Time was not an issue this year because I was at home 24/7 and staring at my garden from my desk in the bedroom window. The view is impressive. I have a fenced orchard with 12 fruit trees. I have a chicken coop with 7 of my original 12 chickens still alive and well. I have three bee hives. I have a fenced in vegetable garden, a berry patch, an herb garden, a lavender field and a hugel of shrubs and native plants, and I am planning a rain garden. This is my 13th year of garden logging. I also have deer, groundhog, possum, raccoon, crows, hawks, squirrels, rabbits, chipmunks, a fox and an occasional coyote.
I have come to detente in my 16 years of living with a groundhog tenant in the back yard. Groundhogs only live 3-4 years on average, so the resident groundhog changes and the burrow is taken over by a new tenant every couple years. When we cleared the back of the yard this last winter for the orchard, I was finally able to see the layout of the groundhog burrow. It is under the upper 1/3 of the orchard with initially 3, now 4 entrances inside the orchard fence. Because that portion of the orchard is higher ground, it is drier and I planted the stone fruits (cherries and plums) in that half of the orchard, entirely without disturbing the burrow or burrow entrances. I also put the bee hives in that area because drier is better for bees. And I made rings with stones around the burrow openings so that I don’t step in them. They now look like hobbit holes.
The orchard fence is made of wire with 2x4 inch openings. The groundhog generally prefers to go under the fence and has several places where it has scraped exit trenches. Because the orchard is so bare and new I decided to plant squash and corn in there and put up a partition fence to keep the groundhog out of the lower 2/3 of the orchard. That was when I witnessed the Highway Ham Hobbit Houdini actually squeeze itself right through a 2x4 inch opening in the fence wire to escape after digging its way into the partition to eat all my sunflowers and beans. I had to reinforce the lower portion of the orchard with bird netting and really big rocks. No break-ins since, but the dry spell in June made the groundhog peckish and it climbed my cherry tree saplings and ate their lower leaves. It also ate the tops off my sweet potatoes in the upper orchard, and a lot of the yarrow seedlings. It has not so much as nibbled the peach tree. Obviously it does not like peaches.
The spring was cold. I planted in late March and although everything germinated, it stopped growing at about 1-3 inches high and just stayed that way until the end of June. It was rainy and soggy. The daffodils were amazing. Then came June and there was no more rain for 6 weeks. I actually had to water because of the new fruit trees and lavender bushes. The June grass looked like August. Most of the summer crops were ruined, with the exception of the extras that were thrown in the orchard and did really well. I’m not sure if it was because of the extra watering or because that ground has not been cultivated in 60 years, or both. The young trees will not be substantially shading the orchard for many years, so meanwhile I have plenty of space to cultivate between them.
The legume crop was spotty at best. My bean fixation wasn’t fixed so I am doubling down. Greens and Brassicas were just off. It was a deceptively mild winter and we had a very early thaw after almost no snow. But, although the spring was wet, it stayed really cold, too cold. My early greens didn’t get enough sun and my summer greens didn’t get enough water. So I’m going all out on leafy greens this year. There you have it: Greens & Beans is the focus this year…plus a few flights of fancy and the standard deviation into other edible oddities.
I had numerous gardening projects going this past summer and I am surprised at my own progress (having 2 bored teenagers at home added a lot of extra muscle and motivation):
The Orchard. My daughter wants to make sure she gets full credit for planting the orchard. Last winter we had the back 20 yards of the yard cleared and fenced. Although we hired help to do the basic clearing, and then to remove a large concrete pad we uncovered, and to put up the fence, my kids and the neighbor kids, did several hundred hours of work in the spring to remove all the roots, vines and rocks, and then, after the concrete slab was removed, they split 8 pines trees worth of logs and filled in the hole (which was one third of the orchard) and covered it over with dirt, used the remaining logs to complete the great hugel, and covered that with dirt and woodchips. And then it was time to plant fruit trees. We opted for the following varieties, from Willis Orchard and Raintree Nursery: 1 Self-fertile peach, 1 sweet cherry, 1 sour cherry, 1 green plum, 1 black weeing plum, 1 red-fleshed crab apple, 1 red cider apple, 2 honeycrisp apples, 1 self-fertile sugar pear, 1 white pear, 1 yellow pear. These are all 2 year old, 5-7 foot saplings that should fruit next year. Additionally, I ordered a Chicago Brown Hardy Fig, that was planted beside the boulder in front of the house, but is now a house plant (house twig) after the deer found it. I also have a weeping persimmon in the backyard swamp that is living in a cage to protect it from the deer.
The community garden. The InterGenerate community garden in my village was a big draw this past year, attracting new members and greater creativity by existing members. We got a really good watering system in place and made great use of it. The aim of the group is to teach people how to grow their own food and in that vein we donate both seeds and the harvest back to the community. Last year the focus will be on real subsistence crops: potatoes, beans and squash instead of the ultimate (super expensive) tomato. I was enthusiastic and went completely overboard ordering potato seed, beans and squash. This year I will be devoting my plot to leafy greens and hot peppers, things the community we serve really appreciate. I assume interest in our project will be even greater this year. And because my seed inventory is so high, I will also be donating seeds and plants to fellow gardeners. With the water system for the community garden up and running, we have turned our attention to perennial beds and pollinator patches. We have a large patch of goldenrod on the property we are thinking of expanding into a wild flower patch. We also are considering building a communal herb bed for perennial herbs. The mild fall also sparked interest in season-extending materials.
The Pollinator Pathway. This is a national movement subdivided down to extremely local chapters working to connect greenways, nature preserves and public lands with private properties where no pesticides are used to create green corridors that are pesticide free. I am also very self-interested in joining this movement because this was my second year of bee-keeping and I harvested some superb honey. So, started last spring with 2 bee hives and ordered a third. We harvested from the Hyssop (blue) Hive in late July, about 2 gallons. We took about 1.5 gallons from the Sunflower (yellow) hive in September. The Hyssop hive colony was overcrowded so I ordered a 3rd hive (purple) and split the Hyssop hive in August to see if I could build out the Lilac (purple) hive colony for winter. All was well until October when I discovered all 3 hives had “absconded” – they were empty: no bees alive or dead, no honey, pollen or larva. Research indicates there was too much competition for food. It was a crazy year for yellow jackets and I did observe lots of yellow jackets trying to battle their way into the hives daily. So I packed up the hives, wrapped them to prevent infiltration by wax moths, and put them away. In the spring I will clean them and re-locate them (the upper orchard may be too hot), and order two new colonies.
I planted a lot of native plants this year and unfortunately very few survived! June was a bad, dry month, and the month I tried planting everything. Turtlehead Cleome, Jersey Tea, Bergamot, Queen of the Prairie and Joe Pye Weed all failed. And that was a lot of plants! So too, the California lilac failed. The elderberry and a few beebalm survived, so did the buttonbush. The hyssop, salvia and iris did okay. The oakleaf hydrangea died. Astilbe and bleeding heart limped along. Ferns were hit or miss. Thistle and mullein were abundant.
Provence in New York. Last year we bought 24 gallon pot lavender plants on Cape Cod and we brought them home. We planted them in place of the wildflower bed that had petered out and started to go back to grass. They have been thriving with vigorous weeding by my chickens. So we decided to expand and went back to the same farm in Cape Cod for more plants this spring. However, there were no lavender plants, and we met the woman who had purchased every single one minutes before we arrived. She was gleeful telling us that our positions had been reversed the year before when we bought all the lavender the day before she arrived. So we sourced locally, but were only able to find 4 inch pots. Still, we planted 20 more. And all survived and have doubled in size.
The Wildflowers. The chickens were allowed to scratch and bare the soil between the lavender plants this spring and, amazingly, that treatment lead to a huge resurgence of the wildflowers. We had a sea of cornflowers, lots of wild white yarrow, poppies, foxglove, daisies and black-eyed susans and lots of things I cannot identify. Interestingly, the same thing happened in the orchard where the chickens spent a lot of time. I transplanted some of the yarrow to the orchard, as it is considered a good companion for fruit trees. And I moved some foxglove back there too, and still have more to transplant to the front yard. It was so successful letting the chickens weed the lavender that I am going to repeat the process this spring. The chickens do an amazing job of eating grass seed and turning the soil. I always let them in my garden in the spring to help me get a head start on weeding. And they spent a lot of time in the orchard this spring as well.
The Western Wall – This has been a disaster. I am going to move the kiwi berries to the orchard. I planted more asparagus and it did not take. Perhaps this is a bed for flowers only. But the iris is there but not blooming. Foxglove did okay, except that I moved it. The horse radish is okay because it is a weed. The rhubarb is failing. I should probably move it. Maybe this space should be a rock garden. Disturbing the soil, which is heavy clay, lets a lot more water into the foundation. Not good.
Hugelkultur. (You have to say that word with guttural gusto!) What?? It is the method of building a raised bed over buried logs. Finally, the great hugel is complete! All that wood left from our nine pine trees that fell 8 years ago during Hurricane Sandy has been split and buried. Helen and Calvin split all that wood this spring. And 20 cubic yards of woodchips delivered last year have been spread around the property. The great hugel is thriving. I’m dedicating it to native plants, including burdock, thistle and the biggest mullein plant you ever saw - it was 8 feet high and 4 feet around. We also buried quite a lot of logs in the orchard, to fill in the area where we had to remove a concrete slab.
Back to Eden. Scored 20 cubic yards of wood chips, last year from getchipdrop.com. The woodchip and cardboard weed barrier method of gardening worked really well in giant hugle and the front yard. And I got another 20 cubic yards in September. So much more to do. It will be the basis of the two rain gardens we are going to build this coming summer. I am still hoarding carboard. The pollinator patch at our community garden will also require and initial weed barrier of cardboard and woodchips to get it established.
The Herb Garden. I had a little problem with the herb bed two years ago when I let the Bull thistle take over. I like the thistles and transplanted them to the big hugel. I dug out all the little thistle seedlings in the herb bed and got rid of then. The bigger issue with the herb garden this past year was an invasive yellow primrose that I was tossing out left and right. And the violets have taken over the outer border. So I need to be more ruthless about thinning them. Otherwise, the bed flourished. I had to plant more rosemary and more thyme. This is turning into an annual thing. No matter what I do it does not make it through the winter. The oregano however is taking over.
The Shade Garden. I have to subdivide the herb garden into the light and shade portions because most of the herbs just will not grow in the shade portion so I’ve started planting native ephemerals and hosta. I should move the honey berry bushes next year. They don’t mind the location but they have not exactly thrived, so they are destined for the front yard with the blueberry bushes (that haven’t exactly thrived because the deer keep eating them..). Lemon balm and chives, by comparison, have taken over, as has that stupid yellow primrose that just has to go! Now, bloodwort, foam flower, mountain mint, spider plant and woodland stone crop all did well, and oddly, basil flourished there because of the moisture, even without light.
House plants. I think perhaps the fig tree needs to winter over inside this year. It did not thrive outside by the big rock. And then the deer got hungry and ate it. So it is recuperating inside and has a single, new leaf. Next year I also want some large ferns for the front porch. I bought a new wax plant vine (Hoya Obovata) to replace “Hobi” that died; this one’s name is “Obo”. “Brutus II” (a kidnapped Philodendron Hope Selloum cutting from an apartment sublet 20 years ago) has died. My Dracaena Warneckii (“Necky”) is 24 years old and still going strong. My sad little, Christmas cactus bloomed, at Thanksgiving, and now looks pathetic again. My Chicago Brown Hardy Fig is recuperating as a house plant after being munched to s twig by deer this summer; it’s going to be a patio plant for a couple years. The art glass terrarium is a desert wasteland again.
Woodlands. Just when you thought there was no piece of this property left for me to cultivate. I decided to make inroads against the vines and poison ivy on our lower, pine tree border. I mulched and clipped. There are many Japanese maple saplings in that border which I saved from the vines. I also found a bunch of jack-in-the-pulpit and a few ferns. I planted some ferns and astillbe and transplanted some violets and planted some impatiens. I threw some primrose in too, since I was ripping it out of the herb bed. It is very dry under those trees. I hope if I mulch with woodchips it will sustain some smaller plants. And on the upside of the property I have decided the privet row is too monochrome so I am replacing the dead ones with other types of bushes, hopefully a jersey tea or some oak leaf hydrangea. At the very back lower side we still have massive amounts of vines and some invasive wine berry bramble and Japanese barberry I would like to get rid of. There is also the bottom 20 feet of a big pine tree I want to put a possum nesting box in.
Rain Gardens. I am planning out rain gardens in both the front and back yard. In the front yard I have already started to smother the grass in the swale. I planted some blue flag iris in there. I want to add button bushes, a sweet bay magnolia, cranberry bushes and cardinal flowers. In the back yard, I want to put river rock into the back corner and plant some sedges, cranberries, button bushes, ferns around the borders of it. I already have a weeping persimmon sapling growing there because it is one of the only fruit trees that likes to have wet feet.
The seed list this year is a little complicated because I saw a video about the extraordinary amount of people who took up gardening during COVID, who are now hooked and want to try again this year, which is predicted to lead to shortages of every type of garden martial, from fencing to shovels to seeds and fertilizers. I’m good on everything but seeds, so I panicked and ordered everything before taking inventory of what I have leftover. Good and bad. I was shocked that I have received the 2021 garden catalogues only in the last two weeks and already many things are sold out! I have a large seed inventory left from last year but only 5-10 seeds of any type. So this year will be interesting. Additionally, I found that the addition of the fenced orchard has doubled my available gardening space protected from deer and groundhogs. So I need to start planting more. I am also very impatient – quarantine does that to you – and I want high-yielding, early maturing varieties of everything, NOW.
Legumes (follow the Root crops)
So my bean fetish was a bust. I planted lots of bush beans and the groundhog dug into the orchard and ate them all as they were flowering. Pole beans got off to a slow start. I really just didn’t get around to planting them soon enough and the June drought slowed them down.
Peas were also a bust since the spring was just too cold for them and then June was too dry. I saved some seeds and tried a fall crop which only grew a few inches before it got too cold. I used all my saved seeds trying for a fall crop, that failed, so back to the drawing board. Burpee’s “Wando”, was warm weather tolerant, but it was not tolerant of the June drought. So, I thought I’d give it another shot, but Burpee’s is not offering it this year. Burpee’s “First 13 Pea” was unremarkable. Again, the very cold, dark start followed by drought may have been the issue. But I don’t recall a single pea pod that had more than 8 peas in it. So I am not going to do that again. And I have decided that “Lincoln” peas are too tall for my pea fences (fences are 3 foot and Lincoln can grow to 5 feet. Although it is a “beloved heirloom”, I’m skipping it. As noted previously, 250 pea vines takes up all the pea fencing I have space for inside the walled garden. But, now I have all this extra space in the orchard….I might just go crazy and plant a thousand peas, just because I can. But I will be focusing on varieties that are early and prolific, and not too tall.
I saw some really pretty pictures of snap peas (as opposed to shelling peas), which have violet pods, and a semi-leafless and prolific sugar snap pea. I’ve never grown snap peas, so this is something new and it interests me because there is no effort of shelling and no tossing (wasting) the shells. And I have the space, and peas fix nitrogen in the soil.
The soy beans did not germinate so I tossed them. But will try again this year because I recall they are prolific growers. I want profusion, instantly.
Fava beans did remarkably well and bloomed beautifully, but then the dry weather slowed them down and only about half the blossoms fruited. The beans themselves, while delectable, are laborious to shell and skin. I saved seeds and grew a fall crop which handled the cold very well, and even blossomed. But, of course, it was too cold to set pods so I cut and ate the greens and blossoms. Really tasty! And, none of the labor to prepare! We will do that again. They are also supposed to be a good cover crop, so I might sow them all over in the fall.
Winged Beans sprouted, and they had very pretty blue blossoms that I did not test, but believe can be used for a natural, blue food-coloring. Not sure I planted them soon enough – maybe they are more like peas and I planted them on a pole bean schedule?? Anyway, I saved the seeds from the two pods that formed, and we’ll try again this year, earlier, on the schedule with the peas.
Bush beans, the ones the groundhog did not massacre, did really well. I have hit on a purple variety that are hardy and prolific, so we’re going with those again. The black bush beans were all eaten and I didn’t have any in reserve so I think I’ll just let those go.
An interesting article about Rancho Gordo’s native bean project (ranchogordo.com) led us to order several pounds of 10 varieties of obscure beans from remote Mexican villages. I am in the process of testing it they are still viable (put them in a bag with a wet paper towel in a dark cupboard) and can be germinated. If they can be germinated, then I’m going to save a few of each and grow them.
Runner beans- the June drought really did a number on the start of bean season. And then the ground hog broke into the orchard at ate most of the bean shoots. The ones that survived were excellent and runner beans are just not available in the grocery store. So I want to try them again. Last year I ordered Territorial Seeds “Scarlet Emperor” with red blossoms, and Pinetree Seeds “Painted Lady” with red and white blossoms, “Sunset” with pale pink blossoms. And Park Seeds “Stardust”, with white blossoms, the ones the groundhog didn’t eat where very tasty, but barely enough for one bowl. I have some left in inventory and I will buy some more. These are very tasty beans and they have beautiful blossoms that are also really tasty. They are a bit too heavy for corn or sunflower stalks but grew very happily on the orchard fence.
Brassica – Cole - Green Crops (follow the legumes)
I started a ton of seedlings inside. They all germinated. I planted them outside and they went into a suspended animation and stopped growing at about 5 inches tall. Then there was the June drought. Huge waste of space! So disappointed. Next year I will start them earlier, and have them bigger when I transplant them. They are also due for a crop rotation and some calcium supplementing. The cabbages were a complete bust, and the cauliflower. The kale limped along and seemed to perk up in the fall. It is biannual so I have hopes it will re-grow in the spring. The red Russian kale was heartiest and most of what germinated was actually self-seeded from last year. The Portugese Kale was small, but I’m letting it stand and have mulched it with straw to help it through the winter. The fall sown broccoli and collards all germinated and made it to about 6 inches tall, so I mulched those too in hopes of a mild enough winter to let them re-grow.
Spinach, a very fickle crop in recent years, did not germinate, at all. I’m thinking it needs to be started indoors and then treated like tatsoi and planted in its own 12 inch circle. Not exactly a good use of space, but I have all this new area in the orchard that needs cultivation, so will try it in traditional rows in the garden and more spread out in the orchard. Lettuce did well, except in June and July. So this year I am focusing on some heat tolerant varieties. Escarole and Endive were thriving, but this year I have to remember to eat them before the summer because the heat makes them bitterly inedible. The same is true of the French sorrel. I have two large, perennial patches of it, but other than the first, tender, spring leaves, it is fit for nothing but soup; I must resist the temptation to add it to salad! Arugula did very well, particularly in the fall, so I mulched it with straw to see if it will come back in the spring. Some varieties are biannual and the fall planting did not flower, so there’s hope. The nasturtiums did exceptionally well – they don’t mind the drought. And I tucked them in everywhere so there were plenty. I even preserved some of the leaves in the fall – cold pickled in lemon juice brine – to use like grape leaves. Mache is really hard to grow but for some reason the fall planting was a great success. This year I am focusing on a quicker maturing, cold hardy variety. Claytonia and purple orach are still lots of fun and germinate early and well. I direct sow those. I tried cultivating purslane but so much of it grew wild in the orchard this year that next year I will just throw the seeds in the orchard and not waste the garden space. Arugula is always a direct sow. And it is bi-annual so placement has to be thoughtful. This is a re-plant year so I planted and re-planted. The fall crop was much more successful, so much so that I deep mulched it with hay and covered some with plastic. It is still green, in December. I planted the large Italian dandelions for their leaves and roots but they got swallowed up by weeds in the hugel and then the rabbits ate them.
The Asian greens (pok choi, bok choi, tatsoi, mustard, chrysanthemum, Chinese cabbage) were a bust. Just never go going in the spring and I didn’t save any seeds for fall. Too bad because all the fall greens did really well. But this year there are so many crazy varieties available and the bounty in the fall green markets is just haunting me, so I have gone completely overboard on seeds. Maybe that’s the new obsession this year, greens and beans.
Celery, I discovered that you can just put the 1 inch cut end of the bunch directly into the ground, in the potato patch. And they all took root. Some are still alive under plastic. They are actually quite tolerant of cold and wet, so like the onion ends, they will never again be wasted in the compost pile.
Fruits (follow the Brassica and Greens)
I swore off eggplant last year, and then planted some anyway. Just some mixed fingerlings and standard black. I didn’t even have room for them in the garden, really, so extras went in the orchard. Well, the plants in the garden were stunted by the lack of water and too much sun. By contrast, the ones in the orchard went wild – nearly 4 feet tall. And Dan made enough caponata salad I had to jar it by the quart. I actually jar and preserve it. We eat all the eggplant we can grow either grilled, or eggplant parmesan, or roasted for babaganoush, or Chinese stir-fried with chicken and garlic. And one of our favorite restaurants in Key West makes a terrific warm eggplant salad that Dan has reverse engineered. So I’m planting the same again this year – some mixed fingerlings and some standard
I am trying an interesting experiment of over-wintering my pepper plants that did not fruit this year in pots, inside the house. Unfortunately, when I dug them up, I did not label them so, I don’t know if they are hot or sweet. I suspect they are mostly hot. I saved seeds from our very prolific Portuguese Dagger hot pepper (which was an extra that got planted in the orchard and exploded), and from the Chiltepin “Fire Flea” hot pepper seeds from our organic green market. These were the peppers I used to make Cowboy Candy this past fall. I also have a lot of seeds left over in inventory. The sweet Corno di Toro also did really well in the orchard (except that it looks identical to the Portuguese Daggar and I occasionally grabbed the wrong one) so I ordered some more, quick growing, sweet bell peppers. We do like stuffed peppers and I found a really nice Italian recipe for green peppers stuffed with venison and polenta.
The okra germinated well, but bloomed and fruited very sparingly. I tried a lot of different varieties and only the red burgundy and the cow horn produced enough for me to save seeds. The difficulty in growing okra here is the lack of heat makes the fruit form too slowly, so by the time you pick it at 3 inches long, it is already too woody and you end up with an inedible dish that is like okra couscous in small mesh bags. I really like okra, particularly blistered on a grill, but this past season I discovered that the entire okra plant is edible. Leaves can be cooked like collards, and the flowers can be battered and fried like zucchini blossoms. And they are really pretty. So I am ordering two quicker growing varieties that are reportedly cold-weather tolerant. Devil’s Claw did not germinate so I ordered more seeds - a member of the sesame genus, which can be eaten exactly like okra when it is young and is an herb with medicinal uses. The leaves and flowers are reportedly sticky and smell terrible, so hopefully I can plant it on the hugel and the deer won’t eat it.
The corn germinated well in the orchard. And we discovered that my honey bees really liked the corn blooms. I have several videos of the bees all over them, which led us to joke: did this mean the bees were cutting the honey with high fructose corn syrup? I grew Burpee’s Kandy Korn, very delicate and sweet. There are few things that compare to the taste of the first, fresh picked-corn of summer. And that first pick we ate was the last we had because the squirrels relentlessly shredded the rest and broke down the stalks starting that very night. I should throw up my hands and be done with corn. But, I have all this extra orchard space for the next couple years…
The squirrels thought the corn was an excellent appetizer for the 50 squash and gourd vines Helen grew in the orchard this past year. I managed to rescue 4 butternut squash, two buttercup squash and one queensland blue pumpkin and only because I put mesh bags over them before they were very big. Every other squash and pumpkin was gutted as soon as seeds had formed in it. The gourds, on the other hand, obviously do not taste good because the animals left those untouched. We have a nice pile of bushel, dipper, swan neck and bottle gourds drying (rotting) on the front porch. In theory those should have been brought inside and dried and cut and painted. But I was using them as decorations in the fall and lost interest.
And finally, tomatoes, tomatoes. The squirrels and chipmunks were more interested in the chicken feed, corn and squash seeds than in tomatoes this year. But the tomato crop was really late due to the June drought. And, by the time the tomatoes were ripe, almost everything else was gone, so the squirrels started in on any tomato I did not put a nylon mesh bag over. And then they got desperate and started gnawing through the bags. It didn’t help that we had an over-population of squirrels this year. Any given hour of the day there were at least 3 investigating the chicken run, climbing all over the outside trying to figure out how to get inside, to the chicken feeder. And the plum tomatoes in the back of the orchard were entirely undisturbed because they were not in proximity to anything else of interest to the squirrels.
Roots (follow the fruits)
I had a potato fetish this year. I planted 6 trash bags full, and another 12 in the ground, and then another 12 grew back from the previous year. The trash bag potatoes did poorly because they did not get enough water. They were harvested August first and there were no more than a handful of golf ball sized potatoes per plant, though the stalks had dried. The Rose Finn Apple fingerling potatoes were delicious and creamy. The Mountain Rose were interesting, rather nutty tasting. The German butterball look like scaly golden reptile eggs and made a tasty potato salad with diced sausage and a radicchio chiffonade. The Japanese sugar yams were excellent – sweet/nutty and drier than orange sweet potatoes. The extra ones I planted in the orchard were nibbled down by the groundhog. And there were 12 potato plants that re-grew in the prior season’s row. I clearly did not harvest them carefully. Looking back at the 2018 seed list I planted a red, white and blue mix of Yukon Gold, Colorado Red and Purple Viking, and my notes say the Colorado Red were particularly delicious. However, when I dug them up, there really weren’t any potatoes. So I left them there to see what happens next year. I’m over root crops so this year I’m restraining myself to some standard size gold potatoes and some weird, miniature, black potatoes (total click-bait). And the Japanese yams were soooo delicious (thick purple skin and a dry white interior the texture of russet but a pecan-like sweetness) I’m absolutely trying those again.
And remember the random mention of something called “Yacón”?…It is an Andes Mountain tuber related to sunflowers: “Yacón’s flavor is best described as a melding of crisp apples and watermelon with a hint of celery or water chestnuts”. It is eaten raw. It grows tall like a sunflower, only bushier and its roots are large, potato shaped tubers that are supposed to taste like crispy apples. I did buy one and planted it in the back of the orchard. It grew to be quite bushy, but never bloomed. It has a long growing season and I waited as long as I could before digging it up. It tastes like water chestnut to me, not sweet like an apple, but not as fibrous as jicama. It certainly should be eaten raw because it would turn to mush if heated. It is a perennial so I am supposed to save the rhizome winter it inside and replant in the spring. I put it in a small pot in a gloomy corner and let it die back. And now, eight weeks later it has started to re-grow. It was supposed to stay dormant! These plants grow eight feet tall and 3 feet round – not a house plant. But if I cut it back it might die, so now I must repot it and keep it alive until I can put it back outside in May.
The radishes seem to have the same issues as the spinach: spotty germination and needed more space than they were given. I’m tired of radishes. I’m tired of all the root crops! Even the carrots were worthless this year, although, to be fair, the grass beat them out and I did not weed them. They were in the raised bed this year, because of crop rotation schedule and did not get enough water either. Same was true of the beets. The tunips never got planted. The scorzonera and salsify were planted in the great hugle and although they germinated and grew, they are biannual so they remained low to the ground and may not have gotten enough water in the June drought. I will have to see if they re-grow in the spring. The milk thistle did well in the hugel and I am sure it will re-grow. I actually transplanted burdock (I transplanted weeds – yes, I do that) to the base of the great hugle. They are also a biannual so they should come back this spring, however, they did get mowed several times this past summer since they were too close to the lawn, so maybe they won’t.
Maca (the Peruvian radish with ginseng qualities) got lost. I think I might have planted it in the orchard when I was planting the yacon, but forgot to mark it. Because these very strange, large turnip-like rosettes were growing in the orchard and I mistook them for weeds and removed them in August. So, just out of curiosity I am going to plant this again. I still have not grown celeriac successfully and this year I’m not trying. Likewise, rutabaga I’m not timing correctly. I don’t plant it early enough. It is a companion plant for peas, yet I keep putting it in the ground a month later. I’m taking a year off from roots, except carrots and beets, and maca, and some Japanese turnips that look like pink carrots and are meant for pickling which is all I ever do with turnips.
It was a bad year for alliums (and for brassicas). The Egyptian walking onions are gone. I will replant this fall because they are so useful and I love their crazy corkscrew, tops. I did the leek/red onion/white onion mix from Territorial Seed and planted them in all the wrong places and the drought in June and July killed every one of them. NO LEEKY DANCE. This year I am starting my own leeks, three varieties for succession planting so I have 3 crops to fail instead of just one. I can grow leeks! I’ve done it before quite successfully. Onions, I’m doubling down and I ordered a sweet, northern mix of sets that I will plant somewhere new! Garlic, I impulsively bought a couple large seed heads in the fall, from a farm stand, and planted it in the orchard, along the center path. It’s in the ground – out of my hands. I even mulched it with straw. I have never before grown garlic, and we use garlic very quickly so not a lot goes to waste, but I am thinking of just tossing any garlic that does sprout in the pantry right into the ground. We have a lot of space where it could be tucked and nothing disturbs it, so why waste it in the compost pile. I feel the same way about onion bottoms. A quarter inch slice with the roots on the bottom will re-grow. Best to put it right into the ground and cover with about ¼ inch of soil. And scallions, I have belatedly learned, should never be pulled, just cut at ground level and allowed to re-grow. And I am going to attempt the same with leeks. The chives, it turns out, are a very good companions for fruit trees, so I planted some seeds at the base of each tree in the fall. We’ll see if they germinate.
I’m still having visions of a field of sunflowers, so I bought more seeds. Just have to protect the seedlings from the deer, the squirrels and the groundhog. Cannot direct sow them because the squirrels dig up the seeds like truffle-hunting pigs! Nasturiums were glorious this past year. I finally planted enough of them. And I even cold pickled the leaves in lemon juice to use like grape leaves. Alyssium is a lovely, pollinator friendly ground cover that smells wonderful. I’m going to sow it in the lawn and broadcast in the orchard. The beebalm I planted in the orchard did well, as did the zinnias and strawflowers and calendula. The comfry (labeled the most perfect orchard companion plant) which was planted in very early sprint as un-promising looking, short, cork-sized pieces of root, all sprouted magnificently. It has large, hosta like leaves and blossoms (which are purple), and is long standing, and can be cut and mulched in place at the end of the season, providing good nutrients. Lupine is also touted as a good orchard plant because it is a member of the legume family and fixes nitrogen in the soil. It germinated, but died off in the June drought. It is supposed to be perennial, so maybe some will come back. I sowed a lot of white yarrow in the upper part of the orchard and it germinated well, but the groundhog nibbled a lot of it over the summer. But it’s perennial so we’ll see if it comes back. White clover seems to be the go-to staple for my honey bees, so I’m going to sow a lot into the lawn in the spring. Oh, yes! And I did plant 300 more daffodil bulbs in the front lawn. I also planted 50 large, saffron crocus in the orchard.
The obvious conclusion is that the herb garden is not drained well enough for rosemary or thyme to overwinter. So that has to be re-planted, again, every year. This year I will try planting some in the upper orchard where it is drier and sunnier. My tarragon died, so that has to be replaced. The herb bed is over-run with a rampant type of yellow primrose I spent a lot of time ripping out. And the violets need thinning. I need to start moving some to the shaded parts of the front of the house. The parsley is supposed to be a biannual so I mulched it to help it survive the winter. And I also planted Hamburg Rooted Parsley in the fall and mulched the seedlings. Borage and cilantro have self-seeded themselves for the past five years, but I bought more to broadcast sow in the orchard. I also bought sesame because it has lovely seed pods. And I bought black cumin because I love the whole seeds to eat and it has a lovely blossom. I saved lots of basil seeds and have determined it does well in moist, not too sunny locations like the orchard and the shade garden. The mint did well last year and so did the lemon balm. The lemon balm has already seeded itself in the orchard, and there is a big bed of mint (that I never planted and never noticed until we built the great hugel) in the back, left corner of the property. French sorrel is happy in the herb garden – I have two, well established patches now, one in the shade side and one in the sunny side. It is very tolerant of poor drainage. It might do well in the rain gardens. The chives seem to be petering out. I need to sow more in the orchard anyway, since they are very good companion plants to fruit trees. My tarragon plant died – or appeared to – when I transplanted it. I will have to replace it, unless it miraculously re-appears in the spring. Marjoram and Oregano need to be divided and moved around. I have plenty of dill seeds and intend to sow them in the orchard this year.
