Gardening Archives - Page 6 of 7

May 1, 2013

Simple DIY mini greenhouse

Last year I was looking around for a small greenhouse I could use for seed starts and hardening off plants. There are a number of small ones with a few shelves and a plastic cover. When I saw how simple they were, I didn’t see the point in spending the money.

We already had a few of the wire rack shelving units that you can buy at a lot of places like garden/home supply stores, Target, etc. I was already using one to start seeds in the basement, so I knew the general layout would work. So I just bought some greenhouse plastic and basically wrapped one of those racks. I fastened the plastic to the rack using wire along the vertical supports. The plastic is thick enough to hold for the most part, although obviously it tears a bit over time. It doesn’t have a nice zippered front on it, but other than that it’s the same principle and costs a lot less.

I used it a bit last year, but did have some issues with wind on our front porch. This year I have a sandbag on the bottom rack and some clothesline fastening it to the porch railings. That seems to do the trick as we’ve had some pretty good wind storms since I put it up this spring. So far so good.

It’s working really well to start cold hardy plants and I’m also hardening off other plants that I’m starting in the cellar. It gets nice and warm in there and doesn’t seem to dry out too fast. The other trick I added this year is some foil covered insulation board to reflect more light from under the starting trays. I’m also doing this in my basement underneath the heated seed starting mats I have and it seems to make a real difference.

April 4, 2013

Seed starting tip for peas

I think I mentioned this last year, but wanted to throw it out there again. You’ll find this noted elsewhere online, I found it last year when growing peas for the first time.

Since peas can be started so early (apparently sometimes they will even sprout and grow through snow), the soil conditions can be all over the map. So I sprout my peas indoors first. It’s really simple. Take some paper towels or cloth and get it moist, but not wet. This year I used an old diaper. Put the peas inside. They like to roll around, so it can be helpful to roll up the sides in some fashion to keep them in. Put the paper towel or cloth inside a plastic bag or really anything that can hold some moisture in. I find a gallon ziploc works great and we always have used ones around. Just leave enough of a gap in the container or bag for some air to get in and out. You are basically making a little greenhouse.

After a couple of days, start checking them. As soon as you see sprouts you can plant them outside. Be careful with them at this stage as the little sprouts can be pretty fragile. If you break them off, that seed is done.

They seem to like a diaper better than a paper towel because this time a bunch sprouted by today, probably 60-70%, and I just started them during last weekend. Some of the sprouts actually grew through the diaper cloth. They are ready to go!

March 17, 2013

Ramping up the seed starting

Ramping up the seed starting, a photo by skills0 on Flickr.

It’s time to start more seeds. Onions are going, time to add brassicas to the mix.

January 17, 2013

2013 Seed Buying

Yesterday I bought seeds for this year to replenish our stock and thought I’d write down a couple of interesting observations.

Last year we were planning to have a large garden for the first time and we went a little nuts. Bought tons of seeds and I think we ordered from 4 or 5 different companies. I think for the most part we used everything we bought and were pretty happy with most of it.

This year we decided to go a little simpler and decided to buy everything from two companies, High Mowing (a local VT company) and Baker Creek. We had a chance to visit High Mowing last fall for their “Field Days” and we were very impressed with their operation. Besides the plus of being local and thus having a higher possibility of getting seeds well adapted for our area, they are also doing some interesting seed development and hybridization work. As far as Baker Creek, we just love their selection and advocacy for heirloom and open pollinated seeds.

One thing we decided to try for the coming year is to buy a few hybrids. We had a decent amount of trouble with various wilts, rusts and blights last year. We never did get zucchini going, although a lot of that was bug issues. A lot of the tomatoes ended up with various levels of disease, although some of that may be rectified by giving each plant a bit more space and pruning better.

After a lot of experimentation last year, we are probably going to go a bit more basic this year until we have our own property with more room. That means we probably won’t grow cauliflower (takes a lot of room and we didn’t have much luck getting heads to form), popcorn (proved out we can grow it and also takes a lot of room), melons (not enough sun, difficult to get started and once again room) and soybeans (we’ll definitely grow these when we have the space).

Every year we like to try some new things, so here are a few things we are planning to experiment with this coming season:

some hybrid cucumbers from High Mowing (a pickling and a slicing variety)
Kaitlen cabbage – a sauerkraut variety
Tomatoes – Amish Paste, Cherokee Purple, Black Cherry and Berkeley Tie Dye (a funky pink and green variety developed by Bradley Gates of Wild Boar Farms)
Potatoes – Russet and Russian Banana (fingerling) – had good luck last year with Yukon Gold, La Ratte fingerling and Red Norlands, want to try some other varieties)
Good Mother – an heirloom dry bean
Various greens – new salad mixes, a Bibb lettuce, Purple Orach, Purple Mizuna
Eggplant – Aswad (large dark purple Iranian variety) and Ping Tung (a Thai variety)

Should be another fun year and hopefully we can take what we learned last season and build on that.

October 28, 2012

2012: The Season In Review

So our first gardening season in Vermont is pretty much over, although we still have a number of things under tunnels again. Looks like we may have some cabbage, carrots, beets, chard and a few other things.

Overall, we are pretty happy with how things went, although we still have a lot to learn. But considering I haven’t worked a garden this big since I was a kid, I think we did okay. We mostly kept up with weeds and getting things picked. One thing we didn’t expect to struggle with so much was the insect pressure early in the season. We had certain crops we planted multiple times and still didn’t get anything going. Next year we will probably use more row cover until the plants get established.

The good

Peas – got a decent little crop early on, both shell peas and snap peas. We only had one row, so not enough to get much. Definitely want a lot more when we have some land. Had better luck with pre-sprouting the peas before planting than seeding directly.
Carrots – Tried a bunch of different types and got a good yield eventually, but they take awhile to get going.
Tomatoes – Mostly did pretty well with these, although had some disease issues with certain varieties. Had some volunteer plants from the compost as well, mostly cherry. We were able to dry and slow roast a lot and put them in the freezer.
Peppers – Once again, some of these took awhile to get started in the New England climate, but once they did we got a fairly prolific yield. Even the habanero we started ended up loaded late in the season, although it would have been nice to have a bit more warm weather for them to finish ripening.
Tomatillos – We only planted a couple of plants, but they grew over 6 feet tall and got loaded with fruit. Once again a couple more weeks of hot weather would’ve helped, but Kristin was able to make a bunch of salsa verde anyway. The main thing we learned is even though the stems get pretty thick and woody, when the plants started getting loaded they needed extra support, particularly in the wind.

The disappointing

Cauliflower – We didn’t have great luck with any variety, but the Purple of Sicily from Baker Creek was particularly disappointing. The thing is, it was wonderful in every way except fruiting. It germinated quickly and at a high rate, was very hardy when transplanting, responded well to insect pressure and grew really large. So maybe it was the season or something we did wrong. I’ve heard cauliflower tends to do better in fall plantings since it likes it colder when fruiting, but didn’t get around to starting fall plants early enough.
Zucchini – Yes, really, even though this is normally one of the easiest plants to grow and you end up with more than you want. We tried planting this multiple times and the bugs kept getting it. We finally go a few plants started in mid-summer, but they never did much.
Melons – Same thing, too much insect pressure for them to get going and they need a whole season here to do much.
Tomatoes – like I said above, we did okay for the most part. But the Brandywines succumbed to some sort of rust or blight and we got maybe one or two decent fruit. Plus the slugs would start eating them before they got fully ripe, so was hard to get one that was nicely sun ripened. This seems to be the story with Brandywines, they are notoriously tricky to grow. The Paul Robesons did much better and I like them just as much.
The other plant that seemed to have disease issues was Stupice, although it is very widely grown. In retrospect I don’t think I allowed enough spacing between plants and they probably could’ve have use both more air flow and pruning. Something to remember for next year.
Brussel Sprouts – similar to the cauliflower, plants looked great and never sprouted. Another one I think I’ll reserve for fall planting next year.
Cucumbers – we had some issues with cucumbers here that we never had in Chicago. Same variety, but they formed stunted fruit that seemed to be an off shade of green along with some brown. I expect it is some type of mineral deficiency or something, but we never figured it out. We did plant Mexican Sour Gherkins later in the season and they actually did great. But we were hoping for more pickling cucumbers of other varieties.

Well, there is a lot more I could go into, but that’s probably enough. I would like to post a list soon of the various food we were able to put up. We’ve got a pretty nicely stocked basement now and should be able to have some food this winter from our garden. We aren’t close to being most self-sufficient in food yet and we’ll probably need more land for that, but we are another step closer to that goal.

How did your garden do this year?

September 23, 2012

Not toxic but tasty – Habanero Hot Sauce

I really love to grow peppers. There are hundreds of variations, so there is always another one I want to try. I tried to grow some habaneros in Chicago, but the little plot we had just didn’t get enough sun. We were able to grow some Thai chilis and I actually think they may have grown better in a pot on our deck in Chicago than they did this year in our garden. But that’s partly because I started the seeds myself and without a greenhouse, it’s tricky to get healthy robust plants that produce in Vermont’s short growing season. The ones we did start are looking really great about now: tall, vibrant, healthy and loaded with fruit. But we could get frost any day now.

I was able to get a great Fatali habanero to grow this year and we also bought a nice plant of some other habanero variety from Red Wagon Plants. We also have jalapenos, cayenne, Fish peppers and Hungarian Hot Wax. If you do get a lot of questions, then you have to find stuff to do with them. We’ve pickled some, put them in scrambled eggs and pasta and made salsa. But the habaneros are a bit much for most of those uses. They don’t get as hot here as in warmer climates, but they still pack a punch.

So yesterday we were canning applesauce and I decided to try to make some hot sauce while we still had the canner going. After we were done with the apples obviously. I really like carrot-based habanero hot sauces, but instance I fell in love with Marie Sharp’s “Belizean Heat” when I visited Belize a number of years ago. So I tracked down a couple of recipes that I could can and ended up doing something like this Agent Orange Habanero Sauce, but without the mustard or something like this recipe. In addition to the peppers, the carrots, garlic and most of the onion were all from our garden as well.

So donning some gloves, I set to making the recipe. I used a Cuisinart mini food prep for most of the chopping as I didn’t want to handle the peppers any more than necessary. The air did get pretty pungent and it’s amazing how that stuff gets throughout the house. Fortunately we were going out last night so it had time to dissipate.

Here’s the sauce ready to put into jars. I used an immersion blender to blend everything. The habaneros aren’t cooked, they are put into the mixture fresh after you boil and blend the rest of the ingredients.

I’m actually very pleased with how it turned out. It’s definitely very hot, but not unpleasantly so. I could actually taste a bit on a spoon without setting my mouth on fire for 20 minutes. The carrots add a bit of sweetness and the habaneros have a bright fruity flavor in addition to the heat.

August 20, 2012

Morning harvest

Quick harvest this morning before work. Various green beans, cherry tomatoes (mostly Sungold), Serrano peppers, Hungarian hot wax peppers, Stupice tomatoes

August 8, 2012

The harvest begins

Looks like soon we will be heading into a busy time of harvesting, but we’ve already gotten a few things. The first batch of potatoes was harvested last week; this batch was planted about 2 weeks before the main group of potatoes. We are starting to get some tomatoes, although it appears we are fighting some blight or something. Hopefully we’ll get a decent number before the plants go south. We had a bunch of volunteer tomatoes pop up in the compost, but I think most of them are cherry. Still, might give us some backups if the main plants don’t work out. I am seeing some decent Brandywine and Paul Robeson on the vine, so hopefully they will hang on long enough to harvest.

We’ve also harvested a row of carrots. The best of the lot seem to be the St. Valery from Baker Creek. We also had some Purple Haze, which look very cool, but tend to go woody and get a lot of roots if you leave them in too long. I think the others are Napoli and Parisienne or Paris Market. We are trying to keep everything labeled, but eventually the labels succumb to rain and dirt.

We are starting to get beans. We have 4 or 5 varieties, including some soybeans for Edamame and Dragon Tongue which is a cool purple striped Dutch heirloom that is pretty popular.

Anyway, this is starting to get long and I really just wanted to post some photos, so without further ado…

Red Norlands

St. Valery carrots

Purple Haze carrots

Dragon Tongue beans

More beans (I think these are Kentucky Wonder)

Stupice

April 23, 2012

Sights of Spring

Not a lot of big new projects lately, due to visits from friends and traveling. But still continuing to get ready for summer. Lots of seed starting, both indoors and out. And a sudden explosion of color around our rental property as the huge number of hidden bulbs suddenly make their presence known. It still seems magic every year after the gray of winter.

Onion starts. This is the first time we’ve ever tried doing onions from seed.

Various brassicas

Windowsill pots of oregano and thyme

Peas! We are attempting two regular types and two snow/snap types.

The garlic we planted last fall is looking fantastic.

Various brassicas inside the cold frame. We will transplant these out. Comparing how this works with starting inside.

A view inside the hoop. The big splash of color you see is various lettuces and arugula.

Tulips, daffodils and other lovelys.

March 19, 2012

Seed starting

I’ve been fairly heads down with all sorts of projects. Spring is trying to come early this year in Vermont, in fact it is supposed to be in the 60s and 70s all this week. We had a beautiful weekend and I got some more things planted in the low hoop tunnel and also in the new cold frame I just put together.

I’m also attempting to start some seeds in the basement. I scrounged together a system using mostly stuff I already had. I already have some wire racks that are great for all kinds of things, including storing homebrew and equipment. I also had a couple of aquarium fixtures with working lights, so that is my light source for now. I think I’ll likely have to upgrade to a) bigger lights and b) better bulbs (more full spectrum) to get great results. But trying this first before I go spend a bunch of money. I did buy a heat mat, some seed starting trays and a little fan to circulate the air around the plants and help them develop decent stems.

Here are a few pictures:

The whole set-up.

Starting with onions, they take awhile to get going.

A few seedlings poking through.

I’m curious to see if I can use the cold frame outside to start some seeds as well. One nice thing about that is the plants get used to the soil immediately and there isn’t much in the way of hardening off that you need to do. But you definitely have less control over temperature and environment in general. So I’m just going to try some of each and see what works.