The Quiet Heat of July

Half way through July is a good time to start assessing what’s going to be needed for fall and winter. Any green manure or cover crops for winter kill should be started around this time to ensure a good stand so as to get a good cover in the spring. The buckwheat, pictured below, is ready to come out and be replaced with my fall mix of peas and oats.

Buckwheat in full bloom

As fall approaches the winter rye and vetch will be seeded on those beds that will get later crops; the peas and oats will get earlier ones.

A lot growth happens in one summer month. The watermelon vines have quadrupled in length and I’ve already picked two. But sadly, I got a little rambunctious and picked too early. I’m not an expert in knowing exactly when to pick a watermelon, although I’m privy to what the literature says. Three signs are well known: The underside turns a yellow/cream color; the tendril at the base of the vine side of the stem dries up; when rapped with your knuckle, it has a hollow vibration. The first melon I picked (one of my White Wonders) had the dried stem (completely brown/dead), and a hollow sound when tapped, but the underside wasn’t quite the cream color as I had wanted. When cut open, it was insipid. Not a single molecule of sugar in it. Too early!

Hime Kansen Watermelon

The Hime Kansen watermelon was next and had two of the signs of ripeness in place, the hollow thump and the cream colored bottom, but not the dried stem (completely green). When cut open it turned out to be not quite done. Sweet but not ready. I’m still learning the watermelon trade, and when I perfect it, perhaps you can come to me for advice. But until then, I’m trial-and-erroring it. The next melon I’ll make sure all three signs are in place, if possible.

One of the big additions to the garden this year is the new potting shed. An 8×12 shed, put on a packed gravel foundation, was installed June 26. It went up in a few hours. A huge thanks to Polly and Dale for the shed, and also the chaps who installed it for us. The only thing that I needed to do was raise the shelf up about 8 inches closer to the light. Now, all my garden tools are not crowed in the hoop house, and my growing table in the hoop house is clear. A sigh of relief since the hoop house was beginning to turn into a warehouse.

The New Potting Shed

One of the disappointments this year are the cucumbers. I decided to grow a seedless variety, Diva. The plants are gynoecious (all-female) and parthenocarpic (grow fruits without pollination). However, here we are in mid July and I have one. One cucumber. Most of them have aborted on the vine. Diva has lived up to her name as a temperamental, conceited woman. This opera was over before she sang a single note. If my readers have grown Diva and have had success, drop me a note. I’d like to know how you did it.

In closing, here are some more photos of the garden for your viewing pleasure. Once the Aunt Rubies come into ripeness, I’ll post again on their flavor. Cheers.

Sun Gold Tomatoes on the vine

Watermelons, Potatoes and Tomatoes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aunt Ruby German Green

 

 

 

 

Bull's Blood Beet

 

 

 

 

 

Charentais Melons

Step on it, Mrs. Cleaver!

June isn’t messing around this time. She’s showing no hesitation, and of course the garden is eating it up. The cherry tomato plants are already at 6 feet and the Sun Golds are ripening on the lower trusses.

Sun Golds ripening

I popped one in my mouth yesterday and they *did* live up to the claims of sweetness. And as the year moves on, I’m sure they’ll taste better. I haven’t grown this variety before, but it deserves a permanent place on my tomato list every year. Very fast growing and extremely vigorous. Having said that, the Matt’s Wild cherry plants are out in the lead in terms of growth, although their fruit is not quite as early. I’m predicting that my MWC’s will get 13 feet by the end of September. I’ll try and remember to take a measurement of all the plants by that time. The Paul Robeson’s, a black slicing tomato, are doing well and putting out many fruit early on. The Aunt Ruby German Green plants are like trees with very thick stems. Their pollination on the lower trusses was a little iffy at first. Not very efficient. What I’m finding is that some varieties have this trait. The Paul Robesons didn’t. If anyone has any experience with this as well, I’d like to hear from you to convince me that it’s not just me.

My Outdoor Tomatoes: Gilberie and De Barao

Watermelons under IR plastic: White Wonder and Hime Kansen

My watermelons are even further along than they were last year, which is saying quite a lot since last year was an ideal year for growing. Even though our spring this year has been cooler and wetter, our last frost was earlier and the hot weather in late May and early June has made up for it.

The garlic is producing scapes and I would hope to start harvesting in July. I’ve been smart this year and have kept the garlic mulched with rye straw (produced in the garden) to keep the roots moist, which garlic likes. I cut the scapes off today and perhaps will have them grilled or sauteed.

A have some information about growing lettuce that many people don’t know about. I couldn’t call it a secret, but let’s just say that your lettuce seed packets rarely let you in on it. Lettuce seed is light sensitive. Some varieties more than others, but generally true. If you’ve ever wondered why your lettuce seeds don’t germinate very well and you think you got some jipped seed, I’m giving you some knowledge that should make you think again. Just for you, I ran an experiment. Not very scientific, but just for yucks…and for show and tell. The photo below shows the effect of light on the seed. The first 7 columns of grow cells were planted with a combination of Red Oak leaf lettuce and Black Seeded Simpson. The seed was packaged in late 2010. They were planted as per the packet, 1/4 inch below the surface. The 5 columns on the right used the same seed but were primed first and then pressed firmly onto the soil surface, making sure the soil is moist first, and leaving the seed exposed to light. Priming the seed just means that they are soaked in water for 24 hours prior. Just so you know, the seeds on the left were planted about 10 days earlier (Something distracted me from planting them at the same time). The photo speaks for itself. Primed and on the surface, they had a 93% (28/30) germination rate. The others had a 31% (13/42) germination rate. So, don’t throw away that lettuce seed just yet. It may be fine. I usually don’t keep lettuce seed for more than 2 years as it has a shorter shelf life that other seeds. But I may experiment with trying to keep it longer.

Music Garlic with Scapes

Bull's Blood Beets, Golden Beets, Rocket, Lettuce, etc.

Lettuce Seed is Light Sensitive!

Corn Planted in Circles, and Cucumbers to Make a Live Mulch Underneath

Another little secret I learned from Cindy Conner at www.homeplaceearth.com was to plant corn in circles. She says that they aren’t as susceptible to laying down in high winds as they help support each other. The circles are 18 inches in diameter and the center is kept uncovered to help warm the soil. The cucumbers underneath provide a living mulch to keep the soil from drying out. I highly recommend her video about composting in your garden, which you can find on her website. It’s full of great information. It’s one of those videos you must watch more than once to get everything.

’til next time.

Rows of Blue PotatoesPaul Robeson Tomatoes on the First Truss

Sage Flowers

Gray Grayer Grayest

Coming to you from what feels like the gray capital of the world is another update from the gardenXing. I had the opportunity to take some photos yesterday when we had some sun in order to convince you that we live in a sun paradise here in southern Vermont, but I procrastinated and didn’t want to wait further. I’m crossing my fingers that another season like 2009 is NOT in the cards.

Our first crop of rocket came and went, as well as the tatsoi. Of course more is on the way. The Red Oak and Black Seeded Simpson lettuce continues to provide and I usually do a good enough job in succession planting for perpetual supply.

Romaine Behind Tomatoes

We ended up having our last frost May 6, which is very early for our area. It is *possible* there’s another on the way, but it’s unlikely at this point, looking at the forecasts. I only had to use extra heat for the tomatoes for two nights in the hoop house since planting them April 17. But despite the early last frost, this spring is proving to be quite cool and wet. The rye has headed out but hasn’t pollenated yet (last year it was pollinating by May 10). A warm day has occurred here and there but not with any consistency.

Since starting the corn in toilet paper rolls (a method I like because they’re deep) 8 days ago, they’re outgrowing them quickly, and they happen to be planned for one of the beds that has rye and clover in it. I decided to cut the rye down today (photo below) and take a chance that the rye would want to grow back. I usually wait until pollination which essentially ensures the growth cycle is complete. But my guess is I’ll get some growth but very little. The amount of above-ground biomass from the rye is huge (this is added to the compost pile or used for mulch) and the miles and miles of roots they produce is organic matter I didn’t have to haul into the garden. Weeds of course are held at bay and rye does a perfect job of this.

Masses of Rye

Crimson Clover in Rye

Cutting the rye by hand is a little bit of a chore and it’s those times that I wish I had a scythe. But my hand sickle works well enough and I’m able to get a cut very close to the ground. After cutting the rye gets put into a pile to dry out where it’s used primarily for carbon for the compost. Over the rye stubble I’ll put a layer of compost and cover that with some already-dried straw. If I need to warm the soil more, I’ll wait on the mulch and let the sun get some heat into the soil for a few days (if sun is available, of course). I usually end up with more rye than I need, but that’s the idea. Make more than you need and the rest you can save.

Some of the beds are in green manure “mode” for the whole year, and for those after the rye and vetch come down, I usually plan buckwheat for a summer smother and till that in lightly after it flowers (about 30-40 days). For those same beds, after the buckwheat, I’ll plant something that will winter kill, like peas and oats, and give me a dead mulch the next year. The beds are rotated in and out of production. Since I’m into getting the garden into a sustainable self-fertilizing state, I don’t have all beds producing vegetables, so rotating the beds makes sense. Next year I’m going to explore different green manure crops like alfalfa and mustard for some variety.

The tomatoes are growing very well with the Sun Gold, Matt’s Wild Cherry and Aunt Ruby German Green plants at 36 inches. The Paul Robeson plants are at 27 inches. A friend gave me some Sun Sugar tomato seed. I’ve never heard of that variety (an F1, I think), but did start 2 seeds in the hopes of finding a place for them. As of this writing, I have no set location. A pot may have to do.

Music Garlic Growing Well

A Start on a Compost Pile

The watermelons are in early as of May 21. I usually wait until June 1, but the weather outlook is OK and they were getting a little antsy in their 4″ soil blocks. Watermelons have very fussy roots and don’t like to get them mussed. Soil blocks are the perfect solution to this. When the time comes to put them in the ground, I pretend I’m a surgeon performing an open heart transplant. It’s a little comical really.

Until next time? As Willy Wonka said, “So much time and so little to do……Strike that. Reverse it.”

Corn in Toilet Paper rolls ready for their life outside.

Bed 4 After Cutting the rye. Compost and mulch is laid down over the stubble.

Watermelons! In! Come on, Sun!

The Foundation for our New Shed!

Sun Golds on the Way

Cilantro!

Bull's Blood Beets

Tomato Day ’11

Mid April has come again, and this time around the weather is cooler than last year. Hoop house temperatures peaked around 70 or so today, but the next couple of nights are pushing in the low 30s. As the tomatoes go in, they’ll need to be protected from those extreme lows at night. Mid April is about a little more than a month before our average last frost. Since the tomatoes are already flowering (they were 7 week plants), and given I want those early flowers to produce fruit, some added heat is a must. The plants themselves could tolerate the temperatures (with *some* fuss), but the flowers will not pollinate if they freeze. If you’ve read my post from last year, you’ll know what I mean.

Our 50% last frost is May 20. That’s 34 days from now. I anticipate I’ll need extra heat for 7 to 8 of those days. My rule of thumb is to light the propane heater before bedtime if the forecast low is set for below 38F. I might be able to get away with less than that, but I’m just playing safe. It’s shut off in the early morning.

I’m using the same means of support for the tomatoes; pruned to a single leader and supported by a single string and clips. It’s my favorite method for the hoop house. For outside, I happen to like cages, but with cages in this climate I prefer to prune to 3 to 4 leaders. Our summers are somewhat humid and since we get rain in the summer (something that’s unusual to me growing up in CA), the combo of humidity and rain can be a tough gig for tomatoes in cages if you don’t prune. For outdoor tomatoes, getting the leaves to dry out toute d’suite is a key to success since late blight is always a threat here. For the hoop house, the varieties I chose this year are: Matt’s Wild Cherry, Sun Gold, Aunt Ruby German Green and Paul Robeson. For outside all are sauce tomatoes: Gilbertie, San Marzano Gigante and Debarao.

One of three Sungold tomato plants flowering

For the green manure crops, all went well under 2-3 feet of snow. The rye and hairy vetch tolerate it well as you can see from their vigorous growth. The oats and field peas are now a dead mulch and will protect the cabbage when it gets transplanted.

Tomatoes in and extra heat ready for tonight

I’ll get 2-3 mowings of the rye and vetch to feed the compost, but six of those beds are set to be ready for the summer crops by June 1. So, the rye and vetch will need to be pollinating and flowering by then so I can cut them down. The other rows of green manure I will let grow more during the year.

I’ve had a little trouble with caterpillars this year munching on the tatsoi. They are a carry over from the year before and they winter over quite well in the hoop house. My only means of control is to pick them out by hand.

Rocket

Many of my summer crops haven’t been started yet from seed. Of course, watermelons are going to be making themselves known, as are corn, cucumbers, cantaloupes and beans, some of which I haven’t grown in a number of years. I’m going to get a little better about succession planting of lettuce, spinach and especially cilantro this year. Cilantro bolts very fast and a new planting every month should give me a continual supply.

A few projects are in order for the garden. A more formal entrance with a trellis and fixing portions of the fence that collapsed during the snowfalls, to name a couple. There’s always maintenance on the hoop house, and compost that needs amending and turning. I’m putting in two more soil temperature sensors and two soil moisture sensors: one for the garlic and one for the melons. How geeky can I get? Another idea I have in mind for the year is to find a way to keep the compost protected and ready during the winter so I have a continual supply when I need it in the early spring. My brain is already on it. As Hedley Lemarr once said, “My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.” Until next time.

Tomatoes and lettuce

A dead mulch of field peas and oats (left) and rye (right)

Lettuce assortment

More rye and hairy vetch

Music garlic

The Ides of March…Almost

I was off to a shaky start this year with preparing the garden for this spring. Lettuce, spinach and tatsoi (greens we tend to eat a lot of) were started late January and nestling nicely in their growing cells. I have in the past hardened off young seedlings to prepare them for the colder temperatures they will experience in the hoop house. But I’m rethinking this tactic. Cold-weather crops have the innate ability in their physiology to pump extra sugars in their biomass to prevent freezing of their tissues, as long as you give them time. In other words, if you take them from their comfy indoor environment and shove them out on the porch where the air is 10 F, forget it. They can’t adapt. And…10F is too cold anyway. But that’s just what I did. Three hours later half of my seedlings were frozen. Dead. What a dope! Afterward, I ran an experiment. I planted in the hoop house some other lettuce and tatsoi that had *no* prior exposure to cold. Transplanted around noon, I pulled the row cover over them that evening and they’ve been fine since. Two things here: A temp of 10F is never experienced under the row cover, even in the middle of winter (I have tons of temperature data to prove it). So putting them out on the porch at that temp was a costly oversight. The second thing is the seedlings can adapt to the colder temperatures over the next 20 hours. *That* they can do. So I’m rethinking hardening off plants for temperature. Hardening them off for exposure to the sun is a different matter. But under the hoop house fabric, which in my case is a translucent woven material that diffuses light, it think it’s debatable.

Some of the lettuce and rocket started for 2011

About 50 F today, but it doesn't look it.

Anyway, I thought I’d just share some of all that. So after the loss of many of my early starts, I just planted more. A little late perhaps, but not too late. I’ve got the tomatoes started (Feb 22) and they’re approaching their 3rd week. They will be heading out in the hoop house come April 15. My Tomato day. That’s always a festive time. Keep in mind that’s early for us here in S. Vermont for tomatoes. Our average last frost is May 20.

Sungold, Aunt Ruby German Green, Paul Robeson and Matt's Wild Cherry

Here’s a list of what I’m planning on this year in the hoop house and out:

Lettuce, Tatsoi, Spinach, Rocket, Carrots, Beets, Onions, Shallots, Tomatoes, Cucumbers, Cantaloupe, Corn, Watermelon, Garlic, Beans, Cabbage, as well as many herbs.

Young onions in their cells

It was a cold winter this year. We had temps down as low as -16 F. But all was well under the protection of the house. The ground never really gets the opportunity to freeze. If it does freeze, it’s very temporary, and shallow. I had some corn salad and spinach (mache) from last year survive the winter no problem. Some of the lettuce did and some didn’t.

Mache planted last year survived with flying colors

The garden is still under snow, but it’s melting quickly. My next post will get you up to speed on how the cover crops are doing under all that ice!

September Song

All of my hard neck garlic this year

Our Japanese watermelons. Sublime.

This year has been mostly successes and relatively few failures. Some of what I would call failures were not really so, but only that I wouldn’t repeat them. Tomatillos, for example, I won’t plant in the hoop house again, although they gave us a bumper crop. They’re large plants and take up valuable real estate, and they need to be staked fairly well. Another failure was my garlic that didn’t produce like I wanted. I waited too long to cut the scapes from the plants in addition to letting the soil dry too much during the growing season. I ended up with small bulbs that were somewhat of a disappointment. Our winter squash, an Italian variety called Marina di Chioggia, never really produced. It was a mystery.

But I don’t want to dwell on the negative. We had so much fresh produce to eat this summer with our tomatoes kicking in around the end of June; pepper plants like I’ve never seen before; wonderful eggplants, summer squash, fennel, sage, rosemary, oregano, thyme…Oh, and the watermelons, which I used a little technology to encourage (the hybrid plastic mulch), were absolutely the most delicious watermelons I’ve ever had. A Japanese variety called Hime Kansen has a only a 3/16″ rind so has relatively a large amount of flesh inside a small fruit. Being smaller in size they ripen quickly (about the first of August this year). As is usually the case, watermelons will usually come to ripen all around the same time. However, these kept in our refrigerator for weeks. Six plants produced 13 melons.

Chocolate Cherry Tomatoes. Like candy.

Two-Foot Long Cucumbers

We had a lot of people around this summer to feed and at times we didn’t have enough to go around, but in the end we ended up giving a lot away, and still are just to prevent them from spoiling. The tomatoes are an example. I had 16 plants in the hoop house, with 4 extra plants outside. They are still producing more tomatoes than we can eat, and we freeze (for sauce) anything that can’t be eaten fresh. But since we host monthly piano camps for adults and kids with a hired chef, we use most of it.

The fall crops have been started in the hoop house and are planted at different times depending on the crop. Carrots take a while so I had them in the ground by August 1. The tatsoi, a huge hit earlier this year, was started in soil blocks on August 6. Spinach and turnips by August 20.

Mesclun and Turnips Getting a Head Start

Napoli Carrots on Their Way Before the Winter Hits

Being honest, it takes a little fortitude to be an all-season gardener with a hoop house. In order to make room for the fall crops, you must sacrifice some of your summer crops while they’re still producing. You can’t wait until everything gives up the ghost because it would be too late to get much of anything started in time to reach maturity by late fall. But many times the summer crops, like the cucumbers, will be done by the time you need to move the fall crops in. My larger sacrifice was the tomatillos. Cutting them was not easy. Another reason to have them outside.

I rarely pull plants out. I’ll cut them below soil level and let the roots decay in place. Feeding the soil is one of the mantras of organic gardening. Speaking of compost, I actually didn’t have enough to go around. I succumbed to purchasing more at my local feed store. As a cover crop grower I try to produce as much compost as possible for the year, but sometimes I fall short. About 60% of my outdoor area is cover crop.

Oats and Winter Peas (right). Rye, Clover, Austrian Peas, Hairy Vetch (left)

More Rye, Hairy Vetch, Clover, Winter Peas, Rye Grass

There’s so much to prepare for the fall coming out of the summer. But it’s all a pleasure really. Isn’t that why we gardeners do this?

Volver

As we descend past the peak of the sine curve and steadily head toward shorter days and longer nights, the garden rages ahead within the fleeting days of summer. And this particular summer is one of the better ones for us growers. Not too much rain and plenty of sun…and heat. A heat wave last week in the low 90s pushed the hoop house temps around 100.

Hoop house in early summer

So far I’m proud to announce that the watermelons are doing fab. I’ve already got 8 to 9 baby fruit growing rapidly on their vines. The plastic mulch is doing exactly as it should–keeping the soil at 80F or above, just where melons like things. As I’ve mentioned before, the watermelons I chose were “Icebox” melons, a japanese variety that’s small enough to fit in a small fridge. Because of their size, the satisfaction comes earlier. And in our shorter season it’s a wise choice.

The tomatoes are surpassing my expectations inside the hoop house, despite the loss of most of my “early” ones I lost due to overseeing the necessity to add heat to the hoop house to protect the young flowers. The cherry tomatoes are already at 9 feet; they’ve gotten to the top of the 8′ purlin and I will need to train them along the hoops as they continue. All of the excess tomatoes will be skinned, made into a sauce, sealed, then put in our walk-in freezer. With the tomatillos, plenty of salsa verde will be made. The tomatillos have a little ways to go before we can get a crop, but they’re looking so cute hiding in their little husks as they mature.

One of many baby watermelons on the vines

Tomatillos!

The hard neck garlic was harvested several days ago and is drying. The variety is Ontario Purple and is supposed to be an early garlic, and it did prove to be a more vigorous grower than the soft neck I chose this year (Western Rose). The odd thing about the soft neck I have is that the stalks are already laying down flat before the bulbs are ready and before the leaves are significantly turning brown. But I’m keeping them in the ground anyway.

Ontario Purple garlic drying on the hoop house work station

All the spring green manure crop was cut and either put into the compost or lightly tilled into the soil, depending on the bed. For the summer, I’m trying to get a stand of buckwheat going, but a challenge has revealed itself: Chipmunks. They smell the buckwheat seed under the soil and enter the garden and dig up almost every seed. Oy! As Rosanna Rosanna Danna used to say, “It’s always somethin’!” Last year it was a groundhog. I was successful in chasing that monster away last winter before he went into hibernation. Now it’s the invasion of the chipmunks. Cute little buggers, but hell. Those are my seeds you have in your jowls, sir! Such cruelty!

Of the smaller menaces to be spoken of, I do have the dreaded striped cucumber beetle in the garden. However, they do relatively little damage. Some leaves are eaten, and I did lose one plant soon after transplanting from bacterial wilt, but the mature plants seem to have no issues. I’ve heard horror stories about these little guys, but so far nothing much to say about them. If anything, they’re good pollinators.

All for now. Hasta luego, mi amigos.

Ripening Brown Berry tomatoes

Full of life

Rose tomato (similar to a Pink Brandywine)

First Lights (F1)

Prairie Cone Flower (Echinacea)

Big Jim chili peppers

Lessons

If you want to plant early tomatoes in a hoop house, you’ve got to be willing to give them some heat. I’ll give you the lowdown. My 6 1/2 week plants went in April 19. That’s about 4 weeks ahead of our average last frost. That’s all fine since the house will protect the plants from the cold wind and the direct harshness of the elements. The last three days in April had nights down around 32 degrees. I knew that the plants would survive those temps given the house was buttoned up. So, on those evenings I went down to the hoop house and tucked everyone in and said goodnight. As it turned out about half of the tomato plants had some bruising on the leaves. Not a biggie. They were still alive and well. But I knew more frosts were in store so I brought in my propane heater in anticipation. There were 3 more nights I needed the heat before our last frost on May 17 (it was about a 34F frost). But I ignored one thing: The flowers that were in bloom and all those flower trusses that were in formation couldn’t handle the frosts. Tomato flowers are very sensitive to frosts and if you expose them, they simply won’t fertilize. I lost more than 90% of my early tomato flowers. All in all,about 100 tomatoes, most of them cherries. I’m still kicking myself. ARG!

Tomatoes pruned to single leaders on string

You can see some of the bruising on the lower leaves. I’ll still have more tomatoes than I’ll know what to do with, but by planting early I’ve gained little because of my oversight. Ah well.

Anyway, onward and upward. The green manure crops are ready to cut to make new compost. I used a spring mix of oats, peas, fava beans, lana and purple vetch. All of them are nitrogen fixers except for the oats. Now that the vetch is flowering, it’s a good time to cut them as the vetches will grow back if you cut too soon. I cut them right at soil level and add the green biomass to my carbon sources (leaves and rye straw) also grown here to make fresh compost. The roots are left in place to feed, loosen and aerate the soil. Before planting the next crop, I’ll lay a layer of new compost right over the stubble.

Another way to utilize the crop is to lightly till it into the ground and let it decay in place. This may be a good thing to do if you have poor soil initially and you want to give it a kick start. You can also let it lay down as a dead mulch, although you’ll lose much of your nitrogen this way, but it’s great for adding carbon to the soil and keeping moisture in.

Here’s our harvest so far:

Spinach: 7.9 lbs

Tatsoi: 7 lbs

Mibuna: 3.5 lbs

Lettuce: 3.5 lbs

Mesclun: 2.5 lbs

Komatsuna: 4.5 lbs

Kale: 8.4 lbs

Turnip: 7.5 lbs

Parsley: 0.5 lbs

Cilantro: 0.5 lbs

My high-tech watermelon patch using a hybrid plastic mulch

I am one gardener who is completely determined to successfully grow watermelons in Vermont. Part of the solution as I see it is to use a hybrid plastic mulch. It’s not black, but olive green. It’s supposed to allow infrared light to penetrate it, but not allow the visible spectrum so as to keep weeds from establishing themselves. Seems to work as indicated. My soil temperature measured at around 7″ is about 85F, perfect for watermelons. The plastic was put in place 2 weeks ahead of planting.

Another solution was to grow them in 4″ soil blocks. No pots. This minimizes transplant shock and so far I see no signs of it; they’re blazing forward with the vim of Jack’s bean stalk. My plan is to keep the the plastic in place until I have almost complete canopy closure. At that time the soil should be able to maintain its heat and the weeds shouldn’t be too much of an issue. It will also allow for easier watering as I have no drip irrigation in place here. For now watering consists of unpinning the plastic on one side and soaking the plants. However, the plastic does keep moisture in place for quite a while.

So far, this season looks promising weather-wise. Another 2009 would be a huge disappointment. We’ve had little rain in May, less than 2″ and not much in April either. Rain is good, but too much hurts. Here’s to a hot, dry summer California style. Cheers.

Vetch flowering

A peek through the side vent

Marina di Chioggia squash

Snapdragons

Cucumbers

Fennel

Japanese Eggplants

Tomato Day

The Tomato. The day the tomatoes go in is always a day that holds value to a gardener. My day was today, April 19. My transplants were a little over 6 weeks old, although they should have been 8 weeks due to early losses of all my tomato starts on February 22. The short story goes like this: My heat mat was getting my seeds too hot and I ended up cooking them. Unfortunately I didn’t realize what was happening until 9 days later at which time there were still no seeds emerging. Tomatoes should be up around 5 or 6 days so I knew something was afoul. Being curious, I stuck a temp probe near the mini soil blocks and under the plastic dome and within 30 seconds it reached 99 F. Bingo. Problem found. So I had to restart my seedlings on March 4. I lost my peppers the same way. But it ended up not a big deal since my tomatoes were already outgrowing my 4″ soil blocks and were itching to be placed in their new home. My cherry tomatoes were already almost 24″ high.

The Varieties I chose to grow this year:

1. Rose – A large leafy heirloom that produces deep, rose-pink, 3-inch, meaty globes with a taste that rivals those varieties heralded most for their luscious taste. Seed came from Dr. Grace Kaiser, a physician in New Holland, PA who was given the seed from one of her Amish patients.

2. First Light – Hybrid. Plant produces good yields of 7 oz red tomatoes. One of the best tasting tomatoes! Excellent for salads and salsa. Tomatoes should be harvested when the lower half of the tomato has turned red but still has green shoulders. Indeterminate.

3. Chocolate Cherry – Heirloom. As irresistible as a chocolate covered cherry, but without all of the guilt. These cherries have both skin and flesh shaded an attractive combination of port wine and chestnut with a comparably delicious and multifaceted flavor. The super productive, indeterminate plants produce trusses of 1 inch round fruit nonstop.

4. Brown Berry – Heirloom. The Brown Berry cherry tomato has excellent  semi-sweet , rich flavors with just a slight bit of acid finish over its fruity sweetness. A great snacking or salad tomato to mix with your other colored tomatoes.

I had a roma style tomato that failed after around 4 weeks due to some disease. I had never seen it before but the leaves would droop and fall off, one at a time. Unfortunate because I had 5 Gilbertie romas that I was going to focus on using for long-term storage. There’s a chance I may try again and transplant them outside starting in June, although the late blight still gives me nightmares from last year.

One of my Brown Berry cherry tomato plants

We hadn’t eaten all of the tatsoi yet and I need the tatsoi out to get the tomatoes in so today was also a large harvest day for us. Lots of mibuna, tatsoi and komatsuna were cut and given away. We simply couldn’t eat it all.

My preference is to prune tomatoes to a single leader and train them up string using conventional tomato clips. In the past I’ve used many methods: Cages, stakes, trellises, letting them sprawl. If you name it, I’ve probably tried it. For now I like the single stem prune approach for a number of reasons. The first is that since I’ve decided to grow them in the hoop house as a means to hold back late blight and keep them dry, I can plant them closer together (14″). I have 16 plants on a roughly 19′ bed. Second, pruning gives the plant a little bit of a break. I’m not allowing the plant to spread itself out so thin, meaning that growing them vertically forces the tomato’s root system to be focused entirely at the bottom of the plant, something the plant is not expecting. Tomatoes are essentially weeds and the vining types sprawl on the ground and reroot themselves constantly, allowing for a very large root system. Forcing them to grow in one direction, up, limits their nutrient uptake, water uptake, etc. Therefore, pruning makes some logical sense by limiting the plants’ biomass. Third, professional tomato growers grow them this way (pruning to a single stem or two or sometimes three) and have found that the plant can focus on producing fruit instead of leaves.

Tomato flowers

Brown Berry plant on string and tomato clip

Intensive growing is my intent most of the time, especially in the hoop house since the real estate is so valuable. Wasting space is costly, so flanking the tomatoes are kale, lettuce spinach and mibuna. They all seem to play well together in the sandbox.

Hakurai turnips almost ready

Just as an added bonus, here’s a shot of the hakurai turnips that are almost ready. I can’t recommend these turnips too highly. They are absolutely mouth watering. I can’t wait.

You’re Getting Warmer

The greens in the hoop house have been feeling the heat lately. A heat wave for the first week in April is giving everything a growth spurt that is noticeable by the day.

We had our first harvest of the komatsuna on Sunday. We ended up serving it raw in a salad with a lime dressing, strawberries and feta cheese. Polly needed some rocket (arugula) for the recipe, but our supermarket was fresh out, so our komatsuna was the first choice from the garden. It’s also known as Japanese mustard spinach. Very popular in Japan but unheard of here, it’s a mild mustardy flavor that was a decent substitute for the peppery tang of rocket.

It was a hit.

All the vegetables in the hoop house are growing with vigor. A few things I learned going in: The carrots I direct seeded took 6 weeks to germinate; the scallions took 5. I ended up using the spot where the carrots were to plant some of my snapdragons and stock. If I had known that those seeds were going to take so long, I would have done things differently. It’s interesting though because the mesclun only needed 2 weeks to germinate and the turnips and daikon radishes 3 weeks, even in the dead of winter. Perhaps it was the varieties I chose. I really don’t know. But come this Fall, the carrots will be seeded for sure.

The blueberries that I had planted last year I moved into 16″ pots on the deck. I’m expanding the garden area this year and since they were in the way, I decided to pot them up. It’s an advantage since they are right outside the kitchen and get full sun. Two new raspberry plants have been added to my existing two. Two new apple trees went in next to the two peach trees. Some kind of deer netting will need to be protecting them. Last year a family of deer came by and chewed all the leaves off the peach tree saplings I planted. Not cute. Needless to say, deer don’t hold any kind of special place in my heart. I understand they do what they must to survive, but I do what I must to keep them from my stuff. I don’t share my food with wild animals, especially ones with big bellies. They don’t share, I don’t share. Fair enough, right?

Until next time. Some photos to share with you before you go.

Row of tatsoi ready for picking

Mibuna in full swing

Hoop house fully vented