I dig you, plant

Ways to improve, or "amend" your garden soil

2010-04-16T11:06:00.006-06:00

It's a mystery, this dirt.
Your soil might be the single most important component of growing great vegetables, and yet the hardest to get a handle on. I'm still learning quite a bit about it myself, admittedly (please don't ask me what exactly 'loam' means), but this list is what I've done and what I know, and I've gotten great results.

Your Goal: good 'tilth'. Some over-simplified ways to tell you've got good tilth:
1. easy to shovel.
2. Think back when you have eaten a great muffin. You know how it crumbles? Light, airy, a little moist? Imagine a lot of those crumbs, and that's how your soil should crumble in your hands.

"Amending" just means adding stuff to your dirt to make it better dirt to grow vegetables in. Amending will get your dirt closer to our goal of great tilth. Your dirt, unless it's been a well-tended garden for a while, is probably pretty sub-optimal. There's two ways in which it can be sub-optimal: composition and fertility. I'll concentrate on composition here, because by improving composition in the ways outlined here you will increase fertility also.

Odds are your soil is either clay (in the west, where if you put a chunk on a potters wheel you could make a bowl) which is so compact that air and roots can't penetrate and water sits, or sandy, which drains of water way too quickly. Note neither of these if fluffy and crumbly like our delicious muffin! Or, your soil is just crappy in general. Ironically, if it's crappy in any of these ways, which it probably is, you should add crap.

Real crap
From cows or goats or horses or llamas or alpacas. You can get bags of cow manure at the garden store, but if you want more or have a bigger garden area, I totally suggest getting loads delivered to your house. I found a great guy on Craigslist who gets manure from farms and delivers it to my house. In order to not create an angry mob of neighbors,
-get composted crap/old crap. This is manure that has been sitting for a while, breaking down, and no longer smells. It's already starting to turn into the dirt you so desire. After tilling it in to your existing dirt, you can plant plants immediately and they will be fine.
- if you can only find fresh crap (i.e. steaming piles): buy it in the fall after your garden is done for the season. (Note: steaming piles are not ok to plant in! It'll burn your plants, and they will whither and die. That's not what we're going for here.) Dig it into your existing soil immediately - this cuts down on the smell. It will break down over winter and be wonderful for spring planting.

Worm Castings
This is earthworm poop. It's great stuff, but probably not a large-scale solution. I'd advise that you amend your soil well with other stuff listed here and the worms will quickly inhabit it, pooping in it for free forever more. I'm mentioning it here because you definitely want to see earthworms in your soil. If you don't see any, then your soil isn't even good enough for worms - and that's pretty darn sad. Amend, my friend.

Compost
Compost is broken-down leaf, grass and kitchen-waste matter. Odds are you can't make enough compost yourself to fill your garden, but if you do, go you! You can buy compost from community recyclers also. I haven't found the compost sold at garden stores to be very good, but that might just be my experience.

Amounts
For manure and compost, get enough to cover your garden by at least a few inches, although truly, I use more. If your garden needs a lot of help, I'd go up to half manure/compost and half existing dirt. Mix it in with your dirt as deep as your garden goes.

Other Amendments, in addition to the above:

Leaves
Leaves break down over winter, and "leaf mold" is a great amendment. It improves the water retention of the soil. I highly recommend raking all the leaves in fall into your garden. Water them down, and let nature take it's course over the winter.
Amount: For leaves, there's really no limit.

Straw/Hay
Not easy to come by in the city. But, straw and hay is great to mulch with, or mix in, and it breaks down slowly, ultimately enriching your soil.

Peat Moss (probably not), Gypsum(no)
What you buy as peat moss in the store is not really peat moss- it's usually sphagnum moss. While moss increases soil air/water retention which can be good, sphagnum moss is pretty expensive and thus not a suitable large-scale solution. If you find cheap peat moss, don't buy it. It's some kind of other moss that's more broken down and not as good at it's retention purposes. In addition, mosses can make your soil more acidic, so it's really not that recommended for clay soils (which are already slightly acidic).
Gypsum is sold as a way to break up clay. Don't buy it. It does this initially, but in a few months ionic forces conspire to leach important nutrients like iron, manganese, phosphorous, copper and zinc, inhibit mycorrhizal action on roots (the fungus has a symbiotic deal with roots, helping them uptake nutrients), and it's breaking-up-clay capacity peters out. Adding organic matter like compost or manure does a great job at breaking up clay and also adds nutrients rather than stripping them.

Recap:
In the fall: Mix in up to half - but usually just a few inches - compost and/or manure (either old or new). Mix in all your leaves, plus some hay/straw if you have it (or leave hay just on the top). Water. Let it sit all winter.
In the spring: if you didn't put in manure in the fall, mix in up to half - but usually just a few inches - *old*, non-stinky manure. Hay/straw can be part of your mix, or just layered on top as mulch around the plants and pathways.

I'm sure I didn't cover every possibility, but this covers what *I've* done and what has worked for *me*. (My experiences with lasagna-gardening/amending will have to be another post!). I've been mixing in lots of manure and leaves for a few years now and - not to brag, but - my plants grow so much bigger and are more productive than some of my community garden neighbors who don't amend. The difference truly is striking. I hope you can have the same great results!

Giving you your winter fix, giving me one less thing to not have done

2009-08-21T14:11:00.003-06:00

Update: Heh, well this didn't happen. Home-ownership and marathon-running-dog-ownership happened! I'm now trying to write a few posts that distill what I've learned so far about soil, growing tomatoes, and building a garden from scratch. The adventure continues....

All spring and summer I've wanted to post. But I haven't had the time or will to do it. Between intensive grafting, house-hunting, house-buying, house moving-in, gardening my 1.33 community garden plots, exercising my dog, and having a life...oh and a job... well, disappointing the 4 occasional readers of my blog hasn't really made it onto the radar. Although it is a regularly-passing thought.

Then another thought hit me: everyone is garden blogging in summer. But what about winter? "no new news, everything still dead and frozen" - not so great. But winter's the time where I'm not too busy doing the gardening to post about it, and everyone isn't off reading other blogs. There's a gap just waiting to be filled for you and me: winter blogging! Relive another glorious summer in the form of my blog posts, giving all of us that green fix we miss so much during the cold, horrible, if-only-global-warming-really-meant-just-warming winter. So that will be my niche. Maybe then someone will read this blog instead of the 100's of better ones out there, because those 100's will be in hibernation.

So that's the plan. Stay tuned. I'll be your only option ;)

Going into hibernation for thesis defense: T minus 30 days

2008-10-12T16:15:00.006-06:00

UPDATE: I actually passed! I got out of school - finally and forever! Other new things:
1.I got a scientist-track job at my favorite research institution
2. I got a dog: the spunky, hilarious and cuddly Bueno
3. I bought a house. Really, I bought a yard. More gardening space! Stay tuned as I completely overwhelm myself yet again :)

To the thousands of adoring fans of this blog (note overload of sarcasm per capita), I want to say that there won't be any more posts for about a month. I have ~30 days till I defend my thesis; on November 13, apparently, hopefully, probably, so They* say, They will give me a Ph.D.** Till then, all non-essential systems are powering down, including this blog.

When I return, newly officially over-educated, I have tons to post about fall and winter gardening, row covers, cold frames, indoor HID grow lights, a recap of original season goals (see 1st post) I achieved, and tons to say about grafting (I'm at 100% success rate now). Too late for this season, but maybe they'll be helpful to people next season.

bye for now...

*my thesis committee of 5 awesome, amazingly-intelligent scientists who unfortunately are probably above bribery
**at which point the phrase "crazier things have happened" will no longer be true. Going forward, this phrase will be universally known to refer to my degree.

Goodnight Garden

2008-10-06T23:11:00.006-06:00

In the little green garden
there was an impending frost (~35F)
portending the season's end
and on every branch-
so many tomatoes not ripened.

And there were 3 little eggplants hidden behind other plants
and tons of tomatillos
and half-ripe serranos
and my first ripe green zebra.
and chocolate bells and squash that all need a wash
and the habaneros I totally forgot to pick!

Goodnight upside-down tomatoes...

Goodnight tomatillos...

Goodnight Blue Heaven morning glories...

Goodnight giant sunflowers...

Goodnight cucumbers...

Goodnight eggplant...

Goodnight habanero, serrano and hungarian wax...

Goodnight green zebra, on same day as your first harvest...

Goodnight striped cavern, you were prolific...

Goodnight mystery tomato, one who produces only rock-hard green 2lb-ers...

Goodnight Better Bus h, I'm sorry you fell over without support and got taken over by slugs...

Goodnight papaya squash...

Goodnight patty pans...

Good night delicata...

Goodnight Sungold...

Goodnight pasilla and poblanos and chocolate bell peppers...

And goodnight to all my perennials - raspberry, thyme, black-eyed susan, bee balm, lavenders - I expect to see you all next year!!

Goodnight garden.

(end bad cheesy ripoff of children's book)

I don't want the season to end! No!

Post-frost assessment: All things curcurbit completely died. Amazing how leaves can go from green and turgid to black and shriveled in one night! Tomatillo plant also gone, but I managed to harvest about 40 that were ripe or almost ready. Most tomatoes suffered - some lost only a few branches, some are in pretty critical condition. Eggplant was protected enough that it is still trying to make more eggplants.. oh, so futile... Everything will fully die this weekend when we're supposed to get snow. I took cuttings of a couple of the tomato plants, hoping to grow new plants this winter under lights. The cuttings are doing great, so hopefully I'll have Sungolds all winter!

Saving tomato seeds

2008-09-24T21:41:00.007-06:00

The cherry tomatoes in my new garden plot - sprawling and unkempt as they are from the last guy - taste fabulous. I really haven't liked raw tomatoes, but these are like candy! Since I don't know what specific variety they are, and they are prolific, I am designating them the subject of my trial attempt at seed saving.

(Apparently seed saving only works with heirlooms, since hybrid seeds might produce a tomato with different qualities. These cherries might be hybrids, unfortunately, but at the least it's good practice for when my black krims are ready!)

I've read up a bit on the method to save tomato seeds, and it looks like a simple process. The point is to remove the germination-inhibiting goo from around the seeds; this is usually done by fermentation:

1) scoop seeds and gel (goo) into a small container

2)add a bit of water, either same amount as goo, or a few tbsp

3)cover loosely so some air can get in/out

4)let it ferment for a few days in a warm location (not too long, though, or seeds will start to germinate). Good seeds should sink (per Patrick)

5)scoop off scum
(5.5 some say keep rinsing out scum/bits)

6)sieve seeds out

7) dry the seeds on paper plate or coffee filter (per Patrick)

There's some differences between sets of directions, but overall the general process is the same.

Here's some links to good directions:

http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/seedsave/2002084456024410.html

http://gardening.about.com/od/totallytomatoes/ss/TomatoSeeds.htm

http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/23/

Here's my goo. I used about 10 cherry tomatoes. I ate what was left of most of them :)

I poked a bunch of holes in the saran wrap, and put the container on top of the fridge.

We'll see!

Update 9/26: an coherent, opaque film has formed on the surface. I added a bit more water since the goo seemed really thick, like a lot of the water had evaporated (we have 15% humidity here)

Update 10/1: Was it supposed to grow mold? Grey and black fuzz quickly covered the film. But, when I tried to take off the filmy layer, it and the mold came off in one piece so I guess it was okay. The pic below shows a bit of the mold and the seeds after I drained all the liquid.

I spread the seeds to dry on a coffee filter. Hard to unclump them!

Green Thumb Sunday: practice with macro

2008-09-15T14:45:00.011-06:00

Here's some pics I took yesterday with the macro setting on my camera. When I had to get a new camera after my old one broke, I made sure to buy one with manual controls and the ability to get within a few cm in macro mode. I really haven't explored most of the options yet, but it's fun to take simple close-up shots.

Squirrel BYOC party at my plot

2008-09-15T14:12:00.009-06:00

I think I now have a pretty good circumstantial case that the squirrels come to my plot to sit and eat the corn they steal from other plots. Here's the clues:

1. Thoroughly-knawed corn cobs left on the bricks surrounding my compost pile
2. Watching vigorous rustling in my garden neighbor's corn patch, and then watching a squirrel burst out of the patch with a cob and take off
3. Happening upon them hanging out, looking guilty:

and running like the little looters they are :)

(by the way, BYOC means Bring Your Own Corn)

I have no corn in my plot this year, but I grew a few last year in my first little plot. I planted the corn before I realized I had no idea when to harvest it. With no one to advise me, the internet was a vague guide, so what the weevils and ants didn't get was mushy and no good. Oh well, always worth a try! And in the garden area I have plots in this year, I'm glad I don't have any corn - the squirrels and raccoons feast and plunder under the cloak of night, leaving the plot owner to find complete wastage come morning.

Makin' it happen: Artic gardening

2008-09-09T12:42:00.007-06:00

I don't have anything new to post, because nothing new is happening: almost all my tomatoes are still green, the squash is still producing, the new plot is still weedy (although a lot less so!)

But this article on MSN made me happy: greenhouse gardening above the Arctic Circle. I'm surprised that the greenhouse doesn't need any additional heating! But, that makes it a perfect example of how much one can do without artificially changing the environment: simply make a room with a clear ceiling and let the 24hr sun do all the work. Too bad it is commercial and not a community garden, but it sounds like they do a lot of educational outreach.

The lady interviewed in the article commented on how 24hrs of sunlight sped up the growth process, allowing plants to grow/mature faster than normal during the short 59-day season. But what about photoperiodism? Doesn't night length signal flowering (either short or long night length, depending on type of plant)? If there's no night, how do plants know to flower and produce fruit?
Also, I've learned from indoor grow lights that different wavelengths of light cause different types of growth in plants. Doesn't the sharp angle of the sun up north influence the relative amounts of different wavelengths of light?

Dream acreage here I come! You might have to squint

2008-08-26T16:20:00.005-06:00

I just calculated that I now have approximately 1.48 hundredths of an acre!

1 acre = 43,560 sq ft
1/3 plot: 15.75ft x 10.3 ft = 162.225 sq ft = 0.00372, 0.372% or 3.7 thousandths of an acre
new plot: 15.75ft x 30.9ft = 486.675 sq ft = 0.0111, 1.11% or 1.11 hundredths of an acre
Grand Total: 1.48% of an acre

I've always believed in rampant baseless extrapolation so here we go:

I started out with a plot last year in another garden (on the other side of the city), that was about 100 sq ft (I gave up that first plot for my current 1/3: 100->160sqft). This gives me 3 data points, or garden acquisitions, total. Plotting my total square footage at each of these changes (y axis), by how many months had elapsed since I began community gardening, gives the line to the right.

Extrapolating linearly, at this rate it will only take me 76 years to acquire an entire acre. Wow. I have some good longevity genes on my side, but that's still pushing it. Not to mention that the community gardens only allow you 2 plots total (which is why this is baseless extrapolation - merely an excuse to graph something).

Clearly I need another plan.....

weed to girl ratio 1000000:1

2008-08-26T00:22:00.012-06:00

I am just as excited as I was a few days ago about getting another, entire plot - quadrupling my gardening space - but I am now experiencing just how hard it is to undue someone else's neglect. I am also experiencing the irony of getting so much land but having to dig up stubborn taprooted weeds from every inch of it.

Here's the plot. You might be thinking "hey, at least there's no weeds under that black landscaping fabric" but you'd be wrong.

However, for my troubles, I've inherited some new plants that managed to grow amongst the voracious weeds. I'm not sure if it's ironic, but it's definitely more squash.

I now have: butternut squash, yellow squash(no!) and zucchini, lemon cucumber, cabbage, some fancy broccoli that may never flower, and a swarming mass of unsupported cherry tomato vines. Rumor has it there's a couple of pepper plants in there, but I haven't gotten to those beds yet.

I weeded 4 hours Saturday and 5 hours Sunday, and I'm not even done with 1/3 of the plot. I thought I'd rototill it, but realized that would just cut up the weed roots and multiply the weeds. So I have to go dig up as much of the roots as I can by hand, with a shovel. My hamstrings are so sore from bending and pulling!

However, I'm starting to acquire a taste for my new fresh insta-cherry tomatoes off the vine! Tonight I made a fabulous roasted tomato salad dressing with them.

Colors of the Garden

2008-08-25T17:46:00.003-06:00

Grafting Round 1: The epiphytic tomato

2008-08-21T16:21:00.000-06:00

Who knew tomatoes could be epiphytic (m-w.com: epiphyte: a plant that derives its moisture and nutrients from the air and rain and grows usually on another plant)? Only under overzealously-controlled, extremely unnatural conditions, i.e., my inadvertent tomato sauna/terrarium. This was my first attempt at grafting, and I learned a lot during and since. I was possibly marginally close to success. Here's the story:

I'll try to explain the techniques and reasons for grafting in another post. Briefly, grafting is growing the top of one plant on the roots of another. The plant used for its vigorous and disease-resistant root system is called the rootstock, and the plant you want to actually grow - in the case of tomatoes, the variety you want to harvest and eat - is called the scion. A successful graft means that the rootstock stem fuses with the scion stem, xylem and phloem channels connect and water/nutrients pass up/down, and the plants become one. The most important thing is for the two stems to be the same width, so the xylem and phloem line up; they are only around the outer part of a stem and need to have contact in order to heal together.

While there's several techniques for joining scion to rootstock, for my initial trial, I was entranced by the idea of growing two varieties of tomatoes off of one plant. That meant inserting the main stem of the scion into the rootstock main leader (but not cutting off the rootstock leader), with the goal of the scion eventually becoming another leader. It's a more complicated graft for a beginner to do successfully than something like tube grafting (I think), so of course I pick this as my first attempt in which I have one try to get it right. However, the technique, called "approach grafting", has some built-in insurance: when slicing the two stems together, all roots are left intact until the graft "takes" and new growth forms. Here's a diagram (from ASGAP). In order to keep 2 leaders - one rootstock, one scion - I would eliminate "Cut 1".

I planted two varieties close to each other in the same pot: Stupice, a nice paste heirloom, and better boy, a hybrid. The plan was to insert the main stem of the Stupice into the main stem of the Better Boy, since Better Boy has the VFN resistance.

Here's where it got fun:

1) While I was away at a conference, the Stupice significantly outgrew the Better Boy. The plants were already planted next to each other, but the stem diameters no longer matched. Brilliant.

Plan change: refer to the figure to the right (from Britannica Online, cleft grafting): can't do approach graft (method 2, although I didn't know about method 1 at the time); I have lop off the Better Boy stem, slice it into a wedge shape, and stick it into the Stupice stem (method 5). I didn't know it at the time, but this is what Britannica Online calls "side cleft" graft and what a TAMU workshop calls "side" graft.

2) Everything I read emphasized the absolute need for same stem diameter. Not only does this affect the height at which you insert the scion, but quite a large slice into the rootstock stem is required to accommodate the scion stem if they are the same diameter. So I ended up slicing through most of the rootstock stem. Actually, I had to cut a wedge out of the rootstock with the same angles as the scion wedge. I found out it's really hard to control a razor blade in soft plant tissue. I cut really deep.

If only I knew: according to TAMU, side grafts are recommended when the stems aren't the same diameter. Makes sense now.... if only the TAMU site showed up in regular google search results, not just image results...

But, I managed to get good contact between scion and rootstock. I secured the graft with a clothespin - it was the right size and tension (not too tight) and, most importantly, I had it on hand - and used kabob sticks as support stakes taped around the plant pot (you can see them in the last couple of pictures) to keep any cover off the plant itself. The next step was to let the plant heal by providing an atmosphere where it has to do as little work (transpiration) as possible: somewhere dark, warm, and humid.

Thus, my first healing chamber: the plant on a flooded seed tray with a black plastic garbage bag around it and a seedling heat mat under it. I put the plant pot inside another pot so it sat above the standing water in the seed tray. The support stakes kept the garbage bag away the plant, at least mostly. The heat mat heated the chamber enough to create a very humid, warm atmosphere. I opened the bag to vent the chamber a couple of times a day. It was closed pretty tightly by cinching the bag and clipping it with a binder clip.

Upon flashlight examination over the subsequent week, the graft never wilted too much and was looking good. However, the clothespin covered the graft union so I could never see if it remained in good contact,etc. The chamber remained at a steady 80F and very wet - it was pretty much my very own bedroom rainforest. I really didn't know how long to keep the plant in the chamber, so after 7 days - the time recommended for smaller grafts in online guides - I began leaving the bag slightly open for an hour or so at a time. But each time, the scion wilted a bit, so I thought maybe the graft wasn't ready for the real world yet. I started to notice some edema (swelling of cells) on the rootstock leaves after about a week, which was probably a sign of too high humidity and temperature (but which the online guides said would be temporary). Since the scion was still wilting when I reduced the temperature and humidity, I felt I couldn't move the plant out of the healing chamber quite yet. Maybe the molding wooden support stakes should have been another hint I created a little tropical rainforest for my tomato, and what I saw next was bound to happen:

Adventitious roots! No! Here, you can see that the scion put out its own roots (right above the clothespin). And why not? There's almost 100% relative humidity, quite confusing. (A few times, the garbage bag would get so weighed down with clinging moisture inside that the support stakes would poke through, and the heavy bag would be resting on the plant. Also bad.)

So after 14 days, I decided some tough love was in order; the plant would die if I didn't give it some light. Here's my 2nd phase healing chamber:

This is in a relatively low-light window. I poked a few small holes in the ziploc bag, and spritzed the inside with a spray bottle of water twice a day. As long as it stayed wet, the scion looked perky!

Finally a week later - it had now been 3 weeks - I loosened the ziploc and set it in a window with more light, and the scion promptly wilted past the point of no return. Yep, after all that - done in a day or two. But, at least I could now remove the clothespin and look at the graft union. What I found was that there was no union. The scion just had adventitious roots, and the rootstock cut had callused over so it could never heal back together. I think the first healing chamber was a little too hot, causing enough sap production in the wounds to force apart the scion from the rootstock at the graft union. The Stupice was still alive, barely (what a trooper), so I called this experiment over and made it a stem splint with part of a straw.

The Stupice is hanging on, but with the vigor of a guy long overdue for a triple bypass. No surprise since I cut almost all the way through the stem - it's running on probably 1/4 of it's xylem/phloem channels. It's pretty pathetic. It keeps growing straight up, with a few little leaves, but has a fruit forming now! The mature tomato will totally break the stem, but I'm going to let it go because hey, who am I to alter nature ;)

Lessons Learned:

1)if trying an approach graft again, plant the two together in the same pot at grafting time, not before, to assure same stem diameter.

2) chill out on the healing chamber conditions. Less than 80F, definitely less than 100% relative humidity. Wondering if maybe it doesn't have to be completely dark; not every guide I've read now recommends total darkness (incl. TAMU, which recommends something extremely similar to my 2nd phase chamber).

3)I need a sturdier structure for the chamber, so it won't touch the plant. While I think it was the sap production that pulled the graft apart, any plant movement might disturb the graft union; an evaporation-laden plastic bag wants to fall on the plant no matter how much I don't want it to.

4)I should try a simpler grafting technique (tube grafting?):
a) so I can claim a success
b) the clothespin was heavy (did it tug on the graft?) and blocked view of the graft union. Tube grafting uses a clear tube which holds the stems together firmly.

Round 2 recap coming soon...

My first black tomato: color wheel now complete!

2008-08-20T21:41:00.005-06:00

Black from Tula, from one of my upside-down tomato plants. This first fruit was pretty beat up:

but I must say it tasted WONDERFUL! It lacked that tomato "bite" but still had a lot of flavor.

Did I mention I don't actually like raw tomatoes? But I liked this one. Now I can't wait for the Black Krim to ripen!

I've had one Moonglow(orange),one Yellow Boy, and one Better Boy (red) thus far. This Tula not only completes my tomato color wheel (of what I've planted (no whites)) but also is my favorite. The Yellow Boy was pretty citrusy and acidic, the Moonglow was a little fruitier, and the Better Boy tasted like a regular tomato. Hard to describe, but they definitely all taste quite different! I had no idea about heirlooms until this season - it's turning out to be really interesting!

I got another plot!! Can the world get better? I'm not sure

2008-08-17T21:39:00.006-06:00

Growing Gardens is the organization that manages the Boulder community gardens. There's quite a demand for plots, so if you get one and don't take care of it - prepare, weed, actually try to grow something - they take the plot back and give it to someone who will. And on August 14 for plot #308, that someone was me!!!!!!

I have only a 1/3 plot right now (18' x 9'?). I've maxed it out - I can barely walk around. With the addition of a full plot (18' x 27'?), my gardening space quadrupled in 1 day! There are not words to describe how happy this makes me. I'm beyond exclamation points now. It's just too good.

I have big winter gardening plans this year, mainly focusing on cold frames. My plans were of course bigger than my gardening space (till now!). With no experience and no space, I thought, this was the perfect project ;) But things are coming together...

Last weekend, I attended a workshop on 4-season gardening given by the Boulder Sustainability Education Center. The workshop covered cold-season crop seeding times, temperature requirements, and physical protections: row covers and cold frames. Although I already knew a lot of what they taught, I learned more about times to start seeds and ways to build cold frames that definitely will be vital to my wintertime success.

Fall season crops need to be started now, so they are established and can just "maintain" when the weather gets really cold. However, summer season crops aren't done yet and won't be for at least another month. I was wondering just where in the world I was going to plant these fall-season seeds in the meantime. Voila! A whole new plot!

Plan:
1) prepare soil in new plot, after other guy "moves out". Hopefully he'll leave his good plants...
2) plant lettuce, chard, spinach ,kale, brussel sprouts, broccoli, mache, cabbage, possibly a cold-hardy tomato like Sub-Arctic Maxi or Siberian, just to experiment. Some will be planted in raised beds, others flush to ground, others below ground (~3 beds?)
3)when it gets cold, place cold frames around beds. I want to test which setup stays warmer; seems like raised beds would heat up faster, but I'm wondering if setting a bed a foot into the ground would keep the temperature more stable.
Anyone out there have experience with this?

Sunflower glamour shots

2008-08-17T21:12:00.010-06:00

My sunflowers are blooming! I planted three kinds: Taiyo (giant yellow), Velvet Queen (burgundy) and strawberry blonde (pink to yellow). I found out only two kinds made it: Taiyo and strawberry blonde. Oh well! They are beautiful! Here's some pics:

Aww, shucks!

2008-08-03T10:46:00.007-06:00

The nice and knowledgeable folks over at Bifurcated Carrots wrote a post about my blog!

In the spirit of beer appreciation, Patrick, here's a pic of my hops vine! I really wanted to take a new picture of it with a Sierra Nevada next to it, but my camera broke the other day... anyway, hopefully sometime soon there will be some hops on it!

Garden Progress Pics!

2008-07-31T01:34:00.025-06:00

I'm long past due to post some pictures of how the garden is coming along. In early June, it looked like this. Check it out now!
And forgive the weird picture arrangements as I try to figure out blogger - coding html into a WYSIWYG editor is killing me! When I figure out how to get the formatting the way I want it, maybe I'll post the code changes.

The pics face south. On the left, the moonglow tomato (left of wall of water) and the tomatillo (right of wall) dominate the pic. The wall is around my Sungold cherry tomato, a late addition that is a bit blocked from the sun by the huge tomatillos. On the right, the monster in the foreground is the papaya squash. The okra is in the wall of water in the foreground - it's producing , and has the most beautiful creamy white/yellow flowers!, but hasn't gotten that big. There's peppers behind it, tomatoes behind those, and the papaya squash monster behind those. The dying melon is to the east and underneath the papaya.

And, lest I forget to mention, the upside-down tomatoes! They are getting pretty big and have lots of tomatoes forming! Not as big as my Moonglow, but bigger than some of my other tomatoes in pots (probably because I started these earlier). I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do when the tomatoes get big and weigh down the branches, since squash are right underneath both plants...

Here's the delicata squash on 7/4, and then again on 7/28, AFTER I cut it WAY back so it wasn't blocking the entrance and walkways. This plant literally was growing a foot a day last week. I also discovered tons of squash forming!!!

Eggplant budding, ridiculous giant sunflower, my morning glories/moonflowers vining like crazy (hopefully both the sunflowers and the vines will have flowers soon!) The vines are now growing 6in-1ft a day. Some are reaching the top of the arbor (8 ft?). I am training them along twine strung in a sunburst pattern (hard to see in the pic) - hopefully it will be pretty! Both of the sunflower shots are taken facing north.

Inventory, updated

2008-07-31T00:36:00.006-06:00

One of my earliest posts was an inventory of all the plants I was growing and planned to grow, both in my community garden plot, in pots around my house, or for grafting experiments. While most of the intentions were fulfilled, not all have come to full fruit(veg)ion. Some of the seedlings I got from friends didn't make it, some I played God with and killed on purpose (sorry!!!), others I killed unintentionally, and one I'm reading last rites to as we speak:

R.I.P.
Noir des Carmes melon
5/08 - 7/30ish/08
Taken from this world by cucumber beetles and naive garden planning (oops)

Moment of silence, please.

Alright, must get on with our lives... here's my plants that are alive and should be successful this season:

Tomatoes
Lemon Boy (upside-down pot)
Black from Tula (upside-down pot)
Better Bush (garden)
Moonglow (garden)
Sungold cherry (garden)
Big Beef (2, 1 garden, 1 pot)
Marvel Stripe (2 pots, 2 garden?)
Cavern (2, 1 garden, 1 pot)
Black Krim (pot)
Persimmon (pot)
Constaluto (genovese or other, we'll see, in pot)
Green Zebra (1 pot, 1 graft, 2 garden?)
Opalka (pot)
Stupice, barely hanging on after being strangled by unsuccessful graft attempt
Blondkopfchen (cherry) (2, in pots) - small, left over from grafting stock
...few other graft survivors:
green zebra, mentioned above
Blondkopfchen
Vintage Wine
Pineapple
Chocolate Stripe (sent to dad in TX)
Cherry (sent to dad in TX)
Ace (sent to dad in TX)

Curcurbits
Marketmore cucumber, 2 (one in garden, one in pot)
Armenian yard-long cucumber (garden)
Papaya squash (garden)
Patty pan squash (garden)
Delicata squash (garden)

Eggplant
Fairy Tale
Rosa Bianca
Gistada de Liada
(frankly, I've lost track of which is where but 2 are in my garden, one is in a pot)

Perennials (all in garden)
Black Raspberry Bush!
Hops Vine!
Black-eyed Susan
Bee balm
2 kinds of lavender
4 kinds of thyme

Peppers
Pasilla (Hole Mole) (garden)
Chocolate bell (garden)
habanero (garden)
Serrano (garden)
hungarian hot wax (garden)
Poblano (garden)
Santa Fe (pot)
Fresno (pot)
Red Demon Thai (pot)
Jamaican hot (pot)

Herbs
garlic (garden)
chives (pot)
lavender and thyme mentioned above
fino verde basil (pot and on top of upside-down tomatoes)
genovese basil (pot and on top of upside-down tomatoes)
catnip
chocolate mint
peppermint
rosemary (pot)
cilantro (on top of upside-down tomato)

Other
Okra (garden)
Tomatillo ( 2 pairs, 1 in garden, 1 pair in pots)
French marigolds (garden)
Nasturtium (garden)
morning glory (garden)
moonflower (garden)
red onion (garden and in strawberry pots)
portulaca (pots)
Taiyo sunflower (garden and one in pot)
Strawberry blonde sunflower (garden)
Velvet queen sunflower (garden)
zinnias (garden)

Attack of the Beetles III

2008-07-30T15:26:00.004-06:00

As with recent wars elsewhere, my struggle against the beetles is ongoing, progress has been made, it wouldn't make sense to quit now, and I might have declared victory a bit too soon (see parts I and II).

Enemy #1: Flea beetle
Status: new insurgents!
The tomatoes had outgrown the flea beetle damage and were/are taking off. Also, the upside-down tomato plants had completely avoided the first wave of flea beetles that were attacking all my in-ground plants (guess they couldn't jump that high - ha! outwitted you, didn't I, you little f*ers!) Okay, well, not so fast there, J... perhaps I outwitted them the first time, with help from some diatomaceous earth, but.... they're back! With reinforcements! They're all over my in-ground tomatoes. The beetles have also managed to make it up to my upside-down tomatoes, I assume by hopping up all the squash leaves underneath both plants. You're welcome.
Strategy: Management. Time for some more DE.

Enemy #2: Cucumber beetle
Status: buzzing around but are basically has-beens. However, I fear late-season comeback.
In my last report from the front lines, I gave up on sprays and was resorting to physical blockage involving walls of water with cheesecloth over the top, and row covers. The wall arrangement worked very well until the plants were too big to fit inside. At that point, I fearfully took off the walls/cloth and hoped for the best. The squash won: thankfully, squash is such a fast, strong grower that the beetles couldn't do measurable damage to the plants anymore.

However, the cucumber plants were under heavier attack, suffered more damage before I re-covered them, and probably continued to get eaten after I was forced to uncover them because they were getting too big, too, for the wall/cloth contraption. The covers allowed both plants to recover a bit and put on new growth, which I think was key to their survival. They are survivors! As shown in the last post, I harvested 2 lovely cucumbers from my Marketmore plant this week. Still no Armenian yard-longs, but I think I saw some babies on there a few days ago.
Lessons Learned:
1)cuc beetles can do terrible damage to really small plants. Physical covers like walls of water, cheesecloth or row cover material are the only good way to protect small plants from them. Cover your cucumber, melon or squash plant until it is flowering and/or can't fit under the cover anymore.
2)I am sure pyrethrin sprays have some efficacy but just aren't worth the cost, effort and potential to kill beneficial insects.
Strategy: feeling sense of impending doom about late-season resurgence of cuc beetle damage, not sure what to do! Come on, cucumbers! Produce! Hurry!

First Harvest! Squash, squash and oh, more squash....

2008-07-28T15:13:00.021-06:00

Here are pics of my first harvests - squash! I'm now questioning what the heck I was thinking growing 2 yellow squash plants, because I'm drowning in squash. But, I was intrigued by the specialty shapes of both since I have only grown plain green zucchini before...

The papaya pear squash came first (maturity ~45 days) and continues... the patty pans (maturity ~50 days) were first ready 1.5 weeks ago while I was at a conference. I asked a friend to go get them if she wanted them, but she never made it over to the garden, so pic 2 shows you what can happen to a patty pan in less than a week if not picked: from 2-3in diameter to over 4lbs (a zucch last year topped out at over 7lbs! I made a stuffed zucchini boat out of that one, and my friend decorated another biggun for Halloween) I hope the patty pan will resume production now that I've picked all the giants off.

My first squash meal, made with the 3 papaya squash in the first picture, was a simple saute with some herbs. But now I'm focusing on bulk: Right now I'm eating part of a gallon of curried squash soup, have a squash-heavy lasagna in the fridge waiting to be cooked and another pound or two in the freezer, gave away 8lbs to friends and several to the neighbors... and there's more papayas forming now. I'm going to give the next big harvest to the EFAA, but I would like to eat as much of my "free" food as I can. Any recommendations?

Also, I found 2 perfect cucumbers yesterday! I don't know how I missed them before. I had one tonight and have to say: it was SO good! I made some hummus to go with it...

Upside-down tomatoes!

2008-07-07T22:27:00.017-06:00

They're going great! You don't need any fancy product! You can make an upside-down tomato hanger for $8. Here's the setup:

5 gallon paint bucket and lid from hardware store $7
permeable soil barrier scrap that fits inside bottom of bucket: scrap of landscape fabric, coffee filter, etc.
100lb-test chain, S-hook for hanging, $0.69/ft, $0.30 (optional, if you don't have a hook from which to hang the bucket handle)

Please refer to my skillful Google Sketch diagram :)

Cut a 2 inch hole out of the bottom center of the bucket. I used a drill. I also drilled 4-5 small drainholes in the bottom.
Cut slits in the landscape fabric or coffee filter in an X pattern, like in the diagram. The slits should form a hole big enough for you to ease your tomato seedling through.
Ease the seedling, still in its pot, through the fabric slits - tip first - so the fabric is snugly around the plant stem near the soil line, or however deep you want to replant the seedling. I wrapped my seedling gently into a saran wrap cocoon to protect the little leaves.
Balance the bucket between two chairs so that it's right side up but off the ground and the seedling can hang freely from the bottom. Ease the seedling, tip first, through the 2 inch hole in the bottom of the bucket till the fabric is flush with the bottom of the bucket. While holding the seedling in place with one hand, carefully begin filling the bucket with soil around the seedling with the other hand. When there's enough soil to hold the seedling in place in the bucket, remove its pot and loosen the roots.

Finish filling the bucket with soil to the top.

Secure the lid and turn the bucket over so the bucket is upside down but the seedling is upright, sticking up out the hole you drilled. Let the plant 'sit' for a week or two so it can settle in its new home, extend its root system, etc.

Turn over and hang by bucket handle in a sunny location. I hung each of my buckets from my plot's arbor/pergola by wrapping the chain around the handle and an overhead 2x4, and securing the chain with the S-hook.

Here's some real-world pics! My roommate and I painted the 3 buckets. Like the bucket monster? That one is actually a 3rd right side up planter I have at my house, inspired by my 3rd roomate. I painted the sunflower and monster buckets, and my roommate painted the sun/moon scene bucket. The pic with the red flower is actually just the other side of the sunflower bucket. Notice my earthworm with sunglasses :)

I left my plant right side up for about 2-3 weeks, during which time it got cold, the soil got really cold, and both tomatoes experienced symptoms of phosphorus deficiency (really, just an uptake problem b/c of the low soil temperature) - curled, purple leaves, stems erect. I thought it might be a real disease, because these mimic some leaf curl virus symptoms, but as soon as the weather warmed up the symptoms subsided. My tomato plants probably doubled to tripled in size by the time I hung them upside down in my community plot. That's not saying much, as they were pretty small to begin with. But, when I took off the lids after hanging them, I found the roots had made it all the way through the 5 gallons of soil! Hopefully that's a good sign I'll have some big tomato plants soon!

UPDATE: Here's a pic of the bottom hole.

Coffee!!!

2008-07-05T15:33:00.004-06:00

I've been waiting for this for 5 years! I've been cultivating my coffee plant since 2003, with dreams of one day harvesting my own coffee beans. I'm sure they'll be horrible and probably number in the single digits, but it's totally worth the years of wait. I read that coffee plants usually flower in years 3-4, 2-4, 4-6 - depends on the source - and berries form from the base of the flower. I could have berry buds right now! Sure, it takes 30-35 weeks for the berries to ripen. After 5 years, I can wait. Yeah!!!!!!

I wasn't sure if the plant would ever flower, as I've moved it around a lot, not always to the best locations. But guess what I saw one night recently???

This is SO exciting!

Here's more info: http://www.coffeeresearch.org/agriculture/coffeeplant.htm

Spent barley mulch +wall of water = vinegary plant death

2008-07-05T10:47:00.008-06:00

Last year, I mulched with spent barley from a local brewery. It was great. It's free, natural, easy to spread, gives good cover, stays in place relatively well, and eventually breaks down to provide nitrogen, etc back to the soil. In fact, I still recommend it. However, I wouldn't recommend doing what I did this year:

I got the barley from bins outside the brewery early one morning (gotta get there before the flies do). The barley was still wet and stinky from brewing. I went straight to my community plot, removed the black plastic mulch (weather had definitely warmed up enough) and began spreading the barley around. I put a good 2in layer on top of the soil. This was all fine. The problem came when I a) spread thick wet layers around some of my smaller plants, all tomatoes; these were my 2nd round transplants that I planted where I realized there was room after the 1st round, then b) put the walls of water back around these small tomatoes.

I go back the next day to check on things, and what do I find? Brown, shriveled tomato seedlings. Completely gone. The walls of water around the wet barley had created a hot vinegar tomato-annihilation atmosphere as hospitable to plant life as the ammonia clouds of Jupiter. The tomatoes never had a chance. This pic is the Early Girl tomato, after 1 day in my unintentional death chamber. Look closely; the leaves are reduced to papery dead shreds. This was the largest of the condemned tomatoes. The stem of this one lived (the others were smaller so got totally boiled), but since I have so many plants at home, I pulled it out and replaced it with another fully-alive plant.

Didn't see this one coming!
Lessoned learned: it always pays to have 3x the plants you really need ;)

-jardinera de muerte

Attack of the Beetles Part II

2008-06-30T10:20:00.011-06:00

Enemy #1: Flea Beetles
Battle outcome: Victory!
Recap:
1)I found out flea beetles rarely actually kill the tomato (but they do destroy most lower leaves)
2)I transplanted my tomatoes in the garden after they were a bit bigger (>=10 in?) so even though they had fewer leaves after transplanting (since I buried the stems for stronger root system), I guess they had enough size and reserves to persevere through the flea beetle stress.
3)Diatomaceous earth! This is the best stuff ever! I had read that DE - a powder made of the fossilized shells of diatoms, super cool little phytoplankton of whom I've long been a fan - was good for flea beetle control; it's absorptive properties dehydrate them. Just when I was sitting in my garden, thinking to myself, "I really wish I had some diatomaceous earth!" but not wanting to go buy a big bag for a just a few sprinkles of it, a guy walked up with a sifter of diatomaceous earth, introduced himself, and let me use some. I love the community gardens! So I sifted some on the tomatoes that were having problems and there has been very little flea beetle damage since.

Enemy #2: Striped Cucumber Beetle
Battle outcome: ongoing, looking at possible shameful defeat
Recap:
1) They keep breeding! A first generation emerges from overwintering in the soil, has the gall to mate all over my tomatillo, lay eggs, and then develop again in the soil, come out, breed... I think I'm seeing the second generation now. I've noticed a few smaller beetles, who look exactly like the adults except their black stripes are backed by gray, not yellow - I'm guessing these might be the youngins??
2)There's no good leave-on organic control for cuc beetles that I can find... There are some organic options, but they only work on contact with the beetles, meaning you can only possibly get the ones you spray directly. The other 23.9 hours of the day, they're all living the hedonistic beetle life on my plants.
I tried pyrethrin, (ex: Safer insecticidal spray) an insecticide derived from the crysanthemum family. It's certified organic, and usually mixed with an insecticidal soap. When I spray individual beetles, I've seen about 50% instant knock-down. But I'm not sure if I'm killing them or just temporarily inconveniencing them, giving them a renewed resolve to survive and breed more...
3)They really like smaller plants, especially cucumbers (surprise). They are not doing too much damage to my tomatillo anymore. It's pretty big, and apparently it was not their first choice in dining. I had been protecting the five-star meals inside walls of water and since I've taken off the walls, it's been an feeding frenzy. They eat the flowers and new shoots, and they very well might kill one of my cucumber plants.
4) I'm going back to physical blockage. I put the most victimized cucumber plant back in a wall of water with some cheesecloth over the top (so there's more room within the wall but the beetles are still blocked), as shown in the pic (of my patty pan squash they are also attacking) The other cucumber and melon are too big to fit within a wall of water anymore, so I might get some of the rowcover material and make a tent for them. It's their only hope.

Tutorial: Early season techniques

2008-06-09T12:21:00.006-06:00

This is my experience with how to plant warm-season vegetables dangerously close to the last frost date and not kill them. This year, I've used walls of water and black plastic mulch to protect seedlings.

Prologue: My seedlings were all at least 5 in high (some larger as I was too optimistic about the last frost) when I transplanted them into the garden. I started some plants from seed indoors and bought some seedlings from a local nursery, and others online because I thought I wouldn't be able to find them locally.

Both walls and mulch help early in the season by raising the temperature around plants (walls of water) and raising soil temps (black mulch). Cold temps can stress plants, kill them (less than 40f can kill peppers, for instance), or reduce nutrient uptake resulting in slowed or stunted growth. We sure need it here at 5000ft, as it got into the 30's (F) at night well into mid-May.

Walls of water: They are the turquoise teepees in the pic, available at your garden store $7 per 3 walls. Ouch! But worth it if you insist on trying to improve upon nature as I do. One 'wall' is a plastic cylinder of connected cells that you fill with water. The water absorbs the sun's heat all day, and radiates it back to the plant at night. The package says you can transplant plants up to 6-8 weeks earlier using walls, but I'm a bit skeptical of that, especially when 6-8 weeks earlier means frost/snow and many vegetables can't handle temps below 40 or 45F (that's a claim of ~10F temp increase). However, I think you can get closer to these figures by completely encasing the plant: if you only fill the cells 2/3-3/4 full of water, the cylinder will lean in on itself to form the teepee shape you can see in the pic. When closed off like that, it forms a mini-greenhouse around the plant. I'm using the teepees with black mulch, and when I open the top and stick my hand in, it's a regular sauna in there. Steamy and hot. The steamy part is becoming a problem for my squash as it's providing a quite hospitable environment for powdery mildew, but that's another post.

Now that it's mid-June - warmer, and some of the squash plants are getting bigger - I want to open the teepees and reposition them so they are cylinders, open on the top for more air-flow and space within. However, I found that the teepees protected many plants from early flea and cucumber beetle infestations - which are not over - so I'm torn as to exactly how to proceed...

Black Plastic Mulch: Basically, an impermeable soil covering that absorbs the sun's heat (because its' black) and transfers the heat to the soil, raising soil temps to help warm-season vegetables get a head start. Also helps with moisture retention and weed control, as do all mulches :) (Other mulches, like straw, are better later in the season, once the weather has warmed up, since they help keep soil temps more stable i.e. cooler)

Trash bags, the poor man's mulch! Actually, I first bought some black plastic from the local hardware store. All they had was 4mil and it was quite thick. I read several places that the mulch needs to have good contact with the soil in order to transfer heat it's absorbing from the sun, and 4mil was too thick to wrap around all the bumps in the soil. Then I realized black trash bags were the perfect 1-2mil thickness I had been looking for. So, I now have 2 beds covered in 4mil and the rest in 1mil (total: $7, not bad!) We'll see if it makes a difference, but I doubt it: all the mulch has lost contact with the soil since so many weeds are growing under it and pushing up on it(sickly, white weeds that will never see sun, heehhee). I'm finding that it's still quite the sauna under the mulch anyway.

When you are laying down the mulch, you'll need to cut holes for plants. I had already planted a few seedlings, so this involved some estimation of exactly where the hole needed to be to accurately accommodate the stem. Thankfully trash bags tear easily, although strangely, in only one direction... Secure the plastic to the edges of the bed with garden stakes so it lays flat and tight over the bed.

I put the walls of water up May 18 I think, when I first planted a few plants (tomatoes and a couple of peppers). I put the rest up May 25 when I planted squash and eggplant, and the tomatoes lost their walls then b/c I didn't have enough. I put the mulch down, in parts, the last couple of weeks of May.

Not sure how long I'll leave all this stuff on, but hopefully it's helping. I have a 'control' eggplant at my house (no need to get into the messy variables of house vs. garden, container vs. ground, okay?) that has neither mulch nor walls, and several 'control' tomatoes at my house that did not have black mulch like the garden ones do. The control tomatoes also didn't have a flea beetle infestation, but hey, that's why experimental writeups have a discussion section, for all the disclaimers and possible explanations for your unexplainable results ;)

Attack of the Beetles!!!!

2008-06-08T10:36:00.004-06:00

I went out of town for 6 days. 6 days! Everything was fine when I left... I covered most plants with walls of water and the raised beds with black plastic mulch (known in lay terms as cut up trash bags :).

I came back from out of town to flea beetles and cucumber beetles attacking the plants that weren't protected by walls of water. They must have hatched/matured in the 6 days I was gone! There were 2 tomatoes (my Moonglow heirloom, no!!!), a tomatillo, and a few peppers uncovered. The tomatoes and tomatillo were getting devoured!

Flea beetles are very little black bugs that leave tiny buckshot holes in leaves. They also jump like fleas. You can see a couple on the rightmost leaf in the pic.

(Striped) cucumber beetles are a bit bigger, yellow with distinct black stripes (The stock pic shows both spotted and striped). They eat big holes through leaves, mate all over my tomatillo, and leave clumps of orange eggs on the undersides of leaves. The worst part is that they spread bacterial wilt, which can kill the whole cucumber or squash plant. I've only noticed them on the tomatillo so far (since all my squash are in a walls of water teepees) but this could be a bad situation since 1/3 to 1/2 of my garden is curcurbits of various kinds.

The community gardens are all organic, so no killing them with technology (can I blind them with science?) .... but there's several organic options available. I'll post soon what works for me.

Inventory

2008-06-06T15:04:00.000-06:00

It's quite ridiculous, considering the amount of space I have. But plants are like crack to me... just one more.... and I have a friend who's similar. She gave me 30-40 new seedlings a couple of weeks ago which were quite etoliated (spindly from not enough light) but I repotted and gave them more light, so they're making a nice recovery now.

Tomatoes

Stupice (early-season heirloom, for grafting purposes)
Better Boy (hybrid,which I divided into 3 pots)
Moon Glow (orange heirloom, planted in garden 5/18?)
Early Girl (hybrid, so I'd have at least a couple plants that are successful!)
Opalka (paste heirloom)
Black from Tula (heirloom) in upside-down pot
Yellow Boy (VFN) in upside-down pot
Cavern (heirloom) (2)
Brandywine (heirloom) (1 from work, 4 from Elizabeth)
San Marzano (for paste) (2?)
Bush Cherry (3)
Large Cherry (2)
Marvel Stripe (2)
Green Zebra (4)
Persimmon (1)
Black Krim (2)
Big Beef (4? from Elizabeth, more to be indeterminate grafting rootstock)
Costaluto (1)
Ace (lots)
Italian Roma (4?)
Blue Fruit
Black Ethiopian
Carbon
Vintage Wine
Big White pink stripe
Chocolate stripe
Indian moon (native american heirloom!)
Blondkopfchen (yellow cherry)
Tlacolula Ribbed (mexican heirloom!)
Pineapple
Zapotec pleated (mexican heirloom!)
Celebrity (hybrid determinate, to be grafting rootstock)

Eggplant

Fairy Tale
Rosa Bianca
Gistada de Liada

Peppers

Early Jalapeno (4)
senorita Jalapeno
regular jalapeno
Habanero (3)
Tomatillo (2 pairs)
Black bell (1)
Pasilla (1)
Serrano (few)
Poblano (1)
Hungarian wax (1)
Thai ornamental (1)
tabasco
red demon thai
piquin
santa fe
cayenne
fresno
jamaica hot
anaheim
marconi

Curcurbits

Delicata squash (winter, big)
patty pan squash
papaya squash
armenian yard-long cucumber
marketmore cucumber
noir des carmes, some fancy french heirloom melon

Herbs

fine verde basil
genovese basil
summer savory
rosemary
cilantro
oregano
lavender
thyme
chocolate mint
peppermint
catnip

Strawberries

Alpine 1
Alpine 2
Ozark Beauty (1)
Quinalt (4)
Sarian (1)

Other

okra
red onion
nasturtium
morning glory
moonflower
mexican marigold
Taiyo giant sunflower
Velvet Queen sunflower
Strawberry blonde sunflower

Documentation

2008-05-23T14:50:00.001-06:00

I have a lot of plans, a lot of projects.... but I'm calling them "experiments", because there's no 'failure' in an experiment, just a proving or disproving of the hypothesis, results with unexpected variables, and future work to explain what the heck went awry. Of course, my lack of space and resources means I'm pretty much just experimenting with techniques on a few plants under very uncontrolled conditions, and the results really will be anecdotal. But I'd like to think that bringing some structure to my gardening obsession is good, that I'll learn a lot, and that in the end, it's all really "experience". Something gained and never lost.

This is the 2008 season's attempt to document my hypotheses, methods, and results wrt my gardening, plus just all the garden growth progress. The plan is to garden the heck out of every surface and space I can get my hands on. I have a community garden plot and space at my house, and a grow light setup... it's so exciting!

H1: heirloom tomatoes will be less diseased and nematode-infested by being planted in my homemade upside-down tomato pots than in ground soil full of verticillium and fusarium wilt and nematodes to which the heirloom varieties are completely susceptible.
H1.3:the rainbow cuteness of my homemade hand-painted upside-down pots will simply make for better tomatoes ;)
(H1.5): if only I had enough space, I'd compare regular right-side-up yield to upside-down yield with same variety.
H2: My homemade strawberry towers will be more evenly watered by my pipe-with-holes watering design than by a traditional top-watering approach. I like using the drill.
H3: black plastic mulch will improve early growth by warming soil.
H4:my tomatillos will fruit this year b/c I have two to pollinate each other.
H5: Grafting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Using tongue-graft approach usually for cucumbers, I can cut into 2/3 of stem and create double-headed two-variety tomato that produces both rootstock variety and scion variety tomatoes, maybe even a chimera.....oooh...

Green Thumb Sunday

2008-01-01T17:00:00.001-07:00