2020 Garden Update: June 20

June has been a busy month even though we're still staying at home due to the pandemic. With the hot weather settled in to stay until the fall, watering and harvesting have become daily tasks, but the plus side is that we're getting to eat plenty of fresh produce grown in our own backyard!

The garden this year hasn't taken off the way it did last year, as my photos from June 2019 remind me. Last year we had more squash than we could eat and a lot more tomatoes coming in by now, too, but the spring weather had been very warm and wet last year. Everything grew like crazy! This year I'm contending with new beds, new soil, and a number of new types of plants. The problem with a new house is that our "dirt" on the property is basically solid clay with a lot of rocks/concrete bits mixed into it, so only the most determined plants thrive in it (the daylilies don't mind it a bit). I've also got several different brands of potting and garden soil thanks to pandemic shopping issues, and some of those are clearly doing better than others.

In spite of the problems, the cucumbers (all growing in pots) have really done gangbusters, and the larger tomato plants - the Husky Cherry Reds I bought as starts - are providing a steady little stream if not a raging river of tomato goodness. We have yet to harvest any of the heirloom varieties, but they all have green tomatoes on them, so hopefully it won't be long now. I am hand pollinating the squash to ensure that we get a few to eat; so far we've had the best luck with the lemon squash, but I harvested two of the white scallops this week, and they were pretty tasty.

The raised bed with cow peas and corn is coming along quite well, although the pea vines are growing faster than the corn, so I don't know if the vines will get the support the corn was supposed to provide. I hope the corn will catch up because I'm out of stakes and cages and can't find more at the local garden centers when I do make my rare visits to them.

The daylily bank and pollinator patch are full of color and bees now, and I'm already thinking about how to expand on those areas next year with new bulbs and better organization in the small space that we have. It's exciting to see the bulbs we planted months ago sprout and finally flower! The glads and liatris have been especially fun to watch. Next year the daylilies and other perennials should be even bigger and more robust, but they're already putting on a good show this first time out.

Keeping my fingers crossed that I get a bigger squash harvest before the vine borers make their destructive appearance!

The Summer Bounty Begins!

It's early June now, and the heat has definitely arrived, along with the summer staples of the vegetable garden! This week we're eating cucumbers, tomatoes, and the first of the summer squash (finally!). We've got blooming flowers for the pollinators and herbs in full swing. Welcome to summer!

I have pulled up the bolted lettuce and the green peas, which were lovely while they lasted, and replaced them with glass gem corn and cow peas, both of which have already sprouted in their raised bed. I'll be planting more cow peas once the vine borers bring their usual doom to the squash beds, probably by early July. This will be my first time growing corn, and I have chosen glass gem just to do something really different and provide some support stalks for the black-eyed and purple hull peas.

The heat and rain have given the other summer vegetables their rocket fuel boost after the cold spring. So far the lemon cucumber is the champ of the garden. It's 8 feet tall and loaded with flowers and baby cukes. The dragon's egg plants are the slowpokes - will we actually get to eat dragon's egg cucumbers this year? We'll see! Both the DAR and Salad Slicer are producing, so we don't have a shortage even if the dragon's egg disappoints us. The lemon cucumbers are fun with their round shape but taste just like regular cucumbers. They're very mild and add a nice crunch to a dish.

Husky Cherry Red tomato plants are producing a slow but steady stream of fruit. It takes a few days to get enough to make a meal, but we do get there. The heirlooms are growing quickly; I hope by July they will be yielding. I love a big dish of different colored cherry tomatoes! Right now we are eating the red ones with pasta or in tomato cucumber salad, both summer standards at our house.

I was super excited this morning to pick the first of the lemon squash, two little beauties with gorgeous color. They look like Christmas ornaments. We'll be eating them tonight to find out how they taste. So far I have been hand pollinating the squash in an effort to ensure some yield. The zucchini is finally taking off, though, so I might soon have all the squash we can eat with just the pollinators taking care of it. I'm hopeful that the white scallop now has at least one pollinated blossom going, so maybe next week we'll get to harvest the first one.

The flower garden is also taking off, with more daylilies blooming and lots of color in the pollinator patch. Liatris is in bloom, too, and I am seeing a lot more pollinator activity during my daily garden checks. The flower areas are more chaotic this year than I had originally intended due to the pandemic, but we're letting it be a little wild with more clover and less mowing to help the pollinators while we consider the long range plan for the beds.

Next week I hope to check in with more cucumber and squash progress!

* Just this week found out about Baker Creek Seeds' crazy attempt to invite Cliven Bundy to be a speaker a while back. I'm not throwing away seeds I already bought but won't be linking to them or buying from them in the future. There are plenty of other places to buy seeds that are more in harmony with my values as a consumer!

The Mid-May Garden: Salad Days of Spring

We finally got to enjoy some nice weather this week, at least nice by garden standards since it has been warm but also rainy. My cucumbers are growing by the minute, there's a baby lemon squash on one of my plants, and I have several cherry tomatoes ripening on the kitchen windowsill to keep the rodents from beating me to them. The heady harvest days of summer are still ahead, though, and it will be a few more weeks before I have big baskets of produce to share with my friends. Right now we're in the salad days of spring, with smaller, cooler weather crops producing perfect ingredients for tasty salads.

We have eaten an amazing amount of homegrown lettuce this year, partly because I planted more of it and started it earlier and partly because the pandemic means we're going to the store much less and really want that freshness in our diet. I think the Little Gem has turned out to be the family favorite; it has the romaine crunchiness and structure and has grown really well. Usually we eat a mix of all three varieties, but with the weather turning warmer now I'm trying to use up the more sensitive types and keep the Little Gem going longer because it's supposed to be the most heat tolerant.

 In the first weeks we had to supplement our salads with lots of canned or store bought toppings, but now we have our own produce! My runty carrots might not be good for much, but they are big enough for salads and also have tasty greens that can be added for more carrot flavor. My store bought Husky Cherry Red tomatoes are also producing a small but steady stream of fruit, which is great because it's going to take a lot longer for my seed grown heirloom varieties to do much. This cold spring was tough on baby tomato plants! The other exciting addition now is fresh green peas. My vines have been growing like champs; they're about six feet tall and loaded with pods. I have two types of peas this year, but I can't really tell the different between them. We eat them raw in our salads, but in a few days I should have enough to cook and serve with dinner. It would help if we stopped eating them in the salads, of course, but they're just too tempting.

 I've also found a great homemade salad dressing that uses my herbs. This herbed honey mustard dressing is simple to make, keeps in the fridge for up to two weeks, and uses whatever combination of herbs you have growing. I'm using sweet basil and thyme in the current batch, and it makes a fabulous finishing touch for our garden salads. If you're growing shallots you can certainly add them, but I am making this recipe without them and don't miss them.

Here's a summary of what's yielding in the garden as of May 19:

Green peas
Husky Cherry Red tomatoes
Little finger and Parisienne carrots
Lettuces (Little Gem, Salad Bowl, Merveille des Quatre Saisons)
Herbs (basil, thyme, oregano, mint, rosemary)

2020 Garden Update: February 21

We've had nasty, cold, wet weather this week, and I have been down with a nasty cold myself, but the garden babies continue to grow at their own pace. Outside the lettuce rows have sprouted, and there's now solid evidence of pea sprouts from the Lincoln green peas in the raised bed. My second crop of lettuce, sown in a large pot, has also sprouted, although I have yet to see any signs of the carrots. All three of the lettuce varieties are doing well, and eventually I will have to thin the rows so that the heads will have room to grow, but we aren't there yet.

Inside the Jiffy pots are full of seedlings. The tomatoes are getting their first true leaves, and the squash seedlings are really getting long and turning into vines. I might have lost one of my pots of DAR Cucumber, having been too sick to come upstairs and check on them for a few days, but I have plenty of backups and can plant more seeds directly outdoors in April if I need to. The Jiffy pots will also need thinning soon, but I want to wait a little longer to see which sprouts do the best with early leaf formation.

During the last warm weather over the Presidents Day weekend, we bought more garden soil for the raised beds and also picked up several bags of plants at Costco to start filling in the shade bed along the patio. It's a very sheltered area so not exposed to the worst of the cold and wind, and when we moved in the only things growing there were clumps of boring monkey grass. We planted hostas and astilbe and will see how they get along until April, when we can start filling in with more plants from the local garden centers. I hope to add some bleeding heart and ferns and other shade lovers eventually.

The daylilies and daffodils continue to shrug at whatever the weather dishes out, but I can tell that we will have plenty of empty spots in the bank bed to fill once spring arrives. Luckily I keep getting plant catalogs in the mail to give me ideas!

Time to Start Seeds!

It's February, which means it's time to get several garden projects started for 2020. Luckily we had a beautiful sunny day and warm weather this weekend, perfect for trips to the garden center and some time outside. A few hardy cool weather crops can be planted in Zone 7a right now, while others can be started indoors from seed. I've got big plans for the new kitchen garden this year, so I've got both outdoor and indoor seeds ready to go!

We have a lot of work to do in the kitchen garden this year because it's a new space with the disappointing soil you'd expect in a new construction area. We'll be adding garden soil to the raised beds as the spring progresses, but today we only needed one box ready for the green peas and lettuce. Last year I started both much later than I should have, and the hot weather arrived early, so we had less time to enjoy them. I've got green pea seeds planted in the back half of the garden box and three rows of lettuce (one row of each type I have) in the front half, with a concrete block in the center to serve as a stepping stone. Ideally I'd have access to the box on both long sides, but the small space and sloped yard mean the boxes have to be against the fence (we've also found at least two cables barely buried by internet providers, etc., so we have to work around those, as well).

My lettuces this year are Salad Bowl, Little Gem, and Meveille des Quatres Saisons, the last being the freebie I got with my Baker Creek Seeds order. I grew Salad Bowl last year but hope to have much better luck this time because I'm getting it started on schedule and won't have to worry about the heat so much. My green peas are the Lincoln variety from Baker Creek. I have some left over from last year and might plant them a little later. Everyone at our house loved the green peas last year, and I know we'll eat as many as I can grow!

I also got my indoor seeds started today. I have 26 Jiffy pots with a variety of squash, cucumber, tomato, and sunflower. I've set up my seed starter space in a sunny upstairs room where the cats can't knock the cups over (assuming we keep the door closed!). For most of the seeds I planted 2-3 seeds in each cup, with two cups per variety. Because the new garden is small I will have to choose the best seedling to plant and give the runners up to gardening friends. I don't really need to grow the sunflowers from seed indoors - they'll grow just fine from seed outside in April - but I like the morale boost of sunflower seedlings, and I have several kinds this year that I'm really curious to see grow.

Seeds started indoors on February 2nd:

Green Bush Zucchini (Baker Creek)
White Scallop Squash (Baker Creek)
Lemon Squash (Baker Creek)
Straightneck Yellow Squash
Hartman's Yellow Gooseberry Tomato (Baker Creek)
Purple Bumblebee Tomato (Baker Creek)
Purple Russian Tomato (Baker Creek)
DAR Cucumber (Baker Creek)
Dragon's Egg Cucumber (Baker Creek)
Dwarf Teddy Bear Sunflower (Ferry-Morse)
Dwarf Sunspot Sunflower (Ferry-Morse)
Gold Coin Sunflower (Baker Creek)

I'm using Jiffy pots because I'm trying to use less plastic going forward, and they're easy to label clearly, so I should be able to tell which plants are doing the best from each category. I'll post updates as the seeds sprout!

Garden Wishlist for 2020: Tomatoes

Tomatoes! The one vegetable I absolutely have to grow every year is tomatoes. We eat tons of them! I prefer cherry and grape varieties because they're better suited to our needs and are more prolific, making it less nerve wracking to lose a few to the local wildlife. Last year I experimented with growing tomato plants from seeds that I bought at Baker Creek Seeds. The results were mixed. Heirloom varieties were pickier and more delicate than sturdy starts I bought at Lowe's, and some of the specialty tomatoes disappointed us in terms of flavor, but others were really tasty. I also got a huge thrill out of growing them and having so many different kinds. This year I'm still interested in growing from seed, but with less experimental space I want the tomatoes I grow to be tasty, disease resistant, and prolific. I'm considering some determinate varieties in addition to my usual indeterminate types so that I can expand the container garden effort on the patio to include more tomatoes there.

2019 Tomatoes

Hartmann's Yellow Gooseberry

From Baker Creek Seeds -

Barry's Crazy Cherry (husband thought they were bland, but we had a lot of them, very prolific and small)

Russian Purple (critters got almost all of them and yield was low, but they were delicious, plum size, juicy)

Purple Bumblebee (yielded less and succumbed to problems faster but quite tasty)

Hartmann's Yellow Gooseberry (Tasty and good yield - definitely the winner of the Baker Creek picks! They were larger than the usual cherry but excellent in a variety of dishes and salads.)


From Lowe's (Bonnie Plants brand)

Bonnie Plants cherry tomatoes

Husky Cherry Red (solid producer that grew well and survived better)

Sweet Million (early producer and grew as well as Husky Cherry Red)

Volunteers from the previous year also popped up in some surprising places around the yard (thanks, chipmunks!), and I transplanted several of these to the kitchen garden. None of them produced a lot, and they were an odd hybrid of the cherry types I grew in 2018, but we still got some bonus edible produce. I wasn't going to turn down free tomatoes!

In all I had about 14 tomato plants for 2019, which was probably way too many for three people. I gave away lots of tomatoes and froze several bags of them slow roasted with olive oil.



2020 Tomatoes

Of the Baker Creek seeds, I'm most likely to grow the Hartmann's Yellow Gooseberry again, especially since I still have plenty of seeds. Other Baker Creek varieties I'm considering include:

2019 got tomato crazy! Let's do that again!

Black Cherry
Isis Candy Cherry
Pink Bumblebee
Sunrise Bumblebee
Orange Hat
Micro Tom

Bonnie Plants are the most widely available brand where I live, so I'll also be looking at these indeterminate types for starter plants later in the spring, in addition to the two types I had last year and liked:

Black Cherry (the Bonnie version)
Braveheart Cherry
Candyland Cherry
Chocolate Sprinkles
Midnight Snack Cherry
Sakura Cherry
Sun Sugar
Tidy Treats
Yellow Pear

Because I'm planning to have more containers this year, I also want to consider these determinate types:

Taste the tomato rainbow.

Red Robin Cherry
Tumbling Tom Yellow
Tumbling Tom Red
Sweet n Neat Cherry
Yellow Canary

Obviously, I've got way more contenders than space, but not all of the Bonnie varieties are likely to show up at my local garden centers, so that will limit my choices a fair bit before I get there. My goal is to have 8-10 plants in all with a variety of types and colors.

Which tomatoes will win a spot in the 2020 kitchen garden? Stay tuned to find out!