The Crop Report

I can't believe it's been a month since we planted "the crops" for the Urban Farm Project here at Auntie K's Garden. It seems like yesterday we were mixing soil and compost and building the raised bed and planting seeds and seedlings. According to the seed packet, the radishes should be ready to harvest any day now. (Don't tell the Riverman, but I pulled one yesterday to see how ripe they were, and I think they're going to need a few extra days. They still look like radish pencils rather than round radishes.)

I'm astounded at how full the raised bed looks and how lush everything seems! We've got weensy peppers and tomatoes and the peas are just starting to blossom. The onions are doing really well in their special box. We've eaten a handful of strawberries already (now that I added extra squirrel protection) and there are more to come. The raspberries will be ripe any day now, and we're seeing color on a few blueberries.

I think a few things have suffered from a little too much lovin' in the watering department. Two pepper plants lost blossoms and the cukes and squash ended up with a few yellowing leaves. We've held off on the watering for the last couple of days and they look like they're starting to recover. Whew.

Arrivederci, Roma

You start with healthy plants. You prepare the ground, or in this case pot, properly. You water and fertilize regularly. And, still, it happens. Crop failure.

I started the season with expectation (not hope) of salsa – certainly enough to eat fresh and maybe, if I was lucky, enough for a half dozen jars to can. But, it is not going to happen. The potted tomatoes are doing okay, but not great--not like the incredible bounty I had last year. I’m getting some cherries (yum) almost every day now, but I can see the end of that bounty is near, too. There are a few Early Girls ripening, too, destined for sandwiches and salads.

The Romas did okay at first, too. Then, the vandals rolled the pot down the hill and I think the plant suffered some shock. I tucked the plant back in and moved it to a sunny location close to the house where I could keep an eye on it better. That’s when the squirrels decided to wreak their havoc. They started stealing the Romas. They left both the Early Girls and the cherries alone and either took the entire Roma, or chomped it and left it in the pot.

There were three left last week – enough for the smallest batch of salsa ever. They ripened this week, and every one of them had blossom end rot. All that's left is an empty vine.

Arrivederci, Roma. Good bye, good bye to salsa.

Note to Self

Typically when I say this phrase, it’s because I want to remind myself of something I don’t want to repeat, like “Note to self, don’t plant all 6 zucchinis that come in the 6 pack.” (Why do they even sell zucchinis in 6 packs?) Or, “Note to self, sitting at a Little League double header in the midday sun with no sunscreen is a bad idea.”

But, I was talking with a colleague the other day, and she was taking notes about what she wanted to repeat in her veggie garden next year! And, she’s keeping notes now instead of at the end of the season, which is when I typically take stock of what went well and what didn’t go so well in my own gardens.

So, I decided to give it a try. I found a notebook, plopped myself in the Adirondack chair, and took some notes about what I wanted to repeat (and not repeat) next year. Here are a few things on the list:

• Plant more tomatoes—and plant them in the rose garden. I planted tomatoes in pots this year to give the spot in the veggie garden a rest and they are bearing, but not abundantly. The potted tomatoes are in the rose garden now, and they like it.
  
  
• Plant squash and cucumbers. I love cucumbers and squash and didn’t plant either this year. What was I thinking?!
  
  
• Plant more monarda and ratibida. I saw a stand of monarda earlier this year in a variety of colors and heights and really want to give something like that a whirl. And, I fell in love with the tall delicate ratibida this year and want to put it in a couple more gardens.
  
  
• Build a screen for the front walk garden. The front walk curves around the side of the house and the garden ends at the curve. But, you can see all the way to the compost bin and a decorative screen would prevent that and keep the focus on the garden.
  

Does anybody else keep a notebook during the growing season about what they want to repeat next year? If so, what's on your list?

Is a Tomato a Fruit or a Vegetable?

I went grocery shopping yesterday and got some tomatoes. (The Sweet 100s are getting ripe here, but the Early Girls and the Romas are still green.) And, after the storm and having no electricity for 12 hours, I wasn’t willing to fight the crowds at the Farmers Market.

The check out guy and the young man bagging the groceries began a lively conversation about a tomato being a fruit. The check out guy asked, “Why is this (a potato) a vegetable, and this (a tomato) a fruit?” The bagger responded, “A tomato is a fruit because it has seeds.” I mentioned that the tomato and potato are both in the same family – adding to their confusion. Then, the man behind me in line said, “Peppers have seeds, and they’re vegetables.” “Same thing with cucumbers,” I added.

Turns out, according to the Oxford Dictionary, the confusion arises because botanists/scientists classify it as a fruit and cooks classify it as a vegetable. Here’s part of their definition: “Scientifically speaking, a tomato is definitely a fruit. True fruits are developed from the ovary in the base of the flower, and contain the seeds of the plant (though cultivated forms may be seedless).” Think raspberries and blueberries. Cooks consider the tomato a vegetable because it is savory rather than sweet.

Click this link for the full definition. And, the next time you're in the grocery store or at the Farmers Market buying tomatoes and a discussion breaks out about whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable, you'll be able to say, "Depends on who you're talking to!"

My Canning Pantry

Every time I go to the basement to empty the dehumidifier into the sump pump well, I walk through the canning pantry. It’s two rooms, actually, lined with shelves floor to ceiling designed to store the bounty and abundance of the year’s harvest so the family could enjoy potatoes, tomatoes, pickles, onions, jams and jellies through the winter (and possibly to the time when crops started yielding and fruits started bearing again in the spring).

I know it sounds sort of dorky, but I like that the house has a canning pantry. I like living in a place that reminds me on a regular basis to “plan ahead” and to not waste. I don’t know the first thing about canning, so, right now, it’s more like a canning pantry in waiting -- the shelves in one room are empty and I’ve stored paint on the shelves in the other room. But, I am sure I can learn how to can and make jam. My dad has pickled some peppers and tomatoes in recent years. And, my neighbor, Pat, makes spectacular raspberry jam. Betsy makes salsa and tomatoes. So, I’ve got some good teachers around.


My goal is to start small – with salsa. The tomatoes and peppers and onions are coming in really well. And, Betsy has a good recipe. Next year, I hope that the berries bear enough that I can make jam. And, then, I’d like to try making “saft,” a berry juice to mix with water for a very refreshing beverage. Tante Mie made the best saft ever. Raspberry/Currant was my favorite. I found a recipe for saft that my grandmother had written when she was in “Husmor skole” and think I’ll use that one.

I can’t wait to have something other than paint on the shelves in the canning pantry. If anyone has tips/tricks for canning or is willing to give me a lesson or two later in the year, you know where I am!

Birds, Bees, and Butterflies

I was watering the other morning and noticed that all of my companions were Bs. There were bees on the lavender—not the 747 type bumblebees that look so heavy you wonder how they buzz about—but regular bees. I wish I knew more about bees and wasn’t allergic to their stings. I might try having a hive just to see what the honey would taste like from the flowers in and near my gardens. I imagine the lavender and anise hyssop would make a tasty treat. I try to keep the water at the ground so I don’t splatter them as they collect their pollen and nectar.

Tiny sparrows and chickadees had found perches on the tomato cages in the rose gardens and they were chirping loudly about something. It couldn’t have been about the feeders because they were full of seed. They don’t mind getting sprinkled with water, but the tomatoes do, so I resisted the temptation to turn their way with the water. I did fill the birdbaths, and some hopped from their perches to the water.

When I got to the Natives Garden, a Monarch butterfly was hovering by the Echinacea. It looked like it wanted to land, but didn’t. It fluttered, instead, to the Monarda where it did land—but only for a moment. I stopped watering to watch where it would go next, and it did go back to the Echinacea. The orange and black was striking against the pink. Eventually, it moved to another garden and I continued my watering—grateful for having had such delightful visitors.

Garden MENtors

Most gardeners I know got the gardening bug from their mothers or grandmothers. My mother, however, has the brownest thumb going and neither of my grandmothers had gardens to speak of. As I sit here on Father’s Day, I realize that I got the gardening bug from men! So, it seems like a good day to honor my three garden MENtors.

My father was the one in our family who had the vegetable garden in the summers. The taste of those fresh tomatoes on warm summer mornings when we had our breakfasts outside still lingers. Mmmmmmm. We had terrible soil at our house in Wayzata, but it didn’t deter him from planting tomatoes, radishes, beets, and even corn one year. We still have “tomato wars” every summer! His favorite is the big Beefsteak, although he’s discovered a new favorite in recent years – the Juliet. I have a memory of tomatoes and cucumbers being Fed-exed one year because of an overabundance for one of us and crop failure for the other.

By the time I got to junior high, I had met Pa Jondahl, who had the biggest vegetable garden I’d ever seen AND he grew roses. I learned a lot from him over the years, and as a wedding gift he came to the St Paul house and tilled up a plot for a vegetable garden and brought some of my favorite raspberries so I could have them in my own garden. Pa Jondahl was also the one who told me that my blueberries needed to have s-e-x before I’d get berries.

As an adult, I met Steve Danielson, a good friend, and great landscape designer. He taught me that there’s more to great design than curb appeal, which is seen mostly by people driving or walking by your house. Steve’s designs take into account what you see from the inside of your house, sitting and standing from all rooms. I remember moving empty pots around the yard at the St Paul house and sticking shovels, garden forks, and other implements in the ground to emulate future plantings and then running in the house from room to room imagining what the plants would look like! It was a time consuming process, but well worth it.

Pa Jondahl is gardening in heaven now, but Pops and Steve are here, sharing their gardening passion with the rest of us. Happy Father’s Day to you all, and thank you, for the gardening gifts and love of the earth you’ve given to me.

Plants Have Families, Too

People frequently talk about family resemblance—eye color, hair color, height, shape, etc. It’s no different in my own family. My second-cousin, Winnie, is the spitting image of my grandmother. My father and his cousin Håkon could be twins. My nephew looks very much like my father did when he was a child. We even have similar mannerisms. Last summer, at a little league game, my sister said about my nephew, “Look at that, he’s standing just like everyone else in our family.” I hadn’t thought about it before, but she was right. He was standing exactly the way my father and grandmother stood.

Plants have families, too, and therefore family resemblances and characteristics. I’d known for a long time, for example, that almost all plants with square stems and fragrant leaves are from the mint family. Until I took a botany class last summer, however, I did not know that carrots are a member of the parsley family or that potatoes and tomatoes are in the same family.

Who cares, right?! Well. Knowing a plant’s family can help you figure out growth habits and sun preferences. And, if you have a vegetable garden, knowing that potatoes and tomatoes are in the same family (they’re both nightshades, incidentally) is imperative for proper crop rotation. Rotating crops (a three-year cycle is ideal) ensures the soil gets replenished and any pests lingering in the soil won’t find a host.

Both tomatoes and potatoes are heavy feeders and are prone to fungal diseases and pests. If you didn't know about the "family resemblance," you might think you were rotating properly and inadvertently deplete the soil further and potentially encourage the fungal disease and pests common to this plant family.

I took the class because I wanted to get better at plant identification. I’m better now but wouldn’t consider myself an expert and frequently refer to the text from the class to help me figure things out. If you’re interested in becoming better at plant identification and/or understanding the characteristics of particular plant families, I recommend the text, “Botany in a Day—The Patterns Method of Plant Identification” by Thomas J Elpel.