Weekly Gardening Thread
Posted on 03/21/2011 5:51:03 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
Eager to join the grow-your-own-food movement and don’t know where to begin?
Tried your hand at gardening with less than satisfying results, while your neighbor’s front yard overflowed with beans and cabbage?
With the start of the traditional gardening season just around the corner — and four-season gardening offering never-ending opportunities — the time is ripe to formulate a plan of action that nurtures mind, body and spirit.
Here’s a pack of tips to help you plant the seeds for growing your green thumb:
1. Cultivate your inner gardener
Gardening is about so much more than simply growing vegetables, flowers or herbs. Part of its magic is discovering what gardening brings to your life, where it takes you and the many metaphors it unfurls. But be warned: Gardening has been deemed a gateway to numerous obsessions, raising backyard chickens and vermicomposting in your basement among them.
Allow space in your mind, as well as in your gardens, for surprises — an unexpected moonflower, or a volunteer tomato seedling or 20. But also think about what you’d like to get out of gardening aside from groceries, and let it evolve.
2. Don’t try to do it all, at least not all at once.
Nothing will discourage you more than becoming overwhelmed — by the amount of work required to prepare your plot for planting, the number of weeds that just won’t stop multiplying, and endless other garden chores. If you aren’t enjoying what you’re doing — the feel of the soil, the warmth of the sun, the physical workout, the clearing of the mind — make some adjustments.
Consider starting small. Instead of setting out to grow everything from asparagus to zucchini, take square-foot gardening to an extreme and plant a single square-foot garden with just one tomato plant, and add on next year. Or you can container garden, though you’ll have to water more to keep the soil from drying out and choose varieties best suited for pot dwelling.
If you really want to go all out, do it!
3. Decide what you want to grow.
If you never want to have to buy another tomato, you can easily grow enough to freeze, can, dry and eat fresh in season.
You’ll need more than a square foot of growing space, but you can get a lot of mileage out of varieties that are uber-productive as well as tasty. Tommy Toe cherry tomatoes are big and bountiful and can be frozen whole, then popped under the broiler to top pasta. Ditto for Principe Borghese, a variety traditionally used for sun-drying, that can also be dried in an oven or dehydrator.
High-yielding San Marzano paste tomatoes virtually melt in a pan, not to mention your mouth. Freeze or can sauce, or freeze tomatoes whole to add to winter soups, stews and pot roasts. Jaune Flamme and Peach Blow Sutton are also especially delicious and productive.
Don’t forget Genovese basil for pairing with fresh tomatoes and mozzarella, as well as for making pesto, which also can be frozen for pasta and pizza.
4. Read seed catalogs, many and often.
Even if you don’t start your own seeds — though you’ll be missing half the fun — you can glean a wealth of information about the incredible number of varieties of vegetables, flowers and herbs available, as well as when and where to start, transplant, nurture and harvest them.
Some good ones to start with are Seed Savers Exchange (seedsavers.org), Johnny’s Selected Seeds (johnnyseeds.org) and Richters Herbs (richters.com). Look for sellers that have taken the Safe Seed Pledge not to knowingly sell genetically modified seeds.
5. Grow heirloom seeds.
Along with helping to preserve our food heritage and the genetic diversity of plants, these seeds have a story. Cherokee Trail of Tears beans were carried by the Cherokee people on the winter death march of 1838-39 that left a trail of 4,000 graves. Unlike hybrid seeds, the seeds of these open-pollinated varieties that have been passed down through generations of gardeners can be planted the following year to produce the same delicious vegetables or edible or decorative flowers.
6. Grow (almost) instant gratification.
Give your gardening ego a boost by reaping quick and easy rewards. Start by planting fresh seeds (old ones may disappoint) for lettuce and other salad greens as soon as the soil can be worked. They’ll pop up pretty rapidly if you keep them moist, not soggy, and before you know it you’ll be snipping baby greens for fresh salads and sandwiches.
Keep them watered and they’ll keep on coming after you cut them. Choose heat- tolerant heirloom varieties or give them a somewhat shaded spot where they won’t wither in full summer sun. Keep planting more seeds for a continual supply of organically grown (no chemicals) greens.
Some types are pretty enough to use as edible landscaping. And don’t forget to grow edible flowers (again, no chemicals!) — including colorful nasturtiums, pansies and calendulas — for salads and garnishes.
7. Have the most fun for $40, or so.
Get a jump on seed starting in your very own walk-in greenhouse. Farm and Fleet sells one for about $40, less if it’s on sale. It won’t last forever but should give you a season’s worth of enjoyment.
You might want to take the cover off if strong winds are forecast, especially if it’s not staked down.
Farm and Fleet, Jung Garden Centers and others also have more costly and sometimes sturdier options, or you can piece together your own creation with old windows and screens your neighbors are getting rid of.
8. Raise it up.
While you’re out scrounging, look for untreated wood to make raised beds, or invest in new (cedar’s the best). Plan dimensions so you can put a window, or two or three, on top for an instant cold frame to jump start seeds and seedlings — as well as extend your season into the fall. Screens can also be used to foil those pesky squirrels. A raised bed will help you contain your plot, and you can add good soil and compost that will warm up sooner than the ground.
9. Get the poop on soil.
Compost. Compost. Compost. Whether you get it from your backyard bin, worm farm, a friendly farmer or in bags from the store, add plenty of compost to create a rich, loose bed in which to tuck your seeds or seedlings.
10. Pick up a copy of the Wisconsin Garden Journal.
Published by the Madison Area Master Gardeners Association, it will tell you what to plant when. To be safe, wait until at least Memorial Day weekend for tomatoes, peppers and other frost- sensitive plants. It also will give you a place to record your garden activities and results to build on next year, and it supports the crew of master gardeners who provide information and assistance to budding growers.
You can pick one up for $14.95 at Jung Garden Centers in Madison and Sun Prairie. For a list of other outlets, or to order online for a $3 shipping fee, go to mamgawi.org.
Famous last words ...
Don’t even think about striving for perfection. Let yourself go and grow with the flow, and don’t allow perspiration to drown out inspiration.
You have a wonderfully interesting homepage, Black Agnes. I encourage people to read it...........
Actually, last I checked, that particular law wasn’t completely written yet. They were still working on it. So, who knows what will, or won’t, be legal when they’re done.
Last year we stopped planting roses in our East facing post and planted serranos and jalapenos. Worked well and my wife had lots of peppers for eating and salsa.
Also we tried - for the first time - tomato and tomatillo bushes in five gallon pots.
Wow! Did that ever work! My wife uses the tomatillos for a green salsa and has two 12 oz. packages remaining in the freezer - should last three more weeks for her salsa.
We liked the tomatoes and had a great harvest from them.
All of our pots are on a drip line system (easy to do, I have the driplines connected to a four-zone electric timer connected to the hose bib) and are watered every day. The consistent watering helps alot.
This year we have planted seeds: tomatos (five varieties), tomatillos, serrano and jalapeno peppers, as well as some kitchen herbs. They are doing well right now and they all look forward to getting outside in June.
Happy Spring!
One of the regular posters on the gardening thread had very good luck last year trellising winter squashes. Spaghetti squashes too, IIRC. Cucumbers and small melons do very well trellised also. It’s the only way I grow my cucumbers anymore. No digging around in the viney dark places that might have SNAKES in them. Just pick off the trellis!
Weekly Gardening Thread
+ read instructions on bag of seeds.
Yikes! We had our first big thuderstorm of the spring season last night. LOTS of lightening; had to call the dopey dogs in before they got fried, LOL!
I’m starting tomatoes and peppers and basil this week, and a flat or two of lettuces and then after that a flat or two of flowers. Planning on using up seed on hand this year, so I’ll have kind of a patchworky garden, but I don’t care.
I have a lot of work to do this spring. I’m looking forward to it. It was a long winter!
Right on, and I will vouch for the part about the chickens too.
I’ve got some of the darkest, richest compost this year that is loaded with redworms, because they are drawn to the composting chicken manure in the compost bin. I’m working at double-digging a 100 sq. ft. raised bed right now, and the soil is going to be so rich my rake handle may well sprout roots.
We’ve had all kinds of herbs growing here in different places, and it’s great to harvest some fresh basil for grilled veggies in the summer....
“I only grow things in pots on my porch— but it brings me joy every single day...”
I figure I’ve got a good 15-20 years left in this old body to do dirt farmin’, but I’m already fantasizing about my Condo-bound days where I’ve sold the farm and all I have to tend to ARE a few pots of herbs on my porch, LOL!
We always want what we don’t have, don’t we? :)
My husband built me a lovely raised cedar bed and I am trying my very first garden right now. Got it planted a few days ago, too late for the cool season plants but in time for the hot season ones. I’m looking forward to seeing how they grow here!
Grew up in upstate NY and always had a huhe garden for canning and a basement full of canned goods.
Where I live now has underground critters, surface ctitters, and aerial critters that eat anything that humans eat.
Only solution is a garden raised on metal pipes and coverd with bird netting. Kinda expensive.
Ok, huge garden. I don’t know what huhe is either. :-)
I’m assuming you put that screw into the coffee can you keep on your work bench! Waste not, want not, LOL! :)
I sell a grow light system that would fit nicely into a closet. We jokingly call it, ‘The Pot-Master 2000.’ :)
Dad is STILL finding pot plants in the back forty from when the brothers were teenagers, smokin’ back behind the barn, LOL!
‘Wildwood Weed’ is one of my favorite ‘pick me up’ songs...though I don’t indulge in the stuff, myself. :)
“Free Mulch”? I ended up with black locust trees in my landscaping beds. The new owner is likely still fighting them.
Baby Huhe?
Watch the long range forecast on Accuweather.
I did that last year and got my veggies in around Mother’s Day weekend. I had to cover them once or twice, but otherwise, the weather last year was so gorgeous that I got a 2-3 week start on the garden and was harvesting early.
I start peas, lettuce, and this year beets, early indoors and transplant them as soon as they are up and the ground is thawed out enough to turn over. They don’t germinate well in the cold soil, but don’t mind it once they’re started. They’re great cool weather crops They can tolerate even a light freeze and bounce right back.
I use the peat pots that can be found at Lowe’s or Wal-Mart. I stock up every spring for next year so I have them on hand in case I want to start seeds before they’re in in the stores.
This year, as we were discussing cold frames, mr. mm suggested using under the bed boxes. So we’re going to try that for the few weeks we’d need them.
It only applies to farms making greater than $500,000 in income.
Hubby took a ride around the field, but couldn’t find any scorch marks. Of course it is still raining cats and dogs outside, which means I have to use the dryer, something I have been trying to avoid as much as possible.
It made it to 80 on Friday, but barely crept above 50 yesterday........I want spring, it was a long winter here as well :(
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