It's Winter Seed Ordering Time!

You know you are a gardener when...."THE NEW SEED CATALOGS ARE IN!!!".

Seed ordering is one of the fun things about this time of year, for a gardener anyway. I have received catalogs from several of the seed companies now and have already placed an order for some seeds that will need to be started next month for transplanting into the garden in late winter and into early spring.

Though I have plenty of seed leftovers from last years purchases and from my own seed harvesting, I have to try a few new items.

So far, I have ordered:

Mei Qing Choi - a bok choi green
Sahuaro - a hot pepper
Serrano del Sol - a serrano pepper
El Jefe - a jalapeno variety
Brandywine - heirloom tomato
Golden Sweet - a cherry tomato
Olivade - a Roma-like tomato for sauces
Black Seeded Simpson - a leaf lettuce
and another variety pack of lettuces

The peppers and tomatoes will get an early start in the greenhouse, and transplanted into gallon containers after getting a good start. We will grow them to a decent size in the greenhouse, or out as conditions warrant, before setting them out. Last year doing it this way, and waiting until we were pretty confident that the last freeze was past, we had a really good early production of tomatoes when no one else was harvesting any, or had lost plants to late freezes.

Some Fall Harvest

So far the fall harvest has been decent, especially for greens. And now, we are getting to harvest some of my favorites - broccoli and sweet potatoes. My experience for growing spring broccoli was not too good, so this gives me some encouragement that I can indeed grow a decent broccoli.

The piece of broccoli in the photo is the best that I have harvested thus far. For scale, the knife shown is about 7 inches in length, so the broccoli is a nice large-sized head.

The sweet potatoes are also some "jumbos". I haven't grown them before and didn't know when to harvest. Everything I had read had indicated to wait until a frost and the leaves turning brown. Well, we really haven't had a killing frost yet, and are about two weeks beyond our normal first freeze...so I dug them up anyway. All of the rain that we have been getting appears to have taken a bit of toll on the crop. Several large potatoes were split wide open...I assume form the excessive moisture (like a tomato does).

Artichokes are in the ground

I started some artichokes from seed back in the first part of August. I got some of them into the ground a week or so ago. They seem to be establishing themselves quite nicely now. We have had good rains and cool temperatures for the last month.

I am also trying to keep two of the plants in one gallon containers over the winter, to be planted into the ground in late winter or early spring. These two will probably not produce the first year, but, hopefully, will be robust the second spring.

Fall Gardening

We are already getting to about the midway point of the fall gardening season here...at least with crops that can't handle a little frost of light freeze. It has been unusually wet and also cool for this part of the world. We have received over 7" of rain over the last month and a half, and many days the temperature hasn't gotten out of the 60's. A lot of what we have planted looks great, some looks like it would have preferred a few more sunny days. But, after a dry summer it is nice to not have to water the garden.

Let's see, for the fall garden we planted:
broccoli
broccoli raab (first time - it is really growing well)
cabbage
mesclun mix lettuce
mustard greens
kale
collards
tat soi
spinach
beets
turnips radishes
Swiss Chard

We have already been harvesting many of the greens varieties that we planted. One of my favorite crops...easy to grow and darn good eating.

Also, I planted four of my artichokes into the garden. I'll have to protect them from the cold this winter in hopes that they make it through to produce in the spring. I have three others potted that I will overwinter in and out of the greenhouse as conditions dictate, and that will be planted outdoors late in the winter. They are a little high maintenance at this stage in our area - not TOO HOT, not TOO COLD, not TOO WET, not TOO DRY - but, I hope to get a crop of chokes out of them in the spring.

What to do with all those Chili Peppers - Jalapeno Hot Sauce

OK, I had three pablano pepper plants (I started with 5 or 6, but pulled the others early) and a similar number of jalapeno plants. Geez, they can produce a lot of peppers. What to do with them all?

We roasted and peeled, and froze, a lot of the pablanos. We stuck a fair amount into individual freezer containers (baggies) so we can pull out only what we need for a recipe. This solved a bit of the problem. More pablanos found there way into the oven for a drying. About 8 hours in a convection oven set on 150 degrees found the guys mostly shriveled and dried, but not fully dried...so, off into a larger sized baggie and into the freezer as well.

For the jalapenos, I really wanted to make a hot sauce, kinda-sorta like Tabasco Sauce. I looked at a number of recipes and then came up with the following:

Jalapenos / pablanos
Onion
Garlic
Salt
Olive Oil
Vinegar

I left the jalapenos on the plant long enough that maybe one-half of them were red and one-half green. I sliced the peppers and removed maybe 80-90% of the seeds from the peppers (and it still has a decent amount of heat). The peppers were smallish in size, being maybe 1" to 2" long, so I used maybe 50 of them for one recipe. I also cut up and used about 8 to 10 pablanos as well.

In a decent sized pot, I put a generous tablespoon of olive oil, a rough-chopped medium-sized white onion and 4 or 5 rough-chopped garlic cloves. Sauteed a couple of minutes to tenderize the onions, then put the peppers in and got them heated just a bit to start them cooking (note: they do put off a powerful pepper vapor - open a window, and use a vent). Add just enough water to almost cover the peppers. Add about a teaspoon of Kosher Salt. Cook for about 20 to 25 minutes, stirring several times.

After the cooking, remove from heat and allow to stand and come down to close to room temperature. If the mixture appears too watery, drain a bit of the liquid off (it should have a water depth covering maybe 3/4 of the peppers).

After it has cooled it is time to blend. I use a hand wand-type mixer and just mix it in the pot that I cooked in, otherwise transfer to a blender or food processor. Add about a cup of white vinegar and blend until smoothish, until all the big pieces of pepper are gone. It may need just a little more vinegar depending on how much of the cooking liquid was retained, and how liquid you prefer your sauce...adjust accordingly.

We put a couple of cups of the mixture into a Mason jar, and the rest into baggies for freezing. The jarred sauce should keep in the 'fridge for a couple of months...though we have been going through it fast enough that we won't find out how long it will keep. It is really tasty, and have already made three of four batches of the sauce.

Starting an artichoke from seed?

I am having a great deal of difficulty getting artichokes started. I am attempting to start them in 6" pots to set out later this month. They are germinating alright, and growing fine until they have two true leaves...and then...flopping over and dying. I can't figure out why.

My first guess is that it is still too darn hot here. Some days are still reaching close to 100 degrees. I am starting them under the porch of our garden shed where they are shaded all day except for about an hour in the evening. For a while I thought maybe they aren't getting enough sun, so moved them into a vacant planting bed and put a row cover over them to partially shade them...and I think the heat and sun may have been too much. So I moved them back into the shaded area and they still seem to not want to get past the two true leaf stage.

[edit 9/14/09- I believe this heat issue is right. Artichokes need to be established, apparently, in temperatures below 85 degrees]

My next guess was the mix I was starting them in. I blended potting soil, homemade compost, purchased compost and purchased clayey topsoil. Maybe it was kind of heavy for the seedlings? Or, some of the compost is still too unfinished? Beats me.

I am having the best luck germinating the seeds in a hurry by placing them into a baggie on a wet paper towel and leaving them in the house until a few days after they germinate. It only takes about 5 or 6 days to get them to germinate this way. I am then transplanting into my potted mix. They seem to do fine for a week of so, and grow well initially, and then....death.

Malabar Spinach

Malabar spinach is a new one for us this year. We read about it in a Texas-based gardening magazine, that it was one plant that could tolerate and even thrive in the Texas summer heat.

Though it was touted as being a spinach substitute, it is definitely not spinach, or to a large degree, even spinach-like. It doesn't particularly taste like spinach, and it doesn't cook like spinach, but it is a green leafy plant...so I guess that makes it sorta spinachy?

It grows as a vine, and grows rather rapidly once established. I made a tepee-type trellis out of bamboo for it to climb. The structure is about 4' tall and it rather quickly grew past the top.

We use the younger, smaller and more tender leaves raw as a addition to salad greens - which is my preferred way to consume Malabar spinach. The older, larger and slightly tougher leaves are better sauteed or stir fried.

One issue with the leaves is that they are somewhat succulent-like, in other words they have a gooey substance, not unlike okra, contained within the leaves. Eaten raw it really isn't obvious - to me anyway. Cooked, however, the gooey nature seems to become more apparent.

Nutritionally Malabar seems to be worthy of growing. The USDA nutrition database shows that Malabar spinach and real spinach compare fairly closely in nutritional value.

I'll grow it again.

Garden Security Levels

I built my newest raised garden beds outside the relative security of my fenced-in backyard. I figured I might have an issue with some nosy and hungry white-tail dear. So, I purchase some 8' t-posts and 330' of "deer fence" with a roughly 2" by 2" grid pattern. Wow, with that size of grid, and that height of fence, all my problems should be solved...no deer, no bunnies, no critters at all.

Wrong.

After a couple of days, I noticed a cotton tail in the bed area. I must have fenced the poor thing in...I moved in through one of my quickly constructed low quality gates and shooed the little guy towards the gate, but instead he took off towards a hole in the fencing. A newly chewed hole. In my newly installed fencing. Closer inspection showed two holes on opposite sides of the fenced area as if the bunnies were announcing they were not going to be denied their rightful claim to a previously existing pathway that I had fenced them from.

Well, I wouldn't stand for it. So, off I go and purchase an appropriate length of 24" tall chicken wire to wrap the area and secure it from all invaders.

Now, deer gone - check. Bunnies gone - check.

The next days inspection tour brought more despair. One of my gates was partially open and our cantaloupe, just reaching a perfect ripeness had a neatly chewed hole in the top about 6" across, and looked as if it had been carefully scooped of its entire content. I see one eaten, then another. Raccoons, no doubt. So, I make plans for bolstering the strength of the gates to keep the crafty critters at bay.

Next day...same thing...cantaloupes devoured, but this time the gate had not been touched. The coons had come up and over the fence in search of their dinner. Back to the drawing board for the security of the area.

We decide upon a maximum security enclosure for the melon beds. 2x12's nailed into a box form and covered over the top with chicken wire, and for good measures, a couple of heavy rocks holding the whole thing down. Coon problem solved...it is just a pain now to inspect the melons for ripeness.

The New(est) Beds - Part 2

For Part 1 - see here.

I have completed and planted two beds outside of our fenced backyard area now. The new ones are officially called "the barn beds".

The soil mixture we used ended up being a purchased top soil - mainly a grayish brown clay, mixed with cow manure compost, humus, and some of the remaining planting mix that we had from other beds. Into each bed as I was mixing up the various components I gave a healthy shot of a high nitrogen fertilizer as, hopefully, a one time thing to get it kick started.

Everything seems to love the mixture and is growing well. The first of the barn beds that I completed is producing well. Okra, tomatillos are abundant, and the eggplant and blackberries are growing well. My Malabar spinach is just about ready to start harvesting too.

The second barn bed has been finished maybe a month, so it was getting kind of late to do much in the way of a spring planting. We put cantaloupe and honeydew melons in one end, and the remaining parts of the bed received a cover crop of black-eyed peas.

I hope to get out there this fall once the weather has cooled a bit and build at least one more bed....we still have plenty of top soil remaining.

Okra

We have been harvesting okra now for around a month. I started some Clemson Spineless seeds early, and thus have an early start on production. I also sowed some different varieties directly into the ground after setting out my transplants.

In addition to the Clemson Spineless transplants (shown in the photo), I also have a few plants each of North South Hybrid and Cow Horn. I can't wait to see the Cow Horn pods as they are supposed to reach 10-14" in length and be prolific producers (best harvest length is around 6").

The North South Hybrid variety has been a big aphid magnet thus far, and periodic washing down of leaves and insecticidal soap applications have been necessary. Otherwise, the plants have done quite well with just minimal care.

Favorite okra preparations:

-grilled: just a little olive oil, salt and pepper and grill them until tender.

-sauteed with tomatoes: start by chopping and sauteing onion and garlic, chop and add a few tomatoes (we use Roma), maybe throw in a green pepper (we use Pablano) and add a little chicken or beef stock if there isn't enough liquid. Season with a little salt and pepper. Cut the tops off the okra and slice lengthwise (and crosswise if they are long pods) and toss in and cook until tender. We also like to throw in some cut up smoked sausage - and you have a whole meal in a pan.

To save some seeds (and money) for next years crops, just allow a pod or two to remain on the plant at the end of the growing season. When it has dried out, clip it off and store in a paper bag in a cool dry spot over the winter. Break it open to plant with next year.

Beets - a winner in the garden

Our first beet crop is winding down for the year. I'd say it was mostly successful. After adjusting the nitrogen levels in the bed they were in they grew pretty well. And, for being a person that had never really experienced beets before, they were quite tasty....and useful.

The tender young greens were a nice raw addition to salads.

The larger greens were good cooked as mixed boiled greens.

The roots are, of course, good chopped raw in salads or cooked in a variety of ways.

Our favorite cooking method for them, so far anyway, is to peel and slice into thin pieces and saute them in a little butter until tender. Sprinkle with a bit of garlic salt, and man, they are tasty.

We grew Detroit Dark Reds and a mix called Jewel Tone that included golden beets and Chioggia, which are really nice looking with interior rings of pink and white.

Beets will be on the garden calendar for the future.

Eat Your Ugly Veggies

The supermarkets are loaded with gorgeous fruits and veggies, grown on large commercial operation farms and cared for using traditional fertilization and pest control. My backyard garden, on the other hand produces some...umm, how to put this...'quirky' looking veggies. Sometimes malformed, lots of times bug or bird bitten. But what about nutrient value versus the big stores better looking selection.

the marketplace today rewards farmers for yield and disease resistance in their crops, not for how much of these beneficial micronutrients a crop may contain.

Mitchell’s team has also been investigating whether organically grown fruits and veggies differ from those produced by conventional farming.

Her team compared identical cultivars grown on certified organic plots versus those where standard fertilizers and pesticides were being applied. And as a rule, organics far surpassed their conventionally grown kin for vitamins and beneficial micronutrients, such as the antioxidant flavonoids quercetin and kaempferol, Mitchell reported

She also thinks she knows why that is. Plant nutrients tend to fall into two broadly defined categories: primary and secondary plant metabolites. We know the first category better. It includes fats (or oils), carbohydrates, amino acids and simple sugars. The second group includes the phenolic acids, flavonoids, alkaloids and terpenoids.

Conventional farming has optimized its practices and crop amendments to maximize a plant’s production of the primary metabolites. These are the ones listed on food labels. However, plants normally have a fairly balanced ratio of both primary and secondary metabolites: the primary ones don’t dominate.

And that makes sense, Mitchell points out, since many of the secondary metabolites are defense compounds — essentially a plant’s natural pesticides or sun screens, for instance.

When plants aren’t stressed, they produce fewer of these compounds. But the relative paucity of plant-protective agents available to organic farmers means that crops on their farms tend to suffer more damage from pests and the weather. And they respond by revving up production of defensive secondary metabolites.

The extra stress that organically grown plants typically experience may lead to less attractive veggies — like spinach greens with a hole in each leaf. But the resulting nutritional value of each gram of spinach from moth-eaten plants can be superior.

And so it is, maybe my backyard veggies with their less-than-perfect forms are better and more nutritious than Big Farm produce.

Links:

To above article
To Alyson Mitchell website and website

Raising catfish

Okay, so they aren't a part of my garden, but they are something we are raising for personal consumption, so I feel the desire to put in a post about the little guys.

We have a pond, or as they are more generally referred to in Texas, a stock tank, a couple of hundred yards from the house. When full to the brim it measures close to 4/10's of an acre...but it is rarely full here in drought country...and so is more like 2/10's of an acre most of the time. When full it is probably 8-9' in depth but, as above stated regarding usual size, is about 4' in depth now.

I stocked the tank with 150 channel cat in February of 2008. They were little, being about 4" size. But the things grow quickly if they are fed. I fed them at the beginning of the summer of 2008 regularly but quit in the middle of the summer when it was so dry that the tank became really small...too many mouths for such a small area. This spring we have had some rains, even some decent rains, but very few with much runoff, so the tank is up a bit, but still far from full. I am feeding and hoping that I can get them to harvesting size soon...to lower the population in the pond and increase the population in the freezer!

Tobacco Tea for Insect Control

Yeah, I know, the organic crowd doesn't condone the use of tobacco tea because it kills indiscriminately, but it is an effective control of insects when used right.

To get started, I have grown my own tobacco. I bought seeds from a company in Canada, and grew the plants in our home garden beds. As you can see the plants are actually very attractive as an addition to the garden, especially as they went to flower...beautiful clusters of pink blossoms (shown above). After flowering, I pulled the entire plants out of the ground, hacked the roots off and hung the remaining plants upside down in our garden shed to dry. I left them drying over the winter. In the early spring I pulled the dryed leaves off and stored them in a coffee can for later use.

To make my tobacco tea, I take a well packed cupfull of leaves and place them into an old sun-tea brewing pitcher and let it steep in the sun for a "while"...and hour or two, or if I forget, longer. I transfer the mix into a plastic spray bottle for use. I have heard that the mix will remain effective for several weeks. Also, some recommend the addition of a drop or two of liquid soap as a wetting agent.

Tobacco teas agent of death is the nicotine. I am not certain, but I believe that its mechanism of demise is through an attack on the nervous system of the contacted pest.

I have only used the tea on young plants to protect them against various soft-bodied pests and on fire ants. I am reluctant to use it on plants that are already in fruit of veggie production because of the toxicity even though what I have read indicates that the toxicity of the tea is short-lived.

For fireants, I just pour a little of the mix straight onto the mound, and the spray some of the little #^@**'s as they scramble out to see who is messing with them. One of life's pleasures....killing fire ants.

If a person is desiring to use the stuff, please take appropriate safety precautions...wear rubber gloves, long sleeves, etc, and don't spray when it is windy and only use as a spot treatment.

Here are a few links with some data, facts and discussion on tobacco tea.

Link One
Link Two
Link Three
Link Four

Swiss Chard

Swiss Chard is one of my garden favorites. It is easy to grow, very productive, produces for an extended length of time, and is a very nutritious green.

Gardening in Texas can be a challenge. We can go from cold winter to hot summery conditions literally in a day...and then back to wintery. But Swiss Chard seems to handle whatever is thrown at it, except for high winds. Winds can destroy a portion of the tall leafy plant, but they seem to bounce back pretty quick.

Last fall I planted several varieties in a couple of different beds. I planted the colored variety, but only the red-stemmed ones grew from the package I planted. Also, I planted a smooth leaved variety and it has done quite well. But, the one that has done the best, and that I like to harvest and enjoy the most frequently in the variety Fordhook Giant (the plant on the left in the picture above). For an individual, or even a couple, unless you are eating Swiss Chard frequently, you can probably get by with one or two plants. And, if you don't have room in the garden, they are an attractive plant...just plant some in your landscape areas for an edible landscape plant.

We were eating Swiss Chard at least weekly from about December on, and continue to harvest off of the plants. We harvest young leaves and mix them in with various salad greens and enjoy raw. But, my favorite way to prepare them is as boiled mixed greens. I would harvest a few mustards, collards, and maybe some kale along with the Swiss Chard and cook them in a pot of water with a little butter and bacon fat, a couple of buillion cubes, some garlic powder and red pepper flakes. About 15 to 20 minutes of cooking and man, are they good.

And good for you:

Swiss chard is an excellent source of vitamin K, vitamin A, vitamin C, magnesium, manganese, potassium, iron, vitamin E and dietary fiber. It is a very good source of copper, calcium, vitamin B2, vitamin B6 and protein. In addition, Swiss chard is a good source of phosphorus, vitamin B1, zinc, folate, biotin, niacin and pantothenic acid. Link

If you like greens and have never tried Swiss Chard, do yourself a favor and put them in your garden. You can't miss.

Broccoli Harvest

I am harvesting some of the broccoli that I began transplanting in mid-February. These were transplants that I started from seed, and most were fairly to very spindly when I put them out.

The bed they went into was a raised bed filled with a planting mix that was not really broken down enough, compost-wise, to allow plants to grow well last year, but we had hoped the winter brought some improvement. A good dose of high nitrogen fertilizer seemed to help.

We also had many very windy days, blowing one day from the north and then turning around and hurrying back from the south. Wind speeds of 40 to 45 miles per hour, and with higher gusts, were noted on several days. Even though I tried to keep a row cover over many of the plants, the leggy little plants were tested in the wind, and several failed, breaking off in the high winds.

In total, I guess I put out about 25 plants. I am down to about 12 to 15 remaining. Some of the crowns actually look pretty good now and I have harvested a couple. I hope to get several more harvested before the heat gets intense as it already has several days, or before the aphids find them and take over the crop.

The New(est) Beds

Due to an ever expanding list of "must grows" I am building some new raised garden beds and, lying outside of our fenced backyard area, tempting fate of critter incursions, though a six foot deer fence just erected should slow down most of them.

The new beds are being built of stone collected off of our property. All hand selected, or as the case may be, pretty much just picking up rocks and making them work. I am mortaring the beds, which is considerable work, but what the heck, and old guy needs to have some physical labor from time to time.

The photo shows the completed bed number one and the beginnings of bed number two, with the 1600 gallon rainwater tank in the background...so you can see there is a decent drop in elevation from the tank to the beds for water pressure purposes.

The first bed is about 25 feet in length and around 7 feet in outside width. The others will be the same width but will decrease slightly in length due to the alignment of the barn to the house being slightly off from one another...whatever.

It took about 23 sacks of mortar to build the first bed. Mixing a half sack at a time, it felt like that is about all that I was doing...lay a couple of rocks, mix mortar, lay a couple of rocks, mix mortar. It would have probably been cheaper in the long run to use a load of sand and masonry cement rather than the premixed mortar, but it is easier to just open a little bag and be ready to mix what I need then and there rather than fussing over how much to mix.

We wanted these beds to be able to plant more "spawly" things, like tomatillos, melons, berries, okra and stuff like that. So far in the first bed that is pretty much what is in there. Green tomatillos, purple tomatillos, Navajo blackberries, three okra varieties, eggplant and soon to be in there is Malabar spinach - a viney spinach-like plant that can get to 10 feet in length and can survive the Texas summer heat. For the next bed completed I have some cantelope seeds starting in pots, and we will also put in watermelon and pumpkins, and if there is room blackeyed peas.....

....maybe three or four beds won't be enough, maybe I better start planning for five?

The Drip Irrigation System

After becoming very tired of lugging around hoses, and the inordinate amount of time that it takes to keep a garden properly watered here in perpetual drought country, we have gone drip.

We put in a system composed of T-tape, with all the various fittings that it takes to bring the water to the plants. The T-tape that we are using has an emitter every twelve inches that puts out about one third of a gallon of water per hour. It can be used either on the surface of the ground or buried up to a couple of feet deep - though I don't know why a backyard gardener would ever need to bury it that deep. We have used the surface of the ground application for ease. The tape is held in position by metal stakes placed, well, wherever we felt we needed to put one.

For our gardens, we purchased 1000' of the actual drip tape, 100' of the poly pipe that the tape hooks in to, and a bag full of the various fittings needed to put it all together. It also required the purchase of an in-line pressure regulator to bring the water pressure down to 10psi whenever we use water from our well. Water from our rain tanks doesn't appear to need a regulator since there is no pump attached to the rain harvesting system (at this time). Total cost of the supplies was under 150 bucks...and we have plenty of the T-tape left to do more beds.

The photo above shows the connection that I have concocted to hook into our newest beds. I am currently in the process of building what will be either three or maybe four beds outside of our backyard area. The beds are directly below our 1600 gallon rain tank and ideally situated to use the rainwater. The three (or four) beds will all be plumbed together with 3/4 inch PVC pipe so that only one hose attachment (the one above) is necessary to water any one of the beds. I can turn on or off the 3/4 inch ball valves to water whichever bed I need to, and eliminate the need to drag hoses between the beds, further simplifying the watering process...ok, so it was my wife's idea initially, but it was my design.

So far we have been getting just enough rain to where we haven't had to use the irrigation system much, but when we have it seemed that three hours gave the area a decent soaking. Two hours may be just about enough. Hopefully we will get some rain this summer so that the rainwater tanks can handle the bulk of our supplemental watering.

Soil Tests

OK, I highly recommend them.

The 20 cubic yards of planters mix that we paid a nice chunk of change for did not allow most plantings to grow worth a darn the first year. We applied a cottonseed meal fertilizer (6-3-3) and things would maybe grow a bit, and get a little greener, and then not much. We figured the mix, which was supposed to be about one-half compost and one-half top soil, must still be a little "green", meaning the compost wasn't fully composted yet.

Anyway, we bagged a sample of the stuff and sent it off to the A&M labs for analysis...and wow, virtually no N at all, and high P. Both of those make it darn tough to grow anything, much less an abundant crop of veggies.

We were at a party a little over a week ago, and were admiring the lush veggies the host had in his garden...beets and turnips side by side just as I had mine...only his were about three times the size of mine and were planted at the same time. In conversation I found out that he had bought planting mix at the same place that I had, and he had the exact same problem in the beginning. He applied a high N fertilizer, like a 21-0-0 and started seeing results.

So, we made a stop at the store and found a 35-0-5 and applied to areas of our beds. Within a couple of days things had perked up remarkably...spinach that was languishing and yellowish now green and growing, beets that were doing nothing now reaching up to do their thing.

Now we are building some additional beds. The mix I am putting in them will get a liberal dose of high N fertilizer from the start, and a fall planting of legumes and hopefully by next year I can have crops that looks like those of the party host.

The Spring Garden Plantings

This springs crops include:

asparagus
broccoli
cabbage
red russian kale
mesclun mix lettuce
turnips (greens and root)
beets
onions
garlic
radishes
Swiss chard
spinach
tat soi
and I put out horseradish roots this spring for harvesting beginning next year.

and already out for summer are:

brussel sprouts
tomatoes
tomatillos
eggplant
pablano peppers
jalapeno pepper
okra
yellow squash
butternut squash
zucchini

and we are still harvesting collards and mustard greens from last falls crops.

Starting veggies from seed

It sounds like it should be easy. I mean, you poke a seed into a little potting soil, a little water and a grow light and BOOM, you have nice starts to put into your garden in a few weeks.

My experience hasn't been as favorable though. I started broccoli, eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, tomatillos and even tried some cabbage and collards. The problem is always the same...they get leggy and spindly in no time, no matter how close to a grow light I put them.

I seemed to get the most favorable results by just sprouting the little guys and giving them just a few days under a grow light and then getting them into the greenhouse under natural light ASAP.

I started putting my spindly broccoli plants out into the garden beginning in mid-February. I planted several of them like you would a leggy tomato, that is, by setting the plants fairly deeply in to the ground partially burying the stem. Seems to have worked OK. I did lose a few plants, but I am not sure if it was because of that or other reasons - like the 50mph winds we seem to be getting more frequently, first from the south for a day then from the north for a day.

I have just set out my eggplants, peppers and tomatillos. They actually came out pretty well. I did get them into the greenhouse pretty soon after germination and kept them close to the heater during the cold spells. The tomatillos still got pretty leggy, and I am assuming that they can be buried to the first set of leaves like a tomato...that is how they got planted anyway. This is the first year we have tried growing tomatillos and are looking forward to the first ripening.

Bluebonnets

While this picture was taken in the spring of 2007 which was an outstanding year for wildflowers here, it appears that this spring will only be okay. Lots of bluebonnets are around, though somewhat stunted from lack of late winter rain, but they are starting to fill out and bloom.

I learned something fascinating yesterday from my wife regarding bluebonnets. If you have ever looked closely at the blooms and noticed at the base of each bloom is a patch of color...either purplish or white. The white patch indicates a flower that has not yet been pollinated whereas a purple one has been pollinated. I guess it is a guiding mechanism for the creatures that do the pollinating.

Here is a link to learn a little more and see some pictures of what I am talking about.

It's Asparagus Time

We have been harvesting asparagus now for a week or so, and in the last week they have really been increasing in rate of growth and harvest. The temperatures have been in the 70's for the last week, though no rainfall, and everything is looking like spring.

Our asparagus bed is about 5-6' wide and about 8-9' long. This is the first season that we have been harvesting after building the bed a couple of years ago and, very patiently, allowing the plantings to mature for a couple of years.

The spears are good and thick, and very juicy and sweet. They are great to just snap-off out in the garden and start munching on the spot...but most find their way into the kitchen for a lite steaming or sauteing.

The plants were prolific seeders last summer as well. We have many little plants growing in the mulched walkways around the bed, many of which are sending up their own little spears for us to munch on. It is difficult to want to pluck the plants out of the walkways...maybe after harvest season.

The Rainwater Harvesting System

For the first couple of years that we have lived and gardened here, we have used water from our well as primary irrigation source and the occasional raindrop as the secondary source. My wife has pushed to have a rainwater harvesting system for some time now and I have finally come around to favoring the idea.

My resistance to rainwater harvesting was due to the expense of setting up a system and the usefulness of a system. What I mean by usefulness is...if it is raining enough to keep a good supply of water in the tanks than we really will not need to be watering much anyway...if it is NOT raining much and refilling the tanks than we will probably run out and still need to water with well water. Also, if it isn't raining very often (which seems to be the normal around here) I really want the runoff to be watering my lawn area and house foundation area and not filling up rainwater tanks.

Solutions to the above problems have been reached. Right now anyway, we do not have the house hooked up to any collection system so the rainfall on the house still waters things as it always has. The collection areas we are using are from the greenhouse roof (55 gal) the garden shed (55 gal - but we will add more tanks here) and from the larger side of the barn's metal roof (1600 gal).

Price for the tanks and materials was about $1200. The biggest expense was the large tank...the "Black Monster" with its 90" diameter and 68" height...followed by the cost of the guttering.

To fill the 1600 gallon tank only requires about 2.7" of rainfall over the 33' by 30' metal roof. To fill the 55 gallon plastic drum on the greenhouse only requires about 1.7" of rain and even less than that to fill the one off the shed. Hopefully we will get enough sporadic showers and storms to keep us watering through the summers here in the parched area we live...and garden.

UPDATE 3/12/2009: Well, we had a nice rain event. 2.9" in our gauge so far, rain still in the forecast. And, it filled the 1600 gallon tank! What fabulous timing.

The Beds

We live in a rural area of west Texas. The land that we live upon is mostly rock and clay or clay loam where the scant decent soil does exist. So, gardening takes a little effort and much of our gardening effort has been towards creating raised beds. At the current time we have five raised beds for our vegetable growing. All of them are filled with "imported" soils.


The first and oldest raised bed is also the largest. It measures about 35' in length and 8' in width and at its highest is about 2' tall. It is constructed of cement blocks and faced with mortared flagstone and all-in-all is a very attractive bed. It is filled with mixtures of sandy loam, sandy "top soil" and various composted amendments. With my handy-dandy Rapitest pH meter I measure the pH of the mix at around 7.5, which is roughly the same as the native soils in the area, and a little higher than I would ideally like it to be for veggie growing.

The second bed is constructed of a single row of concrete blocks, mortared in place and capped with concrete pavers. We took some leftover concrete floor stain from our house construction and prettied the bed up a little giving it a fair color match to the other raised beds, and to get rid of that plain concrete look. This bed is filled with more of the above described mixture, plus bags of top soil and composted cow manure.

Beds three, four and five and a rocked composting area were built of limestone. They are of various dimension and shapes and probably total 350 to 400 square feet. We filled these beds with a different mix...one that was called "planting mix", purchased from a place that sells stone, mulch, compost and such. It really looked awesome as the two dump trucks were delivering the small mountain to us. But the first growing season was dismal in those beds. Maybe it was still too "green" and needed a year to break down more.

In the works are beds six, seven and maybe eight. These will be outside of our fenced backyard, which is of questionable logic given that deer reside all around us. They will be built with rock taken off of our property and mortared in place. I am thinking they will be something like 8' wide by about 30' in length and will serve to grow the stuff that takes more room, such as melons and beans. I am going to try and use about half native soil/dirt and half "imported" to keep the cost reasonable. But, a lot of work to accomplish between now and filling it with dirt.

The Shed

The garden shed is built in a style that is similar to our house. We hired the framer that built our house to come out and do the framing of the building and put on the Hardy siding. We did the initial and final dirt work, built the foundation, did the concrete work and the painting and the roofing. The size of the building is about 10' by 12' enclosed and then it also has a smallish covered porch with cedar support posts.

The flooring inside was originally dirt, no solid concrete. My wife installed concrete pavers instead and filled the gaps with sand. The floor works well for a garden building.

The south side of the building has two large windows, and there are individual smaller windows on the east and west sides. The idea for the large south facing windows was that this building could function somewhat as a greenhouse, which it did the first year we had it.

We had an electrician come and run power to the shed and to our greenhouse. It cost a few bucks, but it is nice to have the light in the shed and the power in the greenhouse is a necessity for running a space heater to overwinter plants and veggies. The power is also handy for running the small aquarium-type air compressor that I use to brew compost tea.

Inside the shed is the usual garden stuff...shovels, rakes etc, and also shelving for seeds, sprays and sprayers, small tools, and the miscellaneous stuff you might need in gardening. We also have a potting table and several bags of purchased potting mixes, top soils, composts and mulches that we draw from for potting up the various plants we have around.

The Greenhouse

OK, so my wife wanted a greenhouse. I have to admit, I really didn't want one in the beginning, but I have really come to enjoy the thing, though the road to where we are today has been a test of patience.

The greenhouse is a Rion, and is the Prestige model, 8'6" by 12' with 8' of interior height. I DO NOT recommend this greenhouse or any Rion for that matter. They are of plastic construction, which we knew, and even though they come with a 7 year warranty, at least in my opinion thusfar, of questionable durability.

We received the greenhouse in December of 2007. It took me a day to prepare and level the site we had selected. It took about another two and one-half days to fully construct the greenhouse...the first time.

It seems that my wife told me, or that I read, that the Rion greenhouses were supposed to withstand winds of 75 mph. Well, a windy thunderstorm a couple of months after construction must have had 76 mph winds. The greenhouse puffed up like a big balloon and we found pieces scattered for nearly a quarter mile downwind. After examining the remains we determined that the foundation that was provided with the kit was the most likely reason for the failure.

The foundation that they gave us consisted of black interlocking plastic pieces about three feet in length by maybe 6" or 8" tall and 2" deep and open on one side creating a "C" shape. The pieces are buried into the ground to nearly the top with the idea being the weight of the dirt piled into the "C" portion and piled against the plastic members will create a stable foundation. One Texas thunderstorm proved that that foundation design was meant for more peaceful climes than the one where we reside.

So, we took down what was left standing and ditched the black plastic fiasco of a foundation. Instead we switched to what we should have done in the first place - concrete footers. I dug post holes at each corner and in the mddle of each side and also added one under the front doors. I dug the trenches anywhere from 8" to about one foot deep and about 8"-10" in width. We also elected to construct a smallish porch area. I added rebar to the whole thing and we called out a concrete truck and filled 'er up. We got greenboard 2x4's and bolted them to the concrete to serve as our new foundation. If this sucker fails now, it will not be due to the foundation.

The reconstruction went very quickly and we had it back up in less than a day. Now the biggest issue is the front doors. Again, this issue has to do with wind. If the wind blows hard from either the north or the south, which it always does where we live, the doors can and will blow open from the cheesily designed door stops that came with the kit. After an attempt at bolstering the design with some wood pieces screwed into the threshold, it was quickly determind that the easiest remedy is a 5 gallon bucket filled with rocks and placed in front of the door at the end of the day...

So, my bottom line is, I love the greenhouse for what it offers...that being a place to grow a few winter veggies that I wouldn't be able to otherwise, overwinter plants and to get an earlier start on spring gardening through seeding and growing plants in the dead of winter. It is really nice to go out on a cold, sunny winter day and step into the greenhouse's 80 degree warmth. But, if I had it to do over again, I would shell out a few dollars more and get one with a metal frame and at least partially of glass construction. I think for the long term that would pay off.