Putting the garden to bed

Sunday, November 16, 2008

I’m trying something I did last year which worked pretty well for keeping the container perennials over the winter. I push them together and pile the leaves and stems and even the rootballs of annuals over the top to make a wind barrier. Over the next week, I’ll collect more leaves and things and arrange them around the container bases as insulation.Then we’ll see if the coneflowers and verbena come back.
Another tactic has been to put a container in a container rather than disturb the plant’s roots twice by taking out the one it’s in, putting it into a bigger, more insulated container for winter, and then digging it out again in the spring. I’ll be burying this in leaves, too.
At the lower edge of this photo are some helleborus plants (Lenten Roses) swaddled in leaves. I’ve been piling them around my new this season raspberry bushes as well.
Last, but not least, the compost “silo” (yard is too small for a “pile") for the rest of the leaves and the vegetable scraps. Apart from a squirrel or two diving in, it’s working pretty well. It’s in a corner that doesn’t work for in-ground planting, so I hope to keep it going all next year.

Grow your own fennel seeds

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

I grew fennel this year in the garden.  It didn’t really work out so well for me in terms of harvesting it for use as a vegetable - it never bulbed up for me.  It did get nice foilage, though, so I did have fresh fennel fronds all Summer to cook with.

While I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get fat fennel bulbs out of the deal, I am now being rewarded - with fennel seeds.

Seed heads started forming on my plants a few weeks ago, and I noticed that Urban Girls was selling fresh seed heads at the Clark Park market this past Saturday.  I started harvesting my own dried seed heads today, although there are many more fresh seed heads in the garden I will have to keep my eye on.

One of the most common uses of fennel seed is with pork roasts.  Very delicious.  But fennel seeds have many other uses, including tea and keeping away fleas!  Who knew?  And fennel seeds have all sorts of uses in herbal home remedies.

Onions at the top

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

I have never in my life seen top onions for sale.  Anywhere.  But Margerum’s had them recently at the Headhouse Square farmer’s market.  I could not resist buying a few - they were 15 cents per top onion, and if I remember correctly, they were some kind of heirloom variety.

Top onions are also known as tree onions, walking onions, or Egyptian onions.  I haven’t tried them yet, but I’m told they taste more like shallots than onions.

Now is the time to plant top onions for next year’s harvest.  Interestingly, they are perennials.  They’re very difficult to find for sale, although I did find a few places that sells bulbs.

late season garden + questions for readers

Saturday, October 11, 2008

1) Green Tomatoes. The garden in winding down, not because of the weather (obviously—it’s a gorgeous 75+ today) but because from the end of August my garden has been in near total darkness. New house = learning curve. At any rate, after July’s $75 tomato, the one productive plant is busting out with them, all green, not much of a shot at redness. Does anyone out there have a tried and true use for them besides frying? I was thinking about using them like tomatillos for salsa, but after that, I draw a blank.

2) Rose Affliction. See these near perfectly round holes on my rose? I’ve looked under the leaves and on the stems, and I don’t see any creatures. But it must be some kind of precisely munching creature. This didn’t start until the end of the summer. Ideas?

3) Happy Shady Flowers. If your garden goes dark, literally, at this time of year, I can recommend these pretty purple monkshood. I got them at Greensgrow a few weeks ago, and they have been thriving. (They do get a couple hours of sun early in the morning, but after that, all shadow.) (The littel red flower in the background is a salvia that rarely blooms and is in the reshuffling plan I have in mind for November.)

Garlic breath

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

This Summer and Autumn are really flying by, leaving me behind the eight ball a little when it comes to Fall gardening.  I only just ordered my garlic for Autumn planting today.  My options were limited, but I’m happy with what I’ll be planting.

Elephant Garlic.  I’ve been hearing about elephant garlic for years.  How gigantic the heads get.  How much milder the flavor is than regular garlic.  Well, I’m finally going to find out.  Interestingly, elephant garlic is more closely related to leeks than garlic.  This garlic will mature in mid- to late- Summer.  And here’s something useful to note: elephant garlic does send up a scape, but I’ll have to pick them quickly - they get woody very quickly.

Oregon Blue Garlic. I’m finally going to try some softneck garlic!  It won’t produce any scapes at all, but does have a sort of purple-y clove skin.  I have no idea what to expect.

Western Rose Garlic.  This is supposed to be a very long-keeping garlic, perfect for braiding.  It’s another softneck variety.

I will also be planting a few cloves from the garlic harvested this Summer, just so I have a supply of garlic scapes.

Garden Migration

Monday, September 22, 2008

I discovered that the backyard of my new house is overtaken by shade in mid-August. So I moved quite a bit to the sidewalk in the front. These Jimmy Nardello peppers from Seed Savers Exchange have thanked me for it by producing a bumper crop. And one of them made a nice little chaise for a grasshopper.

Jack and the Heirloom Beanstalk

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Every year I grow at least one new thing in the garden.  I try to make it something I’ve never seen in a grocery store.  This year it was a dried bean called Akahana Mame from Kitazawa Seed.  Are they not gorgeous?  The photo on the Kitazawa site shows them as red and black, but mine are lavender and black. 

From Kitazawa:

This rare and beautiful Japanese bean is also called “flower bean.” Grown as a pole bean, this variety produces gorgeous red flowers and pods up to 8” long. The striking 1” beans are a deep red color dappled with purple and black. Best if wrinkled beans are soaked before boiling. After cooking, rinse beans, and then add sugar and salt. Dissolve sugar by heating again. Toss with a large spoon so as to not break the beans.

The vines really do produce a very pretty red flower.  I was almost sorry to see them make way for the beans pods, which sort of look like lima beans a little.

As with all garden experiments, I had no idea what to expect from Akahana Mame beans.  You just never know how any vegetable will do in your particular soil, in your particular climate.  The beans did fantastically!  The vines got huge and is producing vigorously.  I haven’t tasted the beans yet.  But providing the beans are a good tasting variety, I will definitely be adding Akahana Mame as a permanent part of my garden...and planting a lot more of them.

I’ve grown dried beans before - cranberry, cannellini...you know, normal varieties.  For some, the space they take up in the garden isn’t really worth the yield.  And locally grown dried beans are readily available via Margerum’s (Clark Park and Headhouse Square markets).  But I do think dried beans are worth growing yourself IF you seed out more unusual varieties. 

For next year’s garden, I’m considering a few more varieties of dried beans.  Victory Seeds sells a nice variety of both bush and pole type dried beans, as does Salt Springs Seeds.  I also saw these great-looking orange Tiger’s Eye dried beans at Seeds of Change.

The $75 tomato

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Sometimes all the effort, locally sourced seedlings, good intentions, and compost in Greater Philadelphia will not make for a good crop. Here’s a photo of only part of my heirloom tomato jungle. Big healthy plants, organically fed (easy on the nitrogen—I was careful about that), appearing to the casual observer as one heck of a tomato wonderland.

This little guy is the first one this summer. Halfway through August. Not exactly $75 tomato—the squat patio tomato plants have been producing, thank goodness, but still.

In early July when I should have been seeing lots of little green gumdrops and did not, I did see that lots of flowers had fallen off. I hit the books and the web for the solution. My guess is that the extreme heat caused them to drop because the night temps stayed in the high 70s and low 80s for weeks. Now, my plants are flowering again, it’s cooler outside, and I’m hoping for a late bumper crop. So hang in there to all of you who set out on the path of locavoracious righteousness and have yet to reach the mountain top.

Little Bouquets

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

I like to make little bouquets to have around the house. And this is a good thing because, while I’m figuring out what grows best where in my new garden, I don’t have a lot of long or even medium stemmed flowers out there. But with these little bottles, even a sprig of basil and a marigold make a nice combo. (In the photo, #3 from left has a stem of tiny oregano flowers.) In May, I put a little bouquet on my nightstand, and in the morning I found a little inchworm on my clock radio. (S/he went back outside.)

The first of the garlic

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Trying to figure out when to harvest garlic can be tricky.  You can’t see what’s going on under the dirt, so how do you make a decision?  Hardneck garlic at least gives you some indicator: it sends up a central flower stalk.  We call that a scape, and it should be cut off and made into all sorts of delicious things.  The rule of thumb is that the garlic should be picked about a month after the scape shoots up.

Well, in theory.  Not all garlic will be ready a month later.  Another indicator of harvest readiness (with all garlic) is the color of the leaves.  Garlic will let you know when it’s ready to be picked when the leaves start to turn brown and die.  In the case of softneck garlic, which I’ve never grown, I hear that with some varieties you should pick it the second the lower leaves turn brown, and with others you should wait until all but the top couple of leaves have died off.  With hardneck garlic, you typically pick it when 50% of the leaves are brown.

There’s also a theory that letting garlic in the ground longer will make it more flavorful and potent.  And that withholding water for a week or two prior to your planned harvest is beneficial.

Friday night I harvested one variety of garlic out of my garden.  The stalks were all leaned over and mostly dead.  It was time, even though I harvested the scapes about three weeks ago.  And the other three varieties of garlic in my garden are all just beginning to turn brown.  I think the garlic I harvested (pictured) is the Georgian Crystal Purple variety.  This variety produces a smallish bulb with a very hot, strong flavor.  I would guess that I got about 15 heads of it or so.  And I easily have another 30-40 heads of garlic out in the garden between the other three varieties I planted. Woohoo!

The garlic I harvested on Friday is currently tied together, hanging out my back porch.  After harvest you should remove the dirt from the garlic, leave the roots on, and hang it somewhere with good air circulation but out of direct sunlight to dry, or ‘cure’.  A curing time of 2-3 weeks is ideal.  Yes, you can eat fresh garlic immediately (called green garlic), but if you intend to store garlic for any length of time it needs to be cured.

It’s not too early to start thinking about planting garlic.  Garlic has to be planted in the Fall, and it does pretty well in the clay soil of my garden.  It’s super easy to grow.

South Philly garden update

Sunday, June 22, 2008

(Mints and sorrel)

(Patio tomato with raspberry in background)

(Another patio tomato with zinnias)

(Chard)
Considering the clay in my soil—amended with mighty but not nearly enough bags of leaf compost, mushroom soil, and vermiculite—I’m reasonably pleased with the progress. The patio tomatoes are fruiting and the others are flowering (Brandywine, Yellow Pear, and Mortgage Lifter), peppers are ready to flower, chard is happy, sorrel was unhappy in the ground and, alas, remains peevish in its own pot, all the herbs are gangbusters. This was the first year I bought plants at Greensgrow, and I couldn’t be happier with the results.

Next update: plants sprouted from Seed Savers Exchange.

The great e-scape

Friday, June 06, 2008

The garlic patch is growing like crazy.  I grew four varieties of garlic this year - Georgian Crystal Purple, German Extra Hardy, Musik, and German Red.  I can barely imagine what is going on under the dirt right now, particularly the German Extra Hardy.  Some of the stalks are super thick, much thicker than any of the garlic I grew last year.

But there were no garlic scapes in sight.  I kept checking, week after week, wondering when I’d see some stalks.  This week has been kind of crazy and I didn’t have a chance to really check the patch out for a few days.  Lo and behold, it’s scape heaven in there! 

I know that some of the local farmer’s markets are just beginning to get garlic scapes into stock, and I’m awfully glad of it.  I’ll get a few dozen scapes from the garden, but that’s never enough.  I’d really like to put at least two servings up to eat in the Winter - I can’t imagine anything better than eating garlic scapes in February!

Even though garlic scapes are becoming better known and more popular, many people still don’t quite understand what they are.  A garlic scape is simply the flower stalk of hardneck garlic varieties.  They sort of have a texture like green beans, but they’re a fantastic garlicky flavor.  There’s all sorts of discussion about when one is supposed to harvest the scape.  Everyone agrees that the answer is “early”, but some say you should cut it before the scape starts to curl.  As you can plainly see, my scapes have already started to curl.  Aside from the good eating, harvesting the scape encourages garlic to put its energy into developing big fat bulbs, rather than growing a flower.  It’s a win-win.

I like eating garlic scapes simply sauteed in olive oil with garlic, but there are other options.  I hear they’re excellent grilled and in stir fries.  I found these interesting recipes for using up those scapes (as if I’d have a problem!):

Garlic scape vichyssoise
Garlic scape green curry
Garlic scape pesto
Garlic scape hummus

And so the berry onslaught begins

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Today was a banner day: the first strawberries came out of my garden.  There weren’t too many, just enough for me to have a nice dessert of sliced strawberries tonight after dinner.

I think the garden is slightly late this year in starting to produce.  Last year I picked my first pint of strawberries out of the garden on June 1, and in the 2006 my first couple of berries ripened up on May 30.  I’m not sure if this is a product of the cool Spring we had, or if perhaps I just need to fertilize the strawberries a little better.  Whatever the case, I’m just glad to have them!  As usual, I predict I’ll be completely sick of strawberries in a couple of weeks...but I will be thrilled to have frozen some come January!

Sloan Street Garden Update

Sunday, June 01, 2008

Even with the unpredictable weather of late, my plot in the Sloan Street garden seems to be thriving, even with a few minor setbacks due to squirrel damage and some cukes that got a little too chilly one night.

From left to right, we have:
-snow and shelling peas (which are finally discovering their trellises)
-bright lights swiss chard
-lemon cucumbers
-pickling cucumbers
-kentucky wonder green bean
-bloomsdale spinach
-cherokee purple tomatoes (in chicken wire cage due to aforementioned squirrel destruction)
-rutgers tomatoes
-roma tomatoes
-jelly bean red & yellow grape tomatoes
-wee tiny genovese basil
-mesclun bundles
-carrots

I find is encouraging that just one short month ago this verdant urban oasis looked like this:

And p.s.: that’s chamomile going crazy in the plots behind mine. 

The Garden of Doom

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

I’m the only person in my neighborhood who grows anything more than a tomato plant or two (although there is a guy down the street with black walnut trees in his back yard - I’m trying to become close friends with him).  It would be surprising if that didn’t start to change this year - even my mother, who vowed never to keep a garden because of the trauma of growing up on a farm, planted a little mini garden this year to cut down on food costs.  There’s an element of thriftiness in my gardening adventures, but mostly I just like knowing where my food came from and how it was grown, and the ability to eat food minutes from harvest.

There is a small garden at our house, which I endeavor every year to intensively plant using the Square Foot Gardening method.  This year I sort of threw that out the window, and did a combination of Square Foot and row planting.  Is it a good idea? Only time will tell.  Things seem to be going well, but it’s planting is a little behind thanks to all the weird, cool weather we’ve been having lately.  I have to plant a few last minute things tomorrow and Thursday, but I’ll definitely be done by the end of the week.

So what’s growing in my garden this year?  Well, there are the things that come back year after year - rhubarb, a nice strawberry patch, chives, sorrel - and the four varieties of garlic I planted last Fall: Georgian Crystal Purple, German Extra Hardy, German Red, and Musik.  Sadly, my asparagus patch seems to have not gotten a good start and will have to be replanted this year.

I planted lots of herbs: Genovese basil, flat leaf parsley, rosemary, French tarragon, a few varieties of thyme, sage, oregano, cilantro, dill, and mint.  One thing I learned from my fellow Farm to Philly contributors last year is this - don’t rip up the herb garden at the end of the season.  So many FTP-ers continued to harvest herbs well into the Winter months.

There are the Hakurei and Scarlet Queen turnips (pictured above).  With only 38 and 43 days, respectively, to maturity, I should be cooking up a mess of sweet little turnips in only a few more weeks!  I’ll never forget the first time I had “hooker eye” turnips last year - I can barely wait!  I suspect I’ll be harvesting just about the same time as the strawberries ripen.

Here’s the rest of the list:

• Thumbelina carrots
• Tadorna leeks
• Lacinato kale
• Golden Swiss chard
• Flash collards
• Brilliant celeriac
• Bloomsdale Savoy spinach
• Cipollini onions
• Caspian Pink tomato
• Yellow Jelly Bean tomato
• Peas
• Akahana Mame dried beans
• Ichiban eggplant
• Golden beets
• Orion fennel
• Presto watercress
• Sessantina Grossa broccoli raab

Like Allison, I also just purchased two raspberry plants.  I have yet to decide on a permanent home for them.  Then there are the two fig trees I bought last year (there’s a fig growing on one of them), and the single apricot tree that will finally get a mate this year.

Everything that has managed to get planted is doing just fine.  With dragon boat season in full swing, it’s hard to keep up with all the weeding, but I’ll be happy I did when everything is ready to harvest!