemoan the cracking and loss of their cauliflower heads after dry spells.  Planting early, even watering, or planting as a Fall crop are some ways to prevent this.  To keep your cauliflower pearly white, you should blanch it by wrapping the leaves over the head as it begins to develop.  Cauliflower most often is found as a tight packed white ball, but is also found in green, orange, and even purple.  Check out the different tastes of these variations at a local farmer's market and ask what the varieties are called so you can plan to plant your favorite in Fall, or next Spring.

Cato the Elder praised the cabbage for its medicinal properties, declaring that "It is the cabbage that surpasses all other vegetables."

Cabbage:  much like the previous two plants cabbage is grown in early Spring or late Summer.  It prefers cool weather, has no real disease problems, and few pests.  Cabbage however, is much less finicky when it comes time to harvest.  Primarily this is because cabbage is a biennial, it won't flower or go to seed until its second year of growth.  Because of this a head of cabbage can often be left for several weeks before it has to be harvested; it also means it is far less likely to split, and only extreme temperature or moisture changes will cause the head to split.  Cabbage requires no blanching either.  It is most commonly found as a solid green ball, but is also available in red or purple varieties, Chinese cabbage which is much looser leaved, and in all different sizes as well, from fist-sized to pumpkin-sized.  Cabbage heads are ready to be harvested when they are solid and hard to the touch.

In addition to this, cabbages are one of the prettiest plants to grow in my opinion.  I love the way their flat leaves open up into a massive rosette around the globe-like head.  The blue-tinged leaves sometimes take on a purple tinge as well, all in all they are very pretty.

In square foot gardening, broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage each take one square foot to grow.  If you are selecting large varieties though it doesn't hurt to have nearby squares only half filled with smaller plants, such as 2 lettuce, or 4 peas.  Cabbage leaves especially are very wide and can cover up other plants next to them if they are too close.  One way to manage this is to grow cabbages in between slightly taller growing plants, the cabbage leaves can shade the roots of the taller varieties and in return they shade the cabbage a bit.

Saving seed from these crops can be a bit tricky, since the cultivated brassicas are so closely related they can easily cross-pollinate.  A 3-4 year rotation of seed saving can help with this: Year 1, save broccoli seed, not allowing other annual brassicas to flower; Year 2, save cabbage seed from biennial cabbage planted the previous year, not allowing other brassicas to flower; Year 3, save seed from cauliflower, don't allow others to flower; Year 4, repeat with another biennial, or annual brassica.  Since brassica seeds stay viable for 3 years this is a good rotation to follow, any more years would leave you with very old seed that may not germinate from your first year.  If you have more than four brassica cultivars you will either have to resort to trading for or buying seed, or put plenty of space between your cultivars.  There are other ways to manage this, including bagging, spacing farther apart, etc. but this is probably the simplest.  No extra steps but harvesting everything you don't want seed from before it blooms.

A final note on these crops: although we normally eat only the heads of these three plants, the outer leaves and stems are edible as well.  If you find yourself a bit short on cabbage for a recipe you can add cauliflower leaves, outer cabbage leaves, and broccoli leaves and stems (so long as they haven't become woody and tough) to fill in.

I think that's all I have for these crops, I will post some of my favorite recipes for them soon as well.  If you have any other tips or tricks about cole culture to share please leave a comment!

Finally, It Looks Like a Garden!

 Can definitely tell the difference between the phone camera and the good camera.  Bunch of shots of the garden after nearly a week of gorgeous weather, the sun really helped get things moving along.

Kale

Artichokes and cilantro

Alex's carrots.  He checks on them regularly to see if they're ready yet. :)

Broccoli.

Leaf lettuce

Romaine lettuce

The tulips are done, but the pansies are taking over.

Oregon Spring tomato just waiting for an opening in the garden beds.

Swiss chard is finally starting to grow at a decent pace.

Potato plant, 3 of the 5 I planted are growing well.  The other two never did anything.

The first bed is really starting to look like a garden now, but the second one has some catching up to do still.

Raised bed 1.

Raised bed 2.

Hot weather starts enjoying some sunshine.

New whiskey barrel (#3) with perennials and bulbs planted.

Strawberry bed, flowering and doing great, but I really need to weed the path next to it.

That's how my garden's growing today, not long now till there will be peas, lettuce, kale, and strawberries coming in on a daily basis.  Over the next few days I plan to make some adjustments to my watering system, and have my brother help me with some work in the front and back yards.

Garden Update: Pictures!

 Garden bed 1 has grown in enough that it was safe to remove the kitty covers; 24 hours later, no plants have been torn up and no presents left behind.  Yay! (plenty of digging happening in the whiskey barrels though. Grr!)

 View of the same bed from the front side. 

Close up of cabbage, tiny carrot sprouts and lettuces.  For once I've actually been impressed with the carrot germination, usually they don't turn out this well.

Above: peas popping up through the dirt.  It seemed like I was running late on everything this year until I checked last year's notes and found that my first peas last year popped up the second week of April too.  One more reason to keep good notes on your garden!

A muffin box from the bakery worked out great for starting seeds.  The clamshell top was used as a cover until the sprouts popped up and then cut off and placed underneath as a tray.  The plants in this are 4 Delicata squash, 2 Butternut Squash, and 2 Buttercup squash.  I hate squash, but my mom really likes them, especially Delicata, so I will be growing them in the blackberry patch  to supply her with all she could ever want.  (My mom is diabetic and lives in a tiny apartment on a very limited budget, I love being able to help her out by growing tons of extra veggies that she can eat throughout the year.)

Artichokes, basil, dill, and cilantro patiently waiting for me to find places to plant them.  I was warned that artichokes tended to be poor germinators, so overplanted in case they didn't do well... but they ALL sprouted and now I'm not sure what to do with them.  Maybe the extras can go out back with the squashes?

Brassicas, onions, and a couple very healthy lettuces for bed number 2.  Now that the kitty covers are no longer needed elsewhere I should be able to get these planted this weekend.  (Unless it's pouring rain!)

Very first tomato starts (Beaverlodge Plum).  They are looking super healthy and I am just hoping they stay that way.  I have had to start most of my own hot weather seeds after all, since my brother is in California and isn't sure he'll be home in time.  These are the first hot weather seeds that have sprouted so far.  Right now a heating pad is under the flat of seeds in hopes that they'll sprout well with the extra heat.  That room tends to wobble between 63 and 75 degrees, so the heating pad is really just for insurance, especially for the eggplants which love the heat.  I kind of wish I had gotten a seedling heat mat, but I think my husband is cranky enough about the money I spent on the grow lights already :).

Hopefully my weekend will be busy and sunny and lots of work!

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Tulips, pansies and a cedar tree.

The first color of Spring came in these gorgeous tulips that were nearly as pretty before they bloomed due to the fabulous spotted stripes on the leaves.  The little potted cedar was a find from the front yard that I am planning to bonsai.  It needs a shallower pot though.

Volunteer sunflower.

Kale planted in January.

The "winter cabbage" that is not.

The kale in the whiskey barrel are bigger than the ones started inside now.  I have been tempted more then once to go pick all the leaves off them because I'm craving fresh veggies.  Also the winter cabbage that I rescued before turning over the big bed appears to actually be a broccoli, and is bolting now.  I guess growing for 9 months without getting anywhere made it decide to just cut its losses and start making seed.

Seedlings getting some sunshine.

Between-the-beds space all finished.

I've had my seedlings out most of the day every day this week, they are soaking up the sun and growing incredibly fast.  The space between my two large beds is all done now; weeded, un-lava rocked, planted with perennial herbs, and barked.  When the herbs grow in a bit it should look great!

Garden bed this week.

It's hard to tell but this bed has actually had some growth happening.  The cat screens make it harder to see.  The peas in the back row are just popping up, in another week or so I should be able to remove the screens and really see the difference.

Last of the pictures: I was this close to having all of the bark in the garden done... ran out about 4 square feet short.  /facepalm  Which means yet another trip to Home Depot this week.

Garden Update: Yep, Raining Again!

Since my last post it has rained all but 3 days; and it's not expected to stop for 4 more.  Luckily the weatherman is on my good side again for predicting sunshine for the next week after that!  One good week of sun should be enough to finally get all those transplants growing, and to get the second bed turned and amended and planted with more transplants.

My brother, for those who don't know, has a very nice heated grow room and was planning to get my hot weather starts going for me.  His grow room got infested with spider mites a few weeks ago though and is currently under quarantine.  Hopefully he'll still be able to get things started and grown to transplant size before June.  My fingers are crossed that we'll have tomatoes and peppers that are happy and healthy by then.  Last year he lost a lot of them to damping off and mildew issues from lack of air circulation.  This year he has a better ventilation system.

Since I gave him all my seeds for starting but the winter squash, I figured I'd go ahead and get them rolling along today.  I planted Buttercup Squash, Waltham Butternut Squash, and Delicata Squash.  Personally I am not a fan of squash; I kind of hate it.  My mom loves Delicata though, and will eat the others as well.  The main reason for growing them is to fill in the blackberry zone in the back yard.  If I tear out enough blackberries and put in squashes that grow fast and are huge and shade out the ground; my hope is the squashes will also shade out the blackberry roots and help keep them in check.  Of course, having squashes for eating isn't a bad thing either.

Meanwhile, back in the garden... Nothing in the main bed is really growing yet, a few leaves have appeared here and there but not much growth beyond that.  Who could blame them? All this rain doesn't help and they are still recovering from the transplanting.  On the plus side, none of the transplants have died, and the cat-proof covers have done their job.  The kales in the whiskey barrel are doing great though, they have really taken off and are actually putting on some decent sized leaves (about the size of my thumb), which is a big improvement over a week ago when they only had their tiny first set of leaves.

I'm still not seeing any growth from the potatoes, or the rhubarb, but I have heard they can take a while to get going. My cherry tree is popping out green leave buds though, so I guess I didn't kill it after all. :)

In other news:  I was out of town most of last week and apparently one of the cats tried to jump on my little greenhouse.  The cat broke through the plastic cover and tipped over the entire thing, including my tray of starts that was hardening off.  My husband did his best to save everything (and he did great!), I'm hoping the trauma won't do too much harm, but a few stems are looking kinked despite the plants looking as healthy as ever.

And that's the news for today!  Hope everyone's enjoying Spring and growing some garden goodness!

Potato Culture

There is a wealth of information out there about potatoes, the Wikipedia entry alone is full of potato facts.  In fact, reading up on them has given me a whole new appreciation of french fries.  It's kind of amazing to think that the potato we eat today is the descendant of potatoes first cultivated between 7 and 10 thousand years ago in Peru and Bolivia.  Even more amazing is that there are over 5000 varieties of potato today 99% of which were developed from a subspecies that grew in south central Chile.  That's quite a history.  The Spanish brought the potato home with them after their conquest of South America.  From Spain and other ports of Europe the potato spread across the world and today it is eaten in nearly every nation on the planet. 

One of the reasons for its popularity is that the potato is well-adapted to most climates; it can also be grown in a backyard garden in quantities adequate to provide for a family's sustenance; it grows easily; and is much less expensive than grain crops.  The potato has been a crop to grow at home for centuries, since potatoes have particular storage requirements they didn't keep as well as cereal grains and therefore were less market-worthy and more likely to be found in individual gardens.  This is part of what led to the Irish Potato Famine, the poor Irish tenant farmers fed their families on milk and the potatoes they grew on their small allocated plots.  Nearly all of the potatoes grown in Ireland at that time were a variety known for large harvests, which made sense when you were short on growing space and had a family to feed, but not at all resistant to late blight.  A particularly nasty year led to rampant infections of late blight taking out nearly one half of the potato crop in Ireland; and leading to the deaths of nearly a million Irish, and the emigration of more than a million others, effectively reducing the population by 20-25%.

Potato plants

Why mention the Irish Potato Famine in a blog post about potato gardening? Yeah, it is a little morbid.  But it's an important example of the folly of dependance on a single cultivar, or a single staple crop even.  Genetic diversity in food crops is something to be coveted, having a multitude of available cultivars offers people protection in the event of another devastating loss like the Potato Famine.  With that in mind, if you plan to grow potatoes, make an effort to try some lesser known varieties and get familiar with potatoes all over again.  One of the major reasons Russet potatoes are so common in grocery stores is not their flavor, or nutrition, or ease of production.  Can you guess why the Russet is found everywhere?  Because it can be shipped everywhere.  Russet potatoes are one of the longest-storing varieties, they can be bounced around, stored for months, and are none the worse for wear.  I am looking forward to getting familiar with my German Butterball potatoes, and learning what traits they have to offer other than shipping stability.

I recommend doing further reading on Wikipedia to learn more about the history of this plant, but I think I should move on to growing information at this point.

Potato plant in planting bag

Potatoes are grown from "seed potato" which is not a seed at all, it's a potato.  The "eyes" on a potato sprout and grow into a new plant.  You don't even need whole potatoes for this, just chop them into chunks with at least one eye on each.  Bury them in rich soil about 6-8" deep.  Keep them well-watered, with good drainage to avoid overwatering. 

Potato growth happens in 5 phases: first sprouts grow from the seed potatoes and roots begin to grow as well.  The second phase involves photosynthesis as the plant's leaves grow.  Phase 3: stolons develop from lower leaf axils on the stem and grow downwards into the ground and on these stolons new tubers develop.  Often, this phase is also when flowering occurs.  Tubers will stop forming when the temperature hits 80 degrees, this is why potatoes are considered cool weather crops.  The next phase involves the tubers growing larger.  The final phase involves the leaves and stems dying back, the skins of the tubers hardening, and the tuber sugars converting to starches.  You can harvest at this time, or during the fourth phase you can hand-harvest "new" potatoes while leaving the plant to continue growing more.

An important thing to remember about potatoes is that they are from the nightshade family and do contain small amounts of the toxin solanine.  To ensure that you don't become sick from your potatoes, never eat green potatoes.  Tubers will turn green when exposed to light; in the garden you can prevent this by keeping tubers that show above ground covered with dirt or a heavy mulch; once harvested store potatoes in a brown paper bag to reduce light exposure.  Also, after flowering the potato plant may develop fruits on it, these are toxic and should not be eaten.  For the home garden it may be best to pick all of the potato flowers when they fade to prevent accidental ingestion of the fruits by children or visitors.  Potatoes are generally cured in order to allow for skin-set, and increase storage capability.  Similar to winter squashes curing is done by setting them out in a warm, almost hot! place for several days.

Potato flowers

Potatoes make a very pretty flower and could be interplanted with annual or perennial flowers easily, without it being obvious that they are food plants.

I hope this has been as helpful to you as it has to me, and look forward to getting my potatoes started and seeing how well they do. 

Lettuce Culture

**most of my plant culture information comes from Wikipedia entries, opinions are all my own though.

Lactuca sativa, or lettuce, is a member of the Asteraceae family and actually makes a pretty little white or yellow flower similar to a dandelion if you allow it to bolt and go to seed.  When cut its stems ooze a milky white substance, hence the reason for the name Lactuca.  Some members of the Lepidoptera butterfly family eat lettuce.  In Ancient Egypt lettuce was considered an aphrodisiac.

Lettuce grows best in a humus rich, light soil, with constant moisture.  Lettuce prefers temperatures between 75 degrees and 45 degrees F.  A hot or dry environment may cause it to turn bitter and bolt, though this is less of a problem with certain bolt-resistant or heat-tolerant varieties.  Seeds can be direct sown into the garden or transplanted.  With a protective cover to keep lettuce from freezing it can be grown in mild climates nearly year round.

The primary types of lettuce are butterhead, romaine, crisphead or iceberg, and loose leaf.  Butterhead leaves have a buttery texture, they are similar to romaine, with less crispness and a shorter growth habit.  Romaine, or Cos, grows long leaves with a firm central rib, it is more heat tolerant than other varieties.  Crisphead, or iceberg, grows in a tight head similar to cabbage.  They have a crunchy texture and are generally the mildest flavored lettuces.  Loose leaf lettuce has tender, delicate leaves and doesn't grow a "head" but rather as a bunch of loose leaves.  Summer crisp or Batavian lettuce has a mix of traits of iceberg and loose leaf, being crunchy in texture and having only a moderately dense head.

The less bitterness a variety of lettuce has, the higher the water content, and consequently the lower the nutritional value.  All lettuce varieties will cross-pollinate easily, so be certain to allow only the cultivars you wish to harvest seed from to go to flower.

Lettuce is a fast grower, taking as little as 3 weeks to reach a harvestable size.  Remember to keep your lettuce plants moist, and protected from heat.  Slugs are the primary pest to watch for on lettuce, though cutworms can also ruin a planting by cutting the stems when seedlings first sprout.  Defeat slugs by baiting, hand picking, or laying down a copper barrier.  Protect from cutworms with a paper collar, or start lettuce indoors and move outside once they have a few true leaves on and have grown beyond cutworm edibility.  Lettuce can be grown indoors over the winter under a grow light or in a windowsill.

Mix varieties of red, green, and mixed color lettuce in a salad for a more interesting presentation.  Since lettuce varieties will cross so easily, try leaving two or three favorite varieties to cross-pollinate and see what exciting new crosses you can come up with.  For butterhead, romaine, or loose leaf lettuces harvest only the leaves you need and allow the plant to continue growth; crisphead is best harvested as a whole head. 

For planting: try planting lettuces under a fruit tree, in early spring they will receive full sun, and once the tree flowers and begins to put on leaves it will shade the lettuces leaves from the heat of the sun.  SFG suggests 4 lettuce plants per square, and they can also be interplanted between taller growing brassicas to protect and shade them.  If your tomatoes are ripening and you wish to have lettuces to go with them, try planting lettuce under the shade of the tomato plants, or in a shadier corner of the garden.  If all else fails, grow them inside during the hottest part of the year, in the cool of the AC.

You are unlikely to be able to preserve lettuce at all; it manages fine in the fridge for a few days though.  Be sure to stagger plantings every few weeks to ensure a crop all year and don't plant too many at once or you'll be swimming in fresh lettuce that HAS to be eaten, and can't be saved by preserving.

Happy lettuce growing!

Save Your Soil!

One of the great things about organic gardening is that it costs so much less.  You don't need to buy expensive pesticides, herbicides, and soil amendments.  But that doesn't mean you don't need to amend your soil!

My own garden is managed pretty intensively, I try to keep it growing something as often as possible when there is sun available.  Because of this I have to be very careful about rotation, adding nutrients, and managing pests.  Here are some tips to help keep your soil healthy.

Follow with Fallow: If you have the space to let beds lay fallow for a year or two, by all means do so.  Since I'm working with so few square feet I don't have the luxury of letting it lie fallow.  Instead I make a point of rotating my veggies from bed to bed each year.  Certain ones have to stay in place, such as the pumpkins, but I can skip a year of pumpkin growing if needed to manage pest problems.

Rotate Plantings:  To keep your garden soil healthy and productive you should always move plant families from one space to another each year.  Not just individual plants, but plant families!  If you grew broccoli in a space one year, don't follow it with cabbage the next, instead try to follow it with a plant from a completely different family such as onions, carrots, or tomatoes.  Soil dwelling pests that were attracted to the broccoli initially may have laid their eggs in the soil, when they hatch they will be sorely disappointed to find there is no broccoli (or anything similar) there anymore. Similarly molds and diseases that developed around tomatoes will have no nearby victims if that space is followed with a planting of garlic, and your garden won't be as likely to suffer from them.  In addition, following fruit-bearing plants like peppers and tomatoes with root- or leaf- crops can keep your soil going longer without amendment.  Fruit crops use up a lot of nutrition, it requires much more effort to grow a plant, flower it, and ripen the fruits than it does to grow just the leaves, or the leaves and roots.  This can give your soil the break it needs between fruit crop plantings.

I Plead the 5th:  There are 5 primary organic practices to amend your soil, all of which add organic matter and nutrition to it.  Bio mulch of some type; fallen leaves, hay, etc.  Use these to mulch your summer garden to keep the ground moist.  After the crops are gone leave the mulch on the beds to rot then dig it into the soil in late winter or early spring.  Breaking down this mulch will use a lot of the nitrogen from your soil, but once it is decomposed the nitrogen levels will return to normal, so be sure to give the soil bacteria a couple months between digging it in and planting new veggies.  Hay costs between $3 and $6 per bale from farms, and can generally be found by checking Craigslist or asking at a local farm in the spring.  Growing a cover crop over the winter season such as oats or winter wheat also keeps your soil protected from erosion over the winter and then is turned over into the soil just like a mulch would be.  Adding compost is amendment number three.  The very best compost is made of a blend of leaves, grasses (lawn cuttings or hay), fruits or veggies that were not eaten, and plant waste from the kitchen.  For some people composting is an art form, I am not one of them.  My compost pile is not likely the most nutritious in the area, but it does the job.  Jack-o-lanterns, pulled out plants, peels, stems, cores, rotting hay bales, raked up leaves, all of these things go into my compost pile.  Why bother with a compost pile?  Because nature has a cycle.  Things grow from nutrients in the soil, they feed us, they die, they are decomposed and the nutrients are returned to the soil.  Why would you want to screw that up?  It's a perfect cycle in which you can dispose of all the kitchen waste from your harvests, then use it a few months later to feed your new plants.  We'll go in depth on composting at another time though.  The last two items on the organic 5 amendment list are tea and nutrient specifics.  Tea, or compost tea in this case, is nothing more than water that has had a "tea bag" of compost sitting in it for a short time.  The nutrients in the compost are leached out into the water making a muddy brown "tea" that can be spritzed directly onto plants or poured into the soil to add a boost of nutrition.  If a plant is struggling to survive an insect infestation, or you are transplanting a new plant a splash of tea can really give them a boost.  Nutrient specifics are a little more challenging, these are particular items that add a specific nutrient to your soil or compost.  Before worrying about these you should do soil testing to see if your soil is already in good shape.  Some examples of nutrient specific amendments are listed below.

N-P-K, often listed on fertilizer bags stands for Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium; each of which aids different types of plant growth.
The macro nutrients NPK; generally a well balanced compost will supply all of these without any additions.

Nitrogen (N) - legumes (beans, peas), cow and poultry manures well-rotted only.
Phosphorus (P) - banana peels, crab shells, shrimp peelings, most grains and nuts, and guano
Potassium (potash, K) - fruit skins, esp. banana peels.

 Micro nutrients, these can be more challenging to get in compost and commercial fertilizers don't generally contain them, which means an organic garden is more likely to be healthier!

Calcium (Ca) - eggshells, dolomitic lime
Magnesium (Mg) - manures, compost, dolomitic lime, and epsom salts.
Iron, Manganese, Zinc, Copper and Cobalt (Fe, Mn, Zn, Cu, Co) - kelp in its many forms; meal, powder, liquid.


pH amendments are used to adjust the soil acidity, they either sweeten or acidify soils.  Generally a good organic matter rich soil will not need these but certain plants prefer acidic soils, and some areas naturally have more acid soils and need to be sweetened.

Sweeteners - dolomitic lime, wood ashes.
Acidifiers - coffee grounds, vinegar, compost and manure.

While all of these things work to improve soils you may choose between them based on your own preferences; for example I prefer not to buy soil improvements if possible so would be more likely to use wood ash to sweeten soil rather than buying dolomitic lime.  Also some soil amendments sold at stores like blood meal, bone meal, and fish emulsion are by-products from other industries.  Personally I have no problem with using by-products in my soil; but I don't trust that the animals used to make the by-products were in good health and don't contain chemicals that could leach into my soil, so I stick with plant by-products as much as possible.  I also try to make sure they come from varied sources, using one plant's compost (i.e. mushroom compost) could leave your soil short on nutrients that particular plant doesn't use as much.

Remember to test your soil before adding amendments to it, except maybe for compost.  Compost is just all around good, and won't throw your soil out of balance.

When the Men Are Away, the Women Will... Build a Grow Room?

Shelves, trays, lights, bulbs, and seedling mix.

The original shelf and all the stuff stored there.

Got my grow room set up yesterday, just like everything else it was more challenging than I expected.  The 2' light fixtures I bought were for wiring into a house and didn't have cords, plus they needed assembly which I didn't know until I opened the boxes.  So after returning them I was forced to visit two hardware stores and a Home Depot to find something that would work.  So here's a quick tip: undercabinet lights, shop lights, and aquarium lights are your best bets for fixtures.  Strip lights wire into a home and don't have cords.  Undercabinet lights are primarily less than 2' long, shop lights are 4' and longer, and aquarium lights are in between.  Since you pay close to the same amount for a 2' light as a 4' light it's more cost efficient to have a 4' space and buy one shop light (which are cheap) than to buy two 2' lights (or in my case two 18" lights).  Aquarium lights tend to be more spendy since they are rather specialized, the other advantage of shop lights is that they often come with chains to hang them.  Sadly, my space was not wide enough to fit a shop light so I had to resort to a less efficient system.

 When selecting flourescent bulbs be sure to buy the correct length, circumference, and light color.  While a standard soft white bulb will work to sprout seeds, they will become leggy fast searching for actual sunlight.  Flourescents come in varying circumferences (T12, T8, T5) and you should check the size on the fixture you choose and buy a bulb of the correct size to fit it.  My fixtures require 18" T8 bulbs.

Examples of different bulbs that would work for plant growth.

Once you find the correct size you need to select a light color as close to that of sunlight as possible.  Daylight, Full Spectrum, Wide Spectrum, Plant and Aquarium, Natural Light, or Natural Daylight are some of the names for the bulbs you need.  If you are unsure of whether a bulb will work for your starts you can check the label on the package.  Look for the "Color Temperature" on the label, it should be a number between about 5000K and 6000K.  A number higher than that will cross into the white light category and may not be adequate, while a lower number will become closer to red light and again won't serve your purpose.

Once I solved my light fixture problem I set up my shelf, moved all my junk onto it, then plugged in the power strip.  It took a bit of arranging to get the lights hanging correctly. Then I wrapped tin foil over the cardboard from the shelving box and hung it over the back of the shelf.  Finally, I planted some seeds, I will probably plant more today, but was surprised to find I could fit 29 pots of different sizes into one tray.  I may not need more than that!

Below are more pictures showing the grow room space.

The shelf all assembled, lights hung, you can't really see the tin foil but it's against the wall reflecting the light forward.  I also set my thermometer w/min max on top to watch the temps here and in the green house more easily.

Examples of reusing last year's pots, and of phone book page origami pots.

21 of my pots filled and ready to go.  I had to stop and make more paper pots.

Plastic dome over top.  Seeded, watered and under the lights.  Ready to sprout!

I could have fit 3 trays under these lights but by the time I was done last night I was not prepared to plant that many seeds.  Plus I think I'll need another bag of seedling mix first.  Be sure to keep lights positioned just above the tops of the plants, no more than 4" above them to encourage short, robust growth and deter legginess.  You can move the lights up as needed or move the plants down, whatever is easier.  Lastly I wanted to mention that while researching on plant lights I found out that plants require and grow better with both light and dark times each day, so be sure to turn your plant lights off at night and back on in the mornings, if you are too forgetful for that then set a light timer to do it for you.  Having dark time is nearly as important to plant health as having sunlight.  Good luck!