The Latte Effect on Seeds

  The depths of winter is a gardener’s favorite time, where we curl up under a lap throw and delve into seed catalogs. Each new variety or old friend is weighed and considered for inclusion in the upcoming garden; the shopping list grows along with the gardener’s contentment.

Perusing my stack of brightly colored, glossy catalogs helped nurse me through a bout of flu, distracting me from feeling sorry for myself and ensuring I didn’t drive my spouse crazy with pathetic cries for aspirin, juice, or more tissue. I thumbed the pages with vegetables to try, such as Mexican sour gherkins (tiny, one-inch fruits with sweet cucumber flavor and an almost-pickled sour tang), Lows Champion dry bean for making a sweet pot of baked beans in winter, and the stunning, conical, deep mauve-colored Kalibos cabbage.

Deep into my shopping, a new lettuce variety stopped me short. The chartreuse and maroon romaine Ruby Glow looked gorgeous and sounded delicious, yet I stopped, not because I would move mountains to have it, but because the price was astounding: $6.95 for one packet of seed. I thought it was a flu-induced hallucination.

Shock turned to anger as I turned the pages, finding more and more examples of pricey seed packets. When did the basics of gardening get so expensive? It’s not like we’re ordering a half-caff, skinny dipped, two pumps of classic, soy-based mocha latte. These are seeds, the building basics of every garden.

And when gardeners buy seeds, we buy them like it’s an addiction.  We become hunter-gatherers, ordering varieties from different companies, consulting with friends, cobbling together the perfect, unique combination of crops that fit us like a glove. I used to think we really can’t help ourselves, until this catalog arrived.

The price halted me. It got me thinking, which is never a good thing. We aren’t known for calculating the cost of seed to table, but if we did, we’d find truth in William Alexander’s the $64 Tomato book (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, $10.93). Yet I started calculating.

For that price, I could order two packets from other sources and have two different types of crops. Variety is the spice of gardening. I also know that, caught up in the frenzy of shopping at somewhat low prices, I don’t pay much attention to how many packets I’m purchasing, which is a very good marketing strategy for companies to have. Adding in shipping costs magnified the grumbling in my mind.

I continued to flip pages, not-so-silently judging the company’s pricing. In other catalogs there are pricey packets, but in general, the companies keep prices reasonable. Local companies also have sales in garden centers; we can pick up our packets from them and avoid shipping costs.

Read Full Post »

Vegetables from garden post-flood risky

If you’re cleaning up your vegetable garden after the flood waters recede, consider the safety of eating produce from the garden.  If rain, and only rain, fell on the garden everything is fine, but if it was touched by or near flood water, your produce is risky-to-dangerous to consume.

Flood waters can contain sewage, pollutants such as oil, gasoline, solvents, etc., bacteria and parasites such as Giardia, Cryptosporidium, E. coli, Shigella, Hepatitis A, and a host of other unsavory contaminants.  Young children, seniors, pregnant women, and people with compromised immune systems are at highest risk for serious effects from consuming contaminated food and should not eat any produce that was in or near flood water.

In every case where the edible portion of the plant came into contact with flood water – submerged or splashed – there is risk, regardless of whether it is above or below ground.  In many cases, there is no effective way for washing the contaminants off of the produce.

To help you sort through what to do for crops that were near to flood waters, here are quick tips:

All crops eaten raw should be discarded, such as lettuce, mustards, spinach, cabbage, collards, Swiss chard, arugula, or micro greens.  Soft fruits like strawberries, raspberries, or blackberries as well as leafy vegetables such as spinach, chard, beet tops, or kale may be impossible to clean well and must be cooked before eating; avoid eating them raw.  Because rain or sprinklers can splash contaminated soil back onto these plants and contaminants can become embedded in the leaves, stems, petioles, etc., the area is not safe for growing for 90 days, minimum.

Root crops, including carrots, radishes,  parsnips, beets, or potatoes should be washed and rinsed in clean, potable (safe for drinking) water, sanitized in a dilute bleach solution, and then rinsed in potable water.  They should also be peeled and cooked before consuming.

Make your sanitizing solution by mixing a scant tablespoon of food grade bleach, without fragrances or thickeners, to one gallon of potable water.  Wash the produce with clean, potable water, using a vegetable brush to clean in crevices.  Rinse, then dip into the sanitizing solution for two minutes, then rinse in clean water.

Peas, beans, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, summer squash and other soft skinned crops that are present during the flood should be discarded.  Winter squash, winter melons, and pumpkins, with their thick rinds, can be washed and rinsed in potable water, then sanitized in the dilute bleach solution described for root crops, and rinsed.

Questions on stage of plant growth versus potential for contamination can be summed up in this very good Purdue University response from Liz Maynard, Regional Extension Specialist, Commercial Vegetable and Floriculture Crops: “Risks can be described as follows:

•Edible portion of crop present: Very High Risk.  Fresh produce is considered adulterated.

•Plant emerged, edible portion not present: High Risk.  The potential presence of microorganisms in the plant as well as in the soil could result in indirect contamination of the crop post flooding (splashing onto plant, etc.).

•Planted but not emerged: Still High Risk for reasons given above from post flooding contamination in soil.

•Pre-planting: Moderate Risk.

Soil contamination may be as dangerous as that of uncomposted manure. Tilling in the soil and a minimum of 90 days between the recession of waters and harvest are needed to reduce this risk from pathogens, but recovering soil from chemical pollutants may take longer.

To protect crops and areas not directly touched by flood water, wash your hands before and after you’re in the garden, leave your garden shoes just outside your door, and change out of clothing you wore to work the vegetable patch.

Related articles

• Colorado floods recovery: Dealing with flood damage to landscapes, gardens (denverpost.com)

Read Full Post »

Mighty ‘Mato good for Colorado

  Describe something as stronger, faster, and able to fend off foes, and most people think of caped crusaders in brightly colored tights.  Toss in a “and their tomatoes are amazing!” and you’re written off as talking to adolescent boys and Boris Vallejo fans.  But one look at the performance of this year’s hot new product, and you’ll be tempted to try a few in your garden to get a taste of what it’s like to live with a superhero.

 If you decide to plant a Mighty ‘Mato, buckle your seatbelts; it promised to be one wild summer ride.  The latest improvements to vegetables comes to us from the Pacific Northwest, where Log House Plants have perfected the art of fusing tomatoes to a rootstock that amps up America’s garden sweetheart with super natural powers. 

 “This is not a genetically modified organism; it’s a grafted plant,” says Brian Wheat, co-owner of Lafayette Florist, 600 South Public Rd. in Lafayette, CO, “it’s a modern tomato on an old world, wild tomato rootstock.  This is the same theory as roses, where they put roses on roots to have bigger flowers, bloom longer.  We want tomatoes to survive here, with our cool nights, poor soil, and temperature swings.  When people see how many tomatoes they get, how huge they are, they’ll be overwhelmed to see it performing so well.”

 To be honest, anything that touts itself as the must-have of the season gets a stink eye from me until it’s proven itself, because there are a lot of people who devote their lives to separating gardeners from our money.  Fads come and go, usually with late night television ads that, if you act now, will send you a few Ginsu knives they have lying around.  Wheat’s seen them all.  “Sometimes there’s a hula-hoop idea that is beautiful in its simplicity, like the Topsy-Turvy planter.  They’re perfect for certain places, like patios or those who don’t have gardens any more but want a little tomato plant.  I want my customers to get the most out of their garden; it’s the most important thing to me.”

 Getting the most from places in Colorado isn’t always easy, with changing elevation and a short growing season.  But this beauty and the beast pairing holds a lot of promise for gardens in challenging locales, like gardening at elevation, where Wheat sees the earlier cropping and tolerance to temperature swings of the Mighty ‘Mato beating out traditional tomatoes.  “When you look at its benefits, this tomato says Colorado, not Illinois, where I’m from.  They have rich soil, rain.  This makes sense for us; it starts producing earlier and gives fruit later into the season.”

If you’re growing it in a container, think big; the root system on Mighty ‘Mato requires a whiskey barrel or larger size pot.  And caring for a grafted tomato differs from a standard one:  you don’t plant them deeply.  Along the lower part of its vine, tomatoes have lumps, called root initials, that often develop into roots.  When this happens to a grafted tomato, the genetics of the top growth can take over, reducing or cancelling out the robust characteristics the rootstock provides.  Plant them at the same level as they are in the pot, making sure that the graft line – you can clearly see it – is above the soil. 

Many varieties of heirloom and hybrids are available on the Mighty ‘Mato, including:  beefsteak, Mortgage Lifter, Black Krim, Green Zebra, or Cherokee Purple slicers.  Cherry tomato fans will love the better-than-bumper-crop production of Sweet Million, Black Cherry, or Yellow Pear.  I’m trying Brandywine, because I’ve noticed a decline in its vigor in my garden and want to see if grafting gives it the jolt needed to grace our table with the tangy, old fashioned flavor love apples are known for.

Read Full Post »

Bitten by the competitive bug

Today’s post can be heard on the public radio show Crop to Cuisine, hosted by Dov Hirsch.

  What wacky things a gardener will do if bitten by the competitive bug.  You might have one in your neighborhood – they’re those who hoist the first ripe tomato aloft, lifting it high enough to be seen above the six-foot privacy fence, proclaiming loudly “Honey, we’ll be enjoying tomatoes tonight!”

 Those of us on the other side of the fence can only sullenly stare in envy, alternately wondering how they did that and vowing to win next year.  Deals with the devil are made, and gardeners can quickly find themselves so wrapped up in the competition they lose sight of common sense, or even sanity.

 Take Kata Schmidt, a devoted vegetable gardener and Colorado Master Gardener inPueblo.  Eager to be the first in her neighborhood to harvest ripe tomatoes, she starts her 30 seedlings in January, then trundles them in and out of her home daily to protect them from frost.  That twice-daily tomato migration begins in February, a time when most of us are dreaming over catalogs and watching the snow fly.

But the task pays off for Kata, who begins plucking delicious love apples around Memorial Day, when most tomatoes are barely in the ground.  But it isn’t just the glory of the first delectable fruit that drives her, or the nutritious, homegrown food; she has her eye on the coveted title of Tomato Lady in her community, and goes after it.

 “There’s a woman nearby who likes to brag that she gets hers by the Fourth of July, but I so have her beat,” says Kata, adding that it’s fun to be so early in harvesting.

Now that it’s August, it’s crunch time for the most competitive in our neighborhoods, when County Fairs play on this obsession by pitting gardeners against one another in good-natured – and sometimes not so good natured – competition.   Perfection is measured in the straightness of beans, the uniformity of peppers, or the weight of cabbage.  And when it comes to pumpkins, size matters.

Blemished produce is no use in the county fair, so when the monsoons arrive, tossing hail and tree limbs, gardeners go to great lengths to protect their prized plants. Canopies, crates, and other coverings spring up almost as often as frost blankets, tossed on in the middle of the deluge once the hail becomes real.

Crazed gardeners measure the progress of overgrown zucchini, measuring its length and girth daily to see if they’ll triumph in the giant zucchini contests.  Alison and Gil O’Connor of Windsor are going after that prize, measuring their squash next to the size of their beagle, Willow.

If you’re planning to enter your crops for a chance at the blue ribbon, here are a few tips for selecting the prize winners from your plants:

Eggplant should be shiny, uniformly deep in color with a bright green cap.  Avoid dull color, green tinge or brown discolorations, which are all signs of bitter or old fruit.

 Sweet corn ears need to be filled to the tip with tightly packed, plump kernels, bursting with milky juice if lightly pressed. The silk should be a dark brown.   Leave those ears with dry brown husks and indentations on the kernels at home; they’re old, and the sugars have turned to starch.

Cantaloupes need to have a well defined grey-yellow netting over tan skin. Pick up the cantaloupe and shake it – the seeds will rattle when ripe, and gently press the blossom end to see if it gives slightly to pressure.  These are both signs of a perfectly ripe cantaloupe.  Judges will frown on spongy, wrinkled or moldy rinds.

Sweet peppers  should have deep, rich color that feel heavy for their size. Unless you’re growing some of the Italian bull’s horn types, avoid those with thin walls that give when pressed.  Enter the slender bull’s horns varieties that are wrinkle-free and sleek.

 Green beans are best when picked young, cooled quickly and brought to the fair as soon after harvest as possible.  Make sure the beans are slim, the seeds small and not swelling.  Look for pods less than one quarter to one eighth inch around with bright color and an audible snap when broken.

 

 

 

Read Full Post »

Vegetables guard turf

Today’s post can be heard on the public radio show Crop to Cuisine, hosted by Dov Hirsch.

On the outskirts of Minneapolis, in a town called Eden Prairie, a vegetable patch is growing. This is not an average kitchen garden; the corn, beans, melons and tomatoes have a mission greater than feeding their gardener. Instead of filling plates with salad and side dishes, the plants here serve as canaries in a coal mine, providing early warning for problems cropping up on nearby grass.

Known as indicator plants, the vegetables are part of a holistic approach to turfgrass management on the professional practice fields of the Minnesota Vikings football team.

“The public thinks we practice at the Metrodome (inMinneapolis); they don’t know we have fields,” says Grant Davisson, Head Sports Turf Manager for the Vikings, who play in an indoor stadium. “But we have a lot of activity all year on this turf, from the end of March through the end of the season.”

With higher humidity and rainfall – they receive 30 inches per year – disease poses a challenge for managing the 210,000 square feet of turfgrass the Vikings practice on. Leaf spot, pythium, pink snow mold and Brown Patch are chronic problems.

Many high-use sports fields rely on a combination of play rotation and pesticides, but this facility is next to a riparian area protected by law. Because all of the runoff dumps into the wetland, Davisson is conservative in his turf treatments and prefers alternative means to controlling problems. “We don’t want any runoff, and we want as few applications as possible.”

That’s where the vegetables come in. In a 10-foot wide swath, watermelons, corn, tomatoes and soybeans act as sentinels for conditions that spur disease, succumbing to sickness a few days before the problems show up on the turf.

Rooted in the knowledge that disease outbreaks require the right environmental conditions to thrive, Davisson watches his vegetables for signs of oncoming turf problems. “Watermelons get hit by pythium, and though it’s not the same pythium that affects turf, they both need the exact same conditions,” he said, speaking of the disease that sends chills through turf managers’ spines due to its rapid destruction.

“It’ll hit the watermelons on the third hot, humid day and they’ll get killed, often by July 1. But once it shows up on the watermelons, I have a day or two lead time to spray the turf.” That’s all the time he needs to target his controls, knocking the dread fungus back behind scrimmage lines to keep it in check.

“Then we get cloudy days and the tomatoes get leaf spot. I’ve tracked it – three to four days later the turf gets leaf spot.” Affecting crown, rhizomes and roots in addition to leaves, in the heat of summer it kills the turf, leaving bare spots. “I hate leaf spot. It’s a bigger problem on rye than bluegrass.”

Replicating his plots in full sun and part shade, Davisson mimics the variable conditions on his fields, which receive differing amounts of sunlight. Applications of fertilizer are made at the same time to keep turf and vegetables even.

In addition to watermelon and tomatoes to watch for pythium and leaf spot, Davisson has corn and soybeans for rust. The peppers and peas are “because I like to eat them.” Harvested produce goes to coaches and staff.

Following a set schedule for fungicides calls for applications to be made every 90 days, and on fields this size, every application cost $35,000 to $40,000. But through this vegetable sentinel system, Davisson has been able to stretch out applications to 142 days between applications, saving money and lowering the impact on the environment. “It’s easily to most successful means to gauge disease,” he said, “and I save two applications per year. That’s a lot of money.”

Read Full Post »

Year of the Tomato

Today’s post can be heard on the public radio show Crop to Cuisine, hosted by Dov Hirsch.

I’ve never paid much attention to astrological calendars that feature the zodiac or animal influences.  Outside of amusing ourselves with the placemats at Chinese food restaurants, the characteristics of whatever year I was born under never inspired me, mainly because the celestial guides never include a plant.  There are animals and arachnids, fish and fowl, dragons and virgins, but never a plant, which bothers me because I’m a gardener. 

But it turns out I wasn’t looking in the right place to find a foliaged guide; all I needed to do was look to the National Garden Bureau, which anoints a different plant every year for us to celebrate.  And this year, 2011, is a year of great excitement, because finally we are in The Year of the Tomato.

How auspicious to be born under this sign.  Anyone guided by this is sure to be the love apple of everyone’s eye, because the tomato is the most popular plant in the vegetable garden. 

“There are so many different varieties and types.  What originally was just a round, red fruit now comes in many shapes and names: currant, cherry, grape, salad, saladette, plum, Roma, Beefsteak, and more,” said Diane Blazek, Executive Director of the Bureau.  “It’s almost impossible to not find one to fit your taste, garden space and growing climate.”

Though it’s roots are in South America’s  Andes Mountains, the fruit is a world traveller, first being cultivated by the pre-Mayan people, says the NGB.  After the explorer Cortés discovered the tomato in an Aztec market and took it home to Spain, the tomato traveled throughout Europe and across the channel to England.

But love for the tasty tomato didn’t take hold in Europe in those early days; as a member of the nightshade family it was grown as an ornamental plant.  Superstitions grew up around it, including the belief that witches used it to summon werewolves, which is why Linnaeus, the father of our scientific naming system, dubbed it Lycopersicon esculentum, or “edible wolf peach.”

According to the blog Tomato Casual, a way to get money is by placing a tomato peeling over your door.  I actually believe this one – one look at the tomato skin above my door and my mother will hand me money to afford cleaning supplies.

American legends argue over who staged an event in 1820 to convince the public that tomatoes were edible.  One version holds that Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson ate a basketful of tomatoes on the steps of the Salem courthouse, while another claims it was Thomas Jefferson  who, on a visit to Lynchburg, Virginia, munched on the fruit on the steps of the Miller-Claytor house.  Neither legend is proved to be true.

Over ten thousand varieties of the love apple exist;  many, known as heirlooms, have been handed down for more than 50 years. The National Garden Bureau says open pollinated tomatoes, which include heirlooms and all varieties that grow true from seed, are the popular choice for home gardeners.  

From smallest to largest, popular fruit shapes are identified as currant, cherry, plum, standard, and beefsteak. Cherry tomatoes, range from ¼ to one ounce, are produced in clusters. Plum, or paste tomatoes, have more solids than liquids, giving them meaty walls that make fine sauces. Standard-sized tomatoes weigh from 4 to 16 ounces, while beefsteaks, can get to be 2 pounds or more.

 Tomatoes have different growth habits, which can be determinate or indeterminate. Determinates are compact, reaching 3 to five feet. They set fruit and ripen it all at once, so the main harvest is concentrated into a few weeks.

Indeterminate tomatoes grow, blossom, and produce tomatoes throughout the growing season. They can reach up to 12 feet tall, and produce many main stems, all of which are capable of flowering and fruiting. To support unwieldy growth and to keep tomatoes off of the ground, support plants with cages or stakes. Staked plants should be pruned to remove all but two growing stems, which are tied loosely to the stakes and trained for vertical growth.

There is a third type called semi-determinate which is bushy like a determinate, but will set and ripen fruit over a longer period of time. The 1984 AAS Award Winner ‘Celebrity’ is a semi-determinate.

Choose your tomatoes by maturity date, the average number of days from planting outdoors to the first ripe fruit. Early tomatoes, generally speaking, are those that ripen in fewer than 70 days; mid-season tomatoes ripen in 70 to 80 days; and late types require over 80 days.

Read Full Post »

Broccoli can change the world

Today’s post can be heard on the public radio show Crop to Cuisine, hosted by Dov Hirsch.

Mention how delicious broccoli grown in your garden tastes, and you’re likely to be stared at as if you’ve lost your mind.  At the mere thought of the deep green vegetable, most people shudder, remembering overcooked, limp, bitter servings at their school cafeteria.

But a head harvested from the sweet soil of your backyard is a whole different meal, a nutty, tender flavor so delightful you’ll crave more.  Fresh homegrown broccoli is so tasty, in fact, that it can change the minds of our most picky eaters:  our children.

Just ask Robyn Bond, a Colorado Master Gardener in Larimer County.  She gardens on a small patch of yard in the suburbs, squeezing in as many plants as possible in the pocket-sized garden.   Though her grandson, Travis, helped her sow spinach and chard seeds last spring, he drew the line when it came to eating.

“He says his brain tells him not to eat anything green,” said Robyn.  Since Travis and his twin brother Gunner (who eats green things but not broccoli) weren’t interested, Robyn popped in three broccoli seedlings, just enough for one person to enjoy.

But Travis became curious about the heads that developed on the plants, and summoned the courage to ignore his brain’s advice and try this green thing.  “I told him he could cut as much as he wanted for his dinner,” said Robyn, not realizing that this meant Travis would cut all three plants’ worth of broccoli.  Finding them delicious, in a few days he returned, and helped himself to the side shoots as well.

In fact, so enamored of the tender, delicious broccoli had Travis become that he decided to share his joy with others, particularly in the produce department of the grocery store.  There the dark haired lad took his stand, stopping shoppers before they could slide a few heads into their plastic bags.

Gazing up at people, his blue eyes sincere, he uttered “Don’t buy this stuff they make here, grow it instead, like nana does.”  You see, Travis, like other children, has yet to discover exactly where food comes from, believing that grocers made the broccoli they sold.

 “The store staff got a kick out of it, they’ve forgiven me and I’m allowed back in the store,” Robyn assured me.  “They know he will now eat broccoli.”

 Gardeners need more Travises in the world, and more nanas like Robyn to teach them the joy of growing food.  One day they’ll take the hand of a child to teach them the ways of soil and sunlight, or grow into young farmers bringing produce to neighborhood markets.

In the meantime, plant some broccoli in your patch this year.  It’s easy to grow, but keep in mind that the secret to sweet, not bitter, broccoli is consistent water and rapid growth.  It’s a cool season crop, so plant seedlings now for a spring harvest.  Pick a sunny location and amend the soil with a bit of plant-based compost, and give the young seedlings a shot of starter fertilizer to get them growing.

Pay careful attention to watering, making sure the plant doesn’t dry out – this is what causes it to bitter.  Right now we’re dry; our rainfall isn’t enough to moisturize the leaves, much less irrigate the roots.  So check your plant daily and give it a drink if the top of the soil feels dry.

 Fertilize the plants at three weeks and five weeks, to keep their growth rapid.

Broccoli heads are actually a cluster of immature flower buds, harvested before the flowers open. Monitor your heads as they size up; the plant tag will give an indication of the size of an ideal head.  Pick the broccoli before any yellow begins to show, cutting the stem five inches below the head.  Let the plant keep growing, and you’ll enjoy a second crop of side shoots as well.

Read Full Post »

Straw mulch makes perfect spuds

Image via Wikipedia

Reader Leslie asked a great question, hoping for tips on how to grow potatoes in straw.  Digging into the subject has gotten me fired up to try it, because I’m such a brute with the shovel I always end up nicking the spuds.

But growing potatoes in straw is an easy way to get perfect spuds without the hassle of shoveling.  Known as ‘Straw Potatoes,’ you’ll have better size, shape, and color of the tubers than those grown in soil.  Straw has the added benefit of reducing weeds, keeping roots cool, and conserving water. 

Choose an early to mid-season variety, purchasing certified disease-free seed potatoes at garden centers or on-line – DON’T use potatoes from the grocers. That’s not safe gardening ; those potatoes might carry disease into your garden.

Plant seed potatoes (small, whole potatoes) or potatoes cut into 2 ounce pieces. If cutting up potatoes for seed pieces, be sure to leave at least one good eye per piece and let them wait a few days to allow the cut side heal over before planting. 

Plant potatoes soon;  four-to-six weeks before the last frost.  Choose a flat, sunny location out of the wind for your straw patch.  If there is no place in your yard without wind (please stop laughing), encircle the area for planting with a chicken wire cage that can be easily opened for harvesting.  This will keep your straw from flying to Kansas.

Place seed pieces on the soil with the cut side down and eyes up, spacing the spuds 12 inches apart.

Cover the potatoes with six inches of clean, weed-free straw.  The potato will send up a stem, and as it pokes up out of the straw, add another six inch layer.  Repeat a third time. This ensures that you’ll have a long, underground stem from which the tubers will grow. 

During the summer, if the straw compacts down or starts to decompose, add more, tucking it in around the plant.  Check the straw frequently to make sure it’s covering the tubers – if hit with sunlight they turn green and become bitter.

Pay close attention to watering the potatoes over the summer; they should not be allowed to dry out, nor should they become soggy. A soaker hose laid across the surface of the soil will help you irrigate the potatoes evenly.  Pull any weed that makes itself at home in the straw.

Go lightly with fertilizer – you want the potatoes to form tubers, not a lot of foliage.  Give them a shot of balanced liquid fertilizer about six weeks after the first sprout has topped the straw (even if you continue to add layers of straw, mark the date the vine first poked up).

In August, harvest new potatoes – young tubers not fully sized – by carefully pulling back the straw to reveal them.  Pluck out a few new potatoes, then tuck the straw back around the plant, and it will continue to produce for you.  Or wait until the plant dies back to harvest the fully-sized crop.

Related Articles

• Hints and Tips for Planting Seed Potatoes (brighthub.com)
• When and How to Plant Potatoes in Your Hardiness Zone (brighthub.com)
• Learning How To Plant Potatoes For The Best Harvest (backyardgardeningtips.com)

Read Full Post »

Sowing Onions

Image via Wikipedia

Today’s post can be heard on the public radio show Crop to Cuisine, hosted by Dov Hirsch.

As you’re planting your spring kitchen garden, leave room for one of cooking’s basics that’s delicious enough to bring tears to your eyes.  Growing onions in Colorado is easy, and if you want to add this allium to your vegetable plot, the time to get planting is now.

Seeds, seedlings and sets are available to the home gardener, so here’s a quick primer on the difference: seeds are directly sown into the garden from mid-March through the end of April and are very successful in Colorado.  Sow them shallowly, about three-eighths of an inch deep. 

Seedlings are started plants, grown this season and not yet mature enough to begin forming bulbs.  Locally, onion seedlings are readily available in small clumps that you tease apart upon planting.  Plant them one inch deep and slightly later than seeds, so any time in April will do.   

Sets are onion bulbs that are about one inch in diameter and planted as you would a tulip or daffodil.  Both seeds and seedlings can be used for green onions, often called scallion-stage, or for sizing up into storage bulbs.  But if you use sets, keep in mind that they’re best if you want bulb onions. 

 Look for long-day varieties that form bulbs once we have 14 or more hours of sunlight daily; in our area, onions will begin producing pungent, sweet bulbs beginning in July.  

 Onions prefer fertile, well-draining soil liberally amended with organic material.  Spread compost one to one-and-a-half inches deep across the bed, then till it in, working it eight inches into the soil. 

 If you’ve sown seeds, thin them once the seedlings have five leaves.  For best bulb production, thin to three inches apart.  Pulled seedlings are delicious as fresh or grilled; eat them as you would a scallion.  As your onions grow, each leaf they put on represents a ring in the bulb itself, and size matters: larger leaves mean bigger rings.

Water them frequently, never allowing their shallow roots to dry, which can cause bulbs to be stunted and tough.  Onions are nitrogen-greedy during the first part of the season, so fertilize until mid-July, then put them on a diet – onions don’t need much nitrogen past that point. 

As onions bulb, they often push themselves out of the soil; this is normal and your plant will be fine.  Avoid giving in to the urge to “hill-up” your onions; hiding the beautiful bulb will work against the plant’s desire to plump it and you won’t get good production.  As the plant prepares to bulb (the neck will feel a little soft), if your soil is hard from the summer sun, gently loosen it to let the plant expand.

Keep weeds to a minimum, since they rapidly crowd out the less-vigorous onion.  Careful, shallow hoeing around the plants is a must to avoid damaging the developing bulb, so if you’re a bit of a brute with the hoe, mulch is a good option for your onions.

Thrips are common insects in our area, rasping off the surface of the onion leaf, leaving a tell-tale trail of silver.  They hide out on weeds, so weed suppression is key to control.

You can tell if your onion is mature by its floppy tops, which start laying over in mid-August.  Hold off on watering at this point and when most of the tops have fallen, gently lift the onions from the ground. Let them rest on top of the ground for up to two days, trying to keep them oriented the same way they grew in the ground to prevent sunburn.

After two or three days, take the onions into a warm, dry location to cure for several weeks until the necks are completely dry.  Trim the tops, then store the bulbs in a mesh bag out of sunlight in a cool location.

Related Articles

• All Things Onions (doyoudig.wordpress.com)

Read Full Post »

When to harvest produce

Today’s post can be heard on the public radio show Crop to Cuisine, hosted by Dov Hirsch.

September is my favorite month because I get to spend all of my spare time in my two favorite places – the kitchen and garden. All of the season’s toil and sweat comes down to this month, the one where the harvest takes center stage.

If you’re new to gardening, learning when to harvest is trial and error; in eagerness, you pluck a tomato too soon, or in anxiety, leave it too long on the vine. Either way, your harvest isn’t rewarding – pick too soon and the flavor doesn’t develop, too late and the fruit is mushy and not as sweet.

When the garden is packed with roots, leaves, fruits and flowers, how to tell if one pepper is better than another or when a ripe-to-the-point-of-sinful cantaloupe is ready?

Taste and color are big clues in the maturity of what you’re picking, but all of your senses should be used when gauging ripeness, so feel the vegetable for signs it’s ready to harvest. Cucumbers may look green and pretty, but if their middles are soft and spongy, or the rind is hard, they’re overripe.

Whether slender or globe-like, eggplants should be shiny, uniformly deep in color with a bright green cap. Avoid those with dull color, a green tinge or brown discolorations; all of these are signs of bitter or old fruit. Eggplant becomes bitter if stored too long, so harvest it just before you need it or store it in the fridge for up to a week.

Sweet corn is a darling of the season, and fans love the creamy yellow, pearly white or bicolor ears of this hallmark of the summer. Watch your ears for the silk to turn dark brown and the ears filled to the tip with tightly packed, plump kernels. When lightly pressed, the kernels should ooze a milky juice. Corn with dry brown husks and indentations on the kernels are likely to be past their prime and the sugars have turned to starch. Super sweets, especially, lose sugar quickly. If you’re looking to freeze some, go with bi-colors or yellows.

Heirloom tomatoes pack plenty of taste in funky colors like striped, purple, pink, orange or white. Usually we can tell when they’re ready, but try growing a green tomato – one that never really colors up, and you’re reduced to tasting the tomato to learn when it’s ripe. Most of the time, those green tomatoes will blush slightly, so look for a color change and firm, glossy skin before tasting it.

Once you’ve mastered the tricks to telling ripeness, it’s easy to spot cantaloupes ready with melt-in-your-mouth sweetness. Look for well-defined grey-yellow netting over tan skin and a crack developing around the stem where it connects to the melon. Cantaloupes slip from the vine when ripe, and when this crack is two-thirds of the way around the fruit, your melon is perfect. At the store, follow your nose when choosing cantaloupe. Ripe ones smell like melon.

While bells are the best known sweet peppers, sweet bananas and Italian bull’s horn types add thrill to the grill and fresh salads. Long and lean, these may look like their chili cousins, but don’t have the spice. Pick peppers with deep, rich color that feel heavy for their size, and compost those with thin walls that give when pressed. But know what you’re growing before following my advice – some bull’s horn types have thinner walls that give when you press them. When harvesting those, keep the ones that are wrinkle-free and sleek.

Green beans are best when picked young, then cooled quickly to store in the refrigerator. The best snap beans are harvested slim while the seeds are small and not swelling. Clip your pods – don’t yank them – from the plant when they’re less than one-quarter to one eighth inch around and have bright color. Discard those that are spindly, blemished or limp or those that are stringy when snapped.

Related Articles

• Mutant Green Tomatoes Show Researchers Key to Stronger Red-Ripe Crops (prnewswire.com)
• Maria Rodale: Tomato Week: Easy Tomato Recipes & Tomato Plant Harvesting Tips (huffingtonpost.com)

Read Full Post »