Michele asked what soil amendments we were planning on using in our beds. Primarily I use Tagro. I have a well documented past with the stuff. I did an experiment last season with the tomatoes. I planted 4 in a bed that was only amended with Tagro and 6 in beds that were 100% Tagro mix (not potting soil). The plants in the 100% mix performed better than any tomato I’ve ever grown. It could have something to do with the bed location, but I’m hedging my bets on the Tagro. This a far cry from the girl right out of college who though bio-solid fertilizers were not safe.
This season I plan to use Tagro once again. The expansion of the garden will require us to purchase the mix instead of the bucket method of last year (if you go to the Tagro facility you can shovel as much as you like for free). We are estimating 10 yards to complete the garden. Since our soil is very hard from years of compaction we are taking the lazy man’s way out with building the garden. I’ve been hoarding newspaper and cardboard and I’ll rake all of the Photinia leaves once we are ready. I will lay down many layers of paper and cardboard and then the Tagro on top. We are not removing the grass underneath. This will either work out well or be a very bad thing. I hoping for the former.
We are also putting in a meandering gravel path, but we will put landscape fabric under that. We would eventually like to till the garden beds, but not the path.
As for the raised beds in the back we will amend those with Tagro too. In addition I add Soundgro to those and I’ll sprinkle in a little bid of worm castings.
Next year we should be able to rent a full sized rototiller for the main garden and add more Tagro and various manures.
Now the straight Tagro method may not work for the full vegetable garden since Tagro is a little more acidic than I would like, but again gardening is trial and error.
Last year I gave an account of how I went about planning the Sprouting Off vegetable garden. This year was similar to last, only more involved. Last year we quickly realized that 150 square feet was not nearly large enough to feed our family of 3. We ate and preserved more than our fair share of tomatoes, but things like peas, beans and broccoli were not abundant enough. We also didn’t have room for any squash or other large brassicas like cauliflower or cabbage. In addition, we dislike mowing our lawn weed field. Our vegetable gardening area is growing from 150+ sq. ft to over 3600 sq. ft. We are covering the East lawn with a vegetable garden.
My plan for the garden is what factored in to the very ambitious list of seeds that I purchased last fall. I also went out and purchased a few seeds that weren’t available from Heirloom Seeds. I will likely need to fill in with a few others, but for now I think I’m set.
This year I am not going with the square foot gardening method. I didn’t find that it worked for me. It was too constraining. Think me crazy, but I’m a sucker for rows of vegetables. I also like a flowy garden. Contradictory? Probably, but go with me. The new garden is a meandering path with intermittent raised beds. It will (hopefully) allow for both sides of the equation.
I stared (as usual) with my trusty Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades book. It helped me determine which vegetables I could grow or attempt to grow and which to leave to the farmers (I don’t think I could do Celery). I then employed a new program that I found on the internet. I made a list of the veg I wanted to grow and then pulled out my trusty calendar and garden plan. I translated the hand drawn plan into the GrowVeg program and then started laying in the plants. I’ll get to a review of the program in another post, but for now I’ll just say it is worth the money (that I haven’t paid yet because I’m still in the free trial period). I also stuck a few things into spots that won’t actually exist just to get planting dates. Those plants will go into the 150 sq. ft. raised bed garden in the West yard.
GrowVeg will give you a chart that shows when to start seeds indoors, when to start outside and when to expect a harvest. I followed the chart for each month and cross checked it with Growing Vegetables West to get a more accurate indication of when things should be started. GrowVeg is also handy because it tells me how many of each thing to plant so I’m not grossly over planting pumpkins like I did last year.
Now I have my plan, my list and when to plant. I am keeping track of when to plant and when I actually get around to planting. I also don’t start my seeds indoors in a light box or other lighted room 1) because I don’t have either of those and 2) because I have a cold frame outside.
My calendar indicates that I should have started broccoli and cauliflower inside on February 5th. I did not do that. I wasn’t ready. My cold frame needed repair. The beautiful weekend weather allowed me to make the repairs and broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage were all started on Sunday. Peas should have been put in on President’s Day weekend, but I’ve found I have better germination if I wait just a few weeks. Theoretically, I could start trying lettuce right now, but I’ll wait on that one too. First lettuce will go into the raised beds and they have been tilled, but need the addition of more organic material to bring them back up to the proper level.
Hopefully we will be able to start building the new garden in a few weeks and this season can really get going.
Wow, I promised a drawing of the garden didn’t I. I believe I got distracted by something shiny. Yes, shiny. At the moment I don’t know where it is so you don’t get that. Sorry.
Instead, I’m happy to say that my wonderful husband installed a gate on the arbor in our back yard thus containing now giant puppy to the non-working area of our yard. Working as in this is where we store things and use for edibles and the cultivation thereof. Non-working as in the was pretty at one point and will likely become a destroyed dog run.
This means I can now seriously begin thinking about my edibles garden and prepare the early stuff. I’m going to refurbish my greenhouse (that the dog destroyed) and use it to grow an early crop of spinach and lettuce. I’m desperate for a good salad and my little cold-frame greenhouse should offer enough protection from the elements.
I am also looking into seed starting options for some of the early crops. My lighting situation is a little questionable so I’ll do my best.
January is over and the gardening season can now begin.
Welcome to a new planting season. Wait? What? Isn’t it January? I’m wondering if you have your seeds ordered yet? I ordered mine last August for fear of my previous encounter with late arriving seeds.
With any luck the 2010 Sprouting Off garden will be bigger and better than ever. Trick is, we have little money to build the garden with. In addition, a portion of our garden space might be unusable this year with the addition of a new member of our family. In December we were gifted (a wanted) 8 week old Boxer-Mastiff puppy. She is now 3 months old and thinks the raised beds in the back are her personal play area. We have plans to add a gate to our back arbor, but that may not happen in time for the first planting.
In any case the garden must go in and we must do it on the tightest budget possible. Instead of putting in the whole garden all at once we are doing it piece by piece. Hopefully at the beginning of March we can add all of the gravel paths and then just fill in around them as the season gets started. Next week I’ll share the drawing of what the side garden will look like. In the mean time, I’ll share my list of seeds for 2010. Some are the same as last year and some are new to us this year.
Lettuce:
Buttercrunch
Flame
Salad Bowl
Tango
Yugoslavian Red Buttercrunch
Giant Thick Leafed Spinach
Winter Squash:
Sweet Potato
Cheyenne Bush Pumpkin
Rouge Vif d’ Etampes Pumpkin
Amish Pie Pumpkin
Summer Squash:
Straita de Italia
Yellow Crookneck
Giant Musselburg Leek
Early Snowball Cauliflower
Arugula
Yellow Sweet Spanish Onion
Melitopolski Watermelon
Golden Acre Cabbage
American Purple Top Rutabaga
Hollow Crown Parsnip
Cucumbers:
Lemon
Mexican Sour Gherkin
Boston Pickling
Beets:
Ruby Queen
Bull’s Blood
Cilantro
These are just the seeds I’ve ordered. This does not include the lettuce, broccoli, pumpkins, squash, peas, beans, corn or carrots I already have. Nor does it include the few plants I will buy like tomatoes and peppers. In addition, we will be adding a few perennial items to the mix. We have a few, but some need replacing. We will add horseradish, artichokes, raspberries and asparagus and replace strawberries and blueberries. Next year we may add a few fruit trees if the budget will allow. Those will hopefully take the place of the raised beds in the back.
In a nutshell it is an ambitious goal for the season. I know it will keep us busy and full of good food.
The Tuesday Night Supper feature has obviously taken a few weeks off. The busy and a mysterious illness has befallen all members of this house and last night we ate frozen pizza. It wasn’t even my wonderful throw it together in 30 minutes pizza.
Gardening has also taken a backseat in our lives. The Autumn rains have started and the weather forecast shows some kind of sky wetness for at least the next 7-10 days. I am currently trying to devise a plan to tie my lightbox around my neck and find a very long extension cord. Gardening has been so bad that when I got to take the garbage out I keeps seeing one little orange pepper staring back begging me to pick it. However, I’m usually in my slippers and the grass is often wet. There it sits.
The one thing I do enjoy about this time of year are the birds. For some odd reason we get a hoard of small birds every October. The cacophony of sound is very Hitchcock-esque. It reminds me of the days when we first purchased our house and I spend all day stripping wallpaper, painting cabinets and ripping out caret. I had no radio or TV. I sang to myself and listened to the birds.
As the health of the writing contingent for Sprouting Off continues to improve we will once again be bringing you useful (or not so useful) information on how to prepare for next year’s garden. We will be welcoming a feature writer who will contribute stories about sustainable eating. Mom is actually going to retire so hopefully she will find a few moments now and again to update you on how her gardening adventure went this year (just ask her about radishes). I’ll bring you a few book reviews and some entertaining bits found in a few vintage garden books.
Stick with us. We’ll make it worth your while.
This time of year is spent canning, freezing and generally preserving the harvest we’ve worked so hard to create. I also scout out deals on produce at the local markets to fill in what I don’t grow. Apples are a prime example of this. We will head down to Portland, OR for our annual trip to Portland Nursery’s apple tasting and come home with hoards of apples that will need to be made into applesauce.
Another bit of fruit I happen to have an excess of is Black Currants. Somehow I got talked into planting a Black Currant bush in our garden despite having no clue what to do with the actual currants. The first year we had a small little crop that the birds ate. The next year I got a slightly larger crop that I picked and then let go bad in the refrigerator. Last year I grew quite a decent crop and made sure to rescue the harvest before the birds had their fill. I managed to freeze that batch. This year was much the same, only my yield was huge. Well, if you consider 1 lb. 10 oz. huge. After all, it is one small currant bush.
I carefully picked off all of the stems and flower end bits and froze the berries on a sheet pan so they didn’t stick together. I did the same with the Blueberries we gathered from Blueberry Park.
Yesterday I had grand intentions of making a grand batch of mixed berry jam with the blueberries, black currants, strawberries (from the freezer) and the blackberries my son and I picked. Sadly, I didn’t get to the blackberries before the fruit flies and mold did. That left me with one less berry. I didn’t think that strawberry/blueberry/black currant jam sounded all that delightful (not that adding blackberries would have made much of a difference) so I scrapped the strawberries. They are now thawing in the fridge and hopefully I can get back up the hill to get a fresh batch of blackberries.
I did some looking for what to do with blueberries and black currants and oddly enough it was mentioned that they can make a nice jam if mixed together. Might as well.
My pantry is in a state of disarray and I’m short on a few things. Sugar happens to be one of them. I only had about 1/2 of the sugar I needed, but somehow it worked out.
Blueberry Black Currant Jam
(These are the weights I had to work with)
2 lbs. Black Currants
3 lbs. Blueberries
1 1/2 lbs. sugar
little over 8 ounces of water
1 whole cinnamon stick
Combine the water, sugar and cinnamon stick in a large pot. Heat over medium heat to dissolve the sugar. Add berries (fresh or previously frozen). Cook fruit down until it is syrupy. I let mine go about 2 hours. Remove cinnamon stick and mash the remaining whole fruit. I put the mixture through a foley mill with the largest size screed on. Transfer the mixture back into the pot to keep warm.
Sterilize 12-13 4oz. jars. I do this by washing them thoroughly in hot soapy water and then placing them open side down in a skillet of simmering water for 10-15 minutes. Bring a small pan of water to a boil and then turn it off. Put the clean lids in the pan. Heat a large canning pot of water to a rolling boil. Remove the jars from the skillet and dry with a clean towel. Fill the jars with the hot jam mixture. Leave about 1/4″ of head space and run a small spatula around in the jar to remove any air. Clean the rim of the jar with a clean wash cloth and place a lid and ring on each jar. I can fit about 6 jars in my canning pot so I only do 6 at a time. Put the jars in the boiling water (using a jar lifter) and process for 10 minutes. Remove jars from boiling water and place on a towel on the counter to cool. The jars have sealed correctly if the lids get sucked in.
I happened to only do 12 jars and had enough left over to fill another 9 ounce jar. I could have processed that one too, but I just put it in the refrigerator to enjoy now. The jam is not super thick, but more like a fruit preserve spread. It tastes delicious on toast.
I did a little math today and calculated how many pounds of tomatoes I have harvested for the season. The total? 58 pounds 4 ounces. That doesn’t include the (likely) 10+ pounds I threw into the bushes because of slug damage or the cherry tomatoes that didn’t make it to the scale (num num).
I’ve given away sacks full, put more than my fair share on salads (unfortunately my lettuce crop has run dry and my beds are in no shape to replant), I made and canned 5 quarts of salsa, dried enough for 2 pints (and more are in the dehydrator), made caprese salad, thrown tomatoes into every dish we eat and generally snacked. I also took my giant basket to my grandfather’s birthday party and told my aunts, and great aunts to take some home.
I still have at least another 30 pounds on the vine. At least. The one day record was over 18 pounds. The single largest tomato was a pound and a half and the size of a small cantaloupe.
Am I tired of tomatoes? Heavens no. There is something therapeutic about growing tomatoes. Will I grow fewer next year? Probably not. I might grow more, but not less. I will reinforce my support system and revamp the way I tend to the plants. I’m frustrated to have sacrificed to many large fruits to the slugs. Live and learn.
We are starting to get creative around here as to what to do with the hoards of tomatoes. Last week I canned 5 quarts of salsa, gave away 5 bags and dried about 2 pounds. I am doing my best to not let anything go to waste.
Since I have a wide variety of types of tomatoes (and none are dedicated “sauce” tomatoes) I thought I would give drying a try. I was lucky enough to receive a food dehydrator from mom a few years ago that comes in handy ever now and again. I pull it out during apple season to make chewy apple chips or banana crisps. I pulled it out a few weeks ago to dry some peppers that were on the verge of going bad.
I did some looking on the internet to make sure that using a food dehydrator for tomatoes would actually work, and sure enough there was plenty of information. In addition I recently purchased “Canning & Preserving Your Own Harvest” by Carla Emery & Lorene Edwards Forker at the suggestion of Willi at Diggin Food. The writers of the book had a great idea on preserving dehydrated tomatoes. It doesn’t even require boiling giant pots of water.
My version is slightly different than the book, but this was a trial run.
Clean all of your tomatoes. Spray the racks of the dehydrator with cooking spray (if you don’t oil the racks you will say bad words later, learned this with apples and bananas). Slice tomatoes in 1/4″ slices and remove the white core part. Place on dehydrator racks without the tomatoes touching. Turn on dehydrator and let go for what seems like eternity (mine went all afternoon and night). 1/2 way through the drying swap the racks. Put the top ones on the bottom and the bottom ones on the top. The tomatoes are done when they feel like leather and are still pliable. Some of mine were a little crispy. Turn off the dehydrator and let them cool. Once the slices are cool put them in a bowl and toss them with a little plain white vinegar. Take them out of the vinegar and pat them dry with paper towels. Allow them to dry completely. Place them in sterile jars and cover with olive oil (I happen to use grapeseed oil since I’m quite allergic to olive oil). Place a lid on and keep them in a cool dark place. Apparently you can keep them for up to a few months. Refrigerate after opening. So simple! They look pretty to boot.
This is a gardening site isn’t it? I probably should tell you about a few plants other than tomatoes. Part of the point of this site was to inform readers about some of the not so common, yet easy to find landscape plants available in your local nursery. I intended on starting with my all time favorite tree, but lighting conditions were such that photographing it didn’t work out quite right. Instead, I’m going to tell you about my husband’s favorite tree.
The idea is to create a little bit of an information sheet that you could print out and add to a collection of “cool plants I’d like to have.”
Variegated Box Elder or Acer negundo ‘Flamingo’
Height: 20′
Spread: 15′
Hardiness: USDA zone 3 – 9
Habit: rounded pyramidal and often irregular. Somewhat of a scraggly appearance. Not your full and bushy tree
Texture: coarse in winter, medium in leaf
Culture: adapts well to many conditions, full sun, wet, dry or poor soils. Often short lived
Pests: few noted
The Flamingo cultivar of the Box Elder is an interesting form of a rather uninteresting Maple. Leaves are complex and a beautiful spring green edged in creamy white. New shoots are a brilliant pink aging to green. Color is best in cooler weather. Cut back in late winter to encourage extension growth which is often more pink and cream.
This is an interesting plant for the landscape. It is not as common as some of the other Maples, but has it’s place in the landscape. Neighbors often ask us what that tree is and are stunned to hear it is a type of Maple. Be careful because often times branches will revert to the non-cultivar variety and are not as attractive. Prune out reverted sprouts.
We have had this tree in our garden since we moved into our house. It has doubled in height in 5 years, standing 15′ high now. As it matures it will grow slower and fill out somewhat. The Variegated Box Elder is a lovely little tree that deserves more attention.
I read a recent post from a woman who had no clue how a tomato was formed on the vine. I mentioned it to my husband and he thought that was rather odd. We both did. It never occurred to us that people didn’t know how a tomato formed. Sometimes we have to stop and remember that not everyone grows their own food.
This got me thinking. How many other people don’t know how a tomato grows? I set out to document how the process works.
First, you plant a beautiful little plant that has a very distinct odor when you touch it. Did you know that? The stems of the plant also feel rather moist when you touch them. They are also toxic. Every part of a tomato is toxic except the fruit. Odd huh?
Anyway, when the conditions are right (meaning it’s warm enough) the plant will flower.
The flower could be a single one (as shown in the above photo) or double, or triple. I’ve had very sparse flowers and large frilly flowers. It just depends on the plant. In any case they are all the same shade of bright yellow. The flower needs to be open during the day time to be pollinated. They close up when the air temperature is cool so if you live somewhere that the days are colder you’ll have later or never setting fruit. We were lucky to have a massive heat wave in July that caused my plants to put on massive amounts of fruit.
That is one cluster of hundreds of cherry tomatoes I have.
Once the flower is pollinated the fruit will form behind the flower (actually inside). The flower wilts and a little tomato is formed.
This was the smallest one I could find. It’s about the size of a petite pea.
As the warm weather goes on the fruit gets larger and larger and once it reaches its mature size it will begin to color. Typically the fruit colors from the bottom to the top. Every so often you’ll get a strange variety that colors from the top down or the side over. I have fruit doing all of those. The Azoychka (yellow) colors from either the side over or the whole thing at once. All of my red varieties color from the bottom up and the orange Juan Flame colors from the top down. The white Snow White Cherries color from the bottom up too.
I tend to pick my tomatoes a little on the green side. Heirloom varieties ripen fast once they are brought inside and can quickly become over ripe (sometimes overnight). I keep all of mine on a paper towel on the kitchen counter. I lay them stem side down and never on top of each other. However, right now I have about 10 pounds and not enough counter space. The ripe ones are in a basket on the kitchen table and will soon become salsa. The greenish ones are holding their place of honor on the counter.
At the end of the season, when the weather man threatens frost I run outside and pick all of the green tomatoes that are close to mature size. I put them on sheet pans and put the pans all over the house. They will ripen up. It just might take a week or more.
So now you know how you go from a little flower to this.
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