Mulch Ado About Nothing

So much for spring. Now that summer is officially here, so are the hot temps and high humidity. My lawn isn't one to enjoy this time of the year, but the garden is flourishing. That is, as long as I stay on top of things and give it all the attention it needs.

Drooping Leaves on The Acorn Squash Plant Means It Needs Water

The culmination of heavy early season rains, high temperatures, longer days, bigger plants, and fruit on the vines has the garden very, very thirsty. No longer can I go a couple days between watering. In fact, this week the garden is almost needing daily water. Although I don't mind getting up fifteen minutes earlier everyday to yank out the hose, I need to find ways to make the water go further. (Remember, the best time to water your garden is in the early morning!!!) And with vacations coming up, I'm not going to be around everyday to water.

So here are some steps I took today that may help our plight to quench the garden.

1) Continue to prune- I cut away some low-hanging branches, yellow-colored leaves and branches, dead vines, etc. By eliminating these dying parts, the plant no longer must worry about providing for these leaves. It can focus water and nutrients to the healthier plant parts and developing fruit.

2) Pick mature veggies/fruit- If there are veggies ready to pick...do it. Again, this is one less thing the plant must provide for and keep its attention on other developing fruit.
3) Add more potting mix- Over time, some of the potting mix can erode away from watering and things like squirrels digging holes in the pots. As the plants get bigger, I also see small roots exposed from the soil. Adding more mix raises the soil level, adds support for the roots, provides more nutrients, and cools off the older potting mix.
4) Feed the plants- It was time for the garden to get its two week feeding. With the fresh potting mix layer, the nutrients will not filter to the bottom and eventually out the pot. The new mix will hold the nutrients and give the plant roots more opportunity to utilize the nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorous.
5) Mulching- This is the big step. I'm hoping this will solve most of my watering and heat problems. Mulch is extremely valuable in the garden. First, it keeps soil cool in the summer heat and warm in cooler season temps. Second, it helps keep moisture in the soil from evaporating in the daytime sun. Third, it holds water and slowly dispenses it into the soil or ground. Knowing this, I ran to the garden center and grabbed a large (but cheap) bag of shredded wood mulch. Make sure when buying mulch not to get stuff treated with chemicals or a colored-dye.
After the new layer of mix and feeding, I spread a thin layer of mulch in the pots with the larger plants. I showered the mulch down to cool it off and keep from absorbing any moisture and nutrients underneath.

Mulch can provide other great duties such as preventing weed growth and warding off pests. Plus, it looks nicer than dried up dirt.
My suggestion: get out in the garden now and spend a good, long morning preparing your garden for the long and hot summer season. Trust me, a little work now can save you a lot of work down the road.

Channel Your Inner-Barber

There's nothing like a clean shave or haircut to get you feeling good and put a little bounce in your step. Well, think of it the same way for your garden plants. Sure we want our plants to be one with nature, be in harmony with mother earth, etc. But let's not go overboard into the dirty hippie category.

A great garden is a groomed garden. The weather is warming up so the plants are taking off and sprouting all new directions. Now is the time when you have to start putting a lot more effort into keeping your growing plants looking sharp. Did I say sharp? What a great segway into...

Tip #1: Have a sharp set of garden/kitchen shears. Personally I have a set of Wusthof kitchen shears from my knife set. They are sturdy and perfect for the garden. I think they cost about $30. A good pair of shears makes pruning and harvesting very easy.









Tip #2: Look low. I find it's important to keep your plant well groomed at its base near soil level. The lower leaves and branches can be a nuisance for a couple reasons. Pests and disease can can live on the ground. If your plant has leaves near or touching the surface, that creates a freeway for unwanted entities to hop on your plant and cause problems. Second, more leaves and branches that exist on the plant make the plant work harder. By cutting off weak or diseased leaves, the plant can focus on sustaining the stronger leaves and production of fruit.









Tip #3: Look high. As plants shoot upwards, look for things like suckers growing on tomato plants. Same with the bottom leaves, eliminating suckers and other damaged leaves allows the plant to focus nutrients towards the strong leaves and fruits. As for root plants, you want to clip off the tops of the plants. For example, with onions you want to clip the green shoots to about 3 inches in height (below pics). Clipping the tops tells the plant to focus on the root system, which in the case of onion plants is the actual onion. The same can apply to other root veggies.









Tip #4: When it comes to herbs and leaf plants....pick, pick, pick!!! The more you cut or pick off your plants, the faster and larger they come back.

This weekend I went to town with the cutters on the plants. I always comb my tomato plants for new suckers to pinch. I trimmed the base of all my pepper species (middle pics), cut off the white blossoms and stunted bottom leaves on the basil (top pics), sheared off half the onion tops, and picked a ton more sugar peas. Jalapenos are growing fast, the tomatoes are getting bigger, and the cucumber/squash plants have blossomed.

It's a fun time in the garden!!!

Munchkin Munchies

This morning I finally saw the beginnings of sugar pea pods on the vines. We had seen countless purple blossoms open in the past couple days. One blossom on Wednesday turned to three on Thursday, seven on Friday, and almost two dozen by this morning. I only assumed the pods were soon to follow. Sure enough, two pods have begun to form next to each other. If I had to guess, there are probably other pods tucked away in the vines that I have yet to discover.

The fingernail-sized pods join a handful of celebrity tomatoes to make their debut in the garden this week. I had been pinching blossoms for the past week or two on the tomatoes and peppers in order to prevent fruit from forming so early. I know that seems a tad counter-intuitive to be stopping the plant from growing fruit. But early on in the season it's a good idea to do so and allow the plant to focus on growing bigger. I guess the celebrity tomato got a couple past me. But the good news is the celebrity plant is the largest and healthiest in the garden, so I think it can handle fruit development.

In the case of peppers, the plant adapts to pinching the first generation of blossoms and the next round will produce peppers with stronger walls and more flavor.

After Pinching the White Blossom on The Romanian Pepper Plant

For all those gardeners out there, I stress the importance of looking over the plants and keeping them well groomed right now as they grow. That means pinching suckers off the tomato plants, cutting small branches less than an inch or two from ground level, and pinching blossoms on very young plants.

Happy Memorial Day!!!

A Neglected Garden (and Blog)

What kills a garden quickly? No farmer around to take care of it. The combination of McCain campaign embed, two weeks in St. Paul, MN for the RNC, Hurricane Ike, and a couple half week trips to Cleveland, Albuquerque, and Maine have left the poor garden neglected and fading. My boss also mentioned that the neglect has also fallen on my blog.
This weekend, it was time to catch back up and give the garden a little pep before it goes dormant in a couple months. Today, I picked all the ripe tomatoes, a bell pepper, and two cucumbers. I also cut off damaged tomatoes and some bell peppers attacked and eaten by ants.


I figure the more I can trim and pick off, the less the plants have to worry about supporting.
It had been a good month since I fed the plants, so I took 30 minutes to do that as well. Hopefully with a fresh supply of food and cooler, dry temperatures, the garden can come back alive and give us some more goodies before Thanksgiving.

The Basil Was In A Bad Need Of A "Haircut"

HOLY ROMOKRA!!!

There's a lot of pasta sauce and gumbo to be made!!!

I finally made it home after a couple more weeks on the McCain campaign trail. Mrs. Harlan did a fantastic job keeping the garden held together. But she said it needed some TLC from the farmer. So once I got my suitcase and camera out of the van, I went to work. First I picked all that I could find ripened on the branches and vines. And I found a lot. Today alone, I picked nine Cajun Delight okra, four Clemson Spineless okra, SIXTEEN Roma tomatoes (varying in size), 3 Marglobe tomatoes, and a Big Boy tomato.

And then I pulled out the Wusthof shears and went to work:
1) Trimmed all the dead leaves and branches from the Roma and Marglobe plants
2) Trimmed the dying leaves off both cucumber plants and the two okra plants
3)Snipped the numerous buds and small leaves from the basil plant branches
4)Cut a branch of rosemary for some red potato wedges at dinner
5)Cut a couple sage leaves off for dinner also.
6) Tied down the wire cone on the Patio tomato bush to a couple stones. The bush is so full of big, ripening tomatoes that the cone could no longer support the plant's weight and I had to get the cone upright again.
7)Pulled weeds between the pots.
8)Rotated the cantaloupe so the wet soil doesn't rot one side of the fruit.
9)Watered all the plants to cool them down in this oppressive heat. The leaves are wilting in the hot afternoons.

Getting rid of the dead leaves and branches should help reduce the amount of water the plants need each day.

I still have a lot to do tomorrow morning. Odds are there will be a couple more okra and tomatoes to be plucked. But the most important thing will be to feed the plants. It will be two weeks tomorrow since their last feeding. And with the plants getting so big, I'll need to decrease the time between feedings. It's getting really hot and humid now that August is just around the corner. Lots of water and maintenance will be key to keeping the garden from falling apart.

One more thing....the bell pepper plant is loaded with large peppers. Hopefully in the next week or so we'll start seeing the green peppers ripen to a rich red. Man, those will be sweet.

The Garden: July 20, 2008

Got A Little Greedy...

I mentioned in my previous post about the importance of trimming back plants and not letting them overgrow. I've done a good job with the basil plant, but I seriously dropped the ball on my roma, marglobe, and big boy tomato plants. And because I didn't trim them back, too many branches grew bearing too many fruit. This means I have to water and feed the plant a lot more. And, we end with 50 small tomatoes rather than 20 good sized fruit. This week, I decided to cut a lot of the low hanging branches and pull off the small green tomaters. I'm really hoping they ripen off the vine.

So how do you properly trim the plant? Well, there are many differing theories. But here are a couple standard tips. Always cut off the budding parts called suckers. They grow in the middle of the "V" shape of branches.

Clip All The Suckers On The Plants

Also, it's been suggested to trim the first few branches just above the soil level. That helps prevent those lower branches from fungus from a wet ground and other pests looking to crawl onto the plant and cause harm.

As for our 'maters, I finally trimmed them up, but I'm worried I closed the barn door as the horse runs out in the field. Oh well, I think we will still get some great tomatoes with our not-so-great ones.

Just A Little Off The Top, Please

Snipping The Buds Helps The Rest Of The Plant Below

Ever hear the phrase, "Less is more."? Well that applies to gardening, too. Unfortunately, I haven't done a very good job of that this year with tomatoes, but I'll save that for another post this week. But one plant that needs pruning is basil. One way to get more out of your basil plant is to continually pick the leaves. The faster you pick, the faster it grows back. I guess it's like gray hair.

Other than picking leaves, you also need to snip off all the flower buds along with the top couple sets of young leaves on the stems. Doing this will keep the plant focussed on growing large and tasty basil leaves. And eventually, you can use those basil leaves for homemade pesto.