August 3, 2015

More columns to the Alpine Avalanche starting April 4, 2015

 

Recently I got asked a couple of questions. Is it too early to till up my garden and how close do I space my plants?

Till to your hearts content. If you did not spread fresh manure on the garden last fall DO NOT put it on now unless you do not plan to plant for a few weeks. Fresh manure will burn germinating seeds or cook new seedlings. Compost would be a better alternative and you can plant as soon as you till it in.

 I like to use dense plantings so that the mature plants shade the soil and help choke out weeds. A good book that discuses dense plantings and this also provides higher yields on less ground is by John Jeavons “How to Grow  More Vegetables” by ten speed press.

He suggests to use the sowing instructions on the seed packet and disregard the between the row spacing and use only the in the row spacing. 

An example would be New Mexico Chili. In row spacing is 12 to 18 inches and between the row spacing is 24 to 30 inches. Plants are spaced on an 18 by 18 inch grid. My beds are 4 feet wide and there are 2 rows. 

Special attention must be given to crops where the in row spacing is 2 inches and the between row is 18 inches. Beans are frequently sown to this spacing.  A grid of a2 inch X 2 inch spacing would be too close. Jeavons changes this to a 6 inch by 6 inch grid. I have found this to work well for me.

Another special attention crop is carrots. Tap rooted carrots are hard to transplant so I try for a 2 inch in the row and 4 inches between the rows. Thinning the carrot seedlings will achieve this spacing.

Seedlings grown for latter transplant are green onions and lettuce. The transplanted green onions are planted on a 2 inch by 4 inch spacing. The lettuce is transplanted to a 1 foot by 1 foot spacing and this makes for a wonderful lettuce bouquet. If you like you can just trim lettuce leaves in their seed bed and never transplant.

I do not plant two different maturity sized plants in close proximity; the shorter veggie will lose out. An example would be carrots and eggplants.

Here are a few spacing suggestions for beds that are 4.5 feet wide. Indeterminate tomatoes single row 36” apart. Determinate tomatoes, eggplants, and chili’s 18” X 18” with two rows.  Beets 4”X 8” with four or five rows.  Sweet potatoes 4 rows on a1’ X1’ spacing.  Cucumbers two rows on a 1’ by 1’ spacing .  Garlic, I have done a 4” by 4” but was not pleased with the product, so I went to a4”X 1’ spacing but I think I can easily go with a 4” X 8” and get some very nice sized garlic.

Questions? I can be contacted at markdirtfarmer@gmail.com. Or more garden notes at redwagonfarm.blogsot.com 

4/11/15

I had a very interesting conversation about tomatoes the other day.  I only grow determinate tomatoes. This person was quite surprised that I could get more than one crop off of a determinate tomato plant.

Quite frankly, until I moved to Far West Texas in 2003 I would have thought the same. Conventional wisdom is you get one crop and then it dies. Welllll yes if you stop watering them!

My discovery was happenstance and involved not finding that “round tuit” soon enough.

I had finished the crop and was ready to plant the bed to a succession crop when I noticed profuse regrowth with flower buds. So I think “what the heck” and left the bed to do “its’ thing”. Well “its’ thing” was two more crops off of the same plants for a total of 3 crops.

How could this be? All tomato plants are from the tropics where they are perineal. Tomatoes are only annual in northern latitudes because it freezes. I have grown tomatoes year round in a cold frame on the south side of my house. There is a 3 foot no freeze zone on the south side of my house. This has held true for all years except during the 2011 freeze.

There are many reasons why I suggest folks give determinates a whirl. They take less water than an indeterminate tomato, do not need to be trellised, are great for containers, easily covered to keep horn worms off, if more than one variety is planted; continuous season long harvests, annnd  because of their size in a container they can easily be moved inside for continued harvests year round.

Indeterminates do not make good container plants. This is because they get too big and the roots completely fill the container. When the container grown indetermiates have gotten full sized during the summer, they almost need an IV for continuous water. Wet and dry cycles with tomatoes causes’ blossom end rot. It is always sad to see that perfect tomato only to find the bottom rotted when harvested.

Indeterminate toms develop richer flavors because they have more foliage than determinates. Still there is nothing like a home grown tomato either determinate or indeterminate.

Determinates are a key to my  desert climate adaption. Because they are shorter they do not need to be trellised and thus also not exposed to as much desiccating winds. They are easily covered to prevent bug predation (that is as long as the covers remain intact). Covering also helps conserve water. Because determinates are all under 3 feet tall they do not need as much water.

Whether you buy seed or plants, at the end of the tomato description there will be a word that says indeterminate or determinate. So if you have space or watering constraints purchase at least two determinate toms that have different maturity dates and enjoy season long toms. YUMMM!

 Questions? I can be contacted at markdirtfarmer@gmail.com. Or more garden notes at redwagonfarm.blogspot.com

 

4/18/15

I was out in the garden and noticed how everything is greening up. This includes all the beds and paths too. With all the rain this winter and with temperatures above 50 both day and night, all the weeds are thriving. This has the potential of being a real big problem.

An excellent publication that I subscribe too had an article on this issue. The publication leans toward market growers but is very good for home gardeners too. The web site is growingformarket.com. I recommend highly!

One of the techniques they list is to use shallow cultivation. This is my preferred method of weed removal. The idea is to dislodge the small seedlings before they develop extensive roots. Kinda the “green soil sheen” point of weed germination. The cool thing about removing them at this stage is you can literally kill thousands if not millions of weeds and they simply just disappear.

 If you were to wait until they get a foot or two tall then there is not only the physical pulling but then there also is the need to remove the biomass from the garden. Now if you have livestock a lot of these weeds could be fed to them. I have a lot of greens that are bolting so I am not shy on “greenage” to feed the chickens. They may be getting to many greens buttttt we won’t go there.

So if you haven’t been into your garden I recommend a trip out and maybe start to get a handle on this potential problem. It does remind me of a conversation with a fellow during one of our damper times. His comment was “I am just covered in weeds”. I did not say it but thought “when did he realize he had a problem when the weeds were 6 feet tall?” At this stage they are a problem and can be the recipe for a  soon to be in your future, trip to the chiropractor.

Myself I just don’t want to go there and I deal with the soil “greenage”. I like to use what is called a swivel hoe. They are also called a stirrup or even a hula hoe. These are all names for the same tool. It is a hoe that has a double cutting edge and can cut going forward and back. In damp soil you can cover ground quick.

I also recommend waiting for a warmer sunny afternoon to do this task. The reason is so the young seedlings become desiccated. This same task on a cloudy or even a rainy day and most likely the only thing you will achieve is a lot of exorcise, and likely you will have to do this all over again.

I suspect with all the rain this could be a real big “hopper” year and removing soon to be huge weeds will go a long way to prevent their cover!

Questions? I can be contacted at markdirtfarmer@gmail.com. Or more garden notes at redwagonfarm.blogsot.com 

 

4/30,2015

Bolting? What is meant by bolting? This is a very common word used in gardening and it is really quite descriptive. The best example is when agaves send up their flower stalks. Bolting is the process a plant goes through to bloom.

This process entails a plant growing a flower stalk.  Some plants give a lot of clues that they are about to bolt. Swiss chards leaf stems begin to flatten followed with a lot of suckers. Lettuce will develop a tight whorl of smaller leaves that are flatter than before bolting. The brassicas ( kale, boc choy, Asian greens…..) will start to develop flower buds before a stalk develops.

In most cases this is not a reason to stop eating the plants although there are some exceptions.

Lettuce becomes quite bitter as soon as it begins to show signs of bolting making it quite unpalatable.  Also once the flower stalk has begun these plants are on the short list for survival and most of their energy is put into reproduction.

You can reset the “clock” on Swiss chard with some success but this is short lived. This involves cutting the plant to the ground and then sprouts new leaves which are for some time full sized. Most cases as the plants develop the flower stalk the leaves progressively get smaller. This then becomes a diminishing return for the labor of harvest.

What triggers this?  By and large growth time is the main trigger but other things can force this to come about sooner.

Some of these triggers can be temperature, drought, light levels or even predation to name a few.

Temperature and light levels force bolting most commonly.

This past winter for example, there were many hours below 50 degrees and with the time of year the light levels were lower.  The first few years in Alpine we did not have long periods of low temps and I could easily grow chard year round and never have to replace it. This was due to it not getting enough chilling to trigger bolting. This was also true with kale.

A very interesting veggie is the bulb onion. Onions are what are called biannual, meaning it takes two years to flower. The first year is food storage (the bulb) and the second is the flowering year.  Onions come in 3 “flavors”: long day, day neutral and short day. This is related to the latitude and the amount of light they get. We are short day.

If you grow your bulb onions from seed, you have to be careful when you start your seedlings for transplant. If the seedlings get over one quarter inch in diameter and when the winter temps drop below 50 degrees, the onion plants are forced to “think” they have gone through their first full year of growth. When they resume growth with warmer weather, they WILL bolt.

Gotta love biology.