Breathing Room: What Are You Growing?
[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]
It’s been a while since I put up my last Breathing Room post; I probably should have put one up this past weekend.
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I was too busy with my vegetable garden this weekend to put up a post, which got a late start here due to a late spring cold snap lasting a couple weeks.
I’m in what has been historically USDA plant zone 5a-5b. I’ve been on the cusp between them; some sensitive plants have behaved as if this is zone 4. This area’s average last frost is May 25, so a late cold snap including frost should have been anticipated.
Unfortunately, most of us in this area have not paid much attention to this historical data and have been increasingly used to planting our gardens a week or two earlier. Some of us were taken by surprise by spring weather which actually agreed with historical data.
This says something about the climate crisis’s slowly boiling frog. We didn’t even notice that we have been gradually becoming used to earlier and earlier planting seasons over the last couple decades.
I should have noted it personally and expected the volatility in temperatures, swinging from nearly 90F in early/mid-May to nearly freezing and frost at the end of May. Over the last several years I’ve noticed some plants I’ve bought for floral planters have survived our winters – and that’s never happened up until the last 4-5 years.
Every year I’ve spent money at the local greenhouse on vinca minor (often called periwinkle). In the last 20 years I’ve planted it, it’s escaped my pots as its vines trailed over and made contact with the border in which my flower pots sit. Each time it escaped the vines which suckered and started during the course of the summer didn’t survive to spring.
At least not until 4-5 years ago. One vinca sucker survived. I pulled it out of the bed, planted a pot as usual the next spring only to have the process repeat. Three years ago the vinca survived in more than one border bed.
This year I found it had not only survived but completely swamped a rock garden border bed out of sight of the house and had already begun blooming by the end of mid-May’s hot spell. I had to rip it all out by hand and I can’t be certain I got it all. (I don’t use glyphosate herbicides, ever.)
Now I’ve learned the hard way – literally on my knees, pulling out plants – vinca minor is an invasive species and I’m going to have to avoid using it or aggressively clean out flower beds at the end of the season, more so than I’ve done in the past.
I wonder what other formerly annual plants are now perennials in this zone because of climate change.
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What I don’t know now is how the changing climate will affect my vegetable garden, and beyond that, crops grown in this state. If you’ve eaten a pickle on a sandwich from a fast food restaurant, chances are pretty doggone good you ate a Michigan-grown cucumber. The question of how the changing climate – and it IS changing – will affect our food is a real and serious question.
In practical terms it means for me I can plan on extended seasons. Not only has the start of the gardening season advanced by days and weeks, it has ended later and later on average.
First frost advisories I’d noted on my long-term calendar:
2019 — October 14
2020 — October 2 (didn’t actually get frost until 10/16)
2021 — October 23
2022 — October 2
A couple years ago I picked the season’s last zucchini on October 23. Since this area’s historical average first frost is September 25, I’d gained an entire month longer to harvest vegetables.
So what do I plant and when do I plant it if I can’t predict with any degree of reliability when I can begin to plant and when harvest will end?
Good question. All I know is that the late spring cold snap and the local population of vegetable gardeners colluded unintentionally to buy up ALL the zucchini plants by the time I could get to the greenhouse. Same for basil, all varieties, and some of the oregano varieties.
They left not a single Early Girl or Lunchbox tomato plant. Even the greenhouses don’t appear to be able to forecast market based on the climate or they would have had more of these perennial favorites available.
(Side note: Irritatingly, the seasoned gardeners knew to avoid the holiday rush on Memorial Day weekend, showing up on Tuesday morning instead, extending the holiday rush. A crowded greenhouse with poor ventilation is a COVID super spreader event in the making. Wear masks, people, COVID is still with us.)
Now I’ve had to buy seeds and start zucchinis, Early Girl tomatoes, and basil. The zucchinis will likely reach harvest since the varieties I’ve planted reach maturity in 45 days. The tomatoes I’m less certain of since they need closer to 60 days; it’s that last week and beyond which are always iffy for plants started late.
At least the seasonal forecast is for a warmer summer and winter with an El Niño cycle upon us, right?
If only climate change and the increasing variability of the jet stream didn’t muck with predictions based on the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle. This spring’s late cold spell did not match seasonal predictions of a warmer spring.
The Canadian wildfires will also mess with weather predictions. We had haze for weeks because of the fires in Quebec and Michigan, which may have led to some cooling.
NOAA-NWS says summer will be warmer than average here in the Midwest, which seems obvious given both an El Niño and climate change.
But given late May’s weird volatility and early June’s constant smoky haze, who knows for sure? NOAA-NWS hasn’t been able to say with specificity for years what impact the combination of the ENSO cycle and climate change will have on forecasts, either.
I’m going to hedge my bets and plan on a slightly longer, slightly drier season, but prepare to cover my plants in late August. In other words, the usual, but with more flexibility in my preparedness.
I’m also going plant some other greens indoors. I still can’t buy Napa cabbage locally, haven’t been able to do so for months now. This suggests growers in California are still having problems producing enough for the Midwest’s market. If El Nino means a wetter California, I’m going to have to grow my own.
What other truck farming crops are still affected by the excessive rainfall and snow pack this past winter-spring?
~ ~ ~
So what about you — what are you growing this season? And if you’re not a gardener, what changes are you noticing in your local vegetable market? How is the ENSO cycle and climate change affecting gardens and farming in your part of the world?
This is an open thread. Bring everything not on topic in other threads to this one.
For the record I am trying “lasagna gardening” this year — see https://youtu.be/dUFI2NlvB2I for an explainer.
It’s a no-dig method which suits me — less chance of injury (and I have injured myself digging beds), and the musclebound members of my family aren’t available during the gardening season.
I’m growing tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, zucchinis, pole beans, radishes, and tatsoi (to replace Napa cabbage).
What about you?
Thanks for this opportunity with this post.
We are re-wilding our yard. We have a lot of trees, mostly oaks and a couple of beech, which we don’t and won’t cut down. So we have loads of shade, more in front than back. In the back, we are leaving things mostly alone, though hubby planted some service berry bushes, various native viburnum, Nanny berry. He also scattered seeds of native plants: Golden Alexander, New England Aster, Native Columbine, Wild Bergamot.
I’m trying to shrink our lawn in the front and planted: Wild Ginger, Heart Shaped Aster, Zigzag Goldenrod, and other shade loving / tolerant natives.
So, no veges for us b/c of lack of sun.
If you have enough light for the native plants, you have enough light for shade-tolerant vegetables including broccoli, cauliflower, cabbages, lettuces, onions and chives, carrots. There are herbs which are shade tolerant, too. But you might have better luck trying them in raised beds or pots because I’ll bet you have rabbits galore. LOL
So, where we lived earlier, we had loads of sun and 4 raised beds. We really like raised bed gardening for veges. And you are right about the crucifers and lettuce. However, hubby won’t eat the crucifers. And yes, thanks, there’s enough light in back for herbs, and one spot is fine for even basil which I adore. So I might just get myself some basil plants. Too late for seeds I believe.
And speaking of climate change in the space of 30 years our growing zone has changed enough that I can plant stuff earlier.
You must be prescient because we have at least one bunny nesting in our back yard. And loads of deer, for which we would need and 8 1/2 foot fence…. just read yesterday they can jump that high
Oh, I believe deer can leap that high. I once saw a white tail deer take a nearly vertical leap on their hind legs over a +6-foot fence with amazing grace and ease. Damned near drove off the highway because I couldn’t believe what I saw. Sure paid a lot more attention to the road from then on, because if they were jumping from the grass on the side of the road closest to the highway toward a field on the other of the fence they had surely crossed the highway first. O_O
Just wait until you have an on road interaction with an elk. They bigger!
Was recently driving in northern Michigan where one has to drive 90 MPH to play defense.
Then I saw the warning. Elk crossing.
Hitting an elk at 90 would seem to be utterly catastrophic.
True, but we don’t really hear very often of someone hitting an elk in northern MI. Deer? Oh hell, yeah, can’t swing a stick without hitting a goddamned white tail in this state. Any hunters reading this, please, PLEASE come hunt deer here this fall.
Still recall having a buck with a big rack L E A P over the front end of my Honda CR-V one September. Nearly clipped his hind legs as he came down. Jesus, my whole life passed before my eyes with him dragging it behind him. My spouse nearly totaled his Chrysler 300 hitting a huge doe one morning on I-75 near Flint. The cops never found the deer – it must have been able to continue running.
He came at us from the side. If had been in front, we would have all been dead. Forerunner had a bunch of broken windows and dents on the left side, but all safe. There were elk horns inside. Yet he did his Taylor Swift thing, shook it off and stumbled off across the adjacent field.
Near Fairbanks in the fifties there was a musk ox known as George. The last count of totaled vehicles by George numbered in the sixties, all from head on George charges. I don’t know if the total included motorcycles. There were semis.
After he finally went missing, the authorities searched for and found his body. Died of natural causes.
So fear your deer, but dread the musk ox.
Elk are taller and much heavier than deer, so they tend to slid over the hood and through the windshield.
Ours came from the left side. Just flat out charged us. It seems funny now, but truly terrifying at the time. And the tempered glass was EVERYWHERE.
There’s a very good current streaming show on P+ called *Joe Pickett* based on a series by the excellent writer, C.J Box (wrote the basis of *Big Sky*, also).
The protag is a Montana game warden who is hard on his official vehicles.
In one episode early in this season an elk takes on his brand new, parked truck.
I have no idear how they shot the scene, but the truck ends up drivable but a complete mess, broken glass, dents, *etc*.
Interestingly, the horns seem to have left holes in the sheet metal that look like from bullets. He continues to drive the truck throughout the season.
I had a friend die a few years back in WI from driving off the road and into a ravine, apparently to avoid a deer (her passenger survived).
Deer can do the same thing as elk, slide over the hood and into the windshield. That’s what happened to my mom as a teenager. Didn’t happen to my spouse, just fucked up his hood. I suspect the profile of the car’s front end plays a role.
Here in northern Maine it’s the moose that get you.
Now moose on the road would terrify me. I’ve been fortunate to see them in swampy areas off road, but they are so huge and so powerful.
I think of this video every time someone talks about moose: https://youtu.be/6GEhM2Byk7w
We also have a wild backyard, and we also have deer. I damn near stepped on a fawn yesterday – very little, staying frozen while momma tried unsuccessfully to get the lumbering brute to follow her.
Not sure it’ll help, but I’ve always heard deer won’t jump a fence if they can’t see the other side, so if you can swing it a six-foot solid fence will stop them.
We don’t have that kind of money, so we bend remesh into arches and cover all our beds. Big four-inch holes but apparently the deer don’t like sticking their heads through them.
(Rayne, I had taken the space out of my name because I though the new system wouldn’t allow it. I’m putting it back, and will comment as “higgs boson” from here on out. Thanks!)
My son happened to snap some photos of a fawn just outside his office window this week. What a treat to see them so close when they’re so young. Glad you were able to spy one even if you almost made contact.
p.s. no problem with the name, higgs boson it is.
Thanks for your post, Rayne, and I’ll be interested in anything anyone has to add about shade-tolerant, small-space planting. My “garden” consists of a window box on a north-facing windowsill in a 4th-floor walkup. I’ve got a lush crop of sweet woodruff, 2 miniature iris I grew from bare root, and one primrose that’s lasted a couple of years now. It’s not much, but it’s enough to get me up checking the “garden” every morning. The herbs I’ve tried always get leggy and buggy, and as for food crops, fageddaboutit. I’ll be reading everyone’s entries here with interest (and some envy, I’m afraid). Thanks, Rayne!
You could try microgreens — harvest them as soon as they are a few inches tall, before you even have to worry about them not getting enough light or too leggy or whatever. Plant pots on a staggered basis and you’ll have fresh microgreens all season.
If you are interested in native plants for shade (though if it’s a window box it likely doesn’t matter)…. take a look here: https://www.prairiemoon.com/
thanks, Rayne & DrH–excited to check them out! I can tell you the disappointment when something fails to thrive & dies, is just as profound with a window box as it is with a back yard. But hope prevails! thanks again….
My order of Nature Jim’s Sprouts brand salad mix seeds arrived today. I’m going to “eat my dog food” and try them both as sprouts in my new sprouting jar, and as microgreens grown on my deck in a small container. Give it a whirl — if you don’t have luck with the seeds as microgreens, you can still do them as sprouts indoors. Good luck!
Thanks, Rayne, off to check it out. I’m also now wait-listed at Prairie Moon for 3 Virginia Bluebell plants, and if I can manage a pot of microgreens, that will be the limit of my Farmer Browning for this year, my acreage being as scant as it is. What a lovely thread you started, and may everyone’s garden grow exactly as we envision it!
If you were my neighbor, you’d find some on your steps before lunch.
I’ve been in the Hudson Valley for 15 years now, and it’s about a zone warmer than when I moved here. I gambled this year and put out a ton of stuff early—seeds and starts—and just about everything is huge & thriving. I harvested a softball-sized kohlrabi last week, carrots are 6-8″ already, broccoli is heading, and so on. The growing season is at least a month longer than it used to be. Unsettling: while at the moment it’s nice to be able to grow even more of my own food (and I grow a lot), it’s not going to stop here. And I suspect the curve of change will steepen, and suddenly.
I had to give up on growing garden lilies, because we rarely get frost in winter now, in L.A. In the 80s it was much more common. (Tulips are an annual here. Geraniums are a perennial.)
I remember as a kid in the 1960s my folks had a geranium border around our house in LA area — and by border I mean a 3-foot hedge planted right next to the house. They had an Eichler-type house with floor-to-ceiling window walls. I would pull back the half-height cafe curtains and look through the geranium thicket, couldn’t even see the street for it. Big bright red blooms. Seems like a dream thinking about it here in the Midwest where geraniums never get bigger than a pot on the porch.
try planting mexican sunflowers, tithonia rotundofolia. drought-tolerant & heat-loving annual, very robust members of the aster family. they will grow as high as you will let them, flower continually all season long with bright red-orange petaled flowers 2-3 inches across (as opposed to those platter-size displays of heliotropes.) bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, insect-eating wasps, all kinds of pollinators, love them. easily transplanted and sometimes self-seed the year after.
we have an inner-city fenced garden of six raised beds, maybe 20’x25′, in Rochester NY — probably similar your zone. once the tithonia come up and begin flowering, the garden becomes a beautiful refuge.
I could give them a shot, probably too late this year. Only challenge will be the deer as I doubt they will care which member of the Asteraceae family — tithonia rotundofolia or helianthus annuus — present themselves as dining options. Betting you don’t get many deer messing with your inner-city fenced garden beds. LOL
nope, no deer. and three random apple trees we bought at a roadside nursery a few years ago are ridiculously high-yielding. no bugs, no other apple trees within miles, no need for anything but judicious pruning. crazy.
but I do miss the large hillside garden we had for many years in central vt…
Sunflowers!
I have a black thumb, but I’m going to give them a shot. So far, so good.
Long, long time follower. Long time, no comment! My name has changed. It used to be something like “Critically thinking in NC.”
Great appreciation for Marcy (especially, of course), Rayne, Bmaz (he’s not perfect, but he’s got a tough job to do here), and the others. Much appreciation to the rest of the community for the learned discussions. I find that this remains one of my most trusted sources for accurate information on the internet. Best wishes to everyone!
[Thanks for letting us know about the name change. Welcome back to emptywheel. /~Rayne]
LOL The last two years I had sunflowers — volunteers, as I hadn’t planted them, likely came from birds’ droppings after they fed at the neighbor’s bird feeder.
Unfortunately I had a very narrow window of opportunity to enjoy them. They’d open and the next day they’d be gone, gnawed off the plant. It seems the neighborhood deer felt these needed “pruning.”
” The last two years I had sunflowers ”
lol. a gift of love from the Ukrainians
I live in the Middle Rhine area in Germany (south of Cologne, for orientation), which puts our house at roughly 50° N which is basically the same latitude as the very bottom of Hudson’s Bay. In spite of that, we are in USDA Zone 8, due to both the Gulf Stream as well as a microclimate in our area.
We have two palm trees in our backyard, as well as a cluster of banana plants (currently between 3-4 feet tall and visibly getting bigger each day). The black cherries on our tree are going to be ripe in a couple of weeks, and my red currants have been gracing our breakfast table for two weeks now (black currants and gooseberries need a bit of time yet). My herb garden is going mad. I have to keep cutting back the (large-leafed) sage, as well as the oregano, thyme, (Italian) basil, and my rosemary is like a bush now. It should be noted that these are all evergreen here where I am.
I’ve gone mad for roses since retirement and they are also fantastically lush this year (bunch of David Austin’s in there) — the roses do not drop their leaves during the winter either and I often still have some small blooms at Christmas time.
The Rhine, which is about 100 yards from our front door, is, however, extremely low, we are panting for water and there are already major worries about late summer if this keeps up (temps in the 80s during the summer are becoming standard rather than the exception). We are better off than elsewhere, but already some trees showing stress. Sigh.
Wish I had enough ground on our small plot of land for a veggie garden, but sadly not. On the other hand, the roomy pergola that we have at the back of the garden is worth its weight in gold.
Not yet growing, but I’m finishing building four raised beds using corrugated roofing panels and lumber (they’re all the rage on YouTube😁). They’re 30 inches tall and the bottom layer will be logs, then compost, then a custom soil mix. This is similar to hugelkulture, where a mound is created with buried logs and other woody material. The material breaks down over time and provides nutrients plus it helps to absorb water—after a couple of years, no irrigation is required.
I have four grandkids living down the street from me and they’ll help pick out which veggies to grow.😁😁😁
Very interesting. I’d love to try hugelkulture but it won’t fly in this neighborhood, looks too rustic. My neighbors are already PITA about lawn care around here.
Living in “Zone -20 below”, I bought some Siberian Peashrub seeds. I came across a line of these interesting bushes in what appeared to be an abandoned field station lot while hiking in the national forest nearby. They form long bean like seedpods when ripe. They fix nitrogen into the soil, attract butterflies, and tolerate poor soil from what I’ve read.
Huh. Hadn’t heard of Siberian Peashrub before. Only problem with them is that they may be restricted in parts of the US as they can be invasive.
See U-Wisconsin, for example — there are cultivars which are exempt but peashrub is otherwise restricted in the state: https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/topic/Invasives/fact/SiberianPeashrub
Do let us know if you harvest, cook, and eat the peas.
My father planted some in the windbreak in west Texas, but only one survived.
Try Haskap berries, often called Honeyberries in this country. They’re delicious and super hardy- native to Siberia and most northerly isles of Japan. U Saskatchewan did some work adapting them to NA. Aurora and Borealis are best varieties in my cold winter, but rarely -20, climate. I think most cultivars will tolerate temps south of -50.
Thank you Rayne. Gardening. Delightful topic. Dirt digging is therapeutic.
Full sun flowers and herbs I grow for balcony garden. Marigolds, dianthus (sweet William), zinnias, and vincas. Newest addition Nigella (Love-in-a Mist). Still growing to eventually become jewel like quirky, whimsical flowers.
Link for more information about Nigella:
https://www.thespruce.com/how-to-grow-nigella-damascena-1402911
I would like some dianthus in my beds. I miss the fuschia colored ones I had at my old house, should have dug them up and brought them with me along with the irises I kept. A childhood friend’s mom used to grow nigella. It lined both sides of the walk to the front door. It was like walking into a cloud. Too fussy-looking for me, though.
This summer I’m having some aged and raggedy-looking shrubs pulled and replaced. I’m looking at hakonechloa (Japanese forest grass) to replace them, love the sweeping shapes and the gold-colored ones in particular. Also looking at planting Russian sage, as tall a variety as I can find to use as a screen. My neighbors are a bit too nosy when I’m out relaxing on the deck and I’d rather have a blooming plant to block their view than some other constructed divider.
Russian sage is very invasive. Be careful where you put it.
Thanks. Russian sage isn’t invasive per se, but it has a nasty habit of suckering like mint and bamboo. I’m not worried about the particular bed which I’ve targeted for this, but perhaps I should look at a non-invasive mega-height grass or Verbena bonariensis which I could grow in a pot and winter over.
Yes, it is like mint in that way. The problem is that the growth is unpredictable and comes up anywhere/everywhere. It is a good plant for a commercial corner where that sort of growth is not a problem. Texas Sage seems like a better bet if it grows there and if you like that bluish color of the leaves. It has fantastic flowers once or twice a year. It has a nice shape, and the leaves are interesting. I think it is more shrub looking than the R Sage. But also, grasses, lovely. I do regret planting the Russian Sage in my yard, even where I thought it would be fine–like the strip between the sidewalk and the street. But not.
I am growing – old.
My son, on the other hand, is growing sweet potatoes, more sweet potatoes, and even more sweet potatoes. And Pineapple, Dragon Fruit, Blueberries, Passion Fruit, Limquats, Myer Lemons, Limes, Bell peppers, Jalapeño, Zucchini, Snap peas, various spices and peppers.
Not all at once – the space isn’t that large.
Pete
That’s a LOT of variety your son is growing. Wish I could grow dragon fruit here. Sadly, I have to rely on my parents to grow some in Florida. I’m still waiting for my dad’s mango tree to reach maturity.
I’m in the west. Alberta. We had an early warm (hot actually and dry) Spring. Led to the western Canadian forest fires.
My wife does the growing round our house but she was off visiting the grandchildren so I had to start her tomatoes. Just asked her … we’re zone 3 so we need a greenhouse to extend the season.
One of the varieties she had me start this year were San Marzano. I thought these were expensive canned plum tomatoes from a particular place. Had no idea I could actually grow my own! Looking forward to how they turn out.
Yum! Can’t wait to hear how your San Marzanos turn out! I have had middling luck with paste tomatoes and too much luck with the tiny ones like Sun Sugars. The latter are nearly invasive with volunteers showing up every year in weird places.
San Marzano does well for me in a similar climate to yours. If you’re ok with hybrids, Monica is a lg., prolific, and good quality paste tom.
We have a large 2000 sf vegetable garden with permanent beds of asparagus and rhubarb, and we plant snow peas, potatoes, onions, garlic, tomatoes and peppers, okra, two kinds of squash, cukes, green beans(bush), and a myriad of flowers too…and some MJ as it is legal in this state…and we have a smaller lettuce and herb garden with several kinds of lettuces, cilantro, spinach, basil, rosemary, mint and more flowers. My wife is a natural plant person and starts everything from seed…
Wow, that’s amazing! I’ve tried asparagus but had no luck. Hoping now that I’m no longer working 60 hours + a week (re-tired, which is tired over & over) I can pay more attention to the first year or two.
The newer all male Jersey hybrids are the most productive, the old ones ain’t bad, and the really old varieties such as Mary or maybe it’s Martha Wash. are the longest lived and, I think, hardiest.
Thanks, will look for those…
In Northern California, my vegetable garden was mostly cherry tomatoes and herbs – basil, oregano, thyme, parsley. The deer, rabbits, birds, and other critters ate well. They even saved some for me.
I spent more time on finding drought resistant and deer resistant flowers and shrubs: verbena, which would become perennial, if the deer didn’t get them the first year, red and yellow yarrow, rosemary, of course, and certain types of salvia. And I discovered that you could have too much lavender: fighting off bees in order to get to my front door forced me to clear off the lavender from the entry way. I planted jasmine and potato vines for my arbor – only to discover that I was allergic to jasmine.
The previous owner had planted juniper as ground cover. I pruned some back only to discover the horrible truth – the top is green growth, the bottom is deadwood. (Many people had that as ground cover only to discover another horrible truth – the deadwood is flammable.)
Another horrible truth – on the first few Earth Days, people planted trees. Unfortunately, not all trees are suitable for all areas. My neighbor planted a coastal redwood, next to a young Douglas fir. Coastal redwoods have very invasive and long stretching roots, self-prune, sometimes dropping big, heavy branches (loggers call them widowmakers), grow very tall very fast and are subject to blow down. They are not suitable for residential yards. The Douglas fir just dropped lots of pine needles and one pound pinecones. After every windstorm, I had to clean my yard and my gutters of branches, pine needles and pinecones.
I moved to the mid-Atlantic where the growing season seems too short and the deer too plentiful. So I am now on vacation from gardening.
LOL you discovered all I’ve leaned with my Blue Rug juniper, now just an ugly mess of dead wood. It’s going bye-bye this summer.
Planting the right trees for location and zone is so important. The developer of my neighborhood planted pines in the outlawn, most of which have become diseased and have struggled for nearly 20 years. He picked a non-native variety and did nothing to remediate the clay soil in which he stuck them. What a hack he is. Anyhow, now I’m going to have to fight with the HOA to have native varieties planted in place of the crappy ones which are dying off. We don’t have wildfire risks *here*, not *yet*, but everywhere is a potential wildfire site as the climate crisis deepens.
If you get the urge to garden, try one of those countertop hydroponic systems. Very little fuss for fresh greens.
The wildfires in California have been instructive about the perils of non-native plants, shrubs, and trees. Eucalyptus lit up like torches. Embers went into gutters clogged with pine needles.
The previous owner of my property was a Master Gardener. He planted a tree, if I recall correctly, a Franklin tree, which had been popular on the East Coast in the 1800’s. His wish to revive its use was, perhaps, noble but ill-fated. It never thrived. Wrong soil, wrong climate.
I do occasionally grow herbs indoors but I travel enough to make maintenance difficult.
Thanks for the diversion, Rayne. I’ve been using a bin in my kitchen sink and recycling dishwater (and shower water) on a couple of my outside gardens for most of the last year or so. Drought. It’s bad. We are not subject to severe water rationing yet. Thirty years ago I used to be proud of getting the swamp coolers running by the end of May, but now people are complaining of the heat by early April, so now I am on the roofs in early April. Climate change.
I am a big compost enthusiast and have grown lots of fruit trees from compost: apples, peaches, nectarines, apricots. I love my red worms. My experiment w compost this year is two worm buckets with holes drilled in the sides buried to the lids in two beds. I have two other composts–one for food and one for non-edibles. I use soaker hoses or the food gardens fail. Last year I tried bokashi, but it is expensive composting. Not sure it was better than worms. I seem to have a new crop of some kind of squash. I guess I’ll leave a few plants in case they might be pumpkin. I’m basically just happy anything can grow in the heat. I’ve been aggressively weeding out sunflowers, which I love and so do the birds, but they volunteer everywhere. We’ve also had a bumper crop of tumbleweed this year. Vinca requires little water and is a nice green, however invasive. Bermuda grass is the bane of my life.
I have a lot of other volunteer plants from compost too, and I find they are hardy. But also no idea what kind besides “tomato” or “squash” until they bear fruit. Apparently I have acorn squash and zucchini this year, but squash bug season is also here. UGH. Herbs like basil also volunteer. I have been giving away volunteer tomato plants and am letting them grow amidst the flowers, also just an experiment. I planted cucumber and got another rhubarb plant after I killed the ones I grew from seed last year. It seems to be doing OK. I also have a nice green grape vine that bears a lot of fruit that birds, bees, and raccoons also enjoy. My peaches and nectarines mostly got nipped in the bud by frost this year, but the apples are producing. Fruit is really my best crop.
It’s really mostly a labor of love. When we have water rationing, my garden days will be over.
Bokashi. Interesting. I’ll have to look into that. I’ve started composting my vegetable scraps but only in a half-ass fashion, thinking I would eventually toss them on the lasagna garden bed.
You might look into using terracotta ollas for watering if you’re using greywater, substituting them where you use soaker hoses. They can be pricey to buy, but you can make them from terracotta flower pots. They’re a PITA here in Midwest because they have to be removed in autumn since the ground freezes and shatters terracotta, but they’ll probably work very well where you are. Mulch where ever you can because it will hold the moisture in the ground longer.
If you’re just starting composting, I [continue to] read an old copy of Victory Garden (or similar name, can’t find the book now, arg!), and the basics are: start with some soil or previous years’ compost, add vegetation to I don’t know 6 inches (include dry stuff like Fall leaves or whatever – too much green is nitrogen-rich and takes longer to compost), then sprinkle some garden quality lye on it (to reduce the acidity), add an inch or 2 or soil, and repeat. I have 2 1 cubic yard boxes going for some years now. When one is done and added to the garden, I start refilling it while the other box is ready for the next season or 2.
I used to stir the compost, but that became too much work at my age. And the robins cussed me out for not vacating while they picked for worms. They’re very forward sometimes. So I just let nature do its work, and shovel out the compost from the bottom of the cube’s portcullis.
I have some experience with composting. We used to compost our vegetable scraps as a kid; my dad has also composted vegetable waste when he’s up north, has a fancy-schmancy composting bin he gives a spin every week.
Not sure where you are, but I’m in a rain shadow in the Potomac Valley in WV. We have had drought conditions for the past two years and this year looks no better so we’ve downsized the garden till it’s over. I’m having to water my fruit trees weekly and all our other “baby” trees with shallow roots.
But as you are a compost connoisseur I finally have someone to brag to that I have made the most fantastic compost that is like black gold. We use to get the neighbors old horse manure, but after two years of composting chicken poo and straw plus kitchen scraps, along with about 4 quarts of me pee to heat it up even more and under a tarp to keep the water out- that giant pile has transformed into dark, luscious and fine grained compost, full of fat worms.
I seriously hate turning the pile as it is so heavy in the beginning, but I am so stinking’ proud of it and the growth it is spurring on the veggies we did plant. It also seems to hold water very well which is critical right now. The only problem is that the finished product is about a quarter of the volume of what you start with.
I have a new pile I’m working on for next year as chicken poo is so hot it take about a year to cool and break down to where it can be used.
But I’m so proud of this stuff that when I’m goofing off between chores, I’ll go to the compost pile and put some in a bucket just to marvel at how fine it is and pull out some worms as a thank you gift to my chickens for their wonderful poo. That’s what folks with no tv and crappy internet do for fun lol!
PS
I have massive squash bug issues and they are resistant to the organic chems I will sometimes resort to, but I found a solution, a mechanical one.
Every evening I take a roll of duct tape down to the garden and wrap it sticky side out on my hand and it totally pulls off the eggs on the underside of the leaves and the copulating adults at the base. And it works! If you are fastidious about getting the eggs, the few adults still around cause minimal damage.
Hope that works for you if you’ve never tried that.
Oh, thanks! I will try that. So far I have driven the few I’ve seen up the stems with watering, and then SQUASH. Stinky little things. I had some other similar beetles on my apple trees a week or so ago. Also nasty. Never seen them before. But I will def try the duct tape!
having moved from a L.A. house to a PacNW condo, i had to say sad good-bye to my incredible raised beds and year round veggies and hello to two small earthboxes on my balcony, currently bursting with three types of lettuce and parsley & cilantro for nightly salads. our June Gloom is keeping the lettuce happy.
Freshly picked lettuce is so, so good. Love the parsley – I grow flat leaf in a 14″ square pot of herbs I winter over every year.
But you can keep the cilantro. I’m one of those genetic freaks to whom the stuff tastes like soapy grass.
That is the oddest thing about cilantro. Lucky me, cilantro and I are great companions. Just wondering, do you avoid cilantro in salsa? What about coriander seeds?
I avoid cilantro in everything, even east Asian foods. *blecch* If I have a recipe which calls for cilantro, I substitute flat leaf parsley.
I can’t think of any recipe I make which calls for coriander. But my genetic aversion to cilantro could explain why I’ve had bad experiences with some curry dishes if they contain coriander. Come to think of it, I’m not crazy about Famous Dave’s BBQ chicken which I think has coriander in the seasoning.
Yep, coriander is found in curries and spice blends such as garam masala. Also in some ales. I have some in my spice collection but can’t remember the last time I used any.
We live in zone four (a) and our battle, at least MY battle, has for the last 3 years been early high temps and periods of early drought. I don’t usually plant from seed except beans so this year I lost almost all my herbs after first planting on Mother’s Day. Right now high temps and no rain require soaking in the early morning and at dusk. So far my tomatoes beans and cucumbers are soaking up all I can give ‘em and I’m not looking forward to our water bill this summer.
My wife mainly does the gardening since I have a black thumb. We have a couple of pots of tomatoes plus several of perennial/self-seeding herbs (thyme, oregano, mint, etc.). We don’t get many tomatoes off the plant in the PNW–there’s not really enough heat for their taste. On the back fence we have blackberries (a thornless hybrid) and marionberries. There’s flat-leaf parsley all over the edge beds. Up front there’s a couple of blueberry bushes, a huckleberry, and two Asian plum trees (and a bed full of vinca minor). The plum trees will be a little light this year, mainly because we pruned them back hard last winter. We’ll probably “only” get about 10-15 pounds of the earlier red plum and 20-30 pounds of the later yellow. In good years, we give a lot of fruit to the food bank.
The plums were definitely late to flower this year because of the cold and damp. The fruit is making up for lost time though.
Yum, Asian plums. Wish you lived nearby because I’d buy some from you!
Your money’s no good here! If you lived nearby or are passing through in late July/early August, you’re welcome to have some. By midseason, we’re in Forrest Gump territory. Plum sauce, plum cake, plum leather, plum scampi….
My gardening tip. Cattle panels. Sold at Tractor Supply.
They can be bent into an arch for vining vegetables. Or cut into smaller parts to build tomato cages.
https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/feedlot-panel-cattle-16-ft-l-x-50-in-h
THAT IS AWESOME. Might be the most useful tip I’ve gotten this year AND there’s a TSC just down the road! I need to come up with a gate on my deck to keep my son’s high-jumping ADHD dog on the deck and off the lawn. One of those panels in a smaller size will work perfectly if I can frame a sliding mechanism.
Also a good suggestion for my friend who uses wood pallets set at an angle on which to grow her cucumbers. I think these panels are lighter and may last longer than the pallets. THANKS!
I’m a carpenter and I’ve used hog panels for fences and deck railings as well, inset in a wooden frame
Works great.
They sell different size panels for different animals.
Cattle panels from TSC are this rural MI gardener’s best friend! They are much nicer than remesh, heavier and they don’t rust.
To keep my big dogs from digging up and/or carelessly running over things with their giant feet, after cutting to 8′ length (they are 16′ long) I bend the panels in half lengthwise to form long arcs to use over just-planted seeds until they get established (I plant in blocks, not rows). For crops like corn I leave the arcs in place so the dogs don’t lodge it.
When bending lengthwise into the arches for trellis as JHARP suggests, I use those pound-in fence posts to tie the panel to (I use binder-twine left from straw bales but it sounds like you may need a more attractive solution where you live, maybe wire). I also use flat pieces tied to the fence post for tomato and cucumber trellis.
Finally, I. also make circles out of it to support (and keep dogs off) tall flowers like Joe Pye, and short pieces of the arc shapes hold up hardy hibiscus (kind like a flower frog).
You’re gonna need bolt cutters to cut the panel.
Hadn’t thought about bending the panels in to arches — that might be a solution for creating cold frames from my raised beds. Just cut a panel to length, bend, fix to bed with stakes, cover with 5-mil plastic before snow flies. I could grow cold weather greens most of the winter. Super! Thanks!
You’re welcome! I was glad to finally be able to comment on a topic without the risk of sounding like a complete idiot. Heh heh.
The panels as row cover holders will make it a little challenging (but not impossible) to harvest your greens. I use half-inch conduit bent into arches or gothic style to hold my plastic for winter harvesting. I’ve also used half inch PVC slipped over rebar stakes, forming a natural arch. Check out johnnyseeds website for how they hold the plastic. They also sell the best seeds – especially good for microgreens selection.
Still thinking this through, am worried even with stakes a small hoop house built over my 4×8 raised beds will take off flying in the worst weather. I may have to do some carpentry to construct a wood frame to attached to the raised beds — and instead of bending the panels into arches, buy smaller ones and leave them flat but attached to the frame making an A-frame with one side I can lift up on the lee side of the bed. It will definitely be sturdier than the flexible water pipe I’ve used before for hoops.
Will check out johnnyseeds — I’ve bought seeds from them periodically so I’m familiar with them. Thanks!
Mine have never flown off, but you could make a frame for the conduit hoops for peace of mind. I made one a few years ago from 2x4s that I spade-bitted holes (on the 1.5″ side) to hold the conduit, then stapled the plastic to the frame. I used mine on the ground, just propping it up with a stick to harvest (I used a couple stakes on the “hinge” side to keep it from sliding when I Iifted it). You could make a frame on your raised beds to hinge this hoop lid to, or if they are made of wood just directly attach with hinges. 8×4 is what I made and it was a bit heavy, so I would go with 2@ 4×4 instead; I was going to try something with 2x2s but ended up with the set-up I described originally here (because I didn’t have any raised beds until this year). I think it would be way cool to just lift the “lid” and harvest in the dead of winter!
My gardening is limited to a small balcony overlooking a marina. Damp weather in L.A. has been good for my tomato plants, I think. I don’t really know what I’m doing but for the past few years I have gotten a few dozen cherry tomatoes. This year I am trying for some bigger ones! I am amazed that every year I get some plant returning. This year it is another tomato plant. I’m waiting to see what it will yield.
When my mom, a lifelong gardener, transitioned into assisted living, they let her have a patio. She immediately bought two earth-boxes, planted them with multiple varieties of cherry tomatoes, and was rewarded with towering festoons of them. This was in rural MD, not sure how the setup would translate to LA, but … a head-high curtain of cherry tomatoes, it was really something to see.
Clearly my gardening skills are not anywhere near your mom’s. I’m happy to get any crop at all! But I always have hope! I conquered sourdough bread, I can conquer tomatoes!
Thanks for the gardening post (and everything else y’all do on this fantastic blog)! 10a zone here in a Southern California beach town, where we can grow pretty much anything provided they don’t need frost. Most of our backyard is native garden, but we have eight 3′ x 4′ raised beds and lime, apple, and peach trees. This year we’re keeping it very simple with tomatoes, corn, cucumbers, lettuce, and kale.
I’m a big fan of canning and fermenting, but to make that worthwhile (say, canning 30 pints of tomato sauce) you need to grow A LOT of veggies, which sadly I don’t have the time for this season.
Side note: I live in a curiously frustrating part of our SoCal beach town that gets the marine layer throughout most of the summer. Go a mile either direction from our house and the marine layer is gone. This makes growing tomatoes and cukes a nightmare, for so many reasons. Mildew, failure to thrive, and so on.
Another side note: had the weirdest thing happen to the dill we were growing a few years ago. They would turn red, grow stunted, then die. Turns out, this is called Carrot Motley Dwarf disease, which requires a confluence of two separate viruses, the willow carrot aphid, over wintered carrots, and weather specific to only a few areas in California. It’s like winning the lottery, but instead of money all my dill died and I was sad.
Here in the bay area, just removed a large number of tiny apples, in hopes of a non-branch-breaking harvest. The Persian mulberry I planted as a dwarf is not a dwarf; have to prune off six or seven feet each winter; but the fruit is great and freezes well. (The long black mulberries from the central valley sell for about $7 for a little basket, right now.) Mostly I plant natives, try to encourage the local insects and birds. After this drought-interrupting winter’s enormous rains everything is huge and blooming ferociously. I don’t water the native stuff in the summer. Tomatoes in a raised bed, and arugula. Waiting for figs, later on.
Figs! I haz envy. Do you dry any of them after harvest?
Young trees still, so some, but not that much fruit. But once they really get going, sure, we’ll dry ’em! (Though a friend of mine was committed to making brandied figs.) I recently discovered an old catalog from 1870s San Francisco, a sign company showing photos of its fancy painted ads on walls. Their largest and most lucrative client appeared to be the California Fig Syrup Company—Syrup of Figs: meant to be something like drinking prune juice.
My MIL in south New Jersey has a fig tree that I maintain for her. I used to wrap it for the winter but stopped doing that a few years ago. Winter in NJ just isn’t what it used to be, (USDA zone 7a.) After the last pruning, it started growing like a weed. We toss the figs into a bowl of water to chase out the ants and immediately eat them. None ever last long enough to process or dry.
rayne,
you can have figs.
i rooted a cutting in water and potted it,10-15 years ago? have upsized until the pot measures 18’h x 24’w. it sits on a dolly Himself built me, to turn it and to wheel inside for winter.
most sheds or garages provide enough protection (i do not know about MI though).
the person who supplied the cuttings and encouraged rooting them has died, so the tree is a true memorial. have since shared rooted cuttings myself: prune tree in fall, place cuttings in a bucket of water over winter, leave in a basement or other cool place. by spring some grow roots.
I will look into this, thanks!
When we moved here 37 years ago, we dug a 20 x 40 foot garden. We had many adventures with the local wildlife, clay soil, years with little rainfall when we especially did not want to tax the well….the garden eventually became a pasture for 5 pigmy goats, but about 10 years ago, we took the 8 foot high fence down, and now we just enjoy the view, where we can see the 2′ high x 30′ long pile/wall we built with all the rocks we dug out all those years ago.
There were many other claims on our time and energy in those years, including the yard and flower beds around the house, hedges, perennials, annuals and vines. [About three times a year, you can find me wrestling with very old trumpet vine and wisteria plants…always swearing I’ll just get rid of them…but then remembering them in bloom…]
A couple years ago, just after a huge rainfall, when there was a lot of local flooding, we finally dug that swale behind the house to divert rainwater we had been contemplating for years. We happened to have equipment here at the time as we were finally building the carport, so I wouldn’t have to shovel cars out of the snow anymore. So, since then, of course, we’ve had almost no snow, and we don’t really know if the swale is adequate [though, I don’t doubt it…being married to an engineer], because we haven’t [yet] had another rain event like that.
Now, we are under contract to sell and will probably be moving by the end of the summer.
It’s not going to be easy.
We know where we’re going, and are content. I will not be planting ANY vines.
Just leave a note for the new owners that the swale was intended for water catchment after flooding in year 19XX/20XX. They may appreciate it when the next flood comes and there surely will be one at some point. I was always glad for the blueprint the owners of my last home left behind as it provided some explanation for unique features they’d added to an otherwise stock 3-bedroom ranch.
Best wishes on your new vine-free home!
Thank you, Rayne. :-)
Harpie, when our children were young they showed pygmy goats in 4H and registered pygmy shows. They delivered their own goats in our garage; quite an education for a 7 year old and a 10 year old !
We grew a healthy crop of strawberries. Thought we had protected them from critters. One day I had a “day away from harvest” bounty. Was so excited to make a Father’s Day Strawberry Pie. The next day munched plants, not a berry to be seen. None of the lavender, onions, chive, marigolds, or rosemary kept the berries safe. May trellis plant them next year. Looking forward to tomatoes, a variety of greens, herbs and veges. May plant two rounds of cold crops soon.
What the heck munched your strawberries? Deer, rabbits, or bear? Might make a difference when trellis-planting them. So sorry you were robbed like that, really frustrating.
Not sure what enjoyed the feast. I suspect rabbits. It was something small because much of the plant was still intact. Just berries eaten clear off the stems. If deer can be that tidy and not be repelled by the other plants which tend offend their senses, then it could be deer. No sign of raccoons either.
Could be either rabbits or deer — but the latter would make a snack out of trellised strawberries if they were in reach. Bears would just take apart the trellis. LOL I’m keeping some of my most susceptible plants on my deck in pots now, like my pole beans, since both rabbits and deer have chowed on them in the garden bed but apparently draw the line at feasting al fresco on my deck.
There used to be a u-pick strawberry patch a few miles down the road, between my house and my son’s GF’s house. When I had to pick him up late at night from her place back in the days when he still couldn’t drive, we’d see a dozen or more deer feasting on the strawberries in June. Somewhere I have some poor quality photos my son snapped with his phone while I tried to shine the deer with my headlights. Good thing the cops never caught us because shining isn’t legal here. The patch is gone now. I miss it; I used to roll my windows down when I drove by to huff the amazing scent of strawberries.
Could be dogs, too. My partner has a Chihuahua mix that will eat strawberries right off the plant.
Squirrels are also a possibility.
Could be coyotes if you have them in your area. They regularly eat fruit and vegetables. They love blackberries (as do bears) which are similar to strawberries.
Rayne,
Thanks for the thread. One aspect of this that can fruitfully (see what I did there?) be pursued here, neighbors. How do you interact with them when they are not on your page regarding reintroducing native plants, or using less water, or cutting back on the golf course look?
A useful fact(oid) to keep in the front of your mind is that “natural” is not the same as low maintenance. Your neighbors seeing you working on your “nature preserve” can go part way to reconciling them to your plan for your yard. This also can be the occasion for talking with your neighbors, a more often than not, pleasant activity.
I’ve put up signage saying “designated butterfly refuge” or similar messages. Speaking of signage, I’ve found small pockets of conventional grass, especially along the curb, are very useful in signaling that this look is intentional, that they are not looking at just an overgrown empty lot. I had a rusted, wooden handled, (from the handles you hold down to the cutting mechanism.) reel mower that I displayed as an ironic comment on having less lawn. I had to get rid of it. My neighbors thought it was a plea for help, and offered the name of their lawn care companies, or a trip to the riding mower section of Home Depot. My dad had an interesting take on my strategically placed patches of grass. “It’s like the strippers costume. Small, but essential.”
Finally, on the “reintroduce” front, we can’t forget the bugs. (A harder sell to the neighbors?) If we have no bugs, we have no birds.
Datnotdat
There’s an HOA which operates under a CC&R. Most of the members are retirees because this is a mixed neighborhood of condos and single-family dwellings. The condo dwellers are a massive PITA because everything has to be just so, like the way their hired landscaping company keeps their property though the single-family houses do their own landscaping, contracted or not.
It’s not the front yard which is the problem, but the outlawn which adjoins my backyard lawn. Somehow they forgot over the last 18 years they were responsible for the upkeep and got stupid about the appearance after a bad season of snow-related mold and grubs they didn’t help treat. Not my circus, not my monkeys — they can deal with it.
I’m saving my fight for the out-outlawn in which the non-native pines were planted. Not only are the pines wretched, but the area is still being mowed regularly and should instead be planted with native groundcover. That’s where I need to focus my energy. I’m working on developing a presentation which I’ll share first with the landscaping company so they can be prepared to offer a quote on more natural plantings and less pollution-producing mowing.
Some impressive projects going on!
No garden for us this year, and for the future, we’d have to seriously consider whether it’d be worth the trouble. Our new place in the mountains is very wild, and the rabbits, raccoons, mice & deer will be very interested, so I’m thinking it wouldn’t. For now, we’ve got a lot of cool new houseplants and my small indoor medicinal herb grow indoors.
There’s a cool, branchy stand of cholla about 20 feet high out the back window, poking up from the piñon pine, juniper, sagebrush, cedar, pin oak, prickly pear & barrel cactus. I (very carefully) trimmed the dead branches about a month back, and I’ve named it bmaz. *ducks*
We’ve also been enjoying beautiful sunsets and hummingbirds buzzing about the feeder, and definitely not missing the city life at all. 😎
when i was working i could never keep up with the weeds. but since being retired, as long as i don’t travel too much, i can actually keep the garden weed free. i have peppers, zucchini, cucumber, melons, corn, leeks, onions, beans, potatoes, peanuts, cabbage, and tomatoes. just started eating the cabbage and zucchini. nice spring and early summer weather in northern indiana, so that always helps. in the fall i will plant broccoli, cauliflower, and brussels sprouts. yum.
“weed-free” can have a different meaning here in CA, just sayin’! :~)
Ahem.
(eye-roll thingy). Hey, it’s Berkeley…
It’s not “free” in OR, but at $50/oz retail it might as well be.
Oh, I would love to try growing leeks. Might have to see if I can sow a late season crop. No luck here with melons, I just buy them from the local farmer’s market.
Put them on (through) black plastic mulch and cover with Reemay or similar until flowering really gets going and you can grow killer melons, even watermelons in your zone. Even better than row covers is low plastic tunnels (gnhse. grade plastic). If the ends are open you can leave them on until steady 70+ deg. days. Bees come right in, and if anything, improve pollination.
Every year my SoCal garden is the same. We plant a variety of crops, one species takes over and everything else dies. Last year for the second time in 20 years, our 22 ft tall avocado tree had a bumper crop of 300 harvested and countless consumed by neighborhood critters. The year before we had zero avocados but we had a cherry tomato plant that gave us over 1200 cherry tomatoes from May til December. I used to go out daily and grab a handful. But everyone remembers the great radish harvest of 2008. Nothing grew except an endless supply of radishes. Do you know how many great recipes there are for eating radishes? None, I got to try them all. I still eat them as a garnish on my salads
This year our almond tree looks like something unreal as it is covered with leaves and almond pods. If we can keep the neighborhood critters away, we might get our first bumper crop of almonds.
First and most important, thank you for your in-depth reporting on the political slime pit in which we are often submerged.
Second, we are growing cherry tomatoes, okra, snow peas, yellow squash and strawberries in containers, because the HOA prohibits greenhouses.. Low yields, but still helpful.
Very jealous of the gardening amongst you all. I finally gave up on getting anything to take in the backyard and put down the weed cloth on Sunday in preparation for a bunch of rock. I will make a few spots for some mix of additional citrus trees to go along with the grapefruit that’s been here since before I bought the place. It’s the one productive thing out there and does make for excellent greyhounds.
West coast, a few miles inland, zone 8b, rural.
This year I’ve been gone a lot and busy so I went with a minimal garden: yukon gold potatoes, brussel sprouts, kale, lettuce, and squash (one ball).
I got seriously addicted to squash soup last fall so looking forward to that
I also have a healthy blueberry patch, marion berries, and strawberries, and a little bit of rhubarb.
Right now I’m filling lids with beer every day in the strawbs to kill the slugs, it’s a late strawberry harvest as I just started eating them Monday.
I vacuum bag and freeze the majority of the berries to use year round.
Last year my marions were dismal but it was a bannee year for blackberries, luckily.
We eat like bears: lots of berries and lots of salmon (I fish a lot!)
Thx for this thread
Hello Rayne, I garden in central NJ, traditionally considered zone 6B. I grow mostly vegetables and a few flowers in a fairly large garden. Some of the harvests go to neighbors and friends. This year, noticed that Gomprena flowers which always have died over winter came back strong, that seems unusual. Rosemary and collards survived, that sometimes has happened in the past. Kale survived, that is somewhat expected.
In general the winters are clearly getting milder in this area. This past winter we had almost no snow (unusual), and my impression is also we had far fewer very cold days. Please note I haven’t confirmed the number of days of that and the minimum temps with weather records. In my area the traditional last frost date of about April 24th was still a good threshold, however. We had a few very cold nights just before this date. Fortuantely I didn’t set out the tomatoes earlier which was really tempting.
Its been a really good year here so far for cabbage, strawberries and kale, among others. We just finished harvesting final iteration of sugar snap peas, they produced massively this year, woof! Zinnias and Rudbeckia are coming along very well. Have you tried growing Phacelia in your area? First time for me this year. The flowers are interesting and the bees really seem to love them.
I wish you and all your gardening readers much joy in their gardens.
[Welcome back to emptywheel. Please use the same username each time you comment so that community members get to know you. You’ve commented previously as “David Hoy” — I have changed your username this once from “David.” Thanks. /~Rayne]
That your Gomprena (globe amaranth) has wintered over is interesting, since it usually doesn’t survive winters north of zone 8. Must have been a very mild winter in NJ; many of my friends in NYC complained about the lack of snow this winter.
Wish I’d been thinking about sugar snap peas and pea pods earlier this season. I think the cool weather we had in May would have been great for them.
Haven’t tried Phacelia, but it’s native here in MI, at least one variety is also threatened. Only problem with this plant: some varieties cause skin irritation, can’t have that around my adult kids’ dogs. I’ll have to research which varieties will work here. Thanks!
It’s not a great year for tomatoes so far here—only two have made it to blooming as the solstice approaches. The small amount of lettuce I have in planters has done well enough but for some reason I can’t get any new seeds to take in the planters now. Our two pots of “cape gooseberries” are doing fine (they’re actually “pineapple” tomatillos…which I recommend btw; much easier to grow than tomatoes, perennials if you don’t get much frost). I planted an heirloom variety of broccoli from seed pods I gathered last year, and those are going strong. The only thing is going better is the many bean plants, also planted from last year’s seed pods. On the downside, several people have inquired about our mint plants but they died out over the past few years.
My orphan tree collection has increased this year. I planted a small rescued citrus and a maple in the front yard a few weeks back… to compensate for the loss of an old trees secondary trunk. The citrus tree is doing nicely but I think the maple is struggling. Both were root bound in their pots when I rescued them a few months ago. My orphan apple tree in the back is starting to bear fruit and we are hopeful that the squirrels will not again steal all the apples before they’re ripe.
A note on the rescued trees I raise. I cannot have pets due to ‘cohabitation restrictions’. Instead, I have taken on a few orphaned trees, little potted trees that were never properly cared for, had failing grafts, etc. I expect that I will be taking on more of these ‘rescues’ as the bigger trees in the surrounding area are being felled at a rate that has been accelerating the past decade or so. So far, none of have died (although I’m worried about the maple), and have instantly or eventually flourished once planted in the ground.
On a positive note on the felled trees—because of the loss of squirrel living space, many oaklings have sprung up in various part of our yard, even in large abandoned pots and in a raised bed. I keep a watchful eye on them and have transplanted one strong looking oakling next to a rescued apple to see how they interact with one another. (So far the apple has quite a head start but the oakling is coming on strong…until recently a naughty, vivacious loquat made an enthusiastic nuisance of itself, showing off to such an extent that it may now face a dire trimming… I mean, would you rather have a loquat or an apple AND an oak? Tough call for some…)
LOL “cape gooseberries” — guess what kind of seeds I ordered this weekend? Ground cherries, a.k.a. cape gooseberries. They reach maturity in 90 days so I may not get a crop this year if we get an early frost. But I’ll try a few and then plant the rest next year.
I didn’t know anything about ground cherries until my mom invited a friend to visit her while she was staying with me a few years ago. Last thing I expected was a Catholic nun bringing me a couple pints of freshly picked ground cherries as a house gift. She actually made me a pie with them, which was pretty doggone tasty.
If you have white pines you might want to research a bit before planting your gooseberries, I believe they serve as an alternate host for the rust fungus that causes white pine blister rust.
Thanks for the heads up, but if “cape gooseberries” are rust vectors, we have a bigger problem. “Cape gooseberries” or ground cherries are in the Solanaceae (Nightshade) family which includes tomatillos, tomatoes, eggplants, and potatoes. They’d likely all be vectors. That’d really mess with the Munger Potato Festival! LOL
Gooseberries and their relatives, currants, are in the Grossulariaceae family. I should say something to my godfather who lives in the UP because he’s had gooseberries for decades and they’re now restricted depending on the variety. Thanks again.
I got mine from a local seed exchange, thinking they were regular tomatillo seed…imagine my surprise!
You’ll love them! I bet they’d do fine indoors with a sun facing window during truly cold months. I’d say an 8″ or larger pot is ideal for them. I’ve got mine in two really large pots and the weather here is such that they just power on through the winter fine without having to be brought inside, etc.
The most imaginative thing I’ve done with them so far is make ice cream with—can definitely recommend!
This year I noticed that our bats (yes, bats migrate) and Western Tanagers arrived about 2-4 weeks earlier than they did just six or seven years ago.
US Zone 8… Harvested cukes and yellow squash today.. garlic is pretty much done for us. Not the best year – soft neck stayed in the ground a bit too long. Onions, some harvested, some still in the ground. Will be an interesting summer for us with the transition to el nino
It’s been a very late, chilly, and windy spring here – I think we are 2 or 3 weeks behind. My garden is a perennial garden, and the late tulips are still blooming. Geum is beginning with its striking orange, no Siberian Iris yet, but soon that purple will join the orange, my favorite combo. Shooting stars are nice, primrose still blooming (I have a selection that blooms from really early to later spring). Blue poppy buds look good, those will pop soon, rain or shine. Native geraniums just beginning, other geraniums have a bushy upright hopeful look, as does astrantia which is, like the geraniums, almost too happy. My shade garden is coming along well, finally a few trilliums bloomed, sanguineria, hellebores looking good, the shade plants have been a struggle as I have equisetum (horsetail) dominating that area.
Sadly, we are losing white spruce trees right and left, which are the signature of my neighborhood, to the spruce bark beetle. Our neighbors use poisonous spray Carbaryl for which I am furious with them. Our gardener guru says it doesn’t work anyway. Lots of baby spruce coming up though, and I let them grow all over the place so my husband can make spruce tip IPA.
I wish I could have a garden full of roses, lilacs, etc but the moose eat them up. I’ve tried Plantskydd but it gets rained off and is super nasty smelling. So, no roses for me… except, I am working to keep a blanc double de coubert from being moose-eaten by placing my hair on it from my hairbrush each morning (sorry, gross).
I have some veg on the roof, tomatoes do well some years, fingers crossed we’ll get another sunny day sometime, haha. lettuce, chard, collards, lots of herbs (shisho, fennel, thyme, oregano, marjoram, rosemary, lavender). basil, my favorite, yummm, stays inside in the sunroom.
thanks for the breather, Rayne, you are awesome!! I grew up in Michigan, Burton near Flint, that’s where my mom and brother still live. will visit in fall.
Thanks to all at empty wheel, commenters and writers, I get so much out of this group while mostly lurking.
Quick edit, I am in Anchorage, AK
“Now I’ve had to buy seeds and start zucchinis, Early Girl tomatoes, and basil. The zucchinis will likely reach harvest since the varieties I’ve planted reach maturity in 45 days.”
it must be a tough challenge growing in that zone, but you do get the bonus of extended northern daylight.
a trick i learned of years ago concerning Italian gardeners and getting early zucchini: instead of planting in “hills” they dig a hole and plant 3-5 seeds in it and then cover it with a pane of glass. let the seeds sprout and grow under the glass, thin to the best when weather is settled, and harvest weeks earlier.
i am in 7a but the weather has been dry, unpredictable, and overall, chilly (which means to me that cold arctic air displaced by rising warm air is flowing down to us). am growing onion, leek, potatoes, Portuguese, Russian, and Italian kale, lettuce, and rapini, and just today put in 25 assorted tomatoes that i had been growing on in recycled Proven Winners pots in a shed because of the chilly weather. the peas did nothing; polebeans are unhappy, and I will wait a bit longer to plant bush beans. grow lots of dahlias and annual poppies in the vegetable garden, along with calendula, gloriosa daisies, feverfew, and verbena bonariensis for the pollinators — these all seem quite happy. two kinds of garlic are scaping, seems early.
We are FREEZING here in Silicon Valley !! It was 43 this morning, and the wind has been blowing all month. Lots of fog, too. We haven’t been able to plant much of anything because it is so cold, mid-70s only a couple days this month. We are zone 10a.
We did put some strawberries in planter boxes near the front door, elevated to take advantage of what sun there has been. The three that the squirrels and crows didn’t get were delicious ! The squirrels have been fun though. We started feeding them to fill the hole when it was time to put Hairy Winston, the 16 year old Border Terrier, down.
We successfully grew San Marzano tomatoes last year, as well as a Tuscan Melon and a bunch of Italian herbs, peppers and broccoli. But the weather last year was INSANELY hot and we were still in a drought. I found this crazy company in Kansas, “Seeds From Italy” and we tried a bunch of things. I was planning on doing more this year, but it didn’t stop raining until mid-May. This is a Mediterranean climate and we usually have dry weather from April till the third week of October.
There is still so much snow in the Sierras, that Tioga Pass may not open this year.
Here is a link to the Italian seed company https://www.growitalian.com/
This thread is great, but sadly six months off for those of us living in New Zealand.
You have this thread to use as a planning tool for growing season. Look, months to browse seed catalogs!
Absolutely!
Much thanks to Empy
and all
for
growing insightful words.
Tell you about the garden later.
Happy
Soltice.
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=LCqv5esuNxg
Still leary of the question mark Rayne.an’ hoping this passes.
No worries. Youtube’s URLs are different from most other sites in that the ? tells Youtube what to look for in its own database. In this case, you told Youtube to look for and play a file named “LCqv5esuNxg.”
In most other uses by other sites, the ? in the URL tells the site hosting content about the visitor and the record created about their visit including what they sought, not just to look for and produce an internal file.
If you attempt to publish an active link in a comment and it doesn’t publish right away, just edit it and add some blank spaces in the URL to deactivate the link and then try publishing again. If it doesn’t clear then wait for mods to release it; the comment may contain something which triggered moderation apart from the link.
Y thank you for that sister.
Rayne, I thought you would be interested in this opinion piece about the real reason food prices are so high. It is a gift article from NYT so I don’t know if I can eliminate after the ? and have the link still give you access. I put three spaces between ‘code’ and “=”.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/29/opinion/inflation-groceries-pricing-walmart.html?unlocked_article_code
=iQ5TYk3A5_1Db1-7aBE9IsPNj81EUwUm_3g1-heiTSsmxCiAPDio0f8vls5zhuIdn3BSzOCBlkUxrRl6XqiyLiDfkLSE3f_25rgh838299KmTEBejKU0D-NbNLuFIv2ZidPBiGF9WaFCy-jY8ewQu5rS_5WzEwGmVNkJBsBrBoGnNftCUhU2u8l1XY4cY2a2Dx5wQTolJNTixQjw9iY6b59Kc7mVVUpXH1C6hf4eqOiqOE2vAXs_C_HTRyyUdDlh3ExM5OSipykKIUlXlLduMovoOtOgCixu-rDGJp7j3SswHe-iKFBd1N7TEOE37FgvLxToFHOgjqAdTmTRuC4xN_JN0JHyXXIVS_L788I&smid=url-share
Thanks, Molly, I’ll give it a read after I finish my gardening chores this morning. :-)
According to the USDA maps, I am supposed to be zone 10a, down to 30F, but based on living here 24 years and other maps, it seems to be more accurate as a zone 10b/frost-free zone/down to 35F (the lowest temp I’ve seen at my house).
In the past I’ve mostly grown herbs in pots, with mixed results – great sage, mixed results with thyme, and rosemary that had a poor germination rate but spawned several healthy bushes. I’ve never gotten basil pruning down, so invariably they go to seed and I get tons of volunteers. I also enjoy the finches (purple and gold) hanging upside down on the basil woody stalks feeding on the seeds.
A few years back I had a volunteer roma tomato that got its start from a seed in a compost pile. I thought it was deep shade, under a spreading hibiscus tree. I trellised it up a neighboring ficus trunk, never watered it, and got enough tomatoes to make a half-cup of homemade sauce.
Most everything got wiped out during a remodel in 2017. I moved out, and a lot of stuff didn’t survive the 6 months of construction and no water. A rose bush survived the remodel and is growing up from under the new deck, no matter how many times I cut it back. Her name’s Audrey 2.
Right now I’m trying to root succulent cuttings from a friend before I put them into the raised beds. Oh, and I have 3 plumerias in pots.
Wishing everyone luck with their gardening!
Zombie Deck Rose for the win! Yeah, long construction projects are basically the worst where gardens are concerned. If you can’t kill it what that, might as well just saw a hole in the deck and let it take back over the world?
I haven’t had any volunteer tomatoes this year, alas, and I’m down to two viable tomato plants at the moment. Yeah, the June Gloom was back in these parts. It finally ended a few days ago and I’m hopeful that this summer will be excellent for these two plants… Most years I have at least a few volunteers—this year has been disappointing for tomatoes so far.
I’m out in coastal San Diego, where it used to be zone 10a or so, with enough of a frost/freeze every 2 or 3 years to kill the perennating tomato vines. I only made it back here in 2010, but apparently there hasn’t been a frost in the last 25 years, and we’re 10b or 11a. I now plant tomatoes 2 or 3 times a year to have overlapping production of good tomatoes to go with my basil (some current plants >3 years old).
The downside of the warming is stone fruit. Even with low-chill requirement varieties (100 hours below 45f), I still have some branches that are barely starting to leaf out after maybe 40-50 chill hours last winter.
I’m lazy enough to do more fruit trees than annual vegetables (although my artichokes were awesome this year with the wet winter) I don’t have enough room for many fruit trees, nor do I need hundreds of apricots at once, or hundreds of avocados or oranges or other citrus. Therefore I decided to put my plant anatomy training to use and take up grafting, making up trees for myself but also to give away to friends and neighbors. Reed or Gem avocados matched with Sharwal or Sir Prize on the same tree gets me both A & B flower types for high fruit production, and a couple of avocados per week throughout the year (all better tasting than Hass). The same thing for Meyer lemon + Bearss lime, potentially on dwarfing rootstock: year round a few lemons a week, and limes for 7 or 8 months (I kept one of those in a half-barrel in Colorado, rolling it indoors eah winter where the blooms smelled awesome). I have a navel + valencia orange tree with ripe fruit 6 or 7 months a year. 2 avocados and a couple citrus will go down the back hill, where I can water with rain collected from the roof during the winter. My front yard has a 5-way plum, more for color when in bloom as for varied fruit (see https://www.samvanaken.com/trees for an artist’s approach to this ), plus an early & late apricot that will get a couple of peaches added to it next winter. With the right mix in my yard and a friend’s, I can get both peaches & apricots from early May through the end of August!
What a good idea—thanks for the inspiration! I will have to look into this approach with a few of my trees once they’re a little larger. Or is it easier to do when they’re small? I really need to look into this…I only have one successful graft rescue under my belt so far so it feels like a daunting task to get so many grafts to stick well.
I am loving this post and comments! Thanks Rayne for the rich topic – will be drawing from it for a long time, I’m sure. I am packing boxes in prep for a huge remodel so just jumping in for a quick reflection on years of gardening. I was fortunate to have been influenced early on by everyone from Gary Snyder, John Jeavons to Amigo Bob Cantisano, transitioning from double digging to no-dig, and bioregions, the sustainability movement, and forest farming. I built several hugelkultur mounds in my yard, began w/ a felled mulberry and learned more about the benefits of mounds. They are fun to build. The largest is about 40-50 feet long and 6 feet high. In the years when work demands interfered with gardening, I still felt good about the moisture and carbon sequestration of the mounds. Lazy gardener here, hit and miss success. Almost always have maintained a medicinal herb garden though begun many years ago. Zone 9.
More than 30 years ago we moved in to the house at the end of a short lane. We were sure the neighbors thought we were nuts when they saw trailer after trailer trip full of our very good organic soil, dug out of our raised beds at our last place. But we learned the folks on this lane love their gardens so we landed well. Off to pack – oy! ;-)
Love this place. Thanks for all the great insights and tips.
Forgot to mention that after decades of raised beds, I shifted to elevated garden or planter boxes. The top ledge comes about up to my waist. Have grown lemon cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, radishes and many herbs successfully. So much easier on my body.
I planted some root vegetables in my hugelkultur mounds but lost them in the proliferation of green compost plantings I did at the same time (to break down and enrich the soil). May try again this fall.
There sure is an impressive amount of green thumbery at EW! The best I have is a steady supply of arugula that grows unattended having escaped the gardening area at some point three or four years ago. It now grows anywhere it chooses to, a delicious weed.
OMG arugula chiffonade with tuna as poke. Ono!
Interesting, we will have to try it as a garnish over poke, I come to EW and learn many things, Mahalo!
It’d be good in hwae dup bab or chirashizushi, too. I envy you access to fresh ocean fish. Here I’ll be safer with salmon. Enjoy!
Love!
We have a postage-sized backyard. My husband (now 83 years old) put in a small brick patio a number of years ago. There’s some sun, but not all day. For many years, it was all I could do to plant a few herbs in a few pots due to severe arthritis in my hip (now fixed) and my back (which I still struggle with. I hear ya, Rayne!) I also went through years of extreme dizziness and weakness which is also much better now due to my primary care physician who listened to me and worked with me. This year I found counter-height rectangular planters that are narrow enough to fit in my tiny yard. No bending. Score! (Will buy more next year for sure.) This year I have more than quadrupled what I have planted in my best years past; hauled my own soil, got stronger every day from the effort. I planted my basic herbs: basil, tarragon, sage, parsley, dill, oregano, thyme, rosemary, etc. I found a new variety of basil that doesn’t flower, so it produces leaves all season. Early flowering is an issue when planting in pots. Another score! Plus every variety of basil I could find. I’m also growing lettuces, collard greens, kale, arugula, mustard greens. It’s a joy when the mustard seeds re-seed and I get plants in the cracks of the patio bricks the following year. The kale, mustard greens, and collards were just two little leaves of seedlings – now HUGE, right outside my back door. What a joy to see them thrive! A few tomato plants in deep pots, and lots of hot peppers. After many years of labor-intensive efforts (and usually unsuccessful) to preserve the more tender herbs, I now let many of them stay in the pots through the Chicago winter and they “freeze-dry” on their own. The key is to keep the stalks intact, and crush the dried herbs right before I use them. Rosemary and sage remain usable outside through spring. Whole stalks are particularly wonderful in Thanksgiving turkey and my whole air fryer chicken, and veggies. The more tender herbs like basil, tarragon, etc: I just pick the entire stalk and let them air dry in the kitchen, and put the stalks in jars. How much easier can it get? I’m thinking of bottling the herb stalks in olive oil for Christmas gifts this year. I’ve made it a personal pledge for decades to either make gifts or purchase at art fairs – no shopping at big box stores for me! I’m also a quilter, so some years I sew. At 73 years old, I’m stronger and healthier than I’ve been in years. Feeding my soul, my body, and our health with homegrown herbs and veggies. Truly, my happy place. My mother was an avid gardener – she died when I was 21 years old. She’d be so proud, and I feel her close to me after all these many decades when my hands are in the dirt. Joy!
Not gardening per se, but an interesting video on the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone:
https://youtu.be/NGhOzGbpEmI
Monbiot is one of the last people I would have expected to narrate that. LOL
Reminded me of one of my favorite videos about trophic cascades: https://youtu.be/IAM94B73bzE
Thanks for that, Rayne!!! Love her stop-motion animation technique.
My guess on Monbiot’s narration gig for the Yellowstone/Wolves piece is it comports with his philosophies on the environment, separate from farming.
https://www.monbiot.com/2023/05/28/fantasy-farming/
I always get Monbiot mixed up with Benoit Mandelbrot (especially after “The Black Swan” was published).
https://www.treehugger.com/amazing-fractals-found-in-nature-4868776
Maybe the Romanesco Broccoli has gotten to me… lolol
We ;live close to downtown in a big Ohio city.
Small yard – but here is what is happening right now – Black Raspberries under a walnut tree are coming in – we have probably picked a pint of them (so not bad) – vicious bushes I will say – I was going to yank them out if they weren’t productive.
We’ve had arugala and mizyaki season – both were delicious but bolted. Not they are gone and have been replaced by carrots (we have a raised bed).
We have four bags of potatoes growing (succession planting) – last year they were great – when they are harvested we usually have enough to put butter and garlic and salt on them and wrap them in foil for the grill.
In the portable bed on our balcony, the lettuce is finishing up, and is being replaced by brussels sprouts, broccoli and poblano peppers.
On the walkway we have two cherry tomato plants in pots. They should be giving us ripe fruit next week.
We are trying to grow a Japanese Banana in the garden – not sure if it is going to reach its projected 12 foot height. But we won’t get bananas.
In front, we have four more tomato plants which we tried to grow from seed, along with two varieties of cucumbers in a raised bed that gets a lot of sun until late August.
We also have another raised bed which gets less sun and has been pretty much taken over by red raspberries. We will get a wee little midsummer harvest of those (on last year’s canes) and are hoping for a big fall harvest on new canes.
Oh, and our two dwarf moringa trees have just sprouted. I don’t know if we will be able to keep them alive – apparently they like Arizona summers, but who knows.
And of course we have herbs and flowers. But we can’t grow irises in the back yard because of some fungus.
So that’s the garden report.
And if anyone wants bindweed for their salad, we have a lot to spare in the flower garden.
Oh please don’t use tin foil (often). It collects in major organs in your body. Just touch it to your tongue, you taste it immediately, huh? Your body can’t rid itself of it by itself. Yes, I do have a bio degree and am a nurse who’s been into natural healing for years. Again, will tell you about the garden and my observations a little later.