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Administrator on June 24th, 2008
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If you live in New England, I don’t have to tell you about the new crop of stones that will appear in your garden every year, no matter how long you’ve been tilling the soil! Partly due to this and partly because I just ran out of room within the confines of my poor excuse for a fence, I decided a couple of years ago to try a small raised bed.
It took about 4 bags of topsoil (which unfortunately seemed to come with a few of its own small rocks!) half a bale of peat moss, and half a bag of composted manure to fill the box. I’ve had mixed luck with it — the bell peppers that I planted there the first year were quite happy and produced well, but the cauliflower plants didn’t quite make it to maturity the following year.
It is very noticeable that although the crabgrass constantly threatens to take over my regular veggie garden, the raised bed is almost weed free. This is a huge help in itself, as my time in the garden is very limited since I have both a brick and mortar store and a web store to manage and must also find time to make the handcrafted items that I sell.
This year I noticed that the soil level had dropped considerably, so I filled the remaining space with compost from the pile in the corner of my yard. I’ve planted several eggplant plants in the raised bed and several more in the regular garden area and it is now obvious that the ones in the raised bed are growing at almost twice the rate of the ones in the garden. I think that it’s a combination of the warmer soil in the raised bed and the compost. Now if I could just convince my garden helper cat that it really isn’t an extra large kitty litter box…..
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Administrator on June 7th, 2008
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Just thought that I should follow through on my last two posts. The promised coupons for more Aerogarden goodies showed up a couple of days ago and my replacement grow-light bulb came in yesterday’s mail.
Now I just have to control myself so that I don’t break the budget (especially since I’m planning on ordering a greenhouse kit to replace the one that was murdered by a falling tree earlier this year).
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Administrator on April 10th, 2008
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It finally feels a bit like Spring around here — at least it has in the past couple of days. Unfortunately, the weather forecast for the coming weekend features (I’m sure you’ve guessed by now) SNOW! I’m afraid that the daffodils, tulips and helebore are on their own as nobody in our household really has time to go try to cover them to protect them from the weather.
Part of the veggie/wildflower garden has been raked but not yet tilled, so we probably won’t get any peas this year unless I try for a Fall crop. Since the snowy Winter was quite hard on our chicken wire fence, there’s not much left for peas to climb on anyway.
This is the first year that I’ve tried Winter sowing and I’ve been checking the four water jugs that are sitting near the garden. So far it looks like just one calendula and perhaps a marigold plant have decided to sprout. Maybe they know better than the humans just what the weather is likely to be.
If you haven’t heard about Winter sowing, here’s a link to an excellent site that will tell you all you need to know to give it a shot on your own. Wintersown
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Administrator on March 14th, 2008
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Well, it was only one of those $400.00 mail-order greenhouse kits, but it was the only greenhouse I’d ever had and I’d been wanting one for years. It was far too drafty for us to even try to heat in our Zone 5 climate, but it was still a big help for raising seedlings in the Spring.
A couple of weeks ago we were awakened by a big BOOOMMmmmm and couldn’t figure out what had happened until we came downstairs and glanced out the window. This was the sorry sight that met our eyes.
Now that the snow has melted we are about to attempt to cut up the tree that fell on it and salvage what we can. At least our home owner’s insurance has contributed something to the cause and I may be able to buy another kit. I very much doubt that it will happen in time to help me grow my own tomato, pepper, and eggplants, but only time will tell.
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Administrator on August 16th, 2007
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Here’s an organic gardening tip for anyone interested in pest management. As I mentioned in my post just previous to this one, without even knowing it, I had planted a "trap crop" for Japanese beetles. The mystery plant did indeed turn out to be Evening Primrose and the beetles seem to absolutely LOVE it! They have been dining on not only the leaves, but also the flower buds as they are just about to blossom. I checked on the garden this morning and found the flower spikes on these poor plants just covered in beetles, the good part of this being that they are leaving most everything else in the garden almost untouched.
In agriculture on a larger scale a trap crop is used not only to keep pests away from the more valuable plants, but to concentrate the pests in one area where they may more easily by sprayed with insecticide. As I am committed to organic gardening, I’d really prefer to use no pesticides at all, but am considering using a pyrethrin based organic pesticide on the beetles. Even though they are not bothering much except the primroses, I’m beginning to wonder just how many of them will be around next year if I just let them be. One major stumbling block is that now that the plants are trying to flower, spraying them might also take its toll on the bee population. Since many areas of the country have been experiencing unexplained loss of the native bee population, that’s about the last thing I want to do! Guess I’ll just have to save my pennies and make sure to get some parasitic nematodes next Spring to take care of the beetle larvae without doing any harm to the beneficial bugs.
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Administrator on July 27th, 2007
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For the past few years I’ve been tossing a bunch of wildflower seeds at the back of my veggie garden at the end of Winter and seeing what comes up. This year I had several plants that I think may be Rudbeckia. The bronze shaded one is particularly nice. Since the soil back there is chock full of big rocks and roots, I can’t really use it for vegetables and it’s nice to have some flowers to cut for the house too.
An extra bonus this year is a plant that I thought was Evening Primrose. There are several back there and many of them have grown extremely tall. So far they have not blossomed at all, but I plan to leave them there even if they never flower as they are performing another unexpected service. We have unfortunately been visited this year by quite a few Japanese Beetles and Oriental Beetles. I’m not saying that they haven’t done any damage at all to the rest of my plants, but they do actually seem to prefer these weeds/flowers/whatever-they-ares to the rest of the garden and that’s just fine by me!
I have used parasitic nematodes for a number of years, but just couldn’t afford them this year and have seen a definite increase in the "bad bug" population. Guess I was just lucky in that this plant just happened to sprout this year as well to help keep the damage in check.
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Administrator on June 5th, 2007
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Finally had a chance last week to get most of my seedlings and seeds into the ground. Unfortunately, sometime during the process I managed to pick up two hitch-hikers —- deer ticks, to be exact. I felt something on my back and grabbed one that was still roaming around. When I asked my husband to check my back, he found another that was already dug in and yanked it out for me. It would have been nice if that had been the end of the story, but within a day the whole area around the bite was red and swollen and it hurt quite a bit. The red area kept enlarging and eventually started to show a faint tell-tale “bull’s eye”.
As of this morning I’m to take two heavy-duty antibiotics every day for a month! Well, that’s a lot better than ending up with full-fledged Lyme disease anyway. If you or someone you care about should be bitten, you might want to check out this site Lyme Disease Association for useful information about tick borne disease. (The content of this page itself is mostly about the association, but the links to the left will provide both text and photos.) Even if you don’t generally work in your yard or walk in the woods, you can get these little devils from your pets.
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Administrator on September 7th, 2006
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Well, it’s getting to be Autumn again. There’s that definite “turning of the year” feeling in the air and I’m beginning to wonder if we’ll get any more ripe Brandywine tomatoes from the vegetable garden. There are lots of green ones out there, but the plants look anything but healthy at the moment. The weather here in the Northeast has been extremely non-cooperative this year and most of my tomato plants seem to be suffering some kind of blight. A friend of mine told me yesterday that all of her cherry tomatoes are literally exploding just before they get ripe enough to pick! Between the extremely wet and chilly Spring and the horrible high heat and humidity in July, the vegetable garden has taken too many hits.
Since I view organic vegetable gardening as my “gift” to the earth, I feel compelled to do it even when I just don’t have time to do much of anything with the produce. At least I hope that I’m helping to improve the soil and give a little boost to the beneficial insects, birds, and other wildlife in the area. This year, however, my poor garden has suffered additional onslaughts not only of the dreaded cucumber beetles, but of swarms of squash bugs! I’m afraid that it’s time to bring out the “big guns”. Since I don’t like to use insecticides (even the organic ones) unless I absolutely have to, my pyrethrin/rotenone concentrate has long since past it’s expiration date and is probably no longer effective. Now comes the problem of figuring out how to dispose of it safely! Since rotenone is now suspected of having a link to Parkinson’s disease, perhaps it’s just as well that I haven’t used that much of it. Guess I’ll have to purchase one of the pyrethrin/oil mixtures and hope that does the trick.
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Administrator on August 25th, 2006
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The nicest thing about having an herb garden is that it combines two of my favorite activities, gardening and cooking. The second nicest thing is that most of these plants are pretty self-reliant as long as they’re planted in an area that meets their basic needs.
Here in the Northeast some of the most valuable culinary herbs, like rosemary, ginger, and lemongrass simply cannot survive the winter in the ground. I have all three in pots and will bring them in and put them under grow lights until the danger of frost is past. Others, such as French tarragon, lavender, thyme, oregano, sage, mint, and chives are perennials which die back in the Winter and reappear in Spring. Still others, like dill and Summer savory generally will re-seed themselves, providing a new crop each year.
Italian or “flat-leaved” parsley is biennial, meaning that the plants will blossom and set seed in their second year of growth. Since it may be difficult to get parsley seed to germinate, the easiest way to make sure of having a contiuous source is to let it re-seed itself on it’s own area of your garden. If you want to grow fresh herbs indoors for use over the Winter, try pouring boiling water onto your freshly sown parsley seeds.
Some herbs, especially oregano and the various plants of the mint family can be quite invasive, so it’s best not to try to grow them in your vegetable or flower garden unless you plant them in pots first, then bury the pots so that they are contained. Obviously, you also want to keep them from setting seeds all over the place in this circumstance as well. It is generally good practice when growing fresh herbs to pinch or cut the plants back several times during the season in order to make the plants bushier and to keep them from flowering. Once flowers appear, the leaves generally become bitter and unfit for culinary use. Of course, if you wish to collect seeds or allow the plants to re-seed where they are growing, you must let at least a few develop flowers.
You can make a fancy formal herb garden or just put in a few plants here and there. Your choices may be partly dictated by the amount of space and appropriate light levels that you have available. Good drainage is particularly important in growing herbs such as lavender, thyme, and sage. In the Northeast they do well in full sun, but may need some shade in hotter areas of the country. It is not true that herbs require poor soil, only that they are pretty tough customers and can survive where other plants would shrivel up and die! Since sunlight is at a premium in my mostly shady yard, I tried planting many of my herbs in a strip by the side of the driveway and, as I was short on time, as usual, did not amend the soil. Amazingly I now have lavender, thyme, French tarragon, flat-leaved parsley, chives, lemon and cinnamon basils, and peppermint not only growing, but apparently thriving in that spot. I had previously had the peppermint on the other side of the yard in a wildflower garden which borders a wooded area. It was dying off over there, so I took one of the two remaining plants and put it by the driveway. The resulting mint patch is definitely intent on conquering the entire neighborhood, while the peppermint left in the original location has completely died away. The spearmint, however, has continued to come up in the wild-flower garden though it hasn’t spread very much.
Growing fresh herbs indoors can present special problems, but once you get used to using fresh herbs in your cooking, I’m sure you’ll find it well worth your while. Unless you have an insulated sun porch or a room that receives a great deal of sunlight, you’ll probably have to invest in some grow lights or full-spectrum fluorescent lights. You will also need to keep a close watch on your plants in order to detect the first signs of insect pests and or mildew. (Plants that have been outside need to be closely inspected for both of these and treated, if necessary, before they are allowed across the threshold!) You can find organic treatments for these problems at Gardens Alive , Worm’s Way and other garden supply stores.
Beware of over-watering! You don’t want your herbs to die of thirst, of course, but I killed several rosemary plants by giving them too much water on the assumption that the drier indoor air made more watering necessary. Now I generally don’t water them more than once a week during the Winter. Keep an eye on the growing tips of the branches. If they seem to start drooping, get out the watering can, but let the soil in the top of the pot dry out between waterings. Other herbs, such as basil, will require more watering.
Here’s a link to a helpful site that will give you a great deal of useful tips for using your fresh herbs in your cooking:
herbs and spice online dictionary
It is worth noting that growing fresh herbs will also provide your with materials for hand-crafted gifts. Just think, you could grow rosemary in the shape of a miniature Christmas tree, decorate it and give it to that hard to buy for aunt. Or what about incorporating some aromatic sage into a dried flower wreath? After harvesting the seeds from my parsley last year, I was left with some rather nice looking dried flower heads that gave me the inspiration for an easy arrangement. I bought an inexpensive floor vase and arranged the parsley blooms with some dried Pampas grass that I picked at the side of the road, and a few peacock feathers for some color. It looked great until the new kitten started climbing into it (but that’s another story!)
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Administrator on August 9th, 2006
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If anyone has been reading any of these posts, you know just how crummy our weather has been this Spring and Summer. (Of course, those of you who live in New England already knew about that first-hand!) Due to this and to being extra busy and missing the extra day off per week that my husband usually managed to give me by taking care of my store on one of his days off, my garden this year has been more of an overgrown meadow than a vegetable garden. I’ve almost been ready to throw in the towel, but, wonder of wonders, when I finally had a non-rainy day off and pulled up a lot of grass, there was actually a fair harvest of bush beans under all that.
Yesterday I picked the first of our crookneck yellow squashes and there’s a zucchini that should be ready in another day or two. There are three eggplants coming along and a couple of the Roma tomatoes are very close to being ripe. Hurray! I guess we’ll get some benefit out of all the effort of tilling and planting after all.
If you’ve never tried a raised bed planting, you might want to consider it. I received a “grow bed” from Gardeners Supply http://www.gardeners.com/ for my last birthday. It was very easy to set up and I filled it with a mixture of bagged topsoil, some peat moss, and a bag of dehydrated manure. I transplanted all of my pepper seedlings into it and planted three pumpkin seeds along the front. One of the pumpkin vines contracted bacterial wilt (courtesy of those rotten cucumber beetles!) and had to be pulled out, but the other two seem to be doing fine. The pepper plants are doing great! I have more peppers on these plants than I’ve gotten from any plants over the past several years. They do seem to be further on in their development as well, so I might even be able to get a few red bell peppers this year. We have such a short growing season here that it’s hard to bring everything to maturity before the frost sets in.
I’m planning on posting a recipe for a summer squash pie in the near future. It sounds a little strange, but it really is yummy — you’d never know there’s squash in it from the taste. It’s a great way to use up some of the yellow squash that tends to pile up in the refrigerator when the vines start to bear. (You could probably make it with zucchini as well, but the color would be a bit off-putting.)
Good luck to all my fellow gardeners —- hope you all have bountiful harvests.