dirtology

fall carrot harvest

2011-10-23T19:39:00.001-04:00

Today, I harvested my fall crop of carrots. These are a red-skinned variety called "Dragon". They are orange on the inside like a normal carrot, but I think that they have a milder/sweeter taste. As usual, my carrots were mostly short and stumpy. Perhaps someday I will be able to grow full length carrots. In total, I harvested 3.96 lb.

GY2011 harvest totals

2011-10-09T20:58:00.003-04:00

After tallying all of my harvests for the GY2011 growing season, I am pleased to report that I harvested a total 174.69 lbs of produce here at Dogstreet Farm. Thanks to everyone who supported my garden and enjoyed my produce.

fall garlic planting

2011-10-09T20:39:00.004-04:00

This morning, bright and early, it was time to plant the garlic for next spring. These beds were this year's home for the peppers, eggplants, beans, etc. After tearing out all the old plants, I turned in 200 lb of composted manure and a few lingering bags of garden soil to freshen things up.

The seed garlic I'm using here was saved from this year's harvest. I chose the abolute largest bulbs of garlic from three of the varieties that I harvested - Tzan, Chesnok Red, and an Italian hardneck variety. From about a dozen bulbs, I separated around 180 cloves of garlic that were all planted here. I'm trying a tighter spacing for next season - about 6 inches apart in all directions - because this year it seemed like I had a lot of wasted space. After covering up all of the cloves, I adding about 3 inches of fresh grass and leaf clippings on top as a mulch. With any luck, the young green shoots should start popping up before the first hard winter frost.

winter squash harvest

2011-10-09T20:16:00.000-04:00

After the front yard garden was cleared of garlic, I planted some winter squash. This was my first time growing winter squash, and I was amazed how the plants basically consumed my front porch. However, I was disappointed to discover that all those yards of vines only produced about 12 pounds of squash. Oh well. Now we need to decide what we're going to do with it. Right now, more baby food and a soup are at the top of the list.

"Burgess Buttercup"

final pepper harvest

2011-10-09T20:10:00.000-04:00

The growing season is now coming to a close, and so I am now preparing the beds for the winter and for next season. In the past week or so, temperatures have been hitting the 50s at night so I figured that these peppers wouldn't have much time left outside in the garden. So, even though they were all green, I picked them all and axed the pepper plants.

(top row) "Serrano del sol" and "Ace"; (middle row) "Cheyenne" and "Carmen"; (bottom) "Sultan's Golden Cresent"

I also pulled out my last batch of pole beans this week. These are a yellow, fuzzy bean called 'Sultan's Golden Crescent". Although they were pretty, they were also pretty flavorless. I won't be growing these again next season.

Saturday bounty & sweet potato harvest

2011-08-21T00:01:00.000-04:00

I had a nice little harvest of green beans, cukes, peppers and cherry tomatoes today. At the moment, these are pretty much the only things that are producing well. I still haven't gotten around to planting much in terms of fall crops. However, if I don't do that soon, I won't be planting anything other than cover crops.

Today, I dug up most of the sweet potatoes that I could find beneath the vines. In total, there were about 6 lbs of tubers. Most of them were of a pretty good size. I'm pretty happy with these guys for my first attempt at growing sweet potatoes. Next year, I will probably plant twice as many vines.

making hot sauce

2011-08-15T02:09:00.000-04:00

This year's pepper crop was not as bountiful as in 2010, but I still managed to harvest some beautiful serrano and cayenne peppers. Normally, Sarah would be making salsa with these guys, but she is otherwise occupied with growing our baby at the moment. So, I did what I do best when faced with too many peppers and some free time: I made some hot sauce.

"Serrano del sol", "Cheyenne" (cayenne), "Copra" (onion), and "Tzan" (garlic)

After chopping up all of the peppers shown above and the entire onion, I also minced about half of the garlic bulb. I like adding a lot of garlic to hot sauce because I think that it warms it up in a non-spicy way and gives the sauce a little depth.

I then sauteed the peppers, onion, and garlic for a few minutes until things got a little brown.

Next, I added two cups of water and simmered everything for about 20 minutes. As usual, this released some pretty noxious gases. It's best to open every window you can to keep things well ventilated. Also, I have found that covering your mouth with a wet wash cloth can help with filtering the fumes when you have to stir the mix.

After most of the water has boiled off, all you have to do is puree the entire mix until it is smooth. At this point, a cup of vinegar is added. I typically do not strain my hot sauce, although I have seen many recipes where people do this. Finally, I pour the sauce into clean bottles and refigerate. Typically, the sauce will last for many months.

I think that today's batch of hot sauce turned out pretty good. It is hot, but not painfully so. And it has the garlic undertones that I like. I am especially happy with the color. Once it ages a few weeks in the fridge, I'm sure it will taste even better.

making baby food: swiss chard edition

2011-08-15T01:44:00.001-04:00

This year's swiss chard crop has been much more than I had planned. I had never eaten chard before this year, and I was happy to discover that I liked it. However, the stuff just grows wasy faster than ordinary mortals can consume. This weekend, I picked four pounds of "Bright Lights" swiss chard. For lack of a better idea, I decided to turn it into baby food.

swiss chard, "Bright Lights"

After cleaning the leaves and removing the stalks, I chopped up the greens and steamed them until they were tender. I tried to recover some of the drippings to keep as much of the nutrients as possible.

Next, I used my food processor to finely chop and then puree the greens. In the end, I thought that the consistency was pretty good compared to some of the other veggies that I've used for baby food.

mmmm ... nummy

I transferred this green concoction into plastic storage containers. Four pounds of swiss chard has now become 32 ounces of baby food!

Here is my current stash of pureed vegetables. This picture doesn't really do justice to my horde. There are at least thirty containers of organic vegetable baby food in there. Not too shabby!

eat your heart out, Gerber

Sunday bounty

2011-08-07T12:35:00.002-04:00

Here's today's harvest from the garden: eggplant, peppers (serrano, chile, and bell), green beans, corn, cucumbers, zucchini, yellow summer squash, a few strawberries, leeks, and cherry tomotoes.

The raised bed gardens are definitely winding down now that most of the main crops are finished. Today, I ripped out a bunch of tired old plants to make room for the fall plantings of veggies and/or cover crop.

I have planted plenty of beans, carrots, and salad mixes to carry me into the fall growing season. We are still waiting on the sweet potato harvest, but I don't expect we will be able to dig those up for a while. Also, most of the peppers are just now turning red, so we should have most of that harvest finished in a few weeks.

onion and potato harvest

2011-07-24T14:20:00.001-04:00

Over the past few days I have been pulling up onions as their tops fall over and dry up. None of them ended up being very large, but they all had nice color and shape. I've already used some of the red onions for cooking and they were quite tasty.

"Copra" - 2.9 lbs, "Ruby Red" 1.62 lbs, grocery store yellow 3.41 lbs

Today, I pulled up the potato rows and I was pleasantly surprised by my harvest. I planted about 3 lbs of seed potatoes and I dug up over 21 lbs. Not too bad.

"Yukon Gold" potatoes

Guest gardener

2011-07-14T00:44:00.000-04:00

This week, my wife's family was visiting from out of town. And so, I am pleased to report that Dogstreet Farm was honored with the tiny green thumbs of our niece, Capitola.

Cappy is a busy little lady. Her days were booked with all sorts of important happenings: a trip to the local creamery to feed the baby calves, a wedding, naps, picking up rocks and sticks, chasing Edgar, running away from Copper, and generally looking cute at all times. She quickly got down to business and pointed out a yellow summer squash that was ripe for the picking.

"yellow?"

Being an obliging sort of uncle, I got out my trusty pruners and freed the squash. Cappy was very helpful and transported it to my colander along with several ripe cucumbers.

"yellow!"

Next, we advanced to the patch of green beans. Cappy really wasn't very interested in beans, however.

"yellow!"

An important part of maintaining any garden is quality control. Cappy brings all of her 18 months of experience to the field when she is taste testing berries. Here we can observe a master plying her craft:

Supervising the strawberry collection ... note the supportive hand on my knee.

Bending down for the taste test ... note her critical and ponderous expression.

This strawberry passed with flying colors.

Finally, Capitola and I worked on harvesting some red onions. These were all pretty small, unfortunately. But I still needed her help uprooting them. She may only be two and a half feet tall, but onions are no match for her.

Here is our harvest for the day. Cappy also helped picked some bluberries, but unfortunately not many made it back into the house for pictures.

"Corinto" cucumber, "Fresh Pick" green beans, and "Super Sweet 100" tomatoes

"Ruby Red" onions

Hopefully, this will be the first of many future appearances by Capitola at Dogstreet Farm. Until then, I'll just have to make due with the memories.

Uncle Lou loves you, Cappy.

Making baby food

2011-06-19T20:18:00.000-04:00

Today is Fathers Day. Although my daughter won't be born for another two months, I decided to spend my Sunday doing something fatherly: I made some baby food.

Yesterday, I pulled up my entire carrot patch -- over 3 lbs. For the past several weeks, I have been saving and shelling sugar snap peas -- about 2 lbs. The peas were previously blanched and frozen, so I just thawed them in some hot water and then pureed them. As for the carrots, I skinned them all, steamed them for about 10 minutes and then pureed them as well. I had to thin the puree a bit with water, so that it had smooth consistency. They both actually tasted pretty good.

When it was all finished, I had 24 ounces of carrots and 16 ounces of peas. All of the containers were placed in the freezer for storage.

Next spring, when our daughter starts eating food, we will have a nice stash of food to get her started. Soon, I'll have yellow squash and zucchini to use as well. And I know exactly what I will be feeding my baby: 100% pure organic vegetables. I'm very proud of that.

first carrot harvest

2011-06-18T01:16:00.000-04:00

On Thursday, I pullet up the first batch of carrots to test how they were growing. These are "Hercules F1" from Johnny's Selected Seeds. These were planted back in March. The carrots looked pretty good, I have to say. In general, they were 4-6 inches in length, had good color and tasted pretty good. I'll probably try to pull the rest up soon so I can get ready to plant a fall crop. Sarah chopped some up and we had a healthy, garden-fresh salad.

"Hercules F1" carrots and "Wildfire" salad mix

heirloom garlic harvest

2011-06-16T21:57:00.000-04:00

Last weekend, I harvested all of my heirloom garlic. Overall, I pulled up 108 bulbs. Back in September, I planted 110 cloves of seed garlic that I had purchased from D. Landreth Seed Co. So, I would say that this was a highly successful planting.

garlic fresh from the earth

the harvest curing in my office

"Tzan", 16 bulbs

"Chesnok Red", 23 bulbs

Italian, 22 bulbs

"Nootka Rose", 47 bulbs

raspberry picking

2011-06-13T23:18:00.000-04:00

The raspberries are now in bloom here in Maryland. My two year old raspberry bramble finally has some ripe fruit. We were only able to pick about half a dozen so far, but they were really tasty!

While I was walking Copper this past weekend, I found these berries by the side of the road. After some Googling to confirm that they weren't lethal, I decided that they were black raspberries. I picked almost a quarter pound of these berries and there are tons left. Not only do they taste great, but they're free!

my new cucumber trellis

2011-06-13T23:01:00.000-04:00

After much delay, I finally got around to building my new cucumber trellis this weekend. In the past, I've used a variety of approaches to grow cucumbers vertically: tomato cages, trellis netting, and even my porch railing. However, these methods either were not sufficiently sturdy or prevented proper air flow around the fruit and led to disease. Hopefully, my new trellis will be both sturdy enough to support the weight of vines and fruit while providing ample room for air circulation and easy harvesting.

Basically, I started with the basic frame that I used for my pea trellis. However, instead of using plastic netting, I wove a net using sisal twine. Here is how I made the trellis netting:

First, I needed a sturdy fastener to anchor the twine to the frame. I used 3/4" galvanized poultry net staples. These were nice because I could loop the twine through them.

The staples were nailed about 6 inches apart on the top, bottom, and sides of the frame. Conveniently, my pencil was about that length and served as a spacer. I left about a 1/4" of space under the bend of the staple in order to thread the twine.

Next, I threaded the horizontal parts of the trellis through one staple and then tied down both ends on the opposite side. Thus, each level had two pieces of twine.

Next, I wove in the vertical parts. For these, I anchored one end of the twine to the bottom of the frame and the wrapped the twine around each horizontal level once. It was important to pull the twine tight at each level to minimize sagging of the trellis later when it was covered with vines and fruit.

After threading through the staple on the top of the frame, I wove my way back down the netting by wrapping the twine around each intersection on the opposite side. Hopefully, my meaning is made clear by the picture.

After many knots and a lot of patience, I had a trellis net.

To "lock" the trellis frame into my raised bed frame, I hammered two nails into each end of each base. These nails will serve to grasp the bed frame and prevent it from slipping off.

After hauling this beast of a trellis into the garden and raising it up onto the garden bed, I easily trained my cucumber vines into the netting. A bonus of the double twine in the netting is that it can gently squeeze the cucumber tendrils and hold the vine in place until they naturally curl and tighten around the netting. This makes training a whole lot easier.

Well that's my new cucumber trellis. In total, it probably cost me about $25 in materials and about 2 hrs of my time to build it.

Garlic harvest, Tzan

2011-06-08T22:55:00.000-04:00

Today, I harvested the first batch of garlic from the garden (16 bulbs). These are a turban artichoke softneck variety called Tzan, which were originally collected from the Shandong province of China. They are supposed to be very hot. The sent up scapes earlier in the season and I can confirm that even those were really spicy. More than half of the bulbs were 2.5 inches in diameter -- a very good size. The purple and pink streaks on the wrappers are really beautiful.

These garlic will have to cure for a couple of weeks so that the bulbs can extract whatever remaining energy is left in the greens and so that the wrappers dry up for storage. I didn't bother washing them because I didn't want the bulbs to rot. I mostly just dusted off the big chunks of soil for now. Once the wrappers dry out, I can just slip off the dirty outer layer to make them more presentable.

Right now, I have them drying on the wire rack that I use for seed starting, which is located in my home office. Needless to say, my office has quite the aroma at the moment.

Shelling and storing Sugar Snap peas

2011-06-07T21:37:00.000-04:00

This year I planted peas, not so much because I like eating them myself, but rather because I wanted to make my own baby food for our new daughter that we're expecting this summer. So, I am freezing as much of this year's harvest as possible. Here's how I did it.

I collected about half a pound of pea pods over the past few days and I have been storing them in the refrigerator. I think that some of these may have been harvested a day or two early, but I am still getting a sense of when pea pods are actually ready for picking. Anyway, I rinsed them off first and discarded any of the really funky-looking pods.

First thing to do was to pull the string off the pod, starting at the end opposite of the calyx (where the flower originally was located).

Next, I found that it was easiest to score the pod with a knife before opening it. Sometimes, I found this was not necessary. But again, this may have something to do with how ripe the pods were.

Once the pod is open, I just nudged the peas out with my thumb.

I briefly blanched the peas in boiling water for about a minute and then strained and dried the peas on a dish towel.

Once the peas were dry, I popped them into a ziplock freezer bag and into the freezer. So far, I only have about a cup of shelled peas from all the pods that I've harvested. I'm not sure that I'll be able to make that much baby food this season, but she's gonna eat every bit of it!

A ditch lily in bloom

2011-06-06T23:10:00.001-04:00

Last spring, I transplanted some tubers from the woods beyond the fence line to a few barren spots in the yard. The leaves grew pretty well last year, but nothing to exciting happened. They came back this year and over the past week or two they sent up tall flower stalks and we have been eagerly awaiting their blooms. Well, this past weekend they finally opened to reveal these beautiful orange flowers.

I've been trying to identify the species and I believe it to be a daylily known as the ditch lily, Hemerocallis fulva. It turns out that this is an invasive species in many parts of the eastern U.S. Luckily, these flowers are separated by either great distance or cement from the more important parts of my flower and vegetable gardens. They are unable to set seed and spread only by tubers underground.

Personally, I think this is one weed that I can learn to live with.

Sunday in the garden

2011-06-05T17:42:00.001-04:00

This past week was a hot one, and some of the spring vegetables are starting to look like the temperatures are taking a toll on them. The peas, spinach, and garlic are all nearing the end of their days. Luckily, lots of plants are just now starting to hit their prime.

Here is the garden today, with the row covers undone. I can definitely tell that these covers are helping to prevent insect damage and maintain soil moisture. However, some plants are still being eaten. So, I have begun a weekly spraying with neem oil. Neem oil (an extract of the neem tree) supposedly has a broad activity against insects, bacterial and fungal diseases but is safe for use on vegetables, according to the EPA.

The potatoes are now busting out of the canopy, and have begun to set flower buds. In the furrow between the rows, bush beans are now growing. The squash and zucchini are also now setting flower buds, as are the eggplant and peppers.

potatoes and bush beans

yellow summer squash

eggplant

bell pepper

The snow peas never recovered from the storm last week, but the snap peas are still doing well. There are lots of pods on the vines, but very few flowers. So, I assume that the end of the harvest is near. I have been shelling, blanching and freezing the peas that I have harvested so far. Today, I just learned that you can eat the whole pod of this type of pea. Oh well, live and learn.

sugar snap pea pods

All four varieties of tomatoes now have flowers, and some are already fruiting.

cherry tomoatoes

The basils are now well established, but I want to wait until they are a little taller before I starting picking any leaves. I don't want to stunt their growth too much and I'd like for them to grow as tall as possible before the tomato plants start shading them out. The Greek basil is pretty cool. I think that next year I might just plant a bunch of these as annuals in the flower garden.

basil, Italian and "Red Rubin"

Greek basil, "Spicy bush"

Finally, I decided to test the garlic crop today by pulling up one plant of the softneck variety called "Tzan." This particular plant had a medium thickness stalk and it has a very nice size bulb. Some of the plants have stalks at least twice as thick so I expect some huge garlic. I really like the pinkish-purple streaks on the wrapper of this variety. I will wait about another week or two to harvest the bulk of the crop, as most of the stalks are still pretty green. But I am going to cut back on watering now so that the wrappers can dry a bit and to prevent and splitting of the bulbs.

Memorial Day weekend mega-post

2011-05-28T22:17:00.000-04:00

It's been a ridiculously hectic week at work, and so I can think of no better way to decompress and kick off my Memorial Day weekend than to get my hands dirty and to take some photos of my lovely fruits and veggies.

We begin our blogtastic voyage in the strawberry patch. In my previous posts, these plants were covered up by a rowcover but they are now free from those restraints to spill out of the bed. This has been an unusually wet spring and the constant humidity of the cover was causing powdery mildew to start growing on the leaves. Thankfully, a few days drying in the sun seems to have cleared this up. There are a now a few berries too.

Ain't nothing gonna break my stride,
Nobody's gonna slow me down,
Oh no, I've got to keep on moving ...

first red berries!

Next, we turn to the alliums -- scallions, garlic, onions, and leeks. They are all loving this rain. The scallions are around 8-10 inches tall now, and will be ready to begin harvesting soon. However, the oregano blob has other plans for this patch of dirt. If I don't cut the oregano back soon, then I'm going to lose most of one row. Anybody need some oregano?

scallions

Here is the garlic jungle. It's getting tough to walk through here now. Last week, I mulched this garden with a bunch of grass clippings. It seemed to work really well for last year's crop by maintaining a good moisture level in the soil. We are still working on the last bulb of last year's garlic harvest. If 20 bulbs lasted us an entire year, what are we going to do with 120 bulbs? Oh boy.

The onions and leeks under this hoop house have some new neighbors this week. These are the various chile, bell, and sweet pepper plants. Onions are great companion plants for peppers and tomatoes, and will help to deter pests from the peppers.

The potatoes have hit their stride now and are starting to push the limits of their hoop house. I've already hilled the plants twice, which will help prevent greening of the potatoes. In the furrow that was left in the middle after hilling, I planted some bush beans. No space will be wasted this year!

This weekend, I also planted the concurbit bed. At the far end of this bed are the cucumbers, which will be trellised. I hope to build that trellis this weekend, if the weather holds up. In the front half of the bed is my tres milpas experiment. Corn shoots are now poking up, and I just planted the yellow squash and zucchini. The squash and zucchini will grow low around the corn, maximizing moisture and minimizing weed growth. Once the corn is about a foot tall, then I'll plant pole beans to climb up the corn.

I was hoping to also post about how great my peas were doing, but they suffered a blow from Mother Nature last night. A strong thunderstorm blew through and somehow knocked over the trellis. This amazes me since it was anchored with nails bent over the feet of the trellis. Anyway, the thing fell over and closed on it self, simultaneously chopping and crushing most of the snow peas. This is really frustrating since the peas were basically at their peak this week. I did my best to support the damaged vines, but I'm not sure if they will recover ...

it's touch and go ...

it used to be impossible to see through the trellis

some of the survivors

A few random updates ...

first and second sowing of salad greens

cilantro seedlings have emerged

carrots

And now for a brief gardening equipment interlude ...

the new rain barrel and Mason bee lodge

'60s era garden tools from my Aunt Cora ... so retro!

my friendly neighborhood orb spider

The raspberry bramble is almost finished with flowering and fruits are starting to form.

The blueberries finished flowering long ago, and are now heavy with fruit. I think we should have ripe berries in about two weeks or so.

This year's fennel crop is looking much better than last year's. I think that the excess water is doing well for it. Also, I read that keeping the bulbs covered with soil will promote better growth. So, I topped this planter up with an extra two inches of soil. If you're wondering why these guys are in a planter, it's because fennel is allelopathic -- it kills other plants.

The swiss chard is not as pretty as the plants in the catalog, but the leaves taste great. We've already had it for dinner twice. Next year, I think that I'll plant a lot more because the leaves really shrink a lot when you saute them. A half pound of leaves probably ended up yielding only half a cup of cooked chard.

The sage and thyme have come back with a vengeance this year. They are in need of a serious pruning before they engulf the rosemary, lavender, and mint.

Lastly, my little oak tree has come back to life. Maybe by the end of the season, the trunk will actually be bigger than the leaves ...

Well, this blogtastic voyage has now come to and end. Happy Memorial Day!

A short break from the rain ...

2011-05-19T23:44:00.000-04:00

... was all I needed to snap enough pictures for this blog post. It has been raining more or less daily for the past week or so. At first, I was excited about all the rain so that my young transplants wouldn't dry out. However, now I am starting to get concerned that we are getting too much rain and that my garden is going to suffer for it one way or another. For the moment though, things are still looking very good.

Now that Mr. Potato has passed on to the big garden in the sky, I can now focus my attentions on the main crop of Yukon Gold potatoes. The growth of these spuds is quite variable, from the 10 inch tall plants shown below to some plants that are only now emerging from the soil. These large plants on the southern side of the bed, and perhaps that side warms better than the back side where most of the smaller plants are found. Also, I didn't chit my potatoes before planting them. Maybe I can try that next year.

potato, "Yukon Gold"

The first two rows of salad mix should be ready to harvest in the next week or. This is the "Wildfire" mix from Johnny's that we liked so much last year. I have to say that it doesn't seem to have as many red leafy greens as I remember, but maybe the colors will come out more with time. I have also sown two additional rows for a second harvest.

"Wildfire" salad mix

I think there is finally some hope that I can grow carrots. The greens on this year's crop look ten times better than anything I had last year. This year, I am using a variety called "Hercules". I thinned about half of the carrots about two weeks ago, but I think that they are probably due for another thinning this weekend.

carrot, "Hercules"

In the perennial vegetables bed, two of the three new rhubarb plants have emerged and are looking very nice. The asparagus crows continue to produce progressively thicker spears, but I probably won't be able to harvest any asparagus until at least next year.

rhubarb

asparagus, "Jersey Knight"

The alliums are all loving this cool, wet weather. I have about 50 onion, 12 leeks, and 110 garlic planted throughout my various garden beds. The other day I was able to harvest some garlic scapes for snacking during my chores in the yard. I ate about a half dozen scapes, but then I couldn't rid my mouth of the taste (and smell) of garlic for about two days.

onion, "Copra"

yellow onions (rear), leeks (front)

The row cover from my "tomato sauce bed" (tomatoes, basil, and onions) had to be removed because the cloth isn't large enough to cover the tomato cages that I put in this past weekend to support the new transplants. I'm not too worried about that since there wasn't much insect damage on any of these vegetables last year, and we are now well beyond the last frost date. The four tomato plants are all around a foot tall now.

tomato, "Big Beef"

basil, "Spicy Bush"

basil, "Sweet Italian" and "Red Rubin"

The pea plants are out of a control. The tallest vines are probably around four feet tall now. Also, I am very happy with how the pea trellis is working out. The tendrils of the plants seem to have no trouble latching on to the mesh. There are lots of flowers now, and so I hope to see some pea pods soon!

I'm going to try to keep the eggplants protected under a row cover for as long as possible. Last year, the plants were devoured by all sorts of bugs. They look pretty good since they were transplanted outside last weekend, but as you can see from the picture, bugs will always find a way to munch on plants.

eggplant, "Nadia"

Finally, the new strawberry bed looks fabulous. These guys are also going to be keep under a tent for as much of the season as possible. I am amazed by how intensely green they look. I guess that I must be doing something right. Best of all, it looks like we'll have strawberries soon.

strawberry, "Quinalt"

Sarah already has dibs on this one

Well, that's the end of this mega post. If the rain ends any time soon, maybe I'll be able to blog again ...

Potato and radish harvest

2011-05-11T22:50:00.000-04:00

My experiment/practice growing potatoes in a kitty litter pail has come to an end. Mr. Potato, as he was known affectionately to his compatriots here at Dogstreet Farm, had been suffering from a yellow pallor for at least two weeks now. There were not many leaves left on his stems and it was time to finally put Mr. Potato to rest.

So, after dumping out the soil from the pail, I was happy to discover these eight small potatoes. None are equal in size to the potato that was originally planted, but I figure that this wasn't too bad of a harvest from a potato primarily grown indoors during winter in a kitty litter pail. In total, they weighed in at 0.61 lb.

Today, I also pulled up the remaining radishes. In general, they are pretty small, but they taste good. These were all planted way too close together and I never thinned them. My second sowing is just starting to germinate now, and these are spaced much better. Hopefully, the second harvest will be a little heftier.

Sweet potatoes and basil

2011-05-01T22:44:00.000-04:00

For the past 12 weeks or so, I have been growing my sweet potato slips indoors in pots on a sunny window sill. The longest vine was about 18 inches long, whereas the remaining three plants were about 8 inches to a foot in length. The plants seem quite healthy and the weather here has been unusually mild, so I decided to plant these slips outdoors.

I am going to try to control my vines a bit and have them grow vertically rather than sprawling about the soil and encroaching upon my salad greens in the next section over. To do this, I joined together two tomato cages and stabilized the structure with some short stakes made of PVC pipe. The four plants were then set in the four corners of the cage.

Given the height of the tomato cages, I was no longer able to use a single piece of Agribon to protect the entire bed. So, I wrapped the tomato cages in their own piece of fabric and then married the two pieces together with a bunch of binder clips and some twine.

Here is the view inside of the row cover from the opposite end of the garden bed. As you can see, there is airflow between the two sections of row covers. In the foreground, these are my carrot seedlings after thinning to about an inch apart. I will probably have to do another thinning in a few weeks.

In other news, the Copra (front) and Ruby Ring (rear) onions are growing strong in the "tomato sauce bed". This bed will house tomatoes, onions, and basil. My tomato seedling are about six inches tall under the grow lamps in my home office, but I will probably wait at least another week before I dare put those outdoors.

However, I had no such fears about transplanting my basil today. After cleaning out all the weeds, they were all set in the soil.

basil, "Sweet Italian"

basil, "Spicy Bush"

basil, "Red Rubin"

a modest first harvest

2011-04-30T23:47:00.000-04:00

radish, "Easter egg"

Today, I officially harvested the first vegetables of 2011. These radishes were about the size of a large marble, but tasted great. I probably should have thinned my radish rows long ago, but I finally did that today. There are many radishes still in the rows, but they still need another week or so of growth. I will sow two more rows tomorrow for a late Spring harvest.

Spring flower blossoms

2011-04-25T23:38:00.002-04:00

blueberry "Chippewa"

tulip

creeping phlox

Asiatic lily

tulip

Tulipa bakeri

hosta

fritillaria

fritillaria "Fox's Grape"

my new pea trellis

2011-04-25T23:17:00.000-04:00

One of my recent DIY projects was to build a pea trellis. Here is how I did it.

The trellis consists of two 6' x 4' rectangles, with a cross brace in the middle of the 6' sides. These were fastened together with 3" decking screws. The lumber used here are 2" x 4" untreated studs. Although I might not have the carpentry skills to make perfect 90 degree angles, these frames are very strong. To give the trellis some protection against the elements, I sealed the wood in boiled linseed oil.

For a growing support, I tacked 1" UV-resistant black plastic netting to the frames. I tried to make the netting as a tight as possible so that there wouldn't be too much sagging under he weight of the vegetables.

Finally, I wanted to make this trellis collapsible for storage during the winter so I added to brass door hinges at the top, which I salvaged from one of my other remodeling jobs around the house.

The trellis frame just sits on top of the frames of my existing garden beds. Although the weight alone makes the trellis quite stable, I decided to bend a few nails around the base of each side to lock things in place a bit better.

To train the pea plants onto my trellis, I took two approaches. At the base of each frame, I try to weave the young plants into the netting to get them started up the sides. For plants in the middle, I hung twine from the top of the hinge region. To weight the twine, I tied some old cabinet knobs to the ends of each string. Then, I just try to wrap the plants around the twine. They don't stay very well at first, but after a few days of training, they hold on pretty well.

Tuesday tuber report #5

2011-04-25T22:53:00.000-04:00

My kitty litter pail potato growing experiment has been ongoing for three months now, and the spud we have lovingly dubbed "Mr Potato" is still plugging along. I will be the first to admit that this plant is far from looking healthy: The stems are leggy and no longer able to support themselves and the leaves are brownish with little red spots. However, new leaves continue to emerge and there is no evidence that the plant is in imminent danger of dying. Mr Potato is obviously no longer an indoor potato. He has been living outside for about three or four weeks now, since the temperatures have been pretty mild.

But now that I've had my "practice", it's time to plant some proper potatoes. My order of Yukon Gold seed potatoes arrived about a week or so ago from Johnny's Selected Seeds. I had previously prepared two long trenches in one of the raised beds, piling the excess dirt in the middle for later use. In total, I planted twenty spuds in this bed. You can't really tell from this picture, but these were the most pristine potatoes that you have ever seen. At $20 for five pounds, I would expect nothing less.

After covering the seed potatoes in a bit of soil, I went about erecting a hoop house for this bed. I am currently in the process of attaching hoops to most of my garden beds. Given the exponential rise in stink bugs in my area and last year's losses to other insects, I have decided to take preventive measures and use row covers wherever feasible.

To make my hoops, I bought 10 ft lengths of 1/2 inch PVC pipe that I subsequently trimmed to around 8 ft in length using a hack saw. The hoops were then attached to the outside of the bed using pipe brackets

Finally, I stretched Agribon-19+ row cover over the hoops and secured everything with binder clamps to the PVC pipe. Although the cover is lifted up in the photo below, these row covers are usually tied down to nails hammered into the end boards of each garden bed.

I have been surprised by the durability of these makeshift hoop houses. In recent weeks, we have experienced some quite heavy downpours with strong winds. The only effect on the row cover is that the ends often come loose in high winds. Other than that, they are working quite well and my seedlings seem happy.

Sunny Sunday

2011-04-17T22:29:00.001-04:00

After last night's torrential rains, there was a welcome respite today of sunny weather. Plants throughout the yard are in flower and so I took the opportunity to take some pretty pictures.

These grape hyacinths have multiplied at least two or three fold since last spring. They seem determined to escape into the lawn as I keep finding flower stalks popping out from under the rock border.

grape hyacinths

The Grecian windflowers share the small circular plot in the lawn with the grape hyacinths. They are a new addition this year. Although I think they're pretty, I was expecting them to be taller. They're only about 2-3 inches in height. I suppose that I should read my catalogs more closely before I buy things.

Grecian windflowers

I was happy to find that the fritillaria are blooming this year. They have been growing in a shady spot behind the house for two years now, but there were only greens last year. In retrospect, I worry that I may have confused them with grass and ripped them out last season. Oops!

fritillaria

These wild tulips are growing in a mulched rocky island in the middle of the lawn. They were an impulse buy at Home Depot. You know what I'm talking about. Home Depot and Lowe's both have those boxes and bags of fruit bushes and flower bulbs at the front entrance. They're usually crazy cheap and I just can't help myself. So far, only the yellow ones have opened. But I think that there will be some additional colors since the leaves on the unopened plants are a completely different shape.

wild tulips

For some reason, my daffodils are late bloomers. Every place I look on my way to work I have seen blooming daffodils for at least two weeks now. But mine only decided to open in the past day or two. I'm not sure if it is an issue of sun exposure or poor soil, but I might need to move these guys to a new spot.

daffodil

In the shade garden, the bleeding heart plant is growing very nicely for its first year. It's about five inches tall now. I can't wait until it flowers.

bleeding heart

Finally, the raspberry bush is out of control. Every time I look, there are more canes popping up. At last count, I think there were ten. By the way, this is another Lowe's impulse purchase.

raspberry, "Latham"

Well, that's it for this Sunday garden tour. I hope to get back into the swing of blogging again soon. Lots of stuff is happening in the vegetable gardens and I need to find time to post more updates. Until next time ...

strawberry bed planting

2011-03-17T20:59:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, my order of 25 strawberry plants arrived from Park Seed Co. The variety that I purchased is an everbearing (day neutral) type called "Quinalt". I wasn't really expecting to receive the plants this week, so the new frame for the strawberry bed was still empty. Luckily, Lowe's was having a 50% off sale on garden soil today so I was saved. Clearly, this was a gardening emergency, so I took off from work early today. In total, I used 6 cubic feet of Miracle-Gro garden soil and about 2 cubic feat of leaf compost.

I should really get something for these blatant product shots

I tried to space the plants about 6-8 inches apart in all directions, being sure not to bury the crowns. Afterwards, I gave everything a good watering.

As I was cleaning up the driveway, I found about a half dozen earth worms underneath a bag of compost. They looked pretty sad living on a wet concrete slab, so I decided to upgraded their living arrangements.

I can't believe how sad these worms look

The worms seemed much happier in the new strawberry bed. And now they can get to work at aerating the new soil for me. So, everybody made out well in the end.

It's like night and day ... worms don't get much happier than this

I covered up the strawberry bed with some old opaque painting tarps so that the soil will stay moist for a few days and also so that the young plants don't get burned by the sun. Plus, it should keep the soil a little warmer and jump start root system development.

signs of spring

2011-03-17T20:29:00.000-04:00

crocus blossoms greeting me

swelling blueberry buds

daylillies emerging

I'm so glad that spring is near.

Tuesday tuber report #4

2011-03-09T20:00:00.000-05:00

Ok, I know it's Wednesday, but I was busy yesterday and I didn't want to postpone the TTR for yet another week. Get over it.

The orange sweet potato slips have grown tremendously since my last post about them. It's hard to tell in this picture, but they have really pretty purple highlights at the base of the leaves.

The root growth has also been quite good. It seems like just dropping the potato in the tub of water was much more effective than the toothpick support method that I used with the yellow potato. On that potato, none of the roots are attached to the slips. They're at the other end of the potato.

roots attached to the slips = good

roots not attached to the slips = not useful

The orange sweet potato slips were definitely ready to be planted in soil, so I broke off two slips with good root development. They came off really easily -- just a little snap.

pre-extraction

free at last

I planted two of the slips in one gallon pots with store bought garden soil. The weather is still too unpredictable to plant these guys out, but the soil will enable them to develop even better roots and they'll also get some fertilization.

As for the yellow sweet potato slips, they are growing well but have no roots. So, I snapped off the toothpicks and dropped the whole potato into the pickle jar of water to get some roots growing on these slips.

this guy's going to sweet potato summer school

In other tuber related happenings, the kitty litter pail potato experiment trudges onward and upward. The greens are probably about two to three feet tall now, although they are pretty gangly looking. I'm still working on making a good support system for this container, so there are just paint stirrers in there for now. The plant still appears to have the leaf curling problem, but generally looks good. There was a brief drainage (and over-watering) issue that resulted in some funktastic-smelling water seeping out of the bottom, but that was rectified by two days in the sun, limited watering, and plenty of Febreeze.

I was also excited to discover the first flower bud. Hopefully, it will open ...

finally, a Sunday morning in the garden

2011-02-27T22:43:00.000-05:00

Today was a gorgeous Sunday here in western Maryland -- reasonably sunny, calm air, and about 50 degrees in the sun. So, after a walk with Copper, he and I set about tidying up the yard and various gardens.

not afraid to get his paws dirty in the garden

The seed packets told me that I should have planted my peas and scallions about two weeks ago, but that wasn't very realistic with a snow blanket about four inches deep. Most of the snow is gone now, but I quickly discovered that most of the beds are still frozen towards the bottom. This side of the house doesn't get that much sun at this time of year, therefore the ice clumps weren't that surprising. So, all I could really do is turn over some of the clumps in hopes that they would thaw out faster.

Luckily, the beds in the back left were workable and I could sow snow peas and sugar snap peas. I tucked them in with row cover to keep them a tad warmer.

This year, I am starting a strawberry bed. I built this odd-shaped frame about a week ago. The reason that I didn't make something more rectangular is because the driveway curves in this part of the yard and I didn't think that a full bed would fit. In retrospect, I'm sure that other shapes would have been a more effective usage of the space, but this design looked really good in my head for some reason. And no, you're eyes are not deceiving you ... there are no right angles in this shape. I wish that I could claim that was an intentional design feature. Oh well, it will hold dirt. That's all that matters.

Damn it, Jim. I'm a doctor, not a carpenter.

The flower beds are still pretty desolate, but I did some cultivation today to loosen up the mat of mulch and leaves left over from the winter. I also added another blueberry bush today.

I was excited to find that crocus and tulip stems are beginning to emerge from the earth.

crocus pocus

tulip

This year, the front porch garden will be a plot of garlic. There should be about 100-115 garlic bulbs by the end of the season. With the recent warm temperatures, the stems that grew last fall are springing back to life.

Finally, here's a shot of an ongoing project behind the fence line. I am building myself a compost bin. I made the frame out of store-bought 2x4's. It measures 8 ft long by 4 ft deep by 4 ft high. Right now, I am in the process to making the sides for the bins. For this, I am using the baseboards that I am tearing out of my house as we do some remodeling. I obviously have a way to go yet, but that isn't stopping me from dumping kitchen scraps and shredded paper into the frame. I really don't care if a few pieces of moldy bread are stolen by wildlife until the bins are complete.

Well, that concludes today's adventures in gardening. Until next time ...

Tuesday tuber report #3

2011-02-22T12:14:00.000-05:00

The kitty litter pail potato plant has now been relocated to a sunny window with an eastern exposure. The fluorescent lamp just wasn't big enough to provide light to all of the leaves any longer. However, even with the new location, it looks like the stems of the plant are getting leggy.

Unfortunately, I am getting worried that there may be more problems with this plant than just poor sun exposure. The leaves are all curling downwards and some are getting necrotic. To me, this seems like a leaf curl virus infection, but I'm not sure. All of the leaf curl virus pictures I have found so far describe the leaves curling upwards, not downwards. I suppose that this might also be some sort of nutrient deficiency. Hmmm ... maybe I gloated too soon about having success with store bought potato seed.

The sweet potato slips are still growing. Soon, I think I'll have to pot the slips from the orange potato. The yellow sweet potato still has a long ways to go.

Tuesday tuber report #2

2011-02-15T19:23:00.000-05:00

The kitty litter planter potato continues to grow! It's now peering out above the rim of the container.

So, I added another four inches of soil to the container. I'm really happy with the growth so far, especially since the fluorescent lamp that I'm using is only 24 watts.

On the sweet potato front, there are now some good slips forming. They're still purple, but I think that they should start greening up soon.

However, these are nothing compared to the slips on this sweet potato, which was kindly donated by my friend Aura. I think this is an orange sweet potato and my original one was yellow.

In a few more weeks, I'll set these slips into soil to root and grow some more before transplanting to the garden. That's all for now. See you next Tuesday ...

potato practice progress

2011-02-11T19:39:00.001-05:00

My indoor potato growing experiment is nearly a month old now, and there has been huge progress.

measuring up nicely

Today, this young plant stands in at 7 inches tall. There has been quite a growth spurt in the past week or two, probably because the stem is getting closer to the fluorescent lamp.

nice root growth, but not good for edible potatoes

I was hoping to waiting until it was a little taller and more leafy before I started adding more soil, but I noticed that roots were starting to poke out of the soil. I've been reading that this sort of thing can lead to green potatoes, so I decided to take action.

please do not allow children to play in your potato planter

I dumped about 2-3 more inches of soil into the container, which covered up the roots nicely and still left about 5 inches of foilage above the soil line. There really wasn't much in terms of leaves at points on the stem lower than this, so I don't think that this should stress the plant much.

Now that this is working out so well, I am thinking about starting a second kitty litter box planter. Two of these might give me few pounds of potatoes well before any of my outdoor crop will be even close to harvesting.

onion seedlings

2011-02-05T15:12:00.000-05:00

My onion seedlings have germinated! Yay!

I realize that this might not be that exciting to everyone else, but with the cold and snow outside, these little blades of green remind me that there is hope for sun and warmth again one day. Most of these germinated in only 48 hrs, and I'm sure the rest should be out by the end of next week.

Tuesday tuber report

2011-02-01T20:11:00.000-05:00

I am pleased to report both of my indoor tuber experiments have shown their first signs of life.

potato leaf poking through

For the past few days, my kitty litter box potato has been living in the warmth of my office. The past few weeks were really cold here and I was getting impatient waiting for things to happen in the garage. While I was waiting for germination, I kept the lid on the box and so everything stayed very moist and warm. Lo and behold, I just opened the box and found this little guy poking through the dirt.

essential decor for any college dorm room

To make sure that there was enough light, I transitioned the container onto the top of my germination rack and gave it its own fluorescent lamp. It will now get about 12 hrs a day of light along with the other seedlings.

just testin' the water

Today was also the first sighting of a root on the sweet potato. The bottom looked a little mushy as first, but that seems to have cleared up now that roots are forming.

Finally, the first three eyes erupted on the top of the sweet potato. So, it seems like everything is moving along nicely. Now, isn't this more fun that just waiting for a box of slips to arrive in the mail?

sustainable seed starting

2011-01-30T23:32:00.000-05:00

Now is the time of year where all garden folk are assembling their supplies for the year's garden. On the top of most people's lists are seed starting supplies: seeds, lights, trays, and growing medium. In the past, I have used Jiffy peat discs and loose peat for starting my vegetable seeds and had great success. However, I just read this article in this month's issue Organic Gardening that has made me reconsider peat as a growing medium. Apparently, it may not be as sustainable as some of us think. Here's the link to the article:

Organic Gardening: Questioning Peat Moss

So, I have decided to try compressed coir discs this year. They are made from coconut husks, which I'm told is a more sustainable resource. Jiffy 7C discs are relatively cheap (about a dime each) and actually seem to absorb water a lot faster than peat pellets. I had a little trouble finding them for sale in small lots (less than 1000 count boxes), but I finally bought mine from FarmTek. Why not give it a try?

GY2011 garden plan

2011-01-30T23:14:00.000-05:00

I am very pleased to report that this is my 50th post for dirtology. Thanks to everyone who has followed this blog and supported my garden.

The beginning of the 2011 growing season (GY2011) is fast approaching. My main goal for this year is to plant more efficiently without overcrowding. So, I have prepared a precise scale drawing of my side gardens using graph paper. Each box of the grid is 6 square inches.

There will be one new addition of garden space to Dogstreet Farm this year: a strawberry bed. Sarah has been begging me for strawberries since I started these gardens, and I have presently run out of stupid reasons to continue avoiding it. I chose this odd pentagon shape not because I wanted to practice using my miter box but rather due to the fact that our driveway cuts close to the garden here. I don't look forward to the geometry that will likely be required for me to make those wood cuts.

Most of this year's seed order arrived recently, and as you can see I am relying heavily on Johnny's this year. Their catalog is extremely detailed and they give good information about disease resistance. I deliberately chose varieties with lots of resistance traits this year.

Asparagus: "Jersey Knight (F1)" This is only the second season for these crowns, so probably no harvest this year.

Basil: "Spicy Bush" This is a fine leaf variety that has a dome-shaped growth habit.

Basil: "Red Rubin" This purple basil was both colorful and tasty.

Basil: "Sweet Italian" A traditional Italian basil that has grown well for me since I started my garden.

Beans, bush: "Greencrop" Performed well during the 2008 season.

Beans, pole: "Fortex" These grew well last year, yielding beans almost 10 inches long.

Blueberry: "Duke" We got about a pint of berries last year. Hopefully this year will be a quart.

Carrot: "Hercules (F1)" After two lousy seasons with Danvers Half Long, I've moved on.

Corn: "Mirai" These didn't produce much corn last year, but it tasted pretty good. I am mainly planting corn again to provide support for this year's "three sisters" experiment.

Cilantro: "Santo" Supposedly very resistant to bolting.

Cucumber: "Corinto (F1)" A slicing variety with good disease resistance.

Dill: "Fernleaf"

Eggplant: "Nadia (F1)" Classic large Italian type.

Fennel: "Orion (F1)"

Leek: "Megaton (F1)"

Onion, bunching: "White Spear"

Onion, red: "Ruby Ring (F1)"

Onion, yellow: "Copra (F1)"

Onion, yellow: Seed saved from grocery onion that flowered last season.

Parsley

Peas, snap: "Sugar Snap"

Peas, snow: "Oregon Giant"

Pepper, bell: "Ace (F1)"

Pepper, cayenne: "Cheyenne (F1)"

Pepper, corno di toro: "Carmen (F1)"

Pepper, jalapeno: I have significantly scaled back on these this year, as they are very productive.

Pepper, serrano: "Serrano del Sol (F1)"

Pepper, sweet: "Ancient Sweets" I really need to avoid the blossom end rot with these this year.

Potato: "Yukon Gold"

Radish: "Easter Egg" Pretty colors.

Raspberry: This will be the second season for these canes, so hopefully there will be fruit.

Salad greens: "Spectrum Greens Mix"

Spinach: "Double Choice (F1)"

Squash, yellow summer: "Slick Pik YS 26 (F1)"

Strawberry, everbearing: "Quinalt" This will be the first season for these.

Sweet potato: Slips started from grocery potato.

Tomato: "Big Beef (F1)"

Tomato: "Defiant PHR (F1)" Super duper disease resistance.

Tomato, cherry: "Super Sweet 100 (F1)"

Tomato, heirloom: "Brandywine" My first attempt with an heirloom variety.

Zucchini "Plato (F1)"

And so it begins ...

Finally, I am pleased to reported that the first seeds of the season were sown today -- 64 onions. Last year, my onion seeds were sown directly. Hopefully, a little head start indoors will result in much larger bulbs this summer. We shall see.

starting sweet potato slips

2011-01-19T21:33:00.000-05:00

In keeping with the tuber theme of my last post, today I started the process of preparing sweet potato slips to plant in this year's garden. I am only planning on having about 4 plants in my garden this year, so it didn't make any sense for me to buy a whole bunch of slips from a seed house. Most of the vendors I looked at required me to buy a minimum of 12-15 slips.

I bought a fairly ordinary sweet potato at the grocery store today and simply pierced it with a wooden applicator stick that I got from my lab (I couldn't find any toothpicks in the house). The stick was inserted in the middle of the sweet potato such that about half of the stick was exposed on either side.

I pierced it again with a second applicator stick so that they roughly intersected in an 'X'. Finally, I placed the sweet potato in a pickle jar with some water in it. This will remain under my grow lights where it will get about 12 hours per day of intense light.

Now, we just wait for the slips to start sprouting. To be continued ...

indoor potato practice

2011-01-16T16:30:00.000-05:00

Not much has been happening around the garden in recent weeks, what with the holidays and the freezing weather and all that. But now that the seed catalogs are stuffing my mailbox, it is time to get organized for GY2011! Garden layouts are being drawn up, seeds ordered, and a new irrigation system is being planned. However, planning and research gets old after a while and I need to find a way to play in the dirt in any way that I can ...

they're watching you

I found these old potatoes in the pantry closet, and I decided that these would be perfect for honing my potato cultivation skills. This year, I ordered a bunch of Yukon Gold seed potatoes to plant in the garden. However, I have never grown potatoes and I thought it would be good to practice growing them indoors first. Now, I know what you're thinking: "You can't use grocery potatoes for planting! They're treated with chemicals! They're loaded with diseases! Oh no!" Well relax, this is just an experiment and these are supposedly USDA organic potatoes anyway. I promise, no compost or soil will be mistreated during the production of this blog post.

"Herrow? Ranybody in rere?" (Scooby-Doo voice)

I had been saving this giant kitty litter box for a while, because I thought that it would make a perfect planter. It is really tall so I should be able to get a fair number of potatoes in it. Also, I still had the trash can bottom left over from the dog waste composter -- perfect for use as a drainage saucer.

First, I took a hammer and a nail punch and poked a bunch of holes in the bottom of the box for drainage.

Next, I added some shredded cardboard at the bottom to minimize soil loss through the holes.

After adding about 2 inches of potting soil, I set my potato in the middle with the eyes facing up. The potato was then covered with soil to about an inch deep, which ended up being about one-third of the height of the kitty litter box.

Now, I know what you're thinking: This is not going to make the cover of Better Homes and Gardens. I admit that it's not really something that matches the decor of my kitchen or living room. Thankfully, I have a sunny window in my garage with a southern exposure that will be just perfect. The garage is insulated well enough to prevent any frosts, and should actually stay in the 40s or 50s on even the coldest days. Plus, I could always put the lid back on it at night to keep the soil warmer if necessary.

For now, the plan will be to keep the soil moist and wait for germination. As the plant grows, I will add additional soil to promote growth of more tubers until the pail is filled up. We'll see how it goes. I'll be sure to post updates in the coming weeks.

Waste Management

2010-12-05T17:19:00.000-05:00

It's freezing outside today and very windy. There's not much worth doing to the gardens at this point, so my time is free to pursue odd jobs and long delayed projects. Over the past week or so, I've been working on digging a "septic tank" to handle waste from our dog, Copper. Currently, I am just launching dog poop over the fence and into the brush beyond our yard. Although this can be quite entertaining, it's probably not the most hygienic solution to the problem. There are lots of commercially available dog waste composters available online, and also quite a few DIY designs as well. As such, I don't take any credit for this idea, but here's how I made mine out of a plastic trash can:

Step 1: Dig a hole.
This was much easier said than done. The soil in my area is a lovely combination of broken glass, limestone, and tree roots. (In a previous era, I think my property was the local dumping ground.) Basically, you need a pick axe any time you try to dig a hole deeper than six inches. After a few days and several aspirin, I managed to finish this measly 2-3 foot hole. In the process, I had to remove what was easily a 100 pound boulder. Yay. I decided to locate the composter pretty far from the house, and outside the fence line. I don't expect that it will smell much, but I didn't want to risk it.

the pit of despair

Step 2: Prepare the trash can.
I bought the cheapest can and lid that I could find. You can obviously use a bigger or smaller can, depending on how many or how big your dogs are. I think this one was 20 gal.

"How is this more exciting than playing fetch?"

Next, I cut off the bottom of the can, so that liquid waste can leach into the ground. I'm sure that bottom will get used somewhere else in the yard, just not sure how yet.

"Wow. You made a hole. You must be so proud of yourself."

Step 3: Put the can in the hole.
I sunk the trash can to with a few inches of the lip, basically up to the handles.

Next, I added some stones for drainage.

Step 4: Decorate the lid.
I was feeling artsy fartsy, so I made a stencil out of an old box of soda cans. Then I spray painted some paws on the lid. Note the sweet drop shadows I used here by staggering two coats of paint.

I didn't expect this shade to look so radioactive.

Step 5: Use and enjoy!
Now that Copper's outhouse was all ready, I collected a bucket of his unmentionables and dumped them into the composter. I also added a little septic tank starter to provide some bacteria to break it all down.

As I collect more waste, I'll just continue to dump it into the composter and add water occasionally to keep the bacteria happy. I'll probably pepper in some more septic tank starter once a month as well. I'm not sure yet how quickly the process with happen, especially with winter approaching. If I mix in some organic matter, I could probably get some useable compost for flower beds as well. However, I'm not sure that my gardening operation will ever be that hardcore organic.

Heirloom garlic planting

2010-11-16T19:49:00.001-05:00

Back in September, after the pepper garden was razed, I decided to plant some heirloom garlic for next season. I had surprisingly good success this year with just some ordinary supermarket garlic that I planted on a whim, so I figured that investing in some good quality seed stock would be exponentially better. I decided to purchase my garlic stock from D. Landreth Seed Company since they had a booth at a craft festival in our area back in the spring. They have a really nice collection of heirloom seeds and a neat artistically illustrated catalog. I've never bought from the before, but the seed stock that I received from them was gorgeous.

Chesnok Red

Nootka Rose

Italian

Tzan

The soil here is pretty fertile, but I freshened the plot up with a few bags of leaf compost anyway and gave everything a good once over with my cultivator. After gently breaking apart the cloves, I laid them out in rows spaced about 6 inches apart and pressed them about 2 inches into the soil. In total, I planted about 110 cloves. So next year's harvest should be big.

This past weekend, we already have plenty of green growth. Most of this will either die back or go dormant once it gets really cold around here, but this early growth will help prevent the garlic from heaving out of the soil once it freezes. I've also covered everything in a thick layer of lawn clippings. I've found this is a great mulch and really minimizes weed growth.

Well, that it's for now. In June, I should have plenty of garlic necklaces for everyone!

welcome to dirtology!

2010-11-14T19:18:00.001-05:00

This will come as news to my regular blog readers, but I have been invited to mirror my dirtology posts on the website Grow Indie. Needless to say, I am pretty excited to now be a contributor to a real gardening website. This blog started out merely as a way for me to keep a record of my gardens and to send my mom pictures of the veggies that I had waiting for her. Who knew that people would find this blog a useful resource and were actually interested in reading what I had to say. To all of your that have been reading for the past year or so, thanks for your support!

Now, to my new readers on the Grow Indie site, I should probably provide a little introduction. My wife and I live in Keedysville, MD (hardiness zone 6B) an about a half acre of rocky clay. I have about 250 square feet of garden space, most of which is in the form of raised beds given the poor soil quality of our lot. We've only lived in our current home for about 2 years, and so the gardens are still maturing. Neverthless, I've had a lot of success thus far and I'm definitely growing enough vegetables to share with friends and neighbors. This year, we've also started learning to preserve our harvest by canning, making jellies, and bottling sauces. I'm definitely not 100% organic (especially when insects are devouring my crops), but I do my best and I'm always trying to find earth-friendly gardening practices. I especially like inventing ways to repurpose broken or discarded items in the gardens - they're free and less trash helps protect our environment. Although recently I have found myself wishing that I had pursued a career in agriculture, I spend the better part of my days working as a research scientist. I hope you all enjoy my blog, and I invite you all to find a little piece of earth and become a dirtologist yourself!

The results are in ...

2010-11-03T21:57:00.000-04:00

After a productive second season here at Dogstreet Farm, things have officially come to an end. In total, I harvested approximately 215 pounds of produce this year! Thanks to all those who supported my garden and enjoyed my produce.

GY2010 is winding down ...

2010-09-12T14:48:00.000-04:00

Well folks, the second harvest season here at Dogstreet Farm is slowly coming to a close. In the raised bed gardens, the tomatoes are still producing a bit, and my fall crops of lettuce and onions (under the shadecloth) reaching maturity. Other than that, I have torn everything else out and begun preparing the beds for next year.

The front pepper garden is still producing very well, with the big exception that blossom end rot is rampant. The very dry conditions we had in this part of Maryland were really hard on the peppers, I think. Forunately, this appears to have had no effect whatsoever on the jalapeno and habanero peppers.

Quite surprisingly, the raspberry twig that I planted this year has grown almost 3 feet this season. Hopefully, we will get a few berries next spring and summer.

Since I've been away on vacation for the past week, I had a lot of fruit to harvest. I guess I'll have to make some more jelly and hot sauce. Although I'm sure I'll miss all of this stuff in the winter, I am really starting to get tired of peppers ...

Lastly, I had a Martha Stewart moment yesterday and decided to make a wreath out of some thyme. We'll see how long it holds together.

Making salsa verde

2010-08-15T20:31:00.000-04:00

For the past several weeks, I have been collecting tomatillos as they fall from the plants' branches. They don't ripen all at once, so I've been storing them in the fridge (they store well for several weeks in the cold). Tomatillos have husks that vary in color depending on how long the fruits were able to ripen on the vine. The really mature ones get this neat purple blush. You can't cook them with husks on, so the first thing to do is remove those. The underlying fruit is really sticky, so I washed them in soapy water a few times to remove the stuff.

tomatillos, "De Milpa"

The de-husked tomatillos kinda look like little green apples, I think. You can eat them raw, if you like. They have a taste that is a cross between apple, tomato, and lemon. However, this post is about making salsa verde, so without further ado ...

tomatillos después de un baño

Cut the washed tomatillos in halves. I used three pounds for this recipe.

Place them core side down on a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil. Broil the fruit for about 5-10 minutes to give them a nice roasted flavor.

Combine the roasted tomatillos with the following:

1 cup of onions
1 cup cilantro leaves
1 cup lime juice
1 teaspoon sugar
4 seeded jalapeno peppers
5 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon cumin

Dump everything in a food processor, and chop it all to bits. At this point, put it in the fridge to chill and then enjoy with your favorite meal.

ta da! salsa verde

If you want to preserve the salsa verde for canning, be sure to simmer it in a large saucepan for about 20 minutes. I then canned mine in a boiling water bath canner.

for those men out there (like myself) who don't know what simmer looks like

I think this came out really well for my first attempt at salsa verde. It has a nice citrus and garlic flavor, with just a little afterbite from the jalapenos.

pretty enough for a blog post!

After the rains ... comes the harvest

2010-08-15T19:53:00.000-04:00

After a dreadfully dry July, it seems that the rains have finally come to visit us again here in August. I can already tell that the gardens and yard are starting to recover from their midsummer's wilt. However, many of the main season crops are now on their last legs. The cucumbers are are yellow and sad. The corn stalks are dead, and the beans and onions are gone. But there's still plenty left.

After a few weeks of babysitting under shadecloth, the salad mixes and arugula are now making a comeback for a nice late summer crop. I am bringing much of the first cutting to share with folks at work tomorrow. Also, the tomatillos have reached their full potential and I have already made some salsa verde (more in the next post). Lastly, I have more basil and parsley than I know what to do with.


grab bags o' salady goodness

The tomatoes are all still producing extremely well. I have caned several quarts of San Marzanos already. The Celebrity tomatoes have finally hit their stride -- I picked twenty five of these little guys today. I need to unload some of these at work. We're running out of things to do with all of them. Maybe I will use them for some hot sauce or more salsa.

I picked a few of the Ancient Sweets peppers today (the greenish ones), but they look pretty sad. Most of this type seem to be suffering from blossom end rot, so we'll probably just roast a freeze the good parts. I'm saving up a bunch of the cherry bomb/pimento peppers to make a new red jelly sometime this week.

Golden sweet onions

2010-08-08T11:45:00.001-04:00

A few weeks back, I blogged about my harvest of the Golden Sweet onions. After the tops withered in the sun for a day or so, I topped them and put them in the garage to cure. Well, the curing is done now, and they're now ready to store. Unfortunately, I don't have a root cellar, so this cool dark closet in our guest bedroom will have to suffice.

The final weigh in for these guys was 9 pounds from sixty bulbs!

Making jalapeno jelly

2010-08-08T11:33:00.000-04:00

So, you've got a ton of jalapenos and you're tired of salsa. What do you do? You make jalapeno jelly!

I have been using this recipe that I found online. I've made a few batches and I really like the taste. Very sweet and spicy, but not really too hot. It goes great with butter on a bagel.

First, collect your equipment:

blatant product shots

Next, blend up the green bell pepper and a dozen jalapenos in a food processor. I don't recommend that you take a sniff of this puree unless you're trying to clear out your sinuses.

definitely not a smoothie

Transfer the puree to a pan and add a cup and a half of apple cider vinegar. Bring to a boil and let simmer for 15-20 min. At this point, you should definitely open the windows in your kitchen and turn on your range exhaust. The boiling jalapeno/vinegar fumes are noxious.

double, double toil and trouble. fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

Filter out the pepper bits and seeds, and you should have about a cup of juice.

Return the juice to the saucepan, add a pinch of salt and four and a half cups of sugar. Mix until dissolved, and then bring the mix to a boil. Add the liquid pectin and some finely chopped jalapenos and mix. Finally, transfer the jelly to canning jars and boil in a large pot for about 25 minutes to sterilize the jelly.

Voila! You now have jalapeno jelly!

enjoy!

Mid-week harvest

2010-08-05T20:52:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I picked about 30 tomatoes weighing in at around 10 pounds of fruit. Also, it seems that the cucumbers are fighting back from the damage wrought by the cucumber beetles in the spring. I had one of each these today for lunch. Very tasty!

This weekend, I should be busy with canning these San Marzanos and also making another batch of jalapeno jelly. If I'm lucky, maybe I can convince Sarah to can some salsa as well.

Onion harvest

2010-07-29T20:52:00.000-04:00

This evening, I harvested my crop of Golden Sweet onions. Most of the tops had already collapsed and the necks were withering, so I decided to just pull out the whole lot so that I can make room for planting the fall crop of onions.

In all, there are about sixty bulbs here. If I had to guess, this is about 5 lbs of onions. Most are about two inches in diameter. These will dry in the sun for the next day or two, and then I'll cure them in the garage for a few weeks prior to storage.

July garden report

2010-07-25T19:40:00.000-04:00

The past few weeks have been painfully hot and dry around these parts. I've been having to water every day just to keep plants from wilting in the heat. Nevertheless, the pepper garden by the front porch is loving the heat. Besides, some say that hot weather only makes the peppers hotter. We shall see.

... but it's a dry heat ...

Despite losing two or three peppers to blossom end rot, the Ancient Sweets are growing like crazy. Some are almost seven inches long now.

The cherry peppers are laden with fruit as well, although I think that I contaminated my seed stock for this type of pepper because one the plants turned out to be a bell pepper of some sort.

please pardon the MiracleGro spots on the leaves

Most of the plants have tons of fruit, but I think that it is going to be a few more weeks before I can really start harvesting peppers. Nothing even has a hint of red yet. Luckily, I have already started picking jalapenos and made my first batch of jelly.

The raised bed gardens are a mix of good and bad news: The first batches of lettuce, beans, and scallions are all done now. I have started sowing onions and salad for the fall harvest under some shadecloth, but the heat is really trying the seedlings.

On the bright side, the tomatoes have finally begun to ripen. I have already harvested about 8 lbs of San Marzano tomatoes, which are awaiting canning. Plenty more of these are still on the vines, their weight just about collapsing the plant. Next year, I need to upgrade to a more serious trellis/cage system. These $5 cages just aren't going to cut it in the long term.

San Marzano tomatoes

After a late start, the Celebrity tomatoes are also beginning o ripen. I haven't picked any of these just yet, but there are a few huge ones almost ready.

Celebrity tomatoes

My corn crop seems to have stopped growing at around five feet -- rather smaller than the seven feet advertised for this Mirai white corn. All of the stalks have at least one or two ears, but the ears are kind of small. We picked two of the largest ears yesterday, and they tasted ok but not amazing. I think the lack of water has taken its toll on the plants. Also, ants seems to be eating holes in the corn tips. Oh well, maybe they'll be better next year.

The Golden Sweet onions are growing great this year. It already seems like they are going to be bigger than last year. The tops are starting to get a little yellow, but are still pretty lively. I'm hoping to harvest about twenty to thirty bulbs in a few weeks.

The eggplants are sad. I picked a small fruit the other day --- about 5 inches long. Most of the rest are only the size of tennis balls and don't really seem to be growing.

The cucumbers are very, very sad. They definitely have some sort of disease. However, we still have harvested a pretty good crop from these vines and they are still producing. Since the infection started, the cukes are now a little more crooked, but they still taste great. We have been making tons of pickles this year.

Luckily, we finally got a good soaking rain today. It won't solve all the problems, but it's a good place to start.

Developments in the raised bed gardens (Part III)

2010-06-26T22:26:00.000-04:00

The eggplants are now flowering, but they all seem to point at the ground and you can't see them. I'm not sure if this is normal or not, but they're now beginning to fruit so it must be ok.

eggplant flower (dirt view looking up)

baby eggplant

The tomatillos are growing well, flowering and have already produced those lantern things that I assume will turn into fruits. I say "assume" because my tomatillos never got past this stage last year. I read that this was because I only had one plant and that the fruits were not properly fertilized. Well, there are three plants this year, so they've got no excuses.

tomatillos

Is anybody in there?

Finally, the cucumber patch underwent major renovations today. The vines have already overwhelmed the first trellis netting so I installed another net on top of that one. I secured this one to four posts of rebar and made it extra taught by securing it to landscape stakes on the sides. I am hoping that this will be enough to support the weight of the vines and and fruits.

Underneath of the canopy of leaves, there are lots of flowers and young cucumbers. The long slicing cucumbers still need another week or so before the first fruits will be ready to pick, but the gherkins are ready to go. I picked the first three of those today.

"Straight Eight" slicing cucumber (not so straight)


"Alibi" gherkins - not sure what crime they have been accused of

Developments in the raised bed gardens (Part II)

2010-06-26T21:51:00.000-04:00

There isn't a lot going on the new asparagus bed, so I decided to plant a row of dwarf sunflowers down the middle of it. This is about as tall as they will get, but they have loads of flower buds on them. I figure that these little guys should attract of a lot of pollinators to my garden and will hopefully improve my yields. Plus, they're cute.

After some initial rabbit/deer troubles, the corn stalks are flourishing now. One of the stalks is already starting to show some corn silks. There are about thirty stalks of corn here.

But wait, what's this amongst the corn? Why, it's watermelon and bush beans. I'm not sure if there is really going to be enough sun and room for these underplantings, but I just can't help myself. At the very least, they might shade out weeds for the corn.

watermelon

bush beans

Speaking of beans, the pole beans have completely covered the teepee I built for them. Unfortunately, Japanese beetles have been feasting on the leaves. I've been trying to control the bug problem with neem oil. Today, I found about a dozen dead beetles, so I think the spraying is working.

beans bigger than my hand!

Developments in the raised bed gardens (Part I)

2010-06-26T21:32:00.001-04:00

Despite the recent dry spell, there has been a whole lot of growth in the gardens since the last update. It's actually starting to get difficult to walk between some of the beds because greenery is just falling all over the place. I had to spend a fair bit of time today staking, anchoring, and corralling various plants. I've been giving away (and accepting donations for) a lot of my produce already, and things haven't even peaked yet. To keep track of things, I've decided to keep a running total of my yields in the right column of the blog so that I can compare to next year's harvest.

Dogstreet Farm

I really would have thought that the bibb lettuce would have bolted by now, but the whole row looks fabulous. It tastes pretty good too! I've been giving it away left and right, but I just can't seem to make a dent in the mound of green.

bibb lettuce out of control

The "spicy mesclun" and "wildfire" salad mixes are also still going strong. I've cut down these rows twice already and it is still coming back for more. I was very happy with the tastes and textures of these greens and will definitely be planting another row or two soon.

salad mixes still going strong

The San Marzano tomatoes are taking over. This is my first time growing an indeterminate variety of tomato and I am just amazed at the size of these things. They're basically the same size as me now and already loaded with around ten full size tomatoes each. If they keep growing, I am going to have to get a ladder to pick them. The Celebrity tomatoes appear to have a more modest growth habit, but they are loaded with blooms as well. These guys had a late start in comparison to the San Marzanos, but I'm confident that they will also produce well.

tomatoes! tomatoes! tomatoes!

San Marzano's just waiting to ripen

Celebrity's just getting started

Front pepper garden update

2010-06-26T19:21:00.001-04:00

As usual, the peppers are off to a bit of a slow start. Right now, most of them are around 12-16" and most have relatively few flowers. I am thinking that the nitrogen must be a little high in the soil because they have been putting on heavy foilage. So, I bought some 0-10-10 fertilizer to promote more blossoming and fruit set. We'll see how that works out.

el jardin picante

So far, the only respectable looking fruits are on my "Maxibelle" peppers. These little guys are about an inch and a half long.

"Maxibelle" peppers

The parsley is looking good and tastes fabulous. I decided to plant fewer of these this year, because last year I had a ridiculous amount and ended up of freezing loads of it. I think we still have almost half a quart of pars-icles in the freezer.

parsley

You would think that I haven't pruned the oregano all season, but I literally cut it to the ground three weeks ago. It's out of control! If you know somebody who needs some of this stuff, send them my way.

the oregano forest

Finally, my first sunflower opened the other day. Summer is officially here.

"Sunny Smile" sunflower

Bring on the vampires. I'm ready!

2010-06-26T18:56:00.000-04:00

About a week ago, I harvested my garlic crop. Although they are by no means giant, these are definitely respectable for my first attempt at garlic cultivation. Plus, these were remnants from garlic we bought at the grocery. Definitely not prime seed stock. Anyway, I pulled up 23 bulbs. They've been curing in my office for the past week.

Today, I decided to try my hand at garlic braiding. After watching this video from Gardenerd.com on YouTube about a half dozen times, I think that I finally got it. It's not perfect, but I thought it was nice enough to hang up in the kitchen to continue curing.

Cabbage harvest

2010-06-22T21:32:00.000-04:00

Today, I harvested the six heads of savoy cabbage. I think that they all look pretty nice for my first attempt at this vegetable. In total, the harvest weighed in at just under 10 lbs. Hopefully, my mom will like them. I'm not one for cabbage myself.

savoy cabbage, "Alcosa"

Now, what should I plant in the free space left my the cabbage? Hmmm ....

But wait, there's more ...

2010-06-05T22:00:00.000-04:00

Copper and Bandit fighting over who is going to be in the blog first

blueberries

daylilies

"oh yeah, I'm in the blog first"

"damn it Copper, you're always in the blog first"

"whatever Copper, don't try to share the shot now. you're dead to me"

Raised bed gardens update (Part 3)

2010-06-05T21:53:00.000-04:00

I've run out of clever things to write at this point, so here are just some gratuitous vegetable shots:

fennel, "Zefa fino"

cucumbers starting to grow into their trellis

baby carrots, "Danvers half long"

tomatillos

Raised beds garden update (Part 2)

2010-06-05T21:47:00.001-04:00

Up and up and up! I swear, these pole beans grow at least six inches a day. This teepee that I crafted is about six feet tall, but I'm pretty sure that these guys will easily summit that. Supposedly, these vines will produce bean pods will be twelve inches long. Awesome. I'm going to have to get bigger pots.

pole beans, "fortex"

The peanuts are also coming along nicely. I think that their leaves are fun. They almost look like little green butterflies.

I'm totally gonna make Nutter Butters

The eggplants have been having a tough time of it. Two of the plants are barely growing, and this guy has been fighting a losing battle against what I think are cucumber beetles. I keep finding little orange eggs under the leaves. I sprayed everything with insecticidal soap the other day, but I haven't noticed any improvement yet.

eggplant, "Galine"

Another problem area in the garden is my bed of corn. Something, probably rabbits or deer, has been munching on the new sprouts. I erected this short fence with poultry netting, but that had no effect. I read somewhere that rabbits and deer don't like aromatic herbs, so put dried oregano, sage stems, and a lavender plant in there. Still, munching was observed. So, I decided to buy this sprayer at the garden center that guaranteed to repel everything. It basically consisted of rosemary oil, cinnamon oil, mint oil, and rotten eggs. It stunk! What is worse is that the sprayer was broken. So, every other time that I pumped the trigger it sprayed in my face instead of in the garden. So, all I really succeeded in doing was repelling my wife and dogs for the next 24 hours.

white sweet corn, "Mirai"

Raised beds garden update (Part 1)

2010-06-05T21:29:00.000-04:00

The garden is now hitting its stride. There's not much to do these days besides water, weed, and blog.

Dogstreet Farm

This week, I started cutting the lettuce mixes to eat for lunch at work. I have also started sharing the green onions. I am certainly going to have to start bringing loads of this stuff with me to distribute at work. Maybe I'll also setup a jar where people can turn their money into compost ...

bibb lettuce, "deer tongue"

arugula

"wildfire" and "spicy mesclun" salad mixes

spinach, "double choice"

onions galore

Today, I sowed two more strips of salad mixes under the cucumber trellis for mix summer. I also sowed more green onions between the existing lettuce strips. I am trying to maintain a more continual harvest this year by doing succession planting.

The San Marzano tomatoes (the back corners) are growing like crazy. They even started flowering this week. The Celebrity tomatoes are growing well now too, especially since I have been fertilizing these guys with shrimp shells. Tomatoes just love calcium, although I haven't tried using Tums as a fertilizer as my friend Jeff has suggested. I'd much rather cook myself shrimp and crabs than buy a bottle of antacid.

pasta sauce in the making

Italian sweet basil

Thai basil, "Red Rubin"

Organic pest control (some day)

2010-05-23T22:16:00.001-04:00

About two weeks ago, I installed this bat house on our home. We picked it up at the Leesburg Flower and Garden Festival a while back. We were told that this particular bat house is designed for brooding and that it might house upwards of forty bats when it gets colonized. In theory, having our own personal bat cave should reduce the bazillions of bugs that plague our yard in the summer. Apparently, bats are quite voracious feeders and you can't get a more organic form of pest control than that. As an added bonus, you can collect the guano that falls from the house and use it as a soil amendment.

VACANCY

Now, if we could only convince the bats to live in it, we'd be all set.

my designer lettuces

2010-05-23T22:01:00.000-04:00

I continue to be impressed with the color and texture of these lettuce mixes that I got this year from Johnny's Selected Seeds. They look almost too pretty to eat ... almost. Although I could definitely start eating them at this size, I should probably wait another week or two so that they attain full size and I can fix a proper salad. Pretty soon, I'll have to start sowing the next crop of lettuce so that my garden keeps producing.

"wildfire" lettuce mix

spicy mesclun mix

Tree planting

2010-05-23T21:46:00.001-04:00

Last year, I became of a member of the Arbor Day Foundation.With my membership fee, I received ten bare root trees. Unfortunately, only three of these trees survived the winter due to hungry wildlife munching on them. Today, I placed the first of these in its permanent home alongside our driveway.

This little guy is a Washington hawthorn (please ignore the misspelling on the marker). Right now, it's only about six inches high, but this tree may grow to about twenty-five feet someday. In the spring it will have white clusters of flowers that will yield red to orange fruit for the birds. Hopefully, this poultry netting will help prevent it from becoming a deer toothpick.

This weekend, I also discovered this maple seedling has invaded my spinach patch. I think that I will try to relocate him to the tree line where he belongs. Given the fact that I am highly allergic to maple, I should probably just compost it, but I can't bring myself to do that.

Raised bed gardens update

2010-05-18T22:13:00.000-04:00

The raised bed gardens are now fully filled and planted. Almost everything has started sprouting by now, and now I can pretty much take a rest for while. All that really needs to be done and is watering and weeding.

As can be seen in the picture, I have cobbled together a teepee from some alianthus boughs I found in the woods. I placed about half a dozen pole bean seeds at the base of each leg and I plan to train them up the teepee.

snap beans, "fortex"

The savoy cabbages that I planted fr my mother are just starting to form heads. On the other side of this bed, I have thinned out the bulbing onions (middle) and planted the thinnings amongst the scallions (back). We have already started using some of the young scallions in the kitchen and the flavor is great. The giant onions about to flower in the back were some castaways from the kitchen in late winter. I am going to let these go to seed so that I can save a few bucks next year.

The tomatoes are now in their permanent homes, but sadly these are not all of the ones that I have been nurturing in the germination station. A few days after I planted them out, we had a brief frost and four of my six plants succumbed. Two of the San Marzano plum tomatoes remain, but the remaining four have been replaced by a AAS winning variety called "Celebrity".

Celebrity (left) and San Marzano (right)

Despite being rather leggy, my tomatillo plants are hanging in there and slowly starting to fill out. I have corrected my mistake of only growing one plant last year, so hopefully they will get fertilized this time and actually set fruit.

tomatillo de milpa

Finally, I'm very excited about the fun colors and textures of the lettuce mixes that I am trying out this year. I should probably be able to make a salad in another two weeks I think. :)

Hot Stuff

2010-05-18T20:22:00.000-04:00

Despite a recent light frost about two weeks ago, temperatures have leveled out in the past week or so such that I could set out the pepper garden. Although I managed to donate a few of my seedlings to a friend's garden plot, I still had plenty of plants left. All of them have grown at least 6-8 inches with the exception of the habaneros and the "McCarthy hots". However, I think that the latter two varieties are a little slower to get going.

more peppers than I know what to do with

This year, the peppers have been rotated to the front porch garden. I think that they will get a few extra hours of morning sun in this location, so hopefully that will result in more and bigger peppers. However, with twenty pepper plants in this garden, I don't think that I have to worry about my harvest too much.

"capsaicin alley"

The final tally for my pepper planting is as follows: ancient sweets (x4), maxibelle (x3), orange bell (x3), habanero (x2), "McCarthy hots" (x1), cherry bomb (x2), jalapeno (x5).

Given last year's big success with the jalapeno and habanero jellies, I am going to be making a lot of jelly this year. I'd also like to try making hot sauce and pepper vinegars. And, of course, Sarah will be cranking out the salsa left and right.

Spring flowers make great desktop wallpaper

2010-05-18T19:29:00.000-04:00

purple iris

miniature rose

lavender mountain lily

Raised garden bed expansion

2010-04-28T20:48:00.000-04:00

In light of last year's vegetable bounty, I decided to basically double the planting area of my garden. So I installed four more raised garden beds alongside the house. I'm not exactly sure what I'll do with all this produce, but I don't see any reason to worry about that just yet.

"Dogstreet Farms"

These raised beds are pretty simple to build. For each bed, you need three 2x8x10 pieces of lumber. I like to use untreated whitewood, because I don't want to worry about chemicals that leech out of the pressure treated pine. I usually get the people at the big box store to cut one of the pieces in half for me, since I don't yet own an electric saw. I then make a rectangle and secure each joint with two 3" weather resistant deck screws. I want to weatherseal the wood, so I am going to apply a couple coats of boiled linseed oil this weekend. Again, I'm using linseed oil so that I can avoid chemicals from a traditional wood stain leeching into the garden. Each bed costs about $20 to build.

Filling the beds up is what takes a fair bit of time and money. To prevent the grass from growing up into the new beds, I layer flattened cardboard boxes at the bottom of each. This makes it pretty much impossible for the grass to grow up into the bed, and will naturally decompose and serve as a carbon source for the soil. After that, I take the "lasagna gardening" approach. Each time I mow the lawn, I save the clippings and use them to make about a 4" layer of grass above the cardboard. Next, I layer about 3.8 cu ft of sphagnum peat moss. On top of that goes 120 lbs of top soil followed by 1.5 cu ft of leaf compost. Finally, I pile another layer of peat moss and top everything off with another 120 lbs of top soil. The cost for all that is probably around $40 per bed.

As you can see in the first bed, this material gets me to within about 2" of the lip of the garden frame. As the materials break down, the height of the "lasagna" with shrink, but then I will just keep topping it off with more layers of grass clippings, shredded paper, or kitchen scraps. After about a year, the soil components will be all mixed together and extremely rich.

I hope to get them all filled within the next week or so. For now, the second bed (one of the originals) is the only one with anything actively growing. There are a half a dozen heads of cabbage planted here (for my Mom) and the rest is a mix of bunching onions and scallions (plus some random yellow onions that sprouted in the fridge).

Savoy cabbage "Alcosa" after a rain shower.

"Guardsman" bunching onions (left) and "Golden Sweet" bulbing onions (right)

A walk about the yard

2010-04-26T22:33:00.000-04:00

"the estate"

Today has been a rainy Monday. There's not much to do in the garden for the next few days, so I thought that I'd take some time to post some updates about the the yard. As usual, I was joined on this photo safari by my trusted assistants, Copper and Bandit.

Copper Bopper

Bandito

Despite my best efforts, only three of my ten free Arbor Day Foundation trees survived the winter. Most were chewed down to the roots by the deer. Of those that remain, two were sargent crabapples and one was a Washington hawthorn. These guys are all pretty small and started as bare roots, so I am keeping them in pots for now. Maybe in ten years or so, they will be as big as I am ...

The blueberry bushes are in full bloom now, although we lost numerous blossoms due to the heavy rains of the past few days.

The raspberry bush is growing really slooooooowwwwwly. It has had these same few leaves for over a month now. It just doesn't want to take off just yet. I guess I should be happy it is alive for now.

On the other end of the spectrum, the sage is growing like crazy. The blooms should open any day now. By the way, does anybody need any sage?

This past weekend, the hostas emerged from their winter hibernation. It seems like they grow an inch each day!

The garlic I planted from the kitchen castaways last November is looking great. Some of the steps are almost an inch across, so I hope that translates into some huge garlic bulbs.

Finally, I found what I think is a cucumber plant behind the hose reel. I have no idea how it got there, but it's welcome to stay. You can never have enough cucumbers.

The countdown has begun ...

2010-04-25T21:07:00.000-04:00

Well, the last frost date for my area is May 3, so that means that I have only eight more days until I can start setting out the bulk of this year's crop. So far, I have set out the cabbage, spinach, asparagus, and onions. This weekend, I filled up one of the new beds with soil and sowed the salad mixes. I still have three beds to fill, but they will have to wait until pay day unfortunately.

The tomatoes are running out of room in my germination rack. It's starting to look like a forest.

But that's nothing comparison to the tomatillos. They outgrew the rack long ago, and were relocated to the windowsill. The are looking pretty leggy right now, but they are healthy enough that they have already started to flower.

Finally, the herbs are coming along. I'm still waiting on the rosemary and mint to germinate, but these guys should be ready to put outdoors in about two weeks I think.

basil: Red Rubin and sweet Italian

thyme, cilantro, and parsley

Right on schedule

2010-04-17T20:05:00.001-04:00

It's been a while since my last seed starting update, and my germination operation is now at full steam. Everything that was sown during the first round has now grown into a modest sized seedling. Unfortunately, I can't bring myself to discard many of the thinned plants, and I am already well beyond my original plans. In the past week or so, I started a number of herbs as well. Here are the current numbers:

(10) asparagus, Jersey knight [planted outside]
(6) cabbage, savoy, Alcosa [planted outside]
(5) eggplant, Galine
(4) fennel [planted outside]
(10) spinach, Double Choice
(9) pepper, bell, Ancient Sweets
(5) pepper, bell, Maxibelle
(4) pepper, bell, orange
(4) pepper, cherry bomb
(2) pepper, habanero
(7) pepper, jalapeno
(2) pepper, McCarthy hots
(2) tomatillo, de milpa
(5) tomato, Best Boy hybrid
(5) tomato, San Marzano

(4) basil, Red Rubin (it's purple)
(1) basil, traditional Italian
(4) parsley
(4) thyme

Sarah says that I can't plant them all, so I will have to find a home for some of these little guys, especially the peppers. If I can't, these might "accidentally" get planted in the woods behind my house.

And now, some gratuitous seedling shots:

tomatoes

eggplants

peppers!

more peppers!

tomatillo

spinach

Ok, now it's spring

2010-03-16T21:39:00.000-04:00

What a difference a whole lot of rain makes

2010-03-14T22:13:00.001-04:00

We've had a heavy, steady rain here for the past few days. Thankfully, the yard is finally completely snow free now. Although far from being a golf course, the lawn is noticeably more green and lush than it was just a week ago. The crocuses are popping out of the earth left and right, and growing fast. They're all so very close to blooming, but just not there yet.

The daylilies just started to poke through too. I tried germinating a bunch of the daylily seeds that I harvested from this plant last year, but I haven't had any luck yet (two weeks later). Maybe I should just consider dividing this clump next season to propagate it.

Today, I also planted some tulips that Sarah received as a birthday present. I really like how these look along the fence line. Hopefully, Copper and Bandit won't mind that I put them in the lawn like this.

Speaking of fences, I bought this cute little decorative scroll fence for around the flower bed. It can't physically keep the dogs out, but has managed to provide at least a psychological barrier to their curious paws for the past week or so.

Last, but not least, I also planted my impulse buy raspberry bush that I got at Lowe's. I dug a nice deep hole, filled it in with manure and some good planting soil, and placed a plastic edging around it to stave off any encroaching grasses or weeds. Since I placed this plant in the middle of a prime school bus chasing path, I decided to protect it with some tomato cages. Hopefully, I'll start to see some new canes soon.

Sunny Sunday

2010-03-08T21:23:00.000-05:00

This past weekend was just beautiful. Temperatures in the mid 50s, lots of sun, and the last bastions of the snowpack were quickly melting away. Although I spent most of the weekend working on DIY projects around the house, I did manage to spend some time taking stock of the yard. Things are looking pretty sad right now.

I trimmed down all of the mums to within two inches of the ground. Hopefully, they will grow back but I'm not sure. I need to get a little decorative fence for the flower/blueberry bed (top) to keep out the dogs. This year, I'd really like to minimize the canine irrigation in this area.

The fence on last year's tomato garden (bottom) has started to collapse. Basically, I have found that these wooded stakes are basically rotting in the dirt. The plan is to replace all of these with aluminum fence posts. This year, I am going to be planting the peppers out here for a change of pace.

The garlic patch is starting to come back to life. Lots of young green leaves are emerging from the dried stalks that sprouted up this fall. I planted about twenty cloves of grocery store garlic in this space. If all goes well, we should have enough garlic for almost all of next year.

I also turned over the first of the garden beds today. The soil looks fabulous. All of the fall leaves, grass clippings, and the late fall cover crop of dwarf Essex rape all tranformed into rich, composty goodness. So, I decided to just go ahead and plant my golden onions and scallions. The first outdoor planting of GY2010. How exciting!

Finally, I'd like to close with the first hints of spring here in Keedysville. The flowering bulbs have finally begun to awaken from their winter slumber.


Crocus

Daffofil

Grape Hyacinth (I think)

A little green poking through

2010-02-28T21:50:00.000-05:00

It's officially been a week since the first batch of seeds were sown in the Jiffy pots. I'm already starting to see the first signs of life.


Spinach "Double Choice"


Savoy Cabbage "Alcosa"

Cherry Pepper

The shop lights have been keeping the seedling trays pretty warm, so hopefully many more seedling will emerge this week. I have added a timer to my germination setup to regulate the lighting. Right now, I have it programmed to provide 14 hours of light.

GY2010 has begun!

2010-02-20T22:46:00.000-05:00

During the Snowpacalypse of 2010 here in Maryland, I have had a lot of free time on my hands. So, I decided to build myself a proper seedling germination rack. I bought a chrome four tier shelving unit and three 48" shop lights at Lowe's. Each light has two 32W bulbs - one 5000K and one 6500K. They provide a lot of light and I can adjust their height as my seedlings grow. So, this year I won't have to worry about leggy transplants. The whole rig set me back $140. I can't wait to see how it works out.

After much deliberation, I have compiled my list of vegetables for GY2010:

Vegetable/Herb	Type	Cultivar	Supplier	Seed year
Arugula			Johnny's Selected Seeds	2010
Asparagus		Jersey Knight F1	Johnny's Selected Seeds	2010
Basil	sweet Italian		Burpee	2008
Basil	red/purple	Red Rubin	Park Seed Co.	2010
Cabbage	Savoy	Alcosa	Johnny's Selected Seeds	2010
Carrot		Danvers Half Long	Burpee	2009
Cilantro			harvested from 2009 garden	2009
Corn	white	Mirai	Park Seed Co.	2010
Cucumber	standard slicing	Straight Eight	Burpee	2008
Cucumber	pickling	Alibi	Park Seed Co.	2009
Dill			Burpee	2008
Eggplant	Italian	Galine F1	Johnny's Selected Seeds	2009
Fennel		Zefa Fino	Johnny's Selected Seeds	2010
Garlic			grocery store	2009
Lettuce	Boston/butterhead	Deer Tongue	Johnny's Selected Seeds	2009
Onion		Golden Sweet Hybrid	Burpee	2009
Parsley	single Italian plain leafed		Burpee	2008
Pepper	bell, sweet	Ancient Sweets	harvested from store peppers	2008
Pepper	bell, sweet	Maxibelle	Burpee	2008
Pepper	jalapeno		Burpee	2009
Pepper	habanero		Johnny's Selected Seeds	2009
Pepper	cherry		harvested from store peppers	2009
Pepper	bell, sweet	orange	harvested from store peppers	2009
Pepper	??? Hot ???		harvested by Grandpa McCarthy	2009
Scallion		Guardsman	Johnny's Selected Seeds	2010
Snap bean	Pole	Fortex	Johnny's Selected Seeds	2010
Spicy Mesclun Mix			Johnny's Selected Seeds	2010
Spinach		Double Choice	Burpee	2009
Tomatillo		De Milpa	Johnny's Selected Seeds	2009
Tomato	determinate	Best Boy	Burpee	2008
Tomato	indeterminate, plum	San Marzano 015 F1	Johnny's Selected Seeds	2010

Tonight, I started the following in seed trays: peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, tomatillo, fennel, cabbage, and asparagus. Now, if the snow would only melt, maybe I could start preparing the garden beds ...

Almost harvest time

2009-07-22T12:47:00.010-04:00

It's been about a month since my last post, and my garden is really coming along. As you can see, the tomatoes and cucumbers are much taller than Copper these days.

The tomatoes are much more robust in shape and size than last year at the townhouse. Sadly, none are turning red yet. It's gotta be soon though, or I think some of these are going to burst!

A few of the cukes are almost full size now, but not many. It seems like there is something wrong with my vines. It may be something like sudden wilt, or it may be that we haven't had a good rain in two weeks. I'm trying to nurse them back to health, but I am not feeling super optimistic at the moment.

My green beans are only about a foot high but they are already loaded with bean pods. I harvested about half a pound last night for dinner. And they were dee-lish.

The onions are starting to look nice and bulbous now. This planter is clearly overcrowded, but that's how you learn right? They might not end up as giant onions, but hey.

Anaheim peppers (not sure)

Bell pepper

Jalapeno

Ancient sweets - I harvested these seeds from some peppers I bought at the grocery store.

Habanero

It looks like we are going to have some quality salsa this year. Now if they would all just hurry up and turn red!

Buzzing with activity

2009-06-21T21:25:00.008-04:00

It's been a while since my last post but a lot has changed in these past couple of months. We're now living in a new home, and Sarah and I have been busy getting settled and remodeling the laundry room. But I have managed to find a little time here and there to get my gardens situated.

This my front yard garden. It took me several days of back breaking cultivation to rip out all the weeds and dead bushes that were in front the porch. But after a few bags of manure and peat moss, things are looking great.

Tomatillo de milpa and flower.

I made a little path between my cucumbers (right) and tomatoes and basil (left). However, at the rate that these guys are growing, I think that it is going to be pretty tight to walk through here soon.

I think that small town life is going to treat me well. It a big change from the .03 acre townhouse we had to the 0.6 acre lot that we have now. Hopefully my posts will be more frequent now that I have something write about. I'm sure not going to run out of things to do!