Today's gardening tasks:
Planted Wando Peas directly in the garden (about 100) near the strawberry plants and some also near the onions (not a great idea, but we had leftover and no other great place to put them)
Started seed indoors:
6 Jubilee Tomato (found an old seed pack I wanted to use up)
9 Relleno Chile
5 Ring o' fire Chile
4 Hidalgo Chile
9 Espanola Chile
9 Spacemaster Cucumber
9 Prescott Fond Blanc Melons
9 Cal Wonder bell pepper
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Companion Planting
When planning your garden space, one thing to research and take into consideration is companion planting. When you look around at nature, you're unlikely to find large standings of the same variety of plant. More commonly, lots of different species will be interspersed. Following a similar rule in gardening is generally beneficial. Some plants make good companions, and others should be separated. Pairing up certain plants can help limit pests and disease as well as increase yield. You may also find "more" space in your garden. We have 600 sq ft of raised bed space, plus another 170 sq ft of in ground space, but we can plant a bit more densely when we intersperse certain things.
Check out the links above for more detailed charts of what things go together. A few general guidelines:
*plant shallow root and deep root plants together so they can draw nutrients from different areas of the soil--this works for companions like carrots and onions
*put together plants that are typically eaten together. I haven't read this anywhere, but it makes sense to me that perhaps our culinary traditions arise in part because certain things were easy to grow together and harvest at similar times---tomatoes and basil; spinach and strawberry
*listen to what your grandmother taught you. If you're fortunate enough to have contact or family history stories from those who lived through and immediately after the depression (especially if they were in the same area of the country you're currently in), they probably have a wealth of information to share. It's amazing how adept you become at gardening when it really is a matter of producing food or going hungry---Marigolds can deter aphids, tomato hornworms and cucumber beetles; onions and garlic repel several pests; nasturtiums repel squash bugs
*experiment, but within reason. Some plants are known to do poorly together, either by competing for nutrients or attracting pests/disease that feed on both plants. Do a quick online search and see if what you want to try is already known to be a poor match. If you can't find much information, give it a try and record your results so you know whether to repeat the pairing next year.
Check out the links above for more detailed charts of what things go together. A few general guidelines:
*plant shallow root and deep root plants together so they can draw nutrients from different areas of the soil--this works for companions like carrots and onions
*put together plants that are typically eaten together. I haven't read this anywhere, but it makes sense to me that perhaps our culinary traditions arise in part because certain things were easy to grow together and harvest at similar times---tomatoes and basil; spinach and strawberry
*listen to what your grandmother taught you. If you're fortunate enough to have contact or family history stories from those who lived through and immediately after the depression (especially if they were in the same area of the country you're currently in), they probably have a wealth of information to share. It's amazing how adept you become at gardening when it really is a matter of producing food or going hungry---Marigolds can deter aphids, tomato hornworms and cucumber beetles; onions and garlic repel several pests; nasturtiums repel squash bugs
*experiment, but within reason. Some plants are known to do poorly together, either by competing for nutrients or attracting pests/disease that feed on both plants. Do a quick online search and see if what you want to try is already known to be a poor match. If you can't find much information, give it a try and record your results so you know whether to repeat the pairing next year.
Tomatoes...and sewing
The first of the seeds got planted yesterday. I started with tomatoes.
There are lots of options for seedling containers. We save those plastic 6 and 9 pack containers whenever we buy seedlings or flowers at the store, plus make some of our own from newspaper. The newspaper ones work quite well and are convenient because you can pop the whole thing in the ground. The only trouble is if you handle them a lot or keep them indoors too long (and the paper starts to disintegrate). Both problems are easily solved by planning well and keeping your newspaper pots on some sort of tray so they are easy to move. For soil, we buy one bag of "vegetable planting mix" each year that we use to fill the pots. We don't buy the most expensive thing, but we don't skimp either. For us, this has cut down on some issues we had when I tried to use soil from outside (bugs, etc... that stressed young plants beyond their limits).
We keep our seeds in a back room of our house that doesn't have heat or a/c. I suspect this is what contributed to a really easy process of hardening off the plants last year. We will keep the soil moist until the plants germinate (1-2 weeks for tomatoes), then turn on the grow light above them to give them about a 12 hour "day". The light tends to dry out the soil, so it's important to water once or twice a day.
Once the seedlings develop their second set of true leaves (the first set right when they germinate don't count), they are ready to transplant and need to be hardened off for about a week. This means moving them outside during the day, and bringing them back in at night. You want to baby them a little during this phase---shady and protected from wind the first day, progressing to full sun and out in the open (I set them on the bed they'll be transplanted in) by the end of the hardening off period.
Here's a picture of what I've done so far (the light is adjustable--you don't want the light too far away at the beginning, or you get "leggy" plants):
We are aiming for about 100 tomato plants in the ground and producing, so we are planting a few more seedlings than that to accommodate for any trouble we might have. Each container (6 or 9 pack) is labeled with type of seed, where it's from (our own saved seed, or purchased), date planted, seeds per pot. This is important information---you want to know what varieties are where so you can keep track of what does well for you and what doesn't. You need to know the date you planted so if the seeds don't germinate in the time they should, you can re-plant. Knowing how many seeds are in each pot also help you determine if there is a germination problem. With these containers, I just write on the side with a sharpie. With the newspaper pots, I keep them grouped together, then cut up old yogurt containers (especially lids), write on them with sharpie and stick them in one pot per grouping. This works well indoors, but the sharpie fades if you put them out in the garden, so a good diagram in your gardening journal is still a good idea.
Yesterday I planted 141 pots, each with 2-3 seeds per pot (as they grow, I will cut off the weaker looking plants, keeping only the healthiest one in each pot). We have chosen to get all of our seed locally this year, which means we aren't growing a few things that have done well for us in the past. We have also made the choice to focus on varieties that we know will serve us well for canning. For tomatoes, we're doing: Better Boy, Sunmaster, Roma Rio Grande, and Regular Romas. Only 30 pots are the better boy and sunmasters, the rest are romas. The Roma Rio Grande is something that grew really well for us last year and we are using the seed we saved from some of those.
Other homesteading tasks.....Sierra is absolutely dying to know how to sew. Unfortunately, she's 4 and there's no way I'm letting her sit down and feed her finger through a sewing machine. We've developed a nice compromise where she does everything but hold the fabric (which I do for her). I make her tell me each step before she does it and she's gotten really good about learning the parts of the sewing machine and picking up what needs to be done next and why. Last night, she made herself her first article of clothing--a skirt. It's not the most well made thing there ever was, but it's a really good starting point and involved hemming, sewing a seam, and putting in elastic. Then, of course, we had to have a photo-shoot, where she danced and did her typical crazy Sierra moves.
There are lots of options for seedling containers. We save those plastic 6 and 9 pack containers whenever we buy seedlings or flowers at the store, plus make some of our own from newspaper. The newspaper ones work quite well and are convenient because you can pop the whole thing in the ground. The only trouble is if you handle them a lot or keep them indoors too long (and the paper starts to disintegrate). Both problems are easily solved by planning well and keeping your newspaper pots on some sort of tray so they are easy to move. For soil, we buy one bag of "vegetable planting mix" each year that we use to fill the pots. We don't buy the most expensive thing, but we don't skimp either. For us, this has cut down on some issues we had when I tried to use soil from outside (bugs, etc... that stressed young plants beyond their limits).
We keep our seeds in a back room of our house that doesn't have heat or a/c. I suspect this is what contributed to a really easy process of hardening off the plants last year. We will keep the soil moist until the plants germinate (1-2 weeks for tomatoes), then turn on the grow light above them to give them about a 12 hour "day". The light tends to dry out the soil, so it's important to water once or twice a day.
Once the seedlings develop their second set of true leaves (the first set right when they germinate don't count), they are ready to transplant and need to be hardened off for about a week. This means moving them outside during the day, and bringing them back in at night. You want to baby them a little during this phase---shady and protected from wind the first day, progressing to full sun and out in the open (I set them on the bed they'll be transplanted in) by the end of the hardening off period.
Here's a picture of what I've done so far (the light is adjustable--you don't want the light too far away at the beginning, or you get "leggy" plants):
We are aiming for about 100 tomato plants in the ground and producing, so we are planting a few more seedlings than that to accommodate for any trouble we might have. Each container (6 or 9 pack) is labeled with type of seed, where it's from (our own saved seed, or purchased), date planted, seeds per pot. This is important information---you want to know what varieties are where so you can keep track of what does well for you and what doesn't. You need to know the date you planted so if the seeds don't germinate in the time they should, you can re-plant. Knowing how many seeds are in each pot also help you determine if there is a germination problem. With these containers, I just write on the side with a sharpie. With the newspaper pots, I keep them grouped together, then cut up old yogurt containers (especially lids), write on them with sharpie and stick them in one pot per grouping. This works well indoors, but the sharpie fades if you put them out in the garden, so a good diagram in your gardening journal is still a good idea.
Yesterday I planted 141 pots, each with 2-3 seeds per pot (as they grow, I will cut off the weaker looking plants, keeping only the healthiest one in each pot). We have chosen to get all of our seed locally this year, which means we aren't growing a few things that have done well for us in the past. We have also made the choice to focus on varieties that we know will serve us well for canning. For tomatoes, we're doing: Better Boy, Sunmaster, Roma Rio Grande, and Regular Romas. Only 30 pots are the better boy and sunmasters, the rest are romas. The Roma Rio Grande is something that grew really well for us last year and we are using the seed we saved from some of those.
Other homesteading tasks.....Sierra is absolutely dying to know how to sew. Unfortunately, she's 4 and there's no way I'm letting her sit down and feed her finger through a sewing machine. We've developed a nice compromise where she does everything but hold the fabric (which I do for her). I make her tell me each step before she does it and she's gotten really good about learning the parts of the sewing machine and picking up what needs to be done next and why. Last night, she made herself her first article of clothing--a skirt. It's not the most well made thing there ever was, but it's a really good starting point and involved hemming, sewing a seam, and putting in elastic. Then, of course, we had to have a photo-shoot, where she danced and did her typical crazy Sierra moves.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Planting Time!
TennZen and I seem to be on the same page yet again! It is time to start seeds indoors for spring planting! For most things, you want to start seeds about 8 weeks before you want to transplant. For our area, the last frost date is March 5 and I'm with TennZen about milder winters, shorter springs and hotter summers---I'm going with early planting this year. Technically, some of our seeds are starting "late", but that's because the plants got "leggy" last year as we waited for a freak March snow storm to blow through and we want to avoid that this time. Our beds are ready to go, our gro-light and pots are set up and full of soil, and on my chore list for this week is to put seeds in all those little pots. I'll update with pictures this week as we work our way through.
Also have a baby-wearing update. I had mentioned how much Sedona loves the wrap--I caught pictures. She pulled the wrap out, brought it to me and held it up like, "here, put this on". When I grabbed the camera, instead of the wrap, she pulled it around herself like she was trying to get herself wrapped up.
When I did put her in, she tucked her arms in (as usual), snuggled up and sighed the contented baby sigh. All was right in her world, and that's all I can ask for mine :-)
Also have a baby-wearing update. I had mentioned how much Sedona loves the wrap--I caught pictures. She pulled the wrap out, brought it to me and held it up like, "here, put this on". When I grabbed the camera, instead of the wrap, she pulled it around herself like she was trying to get herself wrapped up.
When I did put her in, she tucked her arms in (as usual), snuggled up and sighed the contented baby sigh. All was right in her world, and that's all I can ask for mine :-)
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