Unlikely Garden Resources

I planned to write an update for the following article this spring, so I went to Wal-Mart and Lowe's earlier this year looking for cool-season vegetables and I never found the abundance that I did a few years ago.  With the bad economy, people had started vegetable gardens, and they were growing more than just tomatoes in the summer.  A few big box stores were capitalizing on this and sold a larger selection of vegetables.

I looked at Wal-Mart in February when I planted potatoes and onions and they didn't have any.  And while I didn't look specifically for them at Lowe's, I was in and out of there a number throughout the spring and I didn't see any.  I went back the other day and I found their display. They had a huge variety of onions, garlic, shallots, and potatoes.  It's the absolutely wrong time to plant now, but I was looking at them and wondering if I could store them until fall (or spring, in the case of potatoes) and plant them at that time.  Maybe they will be deeply discounted.  Maybe they just threw them away.  I'll have to find out.

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Red potato plant in bloom

Over the past couple of years, there has been a large increase in the amount of people trying to grow their own food.  It used to be people grew tomatoes or squash in the summer, but it has expanded to include other vegetables.  Excluding traditional feed and seed sources, Lowe's started selling onion sets in the spring a couple of years ago.  Last year they had these garden packs - asparagus, strawberries, potatoes, onions, leeks and shallots in small amounts, in various combinations, for the home gardener.

I made a discovery Wednesday at Wal-Mart.  I was leaving through the garden are and noticed a display that looked like it had a few winter vegetables.  I was expecting a few veggies mixed in with flower bulbs.  I was surprised to find that it was all vegetables.  They had asparagus crowns, strawberries, garlic, two types of shallots, two types of onions, and five types of potatoes.

Feed and seed stores are usually good for a couple of varieties of a couple of vegetables, in large quantities, at reasonable prices.  The vegetables at Wal-Mart are packaged in smaller quantities for the home gardener and they are more expensive.  Most home gardener don't have the need for five pounds of one variety of potato or two pounds of onion sets.  What Wal-Mart does right is it offers more specialty vegetables.

Asparagus is a perennial, which means that it lives for more than a year.  Most people probably don't have enough room in their garden to commit to asparagus for a number of years - I know I don't.

Most people grow strawberries here and there.  They can be perennials, but some experts suggest replanting fresh plants every year.  I've never grown them, but I know Robin would like me to.  I think I have issues with plants that need a certain amount of daylight to produce fruit or flowers, etc.  I think I will try growing them before long.

Any reader of this blog knows that I have had no real success with onions.  Wal-Mart offers two varieties in small quantities.  I may continue to try growing them, but I won't devote as much space to them as I have been.  And, on second thought, I may not buy them there either - a lot of them had already sprouted and had fairly long green shoots poking out of the bags.

I tried growing garlic almost a year and half ago.  The only place you can reliably find garlic is in a catalog or the grocery store.  The catalog can get expensive when you figure in shipping, so I decided to try planting garlic from the grocery store.  I wasn't expecting great results, but I thought I would give it a shot.  I waited a little late to pull them up - they had been sitting in soil that was a little waterlogged.  I put them on a shelf in the garage to dry and forgot about them.  They're still there and I noticed that started sprouting recently.   I suppose they would be fine plants, but they would not produce very good bulbs.  Wal-Mart is selling  garlic bulbs and I'm sure it's in small amounts and affordable.  I'd rather have found them in the fall, when you're supposed to plant them.  Maybe I can buy them and keep them around until October.  We'll see.

I've never grown shallots, but I'd like to.  If Robin will use them, I'll grow them.  I just don't think we've ever eaten them around here before.  I also think it's great that Wal-Mart has potatoes.  Although I'll buy the bulk of my seed potatoes, I may buy the blue potatoes that they are selling.  I like growing a few odd things.

That's it for vegetables at Wal-Mart.  I blogged about more traditional sources for some of these here.  Go out and try to grow some of these this spring!

Spring?

This has been an interesting spring.  With the exception of a warm period in January, it has been kind

of average.  In recent years the weather has warmed up very quickly, like it was a race toward summer.  I was glad this year was looking a little more sane - mid-March and I just started to think about warm season vegetables.  But then something happened.  Since my posts about warm weather and last frost dates, it has turned cold - not bitterly cold temperatures, but a constant cold, with lows in the 30s and 40s.  It's enough to put a damper on spring for some of us.  In addition to the weather, a minor back injury has kept me from getting out in the garden.  Let me tell you what I'm missing in the garden.

One of my top priorities is raking - I know it should be a fall chore, but, when you have a live oak, it is a spring one.  Our grand oak holds onto its leaves all winter and then drops them in early spring.  It's not as bad as it seems - a few years ago I made a shade garden under the oak, so I would just have to rake the leaves into it when the time came.

Get the lawn mower started and mow the weeds - every spring I wonder if the mower will start.  Every year I tell myself that I will do the right thing and run it empty or buy some fuel stabilizer.  I also tell myself that I will change the oil and air filter too.  It wasn't starting earlier this spring, but I added a little fresh gas and it started right up.  Now to do what I always say I'm going to do.

Plant warm-season vegetables - this weekend finally looks like the end of cold weather, which means that I can really start to think about planting corn and squash and beans without worrying about it getting too cold at night.  Some of our coneflowers are even starting to bloom!

Hatch some chicks - now that nighttime temperatures are a lot warmer, it's safe to hatch some chicks.  I haven't completely decided what I'm going to do, but I have two broody hens that want to raise some chicks.  I thought about using some of our eggs again, but I also thought about getting eggs from someone else, so we could have completely different chickens.

I've been a little busy (and hurt) during the past few weeks, but I've got some more posts making their way down the pipeline as we speak.  Stay tuned.

Advice to a Transplanted Maine Gardener

Awhile ago I put a "Have Gardening Questions?" link on this blog, hoping someone would email me - I get a lot of practice answering random questions at the Master Gardener's office, and I always learn something when I do.  Despite doing this, no one has contacted me, until today. Out of the blue I received an email this morning, asking for loads of gardening advice:

I'm new to Park Circle, having moved here from Maine in September. We finally have our beds made and filled, and yesterday I did a little planting. I'm very excited to try my hand at veggies since there's such a long growing season (compared to Maine!). I do have a few questions, and thought maybe you could help me out.

I'm looking for a nice nursery that sells a variety of gardening supplies and plants. I've been to Abide A While and another place in Mt. Pleasant. They're both lovely but I found one a tad pricey and the other more gifty, if that makes sense. Do you have a favorite?

I have to say that I don't have a favorite garden center. I don't frequent them and most of them seem gifty and pricey to me too. Besides box stores, the other store that came to mind was Hyam's on Folly Road on James Island. You may find them similar to Abide-a-While, however, I got a pair of garden clogs from them that I love. I had to search the internet to find anything similar to those places in our area, and the only other place I found was Hidden Ponds Nursery in Awendaw, north of Mount Pleasant. Their website boasts of their "mile of grand pathways", and for us to "come take a walk in the woods". It sounds like it would be worth the drive just to look around.

 I'm looking to grow potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, and asparagus - all things that should be grown from starts or seedlings. Where can I get these?

Oh, if only you had emailed me a month ago!  Around here Clemson Extension recommends planting potatoes in early February, onions in during February as well and asparagus crowns during January and February.  You'll have another chance to grow onions in the fall and it may not be too late to plant asparagus.  It is a perennial so it will grow and produce spears for more than a single year. Because of this, you'll have to devote permanent space in your garden to it.  It is also recommended to let them become established for 2-3 years before beginning to harvest.  Not all is lost - you have until mid-April before planting sweet potatoes.  I've never grown these before, but it looks as if you can buy transplants from a garden center - you may have to call around to see who offers them.  For planting times, see HGIC 1256 Planning a Garden.  That site is my go-to place for information on all things gardening.

As far as where to get these. I have a few suggestions.  For potatoes and onions, I tend to go to feed and seed stores.  They are nearly the only places that carry a large quantity and variety of these.  Other places have had these in the past, like local hardware stores, but I would stick with the feed and seeds.  For my recommendations, click here.  I have talked about other sources in the past.  If you search for "feed and seed" on this blog, you will find those as well.  I used to drool over the seed catalogs every winter, but I've decided that it may be too much choice.  My two favorite feed and seeds have a good selection of seeds that I will continue to buy, unless I need or want something special.

What "pests" am I going to run into? I can already guess squirrels. Anything else i should be looking out for? And do you have recommendations for eradicating them?

My experience has taught me that pests vary greatly by yard.  I had minor problems with leaf-footed squash bugs the last few years, but a friend who lives south of Charleston had tomato hornworm invasion.  A woman called the Master Gardener's office about the "kudzu bug" or bean platispid ravaging a tree of hers.  There is something called "Integrated Pest Management" that some of us try to practice.  It's about preventing problems before they happen.  Chose disease resistant varieties of plants.  Rotate crops to prevent pests and diseases from reaching a critical level.  Cleaning up dead plant material to limit the spread of disease.  Heat and humidity are also problems to be dealt with.  As questions or problems arise, I'll be happy to help.  In the meantime, feel free to check out HGIC 2755 Integrated Pest Management, or their IPM site that I just found.

How do you feel about the quality of the Bees Ferry compost? I filled my beds with this but I'm concerned - pulled out plastic fork tines and shredded plastic bags. It's what I got so I planted, mixing in a little lobster compost we brought with us from Maine.

If anything, I'm a frugal gardener.  I have always gotten compost from the landfill.  In the past it had a lot of plastic in it (see a photo here), but recently the county mandated that paper leaf bags be used instead of plastic and it has eliminated(?) that problem.  It was more of a business decision for them - they are now able to sell larger quantities because of its higher quality  According to extension agent Amy Dabbs, Clemson University "certified the compost from Bees Ferry for use in organic farming operations, a first in the state. (The compost itself cannot be 'certified organic.' That term is reserved for agricultural products consumed by humans.)"  You can read her article here.

Think of compost as a soil amendment, something you add to your soil.  If your beds are all compost, you will be missing key minerals and other nutrients that are in soil, but not available in organic materials.  You can take soil from your yard or buy bags of sterilized garden soil, or even get a truck load of topsoil from local businesses.  I had to explain this to someone at the MG office recently - there are thousands of weeds seeds in any soil, from your yard or brought in.  When you buy garden soil in bags from a garden center, it has probably been sterilized - cooked to kill all the weed seeds and potential pathogens.  The problem is that all the beneficial organisms in the soil were killed as well.  At your first opportunity, you should get a soil test to see what it needs.  It is likely similar to mine, but only after getting your results will you know for sure.  Here's how to do that: How To Get A Soil Test. Another option is to try sheet composting, also known as lasagna gardening.  It is especially good for starting raised beds.  Oregon State University has a good guide to doing it.

Any tips or tricks for having a successful growing season in the south?

I haven't taken a poll, but I know one other person who agrees with me - summer is my least favorite time to garden.  At my house the gardening year starts off in January when I plant peas.  I planted them in February last year and it was too late.  This year I planted them in mid January and I have a feeling it may get too warm for me to get many peas.  I may have to plant them right after Thanksgiving, like I heard another master gardener does.  In February I plant onions and potatoes.  I never know what to do in March.  According to some charts, our last expected frost date is around March 15th, but experience tells me that there is usually a frost the first week of April.  It's also the first best time to sow seeds, like beans, squash and corn, directly in the ground, but watch that frost! Serious gardeners are growing seedlings at this time, to transplant into their garden after the last frost, but since I'm not set up for that, I twiddle my thumbs a little bit right now.

April is when I transplant veggies like squash, tomatoes and peppers, and start a second crop of seeds.  May and June is when it really starts to heat up.  Potatoes are ready by that point and hopefully you've gotten the first fruits of some of your vegetables.  By July it's too hot to do anything - plants won't produce fruit when it's this hot, but you can always dream of cooler weather.  August is when they say to start your cool-season vegetables, but that's the last thing I'm thinking about then.

Once October gets here you can get serious about cool-season crops.  Onions get planted again.  Garlic, for harvest next fall, can be planted.  Broccoli and collards can be transplanted.  Despite a few frosts and freezes, winter is rapidly becoming the best gardening season here - if you like leafy greens and root vegetables, like lettuce, spinach, collards, broccoli, turnips, carrots, and radishes.

Good luck with your garden and, I hope this has given you a dose of what it's like to garden in our part of the world.  If I can help in nay way, please let me know.

Spring Has Sprung!?

I don't know what to make of the last 3-4 months.  I have been waiting on winter and it never came.  We had a couple of instances where the highs were in the 40s and lows were in the 20s, but for only a few days.  The rest of winter felt like spring - chilly in the morning, but comfortable during the day.  And it has really skipped over spring and gone right to summer.  I know it does that around here, but it REALLY did it this time.

I planted potatoes and peas a month ago and they're are just getting started.  I even planted some experimental potatoes in compost bags, after suggesting to a yard-less friend to try it, and I'm starting to worry about the amount of warmth we're experiencing.  Potatoes aren't warm season crops - they don't produce if the soil is above 80 degrees.  (Sorry, Maria!)  I am already gearing up for summer and I don't have anywhere to plant - I'm laying out a new bed right now, as well as the two that I always talk about adding.  I'm even planning to take over part of the front yard - it'll be the easiest thing to do under the circumstances.

This week I've been starting some seeds, probably twenty flats or so.  Because I thought it was still too early to do this, I started with perennial flowers and seeds that I had little hope of them germinating.  Then a few days later, I moved on to tomatoes and peppers.  Now I ready to plant squash, corn, and watermelon, but I've run out of seed flats.

So, it's the middle of March, the high has averaged 80 degrees for two weeks and there are already tons of mosquitoes.  Where does it go from here?

Spring / Summer Vegetable Garden

First Purple Majesty Potatoes

A few weeks ago I decided to pull up some of our potatoes that were dying back, and also get a salad out of the garden - something I've been neglecting to do all winter.  I pulled up one the purple potato plants and I was surprised at how small the tubers were - and how few.  I also pulled a couple of red potatoes and we didn't seem to be as many as last year.  After getting some lettuce from the garden and making a salad, I was disappointed in the taste - it was very bitter and "stemmy" (as opposed to "leafy"), if that's a word.  It was pretty late in the season - some of the lettuce was beginning to bolt - grow a stalk and flower.

I thought I was off to a less than great start this year when it came to harvesting our vegetables, but things have turned around a bit.  I have pulled more potatoes and they're looking better, and we're starting to have good luck with our summer garden - we're picking squash daily right now, tomatoes and peppers are coming and beans and corn are right behind them.  What I haven't had a lot of success with right now has been cucumbers and watermelon, but I think I know why, at least with the watermelon.  The seedlings have been shaded a lot by all of the potato plants, and it's been significantly cooler this spring that others - I think some of these summer vegetables need a little more heat to really get started.  I have noticed the watermelon starting to grow more, but I'm still waiting on the cucumbers.  I'm always experimenting with new ways of growing things and sometimes this is what happens.  You live and learn!

Summer Vegetable Garden

Flowering Purple Majesty Potatoes

Our vegetable garden is coming along nicely these days.  I'm close to adding another bed, and adding a composting pile - also, I just added trellises that I really like.  Since my seed starting didn't go as planned this year, I needed to go out and buy a few plants.

I went to Lowe's this morning with the intention of buying squash, pepper and tomato plants and watermelon seeds, and came home with:

Crookneck Squash
Better Boy Tomatoes
Red Bell Peppers
Sweet Banana Peppers
Crimson Sweet Watermelons

To me, the cost can really add up when buying vegetable plants.  I try to find the best deal by looking at the price and the number of seedlings in the pack.  A number of 4-packs, for example, will have more than one per section.  It might not be the best idea to divide these plants, but it's worth trying.  There were nine tomato plants in the 4-pack that I bought this morning.  I divided the tomato plants and planted the three largest ones in the garden, stripping off lower branches and planting them deeper, to encourage a better root structure.  I also potted the other six and I'll either leave them in pots or plant them in the garden at a later date.  I put the plants next to one of my new trellises, hoping to use it to support the tomatoes as they grow.

I got 5 banana peppers, but I had a hard time finding bell peppers.  I looked for a long time and only found green ones - I finally found individual pots of red bell peppers instead of multi-packs.  I bought two pots of those which got me 4 plants.  I had planned to put the squash in the same bed, but after planting the peppers, there wasn't enough room - knowing how big the squash plants will get.  I had plans to devote a whole field to corn - when I say "field", I really mean a 4 x 8 bed  - but I needed more room to plant the squash.  I almost have a "3 Sisters" garden going on there.

Before I went to Lowe's, I planned to buy watermelon seeds - they were cheap and I have all summer, right?  So, when I was looking at all of the vegetable plants, I ran across watermelons.  There were a couple of different varieties - one would grow 20 pound fruit or the other, Crimson Sweet, would grow to about 10 pounds.  I chose the Crimson Sweet variety for a couple of reasons - I grew it last year and it is a recommended variety of the Clemson Extension, and I plan to trellis these plants.  I don't know how well this will work, but I thought I might have better luck with smaller fruit than trying to support 20 pound watermelons on a trellis.

Wish me luck and hopefully this season will be great!

Seed Starting 2011

I try to be a frugal gardener, and I know it works against me sometimes - I'm hoping it doesn't for my latest plan.  I've never bought special seed starting mix or peat pellets - I've tried to mix up something on my own that I hope would have things seeds need.  This spring I decided to try something simpler.

I've had a large bag of sphagnum peat moss ever since I repotted my carnivorous plants last year.  I decided to try using an all-peat mix to start seed in this time.  I figured it should be good because, peat can hold a lot of moisture and that's what seed need most of all.

The first thing you need to know about working with peat is that it takes a while to prepare - It's very fluffy and you need to let it soak up as much water as you can.  I usually take a large pot of water and add peat to it, continually submerging handfuls of it until it's completely soaked.  I was a little disappointed in the peat I had - it wasn't as fine and uniform as I remembered.  There were a lot of stems and other large pieces, which I tried to pull out as I came across them.

Once I had the seed flats filled with moist peat, I buried my seed in it - I had a variety of them, from flower to vegetables, slow to fast germinating and reliable and unreliable.  It's been almost three weeks for most of the seeds and the only one that has sprouted is the squash - one of the reliable ones.  I'm wondering if the peat was packed to tightly, or if they were affected by the frost we had one night, or the opposite - the driveway where the seeds flats are, has gotten hot with highs near 80 degrees recently.

The only thing I can do about it now is try to learn from it and move on.  Since our last expected frost date is a little more than two weeks away, I went ahead and sowed seeds directly in the garden.  With any luck they'll sprout and my summer gardening will have begun.

The Winter Vegetable Garden

I've been pondering the winter vegetable garden recently - rethinking it. I planted two beds of broccoli, two beds of onions, and a bed of greens - lettuce and spinach. We rarely eat broccoli - especially from the garden, I haven't successfully grown a really good onion, and our greens are nonexistent - the spinach never came up and something must have eaten our lettuce - I don't think it just died.

I need to rethink our fall planting more - I don't want to give up on onions, but I may limit myself to a half of a bed, and only one type of onion - yellow granex hybrid, also know as a Vidalia. I'll stick with the broccoli, though I'll try to grow more from seed. Robin says she's trying to sneak more vegetables into meals. I think my focus during the winter ought to be on greens. We will get the most out of them - they're usually easy to grow, cheap, replenish-able and I really enjoyed all the salads I ate last spring.

Planting Time

I just took a couple of days to organize my vegetable seeds/plants and to decide what I'm planting and where. I've narrowed my first planting down to white and yellow onion sets, broccoli plants and carrots, lettuce and spinach seeds.

Also I have three kinds of onion seeds, more lettuce and spinach seeds and broccoli seeds. I plan to use the lettuce and spinach in a succession planting. I'll probably start the broccoli in seed flats and move them to the garden when I have room. I've been wanting to try to grow onions from seed - fall is the best time to do that, but I don't have a lot more room. I'll try to squeeze them in with the carrots if I don't have too many.

If nothing interferes with my plans, I should be planting everything this weekend.

Fall Gardening

Fall sneaked up on me this year. Back in August the newspaper ran an article about it that made me feel like I was behind in my planting. I could have planted some things, but it seemed really too hot for lettuce, spinach, etc. Onions wouldn't be planted until October, so I really had time to wait and see what the weather did. Strangely fall happened almost at the same time as October - which means I need to get planting.

I called a few feed stores last week, looking for onion sets and I found them. I only know of around five, but after a couple of years of buying potatoes and onions, there seem to be only two reliable ones: Dorchester Feed and Supply and Red Top Feed and Tackle Shop. There is more info on these stores here.

I had today off and planned to go to one of them to get onions and whatever else they might have. I thought I would check with my neighbor, Mr. Hiers - he was looking for collard greens and last year I gave him onion sets, because he couldn't find any. I told him I where I was going and volunteered to buy him what he needed.

I ended up buying Mr. Hiers two pounds of yellow onion sets and five 9-packs of collars greens. I bought a 9-pack of broccoli and a pound each of yellow and white onion sets for myself. I don't think I'll plant all of the onions, so I've offered some to a couple of friends who are getting serious into gardening. I've had mixed results with onions, so let's hope I fair better this year.

After I took Mr. Hiers what I bought him, I began preparing my garden. I pulled weeds and worked some compost into the beds and I sat down and started planning what and where to plant. I've got onion sets and onion seeds, broccoli plants and broccoli seeds and lettuce, spinach and carrot seeds. The broccoli plants and onion sets I have to plant this fall. If I plant the onion, carrot and broccoli seeds I should plant them this fall. I have two packs each of lettuce and spinach seeds, so I will plant one now and one later, so I will have salads all winter and spring.

I think I have room for most of this - I do have two many onion seeds, though - three different varieties. I'll at least try growing one kind just to get some experience at this. I'll let you know soon what I end up planting.

From Garden to Table

There's something I've noticed the last couple of summers - there is poor coordination/planning between what's ripe in the garden and what we are eating for dinner. There's nothing better than picking something from the garden and immediately cooking it. For us - and maybe for a lot of people - that's easier said than done. Every vegetable has it's own timeline, which makes it "feast or famine" with a lot of them.

Salad greens were the easiest plants to work with. Once our lettuce and spinach matured, we were able to continuously harvest it from December through April. We could have started earlier if I had planted it sooner.

Unless you plant the same crop a few weeks apart, some veggies tend to be harvested en masse - like onions and potatoes. You can leave them in the garden and pull up what you need, but at some point you will need to harvest the entire crop. Luckily, these two veggies, as well as other root crops, have long shelf lives.

More tender vegetables are what I have the most trouble getting the most from - tomatoes, squash, corn and beans. Either we don't get enough of these at any one time to use - like squash or corn, or we get too many and they get overripe on the plant like beans.

I don't feel like too much of a failure this summer. We had neighbors give us a lot of early squash they started in their greenhouse. When our tomatoes succumbed to disease, we got fruit and more plants form other neighbors. And we spent May and June digging (and eating) potatoes.

I've learned a little more this year and with better commitment and knowledge of what's ripe in the garden, I think we can eat more garden-to-table meals in the future.

Fall Gardening Already?

A recent Sunday newspaper had an article on Fall vegetable gardening and suddenly I'm feeling a lot of pressure to start planting. I was already feeling a little bad about my poor summer garden - diseased tomatoes, roundup-ed beans, unpicked corn, late watermelon, etc. There is plenty of warm weather ahead of us - I was planning on a second shot at warm season crops when I read that article.

It's probably a good thing. I tend to be late when it comes to planting some things, so this really gives me a heads up. I have the rest of July think about what I want and to find seed for what I want to plant. (I wrote this post a couple of weeks ago and, as I am posting it, I realize how close to August it is.)

We were at Lowe's today and I saw the seeds, but I wasn't prepared to buy anything. I'll have to get my act together soon, so I can get some early seeds started, before I put onions and potatoes in the ground in October.

Weekend Gardening

All week I was looking forward to Sunday - I was planning to work in the yard, planting corn, pulling weeds, etc. When Sunday rolled around, I was feeling lazy. I decided that I would pull up the lettuce and spinach and prepare that bed for the corn, even though it wasn't the bed I wanted them in.

After I composted the lettuce, I put the spinach in the fridge for later. Once the bed was empty, I took a look at it and decided something need to be done. If you remember from before, this is the first bed I built and it's a little different than the other beds. I decided that I needed to fix that - it was just one concrete block longer than the others. Once I pulled the soil away from one end, I moved and leveled the blocks. The extra soil plus some compost went into my newest bed - one that was built, but not yet filled.

Since I filled the new bed, I planted corn there - where I wanted it to begin with. I planted two varieties - Early Sunglow Hybrid and Silver Queen Hybrid. I was having the gardener's version of writer's block - I couldn't decide what to plant in the other empty bed. I considered bush beans or cow peas, but ultimately I decided to transplant the three Razzelberry Hybrid tomatoes from one of the seed flats. With half a seed flat free, I put some sunflower seeds in it to germinate - I need more seed flats!

I've been dieing to get my squash, cukes and watermelon in the ground. I took another look at our front bed to see what I needed to move. I'm thinking about moving the phlox in front of the hedges and maybe do a mass planting somewhere with the asiatic lilies. I could put the Rose of Sharon somewhere else and I want to put the citrus back into a pot. It's starting to come back to life, but I don't know when.

While I was messing around the back yard, I decided to take a look at the plants we got at the plant swap. One of the things was a dried apple gourd. I thought I'd harvest the seed to grow my own - the birdhouse gourd seeds I'm trying to germinate haven't sprouted yet. While I was at it I went ahead and picked the dried fruit from the ornamental pepper, so I could get the seeds later.

All and all, it was a productive day. I got a lot done and I know what I have a plan for the near future. Hopefully, I have Wednesday off and I'll get the veggies planted in the front bed.

Victory Gardens

Since the "Great Recession", a lot more people have started vegetable gardening. Lowe's has been a big supplier of seeds and plants to novice vegetable gardeners or those people who only grow vegetables in the summer. (I don't want to sound like I'm an expert or above those people in any way) I was impressed in the last couple of years when I saw onion sets there in the spring. I felt like they were broadening their customers' horizons. This spring I saw it get even broader - Lowe's had a couple of different products that were like gardens in a box. One had a half dozen potatoes, onion sets, asparagus crowns, strawberry plants and something else. They had a larger version that included a couple of varieties of potatoes, as well as other plants. On a later trip, I saw similar, but more specialized products - one had three or for different types of potatoes, one had garlic, leeks, shallots and onions. It was very interesting, and it was timed right as far as when to plant them goes.

I started thinking of the different type of vegetables you can grow and in conversations with people, I realize that a lot of people don't know when you can grow different types of plants. People are surprised to hear that I was growing vegetables this past winter - our lettuce was planted in November and we made a salad from it today. This lack of knowledge and the vegetable seeds available at Lowe's made me think. I was browsing seeds, looking for watermelon and pole beans, when I saw onion and broccoli seeds alongside tomato and squash seeds. I started wondering how many people would try to plant vegetables at the wrong time. Wouldn't it be a good idea, and a way for Lowe's to reach out to the community, if they had a few signs - local vegetable planting guides prepared by master gardeners from the Clemson Extension?

This is just a thought I had when I was at Lowe's the other day and thought I would share it. Happy gardening!

Garden Update

I have a lot of gardening and landscaping plans for the spring and summer - I just haven't gotten to them yet. I realized as my seeds* were sprouting this week that I was using my only completely free raised bed as a cold frame and I needed to do something about that.

*Both varieties of squash are sprouting, Razzleberry tomatoes, a few cucumbers and maybe a pepper, coneflower and agapanthus. I've also got another tomato, another pepper, watermelon, beans and corn to get started as well.

I can't decide what to do with my pole beans. I was going to put up a trellis made from conduit and twine, but now I'm wondering if it would be easier to do a tripod/tepee in the flower beds where I plan to grow watermelon, squash, cucumbers, pumpkins. I have so many questions about that - I was going to grow cucumbers up a trellis, but they're "salad bush hybrid" - does that mean they will be less of a vine? And am I planting too much of the same family together - squash, cucumber, pumpkins, watermelon?

Anyway, I got some more compost this morning. I opted to get $2 bags from the Romney Street location rather than loading my own at the landfill. I don't need as much right now - just enough to improve the soil in the landscaped beds so I can plant veggies out there. I'm rethinking the design of the bed, now that I've included part of the front yard in my vegetable gardening plan. I've got citrus that I want to put back into a pot, daylilies that I'll eventually move somewhere else - the same goes for the lilies, irises and phlox. I've got garlic that I'll harvest this summer. After all that, maybe I'll be able to design a nice planting that lets me incorporate long term landscaping with vegetables.

Other things growing - The potatoes I planted just over three weeks ago have broken the surface and the spinach is getting to be large enough to start harvesting. Daylilies have sprouted. The water hyacinths in the pond - I had given up on them, but hadn't tossed in the compost pile - they've got new growth on them.

My list of things I want to do is growing as well. The area in the front yard where the garden is, will become a continuation of the side flower bed and curve around in front of the house. I have to edge and smother the grass and mulch. Then I have to decide what to plant and put a path through it to the side gate. I'm planning to use pieces of broken concrete to make something that looks like a stone path. I've started collecting it recently.

I'm planning to take another shot at a shade garden, my first attempt not being the best location, as it turns out. I hope under our oak tree will be good enough. It gets a little morning sun and a little more evening sun - I hope it won't be a problem. I have a 50% off coupon for a garden catalog that I was going to use to buy all the plants for the shade garden when I was ready, but the coupon expires in April and I just don't think I'll be working on it at that point - and with shipping, who knows how much I'll really save.

According to my plan, I need to build two more raised beds (maybe three). I also need to lay out beds in the back yard. There's a strip of grass about a foot wide along the driveway that I want to rip up and plant a ground cover...

More rain barrels, chickens, rain garden/bioswale. The list goes on...

Spring Vegetable Gardening

Last weekend I finally got my potatoes and onions in the ground. While I was at it, I planted more lettuce and spinach as well. I planted so much that I had to make a diagram to know where everything is planted. Not really - I made the diagram to help me with crop rotation in the future. I planted three kinds of potatoes, two kinds of onion sets, two kinds of spinach and two kinds of lettuce.

I know I bought five pound bags of potatoes, but I don't seem to have as many as last year - there are a number of big ones, so maybe that's the reason. I got a third variety this year and ended up planting all of them in two raised beds. Last year I got white and red, and this year they also had Yukon gold. I'm expecting a better crop this year in the raised bed than I had in the ground last year.

I think I bought a pound each of white and purple onion sets. I was expecting to get yellow ones too, but they didn't have any. Until I'm am expert at this, I'm not going to be picky. I need to pay better attention to them this season. I think my biggest problem with the onions was my own neglect, so I'm going to vigilant this spring. I know everyone who plants onions uses sets, but I think when fall comes around, I'm going to try growing them from seed.

I planted Melody spinach several weeks ago, after I pulled up my broccoli. It's been growing nicely. I thought I would see about growing Space spinach as well. I planted that in the holes in the concrete blocks around one of the beds of potatoes. I'm not sure how long they will last into the warm weather, but I know at least one of them is more heat tolerant than average.

I already have lettuce growing in the garden from the winter - I think I planted it after Halloween and we have been eating on it since Xmas - but I had seeds for two more varieties I wanted to plant. Since I'm short on space I decided to plant the lettuce in the same bed with the potatoes. I've read many times about "intercropping" vegetables that have different needs, etc. In this case, the lettuce will be ready about 45 days after planting, while potatoes may take 100 days of more to mature, however you can harvest them real young as "new" potatoes. So if I can get some more lettuce without interfering with the potatoes, why not?

Instead of worrying about how much space I have in the raised beds - because I will never have enough - I've decided that one of my landscape beds is going to be part of the vegetable garden. I've got garlic planted out there right now and I had planned to watermelons and pumpkins out there as well - to give them room to spread - but I'm already thinking all the other things I can plant - cucumbers, squash, corn. I can't wait!

Starting Summer Vegetables in a Cold Frame

I know it doesn't seem like it, but it's time to talk about planting summer vegetables - not full grown plants, but starting from seed - when it's nice and warm they will be ready for the garden. A lot of people have a sun room or grow lights or a greenhouse for their seedlings, but I don't - I have to improvise. Don't worry, I have a plan. I'm planning to build a cold frame, which is basically a box with a window on top that protect tender plants from the cold.

I've considered building them before, but it seemed like a lot of work for not too much benefit, especially around here. I decided I needed a lot of space if I was going to grow warm season vegetables from seed this year. I've tried this in the past and had better luck each year. What I'm planning to do this year is build a cold frame out of concrete blocks and old windows. I brought this up with Darren and he thought it sounded like a good idea. The concrete blocks will warm up during the day and let off that heat at night, and the window would help hold that heat in, but during the day I would need to crack the windows open so it doesn't get too hot.

Originally I planned to put it in the backyard, setting up concrete blocks on the lawn, but I thought of a better idea. I still have at least three more raised beds to build (according to my master plan), so I should build one of those and use it as a cold frame before filling it with soil. So that's probably going to happen in the next week, and I'll start my seeds and be on my way gardening.

Caveat Emptor

I've offered my assistance to a few friends and neighbors as far as starting out vegetable gardening and they seemed to have appreciated it. I hope it works out for them, but I do want to say that I have had no formal training in horticulture or gardening. I have done a lot of reading on topics that I enjoy, like succulents, vegetables and water gardening. I have also been forced to learn about certain plants, when I find a good deal on one or when I find one on the street or when Robin brings one home. I haven't done too much reading on other important areas, like soil quality, pest and diseases. I planned to spend time reading this winter, but with planning the veggie garden and the realization that we truly have a four season vegetable garden here in South Carolina, I haven't had time. I should also mention that can be a big TV junkie at times.

I try to tell it like it is on this blog - my successes and failures - and whether something I'm doing is new or it's worked for me before. I hope people will learn from my mistakes as I have, so they don't waste the time and energy on a losing technique. I'm not saying mine are the best for everybody, but I hope my experience will help someone out there.

Is Vegetable Gardening Worth It?

Is vegetable gardening worth it? I have many reasons for saying this, but don't worry - I'm just playing devil's advocate. I've put in a lot of hard work building raised beds, hauling compost, pulling weeds, fretting over germinating seeds, and many other things, just to grow vegetables that aren't as large or as plentiful as those in the grocery store. And if you want a tomato in January, good luck with that one.

Because of the rain - blame El Niño - and the cold, I've been in a holding pattern for longer than I would like to be. I have raised beds to build , compost to haul and potatoes and onions to plant, and short windows of time to do these things, and for what? Potatoes are $2 for a five pound bag and onions are $3 for a three pound bag.

I was reminded of that fact when Robin and I were watching "Kitchen Nightmares" and the owner of a potato-themed restaurant was ecstatic when she was given free potatoes - we looked at each other like, "She must not know how much potatoes cost!"

I doubt my abilities some times, especially when I make big plans - I wonder if I can pull it off. Last year I had plans to grow everything from seed, from flowers to vegetables, but things didn't go as planned. I'm afraid I will have the same luck again this year, but I know better. I've learned a lot since then and hopefully have planned better this time. I have plans for a cold frame in the yard for seed starting. All I need are my seeds from Park Seed - I'm still waiting on them.

New Year, New Raised Bed

The past couple of weeks, I've felt very unmotivated to work in the yard. There hasn't been much sun left when I got home from work, and the temperature was starting to drop. When I have been home early, I just haven't felt like going back outside. It's rained some too - enough to make it no fun to work in the mud.

I saw no end in sight, with Ella starting school on Monday - so I had to give myself a big push and tell myself that it was my last best chance to get stuff done. It must have worked, because I got another raised bed almost ready to plant in two afternoons.

Wednesday afternoon, I swung by Lowe's near work and picked up ten cinder blocks. I wasn't sure how many I needed, but they're heavy and I didn't want to load down the car too much. When I got home I discovered I only needed only five more, so I immediately ran to Lowe's near home before traffic got bad. When I got back I laid them out and leveled them. Now they were ready for the compost.

Even though I'm off on New Year's Day, my only chance to get compost from the county landfill was after work on Thursday. I knew it might rain, but as long as it wasn't raining more than a light drizzle, I would still go. When I left work the rain was holding off, so I decided to go. I put plastic down in the back of our hatchback and I was off. When you buy compost by the ton at the landfill, they weigh your vehicle entering and leaving and you pay $10 a ton for the difference. I had been there in the rain before and it wasn't that bad, but today was just extremely muddy. I was having to scoop right on the surface of the pile to get the fluffiest and driest stuff. The deeper I dug, the wetter and more compact it was. It was a slow process - I also suspected that it would weigh more and I'd be paying a little extra because of it.

I loaded the car as full as I dared and then left to be weighed. 520 pounds of compost cost me a whopping $2.60. The landfill and the recycling center sell the same compost for $2 per bag - the bags probably weigh 40 pounds. Going to the landfill may be a little more effort, but it's well worth the price difference.

Once I got home, I backed the car as close to the garden as possible and shoveled it into a wheelbarrow and dumped it into the new raised bed, repeating that process four or five times. So, I'm nearly ready to plant in the new bed - I thought I would plant more lettuce or spinach, but I realized I have only a month before I will need to plant more onions and potatoes, so that bed may sit fallow until February. Our broccoli is close to being over done, so I may pull that out and plant spinach there - we'll see. I've got places to put possibly five more raised beds. As I'm thinking about the warm-season vegetables I want to plant, I may need all of those. I've posted a diagram of my raised beds here.