Garden Girl B

Gardening with Bronnie in beautiful Great Falls, MT - and wherever fate takes her.

[gardengirlb]

Gardening Progress

Today I transplanted the last of the plants into the community garden that will be going in this month.  I still don't quite trust the weather, so I'm not putting my cucurbits in until June.  Actually, I may go back later this week and seed some anyway, since I've started transplants of my own to get a head start.  It would be interesting to compare the rate of growth outside where it has been rather warm as opposed to indoors under my inadequate lighting.  I desperately need better conditions for starting my own seeds indoors, but at the moment I'm not getting them, so I guess I'll have to tough that out. The plants I put in today were the 'Green Goliath' Broccoli, the 'Snowball' Cauliflower, and the 'Cour di Bue' Cabbage.  Of those three, the cabbage had the most vigorous seedlings, so I'm hoping at least one of these Brassicas will work out.  I don't seem to have good luck with them in general, though.  It may just be the climate here- we tend to have VERY hot summers and with short spring/fall seasons, it doesn't work out all that well for cool-weather vegetables.  It might also be that I need to just keep experimenting and start even earlier next year.  We'll have to see.  Gardening is a continual learning process for everyone- even people with tons of experience can be taken by surprise. I will admit that the broccoli thing is kind of discouraging, though, because all I hear everywhere is how "easy" it is to grow.  Yet I've never been successful!  I'm not one to give up, however, so I'm trying not to let it get me down. I've had to re-evaluate the planting plans for the house a bit- I am thinking now what I will do is have my brother-in-law weed whack/mow down everything that is next to the house and then lay down soil bags to plant the melons and whatnot in.  Then at the end of the season I can pull out the plants and turn the soil under, and put everything under cardboard to kill down grass/weeds/perennials that might still be surviving.  I'm also not sure I'm going to be able to grow the 'Glass Gems' corn this year- which is REALLY disappointing, but I am hoping the seeds will keep until next year when I can do a bit more work. Overall I am really just trying not to take on too much at once, because I can't do most of this stuff all by myself- I don't have the energy!  So I have to rein it in a bit and take baby steps.

[gardengirlb]

St. Lawrence Nurseries

If you live in Zone 3 like I have for most of my life, then you understand the pain of trying to find fruit trees and shrubs and such that actually are hardy enough to grow in your area.  Most varieties of fruit thrive in Zone 5 or higher, and even the trees sold by traditional garden supply stores that supposedly are OK for the colder areas can have problems- they may be grafted on a NON-cold-hardy rootstock. So what's a north-dweller to do?  Check out St. Lawrence Nurseries!  They're located in Potsdam, NY and have a huge selection of fruits and nuts that are very cold-hardy, being that the nursery itself is located in Zone 3.  I should note that I have a personal connection with this nursery, as I grew up in St. Lawrence County- Bill MacKentley helped to coach the 4-H Horticulture team every year I was on it, and we'd take many trips to his nursery to practice plant ID and learn little tidbits.  I was also friends with his daughter, who is my age.  I really have nothing but great memories of those times, and I know that their family are, well, "Good people" as my in-laws like to say. Now, for this year I missed the ordering deadline, and I'm not sure if we really are ready for any kind of permanent fruit trees or anything here at the 'new' place.  I might put in raspberries or something next year.  But I would absolutely order from here- and if you live anywhere chilly like I do, you should, too. One thing to note- and this is in their catalog- but they do not offer the popular "dwarf" style of apple that is standard these days.  They use standard rootstock- this is for cold hardiness.  You can prune your trees (you'll need to do it fairly aggressively, so if you go that route make sure you research research research) to keep them somewhat in check, but they will get big enough that you'll probably need a ladder to harvest things on the top, and it'll take a bit longer before you get a big amount of fruit.  So keep that in mind.  You should be pruning every year anyway (for ALL fruits, though please research the particular item because it is different for each kind) for maximum fruit production.

[gardengirlb]

Yukon Gold Potatoes

 Purchased from: Fisher Garden Store for $9.95/10 premium seed potatoes Type: Potato I was starting to get a bit antsy about whether or not my order had gone through at Fisher's Garden store, but I was happy to see this came in the mail yesterday!  They *did* say they'd mail when it was time to plant, so I guess that means this weekend I need to get down to the community garden and plant these.  Because I've realized that Yukon Gold is apparently not a good variety to use for the "Potato tower" method, I am instead planting these in one of the Pea Pods community beds.

 The seed potatoes themselves were packed nicely in a paper bag, labelled with contents.  They smell earthy- which isn't surprising, but is a bit of a change from all my 'sterile' seed packets.  Underneath the bag was a pamphlet put out by MSU Cooperative extension that detailed potato illnesses in Montana and ways to keep things like Potato Late Blight from becoming a big issue.  I know if we get hit with Late Blight in the community garden, we're going to really be suffering because it WILL jump to other Nightshades like Tomatoes.

 The pamphlet also emphasized sourcing potatoes from within Montana, which I'm more than happy to do in the first place.  I don't know if there are strict regulations because I didn't dive into it that closely, but I do know that Gurney's won't ship seed potatoes to Montana.  Another nice thing was a little rundown of how to plant potatoes, which I didn't really need, but is definitely nice for a beginner who might not be super comfortable with searching around on the internet.  We all know I am, though, so that's a moot point as well.

Curious as to what the seed potatoes actually looked like?  Well, they look just like small potatoes!  They're meant to be planted whole according to Fisher, but their catalog said that you can cut them in half, you just have to let them cure for a day or two before planting.  Since I only have a 4x4 area to plant them in, I'm going to just plant em whole.  I'm not entirely sure how much of the harvest I'll get my hands on, since they're going in a community-run bed and I'm just going to "adopt" the care of it, but you know what?  As long as I get to taste a few, I think I'll be fine :) As usual, the experience with Fisher's was great- they always include a quick little hand-written thank-you in the  order, and everything is prompt once it's actually shipped, and I just overall feel really good about supporting a local business, especially one that actually bothers to stock items that are meant for growing here.  I think that's really important, and a little later on I'll be featuring a nursery I know from New York that specializes in cold-hardy fruit trees.  Exciting! click here to learn about my experience with Fisher's Garden Store and to learn how to get a catalog of your own.

[gardengirlb]

Seedling Progress

I'm not sure if it's apparent here, but the tomatoes are pretty much shot.  I don't know what happened- they look dried out, but given that I watered everything well I'm not sure what the issue is.  The mass of green you see is cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower. I need to harden these off and get them into the ground under the frost blankets, but I'm procrastinating pretty hardcore because it's such a pain to get into the closet where I'm growing them, and my back is still bothering me.  I do know better- it's not really that smart to spend time procrastinating when it comes to gardening stuff, but I suppose a couple more days before I can get them planted won't hurt me *too* much. I didn't get to the garden today like I had planned, because I'm just too sore- I am doing core strength exercises and stretching to try and get my back in working order, but we'll see how that works.  Yesterday I went through all my seed packets and marked the square foot spacing on them.  At least I'm feeling semi-productive!

[gardengirlb]

Early Planting- with Photos!

This is what the front yard raised bed looked like on Monday at around noon.  Please excuse the horrible state of the lawn- we aren't lawn people, and it's not really growing from winter yet anyway.  The snow from Sunday was mostly melted and though you can't see it from the photo, there was moisture from the melted snow slowly seeping through the row cover, which is specifically meant to allow sunlight and water through it. We had a group meeting on Monday evening at the garden to discuss the early season, and there are a couple people there who've had things planted since the beginning of April, and are starting to see some sprouting.  I am HOPING to get down there sometime this week to start planting, but we'll see how the weather and my back fare. My back has been bothering me for a few weeks now, to varying degrees of severity and as of right now I can still move around and sit and sleep and such, but it's worrying.  I am really hoping it doesn't become an issue this summer, given that I've taken on a much larger load gardening-wise.

[gardengirlb]

First seeds in the ground- And snow

I really need to take photos of all this stuff, and I promise I will- but I did not do it today, so I don't have them for *this* post.  Anyway, when we moved into the new house there were a couple wooden garden beds already built- one that I think is probably about 2'x4' (based on the relative size to the one we've actually measured), but since I'm bad at estimation of size I will update you later on the actual size of it.  Anyway, the other bed turned out to be 3'x6', and is situated under one of the conifers we have in the front yard, but gets a decent amount of sun.  After finally getting some row covers and a couple bags of garden soil to fill the 3x6 bed in, I got some cold tolerant items planted yesterday, on Saturday.  In the 3x6 bed, I did an entire half of it (3'x3') in the Rocky Top Lettuce Mix, with 5 per square foot- arranged as the 5 dots on a die would be.  I was a bit generous with the seeding, so thinning will have to happen, but that's good anyway since you can eat the plants you thin!  If it hadn't been so windy I may have just very thinly scattered the plants around, but it's Great Falls and we're known for our wind.  So much so that when I bought the row covers, the nice woman at Big R was very careful to inform me that the U-stakes would not be enough to keep the row covers anchored and to make sure I used some extra means to keep them secure.  We used some rocks and tucked the edges of the row cover into the bed. In the other 3'x3' area of the bed, we did 3 blocks (1' square) of 'Ching Chang' Bok Choy, 3 blocks of 'Dwarf Blue Curled' Kale, and in the final 1' x 3' strip we did a row of half 'Dwarf Grey Sugar' Snow Peas and 'Golden Sweet' Snow Peas. I'm still pondering what to plant in the other raised bed and the pots that came with the house.  I may have my Pea Pods planting setup completely set up, but here at home I'm having much more indecision about the whole thing.  Also, I'm seeing what sorts of spring plants we have already with the house- already I've been surprised by crocus and what look to be tulips popping up!  I know for sure we have Daylillies as well. I also found out that Big R, where we got our row covers- has seed potatoes (their claim that they carry almost anything really isn't that far off)!  So if the potato experiment works out this year (Planning on using rubbermaid containers and layering to grow them), I will be able to economize a bit next year buying more locally.  Not that the $16 I spent for the seed potatoes + shipping from Fisher's Garden Store is unreasonable, especially considering I did not have to buy like 20+ pounds of seed potatoes- but being able to just pick up a few is much more ideal for our limited space, especially if we end up doing something like this rather than rubbermaid bins.  Though considering this family, the bins may end up being the go-to.  We seem to always have an abundance of them. Tomorrow if the snow happens to melt, we'll be going to the community garden to get some planting done, but I heard we're supposed to get a couple more inches overnight (on top of the 2" we got already), so we'll see.  If not, I'll find other things to occupy myself.  I did not get the very early start that I was hoping for, but this is good enough, so I'm not going to sweat it too much.  And at the very least, the row covers/frost blanket will keep the critters from chewing on my peas.  And I didn't get ANYTHING in the ground till the second week of May last year, so we're not doing too badly.

[gardengirlb]

Mammoth Russian Sunflower

Purchased from:  Fisher's Garden Store for $2.50 Type: Sunflower Growth: TALL This package of seeds did not even get opened last year- I just did not have a place to grow sunflowers.  This year, though, I do.  Right outside our kitchen door, where there were hollyhocks last year.  The area gets plenty of sun.  Hollyhocks are coming out, sunflowers are going in! I love sunflowers, though I haven't grown any myself in ages.  At least, none that I got to look at- the ones I grew in Rochester got ripped out before I got back from visiting my fiance one fall.  I have some video of one of the many fields of sunflowers that we ran across when we drove from NY to MT, but it's not very clear, so I'm probably not going to share it on the blog.  I just think Sunflowers are so COOL, though!  Don't you?  The seeds are a bonus, though it's always a race to get to them before birds do.  The coolest thing about sunflowers is that they're an aggregate of many tiny flowers.  Each of those little pokey bits in the middle?  A whole flower in and of itself!  The petals on the outside?  Modified aesexual flowers!  HOW COOL IS THAT?! Okay, enough nerding out.  I hope these get as big as the package says, because I love tall things. click here to learn about my experience with Fisher's Garden Store and to learn how to get a catalog of your own.

[gardengirlb]

Montana Green Bean

Purchased from: Fisher's Garden Store for $3.60 Type: Green Bean Growth: Bush This, unlike the past few posts, was one of my great successes from last year, and I've talked about it previously.  Seriously.  This green bean is going to be a yearly addition to my garden because it is amazing- and it's really well-suited to Montana, though I imagine, of course, it will do well elsewhere, too.  Homegrown green beans are amazing anyway, but I really enjoy this variety and it was easy to grow and surprisingly productive even after I had determined the plants must be 'on their way out.'  The darned things produced all season!  And I only planted two blocks- I think I could have been happy with an entire bed full of these wonderful beans.  This year I'm definitely planting more. Beans do pretty well in square foot gardening, but I will say that the bush type do have a bit of an issue with crowding.  This did not seem to affect my harvest at all, but it did make me think that the plants were on their way out when they were still quite productive- which is why I'm glad I did not just rip them up like I initially planned.  If this is something you worry about, you could do only 4 plants per square foot instead of 9- but if you don't care how it looks and you are willing to maul the plants a bit to get to the good stuff, don't sweat it. These were a perfect example of why Square Foot Gardening is really only suited for small levels of production, though.  It was way harder to get in there and pick the beans than it ever was when I picked beans from my grandfather's rows. click here to learn about my experience with Fisher's Garden Store and to learn how to get a catalog of your own. 

[gardengirlb]

Lemon Cucumber

Purchased from:  Fisher's Garden Store for $2.25 Type: Cucumber Growth: Vining This is another leftover from last year that I didn't have much luck with, mostly because I think my cucumbers ended up being shaded out and were never able to get going.  I'm going to plant some at the house this year as well as at the garden, so hopefully between those two places I will have at least one area that gets enough sun to produce.  There were some of these cucumbers planted in one of the public beds, so it wasn't a complete disaster- that was a pleasant surprise! "Lemon" cucumbers are called such not because they taste like lemon, but because of their shape and color, which is small, round, and yellow.  They taste just like a regular, mild cucumber- but the shape makes them more fun because the slices are bigger, so if you wanted to do sandwiches or something they could be larger, etc. I love cucumbers just raw and sliced with a little bit of italian salad dressing.  Sadly, my stomach doesn't love me as much for eating them this way, but if I moderate that, it should be OK.  I'm looking forward to having some of my own homegrown cucumbers this summer to eat raw and possibly make fridge pickles with. click here to learn about my experience with Fisher's Garden Store and to learn how to get a catalog of your own. 

[gardengirlb]

Jackpot Hybrid Zucchini

Purchased from: Fisher's Garden Store for $2.95 Type: Summer Squash Growth: Bush All jokes about locking your doors during zucchini season aside, I love this stuff.  I still have some shredded and frozen from last season, and I didn't even grow my own!  As such, I'm only going to be growing a single bush, but that's going to take up a good chunk of one of my beds, so one is more than enough. Zucchini (and summer squash in general) is one of those things that I do enjoy eating, but I grow mostly because it is satisfying.  There's not really a way to screw up here- except maybe planting too late, like I did last year.  But in general, summer squash will take off on its own and before you know it, you're having to dive in every day to harvest the fruits before they get too big to eat, and even then you're going to miss one and the next thing you know you have a giant 3-foot zucchini and after you pick that sucker you do like 5 loaves of zucchini bread because despite the name, the main ingredient isn't zucchini, so you always have leftover. Not that I'm speaking from experience, or anything.  *shifty eyes* click here to learn about my experience with Fisher's Garden Store and to learn how to get a catalog of your own. 

[gardengirlb]

Green Goliath Broccoli

Purchased From: Fisher's Garden Store for $2.65 Type: Broccoli Broccoli is my favorite vegetable, and it's also one that I've had no success whatsoever actually getting to grow.  I think I have a block from childhood, because my mother declared that we wouldn't grow it in our garden because it was "difficult."  I've had to overcome a few of those types of things, mostly related to crafts rather than gardening, but I'm determined to someday get broccoli to actually grow.  Maybe this year will be the one? There's always lots of talk on the broccoli packet about getting a second crop, but I don't really know if we have the kind of weather to allow for that- brassicas in general (broccoli being no exception) enjoy it a bit cooler, and the hot hot summer weather that we get here can be a bit of a downer.  Since our spring and fall aren't really mild and long, that puts another damper on things.  We're one of those climates that people describe as "Almost winter, winter, still winter, and construction." I have these started in my seed flat, though they're not germinating very quickly.  Hopefully they'll be ready to go by time I get the early plantings in, though! click here to learn about my experience with Fisher's Garden Store and to learn how to get a catalog of your own. 

[gardengirlb]

Fisher's Earliest Sweet Corn

Purchased From: Fisher's Garden Store for $6.50 Type: Sweet Corn Yet another leftover from last year.  The thing about Square Foot Gardening?  You don't use nearly the entire package of seeds, and if you don't have a ton of people to share with, you are definitely going to have overlap.  The good news there is that you can usually get 2-3 years out of a packet of seeds.  Each year will have a lower germination rate, as the seeds become less viable, but you generally get a good rate for a couple years in my experience.  The only important thing to do is to keep the seeds someplace dry, cool, and dark.  I've even seen people keep seeds in their own freezer!  Definitely make sure that the packets and seeds themselves are completely dry if you do this though- and put them in an airtight container that won't let any moisture in.  Your mileage may vary with that method, but it can extend viability for some things. I did not have a lot of luck with this one last year- I think it got a bit of a late start, and it started to form ears when the corn plants were kind of stunted.  I think this may have been due to my attempt at three sisters- this year I won't be doing that.  Just corn.  And I'm going to see if starting earlier under a row cover helps at all. In general, Corn isn't terribly well-suited to square foot gardening, but I know it's possible to do, since there were a couple people last year who had a decent fruiting.  Since corn is wind-pollinated, it can also be a bit of a hassle when you have so much growing close together to get full pollination.  A vigorous shaking of each plant when the tassles at the top of the plant have formed and silks are starting to peek out of the immature ears can be really helpful for that. click here to learn about my experience with Fisher's Garden Store and to learn how to get a catalog of your own. 

[gardengirlb]

Dwarf Gray Sugar Snow Peas

Purchased From: Fisher's Garden Store for $2.60 Type: Snow Pea Growth: Dwarf Vining So, these are the peas I tried to grow last year.  They did not really work out.  I think I planted them a bit late, and that the bunnies at the community garden decided that the shoots tasted quite nummy.  Because they were getting chewed down to the nibs.  I'm going to plant these midway through April, hopefully an earlier planting will result in a much better result this year. These are the type of pea that supposedly can self-support, but I'm going to use a small trellis anyway, because I hate the point when the peas start falling over.  Plus I think a trellis will make the pea plants less of a mess, so picking peas will be easier.  I really hope this year works better, because I adore fresh peas.  And it's always so satisfying when something works out rather than not.  I'd hate to have another empty area in my garden this year.  I want the spot to be completely overgrown! click here to learn about my experience with Fisher's Garden Store and to learn how to get a catalog of your own. 

[gardengirlb]

Dwarf Blue Curled Kale

Purchased From:  Fisher's Garden Store (Catalog) $2.55 Type: Curly Kale I grew this last year, and while I wish that Kale took up a bit less space, it was easy to grow, and of course tasty.  Well, the way I use kale- I make chips.  I'm not really a fan of bitter greens raw, and I didn't get a chance to let the kale sit through a hard frost to see if it sweetened up like I've been told- I will be growing some at the house this year for those purposes.  Yum! Kale isn't terribly suited to square foot gardening, as you can only grow one bunch per square, but this one is a bit smaller so I may be able to squeeze 2 into the block this year- especially since my blocks are slightly bigger than they were last year, as I believe I mentioned in my first planning post. It should be noted that I bought these from Fisher's Garden Store, which doesn't have its own website, but you can go to this post to find out how to get a catalog.  Once you make an order, you are on the mailing list for the following year as well, so if you buy from them every year (this year I've ordered seed potatoes), you'll not have to pay for the catalog again.  They really do have great customer service, since we're talking about that. click here to learn about my experience with Fisher's Garden Store and to learn how to get a catalog of your own. 

[gardengirlb]

Finalized Plot Designs for Pea Pods

I've pretty much finalized the layouts for the two plots I am renting at the community garden this year.  Surprisingly, I ended up with even more space than I anticipated, especially after going through the entire long list of items that I was planting this year!  I truly thought I was going to run into space issues, but, nope!  I had more than enough space, and there are only a couple things I am growing here at the house, so that didn't even really save much space.  I believe I've mentioned it before, but one thing I'm doing for sure is not inter-planting my sweet corn, and I'm going to be growing the spaghetti squash here at the house so that I can really let it go crazy- supposedly it is quite productive, so I'm hoping that turns out to be the case.  Before I go into more detail, if you're wondering how I did these layouts, I made them in the spreadsheet program in LibreOffice, which is a pretty good free word processing suite.  You could use pretty much any spreadsheet program (Excel counts) to do this, or you could just draw it out in a graphics program or similar.  Or just do it on paper.  I prefer to have it done nicely with text and whatnot on the computer, but your mileage may vary.  Doing it this way also allows me to print it out in a small but readable fashion that I can put in my 5"x7" gardening journal.  I like being able to put the layouts in my journal as well, because I can tape over them and then be able to use a vis-a-vis marker on them to mark them up and be able to wipe it off if I need to.  This of course means that if I leave the marks on, they come off on the opposite page, but that isn't a huge deal for me.  It is helpful when I need to mark up replants or things that I've already seeded. The top layout is for the bed I"m going to be doing most of my "early" plantings, which I'll do halfway through April.  I'll be using a row cover on them to keep things from freezing too much.  You might notice that I've put most of the more cold tolerant things in that bed as well- I really hope that getting my peas in earlier this year will result in a better yield, because last year they never really got going, not even as a fall planting.  Judging from the nibble marks on the young shoots, I think that was in part because of the resident bunnies that hung out at the garden, but there were other people who had great luck with peas, so I'm really hoping for better turnout this time.  I'll be planting peas at the house as well. Anyway, hopefully we'll be back to more scheduled posting next week.  This weekend I need to photograph some of my leftover seed packets from last year so I can do little write-ups like I did on the ones from this year.  I hope you guys enjoy that :)

[gardengirlb]

My Seed-starting Setup

I know it's not terribly fancy or nice looking.  But the only space I have is in my closet, which is just.. Well, unfinished in the extreme.  It's also chilly, but thanks to the warming mat I got (review later), that isn't affecting things at all.  My tomatoes are farthest from the camera, and they have several true leaves, with cabbages and broccoli and cauliflower closer, with fewer leaves.  You can see some bare stems- blame the cat!  I'm not sure if it was my cat, or the new kitten, but one of them got into the closet and nommed things.  I'm using a fluorescent lamp for light, since this is a closet and there's no light.  Obviously, this is not my ideal situation.  Even in the new house, there aren't a lot of windowed spaces that would serve well for seed starting- we don't even really have a good place for houseplants, as the one window that would serve currently has an exercise bicycle in front of it.  So here you have it- a completely artificially lighted seed-starting station.

[gardengirlb]

Glass Gems Corn

Purchased from:  Native Seeds/SEARCH for $5.95/50 seeds Type: Flint Corn I've been on the waiting list for this beauty for over a year, and I was really excited to see that it had come up available this year for purchase- even if the price was a bit steep, at nearly $6 for a mere 50 seeds.  Hell, I'm not even 100% sure that I'm going to have a long enough growing season for this, but I'm sure as hell going to give it a try. For seed-saving purposes, I am growing this variety only at home to avoid cross-pollination.  The thing to know about corn is that it is a natural outcrosser, so if you have different varieties of corn growing together, you can forget about saving your seed and getting the same thing you planted.  Sometimes this can also affect the actual edible corn that you're able to get, but if 2 varieties are similar enough (i.e. they're both sweet corn or popcorn), it won't matter.  Since I'm growing Fisher's Earliest Sweet Corn as my other variety, I don't dare put them near one another.  Also, I don't want cross-contamination from the community garden, so this one is going to be planted in my front yard.  How gauche! Also, if it isn't apparent why I purchased this from the seed packet, here's the original picture that started circulating around the internet a couple years ago:

True to the name "Glass Gems," eh?  I'm not the only one who had a garden-gasm over the gorgeous picture, either.  The story of this variety is also incredibly interesting, and can be found on the Seeds Trust website:

"Seedsman Greg Schoen got the seed from Carl Barnes, a part-Cherokee man, now in his 80's, in Oklahoma.  He was Greg's "corn-teacher".   Greg was in the process of moving last year and wanted someone else to store and protect some of his seeds.  He left samples of several corn varieties, including glass gem.  I  grew out a small handful this past summer just to see.  The rest, as they say is history.  I got so excited, I posted a picture on Facebook.  We have never seen anything like this. "

 That photo went viral last year sometime, and I'm just thrilled to be able to grow it this year.  I am going to baby the crap out of these plants- starting early with row covers to keep them warm, etc.  I really hope that our growing season proves conducive to getting some gorgeous ornamental ears as well as some saved seeds.