Posted on by tonytomeo

Vegetables Grow All Year Here

71018thumbThe difficult part is pulling up the warm season vegetable plants while they still seem to be productive. It gets much easier after that. Putting new cool season vegetable plants back into the garden is much more gratifying. Vegetable gardening never stops here. One season starts before the previous season ends. If cool season vegetable plants get a late start, they take longer to produce.

If there is enough space in the garden, the cool season vegetable plants can go somewhere else, while the warm season vegetable plants finish with what they might still be working on. Tomatoes might last until frost. Even when it get too cold for the foliage, green fruit can still ripen on the vine, and a bit more on the kitchen windowsill. Green tomatoes remaining after that can be pickled.

If the soil does not need too much amendment, and the spacing works out well, new cool season vegetable plants can be planted in with the warm season vegetable plants so that they can start to grow and disperse roots while the warm season vegetables finish. By the time the warm season plants succumb to cooling weather, the new cool season plants will already be maturing nicely.

This technique does not work so well with last season’s tomatoes only because they are so greedy with nutrients. Fertilizer might compensate for plants that seem slow where tomatoes had been previously. A bit of amendment can be added to the soil when new cool season plants get planted, and more can be added between them when old warm season vegetable plants get removed.

Broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower should all be planted as seedlings, so can work nicely with interplanting with aging warm season vegetable plants. Since only a few of each type are needed for a well outfitted garden, one or two cell packs of six or eight plants each should be sufficient. Each cell pack does not cost too much more than a packet of seed. Seedlings get established quickly.

Beets, carrots, lettuce, spinach and peas should be grown from seed sown directly into the garden, so do not work so well with interplanting. Too many individual plants of each type are needed. It just would not be practical to grow them from cell pack seedlings. Besides, they grow so efficiently from seed. Kale can be grown either from seed of seedlings. It might be too late for cucumbers.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 2 Comments

Pumpkins Wait For No One

71004thumbThings might have gone better for Cinderella if she had taken a Buick to the ball instead of that detrimentally punctual pumpkin coach. It was on such a tight schedule! It might have seemed like a good idea on the way too the ball. It certainly was a unique ride. The problem was that it made no accommodation for Cinderella’s tardiness at midnight. It adhered firmly to its own strict schedule.

Pumpkins and other vegetables are just as punctual in our own gardens. Pumpkin leaves eventually succumb to mildew late in summer. This year, they might be a bit more worn out than they typically are by this time, because of the surprisingly warm weather a while back. They are just finishing up anyway. They only need to sustain fat pumpkin fruit as it ripens for the next month or so.

Some of the oldest leaves might get cut away if they get so dry and crispy that they are obviously no longer viable. The best and most functional leaves will be farthest from the roots. Unfortunately, that is also where the ripening pumpkins are. They need the leaves to sustain them, but they also need sunlight to color well. Leaves that shade fruit should be bent away, or cut away if necessary.

For even ripening, pumpkins should be grown on their sides, and turned or rolled a quarter turn every few days or so. There is no precise formula, but they should not be turned in the same direction too much. Otherwise, they get twisted off their stems. They can be grown standing on their flower ends if they sometimes get turned on their sides to expose their flower end undersides.

Regular turning also promotes symmetry, and should prevent the fruit from sitting in the same position long enough to rot. Just to be safe, in well watered gardens, or where the soil is constantly moist, it might be a good idea to put small boards under pumpkins. Unfortunately, there is no remedy for damage caused by the heat. Damaged pumpkins will just make uglier jack-o’-lanterns.

Big bright orange pumpkins with thin shells work best for jack-o’-lanterns. Smaller brownish orange pumpkins with thick shells are grown for baking and pies. Their external appearance is not as important, although well ripened pumpkins have better flavor. White, pink, green, yellow, red and even blue gray pumpkins are just weird. They look great for Halloween, but do not taste like much.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 8 Comments

Baker Creek Seeds

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The problem with growing the same reliable plants that I have been growing for so long is that I rarely get to try something new. Seriously, my rhubarb was in the garden long before I was born, and will be around long after I am gone. I will probably never grow a different variety of rhubarb. The same goes for my lily-of-the-Nile, geraniums, many varieties of bearded iris, all nine apple varieties and all fourteen fig varieties! Sustainability can be such a bother. Only on rare occasion, I grow something from seed that I do not already have available. I do it in moderation; and I do not feel too guilty about it.

California is the best place in America for gardening, but ironically, we do not have as much variety of vegetable seed to choose from as other regions do. We can get all sorts of weird kale and heirloom tomatoes, including some that were recently developed to exploit the heirloom tomato craze; but if it is not a hip new fad, we might not have access to it. (Yes, ‘new’ ‘heirloom’ varieties) I still get my favorite simple and common vegetable seed from the local hardware store like I did when I was a little kid. There is not much in between. Most vegetable seed here is either very simple and common, or hip and trendy.

Baker Creek Seeds is one of my favorite seed suppliers, both for the formerly common varieties that I grew up with, as well as varieties that might be common in other regions, but not available here. I know it sounds silly, but we just do not have much variety of collards, okra, beets and turnip greens to choose from. The catalog of Baker Creek Seeds, which can be found at rareseeds.com, has it all. If you can not find it in their catalog, you probably do not need it. Although I cringe to say so, Baker Creek Seeds has more heirloom varieties than any other supplier I can think of.

I cringe at the term ‘heirloom’ because I do not like fads or crazes. Baker Creek Seeds does it differently though. Their heirlooms are legitimate and documentable, with nothing to prove, even if some of them look like the ordinary modern varieties. The tomatoes do not need to be blotched, striped, wrinkled, black, purple, ugly, or whatever it takes for them to be marketed as ‘heirloom’, although a few of them are. Some were developed by the Amish. Some were developed by Early American settlers. Some Baker Creek Seeds are heirloom in other cultures, but new introductions here. You just need to take a look at what they have.

All of Baker Creek Seeds are ‘pure’. This means that they are NOT genetically modified. This is their ‘Safe Seed Pledge’:

“Agriculture and seeds provide the basis upon which our lives depend.  We must protect this foundation as a safe and genetically stable source for future generations.  For the benefit of all farmers, gardeners and consumers who want an alternative, we pledge that we do not knowingly buy or sell genetically engineered seeds or plants.  The mechanical transfer of genetic material outside of natural methods and between genera, families or kingdoms, poses great biological risks as well as economicc, political, and cultural threats…”

This makes their work significantly more difficult. Any seed that fails to meet their strict standards can not be marketed. Sadly, some heirloom corn varieties are no longer available because they became contaminated by pollen from genetically modified corn. While so many unscrupulously exploit the ‘sustainability’ fad with products that are contrary to sustainability, Baker Creek Seeds is the real deal. They can be found at rareseeds.com.