Monday, January 19, 2009
Harvest Day - Tomatoes!
Yup, I'd like to announce that on January 19th, 2009, I am harvesting tomatoes.
Winter Keeper tomatoes nearly all eaten up.
These are long storage tomatoes by the name of Winter Keeper, a variety that I got from Mapple Farms. They have been sitting on this rack since the end of September and have been slowly ripening ever after. Some but only a few have succumbed to rot. Most have stayed blushy gold with a red interior until I eat them. The taste is no where near as sublime as a sun ripened tomato but it is not bad considering they have been riding the shelf for the past 4 months.
Let us harken backward to other end too where I am starting Tiny Tim dwarf tomato because I'm curious how well it will grow on a window sill. I'm also going to be trying Red Robin which is apparently adapted to this sort of growing. Aren't they cute?
Teeny tiny baby tomato with huge pointing finger.
Winter Keeper tomatoes nearly all eaten up.
These are long storage tomatoes by the name of Winter Keeper, a variety that I got from Mapple Farms. They have been sitting on this rack since the end of September and have been slowly ripening ever after. Some but only a few have succumbed to rot. Most have stayed blushy gold with a red interior until I eat them. The taste is no where near as sublime as a sun ripened tomato but it is not bad considering they have been riding the shelf for the past 4 months.
Let us harken backward to other end too where I am starting Tiny Tim dwarf tomato because I'm curious how well it will grow on a window sill. I'm also going to be trying Red Robin which is apparently adapted to this sort of growing. Aren't they cute?
Teeny tiny baby tomato with huge pointing finger.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
What should I grow? A primer of classic vegetables
If you are a fellow urban 'farmer,' then this time of year is filled with intricate 4 dimensional planting charts, and painful decisions about what not to plant. Then again, perhaps you just embrace the seeds but then wonder when the time comes where you are going to cram all those plants? Or maybe you are new to vegetable gardening and are trying to decide what best to plant? Well, friends, I am here to try to help because it is my trial too so let us think of some criteria:
a. Will my family eat it?
b. Will it grow with minimum fuss here?
c. Is it a space hog or will it provide me with maximum food output with minimum space?
d. Does it taste better fresh fresh, not normally available or is very expensive?
e. Is the store bought / non organic version normally high in pesticides?
Don't feel like playing my Q&A game then let me give you some common, mostly annual veggies that meet many of the above criteria.
1. Beans: easy to grow, you can plant 2-4 inches apart. Fresh beans are available abundantly during the summer and pole beans can be trellised. Also, it's one of the easiest plants from which to save seed.
Sideways picture 'Hunter' bean with broad pods and a ladybug.
2. Peas: See above and add that freshly shelled peas are an exquisite taste that you have to experience to believe. I experience it seldomly as my kids eat most of them.
Glowing peas
3. Roots: carrots, turnips and beets. They don't take up much space and their growing requirements are meagre - a bit of sun, a bit (not too much) fertility and adequate watering. Carrot*, turnip and beet tops are also edible so eat your thinnings. You can often get two crops in a year too. Carrots are one of the dirty dozen food that has a high pesticide residue to boot.
Turnip 'orange jelly' I think it's called and a golden beet by the looks of it beside dandelion?
4.Greens: lettuce, kale, spinach and the like are easy to grow tucked in between plants as they appreciate a little coolness in the summer months. They are not high in calories but superstars when it comes to providing you green vitamen vitality! Also on the dirty dozen list.
Self sown sugarloaf chicory
5. Peppers, especially bell peppers, tomatoes and potatoes are all sprayed within an inch of their life. Thankfully they'll all grow in containers. Just choose shorter varieties unless you have really big containers as indeterminate tomatoes are impressively large by the end of the season and bit tops usually mean big bottoms, ie the roots. If you have the space, potatoes are quite fun to grow. Kids enjoy helping plant the tubers and then dig up the treasures at harvest. Growing your own will also allow you to experience a diversity of varieties that is just not available at the grocery store.
Baby potatoes, the early crop.
Have a bit more space, then consider:
6. Strawberries and other soft fruit like grapes whose thin skins easily absorb pesticide residues.
Plums and cosmos happy together.
7. Cucumbers and squash whose rampant vines can be trellised for cleaner harvest, better air circulation that cuts down on diseases, and of course to save on room. Many kinds grow well in containers too.
Pontimarron squash I believe.
Even more space? Here are some high calorie crops to add to the mix:
8. Onions and leeks are both recommended by Jeavons, author of 'How to grow more vegetables,' the biointensive method.
Yummy onions... pictures of leeks lacking due to leek moth. I hope they enjoyed them.
9. Other roots like parsnip and sweet potato. Short season sweet potatoes will grow very well here with clear plastic mulched beds. Some have success in containers too.
Super delicious sweety 'Georgia Jet'
10. Grains and more pulses like lentils, chickpeas and dried beans. Combined with wheat, hulless barley, amaranth, and corn, you will get a very healthful meal.
Various dried legumes: peas, chickpeas, and beans
And my recommendation.
11. Cabbage fun to grow and surprisingly delicious fresh. It also keeps well in the winter in the back of my fridge. I've put it last as it is a space hog though I commonly space cabbage and broccoli only 12 inches apart and they grow smaller but sizeable heads in fertile soil.
Yes, I really love this picture. (It's been posted before...)
12. Lots of other veggies of course.
Enjoy and remember, Seedy Saturday with its seed trading table is coming up soon.
a. Will my family eat it?
b. Will it grow with minimum fuss here?
c. Is it a space hog or will it provide me with maximum food output with minimum space?
d. Does it taste better fresh fresh, not normally available or is very expensive?
e. Is the store bought / non organic version normally high in pesticides?
Don't feel like playing my Q&A game then let me give you some common, mostly annual veggies that meet many of the above criteria.
1. Beans: easy to grow, you can plant 2-4 inches apart. Fresh beans are available abundantly during the summer and pole beans can be trellised. Also, it's one of the easiest plants from which to save seed.
Sideways picture 'Hunter' bean with broad pods and a ladybug.
2. Peas: See above and add that freshly shelled peas are an exquisite taste that you have to experience to believe. I experience it seldomly as my kids eat most of them.
Glowing peas
3. Roots: carrots, turnips and beets. They don't take up much space and their growing requirements are meagre - a bit of sun, a bit (not too much) fertility and adequate watering. Carrot*, turnip and beet tops are also edible so eat your thinnings. You can often get two crops in a year too. Carrots are one of the dirty dozen food that has a high pesticide residue to boot.
Turnip 'orange jelly' I think it's called and a golden beet by the looks of it beside dandelion?
4.Greens: lettuce, kale, spinach and the like are easy to grow tucked in between plants as they appreciate a little coolness in the summer months. They are not high in calories but superstars when it comes to providing you green vitamen vitality! Also on the dirty dozen list.
Self sown sugarloaf chicory
5. Peppers, especially bell peppers, tomatoes and potatoes are all sprayed within an inch of their life. Thankfully they'll all grow in containers. Just choose shorter varieties unless you have really big containers as indeterminate tomatoes are impressively large by the end of the season and bit tops usually mean big bottoms, ie the roots. If you have the space, potatoes are quite fun to grow. Kids enjoy helping plant the tubers and then dig up the treasures at harvest. Growing your own will also allow you to experience a diversity of varieties that is just not available at the grocery store.
Baby potatoes, the early crop.
Have a bit more space, then consider:
6. Strawberries and other soft fruit like grapes whose thin skins easily absorb pesticide residues.
Plums and cosmos happy together.
7. Cucumbers and squash whose rampant vines can be trellised for cleaner harvest, better air circulation that cuts down on diseases, and of course to save on room. Many kinds grow well in containers too.
Pontimarron squash I believe.
Even more space? Here are some high calorie crops to add to the mix:
8. Onions and leeks are both recommended by Jeavons, author of 'How to grow more vegetables,' the biointensive method.
Yummy onions... pictures of leeks lacking due to leek moth. I hope they enjoyed them.
9. Other roots like parsnip and sweet potato. Short season sweet potatoes will grow very well here with clear plastic mulched beds. Some have success in containers too.
Super delicious sweety 'Georgia Jet'
10. Grains and more pulses like lentils, chickpeas and dried beans. Combined with wheat, hulless barley, amaranth, and corn, you will get a very healthful meal.
Various dried legumes: peas, chickpeas, and beans
And my recommendation.
11. Cabbage fun to grow and surprisingly delicious fresh. It also keeps well in the winter in the back of my fridge. I've put it last as it is a space hog though I commonly space cabbage and broccoli only 12 inches apart and they grow smaller but sizeable heads in fertile soil.
Yes, I really love this picture. (It's been posted before...)
12. Lots of other veggies of course.
Enjoy and remember, Seedy Saturday with its seed trading table is coming up soon.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Tomato seed fun
So you know when you get a pack of tomato seeds and you think: "Great, I really wanted to try an OP variety of Sungold or that weird varigated tomato that everyone says tastes so-so but it sure looks cool, but I don't want 15-30 plants!"
Well folks, I propose that we start swapping tomato seeds. If you are interested, I will send you three seeds of your chosen variety while supplies last and once they arrive. In return, I am looking for early to mid season tomatoes of varying kinds with a special interest this year in long storage types, drying types, hanging to store types weird types like 'stick / curl' and indoor dwarfs. This year you can choose from:
Black cherry
Purple plum
Tiny Tim
Sub-arctic
Variegated
Velvet Red
Red Robin
Principe Borghese
Grappoli d'Inverno
Chiapas wild
Red cluster pear (multiflora)
Make me an offer I can't refuse (3 seeds).
Well folks, I propose that we start swapping tomato seeds. If you are interested, I will send you three seeds of your chosen variety while supplies last and once they arrive. In return, I am looking for early to mid season tomatoes of varying kinds with a special interest this year in long storage types, drying types, hanging to store types weird types like 'stick / curl' and indoor dwarfs. This year you can choose from:
Black cherry
Purple plum
Tiny Tim
Sub-arctic
Variegated
Velvet Red
Red Robin
Principe Borghese
Grappoli d'Inverno
Chiapas wild
Red cluster pear (multiflora)
Make me an offer I can't refuse (3 seeds).
Harvest Day - it's too darn cold!
I was going to go out and show you my coldframes today:
But I figured with the -20 temps that we were going to get shortly that I shouldn't take the insulating blanket off my babies until next week when temps are going to moderate again.
Snow as an Insulator
A gardener friend once told me that the average temperature under a good snow cover was about -5 Degrees Celcius. This intrigued me so I thought we should put it to the test and find out what the experts said. Apparently inside a well built igloo, the temperature is around 2C. Snow can help protect plants from the freezing and drying winds of winter and moderate temperatures so that the plants don't go through repeated freeze thaw cycles. I'm not the only one who says so - there are other bloggers like in This Garden Is Illegal.
Anyhow, don't curse the white stuff except when you're shovelling and then make mazes in your driveway and say your doing it for your kids, dogs or very hardy cats...
OK, I'm bored of this topic now.
But I figured with the -20 temps that we were going to get shortly that I shouldn't take the insulating blanket off my babies until next week when temps are going to moderate again.
Snow as an Insulator
A gardener friend once told me that the average temperature under a good snow cover was about -5 Degrees Celcius. This intrigued me so I thought we should put it to the test and find out what the experts said. Apparently inside a well built igloo, the temperature is around 2C. Snow can help protect plants from the freezing and drying winds of winter and moderate temperatures so that the plants don't go through repeated freeze thaw cycles. I'm not the only one who says so - there are other bloggers like in This Garden Is Illegal.
Anyhow, don't curse the white stuff except when you're shovelling and then make mazes in your driveway and say your doing it for your kids, dogs or very hardy cats...
OK, I'm bored of this topic now.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Time to start sowing seeds - wintersown
Sunny Snow Sprinkles
Feel free to suggest a better name but check it out, if you look close you will see that it is snowing and sunny at the same time.
Wintersown
I ran into this idea a few years back. A creative gardener decided to try her hand at sowing seeds outdoors in the middle of winter in mini-greenhouses using recycled material. Not only is this the ideal method for anything that requires some sort of stratification or that naturally sows itself in your area, it is used on tomatoes (etc) too! I have never tried the latter so I'll give it a whirl this year.
I highly recommend you check out this innovative and creative technique:
http://www.wintersown.org/wseo1/index.html
My old blog's adventures in making the pop bottle type.
***
Hey I logged on for Harvest Monday? Well today I am harvesting from my root cellar, freezer, and indoor counter tops. I'll brave the coldframe next week.
Feel free to suggest a better name but check it out, if you look close you will see that it is snowing and sunny at the same time.
Wintersown
I ran into this idea a few years back. A creative gardener decided to try her hand at sowing seeds outdoors in the middle of winter in mini-greenhouses using recycled material. Not only is this the ideal method for anything that requires some sort of stratification or that naturally sows itself in your area, it is used on tomatoes (etc) too! I have never tried the latter so I'll give it a whirl this year.
I highly recommend you check out this innovative and creative technique:
http://www.wintersown.org/wseo1/index.html
My old blog's adventures in making the pop bottle type.
***
Hey I logged on for Harvest Monday? Well today I am harvesting from my root cellar, freezer, and indoor counter tops. I'll brave the coldframe next week.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Overwintering hot peppers - so far so good
I thought instead of rattling on about the latest garden subject I was heavily googling (right now I'm looking decorative and tasty members of the rumex and chenopodium genus - look up Rhubarb Pie or Saucy Sorrel, darn pretty), I thought I'd let you know how my garden was doing.
Mostly, it's buried in snow. The two pepper plants that I am overwintering are doing well with descent leaf coverage as you can see on this 3 year old Fatali despite the low light levels. Now that we've passed through winter solastice, they should start to leaf out even more.
3 year old Fatali Habanero
I've even got ripening fruit on my 3 year old Long Cayenne.
3 year old Long Red Cayenne
It's the time of year that I normally repot these plants.
Overwintering peppers from this blog
Overwintering peppers from my old blog Ottawa Hortiphilia.
Some other guy at Hot Pepper Seeds gives you the dirt on overwintering peppers.
Mostly, it's buried in snow. The two pepper plants that I am overwintering are doing well with descent leaf coverage as you can see on this 3 year old Fatali despite the low light levels. Now that we've passed through winter solastice, they should start to leaf out even more.
3 year old Fatali Habanero
I've even got ripening fruit on my 3 year old Long Cayenne.
3 year old Long Red Cayenne
It's the time of year that I normally repot these plants.
Overwintering peppers from this blog
Overwintering peppers from my old blog Ottawa Hortiphilia.
Some other guy at Hot Pepper Seeds gives you the dirt on overwintering peppers.
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