Garden Along With Me

Blue bird day

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 14:21:43 -0500

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Excuse Me, Do You Have Any Mustards?

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 13:50:28 -0500

Now is the time to get in your cool mustards like cabbage, broccoli, kale, brussels sprouts, and kohlrabi. They need this cool time to set their roots so they can face some of the warm weather ahead.
These three different plants in the mustard family, tuscan kale, savoy cabbage and kossack kohlrabi are all planted best as transplants. Most can be found at garden centers right now and should be planted immediately for best culture. Especially in the case of cabbage but also for broccoli, several lower leaves should be removed so that the plant can be buried deeper and can form a more massive root structure. You’ll be surprised what a difference that will make to the superiority of the crop.

If your garden is new, you should be on the lookout for slugs and cutworms. They are lying in wait for their evening meals just as you are planning for yours’. To prevent the cutworms from wrapping their gargantuan razor-sharp mouths around the bottoms of your plants, simply place a barrier that will prevent them from doing so. A strip of newspaper wrapped around a couple of times and sunk part way into the soil and left part way above the soil will do the trick. By the time it decomposes, the stem will be too large for the worm to slice off. The slugs can be deterred by a ring of diatomaceous earth sprinkled around the base of the plant. This organic control is composed of fossilized shells of ancient diatoms and is equivalent to shredded glass. Slugs locomote on their own mucilagenous trail and despise any prickly substance especially one that cuts them open and kills them. You can bet they won’t come near your plants. The substance is benign in every other way. You could also use torpedo sand which is very sharp. Or ground up, roasted egg shells.

Get a Handle on The Cool Season Before It Gets Too Hot!

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 12:47:22 -0500

Let’s face it, tomorrow IS May. Who are we kidding. The calendar is moving forward. That’s what the calendar does. Whatever cool season vegetables we have been waiting to plant because we were worried that it was going to go back to Winter again, better plant them now before it actually turns into Summer. Start with LETTUCE-LAST CALL!

Plant by seed, or by transplant in the ground(see picture) or into a container. When I use seeds at this time of year, I usually mix in some radish seeds and just broadcast them lightly over the bed. Then I sprinkle a light covering of container mix, peat moss or compost over the top and press in the planting with my hands to make sure the seeds have made contact with the soil. Finish up with a light misting of water that soaks in the planting. The radishes will pop up first and make spaces between the sprouting lettuces. Harvest as desired. When the radishes have been harvested, the lettuces will grow together and make a cutting bed for baby lettuce that can be cut with a bread knife every 10 days or so and will regrow for 7 or 8 cuttings.

Next would be ONIONS since they bulb up according to the day length. Be sure to select long-day onions. You may plant them in a grid approx. 3’ X 3” each way so that they take up less room than you think. Bury them with granular, organic fertilizer so that just a touch of their white portion is showing. Try COPRA , a long storage white onion suited to our area.

A good resource for onions can be found at www.dixondalefarms.com.

We’re Talking “Real” Compost Now

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 15:19:44 -0500

I’ve been telling people for years now, “To keep your garden producing well and in a smooth, continuous pattern of soil nutrition, moisture and texture, one thing that would really be at the foundation of your garden activities would be to spread 2 inches of compost on top of your growing beds every spring and if you did nothing else this might almost be enough for excellent soil health, thus plant health.” And people say, “Oh you mean Mushroom Compost?”
Well, that’s where I think there is a huge gap in the understanding even of the word compost. The only compost that will really improve your vegetable garden and help the plants develop and get the nutrients they need to grow and produce properly is called THERMAL compost. This is material that has been broken down to a level of humus by a process that is very hot. That heat is created by the activity of living things-microorganisms that are found in soil and should be found in a back yard compost pile.
More later on making your own compost. Don’t use mushroom compost in a vegetable garden. If you can’t make enough compost in your own garden to cover your beds you can now find THERMAL compost for sale at Hinsdale Nurseries on Madison in Hinsdale. This is due to the efforts of Ron and I who begged them to carry it for the benefit of the gardeners in the Western suburbs.