Technical Gardening

My son said the other day that I don't give enough technical information. He's right, but I am not a technical gardner. I grew up walking through my grandfather's garden and seeing all the wonderful and plentiful vegetables growing in his garden. My mother and father had a few gardens when they had a place to plant them, and my mother and her sister canned up at least 300 jars of produce each year. If they didn't grow it they bought it from those who did. My fondest memory is going down (the creepy) cellar to retrieve a jar of pears she had canned in pineapple juice! Anyway, my gardening has 30 years of untechnical experience, hit or miss you might say, but with advise from anyone who was serious about gardening. The years have been productive! Much has landed on my shelves in jars and much has been given away to neighbors and friends. This winter I will take you through my process of deciding what to plant, what to prepare for, what to start as plants on my windowsills, plus my personal favorites (and my neighbor's) for vegetables, the brands and the types. I don't really care if this blog is terribly popular, if I can help one or two people start to grow their own vegetables, I am a winner!

Flower girl

Mostly I am a vegetable Northern gardner, however I inherited a flower garden. I'm in the process of changing it to all easy to manage perinnials, with longer lasting blooms, and some re-bloomers. I like all kinds of lilies, shasta daisies, hosta's, iris, phlox, balloon flowers, foxglove to name a few. I am in the process of "learning" about each plant, and being fall there is work to do to them. What I learned this year is some need to be cut half way down, some need to be left to die without cutting down, some need to be pruned, and some need to be cut right down. If you don't want them to spread more than the amount you planted, you need to deadhead those flowers. Lilies need to be left alone, except to take the seed pods off until they turn brown. Shasta dasies will reseed, but if you want merely to have a second flowering, deadhead them. My second flowering was shorter and smaller, but still pretty. Hosta's, if they have gotten too large, need to be split. There are two ways to do this, one you could cut through the roots with a bulb planter on the roots that have eyes, or I just slice down through the plant with a sharp shovel and plant that section of hosta in another area, mainly my neighbors yard! Iris I let the tall leaves turn brown and then cut off. Check for diseased or rotten areas on the bulbs, and remove any bulbs that are infected. Phlox you merely cut off the spent flowers if you don't want more phlox, and when it is dead, cut to the ground. Baloon flowers will reseed too so if you have enough, cut off the seed pods and they will rebloom. Foxglove will also rebloom if you deadhead the flower stems, then remove the stems completely to ground level. One additional flower I have is purple coneflower. They rebloom with or without deadheading, but they also reseed. If you leave the seed pods for the winter birds, they'll be happy! Soooo much work, soooo little time. Make sure you take out weeds from the bed! Remember if you have small children, they need to be warned about certain plants like foxglove and delphinium, as they are posionous (so are the leaves of rhubarb). Check your local nursery for more information on posionous plants.

Water without additives

No one really likes to look out the window and see rain. Snow bothers some people but not as much as rain. However, for fall clean up, rain can be an asset. First of all, wait until it stops raining, go outside and pull out all the garden you want to remove, including weeds! They come out much easier after a rain, the roots get softened in the soil making pulling out a cynch. Also, bulbs and plants settle in much better and are healthier to withstand the winter months,so plant them now. Also, it is a natural water, not water laced with chlorine, like most drinking water is. Happy fall planting

We missed frosty

Yes, the full moon has come and gone and down by the lake frosty by-passed us, however 5 miles away from the lake frosty hit with a vengenance, all is gone! So if you did get frosty, it may be time to remove your carrots, they should be sweetened by the frost. It is also time to pull all dead items from the garden, course it takes much more for weeds to succumb to frost, but pull them also. Bag these items and take them to the dump. If you have a tiller, you can till the garden area that didn't survive, and if you like garlic, plant them now for next year. In the Spring you will see the new growth, make sure there are not weeds around them, and put some compost or fertilizer around them. It is also time if you love flowers to do your planting or transplanting. From here on out there should be enough natural water to sustain them, but if we do get a dry spell, use the sprinkler. Happy fall gardening!

Frosty full moon

In the north country a full moon in September can mean a hard frost. That will mean most of your garden will not continue on, unless you cover the items you want to save. Carrots, brocolli, cabbage, kale, cauliflower and hardier items will survive for a bit longer, but not tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, summer squash, zuchinni and other tender plants. They will die with a hard frost, some like tomatoes might survive a light frost, one or two degrees below 32.
If you do have a frost and awake before daylight, turn the water on the items, otherwise cover them.

If you find that your garden is full of green Tomatoes, and a frost is imminent, pick them and throw them in a bag with an apple to ripen. Apples release ethylene, a ripening agent that will speed up the process. However, once picked, the Tomatoes will no longer produce sugars, so even when they ripen off the vine, they will not taste as good as fresh picked vine ripened Tomatoes.

Frost does not help the flavor of squashes contrary to popular belief. Frost does however improve the flavour of Kale. You can 'over-winter' your Kale and harvest it when the snow has it covered by a foot or so. It will taste just as good. Brussel sprouts are another crop you can leave and eat and enjoy all winter right from the garden. You may need to use snow shoes to harvest them though, but the rewards will be worth it.

Beans

I am on my third picking of beans, mainly because I pick them clean and keep them picked. If the plants don't get sick then you can keep getting another batch of beans until you let them go to seed. I can do this with peas too, just keep the vines well picked and they will come back unless the vines get sick! It beats replanting because it's cheaper!