Broomstick's Garden, Year Two

Cafe Society
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Last year I started this thread in General Questions because, well, I had questions. This year I’m in Cafe Society because I suspect it will be more chatting/supportive.

Last year I wound up spending about $20 on the garden and recouped much more than that in produce - I estimate about $60, some of which I gave away and some of which wound up on the compost heap (the cucumbers WAY overproduced!) because we didn’t get to it until it went overripe. Here in February, I still have a couple pounds of greens and some string beans still in the freezer, as well as enough parsley for about 2 more gallons of stew. Not bad, huh?

Right now, things are quiet in the backyard. The landlord gave me about $5 of flower bulbs in exchange for some of the produce (along with some jalepenos from his garden) and those are juuuuuuuust starting to peek above ground. Looks like most of them survived. I have not one but TWO compost heaps! Need to go turn one over soon (I alternate feeding/using them - they are very unsophisticated heaps), clean out last year’s beds, and put the debris on the other compost heap.

The plan is to double my garden space this year. Compost will go on last year’s bed, the new broken ground will probably not get any. I will supplement with MicracleGro because I have some left over and might as well use it.

For the spring planting (starting March, when weather permits):

Spinach (more than last year)
Radishes (more than last year)
Bok choi (new! Found seed source on line)
Lettuce (new!)
Dandelion harvest when they come up
Kale - maybe, undecided. Maybe if I get cheap seeds.
Going into summer:

Turnips (fewer - I got tired of them!)
Beets (more than last year)
Cucumbers (fewer - WAY too many!)
Bell peppers (vanished last year - think the cucumbers ate them)
Beans - four varieties I used last year
Onions (not very successful last year, try again)
Potatoes (new!)
Edible indian corn (new! Basically, food/toys for my birds)
Parsley (more than last year)
Watermelon (another failure, but I still have seeds so what the hell, if I have room)
Fall, I’ll think about re-seeding the spring crops. Last year I didn’t, as I ran out of storage space!
I’m thinking of buying bell pepper plants, as the “from seed” thing last year was a total failure. Any advice about growing these would be welcomed, as I’ve always found these difficult. I am also thinking about onion sets, rather than seeds for similar reasons. However, I’m trying to keep the outlaw for seeds/starter plants to under $20, and preferably under $10. If I get the seed prices low enough I’ll buy some manure or peat to condition the soil and build up last year’s beds/bed alongside the building.

I have some leftover seeds. I realize that, since they’re a year old, I’ll probably get fewer germinations but I’ll use them to supplement purchased seeds.

Advantages this year: I have compost! I know where to get inexpensive seeds! I’m in better physical shape!

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In the four years we have been gardening, we have never had success with bell peppers, and we always buy plants. Maybe one or two good ones, but never more than that. It’s really frustrating!

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It’s especially frustrating for me because they’re my husband’s favorite vegetable, and they’re so damn expensive! On the other hand, if I grow enough other stuff I don’t have to buy, then I can spend the money on peppers, which is what I did last year. I have no intention of starting a self-supporting farm, the idea is to supplement, not supplant, the grocery shopping.

4

I should probably start giving some thought to what I want to do in the way of gardening this year. I have a large deck where I plan to do some container gardening, along with space in the back yard, although I need to see how much sun I get there with the trees. I’ve also been told that there are deer in the area, although I haven’t seen any yet.

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Given your location, you’d be better putting onions in as soon as you can, might even be some frost left when they go in, here. Late winter snows get called “onion snows” for that reason.
Peppers don’t do well 'til it gets hot- transplants shouldn’t go in before mid-June at the earliest. Even if they don’t die, they won’t do much without heat. OTOH, I’ve had peppers into early fall before they start to give up. (I’m in the NE)
Corn is for the optimist if you don’t have good fertility or access to that which promotes it. And animal fencing.

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I can’t garden worth crap but like to shop the Farmers Market and then can up what I buy cheap. Some of my favorite farmers market finds you don’t have -

Zucchini - I think its actually not great, but it is a great budget stretcher since it adds wonderfully to all sorts of baked goods. Freezes nice. Tends to overproduce (or everyone I know who grows cucumbers and/or zucchini always ends up with plenty to give away.)

Rhubarb - makes nice jelly - I usually use it to stretch other fruits for jelly - my kids don’t like rhubarb, but they don’t notice it in strawberry jelly.

Leeks - I have no idea how leeks are grown - I’d imagine they are like onions. But once leeks come in at the Farmer’s Market, I’m a happy camper and get leeks every week.

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Yep, another allium, likes the same soils, but usually started in summer. I still have some in the garden, heavily mulched, some 2" diameter.
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Pepper seeds won’t germinate until they are around 77 degrees or so. Last year I finally succeeded by using a coldframe to heat the little buggers.

Potatoes – definitely hill them. I didn’t last year and results were not impressive.

Onions – buy the sets. They are cheap.

Bok Choi – in case you don’t know, you can continually harvest the outside leaves and the plant will produce all season. It’s like veggie magic.

If you have room, consider growing as many cukes as last year and bringing them to a food pantry. Call to ask before you implement this plan, however. Regional rules may vary.

9

Are you kidding me? I live in freakin’ Indiana - the whole state is wall-to-wall corn. Something like 40% of world’s popcorn (or some other high percentage) is grown within 100 miles of my house. Ya, corn grows real good around here.

I’m thinking that the length of really hot, pepper-friendly weather around here just isn’t long enough to reliably produce them.

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I find peppers do better in colder climates when they are planted in a bed of white stone. The heat sink helps. obviously you plant the peppers in the soil below the stone.

The plants you mentioned have seeds that will germinate for at least a couple years. I can’t vouch for the parsley or onions.

I just read a hundred year old book on the the cultivation and selection of tomatoes. It was written a few decades after they were becoming a demanded staple. They didn’t know the reason for many of the diseases at the time. The book is interesting. It did reinforce something I used to say. You can plant a tomato seed directly in the ground and it can outproduce a transplant. Basically how the plants are treated when very young can cut production even if you get plenty of foliage.

Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato by W. W. Tracy

I will be planting lots of peas beans and squash this year. I can’t deal with the mess that is the old garden beds after the flood last year. I’ll be poking holes and dropping in the seeds and spraying the apple trees. I probably will try to start some of the perennials that will take years to get decent plants. I just can’t redo all that stuff and I’m tired of dealing with flood damage . I’m wore out and the garden is too much to rehabilitate for me. Most of the stupid wooden landscape timbers and plant supports floated away anyhow. OK I’m stopping there.

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Get a lettuce mixture and harvest outside leaves just like the bok choi–you’ll end up with really weird looking Martian stalks with tufts of leaves on top but it’s a great way to have plenty of young fresh salad greens all summer–or until it gets too hot and bolts, anyway! Avoid iceberg in favor of romaine, red leaf and butter lettuce.

Peppers need heat–scrounge Craig’s List for free windows or glass and make a mini greenhouse around your pepper plants. If it finally gets warm enough, remove the glass so’s not to cook the peppers on the vine. I’ve had good luck with jalapenos, though, since they’re a thinner walled pepper. Bell peppers are a bear to grow.

Snow peas are great–use rough sticks and jute string to build trellises for them and you’ll have pretty pink or white flowers AND yummy peapods pretty much all summer. You can continuously replant them, too, and they’ll keep going until winter hits. If the trellises get trashed, toss them into the compost heap!

Likewise, wax beans are great–I plant a dozen or so plants and it’s enough for stir fries all season and maybe enough for pickles in fall.

The biggest problem with corn is that you have to plant a big enough patch to ensure good pollination, unless you want to get out there with a paintbrush and do it yourself.

Punkins! Easier than watermelons by a long shot. Plant the small eating varieties rather than the useless carving ones. Watermelons need a whole lot of poop to grow, they’re nutrient hogs as well as water hogs. Awfully yummy, though, if you succeed with them…

I’m so looking forward to getting the garden back up this year!

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You’ll be fine with the corn pollination if you plant hills of corn. Have a couple dozen plants minimum.

13

From when I was a kid, my experience with iceberg lettuce is that it’s a caterpillar magnet, useful chiefly for growing pale yellow and white butterflies. If I want iceberg I’ll buy some. I was planning to opt for a “salad mix”, whatever they’re selling in the dollar store. I’ll try that gradual harvest technique.

Great idea, but I don’t own the land I live on and I’m not sure the landlord would go for this.

I use the six foot high chainlink fence between me and the bar next door as a trellis - worked great last year for both beans and cukes.

I had green, wax, yellow, and burgundy beans last year. Still have a quart in the freezer to be eaten. They really produced!

I can handle it.

Had thought of doing a couple “three sisters” mounds, but I’m the only squash eater in the family, and the beans will be along the fence. Maybe next year.

My watermelons almost worked. I got round, green melon-like shapes. The interiors were red but oddly dessicated. I’m thinking of planting them on top of one of the compost heaps (once it’s digested or mixed with dirt) in a low-lying, water-collecting spot in the garden. We’ll see - they were pure experiment last year.

And… I just found out parsley is a biennial… so maybe last year’s patch will be back and I can just expand the patch.

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Yepper, been through the corn belt myself. What I’m saying, that land has been worked, manured and probably seen more ammonium nitrate than Tim McVeigh ever dreamt of. From what I recall of your plot, it’s started from scratch, and, as noted, this is year two.
Your idea of melons in the compost is a good one, all the spreading vines like a shovel or two. Hard to have enough compost.

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Yeah, everyone has the impression my backyard is an inch of anemic soil over hardpacked clay and I keep telling them it’s not. Because it’s not. The building is 100 years old (give or take), built before the era of scraping everything down to rock, selling the topsoil, and putting crap in its place. We have real soil out back. Breaking new ground means levering up four inch thick sod. Untended grass can grow six to eight feet high back there. The dirt is black and full of worms and bugs. The soil is so fertile we have to keep young women out of the backyard lest they turn up pregnant or something. That rich, black, bug-infested dirt goes down at least six inches. Trust me, if I plant corn back there it will grow.

16

Just inventoried my seeds. Mice got into the turnip seeds, but apparently didn’t like the taste so I still have plenty. Other than that, I have significant leftovers. Looks like I’ll only need to purchase lettuce, kale, radish, beets, bok choy, and the indian corn to round out my list. Oh, and the potatoes. I had no idea potatos were so expensive! And I only need a couple. I’ve been told that the ones in the grocery stores are treated so they don’t sprout, but given what happens to the ones I buy from Aldi I have my doubts – might cut up a few with sprouts and plant them. Yes I am willing to experiment, why do you ask?

I’m thinking of spinach and radish by the side of the building in mid-March - the cinderblocks there hold heat and make a little warm microclimate. Meanwhile, break more ground. Early to late April sow sequential spinach/radish/lettuce/bock choy in prepared beds. In may, sow the warm weather crops, starting with the beans. If I do fall crops I think I’ll sow those mid to late August.

Oh - and if anyone needs marigold seeds I have a bunch o’ them - marigolds are SUPPOSED to be annuals but the ones I have are persistent at re-sowing themselves despite our Chicago winters. Send me a PM and I’ll send you a bunch.

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The only reason to not use a potato from the grocery story is it’s not certified disease free. That’s not a problem for me, because I’d only have a couple plants and I use the potato peelings from a couple select potatoes.

When you buy seed potatoes don’t forget you cut them up into chunks with only a couple eyes per chunk. Let the outside dry for a day or two before you plant them.

18

Yep. My onions have been in the ground for 3 weeks now and they’re doing great. Last year I grew yellow onions from seeds and they were awesome, but this year I’m trying red onions from bulbs. I’ll be interesting to see how they come out in comparison.

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Keep the idea just change the materials. Pick up some really thin 9’x12’ plastic drop cloths at the dollar store and all you need then is something to keep the plastic up. We always had tons of bamboo plant stakes, perfect tent poles. Ya just have to keep an eye on how hot it’s getting under it. As it starts to warm up leave the ends open, later in the season pull one side up in the morning and close it at night.

Since your soil is good already, I’d spread the compost everywhere.
Keep all your soil’s micro-fauna well fed!

CMC fnord!

20

I’ve been breaking sod on the new garden area for a couple days now. I know it’s early, and I might have to re-work some of the early area, but I can only clear about 2 square feet a day with how much labor it is, so either I start early or it doesn’t get done.

Have also cleaned up and picked trash out of the old beds.

Started compost pile #3

Meijer’s had their seeds out when I went shopping yesterday, so I bought some and stayed under my $10 budget. They had bok choy seeds! Never saw them on sale at a local store before! Also got some mini-carrots along with everything else except the indian corn and the red peppers.

That leave $10 in this year’s budget for soil improvements. I’m thinking peat moss, if I can get some.

Revised plan is radish/spinach/kale/lettuce/bok choy on the warm side of the building to start (there’s room for 8-10 feet of each), then another bed of it a couple weeks later, and maybe a third planting if I have the seeds two weeks after that. That should bring us to the beginning or middle of May, at which point the other crops can start going in the ground. Might also pull the vegees by the building when the start to bolt, then put in parsley then the rest with marigolds.