The Weeds Had Time and I Didn't

The title of this post pretty much sums up the year for my 2010 garden. After a year of gardening adventures and hard work in 2009, my wife insisted, "We will have a much smaller garden this year!" To which, I promptly disagreed and said that I would do all the work. Yeah...

So, I charged ahead, even going as far as to till up an extra patch of land on my five acres where I could plant sweet corn and zucchini and squash. I immediately got behind in planting. While I did eventually get all the plants and seeds in the ground, it was so late, it was questionable if some would have a chance to mature. We got pretty adventurous trying to plant lima beans, brussels sprouts, eggplant, etc. These all preformed as expected. (They didn't) But the real story this year was WEEDS! About the time plants really started to come up the rains came. Great right? Little seedlings need water right? Not if the rains last for about two weeks straight and keep you from weeding around your tender little seedlings. Killer competition.

I swallowed my pride and my wife called in the big guns, the in-laws, who came over at one point and tried to help me get a handle on the mess that was my garden. They brought a big tiller and some serious will-power, but, just when I thought I'd get ahead of this fine crop of weeds, the rains started again. To cut to the chase, I lost. The weeds won. While I got a decent share of some vegetables, and learned the lesson that your garden doesn't have to be perfect to produce, I also learned that if you really, really want to thrive, not just survive off your garden, you have to STAY AT IT, rains or no rains!

I'll be spending my winter figuring out ways to work smarter, not harder.

October: Looking Back on the Garden Year

It is mid October and we got snow the other night! Certainly earlier than we would expect around here. As a result, I just dug the carrots yesterday and picked the last of the pumpkins. The last produce from our garden this year! I write that with some excitement because, frankly, the one thing I didn't expect was HOW MUCH WORK a garden can be. It was well worth it... definitely a two person job though!

We were up to our ears in fresh produce this year. So, what went well? All the radishes we planted produced more than we knew what to do with. Carrots. We got our share. Lettuce! We had WAY TOO MUCH! It grew very well... which was our downfall. I'm the only one who eats lettuce in our house. Our cherry tomatoes (Sweet 100's) produced TONS of beautiful red fruits. The yellow beans and green beans we planted did great. Of course they would, this IS Iowa after all. Zucchini and Summer Squash, we found ourselves looking online for recipes to use it all up. Peas, the Sugar Snap Peas did just fine. Every cabbage plant we had produced a good sized head. We got some cauliflower and a bit of broccoli. And, along with a bunch of pumpkins and decorative gourds planted on another part of the property, we even got a few watermelons. I can't forget the sunflowers we planted beside the barn.

What didn't work so well in the garden this year? We planted way too many radishes to know what to do with. Next year, we'll do a small first and later second planting. Much less lettuce! And again, like the radishes, we'll do several plantings so we can enjoy it longer. Tomatoes were interesting. First, the ones I started from seed died off. Doing a little research, I failed to "harden them off" before I put them in the ground. We ended up buying plants from a greenhouse. While we got lots of cherry tomatoes from these plants, we didn't get many "regular" sized tomatoes from our other plants... I forget the variety. But, everyone I talk to said that their tomato crop this year was poor. Apparently it was too cold or something. Cucumber. We got a decent first crop, then, they got some sort of disease that made them all look like gourds. I've got to do more research on that. We planted eggplant which never came up. We planted strawberries and not a single plant amounted to anything. I will try again next year and try to stay on top of the weeds better. I think that there was too much competition. Our peppers were marginal. We planted banana, red, green, yellow and purple peppers. The banana peppers did ok, but the others were not so great. I think these needed to get in the ground sooner, because this early frost we had took out some pretty good looking SMALL peppers. We planted basil and cilantro in the garden this year. Next year, we are going to pot it. The weeds took it over. The garlic was a complete failure. Not sure we'll do that again. Some things are just easier purchased from a store. Our beets were devoured by deer (we think). We didn't get a single beet. Next year we'll fence them before the deer get to them. Onions were small. I'll try a different variety next year. The "regular" peas we planted got the blight (can peas get blight?) and we only got a small crop of those to freeze.

All in all, it was a good first effort. We learned a lot this year, and will gladly plant our garden again next year. I promised a garden layout some time ago. I'm still going to do this and post it. For my own records as much as for anyone elses' possible interest. Winter is coming... maybe since I don't have a garden to weed and tend, I can actually get some posting done this winter. Happy Fall!

First Week of May, Planting Seeds

My wife spent her spare time planting the garden seeds while I worked on a playset for the kiddies. Following is a list of the seeds she put in the ground this past weekend.
May 2:
Marigolds
Radish -"Cherry Belle" Ferry-Morse (FM) Organic -"Icicle, Short Top" Radish (FM)
Carrots - Scarlet Nantjes and Danvers
Lettuce - Mesclun (Sweet Salad Mix) Burpee Signature -"Bibb" (FM - Organic) -Gourmet Blend (Burpee Signature) -"Black Seeded Simpson (FM - Organic)
Spinach - Bloomsdale, Long Standing (FM - Organic)

May 3:
Beets - "Detroit Supreme" (Burpee Signature)
White Onion Sets - 3 in apart and some 1/2" apart for greens
Yellow Onion Sets - all 3 in apart
Peas - "Pea Progress" & Pea Mammoth Melting (both Burpee Organic)

We also took the tomato plants I started out into the garage to acclimate them for the colder weather outside and purchased a bunch of peppers, cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower plants from the green house. Still have more garden to put in.

Homesteading 101

In the interest of full record keeping. I also spent time this weekend planting trees around the farm and pasture. I put a couple Weeping Willows in down by the river. I hope the deer or other critters don't get them. Those will be very cool if they are allowed to grow up unmolested. Little H.B. and I put in six hybrid poplars on some high ground in the pasture. Three blue spruce were planted to stabilize a steep bank in the pasture as well. I also put one Bald Cypress in on the yard. It is questionably hardy in this zone, but, if it makes it, it should be very dramatic. All the trees are tiny little twigs at this point, but, if they take hold, I'm looking forward to seeing them grow big and strong. Who says there are no trees in Iowa?

Gathering My Garden Seeds

It is Monday the 20th of April. It was another great weekend weather wise, so, I tried to spend as much time outside as possible. I got a chance to till the garden, and start another long-time-coming project, a play set/swing set for the kids. I'm pretty excited about both the garden and the play set. My Wife has signed on for helping with the garden, she's excited about the prospect of organic vegetables. I'm on my own when it comes to the play set. I'll post some pictures and plans of the play set when I'm finished with it.

We also took some time this weekend, to purchase some of the seeds we will be planting. We bought mostly organic, with the exception of a few plants that are either ornamental, or, I'm just not totally convinced we'd find them easily in an organic format. My next post will be a complete list of the plant variety, brand and whether they are organic or not. Maybe not all that interesting to you, but, I'm sure it will be very handy for me going forward. My started tomatoes are coming along nicely in their little growing setup, though, they are getting a bit spindly. I thought using the combo natural window light and CFL would keep them from getting that way, but, I guess that isn't the right mix of light. Nonetheless, they are growing like crazy. I'm sure they will fill out once I get them in the ground.

I'm coming up with a pretty extensive "To-Do" list as I'm typing here. 1. Finish purchasing the rest of my seeds. 2. Purchase greenhouse started plants. 3. Do a garden layout! (I'm sort of waiting to do this until I know what seeds I'm going to be planting.) 4. Till more garden space. I tilled up the 30' x 50' space that was a garden last year. My Wife took one look at it and said, "We aren't going to have enough room." She's right, so, I'll be tilling more space. We are putting in a lot of plants. It is going to be a HUGE garden!

Starting Raspberries Too Early? I'll Find Out.

It is April 11 and today was a gorgeous day. The temperatures reached into the 60's, so, I decided to work outside as much as possible today. It has been roughly a month (1 week shy) since I last posted, and I had started tomato seeds then. Well, those seeds are now little seedlings, up and growing strong under the bulb and light from the window. I had one pot that didn't have a single seed start, but all of the other ones had both seeds planted come up, so, I carefully transplanted one seedling from another pot into the pot that flopped. I'll see how that goes. I touched the leaves of the plant only, hoping to minimize the chance that I killed it by moving it.

Last week, my raspberries from Gurney's came. There were six bare root plants. They arrived looking healthy, and, even though, technically, we are not past the last date for potential frost, I plunked them in the ground today. I picked a spot behind an old livestock building on the property that gets full southern exposure to the sun, and, I'm assuming has seen it's share of "organic" fertilizer. If they don't freeze off, they ought to do well there. I'll watch the weather, and if it looks like we are going to get to freezing temps again, I'll cover the plants with a tent of plastic.

Starting Seeds

I realize this post is titled, "Starting Seeds", but I've decided I'm going to buy the majority of my vegetable seedlings for the garden this year. I'll give the seed starting thing a little more of a try next season once I figure out what does, or doesn't do well this year. The one plant, I am going to try to start from seed, indoors, then transplant, is tomatoes. I have to admit, I really don't like them fresh all that much, but, my wife loves fresh tomatoes. I guess, I do like salsa, and it seems like tomatoes are the thing to start early, from seed, so, that's what I've chosen to try.

I'm just going to attempt to start seven plants. Mostly because that is how many containers I happened to have on hand. (Seven is also a lucky number!) My son Henry and I had a great time putting the dirt in the pots... cut off 1/2 gallon milk cartons and a couple of reused plastic nursery pots. We planted the seeds about a 1/4" deep. I put in two seeds per pot, in case one is bad. I'll decide when they come up, which seedling looks like it has the best chance, then pinch off the other one. I believe the last frost is around the first week of May here in Northwest Iowa. The tomato packet says to start the seeds 6 to 8 weeks prior to planting, so, I think I'm pretty close on the time line. I, admittedly, didn't give myself a whole lot of time to compensate for errors or a lack of germination.

In the interest of keeping my little growing operation out of the way, I've put the pots on a window sill in the basement that gets decent light, and I'll supplement the natural light with a compact florescent bulb on a timer. It should be a little better on the electricity usage than a traditional broad spectrum grow bulb. I've read a few places that florescent bulbs are as good as long as you have a warm and cool bulb. I'm hoping the window and a CFL will do the trick. I've also read that if you don't supplement your light with an artificial light of some kind, your seedlings will be tall and spindly. Which, isn't good. You want stout seedlings with relatively thick stems. "The experts" recommend around 12 hours of light a day for starting seedlings. I'll see how this setup goes. Speaking of experts, here are a couple links to Iowa State University pdf files on Home Vegetable Gardening and Starting Garden Transplants at Home, which, is where I got a lot of this info. Consider this a nod to my source.

I purchased Burpee organic tomato seed. Baxter's Bush Cherry Tomato and Beefsteak varieties. I used some regular potting soil that I had around. I don't know if having "seed starting" soil will be an issue or not. Maybe. I think potting soil has less organic matter in it, which doesn't allow the soil to get overly wet for the seedlings. One thing I did notice after the fact, is that the potting soil I used is not "organic", so, technically, it was pointless to spend fifty cents more per packet to buy organic seed. True organic vegetables never touch a chemical or pesticide anywhere in the process. I can't imagine it makes that much of a difference in the long term growth of the plant. Unless my potting soil has been sterilized by using arsenic! Anyway, I'll keep posting on how my little seed starting experiment goes... It's not like I can go weed the garden right now. So, I guess this is what I have to "garden" at the moment.

Here is a picture of my seed starting setup. Yes, it looks a little ghetto, but, I'm experimenting. I'm not going to go crazy with intricate lighting and containers. If I can get seeds started in this manner, think what will happen when I actually put some time into it!