Community Gardens Are Busting Out All Over!

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potting trashThe last two weeks have been hectic.  The Community Garden Conference in Grand Prairie, sponsored by the Tarrant County Food Bank and assisted by the North Texas Food Bank, was well attended.  I was there with GROW North Texas; we team-taught a seed starting class.  Andrea, the GNT Farmer Advocate talked about soil mixes, while I got my hands dirty and muddy, mixing up the seed starting concoction, and then I lead the “trash talk”.  In other words, how to start seeds by repurposing things like toilet paper rolls and empty water bottles; how to roll a newspaper pot with a spice jar, and how to convert a strawberry clamshell into a mini-greenhouse.  It was lots of fun, and a majority of the attendees took advantage of the hands-on, to plant some seeds and make some seed-starting pots.

DK raised bed

On Sunday I had a chance to visit Divine Kinship’s project in southern Dallas County.  They are working with permaculture instructor Nicholas Burtner to transform a 3+ acre piece of property that is currently grass and cedars.  It has a lot of elevation changes, a seasonal creek on one side, and a variety of soils ranging from caliche to sand.  It’s almost overwhelming all that they have to do to transform the property into a food forest and permaculture scape.  But large jobs are best broken into manageable pieces, and they are setting up raised beds, with plans to start planting in the next few weeks.  The beds are crafted from logs, and filled with wonderful mulch that will break down into incredible soil.  The mulch will also hold water from the rains.

Note in the middle of the bed you can see some reddish bumps with white dots on top.  Those are terra cotta pots, made into ollas, with rocks covering the holes on the top.  I’ll be teaching a DIY olla class, as well as using other recyclables for repurposing soon.

Winter Vegetable Planting!

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It’s still possible to plant winter vegetables and get them up before the warmth of late spring gets to them.

SpinachI’m going to be adding more spinach (40-50 days to maturity). But I could also plant arugula (40 days), turnips (50 days), carrots (60-75 days), (red) mustard (45 days), bok choy/pak choi (45-55 days) , collards (70 days), chard (50-60 days), kale (40-60 days depending on variety) and … at the end of the month … lettuce (50-60 days) and peas (snap peas as early as 55 days, others up to 70 days). And don’t forget radishes!  They can be seeded and harvested within 30-45 days, depending on the weather.

I was on a tour of community gardens in Dallas last week, and we saw someone with some peas that were at least 2′ high!  We all marveled that they had survived, given that the day was in the 20s with a wind chill! But the tour also brought home to the city planners for whom the tour was organized, that gardening can be done in North Texas year-round.

There is no right or wrong with gardening. No one is going to come and take your garden away if you don’t succeed! Your reward is vegetables.  If you plant something and it doesn’t thrive, it just means you have learned something.  You can hedge your bets by following guides for best dates to plant, but they don’t always work – particularly if we have a late freeze or spring comes early and summer heat comes earlier. Sometimes it’s fun just to try something outside of the guides – just to see if it works! Like the year I decided to winter-over my chard and I found out it can be grown in this area like a perennial.

Gardening is about finding out what works for you, for your gardening style and your location.

And remember….if our average last frost is in mid to late-March, starting some vegetables from seed 8-10 weeks earlier indoors means you’ll have transplants ready to go into the ground on time!

 

The North Wind Doth Blow

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I spent all day readying the “homestead” for the cold, arctic front that is supposed to drop temperatures into the teens by morning.

Covered the faucets with either a bucket or, in the case of the front faucet, taped some of that airy packing material Amazon uses around the pipe.  Disconnected the hoses, to allow air space in the pipes.

For the chickens, I took out an old 18’x12′ tarp I had in the shed.  With a helper, I managed to get it over the run and enclosed the run, staking it out on one side like a tent.  BUT….I came back later and found that the tarp had ripped – well, separated is more like it – on the seams where the three 8′ sections had been bonded.  Oops!

Coop cover oops So what to do, what to do?  I used to use coat hangers for everything – they are really very handy. So I got out my wire nippers and a couple of coat hangers along with a pair of pliers and attached the top of the middle section of the tarp to the hardware cloth of the run.  Although not totally enclosed now, I’ve at least blocked most of the north and northwest winds, the chilling ones.  I anchored the bottom of the tarp with bricks and pavers.  I’ll know how effective it was in the morning – by seeing if the chickens’ water is frozen.

Coop cover FastenerAbout 8 or 9 tonight, I’ll heat a red brick in the oven to 350 degrees, wrap it in an old pillowcase, and put it into the coop.  The radiant heat will help the chickens (I know….they have down and feathers, but I worry about them and spoil them) weather the cold.

Out of the Starting Gate!

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During the cold days the plants may be dormant, but we can’t be.  Too much to do – planning, mostly.  When I was by the community garden on Saturday, the giant red mustard was indeed giant – about 18″-24″ leaves.  I’d cut a few leaves from the outside about 10 days before, and it just stimulated the plant to make more leaves.  Yum.  The taste is a bit sharper than green mustard, but the greens I cooked last night were scrumptious, when mixed with chard that I also harvested.

In my container garden, however, the mustard is not growing quite so large.  Note to self – don’t plant so many things in one container!  Evenso, the mustard leaves in the container are at least 12″ when planted with broccoli and chard. As shown in the picture.

Mustard

So how do I cook greens (all types)?  With garlic and olive oil.  I sautee the minced garlic in olive oil in a thick-bottomed sauce pan till it’s soft, then start adding the chopped greens, making sure they are olive oil’d before adding another bunch.  Then I add about ½” of water in the pan, and slap on a lid, turning the fire down low.  Let them cook about 10-15 minutes, till done.  I served with beans and cornbread last night, but greens alone (maybe with some pepper sauce!) or with poached egg are good. Both tasting good and good for your body.

So after all that, I’ve resolved to order more giant red mustard seeds and plant some more while it’s still cold. I order mine from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange (see last week’s post for more information on this excellent source of non-GMO seeds).

Mustard seeds

The community garden’s spinach is doing well.  We planted in mid-November, alternating rows of spinach and carrots (I’m partial to the red-cored chantenay).  Both are about 4-5” high and the spinach was so thick, we thinned to 4” apart, picking the largest plants to leave room for the smaller ones to grow larger.  In about a month, we can start harvesting the carrots – they are already baby-sized and (I tasted one) so sweet.  Something to look forward to.

On another note, I visited family over the holidays, and was discussing gardening with a relative.  We looked out the sliding glass doors (okay, it was just too COLD to go out and look closely), and I saw barren beds, with dry dusty dirt exposed.  I looked at the barren trees in the yard and asked what happened to the leaves.  The yard man blows them together and bags them and hauls them off.  I restrained myself – leaves are the BEST mulch for wintering barren beds.  They preserve and nurture all those soil micro-organisms that are crucial to a plant’s well-being.  And they hold moisture in the ground so that what plants are left (like shrubs) are protected from the cold.  Since the relative had cardboard in her garage, I suggested that she put it out as mulch and wet it down good. Take a deep breath.

Now for my rant:  don’t let those leaves go into the landfill!  They are so valuable for your plants during the winter as well as your lawn.  If nothing else, put them on the compost pile. That’s how to return the nutrients to the soil.  That’s how nature does it and replenishes soils year after year – think about a forest floor, that is soft and moist and alive and rich.  That’s how all our growing beds should be.

 

Gardeners….It’s Seed Ordering Time!

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The garden catalogs are arriving in my mailbox, and I scan the pages, dreaming of wonderful plants for the spring, summer and fall.  The neat thing is that I get the paper catalog (okay, I’m a throw-back and love to touch it, see it, and feel it), but I can order online! Best of both possible worlds.

Seed catalogs

My favorite seed companies each have a unique offering.

The Southern Exposure Seed Exchange (www.southernexposure.com) is located in Virginia, so I can be assured that the varieties they offer are probably going to work in Texas. I love reading the descriptions of their offerings.  All seeds are coded for those best suited for the Southeast, heirloom, ecologically grown and USDA certified organic.   The heirloom varieties often have an indication of when they were “discovered” and where they originated.  For example, “Fish Pepper…African-American heirloom from MD.” or for carrots…”Chantenay Red Core…introduced from France in the late 1800s.” or “Cosmic Purple…yellow and purple carrots were first recorded in Asia Minor in the 10th c. For the first few hundred years of managed cultivation, carrots were predominantly purple.”  Wow!  A history lesson along with descriptions.  SESE also carries grains and cover crops:  want sesame? hairy vetch? red clover, sorghum and broom corn?  They have seeds!

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds (www.rareseeds.com) perhaps has the most extensive catalog – it’s almost like a thin book!  Baker Creek is located in Mansfield, MO, so I can be assured that I can find varieties that will work well in Texas. They carry vegetables, herbs and flowers. I can also get flax if I care to try growing fiber crops.  The pictures are incredible.  One eggplant that caught my eye was the Turkish Orange. It’s described as coming from Turkey. “The 3” round fruit are best cooked when they are green to light orange.”

Botanical Interests (www.botanicalinterests.com) is located in Colorado.  But it has some very interesting varieties and a wonderful selection (3 varieties) of Texas Bluebonnets in their flower section. I think one of the heirlooms I’m going to try this year is the Scabiosa Pincushion Flower. It’s described as “Perennial. Blooms summer through fall.” Sounds wonderful with blue-purple and white flowers. On the peppers page, I learned that peppers have been around since 7500 BC and are cultivated around the world. Columbus brought the spicy pods back to Spain and about 50 years later “they were being grown throughout Europe, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, Asia and the African coast.”  The selections are not quite as extensive as offered from some of the other seed merchants, but there are good, solid varieties.

 

The Landreth Seed Company, “purveyors of find seed since 1784,” is based in Pennsylvania (www.landrethseeds.com). Their catalog has the look of an heirloom.  They even have a section specifically for a children’s garden. Vegetables offered are selected for their interest, such as purple plum radishes, African mini-bottle gourd, and Mexican sour gherkin.  All varieties that are selected for their potential attractiveness to children. One section highlights varieties best suited for a patio/container garden.

The Pinetree garden seed catalog (www.superseeds.com) is a new one for me this year. Pinetree is located in Maine, so I will look through it to locate varieties that may be experimental for me.  They also offer loose tea, such as “Nilgiri – organic, fair trade certified.” They offer culinary herbs, medicinal herbs and dyeing herbs as well as tobaccos for the gardening.  I may try out the Hopi Red Dye Amaranth this year, since I’d really like to try dyeing some of my wool with reds.  Pinetree was my source for the Bhut Jolokia (Ghost Pepper) seeds. It is described as “A legendary variety from India with its extreme heat, said to be one of the hottest pepper[s] in the world with a Scoville rating over 1 million units.”  They take about twice as long as other peppers to mature.  But my youngest daughter and her husband like to try extreme peppers, so this was a good choice for them to try.  Note:  only 20 seeds are in each packet!

It’s a good idea to order seeds (at least for spring) soon, because if a transplant goes in mid-March, but is started indoors 8-10 weeks before planting, that means January is the time to start those seeds!

We’ll talk more about starting seeds in the coming weeks.

The Garden in Winter

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“So what should we do with the garden this winter?  It seems like it wasn’t growing things as well as it has in the past.”

That’s the question I was asked this last week. 

My first response was:  if they are not growing any winter vegetables, to bury the garden in leaves – several inches thick, watered down.  Even some cardboard, well moistened.  This will help put organic matter back into the soil.  Another way to help the soil is to grow a cover crop during the winter – maybe hairy vetch – which fixes more nitrogen in the soil. 

Leaves are so plentiful this time of year.  If they do not come from your own lot, you can easily find bags carefully left on the curb – ripe for the removal by scavenging composters and gardeners like me! The last place they should be going is the landfill.  Many community gardens are lacking the carbon/brown needed for a good compost pile – leaves on the curb are an excellent source.

Compost is another treatment you could use for wintering over, layered a few inches deep on top of the soil, and then maybe spreading some azomite to add trace minerals to the garden bed. 

Azomite is said to contain as many as 70 trace minerals that are needed to grow healthy plants.  We have systematically removed these trace minerals from our soils, by growing plants with simple, commercial fertilizers.  The plants take up the trace minerals and, when the plants are removed, so are the minerals.  However if we mineralize the soil, the plants take it up, we eat the plants and our health is improved. Then, when we compost the waste and then put it on the garden, those minerals are returned to the soil.

A good garden soil will be rich and soft. So soft, you can easily grab a handful from deep down.  If it’s dry and dusty, then it is lacking in organic material.

If you are growing winter vegetables, make sure they are mulched deeply. This will not only help the plants weather cold spells, but that mulch will work its way into the soil and help improve soil fertility as well as water-holding capacity.

The bed pictured on the left was well mulched with straw before the cold weather hit.  It is still growing mustard and chard, and the mulch protects the feet of the plants from freezes, as well as holding in moisture – and that protects the plants from cold, drying winter winds. By spring, the straw will have started decomposing and becomes compost to feed new plantings.

And the soil….this is where it all starts!  If the soil is not healthy (read:  full of micro-organisms) then it will not produce healthy plants.  I’ll talk more about soil in another post – as well as give you a way to inexpensively do a soil census of your soil’s living organisms.

 

INTERPLANTING FOR TWICE THE HARVEST; UPDATE ON MICROGREENS

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Interplanting is a technique that is used to obtain twice the harvest from the same space.  For instance, I will plant root vegetables (that use the growing horizon under the surface) with a leafy vegetable (that uses the growing horizon above the surface). One combination I use is carrots and mustard/chard/spinach.  Another combination I like is turnips with bok choy. 
 
Greens
I winter plant my carrots in the midst of other plants (e.g., greens) because the greens protect them (it’s called using nurse plants) until the nurse plants are harvested – usually about the time the carrots are ready to take off (in January and February). That way, I get bunches of carrots when I’m getting ready to plant the spring garden. 
Meanwhile, the greens in my outdoor garden are getting larger.  Every time I harvest some, it seems more grow to take their place.  The red mustard must be at least 15-18” high!  The lettuce is about to bolt, so it’ll go into my salads this week.  I think I’ll plant more red mustard for the color as well as the nutrients.  Of course, the kale is happy, and I see the carrots are starting to take off.
Work is continuing on the compost pile, while the microgreens grow higher – selectively. 
compost-2Bturning
I decided to use three containers for the compost pile, especially since I had 2 containers’ worth of leaves and chicken coop straw.  With a third, I was able to turn the first pile and make sure it was moist.  Green matter from the kitchen was added and mixed in well.  I was able to use a short-handled fork – one that is commonly used to turn over garden areas.  The second container will now be turned into the first, which is now empty.  I’ll probably cover the “completed” one to let it heat up; but I’ll continue to turn it on a weekly or bi-weekly basis to make sure it’s aerated.

The microgreens are about ready to harvest with kitchen shears – at least SOME of them are.  I’ll have to taste them to determine which ones are the fastest growing.  I may share some of these with my chickens. In fact, I’ll probably prepare another tray of microgreens just for them.  At the rate the greens are growing, I could start a tray about every week or two and have a steady supply of tasty salad add-ons throughout the winter!

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Compost – Otherwise Known as Plant Vitamins

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Compost is one of the “vitamins” we offer our plants.  
Compost can be made in a large bin (e.g., 4’x4’ pallets), a wire bin, a tomato cage lined with wire mesh, a trash can (DIY compost tumbler). The important thing is to keep the mix of brown and green, keep it moist (like a sponge) and keep it turned/aerated.
I wanted something smaller for my composting, something I could move about if needed.  Since I had a number of containers used by landscapers to transport trees, I decided to repurpose them.  They are a decent size – about 30” in diameter and about 18-20” deep.  They also have drainage holes in the bottom. 
I wanted them closer to the back door than the compost pile I had 25 years ago, because the easier the access, the more likely I am to deposit food waste into it.  However….the spot was occupied by an old utility trailer covered with scavenged fence pickets.  I spent the afternoon removing nails from the pickets and stacking them elsewhere. 
Trailer
A friend helped me to move the trailer out and the bins in.
Now, the bins already contained leaves from last fall, so I had a head start on the brown for my piles.
Bins-2Bcompost
 A compost pile needs four things:  carbon materials (“brown”), nitrogen materials (“green”), air and water (50-60% moisture content).  If the pile is dry and doesn’t decompose or heat up, it has too much brown or not enough water.  The pile should be moist so that, when squeezed, a few drops of water come out. If the pile is slimy and smelly, it has too much green or wet, and needs more brown and aeration (turning). The rule of thumb is 3 parts brown to 1 part green.
I have the brown, and cleaned out the chicken coop, which gave me some nice chicken manure rich in nitrogen.  I’m also picking up some additional “green” from a friend who has too much of it.  There are also a couple of bags of coffee grounds my daughter brought over from Starbucks, so with some water for moisture I have a good start for composting!
For turning, since the bins are closed on all sides, I found a couple of grill lifters on clearance from Target.  They look like angled forks, and should work sort of like tossing a salad. 
So….what can I include as browns? Well, cardboard (shredded is best), wood ashes (but not much), dead, woody plants (chipped/shredded trees, brush), leaves, grass (brown only), sawdust, straw, dryer lint, vacuum cleaner waste, paper or wood products (e.g., shredded newspaper, magazines if not too much slick paper) and natural fibers (like 100% cotton, wool, silk).  The greens – nitrogen sources – include grass clippings, hay, fresh green leaves, manure, kitchen scraps (no meat!), coffee grounds and tea bags (make sure the filters are biodegradable.
When putting items on the compost pile, think smaller – break or shred or chop larger items so that there is more surface area for the microbes to act upon.  The bigger the pieces of material, the longer they take to break down.

When you turn your pile, break up any clumps that you find.  Turn the pile often – this keeps the pile aerated and anaerated pile heats up with the microbial activity.  And you’ll know when it’s done because it will be crumbly black and rich, and smell earthy.

And, most importantly, turning the pile  keeps the critters out!
UPDATE ON THE MICRO-GREENS
The micro-greens I talked about last week sprouted within two days! I have watered by placing the grow tray in a larger tray with water. This lets the medium and plants soak up what they need. I leave the tray for about an hour or so, then empty the excess water and return the tray to its spot in the sun.  As you can see, the greens are coming along nicely – some are over 2” high. If they keep this up, by the end of 10-14 days I can start harvesting by cutting the greens for salad.  The neat thing about micro-greens is that they pack all the nutrients of the full plant in just the small sprout package!
 

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Adventure in Microgreens!

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As I search for ways to teach how to grow food in winter (and/or indoors), I happened on a slim volume called “MicroGreenGarden: Indoor grower’s guide to gourmet greens,” by Mark Mathew Braunstein (Book Publishing Company – Green Press Initiative, 2013).  Braunstein carefully and clearly sets out the advantage of microgreens and how to start and grow them.  I was inspired!

Seed-2Btray
On Friday (11/21) I scavenged a couple of take-out boxes from Olive Garden that my son brought home (filled with food).  They are good plastic (recyclable) and sturdy.  Following Braunstein’s directions, I cut the top and bottom apart.  The top became a stabilizing addition when added underneath the bottom part.  Since I didn’t have an ice pick (which he recommended using), I found a large eye-screw and made 9 drainage holes in the bottoms of the stacked tray. 
seed-2Btray-2Bliner
 
Then I found some newspaper (he recommends sturdier paper, but I hated to use good copy paper) to put in the bottom of the tray so that the starting medium doesn’t clog the drain holes. Next step in the process was to mix starting medium/potting mix with water to make it mushy and put it into the tray.
 
I found some seeds for sprouting languishing in my refrigerator (an organic mix of alfalfa, radish and broccoli) and measured out 1 tsp. of the seeds (per his formula on page 40).  I used a small camping salt/pepper shaker to sow the seeds evenly across the top of the wet potting mix in the tray.  That’s a lot of seeds for the tray – I probably only used ¾ tsp. and threw the rest into one of my garden containers among the greens that are growing nicely.  Then I pressed the seeds into the mix (not covering them!) with my fingers to make contact with the moist soil.
 

Seeds-2Bplanted
I found a larger container without holes in which to put the planted tray. Braunstein recommends covering the seeded tray with a wet cloth or paper towel until the seeds sprout. I put the tray in my upstairs study by a west-facing window (it gets somewhat warm from sun during the day) and covered with a wet paper towel.
An alternative would be to leave the trays uncovered but mist or spray them three times a day.  Well, I wouldn’t be able to do that, so I opted for the paper cover.
From here, I bottom water about once a day (for my smaller, ½ pint container – every other day for a pint container), or when the top of the soil feels dry.  Now to watch for the sprouts.
I’ll keep you posted on my progress!