Happy Merry May, Cinco de Mayo & Mother’s Day!

Across-the-Plot Gardening Tips May 2023!

Merry May! Radiant Flowers, Luscious Veggies!

Are you having fun?! Does your garden make you this happy?! PLANT MORE! 

Our Santa Barbara April daytime temps varied from 59 to 84! Night temps have been 42 to 56 but dropping back to 47 the first week of May. Depending on what you are planting, some gardeners will wait until Mid-May. Sweet peppers need night temps steadily above 55°F, some say 60, and soil temps above 65°F. Get out your soil thermometer and check the soil temp where you garden! If planted too soon, sometimes plants miss their natural sequence of production, and never produce. Best to replant if you suspect this is happening. In general, plant another round 2 -3 weeks later just in case! See Best Planting Temps Per Veggie!

May, June Planting Timing

MAY is time for cantaloupe, sweet bell peppers, pumpkins and squash! Try some Urizun Japanese Winged Beans! Wait until the soil has warmed to 70°F before planting squash and melons. Many wait until May, some even June, for warmer drier soil, to plant tomatoes to avoid soil fungi. Some gardeners wait until JUNE to plant okra. Okra really likes heat and grows quickly when happy. Choose faster maturing varieties for coastal SoCal. 2022 I tried Heavy Hitter, an early super productive variety. We had a cool summer and the standard Burgundy Okra outperformed it. This red variety has always outperformed every green I’ve grown. If YOU anticipate a HOT summer, plant a tad earlier, but be prepared to deal with it if summer is overcast as often is the case after all.

Long beans are spectacular and love heat. Late May, June is the best time to start them. They grow quickly from seed. They last longer than other beans, hitting their stride toward the end of summer. Certain varieties of them don’t get mildew either! Their unique flavor keeps your table interesting. See more!

While we are waiting for the right temps, do soil preps that are still needed. Weed out plants that won’t help your summer lovers. Make your soil fluffy with water holding compost, only 5 to 10%, while also adding tasty well aged manure! Add worm castings to areas that will be seeded. Castings improve germination, germination is sooner, seedlings healthier! Plan for year round bee habitat and install helpful companion plants in advance.

Plant another round of your favorite heat lovers! Might be eggplant, limas, bell peppers and pumpkins! Transplant or seed different varieties of beans, cucumbers, eggplant, melons, peppers, squash, and tomatoes than you planted before! Sow and/or transplant asparagus, beets, carrots, celery, chard, herbs, kale, kohlrabi, leeks, heat-tolerant leaf lettuce, summer-maturing onions, parsley, peanuts, rhubarb and spinach! Add white potatoes and radish with zucchini, radishes with cukes to repel cuke beetles, and with eggplant to repel flea beetles. Add fillers and littles under bigger plants as living mulch! Put some color in your choices! Plant RED table onions, pink celery, fancy multi-color lettuces! Tips for super Successful Transplanting!

Time for heat and leaf tip burn resistant, bolt-resistant lettuces of all kinds! Sierra, Nevada, Jericho, Black Seeded Simpson are some. Green Star wins the beauty and production award!

Choose heat and drought tolerant varieties when you can. For example, why wait when it gets HOT and your tomato stops setting fruit?! Get heat tolerant varieties the heat doesn’t bother! Heat tolerant tomatoes keep right on producing when temps get up to and above 85! Rattlesnake beans are a winner! They produce in up to 100 degree weather! They have a slightly nutty flavor. You do have to keep watch and pick almost daily because they get long and plump quickly – and are still tender!

Problem temps for most tomatoes:

High daytime temperatures (above 85 F)
High Nighttime Temperatures (above 70 F)
Low Nighttime Temperatures (below 55 F)

Check out this nifty page HOW TO GROW TOMATOES IN HOT WEATHER at Bonnie Plants! Do these things well in advance to be ready! Select as Julie Martens recommends: ‘Heat-tolerant tomato varieties like Heatmaster, Solar Fire, Summer Set, and Phoenix can form fruit even as temperatures climb. These tomatoes are often described as “heat set” types, or have heat-related words or locations in their names.’ If your plant is not heat tolerant, wait. When things cool down, your plant will start making flowers and setting fruit again. See also Tomatoes are the Fireworks of Your Summer Garden!

Tomatoes! Heirlooms are particularly susceptible to the wilts, Fusarium and Verticillium. If your soil is infected, instead, get varieties that have VFN or VF on the tag at the nursery. The V is for Verticillium, the F Fusarium wilt, N nematodes. Ace, Early Girl, Champion, Celebrity, are some that are wilt resistant/tolerant. In the Mother Earth News tomato survey, they found gardeners chose heirlooms over hybrids if their soil is wilt/blight free. Otherwise, the longer the gardener has gardened, they more they chose wilt resistant toms if their soil has fungi. Home Improvement/ACE has the largest tomato selection in the Santa Barbara area! See Special Planting and Growing Tips for your Tomatoes and Cucumbers! 

Once you have these strong varieties installed particular maintenance will keep them healthy longer.

• Remove any leaves that will touch the ground if weighted with rain, dew or by watering.
• Remove infected leaves the curl the length of the leaf or get brown spots.
• Lay down a loose 1″ deep straw mulch blanket to allow air circulation and the soil to dry. No friendly fungi habitat. The most important purpose of this mulch is to keep your plant’s leaves from being water splashed or in contact with soil, which is the main way they get fungi/blight diseases.
• When the straw gets flat and tired, remove (don’t compost) and replace.

Flowers or veggies that are great companion plants for your tomatoes!

Strengthen your summer garden!  Always be thinking what goes near, around, under, with, what enhances your plant’s growth and protects it from damaging insects and diseases, or feeds your soil! Keep the biodiversity rolling! Plant pest deterring plants first so they will be up and working when you put in your seeds or transplants! If you forget, you can always add your companions later.

• Alyssum is a great old fashioned pretty border plant, an understory living mulch. And WHITE Alyssum repels the cabbage butterfly and feeds mini beneficial pest predators like hoverflies whose primary food source is aphids!
• Basil repels several unwanted insects, is great near tomatoes but not in the basin with the tom. The tom needs less water. Plant the Basil beside the tom basin. The deeper tomato roots will get water used to water the Basil!
• Beans, Cukes, Dill, Radish Combo! Cukes and Beans are great on the trellis, one high, one low unless you are growing long cuke varieties. They can fill a trellis all by themselves! Dill to go with pickling cukes. Radishes to deter Cucumber beetles.
• WHITE Potatoes with Zucchini & Cukes to repel squash bugs.
• Radish with eggplant, cukes & zukes as trap plants for flea beetles and to repel cucumber beetles.
• Carrots love being with cilantro and chamomile, and chamomile improves the flavor of any neighboring herb! Plus, it helps neighboring plants – called the Plant Dr!
• Calendula traps aphids, whiteflies, and thrips! Plant with tomatoes and asparagus.
• Chamomile is a love! Pretty, great tea, known as the “plant doctor,” chamomile has been known to revive and revitalize plants growing near it. That’s especially good to know for plants that are susceptible to diseases. Plant it by plants that are wilts susceptible, like your tomatoes & cucumbers .
• Spanish Lavender, Purple Cosmos are favorites of pollinators that love purple!
• Marigolds are brilliant and called the workhorse of pest deterrents!
• Lettuce and carrots make a great understory below larger plants like peppers, eggplant. They act as living mulch! Leave a little open space to lightly dig in some compost or manure later in the season. If you already have enough lettuce, beets and carrots, scatter a living mulch, soil feeding legume seed mix under those plants. At the end of the season you can turn it all under – aka Green Manure. Or remove the larger plants, open up spots in the living mulch and put in winter/summer plants! See much more – Living Mulch/Green Manure!
• Hot peppers emit a chemical from the plant roots that helps prevent Fusarium wilt, root rot, and a wide range of other plant diseases!Plant whole sets of companion plants as in the image above right! Very efficient use of space!See more at Super Spring & Summer Veggies Companion Planting Tips!

Now is the time watering becomes critical!

Lots of rain so far this year. But, please, always use your Water Wise Practices!

Please water before 10:30 AM and after 4 PM as possible. Use a watering sprinkler head or wand with an easy-to-use shutoff valve. Berms need to go to the dripline or further for some plants so tiny subsurface feeder roots can fully supply your plant with water and nutrients as it needs.

SEEDS need to be kept moist. If they dry they die. If the soil gets a dry crust, tiny seedlings might not be able to push through. Covering it very lightly with a very fine textured mulch like ‘Gorilla Hair’ can help. It keeps the soil moist longer and seedlings can push through it. If not, you either replant or if you don’t have time, just go get transplants. Of course, the advantage of seeds is you have a lot more variety choices than what you can get at the nursery if you aren’t too late in the season to get them, if you don’t have any more seeds… Always purchase extra seed for accidents and incidents, ie birds or insects, extreme temps.

A consideration for seeds is for convenience, plant them in a very mini ‘trench,’ nursery bed or patch, a low spot you make for them. That area will stay moist longer. Plant your seeds, cover with fine hairy light mulch. Try it! Once the seedlings have second leaves, transplant them to their permanent homes.

TRANSPLANTS need to be kept moist the first few days until they acclimate to their new home. Gentle watering. I water once, then go back and do the whole area again, giving the first watering a chance to soak down. Flooding is not necessarily a good choice. Soil needs oxygen, and plants can literally drown.

THE SCHEDULE What schedule, LOL?! It all depends on the weather or if you have planted seed have seedlings just up. In our area there are hot days, cool days, overcast days, sometimes windy. But very hot and windy together might mean watering twice a day, whereas cool and overcast might mean an inch of water a week could be just fine. Water beans, cukes, lettuces and short rooted varieties of strawberries more frequently – 2 to 3 times a week, daily, in very hot or windy weather. If you have seeds in, you might provide shade and water twice a day! Poke your finger in the ground after rains to see just how deep the water soaked in. Use your shovel and wedge a spot open to see if the soil is moist deeper.

To SAVE WATER In Santa Barbara, a long summer, low water table area, consider getting only indeterminate tomatoes. To keep a tomato supply for your table, if you plant determinates, that have a burst of tomatoes then taper off, you have to keep planting, wait for another two months to produce. Your new tomato will need water while there is no production. Indeterminates produce all summer long, with no waiting. Determinates are good for cooler northern short summers and crops that come in all at once for canning! Early determinates are good for getting tomatoes on the table soonest! It is common practice to plant both at first planting time.

• Use a long water wand to water under your plants, not the foliage. Use one with different settings so you use only what your plant needs, and an easy-to-use shut off valve so you use water only when you need to. See Hand Watering Veggies During Drought? Big Yes!
• Furrows, basins and berms are perfect for water capture, just like the SW indigenous peoples did with their waffle gardens. The water collects at the bottom, the drying wind goes over the berms. You can raise your tomato and cucumber basins onto the tops of your mounds so there is better drainage and your soil dries somewhat. For plants that are not wilt fungi vulnerable, dig your basins and furrows down, less work because no berms need to be made. Let the normal soil level be the ‘berm’ for the wind to blow over. See Growing Super Veggies in HOT, Drought, Desert Areas!

Most plants need to be kept moist. Kept moist. Dry crusty soil keeps your soil from breathing. Compost, worm castings, mulch and planting living mulch are all good answers. Compost has excellent water holding capacity. Work it in gently around your plant to just beyond its drip line. So as to damage as few roots as possible, maybe only do one or two sides of your plants so all the feeder roots are not destroyed. Feeder roots provide most of the nutrition and moisture for your plant, and it will set your production back if your plant has to stop, gets hungry, must regrow them. Worm Castings have super water holding capacity! Mulch only if your soil temps are up to par. Otherwise, wait, so the mulch doesn’t keep your soil cool. In a cool summer you might choose not to lay down mulch.

Living mulch has two advantages over dead mulch like bark or straw. 1) Living mulch can be an edible understory of small plants I call Littles. Their shade keeps the soil cool and moist. On balance they need water too, so you might use a wee bit of more water, but you also get 2 crops in the same space! 2) Living mulch can be soil feeding legumes under your bigger plants. They too shade and keep your soil moist and looser. In Santa Barbara a good choice can be White Clover. Get bulk seed at Island Seed & Feed.

The plant that does well with straw is cucumbers! It keeps the fruits clean and soil free, and, drum roll, might slow cucumber beetle movement from one plant to another! Plus, it is great shelter for wolf spiders, daddy long legs and other predators. The more spidies the more healthy your garden!

The first plant you mulch is any over summering Brassica – broccoli, kale. They like cool soil, so pile it on good and deep, 4 to 6 inches not touching the stem, or plant a dense understory of living mulch that won’t be harvested, or if you do harvest, cover that spot with straw ASAP! Peppers are quite the reverse, the last plants you mulch. They like soil temps above 65. Mulch keeps the soil cooler, so use your soil thermometer to see if the mulch is cooling it too much for your peppers.

Pumpkins, melons and winter squash may do much better with NO mulch at all! They all need heat. Rather than trellis these crops, up in the cooling air, leave them on the ground where it’s good and hot. You might even put in a straw bale windbreak for them if you have the room. Put the bales on their sides in a U shape that opens to the hottest time of day sun! Put reflective pie tins under fruits, or mulch under the fruits to keep them clean and above ground insect level.

Sprinkle and pat on Mycorrhiza fungi right on the roots of your transplants when you put them in the ground. It increases uptake of nutrients, water, and phosphorus that helps roots and flowers grow and develop. Ask for it bulk at Island Seed & Feed in Goleta. The exception is winter plants in the Brassica family – Broccoli, Kales. They don’t interact with mycorrhiza.

Garlic, bulb onions, and shallots naturally begin to dry this month. When the foliage begins to dry it’s time to STOP watering them. Dry outer layers needed for long storage will form on the bulbs. When about half of the foliage slumps to the ground, bend the rest to initiate this maturing. The bulbs will be ready for harvest when the foliage is thoroughly dry and crisp.

Natural Disease & Pest Prevention!

1. Be wise and pick the right plant varieties for your temps and conditions! Get heat tolerant, bolt resistant, drought tolerant, disease tolerant/resistant. If you are just starting, just start! You will learn as you go. Our climate is changing, so we are all adjusting and plants will be being hybridized, and hybridize naturally, for new climates. We can get varieties from other areas that are already used to conditions we will be having. Together we will do this. Locally, save seeds from plants that do the best with the heat and share some of those seeds at the Seed Swap and with other gardeners.
2. Think biodiversity! Plant companion plants that repel pests, attract pollinators, enhance each other’s growth so they are strong and pest and disease resistant. Mix it up! Less planting in rows, more under stories and intercropping – biodiversity. Split up groups so pests won’t go from one plant to the next, and the next. When you do rows, alternate plants like a tomato, eggplant, pepper. Allow enough room for air space between, no leaves of mature plants touching each other. That breaks up micro pest and disease habitats.
3. Make top notch soil!
4. In planting holes
   – Add worm castings for your plants’ excellent health. 25% is best; 10% will do if that’s all you got.
   – Add a tad more tasty properly aged manure mixes where manure lovers like peppers will be planted.
   – Add non-fat powdered milk for immediate immune system support at planting time
   – Put in a finely ground bone meal for 2-3 months later uptake when your plant gets to flowering time.
   – Add bird guano high in P, Phosphorus, at planting time. It helps your plants continue to bloom LATE in the season! An NPK ratio like 1-10-0.2 is good, takes 4 months to become available to your plants.
   – Add an eency tad of coffee grounds (a 1/2 of a %) if you have wilts in your soil
   – Sprinkle mycorrhizae fungi directly on transplant roots, all but Brassicas, at planting time to increase their uptake of nutrients and water.
   – Use slightly acidic compost where you will be planting celery and string beans.
5. Immediately drench your transplants, foliar feed, with a non-fat powdered milk, baking soda, aspirin, soap mix to jazz up their immune systems. Specially give your peppers an Epsom salt and soap mix foliar feed for a taste of sulfur. More details and all the recipes.
6. Maintenance! Keep your plants strong while they are working hard! Be ready to do a little cultivating composts and manures in during the season (called sidedressing), or foliar feeding fish/kelp emulsion mixes if you don’t have predator pests like skunks! Some sites say with good starting soil you shouldn’t need to amend during the season. Your plants will tell you if they do need more food. Maybe your soil wasn’t perfect. Maybe your plant has phenomenal production and gotten hungry. When production slows down, decide if you want more. Feed your plant a bit and see what happens.
7. Keep your plants watered and vibrant, but not so much as to make their leaves soft and inviting to munching insect pests like aphids, leafminers.
8. Trap gophers immediately if you are able. Better is to install underground wire prevention.
9. Harvest promptly. Insects and diseases can signal when plants/fruits are softening and losing strength as they age, are past prime. Insects are nature’s cleaner uppers, and they and disease organisms are hungry! If leaves are yellowing or not looking up to par, remove them. Whiteflies are attracted to yellow.
10. Prevention A frustrating typical spring disease is Powdery mildew. It’s common on late peas, Curly Leaf kales, broccoli, beans, cucumbers and zucchini. Choose mildew resistant varieties! Plant leaving plenty of space for air circulation. Apply your baking soda mix. Drench under and upper sides of the foliage of young plants to get them off to a great start! Do this the same or next day if transplanting. A super combo is 1 regular Aspirin dissolved, a 1/4 cup nonfat powdered milk, heaping tablespoon of baking soda, a half teaspoon liquid dish soap per gallon/watering can. Reapply every 10 days or so, and after significant rains. Not only is prevention so much better than after mildew has set in, but this mix stimulates your plant’s growth! See Aspirin Solution.Cornell’s Disease Resistant Vegetable Varieties LIST is awesome! Take a peek before you order seeds or buy transplants! It may take some time to make your choices, but is so worth it! A point to know is some varieties are commercial, meaning they are tough enough to last through shipping, and all the time it takes to process the fruits. If you are eating fresh from your garden, you may not prefer some of those varieties. Try two or three so you have some choices. Look up the variety online and see other home gardeners’ comments. Note if the commenters are in an area with similar planting conditions as yours. If a commercial seed company is the seed seller, sometimes they will also sell in mini quantities to home gardeners! Yay! Just call that 800# and ask! Often they really enjoy talking with a home gardener, delighted you called! They generally are very well informed because their business depends on it. They can tell you inside things that aren’t in the catalogs!

The usual May culprits!

• Cucumber Beetles get in cucumber, squash and melon blossoms. They aren’t picky. Depending on your location, they are yellow greenish with black stripes or dots about the size and shape of a Ladybug. They are cute but are the very worst garden pest. They carry bacterial diseases and viruses from plant to plant, such as bacterial wilts, Fusarium and Verticillium, and mosaic virus, deadly to cukes, etc. Radish repels them, is a champion plant, a hero of the garden! Plant enough radish for you to eat and to let others just grow, be there permanently or at least until the beetles are done, gone. IPM data Straw mulch recommended.
• Cucumber Mosaic Virus, CMV, per IPM ‘…has a very wide host range including cucurbits (except watermelon), tomato, spinach, celery, safflower, beans, blackeyes, peppers, beets, potatoes, many ornamentals and weeds. The virus is transmitted by many species of aphids and could be seedborne.’ Buy your seeds from reputable seed houses.The 303 Plots, each 20′ X 30′, Long Beach CA Community Garden has been doing trials under guidance of entomologist, Dr. Perring at UC Riverside. Gardener Joanne Rice reports:1. Since aphids carry the virus from specific perennial weeds, we are trying to keep everything weed free.2. Starting January 1st, all members have been asked to put up yellow sticky cards to reduce the number of aphids for the year. Aphids hate hot weather so their mating time is the cold months. Dr. Perring says that will help. Also, since aphids hate hot weather, we will probably not plant squash or cucumbers until July when our real heat starts.3. Dr. Perring, when we talked, said that CMV does not damage the soil. The CMV, is on the roots of the infected plants and if when you remove the plants you do not remove every root,  you will get CMV at next planting. [REMOVE suffering plants immediately so they don’t make more infected roots. If you think you may have missed some, remove any questionable soil well beyond the dripline and Do Not put that soil anywhere you will be growing vegetables.]

  4. We are currently working on a list of veggies, Summer and Winter, that are known to be CMV resistant. If you have such a list, I certainly would appreciate it. [If any of you have a list, please send it to us!]

• Squash Bugs like your Zucchini and other squash, cucumber and melons. Plant radish and WHITE potatoes amongst them to repel the bugs. Let some of the radish grow full height, eat the others as usual! You will get three crops instead of just one! IPM info
• Flea Beetles look like large black fleas and do hop mightily! They seem harmless enough, make tiny little holes in the leaves of eggplant, potatoes, arugula. But, those tiny holes add up. As the beetles suck out the juice of your plant they disrupt your plant’s flow of nutrients, open the leaves to disease, your plant is in a constant state of recovery, there is little production. Your plant looks dryish, lacks vitality. The trap plant for them, one that they like best, is radish! Thank goodness radish grow fast! Better yet, plant it ahead of time, or ASAP when you put seeds and transplants in. IPM notes
• Whiteflies do the honeydew thing like aphids do, leaving a nasty sticky black sooty mold or white fibers all over your plant’s leaves. The honeydew attracts ants, which interfere with the activities of Whitefly natural enemies. They are hard to get rid of, so keep a close watch on the undersides of leaves, especially if you see little white insects flying away when you jostle your plant. Whiteflies develop rapidly in warm weather, in many parts of California, and they breed all year. Prevent dusty conditions. Keep ants out of your plants. Hose them away immediately. Calendula is a trap plant for whiteflies. See more

Now is the time to be thinking of soil prep for the future! Gather and dry good wood now for trial Hugelkultur composting at the end of summer, early fall! Woods that work best are alders, apple, aspen, birch, cottonwood, maple, oak, poplar, willow (make sure it is dead or it will sprout). Hugelkultur can be a simple huge pile or an elegant graceful design like this one above. Could be right in your front yard! Be creative! See more!

Plant Bee Food, Herbs and Flowers! Sow or transplant basil, borage, chervil, chamomile, chives, cilantro, comfrey, dill, fennel, lavender, marjoram, mint, oregano, rosemary, sage, savory, tarragon, and thyme. Comfrey, mint and oregano are invasive. Remove the bottom of a 5 gal container, sink it where you want your plant and plant in it. That contains the roots where you want them. Mint can jump ship, so keep a constant eye on it! Be mindful where you plant your herbs… Mediterranean herbs from southern France, like lavender, marjoram, rosemary, sage, savory, and thyme, do well in hot summer sun and poor but well-drained soil with minimal fertilizer. On the other hand, soft herbs like basil, chives, coriander (cilantro), and parsley thrive in richer soil with more frequent watering. Wise planting puts chives by your broccoli, kale, but away from peas if you are still growing some. Cilantro, a carrot family workhorse, discourages harmful insects such as aphids, potato beetles and spider mites, attracts beneficial insects when in bloom. Dill is a natural right next to the cucumbers since you will use the dill if you make pickles. They mature about the same time. Bumble Bees are special and need our support!

Let some of your arugula, carrots, lettuces, cilantro bloom! Bees, and insect eating birds and beneficial insects love them and you will get some seeds – some for the birds, some for you, some to take to the seed swap! Grow beauty – purple cosmos, marigold, white sweet alyssum – all benefit your garden in their own way! See Grow a Pollinator Meadow at Home in Your Veg Garden!

To plant a seed is to believe in tomorrow.  

Audrey Hepburn, born May 4, 1929
Great Images at Rancheria Community Garden, Santa Barbara CA!

Updated annually

---

---

Check out the entire May 2023 Newsletter!  

The Magic of Melons ~ Cantaloupe, Honeydew!
Pollination: Honeybees, Squash Bees & Bumblebees!
Mulching ~ Why, When, With What, How Much?!
Growing Super Veggies in Hot, Dry Desert Areas!

Upcoming Gardener Events! 13th International Permaculture Day May 7!  49TH Summer Solstice Parade June 25 2023, Theme is ROOTS!  ADVANCE NOTICE NATIONAL HEIRLOOM EXPO Sep 2023!

SUBSCRIBE to the entire newsletter!    Friend or Follow on Facebook! 

---

Love your Mother! Plant bird & bee food! Think grey water! Grow organic! Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

The Green Bean Connection started as correspondence for the Santa Barbara CA USA Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden. Both remaining Santa Barbara City’s community gardens are very coastal. Climate is changing, but it has been that during late spring/summer we are in a fog belt/marine layer area most years, locally referred to as the May grays, June glooms and August fogusts. Keep that in mind compared to the microclimate niche where your veggie garden is.

^Top

Read Full Post »

April 2023 Oh, Yes, Time for Those Luscious Heat Lovers!

Across-the-Plot Gardening Tips April 2023!

Oh, Yes, Time for Those Luscious Heat Lovers!

…each a miracle of seed and sun, I’ve always been one to enjoy tomato or cucumber right off the vine, with never a trip into the house—one magical wipe down a shirt-front and they’re ready. ~ commenter Rachel

Happy Santa Barbara Earth Day! It returns to Alameda Park Saturday and Sunday April 29 & 30! The 151st Arbor Day is Friday April 28! Please plant trees, lots of trees!

March 30 Santa Barbara had 1-3” of SNOW on our mountains, and, yes, it’s been chill, and we have rain saturated soil! Many gardeners are waiting for mid to late April to plant in drier soil. Night temps have still been in the 40s, in the next five days predicted as low as 44°. 60° to 65° soil temps are what we are looking for. BELL PEPPERS especially need warmer temps, nighttime temps steadily above 55°F and soil temps above 65°F. If planted too soon, sometimes they miss their natural growth sequence and never produce. Check out the Quick Guide to Summer Veggie Soil & Temp Preferences!

APRIL through JUNE Planting Timing  

Weather note! In Santa Barbara it is cooler and a lot more moist than usual. As it warms, mildew will be in the picture. The soil is saturated and when it warms a bit, it is prime fungus – verticillium and fusarim wilts, habitat. The crops that suffer the most from wilts are tomatoes and cucumbers, squashes coming in third. Some gardeners will be waiting until May/June, when the soil is more dry, to plant those crops. Resistant/tolerant varieties will do well as long as they can. If you plant now, be prepared to start some new plants again, in May and/or June.

APRIL is true heat lovers time! Start MORE seedlings indoors NOW for successive June plantings. Sow seeds right in the ground! If seeds and tending seedlings aren’t for you, get transplants and pop them in the ground per their right times! April 1 or as close to it as you can, start your Jicama seeds! Winter squash for sure. It needs time to grow big and harden for winter storage. MAY for cantaloupe, peppers, pumpkins and squash! Wait until the soil has warmed to 70°F before planting squash and melons. Many wait until May, some even June, to plant tomatoes to avoid soil fungi. May and June are good for Urizun Japanese Winged Beans. Some gardeners wait until JUNE to plant okra. Okra really likes heat and grows quickly when happy. Choose faster maturing varieties like hybrid Annie Oakley F1 for coastal SoCal. Heavy Hitter is a phenomenal producer in the right location – you may need only 1 or 2 plants! Some Long beans and Asian tropical veggies need warm temps to start from seeds. If YOU anticipate a HOT summer, plant a tad earlier and be prepared to plant second rounds as plants finish early! Also be prepared to deal with it if our Santa Barbara summer is overcast as often is the case after all.

While we are waiting for the right temps, do soil preps that may still be needed. Weed out plants that won’t help your summer lovers. Make your soil fluffy with water holding compost, only 5 to 10%, while also adding tasty well aged composted manure, and worm castings too! If you don’t have enough castings, save what you have and add to your planting holes amendments.

Keep COMPOSTING! Soil building is the single-most important thing you can do for your garden. Compost keeps your soil aerated, has great water holding capacity, feeds slowly just perfectly! And if you made it, you know what’s in it! Make it HOT, Cold, or In Place! In place takes the least time, is the most efficient, is a worm buffet! Make a trench 6-8″ deep, put in your ingredients, chop fine with your shovel, sprinkle with well aged composted manure, mix in some soil so the chopped bits don’t form an impervious mat, cover with the soil you removed. Give it 1 to 3 weeks and you are ready to plant! Dry is dead, so be sure it is always slightly moist. Giving back to Mama Earth is nature’s natural way! And, like Will Allen says ….there is something very Spiritual about touching the soil, that’s where life begins.

Put in last minute amendments, soil preps for May plantings of cantaloupe, okra, more tomatoes. About Manures

Heat lovers are eggplant, limas, okra and bell peppers, pumpkins! Transplant early-maturing varieties of beans, cucumbers, eggplant, melons, bell peppers, squash, and tomatoes. Sow and/or transplant asparagus, beets, carrots, celery, chard, corn, herbs, kale, kohlrabi, leeks, heat-tolerant leaf lettuce, okra, summer-maturing onions, parsley, peanuts, the last peas (choose a heat-tolerant variety such as Wando), white potatoes with zucchini, radishes (with cukes and squashes to repel cucumber beetles, and with cukes, squashes and eggplant to trap flea beetles!), rhubarb, and spinach.

Choose heat and drought tolerant varieties when you can. For example, why wait when it gets HOT and your tomato stops setting fruit?! Get heat tolerant varieties the heat doesn’t bother! See Tomatoes are the Fireworks of Your Summer Garden!

Tomatoes! Heirlooms are particularly susceptible to the wilts, Fusarium and Verticillium. Instead, get hybrid varieties that have VFN or VF on the tag at the nursery. The V is for Verticillium, the F Fusarium wilt, N nematodes. Ace, Early Girl, Champion, Celebrity, are some that are wilt resistant/tolerant. In you are in continual drought conditions, consider getting only indeterminates. In the Mother Earth News tomato survey, they found gardeners chose heirlooms over hybrids if their soil is wilt/blight free. Otherwise, the longer the gardener has gardened, they more they chose wilt resistant hybrid toms if their soil has fungi. La Sumida has the largest tomato selection in the Santa Barbara area! Haley St Home Improvement probably has the largest pepper selection. See Special Planting and growing tips for your Tomatoes and Cucumbers! 

Time for heat-resistant, bolt-resistant lettuces of all kinds! Sierra, Nevada, Jericho, Black Seeded Simpson are some. Green Star wins the beauty award and is super productive! Tips for super Successful Transplanting!

 

Strengthen your summer garden! Organize your Companion plant sets! Keep the biodiversity rolling! Plant pest deterring plants first so they will be up and working when you put in your seeds or transplants!

• Alyssum, in the image above left, is a great old fashioned pretty border plant, an understory living mulch. And white Alyssum repels the cabbage butterfly and feeds mini beneficial pest predators like hoverflies whose primary food source is aphids!
• Basil repels several unwanted insects, is great near tomatoes but not in the basin with the tom. The tom needs less water. Water the basil but not the tom!
• Beans, Cukes, Dill, Radish Combo! Cukes and Beans are great on one big trellis, one high, one low unless you are growing long cuke varieties. They can fill a trellis all by themselves! Dill to go with pickling cukes. Radishes to deter Cucumber beetles.
• WHITE Potatoes with Zucchini to repel squash bugs.
• Radish with eggplant, cukes & zukes as trap plants for flea beetles and to repel cucumber beetles.
• Carrots love being with cilantro and chamomile, and chamomile improves the flavor of any neighboring herb! Plus, it helps neighboring plants – called the Plant Dr!
• Hot peppers emit a chemical from the plant roots that helps prevent Fusarium wilt, root rot, and a wide range of other plant diseases!
• Calendula traps aphids, whiteflies, and thrips!
• Marigolds are brilliant and called the workhorse of pest deterrents!
• Lettuce and carrots make a great understory below larger plants like peppers, eggplant. They act as living mulch! If you already have enough lettuce, beets and carrots, scatter a living mulch, soil feeding legume seed mix under those plants. At the end of the season you can turn it all under – aka Green Manure. Or remove the larger plants, open up spots and put in winter plants! See much more – Living Mulch/Green Manure!
• Plant whole sets of companion plants as in the image above right! Very efficient use of space!See more at Super Spring & Summer Veggies Companion Planting Tips!

Keep ’em coming! If you have already done some early planting, at mid to late April schedule to pop in another round! Poke in some bean seeds where your very last peas are finishing, add cucumber seeds or transplants between the beans, plus dill at each end of the trellis to be there when you pickle those cukes! Plant more radishes to deter the Cucumber beetles, repel flea beetles. Fill in spots that could use a helper companion plant like calendula or chamomile! Succession planting makes such good sense. To keep a steady supply of your veggies, put your seeds and transplants in at the same time. Seedlings will come along 6 to 8 weeks after your transplants! But, again, if tending seedlings isn’t your cup of tea, just leave space and put in more transplants in 6 to 8 weeks after your first planting.

It is perfect to put in fast growers like lettuce, beets, turnips, arugula, to hold space until you are ready to plant bigger plants. When it’s time for the bigger ones, clear a space/harvest, pop in your seeds or transplants and let them grow up among the littles. As the bigger plants start to shade out the littles, remove strategic lower leaves of the big plant so the littles get light too! If you anticipate a HOT summer, plant littles on the morning light side of larger plants.

Put in borders of slow but low growers like carrots, mini cabbages, in more permanent placements, like on what will become the morning side of taller backdrop plants like peppers and eggplant. Let your Alyssum ramble. Add some Marigolds. Plant purple and blue favorites for bumble bees – rosemary, scabiosa, lavender, chives. Bumble bees pollinate tomatoes, the nightshade family; honey bees don’t! See Pollination: Honeybees, Squash Bees & Bumblebees!

Natural Disease & Pest Prevention!

1. Be wise and pick the right plant varieties for your temps and conditions! If hot and dry, get heat tolerant, bolt resistant, drought tolerant, disease tolerant/resistant. If you are just starting, just start! You will learn as you go. Our climate is changing, so we are all adjusting and new plants are being hybridized, and hybridize naturally, for new climates. We can get varieties from other areas that are already used to conditions we will be having. Together we will do this. Locally, save seeds from plants that do the best with the heat and share some of those seeds at the Seed Swap and with other gardeners.
2. Think biodiversity! Religiously plant companion plants that naturally repel pests – no pesticides needed, enhance each other’s growth so they are strong and pest and disease resistant. Mix it up! Less planting in rows, more understories (living mulch) and interplanting. Split up groups so pests won’t go from one plant to the next, and the next. Allow enough room for air space between, no leaves of mature plants touching each other. That breaks up micro pest and disease habitats.
3. Make top notch soil!
4. In planting holes
   – Add worm castings for your plants’ excellent health. 25% is best; 10% will do if that’s all you’ve got.
   – Add a tad more tasty properly aged composted manure mixes where manure lovers will be planted.
   – Add non-fat powdered milk for immediate immune system support at planting time
   – Put in a finely ground bone meal for 2 months later uptake when your plant gets to flowering time.
   – Add bird guano high in P, Phosphorus, at planting time. It helps your plants continue to bloom LATE in the season! Choose an NPK ratio like 1-10-0.2, takes 3-4 months to become available to your plants.
   – Add an eency tad of coffee grounds (a 1/2 of a %) if you have wilts in your soil
   – Sprinkle mycorrhizae fungi directly on transplant roots and pat it on, all but Brassicas, at planting time to increase their uptake of nutrients and water.
   – Add acidic compost where you will be planting celery and string beans.
5. Immediately drench your transplants, foliar feed, with a non-fat powdered milk, baking soda, aspirin, soap mix to jazz up their immune systems. Specially give your peppers an Epsom salt and soap mix foliar bath for a taste of sulfur. More details and all the recipes.
6. Thin baby plants you have deliberately or not overplanted! Many are great tiny salad greens. Most of all plants need space for their roots, or they struggle for soil food (can literally be rootbound in place), are weak and disease/pest susceptible, are not able to reach their full productive size. See this terrific post on Thinning Seedlings by DeannaCat!
7. Maintenance! Keep your plants strong while they are working hard! Be ready to do a little cultivating composts and manures in during the season (called sidedressing), or adding fish/kelp emulsion mixes if you don’t have predator pests like skunks or raccoons! Keep your plants watered and vibrant, but not so much as to make their leaves soft and inviting to munching insect pests like aphids. Trap gophers immediately if you are able. Install wire protection.
8. Harvest promptly. Insects and diseases know when plants are softening and losing strength as they age. Insects are nature’s cleaner uppers, and they and disease organisms are hungry! If leaves are yellowing or not looking up to par, remove them and don’t leave them lying on the ground. Whiteflies are attracted to yellow.
9. Prevention A frustrating typical spring disease is Powdery mildew. It’s common on late peas, Curly Leaf kales, broccoli, cucumbers and zucchini. First, get the most resistant varieties.  Plant leaving plenty of space for air circulation. Apply your baking soda mix. Drench under and upper sides of the foliage of young plants to get them off to a great start! Do this the same or next day if transplanting. A super combo is 1 regular Aspirin dissolved, a 1/4 cup nonfat powdered milk, heaping tablespoon of baking soda, a half teaspoon liquid dish soap per gallon/watering can. Reapply every 10 days or so, and after significant rains. Not only is prevention so much better than after mildew has set in, but this mix stimulates your plant’s growth! See Aspirin Solution!

Lots of rain so far this year. But, please, always use your Water Wise Practices!

Please water before 10:30 AM and after 4 PM as possible. Use a watering sprinkler head or wand with a shutoff valve. Berms need to go to the dripline of your plant so tiny subsurface feeder roots can fully supply your plant with water and nutrients as it needs. Some plants need ground water to 1 and a half times the size of the foliage diameter. Slow, spread Sink!

• Choose heat and drought tolerant varieties! They need less water! Some will keep producing at 85° and above!
• How much should you water? General rule is 1″/week. May take two, three waterings a day in extreme hot weather. Seeds and seedlings must be KEPT moist. On very hot days frequent waterings during the day may be needed. Some of your plants may need shade covers.
• Trenches or waffles?! To save water consider planting IN furrows, where moisture settles and drying wind crosses overhead. Plant crosswise to the prevailing wind so drying wind isn’t funneled down the trench, and, if possible, also to the Sun’s arc so the plants’ root areas will be slightly shaded by the depth of the furrow in early AM and late afternoon. If you still want your plants on top of the furrow, make the raised part of your furrows wide enough that you can put a mini trench on top of it! That’s what commercial strawberry farmers do. That holds the water up at your plants’ surface feeder roots area. If you make the sides of your trenches low slopes, and water carefully, your furrows won’t seriously degrade from water washing the sides away. Nor will seeds or plants be buried too deeply. But some maintenance will be required.Plants grown in thoughtfully made trenches need far less waterings and far less maintenance time. As the plants grow, they also self mulch and need even less water and less frequent waterings.Trench planting is akin to the New Mexico Zuni waffle gardens. The advantage of waffle gardens is, you can see, the wind and sun arc directions don’t matter to waffle gardens! The wind can change direction and it’s no problem! Berms cover all four sides. You can save the making and maintenance of berms by simply digging down! Zuni climate is hot and dry, sometimes windy. The berms/sides that shelter each waffle space cause hot drying winds to rise/cross over the waffle and it stays more moist inside. Be sure to mulch your waffles after the soil gets warm and before temps get hot. At that point you want to keep your soil moist and cool. The early Zunis used gravel from the nearby riverbeds. Similar sunken beds for growing food with less water have been used globally in arid regions, arising independently by Indigenous farmers.Curtis Quam’s waffle garden, which he tends with his family at Zuni Pueblo, NM = less water used, food security. By Greta Moran, photo by Curtis Quam.
• Please always be building compost. Compost increases your soil’s water holding capacity.
• When planting, make mounds with basins on top for virus sensitive plants like toms and cukes, make sure the bottom of the basin is higher than the level of the surrounding soil level. Rather than losing water to evaporation from overhead watering, put the water right where it will do the most good and nowhere else. Make the mound to the dripline or to 1.5 of it so your plant’s small surface feeder roots get moisture for food uptake. For larger leaved plants like squashes, put a stake in the center of the basin so you know where to water when the leaves get big and cover the basin. With a long watering wand you can water under the leaves rather than on them ~ unless they need a bath to remove dust. Fuzzy leaved plants like tomatoes, eggplant and zucchini don’t like wet leaves. Water at ground level.
• Once your soil is heated up, PLEASE MULCH! Straw, Self Mulching, a living mulch of understory plants like lettuce, or plant soil feeding living mulch legumes! It keeps your soil cooler, more moist, less water needed. And it stops light germinating weed seeds from germinating! Super heat lovers like melons and winter squash may be the exception. See Mulching right for each plant!Straw is dead, but has its advantages. It is organic and does decompose in time. It gets fruits up off the ground and keeps soil from splashing up on lettuce leaves! If not too deep, straw can shade but allow airflow. Your soil is cool but if has fungi it is best to let the soil dry a bit. Straw mulch can help reduce cucumber beetles 3+ different ways. 1) Mulch might directly slow beetle movement from one plant to another. 2) The mulch provides refuge for wolf spiders, daddy long legs and other predators from hot and dry conditions, helping predator conservation. 3) The straw mulch is food for springtails and other insects that eat decaying plant material; these decomposers are important non-pest prey for spiders, helping to further build spider numbers! In addition, laid on an inch or less thick, it lets airflow dry out wilts fungi in soil. That’s why straw is good to use under tomatoes and cucumbers. With other plants, lay it on 3-6″ deep!Living Mulch, Self mulching, planting closely enough so your plants self shade, is a tasty and efficient use of your soil nutrients. It’s doubly efficient space use when you plant smaller companion food producing plants under, beside, among, around larger plants!Soil feeding Living Mulch You can up the amps by tossing a mix of legume seeds under your plants to feed your soil as well! You may decide to do both. Plant the small plants you need, grow legumes under the rest along with the right companion plants per the crop there.
• Sprinkle and pat on Mycorrhiza fungi right on the roots of your transplants when you put them in the ground. It increases uptake of nutrients, water, and phosphorus that helps roots and flowers grow and develop. Ask for it bulk at Island Seed & Feed in Goleta. (Brassicas don’t connect with it, so your over summering kale or broccoli doesn’t need it.)
• Dust Mulching, cultivation, weeding, is perfect to break up exposed soil surface. That keeps the water from wicking to the surface and evaporating. Do it especially after rains. If you use a hula hoe you do two things at once! Just a half to one inch depth cuts off weed sprouts that use water. Indeed, it turns the soil a tad, all that’s needed. More weeds will follow, but it’s quick and easy to repeat the process. Two, three times, a few days apart, and there will be few weeds after that for a while. Get ’em while they are small and easy to do. Smart gardening.

Plant Pollinator Food, Herbs and Flowers! Sow or transplant basil, borage, chervil, chamomile, chives, cilantro, comfrey, dill, fennel, lavender, marjoram, mint, oregano, rosemary, sage, savory, tarragon, and thyme. PURPLE is best for bees, blue next! Be mindful where you plant them… Mediterranean herbs from southern France, like lavender, marjoram, rosemary, sage, savory, and thyme, do well in hot summer sun and poor but well-drained soil with minimal fertilizer. On the other hand, basil, chives, coriander (cilantro), and parsley thrive in richer soil with more frequent watering. Wise planting puts chives by your broccoli, kale, but away from peas if you are still growing some. Cilantro, a carrot family workhorse, discourages harmful insects such as aphids, potato beetles and spider mites, attracts beneficial insects when in bloom. Dill is a natural right next to the cucumbers since you will use the dill if you make pickles. They mature about the same time. Let some of your arugula, carrots, lettuces, cilantro bloom! Bees, pollinators and insect eating birds and beneficial insects love them and you will get some seeds – some for the birds, some for you, some to share at the seed swap! Grow beauty – cosmos, marigolds, white sweet alyssum – all benefit your garden in their own way! See Grow a Pollinator Meadow at Home! Here are some special considerations – Courting Solitary Bees!

May your crops be abundant and your Spirit blessed!

March Cabbages, Kale, seedlings and flowers! Great Images at Rancheria Community Garden, Santa Barbara CA!

Updated annually 

---

---

Check out the entire April 2023 Newsletter!

Designing Your Spring/Summer Veggie Garden!
Quick Guide to Summer Veggie Soil & Temp Preferences!
Seed Soaking/Presprouting Tips & Ideas! Part 1
Veg Gardening Changing Climate Survival Guide!
The Inspiring Permaculture Restoration of Mexico City’s Chinampas

Upcoming Gardener Events! Santa Cruz Permaculture 2023 Design Permaculture Course April-Sep, April 29-20 CEC’s 53rd Santa Barbara Earth Day Celebration! International Permaculture Day May 7! ADVANCE NOTICE NATIONAL HEIRLOOM EXPO Sep 2023!

---

Love your Mother! Plant bird & bee food! Think grey water! Grow organic! Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

The Green Bean Connection started as correspondence for the Santa Barbara CA USA Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden. Both remaining Santa Barbara City’s community gardens are very coastal. Climate is changing, but it has been that during late spring/summer we are in a fog belt/marine layer area most years, locally referred to as the May grays, June glooms and August fogusts. Keep that in mind compared to the microclimate niche where your veggie garden is.

SUBSCRIBE to the entire newsletter!    Friend on Facebook! 

^Top

Read Full Post »

Happy March 2023 Gardening, Spring Equinox!

Across-the-Plot Gardening Tips March 2023!

March Planting, Thoughtful Garden Design & Perfect Veggie Choices!

Last chance to design, make changes to your summer garden layout! March is often first plantings, if not, it is last soil preps before full on April plantings! See about wise Companion Planting for successful combinations!

Day lengths are still short. Feb 28 Soil Temps 10-11 AM were 50° in sun and shade. We want Night air temps steadily above 50 and soil temps 60 to 65 for starting our veggies well. Bell Peppers, especially need these warmer temps. They don’t like cold feet. They do best with nighttime temps above 55°F and soil temps above 65°F. Average March night temps are 46°F to 48°F.

MARCH through June Planting Timing  

Start MORE seedlings indoors NOW for late April/early May plantings – eggplant, peppers, and more tomatoes for transplanting into the garden in late April or early May. Also sow cucumbers, squash and sweet potatoes. The beauty of seeds is you can plant exactly what and how many you want! If seeds and tending seedlings aren’t for you, get transplants and pop them in the ground per their right times! Plant Winter squash now so it will have a long enough season to harden for harvest and be done in time for early fall planting.

• APRIL is true heat lovers time! Eggplant, limas, melons, bell peppers, pumpkins and squash! Many wait until April, even May or June, to plant tomatoes. Wait until the soil has warmed to 70°F before planting squash and melons.
• Wait until MAY for cantaloupe, long red beans. Late May, even early June are best for tropical types like Winged Beans.
• Some gardeners wait until JUNE to plant okra. It really likes heat and grows quickly when happy. Choose early varieties like the standard Clemson Spineless, Annie Oakley F1, red Burgundy or Cajun Delight! Try the fabulous Heavy Hitter! Choose faster maturing varieties for cool coastal SoCal. If YOU anticipate a HOT summer, plant a tad earlier, but in Santa Barbara be prepared to deal with it if summer is overcast as often is the case after all.

With our warming temp trends be on the safe side. Get bolt resistant/slow bolt varieties, heat, and especially drought tolerant varieties of everything!

If your seeds that need Cold Stratification didn’t get cold during the winter, here’s what you can do now!

Right now plant bell pepper transplants (at the right temps) and cold tolerant, early varieties if available. If you love your peppers and want some early, or have a short growing season, next year order seeds for ones that mature quickly and are cool weather adapted! Plant those transplants in the ground first and others more heat tolerant soon after to carry the length of the season. For cold tolerant sweet bell peppers, get seed for Ace, Lady Bell or King of the North! Obriy Ukrainian sweet red pepper is both cold and heat tolerant! For hotties that don’t mind cold, order up Early Jalapeno, Hungarian Hot Wax or Anaheim. Rocoto stands some cold but not a hard freeze. Manzano are reported to survive at 20°! The extraordinary feature of these two peppers, Capsicum pubescens (hairy leaves), is they grow into four-meter woody plants relatively quickly, and live up to 15 years! Truly sustainable! Now we need a bell pepper that can do that! If cold weather can happen anytime where you live, grow your peppers in pots; take them inside when it gets cold. Keep them on a cart or put the pots on roller wheels.

Plant determinate quick maturing early varieties of tomatoes – start with small fruited varieties and cherry toms – for soonest tomatoes for your table! The coastal moist soil at Santa Barbara’s community gardens has residues of Verticillium and Fusarium wilts, so some gardeners wait until warmer drier June soil to plant tomatoes and other veggies, like cucumbers that are wilts susceptible – but remember, those fungi are also windborne. You can delay it, make it less, but not prevent or stop it. Cucumbers are especially susceptible and do quickly die from it, so if you love cukes, be prepared to plant 2nd and 3rd rounds, but do these successive rounds in different places! First, choose resistant varieties like Natsu Fushinari longs! See more about how to avoid or slow down wilt and fungi problems! See about using BLEACH! See more about selecting tomatoes!

Outdoors sow or transplant beets, carrots, celery, chard, cilantro, herbs, Jerusalem artichokes, kohlrabi, leeks, green onions, bulb onion seed and sets (be sure to get summer maturing varieties), parsley, peas (be sure to use the right inoculant with your seeds if your soil needs it), peanuts (they do grow here!), potatoes, radishes, shallots, spinach, strawberries, and turnips. Time for heat tolerant, bolt and tipburn resistant lettuces of all kinds! The fabulous Green Star, Sierra, Nevada, Jericho, Black Seeded Simpson are some. Tips for super Successful Transplanting!

This is the LAST MONTH to transplant artichokes, asparagus, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, kale; also strawberry, blackberry, and raspberry roots so they’ll bear fruit well this year.

PLANT COMPANION PLANTS THAT REPEL PESTS, WARD OFF DISEASE IN ADVANCE SO THEY WILL BE UP AND WORKING WHEN YOUR SEEDLINGS COME UP OR YOU INSTALL YOUR TRANSPLANTS! Those are radish, cilantro, potatoes, Borage. The best kind of biodiversity is companion planting! See Super Spring & Summer Veggies Companion Planting Tips!

• Beans, Cukes, Dill, RADISH Combo! Depending on ground temps, tuck in some bean seeds where the peas are finishing, intermingled with cucumber seeds that will grow low along the trellis, below the beans, plus a few dill to go with the cukes! However, ONE healthy long cuke plant like Natsu Fushinari will easily take up a full 4’X7′ trellis all by itself! See more for bean/cuke planting tips. Plant radishes with the cukes to deter the Cucumber beetles. Borage repels tomato hornworm and is especially good with tomatoes, strawberries and squash!
• Tomato Tips:  La Sumida has the largest tomato selection in the Santa Barbara area! Heirlooms are particularly susceptible to the wilts, Fusarium and Verticillium. Instead, get varieties that have VFN or VF on the tag at the nursery. The V is for Verticillium, the F Fusarium wilt, N nematodes. Ace, Early Girl, Champion, Celebrity, are some that are wilt resistant/tolerant. In drought conditions, consider getting only indeterminates.

See Cornell’s Veggies Disease Resistant List!

Succession planting makes such good sense. Put your seeds and transplants in at the same time. Seedlings will come along 6 to 8 weeks behind your transplants so you have a steady supply of yummy veggies! Otherwise, plant another round as frequently as you need for the table supply you need. But if tending seedlings isn’t your cup of tea, just leave space and put in more transplants in 6 to 8 weeks after your first planting.

It is perfect to put in fast growers like lettuce, beets, turnips, arugula, chard, to hold space until you are ready to plant bigger plants. When it’s time for the bigger ones, clear a space/harvest, pop in your seeds or transplants and let them grow up among the space holders. As the bigger plants start to shade out the littles, remove lower leaves so the littles get light too! The smaller plants act as living mulch under the bigger plants. No need to plant smaller plants separately in rows of their own. Think circles and understory! Plant them around, under, among the bigger plants! If you anticipate a HOT summer, plant heat sensitive littles only on the morning or shady side of larger plants. See  Mulching ~ Why, When, With What, How Much?!

Put in borders of slow but low growers like carrots, mini cabbages, in more permanent places, like on what will become the morning side of taller backdrop plants like peppers and eggplant.

Depending on what legumes you choose, figure 3 1/2 +/- months to grow another round of green manure to enrich your soil Nitrogen. In warming weather and longer days, it grows faster. In 6 weeks to two months chop it down and chop up. Give it as close to 2 weeks as you can to decompose on the surface, keeping it moist. Add amendments, turn it all under at once, allow 3 weeks to a month for it to integrate with your soil, and the area will be ready to plant again. Or, dig your planting holes as soon as you turn it under, put in some fine compost, a smidge of manure, your other favorite amendments like worm castings, bone meal, guano high in P of the NPK for late blooming, a mineral mix, and plant! The rest of the area will take care of itself! See much more – Living Mulch/Green Manure!

Bolting, is a common issue when there are quick temp changes, and some plants, like arugula, chard, cilantro and lettuces are famous for bolting. See more about it and what you can do. See also about Photoperiodism, Short Day, Long Day, Day Neutral Plants!

Consider not growing kale or chard over summer. Kale will grow, but really is happiest in Winter. If you harvest a lot of your kale in summer, it often has smaller dry looking leaves growing at the top of a tortured spindly stalk. I’ve seen them over 5′ tall. The leaves get tough, lack robust flavor, and lack that cool weather vibrancy. Fertilizing, watering really don’t do much at this point because the plant is just trying to survive. The trunk has more volume than the leaves. A different strategy is to harvest a lot less early on, let your plant branch and become bushy! Then you can harvest at several points, and the plant provides its own living mulch. Huge difference. Or maybe you need to plant a lot more kales so you don’t over harvest individual plants!

This is ONE kale plant in the image below! It has made all these branches, multiple harvest points, by April at Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden! Look at that abundance! It thrives all summer!

Chard suffers in hot summers. It droops from midday heat, recovers, droops, recovers each day. That’s hard on a plant. It doesn’t produce much. Doesn’t seem reasonable to harvest when it is trying to stay alive. If you do choose to grow it, plant it where it will have a little shade in the hottest part of the day in summer or install some shade cloth for it. Give each plant plenty of room so they don’t suffer for lack of water and nutrients. Chard can be a big plant. Their growth is dependent on how much space they have. Plant shallow rooted living mulch plants around it. Keep it evenly moist. Flooding it isn’t what it needs when it droops from heat, and plants can literally drown. Chard is a fast grower. Why not do a final harvest mid to late spring? Plant something that will be more summer happy, then plant chard again in fall when things cool down and it thrives.

Broccoli, on the other hand, depending on the variety, produces side shoots like crazy all summer long! Just be sure to stake them if your plant gets large and top heavy! And feed it now and then. It’s working hard. Starting NOW, deeply mulch brocs you intend to over summer while it’s still cool to keep them cool. Brocs are naturally a winter plant. Or, instead of mulch, encircle them with quick growing shallow rooted living edible mulch plants – lettuce (repels Cabbage butterfly), beets, etc., that won’t interfere with your broccoli’s roots. When you harvest those quick growers, when you have access to the soil, feed your broc, and plant more living mulch! If you are using non living mulch, replenish it regularly – keep it two to three, four inches thick as needed.

Garden Design assures your veggies get the sunlight they need! Plant tall in the North, short South is the general rule. If you area is semi shaded or half day shaded, plant tall on the shady side, short where there is the most sun.

Tall: Indeterminate tomatoes in cages, pole beans in cages or on trellises. Basil is great with tomatoes, and a pack of culinary dandelions! Tall varieties of broccoli you keep for summer side shoots. Cucumbers are great on the trellis below the pole beans, or if a large variety of cucumbers, on their own trellis. Long beans! Tall varieties of okra.

Middle height: Determinate tomatoes, bush beans, okra, tall peppers like Big Jim Anaheim or Poblanos, zucchini. White potatoes with Zucchini to repel squash bugs. Radish with cukes and squashes to repel cucumber beetles, with cukes, squashes and eggplant to trap flea beetles! Large Winter Squash vines and pumpkins are middle height, while some mini melons would fall to the lower mid height zone. Put in zucchini and vines, sweet potatoes, to take up space if you don’t want to do a lot of tending, but do know, you must keep those zucchini picked! If your zucchini is dense, and you miss seeing it, an unpicked zuke can become a 6″ diameter 2′ long monster in as little as 5 hot days! Grow heat tolerant flat leaf kale like Thousand Headed Kale! It has many growing points instead of just one and self mulches!

Lower plants like eggplant, like a lot of heat. Put them on the sunny side, slightly in front of every other slightly taller plant. Leave a couple kale that will get taller. But, if they are leafless stalks with pom pom tops, they aren’t going to give any shade, nor are they going to produce much – kindly remove them? If you decide to keep them, since they are a winter plant, mulch them deeply or plant lettuces or leafy plants around their base as a living mulch and keep the soil there moist and cooler, and feed them.

Shorties & Littles: A lot of shorties will be in front of or be the understory of taller plants, in some instances a living mulch, so there is no need to allocate, use up separate space just for them. Your plants all help each other. When the bigger plant leaves start shading out the littles below, harvest strategic large lower leaves to allow light and airflow.

Put beets and carrots in the short zone, as an understory, between and among big plants. Bunch onions away from beans, great with other short rooted plants like lettuces that need to be kept moist. Summer small bulbed variety radishes, a super companion plant, give a great spike of hot flavor to a cool summer salad! Some delicious heat lover mini melons are quite small leaved and do best on hot unmulched ground. They are easily trellised, but put that trellis in a sunny hot spot because it is cooler up on a breezy open trellis.

Flowers & Seeds! Let arugula, cilantro, chamomile, a carrot or two, and a celery go to flower to bring bees, butterflies and beneficial insects – pollinators! Besides being beautiful and having lovely scents, let them seed out for seeds for next year’s plantings, to share at the seed swap, give as gifts! Carrots love being with cilantro and chamomile, and chamomile improves the flavor of and helps any neighboring herb. It is called the Plant Dr!

See Smart Garden Design Leads to Excellent Plant & Seed Selection! for more tips!

While you are thinking where to put things, select permanent spots for herbs, gateway points for flowers and edible flowers! Designate a permanent patch for all seasons flower habitat for bees. Cilantro is both tasty and has lovely feathery leaves and flowers, great pollinator food, living mulch. Chamomile is downright heady scented on a warm morning. Comfrey, Knitbone, is both healing (arthritis/bones) and speeds your compost, is high in soil nutrition. Humble white Sweet Alyssum is dainty and attracts smaller beneficial insects like hover flies that eat aphids! Calendula traps aphids, whiteflies, and thrips! Marigolds are brilliant and called the workhorse of pest deterrents! Cosmos is cosmic! Breadseed Poppies will literally have your bees rolling in pollen and supply your baking needs! See Stripes of Wildflowers!  See Pollinator Meadow!

Finish your Summer Gardening preparations!

• Install a greywater, rain capture system
• Install gopher wire protection.
• Install pathways, berms.
• Waffle Garden, basins & windbreaks, a Water Garden. Excellent drought choices.
• Gather cages & trellises
• Terrace slopes – capture water runoff, prevent topsoil loss, mulch it, anchor the mulch
• Build creative raised beds, Efficient Keyhole Gardens, try Hugelkultur
• Get new containers, pallets, boards, tulle, net or wire for bird protection
• Organize where you will keep straw bales for summer mulch
• Setup compost and worm box areas

Complete your Soil Prep! 

• Add compost, only 5 to 10%, & other amendments to your soil all at the same time.
• Add well aged manure as appropriate. Less in spring because you want fruit production, not leaf, unless it is a plant grown for its leaves, like lettuce, kale or cabbage! None for carrots, peas or beans.
• Add 25% worm castings. As little as 10% works. They are potent, help with seedling germination, boost immunities to disease, add water holding capacity.
• Bone Meal is a slow release fertilizer that becomes available to your plants over a 3-4 month period. It provides calcium (prevents blossom end rot) and phosphorous for blooms. See all about it!
• Adding bird guano high in P, Phosphorus, at planting time helps your plants continue to bloom LATE in the season! Its NPK ratio is 1-10-0.2, takes 4 months to become available to your plants.
• Sprinkle with a tad of coffee grounds to reduce wilts fungi. Add only a ½ a % to your soil or compost. A tiny bit goes a long way!
• Don’t cover with mulch yet unless you need it for erosion control. Consider planting a living mulch like White Clover instead. Covered soil is cooler. Let your winter cool soil warm up. The exceptions are broccoli, cabbage, chard, and kale! Mulch ASAP because they like/need cooler soil.
• Water your prepped areas when you water your veggies. Soil organisms need moist soil to thrive.
• Sidedressing! Hard working plants need fuel and water. As broccoli starts to head, give it a fish/kelp tonic! With many varieties, after the main head is cut, your side shoots will flourish!

Pests Reminders and Home Remedies!

• Before you put in seeds, sprinkle a bit of Sluggo type stuff around immediately to keep snails and slugs from vanishing upcoming seedlings overnight, making you think they never came up! No, they didn’t let you down. Killing off the creatures ahead of time saves the babies. It stops new transplants from being seriously damaged or entirely eaten while they are small. Do this a few times, to knock off the generations, and there will be no tiny vegetarian predators for quite a while.
• Pull away those blotchy sections the leafminers make on chard and beet leaves. Remove whole leaves that are too funky for rescue. Harvest the bigger outer lower leaves more often to stay ahead of the miners. Water a tad less so leaves are less soft and inviting. Plant further apart to decrease spread.
• Hose APHIDS off chard, kale, brocs, cabbages. Keep doing it for a few days to catch the ones you missed and new generations. Nearby, plant Calendula as a trap plant, radish to repel them. When you see unnaturally curled leaves, you will likely find aphids. Check both upper and undersides of the leaves and the tiny leaves at the central growth point.For hard to get at places, down the centers of chard, crinkly kale leaves, get out that spray bottle! Treat once, wait a couple days, treat the ones you missed, the ones that got away and newborns.I tried it, it WORKS! The simplest is to spray with 2 Parts alcohol, 2 parts water, 1 part soap. DO NOT use on seedlings, it will kill some of them. Spritz lightly rather than drenching or you may kill your bigger plant too! However. If the infestation is just over the top, with chard you can cut off the whole plant about 1 1/2″ above ground and simply let it regrow, though it may never be as healthy or lush as a newly grown plant. Sometimes it’s just better to start over, and not in the same place. Hose away any reappearing or lingering aphids post haste! Check out the ant situation. Ants like being near water. Water less? Get rid of the ants.
• Regularly and immediately remove any yellowing leaves, like from Brassicas, that attract whiteflies.
• Gophers You can still put in wire protective baskets or barriers, especially now while the soil is softer after any rains. If you see a fresh mound, trap immediately. Install prevention wire.

Prevention A frustrating typical disease is Powdery mildew. It’s common on Curly Leaf kales, squashes, beans, cucumbers. Select resistant varieties. Plant leaving plenty of space for air circulation. Apply your baking soda mix. Drench under and upper sides of the foliage of young plants to get them off to a great start! Do this the same or next day if transplanting. A super combo is 1 regular Aspirin dissolved, a 1/4 cup nonfat powdered milk, heaping tablespoon of baking soda, a half teaspoon liquid dish soap per gallon/watering can. Reapply every 10 days or so, and after significant rains. Not only is prevention so much better than after mildew has set in, but this mix stimulates your plant’s growth! See Aspirin Solution.

Do not compost diseased or infested leaves or plants. Bag it and trash it!

Watering & Weeding Wind and sun dry soil quickly and short rooted plants like peas, or seedlings, need to be kept evenly moist. That can mean every day to every other day watering, twice or more a day in summer heat.

Thinning is a form of weeding! Thin plants that need it, like beets and chard whose seeds start in foursomes! Thin plants you intentionally over planted – carrots, beets, turnips, kale, chard, radish, mustard! If you planted too close together, take out shorter, smaller weaker plants. They are all great in your salads along with small tender Brassica leaves. If you don’t thin, plants grown for their roots don’t have room or nutrition to grow that root. They are literally rootbound and starve each other out, are stunted. So thin sooner than later. If you miss the window, thin or not, you won’t get your root – beet, carrot, radish, etc. Keep thinning as they get older. At mature size their leaves shouldn’t touch each other. That helps keep pests and disease from spreading from one to the next.

When you are weeding, remove blooming or seeding plants first!!! When grass has those pretty frilly little green tops, it is blooming and seeding! Remove it ASAP. Better yet is to remove weeds before they seed! If at the seeding stage, gently pull, DO NOT shake the soil loose from the roots spreading seeds all over, and don’t put them in your compost! Bag and trash.

Dust Mulching, cultivation, is perfect to break up the soil surface, especially after a rain! That keeps the water from wicking to the surface and evaporating. If you use a hula hoe you do two things at once! Just a half to one inch depth cuts off weed sprouts. Indeed, it turns the soil a tad, all that’s needed. More weeds will follow, but it’s quick and easy to repeat the process. Two, three times, a few days apart and there will be few weeds after that for a while. Get ’em while they are small and easy to do. Smart gardening.

Keep COMPOSTING! Soil building is the single-most important thing you can do for your garden. Compost keeps your soil aerated, has great water holding capacity, feeds just perfectly! And if you made it, you know what’s in it! Make it HOT, Cold, or In place! Dry is dead, so be sure it is always slightly moist. Giving back to Mama Earth is nature’s natural way! And, like Will Allen says ….there is something very Spiritual about touching the soil, that’s where life begins.

The good work you do now will pay off with abundant summer harvests!

Hooray for the Santa Barbara rains and SNOW! See the wonderful February images at Santa Barbara’s Rancheria Community Garden! Winter gardens have their own special beauty!

Updated annually 

---

---

Check out the entire March 2023 Newsletter!

Clever Seed Planting Tips for Indoors or Out!
Grow a Pollinator Meadow in Your Veg Garden!
Cucumbers! Personality and Pickles!
Grow Delicious, Amazing, Water Saving Edible Perennials!

Upcoming Gardener Events! Santa Cruz Permaculture 2023 Design Permaculture Course April-Sep, April 29-20 CEC’s 53rd Santa Barbara Earth Day Celebration! International Permaculture Day May 7! ADVANCE NOTICE NATIONAL HEIRLOOM EXPO Sep 2023!

---

Love your Mother! Plant bird & bee food! Think grey water! Grow organic! Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

The Green Bean Connection started as correspondence for the Santa Barbara CA USA Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden. Both remaining Santa Barbara City’s community gardens are very coastal. Climate is changing, but it has been that during late spring/summer we are in a fog belt/marine layer area most years, locally referred to as the May grays, June glooms and August fogusts. Keep that in mind compared to the microclimate niche where your veggie garden is.

SUBSCRIBE to the entire newsletter!    Friend on Facebook! 

^Top

Read Full Post »

Here’s to terrific February 2023 Gardening to you!

Across-the-Plot Gardening Tips February 2023!

Winter Harvests, Soil, Planning Your Spring Garden!

The beauty of planting from seeds is you can get perfect varieties, the rare and unusual! Thanks to TomatoFest for this Cool image!

Hopefully you have gotten your seeds from catalogs, your local nursery and/or Seed Swap, and you are likely itching for the right temps to plant! 

Planning now is important because not all spring/summer plants are installed at the same time. Planting in the right places now makes a difference. Companions and biodiversity are key. It’s still chill, but in Santa Barbara we are now beyond the last average frost date and past the less than 10 hours per day photoperiod. Bold Souls will be planting Zucchini, cold tolerant tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and corn! They can be started now from seed, in the ground. *Soil temps 10 AM Feb 1 were 42-45°.* Still chill, but some plants thrive in cooler weather and cool soil. Veggie Seeds Soil Planting Temps! Make sequential plantings every week or two in case of failures. March is a little warmer and early variety plants get a better start. April is most everything – cucumber, pepper, squash, beans, more tomatoes, watermelon. May is the true heat lovers, cantaloupe, okra (June may be better yet), long beans, eggplant. Some gardeners wait to plant tomatoes and cucumbers until May and June to avoid the more moist soil fungi and pests of earlier months. At least you can plant a second round in case of early losses. I hold that space by planting something temporary there in March. In long summer areas June is especially good for okra, eggplant, long beans and tropical plants like Japanese Urizun Winged Beans!

Summer garden planning tips emphasize needing less water! 

 PLANT COMPANION PLANTS THAT REPEL PESTS, or enhance your plant’s growth, IN ADVANCE SO THEY WILL BE UP AND WORKING WHEN YOUR SEEDLINGS COME UP OR YOU INSTALL YOUR TRANSPLANTS! Whenever you select seeds or transplants, automatically think companions, for many good reasons! See Super Spring/Summer Companion Planting Tips!

• If you are not going to be canning, indeterminate tomatoes are the excellent choice! These are the vining tomatoes that produce all summer! This saves time and water because determinate, bush tomatoes produce quickly, all at once – great for canning, then you have to replant and wait another two months for more production. However, determinate toms do produce sooner, so for earlier table production, plant them to hold you until your indeterminates are producing. Plant 1 or 2 rounds for until your indeterminates start producing. For earliest treats, plant cherry tomatoes! Yum! Basil is great with tomatoes, and a pack of dandelions! The beautiful herb Borage repels Tomato Hornworms!

Select varieties that will grow well in your location per the time you have available and your photoperiodism latitude!

• Early, short season varieties can assure you have enough time for your veggies to mature in time for a harvest.
• Choose more prolific plants and drought/heat tolerant varieties so you get more production for less water.
• Importantly, select Disease/Pest resistant-tolerant varieties. Some pests, like aphids and cucumber beetles, vector fatal diseases. Strong resistance to mildews may be essential for normal continued production. The Cornell University lists are very helpful. They don’t have all the varieties, but will get you started. Disease Resistant Vegetable Varieties Lists When researching, always look at the post date or update date to get current information.

1) Plant tall plants to the North unless you anticipate a scorching summer. If you think it will be HOT, plant tall to the west to shade shorter plants, keep your soil cooler, use less water.

• Cukes & Beans! Plan to put cucumbers up on trellises to save space, keep them disease and pest free, clean, and so they ripen evenly all the way around. Co-plant with beans! Beans above, cukes below. If you will want a lot of each, plant them on separate trellises! Japanese Long cukes give a generous supply per water used, need a lot of space! So no cukes on their trellis. Natsu Fushinari and many Asian varieties have exceptional powdery mildew resistance!

2) Next, intermingle mid height plants, bush beans, determinate tomatoes, tall peppers like Big Jim Anaheim or Poblanos. Potatoes with Zucchini to repel squash bugs. Plant Radish ahead of cukes & zukes to repel cucumber beetles. Eat a few radishes, but let several grow up by and through the plants you are protecting. Let them bloom for pollinators and produce seed pods for your next crops.

• Leave a winter broccoli or two for summer salad side shoots. Mulch deeply under your brocs right now! We want to keep these cool loving plants cool. If you don’t have enough trellis space, plant cukes with your brocs! Broccoli helps repel cucumber beetles, so push the mulch back on the sunny side, make your special cucumber planting mound/basin and plant cucumbers underneath those brocs! Besides keeping the soil cool, the mulch keeps the cukes off the soil, clean and insect free above the bug zone! Straw mulch encourages spiders that prey on the beetles.
• Leave a couple of winter kale to provide over summer greens. Heat tolerant 1000Head Kale is a prolific choice that harbors less aphids on its FLAT leaves. And, it is HUGE! Generously plant lettuces on the sunny side under your brocs and kale to repel cabbage butterflies.
• Eggplant likes it hot and moist! Radishes with eggplants and cucumbers. Radishes are a trap plant for flea beetles. If your area is a little cool and short seasoned like ours, plant the long skinny Ichiban Japanese eggplants rather than the bulbous Black Beauties. Ichiban’s are prolific and quite tasty.
• Indeterminate tomatoes might be your tallest plant in a 6′ cage. Okra can get tall too, and both are super susceptible to soil diseases wilts. Hot Pepper’s roots help prevent the wilt. Eggplant releases Potassium tomatoes have a high requirement for and okra needs too. Interplant the four of them in a zig zag style with the shorter plants on the sunny side of the taller plants. If you have space, do a keyhole style with the tallest plant, needing the most protection, in the center.

3) Lowest are the ‘littles’ or fillers! Being mindful of companions, scatter beets and carrots, lettuce, radish, here and there among, alongside, under larger plants on their sunny sides. Bunch onions away from beans. Some littles will be done before the bigger plants leaf out to full size. For those still growing, remove or harvest lower leaves of the big plant when they start shading the littles. There isn’t really a need to allot separate space for littles except strawberries! They need full sun and a separate patch to keep them healthy and be prolific producers!

• If you love cabbages, plant a few more, but they take up a fair footprint for what they produce and they take a long time to do it. In spring and summer choose quick maturing mini varieties or forego planting them.
• SEED SAVING SPACE! Leave room for some arugula, cilantro, chamomile, a carrot or two, and a celery to go to flower to bring bees and beneficial insects! Besides being beautiful and having lovely scents, let them seed out for seeds for next plantings. Carrots love being with cilantro, marigold and chamomile. Chamomile is a true super plant! It improves the flavor of any neighboring herb, the flowers make a lovely scent, the tea is sweet, and it is called the Plant Doctor – heals nearby plants! Plant it asap to help vulnerable plants before they get in trouble.
• Pumpkin, melon, winter squash vines require some thoughtfulness. Pumpkin and winter squash vine leaves get as huge as healthy zucchini leaves, easily a foot wide! Mini melons have dainty 2″ wide little leaves, can be trellised, but they may do much better on bare hot ground rather than up in cool breezy airs. A healthy winter squash vine can easily be 3′ to 4′ wide, 30′ long plus side vines, and produce a major supply of squash! You can use them as a border, as a backdrop along a fence line. In SoCal, unless you are a squash lover, or won’t be gardening in winter, there is question as to why you would grow winter squash at all. Greens of all kinds grow prolifically here all winter long, giving a fresh and beautiful supply of Vitamin A for less calories and no storage space!

Super use of your space! As winter plants finish, that space might be planted right away. Other space may need to be held for later. For example if you plan to plant okra in June, 1) grow quick prolific producers there until it’s the right time to plant those heat lovers! Leafy plants produce continuously, and can be harvested whole body when you want the space. You will have lush harvests while you are waiting. Think of kales, chard, lettuce, beets, even mini dwarf cabbages. Perhaps you will leave some of them as understory plants and plant taller peppers like Poblanos or Big Jim Anaheims, and tomatoes among them. When the larger plants overtake the understory, either harvest the smaller plants, or remove or harvest lower leaves of larger plants to let the smaller plants get enough sun to keep producing abundantly. 2) Or you could grow mini vines like melons or cucumbers – move them aside to install the okra. 3) And you can always plant a quick growing legume, green manure, aka living mulch, to feed your soil! In early spring and late summer you can plant White Clover. It brings pollinators too!

Hardly anyone can resist planting early tomatoes! Choose early cold tolerant varieties. In SoCal toms with northern names like Oregon Spring, or Siberian do well. Stupice from Czechoslovakia is very early! Bellstar, from Ontario Canada, is larger and earlier than other plum tomatoes. Early Girl is a favorite! And SunGold cherry tomatoes are almost always a winner! Cherry toms are small and will ripen when larger tomatoes just stay green until the 4th of July! See more!

One strategy is to 1) plant determinate early cherry varieties. 2) When the big summer toms come in, have any remaining cherries for snackers while you are enjoying magnificent beefsteaks! 3) Before the big toms start slowing down, plant early determinate faster producing cherry toms again as days shorten, temps get cooler – just what those early varieties like!

For now, in this early cooler time, plant your lettuce leafies to the sunny side of where the toms will be planted. Pop your tomato seeds in when soil temps are good, or put your transplants in as you get them. That way you have table food soonest and your heart is happy too! Here are a couple tips from James M Stephens at Florida University Extension: Tomato plants 4–5 weeks old grow and yield better than older transplants.

He also says when setting your transplant into the soil, do not compress the soil around the roots. √ Gently pour water into the hole to settle the soil around the roots. After the transplanting water has dried a bit, cover the wet spot with dry soil to reduce evaporation. √

See Tomatoes at Cornell! Here are special instructions for planting and tending tomatoes and cucumbers where the soil is known to have verticillium or fusarium wilts fungi. Both our remaining Santa Barbara City’s community gardens have them. Some gardeners plant toms in May or June to avoid the fungi of moist soils.

Soil temp/Day length matters. Though the soil may become fairly warm quickly in days to come, day length is still important. No matter how early you plant some plants, they still won’t produce fruit until they have enough hours of sun, and for some, warmth including day and/or night and/or ground temps. If they miss their window, they may never produce at all…better to pull and replant. Keep growing those leafy producers – lettuce, chard, kale – in that space and plant the right plants at the right good time! Choose Day Neutral varieties when possible. See Best Soil Temps  Photoperiodism

Start seedlings indoors now for March/April plantings. If seeds and tending seedlings aren’t for you, just wait, get transplants and pop them right in the ground per their right times! Presprout!

Right now, from seed in the ground, sow beets, caraway, celery, carrots, chard, chervil, chives, collards, cilantro (coriander), dill, endive, fennel, garlic, kale, kohlrabi, leeks, lettuces, mustards, green onions, bulb onion sets, flat-leafed parsley, late peas – mildew resistant varieties, white potatoes, radishes, shallots, spinach, and turnips. Get bolt resistant/slow bolt Cilantro varieties, and especially heat and drought tolerant varieties. Bolting aka Running to Seed! Causes and Prevention!

Along with deciding plant locations, get ready for Summer Gardening!

• Install gopher barriers.
• Get summer weight garden fabric, netting or bendable wire like aviary wire for bird protection.
• Install or repair pathways, berms. Lay in straw, boards, pallets, stepping stones.
• Waffle Garden, basins & windbreaks, a Water Garden. Excellent drought choices.
• Gather cages for toms, peppers, eggplant & trellises for beans and cukes
• Terrace slopes to prevent water runoff and topsoil loss.
• Mulch, secure the mulch. Straw mulch for cucumbers. Plant with living mulch.
• Build raised beds, Hugelkultur (see lower part of page)
• Get new containers, replace tired soil in them and raised beds.
• Setup Compost areas – enclosures, area to compost in place. Worm box.
• Organize where you will keep straw bales for summer mulch, compost layers, pathways

Spring planting soil prep! Save time by adding all your amendments at the same time! See more

• Compost! The amount of compost to use varies, depending on your soil’s condition, plant selection, compost quality, and availability. A guideline offered by Cornell University. (Veggies – bottom of Pg 4) says use 3 inches over the surface worked into the top 3-6 inches of soil!
• Add well aged manure as appropriate. Less in spring because you want fruit production, not leaf, unless it is a plant grown for its leaves, like lettuce, kale or cabbage! Generally, none for carrots, peas or beans.
• Add 25% worm castings. As little as 10% works. They are potent – increase germination, speed seedling growth, help with plant immunities to disease, increase water holding capacity.
• Add bone meal for 3 months later blooming.
• Add guanos high in P, Phosphorus, at planting time helps your plants continued bloom four months later! The middle number needs to be high: 1-10-0.2.
• Sprinkle with a tad of coffee grounds to reduce fungal rots and wilts!! Grounds are more potent than they have a right to be! 0.5%, that’s 1/2 a %, or less is all that is needed or wanted!
• If your area is cool, don’t cover with mulch unless you need it for erosion control. Covered soil is cooler. Let your cool winter soil warm up for earlier spring planting. Do mulch deeply under broccoli and kale you will be keeping over summer. They do best with cool conditions.
• Water your prepped areas when you water your other veggies. Moist, not flooded, soil is rampant with soil organisms enriching your soil for free!

Keep COMPOSTING! You are going to need it for summer plants! Soil building is the single-most important thing you can do for your garden. Compost keeps your soil aerated, has great water holding capacity, soil organisms flourish, it’s nutrients are slowly released in perfect natural timing! And if you made it, you know what’s in it! Make it HOT, Cold, or In Place! Dry is dead, so be sure it is always slightly moist. See more

One more round of green manure is doable where you will plant late April, May, June. Grow it where you will grow heavy summer feeders like tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants, peppers, okra, chilis, squash, pumpkins, cucumbers, melons, and corn; hungry stalk vegetables like celery, fennel, rhubarb, and artichokes; or continually producing green, leafy vegetables like lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard. Green manure can be beautiful favas, bell beans, and/or a legume mix to boost soil Nitrogen, plus oats to aerate your soil, make channels for soil organisms, roots and water absorption. Favas are big and you get a lot of green manure per square foot. With our warming weather, longer days, your green manure will grow quickly! As soon as the bell beans begin to flower, whack them down, chop into small bits. It’s more tender to chop while it’s smaller. Taller is not better. Let it lay on the soil 2 weeks, add any other amendments you want, then turn it all under at once. Wait two to four weeks then plant, plant, plant! Depending on which plants you choose, the process takes about 3 1/2 months.

Sidedressing! Hard working plants need fuel and water. As broccoli starts to head, give it a fish/kelp tonic or compost/casting/manure tea! After the main head is cut, your side shoots will flourish!

PESTS!

BEFORE you put in seeds, sprinkle a bit of Sluggo type stuff around a couple of times, to kill the generations, to keep snails and slugs from vanishing upcoming seedlings overnight, making you think they never came up! No, they didn’t let you down. Killing off the creatures ahead of time saves the babies. It stops new transplants from being seriously damaged or entirely mowed while they are small. When, if, later you see more slimy predator’s trails, sprinkle that stuff a couple times again.

Pull away those blotchy sections the leafminers make on chard and beet leaves. Remove whole leaves that are too funky for rescue. Harvest the bigger outer lower leaves sooner (while still healthy) and more often to stay ahead of the miners. I believe sometimes the leafminers come when the leaves have reached peak and need to be harvested, when the foliage is just past prime and softening. Rather than row planting, letting the leafminers go from plant to plant, interplant, a few here, a few there, plant with more space between them. Water and fertilize a tad less so leaves are less soft and inviting.

Aphids Watch for leaves unnaturally curled along the length of the leaf, particularly broccolis, cauliflowers, kale, cabbages. Check at the center where the tiny new leaves are beginning. Hose aphids off chard, kale and brocs. Keep doing it for a few days to catch the children or ones you missed. After that, water and feed them a little less.

• I tried it, it WORKS! The simplest is to spray with 2 Parts alcohol, 2 parts water, 1 part soap. DO NOT use on seedlings, it will kill some of them. Spritz lightly rather than drenching or you may kill your bigger plant too!
• For hard to get at places, down the centers of chard, crinkly kale leaves, get out that spray bottle! Treat once, wait a couple days, treat again for the ones that got away and newborns.
• Ants nest near water and don’t like cinnamon. Sprinkle cinnamon around the base of your plant but not on the stem. Repeat if necessary after watering.

Whiteflies Flush away, especially under leaves. Remove any yellowing leaves, especially on your Brassicas, that attract whiteflies. Again, a little less water and food.

I like what this gardener said online! Sadly I didn’t record the name, so if you find the source, let me know please so I can thank and credit them!

1. Aphids and thrips are indications of plant stress. Before running out to buy an insecticidal soap or other chemical solution begin to solve the problem by trying to figure what the stressors are and dealing with them. Are the plants over- or under-watered? What fertilizer is being used? Is it a balanced organic fertilizer?
2. Predatory insects will be attracted to the site and will benefit greatly by an interplanting of Sweet Alyssum, dill, or cilantro. Our Crimson and Dutch White Clover planted along pathways between rows is excellent for attracting beneficial insects too. Place shallow dishes of water with small protruding rocks in amongst the cucumbers for beneficial insects to stop and have a drink. They’ll lay more eggs, eat more pests, and be more effective if you provide for their needs right where the problem occurs in the garden. Instead of thinking that the solution is to remove the problem, think about what can be done to aid nature in creating a balance.
3. Cutworms can be handpicked during the day if small pieces of wood or cardboard are laid out near the cucumbers for them to hide under. All the better to find them. Keeping chickens or ducks works too. [But be careful with the birds. They can do damage very quickly! Learn more about them BEFORE you use them!]

DISEASES

After making excellent soil, the most important choice is selecting Disease and Pest Resistant/Tolerant Varieties! Many pests, especially aphids and cucumber beetles, carry fatal diseases like the wilts that affect and can kill tomatoes and other plants; that’s why resistance to those diseases is essential. Cornell University has Disease Resistant Vegetable Varieties Lists! The lists are alphabetical. Not all varieties are listed, but this will give you a great start. Check on local university recommendations, cooperative extension, what Master Gardeners in your locality have to say. See what the nurseries near you carry or what the farmers market farmers are growing successfully. When researching, always look at the post date or update date to get current information.

Prevention  A frustrating typical disease is Powdery mildew. It’s common on Curly Leaf kales, peas, cucumber, zucchini, beans. Plant leaving plenty of space for air circulation. Apply your baking soda mix. Drench under and upper sides of the foliage of young plants to get them off to a great start! Do this the same or day after transplanting. A super combo is 1 regular Aspirin crushed and dissolved, a 1/4 cup nonfat powdered milk, heaping tablespoon of baking soda, a half teaspoon liquid dish soap per gallon/watering can. Reapply every 10 days or so, and after significant rains. Not only is prevention so much better than after mildew has set in, but this mix stimulates your plant’s immunities and growth! See Aspirin Solution.

Beets, Chard and Spinach get Cercospora leaf spot – like the Chard at left. Sadly, no resistant cultivars of table beet are known. Late fall or early spring plantings are most likely to be affected. Late summer when conditions are favorable (high temperatures 75-85˚F, high humidity, long leaf wetness periods at night) is the worst. Beet roots fail to grow to full size when disease is severe. Successive plantings made close together can allow disease to move from one planting into the next. It grows on infected crop residues, so immediately remove leaves that collapse on the ground. It is spread by rain splash, wind, irrigation water, insects, gardeners, and equipment. This is one case where AM watering really makes sense to reduce humidity. UMASS Amherst recommends to ‘Avoid overhead irrigation if it will result in prolonged leaf wetness periods (e.g., through the night); irrigate mid-day when leaves will dry fully or use drip irrigation.’ If all that fails, use foliar fungicides. Plant less densely for more airflow, thinnings are tasty! In general, harvest more frequently so leaves don’t surpass their prime health, start to soften, become vulnerable. If you have little garden space, planting only every 3 years in the same spot isn’t possible so cultivating, turning and drying the soil between plantings is good. If possible adding a tiny bit of coffee grounds, a half a %, would help kill off the Spot. Too much coffee grounds can kill your plant, make your soil acidic. See more about Cercospora Leaf Spot

Do not compost diseased or infested leaves or plants. Bag them and put them in the trash, not green waste.

Soil Checks! Especially after recent rains, check your root crops – beets, carrots, radish, potatoes, turnips, in general, for low soil. Soil naturally compacts with watering. Some of these veggies naturally push right up above ground as they grow. Planting their seeds deeper doesn’t compensate. It’s the nature of the veggie! Never hurts to put a handy little pile of extra soil near where you plant them. Cover their exposed shoulders to keep them from drying, getting tough, sometimes bitter, needing peeling, losing the nutrients in their skins. Uncovered carrot shoulders don’t ripen but stay green. Same with potatoes.

Watering & Weeding

Watering can be important after rains. Winds dry soil quickly and roots of short rooted plants like peas, or seedlings need to be kept moist. Some rains wet only 1/4″ deep or less. Poke your finger into the soil and see if it is moist enough where the roots of your plants are.

Dust Mulching, cultivation, breaks up the soil surface, keeps water from wicking to the surface and evaporating. If you use a hula hoe you do two things at once! Just a half to one inch depth cuts off weed sprouts. Indeed, it turns the soil a tad, all that’s needed. More weeds will follow, but it’s quick and easy to repeat the process. Two, three times, a few days apart, and there will be few weeds after that for a while. Get ’em while they are small and easy to do. Smart gardening.

Thinning is a form of weeding! Thin plants that need it, like beets whose seeds start in foursomes! Thin plants you intentionally over planted – carrots, beets, turnips, kale, chard, radish, mustard! If you planted too close together, take out shorter, smaller weaker plants. Eat ’em on the spot, or they are all great in your salads along with small tender Brassica leaves. If you don’t thin, plants grown for their roots don’t have room or nutrition to grow that root. They are literally rootbound and starve each other out, stunted. So thin sooner than later. If you miss the window, thin or not, you won’t get your root – beet, carrot, radish, etc. Keep thinning as they get older. At mature size their leaves shouldn’t touch each other, except maybe for carrots. They seem to be fine unless they are left in the ground a long time, get old and weak. Thinning helps keep pests and disease from spreading from one to the next.

When you are weeding, remove blooming or seeding plants first!!! When grass has those pretty frilly little green tops, it is blooming and seeding! Remove it ASAP. Better yet is to remove weeds before they seed! If at the seeding stage, gently pull, do not shake the soil loose from the roots spreading seeds all over, and don’t put them in your compost! Bag and trash.
.

Happy February Gardening, first spring plantings!

Hooray for the Santa Barbara rains! See the wonderful January images at Santa Barbara’s Rancheria Community Garden! Winter gardens have their own special beauty!

Updated annually 

---

---

Check out the entire February 2023 Newsletter!

Super Spring & Summer Companion Planting Tips!
Tomato Varieties! Humble to Humongous & More!
Updated! Squashes! Prolific and Indomitable!
Wilts & Cucumber Beetles, Tomatoes & Cukes!
Borage, StarFlower, is Such a Winter Spring Beauty!

Upcoming Gardener Events! Feb 11 the tasty 76th Annual Holtville Carrot Festival, Santa Cruz Permaculture 2023 Design Permaculture Course April-Sep, April 29-20CEC’s 53rd Santa Barbara Earth Day Celebration! ADVANCE NOTICE NATIONAL HEIRLOOM EXPO Sep 2023!

---

Love your Mother! Plant bird & bee food! Think grey water! Grow organic! Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

The Green Bean Connection started as correspondence for the Santa Barbara CA USA Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden. Both remaining Santa Barbara City’s community gardens are very coastal. Climate is changing, but it has been that during late spring/summer we are in a fog belt/marine layer area most years, locally referred to as the May grays, June glooms and August fogusts. Keep that in mind compared to the microclimate niche where your veggie garden is.

SUBSCRIBE to the entire newsletter!    Friend on Facebook! 

^Top

Read Full Post »

A Happy New Year of Delicious Gardening to you!

Across-the-Plot Gardening Tips January 2023!

Winter Harvests, Soil, Planning Your Spring Garden!

Elegant, nutritious Nero di Toscana Lacinato Kale aka Tuscan, Black or Dinosaur.

Delicious winter garden harvests continue! You may not feel like eating as many salads in this cooler time, but veggie soups and stews are super nutritious and great for sharing!

Keep an eye on weather reports! We are still in the frost – freeze time in Santa Barbara until the last average frost date January 22 – measured at the airport. Have old sheets, light blankets, old towels handy. If a freeze is predicted, for small plants, like tender lettuces, just lay tomato cages on their sides and put your coverings over them. Secure coverings well so wind doesn’t blow them around and damage your plants or leave them uncovered. Remove them when the sun comes out! No cooking your plants before their time! Dates vary from the coastal areas to the foothills, and our climate is changing generally to warmer, so these dates may not be viable guides much longer, if even now. Find out the frost dates for your Zip Code! See the details – Protect Your Veggies from Freezing!

Be sure your plants are secure before and after winds and rains. Stake top heavy plants that may need support. Tie pole plants like peas to their trellis. Level up any low places, check that berms are in good condition. Install trenches to capture or direct rainwater. Mulch to prevent erosion and soil splash on leafy greens. If damage occurs, harvest what can’t be saved, compost what remains.

After a rain, it’s time to add soil on exposed carrot, turnip and beet shoulders and potatoes. Do the finger-in-the-soil check to be sure your plants got enough water. A light rain may not be nearly enough… See Rainy Day Tactics for Spectacular Veggies!

After rains there are weeds! It’s time for that Hula hoe! Weed, weed, weed!  If the soil sticks to your shovel, wait to do any digging, but don’t delay either. Soft soil is so much easier to weed. Do it before the roots get bigger and you lose soil clinging to them when you pull them out. Weed before taproots get deep and hard to remove. Get those clover roots out all the way down and before grass makes its frilly little seed heads. FIRST, remove any weed that is flowering, soon to make seeds! Anything that is not seeding, healthy and not pest infested may be trenched in or cold composted, or you can use them as mulch where there is bare ground not in your veg garden.

Once the weeds are out, if the area is clear, you have choices to make. Plant very last rounds of favorite winter plants or start prepping soil for spring planting!

January Plantings If you love your winter crops, and aren’t necessarily in a rush to do spring/summer, amend your soil immediately and plant one more round, from transplants if you can get them or the starts you have begun on your own, seeds if you must. Choose smaller/early varieties, varieties that produce in fewer days, bush or patio dwarf types that produce more quickly. See December for more tips on what to plant. In cooler January weather, plantings will start slowly, but they will mature faster than usual as days get longer unless they are affected by the less than 10 hour days. Most January plantings will be coming in March, April, that’s still in good time for soil preps in April for April/May plantings. With warmer dryer soil in April/May there is less fungi in the soil, so plants that are fungi susceptible get a better start, live well and longer – mainly that would be wilt susceptible tomatoes and cucumbers.

Photoperiodism! December and January Santa Barbara is in a period of days less than 10 hours long. We are at a turning point now that we are past Winter Solstice, now in longer days than night. Consider whether to plant right away, or wait. Some plants don’t grow when days are less than 10 hours. They may take a break and resume in February. What we plant now depends on whether it is a long day plant, long season Broccoli, onions or a bulbing plant. It also affects our seed choices. Some plants, some varieties, won’t grow or produce if the light isn’t right. See which and ‘when to plant’ tips – Photoperiodism.

Plant MORE of these delicious morsels now! Arugula, beets like Cylindra, brocs, Brussels sprouts if you get enough winter chill (there are some new purple ones on the market called BrusselBerries!!!), bunch onions, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, chard, culinary dandelions, garden purslane, kale, kohlrabi, head and leaf lettuces, Mesclun, parsnips, peas, potatoes, radishes – especially the long Daikons, and turnips! Scatter your Breadseed Poppy seeds for gorgeous April, May blooms! Select a place to plant a bee bringing Borage – maybe right in the center of a circle of plants so it can serve them all! Give it plenty of room and place it so it won’t shade out shorter spring plants you will be growing.

If you would like some tender little snacking carrots, quick growers to show the kids, or minis for your pup, try early Adelaides from Johnny’s Selected Seeds! They say ‘True baby carrots. Unlike most “baby carrots,” which are harvested at an immature stage before properly filling out, Adelaide is a true baby, meaning it has an early maturity and forms a blunt root tip at 3–4″ long.’ Only 50 days! See all about Carrots!

For us SoCal gardeners, besides beautiful bareroot roses, this month is bareroot veggies time! They don’t have soil on their roots, so plant immediately or keep them moist! Grape vines; artichokes; short-day (sweet) globe onions; strawberries; cane berries such as raspberries (get low-chill types); low-chill blueberries; and rhubarb, asparagus, and horseradish. Bare root planting is strictly a JANUARY thing. They generally aren’t available in February. Many bareroot veggies are highly sought after, so keep checking their arrival date, then when they arrive, drop everything and go get them!

Continue to make the most of winter companion planting! Carrots enhance peas, onion family stunts peas. Cilantro enhances Brassicas and repels aphids on them! Lettuce repels Cabbage moths. Onions, leeks and chives help repel the carrot root fly. Carrots thrive when Cilantro, Chamomile, Marigold are planted with them. Companion planting is also a size strategy. Keep planting smaller plants, especially lettuce, on the sunny under sides of Brassicas! Take off a couple lower leaves to let more sunlight in. Under Brassicas, plant lettuce from transplants, not seeds, since Brassicas are allelopathic, makes biochemicals that inhibit small seeds like lettuce from germinating.

Planting summer crops early isn’t always a gain. Even if the plant lives, some won’t produce fruit until they have enough hours of sun, and for some, warmth including day/night and/or ground temps. And some plants set in too early will never produce. That waiting time for enough sun, enough warmth, interrupts the plant’s natural growth cycle and the production window is lost. If you take that chance and it doesn’t work, pull, compost, replant. No amount of waiting will do the job. To be on the safe side, plant successively! Plant every week, or every two weeks or month to get the right window, especially when weather is likely to be variable.

Peppers are a classic example. For some gardeners peppers take forever…………. For others the standard couple of weeks and seeds are seedlings! If you have experience, you probably know which it is for you. If you change varieties, plant successively until you learn that plant. A lot of Latinos start their peppers in January and let them grow slowly until April. If you plant from transplants, I would not try for an early start. Peppers just don’t like cold feet. Whenever you start, plant two rounds, two to three weeks apart. That way you have a better chance of hitting the magic window! Soil Temps are critical for root function. Peppers need 60 degrees + for happiness. A gardeners’ soil thermometer is an inexpensive valuable little tool to own.

You can use area that becomes open for temporary plants. To hold space, put in quickie leaf crops like lettuces, arugula, bok choy, spinach, chard, kale, until it’s the right time to plant heat lovers. These quickie plants can be removed at any time and you still shall have had lush harvests. Hardly anyone can resist planting early tomatoes, February, March! Another strategy is plant your leafies to one side, leaving room to plant your toms where the toms would be planted if the leafy plants weren’t there. Plant tomatoes ‘behind’ the leafies so the baby transplants/seedlings, get plenty of sun for a good start! When your big plants get big enough, remove lower leaves that shade your leafies. That way you have table food and your heart is happy too! Depending on how big your open area is, you can also plant your leafies in zig zags then add the permanent heat lovers inside the ‘V’ areas. As soon as possible, plant companion plants for the heat lovers you will be growing in each area.

Choose early cold tolerant tomato varieties. Bush types with northern names come in earliest. In SoCal that could be Oregon Spring, or Siberian. Stupice from Czechoslovakia is very early! Bellstar, from Ontario Canada, is larger and earlier than other plum tomatoes. Early Girl is a favorite! And SunGold cherry tomatoes are almost always a winner! Cherry toms are small and will ripen when other tomatoes just stay green for the longest!

1999 All-America Selections winner mini Roma grape tomato, hybrid Juliet, gets rave reviews! Bonnie Plants says ‘The wonderfully sweet fruit are crack resistant and remain in good condition on the vine longer than most cherry tomatoes. The fruit are as soft and juicy as cherry tomatoes, they hold up well in salads, even leftovers, and they have a longer shelf life so you can keep them on hand without picking every day. The vigorous vines set lots of fruit on long trusses and keep setting fruit throughout the summer. Quite heat tolerant. Vines are long and vigorous, so give the plant room to tumble over its cage. One of the longest-lasting tomatoes in the garden. Hybrid. Resistant to early blight (AB). Tolerant to late blight (LB).’ One of our gardeners got abundant crop through October!

Their taste is described as Umami, the taste imparted by monosodium glutamate, which now stands alongside sweet, sour, salty and bitter as one of the five recognized basic tastes. Cheese and ham flavors also increase the same way as they mature. Bountiful Gardener says you can ‘sun dry Juliets into little tomato-raisin umami bombs of flavor!’

Summer Garden Design is important right now! You can do diagrams on paper or just give it a good think to see if there are any changes this year, and carry it in your head. That layout is what you need to make your seed list! Seeds from catalogs and Seed Swaps! Seed Swaps are free, fun and random, a good way to try plants you might have never considered, and they are adapted to your area! Catalogs give you the best selection and of plants your nursery doesn’t carry or isn’t able to get. Check for drought and heat tolerant, bolt resistant, mildew resistant varieties or look in dry or humid southern states that match your eco niche or world areas that have heat tolerant desert low-water-needs plants and order up! The seeds of these types may need to be planted deeper and earlier than more local plants for moisture they need. They may mature earlier. Be prepared to do second plantings if needed and use a little water. See Choosing Seeds: Catalogs to Seed Swaps! Smart Design for Your Spring & Summer Garden, Seed Selection! See also some of the bigger long term choices planning and designing your garden.

Before you opt out of planting tomatoes and/or cucumbers due to Fusarium and Verticillium wilts, see more wilt prevention tips! See also Wilts & Cucumber Beetles, Tomatoes & Cukes! for special planting details for successful results! Another choice is to plant later, like mid May or June when the soil is dryer.

Later January is time to sow seeds indoors for mid to late March early plantings. If you will be doing succession plantings, sow your seeds in succession, like every 2, 3, 4 weeks depending on which plant it is and how many you need. If those fail, it’s to the nursery you go for transplants! Avoid box stores that bring plants from elsewhere that may not be timely for your area, may be infested or sick. If you do buy there, check them carefully. This is very important in a community garden where pests and diseases can spread quickly. Select local nurseries that order conscientiously for local timing, that try to get quality plants for us. You may pay a tad more, but it is worth it not to lose a plant or infest/infect others. Local people live here and they have your interests at heart since they want your repeat business. Also, they can answer your questions. Establish a good relationship. At the Farmers Market, check with local farmers to see what they plant when and where they grow their veggies, here or somewhere else. Some feed stores are agriculturally inclined.

Check out Seed Soaking/Presprouting Tips & Ideas! If seeds and tending seedlings aren’t for you, wait and get transplants and pop them right in the ground per their right times! No fuss, no muss.

Prevention  A typical disease is Powdery mildew. Plant leaving plenty of space for air circulation. Apply your baking soda mix. Drench under and upper sides of the foliage of young plants to get them off to a great start! Do this the same or next day if transplanting. A super combo is 1 regular Aspirin dissolved, a 1/4 cup nonfat powdered milk, heaping tablespoon of baking soda, a half teaspoon liquid dish soap per gallon/watering can. Reapply every 10 days or so, and after significant rains. Prevention is so much better than after mildew has set in. See Aspirin Solution. See IPM

Standard Winter Garden Veggie Predators Keep a keen watch for pests, and diseases, and take quick action!

• Gophers 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 leaves unnaturally curled along the length of the leaf, particularly broccolis, cauliflowers, kale, cabbages. Squish or wash any or the colony away immediately, and keep doing it for a few days to catch the ones you missed. Check the new growth tiny leaves at center top. Power spray to remove any aphids there. If that doesn’t work to your satisfaction, get in there with a spray bottle of your favorite kill ’em mix. I use half and half water and alcohol plus wee bit of liquid dish soap as a surfactant. Remove hopelessly infested leaves. After that, water less and give less food so plant leaves will be less tender and inviting. Plant more Cilantro among your plants!
• White flies  Flush away, especially under the leaves. They are attracted to yellow, so keep those Brassica yellowing, yellowed leaves removed pronto. Again, a little less water and food. Gently and shallowly dig in an inch or so of worm castings in a ‘V’ shape from the stem out to the drip line, the point of the ‘V’ at the stem. Disturb as few of the surface area feeder roots as possible. Protect the plant from raccoons; they love worms.
• Leafminers  Keep watch on your chard and beet leaves. Pull away those blotchy sections the leafminers make; immediately remove whole leaves that are too funky for rescue. Harvest the bigger outer lower leaves more often to stay ahead of the miners. Harvest sooner than later! When your plant starts to lose vitality, integrity, these hungry little miners have easy pickins. See Leafminers IPM
• Slugs, Snails BEFORE you put in new transplants or seeds, sprinkle a bit of Sluggo type stuff around to keep snails and slugs from seriously damaging or disappearing tiny seedlings or transplants while they are small. Do it twice to kill off the generations. That keeps the creatures from mowing seedlings overnight, making you think they never came up! If you notice tiny children snails or slime trails, lay down another couple rounds.

If you need more robust soil, do something absolutely yummy with it! This is perfect timing to put in some green manure aka cover crop for April plantings. Depending on the type of plants you choose for your green manure, allow +/- 3.5 months for the process. If you want the earliest planting time for spring, plant ASAP! See Living Mulch! Put it where you will plant heavy summer feeders – tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants, peppers, chilies, squash, pumpkins, cucumbers, melons, and corn; hungry stalk vegetables like celery, fennel, rhubarb, and artichokes; or continually producing green, leafy vegetables like lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard. Or you can ‘rest’ an area by covering it with a good 6 to 18″ deep mulch/manure/straw/compost mix and any other amendments that will help the plants you will grow there! Keep it moist and it will flatten down, make a great low raised bed, in no time at all! Simply let the herds of soil organisms do their work over winter. That’s called sheet composting, sheet mulching or composting in place – no turning or having to move it when it’s finished. If you are vermicomposting, have worms, add a few handfuls to speed up and enrich the process. Continue to keep it moist, and come spring you will have rich nutritious soil for no work at all!

COMPOST always! Soil building is the single-most important thing you can do for your garden. Compost is easy to make, and if you make it, you know what’s in it, 100% organic! Added to your soil, made or purchased, it increases water holding capacity, is nutritious, soil organisms flourish, it helps with immunity, your soil lives and breathes! It feeds slowly, just perfectly! Make it HOT, Cold, or In place! Full sun is best, most active and quick! Dry is dead, so be sure it is always slightly moist. If you don’t have bark type materials to add, and are in a dry area like some of SoCal, it is good to supplement it with purchased compost that has bark bits in it for water holding capacity.

Sidedressing Hardworking leaf producers and big bodied Brassicas, may need a feeding now. Heading is your cue to help them along. If they slow down, or just don’t look perky, slip them a liquid feed that quickly waters into the root zone. Get your nozzle under low cabbage leaves and feed/water out to the drip line. Lettuces love manures. Compost and manure teas, fish emulsion (when there are no digging predators like raccoons, skunks), pretty powdered box ferts, are all good, easy for your plants to take up in cooler weather. Use ½ the strength of your summer feedings. Slow release alfalfa pellets are a wise consideration. Worm castings, though not food, work, wonders! Also, be careful of ‘too much’ fertilizer, too much water, that makes for an aphid tasty soft plant. That said, another way to get goodness to the roots is push in a spade fork vertically about 6″ or less deep, wiggle it back and forth, remove the fork, pour your foods into the holes, close ’em back up. Soil organisms will get right to work, your plant will stay healthy and be quite productive!

Especially feed your cabbages, lightly, time to time, because they are making leaf after leaf, dense heads, working hard. I often see kales lose their perk. You would too if someone kept pulling your leaves off and never fed you. Feed them too, please, while feeding your cabbages.

It’s a New Year! Some of you will make serious gardening resolutions, others will take it as it comes, one day at a time as usual. But I do recommend you secure your seeds for the year ahead before they are sold out! Some are now less plentiful with droughts, fires and floods, GMO threats, new laws. Recently much needed seed banks, libraries have sprung up. We want to use our seeds with reverence and seed save our best as they adapt to different climate change conditions, assure their goodness for future generations. At Seed Swaps, take only what you need. If many people grow them, there will be more adapted to our localities. Before there were seed shops, seeds were often used as money. They are as precious today as they have always been, maybe even more so.

Happy New Year Gardening and Feasting!

For your Winter pleasure! December images at Rancheria Community Garden! After many rainy days, Hooray!, the plants have fresh vitality, birds feasting! Raindrops are adorning their leaves and petals. More rain coming, and weeding, LOL! We are Sowing the Future!

Updated annually 

---

---

Check out the entire January 2023 Newsletter!

Cilantro Repels Aphids, Attracts Bees & Beneficial Insects!
Short Day, Long Day, Day Neutral Plants – Photoperiodism!
Soil for Seed Starting! In the Ground, DIY, Pre-made
Make Soil for Spring Planting – Amendments, Castings, Teas!
Save the Date! Santa Barbara Annual SEED SWAP!

Upcoming Gardener Events! US Composting Council’s 31st Annual Conference & Tradeshow Jan 24-27, Jan 30 FREE 15th Santa Barbara Community Seed Swap is ON! Feb 11 the tasty 76th Annual Holtville Carrot Festival, Santa Cruz Permaculture 2023 Design Permaculture Course April-Sep, ADVANCE NOTICE NATIONAL HEIRLOOM EXPO Sep 2023!

---

Love your Mother! Plant bird & bee food! Think grey water! Grow organic! Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

The Green Bean Connection started as correspondence for the Santa Barbara CA USA Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden. Both remaining Santa Barbara City’s community gardens are very coastal. Climate is changing, but it has been that during late spring/summer we are in a fog belt/marine layer area most years, locally referred to as the May grays, June glooms and August fogusts. Keep that in mind compared to the microclimate niche where your veggie garden is.

SUBSCRIBE to the entire newsletter!    Friend on Facebook! 

^Top

Read Full Post »

Winged Beans! Marvelous and Uncommonly Nutritious!

This great image from Baker Creek Rare Seeds gives you a quick idea about the day neutral Urizun Japanese Winged Beans, a popular summer veggie on the island of Okinawa. It is native to Asia, has a unique configuration yielding little star like crosscuts, the flowers are blue and purple, the little pods are tender fresh crunchy eating from the vine. The large pods are for harvesting green edible seeds. When the pods dry and turn dark, the seeds are saved to cook and/or grow more plants! Baker Creek always has free shipping and gives you a free seed packet with every order!!! You can donate if you care to.

April 2021 My first Urizun Japanese Winged Bean was given to me by an adventurous fellow gardener! This little tyke was 2 days old. Long story. For several months it went back and forth between living and dying, growing slower and slowly, finally making about 6″ tall. My friend gave up way sooner, composted hers, disappointed. Mine grew to about a foot tall and made a few small pods. I had planted it in a shady area. Well. We found out it is a tropical full sun humid heat lover. It was a heroic little plant trying to do what I asked it to. However. I have found that ‘Because the early growth of winged bean is slow, it is important to maintain weeds.’ Well Hallelujah! I am slightly vindicated after all! Apparently, they, and some other legumes, are naturally slow in the beginning! 

2022  But I was hooked. Me, curious and determined, got some seeds from Baker Creek and tried again. I didn’t know it at the time, but much to their favor, the Urizuns are a Day Neutral variety. More below. I planted in April again, but in a sunny spot sheltered between Long Red Beans tall on the side the cooling wind comes from and Cucumbers low to the ground on the sunrise side. I hoped to keep them warmer and for a little humidity. I gave them a 6′ tall cage and told them my expectations.

Planting! I gave them (four!) super soil – they like well draining rich sandy loam. Their required soil pH ranges from 4.3 to 7.5. Since a tropical water lover, I built a big basin. They need to have a good amount of moisture in the soil to produce pods. Baker Creek says Sow 1-2 inches deep, in full sun, directly in garden well after last frost. Sow 6-12 inches apart in beds. Pre-soaking for 1-2 or 24-48 hours speeds germination – some say overnight. Pick out the ones that swell. Some will double in size! They germinate best between 77 and 85°, soil temp 65°. If you are starting them indoors, a heating pad helps. The plant likes 64-86° F. Lower than that they stop producing. They are not drought or frost tolerant.

They must have appreciated my efforts, because they thrived, slowly at first, but in no time, compared to 2021, they were quite taller and super healthy! Huge difference! Pods arrived in August.

Winged Beans have many names and are grown in many places. The winged bean (Psophocarpus tetragonolobus), also known as the Goa bean, asparagus pea, four-angled bean, four-cornered bean, Manila bean, Mauritius bean, winged pea, cigarillas, princess bean, in Vietnam dragon bean, is a tropical legume plant native to southern Asia—Papua New Guinea, Mauritius, Madagascar, and India. It grows abundantly in hot, humid equatorial countries, from the  Philippines and Indonesia to India, Burma, Thailand and Sri Lanka. They are now grown in the US – mainly in Florida, Africa, Australia and Hawaii! Success in more locations is coming due to the further development of Day Neutral varieties.

It’s a Super plant for three reasons!

1. Wiki says: Winged bean is nutrient-rich and all parts of the plant are edible. The leaves can be eaten like spinach, flowers can be used in salads, tubers can be eaten raw or cooked, and seeds can be used in similar ways as the soybean. The winged bean is an underutilized species but has the potential to become a major multi-use food crop in the tropics of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The winged beans are high in Protein 12%, Potassium 16% and Iron 11%. Compared with a variety of legumes, these beans contain the highest proportion of calcium which make bones strong and prevents breakage. Fresh beans contain 31% of daily vitamin-C. 100 g of fresh leaves provide 45 mg of vitamin-C (75% of recommended daily value) and 8090 IU of vitamin-A (270 % of RDA)! The bean seeds are similar to soybeans in both use and nutritional content (being 29.8% to 39% protein). For some fascinating detailed research based info see ScienceDirect.
   .
   Per Elen Khachatrain raw winged beans: have a high level of Vitamin B1, which allows the body to use carbohydrates for energy. Winged beans have incredibly high amounts of potassium and copper. These beans contain more potassium than 90% of foods. The glycemic index of winged beans is low. The pH value of winged beans, in general, has been calculated to be equal to -6, which makes these beans an alkaline food. They are very high in net carbs, so check your diet to see if they are allowed. Thanks to Elen for her super post!
2. Winged beans are a perennial, but can be, and usually are, grown as an annual! In areas and times of extended drought, perennials use less water in general and don’t have to be replanted each year, using more water to establish them. But winged bean are not considered drought tolerant! Perennials can produce 10 months of the year, a much longer production period than most veggies, produce more veggies, and you don’t have to wait for another crop to grow. They produce right up to first frosts! If you have space and decide to let them die back in fall/winter, they will come back in spring!
3. The plants are legumes! That means two good things! Like other legumes they can feed themselves by fixing their own Nitrogen from the air and depositing it in nodules on their roots. 1) When the plant dies it releases the Nitrogen into the soil. 2) They use less fertilizer while they are alive. The only necessity is to be sure to use an inoculant when you plant your seeds, the right inoculant, a Rhizobium. If you don’t use it, no nodules are formed. You can get it at any nursery.
   .
   This also makes Winged Beans an effective soil restorative cover crop – and you get beans! Plants for a Future states: A very good green manure with exceptional nitrogen-fixing properties, producing a greater weight of nodules per plant than any other member of the Leguminosae! William Woys Weaver says their nitrogen-fixing ability helped secure their role as a cover crop on banana plantations, both to enrich the soil and to provide an alternative source of income when bananas are not producing!

The large flower is white, pink, or light blue. My beautiful Urizuns are lavender with a touch of yellow!

Varieties depending on genotype!

My experience is as the images, with green rectangular Winged Beans, but they can also appear flat. Per World Wide Vegetables: Pod color can vary from shades of cream, green, pink, red or purple! Stem color is commonly green, but can vary from shades of green to shades of purple. Leaves vary a lot in shape and are different shades of green. The surface of the pod can be smooth or rough. When the pod is fully ripe, it turns an ash-brown color and splits open to release the seeds. Seed shape is often round, but oval and rectangular seeds are also found. Seed color changes based on environmental factors and storage conditions. Seeds may appear white, cream, brown or dark tan in appearance.

William Woys Weaver tells us: Due to the Bean’s adaptability, today there are hundreds of varieties, many developed in China. Of the varieties developed by Chinese gardeners, the ‘Hunan’ winged bean is credited for making cultivation possible in North America. Most winged beans grown in the United States are raised in south Florida and planted for winter cropping, because the plants do not flower unless the day length is short. ‘Hunan,’ however, can be grown anywhere with at least two months of warm nighttime temperatures (70 degrees or more). It will begin to flower in the latter part of the summer and then crop heavily in September until frost.

Evergreen Seeds says ‘Gardeners in most parts of the United States may see lots of vegetative growth throughout the summer, but no seed pods until late summer or fall.’

Per Echonet: Most varieties of this jungle plant from Borneo only bloom and set fruit when the days become very short, so they are planted in early fall. The variety ‘chimbu’ produces longer pods than most and is a striking deep red color. For pods in a summer garden in Florida or “up north,” be sure to purchase a “day neutral” or “long day” variety. See more about Day Length/Photoperiodism

Companions  They don’t mind growing near corn or tomatoes. Perhaps like Peas, another legume, the Onion family stunt the bean’s growth. Carrots are a great plant that enhance peas! Maybe try them at the base of the Winged Beans… But the plants often grow so full, there would be no space to stand to harvest them along a row. Some plant WBs on both sides of heavy gauge cattle panels! The beans do well inter-cropped with banana, sugar cane, taro, coconut, banana, oil palm, rubber, and cacao.

Planting  Winged Beans are a tropical plant, will only flower when the day length is less than 12 hours, though there are varieties, like Hunan and Urizun, that are day-length neutral. If your area has day lengths over 12 hours, do your planting timing accordingly. REPEAT: The only necessity is to be sure to use an INOCULANT when you plant your seeds, the right inoculant, Rhizobium leguminosarum. Unless your soil already has the Rhizobium, if you don’t use it, no Nitrogen nodules, that feed your plant, are formed on the roots. They suffer.

Actually, the bacteria ‘infect’ your plants and cause them to make the nodules. If there is none in the soil, seeds may even be unable to germinate. Even if you presprout to start your seedlings, they will live, but not have the ability to fix the N they need, are feeble, struggle and produce little. Even if you fertilize it is not the same.

Inoculant, living Rhizobium leguminosera, has a short life. Last year’s left over is likely not viable. Get fresh, LOL! You can get it at any nursery. It’s inexpensive. It’s important to know that in addition to the Rhizobium, available nutrients and soil pH matter as well.

Give them a place to live, plenty of space! All varieties of winged bean are vines and need support. Without it they grow into heaps of tangled intertwined stems that produce few pods or seeds. That, however, is good if you are growing for tubers! Trellised plants produce twice the seed of unstaked plants. 10-13′ Vines will grow right over a shed if you let them! Growing vertically saves space to grow other plants.

My four beans preferred the morning side of the cage and by August they were near the top! They did make it to the top! Due to a coolish summer, they didn’t make that 10′. At the upper right you can glimpse that the four Long Red Beans also made it to the top and did their job sheltering the Winged Beans from cooling winds.

Maintenance  Weed carefully while they are young.

Super tip from William Woys Weaver! Several growers have told me they prune the vines after about the 12th leaf appears. This causes the vines to send out as many as six side shoots, much like a grapevine, so you get a huge increase in pod production. A large pod harvest is most important for those of us who do not live in tropical climates, because frost is likely to ruin any chance of enjoying the tubers. – If you do this and you have a good hot climate, allow plenty of room because they can get really big and bushy! However, see the 4th image above! Varieties must vary, because my Urizun immediately put out plenty of side shoots on its own!

Otherwise, they are not drought tolerant! Maintenance is pretty much giving generous amounts of water for both the Long Red Beans and the Wings. The raccoons loved all that moisture and the worms that went with it, so there were diggings by them and recovering the roots by me. Thank goodness the Wings and Reds have strong long deep roots. Yellow or brown droopy leaves on the winged bean vine are a sign of overwatering, while dry brown crunchy leaves are a sign of underwatering.

Pests-Disease  The Long Reds attracted ants/aphids and a few got on the Wings but didn’t stay long. I think they don’t like the Wings. I sprayed them off and the Reds did better this year too. There were NO diseases on the Wings, but there were on the Reds when they were near finishing. Winged Beans are noted for disease resistance. However, Texas Real Food farmers report leaf spot and powdery mildew. They recommend to treat powdery mildew, use copper fungicide or sulfur plant fungicide. For leaf spot, use sulfur sprays or copper-based fungicides to prevent the spores from germinating. In Florida Nematodes can be a problem and in some areas, mites.

Ladies and Gentlemen! August brought Baby Urizuns and delicious eating size ones. I harvested up to 6″ long ones that were tender. Help the baby beans by pulling the dead flowers off the tip of the bean.

Harvests, plural!  The beans themselves can break just before the point where they are attached to the plant. Generally mine just popped off when I pulled them, but you will learn from your own plant what works best. There are still two last harvests! At the end of the season, flower production stops, seeds are saved, dig up your plant to see if there are any tubers! Note that some varieties of winged bean do not produce tubers. If your variety does make tubers and you want them more than the pods, remove the flowers!

Storage is simple. Fresh is best. On the counter they go limp quickly. In the fridge is better. Better to eat them right away or the little wings start turning black along the edge. They have a short shelf life, and fresh winged beans are very delicate, difficult to ship. Probably why they aren’t a commercial success. Freeze them if you need to store them longer.

October giants, 7-8″ long are hard as can be, no flex whatsoever, definitely not edible! They are doing a perfect job protecting ripening seeds inside. I cut one open, not an easy task, and the tender seeds are a good 1/4″ diameter, still green. They still have to form a protective covering and dry. November we had some early morning frosts and by the end of November pod production stopped.

SeedSaving  If your growing season is short, you may get plenty of pods for eating, but not many seeds.

Other timing can be a bit tricky too! When I thought I better leave a few pods to dry for seeds I stopped watering. I’m guessing these pups have long strong roots partly because even the raccoons couldn’t dig them up, but also because they kept right on producing when I stopped watering them. Then it rained. Twice. A few weeks apart. They are still as green as can be though there are fewer new ones. The plant stops making pods when there isn’t enough moisture. We want them to dry and darken. Still having to wait and it is the end of November now. They are a Perennial and with those long strong roots somewhat drought tolerant and they are proving it, LOL! And, rain is predicted again in a couple days…

Instead, do this! In short season areas, 1) immediately leave some pods on the vine and let to dry and turn dark colored or 2) start some plants separately for seed saving and let them run to seed right away. When the pods turn black and dry out, they’re ready to pick. Store your seeds in an airtight jar in a cool dark place. Harvesting is super easy. Split the pod open and remove the seeds!

Winged bean is a self-pollinating plant but mutations and occasional outcrossing may produce variations in the species. Nothing is ever 100% predictable, thank goodness!

Medicinal Benefits too! Winged Beans are loaded with healthfulness! Health Benefits Times says: Helps Prevent Premature Aging, Reduces Headaches and Migraines, Ensures a Healthy Pregnancy, Inflammation and Sprains, Helps Prevent Vision Problems, Weight loss, Weakness, Can Help Prevent Diabetes, Prevents Asthma, Increases Immunity and Fights Colds. Practical Health and Wellness Solutions cites 18 benefits, including some of the above, and more! They are a terrific bean, and not just for eating. Check the net!

---

Nutrition and You cautions:

Winged beans and plant parts can be safely consumed by all healthy persons without any reservations. However, individuals with known immune-allergy to legumes and in G6PD-enzyme deficiency disease should avoid them.

Winged beans carry oxalic acid, a naturally occurring substance found in some vegetables which may crystallize as oxalate stones in the urinary tract in some people. Therefore, individuals with known oxalate urinary tract stones are advised to avoid eating vegetables that belong to Brassica and Fabaceae family. Adequate intake of water is therefore advised to maintain normal urine output in these individuals to minimize the stone risk.

Also, mature seeds must be cooked for 2-3 hours to destroy the trypsin inhibitor and hemagglutinins that inhibit digestion.

---

Culinary Treats! WBs are often referred to as a ‘supermarket on a stalk!’

• The beans are one of the commonly featured ingredients in Indonesian, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Cambodian cooking.
• I eat the beans raw off the vine! For longer keeping and tasty eating, pickle them!
• Finely chopped beans added in salads, stir-fries, and sambal.
• Whole immature pods may be grilled and seasoned with oil, salt, and pepper, served with a dipping sauce. In Sri Lanka winged bean recipes include various fried and curry dishes. I personally enjoyed pods cut on the diagonal in my omelets!
• The tender leafy greens and shoots cooked in stews and stir-fries.
• Flowers are lovely scattered over salad. The flowers of the winged bean are used to color rice and pastry.
• Fresh green winged beans seeds can be eaten like fresh peas! They can be roasted or added to stews. Sautéed or steamed, they can be served as a side dish with fish, seafood, and poultry. Generally, they are used in the same manner as peas.
• Dried and roasted, seeds can be ground into flour, make high protein bread. When brewed, it can be used to make a drink similar to coffee.
• Winged beans can also be made into milk, similar to soy milk.
• In Indonesia they make a popular Tempeh from the dried beans. Legumes can also be turned into curd by sprouting it, similar to tofu. Miso.
• Oil! Like soy beans, the seeds produce oil, used for cooking, illumination and soap. Expressed oil cakes are fed to livestock.
• Roots of winged beans can be eaten like potatoes.
• Tubers are eaten raw or cooked, have a nutty flavor due to their high protein content. Boil, steam, bake or fry them thoroughly. Evergreen Seeds says: They are significantly higher protein than potatoes or yams. Certain varieties of winged bean plants produce larger and better-tasting tubers, usually at the expense of seed pod production. Not all varieties produce tubers… Depending on varieties, tubers are harvested at 5 to 12 months.
• In addition, winged beans are used as animal feed for cattle, poultry, fish, and other livestock.

What a versatile plant! Though it is slow to start, it is worth waiting for! It is super nutritious, a somewhat drought tolerant perennial legume, a soil restorative! From a permaculture standpoint it IS a super plant! From an artistic point of view, it is pretty crazy and wild! Just plain fun ~ The freshest place to buy it and try it is likely your local Asian market, the farmers market or if you are lucky a friend will gift you! You don’t really have to have an adventurous palate or a strong gut because it is neither oddly flavored nor spicy hot! It has a subtle flavor like asparagus or peas! It’s distinctive shape is most certainly a conversation starter! Please enjoy this Baker Creek mini Vid!

See about more valuable Perennials

Highland tribesmen in Papua New Guinea esteem it so highly that they hold winged bean sing-sings (feasts) at harvest time. I hope your plantings bring you such happiness!

Bon Appétit, Dear Gardeners!

Updated 3.3.23

---

Love your Mother! Plant bird & bee food! Think grey water! Grow organic! Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

The Green Bean Connection started as correspondence for the Santa Barbara CA USA Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden. Both remaining Santa Barbara City’s community gardens are very coastal. During late spring/summer we are often in a fog belt/marine layer most years, locally referred to as the May grays, June glooms and August fogusts. Keep that in mind compared to the microclimate niche where your veggie garden is. Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

SUBSCRIBE to the entire newsletter!    Friend on Facebook! 

 ^Top

Read Full Post »

Happy December 2022! A Blessed Holiday Season to You and Yours! Thank you always for your kind support!

Delicious December ~ Winter’s June 2022!

Harvests, Maintenance, Planning & Getting Seeds!

A misty morning at the garden…..

We in SoCal are so fortunate that we can plant heartily in ‘Winter!’ Brassicas and Peas are the main story. What I call the ‘littles’ are the understory! Lettuces, root crops like beets, parsnips, turnips, Daikon radish. Smellies like onions and garlic, cilantro and arugula, and herbs like Rosemary and others, protect your garden from certain pests, and make your garden oh so fragrant and your meals so tasty!

If you already have these going, plant your last rounds now so waiting for their harvest doesn’t interfere with earliest spring plantings.

The 10 hour day! Here’s a point to know and remember! Some plants stop growing or grow very slowly with less than 10 hour days. In a greenhouse you can add lighting and that will keep them going. In Santa Barbara CA we get to just under that 10 hrs December and January. At that time some of your lettuces may take a break. Either some supplemental purchases may be needed, or change some of your eating choices for a while…

During the cold months, northern gardeners eagerly wait for the more than 10 hour days to return so they can start planting! Our Stoney Acres, in Riverton UT zone 6a, recommends heating your soil for early seed planting germinating by covering your soil with clear 10 mil plastic – lasts longer and can be reused, 3 weeks before you intend to plant! Amazing soil temp difference! See more!

Well, there are several important events in December, LOL.

1. First is being sure everyone who knows you, knows what is on your holiday garden wish list!
2. Plan your 2022 gardens, get catalogs, and order seeds NOW – for the entire year to come!
3. Maintain your garden, keep up with SoCal winter harvesting, enjoy your bounty, try some new recipes!
4. If you wish, plant your last round of winter plants, succession planting – know that if they come in late they may interfere with earliest spring planting space. Place them carefully so tall early spring plants can be installed on time. Or leave those spots open. ‘Open’ might mean just putting some lettuces or other ‘littles’ there.

Harvest Brassicas of all sorts! The big ones, broccoli, cauliflower, kale and Brussels sprouts, have grown big enough now and your earliest plantings and varieties are producing handsomely. Harvest your brocs and caulies while the heads are still tight. If you miss that, harvest asap, even the flowers and flower stalks are edible! After you take the main broccoli head, let your plant continue to grow so it will produce smaller side shoots. Some varieties produce large 3 to 4″ mini brocs and later, smaller salad size ones right on through summer! Cauliflowers are a one time harvest though you can keep eating the greens. To replace them, you might choose to pop in some beautiful chard, a potato patch, or quick growing mini cabbages in the large open spots that become available. Some cabbages, especially the mini and early varieties, are now headed tightly and ready to eat – slaw, steamed, dropped into soups and cold weather stews. You can still replant them with mini cabbies if you love them!

Deliciously fresh and nutritious winter heading lettuces, kale, celery, bok choy, cilantro, arugula and all manner of cut and come agains are in! Table onions scallions, chives and leeks can be snipped or cut off about 2″ above the ground and let to grow back 3 to 4 times! Do the same but at about 3″ with cilantro and arugula. Let some of your cilantro and arugula grow out for flowers to bring the bees, make seeds for the birds and for you to plant more! The simplest way is to scatter some of the seeds where they are needed and let them come up at will!

Winter brings a lot of tasty Root Crops. Winter long Cylindra Beets are colorful, and have cut and come again leaves too! Long winter radishes like Daikons are spicy! Carrots are splendid to eat at the garden, share with your kids, pup, bunnies, shred into salads, add to winter soups, stews and stir frys. Slice/chop/make sticks and freeze for later! Grow some Parsnips too! Turnips have so unique a flavor you might want to eat them separately to just enjoy that flavor.

Harvest peas when they get to the size you want them, and be prompt and regular with that harvesting to keep them coming! Plant more rounds if you love peas!

MAINTAINING

Sidedressing is like snacking. Some of your heavy leaf producers and big bodied Brassicas, may need a feeding now and again or just when they start to fruit. If they slow down, or just don’t look perky, slip them a liquid feed out to their dripline, or cultivate in a wee bit of blood meal. Get your long spouted watering can and foliar feed! Get that nozzle under those low cabbage leaves to get them fed there too! Lettuces love manures. Compost and manure teas, fish emulsion (when there are no digging predators), powdered box ferts, are all good. Winter feeds need to be easy for your plant to take up. Use ½ the strength of your summer feedings. Slow release is a wise consideration. An excellent way to get feeds to the roots is to push in a spade fork no more than 6″ deep. Push it in vertically (so as not to break the main tap roots), wiggle it back and forth just a bit, remove the fork, pour your foods into the holes, close ’em back up. Soil organisms will get right to work, your plant will stay healthy and be quite productive! Worm castings, though not food, work wonders with immunity, soil conditioning and help germination! Mix some in with your liquid feeds you pour around your plant. Especially add them to seed patches before planting! Protect the patch from worm loving predators.

The exceptions are carrots, peas and favas. Carrots get hairy and will fork with too much food! Over watering or uneven watering makes them split and misshapen. Your peas and favas are busy gathering Nitrogen from the air, feeding themselves. But if you didn’t use an inoculant when you planted the seeds, they may not be able to produce their own Nitrogen. If they yellow or look peaked, give them a bit, just a sprinkle or two, of blood meal for quick uptake, a little fish emulsion. Protect them from predators attracted to blood and fish.

A mini task is to keep covering the shoulders of carrots, beets, radishes, parsnips and turnips. They substantially push right up above ground as they grow. Planting their seeds deeper doesn’t compensate. It’s the nature of the veggie! Never hurts to put a handy little pile of extra soil near where you plant them, or plant them in a low sloped trench. When they need covering, pull the sides of the trench down to cover them. Uncovered shoulders look dry, are tough, sometimes bitter, and need peeling before cooking. Uncovered carrot shoulders don’t ripen but stay green, just like exposed parts of potatoes turn green. The green on potatoes is slightly poisonous, not enough to do harm, but it doesn’t look good.

Watering is important even in cool weather. Also, some plants simply like being moist ie chard, lettuce and short rooted peas, beets. No swimming, just moist. Finger check your soil after rains to see if your soil is moist at least 2″ deep. Sometimes it is rain moistened only 1/4″ deep, needs more water! Also, be careful of too much water, that makes for an aphid tasty soft plant. Watch WEATHER reports in case of freezes, heavy winds, rain. Before weather, stake and tie plants that need support. After strong winds check everybody right away to see if any plants need help. See more about rainy days!

Santa Barbara’s average First Frost (fall) date AT THE AIRPORT is December 19, Last Frost (spring) date is (was?) January 22. That can vary from the coastal areas to the foothills, and our climate is changing generally to warmer, so these dates may not be viable guides much longer, if even now. And remember, these are average dates! See great tips – Protect Your Veggies from Freezing

Except for erosion control, in winter, we pull mulch back to let the soil warm up during the short winter days. The only areas we mulch are around lettuces and chard to keep mud splash off the leaves. Also, it’s good to remove pest habitat, let the soil dry a bit between rains to kill off wilts fungi. Bag up, or pile and cover clean uninfested summer straw, mulches, to use as compost pile layers during winter. Do not keep straw from areas where there have been infestations. Don’t put it in compost, bag and trash it.

Pests & Diseases Prevention and removal! Keep an eye out for pests and diseases and take quick action! 

BEFORE you put in seeds, sprinkle a bit of Sluggo type stuff around at least two times (to kill the generations) to keep snails and slugs from vanishing upcoming seedlings overnight, making you think they never came up! No, they didn’t let you down. Killing off the creatures ahead of time saves the babies. It stops new transplants from being seriously damaged or entirely eaten while they are small. Do this a few times, to knock off the generations, and there will be no tiny vegetarian predators for a while.

Don’t lose your crops to birds! There is less food for them in winter, and, often, little rain, so they resort to eating tender juicy veggie leaves and sip the dewdrops. Buy pre made covers, or get clever and cover seeded rows with DIY small openings wire tunnels or a patch cover bent that has sides bent to the ground to keep birds from pecking at little leaves or from plucking tiny seedlings right out of the ground! You can also use small plastic bottle sections to make mini sleeves that birds won’t go down into. Or for baby lettuces, make large plastic bottle cloches, though wire covers let more light in and water through! Bird netting is inexpensive, tears easily, but is good to stretch over peas on a trellis. See more about bird, animal and insect above ground protection covers!

A common pest of Brassicas is the larvae of the pretty little Cabbage White Butterfly, Pieris rapae. The green Cabbage Worm, caterpillar, chews large, irregular holes in the leaves. They blend so well you can easily miss seeing them on the undersides of leaves. Per Natural Planet: ‘They lay up to 200 tiny yellow eggs that hatch in 7 or more days. The larvae feed heavily for 15 or more days. There are 3 to 5 overlapping generations each year, as many as 8 in warmer areas. They bore into the center of cabbage heads contaminating them with its fecal pellets. The dark-green pellets can also be found in the crook of leaves near the stem.’ See here for some terrific natural ideas on what to do!

Chard and beets get Leafminers. Where they have eaten looks terrible but the good part of the leaves is perfectly safe to eat. Plant chard so mature leaves don’t touch, or best of all, in different places around your garden, not in rows or clusters. Thin your plants so they have room. Harvest leaves that might touch first. Remove infested leaves immediately to reduce spread! Beets are not a permanent crop, so they are planted closely. Simply harvest them at their leaves’ prime – ahead of the Leafminers.

A typical disease is Powdery mildew. Plant leaving plenty of space for air circulation, water early in the day so they dry before evening. For mildew apply your baking soda mix. The best combo is 1 regular Aspirin, a 1/4 cup nonfat powdered milk, heaping tablespoon of baking soda, a teaspoon liquid dish soap per gallon/watering can. Before sunrise drench under and upper sides of the foliage of young plants to get them off to a great start! It takes only an hour for the mix to be absorbed! Do this the same or next day if transplanting. Reapply every 10 days or so, and after significant rains. This also means no overhead watering, ground level only. Prevention is so much better than after mildew has set in. See Aspirin Solution. Hose away aphids and whiteflies, mildew. Remove yellowing Brassica leaves. Yellow attracts whiteflies. In general, plant further apart for air circulation, water and feed just a little less to let those leaves harden up a bit. Soft fat leaves are an invitation to aphids and mildew!

Do not compost diseased or infested leaves or plants. Don’t put them in green waste. Bag and put them in the trash. Wash your hands and clippers before you go to other plants.

Windy days are prime time to gather leaves to add to compost or process for Leaf Mold, Mulch or Compost! Leaf Mold is low in nutrients, but makes a superb soil improver, conditioner for vegetable and flower beds. Leaf mulch is free for the making! Leaf Compost processes faster when made the right way! See more!

PLANT JUDICIOUSLY NOW

Per square foot, fast growing cut-and-come-again Lettuce, Chard and Kale are by far the top winter producers! Plant more big plants like brocs and cauliflower, but remember, with cooler weather, they will grow more slowly. That may interfere with early spring plantings in March. Allow enough time to let added compost, manures, worm castings and Sphagnum peat moss (increases water holding capacity) become part of the soil organism community. If you do plant more now, better to get transplants if you can, and shave six weeks of their needed growing time to maturity. Select faster maturing varieties now.

As lettuces tire, and other plants like carrots and beets are removed, add more of them and any ‘littles’ you love on the sunny side and between the big plants. If the littles need more sun, remove large lower leaves of the big plants. Mild tasting littles include bok choy, kohlrabi, garden purslane, arugula, mizuna, watercress, young parsnips and turnips, Daikon winter radishes, and Napa cabbage. For a little more spice, go for those dark green kales, mustard, rutabaga and turnip greens! Try some culinary dandelions for super nutrition! These are plants that will take you through February, March and leave enough time to add compost and to let sit until major spring planting begins in April.

Believe me, you are going to get spring planting fever along about March, so plan ahead for it!!! Start seeds indoors the first three weeks of January for early March plantings! Choose varieties that are cold tolerant and are early maturers for the soonest table eats!

If you have enough seeds, over planting is fair game! Thin your beets, carrots, chard, kale, mustard, turnips. Take out the smaller, weaker plants. They are great in your salads along with small tender Brassica leaves. Plant patches of Mizuna and mow it!

Remember your winter companion planting tips:

1. Carrots enhance peas, onion family stunts peas
2. Carrots thrive when Cilantro, Chamomile (a spring/summer plant), Marigold are planted with them.
3. Onions, leeks and chives help repel the carrot root fly. But remember you can’t put the onion family near peas!
4. Lettuces repel cabbage white butterflies. Plant them generously among your Brassicas.
5. Cilantro enhances Brassicas – broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, kale and repels aphids on them!

Besides beautiful bareroot roses, decide now where you will be buying any January bareroot veggies you want! Consider: grape vines; artichokes; short-day (sweet) globe onions; strawberries: cane berries such as raspberries (get low-chill types); low-chill blueberries; and rhubarb (be cautious where you plant it, it can be poisonous to humans – children, dogs and chickens), asparagus, and horseradish. Artichoke pups need 3’ to 4’ space, 6′ to 8′ is more a reality! They are hefty growers and live 10 years! If you keep them watered, and there is enough space, they are a great street strip plant!

SPRING PREPS especially include getting the right seeds! 

Seeds! Place your order for the entirety of 2023, while seeds are still available. Now is the perfect time to sit with seed catalogs, do online research. Get your summer garden layout in mind. Dovetail it with your fall/winter 2023 choices! First choose what is good for your excellent health! Next might be how much plant you get per square foot if you have limited space and want to feed several people. When we are in drought conditions, water could be a strong consideration. Choose cold and/or heat and drought tolerant varieties per your location. Always look for disease and pest resistance per your location.

When you are planting from seeds, it’s essential to know your long and short day varieties because of your location, equator to Alaska, north or south US! See Short Day, Long Day, Day Neutral Plants -Photoperiodism! Another essential factor is days to maturity, especially if you are a northern planter!

This is the time of year when the seeds of plants that self-seed need to be in the cold! Throw them on the ground now where you want them to come up in spring. Stake the area so you don’t disturb them and know where to keep the soil moist. Cover the seed bed with something tough like hardware cloth that has small openings to protect from digging predators like raccoons if you have them. I put heavy stones on the hardware cloth to hold it in place. As soon as the seedlings start coming up, remove the hardware cloth and enclose the area until the plants are up, well and deeply rooted. This over wintering process is called Cold Stratification! Thank goodness there are other options if you miss this window. See the post.

Soonest table supply tricks! Get some early varieties, for earliest harvests along with later maturing varieties for a continuous table supply. Earlier variety fruits are generally smaller, but what a treat! Of the tomatoes, Cherry tomatoes come in first. Another trick is to plant both bush and pole varieties at the same time. The bush varieties come in sooner, followed by the pole varieties that produce continuously through the season – beans, cucumbers, peas! Peas are shorter lived; plant frequently. Cucumbers often don’t have the best disease resistance. Get the most resistant varieties and be prepared to replant in different locations.

Buying Lettuce Seeds: Summer Lettuce Varieties: In summer you want a stronger lettuce, heat tolerant & slow bolting! Lettuce Leaf Red Sails is a beauty. Jericho Romaine from Israel has become the classic summer romaine for warm regions. Sierra, Nevada. Parris Island is slow bolting. Green Towers Romaine tolerates moderate summer heat and has some resistance to tip burn and bolting. Green Star is phenomenal! Super productive, tolerance to hot weather, bolting, and tipburn, so it can be grown all season. High resistance to downy mildew. Black Seeded Simpson. And there are more – try several! Winter Lettuces favor heading and thin leaved varieties. If your area is frost prone, choose frost hardy varieties.

Know your Cucumbers! If you have been getting few fruits, low pollination is a likely factor. There are several special considerations ~ if you want to grow the best and which varieties will do what you need, how to hand pollinate or not at all, selecting companion plants, plants for pollinators, see more before you buy seeds this year!

Consider pollinator favorite flowering plants, 4 Lovely favorites! Companion planting is a super smart choice for so many reasons: Summer  Winter The longer production time of often drought tolerant water saving perennials is another wise choice!

FREE 15th Santa Barbara Community Seed Swap! SAVE THE DATE: Sunday, January 29, 2023, save your seeds to share! New location, the Santa Barbara Community Arts Workshop (SBCAW), indoor & outdoor space.

Already! Start thinking of next summer’s plantings – what seeds you will need. Process your seeds to share. Get some envelopes/baggies!

Remember, a Seed Swap is a random affair. Get your standby favorites earlier from those reliable catalogs while the seeds are still available. Use Seed Swaps as a fun backup source, new things to try, and most importantly, for local seeds. The last Saturday of January every year is National Seed Swap Day! Look in your area for an event, and if you don’t find one, collaborate with your local garden clubs or permaculture group, neighbors, to get one going! If your climate is warm enough, no rain predicted, holding it outdoors may work.

SOIL BUILDING!

Definitely start building compost for spring planting.

You could plant green manure where you will grow heavy summer feeders like tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants, peppers, chilies, squash, pumpkins, cucumbers, melons, and corn; hungry stalk vegetables like celery, fennel, rhubarb, and artichokes; or continually producing green, leafy vegetables like lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, or strawberries. Or plant it if you want a break! Just lay in some green manure seed mix – vetch, bell beans, Austrian peas and oats. In Santa Barbara area get the Harmony mix and the essential inoculant at Island Seed & Feed. See The Critical Importance of Inoculants at Peas. Let it grow two to three months to bloom stage. Chop down, chop up and let it lie on the surface about 2 weeks, keeping it moist. Add any amendments you want – additional manure, compost, and turn under. Let it sit two weeks to two months. Your choice. Let the herds of soil organisms do their work! I usually do about 3 weeks. OR, lay on as many layers of compost material as you can get for an up to 18″ deep area where you will be planting. Put in some surface feeding red wriggler worms. The BEST soil enhancer and you will have a tasty raised bed!

VEGGIES STORAGE

For veggies in your kitchen, here is the UCDavis Quick Guide to Fruits & Vegetables Storage!

Birds and Bees! Plant NATIVE wildflowers seed now to take advantage of winter rains for early spring flowers for native bees! Germination in cooler weather takes longer, so don’t let the bed dry out between rains. If you have space, make habitat for beneficial insects, birds and animals too! Start building now to put your solitary bee home up for wild bees in March or early April! If you already have one, clean it, and if you have an owl house, now is the time to clean it out too, asap! Depending on where you live they are usually empty from Halloween until early December! Nesting site selection starts in January, so build yours and get it up as soon as you can!

Wonderful Gardener Style Holiday Gifts!

Please be generous with your time these holidays. Rather than just serving food, maybe show someone how to grow veggies, give them seeds with instructions, give them and the kids a tour of your garden – eat carrots together!

Layer up, enjoy these crisp days. Let the wind clear your Spirit, the rain cleanse and soften your Soul.

Happy December Gardening and Happy Winter Solstice, Yule!

Please enjoy Rancheria Community Garden, Santa Barbara CA November images! Seed Saving, Green Manure Planting, Plant Protection Methods, Beautiful and intriguing Pollinators! Take a look before you decide on planting plans or buy seeds for next year ~ you may get some terrific ideas! We are Sowing the Future!

Updated annually 

---

---

Check out the entire December 2022 Newsletter!

Wisely Select the Right Seeds for Your Annual Plantings!
Lettuce ~ Beautiful, Nutritious, Low Calorie!
Waffle Gardens, The Roots of Square Foot Gardening!
Heating Greenhouses Without Electricity!
Wonderful Gardener-Style Holiday Gifts!

Upcoming Gardener Events!

World Soil Day Dec 5! US Composting Council’s 31st Annual Conference & Tradeshow Jan, Jan 30 FREE 15th Santa Barbara Community Seed Swap is ON! 76th Annual Holtville Carrot Festival, Santa Cruz Permaculture 2023 Design Permaculture Course April-Sep, ADVANCE NOTICE NATIONAL HEIRLOOM EXPO Sep 2023!

---

Love your Mother! Plant bird & bee food! Think grey water! Grow organic! Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

The Green Bean Connection started as correspondence for the Santa Barbara CA USA Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden. Both remaining Santa Barbara City’s community gardens are very coastal. Climate is changing, but it has been that during late spring/summer we are in a fog belt/marine layer area most years, locally referred to as the May grays, June glooms and August fogusts. Keep that in mind compared to the microclimate niche where your veggie garden is.

SUBSCRIBE to the entire newsletter!    Friend on Facebook! 

^Top

Read Full Post »

March 2022 Planting, Thoughtful Garden Design & Perfect Veggie Choices!

Last chance to design, make changes to your summer garden layout! March is often first plantings, if not, it is last soil preps before full on April plantings!

Day lengths are still short. We want Night air temps steadily above 50 and soil temps 60 to 65 for starting our veggies well. Bell Peppers, especially need these warmer temps. They don’t like cold feet. They do best with nighttime temps above 55°F and soil temps above 65°F. Average March night temps are right about 50°F.

MARCH through June Planting Timing 

Start MORE seedlings indoors NOW for late April/early May plantings – eggplant, peppers, and more tomatoes for transplanting into the garden in late April or early May. Also sow cucumbers, squash and sweet potatoes. The beauty of seeds is you can plant exactly what and how many you want! If seeds and tending seedlings aren’t for you, get transplants and pop them in the ground per their right times! Plant Winter squash now so it will have a long enough season to harden for harvest and be done in time for early fall planting.

• APRIL is true heat lovers time! Eggplant, limas, melons (wait until MAY for cantaloupe), bell peppers, pumpkins and squash! Many wait until April, even May or June, to plant tomatoes. Wait until the soil has warmed to 70°F before planting squash and melons.
• Some gardeners wait until JUNE to plant okra. It really likes heat and grows quickly when happy. Choose early varieties like the standard Clemson Spineless, Annie Oakley F1, red Burgundy or Cajun Delight! Try the fabulous Heavy Hitter! Choose faster maturing varieties for cool coastal SoCal. If YOU anticipate a HOT summer, plant a tad earlier, but in Santa Barbara be prepared to deal with it if summer is overcast as often is the case after all.

With our warming temp trends be on the safe side. Get bolt resistant/slow bolt varieties, heat, and especially drought tolerant varieties of everything!

Cold Stratification for Some of Your Seeds

Right now plant bell pepper transplants (at the right temps) and cold tolerant, early varieties if available. If you love your peppers and want some early, or have a short growing season, next year order seeds for ones that mature quickly and are cool weather adapted! Plant those transplants in the ground first and others more heat tolerant soon after to carry the length of the season. For cold tolerant sweet bell peppers, get seed for Ace, Lady Bell or King of the North! Obriy Ukrainian sweet red pepper is both cold and heat tolerant! For hotties that don’t mind cold, order up Early Jalapeno, Hungarian Hot Wax or Anaheim. Rocoto stands some cold but not a hard freeze. Manzano are reported to survive at 20°! The extraordinary feature of these two peppers, Capsicum pubescens (hairy leaves), is they grow into four-meter woody plants relatively quickly, and live up to 15 years! Truly sustainable! Now we need a bell pepper that can do that! If cold weather can happen anytime where you live, grow your peppers in pots; take them inside when it gets cold. Keep them on a cart or put the pots on roller wheels.

Plant determinate quick maturing early varieties of tomatoes – start with small fruited varieties and cherry toms – for soonest tomatoes for your table! The coastal moist soil at Santa Barbara’s community gardens has residues of Verticillium and Fusarium wilts, so some gardeners wait until warmer drier June soil to plant tomatoes and other veggies, like cucumbers that are wilts susceptible – but remember, those fungi are also windborne. You can delay it, make it less, but not prevent or stop it. Cucumbers are especially susceptible and do quickly die from it, so if you love cukes, be prepared to plant 2nd and 3rd rounds, but do these successive rounds in different places! First, choose resistant varieties like Natsu Fushinari longs! See more about how to avoid or slow down wilt and fungi problems! See about using BLEACH! See more about selecting tomatoes!

Outdoors sow or transplant beets, carrots, celery, chard, cilantro, herbs, Jerusalem artichokes, kohlrabi, leeks, green onions, bulb onion seed and sets (be sure to get summer maturing varieties), parsley, peas (be sure to use the right inoculant with your seeds if your soil needs it), peanuts (they do grow here!), potatoes, radishes, shallots, spinach, strawberries, and turnips. Time for heat tolerant, bolt and tipburn resistant lettuces of all kinds! The fabulous Green Star, Sierra, Nevada, Jericho, Black Seeded Simpson are some. Tips for super Successful Transplanting!

This is the LAST MONTH to transplant artichokes, asparagus, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, kale; also strawberry, blackberry, and raspberry roots so they’ll bear fruit well this year.

PLANT COMPANION PLANTS THAT REPEL PESTS, WARD OFF DISEASE IN ADVANCE SO THEY WILL BE UP AND WORKING WHEN YOUR SEEDLINGS COME UP OR YOU INSTALL YOUR TRANSPLANTS! Those are radish, cilantro, potatoes, Borage. The best kind of biodiversity is companion planting! See Super Spring & Summer Veggies Companion Planting Tips!

• Beans, Cukes, Dill, RADISH Combo! Depending on ground temps, tuck in some bean seeds where the peas are finishing, intermingled with cucumber seeds that will grow low along the trellis, below the beans, plus a few dill to go with the cukes! However, ONE healthy long cuke plant like Natsu Fushinari will easily take up a full 4’X7′ trellis all by itself! See more for bean/cuke planting tips. Plant radishes with the cukes to deter the Cucumber beetles. Borage repels tomato hornworm and is especially good with tomatoes, strawberries and squash!
• Tomato Tips:  La Sumida has the largest tomato selection in the Santa Barbara area! Heirlooms are particularly susceptible to the wilts, Fusarium and Verticillium. Instead, get varieties that have VFN or VF on the tag at the nursery. The V is for Verticillium, the F Fusarium wilt, N nematodes. Ace, Early Girl, Champion, Celebrity, are some that are wilt resistant/tolerant. In drought conditions, consider getting only indeterminates.

Succession planting makes such good sense. Put your seeds and transplants in at the same time. Seedlings will come along 6 to 8 weeks behind your transplants so you have a steady supply of yummy veggies! Otherwise, plant another round as frequently as you need for the table supply you need. But if tending seedlings isn’t your cup of tea, just leave space and put in more transplants in 6 to 8 weeks after your first planting.

It is perfect to put in fast growers like lettuce, beets, turnips, arugula, chard, to hold space until you are ready to plant bigger plants. When it’s time for the bigger ones, clear a space/harvest, pop in your seeds or transplants and let them grow up among the space holders. As the bigger plants start to shade out the littles, remove lower leaves so the littles get light too! The smaller plants act as living mulch under the bigger plants. No need to plant smaller plants separately in rows of their own. Think circles and understory! Plant them around, under, among the bigger plants! If you anticipate a HOT summer, plant heat sensitive littles only on the morning or shady side of larger plants. See Mulching ~ Why, When, With What, How Much?!

Put in borders of slow but low growers like carrots, mini cabbages, in more permanent places, like on what will become the morning side of taller backdrop plants like peppers and eggplant.

Depending on what legumes you choose, figure 3 1/2 +/- months to grow another round of green manure to enrich your soil Nitrogen. In warming weather and longer days, it grows faster. In 6 weeks to two months chop it down and chop up. Give it as close to 2 weeks as you can to decompose on the surface, keeping it moist. Add amendments, turn it all under, allow 3 weeks to a month for it to integrate with your soil, and the area will be ready to plant again. Or, dig your planting holes as soon as you turn it under, put in some fine compost, a smidge of manure, your other favorite amendments like worm castings, bone meal, Jamaican guano, a mineral mix, and plant! The rest of the area will take care of itself! See much more – Living Mulch/Green Manure!

Bolting, is a common issue when there are quick temp changes, and some plants, like arugula, chard, cilantro and lettuces are famous for bolting. See more about it and what you can do. See also about photoperiodism, Short Day, Long Day, Day Neutral Plants!

Consider not growing kale or chard over summer. Kale will grow, but really is happiest in Winter. If you harvest a lot of your kale in summer, it often has smaller dry looking leaves growing at the top of a tortured spindly stalk. I’ve seen them over 5′ tall. The leaves get tough, lack robust flavor, and lack that cool weather vibrancy. Fertilizing, watering really don’t do much at this point because the plant is just trying to survive. The trunk has more volume than the leaves. A different strategy is to harvest a lot less early on, let your plant branch and become bushy! Then you can harvest at several points, and the plant provides its own living mulch. Huge difference. Or maybe you need to plant a lot more kales so you don’t over harvest individual plants!

This is one kale plant in the image below! It has made all these branches, multiple harvest points, by April at Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden! Look at that abundance! It thrives all summer!

Chard suffers in hot summers. It droops from midday heat, recovers, droops, recovers each day. That’s hard on a plant. It doesn’t produce much. Doesn’t seem reasonable to harvest when it is trying to stay alive. If you do choose to grow it, plant it where it will have a little shade in the hottest part of the day in summer or install some shade cloth for it. Plant shallow rooted living mulch plants around it. Keep it evenly moist. Flooding it isn’t what it needs when it droops from heat, and plants can literally drown. Chard is a fast grower. Why not do a final harvest mid to late spring? Plant something that will be more summer happy, then plant chard again in fall when things cool down.

Broccoli, on the other hand, depending on the variety, produces side shoots like crazy all summer long! Just be sure to stake them if your plant gets large and top heavy! And feed it now and then. It’s working hard. Starting NOW, deeply mulch brocs you intend to over summer while it’s still cool to keep them cool. Brocs are naturally a winter plant. Or, instead of mulch, encircle them with quick growing shallow rooted living edible mulch plants – lettuce (repels Cabbage butterfly), beets, etc., that won’t interfere with your broccoli’s roots. When you harvest those quick growers, when you have access to the soil, feed your broc, and plant more living mulch! If you are using non living mulch, replenish it regularly.

Garden Design assures your veggies get the sunlight they need! Plant tall in the North, short South is the general rule. If you area is semi shaded or half day shaded, plant tall on the shady side, short where there is the most sun.

Tall: Indeterminate tomatoes in cages, pole beans in cages or on trellises. Basil is great with tomatoes, and a pack of culinary dandelions! Tall varieties of broccoli you keep for summer side shoots. Cucumbers are great on the trellis below the pole beans, or if a large variety, on their own trellis. Long beans! Tall varieties of okra.

Middle height: Determinate tomatoes, bush beans, okra, tall peppers like Big Jim Anaheim or Poblanos, zucchini. White potatoes with Zucchini to repel squash bugs. Radish with cukes and squashes to repel cucumber beetles, with cukes, squashes and eggplant to trap flea beetles! Large Winter Squash vines and pumpkins are middle height, while some mini melons would fall to the lower mid height zone. Put in zucchini and vines, sweet potatoes, to take up space if you don’t want to do a lot of tending, but do know, you must keep those zucchini picked! If your zucchini is dense, and you miss seeing it, an unpicked zuke can become a 6″ diameter 2′ long monster in as little as 5 days! Grow heat tolerant flat leaf kale like Thousand Headed Kale! It has many growing points instead of just one and self mulches!

Lower plants like eggplant, like a lot of heat. Put them on the sunny side, slightly in front of every other slightly taller plant. Leave a couple kale that will get taller. But, if they are leafless stalks with pom pom tops, they aren’t going to give any shade, nor are they going to produce much – kindly remove them? If you decide to keep them, since they are a winter plant, mulch them deeply or plant lettuces or leafy plants around their base as a living mulch and keep the soil there moist and cooler, and feed them.

Shorties & Littles: A lot of shorties will be in front of or be the understory of taller plants, in some instances a living mulch, so there is no need to allocate, use up separate space just for them. Your plants all help each other. When the bigger plant leaves start shading out the littles below, harvest strategic large lower leaves to allow light and airflow.

Put beets and carrots in the short zone, as an understory, between and among big plants. Bunch onions away from beans, great with other short rooted plants like lettuces that need to be kept moist. Summer small bulbed variety radishes give a great spike of hot flavor to a cool summer salad! Some delicious heat lover mini melons are quite small leaved and do best on the ground. They are easily trellised, but put that trellis in a sunny hot spot because it is cooler up on an open trellis.

Flowers & Seeds! Let arugula, cilantro, chamomile, a carrot or two, and a celery go to flower to bring bees, butterflies and beneficial insects – pollinators! Besides being beautiful and having lovely scents, let them seed out for seeds for next year’s plantings, to share at the seed swap, give as gifts! Carrots love being with cilantro and chamomile, and chamomile improves the flavor of and helps any neighboring herb. It is called the Plant Dr!

Chamomile! Healing Herb, Great for your Garden, Easy to Grow!

See Smart Garden Design Leads to Excellent Plant & Seed Selection! for more tips!

While you are thinking where to put things, select permanent spots for herbs, gateway points for flowers and edible flowers! Designate a permanent patch for all seasons flower habitat for bees. Cilantro is both tasty and has lovely feathery leaves and flowers, great pollinator food. Chamomile is downright heady scented on a warm morning. Comfrey, Knitbone, is both healing (arthritis/bones) and speeds your compost, is high in soil nutrition. Poppies are beautiful; humble white Sweet Alyssum is dainty and attracts smaller beneficial insects like hover flies that eat aphids! Calendula traps aphids, whiteflies, and thrips! Marigolds are brilliant and called the workhorse of pest deterrents! Cosmos is cosmic! Breadseed Poppies will literally have your bees rolling in pollen! See Stripes of Wildflowers!  See Pollinator Meadow!

Finish your Summer Gardening preparations!

• Install a greywater, rain capture system
• Install gopher wire protection.
• Install pathways, berms.
• Waffle Garden, basins & windbreaks, Water Garden. Excellent drought choices.
• Gather cages & trellises
• Terrace slopes – capture water runoff, prevent topsoil loss, mulch it
• Build creative raised beds, Efficient Keyhole Gardens, try Hugelkultur
• Get new containers, pallets, boards, tulle, net or wire for bird protection
• Organize where you will keep straw bales for summer mulch
• Setup compost and worm box areas

Complete your Soil Prep! 

• Add compost, only 5 to 10%, & other amendments to your soil all at the same time.
• Add well aged manure as appropriate. Less in spring because you want fruit production, not leaf, unless it is a plant grown for its leaves, like lettuce, kale or cabbage! None for carrots, peas or beans.
• Add 25% worm castings. As little as 10% works. They are potent, help with seedling germination, boost immunities to disease, add water holding capacity.
• Bone Meal is a slow release fertilizer that becomes available to your plants over a 3-4 month period. It provides calcium (prevents blossom end rot) and phosphorous for blooms. See all about it!
• Adding bird guano high in P, Phosphorus, at planting time helps your plants continue to bloom LATE in the season! Its NPK ratio is 1-10-0.2, takes 4 months to become available to your plants.
• Sprinkle with a tad of coffee grounds to reduce wilts fungi. Add only a ½ a % to your soil or compost. A tiny bit goes a long way!
• Don’t cover with mulch yet unless you need it for erosion control. Consider planting a living mulch like White Clover instead. Covered soil is cooler. Let your winter cool soil warm up. The exceptions are broccoli, cabbage, chard, and kale! Mulch ASAP because they like/need cooler soil.
• Water your prepped areas when you water your veggies. Soil organisms need moist soil.
• Sidedressing! Hard working plants need fuel and water. As broccoli starts to head, give it a fish/kelp tonic! With many varieties, after the main head is cut, your side shoots will flourish!

Pests Reminders and Home Remedies!

• Before you put in seeds, sprinkle a bit of Sluggo type stuff around immediately to keep snails and slugs from vanishing upcoming seedlings overnight, making you think they never came up! No, they didn’t let you down. Killing off the creatures ahead of time saves the babies. It stops new transplants from being seriously damaged or entirely eaten while they are small. Do this a few times, to knock off the generations, and there will be no tiny vegetarian predators for quite a while.
• Pull away those blotchy sections the leafminers make on chard and beet leaves. Remove whole leaves that are too funky for rescue. Harvest the bigger outer lower leaves more often to stay ahead of the miners. Water a tad less so leaves are less soft and inviting. Plant further apart to decrease spread.
• Hose APHIDS off chard, kale, brocs, cabbages. Keep doing it for a few days to catch the ones you missed and new generations. Nearby, plant Calendula as a trap plant, radish to repel them. When you see unnaturally curled leaves, you will likely find aphids. Check both upper and undersides of the leaves and the tiny leaves at the central growth point.For hard to get at places, down the centers of chard, crinkly kale leaves, get out that spray bottle! Treat once, wait a couple days, treat the ones you missed, the ones that got away and newborns.I tried it, it WORKS! The simplest is to spray with 2 Parts alcohol, 2 parts water, 1 part soap. DO NOT use on seedlings, it will kill some of them. Spritz lightly rather than drenching or you may kill your bigger plant too! However. If the infestation is just over the top, with chard you can cut off the whole plant about 1 1/2″ above ground and simply let it regrow, though it may never be as healthy or lush as a newly grown plant. Sometimes it’s just better to start over, and not in the same place. Hose away any reappearing or lingering aphids post haste! Check out the ant situation. Ants like being near water. Water less? Get rid of the ants.
• Regularly remove any yellowing leaves that attract whiteflies.
• Gophers You can still put in wire protective baskets or barriers, especially now while the soil is softer after any rains. If you see a fresh mound, trap immediately. Install prevention wire.

Prevention A frustrating typical disease is Powdery mildew. It’s common on Curly Leaf kales, squashes, beans, cucumbers. Select resistant varieties. Plant leaving plenty of space for air circulation. Apply your baking soda mix. Drench under and upper sides of the foliage of young plants to get them off to a great start! Do this the same or next day if transplanting. A super combo is 1 regular Aspirin dissolved, a 1/4 cup nonfat powdered milk, heaping tablespoon of baking soda, a half teaspoon liquid dish soap per gallon/watering can. Reapply every 10 days or so, and after significant rains. Not only is prevention so much better than after mildew has set in, but this mix stimulates your plant’s growth! See Aspirin Solution.

Do not compost diseased or infested leaves or plants. Bag it and trash it!

Watering & Weeding Wind and sun dry soil quickly and short rooted plants like peas, or seedlings, need to be kept evenly moist. That can mean every day to every other day watering.

Thinning is a form of weeding! Thin plants that need it, like beets and chard whose seeds start in foursomes! Thin plants you intentionally over planted – carrots, beets, turnips, kale, chard, radish, mustard! If you planted too close together, take out shorter, smaller weaker plants. They are all great in your salads along with small tender Brassica leaves. If you don’t thin, plants grown for their roots don’t have room or nutrition to grow that root. They are literally rootbound and starve each other out, are stunted. So thin sooner than later. If you miss the window, thin or not, you won’t get your root – beet, carrot, radish, etc. Keep thinning as they get older. At mature size their leaves shouldn’t touch each other. That helps keep pests and disease from spreading from one to the next.

When you are weeding, remove blooming or seeding plants first!!! When grass has those pretty frilly little green tops, it is blooming and seeding! Remove it ASAP. Better yet is to remove weeds before they seed! If at the seeding stage, gently pull, DO NOT shake the soil loose from the roots spreading seeds all over, and don’t put them in your compost! Bag and trash.

Dust Mulching, cultivation, is perfect to break up the soil surface, especially after a rain! That keeps the water from wicking to the surface and evaporating. If you use a hula hoe you do two things at once! Just a half to one inch depth cuts off weed sprouts. Indeed, it turns the soil a tad, all that’s needed. More weeds will follow, but it’s quick and easy to repeat the process. Two, three times, a few days apart and there will be few weeds after that for a while. Get ’em while they are small and easy to do. Smart gardening.

Keep COMPOSTING! Soil building is the single-most important thing you can do for your garden. Compost keeps your soil aerated, has great water holding capacity, feeds just perfectly! And if you made it, you know what’s in it! Make it HOT, Cold, or In place! Dry is dead, so be sure it is always slightly moist. Giving back to Mama Earth is nature’s natural way! And, like Will Allen says ….there is something very Spiritual about touching the soil, that’s where life begins.

The good work you do now will pay off with abundant summer harvests!

Oh, and please see more in February’s Newsletter, especially about Tomatoes!

Updated annually

---

---

Fabulous February images at Rancheria Community Garden, Santa Barbara CA! February closed with a cold snap, frost on the rooftops and a few plant casualties. Discovered a Chaya Tree Spinach, Amaranth, Wheat and charming Finches feasting!

Check out the entire March 2022 Newsletter!

Clever Seed Planting Tips for Indoors or Out!
Grow a Pollinator Meadow in Your Veg Garden!
How to Transplant for Super Successful Returns!
Grow Delicious and Amazing Edible Perennials!
February Letter from President Cathy Walker, American Community Gardens Assn!

Upcoming Gardener Events! UPDATE this event: SB 14th Annual FREE SEED SWAP March 20 at new location Santa Barbara Community Arts Workshop! 

---

Love your Mother! Plant bird & bee food! Think grey water! Grow organic! Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

The Green Bean Connection started as correspondence for the Santa Barbara CA USA Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden. Both of Santa Barbara City’s remaining community gardens are very coastal. During late spring/summer we are often in a fog belt/marine layer most years, locally referred to as the May grays, June glooms and August fogusts. Keep that in mind compared to the microclimate niche where your veggie garden is. Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

SUBSCRIBE to the entire newsletter!    Friend on Facebook! 

Top^

Read Full Post »

Here’s To Terrific February 2022 Gardening For You!

Winter Harvests, Soil Preps, First Spring Plantings!

The beauty of planting from seeds is you can get perfect varieties, the rare and unusual! Thanks to TomatoFest for this Cool image!

Hopefully you have gotten your seeds from the catalog or nursery and you are likely itching for the right temps to plant!

Planning now is important because not all spring/summer plants are installed at the same time. Planting in the right places now makes a difference. Companions and biodiversity are key. It’s still chill, but in Santa Barbara we are now beyond the last average frost date though we are still in the less than 10 hours per day photoperiod until sometime in February. Bold Souls will be planting Zucchini, cool tolerant tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, corn and bareroot strawberries! They can be started now from seed, in the ground. Soil temps 1.26 were 44 tp 50F, still low, so make sure your plant is ok with that. Make sequential plantings in case of failures. March is a little warmer and early variety plants get a better start. April is most everything – cucumber, pepper, squash, beans, more tomatoes, watermelon. May is the true heat lovers, cantaloupe, okra (June may be better yet), eggplant. Some gardeners wait to plant tomatoes and cucumbers until May and June to avoid the more moist soil fungi of earlier months. I hold that space by planting something temporary there in March. In long summer areas June is especially good for okra, eggplant, long beans and tropical plants like Japanese Urizun Winged Beans!

Summer garden planning tips emphasize needing less water! 

PLANT COMPANION PLANTS THAT REPEL PESTS, or enhance your plant’s growth, IN ADVANCE SO THEY WILL BE UP AND WORKING WHEN YOUR SEEDLINGS COME UP OR YOU INSTALL YOUR TRANSPLANTS! Whenever you select seeds or transplants, automatically think companions, for many good reasons! See Spring/Summer Companion Planting Tips!

• If you are not going to be canning, indeterminate tomatoes are the excellent choice! These are the vining tomatoes that produce all summer! This saves time and water because determinate, bush tomatoes produce quickly, all at once – great for canning, then you have to replant and wait another two months for more production. However, determinate toms do produce sooner, so for earlier table production, plant them to hold you until your indeterminates are producing. Plant 1 or 2 rounds for until your indeterminates start producing. For earliest treats, plant cherry tomatoes! Yum! Basil is great with tomatoes, and a pack of dandelions! The beautiful herb Borage repels Tomato Hornworms!
• Choose more prolific plants and drought/heat tolerant varieties so you get more production for less water.

1) Plant tall plants to the North unless you anticipate a scorching summer. If you think it will be HOT, plant tall to the west to shade shorter plants, keep your soil cooler, use less water.

• Cukes & Beans! Plan to put cucumbers up on trellises to save space, keep them disease and pest free, clean, and so they ripen evenly all the way around. Co-plant with beans! Beans above, cukes below. If you will want a lot of each, plant them on separate trellises! Japanese Long cukes give a generous supply per water used, need a lot of space! So no cukes on their trellis. Natsu Fushinari have exceptional powdery mildew resistance, especially in high heat!

2) Next, intermingle mid height plants, bush beans, determinate tomatoes, tall peppers like Big Jim Anaheim or Poblanos. Potatoes with Zucchini to repel squash bugs. Plant Radish ahead of cukes & zukes to repel cucumber beetles. Eat a few radishes, but let several grow up by and through the plants you are protecting. Let them bloom for pollinators and produce seed pods for your next crops.

• Leave a winter broccoli or two for summer salad side shoots. Mulch deeply under your brocs right now! We want to keep these cool loving plants cool. If you don’t have enough trellis space, plant cukes with your brocs! Broccoli helps repel cucumber beetles, so push the mulch back on the sunny side, make your special cucumber planting mound/basin and plant cucumbers underneath those brocs! Besides keeping the soil cool, the mulch keeps the cukes off the soil, clean and insect free above the bug zone!
• Leave a couple of winter kale to provide over summer greens. Heat tolerant 1000Head Kale is a prolific choice that harbors less aphids on its FLAT leaves. And, it is HUGE! Plant lettuces on the sunny side under your brocs and kale.
• Eggplant likes it hot and moist! Radishes with eggplants and cucumbers. Radishes are a trap plant for flea beetles. If your area is a little cool and short seasoned like ours, plant the long skinny Ichiban Japanese eggplants rather than the bulbous Black Beauties. Ichiban’s are prolific and quite tasty.
• Indeterminate tomatoes might be your tallest plant in a 6′ cage. Okra can get tall too, and both are super susceptible to soil diseases wilts. Hot Pepper’s roots help prevent the wilt. Eggplant releases Potassium tomatoes have a high requirement for and okra needs too. Interplant the four of them in a zig zag style with the shorter plants on the sunny side of the taller plants. If you have space, do a keyhole style with the tallest plant, needing the most protection, in the center.

3) Lowest are the ‘littles’ or fillers! Being mindful of companions, scatter beets and carrots, lettuce, radish, here and there among, alongside, under larger plants on their sunny sides. Bunch onions away from beans. Some littles will be done before the bigger plants leaf out to full size. For those still growing, remove or harvest lower leaves of the big plant when they start shading the littles. There isn’t really a need to allot separate space for littles except strawberries! They need full sun and a separate patch with more acidic soil to keep them healthy and be prolific producers!

• If you love cabbages, plant a few more, but they take up a fair footprint for what they produce and they take a long time to do it. In spring and summer choose quick maturing mini varieties.
• SEED SAVING SPACE! Leave room for some arugula, cilantro, chamomile, a carrot or two, and a celery to go to flower to bring bees and beneficial insects! Besides being beautiful and having lovely scents, let them seed out for seeds for next plantings. Carrots love being with cilantro, marigold and chamomile. Chamomile is a true super plant! It improves the flavor of any neighboring herb, the flowers make a lovely scent, the tea is sweet, and it is called the Plant Doctor – heals nearby plants! Plant it asap to help vulnerable plants before they get in trouble.
• Pumpkin, melon, winter squash vines require some thoughtfulness. Pumpkin and winter squash vine leaves get as huge as healthy zucchini leaves, easily a foot wide! Mini melons have dainty 2″ wide little leaves, can be trellised, but they may do much better on bare hot ground rather than up in cool breezy airs. A healthy winter squash vine can easily be 3′ to 4′ wide, 30′ long plus side vines, and produce a major supply of squash! You can use them as a border, as a backdrop along a fence line. In SoCal, unless you are a squash lover, or won’t be gardening in winter, there is question as to why you would grow winter squash at all. Greens of all kinds grow prolifically here all winter long, giving a fresh and beautiful supply of Vitamin A for less calories and no storage space!

Super use of your space! As winter plants finish, that space might be planted right away. Other space may need to be held for later. For example if you plan to plant okra in June, grow quick prolific producers there until it’s the right time to plant those heat lovers! Leafy plants produce continuously, and can be harvested whole body when you want the space. You will have lush harvests while you are waiting. Think of kales, chard, lettuce, beets, even mini dwarf cabbages. Perhaps you will leave some of them as understory plants and plant taller peppers like Poblanos or Big Jim Anaheims, and tomatoes among them. When the larger plants overtake the understory, either harvest the smaller plants, or remove or harvest lower leaves of larger plants to let the smaller plants get enough sun to keep producing abundantly. And you can always plant a quick growing legume, green manure, aka living mulch, to feed your soil! In early spring and late summer you can plant White Clover. It brings pollinators too!

Hardly anyone can resist planting early tomatoes! Choose early cold tolerant varieties. In SoCal toms with northern names like Oregon Spring, or Siberian do well. Stupice from Czechoslovakia is very early! Bellstar, from Ontario Canada, is larger and earlier than other plum tomatoes. Early Girl is a favorite! And SunGold cherry tomatoes are almost always a winner! Cherry toms are small and will ripen when larger tomatoes just stay green until the 4th of July! See more!

One strategy is to 1) plant determinate early cherry varieties. 2) When the big summer toms come in, have any remaining cherries for snackers while you are enjoying magnificent beefsteaks! 3) Before the big toms start slowing down, plant early determinate faster producing cherry toms again as days shorten, temps get cooler – just what those early varieties like!

For now, in this early cooler time, plant your lettuce leafies to the sunny side of where the toms will be planted. Pop your tomato seeds in when soil temps are good, or put your transplants in as you get them. That way you have table food soonest and your heart is happy too! Here are a couple tips from James M Stephens at Florida University Extension: Tomato plants 4–5 weeks old grow and yield better than older transplants.

He also says when setting your transplant into the soil, do not compress the soil around the roots. √ Gently pour water into the hole to settle the soil around the roots. After the transplanting water has dried a bit, cover the wet spot with dry soil to reduce evaporation. √

See Tomatoes at Cornell! Here are special instructions for planting and tending tomatoes and cucumbers where the soil is known to have verticillium or fusarium wilts fungi. Both our Santa Barbara City community gardens have them. Some gardeners plant toms in May or June to avoid moist soils.

Soil temp matters. Though the soil may become fairly warm quickly in days to come, day length is still important. No matter how early you plant some plants, they still won’t produce fruit until they have enough hours of sun, and for some, warmth including day and/or night and/or ground temps. If they miss their window, they may never produce at all…better to pull and replant. Keep growing those leafy producers – lettuce, chard, kale – in that space and plant the right plants at the right good time! See Best Soil Temps

Start seedlings indoors now for March/April plantings. If seeds and tending seedlings aren’t for you, just wait, get transplants and pop them right in the ground per their right times! Presprout!

Right now, from seed in the ground, sow beets, caraway, celery, carrots, chard, chervil, chives, collards, cilantro (coriander), dill, endive, fennel, garlic, kale, kohlrabi, leeks, lettuces, mustards, green onions, bulb onion sets, flat-leafed parsley, late peas – mildew resistant varieties, white potatoes, radishes, shallots, spinach, and turnips. Get bolt resistant/slow bolt varieties, and especially heat and drought tolerant varieties.

Along with deciding plant locations, get ready for Summer Gardening!

• Install gopher barriers.
• Get summer weight garden fabric, netting or bendable wire like aviary wire for bird protection.
• Install or repair pathways, berms. Lay in straw, boards, pallets, stepping stones.
• Waffle Garden, basins & windbreaks, a Water Garden. Excellent drought choices.
• Gather cages for toms, peppers, eggplant & trellises for beans and cukes
• Terrace slopes to prevent water runoff and topsoil loss.
• Mulch, secure the mulch. Plant with living mulch.
• Build raised beds, Hugelkultur (see lower part of page)
• Get new containers, replace tired soil
• Setup Compost areas – enclosures, area to compost in place. Worm box.
• Organize where you will keep straw bales for summer mulch, compost layers, pathways

Spring planting soil prep! Save time by adding all your amendments at the same time! See more

• Compost! The amount of compost to use varies, depending on your soil’s condition, plant selection, compost quality, and availability. A guideline offered by Cornell University. (Veggies – bottom of Pg 4) says use 3 inches over the surface worked into the top 3-6 inches of soil!
• Add well aged manure as appropriate. Less in spring because you want fruit production, not leaf, unless it is a plant grown for its leaves, like lettuce, kale or cabbage! Generally, none for carrots, peas or beans.
• Add 25% worm castings. As little as 10% works. They are potent – increase germination, speed seedling growth, help with plant immunities to disease, increase water holding capacity.
• Add bone meal for 3 months later blooming.
• Add guanos high in P, Phosphorus, at planting time helps your plants continued bloom four months later! You want bird guano that is high P phosphorus (blooms), the middle number: 1-10-0.2.
• Sprinkle with a tad of coffee grounds to reduce fungal rots and wilts!! Grounds are more potent than they have a right to be! 0.5%, that’s 1/2 a %, or less is all that is needed or wanted!
• If your area is cool, don’t cover with mulch unless you need it for erosion control. Covered soil is cooler. Let your cool winter soil warm up for earlier spring planting. Do mulch deeply under broccoli and kale you will be keeping over summer. They do best with cool conditions.
• Water your prepped areas when you water your other veggies. Moist, not flooded, soil is rampant with soil organisms enriching your soil for free!

Keep COMPOSTING! You are going to need it for summer plants! Soil building is the single-most important thing you can do for your garden. Compost keeps your soil aerated, has great water holding capacity, soil organisms flourish, it’s nutrients are slowly released in perfect natural timing! And if you made it, you know what’s in it! Make it HOT, Cold, or In Place! Dry is dead, so be sure it is always slightly moist. See more

One more round of green manure is doable where you will plant late April, May, June. Grow it where you will grow heavy summer feeders like tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants, peppers, okra, chilis, squash, pumpkins, cucumbers, melons, and corn; hungry stalk vegetables like celery, fennel, rhubarb, and artichokes; or continually producing green, leafy vegetables like lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard. Green manure can be beautiful favas, bell beans, and/or a legume mix to boost soil Nitrogen, plus oats to aerate your soil, make channels for soil organisms, roots and water absorption. Favas are big and you get a lot of green manure per square foot. With our warming weather, longer days, your green manure will grow quickly! As soon as the bell beans begin to flower, whack them down, chop into small bits. It’s more tender to chop while it’s smaller. Taller is not better. Let it lay on the soil 2 weeks, add any other amendments you want, then turn it all under at once. Wait two to four weeks then plant, plant, plant! Depending on which plants you choose, the process takes about 3 1/2 months.

Sidedressing! Hard working plants need fuel and water. As broccoli starts to head, give it a fish/kelp tonic or compost/casting/manure tea! After the main head is cut, your side shoots will flourish!

Pests!

BEFORE you put in seeds, sprinkle a bit of Sluggo type stuff around a couple of times, to kill the generations, to keep snails and slugs from vanishing upcoming seedlings overnight, making you think they never came up! No, they didn’t let you down. Killing off the creatures ahead of time saves the babies. It stops new transplants from being seriously damaged or entirely mowed while they are small. When, if, later you see more slimy predators, sprinkle that stuff a couple times again.

Pull away those blotchy sections the leafminers make on chard and beet leaves. Remove whole leaves that are too funky for rescue. Harvest the bigger outer lower leaves more often to stay ahead of the miners. I believe sometimes the leafminers come when the leaves have reached peak and need to be harvested, when the foliage is just past prime and softening. Rather than row planting, letting the leafminers go from plant to plant, interplant, a few here, a few there, plant with more space between them. Water and fertilize a tad less so leaves are less soft and inviting.

Aphids Watch for leaves unnaturally curled along the length of the leaf, particularly broccolis, cauliflowers, kale, cabbages. Check at the center where the tiny new leaves are beginning. Hose aphids off chard, kale and brocs. Keep doing it for a few days to catch the children or ones you missed. After that, water and feed them a little less.

• I tried it, it WORKS! The simplest is to spray with 2 Parts alcohol, 2 parts water, 1 part soap. DO NOT use on seedlings, it will kill some of them. Spritz lightly rather than drenching or you may kill your bigger plant too!
• For hard to get at places, down the centers of chard, crinkly kale leaves, get out that spray bottle! Treat once, wait a couple days, treat again for the ones that got away and newborns.
• Ants nest near water and don’t like cinnamon. Sprinkle cinnamon around the base of your plant but not on the stem. Repeat if necessary after watering.

Whiteflies Flush away, especially under leaves. Remove any yellowing leaves, especially on your Brassicas, that attract whiteflies. Again, a little less water and food.

I like these three things this gardener said online! Sadly I didn’t record the name, so if you find the source, let me know please so I can thank and credit them!

1. Aphids and thrips are indications of plant stress. Before running out to buy an insecticidal soap or other chemical solution begin to solve the problem by trying to figure what the stressors are and dealing with them. Are the plants over- or under-watered? What fertilizer is being used? Is it a balanced organic fertilizer?
2. Predatory insects will be attracted to the site and will benefit greatly by an interplanting of Sweet Alyssum, dill, or cilantro. Our Crimson and Dutch White Clover planted along pathways between rows is excellent for attracting beneficial insects too. Place shallow dishes of water with small protruding rocks in amongst the cucumbers for beneficial insects to stop and have a drink. They’ll lay more eggs, eat more pests, and be more effective if you provide for their needs right where the problem occurs in the garden. Instead of thinking that the solution is to remove the problem, think about what can be done to aid nature in creating a balance.
3. Cutworms can be handpicked during the day if small pieces of wood or cardboard are laid out near the cucumbers for them to hide under. All the better to find them. Keeping chickens or ducks works too. [But be careful with the birds. They can do damage very quickly! Learn more about them BEFORE you use them!]

Diseases – Choose Resistant/Tolerant Varieties

Prevention  A frustrating typical disease is Powdery mildew. It’s common on Curly Leaf kales, peas, cucumber, zucchini, beans. Plant leaving plenty of space for air circulation. Apply your baking soda mix. Drench under and upper sides of the foliage of young plants to get them off to a great start! Do this the same or day after transplanting. A super combo is 1 regular Aspirin crushed and dissolved, a 1/4 cup nonfat powdered milk, heaping tablespoon of baking soda, a half teaspoon liquid dish soap per gallon/watering can. Reapply every 10 days or so, and after significant rains. Not only is prevention so much better than after mildew has set in, but this mix stimulates your plant’s immunities and growth! See Aspirin Solution.

Beets, Chard and Spinach get Cercospora leaf spot – like the Chard at left. Sadly, no resistant cultivars of table beet are known. Late fall or early spring plantings are most likely to be affected. Late summer when conditions are favorable (high temperatures 75-85˚F, high humidity, long leaf wetness periods at night) is the worst. Beet roots fail to grow to full size when disease is severe. Successive plantings made close together can allow disease to move from one planting into the next. It grows on infected crop residues, so immediately remove leaves that collapse on the ground. It is spread by rain splash, wind, irrigation water, insects, gardeners, and equipment. This is one case where AM watering really makes sense to reduce humidity. UMASS Amherst recommends to ‘Avoid overhead irrigation if it will result in prolonged leaf wetness periods (e.g., through the night); irrigate mid-day when leaves will dry fully or use drip irrigation.’ If all that fails, use foliar fungicides. Plant less densely for more airflow, thinnings are tasty! In general, harvest more frequently so leaves don’t surpass their prime health, start to soften, become vulnerable. If you have little garden space, planting only every 3 years in the same spot isn’t possible so cultivating, turning and drying the soil between plantings is good. If possible adding a tiny bit of coffee grounds, a half a %, would help kill off the Spot. Too much coffee grounds can kill your plant, make your soil acidic. See more about Cercospora Leaf Spot

Do not compost diseased or infested leaves or plants. Bag them and put them in the trash, not green waste.

Soil Checks! Especially after recent rains, check your root crops – beets, carrots, radish, potatoes, turnips, in general, for low soil. Soil naturally compacts with watering. Some of these veggies naturally push right up above ground as they grow. Planting their seeds deeper doesn’t compensate. It’s the nature of the veggie! Never hurts to put a handy little pile of extra soil near where you plant them. Cover their exposed shoulders to keep them from drying, getting tough, sometimes bitter, needing peeling, losing the nutrients in their skins. Uncovered carrot shoulders don’t ripen but stay green. Same with potatoes.

Watering & Weeding

Watering can be important after rains. Winds dry soil quickly and roots of short rooted plants like peas, or seedlings need to be kept moist. Some rains wet only 1/4″ deep or less. Poke your finger into the soil and see if it is moist enough where the roots of your plants are.

Dust Mulching, cultivation, breaks up the soil surface, keeps water from wicking to the surface and evaporating. If you use a hula hoe you do two things at once! Just a half to one inch depth cuts off weed sprouts. Indeed, it turns the soil a tad, all that’s needed. More weeds will follow, but it’s quick and easy to repeat the process. Two, three times, a few days apart, and there will be few weeds after that for a while. Get ’em while they are small and easy to do. Smart gardening.

Thinning is a form of weeding! Thin plants that need it, like beets whose seeds start in foursomes! Thin plants you intentionally over planted – carrots, beets, turnips, kale, chard, radish, mustard! If you planted too close together, take out shorter, smaller weaker plants. Eat ’em on the spot, or they are all great in your salads along with small tender Brassica leaves. If you don’t thin, plants grown for their roots don’t have room or nutrition to grow that root. They are literally rootbound and starve each other out, stunted. So thin sooner than later. If you miss the window, thin or not, you won’t get your root – beet, carrot, radish, etc. Keep thinning as they get older. At mature size their leaves shouldn’t touch each other, except maybe for carrots. They seem to be fine unless they are left in the ground a long time, get old and weak. Thinning helps keep pests and disease from spreading from one to the next.

When you are weeding, remove blooming or seeding plants first!!! When grass has those pretty frilly little green tops, it is blooming and seeding! Remove it ASAP. Better yet is to remove weeds before they seed! If at the seeding stage, gently pull, do not shake the soil loose from the roots spreading seeds all over, and don’t put them in your compost! Bag and trash.

Happy Healthy February Gardening and the very beginning of spring planting!

Updated annually

---

Hooray for the Santa Barbara rains! Check out wonderful January images at Santa Barbara’s Rancheria Community Garden! Winter gardens have their own special beauty!

Check out the entire February 2022 Newsletter!

Super Spring & Summer Companion Planting Tips!
Tomato Varieties! Humble to Humongous & More!
Wilts & Cucumber Beetles, Tomatoes & Cukes!
Borage, StarFlower, is Such a Winter Spring Beauty!
Okra ~ Unique and Wonderful!
Upcoming Gardener Events! 

---

Love your Mother! Plant bird & bee food! Think grey water! Grow organic! Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

The Green Bean Connection started as correspondence for the Santa Barbara CA USA Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden. Both of Santa Barbara City’s remaining community gardens are very coastal. During late spring/summer we are often in a fog belt/marine layer most years, locally referred to as the May grays, June glooms and August fogusts. Keep that in mind compared to the microclimate niche where your veggie garden is. Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

SUBSCRIBE to the entire newsletter!    Friend on Facebook! 

Top^

Read Full Post »

Happy January 2022 Delicious Gardening to You!

Winter Harvests, Soil, Planning Your Spring Garden!

Elegant, nutritious Nero di Toscana Lacinato Kale aka Tuscan, Black or Dinosaur. 

Delicious winter garden harvests continue! You may not feel like eating as many salads in this cooler time, but veggie soups and stews are super nutritious and great for sharing!

Keep an eye on weather reports! We are still in the frost – freeze time in Santa Barbara until the last average frost date January 22 – measured at the airport. Have old sheets, light blankets, old towels handy. If a freeze is predicted, for small plants, like tender lettuces, just lay tomato cages on their sides and put your coverings over them. Secure coverings well so wind doesn’t blow them around and damage your plants or leave them uncovered. Remove them when the sun comes out! No cooking your plants before their time! Dates vary from the coastal areas to the foothills, and our climate is changing generally to warmer, so these dates may not be viable guides much longer, if even now. Find out the frost dates for your Zip Code! See the details – Protect Your Veggies from Freezing!

Be sure your plants are secure before and after winds and rains. Stake top heavy plants that may need support. Tie pole plants like peas to their trellis. Level up any low places, check that berms are in good condition. Install trenches to capture or direct rainwater. Mulch to prevent erosion and soil splash on leafy greens. If damage occurs, harvest what can’t be saved, compost what remains.

After a rain, it’s time to add soil on exposed carrot, turnip and beet shoulders and potatoes. Do the finger-in-the-soil check to be sure your plants got enough water. A light rain may not be nearly enough… See Rainy Day Tactics for Spectacular Veggies!

After rains there are weeds! It’s time for that Hula hoe! Weed, weed, weed!  If the soil sticks to your shovel, wait to do any digging, but don’t delay either. Soft soil is so much easier to weed. Do it before the roots get bigger and you lose soil clinging to them when you pull them out. Weed before taproots get deep and hard to remove. Get those clover roots out all the way down and before grass makes its frilly little seed heads. FIRST, remove any weed that is flowering, soon to make seeds! Anything that is not seeding, healthy and not pest infested may be trenched in or cold composted, or you can use them as mulch where there is bare ground not in your veg garden.

Once the weeds are out, if the area is clear, you have choices to make. Plant very last rounds of favorite winter plants or start prepping soil for spring planting!

January Plantings  If you love your winter crops, and aren’t necessarily in a rush to do spring/summer, amend your soil immediately and plant one more round, from transplants if you can get them or the starts you have begun on your own, seeds if you must. Choose smaller/early varieties, varieties that produce in fewer days, bush or patio dwarf types that produce more quickly. See December for tips on what to plant. In cooler January weather, plantings will start slowly, but they will mature faster than usual as days get longer. Most January plantings will be coming in March, April. That’s still in good time for soil preps in April for April/May plantings. In April/May there is less fungi in the soil, so plants that are fungi susceptible get a better start – mainly that would be wilt susceptible tomatoes and cucumbers.

Photoperiodism! January and February Santa Barbara is in a period of days less than 10 hours long. We are at a turning point now that we are past Winter Solstice, now in longer days than night. Consider whether to plant right away, or wait. Some plants don’t grow when days are less than 10 hours. They may take a break and resume in March. What we plant now depends on whether it is a long day plant, long season Broccoli, or a bulbing plant. It also affects our seed choices. Some plants, some varieties, won’t grow or produce if the light isn’t right. See which and ‘when to plant’ tips – Photoperiodism.

Plant MORE of these delicious morsels now! Arugula, beets like Cylindra, brocs, Brussels sprouts if you get winter chill (there are some new purple ones on the market called BrusselBerries!!!), bunch onions, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, chard, culinary dandelions, garden purslane, kale, kohlrabi, head and leaf lettuces, Mesclun, parsnips, peas, potatoes, radishes – especially the long daikons, and turnips! Scatter your Breadseed Poppy seeds for gorgeous April, May blooms! Select a place to plant a bee bringing Borage – maybe right in the center of a circle of plants so it can serve them all! Give it plenty of room and place it so it won’t shade out shorter spring plants you will be growing.

If you would like some tender little snacking carrots, quick growers to show the kids, or minis for your pup, try early Adelaides from Johnny’s Selected Seeds! They say ‘True baby carrots. Unlike most “baby carrots,” which are harvested at an immature stage before properly filling out, Adelaide is a true baby, meaning it has an early maturity and forms a blunt root tip at 3–4″ long.’ Only 50 days! See all about Carrots!

For us SoCal gardeners, besides beautiful bareroot roses, this month is bareroot veggies time! They don’t have soil on their roots, so plant immediately or keep them moist! Grape vines; artichokes; short-day (sweet) globe onions; strawberries; cane berries such as raspberries (get low-chill types); low-chill blueberries; and rhubarb, asparagus, and horseradish. Bare root planting is strictly a JANUARY thing. They generally aren’t available in February. Many bareroot veggies are highly sought after, so keep checking their arrival date, then when they arrive, drop everything and go get them!

Continue to make the most of winter companion planting! Carrots enhance peas, onion family stunts peas. Cilantro enhances Brassicas and repels aphids on them! Lettuce repels Cabbage moths. Onions, leeks and chives help repel the carrot root fly. Carrots thrive when Cilantro, Chamomile, Marigold are planted with them. Companion planting is also a size strategy. Keep planting smaller plants, especially lettuce, on the sunny under sides of Brassicas! Take off a couple lower leaves to let more sunlight in. Under Brassicas, plant lettuce from transplants, not seeds, since Brassicas are allelopathic, makes biochemicals that inhibit small seeds like lettuce from germinating.

Planting summer crops early isn’t always a gain. Even if the plant lives, some won’t produce fruit until they have enough hours of sun, and for some, warmth including day/night and/or ground temps. And some plants set in too early will never produce. That waiting time for enough sun, enough warmth, interrupts the plant’s natural cycle and the production window is lost. If you take that chance and it doesn’t work, pull and replant. No amount of waiting will do the job. To be on the safe side, plant successively! Plant every week, or every two weeks or month to get the right window, especially when weather is likely to be variable.

Peppers are a classic example. For some gardeners peppers take forever…………. For others the standard couple of weeks and seeds are seedlings! If you have experience, you probably know which it is for you. If you change varieties, plant successively until you learn that plant. A lot of Latinos start their peppers in January and let them grow slowly until April. If you plant from transplants, I would not try for an early start. Peppers just don’t like cold feet. Whenever you start, plant two rounds, two to three weeks apart. That way you have a better chance of hitting the magic window! Soil Temps are critical for root function. Peppers need 60 degrees + for happiness. A gardeners’ soil thermometer is an inexpensive valuable little tool to own.

You can use area that becomes open for temporary plants. To hold space, put in quickie leaf crops like lettuces, arugula, bok choy, spinach, chard, kale, until it’s the right time to plant heat lovers. These quickie plants can be removed at any time and you still shall have had lush harvests. Hardly anyone can resist planting early tomatoes, February, March! Another strategy is plant your leafies to one side, leaving room to plant your toms where the toms would be planted if the leafy plants weren’t there. Plant tomatoes ‘behind’ the leafies so the baby transplants/seedlings, get plenty of sun for a good start! When your big plants get big enough, remove lower leaves that shade your leafies. That way you have table food and your heart is happy too! Depending on how big your open area is, you can also plant your leafies in zig zags then add the permanent heat lovers inside the ‘V’ areas. As soon as possible, plant companion plants for the heat lovers you will be growing in each area.

Choose early cold tolerant tomato varieties. Ones with northern names, in SoCal that could be Oregon Spring, or Siberian. Stupice from Czechoslovakia is very early! Bellstar, from Ontario Canada, is larger and earlier than other plum tomatoes. Early Girl is a favorite! And SunGold cherry tomatoes are almost always a winner! Cherry toms are small and will ripen when other tomatoes just stay green for the longest!

1999 All-America Selections winner mini Roma grape tomato, hybrid Juliet, gets rave reviews! Bonnie Plants says ‘The wonderfully sweet fruit are crack resistant and remain in good condition on the vine longer than most cherry tomatoes. The fruit are as soft and juicy as cherry tomatoes, they hold up well in salads, even leftovers, and they have a longer shelf life so you can keep them on hand without picking every day. The vigorous vines set lots of fruit on long trusses and keep setting fruit throughout the summer. Quite heat tolerant. Vines are long and vigorous, so give the plant room to tumble over its cage. One of the longest-lasting tomatoes in the garden. Hybrid. Resistant to early blight (AB). Tolerant to late blight (LB).’ One of our gardeners got abundant crop through October!

Their taste is described as Umami, the taste imparted by monosodium glutamate, which now stands alongside sweet, sour, salty and bitter as one of the five recognized basic tastes. Cheese and ham flavors also increase the same way as they mature. Bountiful Gardener says you can ‘sun dry Juliets into little tomato-raisin umami bombs of flavor!’

Summer Garden Design is important right now! You can do diagrams on paper or just give it a good think to see if there are any changes this year, and carry it in your head. That layout is what you need to make your seed list! Seeds from catalogs and Seed Swaps! Seed Swaps are free, fun and random, a good way to try plants you might have never considered, and they are adapted to your area! Catalogs give you the best selection and of plants your nursery doesn’t carry or isn’t able to get. Check for drought and heat tolerant, bolt resistant, mildew resistant varieties or look in dry or humid southern states that match your eco niche or world areas that have heat tolerant desert low-water-needs plants and order up! The seeds of these types may need to be planted deeper and earlier than more local plants for moisture they need. They may mature earlier. Be prepared to do second plantings if needed and use a little water. See Choosing Seeds: Catalogs to Seed Swaps! Smart Design for Your Spring & Summer Garden, Seed Selection! See also some of the bigger long term choices planning and designing your garden.

Before you opt out of planting tomatoes and/or cucumbers due to Fusarium and Verticillium wilts, see more wilt prevention tips! See also Wilts & Cucumber Beetles, Tomatoes & Cukes! for special planting details for successful results! Another choice is to plant later, like mid May or June when the soil is dryer.

Later January is time to sow seeds indoors for mid to late March early plantings. If you will be doing succession plantings, sow your seeds in succession, like every 2, 3, 4 weeks depending on which plant it is and how many you need. If those fail, it’s to the nursery you go for transplants! Avoid box stores that bring plants from elsewhere that may not be timely for your area, may be infested or sick. If you do buy there, check them carefully. This is very important in a community garden where pests and diseases can spread quickly. Select local nurseries that order conscientiously for local timing, that try to get quality plants for us. You may pay a tad more, but it is worth it not to lose a plant or infest/infect others. Local people live here and they have your interests at heart since they want your repeat business. Also, they can answer your questions. Establish a good relationship. At the Farmers Market, check with local farmers to see what they plant when and where they grow their veggies, here or somewhere else. Some feed stores are agriculturally inclined.

Check out Seed Soaking/Presprouting Tips & Ideas! If seeds and tending seedlings aren’t for you, wait and get transplants and pop them right in the ground per their right times! No fuss, no muss.

Prevention  A typical disease is Powdery mildew. Plant leaving plenty of space for air circulation. Apply your baking soda mix. Drench under and upper sides of the foliage of young plants to get them off to a great start! Do this the same or next day if transplanting. A super combo is 1 regular Aspirin dissolved, a 1/4 cup nonfat powdered milk, heaping tablespoon of baking soda, a half teaspoon liquid dish soap per gallon/watering can. Reapply every 10 days or so, and after significant rains. Prevention is so much better than after mildew has set in. See Aspirin Solution. See IPM

Standard Winter Garden Veggie Predators Keep a keen watch for pests, and diseases, and take quick action!

• Gophers 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 leaves unnaturally curled along the length of the leaf, particularly broccolis, cauliflowers, kale, cabbages. Squish or wash any or the colony away immediately, and keep doing it for a few days to catch the ones you missed. Check the new growth tiny leaves at center top. Power spray to remove any aphids there. If that doesn’t work to your satisfaction, get in there with a spray bottle of your favorite kill ’em mix. I use half and half water and alcohol plus wee bit of liquid dish soap as a surfactant. Remove hopelessly infested leaves. After that, water less and give less food so plant leaves will be less tender and inviting. Plant more Cilantro among your plants!
• White flies  Flush away, especially under the leaves. They are attracted to yellow, so keep those Brassica yellowing, yellowed leaves removed pronto. Again, a little less water and food. Gently and shallowly dig in an inch or so of worm castings in a ‘V’ shape from the stem out to the drip line, the point of the ‘V’ at the stem. Disturb as few of the surface area feeder roots as possible. Protect the plant from raccoons; they love worms.
• Leafminers  Keep watch on your chard and beet leaves. Pull away those blotchy sections the leafminers make; immediately remove whole leaves that are too funky for rescue. Harvest the bigger outer lower leaves more often to stay ahead of the miners. Harvest sooner than later! When your plant starts to lose vitality, integrity these hungry little miners have easy pickins. See Leafminers IPM
• Slugs, Snails BEFORE you put in new transplants, sprinkle a bit of Sluggo type stuff around to keep snails and slugs from seriously damaging or disappearing tiny seedlings or transplants while they are small. Do it twice to kill off the generations. That keeps the creatures from mowing seedlings overnight, making you think they never came up! If you notice tiny children snails or slime trails, lay down another couple rounds.

If you need more robust soil, do something absolutely yummy with it! This is perfect timing to put in some green manure aka cover crop for April plantings. Depending on the type of plants you choose for your green manure, allow +/- 3.5 months for the process. If you want the earliest planting time for spring, plant ASAP! See Living Mulch! Put it where you will plant heavy summer feeders – tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants, peppers, chilis, squash, pumpkins, cucumbers, melons, and corn; hungry stalk vegetables like celery, fennel, rhubarb, and artichokes; or continually producing green, leafy vegetables like lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard. Or you can ‘rest’ an area by covering it with a good 6 to 18″ deep mulch/manure/straw/compost mix and any other amendments that will help the plants you will grow there! Keep it moist and it will flatten down, make a great low raised bed, in no time at all! Simply let the herds of soil organisms do their work over winter. That’s called sheet composting, sheet mulching or composting in place – no turning or having to move it when it’s finished. If you are vermicomposting, have worms, add a few handfuls to speed up and enrich the process. Continue to keep it moist, and come spring you will have rich nutritious soil for no work at all!

COMPOST always! Soil building is the single-most important thing you can do for your garden. Compost is easy to make, and if you make it, you know what’s in it, 100% organic! Added to your soil, made or purchased, it increases water holding capacity, is nutritious, soil organisms flourish, it helps with immunity, your soil lives and breathes! It feeds slowly, just perfectly! Make it HOT, Cold, or In place! Full sun is best, most active and quick! Dry is dead, so be sure it is always slightly moist. If you don’t have bark type materials to add, and are in a dry area like some of SoCal, it is good to supplement it with purchased compost that has bark bits in it for water holding capacity.

Sidedressing Hardworking leaf producers and big bodied Brassicas, may need a feeding now. Heading is your cue to help them along. If they slow down, or just don’t look perky, slip them a liquid feed that quickly waters into the root zone. Get your nozzle under low cabbage leaves and feed/water out to the drip line. Lettuces love manures. Compost and manure teas, fish emulsion (when there are no digging predators like raccoons, skunks), pretty powdered box ferts, are all good, easy for your plants to take up in cooler weather. Use ½ the strength of your summer feedings. Slow release alfalfa pellets are a wise consideration. Worm castings, though not food, work, wonders! Also, be careful of ‘too much’ fertilizer, too much water, that makes for an aphid tasty soft plant. That said, another way to get goodness to the roots is push in a spade fork vertically about 6″ or less deep, wiggle it back and forth, remove the fork, pour your foods into the holes, close ’em back up. Soil organisms will get right to work, your plant will stay healthy and be quite productive!

Especially feed your cabbages, lightly, time to time, because they are making leaf after leaf, dense heads, working hard. I often see kales lose their perk. You would too if someone kept pulling your leaves off and never fed you. Feed them too, please, while feeding your cabbages.

It’s a New Year! Some of you will make serious gardening resolutions, others will take it as it comes, one day at a time as usual. But I do recommend you secure your seeds for the year ahead! Some are now less plentiful with droughts, fires and floods, GMO threats, new laws. Recently much needed seed banks, libraries have sprung up. We want to use our seeds with reverence and seed save our best as they adapt to different climate change conditions, assure their goodness for future generations. At Seed Swaps, take only what you need. If many people grow them, there will be more adapted to our localities. Before there were seed shops, seeds were often used as money. They are as precious today as they have always been, maybe even more so.

Happy New Year Gardening and Feasting!

Updated annually

---

For your Winter pleasure! December images at Rancheria Community Garden! Cool weather, lots of rain! Fabulous Broccoli, a BED, unique hand built plant cover! Plan your spring/summer garden, get seeds!

Check out the entire January 2022 Newsletter!

---

Love your Mother! Plant bird & bee food! Think grey water! Grow organic! Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

The Green Bean Connection started as correspondence for the Santa Barbara CA USA Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden. Both of Santa Barbara’s community gardens are very coastal. During late spring/summer we are often in a fog belt/marine layer most years, locally referred to as the May grays, June glooms and August fogusts. Keep that in mind compared to the microclimate niche where your veggie garden is. Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

SUBSCRIBE to the entire newsletter!    Friend on Facebook! 

Top^

Read Full Post »