New England Garden Journal – August Part 1

August 2nd

Remember: You can view all of the photos full-size by clicking on them and then return to the blog post using your back button.

It has been quite dry here in Connecticut with little rain over the summer so far. My organic garden has been doing okay with limited watering, but not producing abundantly. I decided this summer to limit watering and then collect the seeds from the plants that do well. I water deeply and less frequently.

Heirloom Suyo Long cucumber

I have been harvesting a lot of Suyo Long cucumbers, one or two a day. I still do not have a single tomato growing but I do finally have flowers. Is there time for any tomatoes to reach maturity before cold weather settles in? It will be a race between my tomato plants and nature. I remain optimistic as I contemplate the construction of a hoop house or two for the fall.

Heirloom Moskovich tomato finally blooming

I have tweeted about my 21-month-old granddaughter spending time with me in the garden. Our favorite thing to do besides jump off the front steps over and over and over again is searching for overgrown snow peas so that I can open the pods up and she can pick out the peas inside, eating them raw. If it is green, this little girl loves it!

I am determined that my grandchildren know where their food comes from. She has helped me pick cucumbers off the vine and then within 10 minutes been nibbling on warm, juicy slices. She has seen my towering corn plants — she loves corn — and, hopefully, will remember those big guys the next time she eats corn.

Early morning sun kissing tall heirloom sweet corn grown intensively in a raised bed – corn is tasseling

The lemon squash has started producing. I have two pollinated squashes, one almost ready for harvest. I can’t wait to taste this heirloom variety. The zucchini are crowded now, as I expected they would be. Another race, I am hoping I get a harvest to eat sauteed with basil, made into zucchini bread, and for a few jars of zucchini relish.

Lemon squash plants getting ready to spill over into the yard

Open-pollinated Lemon squash — first fruit of the season

Heirloom zucchini squash just beginning to form tiny fruit

And finally, tiny pickling cucumbers are getting ready to flower and, after pollination, start giving us lots of cucumbers for making pickles. I am forever an optimist!

Heirloom pickling cucumber forming

New England Garden Journal – July Part 4

Background: I struggle with chronic fatigue and pain, and this year when it was time to start seeds indoors and then transplant out to the garden in the spring, I was struggling. My garden wasn’t started until May 31, 2014, and a good portion of it wasn’t sown until mid-June. I did not start any seeds indoors but directly sowed everything in the garden. Below is the result of this late garden, an experiment in breaking northern gardening rules. This garden is what I could handle, and it is what it is. I am not disappointed except in the peppers and tomatoes, which are so late that I might not enjoy a harvest at all this year.

My garden is planted with heirloom vegetable varieties (open pollinated) and grown organically in south central Connecticut. I haven’t used pesticides in my yard since we purchased the property in 2000.

This week: We have enjoyed a few days of rain, much of it heavy. I was a bit worried about how my garden would hold up to the pounding rain at one point. Looks like the wind did a little damage in the heirloom corn patch.

Discovered a broken corn stalk this morning. No animals tracks, so assuming wind did this damage.

The rest of the garden seems to have benefited from the warm summer rains.

Lots of delicious snow peas. I sowed three areas with snow peas this year.

Harvested first Suyo Long cucumber of the season. It is about 16″ long.

Zucchini plants have tripled in size in one week.

Spinach, red leaf lettuce, Romaine lettuce, a zucchini transplant, red onions and snow peas in the back.

Lemon squash plants blooming in terraced garden.

Terraced bed with lemon squash, giant nasturtium, radishes, and a single tomato transplant (which is hidden by the squash)

Bell pepper plants will most likely not produce before the first freeze

Tomatoes in grow bags beside driveway are finally taking off. Now to see if they have time to actually produce any tomatoes before cold weather arrives.

Cherokee Trail of Tears black beans enjoying the early morning sun

Connecticut organic garden video tour – part 1

I took my DSLR out to the garden this morning and captured several short videos showing what I am growing this year. Since I have yet to learn how to edit and compile several short videos into one longer one, I uploaded each of the shorts for individual viewing. I highly recommend watching in full-screen mode.

The first few videos were complete failures. What I post below are the ones that are viewable, and two of them were afterthoughts — the narration begins with “And finally…”

Enough apologizing for my amateur videography skills.

Front garden: Oregano, beets, spinach, Amish deer tongue lettuce, Blue Lake bush green beans, bok choy, cherry tomatoes and pickling cucumbers.

Bean teepee planted with black beans

Back garden #1: Heirloom sweet corn, Moskovich tomatoes, garlic, snow peas, Suyo Long cucumbers, dill, Black Beauty zucchini, buckwheat, more snow peas, broccoli volunteer (will be collecting seeds), red leaf lettuce, Romaine lettuce, spinach, red onions, more snow peas.

Terraced bed by driveway: Lemon squash, French breakfast radishes, lettuce, tomato.

Continued on Part 2 . . .

New England Garden Journal – July Part 2

Connecticut organic garden, late but not out of the running. I hope you enjoy the photos.

Pickling cucumbers are up!

Blue Lake bush beans had been pruned by a single deer a week ago. I always get a single visit and then no more. Stay away, deer. These are mine!

Tomato plant volunteer in front garden. I am hoping it is yellow pear cherry tomato.

Lemon squash doing well in terraced bed planted with a giant nasturtium.

French Breakfast radishes will be ready for harvest in a week or so. These are long, thin radishes with a mild spicy taste.

Bean teepee is hosting Trail of Tears black beans this year. These germinated 3 days ago.

Heirloom sweet corn is doing very well so far. Fingers and toes crossed that it continues to thrive and gives us a decent harvest. I have over 50 plants in that single raised bed.

Loose leaf lettuce on left and spinach seedlings in same raised bed with red onions.

Heirloom zucchini germinated and working on its first set of true leaves. Grow fast, zucchini, grow fast!

Moskovich tomato plants on left, garlic on right and snow peas growing on welded wire trellis on end of bed.

New England Garden Journal – June 2014 – Part 2

Broccoli volunteer that is already blooming. I will save the seeds since this is an open pollinated, heirloom variety.

It has been raining off and on for days upon days. I have taken advantage of this break from the garden while it does its thing without much help from me to work on homework for my summer class, complete a grant application, and deal with my kids’ end-of-the-year events and a high school graduation.

It has been moderately cool to slightly uncomfortable, very humid, and moist. Connecticut has exploded in green, looking almost like a rainforest in places as wild-growing plants overflow into the roads in many places. The trees are heavy at the tops, blocking much of the sun. I am trying to figure out how we can thin canopies in the trees bordering my yard to let in more sun on my garden spaces.

Tomato and peppers have not germinated. I think I will go ahead and start some indoors even at this late date, and I plan to head to my favorite heirloom seed store in Wethersfield to see what they have in heirloom tomato and pepper plants. I also want to buy thyme and sage plants since my seeds are very slow to germinate. Looks like I will have a lot of corn, beans, cucumbers, radishes, bok choy, snow peas, garlic and red onions so far this year. Oh, and the lemon squash plants are forming true leaves right now, albeit slowly. I am thinking that as soon as we have some warm, sunny days, the garden will explode.

Here are some photos of growth over the past week. Most of the photos I took this morning were blurry — two mugs of coffee and no food makes for a shaky photographer, so these are the ones that are the sharpest. I hope to head out with my tripod later today.

Slugs are eating my spinach and lettuce seedlings, but here is one that has survived.

French radishes – the stems are already red

Sweet corn growing well — some has not come up, so I will resow empty spaces

Snow peas at top and garlic 3-4 inches high already

More snow peas (need thinning) and red onions

More snow peas and buckwheat with the white flowers

Common milkweed 3.5 to 4 feet tall already with flower heads forming. These small flower heads are edible, but my milkweed patch is for pollinators only.

Common milkweed flower head

June Garden Update – Part 4

Summer has arrived!!! It has been sunny for 6 straight days and hot, humid weather has hit New England. In the backyard garden, the Cocozelle Di Napoli squash and pumpkin plants have grown quite a bit. The pumpkin plants have made a run for it, escaping their raised bed. The vines will grow 10-12 feet and possibly more over the summer, putting down roots along the way. I have eight pumpkin plants so I am hoping for at least 8 sugar pumpkins this fall.

First pumpkin vine to escape

Three of my Early Wonder Beets are bulbing, nearly ready for harvest. This will make more room for the pumpkin plants. I will plant onion sets in place of the beet plants. I have been harvesting young onions as needed for cooking and then replanting with more onion sets since I bought three bags of onion sets and have yet to plant all of them. They were inexpensive, so I am not hesitant to use them as green onions. They have amazing flavor, much better and fresher tasting than fully grown onion bulbs.

Beets almost ready to harvest being crowded by pumpkin plants

Sugar pumpkins, Early Wonder Beets, Aunt Molly’s Ground Cherry, and onions

I decided to put in at least one or two more raised beds in my backyard garden area. My 17 and 13 year olds built me an 88″x44″ raised bed from pallet wood on Sunday. The spot I chose gets a lot of sun but was on a slope so I had to dig out the hillside to level the new bed. Then I discovered something that is so very common here in New England.

New raised bed on left with, what else, a huge rock of undetermined size and depth.

This rock looks like it could be larger than the one my 20 year old wrestled out of the front garden.

I think I am just going to leave it alone this year. These boulders rise from the ground an inch or two a year. Next spring I will reassess the situation.

So many snow peas in this little vertical garden space.

Snow peas producing well

I sowed a small patch of Dwarf Siberian kale in the spot where I took the beet plants out to chase the mole terrorizing my garlic bed (beets survived transplantation well). After I put out a couple of slug beer traps and caught three slugs, the kale seems to be growing well.

Dwarf Siberian kale

The Romano green beans are growing well and look like they might start blooming soon, but the cucumbers have been so slow growing. I top-dressed all of the cucumber and dill plants with compost this morning before watering. I expect a lot of growth in the next week with the beginnings of cukes in the weeks to come. Fingers crossed, because we all absolutely love cucumbers. I planted pickling and Suyo Long cucumbers on the bean teepee.

Pickling cucumber and dill plants have been slow to grow.

Now for the front garden which is doing better since I top-dressed with compost. With the heat I water every other day. I finally have a head of broccoli growing in one of the three broccoli plants. I have been so surprised at how long it has taken for the broccoli to go to seed (which is what a head of broccoli is — a bunch of flowers).

Front garden from front to back: Bed #1 – black beans and strawberry popcorn, Bed #2 – leeks, cucumbers, plum and yellow pear tomatoes, dwarf bok choy, Bed #3 – oregano, onions, dwarf Siberian kale, Swiss chard, broccoli, dwarf bok choy, red cabbage, and chamomile

Black beans border the Strawberry Popcorn. The area that looks bare has been resown with newly germinating popcorn seeds.

Driveway area terraced bed is overflowing with Aichi Chinese cabbage and dwarf bok choy seed pods, indeterminate tomato plants, broccoli, Aunt Molly’s Ground Cherry, peppers, lettuce, onions, and cilantro which has already gone to seed (cilantro seeds are known as coriander which I plan to put in the pickles I will make for my 13 year old).

Terraced bed

Lettuce bed still providing daily greens, bok choy seed pods, tomato, basil and cilantro

And finally, I must show you how much my grow bag tomato plants have grown in the past week. They all have at least one tiny tomato and lots of flowers, along with marigolds about 3″ tall now.

Tomato plants in grow bags with 48″ tall welded wire cages

Garden transformation, warm weather

As the cool temps transition into warmer days and nights, it is time to transition planting areas as well. My dwarf bok choy has bolted. Planted in the tiered garden bed near the driveway, it gets a lot of sunlight and lots of warmth compared to other garden beds.

Dwarf bok choy bolting, going to seed, and forming a flower head. Looks a lot like broccoli, doesn’t it? Perfect for eating.

How do you cook dwarf bok choy? You can steam it, but yesterday I ate some for lunch and dinner. For lunch I made a pan of organic quinoa (with sauteed onions). During the last two minutes of cooking I placed the dwarf bok choy on top of the quinoa in the pan and put the lid back on. After a minute, I stirred the succulent greens into the quinoa and they immediately wilted and were ready to eat. What a lovely, delicate flavor, requiring nearly no cooking at all. I made fried rice for dinner and did the same with the dwarf bok choy; I laid the greens on top of the rice, allowed it to steam them for a minute, stirred, added the cubed pork chops and served. They were delicious.

The Aichi cabbage is beginning to head up. I am not sure it will have time to finish before it gets too hot and it also goes to seed. Even if I never get to eat them, they are lovely.

Aichi Chinese cabbage

I will be planting cilantro and parsley in the spaces left by the harvested dwarf bok choy.

Spaces left by harvest dwarf bok choy will be filled with heat-loving herbs such as cilantro and parsley

Now let’s see what is happening in the back yard garden. The bean teepee is seeing a lot of life. Looks like 6 of the Romano bean seeds germinated and are now growing. The really exciting part are all of the cucumber seedlings, and the dill coming up.

Pickling cucumbers and dill

Potatoes growing like crazy. The center grow bag is almost ready to have shredded leaves added.

Potatoes in grow bag

One of the new raised beds had the Early wonder beets transplanted (mole infestation in garlic bed turned me into a crazed Elmer Fudd and I dug up that whole corner to block the mole’s entrance to my raised bed — the beets had to be moved to safety). But if you look closely you can see sugar pumpkin seedlings. We love our sugar pumpkins during the holidays for fresh pies, muffins, pumpkin bread, and more. The pumpkin plants will escape from the bed and pour out into the yard.

Pumpkin bed new home for beets which will be harvested before pumpkin plants get too big

Pumpkin seedling

Spinach. Lots and lots of spinach. Spinach omelettes are the new favorite breakfast around here, especially when combined with sauteed onions and cheese. I don’t pull out my spinach plants to harvest them. Spinach can be continuously harvested by cutting the outer leaves off allowing at least two inner leaves to remain. The plant is stimulated to grow more leaves, and you can continue to harvest until they bolt from hot weather. You can see in the photo below how many leaves have been cut off. I harvested two leaves from each of these plants yesterday morning. They grew that much in 24 hours. I do feed these with a fish emulsion once every week or two.

Continuous harvest spinach by cutting outer leaves

Look at how big the snow peas have grown! Hoping for flower buds any day now. And while seed packets tell you to thin seedlings to 6-8 inches apart, I use the intensive gardening method and will allow them all to remain. The soil was amended with manure and compost before planting and should support all of these plants. If necessary, I will give them a little fertilizer, though peas and beans fix nitrogen to the soil, so they do not need much fertilizer if grown in healthy soil.

Heirloom snow peas

Squash seedlings are coming up after the last few warm days. Oh, how I love squash. These are Cocozelle Di Napoli summer squash, an heirloom variety that grows a green striped squash. In the same bed are yellow summer squash that are just breaking through the soil.

Cocozelle Di Napoli summer squash seedlings

I still have not planted my tomatoes and peppers, but hope to accomplish that this week. I am recovering from a pretty bad flare-up that has me struggling (persistent Lyme disease). But I will get through it and my garden will get planted, eventually. Yes, it is frustrating after waiting for warm weather, but life is like that, isn’t it? In the meantime, I enjoy pulling weeds for a few minutes each day and planting what I can.

Ruby Swiss chard and bunching onions growing near the spinach

Vegetable Gardening: What’s Your Style?

Discover Your Gardening Style

There are so many different styles of gardening that you should easily discover your niche in this ever-expanding world. Here are a few to explore:

• Row, inground
• Raised beds
• Intensive
• Square foot
• Container
• Vertical
• Frugal
• Community
• Organic versions of the above

Inground Row Gardening

New garden space dug out of turf in May 2011. Notice wide rows vs. single rows.

Garden in the ground, usually a fairly large plot, can have single or wide rows. This bed was double dug. Notice how I dug the walkways out and moved the soil onto the wide rows to create slightly raised beds. In areas with clay soil you can actually water the walkways and the water will seep horizontally into the wide rows.

New garden area in August. Pumpkins went crazy.

Raised Beds — Wooden

Two wooden raised beds with tomatoes, basil, cucumbers, lettuce, carrots, garlic, snow peas

The easiest way to start a garden is to build one or two wooden beds, plop them down on top of the grass and fill with soil and compost. Instant garden. Can cost a bit of money, though.

Intensive Gardening

Tomatoes, basil, cucumbers (left), lettuce, spinach, garlic, carrots, herbs, snow peas (right)

Whether in ground or raised beds, this method is preferred by most modern gardeners. Plant close together, mix different vegetables that share similar needs, and the plants shade the soil to hinder the growth of weeds. Does require staking, vigilance against pests, powdery mildew and other diseases. My favorite gardening style.

Square Foot Gardening

Nearly identical to Intensive Gardening. Mel Bartholemew’s book of this title is a great resource for any beginning or experienced gardener. Grow a lot in a little space. Companion planting, vertical gardening, consecutive plantings, and so on make this a very practical way to grow vegetables at home.

Container Gardening

Fall veggies in containers on deck

Do you rent? Don’t have the space in your yard? Not enough sunlight? Buy a few large containers, fill with good soil and organic compost and grow your tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, spinach, beans, peppers and whatever else you want wherever you get the most sunlight. This is a great method for beginners. Containers do require more water and feeding, though. Be sure to have a garden hose within reach of your containers. Hauling a watering can to any spot quickly makes container gardening a chore.

Vertical Gardening

Suyo Long cucumber growing on trellis in wooden raised bed

Many vegetables lend themselves to growing on trellises. A trellis can be as simple as two $1.50 wooden stakes and a small piece of chicken wire to large, expensive structures.

Frugal Gardening

Canned tomatoes: had leftover tomato plants. Did not grow many tomatoes; containers were too small. Be creative!

I mention this separately because you can grow vegetables anywhere and in nearly anything. Use only what you have on hand, barter for some heirloom seeds, and go for it. Americans are so into having everything picture perfect that they sometimes forget what they are really doing: growing food. The food doesn’t care if you have expensive tools or pretty pots, or if your wooden beds are exactly the same size, or if you have commercial trellises. You can grow vegetables in any container large enough to hold soil and the roots. Please do take into consideration the composition of the container: you don’t want your soil and plants to pick up toxins.

Community Gardens

Don’t have the space or money for even soil and containers? Join a community garden. For a small fee you can rent a garden plot and have access to many resources. I enjoyed the community garden in the Burnett Road area when I lived in Austin, Texas. Great way to make friends and grow food.

Organic Gardening

One of the main reasons people choose to grow their own vegetables is health. They want to avoid pesticides, fungicides, and chemical fertilizers. Organic gardening is a bit more challenging than conventional gardening but it is well worth it. Please take some time to understand what “organic gardening” even means. I have lived on this property for almost 13 years now and never used pesticides. I even raised my goats and chickens organically with organic feed. I consider this a selling point when it comes time to sell. Vigilance will be required for organic gardening to work for you.

Hope you discover your gardening style!