It's between christmas and new years.. nothing going on in the garden cause i don't have a hoop house, low tunnels or a green house.. got all my catalogs and going through them to put in my order soonishly, cause.. starting in february i'll start some seedlings.. but not quite yet.. So, to keep you all entertained till i post again, which probably won't be for another couple of weeks.. here's a photo of my cat, Muddy.. he just turned 2 in November.. he's a big cat, about 15 pounds, not fat, just big! I call him little big cat. I know, not much to do with gardening but he is one good looking cat! ; )

I know i've been really slack about my blog lately. There are a few reasons.. #1. it's winter.. there's not a whole lot going on in the garden in winter. Though, as you can see from the above photo, i'm still harvesting kale, brussels sprouts, and not seen, collards, and lettuce. The second reason is i got the flu.. Kinda puts you off your game for awhile. I'm not 100% yet, but i've had to get back into gardens i work to clean up for the winter.

It's important to clean up your garden area before the ground freezes solid. You don't want insects making a nice winter home in your garden debris; just gives them a head start next spring. So besides overwintering crops, like garlic, you want to pull out all your stalks, stems, etc.. from your garden area. Not only does this help with pests, it also means you're ready to go next early spring.

Also, if you've had pests like tomato horn worms, or flea beetles, and the like, not only do you want to pull out all your dead vegetation, you want to turn your soil over now.. Reason, a lot of pests lay their eggs in the soil, by turning it over now, you can expose a lot of the eggs and hopefully kill them. While i'm not usually an aggressive person, i do believe in killing pest insects with vigor. After all, they're eating my food, i don't think they worked for it!

So.. maybe in the next few weeks i'll post a photo of my empty garden, which is kinda sad.. one day i'll start posting photos of my incredible greenhouse where i grow stuff year round, but till then.. and till February when it all starts again.. Lets harvest what's still growing, and give thanks for the season we had!

It's getting cooler now, we've had a few frosts and this morning we even got some snow flurries. While that doesn't make me happy, it does mean it's time to cover my garlic. On this bed i used a type of organic straw that's been treated so there are no weed seeds. Garlic does not like to compete with weeds, so it's good to use a mulch that doesn't have any in them. Leaves are acceptable as well as pine needles. Both leaves (especially oak leaves) and pine needles are more acidic, but only using it as a mulch and not digging it into the soil, will not affect the pH of your soil.

If you're planting hard neck garlic then you'll want a good 4" to 6" of mulch on top of them. For soft neck garlic you'll want 8" to 12". I'm planting both kinds this year, so obviously i want to keep track of what garlic i planted where. Next post i'll show you how I do that. This bed holds german red and music garlic, both hard necks.

The reason you want to mulch over your garlic isn't because it isn't winter hardy, at least with the hard necks. The reason is that in the fall and in the spring, we get cold temperatures, then warm, then cold again.. This can make the garlic bulbs heave out of the ground, not something you want. By mulching them over, it regulates the temperature better and they won't do that. For soft necks you're also protecting them from extreme cold, which they don't like, and which is why you use so much more mulch on top of them.

So why would I plant a soft neck when they're so much more trouble? They also have a higher failure rate than my other garlic varieties. The answer is, they are the longest storing types of garlic. I'm planting a kind that's supposed to be a little more winter hardy than some others. It's called susanville, and i'll let you know how it did next year.

For now, all my garlic is planted and protected, now all i have to do is wait....

We've been having some really nice warm autumn weather lately. A bit too warm to put straw down on my garlic. You don't want to mulch over your garlic while it's warm out, the reason is pest insects can make nice cozy winter homes in the mulch and you don't want to give them a head start next spring. So, I'll have to wait to mulch over my garlic. On the up side though, i'm still harvesting lots of stuff from the garden. Shown here from left to right; a fall crop of romaine lettuce, kale, above the kale are purple brussels sprouts (we have had a frost so they'll be sweet) a couple of nice green tomatoes and a 1/2 red sweet pepper. The reason you want to wait till a frost to harvest the brussels sprouts, is as i said, because they'll get sweeter, same for collards. The garden my collards are in though, haven't gotten a frost yet so i haven't started harvesting them quite yet.

I started planting my garlic on October 20th. Usually here (in New Haven CT) you want to start planting your garlic around mid October. You don't want to plant it too early as the cloves will start to grow too much, but you don't want to get it in so late that the garlic doesn't have a chance to acclimate before the winter sets in. We've been getting some warm days here so it gives me more wiggle room to get them all in. I've been working in 3 different gardens, but I'll be planting my garlic in 4 places. My partner and I are starting a farm and I'll have lots of room to put in more garlic this year. Garlic is a heavy feeder, so the first thing you want to do is enrich the soil before you plant. I get composted manure and humus mix, add that to the soil and dig it under before i plant. The above photo shows the compost added, i rake it around then dig it under and rake it smooth. 

Once i do that, i separate the cloves of my garlic. You want to plant each clove, pointy end up, 4-6" apart, and 6-10" between the rows. Remember that all these little cloves will grow into a full head of garlic so give them room so you can get a nice big head of garlic. If you plant them too close they won't have the room to get large. I like to separate the cloves and lay them out on the top of the soil, then all i have to do is dig 4" deep and plant them in, they're all set where they should be. Makes the work go faster. I'm planting 4 different kinds of garlic this year. The music and german red garlic are from what i grew this year. I'm also trying cascade rose which is an early developing hard neck, and susanville which is a soft neck garlic.Soft neck garlics aren't supposed to do well here, this one though, is supposed to deal with tough winters better than others, and the soft necks can save for over a year, which most of the hard neck garlics won't. So.. giving it a try.

You need to add some kind of mulch to garlic. While the hard necks are very hardy, you want the mulch on it to prevent heaving. Heaving means, the garlic rises up over the soil line, this isn't something you want to happen, it occurs when temperatures go up and down. 4 - 6" of mulch on top of your garlic will prevent this, for soft necks, you want 10-12" of mulch as they're not as hardy. I'll show photos of that when i add the mulch. I don't want to add it too soon as the temperatures are well above freezing and there's no need to do it yet. if you add the mulch too soon, it will give nice cosy homes to pests for the winter.

 Finally! Some of the mushroom logs a friend and i inoculated are starting to fruit! These are shitake mushrooms. Inoculating wood with mushroom plugs isn't hard. You do need fresh wood (not aged) and shitakes are partial to oak, but they'll also do well with other hard woods. You need a shady area, or you can cover the logs with a shade cloth as well. They also need sufficient moisture. Soaking the logs before inoculating can help, but make sure the bark dries out before you inoculate them. If it's hot and dry in the summer, you'll need to give them moisture as well. Once inoculated, you can soak the ends of the logs for about 8 hours, then turn them over to soak the other end. Doing this every couple of weeks will help them fruit. Letting the mushrooms fruit naturally can take time, sometimes, lots of time. You can force them as well, but they won't fruit as long if you force them.

Most mushroom varieties will give you a large fruiting in cooler weather, so spring and fall. If you force them, you can get them to fruit in summer as well.

Been starting to plant garlic as well. Our autumn has been very mild so i've been putting back the time i usually plant my garlic. Next week though, things will start to happen in earnest, got a lot of garlic to get in the ground!

Part of my harvest today. From left to right; red russian kale, swiss chard, carrots and baby bok choy, which is bit more like teenage bok choy at this point. I also got a few tomatoes, long cayenne hot peppers, lettuce and beets. The fall garden is going nicely, but we're starting to get cooler weather at night. Had to take out a couple of tomato plants today and have a feeling most will go in the next week or so. This isn't altogether a bad thing. I have limited space and i want to get my garlic in soon. I planting 4 kinds this year. Once we start getting some frosts, my collards will also get sweet! There's a zen saying I like a lot, and it applies to gardening; you never get something, but that you lose something. Always changing, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

I know i've been slack with my blog lately. But i've been working 7 days a week since May, something had to give and this was it.. Needless to say i'm pretty exhausted! But, my fall crops are coming in nicely, been harvesting lettuce, kale, chard and this, my baby bok choy! Bok choy and pak choi do so much better here in fall than in spring. They grow quickly and bolt slow.. opposite of what they do in spring. My pak choi is doing well too though not large enough to harvest quite yet. Soon i'll be planting my garlic for next year, and i really wanted to show you that. So.. i'm back, and for a little while so are my vegetables.

I've been trying to find the time to add another post, it hasn't been easy! All the summer crops are still coming in, planting fall crops plus i also teach and have had workshops to do, it's been a bit busy lately. If you haven't planted your fall crops yet, you should get a move on! At this point in the season (at least if you live in the northeast) you should put plants into the ground, not seeds. I planted lots of seeds awhile ago; shown in this photo is chard and baby bok choy behind it. Late planted dill and cucumbers behind that, late as in once my garlic was out, so it's way too late to plant cucumbers now. I'll actually be surprised if i get many as it's cooling off fast here. But, my lettuce, spinach, chard, pak choy and baby bok choy are doing really well. If it starts getting too cold, too fast, i'll put my hoops up and a row cover to protect my crops. These are cold lovers though so i'm not too worried about that, yet.

Yesterday I showed a photo of my music garlic. Today i cut the stalks off my german garlic. Cutting all the stalks off after a long days work gardening is a pain. So i did it a bit staggered. This is 85 heads of german garlic. People ask me why i grow so much garlic. I want to have enough to re-plant in the fall, and to use throughout the year. I haven't quite gotten there yet, but i'm close. Each head of garlic has between 5-6 cloves, so to plant 150 i'll need about 30 heads of this garlic for next years crop. That leaves me 65 to use, not too bad, but not enough to get me through till next summer.

My garlic is cured, which means i can cut off the dried stem and leaves. You want to keep those stems and leaves on while it's curing, because the garlic uses the energy still in the leaves to help it cure. Garlic gets its best flavor, and is much easier to peel, once it's cured.  I'm really glad it's cured, cause once you cut those stems off, all that garlic stores in a much smaller area, which helps in a tiny place. Though i had a staggered harvest, it was over 4 weeks since i harvested the last of it, so i know it's cured. I also know because when i cut the stems off the skin is nice and papery, which is another way you know it's cured. This is my music garlic, though it may not look like it, it's about 70 heads. I'll use 25 - 30 of them to replant this fall, which still leaves me a nice amount to use. I won't be using this garlic first though. I also grew german red garlic, and it doesn't store as long as the music, so i'll use the german red first and leave the music for later. Next year, i'm going to grow 4 kinds of garlic, including one softneck. More about that in mid October.

 So, you might think that at the end of August things in the garden would be slowing down a bit, if you thought that, you'd be wrong! I'm very busy taking care of the garden, harvesting just about everything, and planting crops for the fall. The tomatoes are coming in big time, so it's time to preserve some of them. I like to can tomatoes because i don't have the freezer space for them. Plus once you can them, they can stay on a shelf and still be good 2 years later. Today I'm doing fresh pack tomatoes. Canning isn't rocket science, but it does take time and care. First i blanch and peel my tomatoes, i usually cut them into quarters or chunks. Next i sterilize my canning jars. I use my pressure canner to do this because it comes with a rack that sits on the bottom of the pot and protects the jars from breaking. Sterilizing your jars and lids is easy. Boil enough water so the jars (i lay mine down) are covered by the water. Once the water is boiling, put your jars and/or lids and rings in for 5 minutes. Take them out and they're ready to be filled and put in the canner. I added fresh basil to the jars before i put in the tomatoes. Pack the tomatoes into the jar, and smush them down with your fist. Drain off excess liquid as you go. Leave 1/2 an inch of head space in the jar and for quarts, add 2 tablespoons of concentrated lemon juice to each quart. This will help with keeping the tomatoes nice and red, and for acidity. Most tomatoes we grow today are fairly low in acidity. Which is why you need to pressure can them, not do them in a boiling water bath, the water just doesn't get hot enough so it's not as safe a method. The only things you really can using a hot boiling water bath are fruits, and jam, but only jam you don't use pectin in. I put on the lids and screw the rings down finger tight. Then it's into the pressure canner. When the water gets hot enough in the canner, it will start to vent steam. You adjust the heat so there's a steady stream for 10 minutes. Then you crank the heat up again and put on the pressure gauge (if you're using a weighted gauge canner) if not, you wouldn't have to do that step. Always follow the directions that come with whatever type of pressure canner you buy. Once the pressure gauge starts to rock, that's when you're canning time starts. Fresh pack tomatoes take 25 minutes, but add 10 to vent, 15 to get it up to temperature and 20 to cool down and you're over an hour. Keep that in mind when you start. While it is time consuming, the benefits of keeping these 4 quarts on a shelf for whenever i want to use them, is worth it.

Last post i talked about preserving your food by freezing it. This post I'm going to talk about air drying to preserve some of your garden harvest. Unfortunately you can't air dry everything, would make things so much easier if you could. Some of the crops you can air dry are herbs, some hot peppers, and of course you cure garlic and onions and store them without refrigeration. This photo shows some of my hot peppers, at the top are long cayennes, below them are green and 1 red jalapeno, and the brown ones are chocolate habeneros. The jalapenos and habeneros are thick walled peppers and cannot be air dried. You can saute them and put them in olive oil, you can freeze them whole as well. The long cayennes you can air dry. As you can see in this photo, i take a long piece of doubled sewing thread, i knot it and string my cayennes on it. I leave the needle on until the thread is almost full of peppers. So as i harvest the peppers, i can just string them up. I leave them in an airy window. With peppers you don't have to worry about putting them out of direct sunlight. The peppers will dry naturally. I leave them strung up in the kitchen where i can take a few off whenever i need them.

When air drying herbs, make small bundles of them. Don't make too large a bundle as they won't dry properly, the ones in the middle of the bundles won't get the air flow they need and might start to mold, so keep each bunch of herbs small. You want to dry the herbs out of direct sunlight, in an airy place. Once the herbs are dry, store the leaves whole. Herbs keep their best flavor (the oil in the leaf) by having the leaf whole. Crush the leaf only when you are ready to use it. The herbs will keep their flavor better and longer this way.

 The above photo is from one of my 3 gardens. It's my kale and collards. I've been harvesting my kale for awhile, and preserving a lot of it for winter. I preserve my garden harvests in several ways. I dehydrate, can, air dry, ferment and freeze. This post I'm going to talk about freezing. I find the best way to preserve some crops is by freezing them.

All plants have enzyme action going on in their leaves and/or fruits. This enzyme action continues even after you harvest. That's why a 1/2 ripe tomato will ripen up for you, or why corn gets less sweet as the days go by after harvest. If you pack your kale, for example, in a plastic bag and throw it in the freezer, the enzyme action continues even when in the freezer. To stop this action you need to blanch your vegetables before freezing.

Blanching is easy. All it means is putting your vegetables in boiling water for a set amount of time, this stops that enzyme action. Wash and either cut up or tear up your kale, collards, chard etc. and put into boiling water. For kale and chard it takes 3 minutes, collards take 4. After that you want to drain it, then either put it into a bowl of ice water, or run cold water over it for the same amount of time you blanch it. Then drain it again, squeeze out as much water as you can and vacuum seal it.

I have a vacuum sealer and it works well on most things, however, it doesn't work well with my greens. I think the reason is even after i squeeze it out, let it air dry a bit, there's still a lot of moisture in it. The vacuum sealer keeps sucking out the moisture but never enough to get a good seal. So, for those of you who don't have a vacuum sealer, or want another way to get a good seal for your greens, I have an alternative method.

What you'll need are freezer bags, a straw, and a pot of cold water. First, pack your greens is a freezer bag. Try to get it into the corners so there's less air space. 

 Next, lay the bag down, put the straw in, and seal up the bag to the straw, getting out as much air as you can.

 Put your sealed bag into the pot of water, so that only the very top bit of the bag and the straw are above the water line.
The water creates pressure and forces most of the air in the bag out. With the bag still in the water, use the straw and start drawing any excess air out, pulling the straw up as you do that. Once the straw is out, seal that last bit of the bag quickly.

Dry off the bag and mark it (or mark it before) with the variety and the date. This method gives a remarkable good vacuum seal. Freezing any vegetable with as little air in the bag as possible will help it keep longer and taste fresher.

Was raining most of today, still, had to get to the gardens. In between dodging the heavy rain, i got this photo of my grafted brandywine tomato plant. Usually at this time of year, people post photos of their ripe tomatoes. I've been enjoying my cherokee purple, sun sugar cherry and san marzano tomatoes for awhile now. With most heirloom varieties, you don't get many fruits per plant. If you're lucky, you might get 12 tomatoes on one plant. Which is why i grafted plants this year. Brandywines are some of the longest maturing tomatoes, and the ones on the grafted plant still take the same amount of time to ripen. However, I have over 20 tomatoes on this one plant, with more coming out. The same is true of the caspian pink grafted tomato and the san marzano paste tomato plant. I'm going to get a bumper crop of these tomatoes. Course once that bumper crop comes in, i'll be very busy preserving the crop. Next post i'll talk about ways i preserve the food i grow. Today while in the garden, i harvest parsley and basil that i made into pesto, and kale that i blanched and froze. More next post.

Can't believe it's August already. The garden is producing a lot now, and i'm busy not only weeding and tending the garden, but also harvesting and preserving food for the winter. Now is also the time to start thinking about fall crops. This photo shows a fall crop of swiss chard i started a couple of weeks ago. You have to take into consideration how long a particular crop takes to grow. So, for instance, you wouldn't want to start parsnips now as they take 100 days or more to mature. At least here in CT, we don't have enough good weather for the parsnips to mature well at this point in the season. There are lots of crops you can grow now, but always look at your seed packets and see how long it says the particular crop takes to mature. There can be differences even between varieties of broccoli, with some maturing earlier than others. Beets, turnips and carrots are good choices as they mature fairly quickly. In a week or so i'll be planting a fall crop of lettuce, bok choy, among others. You also have to think about soil temperature, some vegetable seeds will not germinate in soil that's too warm. Way back in spring i talked about the benefits of a soil thermometer, and one would come in handy now as well. Pelleted lettuce seed will germinate in higher soil temperatures than untreated seed. It's a bit more expensive but worth it if you want to plant sooner. A shade cover is also useful. You can put it over a part of your garden for about a week before you plant. It will shade the soil and bring the temp of the soil down, so that cold weather crops will germinate for you. I put one over a part of my garden and planted pelleted lettuce seed 10 days ago or so, the lettuce is up and looking good, because the soil was cool enough for the seed to germinate. Broccoli, cabbage, kale are good fall crops if the soil temp is low enough for them to germinate. So, think of what you want to eat this fall, and don't let that empty space where you harvested garlic, or onions, go to waste, plant more food!

 My tomatoes are finally coming in, my long cayenne hot peppers are finally turning red, and the basil is huge. When basil is still small, i pinch it back and encourage it to branch out. Now the basil plants are 4 -5 feet high and i've been harvesting it for a few weeks. Instead of pinching back the flower head (which with all my large plants would take hours), i trim off a nice bit of the stem. This way i can make pesto throughout the summer, or keep some in a glass of water for fresh use,  and still keep my plants from flowering. The reason you want to keep your basil from flowering, is that plants use a lot of energy to flower and produce seed. Unless you're saving seed, you don't want your basil to flower, it takes too much energy away from making those wonderful fragrant leaves. I've found the best way is to continually harvest some while the plant is still growing.

I go down the stem a bit till i find the next 2 sets of leaves. These will branch out and grow again. I've taken off the top part, which is where the plant will flower from and gotten basil to use fresh and make pesto with. I've illustrated where to cut the basil in the photo above.

In the next few posts i'll start talking about fall crops and what to plant now, as well has some preserving methods I use to save my harvest for use in the winter. I freeze, can, dehydrate, air dry, among others. Now is a good time to think about what you want to save for winter use as the garden is in full flow and producing a lot.

 The garden is in full swing, and that means so are the pests. I've been asked by a number of people what this pest is, it's the tomato horn worm. This pest has a high yuck factor. It can be anywhere from 2" to 4" long. It's pretty gross. It will hold on tight to the tomato plant and can be tough to get off. I encountered one at a garden i work for and actually cut off a little piece of the plant to get it off! Usually you can pick them off (wear gloves, it's a bit gross) and put them in a bucket of soapy water to kill them. You want to get them off the plant as they are voracious. They will eat the leaves and start on the fruit as soon as they come out. Picking them off is really the only good organic measure to control these insects. The adults are large moths, they lay their eggs on the underside of leaves. It's always a good idea to check under the leaves of your plants for eggs, as most pest insects do lay their eggs there. Cultivate the soil deeply in the fall to disturb the pupae of these insects because that's where they over winter. There is one instance in which you don't want to get these pests off your tomato plant.

If the tomato horn worm looks like this, you want to let it be. The reason is this insect is already dead. It's being parasitized by a trichogramma wasp. These are tiny wasps and they won't sting you, but they will kill tomato horn worms. The wasps lay their eggs inside the worm, they hatch and eat the insect. So when you see a tomato horn worm that looks like this, it's already dead, the wasp larvae have eaten it and it won't do any more damage to your plant. What you see on the outside of the worm are the pupae  in their cocoons before they hatch into adult wasps. Obviously you want more of these beneficial insects in your garden to take care of any other tomato horn worms they might encounter.

 As I said before, garlic needs to be cured, it gets it's best flavor (and is easier to peel) once it's been cured. To cure garlic you want to leave it in an airy place out of direct sunlight. The photo above shows the garlic I'm curing on my plant light shelves. I grew 3 different kinds this year so each level holds a different variety. I want to keep them separated so i know which is which, because I'm going to use some of them to replant this fall for next years crop. You want to harvest your garlic when at least 1/2 the leaves are brown, but you want to leave those stalks on the garlic as it cures. Once the stalks are totally brown and dried you can cut them off. You want to leave the stalks on because they still have some energy in them and the garlic uses it to help it cure. On the right is some of my music garlic, the cloves are huge!  They are curing in my bedroom! I'm going to have to make more room because i have another 120 heads coming in this weekend. I grew a lot of garlic this year, so i hopefully have enough to replant this fall, and to use throughout the year.

This photo shows one of my heads of music garlic. I put a quarter for size comparison. I love large cloves of garlic, means less peeling. Music garlic stores really well, which is one reason i grow it. I love the german red garlic, i think it's one of the best tasting hard neck garlics. It doesn't store incredibly well though, about 6 months. The music can store up to a year, so once i've used all my german red, i'll start in on the music. I like to grow soft necks as well, because they store the longest. Finding a variety that does well in the northeast is a challenge, but there are a few that do fairly well; polish softneck, susanville are two that can handle our cold winters fairly well. The failure rate is a bit higher than with the hard neck garlics, but the storage length makes it worth doing. You'll need a higher layer of mulch over them, so keep that in mind when planting. Garlic likes to be stored in a cool dry environment. Unlike some vegetables which like it cool and moist, these want it dry, like onions.

This is some of my garlic in one of my 3 gardens. I've already started to harvest my garlic in my other gardens. This one, just a couple of miles further inland, are a bit slower than the gardens closer to the shore. As you can see the leaves are starting to turn brown. Once 1/2 the leaves are dead it's time to start harvesting them. The stick you see is separating the different types i have in this bed. On the left is the music garlic, on the right is the german red. I want to know which is which so i can save some for seed garlic for next year. It makes a difference cause the music stores a while longer than the german red does, though the german red is one of my favorite garlics. It's flavor is warm and rich and though it only stores about 6 months, it's well worth growing. To harvest, i dig down with a trowel to loosen the soil and gently pull out the garlic. I brush off most of the dirt, but leave the leaves on. You do this because the energy in the leaves will go into the garlic bulb and help them cure. To cure the garlic, leave them in an airy place, out of direct sunlight for 4-6 weeks. Garlic gets its best flavor after curing, it's also much easier to peel. Dry your garlic in a single layer, don't pile them on top of each other, that will not allow good air flow which is what you want. Once the stalks are dried, and dead, you can cut them off. Store garlic in a dry cool place for best storage results. Hard neck garlics do best in cold climates, they don't generally store quite as long as softnecks do, but they're easier to grow. I generally grow 2 to 3 types of hardnecks and one softneck for use later on in the year. I'll talk more about planting and what types to grow when i prepare to plant next years crop in mid october.

 A few posts ago i mentioned the importance of getting your soil tested. Soil health is the most important step in having a productive and healthy garden. For those of you who don't know, the photo above shows the pH scale. 7 is neutral, any number below 7 is acidic, any number above 7 is alkaline. Almost all vegetables like to be in the 6-7 area. That's slightly acidic to neutral. There are some exceptions, like blueberries, or grapes that like the soil much more acidic, in the 4.5-5.5 range. This is why all that information on the seeds or plants you put into the ground is important. You don't want to add composted manure to an area where you want to plant blueberries for instance, that would raise the soil pH. Of course, you have to know your soil pH before you can do anything, which is why you need to get your soil tested. There is no way to tell the pH or the nutrient levels, or lead levels in your soil without a soil test. If you live in an urban area, or in an older home, it's very important to get your soil tested for lead before you plant. Now is a good time to get a soil test done. If you do need to limestone (to bring the soil pH up) you would do that in fall. Limestone takes 3 months to incorporate into the soil, so you want to do that in fall once most of your crops are out. You can also use wood ashes to raise soil pH, but it takes quite a lot of them, and they take 6 months to incorporate into the soil.

Getting your soil tested isn't difficult. You'll need a spade, a bucket, and a plastic baggie or plastic container. Dig down 8" to 10" and take a slice of soil, then put it in your bucket. Then go around to 6-8 other areas in your garden and do the same thing. You're getting an aggregate of your soil this way. Mix up the soil in your bucket, and take a cup or a bit more of that, and put it in a baggie. Make sure you mark the bag, especially if you're taking more than one sample. If your garden area is large, or on a slope, then you'll want to take more than one sample. Take 6-8 samples from one area, then dump out the extra and go to the next. Mark each bag with the area you took the sample from, so you know which is which when the test results come back. You should get your soil tested every 2-4 years. If you need to limestone to raise the pH, or add any other amendments, you should get your soil re-tested the next year to see how it's doing. Quite a few Universities have extension centers which, for a small fee, will give you a very good soil analysis and lead testing. Every state has an Agricultural station which will test your soil for free. Here in CT the Agricultural station does not test for lead, but UConn will test for lead and give a good soil analysis for $8. For the best, and most productive gardens, your first step is soil health.

tomatoes, eggplants and peppers..

So, summer came in with a vengeance this week. It's very hot, sticky, humid; reminds me of NC where i lived for a bunch of years. At the end of the day working in the garden, i don't feel much like a solid anymore, more like a sticky puddle. Still, i'd rather be hot than freezing and watching it snow! The photo above shows one of my beds, in one of my gardens. In the front and on the left are sweet onions, behind them are 2 parsleys, some hot peppers, an eggplant, basil and tomatoes. Some plants need fertilizers more than others. Tomatoes, eggplants and peppers, like some fertilizer, but they like a specific kind. As i mentioned in another post, all fertilizers will have 3 numbers on the bag or bottle. They stand for N (nitrogen) P (phosphorus) and K (postassium), always in that order. If it's an organic fertilizer, it will always say that on the bag or bottle as well, if it doesn't, don't buy it. Tomatoes, eggplants and peppers like a fertilzer high is phosphorus, so you want to look for a high 2nd number, and a low first number. Nitrogen encourages foliar growth, and for all the vegetables i mentioned, you're looking for maximum fruiting, not leaf production. The second photo shows my first ripening tomato. I helped it on by using row covers early and feeding it regularly once the plants were a good size, (at least 8" tall or so). I took this photo on July 4th, so having a ripe tomato in early july here in CT is wonderful and surprising, especially with our cold late spring. If you treat your plants right, they will reward you.

Obviously, i love to garden. But it does take time, effort and planning. At this time of year things are ready to be harvested, other things are finished so need to be pulled so new crops can take their place. You need to fertilize crops, weed, prune, weed, plant, weed, weed, weed, weed, well, you get the idea. I grow a lot of food, not just to enjoy now, but so i can have organic vegetables during the winter as well. Preserving your garden harvest takes time as well, which is in very short supply at the moment. However, you will be so glad you took that time this winter, when you take out some of your own grown kale, or beet greens, tomatoes, or chard to make a meal. The photo is of my shelling peas, i freeze my peas, as well as chard, kale, collard, beet greens, as well as pestos of all kinds. Vegetables need to be blanched before they are frozen. Even after you harvest your vegetables, enzyme action is still occurring within the fruit or leaf. This will break down the cell structure and make the vegetable less and less tasty as time goes on. To stop this action you blanch them. All this means is putting your washed vegetables in boiling water for a certain amount of time. For shelling peas (shown above) it only takes 1 1/2 minutes. Then you drain the peas, and either put them in ice water, or run cold water over them for the same amount of time you blanched them. Drain again, put in a plastic bag and vacuum seal it. Mark it with what the vegetable is and the date, that's it! Kale and chard take 3 minutes, collard 4. A good guide to how long to blanch vegetables can be seen at  http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/freeze/blanching.html   Yesterday I cut up the last of my garlic scapes and made pesto. Then i shelled peas, and blanched and froze shelling peas and sweet snaps. I also washed and blanched kale, chard and beet greens and froze those as well. I'll be really happy i did that this winter.

So, BOOM! it's summer! We had a cool spring, but once we offically entered summer, it came in in an instant. It's hot, humid, and wonderful. My plants that i kept under a row cover till a few days ago, are now too big to be under the row cover. In this bed you can see chard in the front, white russian kale on the left, hot peppers in the middle, (which were under the row cover and are full of blossoms) and onions on the right. Onions are heavy feeders like garlic, and like garlic they like a fertilizer high in nitrogen. If you're growing onions, feed them every 3 to 4 weeks with a high nitrogen fertilizer. I use a fish fertilizer, but as i've said before, they're not all the same. Make sure you look for one with a high first number. All fertilizers will be labeled with 3 numbers. They stand for N (nitrogen) P (phosphorus) and K (potassium). Always in that order. So if you find one that has the numbers 5 - 1 - 1, that means it's mostly nitrogen with just a little bit of phosphorus and potassium, and that's just what your onions want!

I've had row covers on some of my tomatoes, eggplants, hot peppers and basil. Now they're getting too tall for the support hoops i have and the weather is finally warm enough to take them off. I was amazed at how large my grafted tomato plants were. In this photo, on the right is a cherokee purple tomato plant. It looks really good, it's starting to bloom and it's healthy and fairly large for this time of year. On the left is a grafted caspian pink tomato plant. Both seedlings were the same size when i planted them. When i took the row cover off the caspian pink i was floored! It's twice as large as the cherokee purple, is fuller and has a lot of flowers on it. We'll see how things progress during the season, but grafting is looking better and better to me. It takes some time and effort, but when you have a short growing season, you want every advantage you can get. To have my tomato plants this large, means i'll be harvesting more tomatoes from this plant, than i will from the plant on the right. More fruit in less space, is always a good thing in urban gardening.

This is a very busy time, the garden needs constant attention. Weeding, feeding and taking care of all your plants. I grow a lot of food, and I like to preserve it for use in the winter months. Preserving takes time, and that's not easy to find at this time of year. Even so, it's worth it! Here are strawberries I harvested at a couple of gardens. I washed them, crushed them and cooked them down to make strawberry jam. The strawberry on the right is all misshapen. It's called a fasciated strawberry. It looks as if a few strawberries had fused themselves together. This is usually caused by cold dry weather during the fall. There is another type of misshapen strawberry called a nubbin, it's tiny and looks as if the strawberry never grew to size. That condition can be caused by cold injury during flowering, or deficiencies in the soil, particularly a lack of calcium or boron. If it's been a very cold spring, and you had a hard frost, then you know that's what caused the strawberry to deform. If you're not sure, you should get your soil tested. You should get your soil tested every 2 to 3 years anyway. The most important thing in having a successful garden is soil health. You can't know what your soil lacks, has too much of, or what the pH is, without a soil test. I'll talk more about how to take a soil test, and where you can send it in another post.

 This is my garlic with the scapes out and ready to be cut. Garlic scapes are the flower head of the plant. Most hard neck garlics put out scapes, while most soft neck garlics do not. You don't want to let the plant flower, it uses too much energy from the bulb, and that's what you're growing the plant for. So, you want to cut off the scapes, but you don't want to do it too soon. If you cut the scape too soon, the plant will try to put out another one, which again, uses too much energy from the bulb. Wait till the scapes are long and twisty, when they look like the photo above, then cut them off, be sure to cut only the scape and not the leaves, the plant still needs those for energy for a bigger bulb.

This photo shows some of the garlic scapes i harvested the last 2 days. Garlic scapes are really delicious. You can cut them up and use them in a saute, or raw in a salad. I like to make a pesto out of them. I cut up the scapes, put them in a food processor, add olive oil and sunflower seeds. I use sunflower seeds because pine nuts are so expensive, and i think sunflower seeds are a close approximation for pine nuts. I process all that, and put it in plastic containers and freeze it. It keeps really well and I get to enjoy it all year long. Garlic scapes have a mild garlic flavor, nothing close to what the bulb tastes like. If you've never had them you should try them! Most farmers markets will sell the garlic scapes, and in the northeast they'll be out now. The garlic itself won't be ready to harvest for another few weeks, but once you cut the scapes, it won't be long till the garlic is ready.

Working in a garden is, well, work! Beginning in February i start my seedlings, then it's planting in the garden, seeds, then plants, tending all the small growing plants. I love it, it's wonderful to be in the garden even when it's not producing. Then, things start to grow, seriously, and you can start harvesting. Small amounts at first, and then it seems like it explodes, and this is just the first small explosion, it will build and build all through the season. Today's harvest includes mature romaine lettuce, I thinned out my red russian and white russian kale, they're pretty big even in this immature state. Got the last of my baby bok choy, a few beautiful strawberries and my first garlic scapes! Garlic scapes are the flower head of the garlic plant. Most soft neck garlics don't produce a scape, but all the hard necks do. You want to cut off the scapes before they flower, that takes too much energy out of the garlic bulb and that's why you're growing the plant, for the blub not the flower. You want to wait till the scape is all twisty, if you cut it too soon, the plant will try to put out another one. I'll talk more about garlic and scapes in my next post. Right now, i'm going to go make some garlic scape pesto, it's so good and i just ran out of the stuff i made last year, so glad they're back!

With our late cool spring, i thought the pests and diseases would be a bit late this year as well. Unfortunately it seems to be the opposite. I've been asked by several people here in CT, as well as in New York, New Jersey and even in NC about what is attacking their brassica crops. It's the cabbage worm. Usually about an inch or so long and green in color, you can sometimes miss it because it's almost the same color as the leaves. It attacks mostly brassica plants, kale, collards, cabbage, broccoli.. The adult is a pretty little white butterfly with 2 black dots on either side of it's wings. One very good method of control is to use a floating row cover on your brassica plants. All brassica (with the exception of broccoli) are biennial, which means they go to seed the second year. With broccoli we are actually eating the undeveloped flower head of the plant. If you want to save seed of broccoli, or second year cabbage or kale, don't use the row cover; but if you're looking to harvest food for yourself and not feed this insect, the row cover will prevent it from attacking your crops. Cabbage, kale, broccoli, don't need to be pollinated so there's no harm in leaving the row cover on until you're ready to harvest. If you already have this pest, then the row cover won't do you much good. The best organic method is to look on the underside of leaves for eggs. Most insect lay their eggs on the undersides of leaves (with a few exceptions). Pick off any cabbage worms you see, and kill them, either by stepping on them, or you can put them in a bucket of soapy water and dispose of them later.

Something I mentioned in a recent post was the flea beetle. Flea beetles are very small, only about 1/10th on an inch long. The larvae are actually larger, 3/4" long, they're white with brown heads. You know you have a flea beetle problem when you see your leaves are chewed with lots of tiny holes. It looks like the leaf has been shot with tiny buckshot. Flea beetles love eggplant, they also feed on most brassicae (kale, collards, cabbage etc.) Adult beetles over winter in the ground, in spring (as soon as you put in your plants) they'll lay eggs in the soil at the base of the plant. Once they are well established they are very hard to control. Use a floating row cover early to protect your plants. Cultivate the soil around the base of the plant to disturb the flea beetles eggs and larvae. Flea beetles, unlike most insects, feed during the day, and they hate getting wet. Use a hose and spray down your plants in the middle of the day to try and discourage them from feeding.

 I got a really nice harvest today. From left to right; spinach, baby kale, red sails lettuce and romaine lettuce. The romaine isn't quite mature, but i needed to thin it out so the other heads could get larger. I was also thinning out my flat leaf kale, and the baby kale leaves are so tender they're great in salads. The weather is finally moderating a bit. I've got most of my tomatoes, eggplants, basil and hot peppers planted, under row covers but that also protects them from pests. In one garden i'm working in we're having a big problem with flea beetles. They are very hard to control. I'll talk more about them in the next post.

Here's one of my gardens, on the left are sweet snap peas. In the center are collards and flat leaf kale. They're both growing nicely. Last year in this garden i was dueling with a woodchuck. He let my collards, kale and broccoli get nice and large, and then ate them all down to stubs. This year, i put up posts, and netting around the bed, and weighted it down with stones. So far, so good! I don't want to kill the woodchuck, but i work for my food, he shouldn't be so lazy, he needs to go out and get a job. 

A few posts ago I showed a photo of a row cover that i was using to create a warmer micro climate for my heat loving seedlings; tomatoes, eggplants, peppers and basil. I've started planting them under the row covers, so now i have space on my seed starting shelves to start some flowers for the garden as well. I've talked about the importance of flowers for any vegetable garden. They attract pollinators and beneficial insects which help your crops. I'm growing most of these for clients and some for myself as well. One of the best annual flowers you can get are marigolds. Marigolds are great little flowers; you can eat the petals (of most varieties), they keep pests away from your tomatoes, and the roots secrete a substance that kills root eating nematodes! A very hard working little flower. I'm also growing cornflowers, larkspur, calendula, pinks (which are short lived perennials), moon vine and nicotiana. The nicotiana is on the lower right, they are the tiniest seeds! You don't even put soil over the seed, it needs light to germinate, so you just press them gently into the soil. The seeds were so tiny, i didn't realize i'd planted that many, I have a lot of thinning to do when they get a bit bigger!

When you plant head lettuce, kale, chard, collards, or a number of other seed sown crops, you always have to thin them out. Don't throw them into the compost pile though. Small immature kale, (and shown in this photo) chard and romaine lettuce, are wonderful in salads. They are sweet, tender and perfect for any type of salad. Just because they aren't mature, or full size, doesn't mean they're not good to eat. I want my kale, collards, chard large, but to get them that way i have to thin the crop so they're not too close together. I can still benefit from what i planted, and not waste them, but eat them! 

What's mature and ready to eat are leaf lettuces and spinach. The photo above shows my spinach and a leaf lettuce called red sails. When you plant early, you can harvest early and have fresh homegrown produce that much sooner. I planted my spinach and red sails lettuce back on March 22nd. I usually plant it even earlier but we still had snow on the ground. I've been harvesting it for the last 10 days or so. Planting as early as you can, as soon as the ground can be worked, gives you food to harvest as soon as you can.

These are some of my shelling peas. I'm growing both shelling and sweet snap peas this year. I really love shelling peas, especially fresh off the vine and raw. Peas are legumes, so they can't take nitrogen out of the soil in the form it's in. They attract beneficial bacteria, which form nodes on the pea plants roots. These nods take up the nitrogen from the soil and convert it to a form the plant can take up and use. The off shoot of this is the plant puts nitrogen back into the soil in a form most other plants can take up and use. This is why legumes are known as natural nitrogen fixers. Most green manure mixes will contain some sort of legume. Most soil has enough beneficial bacteria that you don't need to use an inoculant. Inoculants are the beneficial bacteria that all legumes need. I do use an inoculant for my peas and dried beans, more because it increases the productivity, who doesn't want the most food from the plants you are growing? Inoculants are only good for the year you buy them in. So if you don't use all of it this year, throw the rest away, it will not be viable next year. Remember the inoculant is a living beneficial bacteria, there is only so long it will survive in your fridge.

As I've mentioned before, it's been a late spring. Here in New Haven CT we're expecting some frost tonight and tomorrow night. If you live in CT, Do NOT put your tender plants out yet. Especially your heat lovers, tomatoes, eggplants, peppers (both sweet and hot) and basil. Wait on any flower seedlings you've started as well. In this photo you can see the row cover i put up. Under it is an organic cloth mulch, that will heat up the soil. What I'm basically doing is creating a little micro climate. The mulch heats the soil, and the row cover keeps that heat in. In a couple of days i'll plant some tomatoes, or eggplants, or peppers, or basil, or some of each, under this row cover. It will protect the seedlings, and allows me to plant a bit earlier than I would be able to normally. I have a few of these in each garden i'm working in. Obviously i need to get some more landscape clips/anchors instead of using bricks, though, use what you got! On the right is my spinach, it's large enough that on saturday i got a nice little harvest of it. The pot holds peppermint, don't want in in my raised bed, but it's a terrific medicinal herb, and worth growing, though i always suggest growing mint or oregano in pots.

As you are planting and planning your vegetable garden, don't forget to make space for flowers and herbs. Both of them are very important to include into your garden. They attract pollinators and beneficial insects, which can help with the pest insects you might have problems with this summer. Herbs are wonderful, they attract bees and beneficial insects and you can eat them! Some herbs actually deter pest insects away from your vegetable plants. Flowers attract pollinators and can help fight pests as well. Marigolds are terrific little flowers. You can eat the petals, they attract bees, they keep some pests off your tomatoes, and their roots secrete a substance that kills root eating nematodes, what a plant! So remember to plant lots of herbs and flowers in and around your garden. They will help with pests, attract beneficial insects and pollinators, and they are very pretty too. One tip, if you're going to plant any mint or oregano (which is a mint family member), I suggest you plant them in pots, of any shape or size. Both are very aggressive growers and will take over an area quickly. If you want a field of mint or oregano it won't be too difficult to accomplish, but if you'd like that space for other plants, use pots for both. It's a good idea to cut off oregano flowers before they seed as well, they will spread by both seed and root.