Category Archives: Growing

We Will Have Peas

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90 Days from Seed to Flower   90 Days from Seed to Flower

One way or another, we are determined that we *will* have peas from our garden. Two of the varieties from the Spring pea trial are all but forgotten, but the Picolo Provenzale  are growing in all three different plantings, and the January planting is starting to flower. OK, it’s what? Nearly 90 days out from planting, but hey, it’s flowers!

I’m also amazed that the Sugar Snaps in the back garden that each had their heads snapped off by some marauding varmint are starting to recover! They grew new vines from the roots up and around the bitten ends of the first ones and some of them are starting to put out tendrils like they mean to actually grow.

Sugar Sprints and Carrots

Sugar Sprints and Carrots

Nearby, in a 4′ x 4′ bed, there are Sugar Sprint peas growing, mostly under a burlap covered cage to protect them from everything. They don’t seem to mind the shade. The Picolo Provenzale starts in the front garden didn’t seem bothered by it while they were covered either. I take it off of them in the morning to allow them a few hours of direct sun and they seem fine.

buckets-of-tomatoesAnd we are getting to the stage where we have literally buckets of tomato plants. We have Roma Paste tomatoes for sauce and catsup, we have Principe Borghese for drying, we have Costaluto Genovese for fresh cooking, Big Beef and Crimson Carmello for slicing and eating, we even have a German Orange Strawberry tomato that I can’t wait to try! I’m afraid I may have even ordered some grape tomato plants in fun shapes and colors from Park Seed when it was still cold out and the garden was a limitless imaginary place.

Surviving the Spinach Monster--So Far!

Surviving the Spinach Monster--So Far!

And, happily, the evil Spinach Monster that devours my plants right down to the roots if I leave them outside after dark without a cover does not appear to like Bok Choi. What IS that thing? For a long time I thought it was ravenous snails or slugs because the plants that were up on the hottub cover at night weren’t bothered by it, but earlier this week several six-packs up there were creamed by whatever it is and the chard, tomatoes, peppers, etc. sitting right next to the spinach were fine. Maybe Popeye the Possum? I don’t know.

Ahead of Schedule

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Lyngo Soil Delivery    Lyngo Soil Delivery

I can’t believe it, but all the soil is in the beds for the Dirt to Dinner project. When the semi originally dumped one cubic foot of Diestel compost and six cubic feet of Essential Soil mix onto the driveway, my husband had to have been thinking to himself, “Two weeks–minimum.” But it’s all in place and looks delicious. It’s like someone covered all the bare and ugly spots and all the new planting beds with dark chocolate frosting.

Lining Willow Raised Bed "Hurdles"

Lining Willow Raised Bed "Hurdles"

The new willow raised bed is sitting on top of the ground the kids removed the sod from this weekend. It’s fully constructed, filled with soil, topped with compost and ready for them to plant in. The kids did a great job preparing the spot where the bed sits. Then we straightened the willow “hurdles” and tapped them into the ground with a mallet. After the bed was shaped and squared, copper wires are attached around all the corners to further support the “L” shape the kids decided to build in. After that, the inside of the frame was lined with black plastic and the soil was added.

We have also been thinking about adding a vertical growing element and may install trellising along two sides of the bed before we are done. It would give the project a lot more growing space and be a good exercise in growth habits and the flexibility–or inflexibility–of spacing guidelines.

Willow Raised Bed Almost Done

Willow Raised Bed Almost Done

Here’s the nearly finished willow raised bed, ordered as two 4′ x 12′ beds, then arranged in an “L” shape to add an additional 16 square feet of planting space that will be used by our instructor, Mackenzie, for her demonstration gardening space. Total growing area is 112 square feet, or 9.3 square feet per participating child, if anybody is counting. ;-)

We are built out two weeks before our earliest estimate and the weather feels ready to go too. We are also ahead of schedule in some of our growing and planting. The 85-year-old neighbor, who was raised on a farm in Iowa, assures me that it is safe to put out my tomatoes now, so I have gotten severl different varieites and am excited to see the German “Orange Strawberry” tomato plant my mother-in-law is sending over this weekend. I’m going to need a protected spot for that one.

P. Borghese in Flower

P. Borghese in Flower

I think I’m happy to report that we have our first tomato flowering. Though it might have actually been a stress response to being too crowded by the other tomato plants where it was pottted. Anyway, it’s in a good spot now growing with some Bok Choy on one side and Spinach on the other. I’m trying to find space for a dozen of the P. Borghese tomatoes to have lots of them for drying since the whole family *loves* sun-dried tomatoes. Of course, I have no idea how many tomatoes each plant will give, when they will give them, or how many we actually need for drying enough for the rest of the year. This is a year for learning what *not* to do next year!

Here’s the sum total of what I know about my dozen or more tomato plants right from the Victory Seed web site:

75 days, determinate — Italian heirloom variety very popular in Italy and California for splitting in half and sun drying. They maintain color and flavor well. The plants produce heavy yields of small, red plum-shaped fruits. The plants will benefit from support such as caging.

We plan to track how many pounds of tomatoes given by each plant, the height of the plants, the size of the cage needed for the plants, the amount of square feet required to grow the plants and anything else we might need to know to grow them well again next year if we like them.

Square Foot by Square Foot

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Square Foot Tomatoes and Chard

Square Foot Tomatoes and Chard

The Dirt to Dinner garden is starting to really take shape and I’m loving the time I am able to spend out there. One of the fun things we are doing this year is practicing some French Intensive gardening, or “Square Foot” gardening, as it’s often called. I have several beds divided up more or less in this way. Today I put in a two-level 2′ x 2′ bed with my drying tomatoes in the deeper sections and Swiss Chard in the two lower sections that will probably get shaded by the tomato plants, even when I cage them. I hope the Chard doesn’t mind too much. It should have lots of time to establish itself before then–if the crows don’t eat it!

Another bed is divided into three sections with a test bed of beans that I started ahead indoors, beans I started in place a month later, and beets. I lined the edges of this bed with carrots also, so it will be crowded as things mature and I will need to keep it fed. The bush beans won’t mind all being together and the beet tops hopefully won’t shade the carrots too much. We’ll have to see how this one works out.

Square Foot Beans and Beets

Square Foot Beans and Beets

I’m also trying a 3′ x 3′ with two tomato plants, again, and sections of spinach and chard. So that will make a nice comparison bed to the 2′ x 2′. I wish I had grown this type of tomato before. They are a determinate heirloom variety called Principe Borghese but I can’t get any concensus on how tall they like to grow or how bushy they will be. I’ll let you know how they turn out!

Early Lessons from the Pea Trial

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Lessons from the Pea Trial–So Far

Pisello Nano Piccolo Provenzale

Pisello Nano Picolo Provenzale

#1. Early planting does not equal early eating. It’s not just 55-60 days, it’s the *right* 55-60 days. We thought an early start would give us peas sooner, but that hasn’t turned out to be the case. Peas that were supposed to be ready to start picking in 55-60 days are just now 6″ tall a week after the 60 day mark we were hoping for. The peas planted February 18th may or may not be ready for picking by mid-April. We’ll let you know!

#2. Peas planted early seem to get damaged by pests a lot more than peas planted later. Maybe because there’s not much else out there looking green and delicious in January and early February. Or maybe we just got smarter about the covers we used as the trial went on.

#3. Peas appear to sprout and grow better in February than they do in January. Weather will surely influence this. We’ll track it next year and compare. This year January was warm and sunny, if that weather had continued, maybe the peas would have been on the table by now.

Pea Sprouts Protected by Plastic Netting

Pea Sprouts Protected by Plastic Netting

#4. Peas need to be grown under netting or cages in order to foil uninvited dinner guests. Upside down black plastic latticed plant carriers from the garden store worked well for the first few weeks, as did the onion bag netting we recycled. Neither of these methods was deep enough to allow for much growth and I would like to keep the peas protected longer, just in case. We lost a whole planting of snap peas in the back garden because something came along and snipped the tops off each of the vines. (Argh!!) We’ll keep the tall covers on these for the first several inches of growth and you can check out our Pea Trial page if you want know how our test of the burlap covered cages does.

Planning Meets Reality

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Scattered Seeds

Scattered Seeds

I am pretty thrilled with our inaugural Dirt to Dinner class. We had twelve kids and twelve adults. And it didn’t rain! Everybody met new people, everybody planted some seeds, everybody cooked part of our lunch and there was plenty of good food to go around.

Here’s what we thought we would do and a little bit about how it actualy went.

Class plan:

a)  Welcome circle and Intros (personal and intro to the program)  

We all got to know one another’s names and talked about our favorite vegetables or fruits.

b)  Safety, boundaries and behavior goals

We spent some time on safety in the garden and in the kitchen but we will probably want to go over Gary Riekes’ thoughts on behavior goals a little bit more when we have a chance. Though the kids seemed to get along very well all day without it.

c)  Ice breakers

We played a game where you form small groups based around the individuals in the larger group who have a particular characteristic or have done a certain thing (“Have you ever eaten a worm?”) You introduce yourself, again, to the members of the small group as they form, so you learn something about one another and get a chance to remember everyone’s name while you play.

d)  Plant parts activity

Plants Part Costume Model

Plants Part Costume Model

Seeing the first part of the plant parts “costume” going on reminded me to run for the camera. This was an exercise I’m willing to bet they won’t soon forget!

Then the kids did a Plant Parts Scavenger hunt through what’s already growing in the garden to see if they could find edible roots, stems, leaves and flowers. We found carrots and radishes, celery and onions, kale and collards, lemons, nectarine flowers, rosemary blooms and artichokes.

Many of these were passed around so that whoever wanted to could nibble on them. It’s a good thing celery loves that back garden because the kids got a kick out of picking it and nibbling on it right there.

e)  Group A Plant Parts scavenger hunt and Seed Starting
and Group B Kitchen Intro and Favorite Veggies

Soffrito with onion and garlic

Soffrito with onion and garlic

One group of families started out in the kitchen where they did a wonderfully focused job preparing two pots of Garden Vegetable Soup, one by the recipe, and one with a few additions based on what we had on hand from the garden and families bringing their favorite vegetables to share. The soup started with a nice soffrito (or roux, depending on where you are from) of several kinds of onions and garlic in olive oil.

f)   Group A Kitchen Intro and Favorite Veggies
Group B Plant Parts scavenger hunt and Seed Starting

 

Flower Starts

Flower Starts

The families who started at the potting station planted a variety of flowers and Spring vegetables. We have seeds for many different kinds of flowers that are favorites of bees, hummingbirds or butterflys. The group is already drawing up plans for special planting areas devoted to pollinators. We also planted peas, spinach, lettuce and early beans and picked out a spot to grow carrots, radishes, and other Spring vegetables that need to be direct seeded into the ground.

 

 

Watering In Seeds

Watering In Seeds

The seeds were watered in and the kids took them home to germinate in a warm place.

 

g)  Lunch

The soup was delicious! It was served with a chopped salad and good bread and lots of the kids actually ate it. :-) The dish washing plan with three different dishpans with soapy water, rinse water with lemon and clear rinse water worked very well. 

h)  Rain Measures/Journal decoration

We didn’t cover rain measures today, but some of the kids worked on decorating the covers of their journals a bit while the finsihing touches were being added to lunch. 

i) Closing circle, intentions, thoughts on the day

We all said something about our favorite part of the day. I heard everything from “Food!” to “Growing community” to “The way everybody put in a little bit of something to make the soup come together.” I also heard one very proud voice sharing that the highlight of the day was climbing to the top of the play structure, which reminded me that we all take different paths to the garden. :-)