Category: Gardening

The great thing about a garden is if you get super involved with it, it can become a three- if not a four-season project. You can grow food for your family almost the entire year. Look up the growing season for your area (I use garden.org/app/calendar) and think about trying to extend it.

Be aware, though, that as we slide further into the grand solar minimum, the growing seasons for many areas will be getting shorter with frost lingering later into the spring and beginning earlier in the autumn. This has already begun to happen, by the way. The last several springs in the northern Midwest have been a disaster for planting corn and other crops because the weather was simply too cold and wet. At the other end of the season, many farmers weren’t able to get their crops in before the snow began, especially sugar beets and other crops in Canada. Plan for cooler temperatures, not warmer.

Start Your Seeds. Now.

On Thursday at our homestead, we started the seeds for plants that will be transplanted into the garden. It’s still too cold for the seeds that will be direct sown, but the transplants will be kept indoors for several weeks. Since I’m starting over, I had to start some perennial herbs as well as the annual vegetables.

You want to give your plants as much of a head start as possible to get them a big as possible before the insect pests hatch. I try always to start all my seeds as soon as the growing season allows, whether I am starting transplants or direct sowing into the beds.

How to Start

I use seed starting flats with varying number of cells, depending on the size of the seedling: larger cells for plants like tomatoes, smaller ones for cabbage and broccoli, even smaller for onions and leeks. These flats can be purchased at many garden centers and through catalogs. The cells are filled with a soil-less seed starting mix, which is sterile. If at all possible, do not use soil to start the seeds since the chance of root rot or other difficulties is greater. The flats go on a grow table under fluorescent lights. I got the table for free when a school no longer wanted it. You can use regular fluorescent lights rather than the more expensive grow lights. Just purchase a combination of warm and cool fluorescent bulbs to approximate a grow light.

What to start

First, we planted seeds for the vegetables that will be transplanted out around the third week of April. In my area, that means we could still see frost, but brassicas, like broccoli, Brussel sprouts, and cabbage, can stand a frost. German thyme went into the same flat, as well as valerian and anise hyssop. The last two are medicinal herbs.

In another flat went the seeds for the plants that will be transplanted out around the third week of May, tomatoes and an early Jalapeno, that can’t take a frost. We like Burbank and Brandywine for slicing tomatoes, San Marenzo for sauce, and Principe for sun-dried tomatoes (and to use as a cherry-type).

Leeks (giant Musselburgh) and celery went into a third flat. We planted a boatload of leeks because to save seed because, for genetic strength, seeds need to be saved from 20 to 50 plants. Yup. And because they are biennials, we need to get them through the winter. We’ll see!

Final Thoughts

There’s nothing wrong with buying bedding plants from a local garden center or big-box store. What’s great about starting your own, though, is that you get to pick the exact varieties you want, which you may or may not be able to purchase locally. And if you save your own seed, the seeds will begin to develop genetic strength to survive in your area.

As I wrap up the basic gardening section, there are a few final topics I want to touch on.

Bird netting

To protect the brambles and blueberries from the birds, I installed two rows of six-foot U-posts positioned opposite each other on each side of the berry beds with the U facing in, slid a ten-foot 3/4″ PVC pipe into the two U channels across from each other, forming an arch over the bed, and kept the pipe in place with cable clamps that go around the U-posts and the pipe. Bird netting was draped over the frame. The netting comes in various weights and sizes; I have two 14×30 foot nets draped over the blueberries, for example.

Compost pile

I picked up wooden pallets from the side of the road and made a three-compartment bin. Right now, there is a section that was emptied in the fall and the compost put on the raised beds. That is where the new compost pile is forming. Kitchen parings, egg shells, coffee grounds, tea bags, weeds that haven’t gone to seed, leaves, grass clippings are all thrown into the forming bin. Another section has compost that is currently cooking, so to speak, and the third section has finished compost that will be used in the spring. When I clean out the hen house (I do this twice a year), I put the litter in the new section by creating layers with still-forming compost from another section. NEVER add any diseased plant to the compost pile (or use it for mulch, for that matter). NEVER. Burn it or put it in with bagged garbage instead.

Pruning

If you have woody-stemmed plants (my peach and plum trees and the blueberry bushes and elderberries) or brambles (raspberries or blackberries), you will need to prune them. This is done in the off-season when they are dormant. I usually do the raspberries in November. If I don’t get to it then, it will wait until late February. The fruit trees get pruned in early March before the spraying begins. Again, space does not allow a detailed description here, but there are good books and websites to walk you through the process.

Water

Since I’m on a private well, I make the most of rain water. There are four 50-gallon rain barrels attached to three down spouts around the house, two attached in tandem.

Final Thoughts

If you haven’t already begun gardening, begin now. This year. Start growing your own food, start saving seed, start recycling your scraps into compost to make healthy soil. Get started. There is no time to waste. The learning curve is steep.

Buy books or download information now while this is still available.
I believe a catastrophe of some sort is coming. It might be an EMP from a nuclear explosion in the low atmosphere or a terrorist attack that shuts down the gird, or a declaration of Marshall law for whatever reason, or a pandemic.

I lean toward a collapse of the food supply as the growing season gets shorter at each end and food shortages occur as we experience crop failures. This is already happening, by the way, although we are not hearing about it from the MSM. The USDA is fudging the numbers concerning crop losses (see www.iceagefarmer.com among other sources). For real. Our sun is sliding into a grand solar minimum as the sunspots disappear. The warming that occurred as the Little Ice Age ended is over, and we are heading back into a colder period that may last twenty or thirty or forty years.

I am not afraid of whatever is coming. I am as prepared as I can be, given my budget and other considerations over which I have no control. But I am not afraid because Almighty God, the creator and sovereign ruler of the universe, the Lord Jesus Christ, is my savior. And that is my most important preparation.

Next month, I will be talking about raising chickens: chicks and hatching, feed and water, general care, and slaughtering and butchering.

The following is not meant to be, by any means, a comprehensive guide to seed saving but to give you general idea of the process. There are many good books and websites you can turn to for the detailed information you will need to be successful. Certain techniques must be adhered to, such as how far apart closely related plants should be to prevent cross pollination and how many different plants of each type of vegetable to take seed from to maintain genetic diversity, and a good book or website will walk you through the process.

Types of plants

Plants fall into three basic categories: annual, biennial, and perennial. Annuals grow and produce seed in the same year and then die. Biennials grow in one year, produce their seed the following year, and then die. Perennials live for varying numbers of years, depending on the kind.

Annuals

Annuals are relatively simple to save seed from. The annuals that produce a fruit that we eat (tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, squashes, and the like) are easy, but each one has specific rules. Ripe, red peppers get cut open, and the seeds are scooped out and put on a plate to dry. Ripe tomatoes have the seeds scooped out and placed into a bowl of water for a day or two. Strain them several times to remove the pulp, and then let the seeds dry. Cucumbers are similar to tomatoes with the bowl and water technique, but the fruits are left on the vine until they turn yellow. Choose the biggest and best specimens to save for seed. For annuals like lettuce and broccoli, allow several plants go to seed; they will get quite tall and develop flowers and then seed heads.

Small potatoes about the size of a walnut are saved separately in the cardboard boxes with the other potatoes in the cold room and planted in the spring. Make sure the potatoes are free from nicks or other damage, or they may not survive until spring planting time. Garlic gets planted in the fall in my area, so not all that long after harvest, the largest heads get separated into cloves and go into their new bed about mid-October.

Biennials

Biennials like carrots, parsnips, beets, rutabagas, and onions need to be overwintered in a protected place. I have a separate crate with damp sand in the cold room for the seed vegetables, except the onions, which stay in the main, unheated basement. Choose the biggest and best specimens to save for seed. These get planted in a seed bed the following spring where they will shoot up seed heads that will develop and dry over the summer. Biennials such as Swiss chard and cabbage are dug up with the root ball intact and placed into pots in the cold room.

Many years ago, an old Canadian farm wife showed me the cold room in their basement. It was a small room off the main cellar, and it had a dirt floor. The cabbages and celery actually got planted in the dirt until the spring. So cool.

Perennials

Perennials just keep going. Fruit trees, for example, can last decades. Blueberry bushes can last twenty years or more. The same is true for asparagus. Raspberries are shorter lived and may need to be replanted after eight or ten years. Perennials generally don’t get started from seed, so don’t worry about saving seed from them.

There is so much more to tell that space here simply won’t allow. Buy a book or download the information you will need.

Some methods work better for certain crops than for others.

For starters, the yellow summer squash gets made into a pureed soup and frozen in quart containers

Yellow Summer Squash Soup

1 Tbs. butter
2 cups onion, chopped
4 cups yellow squash diced
2 cups chicken broth
salt and pepper to taste

Saute onions in the butter over medium heat until the onions are translucent, a few minutes. Add the squash, the chicken broth, and salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat. Cover and simmer until the squash is tender, about ten minutes.

Let cool slightly. Puree with an immersion blender. Serve hot or let cool to freeze.

This soup should NOT be canned, which is why is gets frozen. Not all foods can be safely home canned, hence the squash soup getting frozen. This is because you aren’t guaranteed that the heat has gotten all the way to the middle in a thick soup. This is also the reason that you don’t put macaroni into the chicken soup or beans into the chili when canning it. You add these starchy items after you open the can as you are heating the soup for dinner. Look for USDA-approved recipes (all the recipes in the Ball Book are USDA approved).

Realize, of course, that if the calamity is a grid-down event, you won’t have the freezer for food preservation unless you are off-grid. Tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato soup, and pickled beets can be safely canned in a hot water bath. Low acid foods such as yellow beans, Swiss chard, and vegetable soup, get canned in a pressure canner. This is the only way to get the temperature over the boiling point to ensure you have killed any microbes that could be present. These canning methods will work so long as you don’t have an electric stove.

Cucumbers are pickled in brine in 3-gallon crocks, as is the sauerkraut. If you have two crocks for the sauerkraut, you can be eating the kraut from the one while the other is fermenting so you will have a continual supply. The active cultures that formed during the fermentation are killed if you can your sauerkraut, so you want to try to keep it fresh. You can store it in the crock, but you must keep removing the scum that will probably form on top.

Root vegetables can be stored whole and without much fuss so long as certain conditions are met. Carrots, parsnips, rutabagas, and beets go into damp sand under the Bilco door off the main basement. This is my cold room. It stays between 30 and 40 degrees and about 70% humidity all winter and into the spring. If I know the temperature overnight is going to be single digits to below zero, I leave the door to the basement open a little. I use plastic “milk” crates from the hardware store and line them with weed barrier fabric, which allows air movement but keeps the sand inside. You will need to dampen the sand from time to time. I keep old cider jugs filled with water in the basement near the door to the cold room for just this purpose (and to flush the toilet if the power goes out).

The vegetables mentioned above get layered under damp sand. It doesn’t matter if they touch a little; just don’t cram them in. I use play sand from the mason supply center and cover the crates with a layer of plastic (the bags the sand came in) to prevent the water from evaporating too quickly. Potatoes go in large plastic bags with holes punched in them, sorted by size and type. These bags go into large cardboard boxes on shelves in the cold room. Onions and garlic go into mesh bags that hang from the floor joists in my unfinished, unheated basement. They don’t like it quite as cold as the other root vegetables.

Water

Water is possibly the most critical component in maintaining your garden. You should figure on one inch of water per week. Purchase a simple, inexpensive rain gauge so you will know exactly how much water your garden received after a storm. If you need to water in a dry spell, don’t just spray for a few minutes and call it good. Use your rain gauge to help you figure out when you have applied an inch to all your beds. It takes me about two hours to water all the beds in the yard.

Don’t water too near sunset if the weather is humid. The leaves won’t have time to dry before nightfall, and you don’t want extra water sitting on the leaves all night in extra humid water. Do consider attaching rain barrels to all the downspouts on the house. I have 4-fifty gallon barrels. Also, I have attached downspout diverters so that once the barrels are full, the water will continue on down the downspout.

Weeds

Do not let the weeds get ahead of you. Wait. Let me repeat that. DO NOT LET THE WEEDS GET AHEAD OF YOU. Sorry for shouting, but this point is critical. Weeds take water and nutrients from your plants. Mulch with compostable material (like grass clippings). You can actually use the weeds for mulch as long as they haven’t gone to seed. NEVER let the weeds go to seed. EVER. One year’s seeding is seven years’ weeding. If the weeds have gone to seed, throw them in the trash. Do not compost weeds with seeds unless you know your compost pile generates enough heat to kill the seeds.

Scout your garden regularly, at least twice a week, preferably more frequently. This means you walk through the entire garden, taking notes so that you will be on top of any disease or pest outbreaks. At the first sign of a disease or pest, you will have to spray or in some way go on the attack, and yes, this can be done organically.

Disease and Pest Control

I spray the fruit trees in late winter with a horticultural oil that contains lime for leaf curl and the raspberries at the same time with the same spray for cane blight and spur blight. A few weeks later, the fruit trees get sprayed with dormant oil for scale and other insects, to suffocate them before them emerge.

Because of the humidity in the Northeast, our gardens are subject to a variety of fungal diseases, so the solanaceae (tomatoes and potatoes) get sprayed with copper sulfate as soon as they are about six inches tall, even before there is any sign of disease, and the spraying continues every seven to ten days all season (more if it rains). I rotate Neem oil with the copper sulfate so the copper doesn’t build up in the soil.

Green Cure (potassium bicarbonate) is applied at the first sign of disease. The Swiss chard and the beets get sprayed with Green Cure for cercospora, and the brassicas (cabbage and broccoli) will need Neem oil or pyrethrin regularly, at least once a week, for cabbage worms.

Physical Control

Spraying isn’t the only way to control problems; physical means also work well, although these may be a bit time consuming. You can put row covers over the brassicas to prevent the butterflies from reaching the plants, for example. I go through the yellow summer squash (crook necked squash) once the plants have reached full size and hand pick the squash bug eggs. These are coppery colored ovals about the size of a carrot seed and are attached in small clusters to the underside of the leaves, which are large, quite large indeed. The underside of EACH leaf needs to be examined on EVERY plant at least twice a week. If I find a cluster of eggs, I carefully cut the cluster out of the leaf and throw the eggs in the garbage.

I also hand pick Japanese beetles from the raspberries and drop them into a quart plastic container with cotton balls soaked with rubbing alcohol in the bottom, then put the lid on, although since I gave the lawn an organic treatment for grubs two years in a row several years ago, there haven’t been very many Japanese beetles at all. Potato bugs, cucumber beetles, and cabbage worms get squashed between my fingers. Yes, it seems a little icky, but you can do it.

Yeah. It’s a lot. And depending on what sort of calamity hits us, you will need to have all these supplies on hand because mail order or even your local garden center may not be available. Because diseases WILL show up. Because the pests WILL arrive. Because you WILL have to deal with them.

Rotation

Rotation is critical for keeping diseases and pests from building up in the soil. I have four zones in the back and five in the front. I rotate in this order, using a rotation plan from http://www.growveg.com/growguides/crop-rotation.aspx :
Zone 1 – Solanaceae (tomatoes and potatoes). Enrich soil with compost before planting.
Zone 2 – Umbeliferae (carrots, parsnips, parsley).
Zone 3 – Brassicas (cabbage, broccoli, kale, rutabagas). Lime the soil first.
Zone 4 – Legumes (peas and beans).
Zone 5 in front is a freebie that gets included in the rotation.

So the second year, Zone 1 plants get planted into the Zone 2 beds, Zone 2 into the Zone 3 beds, and so on. There are dozens of rotation schedules, so find the one that works best for you and your area, depending on what you will be planting.

In the front, the potatoes follow the parsnips, which follow the cabbage and broccoli, which follow the shelling peas. In the back, the tomatoes follow the carrots, which follow the rutabagas, which follow the yellow (wax) beans. This way, all the Solanaceae or all the Brassica aren’t in the same section of the yard. There is less chance for the spread of disease this way.

Record Keeping

How do I remember what was planted where from year to year? I make a map of both the front and back gardens on graph paper. I have maps going back twenty-five years, all kept in notebooks, so I know not only what was where, but what I planted so I can keep track of the failures. I know. It’s an illness.

What to plant

What to plant depends on what your family likes to eat and what you plan on preserving. It also depends on what types of fruits and vegetables do well in your area. Ask neighbors, talk to the folks at the local garden center, or call the extension office in your county for advice.

Several notes on choosing varieties. Don’t pick F1 hybrids if you plan on saving the seed (which I HIGHLY recommend). They won’t reproduce true but will come out like one of the original parents. Choose open pollinated or heirloom varieties. Plan on including vegetables from many families.

I grow carrots, beets, parsnips, rutabagas, two types of potatoes (German butterball and Russett), lettuce, Swiss chard, two types of cabbage (an early for summer coleslaw and a late, Danish ballhead, for sauerkraut), broccoli, yellow wax beans (easier to find come picking time than green and just as tasty), three types of shelling peas, yellow summer squash, butternut squash, five types of tomatoes (two romas for sauce and soup, two slicing tomatoes for eating and for sauce and soup, and Principe (a small tomato which is the tomato of choice in Tuscany, Italy, for drying), jalapeno peppers, yellow onions (best for storing), and two types of garlic (Music is my go-to for huge cloves, great production, and decent storing capability). A perennial bed in the front has prickly pear, horseradish, and rhubarb.

The culinary herbs I grow are thyme, rosemary, parsley, sage, chives, oregano, basil, cilantro, bay laurel, and mustard (for pickles). The rosemary and bay laurel are in large pots because they are tender perennials and cannot take the cold in my area, so they spend the winter in the basement under a west-facing window. The medicinal herbs are calendula, chamomile, elderberry, lavender, valerian, bee balm, lemon balm, echinacea, anise hyssop, peppermint, spearmint, and wintergreen. I can’t offer medical advice, but there are many good websites that can help with which herbs to use for what ailments. By the way, many culinary herbs are also used medicinally.

When to plant

Plant as early as possible so your plants will be a larger size when the pests come out. Here in the Northeast, I start the following inside under grow lights in early March: onions, broccoli, cabbage, peppers, tomatoes. Onions are transplanted out March 18, when peas and potatoes get direct sown. March 22 beets are direct sown. April 5 carrots, Swiss chard, and any greens, such as lettuce, are direct sown. April 19 the broccoli and cabbage get transplanted out. May 17 peppers and tomatoes get transplanted out while beans, cucumbers, and squash are direct sown. I use https://garden.org/apps/calendar for my planting schedules.

All the transplant and direct sow dates are, of course, weather dependent. Some years, there’s still snow in the beds until mid-April, and I have to rearrange my timing. There is much more detail as to when the fall crops get started indoors or direct sown outside, so if you plan on fall/winter gardening, find a planting schedule for your area. I always have things growing in the fall. Last year, I pulled the fall carrots right after the new year. They were under double layers for protection and, while small, were quite tasty.

Location

Put your garden in a sunny, level spot. Don’t place it up against the edge of the woods because your garden plants will grow out and away from the shade under the trees. Plants are more aware of their surroundings than you might think. In addition, don’t necessarily place it in the lowest spot of the yard if rain collects in that spot. Most plants don’t like having their feet wet.

Fencing

Fencing is a must if you have animals that prefer what you grow to what God gave them to eat. Between the deer and the woodchucks, I would have nothing left if I didn’t fence. I used ten-foot 4x4s as my corner posts, dug down at least two feet with a post hole digger and each set in half an eighty-pound bag of cement. Eight-foot cedar posts are between the 4x4s to support the fencing so it doesn’t sag. Using a staple gun, I attached seven-foot, inch-mesh poly fencing. I usually buy 7×50 foot rolls of one-inch black poly mesh. The metal two-foot chicken wire at the bottom is because woodchucks (and rabbits) will chew holes right through the poly stuff. An option to fencing is a good varmint dog.

Raised beds

I installed raised beds (using 2×8 or 2×12 spruce boards) because the soil in my neighborhood is heavy clay, which turns to cement in a dry summer. I learned to not bother with corner braces. Three-inch screws in the corners of the boards are enough. I bought the original soil in the beds from a local commercial supplier. It has been amended over time by bushels and bushels of compost from the compost pile. In addition, grass clippings in the summer act as mulch, and these, along with shredded autumn leaves, get turned into the soil at the end of the season.

The grass between the beds was removed, and wood chips were put down as walkways. Any weeds that show up in the walkways are sprayed with a mixture of one gallon of white vinegar, one cup of Epsom salt, and 1/4 cup of original Dawn dish washing liquid. However, I don’t use this mixture in the beds because I don’t want the vinegar to drop the pH too low.

Next week, I will give some details about what I plant.

For all the preppers out there who have a seed vault in the basement somewhere and who plan on growing food if things go pear-shaped, I have a warning for you: gardening has a steep learning curve. Don’t think that you’ll simply dig up the front lawn, plant some bean seeds, and feed your family. I have nothing against a seed vault (as a matter of fact, it’s a great thing to have as backup in case your supply of saved seed becomes damaged), but it takes years to develop some level of competency in a garden, especially if you’re planning on surviving at least in part by eating what you’ve grown in your yard.

I am in my sixties and have been gardening all my life. My mom’s people were Sicilian immigrants, and, as you may know, Italians are hardwired to garden. It’s in our genes. My mom, my nana, all my aunts and uncles–everyone had a garden in the backyard. Besides being of Italian descent, I was a science teacher for twenty-four years and learned much along the way about plants and soil. Please note that I did not say I am Italian-American. I am an American, born and bred. No hyphen. I am of Italian (and English and Scottish) descent.

Once I was out on my own, I too had a garden. Now I live on half an acre in an 885 square foot house with 2500 square feet of garden space. While this piece of property is very small compared to others around me in my rural area, I have done everything I can to maximize my space.

The back garden is fenced in with seven-foot high poly mesh fencing (because of the deer) bordered along the bottom by two-foot metal chicken wire fencing (because of the woodchucks). There are five 4×8 beds, five 4×12 beds, one 4×18 bed, all raised, twelve blueberry bushes, and a fifty-foot row of black raspberries all within the main fencing. The front garden is in an enclosed front yard with ten 4×10 beds and three 3×20 beds, again raised. Along the side of the house by the driveway is another bed with red, yellow, and purple raspberries. All the berries in the yard have netting over them (because of the birds). In the back by the chickens are three peach trees and one plum. A bed of culinary herbs is by the back door, and medicinal herbs are in a flower bed along the north side of the property.

From this garden space, we harvest hundreds of pounds of vegetables and fruits each year. Much is eaten fresh; much more is preserved by freezing, canning, pickling, and burying the root vegetables (except for the potatoes, onions, and garlic) in damp sand in the cold room. Come late spring, we will still be eating the harvest from the previous fall.

Over the next few weeks, I will be discussing the steps needed to create a large, productive garden.