Utilizing small corners for great veggies!

Whenever I plant my gardens in the early spring, I always keep an eye out for out of the way spots to throw in a vegetable or two or three. Doing this seems to often times throw off those insects that otherwise might decimate the more formal planting locations where larger numbers of similar plants may attract them.

I've done this type of planting for years and have had great success. The four plants pictured above, (2 long red stir fry cayenne and 2 banana peppers) have been productive all season long. This very small area has supplied me with all the peppers I've needed to make daily and chili dishes!

My garden did just fine in 2013!

This spring and summer, for the first time in my gardening experience brought onto me a realization, actually a couple of things dawned on me. First, I was getting older and therefore presumably wiser. I'm not at all sure that one is working out for me. Secondly, I realized that in years past, I always seems to have way more vegetables than I could eat or even pass around. I was, after all, eating for only one.

So, I resolved to throw out a few seeds, plant a couple of store bought transplants and call it a day. Sure, I did think to weed and water, but all in all, nothing was much of a chore. And, my garden looked it too. Not a thing of beauty with a lone cucumber plant here and a scraggly tomato plant or two there. Don't even ask me about the peppers! (I never gave them any special care and they never produced very big fruit, so we came out about even). Still, there was a steady flow of something to put in a stew pot or salad starting on about mid July. And, lo and behold, I was using just about every bit of produce or herb that my beds produced! At the end of the day, I thought that to be a little bit of progress...

Onion in a pot harvest day!

Well, it's been some time since I planted an onion set in a pot just to see what would happen. I wasn't sure that an onion would even grow in such a limited amount of space. Turns out, the onion did just fine!I harvested it on July the 25th and the useable portion weighed in at 107 grams - not too shabby!

So, while it's not really economical to grow onions in this manner, it was still fun and I ended up with an onion that got sliced and put on a great tasting hamburger!

Onions and potatoes for everyone!

Of all the garden vegetables that us non-green thumb folks can plant in the spring, potatoes and onions can make you look good! 

 

Trust me on this! Just a little plot of garden soil, a feed seed potatoes and onion sets can make even the most inept wanna-be gardener look like a pro! I use both just about every day and by mid July I've got a good supply of both that can stay in the ground until they're needed.

Earlier this year, I prepared a space of about 2 feet by four feet in on of my raised beds, making sure to have plenty of space soil off to one side of a shallow trench I made with a spade. Into this went some store bought 'seed' potatoes, at a local store, that promised to produce a red variety that was good to either bake or boil. At the same time, I purchased about a pound of onion sets that were of the white variety. The seed potatoes were cut into pieces and allow to dry for a day while the onion sets were haphazardly stuck here and there around where the potatoes were to go and which were spaced about three inches apart. This was a small investment, money wise, maybe about $2. I made sure to weed and water the bed as needed, but other than that, I didn't pay much attention to what they were doing. Before long, the potatoes sent up sprouts that flowered in May and June and then died back in July. The onion sets, likewise, grew long shoots which also died back at about the same time. Representatives of this effort can be seen in the picture above. And, while neither the onions or the potatoes were particularly large, there were to be found in abundance!

Now the question can be asked. 'Did I save any money compared to just buying a sack of potatoes and onions in the store?' Probably not. But, I do have the satisfaction of ignoring these items when I shop (every little bit you save helps) and I know with out a doubt that these vegetables are pesticide and chemical free!

Where did they all go?

It's just a day before the official start of summer and those pesky Japanese beetles that most always made an appearance in early June are nowhere to be found in 2013! Tis a puzzler for sure.

Also, AWOL are the ticks (hunters have killed all the deer in my area), the grasshoppers. mosquitoes and the other irksome insects that generally make gardening such an irksome battle! The only real problems I've encountered, thus far, are tiny flea beetles which took an early and lasting liking to my potato plants. The shotgun appearance of the leaves, pictured above, are testament to their collective hunger. In spite of that, the tater plants seem to be surviving just fine.

This 'insect free' situation has made for a very pleasant spring down here in southwest Missouri. But, it makes me also wonder if this is natural for nature – i.e. some cyclical species variation, or is this a trend that could prove deleterious down the road? You know, like the honey bees that are disappearing worldwide. A side note: i.e. means "that is". It's from the latin "id est"!

Home grown tomatoes! This year for sure!

While I've never been accused of having a green thumb, I generally do alright in the home garden arena. Over the years, I've produced bumper crops of romaine lettuce, Kentucky pole beans, onions and even some potatoes just last season. But, its tomato growing where I've consistently fallen on my face. I'm not sure what it is I'm doing wrong, but something always seems to go wrong. One year it was deer that ate all my plants down to the ground, and then over the past couple of seasons ,it's been both the deer and some hungry Japanese beetles that have left me having to resort to farmers markets in order to sate my appetite.

But this year is going to be different! First off, all the deer have been killed by hunters and not only are they not around but the tics that generally accompany them have bee absent too. That just leaves those pesky beetles and they are due to show in just a few more days! But, I'll be ready for those little critters with lots of grow cloth or as its commercially known reemay. And, any deer that might show up will have to cut their way through some chicken wire. Wish me luck!

A radish growing experiment!

Like onions, radishes are easy to grow. Just sow some in standard soil, water well and in about a month's time you have a tasty addition to your salads. That's the theory anyway...

Just plain old everyday soil that has not been fertilized or heavily amended is supposed to be okey-dokey with most radish plants. According to the experts, too much nitrogen will give you a lot of tops with no root development. The same goes for overcrowding the little guys too! You need to sow them about 2 to three inches apart just below the surface of the soil, water on a regular basis and supposedly that's about all you have to do. Did you know that the tops are also edible (a little known fact) and also make a great 'peppery' addition to spring salads? I've gotta try that one myself!

The problem with some radishes, it seems, is that sometimes the roots just don't develop very well if at all! Or, they might be pithy or hot! I've been given all sorts of reasons why this might be so. The two chief being overcrowding and too much nitrogen in the soil. Other reasons have included very hot weather and under-watering. To find out if these were true, I wanted to do a little experiment to quantify this effect by tracking some of the variables that might affect their growth patterns and ultimate development.

---------------------------The Experiment

For this experiment I chose the Cherry Belle radish variety as it is very popular in my neck of the woods and tastes great! For the growing area, I chose a one foot square are in a raised bed in mid May 2013 (cool temps) where I planted one seed two inches apart from its neighbor – this arrangement allowed me to place 25 seeds inside the foot square area in such a manner that there was no other plants growing any closer than 2 inches (see chart). A situation that satisfied the requirement that many say a radish need to reach its full potential.

The soil I used was the soil that has been in place in the raised bed for a number of years. After digging below the surface, I determined that there were earthworms present (a great indicator that the soil is somewhat fertile as worms will not hang out in poor soil or soil that been over fertilized). So, the requirement that the soil not be nitrogen rich was also checked off.

The test area was watered by hand on the days when it didn't rain and a cover was placed over the area on days when the temperature got above 80°F. So, then, all the variables were covered pretty well. As a part of this experiment, I maintained a log of these factors in a data file, the results of which will be made available as a pdf document.

-------------------------The Variables

On a daily basis, I measured the following factors: 1) the daily hi and low temperatures, 2) the soil temperature at mid day two and a half inches down in the root zone, the condition of the soil (wet, damp, dry) each morning and 3) the general condition of each of the 25 plants whereby any root development was noted.

Recording all this data meant a rather demanding schedule to maintain for a whole month, but it seemed worth it to me to see if I could figure out which radishes developed well and which did not (and if not), why not!

------------------------Day One

As a part of the initial preparation, I assembled a simple planting grid using firing strips, nails and

some string. The grid was set up so that each seed would be at least two inches away from another seed, so as to allow for lots of growing room. This assembly took about thirty minutes.

Next, I lightly dug up a square foot area in a raised be out back. I then used my finger to make 1/8 inch depressions in the soil below each of the grid crossings. Each depression received just one seed and was then covered over lightly with soil. The soil was then patted down to insure a good soil to seed contact and watered the area lightly.

I also constructed a simple data file using FileMaker Pro to help me keep track of the variables I described earlier in the text. Here is a sample of what one entry might look like at left. Clicking on it (or any graphic) will enlarge it for easier viewing. 

Update: Three days later, on May 16, six radish seeds had germinated. 

Update: March the 24th and the radish plants now are developing true leaves! Click on the picture to enlarge it!

I WILL UPDATE THIS ENTRY FROM TIME TO TIME OVER THE NEXT MONTH SO AS TO TRACK THE PROGRESS OF THIS MOST BURNING QUESTION...

Update: June 15 2013 - Well, baring some last minute miracle, I'm sad to report that this experiment was pretty much a failure on just about all counts. Of the 25 onions that were seeded, only one has amounted to any thing. It was 2 cm wide and about  about 3 cm long and weighted in at only 5 grams. I plan to do this experiment over again, but will change two factors; 1) I plant to double the growing space between the radishes by cutting the number planted in half (12 this time around) and 2) I will be using a blend of Miracle Gro potting mix and sand to grow them in!