Late Summer

Each day we take our bushel basket down to the field garden in hopes of harvesting tomatoes, pumpkins, or melons. We often bring back basil, broccoli shoots, or kale.

My mom sent me several dahlia tubers this year. This is the first one beginning to open. It looks rather goofy, like it has bunny ears. I love its vibrant color. 

Baby Pam pie pumpkins, we are forever loyal to you. This variety is so reliable. We harvested our first this weekend.

New this year: Eden's Gem melons. We tried this variety because the seeds were local and the description promised that they would fruit and ripen before the frost. We have six melons that are almost ready! I'm excited, though I am having a hard time determining when they are ready. Any tips? I've been smelling the blossom end for fragrance. None yet.

Abby: these are our spilanthes plants. Every day I pop a flower in my mouth. Herbalists say eating one fresh a day is better than mouthwash. It's an acquired taste but I really like it. It basically makes your mouth feel tingly.

Chamomile in abundance. I've been drying some for my apothecary shelves. Thinking of making a chamomile tincture or a chamomile heavy bitters formula.

The onions are just about ready for harvest. We've already pulled our shallots.

What's happening in your garden this week?

Planting chart part one

 Yesterday my husband and I walked down to our large field garden to make a plan for the growing season. We decided to use Ellen Ecker Ogden's rotation system that I mentioned in the last post, so we plan to move the leaf crops to where the legumes were, the fruit crops to where the leaves were, the root crops to where the fruit crops were, and the legumes to where the roots were.

Our soil is still frozen (though now devoid of snow--hooray!), but we wanted to get a jump start on the season by making a planting chart. Often we squeeze planting in on busy weekends or after work. My hope is that this planting chart will keep us organized so we won't forget to soak the pea seeds or add Epsom salts to our tomato planting holes.

Here's a peek at the chart we devised. Thanks to Julia for making this file a jpg so I could upload it here. Sorry it's a little blurry. Not sure why.

We made a chart for the vegetables and fruit that we typically grow using the following reference books that we have in our library (and highly recommend):

The Garden Primer by Barbara Damrosch
Rodale's All-New Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening
Grow Great Grub by Gayla Trail

We noted the type of soil each plant prefers, if we need to add any additional amendments to the soil when planting, and if there are other factors to consider such as the need for cutworm collars.

Let me know if you have any questions about the chart. I'd be glad to answer them. We're working on a maintenance chart, which will provide info about what each plant needs during the growing season, i.e. if the plants need top dressing or foliar feeding, etc. I'll share it here when I'm finished.

Hopefully next week I can share some pretty photos of spring blooms.
Until then, happy planting!

spring planning

hi all! i want to echo the other ladies who have posted so far this week and say how excited i am to be back for another season here at [tend]. i'm so happy to welcome abby to our crew, and am grateful to heather for her two years of posts, and the amazing new banner she created for us!

like shari in vermont, here in minneapolis, we are just barely thawed out from our snowy winter and nothing is blooming yet! but the days are getting warmer and longer and i've been planning my garden for this year. i'm a little bit behind this year, but i've just taken my annual seed inventory, started a fresh new garden journal for this year, and made my list of what i'll be planting.

last year, we signed up for a csa for the first time to supplement the food we grow in our gardens. it was so amazing to have all of those beautiful veggies delivered each week! at the beginning of the season, i wasn't sure exactly what we'd be getting in our weekly boxes, so i just planted my garden as usual. after one year of the csa, i know now what vegetables we receive a lot of, and what we don't get at all and i'm using that knowledge to plan my garden. for example, i'm not planting any green beans this year! last year, i had more than enough from the csa to eat and can a few batches of dilly green beans. surprisingly, we hardly received any zucchini or summer squash, so i think i'll plant one of each of those this year.

i've never been very good at saving seeds (maybe this year will be the year i start!) so after i take my inventory of old seeds that i am going to plant, i make a list of seeds to buy. i've found that seeds can stay viable for at least four years, so don't discount those old seed packets- you can still use them! i'll be headed to the garden store this weekend to fulfill my list, and i'm sure i'll find a whole bunch of other interesting seeds that i want to try this year. i'm planning to get some of my early seedlings started this weekend to keep under grow lights in my basement for the next six weeks. i'll be sure to report back on what i planted and how they're growing!

i've had the same garden spaces for the past few years, so i mostly have a good idea of what i can fit in. i always end up with many extra seedlings that i pawn off on delighted friends, neighbors, and coworkers. it might be more efficient to draw up an actual plan for my garden each year (i've done this in the past) but somehow, the haphazard approach of planting a bunch of seedlings and fitting them in where i can seems to fit my gardening style best.

so...what are you planning on planting this year? how do you plan your garden each year?

Tomatoes

This has not been the best year for tomatoes. In fact, most of our tomatoes (with the exception of Cherokee Purple) have experienced some serious cracking due to a dry July followed by heavy rains. We've also been contending with septoria leaf spot, watching as it crawls up the base of our plants. After reading up on septoria, I think we are partially to blame. We often plant our tomatoes a little closer together than is ideal, due to lack of space and our desire to plant many varieties. Have any of you been dealing with this fungus? It is quite common.

Still, the tomatoes are coming in (finally!) and I have my eye on a few ways to preserve them for winter eating:

Tomato Jam Food in Jars

DIY sun-dried tomatoes Todd Porter and Diane Cu

Salsa Rojo Local Kitchen

Do you have any favorite recipes for preserving tomatoes?