June, Summer Solstice, the Magic Happens!

March and April plantings are paying off handsomely now as we have warmer and the longest days of the year!  Harvests are coming in, tomatoes on their way!  Pick beans when your plants are dry to prevent spreading rust and mildew.

Plant more rounds of your heat lovers - seeds or transplants –  basil with tomatoes, peppers and eggplant best from transplants, corn, beans, cucumbers, okra, zucchini.  Put in more melons, and some winter squash only if you are in the hot foothills.  Late plantings will often ‘catch up’ since they have more heat, longer hours of sunshine.  Plant another round of radishes to repel cucumber beetles from cukes and zukes, and as a trap plant for flea beetles on eggplant.  For fall toms, put in seeds now, transplants in July.  Pop in some more year-rounds:  beets, carrots, chard, bunch onions, turnips, fragrant herbs.  Remember, plant seeds and transplants of the same plant at the same time to get continuous crops!  And mix things up to confuse pests and prevent disease spread.  Some here, some there….

Strawberries want to make runners in June! Instead, clip off the daughters, give your strawberries a quick uptake 0-10-10 type fertilizer, high in Potassium and Phosphorus, P & K, to keep them flowering and producing. Plenty of time to get daughters in October. Keep your strawberries wet! If they dry they stop fruiting.

If you planted garlic in November, now is harvest time!  Dig down, see how the little guys are doing.  If they are fat enough for you, stop watering for a couple weeks, and harvest!  If not, we did have a cool spring, let them grow a bit more….

• When you harvest garlic, dig, don’t pull.
• Be gentle. Freshly dug garlic bulbs will bruise easily and it is easy to accidentally slice a bulb open while digging if you are not careful. When harvesting garlic, lift each bulb individually from the ground. Place it in a container where it will not get jostled too much.
• Get the garlic out of the sun as soon as possible. Garlic will blanch and burn in the sun. Put the freshly dug unwashed bulbs in a dark, dry place as soon as possible.
• Allow garlic to cure in a warm, shaded area where there is plenty of air circulation. When garlic has cured, about three weeks for warm inland areas, six weeks or more on the foggy coast, trim off roots and cut necks to one-half inch length.

Time to feed your hardworking plants! Feed them as they start to flower, and while they are producing fruits.  Leaf producers like lettuces, kales and chard need a little chicken manure scratched in.  Pretend you are a chicken!  If you lay in too much Nitrogen, put on some Sea Bird quano high in Phosphorus, to bring blooms as well as leaves.  In fact, once your plant starts flowering, you can put some fertilizer on that is higher in Phosphorus to keep them going!

If you laid straw under your tomatoes or along your cucumbers, to keep soil with the wilts fungi from splashing on them, replenish it, make it a bit deeper as your plant gets bigger.  Mulch crops that don’t need that much heat, but enjoy moist feet.  Plant moisture lovers more densely in summer so they can make a living mulch for each other.

WATER!  Be sure your babies have plenty to drink.  To be sure things are good, poke your finger in the ground AFTER you water. You will be amazed how the watering you did may not have wet more than a 1/4″ to 1/2″ deep. Your plants’ roots are deeper than that. They can be dying of thirst when things look prettily wet.  Regular water is best.  Cucumbers especially need that.  Their fruit is practically all water, so guess where that water is going!  Tomatoes are picky.  Too much or too little and they are unhappy.  Experience is going to be your best teacher.  If you succession plant, you have more chances of learning in the same season.

Clean up and deadhead!  Trim away any damaged, diseased, or done parts, remove sick plants or ones that are not thriving, or step up your attention to them.  Put in plants instead of letting weeds grow and use up your soil.  Beauty be.

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Mediterranean Understory & Guild Plants for Food Forests – Part 2

Please SEE Part 1 before you read this list!

Here is what a young Food Forest can look like in a part of your urban yard!

Linda’s List is intended for a Mediterranean climate like coastal Southern California has, one of only 5 in the world. The list in your area may be different. Check out your local gardeners’ successes, check with your local nursery. This list is not tree specific yet. We’re working on that!

More than a list of plants, Linda’s List gives tips for good growing, eating, and usage!
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Once our fruit trees are planted in their water-saving basins in a budding Mediterranean food forest, it’s now time to think about what else to plant in these usually moist wells and swales. Or up the trees? Or nearby? We need these companion plants to increase our food and medicine yield, and also to enrich the soil, provide habitat, pull up minerals and other nutrients from deep in the earth, draw nitrogen from the air and bring it into the soil, attract beneficial insects to control pests, create shade for delicate roots — and to provide beauty, a critical psychological and spiritual yield in every garden.

Thanks to the members of the Permaculture Guild of Santa Barbara and the Santa Barbara Organic Garden Club for their ideas and input. Additions and corrections are welcome.  Please email lbuzzell@aol.com.  Especially welcome would be input on what plants do best under specific fruit trees – so far I don’t have much information on that.

BERRIES
Blueberry. To grow well here, they need acid soil, so a container is often the best solution, since Santa Barbara soil and water tend to be alkaline. One gardener we know waters hers with a very dilute solution of white vinegar, plus puts pine needles, coffee grounds around the plant. Best in Mediterranean climates are the low-chill varieties like ‘Misty,”O’Neal,’ ‘Sharpblue’
Cane berries. Upright cane berries are fun to pop in here and there as understory plants and they take some shade. But we found out the hard way that you probably don’t want to put in sprawling, thorny berries (especially blackberry) that sucker underground – they pop up all over the yard and are hard to eradicate. When we buy new berries we limit ourselves to thornless varieties and our current favorites are ‘Navajo’ and ‘Apache,’ although the thorny varieties that still linger in our garden – and will probably be there for hundreds of years as they’re ineradicable – taste best. So we live with them and enjoy the berries.
Elderberry. Shrub. There is a California native variety. Produces edible fragrant white flowers (used to make elderberry syrup and wine) and edible small blue berries that the birds love. Ripe berries are safe to eat but leaves, twigs, branches, seeds and roots are toxic. Has medicinal uses. We use our elderberry as a sacrificial plant attracting birds away from other fruit trees.
Lemonade Berry (native). Rhus integrifolia. Can also control erosion.

BULBS AND ROOT CROPS
Placement of these may take special care, as you don’t want to plant them too close to delicate tree roots.
Carrots
Edible canna. Canna edulis –Achira. Flowers are smaller than most cannas and the root is edible, can be chopped and sautéed like potato.
Onions
Potato and sweet potato

EDIBLE FLOWERS (note: most fruit trees, veggies and herbs also have edible flowers. Always triple check the safety of any flower before eating!
Daylilies. Hemerocallis species. Buds are used in Chinese stir fry, Petals in salad.
Nasturtium (flowers, young leaves and buds that may be pickled like capers) Let the plants die back in place. They will reseed and form a straw mulch.
Roses (yield petals for salads, sandwiches, syrups, desserts; rose hips for tea, syrups, jam)
Scarlet runner bean
Scented geranium

HERBS (most have edible flowers in addition to other uses)
Borage
Chili peppers, including tree chili
Cilantro
Garlic
Italian parsley
Lavender
Lemon balm
Lemon verbena. A drought tolerant shrub with delicious leaves for tea.
Mint. Some fear its vigorous, spreading roots, but we welcome it into drier areas as ground cover, autumn bee food and a source of fresh leaves for cooking and tea.
Mustard (young leaves can be stir fried, flowers are edible, plus seeds for making mustard)
Pineapple sage (leaves and flowers make delicious herbal tea)
Oregano
Rosemary
Sage

SHRUBS/Understory trees
Guava. Psidium Tropical shrubs native to Mexico, Central and South America that yield white, yellow or pink fruit. Not to be confused with Pineapple Guava (Feijoa) Psidium guajava (apple guava) is one tasty variety. Also try lemon guava and strawberry guava.

VEGGIES (there’s no way to name them all – it’s fun to experiment to see what likes the soil under and around your fruit trees. Our favorites are those that overwinter and/or reseed themselves)
Artichokes. Plant away from tree roots, in baskets as the gophers love them.
Brassicas like broccoli, kale, collard greens.
Chard.
Dandelions. Leaves are great in salads and so good for us. Small birds like the seed heads.
Fava beans and other beans.
New Zealand spinach.

VINES
We often forget about vertical space in the garden, but it’s nice to increase your yield by growing edible vines up fruit trees, on walls and over arbors, fences and hedges.
Grapes. Note: the Permaculture Guild of Santa Barbara has a separate list of recommended table and wine grapes for our area. Contact lbuzzell@aol.com for details
Passion Fruit. A garden member says “mine is simply rampant, productive and trouble-free; gets little to no supplemental water.” The juice can be used to make a spectacular salad dressing (served at Los Arroyos on Coast Village Road in their tropical salad).

MISCELLANEOUS
Bamboo. Use clumping instead of running kinds to avoid it taking over your garden. Bamboo shoots are a delicacy in Asia.
Pepino melon.
Sacrificial plants. In permaculture designs we often plant trees, shrubs and other plants that are nitrogen-accumulators, “nurse” plants or fruit-providers for animals that might otherwise eat our crops. When they have performed their function, we “chop and drop” them around our fruit trees as a nutritious mulch.
Yucca. We’ve read that yucca yields edible fruit and flower buds. Anyone have more info on this?

BENEFICIAL ATTRACTORS AND NUTRIENT ACCUMULATORS
Ceanothus. Shrubs and ground covers that fix nitrogen in the soil.
Salvia, ornamental. These are treasures in the Mediterranean forest garden.
Tagetes lemmonii. Golden color is lovely in fall.

GROUND COVER
Easy-to-grow succulents can provide temporary ground cover for delicate roots. They can act as a living mulch until other plants take over that function. This crop is often free, as gardeners who have ground-cover sedums always have too many and are glad to share.
Pelargoniums and lantana are other easy, colorful ground cover that can be removed as needed.
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#1 Home Permaculture book in the world for seven years!

Per PatternLiteracy.com, Toby Hemenway’s home site, Gaia’s Garden has been the best-selling permaculture book in the world for the last 7 years. The enlarged, updated 2nd edition is the winner of the 2011 Nautilus Gold Medal Award.

The first edition of Gaia’s Garden sparked the imagination of America’s home gardeners, introducing permaculture’s central message: Working with nature, not against her, results in more beautiful, abundant, and forgiving gardens. This extensively revised and expanded second edition broadens the reach and depth of the permaculture approach for urban and suburban growers.

Treat yourself and your land to this incredibly efficient way of gardening. Wisely use ALL the space available to you in a good way. Nature is the Master Gardener – follow her lead.

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Divine December, Winter’s June here in SoCal!

Happy Winter Solstice/Yule, Dec 21st!

I like this saying I found at the Old Farmers Almanac:  Old Frost, the Silversmith has come:  His crisping touch is on the weeds.  – Charles Dawson Shanly

And, bless him, his touch will soon be on our veggies!  Some will love it; kales are said to taste better after a good frost.  Basils, some peppers and other tender plants will fold and die.  Gather seeds while you still can.  It’s tuck & roll time –  ready a stack of covers in case we get some hard freezes.  Keep a diligent weather watch.  Watering the evening before an anticipated freeze will help your plants withstand damage.

December is winter’s June, harvest time! 

Brocs, cauliflowers, peas, are all coming in now, especially if you planted in August, September!

Lettuces are thriving, keep plucking the lower leaves.

Keep harvesting your chard and beet leaves to keep ahead of the leafminers.  Don’t over water making the leaves too soft and inviting.

Cabbages take time to get to the stage to form that super head of tight fitted leaves.  Don’t despair, they are working on it.  Lay down Sluggo or do slug/snail maintenance around your cabbages to keep the pests from damaging your beauties.  Can you imagine what the plant would look like if the leaves were spaced out on a stalk?!  Pretty tall.  Feed lightly during winter to make Nitrogen easily available.  It’s cooler, so uptake is slower.

Your favas are busy gathering Nitrogen from the air, putting it into little nodules on their roots.  So are your peas, both legumes.  They do that!  Little to no feeding for them, they make their own N.

If you tuck in kitchen veggie trim, don’t be surprised if a few potatoes (they look like tomatoes, same family) pop up here and there.  If you like ‘em, let ‘em come if you have space!

If you have everbearer strawberries you may have few berries after a few warm days.  Even a single berry is such a treat!

Collards, kohlrabi and kales are very happy, providing excellent nutrition.  You can eat the leaves of all your Brassicas – brocs, cauliflower, collards, kale, kohlrabi, and, of course, cabbages!

Carrots are coming!  Plant another round near your peas!  All kinds!  Mix the seeds up for surprises later!

Yes, you can still plant!  Start a new garden with or put in successive rounds of artichoke (give them 3’ to 4’ space), arugula, asparagus – Pat Welsh (Southern California Gardening) recommends UC-157, beets, brocs, Brussels sprouts, bunch onions, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, chard, garlic, kale, kohlrabi, head and leaf lettuces, mesclun, peas, potatoes, radishes, and turnips!  As soon as one is done, plant another!

Put in some little bunch onion patches here and there but not by your peas!  Plant some of those little  Italian red ones – so pretty in your salad!  How about some garlic chives?  Mmm….

Remember, this is THE time to be planting your largest garlic cloves – they need twice the fertilizer, so make a super rich soil for them.  If you are so inspired, many plant on Winter Solstice day, Dec 21!  Plant skins on, or for more mojo, quicker sprouting, here is the way to prep your cloves Bob Anderson style:

• Soak in water and baking soda for 16-24 hours before planting.  Soak separate strains separately. (One T soda to 1 gallon water, or a half teaspoon in a cup of water).  Remove the skins – start at the bottom being careful not to damage the growing tip OR the bottom, because that’s where the roots grow from!
• Just before planting soak nude cloves in rubbing alcohol for 3-5 minutes and plant immediately.

SideDressing – seedlings up 2 to 3 inches get hungry!  Liquid fertilizer once a week is quick and easy for them to uptake.  Feed your other plants every 6 weeks.  That means, sprinkle fertilizer around your plants or down a row, and dig it in a little, especially before a rain!  Water it in.  Use ½ the strength of your summer feedings.  We don’t want a lot of tender new growth that a frost would take.  Some people love their manures, others love Island Seed & Feed’s Landscape Mix, and some love their stuff that comes in a pretty box!  Plants love a fish/kelp mix.  Try the powdered version for a little less stink.  If you decide to do foliar teas, pick a warm, dry, or breezy morning so your plants will dry well before evening.  Do what makes you and your plants happy!  If you haven’t been fertilizing, think about how hard your plant is working.  Big brocs, for example.  When it starts to head, when plants start to produce, that’s your cue to help them along.

Gophers.  You can still put in wire protective baskets or barriers, especially now while the soil is softer after the rains.  If you see a fresh mound, trap immediately.
Aphids?  Watch for curled leaves, squish or wash any or the colony away immediately.
White flies.  Flush away, especially under the leaves.  They are attracted to yellow, so keep yellowing, yellowed leaves removed.
Slimy Slugs, Snails.  Sluggo before they even get started, right when your seedlings begin to show, when you put your transplants in!  Once stopped, there will be intervals when there are none at all.  If you notice tiny children snails, lay down another round.

Make Organic, Sustainable Holiday Garden Gifts!  Plants themselves make wonderful gifts!  Start perusing catalogs for your Spring planting!

Happy Holidays, of all kinds, to you and yours! 
Garden Blessings, Cerena

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A Little about Onions, a LOT about GARLIC!

Onions:  Are sensitive to temperature and day length, are photothermoperiodic!  Whew!  They start bulbing only after enough daylight for a certain number of days.  To avoid bolting, in SoCal we need to plant seeds of short day onions in fall, or intermediate varieties in late winter.  Most sets are long-day types and won’t work.  Plant Grano, Granex, & Crystal Wax seeds in the ground Nov 1 to Nov 10, or bare root in January.  Granex stores a little better, all of them are sweet like Vidalia and Maui.  If you miss this window, plant intermediate onions in Feb.  Onion seeds sprout very easily!

Garlic LOVERS, if your garlic plants haven’t been as vibrant and robust as these in the image, really amend your soil, put them in full sun, feed them!  Sometimes add a tad boron and zinc to give them great taste!  Give them ample drainage and 24” deep watering.

Garlic is in the genes, I mean, the lily family, related to chives and onions.  So pretty!  Did you know roses make more pungent perfume, and more perfume, when interplanted with garlic and onions?!  Tuck some garlic in among your other flowers and veggies, but NOT with your legumes!  Like onions, garlic stunts peas and beans.

Research indicates garlic aids in lowering cholesterol, reducing cardiovascular disease, cancer prevention, relieving cold and flu symptoms.

Planting in the November/December will produce bigger cloves, but you can also plant garlic in the early spring – who can resist more fresh garlic?!  Gilroy CA, 30 miles south of San Jose, just up the road from Santa Barbara, is called The Garlic Capital of the World!  Gilroy’s Christopher Ranch was, and remains, the largest shipper of garlic in the world!  Take note that the 2012 Gilroy Garlic Festival will be July 27, 28, and 29th!  So their prime festival garlic roses had to be growing all winter and spring!  Count that backwards 7 months, and you have a Dec planting!  That means they have more daylight growing time after Winter Solstice as the days lengthen, and more growing time during warmer months!  Makes sense, yes?!  Garlic takes time – a long growing season and plenty of sun.  Be warned that overcast coastal weather may not go well with your garlic aspirations.  Also, pause, do you want to tie up that sunny land that long for such a small return?  Less insects, no vampires?  Ok, read on.  Some traditionally plant, not in late October, early November, but on Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year, for harvest on the longest day of the year, Summer Solstice, or in July!  Your garlic will grow slowly all ‘winter,’ making huge bulbs!  It likes the cooler moist weather, and freezes are good for it!  You just have to be willing to feed them fat, and wait for them!

Here in SoCal, why not plant some in all the fall months?! That’s three rounds, Oct, Nov, Dec! See what works best in your microniche. If some fail, you will have others!

The garlic most of us are familiar with, commonly found in our grocery stores, are the soft-necked varieties, Artichoke and Silverskin, grown in milder climates with longer days.

California Early and California Late varieties need cold exposure of around 6 weeks below an average of about 40F for proper bulbing and clove development. It is the classic, white skinned ‘artichoke garlic’ of the supermarkets.  Continental garlic is more of a generic term covering various white or purple striped hard neck types adapted to more Mediterranean growing conditions.  That’s us.

Garlic needs choice generously amended nutritious soil, to be watered deeply, 24”, in fact!  Garlic World, at Gilroy CA, says garlic needs twice as much fertilizer as other veggies! And they need feeding during growing.  Visualize those hungry bulbs underground.  Heavy soil restricts their growth, so you want rich, loose – not water-logged, fertile!  When you drive through garlic growing country you can SMELL them!  That’s how alive they need to be!

The bigger the seed/clove, the bigger and healthier your plant will become, so plant the huge cloves, reserve the smaller ones for eating and seasoning!  Divide them just before planting.  Plant pointy end up, 2” deep, 4” apart.  Some people plant them 6” deep, others plant them just under the surface.  I’ve had them grow both ways, but to keep the bulbs moist and happy, it makes sense to give them at least that 2” depth.

When the tops start to fall over, stop watering, let the smelly little guys dry a week or two, still in the ground.  Clever harvesting means to carefully loosen the soil with a spade fork, and not bruise the bulb when you remove it.  Let it dry some more in a shady airy place 2 to 3 weeks.

RECIPES?  Fries, ice cream, pasta, sauces, soups, salsa, dips, bread, gift braids, pickled, jellied, roasted, cheese, dressings, potatoes, hummus, powdered.  Garlic cookies?!  At your pleasure.  Confessions of a Garlic Festival Food Judge  If you both love garlic, know that a couple can celebrate their anniversary by sharing the Forty Clove Garlic Chicken at The Stinking Rose in San Francisco!

Next Week:  Delicious December, Winter’s June!

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Herbs and Your Winter Veggies

Lavender, Marguestau at http://lestroisamies.wordpress.com/

Herbs – Pretty, aromatic, to repel pests!
The flavors that makes veggie dishes come alive!

Now’s the time for them to get a good start, with fall and winter rains coming. Divide the ones you already have growing now as your plants slow down. Rosemary and tarragon tend to root better in the fall, so gather cuttings now, and if you want to, grow them indoors over the winter. Tuck your divisions, cuttings, or new transplants, in here and there. Realize some of them are a bit invasive. You will have a steady supply at your finger tips! Either allow them to ramble – perhaps as ground cover, plant in a container, or keep harvesting and make several bouquet garni for your friends. Or pot up some of the babies you split off to give as gifts! Any gift you give to a gardener, tie on some flowering herbs with green garden twine rather than ribbons with bows! That’s sustainable and a double gift! More on growing herbs at Gardener’s Supply Company!

Healthy herbs are vibrant, full leaved, have good color, grow robustly! I often grow them just because they are pretty and smell good. But they are more, much more! They are so aromatic they are said to repel pests! They add marvelous flavors to our food, and are said to have medicinal properties as well! When one item serves many functions, in permaculture that is called ‘stacking!’ YES, works for me!

Here are some great winter combos:

Winter Veggie	Herb to Repel its Pest or….
Artichoke	Tarragon
Beets, Chard	Onions, sage
Broccoli	Chamomile, dill, garlic, hyssop, marigold, mint, nasturtium, onion, rosemary, sage
Brussel Sprouts	Dill, garlic, hyssop, mint, nasturtium, onion, sage, thyme
Cabbage	Chamomile, dill, garlic, hyssop, marigold, mint, nasturtium, onions, oregano, rosemary, sage, thyme
Carrots	Chives, leek, onions fool the carrot fly, oregano, rosemary, sage
Cauliflower	Dill, garlic, hyssop, marigold, mint, nasturtium, onion, rosemary, sage, thyme
Celery	Nasturtium, leeks, onions
Collards	Catnip, dill, garlic, hyssop, marigold, mint, nasturtium, onion, rosemary, sage, thyme
Kale	Dill, garlic, hyssop, marigold, mint, nasturtium, onion, rosemary sage, thyme
Lettuce	Onions
Chives, Garlic, Onions, Leek	Beets improve production. Chamomile, dill, savory
Peas	[Enhanced by carrots] NO onions
Potatoes	Cilantro, dead nettle, horehound, marigold, onion, tansy
Strawberries	Borage, onions, sage

Common dishes, tasty cuisines, made with your favorite herbs:

Cilantro	Asian, Caribbean, Mexican!
Garlic	Asian, Indian, Mediterranean
Onions	Bulb, stems in any cooked dish, minced in salads, edible flowers on salads
Oregano	Pizza, spaghettis, meats, stews, lasagna, egg dishes – Mediterranean
Parsley	Minced and sprinkled over veggies and baked fish and squashes, in salads, fresh sprig on plate
Rosemary	Chicken, fish, lamb, pork – worldwide, retards food spoilage
Sage	Meats, soups & stews, potatoes & veggie dishes – Mediterranean
Winter Savory	Meats & stews, beans, any legumes, stuffings, Brussels Sprouts, cabbage, corn – European, Mediterranean
Thyme	Meats & stews, stuffings, pâtés – Asian, Creole, European, Indian, Mediterranean, Mexican

Enjoy more cooking details from Toronto, Ontario on Yvonne Tremblay’s page!

More tips to make it even better!

• Angelica, Caraway, Dill & Dandelion are Lacewing habitat.
• Chives planted around the base of fruit trees will discourage insects from climbing the trunk.
• Garlic and yarrow are said to enhance the production of oils in herbs. Garlic is elegant, is marvelously odiferous, and yarrow has pretty ferny leaves and colors! Plant them freely. But specially grow yarrow near your compost so you can conveniently add leaves to your compost to speed decomposition.
• Garlic improves the growth and health of roses and raspberries, general insect repellent, deters aphids, flea beetles!
• Keep Fennel away from your garden. Fennel is disliked by most plants.
• Though Feverfew is lovely and repels pests, it also repels bees.
• Plant French Dwarf varieties of Marigold throughout the garden for beauty, but plant especially where you will plant tomatoes, potatoes, roses, and strawberries because they repel root knot nematodes (soil dwelling microscopic white worms) – but only where they are actually planted! To do the job, let them grow 3 to 4 months, then ‘plow’ them under as green manure and so the roots will decay in your soil. Marigolds do attract spider mites and slugs, have an herbicidal effect on beans and cabbage, and root secretions can inhibit the growth of some herbs. They are also called Spanish, Mexican or winter tarragon. The leaves and yellow flowers have a taste similar to French tarragon. Use sparingly in herb vinegars, dressings or dishes which call for tarragon. Marigold myths!
• Hoverflies – larvae of these creatures resemble thin wasps, devour great numbers of aphids. They can be encouraged into your garden by planting Tagetes (Marigolds), Calendula and Nasturtiums.

Planting the ‘right’ things together can ‘double’ your yield per the space planted. Not only do plants dovetail, ie long rooted carrots with short rooted peas, and garlic, that doesn’t take up much space, can easily be snuggled on the sunny side of your winter Brassicas (broccoli, cabbage, kale), improving the health and flavor of your veggies, but by including beautiful herbs in your garden, you save plants from pests, enhance growth, increase pollination – makes a real difference!

Ye olde disclaimer! Much of this info is anecdotal, but I’ve seen some of it act just the way it is claimed. There are contradictions on the web. When I find those, I leave the name off the list. Try these out for yourself. Here’s to flavorful and bountiful gardening!

Next week: BLACK FRIDAY Garden Gifts! Gifts to Give, Gifts to Get!

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Summer Watering Coastal SoCal

Water is the driver of Nature.  -   Leonardo da Vinci

When, Who, How, & How Much to Water

Midday, on a hot day, watering will burn the leaves.
Evening watering promotes mildew, fungus growth.  Plants drink during the day, so AM watering is best.

Plants that need little or no water and why:
Onions, garlic, that are flowering, going to bulb, needing to dry
End of season tomatoes that you want to have a stronger flavor
Tomatoes in soil with Fusarium and Verticillium Wilt fungi in the soil.  Fungi don’t do well in dry soil.

Plants that need water almost daily, sometimes twice daily 
Shallow rooted beans, beets, bunch onions, cucumbers, peas, strawberries
Celery and chard, lettuce, arugula – leaf crops, to keep them growing fast, tender and tasting sweet.
Planted seeds, seedlings, newly planted transplants, must be kept moist; if they dry, they die.  Put up temporary shade.

Use a watering can for seeds and tender seedlings so seeds aren’t washed away or seedlings broken.

Most plants need only an inch of water once a week unless it is hot and/or windy weather.  Most gardeners over water by two times as much as is needed!  Overwatering drowns plants, and kills micro soil organisms; they don’t get oxygen.  Soil structure is destroyed as air spaces cave in.  Overwatering also causes poor root growth making it difficult to move enough water to the leaves during hot weather.

Irregular watering results in misshapen fruits, tomato flower drop, can stop production

Fuzzy plants like tomatoes, eggplant, don’t do well with watering on their leaves.  Water underneath please.

Plants that are mulched generally need less water.  Poke your finger in the soil to see how deeply it is moist.  More on mulching next week.

Water and Pests & Diseases 

Overhead watering contributes to mildew on beans, squash, peas.  It spreads Strawberry Leaf Spot and other waterborne diseases 

Tomatoes:  stop watering when about a foot tall.  Water around them, but not right at them.  Keep back about a 2’ perimeter to reduce Fusarium and Verticillium Wilt fungi.  If you do water them, on mature plants, cut off the lower leaves, up to 18” high, to prevent soil splash when watering.  The fungi are especially taken up by leaves touching the ground.

Flush off aphids and the undersides of broccoli leaves and broc side shoots, kale leaves, especially the curly varieties.

Flush white flies from the undersides of broccoli leaves, kale, beans

BE JUICY!

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3 Kinds of Peas & Strawberries; Onions & Garlic!

Mesa Harmony Garden could use your VOTE!

They are in line for a $10,000 award from RainBird, to install water wise systems in their 3-phase Food Forest installation! It’s an awesome project in Santa Barbara CA, turning unused land into a model garden, to produce food for the Food Bank – the highest % of that goes to seniors and kids.  You can vote every day if you are willing, and it is sure appreciated!  http://www.iuowawards.com/Projects.aspx#search  Blessings!

November things to know about your veggies!

PEAS, if you please!   

• Go vertical!  Set up a trellis.  
• Get your peas.  There are 3 kinds of peas – English shelling peas, Chinese snow peas, fat crunchy eat-‘em-off-the-vine snap peas!  I plant and enjoy them all!  Stringless is nice.  Mildew resistant is great!
• At this time of year, plant from transplants.  Or.  Put in some from transplants at the same time as you put in some seeds.  That is equivalent to about a 6 week succession planting pattern.  Now through February, plant peas every month for continuous crop.
• Inoculate your seeds if you haven’t grown peas there for the last 3 years.  If you had an area where peas grew well last year, grab some handfuls of that soil and put it where you are planting this year!  Rhizobia makes for abundant production.  Just sprinkle it on the seeds when you plant!  At Island Seed & Feed, one T of inoculant for 6 LBS of pea seeds is only $2!  It’s where the bulk seeds are. 
• No manure, or very lightly, for peas, they make their own N (Nitrogen).  That’s what legumes do!
• Peas germinate well at 40 to 75 degrees F, but the colder, the slower.  Pre-sprouting is fair, in fact, makes sense!  Sprouted seed will grow in soils too cool for germination.  YES!  Don’t you love it?!  Easy peasy has true meaning here.  Wet a paper towel on a plate, arrange your seeds on one half of the towel, not touching each other, fold the other half over.  Put them in a zip plastic bag, seal.  Put on a spot that maintains about 70 degrees.  Check those pups daily, add a wee bit of water, spray the paper towel, if needed.  Your peas will sprout in 4 or 5 days!  Soon as they sprout, put them carefully into the garden, right below the soil level.  Gently firm the soil so they have good contact.  If any fail, start another round to fill the gaps.
• Space your pea babies about 2 inches apart.  If you are putting in seeds, put them in about an inch apart, then thin when they are of a likely height that looks like their survival is assured.
• Birds?  If those walk-abouts are a bother, get some of that garden netting, or lay or prop those narrow patterned plastic plant flats over them.  When you aren’t using the netting on your peas, in spring & summer use it to cover your strawberries.
• Water.  They like it.  Every day until seeds are germinated, then once a week deeply.  
• Now we are back to the trellis.  When your plants are 1 foot to 1 ½ feet high, start weaving twine through/around them to secure them against winds and rain-heavy weight.  Those cute little tendrils just aren’t enough to hold them.  Before wind, rains, are predicted, check everybody to be sure all is secure. 

Stinky Onions?!  You bet!  Onions are sensitive to temperature and day length, photothermoperiodic!  Whew!  They start bulbing only after enough daylight for a certain number of days.  To avoid bolting, in SoCal we need to plant seeds of short day onions in fall, or intermediate varieties in late winter.  Most sets are long-day types and won’t work.  Plant Grano, Granex, & Crystal Wax seeds in the ground Nov 1, today, to Nov 10, or bare root in January.  Granex stores a little better, all of them are sweet like Vidalia and Maui.  If you miss this window, plant intermediate onions in Feb.  Onion seeds sprout very easily! 

Garlic is so easy – separate the cloves, plant in full sun, about 1 to 2 inches deep in rich humusy soil, points up, 4 inches apart.  That’s it!  Water and wait, water and wait…. 

Strawberries Anytime! But which kind?  There are 3 types of strawberries.  Deciding on whether to plant June Bearing, Everbearing, or Day Neutral strawberries depends on your available space, size of preferred strawberries and how much work you want to put into the strawberries. 

• Everbearing (spring, summer, fall) and Day Neutral (unaffected by day length and will fruit whenever temperatures are high enough to maintain growth) are sweet and petite. They will not need much space and both are great for plant hangers. If you choose to plant them in the garden, be prepared to spend time weeding and fertilizing the plants.  Everbearing:  ♦ Sequoia, medium, heavy producer  Day Neutral/Everbearing:  ♦ Seascape, large 
• June Bearing, mid June, strawberries produce a nice, large and sweet berry. Because they only produce for 2 to 3 weeks, there is not so much work to take care of them. You do, however, need space because of the runners.  They are classified into early, mid-season and late varieties.  ♦ Chandler, large, high yield, large quantities of small fruit later in season  ♦  Short day, Camarosa is large. It can be picked when fully red, and still have a long shelf life. This variety represents almost half of California’s current commercial acreage.  ♦  Short day, Oso Grande is a firm, large berry, with a steadier production period than Chandler. 

Do not plant strawberries where tomatoes, potatoes, peppers or eggplant have been grown in the past four years, because these crops carry the root rot fungus Verticillium which also attacks strawberries 

Commercial growers replace their plants each year.  FOR THE BIGGEST AND MOST ABUNDANT STRAWBERRIES, REPLACE PLANTS EACH YEAR…

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Across-the-Plot November Garden Tips

Reminder:  My campaign this fall is for garden cleanup, and turning the soil to expose the fungi that affects our tomatoes, and other plants, so the fungi dries and dies!

Vibrant Yellow Chard!

November, though cooler, is a rich planting time!   

First do remaining fall cleanup of lingering summer plants still at it with the warm weather we have been having.  Now is a perfect time to weed and clear pathways. 

Last chance to plant wildflowers from seed for early spring flowers!  Germination in cooler weather takes longer, so don’t let the bed dry out. 

More transplants of winter veggies.  That’s Brassicas – brocs, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, turnips!  Plant super low calorie nutritious chard, a fast grower; and from its same family, beets.  Beets and carrots are a two in one – you eat the bulb/carrot, and can harvest the leaves to steam as greens, or chop and drop into your stew!  Bright Lights chard is a favorite of mine – it’s as pretty as any flower with its bright easy-to-harvest stalks.  Carrots near peas!  Celery near the water spigot.  Fava, parsley, potatoes.  The fru fru thin leaved varieties of lettuces, that are too tender for hot summer sun, now thrive!  Plant in easy to reach places, so you can continually harvest the big lower leaves.  

Plant seeds of onions for slicing.  Bare-root artichoke, strawberries.  Strawberry and onion varieties are region specific, strawberries (more to come on this soon) even more than onions.  So plant the varieties our local nurseries carry, or experiment!  Get your bare-root strawberries in between Nov 1 to 10.  

Fillers and accents, unders and besides, can be red bunch onions, bright radishes!  Try some of the long radishes, like French Breakfast, said to have a ‘delicate crunch and gentle fire’ or a quickie like Cherry Belle that matures in only 22 days – that’s only 3 weeks! 

Check out the amazing Health Benefits of Eating Radish

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Pumpkins & DollarWise, from Grocery to Garden!

Fat Pumpkins & Fun Hay Rides, Lane Farms, Goleta CA

 Happy Halloween! 

• Pumpkins were once recommended for removing freckles and curing snake bites!
• Pumpkin flowers are edible.
• Pumpkins are 90% water. 
• Pumpkins are used for feed for animals.
• Pumpkin seeds can be roasted as a snack.
• Native Americans used pumpkin seeds for food and medicine.
• In early colonial times, pumpkins were used as an ingredient for the crust of pies, not the filling.
• The name ‘pumpkin’ originated from ‘pepon,’ the Greek word for ‘large melon.’
• Pumpkins contain potassium and Vitamin A.
• As of Oct 2009, the largest pumpkin ever grown weighted 1,725 pounds!
   

DollarWise – From Grocery to Garden!

Adapted from Pat Veretto’s article…. 

Beans, Garlic, Tomatoes and more

Beans being beans, you can plant the ones that come from the grocery store. Eat half the beans, plant the rest! Beans are seeds and seeds grow.  So do whole peas, raw peanuts, popcorn, wheat berries, raw untreated spice seed (celery, anise, sesame, etc.)… well, you get the idea. Vegetables like peppers, tomatoes and fruits like watermelon, have seeds in them that will grow. Eat the food, then plant the seeds of the food you like!  

Note: Green beans of any kind, or peas in the pod bought at the produce counter, will not grow. They’re “green” – immature seed.  

If you don’t know the general planting rules for a vegetable, read seed packet at the nursery, or check online.  Easy.  

√  In addition to seeds, the grocery store is a source of tubers like potatoes, yams and fresh ginger, sprouting plants like garlic and onions, and plants you can sometimes regrow, like celery, cabbage and carrots (carrot tops only, for edible greens – you won’t get another carrot).  

If you’d like to save tomato seeds to plant, first remember that tomatoes from the grocery are hybrids, unless you get heirlooms. Hybrids  mean the plant and tomato you get may not be what you expect (but it will be a tomato!). Scoop the seeds from a cut tomato and save with the liquid surrounding them, or mash a whole tomato and let it set at room temperature two or three days, then rinse gently and dry for storage, or plant them right away.  

Peppers, cucumbers, squash, pumpkin, and eggplant should be allowed to mature before using the seed, as the seed matures along with the vegetable. Planting these can be an adventure, as it’s not possible to know with what or if they’ve been cross pollinated, but try it anyway.  

Garlic will grow happily in a container on your windowsill or in the ground. Buy fresh garlic and use the largest cloves to plant. Put the unpeeled clove, pointed side up, in light soil with the tip just showing. Keep the soil damp and in a few days you should see a green shoot. You can eat this top, but if you let it grow, it will eventually turn brown and dry up. That means the garlic is “done” – you can dig it up and you should have a whole bulb of garlic, from which you can choose the largest clove and start the process again. If you plant garlic outside, you can leave it over winter for a spring harvest, or plant in the spring for a late summer or early autumn harvest.  

Root Crops from the Produce Department

Did you ever sort through one of those tubs of “onion sets” looking for ones that looked alive? Then you know what a bonus buying onions that are already growing can be! Green onions, the kind packaged or rubber banded and ready to eat, can be put back in the ground and grown to full size onions. Look for onions that have a round bulb because flat or thin bulbs may be another type of onion that never grows any larger, like a winter or spring onion. Set the onions upright in two or three inches of water for a couple of hours before planting, then keep the soil damp until the roots have been reestablished. 

√  Most full sized onions will regrow if you cut the root end off along with an inch or so of onion. Plant the root in good ground, and keep it watered. It will begin to sprout within a few days and you’ll have green onion shoots, and sometimes a new onion bulb.  

About the only difference between “seed potatoes” and the eating kind of potatoes from the grocery store is the size – government specifications are between 1 ½ and 3 ¼ inches diameter. Other than that, the rules are that they can’t be affected by nematode injury, freezing or various rots, soil or other damages… I truly hope that the potatoes we buy to eat are of such high quality.  

Some potatoes are treated to keep them from sprouting – you’ll want the ones that sprout. Look out for the radiation symbol on the package. Irradiated potatoes are dead – they won’t grow.  

Most sprouting potatoes can be cut to get more than one plant. Just be sure to keep enough of the potato flesh to nurture the sprout until it can develop roots. Plant potatoes when the weather is still cool, barely below ground in light, sandy or straw filled soil.  

√  Is it cost effective to buy groceries to garden with? Well, you’ll usually get enough seed from one squash to plant 15 to 20 hills. One potato is enough for three to four plants each of which should produce at least a meal’s worth in a poor season. And remember the “seed quality” beans? How much does it cost for a whole pound of beans?  Buy local – farmers market, roadside stands – for seeds adapted to our area.  Buy organic for untreated seeds!  Once you grow your own, harvest the seed of your best plants, specifically adapted to your very own garden! 

Creative Home & Garden ideas says ‘If you buy some foods, such as horseradish, with the tops (or at least part of the top still attached), you can cut off the top, plant it in the ground, and it will reproduce another horseradish root just like the one you bought. The next year it will divide, and soon from only one top you will have an entire patch of horseradish.

And that’s a bargain. When was the last time you bought something, ate it, and still had 200 of them left over?

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Garlic Tip, Zucchini Lasagna ala New York Times!

GARLIC TIP: Deciding when to harvest your garlic crop is not an exact science. In the USA and much of Northern Europe garlic is usually harvested in the summer months. The harvesting begins in July and picking can continue all the way through August. Check out this YouTube short: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zcZmDdfano

Another Tasty Summer Recipe!
Are you going crazy with all that zucchini?!

Here’s ZUCCHINI LASAGNA from the New York Times!

• 6 lg Zucchini (or more)
• 1 qt Jar thick marinara sauce
• 1 lb Ricotta cheese
• 1 lg Onion; sliced
• 1/4 lb Mushrooms; sliced
• 1 tb Dried oregano; crushed
• 1 tb Dried basil; crushed
• Salt, pepper
• 1 lb Mozzarella cheese, sliced
• 1/2 c Grated Parmesan cheese
• Toasted sunflower seeds
- (optional)

Slice zucchini 1/2-inch thick.
Spread thick layer using half of marinara sauce in 13- x 9-inch baking dish.
Add layer of half of zucchini slices, then half of ricotta.
Top with half of onion and mushrooms, then sprinkle with half of oregano and basil.
Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Top with half of mozzarella cheese slices.
Cover with second layer of remaining sauce and repeat layering process, with remaining ricotta, onion, mushrooms, oregano, basil and mozzarella.
Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and garnish with sunflower seeds.
Bake at 350F 45 minutes, or until zucchini is cooked but not mushy.
Note: For a non-vegetarian dish, use meat sauce or add sausage or pepperoni to marinara sauce.
Makes 6 to 8 servings – is your mouth watering?

As the season moves on, and your eggplant come in, just use them instead of zucchini!

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