I must confess that I have no idea when to pick sugar snap peas. I don’t want to pick them too soon because then they’ll just taste like grass (or what I imagine grass would taste like had I ever eaten it). But I don’t want to leave them on the plant too long, either, and risk adversely affecting production. The ones for sale in the grocery store are a little puffier than the one in the (second) picture below. So I’ll leave that one where it is for another day or two.
Plants starting to flower
Peas beginning to grow
These plants were direct seeded in the garden on March 23 with Ferry Morse seeds. They sprouted fairly quickly, in about a week. These pictures were taken on May 23, so the “62 days to harvest” information on the seed packet is spot on. The seeds were not inoculated but the bed was amended with compost and a general purpose organic fertilizer before planting. I only had room for one eight-foot row, but I have lots of seeds left so if the yield is good I’ll plant more in the fall.
If I remember correctly, the plants only produce for a few weeks. They don’t like the heat. Fingers crossed for a bumper crop before summer sets in. We’ll update in a few weeks.
June 21: I ripped the plants out today to make room for the sweet potatoes. The total yield from my eight foot row was 3.23 pounds. I don’t know if that’s good or not. I do know that sugar snap peas cost about $5.00 per pound in the grocery store, so I grew over $15.00 worth of peas from a $1.78 packet of seeds. Not a bad return on investment.
Occasionally, as gardeners, we have to move stuff. Maybe because it’s not growing well where it is, maybe because we have to make room for something else. In this case, it’s the latter of the two.
In an effort to simplify (and hopefully, beautify) the front of the house, I bought 6 knockout roses to fill the beds that stretch across the front. This way, I won’t have to think about what I’m going to do there every year. The bulk of the beds will be occupied and I’ll just have to fill in with a few annuals.
In order to do that though, I have to move this lavender. It’s been growing here for four years, and measures almost four feet in diameter. I brought it from our old house, so this is the second time it’s been dug up and moved. It’s mid-April, probably not the best time to move it, but I don’t have a choice.
Grosso Lavender before trimming and move
Grosso Lavender after trimming
Grosso Lavender plant after move to new location
I gave it lots of compost and a good watering. Every few days I check it, but it just looks like dead wood.
Until…
Today!
It’s May 20th and that’s definitely new green growth.
I did have a few false alarms. I saw green and got all excited, but it was just weeds growing up through the base of the plant. But this is the real thing! Fingers crossed for flowers!
July 3: We have flowers! So happy my little plant made it.
So the plan was to get the onions in the ground by April 1. That didn’t happen. It was cold. It was damp. I think we even had a few snow flurries that morning. I wound up planting them on the 5th. And the 6th. And the 8th and 9th. Apparently I had grossly underestimated the number of onion plants I had, and grossly overestimated the number I could fit in a 4 foot by 8 foot bed. When I was finally finished, there were onions in the onion bed, onions in the salad bed, onions in the bean bed and in containers with the flowers. I thought I had about 130 onion plants, but I think the final count was closer to 200. I planted them on 5 inch centers to give them plenty of room to grow. The beds had been amended with compost and organic fertilizer a few weeks before planting. This is what the onion bed looked like on May 10th, about a month after transplanting.
Ailsa Craig onions about a month after transplanting
This is what the onion bed looked like on May 31, almost 2 months after transplanting.
Ailsa Craig onions 2 months after transplanting
They’re getting quite big, but I don’t think the bulbing process has begun yet, at least I hope not. Each one has seven or eight leaves. If possible I’d like them to add a leaf or two before the onions start forming. As a long day variety, the bulbs should start forming when the day length reaches 14 to 16 hours. We’re at about 15 hours now, and the longest day of the year is only three weeks away, so something should start happening soon (if it hasn’t already)!
So in order to reach my goal of producing 375 pounds of vegetables from my little garden patch, I have to make the most of every inch for every minute of the gardening season. That means planting and replanting as the seasons change. But what if the old plants aren’t harvest-ready when it’s time to replant with the new?
Case in point: Bed #1. According to my plan, the spring planting of Quickstar kohlrabi should be ready to harvest by May 1, and the spring planting of Ferry’s Round Dutch cabbage should be ready by May 21. That leaves the bed open for the tomatoes and eggplant which will occupy it through the fall.
It’s May 9. The kohlrabi can be picked anytime now. The cabbage, however, is nowhere near ready, and will probably need another month. The tomatoes can’t wait that long.
The kohlrabi is almost ready…
The cabbage is not.
The tomatoes need transplanting now!
If I harvest the kohlrabi and weed real well, I’ll be able to see how much space I have to work with. If there was room, I could plant the tomatoes amongst the cabbage. It would only be for a month.
Apparently that’s a no-no. Most gardening sites agree on the inadvisability of planting nightshades and brassicas together.
Bed #3 is another problem. The sugar snap peas, carrots and beets are nowhere near ready and the sweet potato slips are here and need to be planted. Now, if I remember correctly, it took the sweet potatoes a while to get going last year. However, the carrots, peas and beets probably need another 4 weeks. The sweet potatoes could be enormous by then! I’m afraid they’re going to completely overwhelm the spring stuff. I’ll keep an eye on the vines and cut them back if I have to. I’m also going to plant some in Bed #3 and some in Bed #5 so nothing’s too crowded.
I don’t know why this is happening, I mean, I can add, after all. Which is all that’s required. Days to germination plus days to maturity equals days to harvest. I should have added in a few days (weeks?) to account for the unexpected. Like a very (very!) cold, wet spring, and covid-corrupted shipping schedules. Not complaining though! I’m happy and healthy and planting sweet potatoes! Life is good.
Every year I draw up a plan for the garden. This is this year’s.
2021 Garden Plan
It’s not a terribly sophisticated rendering, and I’m sure the scale and orientation are more than a little off, but it keeps me organized. It lets me easily see if everything I want to plant is accounted for and if I have any sun-blocking issues caused by taller plants. I can also compare it with last year’s diagram to make sure I’m rotating properly.
The growing areas are outlined in blue and the fence is in black. Natural obstacles like stumps and trees are outlined in red. I have left some things out though: there’s another fence and a line of trees behind Bed #6 (they belong to the neighbor).
Each bed is 4 feet wide and 8 feet long. The planting areas for the cucumbers and zucchini are each about 2 square feet. The containers for the potatoes and peppers are actually grow bags that are about 21 inches in diameter. That gives me about 192 + 4 + 9.6 = 205.6 square feet of growing area.
Last year’s yield was 250 pounds. This year’s goal is 50% more, or 375 pounds. Can we do it? Gosh I hope so.
Planting this was an act of desperation. Every year I dutifully planted yellow crookneck squash and/or zucchini at the beginning of June and every year it was dead by the end of July. It took me a few years to figure out what was causing it: the squash vine borer. They’re moths that overwinter as pupae in the soil. They hatch and come out of the ground in early summer and from mid-June to mid-July the females fly around and lay their eggs at the base of unsuspecting squash plants. The eggs hatch and the little caterpillars burrow into the stem. There they feed and grow for a month or so. Once they’re mature enough they drop into the soil, spin their own cocoons and the cycle starts all over again. By then they’ve cut the the roots off from the rest of the plant and the prognosis is not good. You’ll look out the window, see the wilted leaves and think, “Oh, they’re just stressed by the sun.” No, they’re dead.
The owner of the local nursery told me to spray it with Sevin every week or so till the Fourth of July. As an organic gardener, that was out of the question. I looked for alternate ways of fighting them. I wrapped the stems in aluminum foil. I planted trap crops. I rotated religiously, used row covers and pollinated by hand. I started them late, I started them early. I even operated on the stems of affected plants, pulled out the caterpillars and buried the stems in soil, hoping they would recover. Most of the time they didn’t.
I did notice, however, that my butternut squash sailed through every growing season without a glitch. I went online to discover why. One link led to another and soon I had my answer. Turns out there are 4 types of squash: pepo, maxima, mixta and moschata. The moschata are generally tan colored (like butternut squash, Long Island cheese pumpkins, acorn squash, etc.), and they have solid stems. There’s nowhere for the borers to go! Now I just had to find a summer squash in this category. The bad news is that there aren’t many options. Then I found zucchini rampicante, an old Italian heirloom. I ordered mine from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.
It’s not a terribly well behaved plant, which could make it a challenge for the average home gardener. As you can see from the above picture it overwhelmed the garden fence and grew up into the neighbor’s trees. Around midsummer I noticed patches of powdery mildew on the leaves. Would that kill it? Did we beat the borers only to be felled by fungus? Nope! It infected the plants but didn’t seem to slow them down.
Zucchino Rampicante
But how did it taste? I had read conflicting reports on how it was as a summer squash. Some said it was mealy and bland. I didn’t think that at all. It has a nice, buttery taste that I like better than regular zucchini. I tried to pick them small because, generally, with summer squash, the quality of the fruit is inversely proportional to its size. Smaller is better. But even this guy in the middle, that was 2 pounds, 10 ounces and 28 inches long had a good taste and texture. Were the plants prolific? Yes! In 2020 I picked over 30 pounds of the summer iteration. From 2 plants!
How is it as a winter squash? Well, the fruits held up well, lasting a good five months in storage. The taste? I wasn’t crazy about it. It didn’t have the sweetness of a butternut squash, which is what I grow butternut squash for.
Would I grow it again? Absolutely! Its flavor and productivity as a summer squash far outweighs its shortcomings as a winter.
Last year’s onion harvest was a disappointment. Only about 16 pounds. Not sure exactly what went wrong, but I do remember they weren’t as substantial as I would have liked when I put them in the ground in April. Probably because I didn’t fertilize them at all in the 8 weeks they spent under the grow lights. Those little jiffy pellets are swell, but they aren’t meant to provide a seedling (onion or otherwise) with all it needs to grow big and strong. A little fish emulsion, I think, would have gone a long way. A better start would have led to a better finish.
I’m doing all I can to make this year’s harvest better. Most importantly, I chose the right variety: Ailsa Craig Exhibition (Johnny’s Selected Seeds, purchased in the fall of 2020) a long-day variety known for producing big bulbs. I started them February 5th, in jiffy pots, under grow lights. I’ve already fertilized them twice: once on March 3, and once on March 17. I used a general purpose organic fertilizer at half strength. They seemed to like it. Some of them are a foot tall! Today I cut them back because it’s supposed to make them stronger and stouter. I must confess I was a nervous wreck doing it, because if I kill them now I won’t have time to start more. Yikes!
Before Trimming
After Trimming
They seem to have survived.
Next, I have to acclimate them to outdoor conditions, but first I’m going to give them a few days to get over the shock of being cut in half. Reasonable, right?
So I’ll spend March 22 through 31 hardening them off and April 1 is transplant day. The bed’s been prepared with compost and a good, granular organic fertilizer (applied according to manufacturer’s instructions!). Onions have short, stubby roots, so even though they’re all growing close together, they’ll be easy to separate. I’m going to plant them on 5 inch centers to give them room to grow. At that rate, I should have room for about 140 of them in my 4 foot by 8 foot bed, but I don’t think I have that many.
Once they’re in the ground I just have to keep them weeded and watered and fertilized. Hopefully by June or July I’ll be rewarded with a bumper crop.
I’ve always assumed that vegetable gardening saves money. But does it? Last winter I spent a few hours, one day, online and in stores getting what I thought I’d need for the year. When I was done I added it all up: $102.66 on seeds, innoculant, fertilizer, seed starting trays and extra soil. That’s a lot of money! Would I see a 100% or more return on my investment? There was only one way to find out. I decided to weigh what I picked. The results are as follows…
Vegetable
Total (Pounds)
Price per pound
Total Value
Radishes
0.85
$1.00
$0.85
Mustard Greens
1.58
$1.59
$2.51
Snow Peas
4.81
$4.99
$24.00
Carrots
10.11
$1.00
$10.11
Beets (& Greens)
4.23
$1.99
$8.42
Kohlrabi
48.00
$1.00
$48.00
Green Onions
2.25
$5.00
$11.25
Onions
16.34
$1.00
$16.34
Zucchini
30.50
$1.49
$45.45
Tomato
28.79
$2.99
$86.08
Cabbage
18.11
$0.79
$14.31
Golden Pepperoncini
0.62
$1.49
$0.92
Eggplant
13.68
$1.49
$20.38
Bell Peppers
14.92
$1.49
$22.23
Green Beans
6.46
$2.49
$16.09
Sweet Potatoes
18.88
$0.99
$18.69
Leeks
1.35
$1.99
$2.69
Winter Squash
24.00
$1.99
$47.76
Chard
$0.00
Lettuce
$0.00
Broccoli
$0.00
Corn
$0.00
Cauliflower
$0.00
Peanuts
$0.00
Total pounds
245.48
Total Value
$396.08
Plus 29 cukes @ $0.66 each = $19.14
$19.14
Total Value
$415.22
2020 garden yield
250 pounds of vegetables in 195 square feet of growing area. That’s 1.28 pounds per square foot. I don’t know if that’s good or bad (I guess it depends on what you’re growing). I am disappointed in the dollar value of what was grown. $415.22 – $102.66 = $312.56, which isn’t much for 8 months of work. Although, the third column in the chart above displays the price for conventionally grown produce. I grow organically, which can cost 20 to 100% more. Factoring in the low end yields a more respectable profit of $395.60 (415.22 x .20 = 83.04, 83.04 + 415.22 = 498.26, 498.26-102.66 = 395.60).
Still, there’s much I can (and must!) do to improve those numbers for next year:
Weigh everything! Turns out I’m a lazy weigher. A few of the zeros in the above chart shouldn’t be there at all. The leafy greens grew well, I just didn’t have time to throw them on the scale. The lettuce was picked and tossed in the rabbit cage, the chard was rinsed and tossed in my morning smoothie. Some veggies were under-weighed. The mustard greens, scallions and radishes often bypassed the scale, called upon at the last minute to perk up a frittata, sauce or salad.
Grow more hybrid and disease resistant varieties. I’m a big fan of heirlooms, but they’re not always the most productive. The golden pepperoncini plants were riddled with disease and had to be ripped out by the end of July. The broccoli cultivar I chose, De Cicco, was not well suited to my growing conditions and bolted before forming a decent size head. From now on I’m sticking with (mostly!) hybrid varieties.
Bug and critter control. The corn was eaten by bugs and the tomatoes were eaten by small animals with big teeth. Groundhogs? Squirrels? The seedlings of cauliflower and peanuts were nibbled to the ground by critters. The garden fence has to be secured so small furry mammals can’t wriggle in for a quick snack.
TIME! That’s really what it all boils down to. Succession planting and year-round gardening take time. Time to start seeds and transplant them on time. Time to pick squash bugs and earworms off of affected plants. Time to install row covers and cloches and cages and netting and fencing. Most of all I need to be out there everyday looking for issues and nipping them in the bud, I changed my work schedule so I can do just that. I expect great things from 2021.
