One reason gardeners often have too much zucchini, not enough, carrots, and bitter lettuce is that they forget to plan for how long each crop will last. Some plants are only harvested once; carrots just give the one root for example. Lettuce can be stretched to several harvests if you cut leaf-by-leaf rather than the whole head, but the plants will start to get tough and bitter as they bolt to seed. To have good quality over a long period, you need to have new ones coming along at the same time your first ones are maturing. This is called succession-sowing. If you wait to replant until after you've harvested, it's too late. For crops like this, you need to leave some empty space when you first plant, so there will be room for the second wave. You'll also need more seeds for this type of plant than for longer-lasting ones. So remember to get enough seed for spinach, lettuce, greens, endive, cima di rapa, radishes, and other crops that require multiple plantings. Root crops, and many leaf crops fall into this category, along with bush beans and determinate (bush type) tomatoes. Other plants give many pickings. Some go all summer. One indicator of long harvest is a vining habit. For example, pole beans produce all season, while bush beans give a big harvest and quit. Determinate, or bush, tomatoes cover themselves with fruit and then stop. Indeterminate, vining tomatoes go on and on, bunch by bunch. Below is a guide to which plants need replanting and which ones don't. Plants that need succession-sowing: These will need to be planted every 2 weeks for a continuous supply. Sow summer crops in succession through June. Sow hardy crops* again starting in mid-to-late July for fall and winter harvests. *arugula, bush beans, *beets, *heading broccoli, *cabbage, *carrots, burdock, *chicory and endive, sweet corn, fennel, *lettuce, *Asian greens, *radishes, *spinach, sunflowers, determinate tomato, *turnips. Plants that produce most of the summer from one planting: If you season is very long and hot, you may want to plant a second wave or a later variety to keep up quality and yield, but each plant will be picked over and over and produce many harvests. Starred * plants are often planted in July for a fall crop. Pole beans, *sprouting broccoli, chard, *collards, cucumber, eggplant, *kale, *leeks, melon, okra, peas (replant once) summer squash (zucchini), indeterminate tomato. Plants that take time and make one large crop are planted once, (or twice for a longer harvest period.) Storage crops like winter squash or flour corn are typical of this type; you let them grow all season, then harvest the crops and store it. Crops that are normally succession-sown can be handled in this way if they are meant primarily for storage--freezing, canning, drying, or fermenting. In garden planning, these will usually be succeeded by a different crop or a cover crop. For example, when corn is harvested, there will be no time for more corn to mature; the space will be planted to a winter cover crop or a fall vegetable. Starred crops take a long time to mature but are winter-hardy and can be used slowly out of the garden over the winter, as they hold a long time in cold weather. Dry beans, dry corn, winter squash, onions, *parsnips, *storage beets, *winter cabbage, *rutabagas, grains
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The necessities for any garden are water, nutrients, air, heat, and light. These lead to biological activity which leads to plant growth. In wet or flooded conditions, the excess water crowds out air in the soil, leading to rot and stagnant soil.
In addition, wet soil is constantly being cooled as water evaporates off the surface. This may not be a problem in warm weather. In spring and in the north, it is a major obstacle. The big challenges are to replace stagnant, anaerobic soil conditions with aerobic, active ones, and possibly to warm the soil cooled by evaporation.
Variety recommendations:
Smoke acts on growing plants in several ways, and the effects of smoke will vary depending on what else is happening in your area. Temperature, latitude (day length), humidity, and soil makeup will all change the effects of smoke to some extent. Some effects you can change, and some require you to change your expectations. Here is what we learned last year as we coped with the nearby August Complex fire--the largest in California history at that time.
Recommended plants: This is a new area for most of the gardening community, and there are few guidelines out there. However, I will share my experience and observations along with what local farmers observed during past fire years. Plants that have to ripen fruit did the worst. Tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant had delayed ripening. Plants with soft leaves, especially leaves you eat, were affected. Lettuce, for example. Squash, with its big soft leaves and need to set fruit, were adversely affected also. Beans did better than other fruit-producing plants, possibly because I grow mostly beans that come from marginal environments and are adapted to hot, alkaline soils. Pellegrini romano did well. Rattlesnake, with it's tolerance for marginal conditions, did well. Round Valley (Covelo) beans, Nodak Pinto, Carol Deppe's resilient beans, Borlotto, and Yessica's Inca Beans all did well. Bush green beans were more affected. Dragon tongue did best, but was less juicy than usual. Provider and the Bush Mix bore poorly and were tough. The purple beans in the mix did better than the green or yellow ones. Corn was delayed by falling temperatures and reduced light, but Carol Deppe's dry corns matured dry ears in spite of late planting and smoke. The longer ripening period made corn more susceptible to insect damage, but it did all right otherwise. Sunflowers did well. Brassicas did well; the alkaline ash and reduced temperatures suited them down to the ground. I usually surround my cabbages with ash to deter slugs, anyway. And their waxy leaves resisted smoke damage. Those stalwarts, chard, arugula, and turnips did fine, as they always seem to. Endive also did well, probably because the leaves are more sturdy than lettuce. I welcome comments from others. As we proceed into new territory, our shared observations are the only guide we're going to have for awhile. Heat, drought, smoke, and flooding all affect your garden directly, and while we can't change or prevent these calamities, we can mitigate their effects. Here are some specific things you can do, problems you can watch for, and varieties you can choose to help your garden heal and thrive. What can you do right now?
What to be aware of for next year:
Recommended crops and varieties:
A nursery bed is like a magic trick--allowing you to harvest twice as much from your space.
Most gardeners now recognize that having a steady supply of cool-weather veggies through fall and winter is just as important as the summer garden. But where can you put all of those fall vegetables? Many people wait until tomatoes and corn are over, so they have enough space--but by then it is too late and the plants never size up before the winter days get short. Using a nursery bed is a trick that can give you two gardens at once--your summer garden still in the ground, and your winter garden waiting its turn. Because the plants in the nursery bed are young, they are spaced closer than they will be later, so they take much less garden space. How to Make It A nursery bed is just a piece of ground cultivated to a crumbly texture so that seedlings can grow well. Add compost, which contains substances that trigger germination and growth. Your nursery bed can be an unused bed in the regular garden, a raised box made of wood or blocks, or even a large tub. In hot-summer climates, afternoon shade is good, so either site it to the east of something tall--like a house, shed, or row of corn--or use shade netting. How to Use It You can use a nursery bed, or part of it, for starting seeds instead of in flats or pots. But where it really shines is to hold seedlings that are too large for the flat or pot and in danger of getting potbound. At that stage, when they are too big for their pots, summer crops are normally planted into their permanent places. In the case of winter crops, though, those places are already occupied by summer crops that we don't want to disturb. Instead, put them into a nursery bed, where they can grow until early fall. It turns out that many winter crops like cabbage and broccoli actually do better if they are transplanted a couple of times. Since they will be transplanted the final time when the weather is getting cold, mulch them immediately so they have warm moist soil to make a good root system. Here's a step-by-step example:
Companion planting can be a fuzzy and confusing topic. Books often seem to parrot other books rather than either data or personal experience. Some purported companions, like tomatoes and carrots, are pretty much unworkable. (Don't miss Carol Deppe's hilarious attempt to make those two work in her book The Tao of Vegetable Gardening.)
But successful companion planting is something we see every time we walk in the woods or look at a grassy field. Native prairies combine grasses with legumes and flowering plants in a community that fertilizes and defends itself. Traditional pastures do too. Farmers in many parts of the world grew crops mingled together, some by tolerating chance associations and some by design. A few groupings have been recognized and become standards. A classic grouping is the Three Sisters of North and Central America--corn, pole beans, and squash (more on this one in the following post.) Traditional African farmers combined millet or sorghum with cowpeas and yams; again, there is a grain, a legume, and a broadleafed groundcover. In the best groupings, each offers a "service" to the others, such as shade, root exudates, nitrogen fixation, pest control, pollinator attractant, smothering weeds, or other benefits. But to be honest, we don't know many of the ways plants interact. Sometimes all you can do is what gardeners have always done--just try things out. Plant pairings allow you to grow more in a given space mostly mostly by staying out of one another's way. Here is a checklist for making your own pairings:
Finding vegetables to match can be difficult. Herbs and flowers are easier to use as companions for vegetables than other vegetables are. They demand less fertility from the soil (often less water, too) and provide the nectar for beneficial insects. In wild systems, the sheer diversity of plants protects them all from pest and disease outbreaks. In gardens, there are fewer kinds of plants, and those are less able to defend themselves. The compounds that help plants resist pests often make them inedible. By growing succulent leaves fruits or seeds for us, plants leave themselves more open to attack. So it is especially important to add lots of nectar-producing flowers for insects like lacewings, minute pirate bugs, hoverflies, parasitic wasps, and other predators to protect vulnerable vegetables. You can find seeds for often-used and effective herb and flower companions HERE Here are some of the services non-vegetable companions can offer:
Permaculture is just now rediscovering the style of garden that fed North America for thousands of years. Native peoples grew all of their staple foods without either draft animals or mechanized equipment. Far from being a drudgery, Native American gardening was much less labor-intensive than the type of gardening we know now. It was based on plants that came from the Americas and love to grow here--corn beans, and squash. These main crops were called "the three sisters." Because the sister crops were the staff of life, they were the focus of legends, songs, and ceremony.
The sister crops work in home gardens today for the same reasons they worked for First Nations farmers: They produce big yields without mechanized equipment:
From time to time, articles appear about three sisters gardens. But they usually don't tell several important things that this sheet hopes to cover:
Corn is the basis--the older sister. You plant the corn first, and it forms a tall trellis for the beans to grow on. It's deep roots break up the soil for the weaker bean roots. And the sugars in the sap of the corn plant leak out an to the soil a little bit, giving other plants--as well as soil microorganisms--energy to grow with. In three sisters planting, you need a tall, sturdy corn that can handle the weight of the pole beans. To prevent lodging,(falling over) it is a good idea to plant the seed fairly deep (1”) and to hill up soil around the base of the little corn plants before you plant the beans. Planting in clusters helps with stability as well. Beans are next—the giving sister. Planted after the corn is a foot high, they climb up the corn, so you can grow high-yielding pole beans without constructing a trellis. Beans have nitrogen-fixing bacteria on their roots, which keep the hungry corn from depleting the soil nutrients. Transpiration of moisture from the corn leaves allows the bean vines to be in full sun without so much heat stress. The beans are planted after the corn is 8” high, one bean per stalk. Squash—the protecting sister--provides the living mulch that conserves moisture and keeps the sun from baking the soil. It's tangly, prickly vines and leaves make it harder for marauders (like raccoons) to get to the corn. The squash is planted 2-3 ft from the corn, since it is big & vigorous. Sometimes there is a fourth sister. In fertile areas like the Midwest, it would be the sunflower. (You can grow beans up sunflowers as well.) In drier areas, basketry or ceremonial plants were added. I like a few zinnias at the edges. They contribute by drawing beneficial insects that eat pests. I have also added radishes under the squash leaves, where they stay cool and shaded. Their brassica scent seems to keep squash bugs from finding my squash plants so quickly. The key to adding other plants is that they need to fill a different niche and have a unique contribution to the whole. Layout:
Depending on how much space you have and how bright the sun is, you can choose from several ways of laying out your three sisters garden.
Step by Step: In options #1 or #2 above, you start by making mounds for the corn clusters. Each mound should be 18 inches across and about 5 inches high (if you can bury some compost or kitchen waste under the mound, so much the better.) The mounds should be 5 or 6 feet from center to center. ( This is not terribly exact, so make it work with your space. The point is that they need about as much space as you take up with both arms spread.) Make the center lower than the edges. In #1, the circular garden, the first set of mounds make a cross (in the four directions traditionally) with each mound 5 feet apart. The next set goes in the center of the wedges formed by the cross. In option #2, just make the same 18” mounds down the center of your bed and 5 feet apart. Now sow the corn: In the mounds, make four holes in a square pattern 6 inches apart. Put a corn seed in each hole, 1 inch deep. In rows (option #3) plant your seeds 10-12” apart in the rows, and 1 inch deep. Sow the beans when the corn is about 8” tall. Before sowing, hoe up some dirt to cover the bottom of the corn plants an inch deep. This will help them be steadier. Plant 4 bean seeds in between the corn plants, on the sides of the square in your mounds. Layout #3, plant a bean seed 3” from every other corn plant around the edges. When the beans have sprouted, its time for squash. Make mounds just like the ones you made for the corn/beans. Plant two squash seeds in each mound. You may need to hoe the entire area before doing this, because by now there may be weeds. Once the squash gets going, it will prevent weeds from coming back. Layout #1 and #2, place the mounds in between the corn clusters. Leave one side free of mounds for access. Layout #3, the squash is in rows apart from the corn, to the south, east, or west, not on the north side. Plant squash seeds 3 feet apart in the row, with 3 feet between rows. One of the best reasons to start tomatoes from seed is to have a wider choice of varieties than you can find at your local garden center. (Another is to avoid the plant diseases that are common on starts shipped from huge growing operations.) But a wider choice means more decisions. How to decide which ones you want to grow this year? This post is meant to help you sort out what will work best for you, suit your needs, and make you happy.
First, I suggest that you daydream for a moment. What is your perfect tomato experience? What do you look forward to? For me it's summer evenings with a huge platter of sliced heirloom tomatoes, olive oil, and french bread. Some mozzarella and basil, a glass of wine. That's tomato heaven for me. For you maybe it's salad, BLTs, pasta sauce, or salsa. Maybe it's a cellar full of jars for the winter. I can identify with all of those. I'll bet that for a lot of folks, it's cherry tomatoes straight off the vine. Some love a rainbow of colors, sizes and shapes, just for fun. Whatever it is, make that a priority. Then, think about what else would mean a lot to you, save you money, or delight your family. In short, identify what will actually get used at your house. For years I grew cherry tomatoes because they look so great and they are fun to pop into your mouth, and doesn't everyone grow cherry tomatoes? After a while, I realized they were the last thing to get used. I gave them to visitors, ate a few off the vine while gardening, and that was it. Given a choice between a big meaty slicer and a handful of cherries, I will always take the big tomato--less work to pick, less skin per tomato, and for me a more satisfying experience to eat. Not that I don't eat a bunch in the garden when I walk by--I do. But they are the last thing I pick for the kitchen. One or two vines in tubs will give me all I want for snacking in the garden. Your patterns and your desires will almost certainly be different--so be clear about what they are. Next, I would consider your climate. If you live somewhere with heavy disease pressures, like the South, then disease resistance must be a priority if you want tomatoes at all. If you live in a cool foggy climate, then extra-early types are for you. Anywhere summers are cool, it is important to find tomatoes that can ripen there. Not just turn red, but really ripen, with full flavors and sugars. Of the tomatoes we list, Stupice, Estate, Italian Heirloom, Black Krim, Gardener's Sweetheart, Santiam Sunrise, and Prudens Purple have the ability to ripen in cooler (or shadier) conditions than others, even others with the same "days to maturity" rating. That list spans most of the sizes and types, luckily. In my climate, the ability to withstand big fluctuations in temperature is key. Summer days are often 100 degrees or more, but nights drop into the 50's. Many tomatoes drop blossoms or abort fruit under those conditions. Cherokee Purple and Pineapple (both from Kentucky) are super heat-resistant. Italian Heirloom, Stupice, Brandywine, Chadwick's Cherry, Myona, and Pruden's Purple all produce well here. No matter where you live, most people want fresh tomatoes as long as possible. So early tomatoes are popular--but don't forget the late season as well. You don't want a tomato-less September! I always plant an early, cool-season tomato, a mid-season tomato, a cherry, a cooking tomato for salsa and sauce, and a late tomato. In cooler climates, you wouldn't need the late type. (In reality, I actually grow many more than that--usually a dozen kinds. But we're talking basics here.) Once you have tried a few, you will find flavors you particularly like. Here at Quail, Bob loves Chadwick's Cherry, Will loves Black Krim, Julie loves Pineapple. We all love Brandywine. The farmers market can be a great opportunity for tasting. But be aware that tomatoes picked in the heat of the day will have better flavor than those picked on a cold morning, before the sun can develop their sugars. If you live somewhere with cold nights, your afternoon-picked tomatoes will have more flavor than a farmer's tomatoes that had to be picked in the early morning before the market. Tomatoes fall into broad categories, each with a specific name. Once you know what the terms mean, you'll know what to look for, and the descriptions online will be much more helpful. As I run through the terms in the next post, chances are that some will appeal to you and others won't. Great! That means you can look for (or eliminate) some categories as you decide what to get. Or if you want to look at the choices now, go here. |