General Vegetable Favorite and More Space

As part of my garden-planning activity, I find it necessary to consider what I will be growing. This really is first priority - from there, I will be able to figure out what I can do with my space and if I really need additional garden space outside of my property. 


Why is it important to consider space?  Proper spacing of plants - vegetable, flowers, trees and shrubs included - is important to allow allow air circulation, light penetration and room for growth.


The first consideration is to allow enough room for the plant at maturity.  Generally speaking, follow directions that come with the seed or plant.  This will help ensure that there is plenty of space for the full-grown plant and fruit.  Some seeds allow for planting densely, but thinning after sprouts emerge from the soil.  Some of the vining plants take up a lot of space at maturity.  I really enjoyed growing my watermelons this past year, but they required more space than I actually allowed for.  If I were to plant multiple watermelon hills next year, I believe I would allow for a circle extending five feet outward from each plant.  As I recall, the package stated three feet between plants, but it seems that ten feet between plants would have been appropriate.  As you may have seen with my watermelon post, the vines were prolific and took over other areas of the garden!


I love veggies and especially from my own garden.  And I have my favorites both to grow and to eat.  But also there are various new things I will want to try.  My favorite eating vegetable is the tomato.  I love most varieties and enjoy growing them, as well.  But the most fun I have had actually growing a vegetable was this past season when I had watermelons that took over a lot of my garden space.  In August, they were increasing in size daily and almost as I watched!  To me, zucchini is also fun to grow because they are such prolific producers.  Other veggies I might want to grow next year include garlic, herbs, carrots, pumpkins, sweet corn, lettuce, spinach, snow peas, peppers, potatoes, and radishes.  Probably I will discover others that I want to try, as well.


From one of my previous posts, I had to figure out what space I would have available for this coming growing season.  I have decided to add to my garden space in our yard, thus sacrificing some of the kids' grassy open back yard.  I am adding about 300 square feet by turning over a space of about 10 feet by 30 feet.  I went to the Gopher State One Call website (http://gopherstateonecall.org/) to submit a plan and they efficiently coordinated marking of all utilities in the area.  I may still look for additional garden space, but this will at least allow for some vining crops (only three of those watermelon vines, though!)
So, in planning my garden, I know the importance of space and so far some favorites that I want to grow.  Now the detailed planning can begin - I'll browse some seed catalogs and make my specific plan.

Houseplants, Procrastination, and Repotting

Okay, I think it's past time to prepare the houseplants for winter.  Actually, if I was up on things, I would have started preparing and acclimating my plants many weeks ago.  As it is now, when the forecast is for frost, I put plants into the garage or bring them into the house.  I was prompted to think more about this after some fellow master gardeners had a conversation about Gerber daisies and wintering them indoors.  I have a number of houseplants that I sent outside for the summer and would like to keep them over the winter.  Bringing them back inside, however, poses a few potential problems.  Previously mentioned is the fact that sometimes plants do better if gradually acclimatized to the indoor conditions or they will go through somewhat of a shock period.  This is similar to taking them out in the spring - they have to adjust.  Differing from the spring procedure, the fall indoor migration must also consider pests.  I think we don't care about taking any extra pests outside in the spring, but most would agree that we don't want to provide winter shelter for these unwanted hitch hikers!


From what I understand, the most prolific pests on houseplants are mites and aphids.  The first thing to do in looking for any pests is to visually inspect plants.  In our area of southeast Minnesota, we had an early-season problem with earwigs - and they were everywhere!  I was barely aware of this insect until this season.  Fortunately, as the summer progressed, I noticed fewer of them around.  And as I now inspect my potted plants, I have yet to see even one.  In looking at my plants, I see some damage that was caused when I allowed some of my plants to dry out too much.  Most plants look okay, except for my Christmas cactus.  These plants have obvious signs of having been on the dinner buffet of some insect.  I hope they left a good tip!  Other than outright damage, some pests leave clues to their presence.  The clues can include small spider-like webs, honey dew (sticky drops on plant surfaces), and blemishes to the plant foliage.  And the scariest (to me) sign I found was when I was putting a hosta in the ground in September and found a webby mass in the bottom of the pot.  Assuming these were spider eggs, I was happy to leave them outside.


Whatever the pest, I want to be sure to not host them in the house this winter.  Also, I want to try to care for my houseplants better than I have done in the past.  So, I first inspected the plants for signs that any pest was still in the plants that I brought in.  I did see some mealybugs, as well as a few stray webs on another plant.  But most looked pretty good.  And these pests and signs can be easily removed by running water over the foliage or wiping with a cloth or sponge.

As I brought the plants indoors, I also realized that there were some that needed to be repotted.  And this would help me to be sure there were no more of those hidden treasures, in the form of spider eggs, in the bottom of the pots!  I also had a few geraniums that were still resting comfortably in the small plastic pots in which I had purchased them.  So, there was work to do.

In repotting, it is important to understand when to do it.  My theory is to not waste the resources, if it's not necessary.  Here's a picture of a spider plant (Chlorophytum comosum) that had a few issues.

The pot was dirty and had a lot of salt deposits on it.  So, I thought it best to clean it up.  Then, when I took it out of the pot, here is what I found:

I had no idea the plant was so root bound.  I knew there were at least three plants in the pot, but assumed they were doing okay.  With that, I knew I had to split at least the two main clumps apart. 

The first step was to make sure I had pots to put them into.  My original thought was to simply clean the pot and put it back in the same one.  I could still do this, but now had to have a second pot.  I used a 1:9 ratio of bleach to water and cleaned the original.  I scrubbed it with a wire brush and a toothbrush (retired from teeth work, of course!).  After rinsing, the pot looked pretty good.



With that done and the second pot ready, I now had to split the plants.

Although I really don't like cutting roots, it is one way to stimulate new growth and had to be done to get these plants apart.  And this potted group of plants would probably have started to suffer, as a result of being so bound.  After splitting, I potted the parts into to pots using fresh potting soil.

I also potted others, but still have some to do. As the winter progresses, I hope to work on my houseplants more and have them a bit happier when spring comes around.  Of course, these winters can be rather long with cool temperatures, dry conditions and less-than-idea light, so this will be a major feat to accomplish!  I hope this helps and good luck to all you working to achieve the same!







Planning for Next Year

During this fall, there is much to do regarding gardening, not to mention all the other activities we seem to be involved in.  I had hoped to have more posts here and see that I need to be more disciplined about getting it done.  Hmmm...that sounds a bit like my gardening, too!  With that in mind, I am creating a Vegetable garden plan for next year while this and other lessons are fresh in my mind.

For the first time this year, I rented a garden space in Preston.  A few people stated that that seemed like a long way to go for gardening.  I thought it wouldn't be a big deal to travel the 16 miles to the east to tend a garden.  I have to confess that it was an utter failure!  I became too busy and the time slipped away.  If anyone visited the Preston community garden, you only had to look for the plot that was total weeds - that was mine!

So, without dwelling on that negativity too much longer, I now know that YES, it was too far to go.  I have a few other options for the additional garden space I was looking for last year.  A friend of mine has offered space at her rental property - only 1/2 block from our home.  And the space is great!  It gently slopes to the west and has great sun exposure.  I would need to till up or chemically remove the grass/weeds that have grown there in the past few years since someone last worked the soil.  With my general avoidance of chemicals, I'd opt to borrow a tiller to get it ready.

But before I do that, I want to carefully consider my own backyard.  I've been hesitant in the past to add much garden space because I like the area as a grassy place for the kids.  And there's that convenience thing.  The stakes are higher if I am at someone else's property - it must not look like a weed bed!  So, will this be motivation or embarrassment?  If the additional garden is in my backyard, there SHOULD be no extra excuses of distance and time. 

While pondering the location, I need to think about what I've grown in the past few years.  Of the vegetables I've grown, I need to consider the space they will require and future rotation to help minimize diseases.  I will think about this and post again soon.  My purpose of this discussion with myself is to assist others in planning or modifying a garden.  As always, I hope this helps!

And I want to close with a quote that a fellow Master Gardener posted the other day.  "The blood of our fallen heroes fertilized that dirt on your hands, to the keep the right to call it your own."  Please always keep all of our U.S. military members in your thoughts and prayers.  Be thankful for them, past and present, for they've sacrificed so much for our country.

Master Gardener Recruitment

For anyone interested in becoming a master gardener, now is the time to think about it!  The coordinator for Fillmore County just send out a notice regarding this.  If you are interested, the first thing to do is to apply with your county coordinator.  Once approved locally, you will be ready to go through the University of Minnesota's course online or at a class in Winona this spring.  For further information, go to the University's master gardener website at www.mg.umn.edu.  For any of you outside of Minnesota, most states have a master gardener program through an extension agency.  If you live in Fillmore or Houston counties, you may also contact Jerrold Tessmer, Extension Educator, at tesme001@umn.edu.

Cucumbers

What should we do with all these cucumbers?  That is the million-dollar question for cucumbers and other veggies this time of year.  I actually did not grow cucumbers this year, but have been gifted with a bunch!  Some have been turned to pickles, but others have ended up in the compost bin, as they were ready to use at the time I acquired them, but I didn't have the time to process before they started to liquefy.

So, with these gifts, I tried my hand at pickling.  I am a lover of dill pickles - home made or not.  My mom sent to me a few pickle recipes, including a dill recipe from my Great Grandma Caldwell.  I'm sure I have eaten her pickles in the past and was pretty excited to recreate them.  The process seemed straight-forward and visual outcome was very nice!

The recipe said the pickles would be good to eat in two weeks and better as time progressed.  I was excited to open my first jar last Sunday, but disappointed to taste how salty they were.  Now, I don't mind salt and don't consider myself sensitive to it.  My husband and mother-in-law also tested and concluded the same thing.  The good news, though, was that my friend Deb said they went well with their bloody Marys!  I think I'll have to head out to Sol N Tyne and check them out!


However, since tasting them, I have been considering the recipe and how to adjust it.  The first part of the recipe was to soak the cucumbers in salt water.  At first  I thought that was the problem, but then realized that the extra pickles that I put in the 'fridge did not have the excessive salt flavor.  So, the issue must be the brine.  I think my next shot at this recipe will be to lessen the salt in the brine. 

Systemic Repellant for Deer and Mice

Here is a link to a very interesting article about a new repellent for deer and mice to keep them away from plants.  This was developed by a UMND scientist and is scheduled to be on the market in the Spring of 2011.  Take a look at the article!

http://www1.umn.edu/news/news-releases/2010/UR_CONTENT_247932.html

Ripe Watermelon

This is my first year growing watermelons and I am not sure what a ripe one will look like, sound like or act like. Sure, I've purchased watermelons in the supermarket, but I simply assumed they were ripe. Now I have to determine if it is ripe before I pick it!

     I purchased a pot of three seedlings from Wal-Mart this spring, but don't remember the variety. There were three plants in the pot and they were too close together to separate. I clipped one and left the other two to grow when I transplanted in early June. I thought I had plenty of room and planned to plant some peppers around the perimeter of my space.

     But the vines had other intentions - they went wild and left my peppers homeless! At one time, I could see a change in the vines on a daily basis. One day, I had two doors open on a nearby garage and the vines grew into each of the doors during those few hours. Also, I found at least 11 watermelons set on the vines at one point. Two succumbed to blossom-end rot. One other fell victim to my seven-year-old daughter, who was sure it was time to pick in early August. The melon was basketball-sized at the time, but white all the way through!

     Since then, after issuing strict orders to not pick any of the remaining fruit, I have been watching them closely to see if I can tell when to pick them. I think there are seven fruit approaching ripeness now (although the math doesn't quite work out). Many people suggest thumping the melons to test for ripeness. But I am unsure of what to expect in response from the unsuspecting watermelon.

     So, in considering how to figure out when to pick them, I have discovered that I have to pay attention to a few factors. According to the University of Minnesota - Extension, there are three basic factors that determine the ripeness of watermelon (and honeydew). The first factor is the drying of tendrils near the fruit stem. These tendrils look like a pair of small stems and leaves that extend out either side of the main stem near and attached to the watermelon. These will dry up and turn brown as the fruit is approaching ripeness. The second factor is a dulling of color and an increase in the surface roughness. This seems to be a subtle change, but can be detected by periodic close observation. Finally, the third factor is the yellowing of the bottom of the fruit. The bottom will be light green prior to the change. Since checking for this change involves turning the melon enough to get a view of the bottom (where the fruit rests on the ground), I think it's best to check this indicator last.

     Using these factors, I have found two of my melons look to be about ripe. I picked one to share with friends last night. I was very pleased to see the nice pink inside and taste the sweetness of the beautiful homegrown melon!