Keep your mind out, but your hands in the gutter(s)

This blog is about the beauty and success of a garden. However, to truly inform, I think it also has to highlight lessons learned. You will recall that a couple of weeks ago we installed a rain barrel to collect rain water for our garden. It is a great thing to do and will provide water for the garden all season long.

The lesson learned is that you will collect more and better quality water if you clean out the gutters you are collecting from. I looked out our second floor window this morning and discovered that the gutters were chock full of debris from the sour cherry tree we recently removed. This severly hampered the gutters from doing their job of collecting and transporting clean rain water to our barrel.

Once cleaned out, the water flows cleanly and rapidly, filling our rain barrel to capacity once again!

Lesson Learned!!

Happy Gardening!

Hardening and Protecting Seedlings

Great! You have started your seeds indoors and have beautiful little seedlings…what do you do? Immediately plant them outdoors? I wouldn’t recommend it; before transferring directly to the garden, you will want to harden the plants off for sun and for cool evening temperatures.

There are several methods for hardening off and protecting vegetable seedlings. For hardy vegetable crops such as califlour, broccoli, brussle sprouts or cabbage you can plant them in the dirt if all danger of the ground freezing has passed and cover them with glass or plastic cloches, frost fabric or a really economical solution is to cut around the circumfrence of a 2 liter plastic soda bottle and sink the bottle slightly around the seedling. Keep the cap off during the day to allow air flow. The plastic bottle protects from frosty mornings.

For our seedlings we took a different approach. You never know when inspiration will strike, I purchased the mini conservatories(pictured above) at a discount pottery outlet long before we bought this house and they have been stored in our garage for the last six years. I purchased them for in interior decoration for a party I was catering and put maiden’s hair and baby’s tear ferns in pots inside them. Since then, they have not been in use. I decided to use them on the east facing wall of my garage. The seedlings will get air flow with the lids up, morning to part afternoon sun and the lids can be closed to protect against frost.

For soft stemmed tender crops such as tomatoes, peppers and most other vegetable seedlings, keep them indoors just as long as possible. When the seedlings reach 3-4 inches, begin taking them out in the sun for part of the day (preferably in the morning) so they can adapt to the bright sun without burning.

Here in the midwest, the weather can be very unpredictable during the transitions between seasons, it is best to start and keep your seedlings indoors for as long as possible, but if your seedlings are in stress in their seed pots, follow these simple methods to get them out in the garden and protect them from the hot sun or the frosty mornings!

Happy Gardening!

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme

It is herb planting time! I decided that instead of creating another raised bed, we would plant our fresh herbs in containers on our deck. It makes it easier to grow in a container and much easier to harvest by just stepping out the back door.

We bought these terrific copper containers (pictured above in composite) in two sizes about three years ago from http://www.smithandhawken.com and had planted various annuals, then for the last two years had perennial plants in them which have been transplanted to the perennial border. This year they will be home to our herb garden.

Growing herbs from seeds is the most cost effective and easiest way to grow herbs. Herb seedlings at the garden center (not organically grown) run anywhere from $1.50 to $3.95; herb seed packets are around $1.00 for seeds you can use for 2 years and with multiple plants.
I also grow herbs in the perennial border that return year after year such as lemon thyme (outstanding with grilled fish and vegetables) and culinary grade lavender for use in summer ice cream and to dry in the fall to keep all winter.

This year, we are planting
Basil
Dill
Parsley
Sage
Oregano
Chives
Tarragon

While growing herbs in containers is very convenient, special care should be taken in their planting and care to ensure they will sprout and thrive in your pots. First the soil should be really light (about 75% peat, 20% soil and 5% pearlite or vermiculite). Next you will want to add a water soluble organic fertilizer to the mix. I don’t recommend any compost to be put in the soil, but you can make compost tea for watering.

I usually do not start herb seeds prior to planting in the pots, it is very easy to broadcast the seeds, cover with more soil and then water generously to ensure the peat swells and is saturated with water for proper germination. Seed germination should take only a few days for most herbs. Rosemary and Tarragon may take a few days longer to germinate. Full maturity will come in about 35-40 days, but the best part is that you can take snips of the herbs for your cooking and medicinal purposes and the herbs just branch out more.

I have used herbs in my cooking for as long as I have been cooking. My grandmother taught me the principles of their flavor and what they did for food. I have expanded on that to use herbs not only for culinary pursuits, but for natural healing properties as well. I use an infused rosemary tea to rid my partner and I of migraine headaches. Thyme infusion tea is excellent for cold or flu symptoms and to shorten the duration of the affliction (combine the tea with a drop of Echinacea and a bit of honey). I am not a physician, nor do I make any medical claims for these herbal remedies. I read about them in an old herb book from the 19th century and decided to try them out and found they work for us.

Growing, harvesting, using and even drying herbs is a delightful pursuit, it is a simple way of using natural ingredients to take your cooking to a new level!

Happy Gardening!

The Planting Has Begun!

I have been waiting for this week for over a year. Last year, I concieved a potager in our back yard. Wanting to eat more organically and also being somewhat budget concieous, it made sense to grow most of our vegetables ourselves (limited only by our climate). Over the winter, we talked about what we wanted to do, made the first of many garden plans and scoured the internet and magazines for information. All of the purchases, planning and re-planning have led to this week; the start of the growing season!

Yesterday I started more seeds. Beets, radishes, leeks, onions, celery and cucumber to add to the tomatoes and peppers I had begun a few weeks ago. This morning, I planted three square feet of salad lettuce, my french shallots and french fingerling potatoes. These are good crops to start now as they take a while to sprout and won’t show leaves for a couple of weeks while we wait for the frost danger to pass.

Since I am a Francophile (lover of all things French), there was not question as to the variety of many of my garden crops. I have included information about the variety as well as growing instructions.

Princess LaRatte Fingerling Potatoes: 90-100 days to harvest

A specialty, gourmet potato from France, it has a subtly sweet, nutty flavor reminiscent of hazelnuts and chestnuts. Its smooth, buff-colored skin cloaks golden-yellow flesh. Known for its smooth, custard texture, use this versatile spud to elevate the delicacy of any recipe.
I ordered my starters from http://www.kitchengardenseeds.com/index.html once they arrived, I stored them in a cool, dark place (I prefer our second refrigerator) since I was not going to plant them immediately. The best planting time is two weeks before last frost; if planted too early, the shoots can be damaged by freezing temperatures (although they will usually regrow). I placed them in the newer garden soil that is deeply dug and moderately fertile.
These “mini-tubers” will produce excellent yields when planted whole. I planted in square feet (2 starters per square foot).

I will harvest the first crop of potatoes around the first of August. I will then use a few of the harvested potatoes to cut in half and re-seed the area for a second harvest that will be just in time to use for Thanksgiving!

French Red Shallots – 100 days to harvest

French Red Shallots are amazingly productive; are easy to peel and dice and have an intense, spicy flavor. In the summer, when the top greens start to die back, they will yield shallots the size of chestnuts with coppery russet skins and purple pink flesh. Plus, they store very well, in fact, they can last up to a year when stored properly in a cool, dry spot (between 50 to 60 F).
Our bed was already prepared, but if yours is not, prepare your bed by turning under or tilling in compost or well-rotted manure. Separate multiple bulbs and plant each individual bulb, root end down. Plant shallots 1” deep, 4-6” apart in 18” spaced rows roots side down, just deep enough so that the tip lies level with the soil surface. Shallots will form a cluster of 5-12 bulbs around the original bulb. This cluster will spread out more than a garlic bulb and therefore requires more space between plants.

Do not use mulch as it may rot bulbs, which are not strong enough to push through mulch. After planting shallots, water well or lightly in heavy soils, and only water again when the soil is dry. Remember, shallots love water and food, but they must have good drainage or the bulbs will rot.

In the spring, feed the shallots with either composted manure or a well-balanced fertilizer before the bulbs begin to enlarge. Keep the bulbs well watered and weeded; they grow best with at least 1" of water per week. Remove any seed stalks that form to focus the shallots' energy into forming bulbs. Shallots should be spring planted in very cold areas.

Harvest the shallots when the tops are drying. You can tell the bulbs are mature when the tops yellow and die (most plants can be harvested after 3 months); Pull up the clusters and cure in a warm but shady place with ventilation. Regardless of what you read elsewhere, do not leave your shallots in the sun to cure, because they might sunburn and rot. Store your shallots in mesh bags (like onion sacks) in a cool dry area.. You should let the bulbs dry for about a month. They can be stored for up to 8 months if kept at their optimum storage temperature of 35°-45°F.

I think my fall plans will be to create a rood cellar in our basement!

Happy Gardening!

Ooooh Dirty!

As I have written before, I like a rich organic soil mix with about 20% compost. This rich soil ammendment provides nutrients to hungry plants and provides a natural fertilizer that can be made at home!

I haven’t built or maintained a compost site since I was a child. My grandparents had a beautiful home with a garden and a very large compost area on our property. All grass clippings, leaves, kitchen scraps and garden waste went into the compost “valley” as I called it. We had to use shovels and forks to turn over the sometimes smelly mountain to maintain it. We also watered the pile to ensure a proper temperature. Once a year, my grandfather or later I and my grandmother, would dig down into the valley to extract the rich loamy compost. That was then spread over our flower and vegetable beds. Living on lake Huron in Michigan meant sand, sand and more sand in our soil, so compost was essential to balance the soil and make it suitable for growing plants other than cactus or wild lake grass.

Now that we are planning a garden, the question of sustainability comes up again. I could purchase compost for my garden at a premium or begin to manage the “waste” of our home and put it to good use.

The amount of usable compost materials that even a small household of two people and four pets creates is amazing. A day of weeding the lawn of dandelions or weeding the garden beds yields at least 2-3 gallons of green material (plant or vegetable waste). Cooking breakfast will provide egg shells, making a salad will provide lettuce cores, carrot tops and celery leaves (the ones I may not get a chance to use in the stock pot). Balancing that is brown material; fallen leaves, coffee grounds and the like provide ample material. We have left over leaves from last autumns raking as well as coffee grounds that will give our compost a good start.

You can imagine that a pile of waste would be rather unsightly. To combat that we purchased a simple 115 gallon black composite bin that provides aeration as well as holes for rain water and doors for accessing the compost once it is ready. This bin fits in the back of my garden and will provide me with great soil ammendments for years to come.

You have a vast choice when it comes to selecting a composting system. Some people prefer to simply pile the items in a remote corner of their property. However, if you are a city dweller as we are, you will probably want to contain the compost in some way. Here is a selection of links to compost system providers. Their products vary from the simple (our bin), to in home oderless electric composters that take kitchen waste and turn it into rich compost in a matter of weeks!

http://www.gardeners.com/

http://www.smithandhawken.com

http://www.compostbins.com/

Composting returns nutrients to the soil, provides protection against weeds and conserves water…all around, it is an excellent idea and so simple to do!
Happy Gardening!

Getting All Wet

Now this might sound like another kind of fun, but I am talking about gardening here…fun in its own right and a little less kinky.

Part of building a potager for us was thinking about organic practices and sustainability. It makes little sense to grow your own vegetables then use precious (and expensive) city water and chemical fertilizers and pest control products. The idea of home grown should be organic, sustainable, cost effective and good for you!

I will talk about fertilizer and pest control in a later entry. Today, I want to talk about our efforts to conserve water.

Living in an urban environment has a lot of advantages, including city water and facility service. However, this convenient source of safe and high quality water comes at a cost. Water bills typically run around $100 for a three month period, some areas are even higher. With increased usage, come increased costs (lawn and garden watering drives up usage by at least 50% during the spring, summer and fall months). Our small garden covers around 200 square feet total including garden beds, perennial borders and containers, in years past, this has increased our water bill by as much as $50 for the three month period.

Adding a vegetable garden would significantly increase the water usage of our household. To minimize the impact of that increase, we decided to divert our garage downspouts to a rain barrel. This is a specially designed rain barrel available from http://www.gardeners.com/ that has a spigot at the bottom and hose that allows you to connect it to another hose or a drip line or to fill watering cans.

In the few days following installation, we went through a rainy period in Columbus and our rain barrel was on its way to filling nicely. I plan on using that water to plant the garden with the spring root crops this week! Free water!!! It is a great idea and not too difficult or expensive (the cost of the rain barrel is off set by two or three billing periods of our water bill). We enjoy the benefits of the rain barrel so much, we are planning to place another one in the back yard to collect the water from the backside of our house. If we displace the water used in the back yard, we will see very little increase in our water bill this spring and summer as we follow strict watering guidelines for our front yard and garden bed.

Sitting in my breakfast room now, looking at the rain, makes me wish we had already purchased and installed that second barrel!
Happy Gardening!

Walking the Walk

Any gardner knows that walking around gardening beds can be trecherous and sometimes messy if the garden paths are not covered with an appropriate material.

There are numerous options for garden path coverings; for larger gardens salt hay or other mulch material is excellent. In smaller gardens, one can afford a little more durable or decorative material. In our potager, we selected pea gravel. This will be perfect for keeping our feet out of the mud, but still permeable for water to get to the soil.

When selecting path material, keep in mind a few things. One, you need a material that will cover mud and dirt completely in order to keep feet and shoes clean and not track dirt and mud everywhere in the yard or house. Next, it needs to be comfortable on the feet; using jagged stones or other material will be uncomfortable on your feet. Finally, it needs to be attractive.

Here are some suggestions for garden tread materials
· River Stones
· Pea Gravel
· Salt Hay
· Bark Mulch (chips, not shreads).
· Rubber Mulch (made of recycled tires).

Whatever you chose, make sure it coordinates with the other hardscape materials of your home. Happy gardening!

Build it and They Will Grow

Well, the weekend finally arrived to clear the area and build the raised beds. You will recall, I purchased composite kits months ago on the internet and it was finally time to put them in.
Since the ground in that area was very uneven due to the previous owner’s landscaping attempts, we had to make the ground more level to install the beds and to create the other features.

We began by tilling mulch, sand and peat moss into the clay soil to a depth of 6 inches. Once tilled, I used a bow rake to spread the loose material to the low spots and to reduce the high spots.

Once the material was evenly distributed, we tamped the material to create a more firm base, then added landscape cloth over the whole area to inhibit weeds.

Since the area was prepped, we moved on to building the beds. I am so incredibly thrilled with the product I am putting their link here again http://www.frameitall.com/ . It took about no longer than two hours to place and assemble the raised beds.

The first step was to position them, lay out the materials and determine where to drive the first stake. Using a rubber mallet, we drove the first stake into the ground through the landscape fabric. Once secured, we began building the first joint with unique hingelike brackets that go over the stake and then bracket the panels. These panels are secured with screws and the process continues until we had the first 6 inch bed completed. Since I wanted 12 inch beds, a second kit contains a different kind of stake that fits within the anchor stakes and follows the same process until you have a 4’X8’X12 inch raised bed (you don’t have to remember to order the second kit, if you pick the appropriate sized bed you want; the good folks at frameitall will ensure you have the right products).

Now to fill the beds. I start with some reserved fall leaves that we kept from last year. I place a 2-3 inch layer in the bed to add a bit of brown material to the base of the bed. Next I use a soil mix that is 50% top soil, 30% peat and 20% compost/ manure. I prefer a lighter soil mix that is more friable and easier to work than standard garden soil. This is added to the bed and blended by hand and then cultivated with the bow rake.

I am playing with the positioning of the the structural elements of the garden, but I think this is the position I want the tomato, pepper, cucumber and bean stakes. Do this, before you finalize where you plant so there wont be soil disruption later.

Now the hard part…..waiting. It is not a good idea to plant straight away in a fresh garden bed. First, it is early april here and not quite warm enough to put tender plants in the ground. Secondly, I want to ensure that any weed seeds left in the soil will germinate so I can pluck them out before I add my valuable plants.

My next entry will be in a couple of weeks when I plant some of the seeds for carrots, beets and celery in the soil as well as put in the tubors and bulbs for shallots and potatoes.
Happy gardening!
Ken

It is always exciting to watch the process happen. The picture above are the sprouts forming for my tomato and bell pepper plants. They are just beginning and have even grown a little since I took this picture last week.

Plants like tomatos and peppers do not fair well when they are directly sewn into the ground and benefit from sprouting and starting indoors; then being transplanted to the garden later.

The process couldn't be easier. I started with a small kit from my garden center (larger kits are available everywhere). The peat pods start as dry discs and expand to this size with the addition of water. Once fully expanded, the seed is sewn and covered with a little peat. The top is placed and the kit is placed in a not so sunny place. The sprouts will appear within a few days. The kit top can then be propped up and the kit placed in a sunny spot to grow the seedlings more.

These seedlings have a few more weeks of maturity and I will probably transplant them into a flat container with a little soil in a week or so before taking them out to the garden.

Speaking of the garden, the area has been cleared, our next step is to till the awful clay soil with peat, mulch, sand and other ammendments. We will then compact it to create a flat base for the raised beds. April is going to be a busy month...I am really excited about getting outside and getting my hands dirty!

Happy Gardening

Ken Wright