Posted on by tonytomeo · 3 Comments

Vegetables Come And Vegetables Go

61012thumbVegetables are annuals too, just like the flowering bedding plants that get replaced seasonally. Some are technically biennials, and a few might even have the potential to be short term perennials if they ever got the chance. Yet, for the purposes of home vegetable gardens, the warm season vegetables that produced through summer should now get replaced with cool season vegetables.

Yes, pulling up tomato plants to make room for cabbage is the same dilemma as pulling up petunias to make room for pansies. No one wants to do it while the plants are still productive. Tomato plants might continue to make a few more tomatoes until frost. Yet, planting cool season vegetables should not be delayed for too long. They want to disperse their roots while the soil is still warm.

Just like warm season vegetables, many of the cool season vegetables are more efficiently grown from seed sown directly into the garden. Root vegetables like beet, carrot, radish and turnip do not recover well from transplanting. Besides, cell packs do not contain many seedlings, even if multiple seedlings within individual cells are divided. It is more practical to sow seed evenly in rows.

Baby greens can also be grown from seed because so many small plants are wanted. Unlike heading lettuce that get harvested as individual mature plants, baby greens get plucked as they develop, from plants that may never reach maturity. Chard, kale and collard greens grow well from seed, or can optionally be grown from cell pack seedlings if fewer larger leaves are preferred.

Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and Brussels sprout are more typically grown from cell pack seedlings because only a few individual plants are desired. One or two six packs of cabbage might be more than one garden needs, and do not cost much more than a packet of seed. They mature at different rates, so larger ones can be harvested first, while smaller ones get more time to mature.

The root vegetables work the same way, maturing somewhat variably through a few weeks. However, secondary phases planted a few weeks after primary phases can start to mature as the primary phases get depleted. ‘Cole’ crops such as broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and Brussels sprouts, consume the same resources, so perform best in small groups with a bit of separation.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 5 Comments

Cool Season Vegetables Are Coming

80926thumbIt is getting close to one of those two unpleasant times of year for the vegetable garden. It happened last spring, and it will happen again this autumn. Plants that so dutifully produced vegetables through the last season must relinquish their space for plants that will produce vegetables for the next season. In autumn, it will be cool season vegetables that replace warm season vegetables.

They are all on their own distinct schedule. Pulling up corn stalks is not so distressing because we know when they are finished. Pole beans, bell peppers and summer squash might make it easy as well, if they start to look shabby as their season ends. Tomatoes are the more unpleasant ones to pull up, since they can continue to produce right up to the end, even as the nights get cooler.

If they were planted on the edge of the vegetable garden, and allowed to grow outside of the space needed for incoming cool season vegetables, winter squash can stay until their vines succumb to frost. Fruits that get harvested just prior to frost last better in the cellar. Those exposed to a bit of frost attain better flavor. Winter squash really are summer vegetables. They just finish in autumn.

Seed for beets, carrots and various root vegetables that are grown this time of year should be sown directly into the garden. Root vegetables do not transplant well. Besides, too many relatively expensive seedlings would be needed to grow a substantial quantity of such vegetables. Seed should be sown in phases every few weeks so all the vegetables do not mature at the same time.

Peas, spinach and leafy (non-heading) lettuces should likewise be grown from seed sown directly into the garden. However, it is more practical to grow broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage from seedlings rather than seed. Because only a few plants of each are needed, they are not terribly more expensive than seed. One or two six packs might suffice. Another option that is useful for those who grow varieties that are unavailable in nurseries, is to grow seedlings from seed in small pots or flats, to plant out later.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 23 Comments

Trout and Cabbage

61012No; this is not a recipe. It is two brief stories about my first fishing trip and the first vegetables I ever grew.
My first fishing trip was at Silver Lake, past my grandparents summer house in Pioneer. I was just a little tyke. I think I had just a small cane with a hook on a string tied to it. I doubt that I was expected to catch anything with it. I sat on a bare granite shore with my Uncle Bill behind me to keep me from falling in, and my hook on a string in the water.
‘Fishy’ took the hook almost immediately. He was a slippery and shiny trout who startled everyone around with his eagerness to grab onto the hook in order to come home with us. I pulled him up so that my Uncle Bill could take him off of the hook. However, to my surprise, my Uncle Bill explained that Fishy had to go back into the lake because he was too small! I was baffled. I told my Uncle Bill that Fishy could not bee too small because he was bigger than any other fish in my grandfather’s aquarium!
Of course, Uncle Bill then explained that the objective of fishing was not to relocate fish from the uncomfortably cold lake to the cozy warm aquarium. As he continued to explain what the real objective of fishing was, it became very obvious that the lake was the best option for Fishy! Uncle Bill put Fishy back in the water, where he happily swam away. I am pleased to say that I never saw Fishy again.
Shortly afterward, my grandmother gave me a six-pack of cabbage seedlings that I planted in a neat row below my mother’s kitchen window. I was so pleased with them. I watered them and talked to them and sometimes just petted their waxy leaves. They grew quite large, and started to crowd each other.
Then, one day while I was out playing with my pine cones and favorite dirt on the patio, my mother came out with a paring knife and walked by without saying anything. To my HORROR, she returned with a severed cabbage! I totally freaked out! Of course, my mother explained to me that the objective of growing the cabbages was to eat them, and that they were the same vegetable that I liked so much in a cooked form. That was not much consolation. If I had known that, I would have planted them up at Silver Lake so that they could live happily ever after with Fishy.
Well, I did not eat any cabbage with supper that evening. By the time the second cabbage was murdered, I was able to eat it. I did not want it to die in vain; and it really was quite good. So were the third, fourth and fifth cabbage.
The last cabbage was the runt of the litter, so my mother allowed me to care for it all through winter. When it got muddy from splattering rain water falling from the eave, I washed it with soap, which is how I learned that plants do not like soap. As the weather warmed in spring, it bolted. The outer leaves got rather crispy, and a floral stalk stretched upward from the center. It bloomed with small yellow flowers and even made little seed capsules. I do not know if it ever made viable seed, because I did not collect any. By the time it deteriorated and died, I knew that it had lived a full life, so was not too sad about it. The funeral was brief before it was interred behind the apricot tree.
In the end, I ate neither the first fish I ever caught, nor the first vegetable I ever grew.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 4 Comments

It Will Soon Be Autumn

71004thumbFrom the time they get planted in early spring, tomato plants are expected to perform a bit better than they did earlier in the season. They start out with only a few early tomatoes, but quickly become prolific. Production continues to increase as the plants grow all through summer . . . until now. Newer leaves on top are not staying so far ahead of fading leaves below.

While the weather is still warm, it is difficult to say how tomato plants know that autumn will soon replace summer. They do not seem to be intelligent enough to realize that every day is imperceptibly shorter than the one before. Nor do they seem to be sensitive enough to notice if the nights get slightly cooler. They just know, and they tell all their friends.

If zucchini plants have not started to fade and sag, they will soon. As weather cools, they no longer grow faster than the mildew that they tolerated all summer. Any fruits that are present now should have time to finish developing, but there probably will not be many more after that. (Zucchini fruits are eaten before mature anyway.) Other warm season vegetables are in a similar state.

Acorn, Hubbard, butternut and other winter squash grow through summer just like summer squash do, but are not harvested until the vines wither in autumn and winter. Unlike summer squash that continue to produce many tender juvenile fruit to replace what gets harvested through summer, winter squash plants put all their effort into one or two large ripe fruit.

Warm season vegetable plants still need to be watered as the foliage slowly deteriorates. They only begin to need less water as they lose foliage and the weather gets cooler. They may like to be fertilized one last time, but will not not need it again. Any last phases of corn will stay thirsty later than other vegetable plants because they deteriorate slower, and are rather thirsty anyway.

Seed for broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale and certain other cool season vegetables can be sown in flats or cell packs now so that their seedlings are ready to go when the warm season vegetables relinquish their space in the garden. If space allows, seed for beet, turnip and turnip greens can be sown directly into the garden. Carrot seed should still wait for cooler weather.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 33 Comments

Carrots Are EVIL!

P80811KHow can anyone eat them? No only do people eat them, but many people enjoy them, and some even consider them to be their favorite vegetable!
Carrots are ridiculously bright orange. They try to make themselves appealingly colorful like summery flowers or oranges. Something that grows underground has no business being that bright orange! About the time that typically bright orange California poppies became available in sickly purple, pale white, orangish red and a few other colors, carrots with the same colors also became available! Coincidence? I think not.
Carrots have that distinctively weird texture. Radishes have that perfect crunch. Beets are firm but cook up so nicely. All of the various root vegetables have the perfect texture that works for them; except for carrots. They try to mimic radishes, but are not as succulent and crisp. They are a bit more firm like turnips, but they can not get that technique down either. They are just nasty!
Carrots have that distinctive flavor . . . or unflavor. What does it taste like? No one can give a straight answer. Carrots can seem to taste mildly sweet, but it is all deception! People just say that about carrots because they do not taste like anything else!
Carrots have that distinctive evil shape. They are long drawn out roots that reach straight for Hell, from whence they came! If it were such a great shape other root vegetables would use it.
Carrots grow underground where we can not see what they are up to. What are they doing down there? That region of the garden below the surface of the soil should be reserved exclusively for turnips, beets, potatoes, onions, yams and any other subterranean vegetables that are actually good for something. Why waste space on evil carrots?

Posted on by tonytomeo · 7 Comments

Flowers Are Only The Beginning

70719thumbFlowers have a bigger and better agenda than coloring our gardens and homes. They bloom to get pollinated. Their color and fragrance are designed merely to attract pollinators. Less vain but more abundant blooms take advantage of the wind to disperse their pollen. Once pollinated, flowers fade and deteriorate as resources get diverted to the production of seed and fruit to contain it.

Some flowers are on a tight schedule. They bloom in a single brief season. Others have a bloom season that last significantly longer than the individual flowers do. They might bloom continually for a few months, replacing fading older flowers with new flowers; or they might bloom in phases, with each phase blooming simultaneously, and then getting replaced with a subsequent phase.

Fruit trees and many fruiting vegetable plants bloom once annually, and then produce fruit. Tomato, summer squash and bean plants bloom and produce fruit continually. Tomato fruits are best if allowed to ripen on the vine. Beans and summer squash like zucchini are better if harvested while young and tender. Also, the plants are more productive if regularly deprived of premature fruit.

The priority of these plants is to produce seed. Production of seed requires significant resources. Plants that are busy producing seed within maturing beans and zucchini do not put much effort into producing subsequent bloom and fruit. However, if deprived of maturing seed and fruit, these sorts of plants are compelled to divert resources into new bloom, and seed and fruit production.

The same applies to many flowering plants, particularly perennials and flowering annuals. ‘Deadheading’ is the removal of deteriorating flowers to promote continued bloom. It is not practical for plants with profuse small flower, such as sweet alyssum and lobelia. Nor is it necessary for some sterile or nearly sterile plants that do not produce much seed anyway, like busy Lizzy (impatiens).

French marigold, petunia, zinnia, floss flower and cockscomb all bloom better if deadheaded. Rhododendrons do not benefit directly from deadheading, but look better without old floral trusses. Conversely, the potentially picturesque dead flowers of sea holly might be left intact.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 7 Comments

Squash For Summer And Winter

80425thumbConsidering that some of the winter squash can last right through winter and into spring, there really is a squash for every season. By the time the last of the winter squash run out, the first of the summer squash will be ready later in spring. They get an early start here, and continue until frost. By that time, the earliest of the winter squash will be ready for autumn, and will last through winter.

However, they all get planted about now. There is no such thing as cool season squash. They are all warm season vegetables (actually fruits). The vines and foliage all grow like weeds while the weather is warm, and then succumb to frost at the end of their season. They all grow very easily from seed, but because each garden needs only a few plants, they are often planted as seedlings.

The main difference between summer and winter squash is that summer squash plants continue to produce many smaller fruits while the weather is warm, and winter squash plants produce only a few larger and firmer fruits that develop slowly while the weather is warm, and then finish ripening as the vines that produce them die in autumn and winter. One begins where the other finishes.

Zucchini is the most familiar summer squash here. It is most productive if regularly deprived of its tender juvenile fruit, and is notably less productive if the fruit is allowed to get bigger and tougher. Pumpkin is the most familiar winter squash here. It is expected to produce only a few big and firm fruit that take all season to develop. Extra juvenile fruit may get plucked to favor one or two fruits.

Summer squash deserve more prominent locations in the garden because the fruit gets harvested regularly. Zucchini grows as a large plant, but stays somewhat confined. Winter squash want the same sort of rich garden soil and watering, but can be put out of the way. Except for plucking a few extra fruit, not much more needs to be done to them. Some like to climb fences. Pumpkin vines can be directed to the edge or just outside of the garden.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 19 Comments

Summer Vegetables Enjoy Warming Weather

40910thumbIf there are any cool season vegetables left in the garden, they should probably be harvested pretty soon. If left too much longer, they will be ruined by warming weather. Cabbage will bolt (start to bloom) once it realizes that it is spring. Cauliflower and broccoli, which are juvenile flowers, will become bitter as the flowers mature and try to bloom. Besides, they all need to get out of the way.

Warm season vegetables need the space. Tomato, pepper, eggplant, zucchini and other squash plants are ready to disperse their roots and get to growing. They are usually planted as seedlings because only a few of each are needed. A few seedlings of each type are more reliable, but not much more expensive than a packet of seeds; and they do not need to take the time to germinate.

However, because they are so easy to grow, seed for zucchini and other squash, as well as melon, are popularly sown directly where plants are desired. There was no need to sow them indoors earlier to plant in the garden as seedlings now. Onions can be grown from seed for late harvest, or they can be grown from juvenile onions known as ‘sets’ for earlier harvest or for green onions.

There are two main reasons why cucumbers, beans and corn should be grown from seed, although cucumber seedlings can be practical if only a few are desired. Otherwise, so many individual plants are needed that it would be relatively expensive to purchase enough seedlings. The main reason for sowing seed directly is that their seedlings are sensitive to the stress of transplanting.

Tomato, zucchini and beans are likely the most popular of warm season vegetables because they are so productive and reliable, even in limited space. Pole beans can be grown on trellises against fences or walls in very tight spots. Corn is less popular because it needs so much space, and needs to be watered so regularly. Too few plants may not be adequate for cross pollination. Pepper and eggplant, as well as okra, are not too demanding, but appreciate rich soil, regular watering and warm exposure.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 14 Comments

Warm Season Vegetables Start Now

P80312The calendar does not always agree with the weather. It really is about time to start replacing aging cool season vegetable plants with fresh new warm season vegetable plants. Earlier warm and dry weather had suggested that it was getting late. More recent frosty weather followed by rain suggested otherwise. Regardless, there is no point in arguing with what the calendar determines.

The last seedlings for broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and Brussels sprouts (for those who are able to grow them) should be well established in the garden. There should be enough cool weather for them to finish before the heat of summer causes them to go bitter. No more should be planted this late. Also, the last seed for beets should have been sown already. Peas should finish soon.

Warm season vegetables like tomato, pepper, squash, cucumber, corn and bean are the main concern now. Tomato and pepper are most easily planted as seedlings purchased in cell packs. A packet of seed costs as much as a cell pack, but must be sown and grown into seedlings, which is extra work. If necessary, varieties that are unavailable in cell packs can be grown from seed.

The other warm season vegetables grow so fast from seed that there is no advantage to planting them as seedlings here. Some would be distressed from transplant as seedlings. Besides, so many individual plants of each type are typically grown together that it would be expensive to purchase so many cell packs. Squash might be an exception if only a few plants would be enough.

Bush beans may seem like they would be easier to grow than pole beans because they do not require support. However, pole beans can grow on the sunny side of a fence in the background of a vegetable garden, utilizing otherwise useless space. If it would not damage the fence, string can be strung in a zigzag pattern (up and down) between nails pounded part way into the top and bottom of the fence. If the string is held an inch or so from the fence (at the heads of the protruding nails), bean vines would be happy to climb it.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 6 Comments

Too Late For Pie

P71203Just a few feet downhill from where the old valley oak had lived for centuries (https://tonytomeo.wordpress.com/2017/09/11/goodbye-to-an-old-friend/), a pumpkin vine appeared shortly after the big oak stump was ground out. That was in late September, so was much too late for it to do much; or so I thought.

The vine grew very quickly! It is hard to say if it got water from a leaking pipe. A valve manifold that is visible in front of the stump in the original picture is completely obscured by the foliage of the vine in the second picture. With all the heavy work that was done right on that spot, it would have been very easy for a pipe or exposed valve to get damaged. (Water from a previously leaky pipe or valve could have contributed to the demise of the tree, by promoting the development of excessively heavy foliage that caused the large limbs to break and fall.)

Despite the vigor and size of this remarkably healthy pumpkin vine, no fruit developed. Only a few undeveloped fruit can be found now, and the weather is getting too cool for it to mature. The foliage and flowers are already starting to succumb to mildew and decay, and will eventually get frosted. If there is any fruit obscured by the foliage, it will become visible when the foliage collapses.

Regardless, the pumpkin vine really seemed to have fun while it had the chance. How many of us get to grow pumpkin vines this big through an entire growing season? It got plenty of sunlight, and must have been getting water from somewhere. The soil is good there. As you can see in the picture, it had plenty of room to grow.

What is so special about that spot? If there is not a water leak that needs to be repaired, what else could be grown there next year?!P71203+