The Compost Bin

Here’s a great gardening tidbit that you don’t often see in gardening books. Frozen ice balls falling from the sky for almost an hour are really not a good thing to happen to plants. So you should try to avoid that if you’d like to have a great garden. Unfortunately I was not able to take my own advice and as I’ve mentioned before, a freak June hailstorm in New Jersey left my vegetable garden shredded.

But here it is several weeks later and some plants have started to bounce back. Now don’t get me wrong, I still totally consider this year’s summer garden to be a disaster but all is not lost.

Usually around the 4th of July all my tomato and pepper plants are rocking. They would be full of flowers and really starting to reach for the top of the tomato cages or stakes or whatever I decide to use to keep them upright. This year, I’m just happy to have a few leaves on the plants. I figure the storm set me back about a month.

I knew that my perennial berry plants would be fine for next year but this years blueberries and blackberries are actually looking pretty good. The June bearing strawberries were cut short by a week or two but the plants have recovered nicely. I’m also lucky that the smaller ever bearing strawberry plants that I have on my patio were spared from the ice storm.

And I’m really surprised that my zucchini and squash are growing nicely again and even flowering. I think I may have to grab some blossoms and make a nice omelet sometime soon. After the hailstorm these guys looked like they went through the garbage disposal. They’re really wasn’t much left. But I guess that having healthy roots planted with lots of compost was enough to keep them alive even though there were no leaves left. Good for you zucchini. I vote you as the comeback vegetable of the year.

The new rhubarb plants that I put in this spring are questionable. I was planning on letting them grow some deep healthy roots and not harvest any this season but the hailstorm decided it wanted some rhubarb and broke a bunch of stalks off for me.

Other than that, I’ve got tons of hostas that look like an army of slugs had their way with them. But hostas really are bulletproof. By the end of the month most of the ripped leaves should be replaced with new ones, so no worries there.

And the same goes with all of my hardy banana plants. Oh they look awful right now but given some time and perhaps a few doses of compost tea, new shoots should start outnumbering the tattered confetti like leaves that now have the majority.

So that’s where I am right now in the garden. I also bought a few seedlings to fill in some of the vast expanses of emptiness in the garden that I’m not used to having in July. Things could have been a lot worse so I’m thankful that I’ll still get a chance to enjoy a garden fresh tomato sometime this summer. Hey it might not be until August but I’m not better late than never.

Image via Wikipedia

Since I’ve got a lot of free space in the vegetable garden lately, I’ve been on the look out for something interesting to try growing. Sometimes I’ll go to the store to buy tiki torch fuel and I wind up coming home with a new plant. That’s exactly what happened this week and now I’m going to try growing kohlrabi.

Kohlrabi definitely seems like an interesting vegetable to try growing. So what exactly is Kohlrabi? Kohlrabi is also known as a German turnip. It doesn’t taste like a turnip though. People say it has a taste that sort of is a cross between a broccoli stem and an apple. I think technically the vegetable is related to cabbage but it must be a third cousin or something because I just don’t see the family resemblance.

I planted them a few feet apart but only because of all that space in the vegetable garden that I’ve mentioned before. You can put them a lot closer together if you’re short on space. The rest of the planting instructions are pretty typical, well drained soil, amended with a lot of compost, heavy feeder.

So what can I do with this Kohlrabi? That’s a good question. I’ve looked up some recipes to try and they seem pretty simple. You can eat it cooked or raw. You can fry or grill kohlrabi with garlic and oil but that’s not very exciting. You can cook and old shoe with garlic and oil and it’ll still taste good. I also found some coleslaw recipes that use kohlrabi instead of cabbage. That sounds good. I’ll definitely give that one a shot.

Well I hope to be able to try these recipes, but that depends if the plants don’t get eaten by a woodchuck or get bombed with several inches of hail. It’s been a weird gardening season so far but hopefully I’ll be able to remember it as the first season that I grew kohlrabi.

I think that over the winter all of the wildlife in my yard got together, had a few meetings, and they have declared war on my garden. Here's one of their agents of evil stealing a strawberry.

Well listen here wildlife, you know how I had the yard certified as a Natural Wildlife Habitat all those years ago? Well if you keep eating all of my food, I'm going to have it un-certified. No more food, water and shelter for you greedy little critters.

Seriously, I think this year's vegetable garden is going to consist of nothing but peppers and tomatoes. The latest victim was a bed full of kohlrabi. Thankfully, none of the little creatures have messed with the peppers and tomatoes. But I had better keep a close eye on them.

There's nothing worse than losing a loved one. In this case that loved one was a bumper crop of bok choy.

I started the seeds under lights in my basement at the end of winter. Then I went to the effort to build a makeshift hoop house to keep the bok choy warm when I transplanted them outside. They even survived a couple of frosts under the hoop house and now that it's bok choy eating time I will have to go to the produce store. I have nothing to show for all of that effort because of a woodchuck.

Whether you call them woodchucks or groundhogs they are the mortal enemy of the vegetable gardener. And this woodchuck must be opening up his fortune cookie by now because he ate an entire raised bed full of Chinese take-out.

Putting up a stronger fence around my vegetable garden has been moved up to the number one priority on my To Do List. The current fence (that the woodchuck bit through) worked fine for the past two years. I just took a roll of bird netting and attached it to 2x2s around the garden. I also buried it under the ground so that nothing could tunnel underneath it.

But I guess after two years out in the elements, it got weak enough that it became the appetizer for this fat woodchuck. And by the way, this happened a few weeks ago but I'm a bit behind with my blogging lately. In my next few posts I'll describe what I've done to keep this pest out of my garden.

Looking good garden greens! I think there's going to be some delicious salads in my future.





By the way, all the white flowers pedals all over my raised beds are from my apple tree. They blow all over the garden every spring. It's really a shame that I have this great old 30 foot apple tree that produces apples that are so pest ridden that I just put them right in the compost bin. I just don't have the free time to organically care for this tree and I definitely will not spray anything on it.

For the first time this year, yesterday's lunch came from the garden. Most of the garden greens that I planted in early spring under the hoop house are doing great. So great in fact that I grabbed some scissors and did some harvesting yesterday.

I'm always feel a tinge of pride whenever I pick those first vegetables from my garden. It's pretty much in vogue now a days to grow your own food but how many of those people who decided to grow their first Victory Garden after watching Oprah or the morning shows actually had a nice bowl of garden greens for lunch yesterday? In your face newbies!

So this salad consisted of some simpson lettuce, mesclun greens, arugula and some red leaf that I don't remember planting. It must be from the mesclun seed packet. Along with the salad my wife made a zucchini and onion quiche. The zukes and the onions didn't come from the garden but check back in about two months and I'm sure my garden will have some veggies for the quiche too.

I had a really productive seed starting week. Not only did I get all of my tomatoes started, but I also got my peppers started too:

• Poblano
• Thai Dragon
• California Wonder
• Jalapeno M
• Jalapeno False Alarm
• Giant Marconi Hybrid
• Corno di Toro
• Hot Lemon
• Habanero
• Caribbean Red

And this year I plan on getting a real smoker for when I try to make chipotle and ancho peppers. Last year was a disaster when I turned perfectly good peppers into dust by drying them out in my dehydrator and then trying to smoke them on my chimenea. The flames were shooting out of the top of the chimenea like a jet engine and within a minute there was nothing left of my poblano and jalapeno peppers but black powder. Definitely not one of my finer moments.

As usual I plan on growing lots of tomato plants in my vegetable garden this year. And also as usual, I’m late to start my tomato seeds. So since I haven’t even placed a seed order yet this season, I’m only going to grow tomatoes from the seed that I already have.

After going through my seed stash, this is the list of tomatoes that I decided that I’m growing this year:

• Mortgage Lifter
• Black Krim
• Brandywine
• San Marzano
• Bush Early Girl
• Super Steak Hybrid
• Big Mama
• Little Mama
• Sun Gold
• Tomande Hybrid
• Brandy Boy Hybrid

If I have time, I also want to try out two tomato related projects. Number one is a self watering container made from a Rubbermaid storage container and the other is a homemade upside down tomato container. I’ve seen those Earthboxes and those Topsy Turvy upside down tomato things available in stores but I think I can get the same results by using some of the junk that I have in my garage. More on this later in the season.

This weekend I transplanted some salad greens out to the hoop house. I started them from seeds last month in the warmth of my basement underneath some shop lights and now I've sent them outside to grow up and become a salad.

They've been outside a few days and even though it went down to 29 degrees last night, they're still doing fine. The 10 day forecast is showing warmer weather so these little guys won't have to endure freezing temperatures again at least for a little while.

Now if I was a full time garden blogger and had the time in the world to run all kinds of experiments the first thing I would do is add some sort of thermal mass to the raised bed. Perhaps I'd try a really large stone (like a 30 pounder) or a few 5 gallon buckets. I'd partially bury them on the North side of the bed where they could absorb the rays of the sun all day long. Then at night the stored heat would help to slightly raise the temperature inside the hoop house.

Another thing I'd would like to do is move the wireless sensor on my Weather Station into the hoop house to see how cold it gets in there at night and compare it to the outside temperature. Without a thermal mass though the temperature is probably the same. But at least the plants are protected from the wind so the hoop house is doing it's job.

Since the bed is already full of salad greens and a few root seeds that I sowed over the weekend, the thermal mass idea is definitely not going to happen. But there's a good chance I'll get around to moving the sensor to get some temperature readings. Wish me luck!

I discovered something that I thought was pretty amazing in my garden this past weekend. It seems that some of my cool season greens have lived through the winter. The plants looked dead as a doornail all winter but once the overnight temps started staying above freezing, they started sprouting again.

The Swiss Chard, the Arugula and the Bok Choy were all buried under snow for a good portion of the winter but I guess that may have helped insulate them from the cold. Either that or they're some sort of super vegetables.

This is great news because these are three of the plants that I picked to put outside in a hoop house before the danger of frost has passed. I guess my seedlings will be fine.

Well I didn't time my seedlings perfectly but I'm not that far off. If I started the seeds for the cold tolerant greens about two or three weeks earlier then I would have spent my weekend transplanting them to the hoop house.

So since the seedlings aren't quite ready to go outside yet I spent the weekend cleaning up the garden and prepping the hoop house. Here's a photo of the inside of the hoop house and it's totally weed free. The soil has been amended and I'm ready to start planting. Now I just need some plants that are ready to go into the ground.

Looks like it's time to start thinning the seedlings.

There’s six inches of snow in the forecast for tonight and tomorrow. Even though the local woodchuck came out of his hole it, seems New Jersey hasn’t seen the end of winter yet.

That’s fine with me because or the first time in years, my seed starting efforts are actually organized and going pretty well. I love starting my plants from seeds and have been doing it for years. But truthfully it's never been a smooth operation.

The act of putting soil and a seed into the seed starting tray is the easy part. For me, the hard part is getting the shelves, the lights and the trays ready for that act. I’ve mentioned it quick a few times on this blog that my garage is a giant pile of crap. I have tons of tools, ladders, gardening equipment, all of the kids summer toys (bikes, skates, scooters, bubble makers, hoola hoops, etc) overwintering plants (9 musa basjoo and a fig tree) all in a one car garage. During the winter, you really can’t walk in there.

Digging out the shelves and finding everything I need to start seeds is a big hassle that I usually put off until the last minute. And when you don't have a lot of time you focus on the essentials. For me that's mostly tomatoes and peppers.

This year I managed to get started in February. As you can see, it’s March 1st and I’ve already got three trays of seeds started. Yesterday I added some Simpson Lettuce, Swiss Chard, Spinach and Pak Choi to the already started arugula and mesclun.

Since I’m on a roll, I’m actually going to start flowers for once. I’ve always wanted to start my annuals from seed to save some money and this might be my chance. And conveniently sitting in my seed vault are just the seeds that I need.

• Marigold – Boy O Boy Mixed
• Gloriosa Daisy – Double Gold
• Shasta Daisy – Alaska
• Gaillardia – Amber Wheels
• Zinnia – Cut & Come Again Mixed
• Zinnia – Zowie! Yellow Flame Hybrid
• Chinese Lanterns
  

I always wind up buying seeds that I never start and for once I’m happy that I did. So let it snow. I’m doing just fine inside.

My 4 year old daughter, who at this point is a lot more interested in gardening than my 6 year old son, came to me during breakfast with big news the other day. "Your Rogoogula is growing."

And since then, I've been calling it Rogoogula too. I like the name better than regular old Arugula. Even Rocket Arugula (the seed variety) doesn't have that same ring to it like Rogoogula does.

But regardless of what I'm going to call it, it did sprout pretty quickly under the light setup that I have in my basement. I'm going to wait until some true leaves appear before I thin out the seedlings. This way I can put the cuttings to good use on a sandwich or something. These first leaves don't really taste anything but once the true leaves start growing, the plants actually taste like arugula.

I'm still a long way from having arugula pesto but since it's still February, I'm just happy that I'm doing any gardening.

All through the fall, I was hoping to build a mini hoop house or a cold frame and extend my harvest and try to grow vegetables in the winter.

As you can see in this picture of Swiss Chard covered in snow, I never did get around to building anything. It would have been great to pop open the hoop house on a sunny winter day and cut a nice fresh salad for the family but unfortunately I didn’t have enough free time to get it done.

Well even though it’s February, I’m not ready to give up yet and I’m about to try something new. In March, I usually start seeds in my basement under grow lights. Mostly I start tomatoes, peppers and a few other seeds. Well my idea is to start some very hardy greens this month and then transfer them outside to a hoop house. Having a fresh salad in March is almost as good as in the middle of winter.

The greens I’m thinking about are Spinach, Arugala and Lettuce. According to Four-Season Harvest, those crops should be able to withstand the cold as long as they’re out of the wind. They’d never germinate in those conditions so I figured why not start them in my basement.

And if I’m feeling lucky, I’ll probably add some Swiss Chard, Bok Choy and Broccoli Rabe to the mix as well. I think they’re a little less hardy so we’ll see. I’d love to try some root vegetables like beets, carrots and parsnips too but anything with a tap root usually doesn’t transplant too well.

Once the plants have gotten a good start under the lights, I’ll move them outside and see what happens.

I really want to grow a lot of food this season so I figured I might as well start ASAP. And besides, I really don’t think I can wait any longer to start gardening this year. I’m ready to start now, even if it means trying to grow vegetables in the winter.

Well, that'll do it. That fat lady has sung. Here lies the last of my Swiss Chard.

After about a week of nighttime temperatures dropping below freezing, the garden is finally closed for the season. The plan was to build some mini hoops houses over my raised beds and try to continue gardening through December but I didn't have enough free time to make that happen.

The other casualties beside this Swiss Chard include a few different kinds of salad greens, bok choy, arugala and brocolli rabe. They were in such bad shape that I didn't even want to take pictures of them. Let's keep this a closed casket funeral.

I really wanted to follow the advice of Elliot Coleman in his book Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long and build little hoops houses or maybe even some cold frames and garden through the winter. But I'm still happy that I had fresh greens almost all the way through November. Next year, maybe I'll make it to Thanksgiving. Hmmm, that AeroGarden is looking better and better.

Well the winter garden isn’t off to a great start. I got the seeds in the ground and thanks to the leftover rain from Hurricane Ike and a few other rainy weekends they all germinated. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m very excited to try growing fresh salad greens and other cold hardy crops through the winter with the aid of a hoop house or a cold frame.

Unfortunately there’s also a woodchuck who is also very excited to see that I’m trying to grow salad greens and other cold hard crops through the winter. And he’s found a way into my garden.

I use a thin Deer Fence to keep pests out of the garden. And it works great. But towards the end of summer it starts to show signs of wear and tear. Now usually this wouldn’t matter because I put the garden to sleep every fall. But since, the garden isn’t sleeping and in fact, looks more like the early spring garden, it does matter.

The fencing isn’t too expensive for 100 feet so it’s not a big investment. But it does take some time to get it installed around the vegetable garden. I buy a couple of 2x2 posts, cut them to size and stick them in the ground. If you paint the posts black, the fence is invisible from the house.

I fasten the netting to the post using plastic tie wraps. I also like to bury some of the fencing under some mulch so that if something were to go up to the fence and start digging, they’d hit the buried part of the fence and hopefully stop. This has worked great for some time now. But with rabbits and the big old woodchuck always trying to get in there, eventually the fence gets a few tears in it.

In fact, I probably helped damage the fence. Whenever my kids see the critter from the glass doors in the livingroom, they yell, “Woodchuck” (well sometimes they yell “Beaver” but you get the idea). Then I run outside and chase it out of the yard. These things must have terrible eyesight because it usually runs right into the fencing. And even a 20 pound blind animal eventually will tear through one of these little fences.

I think the stubs in the picture are bok choy. I forgot to label the seeds when I put them in the ground, so I was going to wait and see what they when they came up. Hey at least I got the seeds in the ground! Getting them in the ground and labeled is a goal for another less busy year.

What’s next? Well, these guys should recover. But I have at least another fifty feet of fencing in the garage somewhere, so I’ll go outside today in the rain and put up a new fence and crawl around on the ground and bury the netting under in the mulch just like I do in the spring. Fall gardening sure is messy.

If I ever get my hands on a fully operational time traveling machine I would, like most people travel back in time to stop my younger self from making a terrible mistake.

You might think I’d want to give young Anthony some stock market advice or perhaps the final scores of the last 15 Super Bowls but those facts just aren’t as important as the knowledge that I would share with myself. Young Anthony must be told that he’s missing out on the great vegetable known as Swiss Chard.

I had never grown Swiss Chard before this summer and I never tasted it either. And what a shame that is because it’s really easy to grow in a home vegetable garden and tastes great. It’s a cool season crop but it doesn’t really bolt in the heat of summer like other greens. When my Brocolli Raab and Arugula bolted, this chard was still going strong.

My wife told me about how she used to love when her Grandmother cooked chard. She’d saute it with olive oil and garlic and then sprinkle it with parmesan cheese. And now that I’ve had it, I totally agree.

Swiss Chard will play a big role in my fall/winter garden too. These plants in the picture are gigantic because I’ve been doing the “cut and come again” thing whenever we need some leaves for dinner. But just in case, I also planted more chard seeds about two weeks ago.

But now that you mention it, I might want to let the younger version of myself in on some other important information. It’s not everyday that you get to travel through time so I might as well make the most of it. Young Anthony, you should try beets too. You wind up loving them in the future.

Thanks to all the rain last week, my garden is showing signs of life. Just about all the salad greens and root crops that I planted have germinated.

Yes, they're fragile little seedlings at the moment but with some TLC, I'm hoping that they become a thriving fall and winter garden.

If last year's weather is becoming the new normal, then these plants should be okay until Halloween. I was still picking hot peppers and tomatoes at that time last year. Global Warming/Climate Change is making gardening interesting lately.

So that gives me about a month to get a mini hoop house built. Yesterday was hot and humid in the 80ies here in New Jersey so I'm more worried about watering my seedlings at this point.