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Planning Your Garden: Soil

Posted on April 8, 2013 by samaine

Early on in my gardening years I thought gardening began with planting in the spring. Later, I thought gardening began with sketches of landscape plans in winter. But my long-time gardening and scientist husband has long known what it took me quite some time to truly understand: gardening begins with the soil and even the best-laid plans will not come to fruition it you do not understand your soil and amend it accordingly. Soil, not a season, is where gardening begins.

Soil Analysis

Getting the soil in your yard analyzed is the best first step to gardening effectively and efficiently. Not only is it easier than it sounds, but it is worth the time, for you will have fewer failures if you know what your soil is like and change it to meet the needs of your plants. Just go online to find out whether your state cooperative extension offers this service and follow the instructions. Virginia, for instance, offers this service for a nominal fee to gardeners in and out of state.Testing your soil is also a great opportunity to teach kids more about scientific processes: together you can hypothesize about the soil, collect samples to send in, read the analyses, and learn about soil chemistry. I can imagine an entire interdisciplinary project for kids based on discovering the complexities of soil and its crucial role in backyard ecology.

From our first soil analysis

Composting

In addition to getting your soil analyzed, the best thing you could do for your soil right here right now would be to start composting. April is bringing higher temperatures to zone 7 where I live (finally!), which means the compost is breaking down faster and is almost ready to put into the garden. You can buy organic compost at the store, but it ends up costing a lot over time. Composting at home takes an up front investment, but it is a crucial first step to having rich organic matter to add to your soil to feed your plants. Moreover, composting your food waste means you are not throwing it in the trash; you are reducing your footprint by reusing this “trash” to create compost “gold” for the garden.

Composting with worms

No matter how big or small you want your garden to be this year (even if you plan to grow a single tomato plant in a pot) it would benefit from your composting. Whether you live in a one-bedroom apartment or a 5-bedroom house on some land, you should consider going out and buying some worms and a worm composter. Worms, you say?! Yes, you heard me right. Worms. Right now, we are taking a break from composting with worms, but we have in years past. I am seriously missing the rich compost tea they produce and they are on my mind because I hope to get more soon.

You can find worm composters (and worms!) online. I highly recommend a composter with a spout through which to release the liquid compost. Even if you live in a small apartment, you can store your worms under the sink and use the “tea” on your potted plants year round. The rules? Occasionally feed your worms light amounts of food scraps. Do not feed them meat, fish, cheese, or oily foods. Also, don’t put in really tough materials like avocado seeds and skins. It may take some experimenting. (We started worm composting do-it-yourself-style using a bucket from Home Depot and all the worms died. (Insert guilty sigh.)) We have also overfed worms. I recommend reading the material that comes with your worms with care, paying a fair amount of attention to how the worms respond to the feedings early on, and soon you will get into a simple rhythm. It will take very little time and energy before you will have your own worm farm. Kids also LOVE working with worms and can learn a lot in the process.

Composting outdoors

Our composter from the outside

A composter is a receptacle where you put a combination of green material (like grass clippings) and food waste that break down together over time and become rich compost. Once it is totally decomposed, you mix it in with your soil. The compost does not have a foul odor if it is in balance and we have had no problems with critters in the compost.

We have a medium-sized garden (as well as 10 fruit trees, many berry bushes, and some flower beds), so we need a lot of compost and use a ComposTumbler. You should choose a composter that makes sense for the size of your garden, your budget, and your available space. (This company does make other sizes. My only complaint about ours is that I wish it were lower to the ground, but it is designed that way to save your back when turning it.) Other options include building your own. (This Old House has do-it-yourself instructions here and there is much more detailed information from the Virginia Cooperative Extension’s brochure “Making Compost from Yard Waste.” While we had good luck with this type of homemade composter in northern California, where we used to live, we are skeptical about how well it would work in the colder fall/winter months in northern Virginia.)

Our composter on the inside

Now is a great time to start composting; spring is here! Before you know it you will be keeping trash out of the landfill, enriching your soil, and growing healthier, happier plants!

Spring Day

Posted on March 20, 2013 by samaine

Spring Day

Bath

The day is fresh-washed and fair, and there is a smell of tulips and narcissus in the air.
The sunshine pours in at the bath-room window and bores through the water in the bath-tub in lathes and planes of greenish-white. It cleaves the water into flaws like a jewel, and cracks it to bright light.
Little spots of sunshine lie on the surface of the water and dance, dance, and their reflections wobble deliciously over the ceiling; a stir of my finger sets them whirring, reeling. I move a foot, and the planes of light in the water jar. I lie back and laugh, and let the green-white water, the sun-flawed beryl water, flow over me. The day is almost too bright to bear, the green water covers me from the too bright day. I will lie here awhile and play with the water and the sun spots.
The sky is blue and high. A crow flaps by the window, and there is a whiff of tulips and narcissus in the air.

Breakfast Table

In the fresh-washed sunlight, the breakfast table is decked and white. It offers itself in flat surrender, tendering tastes, and smells, and colours, and metals, and grains, and the white cloth falls over its side, draped and wide. Wheels of white glitter in the silver coffee-pot, hot and spinning like catherine-wheels, they whirl, and twirl—and my eyes begin to smart, the little white, dazzling wheels prick them like darts. Placid and peaceful, the rolls of bread spread themselves in the sun to bask. A stack of butter-pats, pyramidal, shout orange through the white, scream, flutter, call: “Yellow! Yellow! Yellow!” Coffee steam rises in a stream, clouds the silver tea-service with mist, and twists up into the sunlight, revolved, involuted, suspiring higher and higher, fluting in a thin spiral up the high blue sky. A crow flies by and croaks at the coffee steam. The day is new and fair with good smells in the air.

Walk

Over the street the white clouds meet, and sheer away without touching.
On the sidewalks, boys are playing marbles. Glass marbles, with amber and blue hearts, roll together and part with a sweet clashing noise. The boys strike them with black and red striped agates. The glass marbles spit crimson when they are hit, and slip into the gutters under rushing brown water. I smell tulips and narcissus in the air, but there are no flowers anywhere, only white dust whipping up the street, and a girl with a gay Spring hat and blowing skirts. The dust and the wind flirt at her ankles and her neat, high-heeled patent leather shoes. Tap, tap, the little heels pat the pavement, and the wind rustles among the flowers on her hat.
A water-cart crawls slowly on the other side of the way. It is green and gay with new paint, and rumbles contentedly, sprinkling clear water over the white dust. Clear zigzagging water, which smells of tulips and narcissus.
The thickening branches make a pink grisaille against the blue sky.
Whoop! The clouds go dashing at each other and sheer away just in time. Whoop! And a man’s hat careers down the street in front of the white dust, leaps into the branches of a tree, veers away and trundles ahead of the wind, jarring the sunlight into spokes of rose-colour and green.
A motor-car cuts a swathe through the bright air, sharp-beaked, irresistible, shouting to the wind to make way. A glare of dust and sunshine tosses together behind it, and settles down. The sky is quiet and high, and the morning is fair with fresh-washed air.

Midday and Afternoon

Swirl of crowded streets. Shock and recoil of traffic. The stock-still brick façade of an old church, against which the waves of people lurch and withdraw. Flare of sunshine down side-streets. Eddies of light in the windows of chemists’ shops, with their blue, gold, purple jars, darting colours far into the crowd. Loud bangs and tremors, murmurings out of high windows, whirring of machine belts, blurring of horses and motors. A quick spin and shudder of brakes on an electric car, and the jar of a church-bell knocking against the metal blue of the sky. I am a piece of the town, a bit of blown dust, thrust along with the crowd. Proud to feel the pavement under me, reeling with feet. Feet tripping, skipping, lagging, dragging, plodding doggedly, or springing up and advancing on firm elastic insteps. A boy is selling papers, I smell them clean and new from the press. They are fresh like the air, and pungent as tulips and narcissus.
The blue sky pales to lemon, and great tongues of gold blind the shop-windows, putting out their contents in a flood of flame.

Night and Sleep

The day takes her ease in slippered yellow. Electric signs gleam out along the shop fronts, following each other. They grow, and grow, and blow into patterns of fire-flowers as the sky fades. Trades scream in spots of light at the unruffled night. Twinkle, jab, snap, that means a new play; and over the way: plop, drop, quiver, is the sidelong sliver of a watchmaker’s sign with its length on another street. A gigantic mug of beer effervesces to the atmosphere over a tall building, but the sky is high and has her own stars, why should she heed ours?
I leave the city with speed. Wheels whirl to take me back to my trees and my quietness. The breeze which blows with me is fresh-washed and clean, it has come but recently from the high sky. There are no flowers in bloom yet, but the earth of my garden smells of tulips and narcissus.
My room is tranquil and friendly. Out of the window I can see the distant city, a band of twinkling gems, little flower-heads with no stems. I cannot see the beer-glass, nor the letters of the restaurants and shops I passed, now the signs blur and all together make the city, glowing on a night of fine weather, like a garden stirring and blowing for the Spring.
The night is fresh-washed and fair and there is a whiff of flowers in the air.
Wrap me close, sheets of lavender. Pour your blue and purple dreams into my ears. The breeze whispers at the shutters and mutters queer tales of old days, and cobbled streets, and youths leaping their horses down marble stairways. Pale blue lavender, you are the colour of the sky when it is fresh-washed and fair…I smell the stars…they are like tulips and narcissus…I smell them in the air.

-Amy Lowell, 1916

Rosemary: The Backbone of the Kitchen Garden

Posted on February 23, 2013 by samaine

If you love to cook and have absolutely no time to garden–I mean no more than 1 hour–you should give yourself the gift of buying and planting rosemary this year. Just one or two well-sited plants, and in 2-3 years time you should have an abundance of fresh rosemary that will support your culinary adventures throughout the winter and early spring. Rosemary is the backbone of my kitchen garden for it gives year-round, saves me tons of money, and enhances meals throughout the cold months.

When we moved into our northern Virginia house there were no gardens except for a narrow strip of foundation plantings at the front of the house. We bought a single rosemary plant–it was medium size and cost $9, I think. A real splurge. Seriously. I chose Winter Hardy (Rosmarinus officinalis ‘Arp’) because it was the most hardy variety of rosemary offered at our wonderful local nursery that specializes in herbs: Debaggio’s Herb Farm. (Winter Hardy is hardy to -10 degrees F.) To be honest I wasn’t sure how cold it would get here in the winter, and I wanted that rosemary to live. (When I added a new rosemary plant to the herb bed the year before last it was another hardy variety: Hill Hardy.) Our soil isn’t good (heavy clay) and we worked it and amended it some but nowhere near what we now do; we were too overwhelmed with projects and parenting. But four years in, that Winter Hardy plant is about 4.5 feet tall and happy. (Though soon I may need to come up with a better pruning/harvesting plan.) My point: it doesn’t take a lot to plant rosemary and care for it (we’ve done virtually nothing), and it will thrive IF you have chosen a variety suited to your region and sited it well.

Rosemary requires at least four hours of sun per day. Ours gets 10-11 during the summer months. We also put it close to the house in the herb bed just outside our kitchen door (for easy access) which has a west/southwestern exposure. When you site your rosemary think about both its needs in terms of light as well as its hardiness. If you live in a colder climate, you should buy one of these most-hardy types and site it close to a protective wall with good sun exposure. If you live in a more temperate climate, be sure to choose one that will be a safe bet in terms of its hardiness. You will be thrilled with the results.

Here’s my Winter Hardy Rosemary at 2 years old and then this winter at 3.5 years old.

The 1.5 year old more compact Hill Hardy is in front of the birdbath in the second picture. Who knows how monstrous the Winter Hardy will be after THIS summer–over 5 feet?

In case you aren’t inspired yet to plant my all-time favorite kitchen garden plant, just think about what you can cook with it. In winter I make a long-cooked rosemary tomato sauce which is amazing. (And it’s even better in the summer when I use fresh tomatoes; it is rich like good wine.) In spring and fall, I make a pasta sauce of cannellini beans, rosemary, garlic, and fresh greens that is to die for. And rosemary is on my mind because I just made a batch of one of my family’s new favorite cookies: Rosemary-Pecan Cookies. Here’s the recipe.

Rosemary-Pecan Cookies

Ingredients

3/4 c all-purpose flour
1/2 c oat flour (you may use all all-purpose flour, but I’m always trying to get whole grain flours into things without compromising texture and taste)
1/2 c finely ground pecans
1 TBSP finely chopped fresh rosemary (or as much as you want to use to your taste)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c unsalted butter, softened
1/4 c granulated sugar
1/4 c packed dark-brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Instructions

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Mix flours, nuts, rosemary, and salt in a bowl.
Mix butter and sugars in electric mixer on medium until light. Mix in vanilla.
On low speed add flour mixture and mix just until the dough is together.
Place dough on wax paper or parchment paper. Cover with another sheet of paper and roll out to 1/4 inch thickness.
Refrigerate until firm (20-40 minutes).
Cut out cookies using a cutter and transfer to parchment-lined baking sheets.
Re-roll scraps and cut out until you have no more dough remaining.
Bake 15-18 minutes. Note: The cookies may not be golden. If you like a chewy cookie, which I do, take them out and have them sit on the pan out of the oven for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. If you like crisp shortbread-style cookies, cook them until just golden brown (probably about 20 minutes) and then cool on wire racks.

Enjoy!

Can’t Wait for Spring? Make Seed Tape!

Posted on February 17, 2013 by samaine

Every year I long for the time when I can get out into the garden to plant the spring seeds. Finally, the time to plant here in Virginia is upon us, and this weekend the ground is too wet and it is cold and windy outside. Enter seed tape. My three-year-old and I made enough seed tape in 2 hours yesterday to plant all the raised beds (three 8 by 4 foot beds) that are going to receive smallish seeds for this spring’s garden (carrots, beets, fennel, spinach, French breakfast radishes, swiss chard, and kale).

What is seed tape, you ask. Seed tape is a strip of biodegradable “tape” to which seeds have been attached at the correct spacing so that you can place the seed tape down in straight lines in your garden, making planting a snap. Using seed tape saves your back, your TIME, and your money. As a busy working mother, I always get the seeds into the ground because my kids are into that activity. Finding time to thin the seedlings again and again throughout the season until they are properly spaced for maximized growth and health? Well, let’s just say I have a harder time finding the time for that. My solution: seed tape.

So you can buy seed tape, but why do that when you can make your own for next to no money and plant the specialty varieties of fruits and vegetables you actually want to grow and eat? Here’s a great demonstration video from the Wisconsin Vegetable Gardener to show you how to make your own seed tape.

Based on the video demonstration found at the link above, I made our seed tape with some modifications.

I used a non-toxic marker to make the dots (just in case and for good measure).
I used one of the many old syringe bulbs we had gathering dust in the cosmetic closet instead of Q-tips. (I’m talking about those plastic bulbs used to suck stuff out of kids’ noses that you get when you have a new baby but rarely if ever end up using. It was the perfect tool for my three-year-old to use to dab the flour-water paste on the seed tape dots.)
We tried to dab as little flour-water adhesive on each dot as possible to discourage germination of the seeds, and so we added more “paste” along the edge of the tape so it would stick properly.
When I labelled the seed tape strips with the variety of seed, I also marked the tape according to what garden bed it will go into. I then stored the seed tape (after it dried) in separate plastic bags according to which bed it will be planted in. (Chances are that when small hands get into this planting project, the strips will get mixed up.)
In the case of spinach, I know I will want to use the thinned seedlings in salads. So I placed the seeds on the seed tape at one inch apart and once they are 3 inches high, I will thin every other one. I’ll keep thinning every other one until the spinach plants are at the recommended distance apart. I think I can handle this one chore in order to have those micro greens.

The other benefit of the seed tape is that I used way fewer seeds in making it than I would have used with traditional “sprinkle in the row” sowing methods. That means a savings of money as well as time: I basically won’t have to order seeds next year. And no more crowded seedlings like the ones in the photo below crying out for a good thinning!

Planning for Preserves

Posted on February 8, 2013 by samaine

It has finally gotten cold here in Virginia, and the spring and summer seem far, far away. As my just-turned-three-year-old said the other night while waving his new canning jar labels in the air, “But it takes a long time, guys!” He was referring to how long it will be until he gets to put those labels on newly filled jam jars. On these wintery days, one thing keeping me going are the wonderful preserves and pickles we put up last summer. They enhance many meals. As you plan your garden, don’t forget to consider what preserved foods your family might like, for you may want to plant beyond what you will need for fresh eating. My kids, for instance, love the blackberry and peach jam we made last summer. (This reminds me that making homemade peach jam is yet another reason to have a peach tree. See my post “Planning Your Garden: Seeds.”) In fact, peanut butter and homemade jam sandwiches are my family’s fast food, and I feel a lot better about serving my sons that than other preservative-laden options.

Recognize that we don’t have a lot of time to preserve stuff, nor do we have lots of storage space in our 1950′s suburban split-level. (No garage, no shed, certainly no giant cold basement pantry like my back-to-the-land parents had in Maine in the 1960s.) In fact, we canned food after the kids were asleep only two or three nights all of last year. But what we made we love: the jams, hot pepper-mint jelly, peach halves in light syrup, zucchini relish. I get hungry just thinking about it.

In the hopes of getting your dreams of preserving going, here’s the list of preserves I plan to make this garden year. Once you invest in the canning materials (pot, basket, magnetic lid tool, canning jar tongs, jars, lids, Pomona pectin, and labels), you will be able to use them for a very long time (excepting the lids & labels, and pectin, which are not expensive). It is well worth the investment.

Old favorites

peach jam
peach halves in light syrup
blackberry jam
mint-jalapeno pepper jelly
pickled beets with onions
dilly beans
bread-and-butter pickles
zucchini relish

Things to try this year

dill pickles
watermelon pickles
strawberry jam
rhubarb compote

As a busy parent, I find the jams particularly wonderful time savers. Just think of all the jam-filled cakes, cookies, and other desserts you can make quickly and from scratch all next winter and early spring! These specialty items, when well made, are great for guests and kids love them as well.

Other things to consider as you plan: Do you want to freeze any fruits or vegetables? Do you want to dry herbs? Make flavored liquors or vinegars? I’m going to try freezing more veggies this year (especially sugar snap peas and beans) and make my own herbal teas to save money and expand my tea palate. There are countless ways to preserve the harvest and keep your garden giving year round.

Planning Your Garden: Sun

Posted on January 23, 2013 by samaine

My 7-year-old and I sat down a few days ago to plan his garden. (He has an 8 foot by 4 foot raised bed that he amends, plants, and tends, though I must say he is more into amending and planting than tending.) This year for his spring garden, he only wants to grow two things: sugar snap peas and carrots. He has become our expert carrot grower in part because he has put so much sand from the sandbox into his bed that root vegetables love its soil.

After he chose what to plant and we made sure we had seeds, I asked him which side of the bed the 8 foot high teepee for the peas should be on: “Which side should it be on so it doesn’t shade the carrots: north or south?” After a fair amount of thinking, he answered correctly–north–and then we talked about the location of his garden bed in relation to north, east, south, and west and where the sun comes up and goes down and how and where shade will be created throughout the day. It reminded me of how gardening with kids opens up all sorts of opportunities to teach them about their world and how it works. A fun project you could do with your kids would be to go outside in the middle of the day, draw a map of your garden area and experiment with the adult standing in all sorts of different spots while the kid records where the shadows fall.

In fact, if you haven’t already, you should undertake a version of this project in planning your garden, for you need to decide where plants should be sited according to how many hours of sun they get per day as well as how the way you have planted them will impact the amount of light each will receive (tall plants if put to the south will shade the plants to the north). Remembering that the sun will get higher and higher in the sky as we move into spring and then summer, you should make a record now of how many hours of sun your prospective garden spot gets at three different times of day. Based on the changing height of the sun and the fact that all the deciduous trees in your yard will be leafing out and creating more shade as summer approaches, you should sketch out which parts of your yard are full sun (more than 6 hours a day of direct sunlight), part sun (3-6 hours per day), and shade (fewer than 3 hours of sun). This sun-shade map of your yard will serve as an important guide as you plan your garden.

Many people get discouraged after doing this sun-shade map, for they discover that what they thought was the perfect place for the kitchen garden (usually imagined to be in the back or side yard) is in shade/partial shade whereas the sunny part of the yard is the public part–maybe the front yard itself–or, worse yet, there is no truly sunny part. I want to encourage you to be creative about where you put your plants and to realize that there are some creative ways to still grow your own food even with less than ideal sun conditions.

Working with shade

Rather than start with ideal conditions, I want to talk about what to do with a shady space. First, chances are that your shady space gets some sun in the form (at the very least) of filtered light. In this case, you could try a traditional raised bed with foods that will tolerate some shade, especially in the heat of the summer. Spinach, swiss chard, beets, arugula, most herbs, rhubarb, pumpkins and serviceberry and sour cherry trees are among those edibles that tolerate some shade. We’ve also had good luck with fennel and perennial onions in partial shade.

One possibility, too, is to work mostly with containers so that you can move your sun-loving plants around.

Another possibility is to build a living wall in the very small space of sun you do have. (The TV show Growing a Greener World did this episode on living walls and a number of online vendors sell structures you can use to grow vegetables vertically.) This sort of contained planting also has the benefit of being more easily controlled and kept neat which makes an ideal match for those of you who have sun in a small, more public part of the yard. It is important to remember, however, that healthy plants are beautiful and fruits and vegetables can be worked into just about any part of your landscape (more on this below). This is to say that if you have a sunny spot within a landscaped bed in an unexpected part of your yard–like around the foundation–you should use it.

Partial shade

We’ve had good luck growing lettuce, bell peppers, turnips, beets, and all sorts of winter squash in part sun conditions.

Sun

If you have full sun in the perfect place, well then lucky you! (I happen to be one of the lucky ones.) Do keep in mind that if you are in a warm or hot summer climate, some “full sun” plants may need some shade in order not to get fried. Similarly, you will likely need to think even more about irrigation because all that sun could create parched conditions. Some plants that love, love, love the sun: melons, tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant, tomatillos, artichokes and most fruit trees.

Edible Landscaping

One of my favorite things to do as a gardener is to develop new places that I can incorporate edibles into the landscape. Inspired by books like Rosalind Creasy’s Edible Landscaping, we’ve created beds in the more public parts of the yard that are a mixture of vegetables, fruits, herbs, bushes, and flowers. We especially like to use beds up against the foundation (the warm western and southern walls of the house) to grow plants that might be vulnerable during the winter here in zone 7a, like a fig tree and artichokes that produce two crops per year. In planning your garden, think about whether you want to have dedicated garden beds, containers, edibles spread throughout the garden spaces, or a combination. Don’t be afraid to be creative. We were a little concerned about our suburban neighbors taking issue with the profusion of winter squashes we had growing in drastic green swirls all over the front yard this past summer but, instead, people stopped and asked what those beautiful plants were. We met people in the neighborhood we hadn’t known before (mostly dog walkers) because they couldn’t help stopping to comment on how amazingly fast the Cinderella French Pumpkin was growing (and ask what it was in the first place).

If you have creative ideas for how to plan a garden in relation to your sun-shade conditions, do share.

Planning Your Garden: Seeds

Posted on January 12, 2013 by samaine

January is the month for garden planning. I’ve been thinking about what goes into a good garden plan, and I’ve narrowed it to what I’ll call the 4Ss, or what every gardener needs to consider as she dreams about and plots the future garden: seeds, sun, soil, and scale. This post is on the first “S”: seeds.

Last night, my two-year-old son and I sat down at the dining room table to review the seeds I plan to order for this year. I read him the list while he nodded his continuous approval. After I finished, he got up from the table and hustled to the kitchen. Moments later he brought back a jar of homemade blackberry jam and plopped it down in front of me adding, “and corn”!

My youngest son is an avid gardener. This is no exaggeration. He loves to eat out of the garden, he loves to plant, dig, and harvest, and he is particularly concerned regarding the whereabouts of our resident chipmunk, with whom he competes in the summer for ripe strawberries. Last year, he started his own mint plant by shoving a leaf he tore off of a larger potted plant into the rich soil of a new raised bed. (Yes, mint is so easy to grow it is considered invasive, but still.) I share this anecdote about my son’s propensity for gardening because if your goal is to get your kids into the garden, or to have your kids eat a wider variety of foods, I recommend that you involve your kids or keep them in mind as you plan what seeds you will grow. Over the years, I’ve come to grow almost exclusively from seed because though you can get seedlings from nurseries, they don’t offer the most succulent or interesting varieties. Also, the soil in those plants can be diseased or bug infested.

So here are some suggestions (including varieties) to help you get started planning what seeds you will grow. These are fruits and veggies that my kids absolutely LOVE (ordered from easiest to hardest to grow) as well as a few less popular foods your kids might discover they love or at least like.

Favorite garden-grown foods for kids:

Cherry tomatoes (Sun Gold (F1) from Johnny’s Selected Seeds [JSS]). Just a large pot, a bag of soil, some sun, and water, and you’ve got it. Frost sensitive.* Start from purchased seedlings unless you have a sunny window sill on which to start your own seeds 6 weeks before the last frost.
Carrots (This year I’m doing Sugarsnax (F1), Nantes “Starica,” and Round Romeo from Pinetree Garden Seeds [PGS] and Renee’s Garden Seeds [RGS]). Be sure you mix sand into the soil and plan to harvest when it is still cold out so the carrots are sweet. Sow directly into the ground.
French bush beans (Rolande from RGS). These get devoured raw by my kids and their friends before they make it into the kitchen. Frost sensitive. Sow directly into the ground.
Mulberries. We have a dwarf, weeping mulberry that has a smallish, sweet berry but, from what I’ve read, not the most delectable mulberry out there. Still, my children and I come home from school and eat our fill day after day after day while the tree is producing.
Snap peas (Sugar Snap from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange [SESE] and widely available.) Sow directly into the ground.
Potatoes. Just a giant pot, soil, seed potatoes, sun, and water and you’ve got this one covered. Not only are they delicious, but it is very fun for kids to harvest them (i.e., go on a potato treasure hunt).
Cucumbers (we’ve had the best luck with Corinto from JSS and Poona Kheera from SESE, though this year I’m substituting Yamato from SESE for Corinto in an effort to cut down on how many F1 hybrids I’m growing). Frost sensitive, susceptible to disease, and need a support structure, but AMAZING.
Strawberries (Everbearing varieties). These are delectable but challenging because too much rain or critters can ruin them. A strawberry pot close to the house covered with bird netting might be your best bet.

Garden-grown foods to try:

Swiss chard (Bright Lights or Rainbow JSS or SESE). This mild green is a lot like spinach, easy to grow, and beautiful. Our oldest son called it “rainbows” when he was a toddler.
Broccoli (De Cicco SESE). Grown at home, as long as the weather is truly cool, broccoli is mild and delicious. In zone 7a, we’ve had the best luck growing it in the fall garden, but I’m starting seeds this week for an early spring go of it.
Ground cherries (Cossack Pineapple Ground Cherry from SESE). This will be new to us this year: according to SESE’s catalog “Bite-sized berries are so tasty that they may never make it into the kitchen, especially if you have children.” I can’t wait. Frost sensitive. Start from purchased seedling unless you have a sunny window sill in which to start your own seeds 6 weeks before the last frost.
Peaches (Reliance). Believe it or not, lots of kids don’t eat peaches or know what they are. They are not the easiest fruit to grow, but they are absolutely delicious. Plus, they are self-fertile, so you only need one tree. (You’ll need to amend the soil, plant a good tree from a nursery, prune it once a year, spray it each winter with Surround (for more info, go to http://ediblelandscaping.com/ under “peaches”), and use some bird netting to keep off the squirrels. We did not care for our peach trees diligently and lost one last year. Reliance is the variety that lived.)

Where should you get seed? You can get it at a local nursery, even the grocery store, but ideally you’ll buy from a seed company growing in your state or region. I’ve learned that for the most satisfying and successful garden I should get organic seed from local seed companies and fruit trees from local orchards. As a northern Virginia gardener I buy the bulk of my seeds from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange and almost all fruit from Edible Landscaping, also in Virginia. I buy some things from Johnny’s Selected Seeds and Pinetree Garden Seeds, which are both in Maine (I’m a native Mainer), and quite a bit from Renee’s Garden Seeds (in California). I buy from Renee’s because of the fabulous, foodie-oriented varieties she offers, like French filet beans, heirloom carrots, and the Hungarian poppy seeds I’m trying this spring.

As for my son’s revisions to my seed order, I explained to him that the blackberries we planted a few years ago are still alive, so we don’t need to order any plants. (We looked out the window to verify that, yes, the blackberry plants are still growing up through the fence.) I told him that corn would be a challenge and that he should talk to his father who shares his dreams of growing it. By the end of the evening, two packs of Texas Honey June open-pollinated corn (from SESE) had been added to our list.

What new things do you dream of planting in this year’s garden?

* In making the above list, I’ve noted whether a plant is frost sensitive. Based on where you live, you should plant the seeds or seedlings (small plants started inside) of frost-sensitive plants outside after the last average frost date. If a plant is not frost sensitive, it is for spring planting on the east coast and may, in fact, need some frosting to sweeten up. Or, at least, it may be damaged by summer heat. Always be sure to read seed packets, including planting instructions, with care.

Welcome

Posted on January 12, 2013 by samaine

Welcome to Plot by Plot, a living guide to getting your food out of and your family into the garden. As a writer and busy mother who puts in over-40-hour-work weeks year round, I don’t have all that much time to homestead. Yet as a passionate gardener, cook, environmentalist, and parent, I’m committed to raising as much organic food as I can and teaching my kids how food grows, how it nourishes the human body, and how cooking and eating together enriches family culture.

Over the last few years I have been asked lots of questions about how I manage to garden so much with little kids and a full time job as well as how to garden successfully in the first place. There are a lot of beautiful gardening books out there, but some (often very busy) people, don’t have much time to go to the library to research the subject. (And quite a few of those beautiful books take for granted that readers already know basics, like how to plant stuff well.) A blog that offers tips, tales, and travails as a seasoned, overextended gardener experiences them throughout the gardening year seems just the thing. And I am going to try not to take for granted that you, my reader, necessarily know anything about gardening. Another thing that motivates this project is my desire to spread the word about how productive, powerful, and possible home gardening is, even for the busiest and least experienced among us.

So you are here–you must be thinking about gardening! I want to reassure all of you who have never done this before that growing your own food is deeply satisfying. The daily pleasure of going into my yard and picking the herbs, veggies, and fruits I’ll use to make family meals–the rosemary, carrots, and greens in the winter, the artichokes and asparagus in spring, the zucchini, tomatoes, and cilantro in summer, and the squash and broccoli in fall–this alone is reward enough. Plus, I get to see my own kids become great eaters, become new-food enthusiasts, become gardeners themselves. It is so worth it and so doable.

To grow some food in your yard, you don’t need a big garden or fancy raised beds, or much knowledge of gardening, really. Just intention, a shovel, a bit of cash (for seeds/seedlings and soil amendment), and some time to make a plan, from the modest (like planting lettuce under the rhododendron in the already-existing bed in front of your house or planting basil in a pot to set in the window of an apartment) to the extensive (like putting in some raised beds and planting a fruit tree).

In upcoming posts, I’ll offer my take on garden planning, what I’ve boiled down to the 4Ss (seeds, sun, soil, and scale). For now, welcome. I look forward to gardening with you plot by plot.