North of what border?

The temperature in northern NJ touched 38 last night, so I thought it would be worthwhile to thin out the garden.

The grape tomato plant came out, it was an excellent producer this year. Heavy crop of marble sized yellow tomatoes. The yellow banana tomato plant was an adequate producer, I don't think I'll put another in next year. The big boy VFN was superb, dozens of baseball sized tomatoes, I pulled the last four globes today.

Tomatillos were a mess, nothing credible. Hungarian peppers were good, as was the poblano pepper, but the Genovese basil, lemon basil, and lesbos basil were abundant, and will give me quarts of pesto for winter use. (Basil is still in the ground. I can put a garbage can over the plants if frost threatens.)

Epazote is still doing fine, and I have another few weeks from the eggplants. I have several garlic plants still growing, as well as rosemary, za'atar (barely adequate), and a five year old clump of tarragon.

I have some cow manure cooking in my 2006 compost heap with grass clippings, leaves, and table scraps. I'll add that to my garden in a few weeks.

We have moved our huge pot of rosemary into the house for the season. There is nowhere big enough for it; for the time being it is on the livingroom floor. So now we get to say, "please go in the livingroom and get me some rosemary!" There's a pot of purple basil in there too.

Truly time for garden closing, although we still do have some chard and kale on the go.

Several of my favorite suppliers are now accepting orders for 2008 seedlings or selling seeds.

Eggplants from ChilePeppers.com are a new highlight. I've bought my peppers, tomatoes, and some basil from them in the past, so I'll try the eggplants as well.

Johnny's selected seeds has several new basils, including this Vietnamese food ingredient. Queenette

Renee Shephed has the Queenette basil as well. Also a container eggplant, and a "cat treats" seed pacakage. The treats include rye, wheat, and oats for your grazing kitty. The Renee's Garden catalog also allows you to sort seeds by "hummingbird friendly" and other attributes.

Well Sweep Farm hasn't updated their site for 2008. They are my go-to provider for lavender, basils, cilantro and other products. Photos from Well Sweep

I feel like i'm very late getting started but we had frost within the last 2 weeks and very cold soil so I should just relax, as much as possible.

I've been using the big DR field and brush mower over our 3 acres and it's a good machine but it's not a fun job, especially around trees and mounds.

The next step was the tiller. I have a very nice BCS from Italy and it's known as a walking tractor. Of course, most people who invest in good equipment also have the sense to put it away for the winter. I think it's important to "season" it outside for a winter, letting the old gas sit there and do it's magic. Anyway, I couldn't get it started for many reasons, including a rebar that had wrapped around the tines! Finally, after three days of hell, today it decided to work and it was actually fun making rows and tilling the earth. If you put it in first gear and turtle speed, you can almost get away with one pass. Despite having a 9hp machine roaring, it was so much fun being out and designing rows and planning. I forgot why I got into all of this in the first place.

After 2 hours, a dip in the pool with the eldest and a cold beer. I love summer!

But the big question: I want to save corn seed this year and I know corn crosses. How far away can they be and be safe. Opposite ends of the property?

I'd missed this thread,

sorry steve, I can't help with the corn question, but looking out of my window I see the old pear tree laden with blossom, looking as if we've had a fall of snow, the apple trees are just flushing pink as the buds start to break. Tulips are beginning to finish but this year we have a a new one showed it's head, virus at work I think, the clump it is in is a slightly lighter red than classic tulip, shot slightly with orange and very close inspection reveals tips of cream, but this one is virtually all cream, with flames of red, quite spectacular, if I can persuade MrsSRD to go out in the rain with her camera I'll post a pic.
The Lenten roses are fading and fresh leaf is thrusting up, but I love the look of the seed capsules so I shan't be cutting the flower heads back just yet.
The rosemary is in flower and everything else is turning green almost by the minute, dandelions are everywhere and I noticed a flower on the Lords and Ladies (Arum Maculata) on the bank alongside the path yesterday. I love the freshness of it all at this time of year, unfortunately it shows up the lack of maintenance of the past couple of months, time to get my hands dirty I think.

We put out 12 bags of yard waste for pickup yesterday; all stuff we should have attended to in the fall. This is addition to all the stuff that made it into our four composters. Darned maple trees

We've had hard frost this week; the daffs didn't care for it but it didn't kill them.

As usual, I have planted too much, too early, and so my conservatory is overflowing with seedlings that are really big enough to go outside, only the weather isn't yet warm enough.

Last weekend, when it was lovely and warm, I decided I'd risk putting some borlotti beans (which are starting to form flower buds already) into the garden. They now look extremely unhappy; clearly it wasn't warm enough. Fortunately I've still got lots I didn't plant out, and the broad beans are thriving in the spring sunshine.

I have unloaded loads of tomato plants, courgettes and butternut squashes to friends but am still oversupplied. Damn those seed packets!

I'll never forget learning just what 5HP means - about ten years ago, I had minor arthroscopic surgery on my knee. In the recovery stage, when I was still hobbling, I decided to finish my project of getting rid of all the bermuda grass in the front yard, preparatory to to laying buffalo grass sod. [I don't always think clearly!] This required tilling up the dirt after I had killed the bermuda and removed the dead grass. When I started the tiller going, I certainly felt that I was trying to hold 5 horses from running away.

According to a farmer friend, you just want to avoid having them in tassle at the same time. Our solution was to get one kind of corn that is early (77 days) and one kind that is late (90 days). We planted the early corn first, some one weekend, and some the next. Then we waited two weeks and planted the late corn over two successive weekends.

It worked out great, and they don't have to be apart. (That wouldn't really work, anyway: the farmer who told me that about the tassle only grew one kind of corn on her three acres, because she said that wasn't enough space to feel free of worry about cross-pollination.)

Our garden is going to kick butt this year. Two years ago, the tomatoes looked like they were on chemotherapy. Spindly, pathetic branches holding at most three puny tomatoes. Linda Butler (no relation) at Lindencroft Farm offered her method to us, most of which we adopted:



She says it will be even better the second year, as it all melds together. Bob adds chicken poop and mushroom compost to some of the beds, as well. Last year, the tomatoes were so healthy we had to reach inside and feel around for them.

So Bob did a favor (an insurance estimate) for my friend, Cynthia, up at Love Apple Farm, and Cynthia in turn furnished us with an entire garden full of seedlings from her starters. It doesn't look like as much as it is here, but these are what's in the photo:



I had blogged about them. Asterisks are ones she selected for me, which differed from the ones I'd chosen from her list of 120, and the notes in quotations are what she has to say about the tomato variety:

*German Red Strawberry
*Homer Fike's Oxheart: I just loved the name, plus it's one of her favorites, and had the longest growing season of all her tomatoes.
Coustralee x2: I call this the Sophia Loren of tomatoes. It's voluptuous. It's gorgeous. It was incredibly prolific on our vines.
Church
*Grandma Josie
Dagma's Perfection (Dagma is the wife of Gary Ibsen, who does the Tomato Festival, and it's her favorite)
Anana's Noir: looks very strange and bruise-y, but is so delicious. Also one of Cynthia's faves.
Green Giant x2: this one is now famous along the coast, the best green I've ever had, and I'm far from alone
*Greg's Mystery Green
*Black from Tula: "all the black tomatoes are smoky" says Cynthia.
*Rose
Paul Robeson: "Chef's favorite. Complex flavors."
*Southern Pride (for a Georgia girl)
*Northern Lights (to balance things out)
*Japanese Oxheart
*Matina
*Jaune Flammé

VEGETABLES (she chose all, except the padróns, which I begged her to grow for us, since we're a teeny bit addicted to them, especially Logan)

Pimientos de Padrón x6 (peppers)
Red bell pepper 'Red Knight"
Eggplant 'Black Beauty' x2
Pole bean 'Fortex' (a French filet bean) x6
Squash 'Costata Romanesco' x2
Summer squash '8-Ball'
Zucchini
Squash 'Zephyr'
Summer squash 'Pattypan'
Yellow bell pepper 'Sunray'*
Eggplant 'Long Purple'
White Borage (edible flower)
Litchi Tomato' x2

I am looking forward to trying the "Litchi Tomato" (also known as "Morelle de Balbis") since that is one she grew from seeds given to her by the very enthusiastic gardener when she visited Alain Passard's garden in France.

Mora, I'll save you some of those seeds. They're supposed to taste somewhere between a tomato and a cherry, and grow in a husk like tomatillos. Also, they have thorns. Should be fun! And let me know if you want any other seeds. It would make me happy to put things in your beautiful garden.

For anyone in the area: this weekend is the UCSC Farm & Garden's annual plant sale. It's all organic, and it's a little overwhelming. Cynthia is also continuing to sell tomato seedlings at her farm in Ben Lomond, and there is the off-chance that she will offer some of the other vegetable varieties listed, and more. No guarantees, though.

One question for Adam: how big do your bean plants get, and how do you know what is enough for a family?

We put the tomato plants in the ground today using Wall-O-Waters to protect them and to help speed the warming of the ground. THe cucumbers have been down for a week and all of the herbs are doing wonderful except the dill, I sure hope the rabbits have had their fill of fresh dill so far this year. I wonder if a rabbit raised on a lot of dill would have a distinctive flavor profile when cooked?

I haven't done much yet except put the thyme out too early (it was getting seriously big and bushy inside before I exiled it) and get a really tall rosemary plant. The lavender seems thrive on being ignored so I will continue to do so.

Last weekend I put in two types of oregano, dill, arugala, thyme, rosemary, cilantro and parsley.
Two frosts this week.
I also put in a miniature pink azalea.
In case you're interested.

Tana - the borlottis grow about 2m high, maybe a little bit more. I couldn't tell you how much is enough for a family, because my garden is v small, so I just try to squeeze in as much as I can. The broad beans are easy, apart from their tendency to attract blackfly. You can sow them in November/December if you remember - I didn't, so put them in Jan/Feb time. I think you Americans call them favas?

I am growing tomatillos for the first time this year. The farmers' market people had them last year, which was the first time I'd seen them grown in the UK, so when I saw a pack of seeds over the winter, I bought them. Now I have loads of seedlings and no bloody idea what to do with them. My vague plan is to treat them pretty much as I do my tomatoes. Can anyone offer me more detailed advice?

Erk. I waited, because somebody upstate warned me there would be frost this past week. But of course I had already put in, prior to that, a few things. So we'll see.

I'm going to plant a bunch of stuff tomorrow.

I tried tomatillos one year and pretty much f#cked them up but one piece of advice that I can offer is that they get pretty spindly so prepare to stake them well. I think than rancho and GG have had success with them.

Staking them up in good advice. I've found that very rich soil with lots of manure, leaf mold, etc helps, too. Lots of sun.

Even so, I've had good years and bad years with them.

Stake them up, leave them be, and keep the squirrels off them. They don't like them, but they'll take a bite out of each one just to make sure.

Those Wall-O-Waters thingies work great, at least at the nursery we go to. The plants get HUGE.

And yes, on the rabbit, I bet.

Yes, broad beans in my neck of the woods would not be favas, but Romanos (flat, wide greenbeans). I love favas, and peeled about 5,000 of them on Wednesday up at the UCSC Farm, where we were cooking for the student apprentices. There is such as thing as "too much of a good thing." My fingers went pruney.

If they eat more dill, do report. Our various local rabbits are all called "Stew."

Hello, tana

the wall-o-waters are wonderful. I've used them for several years.

They add several weeks to the growing season on the front end. Combined with plastic soil covers and rocks, they are great.

Wall o water

Has anyone here used the Square Foot Gardening method? If so, would you do it again?

re tomatillos, if you grow the once, you tend to have them forever. I have so many volunteers that I don't need to plant. They look like nightshade when they're coming up so you don't want to weed until you see those pretty yellow flowers. I don't stake them. If they get spindly, try pinching them back. Mine seem ok w/o stakes or cages. You can can them at the end of the season and they're not bad.

They do. Those little fuckers.

I finally visited Lowe's to try to spot that water fountain I liked last year. It was no longer available. But I noticed a plant or two I had to have. I bought a lovely shade of pink impatiens and an interesting and easy planter of petunias to throw up without effort. I also picked up that new Roundup with the push pump (instead of that finger spray pump). I recommend it, but hope that it is a refillable thing as it seems so wasteful to throw away such a handy contraption with each need to kill more weeds and crabgrass.

I also noticed that $20 is the magic number. Grass seed - $20. Weed killer - $20. Planter - $20.

As soon as my mechanic fixes my alternator I'm off to my fav nursery to stock up on all the annuals I can stuff into my car and ultimately in my yard.

I really hate this is a mulch year....

Current garden status:










These are all about to be transplanted within the next week.

What are all those? I don't recognize the leaves. Do you have to "harden them off"? One looks like grapes!

Something ate the arugala and cilantro. Odd. Nothing ate my greens before.
I have seen a groundhog swimming around the pond. I think I need a gun.

Round Up, huh? Is it neccasary?

I took a Google maps snap and then laid out my trial garden so far:



Still have to add corn and sunflowers. And the T-Tape for irrigation.

Where's the monorail?

Underground! That way you can see the roots growing! Isn't that neat?

We used something similar, The Postage Stamp Garden Book with great success, three or four consecutive years. The initial setup is labor-intensive: double-digging, sifting, heavy soil enrichment. Also planting "complementary" veg and flowers for maximum pest control and growth. I seem only to remember marigolds being paired with tomatoes, I think. The crowded-ness kept the weeds down.

I really miss gardening

Marigolds are great for repelling pests.

We should have strawberries ready to pick by next week if it drys out a bit. We have been a tad wet this week.

Thanks, Ping. That's encouraging.

I used square foot gardening many years ago - I liked the look - very neat and tidy. I felt that I was able to use my available space quite compactly, rotated my nightshade crops from one bed down to the next without worry about whether the root nematodes were migrating down a row to the next spot, and was able to sit a butt cheek on the side of the bed [I made them with 2x12 cedar boards] and easily weed the middle. I didn't worry about companion planting. Try it and report back if it was worth it.

I think the big ones are peas, those are going to be transplanted shortly. They grow really fast.

NJ isn't quite ready tor planting most stuff yet, but we're getting close. Probably next week. The lettuces are already in.

The Virgen de Guadalupe roses are going nuts:





as are the cacti:





and some scarlet runners in a pot:

First seedling popped up today. I was starting to get nervous.
Finished tilling the last small plot, this one for a row of marigolds, then sunflowers, then more Chiapas corn, this time white. But I'm being smart and preparing the bed instead of just planting and praying, which also works but takes longer. I made rows, watered, layed down some of my compost and then watered again. Tomorrow I'll plant the seeds.
I think this is the end of the tilling. Hooray for that.

I need some help with scarlet runner beans. A couple of weeks ago I put some directly in the ground, no soaking, no nothing. I only got one sprout and not even that one made it - I planted them prematurely and we still had a couple of frosts. So now I'm starting again. I soaked some in a bowl overnight, then kept them another day between damp paper towels. Then I planted them in a pot, left them outside during the day in the sun, and took them inside at night when it's cool. It's been 2 days now. How long until I should see a sprout?

I don't know about Scarlett Runners, Om, but in my experience bean seed likes very dry conditions for germination. When I plant filet beans, I stick the seed down in the dirt, give it one good soaking and forget about it. I generally see sprouts in 4 days or so. Also, beans want VERY warm soil, so you may still be jumping the gun.

Thanks, G. I'll leave them in the pot until the sprout and get a little bigger before transplanting. It's supposed to warm up by Wednesday and then stay warm...

It's too bad you don't know anyone who knows anything about beans.
As I wrote before, you don't need to presoak them . I will be surprised if you have luck transplanting them.
Are you planting them in the ground? The day before prepare the beds and give them a good soaking. Direct seed them about an inch down. Keep them moist but make sure they have good drainage. They don't like it too hot*. And La Mora is right, the soil needs to be ready or not much will happen.

These are in direct sun most of the day. I thought it would be fun to do in a pot and the have them fall gloriously down the sides of the urn. I think some bugs like them:



This one was planted the same day but lives in partial shade:



As you can see, I'm experimenting in pots this summer. Shhhh, don't tell anyone but I think the strawberry pot might be a winner idea.

And here's baby's first photo. I think it's a Black Pinto:



If you've never grown beans before in that soil, you may want to add an innoculant but I don't think it's necessary. Once the beans are up and at 'em,you can side dress them with some fertilizer.

* Scarket runners and runner beans in particular.

Beans can take 7 to 14 days to germinate. Runner beans can be the last to sprout up but sometimes they're the first to flower.

Last year, I planted several bricks, and they worked quite well in pre-heating the soil. The brick went lengthwise into the ground, with a 2x4 surface above above ground. It did a nice job of warming the soil for peppers. Not as good as the surviving wall-o-water, but OK.

I covered the bricks with grass clippings when it came time to mulch later in the summer.

That's very clever. Did you make rows of bricks? A brick border?

When I was growing tomatoes and peppers, I'd cut a toilet paper roll in sections and use that at the base and the plants that had this protection were distinctly healthier and bigger. You just want to remove it later as it can act like a wick waste a lot of water.

Perfect planting weather today: cool and overcast, with rain forecast for the next two or three days. I managed to seed: 3 kinds of beets, carrots, parsnips, broccoli rabe, 4 kinds of lettuce for heading (2 butterhead, 2 romaine), lettuce mix for cutting, mesclun mix for cutting, a blend of arugula and cruly cress for cutting, and mache. Planted starts of celery root, spinach, dill, shallots, sweet onions, and 3 varieties of cippollini. My other starts – tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash, melons, cukes, etc – will have to wait until the weather warms up more.

Please to discuss the mache. Once again, I don't think mine is doing anything.

I sowed directly into the ground a couple of weeks ago. Hardly anything happening. It's supposed to be a cold weather plant.

This morning when it was cool I harvested 2 quarts of strawberries. I will iqf freeze them and save until I have enough strawberries to make a batch of preserves.