One of the things I use my garden for is to grow things that are either expensive to buy, hard to find, or just taste better.  Garden tomatoes taste better partially because the store varieties are grown for shipping ability not taste, for example.  I grow a few things (such as carrots) just to see if I can, but a lot of it is all about expanded taste, variety, and reduced grocery cost.  I just don't have enough space in my garden to put in everything I want.  

I just placed my first order at nicholsgardennursery.com.  I have never used them before, so we will see how it goes.  This year's "I've never tried THAT before" list includes winged beans, oca, and ground cherries.  

Winged beans are a neat-shaped bean that are sometimes referred to as a "supermarket" because the whole plant is edible, leaves, beans, and at the end of the season, tuber.  Sounds like my kind of plant.  Besides, it looks cool.  

Oca is a South American staple food that grows small colorful tubers.  It is supposed to have a bit of a lemony taste and almost no pests.  

The ground cherry aka husk tomato is a member of the solanacea family the same as tomatoes, and potatoes.  It grows a small sweet fruit in a husk that is supposed to have hints of pineapple and strawberry.  

I would like to try Murasaki sweet potatoes this year but I have yet to find a source that I can get a small quantity from with decent shipping.  If anyone knows of one please share the link.

Has anyone ever tried cinnamon vine?  If so, tasty or just weird?  How about bannana yucca?

Oh well, wish me luck!  Last year I grew purple tomatilas and really enjoyed the salsa verde they make, so I will plant them again this year.  They are REALLY prolific though, so probably a single plant, with the suckers pruned like a tomatoe.

Other than the oca, which is scheduled for a spring ship, I received my seeds from Nichols garden nursery.  I am starting the lettuce today indoors  and will move it outside in a few weeks to see how it does in cold weather.

Varieties:
Winter lettuce mix -
deep red merlot
lime green kweik butter head
fine cut oak lettuce
winter density romaine
rouge d'hiver

single variety packet -
marvel of the 4 seasons

My plan is to start a few cells every week until May or so and see how it goes.

I put the lettuce in a windowbox -  once it germinates it will fit in the kitchen window and I will start another window-box worth.  By the time the new one germinates I should be starting the other seeds and I will break out the seedling shelves that sit in front of the sliding glass door.  I was going to make this the year I started using seedling heat mats, but I am getting pretty good germination as it is, and I can always just start them sooner.

Lettuce seeds planted:


I decided to try some japanese sweet potatoes.  I bought 4 at Whole Paycheck, with the logic I will start one now, and eat one tonight.  If I don't like the taste, I will scrap this one and keep looking around.  Supposedly the japanese variety has a nutty taste that sounds appealing, and the only place I can normally get it is WF, which is expensive, half way across town, and a pain to get in and out of.  

Here is my WF bounty:  a mix of potato types, the sweet potatoes, and some turmeric.  Starts for most of these add up pretty quick, and I don't usually have space for as much as come in.


I set some of the potatoes to chite, and kept the rest as backups in a dark place in case they are ready to go way too early.


I took one of the sweet potatoes and set it in water to hopefully sprout:


...And the turmeric was added to a small pot of moist dirt.  I can always re-pot him later if he actually grows:


Total cost, less than 10$

Update:  Just tried the "taster" sweet potato I bought.  It's not bad - it still tastes a lot like a regular sweet potato, but it is drier and firmer like a regular potato.  It is a bit less sweet - went well with butter and salt, but would probably not pair well with brown sugar if that is your preferred way of eating them.  With the white interior it looks a lot more like a regular potato as well.  I don't know what variety it is of Japanese sweet potatoe, but the varieties I saw for slip purchase are supposed to be higher in protein and resistant to nematodes.  I am going to give it a go and see what happens.

2 years ago when we sodded the lawn we looked into tilling a bit first and found an inexpensive electric tiller was about the same cost as renting one for the small hand-held models (about 100$), so we bought one.  Well, yesterday was a glorious 71 degrees and sunny so we took the opportunity to till all 4 of the veggies beds (pics to  follow later).  We added some rabbit poo on top a few months ago, and some Black Kow at the end of last year, so this let us till it in well and loosen the soil at the same time.  I plan to let it sit until at least mid-March, then start planting.

Mid- March? When is your last average frost date?
We don't plant until the first of April.

First couple of years I planted in mid-March.  Got lucky with warm temps.

Then my worm turned and I got cold soils, late freezes and lost too many plants to the cold air and cold ground.

I have some freeze hardy things planted, but, with a 6 month growing season, I have learned my lesson on planting too early.  

Onions, garlic, greens, beets, carrots, brocolli, kale, brussel sprouts  ... all planted now, most 2-3" tall.

Peppers, tomatoes and potatoes are going to be held until I am damn sure that there is no frost coming.  The loss of 30-50 plants is too time consuming to justify the risk of mid-march now.  

TRG

Kinda the same here. 2013 we planted on 3/16 and last year we had to wait until the 14th of April.

Only the cool-weather stuff will go in in March.  The rest will go in around April 15th or so.

Ok gotcha.

Some pics:

I started some seeds:  
Artichoke in the larger square pots - they need to go out when it is cold if I want them to produce anything this year I am told.  I will move them to decent sized pots once they start growing.  
In the small trays I have brussels sprouts, lettuce, peppers (they go out late but last year they took a really long time to get going) some swiss chard and a few ground cherries.  It may be way too early on the ground cherries but I have never grown them before so I decided to err on the side of caution.  I figure I can always start some more in a month if need be.
The 2 sweet potatoes are there because the one I tried to grow sitting in water started to rot on the bottom.  I am hoping the dirt will bring just enough moisture for growth, without enough for them to rot.
.

Here is the raised bed half-tilled so you can see the difference in the before and after.  For a cheap electric tiller it did a pretty decent job.


The potatoes started sprouting, even sitting in the dark, so I moved them to a sunny spot for chiting.


...And in the interest of Valentine's day, 2 of the carrots I pulled before tilling....  

Swiss chard should take anything the weather throws at it.

I heard that but I have had mine killed down to the soil level by 20f weather twice.  I was curious because it was supposed to be very cold tolerant.  According to Burpee's website cold tolerance ranges a fair bit by variety.  I was using the Bright Lights variety - based on research after the fact it and neon lights are the least cold-tolerant varieties, but handle heat fairly well.  I will try Fordhook Giant next time - it is listed as the most cold-tolerant.

Progress report:

The turmeric from Whole Foods was in moist dirt for 2 weeks - it looked like it was starting to rot so I gave up and threw it out.

The japanese sweet potato from Whole Foods that was started in water sprouted, but the bottom was not growing roots and looked like it was starting to rot so I put it into dirt along with another japanese sweet that had not been water-sprouted.  It has been a week and so far the water-sprouted and moved to dirt sweet is still slowly growing stems.  The one put directly into dirt hasn't done anything yet but it's early days.

2 of the of the sweet potatoes that were still in the garage from last year sprouted in the garage - I cut off the sprouting end and moved them to the window-sill in water a week or so ago but again - starting to rot on the bottom.  I took away the water for now.  I think next time I sprout a sweet I will plunk the whole starter potato in a small pot with dirt and be done with it.

The seeds planted 2 weeks ago are doing fairly well - so far only the peppers and ground cherries are running behind.  I don't know how long ground cherries take but I have found peppers take a very long time without a seed starting mat, which is why I started them so early.

The cold-stratifying experiment where I left my beet seeds (along with blueberry, strawberry, and cranberry seeds) in the fridge was a success - almost all of the beet seeds germinated.  Based on that success I planted a test pot of black and blue strawberries and cranberries, which I had trouble getting to germinate in the past.  I also add a few more flats of beet seeds to the seedling tray.

I started 2 pots of artichoke 2 weeks ago and they are starting to come up now

The cranberries I transplanted out late last fall to test growing them over-winter and harvesting in the spring failed miserably - they were not large enough to survive when the cold hit.

The lettuce seedlings started much earlier are looking pretty anaemic - I was hoping to have them outside during the day by now for sun but the weather has not co-operated.  Does anyone know of a solar light setup that is less than 50 bucks to put together and won't jack my power bill?

TL:DR - Some stuff worked, some stuff didn't.  Does anyone know where to get/cobble a cheap plant light that won't jack my power bill?

Here are the regular potatoes I was chiting - The ones with white stems self-sprouted in the pantry and were added to the planter shelf today for extra light.  The small red ones didn't chite at all, they just dried up - I added the least-mummified one to damp dirt to see if it could be enticed to grow.


Mixed seedlings - about 2 weeks old other than the cranberry in the empty-looking pot in the front.
Left to right, back row: chard, lettuce, brussels sprouts.
Front row: artichoke, sweet potatoes, and a mixed pot of ground cherries, jalapeno and sweet bell peppers.

Here is one of the self-sprouting sweet potatoes from last years crop that was sitting in the garage:


Mixed beets and black and blue strawberries.  The beets to the right are 2 weeks old; the others were planted over the weekend.


And finally the cat, proving he is un-impressed with gardening in general unless it involves cat grass or nip (these will be pulled bodily from the pot, root and all, then masticated thoroughly.)

So far the japanese sweet potatoes are a success.  Here are the purple and red regular potatoes, and some sweets in the middle.  The fat taters in the middle are the japs - I have been carving slips off and planting them in the flat to the lower left.  The skinny ones are vardeman's from last year's crop that started sprouting in the garage.


The beet seedlings are starting to flop a bit - hopefully they can go back outside tomorrow and get some sun to sturdy them up a bit.


...And the rest of the seedlings.  In arly April I will start the main bulk of the seedlings for planting the first of May.

Bed 1 and 2 have been raked out, and the trellis added to bed 1.  Bed 2 will get tomatoes, tomatillas and a ground cherry, so there was no real point in a trellis.  I will add stakes when I plant them in mid-April-Early May


I put the red and purple potatoes from earlier in the thread into bed 1 last weekend, and they seem to be doing well....


Beds 3 and 4.  The row on the right has some swiss chard from Lowe's - I planted some from seed but there's were a lot better.  Next year I will try seedling heat and grow lights.  Beside them is rhubarb.  The beet seedlings I had such initial success with sucumbed (mostly) to dampening off.  Based on other threads I will try a fan and less water next year.  In the mean-time I re-planted from seed directly into the raised beds on the far left.  Not a lot to see there yet.  The few remaining seedlings will be used to fill in the gaps if they survive.


The blackberries and raspberries in bed 5 are looking good.  


The lettuce seedlings I started earlier in this thread are finally starting to look like something - I have a bunch of these planter boxes lying around from one of my attempts at strawberries, so if this works I will fill and plant 1 of these every 2 weeks and not take up space in my raised beds with them.  I can also move these to a shady spot in the hotter parts of the year.  On the right is buttercrunch, left is a mix called "marvel of the 4 seasons"


I lost a lot of seedlings to dampening off, but the sweet potatoes are going like mad.  So far I have the best success with just dumping a whole potato in damp earth, then carefully carving off the shoots and sticking each one in it's own pot.



I also started the seedlings for most of the summer garden in toilet roll middles filled with dirt.  If it works, we're golden.  If not, I can always buy seedlings.  

I have a lot of things greening up this year - the 3 almonds we put in 2 years ago exploded with blooms, the 4 year old apples are looking promising and the persimmons we put in last month are leafing out.

We have a number of blueberry shrubs up against the house - as you can see here they are finally starting to get fairly large and showing a lot of flowers.  This one is fairly average for the bed, which we put in 3 years ago.  I am looking forward to blueberry pancakes!





In the raised bed area, the beets I planted mid-month died.  I replaced the closer half with leftover seedlings.  The far half will be a new kind of turnip I found online called hakurei that is supposed to not be bitter, and have fuzzless, tender greens.  The trellis was planted with sugar snaps which are just starting to come up.



This section of the beds has a 1-foot strip of swiss chard, and some rhubarb.  The swiss chard took a beating in Monday's 25 degree weather but is already bouncing back.  I hope to harvest leaves from it all summer and just let the plants stay in the ground.  
Last year I tried rhubarb on the shady side of the house and it died to pests.  This year I am trying some in the raised beds and some in a pot tucked into a medium-sunny spot with morning shade.  Whichever does best (if either of them survive) gets to stay.





Last year's raspberry and blackberry plants are leafing out like gangbusters this year - I hope to beat last year's production of 6 gallons or so.



The potted plant section is a work in progress.  This my second attempt at a fig tree.  The first was a brown turkey which died to a fungus.  I carefully selected this "celeste" variety since it was fungus-resistant and did not grow too large.  It apparently does not like cold much.  I am going to use the pot to try and grow artichokes so I don't give a third attempt that could end in "burned, and sank into the swamp".   :P



Some greek oregano and rosemary I planted a few years ago.  There were originally 4 different herbs in here but these are the ones that survived repeated summers and winters in this location without any extra love.  My kind of plants.



I used to have strawberries in these pots, but they just did not do well.  I am trying a new plan this year by planting a pot with lettuce every 2 weeks in the hopes that by choosing varieties and location carefully I can have salad all season long.  



I lost a lot of seedlings to dampening off, and they just did not come out terribly hardy other than the sweets.

I am trying a few each of 3 different kinds of sweet potato this year - vardeman, japanese, and stokes purple.  As you can see they are off to a pretty good start.



The loo roll middle experiment, along with a few more summer seedlings.  The loo rolls have mellow yellow bush beans, bloody butcher corn, yardlong beans, winged beans, and some limas.  The regular pots have tomatoes, tomatilla, zucchini and lime basil.  If you haven't grown tomatillas before I recommend them.  They grow like tomatoes but have a really fresh taste - especially good pureed in with some cilantro and a bit of onion as a tortilla chip dip!  



The last of the seedlings - a few more sweets I just started, some peppers (jalapenos and sweet bell) and some ground cherries.  So far they all look pretty pitiful.

Well, the toilet paper roll centers worked like a charm for starting seeds so far with only 1 problem -  everything is growing so well it is starting to grow together.  I decided I was better off planting them and taking my chances with it being a bit early rather than not being able to get them apart later without tearing the roots.  The point of the cardboard centers is to not disturb the roots after all.

You can see here where it is already growing through the sides.  This is bloody butcher corn.  In the past I have had issues with the wildlife getting the seed before it sprouts, so this was my solution.


I had to pack them tight so they would hold each other up, and fill them when they were already in place to avoid the dirt coming out the bottom.  


Bed 1 now has mellow yellow bush string beans on the left, yard long beans on the trellis, and a mix of kholrabi and brussel sprouts on the right.


The other end of bed 1 has purple and white potatoes (they died back in last Monday's freeze, but are coming back) and the aforementioned bloody butcher corn.


Bed 2 is going to have tomatoes, tomatillas and ground cherries.  My tomatoe seedlings are way behind so I will probably just buy a few from the nursery this weekend.  The others aren't ready to go in yet so there is nothing to see there.

The climbers have been planted along the trellis in bed 3.  Most of the rest of the plants aren't ready to go in yet:


Butterbeans and zucchini in bed 4:

Very impressive setup! As a second year gardener i will be checking this often.

Thanks!  It has been an on-going learning experience.  One of my goals this year is to pay attention to how many servings I get out of a given area, with an eye to eating as many different fresh veggies as possible, over as much of the season as I can.  

Along the lines of eating out of the garden I just made 2 deep-dish pies from some of last year's blackberries and blueberries.  The set wasn't perfect, but the taste was awesome!  I have been enjoying blackberry cobbler on and off all winter as well, and I still have a gallon of frozen berries left!    I hope to start pulling fresh produce out of the garden in a week or so once the swiss chard gets big enough to start harvesting leaves off of and the lettuce gets up to size.  

Your post convinced me to go with block for raised beds. The cost savings along makes it worth while. It'll cost more to fill it with dirt than to build them with basic 16" x 8" x 8" blocks.

Cool!  They don't have to be as deep as mine to be effective - my original non-concrete raised beds were only about 8 inches deep and worked fine.  I made mine this deep because they are easier to work and I am a lazy gardener when the temp gets over 85 degrees.  

Three - no, four years ago I started trying to grow strawberries.  The first year they filled the raised bed section like mad, but no berries.  I ripped them out and replaced them with asparagus.  I didn't want to kill all of them so I built some tower strawberry planters.  Took some wide pvc, cut holes and stretched them out to make strawberry pockets, and buried the base in a 5 gallon bucket of gravel topped off with potting mix.  They did beautifully all winter and spring.  Come summer of year 2 they started dying like chumps.  I bought hanging strawberry planter-things.  That lasted through year 3 - most of them died like chumps, the rest had all their berries eaten by birds.  Each year I told myself I was giving up, but apparently I lied.  Last year I bought nice big window boxes - they didn't do very well in the heat, and hardly any berries.  I had even tucked them on the edge of the blackberry bed for shade but no dice.  This year I managed to properly give up and didn't do anything with them.  While I was checking my blackberries I happened to look down into the bed....yep, they naturalized into the base of the blackberry bed.  Nature is a perverse creature.

It is amazing what you can do in a 1/4 acre lot, without even using the front yard.  

In the annuals beds:
mellow yellow bush beans
yardlong asparagas beans
winged beans
sugar snaps
brussels sprouts
white and purple potatoes
bloody butcher corn
better boy tomato
early girl tomato
cilantro
tomatilla
ground cherry
orange sweet bell pepper
red sweet bell pepper
jalapeno pepper
beets
kholrabi
radish
oca (south american tubers)
3 vardeman sweet potatoes
3 stokes purple sweet potatoes
3 japanese sweet potatoes
fordhook zucchini
yellow straightneck squash
straight eight cucumber
tendergreen cucumber
rhubarb
swiss chard

In the perennial beds:
12ft x 4ft blackberries
8ft x 4 ft raspberries

Other permaculture:
18 blueberry plants
granny smith semi-dwarf apple tree
red delicious semi-dwarf apple tree
2 methly self-fruiting plums
3 almonds - garden prince, non-parielle, and one other I lost the name for  :P
2 lapins semi-dwarf cherry
2 japanese fuyu persimmons
a bunch of hazelberts used as a hedge

Pots:
artichoke
more rhubarb
orange mint
mixed lettuces
lavendar
rosemary
greek oregano

Pending:
honeydew melons
hakurei turnips (supposedly much milder and smaller with smooth leaves)
sunchokes

All of this fit in the 2 bits of side yard and the back, and the yard still has a fairly open feel to it.  Of the trees the apples are the oldest, and 4 years since transplant.  So far none of the trees have really produced anything yet - each year I hope this will be the year.  We will see.

I finally got around to adding some flowers in the front of the house.  The pansies and snapdragons bloomed fairly quickly.  The yellow iris just started doing it's thing.



The sequential lettuce planting in the window boxes seems to be working well.  I will start another set this weekend - probably buttercrunch as it is reasonably heat tolerant.


The berry patch is coming along nicely.  We should have flowers soon, shortly followed by tasty berries!




Bed 1:




Bed 2:  (The second half doesn't really have anything showing yet)


Bed 3:




Bed 4:

Looking good.

Thanks.

The sequential salad planting in window boxes is coming along well so far.  I have already had one salad out of it and I look forward to several more.  


Artichokes!


The persimmons I just planted this spring are showing what looks like might become fruit.  I may pull them off to let the tree establish, but it was nice to see.


Beds 1 and 2 are coming along.




The swiss chard also looks close to ready to start providing fresh sides for dinner.  There is not much else yet to see in beds 3 and 4.

Well, I pulled my first harvest of swiss chard using Dimmu's suggestion of just a few leaves from each plant.  Since I am not a swiss chard expert I went with the instructions on line and blanched it for 2 minutes in boiling water, then tossed it into a pan with chopped garlic and butter.  A little salt, and it was fairly tasty.  

I've also cut my second salad. I started using black seeded simpson in the more recent plantings, as the interwebs lists it as fairly heat tolerant.  I am going to try to keep the lettuce going through cucumber and tomato season.  

The kholrabi and radishes should be harvest-ready in the next few weeks, followed later by the beets.

Is anyone else harvesting yet?

Not harvesting yet. We're still eating carrots, sweet potatoes and stuff we canned or frozen.

Try this when you harvest a good bit of swiss chard.
http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/sauteed_greens_with_pine_nuts_and_raisins/
Use swiss chard for the greens and sunflower seeds in place of the pine nuts. Only use enough wine to deglaze.

That sounds pretty good; I will have to try it.  Thanks!

Weekly update time!

The apple tree without the issues is showing signs of apples to come:


Summer squash


Sweet potatoes - the ones in the front are Stokes Purple and running a bit behind.  


Zucchini.


Sugar snaps and sweet bell peppers.


butter beans.  I thought they were bush-type, but by the look of things I may have been wrong....


Beets, radish, and hukurei turnips.


Chard and rhubarb.


Artichoke, lavendar, rosemary and greek oregano.


Tomatoes (better boy and early girl) and cilantro.


Corn and potatoes coming along.  The potatoes took a strong hit with the frost, but a few are coming back.


Bush beans, kholrabi and brussel sprouts.


So far the only thing that hasn't come up at all is the oca.  I am hoping the cool weather didn't cause the tubers to rot in the ground.

Well, so far the oca I planted a few weeks ago has not come up yet.  I am hoping it just needs some warmer weather, so I haven't planted anything over that spot yet.  

Last year's biggest productivity issue was that once summer came I couldn't get anything to germinate in the ground and the stores no longer had seedlings.  I lost about half a season last summer trying to get things going mid-year in the ground from seed on the logic the space was already open and they didn't have to deal with transplant shock.   That means when something either died *cough* zucchini *cough* or finished I needed to already have the replacement ready to go.  The timing on when things come out varies with the weather so I decided this year I would run sequential seedlings.  If I have to let them die they were the cost of a seed.  This way if something comes out, I have something else ready to go in.  

I started a bunch of different things on that logic a few weeks ago.  Yesterday I started a set of parsnips in toilet paper roll middles on the logic they can take up to 6 weeks to get going and I haven't tied up the garden space waiting like I currently am with the oca.   Once they come up I will start some carrots seedlings with the same method.

Well, the annual garden is coming along fairly well.  So far just lettuce and chard being harvested, but I hope to start rolling in the summer glut within a month or so.

On the perennial side, I just had to lop a large quantity off my granny smith when it got fireblight.  Before buying it I researched zones, chill hours, pollinators - but not disease susceptibility.  The red delicious is unaffected.  After doing some research, granny smiths as lists as very susceptible to fireblight.  Red delicious are fairly resistant.  Oops.  One thing I was happy with was the fact that I chose a variety of things for the yard, so a disease that takes one is less likely to take another.  It is really disenheartening to spend years waiting for something to fruit, only the have it succumb to a disease.

Here is the current batch of seedlings.  Right now the stores are full of seedlings that look better than mine, but I am trying to keep seedlings rolling all season so when something dies in the middle of summer when I CAN'T just buy more I have something to put it that spot.


Bed 1:
Mellow yellow bush beans. These have done well in the past, and the yellow beans don't hide as much as the green ones.  The trellis has winged beans.



Kholrabi in the back, brussels sprouts, kholrabi, and chard in the front.  A number of my brussels sprouts seedlings didn't make it and I filled in with what did, basically.


Potatoes and head lettuce.  Half of the potatoes died in a late frost, and I wanted to try head lettuce/iceburg.  Most likely it won't have enough time to head up, but it was worth trying with a bit of found space.


Bloody butcher corn.  This is coming along suprisingly well.  It is an heirloom, and while less super-sweet is supposed to be decent for both fresh eating and drying.  Mostly I got it for the exotic color, I admit.


Ground cherry.  This is running way behind; I didn't realise how long it would take to germinate.  Next year if it is worth growing again I will start it sooner.  The fruit is small and husked, and supposedly has hints of pineapple and strawberry.  If it produces anything I will do a taste test and report back to the hive.  Like the tomatilla, this is a relative of the tomatoe.  Hopefully it will be as prolific.  


Tomatilla.  This one is also running a bit behind.  I did these last year.  They produced like mad and make great salsa verde.  The fruit has hints of lime to the taste that goes well in the salsa.  It should pair well with the cilantro and peppers I am growing if they all survive.


Early girl and better boy tomatoes, with some cilantro I am hoping will be able to take advantage of their shade later to survive in the summer heat.


Rhubarb and chard.  The chard is looking a bit wilted and I should probably harvest some off.  The rhubarb is doing suprisingly well.


Peppers, sweet potatoes, yardlong climbing beans and lime basil.  Basically I had a spot nothing came up in so I added my extras of what I had in seedlings.  I will probably need to go in regularly and lop the sweets back, but I spent so long getting them to come up I didn't want to kill them.  


Sugar snaps, oca (still not up yet), and Jalapeno and sweet bell peppers.


Icicle radishes, hakurai turnips, mixed color beets, and more sugar snaps


Sweet potatoes!  Vardeman, japanese, and stokes purple!  (The stokes purple are finally starting to do something).


Cucumbers (trellis) and yellow straightneck summer squash.


Zucchini (black beauty, I think).  This is coming along nicely.


Butter beans, more cucumbers for the trellis, and garlic.  My winter garlic didn't do so well so I am trying summer garlic.

Nice work Ratling.  How much space do you need for  the black zucchini plant?

I give mine a 4ft x 4ft block.  The zucchini's actually come out a really dark green - but by veggies labeling standards close enough I suppose.  Now the black krim tomatoes I tried once - those were a really decent dark red.  They also had a nice tomato flavor, but the huge size and irregular shape made them a bit more of a pain to use than the regular ones.

Good to know.  I planted a row this year and I only gave them 3ft between seeds, but I have 4ft between rows.  I hope I didn't overcrowd it.

You will probably be fine.  Unlike my summer squash they kind of grow in a straight line whichever way the stem is headed, if it helps.  I don't know if that is a variety thing, or if all zucchini do that.

Damn good looking garden man.
What's your spacing on the corn?

Thanks.  I am not sure how you manage to keep your garden rolling with no apparent dead spaces (I am still working on that) but it looks great!

I used 1ft spacing on the corn, for 16 plants in a 4ftx4ft block.  Not a lot for eating, but enough to try it.  I am hoping the less sweet corn will have fewer pests.  If it does, I may grow it again next year for the novelty.

Time for another weekly update!

The sequential lettuce is working well so far, however I have discovered I am not a fan of the loose-leaf lettuces that grow well in the south.  :(


The blackberries are coming along.


Bed 1.  Mellow yellow beans, and mixed kholrabi, brussels sprouts, and a bit of leftover chard seedlings.


The mellow yellow beans are flowering.


...And the kholrabi is starting to bulb up.


The rest of bed 1 - purple potatoes, iceberg lettuce(probably doomed from the heat), and bloody butcher corn.
The winged beans have found the trellis and are starting their climb.




Bed 2 near the house.  Ground cherries (left) and tomatilla (right). They are both tomato relatives.


Bed 2 far end - Early girl and Better boy tomatoes, with some cilantro in the middle.  I need to start tying up the tomatoes before they get away from me...(again)



The near end of bed 3 - This is intended to be a semi-permanent section.  So far the rhubarb is surviving the 80 degree heat with no issue, and the swiss chard looks like a volunteer for dinner.



The middle of bed 3.  Sweet potatoes and lime basil in the front, and jalapeno and bell peppers in the back.


The snow peas on bed 3's trellis are looking good.  It is a race to see if I get anything off of them before it gets too hot and they die....crossing fingers.



The far end of bed 3.  The foreground is mixed beets, the background is minnowase radish on the left and hakurei turnips on the right.  I think these are snow peas on the trellis.  Most of these things will either finish this month or be finished by the heat.



The sweet potatoes in bed 4 look happy, and even the last of the Stokes Purple (front) are starting to sprout.


The summer squash and zucchini in bed 4 are looking good, however I think I may have mis-calculated when I estimated the zucchini could easily grow through the trellis.  I may have to take that section down.  It would be a shame, but I do want my zucchini to live and I have other sections of trellis cucumber.


The far end of bed 4 - cucumbers on the trellis that might have to come down, butter beans in the back and garlic in the front.  

Well, after giving the zucchini issue some thought I decide to turn the 8ft x 4ft panel upright so there is a 4ft gap in the trellising by the zucchini.  This way I only had to pull 2 cucumber plants and was able to leave the other 2.  

I went ahead and ordered some BT to see how well stem injecting works for keeping squash vine borers out of my zucchini and squash.  The instructions I found online is to use a 3cc needle, fill with 1cc, and inject slowly into the stem 1 inch from the ground.  Repeat every 7 to 10 days, beginning right after the first blossoms appear.  I will see how it works and report back to the hive.  I have seen mixed reviews but for ~14 bucks I will give it a whirl.  I tried spraying the stems with 7 last year with very limited success.  Part of the problem with that method is reaching the bottom of the stems without breaking them once they get to a good size.  I may also try the yellow plastic bowl with soapy water trap to try to kill the adults and the tinfoil-under-the-plant deterrent that is supposed to confuse the little bastards.

On the potato front I started a bucket of potatoes to see how it goes.  I used a standard 5 gallon bucket and put a number of drainage holes close to the bottom.  In years past it has been the rain that destroyed my potatoes, and even out-doors rotten potatoes are nasty to dig up.  If this solves the problem I will grow them in buckets from now on.  Since I also put some from the same package in the beds with the other potatoes, I will be able to compare the bed-grown outcome to the bucket-grown outcome and see how they measure up.

I have been harvesting a little bit of chard and lettuce here and there for the last few weeks, but nothing to write home about.  Today the chard harvest has reached usable proportions, and a few other things are just starting to come in.

I had few chard plants tucked into a bare corner since I had extra seedlings of those and not enough brussels sprouts seedlings survive.  The new seedlings are up and the chard is decent sized, so those 3 plants became dinner, and in went some bok choy I started a few weeks ago.

Chard!


Minnowase radish thinnings.  They were fairly spicy, but they have decent moisture content and no woodiness.  These are about 6 inches long but still pretty skinny.  I am going to leave the other 4 to size up.  Why only 4?  These get pretty big, keep well in the fridge, and we usually only eat so much radish.  This year I am trying to stop over-planting things we don't eat so much of, to leave more room for things we do.


Swiss chard harvest.  I pulled these even though we had chard last night because the plants looked like they needed some space.


This is what the main section of chard looked like AFTER they were thinned.  I think next time I want some instead of taking the outer leaves I will remove every other plant and leave the rest to stretch into the space.


I don't normally see that much of a difference between grocery store produce and home produce.  Exceptions are things like tomatoes, where the store carries a variety that ships better, and I prefer to grow for taste.  That being said these snow peas were a lot better than the ones in the store. I think it's a matter of freshness and picking age, but either which way they were a lot more sweet and tender.  A world of difference from the giant woody things you can get in the little plastic bags.


It looks like the kholrabi will be ready to harvest soon, and I hope to get more of the snow peas in a few days.

You sure do get an amazing harvest from the square footage you work with and quite the variety.

How much exposure to the sun do these beds get a day and is it mostly morning, afternoon or all day?

With the solar heating on the blocks do you have different growth rates between the edges and center for same variety? do you need to compensate for it?

Is there a PH change that can come from the blocks or is too minor to take into account?

I like the idea for areas that may be subject to the monsoons we get but am concerned somewhat about doing the same down here in Fla due to radiant heat with the amount of nasty bugs, mold etc in our soil/ sand.

The height sure would be helpful for old worn out backs as well.



Thanks

Thanks!  The massive amounts of lettuce I ended up with last year made me realize I needed to tailor my plantings to how much I would use of each item before it wasn't at peak anymore, and this year I planted accordingly.  Instead of 4ft blocks of a few things I planted (what I think will be) an eating quantity of everything that would fit, and immediately started cranking seedlings to fill in as the old things came out.


They beds get sun from 11am to 5pm this time of year, and as the season goes on that moves towards a start time of 9am.


I don't notice the solar heating much in the summer, oddly enough.  I think the solar mass of the blocks just evens it out, absorbing mid-day and releasing in the evening.  In the fall and winter I notice the edges survive cold snaps a lot better, again probably due to the heat absorbing during the day and releasing during the nights.


I have not noticed a ph change, although I confess I haven't done a soil test since everything has been growing like gangbusters.  I used mainly a combination of peat and Black Kow compost, and filled in with compost from the dump for volume to get to the right height.  I try to get a straw mulch on before summer hits, and in the fall I add a few bags of the Black Kow to each bed to help keep up the fertility.


In regard to mold, etc, and radiant heat I have not see any problems.  There are some year/year pest issues - I really need to black plastic them for a month or 2 when it's still warm to kill off the pests, but I never seem to get around to it.  I do practice rotation, so the plants with certain pests do not go into the same bed year after year.  If you had enough beds it would be good to leave 1 fallow each year and rotate, but I always seem to end up planting them all.
Yes, the height really does help old backs!  

WOW, looking good. We got to harvest some of Our first crops, spinach.

Keep up the good work, wish We were alittle warmer this time of year.

Thanks!  So far I am really happy with how the rolling seedling production has worked out.

Yesterday's harvest:  These are some of the variety beets I put in earlier this spring.  The bulb sections are about tennis-ball sized.


Inside beet coloring:


With the greens they made a tasty dinner side for 2.


I upgraded my favorite peice of garden equipment!  Out with the old....


...and in with the new.  


On the seedling front I started a bunch of parsnips in "loo roll middles" about 3 weeks ago.  These I often have germination problems with when I direct sow them, and they can take up to 6 weeks to germinate either which way.  That is a long time to tie up a bed, just to find out they didn't take.  So far the germination is coming along nicely.  When some of the spring plants come out, these will go in their place.


I am still starting seedlings fairly regularly as an insurance plan against things that fail, finish, or die miserably.  
So far this process is working well for me, and giving me a lot more practice starting seeds.


The potatoes I started in a bucket as an experiment are doing well so far.


In the perennial bed, the blackberries are starting to form.


Bed 1 is growing like gangbusters.  

The beans are flowering steadily.


The kholrabi is almost ready to harvest, and the brussels sprouts are starting to form tiny sprouts.


The potatoes and lettuce are coming along suprising well, and the winged beans are making their way up the trellis.  I had some issues with aphids on the winged beans but so far blasting them with water has worked fairly well.


The bloody butcher corn just crested the 4-ft-tall panel, which prompted me to check "how tall does this variety actually get?" Answer:12ft.  


Bed 2 is not nearly so lush, but progress is being made.
The better boy and early girl tomatoes are just starting to set fruit, and the cilantro is the biggest I have managed to grow yet.  Hopefully it will still be alive if/when the tomatilla starts to crank out fruit.


Last year I planted 2 tomatillas and was drowning in them.  This year I only started one but I read some reference to them needing 2 to pollinate -  this is flowering now so we will see.  It took 3 months to get to this size so it is too late to start a second if I goofed.  At that point it will get ripped out and I will put something else in it's spot.  The ground cherry on the right looks healthy...I think.  I have never grown them before so this should be interesting.  Pax the volunteer pet is starting to fill out also and likes to be where ever I am.