joene's garden » Edibles

Morning Discoveries in the Garden

joenesgarden — Mon, 21 May 2012 12:41:03 +0000

Early mornings are wonderful in the garden. With cup of coffee in hand and birds singing wildly from nearby trees, I stroll through the garden to enjoy the blooms and observe what's going on.

Many iris are in full glory, but I'm not the only one enjoying them. Early morning strolls reveal slugs in their journey back down iris leaves and stalks after they have had a nighttime feast on the foliage and blossoms. To counter a slug invasion I arm myself with with a repurposed peanut butter jar filled partially with soapy water and a plastic spoon. The spoon easily scoops slugs off foliage and bloom so they can be deposited into the soapy water … their final home. I don't get them all but each slug I remove means fewer slug babies enter this world to feast on my plants. When the slug population really explodes, as it does during rainy springs and summers, I go on slug-fari in the evenings, too.

Clematis 'Crystal Fountain' shows off its stunning blooms. Slugs don't seem to care much for my clematis.

Strawberries, though, are a favorite of slugs. So far, the wood chip mulch surrounding my Alpine strawberries has kept the slugs away – they don't like crawling on the rough surface. The first of these tiny, sweet tasty fruits delighted my taste buds this morning.

Yesterday morning, during an extended stroll and weeding session, I heard a rustling in leaves I neglected to clean from under a holly bush. Closer inspection revealed an Eastern box turtle as the cause.

An Eastern box turtle hung out at the opposite end of my fenced in back yard gardens last year. Perhaps I cleaned too many of the leaves from the area the turtle preferred last spring, or maybe it's just a different turtle. I'm just happy to have a turtle call my garden home, even for a short while each spring, and from now on I'll be sure to leave leaf litter under the holly shrubs the turtle/s obviously prefer.

When I went out later to check on him – I think it's a him because of the red eyes – he had settled down among nearby euonymus.

He's still under the holly this morning, barely visible among the leaves and I chose not to disturb him with another photo session.

The Eastern box turtle population has taken a serious hit in Connecticut. Development diminishes their woodland habitats and roads dissect the routes female turtles travel to find preferred egg-laying locations. I'm happy to maintain areas of unraked leaves under the shrubs in my gardens for Eastern box turtles to use. They eat slugs, worms, small snakes, and fungi … there's plenty of each in my gardens. They also eat fruit. So even if resident turtle meanders to the nearby Alpine strawberries, I don't mind sharing if it helps him survive.

Garden thoughtfully …

Categories: Creatures, Edibles, Gardening, General.
Tags: Alpine strawberry, clematis, Eastern box turtle, gardening in Connecticut, iris, slugs.

Share this post:
Delicious
Digg
Facebook
Furl
Google Bookmarks
Reddit
Stumbleupon
Technorati Favorites
Twitter
Yahoo! Buzz

Love Cilantro? You Can Grow That!

joenesgarden — Fri, 04 May 2012 19:38:55 +0000

I've yet to meet anyone indifferent to the flavor of the herb cilantro. You either love it or dislike it. If, like me, you fall into the former category I have good news … You Can Grow That! Cilantro is one of the easiest herbs to grow. In fact, growing it can provide you with two herbs for the price of one. Cilantro (the leaves of the plant) and coriander (the seeds) are both products of the Coriandrum sativum plant.

Cilantro is best grown from seed. It has a long tap root and is not particularly fond of being transplanted except when very young. For best results give it well drained soil and full sun. In my zone 6 area of Connecticut, I have sown cilantro seed from early through late spring. I sow again in late summer for a fall crop. The plant is quick to go to flower so to insure an ample supply of fresh leaves it is best to sow new seeds in two week successions. But cilantro is useful even warm weather induces it to flower and set seed. The flowers can be used in food dishes, though they have a slightly different flavor than cilantro leaves. The mature and dried seeds are coriander, also used in cooking and baking.

My favorite method of growing cilantro is a year-round process. Sow seed in planting beds in early spring. Keep a frost protection covering at hand to protect the plants from frosty nighttime temperatures. Use as many young leaves as possible and try to delay flowering by snipping off the top parts of each plant. Eventually, though the flowers win out and leaf production slows. Let the healthiest plants set seed. When the seeds are dry and turn a light brown they drop to the ground. Encourage them to drop in optimal areas, cover them with a bit of soil, and make sure they are watered regularly. Soon young cilantro plants emerge and mature in time for late summer early fall harvest. Use floating row covers or a cold frame to protect any young plants when cold autumn temperatures arrive. When in the protection of a cold frame, cilantro will continue to grow until real cold moves in, then it goes dormant. It usually survives under cover through winter when given occasional supplemental water during bouts of warmer weather. During warmer winters you may be able to harvest fresh cilantro from the cold frame. During colder winters the plants remain dormant until warmer temperatures return. Water regularly when overwintered plants begin showing signs of growth and open the cold frame when temperatures permit. Once freezing temperatures stop, remove the cold frame.

Right now, my planting beds are in a state of alteration so my early cilantro sowing (see the photo) was in pots. But as soon as my planting beds are reestablished, I'm returning to the cilantro growing method mentioned above. I adore the particularly strong flavor of cilantro that overwintered inside a cold frame. I use chopped cilantro in tomato-, cucumber- or fruit-based salsa, in egg and potato salads, as a garnish for grilled or baked fish – it's especially good with salmon and swordfish – and, of course, in guacamole.

Like so many herbs, once you experience the fresh taste of home-grown cilantro, you'll hesitate to reach for grocery store versions. Fortunately, cilantro is an easy, You Can Grow That! herb.

You Can Grow That! is a blog meme occurring on the fourth of each month. It was started by C.L. Fornari at Whole Life Gardening to remind everyone that gardening is good for people. Gardening enriches our senses, our food, and our health. Gardening fosters friendship and increases ones appreciation of nature. Read more You Can Grow That! posts by visiting Whole Life Gardening.

Garden thoughtfully and remember,

Categories: Edibles, Gardening, Seeds, You Can Grow That!.
Tags: cilantro, gardening in Connecticut, You Can Grow That!.

Share this post:
Delicious
Digg
Facebook
Furl
Google Bookmarks
Reddit
Stumbleupon
Technorati Favorites
Twitter
Yahoo! Buzz

Seedy ideas for Connecticut edible gardens

joenesgarden — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:03:53 +0000

Choosing which variety of tomato or other edible to grow from seed can be overwhelming, particularly for gardeners new to seed starting. If, after following my earlier recommendations, your head is still spinning here's some of my favorite edible varieties.

Tomatoes: I grow standard, paste and cherry varieties. My absolute favorite for flavor and color is one I tried for the first time last season, the heirloom Cherokee Purple. The vines were prolific, produced solid, heavy, meaty fruit of a wonderful purplish red color and the sweetest ever flavor. Until Cherokee Purple took the top spot on my favorite tomato list, Pruden's Purple, also an heirloom with large fruit and a sweet taste, was number one. I will continue to grow both of these full-size tomatoes plus the yellow heirloom, Manyel (smaller fruit, later maturity). These varieties are available from many seed suppliers, mine came from Pinetree Garden Seeds.

For paste tomatoes I like Roma (Pinetree Garden Seeds) and Milano Plum (Kitchen Garden Seeds). For cherry tomatoes I choose Sweet Million – it lives up to its name. Last season I grew an additional tomato, Super Bush, from Renee's Garden bred specifically for container growth. It produced late, two- to three-inch sized fruit, but lacked the intense, sweet flavor I expect from homegrown tomatoes. Try it if you have limited space for a tomato that remains about three feet tall, but don't expect the flavor of an heirloom.

Note: I grew standard, plum and cherry tomatoes in large pots filled with rich compost-based potting soil. All did remarkably well and produced lots of fruit with monthly fertilizer applications of liquid fish emulsion to the soil and as a foliar spray.

Peppers: Most of my peppers are the hot variety, Early Jalapeno, Hot Hungarian Wax, Italian Pepperoncini (all from Pinetree Garden Seeds). Last year I tried a mild habanero chili pepper from Renee's Garden called Orange & Red Suave. It did not germinate as well as some of my other hot pepper varieties and the cool, wet spring set it back a bit, but the plant was s a lovely addition to a perennial bed and it eventually produced attractive orange fruit. Habanero peppers are normally very hot. I'd rate these as milder than normal but still packing serious heat, not for the faint of tongue.

For sweet peppers I've had good luck with Sweet Banana (Pinetree Garden Seeds) and Romeo Bell (Kitchen Garden Seeds).

Eggplant: I often transplant eggplant seedlings directly into perennial beds. The plants alone add structural interest, as to the fruit. My favorites for full size fruit include Ichiban and Lavender Touch (both from Pinetree Garden Seeds). Last season I tried the container-sized variety, Little Prince (Renee's Garden). The container-grown plants produced abundant and adorable single-serving, tasty fruit under less than ideal conditions – lots and lots of rain – so Little Prince gets another shot this year.

Lettuce: I've grown multiple varieties over the years – Green Ice, Red Deer's Tongue, Oakleaf, Red Fire, Buttercrunch, Winter Density, Rouge d'Hiver Romaine, Rouge Grenobloise Batavian, Tom Thumb, and I'm sure there's more. Of all, my absolute favorite is Merveille de Quatre Saisons, a French heirloom available from many suppliers (mine came from Kitchen Garden Seeds and Renee's Garden). The other lettuce types are all good and perform well, I'm just enamored by the looks and taste of Merveille. Beyond this beautiful looking and tasty bibb lettuce, I am also quite impressed with the adorable small crispy heads of Tom Thumb.

Beans: My favorite bush beans are Sequoia and Purple Queen – both grow delicious purple pods that turn green when cooked (Kitchen Garden Seeds) – and Pencil Pod, a yellow Heirloom (Pinetree Garden Seeds).

Peas: I've struggled to get a good supply of snow peas from each spring sowing. The voles love the tender plants as much as I love the tender pods and, so far, attempts to grow a bumper snow pea crop in pots have not been highly successful. Still, I would not want to go a year without trying. You simply cannot match the sweetness and tenderness of freshly picked snow peas so, even if my yield is small, I'll always plant edible podded peas. My current favorites are Snowflake Pea Pods, a self supporting upright bush-type growing about two feet tall, and Golden India Edible Pea Pod, with six foot tall vines of flat pods (both from Kitchen Garden Seeds). In a previous garden with more space and fewer voles I had great success with sugar snap peas. These should be on every new gardener's planting list. They are prolific producers that bring early success.

This is not a comprehensive list of the edibles I grow. It's just a good place to start. Here are links to the seed suppliers mentioned above: Pinetree Garden Seeds, Renee's Garden, Kitchen Garden Seeds.

Garden thoughtfully … and please share the vegetable varieties growing well in your Connecticut garden.

Categories: Edibles, Garden Centers/Seed Suppliers, Gardening, Seeds.
Tags: bush beans, eggplant, gardening in Connecticut, Kitchen Garden Seeds, lettuce, peppers, Pinetree Garden Seeds, Renee's Garden, seeds for Connecticut gardens, snow peas, tomatoes.

Share this post:
Delicious
Digg
Facebook
Furl
Google Bookmarks
Reddit
Stumbleupon
Technorati Favorites
Twitter
Yahoo! Buzz

Re-GOOPs: a review of 2011’s gardening-oops

joenesgarden — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Welcome to January 1, 2012. The first of each month is confessional time. Time to fess up to a gardening blunder, or gardening oops. GOOPs for short. I share one of my gardening mis-steps and hope you'll do the same.

This is Re-GOOPs month, when I look back at some of the GOOPs from last year.

The GOOPs that drew the most comments is from June 2011. I described how the landscape fabric we installed, as directed by the block manufacturer, while building a retaining wall planting bed became blocked with fine soil silt. It hinders drainage to the point of making the bed virtually unplantable (new word?) during rainy springs/summers. Most of the comments to this post mentioned similar and other landscape fabric issues. I even had a manufacturer suggest we had installed the landscape fabric incorrectly …. we didn't.

To use the bed last season I dug out some of the soil so large clay pots would rest on the fabric layer. I filled the pots with new soil and planted them with hot peppers, cherry tomatoes and eggplant.

Trailing nasturtium seeds and coleus seedlings went into the remaining soil surrounding the sunken pots.

I promised, back in June, to report whether my scheme worked.

The hot peppers thrived, the tomatoes did okay, and the eggplant was not happy.

I planted bush and pole beans between a couple of pots at the far end but, with such a wet growing season, the soil remained too moist for the beans to really thrive.

The nasturtiums and coleus, however, had a banner year.

No aphids … not one.

The nasturtiums went wild, they never had a mid-summer slump, and the coleus grew mighty tall and bushy right up to first frost.

Eventually I plan to remove all the soil from this bed. I'm on the lookout for decorative planters that will fit the space and style of the surrounding block. The planters, which I'll fill seasonally, will sit in the raised bed on top of and within decorative stone. The stone will facilitate drainage and the planters will add seasonal interest and break up the visual impact of the long, narrow bed. I can also add other interesting accents – think cool rocks, shells, candles – at my whim. The new design is still germinating in my idea seed bank but, in the meantime, the sunken clay pots work as a temporary planting solution.

My GOOPs tale of voles eating crocus bulbs and deer nibbling on crocus and Tete-a-tete narcissi garnered a number of sympathetic comments. I think the photos of bright, cheery blooms followed by shots of stubby green leftovers helped in the sympathy department. Isn't this sad?

My solution for the narcissi is to cover newly emerging shoots with upside-down apple baskets each night and to keep a sharp eye out for marauding deer during daylight. For the crocus issue I've taken the advice from Nell Jean at Seedscatterer. I planted tommies (Crocus tommasinianus Ruby Giant and Barr's Purple).

I won't know till spring whether voles left the tommies alone. Keeping fingers crossed and praying to the bulb gods.

The last Re-GOOPs for today is Don't count your tomatoes … a gardening oops. It's another tale, and another sad photo, of creature damage. This time from those cute, fast-moving, devilish chipmunks.

They have superb ripe-tomato radar. The only way for me to beat them to the fruit was to pick before the tomatoes were totally ripe and let them finish ripening on a windowsill. So far the chipmunks haven't figured out how to get into my kitchen. Keeping fingers crossed and praying to the fox gods.

Looking back reminded … though I didn't really need it … that weather had a huge impact in 2011. Three GOOPs posts - February, March and November - involved snow and I hurricane/tropical storm Irene prevented a GOOPs post on September 1 (no power for seven days).

I suspect 2012's GOOPs will also involve weather and creatures and creatures and weather. At least that gives me the chance to blame something besides my own actions.

I hope you'll join the GOOPs party this year. If you are REALLY gardening then you must have made a GOOPs or two.

Either add your GOOPs tale in a comment below or post your GOOPs on your blog and leave a teaser in a comment below.

Happy New Year. Garden thoughtfully.

Categories: Bulbs, Edibles, Gardening, General, GOOPs-Gardening Oops.
Tags: Bulbs, creature damage, gardening in Connecticut, gardening oops - GOOPs, landscape fabric, tomatoes.

Share this post:
Delicious
Digg
Facebook
Furl
Google Bookmarks
Reddit
Stumbleupon
Technorati Favorites
Twitter
Yahoo! Buzz

A Look at Young Farmers

joenesgarden — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 15:37:29 +0000

It stands to reason that the growing popularity for organic produce – preferably locally grown – equates to a rising number of organically run farms. A recent piece on National Public Radio (NPR) provides a glimpse at a crop of young farmers gathered for the Young Farmers Conference in Tarrytown, New York. Follow the link and read or listen to the report. Here's an excerpt.

Ben has been running his own farm in Tivoli, New York, for ten years now. He says that the great thing about farming is that it's a really practical form of idealism. «It's all well and good – and important – to have political opinions, and protest, and things like that. But when you're farming, you get to live your values, and farm the world that you want to see,» he says.

As a backyard vegetable grower, I've always had the utmost respect for people who choose to grow food for others. As an Accredited Organic Land Care Professional (AOLCP) I have even more respect for those who commit to farming organically.

We need to understand where our food comes from and what it takes to grow the fresh food we desire. Farming is difficult work but, thankfully, there are people willing and ready to learn from past farming practices and investigate new innovations in small-scale farming.

These are practical, resourceful, down-to-earth individuals who remind me of the farm-practicality my Grandmother learned as a child and passed on to her grandchildren.

In contrast to all the negative press blasted at us on television, radio, print and the Internet; the rising sense that big business is far more important than the public; and the paralyzing inability of Congress to work together to get anything done, organic farmers provide a positive, public-oriented, tangible service.

They feed people while helping to preserve the land for future generations. They work hard, with limited capital, to keep farming. They seem to embody all the peace/love/respect-the-planet aspects so many in my generation professed during the 60's while embracing the positive aspects of current technology.

Watch here to understand their drive, their vision, their desire to work in a truly meaningful profession.

They deserve our respect and our appreciation. They give me a powerful gift … they make me hopeful for the future.

Note: Many thanks to Alicia Ghio at local food rocks for bringing NPR's Who are the farmers of Generation Organic? to my attention … I must not have been listening the day it aired on All Things Considered.

Categories: Edibles, Gardening, Newsy Items.
Tags: local food rocks, NPR, organic farming, Young Farmers.

Share this post:
Delicious
Digg
Facebook
Furl
Google Bookmarks
Reddit
Stumbleupon
Technorati Favorites
Twitter
Yahoo! Buzz