Its a jungle in my garden

I am way too busy in the garden with all the rain we have had this year and neglect writing about what is going on. We are blessed daily with enough food for the day and some to put by. This is good and bad as it give us green beans in January but the shelves and freezer are so full of the bounty it is hard to eat it down. Also the beauty of having so many perennial flowers in the garden makes it hard to come in the house. 

The mild-warm spring has had the tomatoes on hyperdrive! Just as the ones out back are taking a breather, getting pruned of all their suckers and putting on new blooms the plants out front are into full production. Good idea to plant them a month later. The Queens and Juliets take the heat pretty well and I have a couple of green strip there too. Our favorite so far is the black krim. I will plant several of those next year--large and sweet. Cucumbers are being weird--lots of growth and blooms but slow on the fruit. The lemon cukes are nice for slice and eat though and doing better than the straight 8s.
I am having great results from my eggplants in pots. The ones I did in the soil last year were barely productive. the oriental one I over-wintered in the greenhouse is full of eggplant and we are having a meal weekly, the black beauty has provided a couple of meal already and some for the freezer with the plant full of blooms. The Rosa is slow but keeps putting on one at a time. All the peppers but one are in pots and have peppers on them so good there too, including the jalepeno I thought I killed due to drowning not only came back but has peppers on it.  I just harvested a few more late beets to roast  3 1/2" in diameter with lots of greens. Have even managed to get a few decent zucchini from the plants and keep them going.

Only planted 1 seed potato and have had about 5# from it so good on that. I'll put more in about August. Onion storage is full--all 4 shelves and a quart to the freezer plus a pint to ferment. There are a few stragglers and we have used plenty already to cook with. Not as big as the ones my friend Yvette grows but good.Carrots didn't want to come up well but have gotten about 8# from what has and a few still in the ground, nice 4-5" long 1" diameter ones and a fair smatter of purple. I think the soil is not sandy enough. 
The sugar baby watermelons are really doing well. I have 2 huge ones ripening and several more thumb size ones setting. Happy happy face.

Herbs too are really showing their stuff. I planted large leaf basil and it is!!! Great pesto and lots put by already. Made mozzarella bites with it too. Purple basil is pumping it out too and I have shared so much lemon thyme I thought I wouldn't have any--wrong!! It just pops right back! The dill planted itself and I have cut and cut, given a lot away and still there are many heads to harvest. If only I had planted garlic last fall...sigh...but this fall for sure.

Rain, rain and more rain is making gardening interesting.

I do not remember when we have had so much rain and so many days in a row. It has already been a cooler than normal spring. The plus side is that in order to grow tomatoes in the greenhouse under low winter light without blasting them with lights, I ordered seeds for plants usually grown in Canada of all places. The

tomatoes are called Scotia and have out performed any expectation I had of them. They have thrived in the cool wet spring and laid on a generous crop of tomatoes--larger than I expected too. They will play out as it gets hot but we have been having BLTs and sliced tomatoes! Some of the other varieties are not faring as well although they are loaded with large tomatoes, the celebrity and lemony boy are both in one of the huglekulture beds and covered with large green tomatoes but few blooms. I was kind of hoping for a second and third crop before pulling them. The juliet is thriving out back and does have blooms and new fruit setting daily. The peppers are doing fantastically--loving the extra water and full of fruit on the jalepenos and some setting on the golden pepper. The ones in the greenhouse are loaded with blooms and smaller fruit, even the ghost pepper. 

I have finally pulled almost all the beets, all 400+ of them and found a much better way to use the greens. We love beets -- spiced beets, roasted beets, beets in our smoothies but the greens not so much. I decided to try making crackers from them and we are eating them by the  trayful!! Super healthy and low cal to boot. I have used the beet greens, carrot tops, collard greens, kale and kohl rabi greens in addition to onion and leek greens in these. With or without topping they are a great way to use the greens. I am even using them with an egg as binder to make a pizza crust. Lemonade from lemons so to speak.

Cucumber plants are going crazy and blooming like wild so hoping to get more than a handful. Carrots were not a great producer this year and the special purple ones were a total flop. Will try again in the fall. 

Starting your plants from seed or rooting and making them thrive

I love doing this starting my little plants from seeds and have played with a lot of ways to do it and have had multiple chances to see how it is done on a much larger scale at the Johnson backyard garden. Soil and moisture are two of the most important factors in the process after the quality of the seeds. Then the amount of effort to keep them going and not damp off before the get big enough to transplant is another big issue. Seeds should be kept dry and cool for best chance at germination. Ideal germination temperatures are different depending on the plant: germination chart  This site endorses pre-sprouting but has a great chart on the #of days to germinate at which temperatures: pre-sprouting and temps .
My best method to date involves a bit of combining of methods.

1. I use an unfertilized seeding soil well moistened for all seeds but I use a big enough container to put good lightly fertilized potting soil in the wells first and dampen well. I then put in about 1/2-3/4" of the well moistened seed soil and pat it down. 
2. For littler seeds I scratch the surface and drop on 1-2 seeds per sector. For larger ones I add enough seeding soil to cover the seed the required amount--the depth of 1 seed. 
3. I water the whole tray when done seeding and set on a tray to catch the moisture and cover with bubble wrap or in a plastic bag or under a clear dome and set in a warm enough place to germinate the seed. 
4. I watch the flats and wait for the seed to pop out a leaf. I do not water from the top as a general rule. Soaking from the bottom works better and makes for stronger longer roots. 
5. I generally use a misting of fish oil in water on the seedlings weekly as they grow and most of them get blown on to strengthen their stems. You can use a small fan as well. You can also use weak compost tea.
6. Once they are up and have at least a set of leaves I move them to the greenhouse most of the year. It is lightly shaded part of the day and gives them better air circulation but does increase their water consumption.
7. I try to get plants up to several leaves before they go to the garden. I lose fewer this way and have room to grow them and up-pot them when needed. 

Growing herbs and tomatoes from rooting a cutting takes a bit of planing and has been hit and miss for me this year. Most herbs do well if you pinch off a length of a growing tip and drop the stem in either wet sand or just water and wait for roots to appear. Once they have roots move to wet potting soil and decrease watering to bottom only. Tomatoes can be rooted by breaking off suckers from the plant and dropping them into a cup of water. I take a piece about 6" long and strip off the leaves at the bottom if there are any. I use rainwater or purified water for this.  In a couple of weeks the roots will be big enough to transplant into a pot then the garden. Sweet potatoes can be done this way as well. 

Garden survives freeze and keeps on producing

I have been watering and covering plants for weeks now as each cold snap comes through but I think it has been worth it in preserving the plants that we eat. I did not count on all this cold when I bought the cheddar and purple cauliflower. They are nice but don't do the cold as well as the snowball. I am surprised to see how much moisture the soil is holding (see my cute moisture meter) as I was ready to pour more water on an already adequately moist bed. The brussels sprouts though needed water and got a good gallon.

Inside the greenhouse I have a mix right now--peppers and tomatoes in large containers that continue to give up a few fruit every week or so and new seedling that are in their growing pots. I have over 15 tomatoes out there and many celery and broccoli and chard too. The broccoli and chard will move out in a week or so but the tomatoes will live in there until March.

Summer harvests are slow but keep coming

 We are really eating from the garden even in the heat. The trick is to make great stuff with the vegetables that are coming to harvest and rotate in the ones that I put into the freezer. We are getting better at this after having tomatoes at night for weeks--George is not complaining. As the heat has increased we are seeing a lot more eggplants setting fruit. The weird rains  in July though meant the tomatoes are all having some blossom rot again. Black-eye peas are coming on and so is the malabar spinach--finally found a lettuce from Nevada that might be able to survive in the shade and give us some leaves. Just when I thought the greens were dying down the kale has gone nuts from the rain (it should be dead) and we are doing kale chips. Celery is growing well and actually looks like little stalks. Doing rainwater only on the property is a bit tough some days. Hopefully next year I can get an irrigation system of some kind to work off the barrels.
All of the onions and garlic are now in the house in keeping. Garlic tastes great and smells so good. Red onions are not sweet but are terrific--now if they just have the same kind this fall! Only one more meal of potatoes and they are all gone. Asparagus though is thriving so maybe next spring we'll have a good harvest.

Tomatoes are a challenge but just keep coming

the weather this year has not been a good friend to the tomatoes but they just keep coming. The challenge are that the Early Girls, Brandywines, Jaunne Faumes, and Super sweet 100 are suffering from early blight. In researching this, I should have been giving them preventative treatment to counteract the really wet spring we have had. I have trimmed off the diseased leaves each week and thrown them in the trash. Good news is they are putting on new growth and still producing and I have a round dozen of them. We are eating fresh tomatoes every day--someday I will put some by.

The San Marzanos in the front are having intermittant blossom end rot issues. Have found that if I pick them a little green and use them with the rot cut off they are just fine. We like green tomatoes too. The extra dose of tomato fertilizer was not much help--heavy rains a few days later. On the advise of a friend I have given them a good dose of calcium carbonate--she said smash rocks but I figure it comes in pills so dissolve a handful and use that. There are only 5 plants. They are full of tomatoes both with and without the BER. The black cherries looked bad but are coming back--every day 2-5 of these beauties and the Thai pink egg is a stunner. we just pick and pick on this one. As it is in a container I have rigged a watering bottle to help through the high 90s days we are now having.

Garden thriving on cooler weather but humidity is bringing problems

Boy oh boy is stuff growing well! Instead of being blistering hot at this point, the weather has continued to be a bit cooler and a lot wetter. We have had RAIN weekly and kept the rain barrels full in addition to watering the garden. I have pulled the last of the winter beets and am harvesting the onions and hanging them to cure. 

Tomatoes are going crazy. I do have some blossom end rot on the San Marzanos but they are producing well and we are eating those green or half ripe and they are good. the Thai pink egg and early girl are really coming in--we are eating as many fresh as we can right now.

Green beans are doing well and giving us a dinner every few days. Eggplants are just starting to produce and the okra is growing so we'll have plenty later. I did a photo tour  of the garden to share. 

Tomato experiment this year

I am working on a new watering scheme for the tomatoes this year. First I got seeds from the Sustainable food center that are recommended for our area (I did check the A&M list too) and started Early Girl, Brandywine, San Marzano, and Supersweet 100s for this year. I also started a Thai pink egg that did well last year and a black cherry that did well for others. I also got 2 Jaune Flammee from the SJC.

Transplanting was tricky with the weather but they got up potted several times and went into the ground in mid-March. I set gallon milk jugs near each one inverted so I can give them a gallon of water without directing it to the surrounding soil. Calculations are that the plants need 2-4 gallons/week depending on the heat. This also is allowing for direct application of fertilizer without hitting the leaves.

On the advise of many tomato growers, I am nipping all the suckers this year. God they sprout fast and often. I have rooted several and thrown a lot of them away. Pinching them off below bloom level sounds like a great idea in theory--in practice it takes a lot of vigilance but the plants are full of blooms and fruit at this point about 7 weeks after transplant. I did cage all of them so they may not get as much air as they might if I only staked them. We will see. Although we have had a very cool spring it looks like things will heat up soon so now every plant will need some mulch around the jugs.

Spring is slow to settle in--plants are loving it

I keep going out to look at the plants because my tomatoes have NEVER looked so good. I have taken lots of advise about how to grow good tomatoes and what varieties to grow and am having a great year so far. every plant on the lot (20+) was grow by me from seed except for 2 that I got as transplants. I am pleased that the Early Girls are living up to their names--each has cascades of blooms and are setting most of them. So far most plants look to have 5-6 or more tomatoes on them. The San Marzano's are just behind them and since they went in 2 weeks later--doing great. They also have lots of blooms and have set 3-4 tomatoes per plant already. The Supersweet 100s and black cherry are also ramping up as is the Thai Pink Egg (top corner above) We are excited that the new Jaune Flammee(center), an orange tomato is setting clusters of 5-6 tomatoes and is blooming like crazy. They are getting measured water and fertilizer each week and had protection from the cold winds a few weeks ago with row cover. I was really worried as I waited and still they got a bit more cold than I thought they would do.


The herb area and the front part of the garden are getting a real facelift this year. It is fun to make it so colorful and unique. The cucumbers seem to love their rales and the scarlet runner beans are already blooming on the bamboo trellis. I am still not pulling out the peas as it is cool and they are still producing enough to keep us eating a time or so every 10 days. 












The onions I planted last fall are really getting big. I have been scraping back the soil from around the bulbs and think the harvest will keep us in onions for months. I have harvested about half of the green cabbage but none of the purple yet. The heads are doing well and getting big. I was able to trade a couple of heads of the green for eggs and make 3 - 1/2 gallon batches of kraut plus slaw. We intend to eat some cooked too. Brocoli is going well but will bolt if the heat comes on too fast. good thing it is getting within days of picking. I am already planting beans where I had beets this winter. There are only a few beets left out front but I am replanting in the back were there is more afternoon shade. Lettuce too in shadier spots so we have it until bad heat.

New growth as garden goes from winter to spring

I have been so busy trying to rearrange the plants and cope with the crazy weather we are having. Hot days in early spring confuse the plants and are making me cover and uncover to keep things on an even keel.  Got all the tomatoes in just after the last freeze date around March 10th only to have very cold nights a week later--37-39 is not freezing but way too cold for the little guys. I did a different thing in up-potting them that I will do again. I put the seedlings into 4" round pots that fit into quart yogurt containers and had self watering seedling pots. Roots came down, plants grew great and transplanting went really well. No root bound plants.

I put in a second round of broccoli from the nursery and am encouraging the brussel sprouts to make little heads--fighting the bugs. We will see how it goes. Peas are just about done and need to come out so I can plant the blackeyes there or peppers there and blackeyes where the cabbage is.
Was lucky to get another variety of eggplant at the sustainable harvest spring event and put them in and got one more in a plant exchange.
I harvested 3 beautiful cabbages this morning. Biggest yet--around 4-5 lbs. each. I am going to shred some for slaw and kraut and cook some for dinner. well worth planting!

An oft forgotten task:cultivating and lessons learned

 We have been blessed with quite a lot of rain in the last couple of weeks yet when I checked on some of the plants they are dry several inches below the surface. An Oh My moment hit. We mulched with compost and have not cultivated it much since it went on weeks ago. It has a wonderful crust to keep the moisture below but is not letting rain soak through  well enough. Soooooo.... I spent a hour out in the bed this morning cultivating the top layer, adding a bit of bone meal around the eggplant, tomatoes, and okra,  and watering the plants good from my rain water stash.

The eggplants are blooming again and so are the okra. Peppers have buds and we have had a constant supply of peppers--not enough to put up but enough to eat every day or so. Lots of little beans setting on the plants and blooms. Now if some will get big enough to pick again. Oh, the heat!


The malabar spinach (left) tower has taught me another lesson--do not make the tower higher than my fingertips as it is hard to pick the leaves when I cannot reach them!  I am finally seeing a few more bees around the Mexican petunias too--not nearly like last summer though. 

Garden Guild visits Boggy Creek Farm

She had some very interesting perspectives on things including early blight on tomatoes. She says every year some of the plants get it. It is the climate as much as anything. she leaves the plants alone and just keeps picking until the crop is done--in another few weeks here. her plants look like mine--some brown and dying leaves and branches and lots of growth still, blooms and fruit. She plants in long rows --kind of in hills with valleys between. she runs drip line down the row along the stem and waters when the plants are newly transplanted and until they set fruit then hardly at all. she does have clay soil under the composted and organic soil she has built up over the years. Squash and melons are blooming and setting, she seems to have some bees.


I didn't see peppers but she had them for sale in the tarped area out front.  She did have okra, sunflowers, eggplants and melons. She kept telling us that people put on way too much nitrogen and to not pull the plants out after the season but to just cut them at the ground, chop them with a hoe, add a bit of sulfur and gypsum, and plant the next crop between them to use the nutrients that the plants have brought to their root area. It seems to be working for her and she has had the concern for nearly 40 years now.


It was interesting that she started raising chickens for the droppings and sells the eggs to pay for the feed, adding the droppings to the brush/leaf/compost pile she builds and uses.
Boggy Creek Farm is at 3414 Lyons Road, Austin TX 78702.

Our garden is a destination

Twice in the last week people actually came by to show off my garden--people we  did not know! My husband was working out in the garage when a man and his son came into the yard. The man was pointing out the different types of vegetable to his small son--that is a cabbage, that is carrots, etc. Quite interesting to observe. The second time a woman brought her mother by in the car to see that the garden was in the front yard. We are managing to share more growing information than we otherwise could. Every day someone walking by stops to comment on the plantings. I have the tomatoes out now and am ready to start taking cabbages in. Most of the kohl rabi are already pulled but there are quite a few yet to bring in.

There is also a fair bit of interest in the rain barrels and how to build them and use them. So much fun!

Spring bringing change to the gardens

 The winter garden this year was amazingly productive but as I pull out the cauliflower and broccoli plants I have all kinds of spring summer plants ready to slip into the ground. Using the window grow box and the greenhouse to grow my transplants has helped me to provide plants for the garden that I know were grown the way I want them grown. I kind of jumped the season a bit by planting tomatoes on Christmas day but when they were transplanted in the  last couple of weeks they

were ready. Some had buds on them and many now are blooming. A few even have tomatoes on them already. We refinished a bench glider and put it on a platform against the house looking out on the gardens. We can sit morning and late afternoon and have a drink and rest looking out at our bounty. More than that, people who are walking by stop and ask questions about the garden and the plants and are amazed that the plants are largely vegetables with a smattering of flowers here and there.

I thought by now I would be taking the sides off the greenhouse and replacing the plastic with row cover cloth but the extra humidity has the peppers going crazy and setting lots of fruit so I am holding off a few more weeks. I found a variety of cucumbers that do not need pollinators to grow in the greenhouse and have a nice showing already.
Off to do more planting as there are still a few feet of unplanted soil that I can drop seeds into.

A very bountiful winter

I have to admit that I planted a few too many seeds in my little starters. Never in my wildest imaginings was I prepared for all of them to germinate and thrive. The winter crops have been incredibly bountiful enabling me to share with friends and put some bags of cauliflower and broccoli in the freezer for later in the year. Now the kohl rabi is starting to head up and the cabbage is heading nicely. Should hold us for another 6-8 weeks, maybe more. We even made our first batch of sauerkraut and several batches of slaw--from the cauliflower leaves and bok choi. Fabulous tasting and better than just composting the leaves. My husband says we are on a cabbage diet and maybe we are as we are focusing on eating what I am growing.

The Malabar spinach and new Zealand spinach that did not do well last year both have seeded themselves and are thriving.  Even the regular spinach which we can only grow over the winter and early spring here is much more productive this year than it ever has been. I am also having a bumper crop of peas that I planted last October and suddenly took off with the rains this winter. Chard, of course is thriving and so pretty.

I wound up with 4 different kinds of cherry tomatoes/small tomatoes so they are going to stay in large pots and sit next to the greenhouse. I tried to find tomatoes that would thrive in the heat of our summer and am trying a couple of Porters and Porters Pride, Creole, Heatwave, super Sioux, and Arkansas traveler. I may have a couple of Romas or not. They did so poorly last year that I am about given up on them. I have both Black beauty and oriental eggplant, one that wintered over is blooming to beat the band--now will it set fruit? I haven't figured out where to put the green beans but they are so good fresh that we have to put some in. I am going to put more cucumbers in the greenhouse with row cover to try and avoid the bugs.
If I can find room for most of the plants I will be lucky. Maybe I'll have to share a few of the little guys with friends to turn them on to gardening too.

Getting a jumpstart on tomatoes in the sunroom

 I think Christmas was a bit early to start  the tomato seeds as they are getting pretty big and have another 30 days to go until I can put them into the ground. They started in the heated mat I made then up potted to 6 packs under the grow lights. Now they are in 4" pots under grow lights in the sunroom.  they will be ready to go into the greenhouse in a week or so or into the unheated mini-greenhouses I bought last year so maybe I was not to early after all. 


 Some (cherry ) will go into tubs and not into the ground. I think that anything less than 5 gallon is too small for tomatoes although the peppers are doing great in the kitty litter buckets that are about 3 gallons. I think the eggplants may do ok in the smaller buckets too so we'll try them this year. 
Germination rates were mostly fabulous resulting in over 20 plants growing out now. I'll have lots to share with friends. I am specifically growing ones that are heat tolerant and many from Texas or nearby states with our hot summers.
I also started about a dozen sweet 100s for the new garden at the school as well as almost as many romas. The school will get some and I'll keep some to put into pots. 
This year's list of tomatoes includes Porter and Porter's Pride, Creole, Heatwave, super sioux and white rabbit. 

Heating my greenhouse easier than expected

Keeping the plants from freezing was easily accomplished but keeping the soil temperature in the pots above 50 degrees to let the tomatoes and peppers continue to ripen and maybe to set more fruit on the cherry tomatoes has provided a bit of a challenge. 


A single layer of 6mil plastic was letting the temperature drop a bit too much at night so I added a night cover of a reflective back tarp I got on sale at Harbor Freight over the summer. Using it has let me turn the heater down to low and still maintain temperatures 10-15 degrees higher than ambient over night. It has been a bit of a hassle putting it on at night and taking it off in the morning but I am finding new baby tomatoes so I do not mind so much. 


The entire structure has a double layer of cardboard about 20" high around the base right now but will slowly be augmented with 2" thick styrofoam blocks. I will also try adding large cell bubble wrap to the inside of the roof in hopes of limiting the use of the tarp. Bubble wrap could stay in place all day and actually add a bit to the heating.


Thanks to all who helped find the ideal temperature for the greenhouse as the cherry tomato that went in covered with blooms a couple of weeks ago is setting fruit like crazy--saw 8-10 new ones today. The celebrity tomatoes that were already on the plants are thriving and the first one is ripening. I do not expect more fruit to set. Peppers seem to have a few new blooms but again am not expecting anything but growing out those on the plants already.
 

Fall gardening expansion and peppers

Following our plan to convert more of the front lawn to gardens, I tilled up a section about 10' wide and 27' long next to the existing bed and am using it for the cabbage, cauliflower, spinach, chard, and kohl rabi. I bought more of the purple cabbage that did so well in the spring and had to buy broccoli as well when the critters dug up all the ones I grew from seed. I was able to grow my own cauliflower and have added kohl rabi to the front and back gardens. I remember liking it as a kid and it is supposed to be a great fall crop. It will also look very interesting in the front garden.
The peppers are finally setting fruit and ripening now that we have had a bit of rain and cool weather. Even the habeneros are setting and ripening although not as well as I had hoped. We will grow enough cherry peppers to can, maybe enough jalepenos and anaheims but will be saddly short on green peppers which we use a lot of. The 2 celebrity tomatoes I bought in August are full of fruit and hopefully will begin to ripen soon. They are set up with plastic for covers if the nights get a bit chilly until they have to go to the green house. Eggplant are full of blossoms and little fruit so we get enough for dinner every 4-5 days or so. The okra is still trying but I am ready to pull it and plant 3 times as much next spring.
I planted a fall crop of green beans in August and am getting a couple of meals a week from them too. They did poorly in the spring but are doing quite well now. I am even getting a few cucumbers which are about the best I have ever tasted. I think everything is liking the rainwater. Now if it will hold out a while and rain a bit every week or so.