June in the Garden!

Please forgive me for being so late with this . . .

Last Chance for Summer Starts:

Better hurry, if you haven’t got your summer garden in. While it is too late for seeds of many summer favorites, you can still tuck in plants of tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, summer squash and melons. Pumpkins and winter squash can be planted from starts or even seeds if you do it this week. The longer you wait to get your starts in, the larger the plants you ought to seek out.  This week, any healthy well established plants ought to work out fine. By the middle of the month or later, look for plants in four inch pots. A little extra TLC may be called for, unless you have been working on your soil. Dig in some compost or water with the dilute organic fertilizer of your choice. Keep your plants well mulched and a careful eye on soil moisture, until they get established. These dreary sometimes drizzly days can be deceiving. There is a lot less moisture in the soil than you might think. However, you don’t want to over-water, especially while it is cool and cloudy. That can encourage root rot and blight. Check the soil for moisture and water accordingly, and you will be sure to pick the best tasting produce you can imagine, should the sun take pity on us and burn off these clouds.

Seeds to plant this month:

While it is too late to plant many summer veggies from seed, bush bean seeds can go in right now. There are varieties that make tender snap and string beans, while others are most commonly grown for dry beans. When shopping your favorite seed rack or catalog, be sure to check out all the marvelous colors for snap, string, and shell beans. What we once called “green beans” can be grown in every shade of yellow, purple, and, of course, green. Shell beans are even more varied-- black turtle beans, red Cherokee wax, yellow Indian Woman, and the variegated Jacobs Cattle and Anasazi--among a host of choices.  If you aren’t happy with the local choices or those in your favorite catalog, you can shop for bush beans on-line see: www.seedsofchange.com  & www.bountifulgardens.org. 

Don’t Forget to Pick Your Produce!

Early spring planted greens, peas, and roots are in their prime right now. Take a basket out in the garden and pick yourself the fixings for a nice green salad or a simple stir fry. Radishes should be picked soon after they plump up, when they are tender, sweet, and crisp. If they are left in the ground too long, they may get hot and woody. If you have a radish bumper crop, besides salads, they can be added to soups and stir fries; cooking mellows their flavors. Radish greens, if they are not too prickly, also make good eating. The young tender leaves can be added to salad. The more mature, but not yet tough leaves, can be added to soups and my favorite – an old fashioned mess of greens.

Pick peas frequently to ensure the plants keep producing. Shell peas should be picked as soon as the pods are plump. Sugar peas are best picked just as soon as the  peas barely start to develop; snap peas are best a little in between. Once any of your peas produce mature seed, it will quit making pods, having accomplished its life mission. However, if you plants are happy and kept picked, they will continue producing until the weather finally decides to warm.

If you are growing lettuce, be aware that it tends to bet bitter when it starts to bolt. When you notice your plants getting taller instead of fuller, it is time to cut it back near the ground, and remove the leaves; unless you want to experiment with saving seed.  If the leaves taste a bit on the bitter side, here is an easy fix. Put them in a large bowl, and slowly fill with cold water.  Place the bowl in the fridge and let sit for a few hours. You may need to pour out the water and replace it a few times before your lettuce loses its bitterness.  But this really works, so give it a try.

Fresh Produce in the Kitchen

Fresh barely braised vegetables make a tasty side dish. Start by collecting a basket of veggies from your garden. Here are some suggestions of things you could include, but your recipe will be based on what you have available. Try to choose veggies in a variety of colors, especially if you are cooking for guests. Check for roots to pull--carrots, parsnips, beets, turnips, or rutebegas, for instance. Next check your peas and fava beans. Whole young pods or green shelled peas or favas work equally well.  Next, if you have any early peppers or squash, grab a couple.  (I have just started picking squash, but my peppers are a long way off.)  Or perhaps you have broccoli or cauliflower ready to eat. Last but not least, pick some greens, if you have them. Beet tops or tender radish leaves will work great, and leaves from cabbage or broccoli are tasty too.  

Carefully wash your leaves, pods, broccoli, or cauliflower, and scrub up your roots. While warming a bit of olive oil on medium, begin slicing your veggies into bite sized pieces. Keep the pieces a little on the large size, for the most visual pizzaz. Keep an eye on your olive oil, and as soon as it is warm, gently add the veggies, a few at a time. Your roots may take the longest to cook, so start with them, then the pods, peas, or favas.  Next add the broccoli and cauliflower, followed by peppers and squash, and last add the chopped greens. Allow each addition a minute or two of cooking time, before adding the next ingredient. Stir between each addition, and after you add the greens, add ½ cup of water or broth and turn heat to low. Your veggies will only need another five minutes, max.  You can stir them every minute or so, to check for wilting and tenderness.  As soon as the greens are wilted, it’s ready to serve.

To make this simple dish a full meal, you can add tofu, boneless chicken, or savory sausage and cook thoroughly, before you start adding your veggies. Serve with pasta, rice, or a whole grain pilaf, a bit of bread or salad, and garden fresh strawberries for desert.  Yumm!

Small Buildings, Small Gardens - Creating Gardens around Structures:

If you are thinking of updating or expanding your landscaping, do yourself a favor and check out this book. I learned more about landscape philosophy and design from Small Buildings, Small Gardens than I did from college horticulture classes and the UC Davis Master Gardener’s Program. The ideas presented here are easy to understand, make sense, and are applicable to all we do in our yards and gardens, whether or not we have small buildings. If you are thinking of adding any small buildings, arbors, trellises, or other garden structures--you will find tons of tips on placement and design. These tips could make the difference between ho-hum and spectacular. Author, Gordon Hayward, trains your eye--through easy to understand text and the inclusion of pictures that are worth a thousand words. The very best designs are not the result of spending more money; but rather the result of developing a careful level of observation. Small Buildings, Small Gardens - Creating Gardens around Structures, by Gordon Hayward, published by Gibbs Smith, 2007, ISBN 978-1-58685-705-9

That’s all for now folks, but I’ll meet you right here the first week of July with great ideas for getting the most out of your garden. 

Published in the Two Rivers Tribune . . .

Copyright 2008, Harvest McCampbell.  Please contact me for permission to reprint.

May in the Garden

When Food Prices Rise, Planting a Garden is Wise

Sticker shock increasingly hounds our food shopping decisions. Unfortunately, this trend is set to continue, at least through next winter, as both fuel and food prices continue to rise. Several factors are at play, forcing staple supplies to dwindle while demand increases. First, looking at the supply side, climate change and other forces have brought agricultural woes to nearly every continent.  Meanwhile, less land has been devoted to growing food; because of urbanization, industrialization, and demand for agricultural crops to produce ethanol and bio-diesel.

Demand for bio-fuels ties food prices to fuel prices, and fuel is still going up. (Meanwhile, most of our food is planted, tended, harvested, stored, and transported using large amounts of fuel, further tying the costs of food to petroleum.)  Other factors contributing to demand include our growing planetary population and the increasing middle class in China and India-- who now consume more grain and more grain fed animal products than ever before. In the world-wide economy, there are many demands on the available food. Prices are expected to continue going up until the supply meets or exceeds the demand. 

It’s Time to Get Growing!

Whether you want to help keep your families food budget in bounds, or are thinking of growing a market garden to make a little cash, there has never been a better time to get growing. While tomatoes, peppers, and summer squash are part of the pleasures of summer, with food prices on the rise, I would like to encourage everyone to plant some crops that can be saved for winter.  Here are some ideas. 

Jerusalem Artichokes are at the top of the list for productivity. Plant them now, and dig their delicious tubers beginning this fall. Each plant produces between five and fifteen pounds of food!  (They can be very expensive in catalogs; however, they are available at reasonable prices locally.)

Pumpkins and Winter Squash store well, are easy to grow, nutritious, and yummy. Seeds and starts are widely available at nurseries and generally reasonably priced.

Potatoes thrive in cool moist weather.  Anytime you find yourself in possession of sprouting potatoes you can plant them in the home garden.  Mulch them well for the best crops. I have been teaming up potatoes with squash.  If we don’t have a hot summer, at least the potatoes should produce; and if the sun decides to warm things up, the squash will help shade the potatoes.

Painted Mountain Flour Corn (not the related Painted Mountain Sweet Corn) was bred to withstand both drought and cool soils. Flour corn is easy to grow, dry, and can then be stored to use with beans in soup. You can also grind it for grits and corn meal. 

Consider growing some small grains for nutrition and food security, here are some suggestions for both hot weather and cool wet weather. (The La Nina weather pattern is predicted to continue; keeping our weather cool and moist. I don’t really trust the predictions.  I say be prepared for anything.)

Amaranth generally produces well whether the weather is hot or cool. Choose large grained varieties.

Buckwheat likes cool damp weather. Purchase it from bulk bins at health food store or larger grocery stores. Be sure you get raw buckwheat and not roasted buckwheat grouts.

Millet, pair Japanese millet which can stand waterlogged soils with Proso millet which can take the heat and is easy to thresh.

Quinoa can take cool damp weather, choose a large seeded variety.

Last but not least, add some legumes.  Legumes (beans and peas) fix nitrogen and improve the soil, and they form a complete protein when paired with grains. Most beans can be eaten green as a vegetable or let mature to dry for soup beans.  Here are a few of suggestions for soup beans that will improve your family’s food security:

Anasazi beans can take the drought, and can be purchased from bins at the health food store.

Runner Beans like cool moist weather and are commonly available in many catalogs.

Fava Beans are easy to grow and all parts are edible including the leaves, flowers, green beans, and dry beans. Available in many catalogs and also in bulk bins.

You can also do your own research on other varieties.  In fact, the more diverse the seed bank we can create in our gardens, the more secure our food supply will be. Try to choose two varieties of each crop you want to grow; one adapted to drought, and one adapted to cool or damp climates. That way, no matter what the weather does, you are prepared.

If you can get your seed started by the first of June, at the very latest, and if the weather co-operates, you should be able to harvest a bountiful crop this fall.  All the seed varieties mentioned above can be ordered from “Bountiful Gardens,” if you can’t find them locally. Their catalog and web site is very informative. You can order seeds or request a catalog on-line: http://www.BountifulGardens.org  or by phone: (707) 459-1925.

What, Me Garden?

Yes, even you can grow a garden! Right now  many Northern Hemisphere Gardens are bursting with greens—giant red Japanese mustard, collards, kale, arugula, lettuce, and garlic chives. Spring signals the beginning of the seed setting season for these crops. Many greens are blooming now, with edible flowers. The early garlic and chives have fat buds, and the top setting onions provide some comic relief with their crazy curly not quite flowering tops.  Potato plants are surging upwards and seedling squash are getting their start. Winter parsnips are ready to be dug, while last spring’s parsnips are shooting juicy edible bolts upward to burst into bloom. Peppers and tomatoes are waiting their turn to sink their roots into deep earthworm rich soil. Meanwhile, the beneficial insects and pollinators make a happy buzz among the flowers; promising pest control this season and an ample supply of seeds for next year’s garden. If you are not sure where to start,  ask for advice at your local nursery, search this blog on the topics of your choice, or feel free to ask questions by leaving comments here. 

Not Only Can You Garden – You Can Farm!

Every economic down turn or crises offers opportunities; the next big winners are projected to be small, local, organic farms and market gardens. If you ever thought of trying your hand at farming, now would be a great time to explore the idea further. “You Can Farm, The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Start and Succeed in a Farming Enterprise,” offers great advice.  Author, Joel Salatin, shares the ten most profitable ventures for start-ups, as well as how to grow and diversify. He encourages everyone, even those who do not own land, to not only farm, but to make good money at it. His best advice is to gain experience before investing or borrowing. He encourages all would be farmers to volunteer with local producers to learn the ropes. Hopefully, our local farmers will be increasing production (sustainably of course) and will need all the help they can get. If you’re interested, consider starting as a volunteer--perhaps in trade for produce; but you have also got to read this book. You Can Farm, by Joel Salatin, published by Polyface, Inc., ISBN 0-9638109-2-8. Available by request from book stores, libraries, and on-line.

That’s all for now folks, but I’ll meet you right here the first week of June with great ideas for getting the most out of your garden. 

Copyright 2008, Harvest McCampbell.  First published in The Two Rivers Tribune.  For permission to repost or reprint please contact me at digging_the_dirt @ yahoo.com  (take out spaces).

Thoughts on slugs and stewarding your seed bank

If one of my new neighbors had ventured out in the predawn light this morning, they would have observed me squatted down beside my plants, with a small plastic juice bottle in one hand, while I patiently picked slugs with the other.  The morning was chill, the doves sang out boldly, and as the light grew slowly brighter other birds joined in to weave the dove calls into a complicated chorus.  Picking slugs, while a rather slimy chore, has its rewards.  The lilacs smell sweeter.  The colors of the hills--so muted in the early light, gather definition; and then the trees standing on the ridge line catch the first sun rays and glow against the sky.

Picking slugs is patient work.  They are colored and shaped to help them blend in with their background—which generally happens to be the tender plants you have carefully grown from seed.  Your eye catches the sight of the prey, you squat and pluck, and then you pause, letting your eyes adjust and as they do, you notice other things.  

What called me out to the chore this morning were three young cardoon plants settled into their spots in the yard.  While they will grow up tough and architectural, while still being delectable (if the slugs let them), at the moment they are very vulnerable and they are getting hit very hard.  But once I had cleaned the few slugs from these little plants, I moved on to other garden spots—those dang slugs have been doing their best to recycle nutrients before the plants are done with them.  

I have giant red Japanese mustard growing from seed saved in my Hoopa garden.  As I have been watching it grow I have been paying attention to the colors, the leaf shape and size, and the general vigor of each plant.  I’ve pretty much narrowed it down to which particular plant I want to carefully save seed from and which one I may not allow to produce any seed at all.  In regards to saving seed, one plant is absolutely showing more vigor, it has larger slightly more colorfully leaves which are slightly more savoyed--presenting a lovely curled and crinkly texture for fresh salads.  This morning I noticed that this particular plant is also somewhat resistant to slugs; it only had a few, while some of the plants had hundreds.  In addition, I discovered this morning, that several of the mustard plants are beginning to bolt.  My favored plant is showing no signs of bolting at all. This particular plant is definitely a keeper!  (Large and vigorous, lovely color and crinkliness, bolt and slug resistant!)  As to the one I will probably pull out before it flowers—the slugs like it so exceedingly well that its leaves have been reduced to a haphazard display of lace.  While it is serving as a slug magnet now, I don’t want those genes to multiple in my seed bank, because I am trying to grow food for myself!

Between these extremes of desirable and undesirable traits there lies a lot of middle ground in any genetically diverse planting.  My next little exercise will be to number the plants, pick a bit of mature leaf and an immature leaf from each one, and give them a taste and texture test.  I may discover an additional plant that I wish to save seed from—for its superior or diverse flavor or texture.  However, as noted above, there is only one plant that I plan on thwarting completely (unless one or more of the others really tastes terrible or has a terrible texture).  The mediocre plants may have latent survival traits that have not yet expressed themselves.  I will enjoy their bolts and flowers and immature seed pods at table, and I am sure to enjoy their seeds as a seasoning and for sprouting later in the year.  And I will also sprinkle some of their seeds around my yard.  Those that manage to grow on their own, without being tended and coddled, will provide a tough counterpoint in genetic diversity to temper the potential sissiness that could be developed in those I carefully select and grow by hand.  

In this process, two sets of factors are working towards refining the seed bank while maintaining genetic diversity.  The first set, of course, are your own preferences.  The second set –is natural selection.  With climate change very much upon us, the most adaptable plants are the ones that will survive season to season.  By allowing these adaptable plants to pass pollen back and forth with your hand selected favorites you ensure your favorites are not becoming so genetically refined that they will not also adapt.  

Hand picking slugs in the early morning hours definitely has its rewards.  Having fewer slugs in the garden is important.  But time to observe and reflect is just as valuable.  

Your questions and comments are always welcome!  Please scroll down for copyright, repost, and reprint information. 

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Links to more information on Seed Saving--

Saving Seed:  http://harvestsgardeningsecrets.blogspot.com/2006/09/saving-seed.html

Snow, News, Politics, and Saving Seed:

 http://harvestsgardeningsecrets.blogspot.com/2006/03/snow-news-politics-and-saving-seed.html

Seed Secrets:  http://harvestsgardeningsecrets.blogspot.com/2006/06/seed-secrets.html

A Seedy Perspective:   http://harvestsgardeningsecrets.blogspot.com/2006/01/seedy-perspective.html

Organizing the home seed bank: 

http://harvestsgardeningsecrets.blogspot.com/2006/01/organizing-home-seed-bank.html

 

 

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On the importance of genetic diversity—

 

Up with GMO and Down with Local???

http://harvestsgardeningsecrets.blogspot.com/2008/12/up-with-gmo-and-down-with-local.html

 

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On Controlling Slugs—

Slimy Slugs:  http://harvestsgardeningsecrets.blogspot.com/2006/12/slimy-slugs.html

What I forgot, Grandma, Shrubs, & Slugs:

http://harvestsgardeningsecrets.blogspot.com/2006/01/what-i-forgot-grandma-shrubs-slugs.html

 

Beer Bash News & Seedling Update:

http://harvestsgardeningsecrets.blogspot.com/2006/02/beer-bash-news-seedling-update.html

 

More on the Beer Bash & High Country Gardens:

http://harvestsgardeningsecrets.blogspot.com/2006/02/more-on-beer-bash-high-country-gardens.html

 

Empress Flowers and Ground Beetles:

http://harvestsgardeningsecrets.blogspot.com/2006/05/empress-flowers-and-ground-beetles.html

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For a Cardoon photo and a little information see:  https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=76765212483&l=048bd0fb7c

(If you can’t access the photo either send me a friend request or e-mail me at digging_the_dirt @ yahoo.com with a link to your profile or timeline and I will send you a friend request.)

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Giant Red Japanese Mustard:

http://harvestsgardeningsecrets.blogspot.com/2006/03/giant-red-japanese-mustard.html

 

And here is a photo of an unselected batch of the mustard:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=476584352483&l=56efab7c1f

(Again, if you can’t access the photo either send me a friend request or e-mail me at digging_the_dirt @ yahoo.com with a link to your profile or timeline and I will send you a friend request.)

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 Copyright 2012, Harvest McCampbell

http://harvestsgardeningsecrets.blogspot.com/

https://www.facebook.com/harvest.mccampbell

http://www.HarvestMcCampbell.com

You may repost this article on the Internet as long as you include my by line and copyright notice with a link back to this blog.  Before reprinting in print media please contact me at digging_the_dirt @ yahoo.com (take out spaces) with the particulars. I will want to see a copy of the publication prior to agreeing and I will want to receive a copy of the publication after the article appears.

Gardening (and other) articles can also be arranged for under contract for first time rights. Please contact me at the e-mail or websites above for more information.  

Blurbs and Trials:  If you have a garden catalog, a book, a plant, or seeds that you think my readers would enjoy hearing about and that you would like to see a blurb here—please feel free to contact me.  I am, however, very picky—so only the best of the best will be discussed on my blog! 

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"We are apt to forget that the man who owns his own land and cherishes it and works it well is the source of our stability as a nation, not only in the economic but the social sense as well."   From: Pleasant Valley, By Louis Bromfield