Jammin’ June 2023! Pollination, Feeding, Super Harvests!

What’s a garden for? Fertility and good living! Bridgette and Hoyt got married on a supermoon evening at Lyons Farmette & River Bend, Lyons CO! How fine.

June is Midsummer Magic month! Divine small Faery beings will be celebrating your garden!
June 21, 24, 25 or a date close to the Summer Solstice, any day June 19–24, is celebrated as Midsummer Night; June 24 is Faery Day! In Santa Barbara the 2022 magical 48th Summer Solstice Parade will be IN PERSON June 25! 

Tasty, beautiful and inspirational May garden images at Rancheria Community Garden, Santa Barbara, CA, show how our weather has been and what’s growing! Plant more rounds for a steady table supply!

Abundance is flowing, harvests are happening!

In our area, near the beach in Santa Barbara, we have been having coolish May grays, low morning clouds, some heavy mists, with warm sunny weather predicted soon! Zucchini, cucumbers and lettuces of all kinds are being eaten. Sizable Bell peppers are on board and small Banana, Anaheim and hot Peppers coming; humongous Seascape strawberries are here and tasty! Beans are blooming. BUT, the 25th I saw the first western striped cucumber beetle. BAD news, a vector for bacterial wilt and mosaic virus! Please – very carefully read the info in Pests below and the link about them there. Be careful with some of your harvests. Clip rather than break away and damage or pull your plant up.

Tomatoes are on the plants. Small Cherry tomatoes come in first. Fertilize your toms with a slow release fertilizer, like alfalfa pellets, once the fruiting begins. See the Summer Feeding Schedule for all your favorites!

I have had the pleasure of growing Pink Boar Tomatoes, from the Wild Boar series bred by farmer/breeder Brad Gates. As High Mowing says, ‘Deep pink skin is stunning with contrasting olive stripes and luscious deep red flesh,’ and it was!

Unexpected benefit! Reviewer Rebecca of Old Mosses Secret Garden said: I bought [Brad Gates Blue Berries] tomatoes for my whimsical choice. My experiences were similar to others opinion, they are abundant, vigorous and salad enhancing, plus they make a wonderful antioxidant jam spread. What I wanted to share about the blue berry tomatoes is that they are top of the menu choices for BATS. Bats were not on our urban radar, four years later five thousand bats have moved in and troll the garden where the fence lines are abundant with these little tasty gems, which get devoured. This plant is the greatest organic gardening boon ever sprouted. For fair reveal though I have hundreds of evergreen spruce that also get bat vacuumed for more meaty choices, so Thank you Baker seed, your diligence to excel is my secret weapon for a fantastic garden.

Harvest at your veggie’s peak delicious moment! Juicy, crunchy, that certain squish in your mouth, sweet, full bodied flavor, radiant, vitamin and mineral rich! Besides being delicious and beautiful, it keeps your plant in production. Left on the plant, fruits start to dry and your plant stops production, goes into seeding mode. The fruit toughens or withers, maybe rots, sometimes brings cleanup insect pests that spread to other plants. Keep beans picked, no storing cucumbers on the vine. Give away or store what you can’t eat. Freezing is the simplest storage method for many veggies. Cut veggies to the sizes you will use, put the quantity you will use in baggies, seal and freeze. Whole tomatoes, chopped peppers, cut beans, diced onions. Probiotic pickle your cukes. Enjoy your sumptuous meals! Sing a song of gratitude and glory!

Plant more! Try some new ones too!

In those empty spots you have been saving, plant more rounds of your favorites! Check your lettuce supply. Put in more bolt resistant, heat and drought tolerant varieties now. Some heat tolerant lettuce varieties are Sierra, Nevada, Jericho, Black Seeded Simpson. That ruffly little beauty queen Green Star has excellent tolerance to hot weather, bolting, and tipburn. Rattlesnake beans keep right on producing when temps get up to 100 degrees! Plant more of everything except winter squash, big melons, pumpkins, unless you live in the hot foothills.

Put in plants that like it hotter! Long beans grow quickly from seed now. They grow later in the season when your other beans are finishing. They make those enormously long beans in the ample late summer heat. Keep watch on them, in spite of their size they grow quickly. Harvest promptly, usually daily! Certain varieties of them don’t get mildew either! Their unique flavor keeps your table interesting. Plant Okra now, it grows quickly in this warmer weather! More eggplant and also tomatoes you have been waiting to put in the now drier fungi free ground. Plant mini melons like Sugar Baby watermelons!

For those of you that are plagued with fungi diseases in your soil, the drier soil now makes this a better time to plant. Select wilt and blight resistant Tomatoes. Remember, when you plant your tomatoes and cukes, build a mound and make a basin whose bottom is higher than the surrounding soil. You want drainage and a wee bit of drying to reduce the potential of fungi – verticillium and fusarium wilts, blights. They have deep roots, so water nearby plants but not your Tom! More Special Planting and growing tips for your Tomatoes and Cucumbers!

 Companion Planting Teamwork!

Plant WHITE potatoes with Zucchini to repel squash bugs, radishes with cukes and Zucchini to repel cuke beetles, and radishes with eggplant, potatoes and arugula to repel flea beetles.

If you have more space or you lost a plant here or there, think on putting in some perfect companion plants! One of the Three Cs are super!

1. Calendula – so many medicinal uses, bright flowers, and traps aphids, whiteflies, and thrips! Yep. Plant Calendula by tomatoes and asparagus.
2. Chamomile –  is called the Plant Dr! It heals neighboring plants and improves the flavor of any neighboring herb! The flowers make a lovely scent and the tea is sweet.
3. Comfrey – aka Knitbone, is an amazing medicinal herb, a super nutritious compost speeder upper! Plant it by your compost area, but remember, it has a large footprint, and easily spreads! I planted mine in 5 gallon containers with the bottoms removed. It likes a LOT of water! UK gardeners make Comfrey Tea for their Tomatoes!

Tasty herbs – chives, parsley, or more permanent perennials like rosemary, oregano (invasive), thyme are flavorful choices that often repel pests.

Hot Peppers emit a chemical from the plant roots that helps prevent Fusarium wilt, root rot, and a wide range of other plant diseases! Interplant them with susceptible plants.

Pat Mycorrhiza fungi right on the roots of all your transplants except Brassicas. 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. Support your local nurseries.

Here’s your tending list for Beauty and Bounty!

WATER regularly so everyone is moist the way they like it! Seeds and seedlings daily, even 2 to 3 times daily on super hot/windy days. Shading them may save their lives. Peppers like moist, so as they need it. Others not so water critical on average need an inch a week; water beans, cukes, lettuces and short rooted varieties of strawberries more frequently – lettuces could be daily on hot windy days. To double check use the old finger test or push your shovel in and wedge the soil open enough so you can see if it is moist as deep as it needs to be. Watering at ground level, rather than overhead watering, keeps your plant dry. That means less mildew, less fungal diseases, especially for fuzzy leaved plants like toms and eggplant. They don’t like water on their leaves. See Growing Super Veggies in HOT, Drought, Desert Areas! for further considerations. 

If at all possible, water in the AM before 10:30 to let leaves dry before evening to prevent mildew – beans, cucumbers and squashes are especially susceptible. Plant fewer beans further apart for air flow. If your plants are near a street or there has been a dusty wind storm, wash the dust off your plants so they can breathe, and to make them less attractive to Whiteflies.

Some plants need MULCH now, and if the mulch is tired and flat, replace it with fresh clean mulch. No more than an inch of straw mulch under toms and cukes. They need airflow so the soil can dry a bit and reduce harmful fungi. Otherwise, put on 4 to 6 inches minimum to keep light germinating seeds from sprouting. Mulch any Brassicas you are over summering – broccoli, kale – 4 to 6 inches deep for them too. They need cool soil. Melons and winter squash – Butternuts, acorn, pumpkins – need heat! They are the exception – no mulch for them if you are coastal cool. Yes, they are a big plant/vine, they will need more water, so be sure their basin is in good condition and big enough so they get water out to their feeder roots. Put a stake in the center of the basin so you know where to water when the leaves get big. The only place for straw for them is right under the melons. See more at Mulching ~ Why, When, With What, How Much?! If you are in hot foothills, mulch away!

Surface Feeder Roots are vital! Near the soil surface, they have access to water, nutrients, and oxygen. These elements are more abundant near the soil surface than deep within the soil. Most of a plant’s feeding is near the surface by the horizontal surface feeder roots. They must have water to pickup nutrients the plant needs. In this video, notice how much more root surface is near the soil surface versus the deep central roots! This is why you don’t want to break these roots when you cultivate, surface feed, sidedress your plants. Rather than circling your plant destroying its ability to feed, slowing, stunting it, putting it in recovery rather than production mode, instead, do only a couple small portions of area if necessary. Better is to foliar feed your plant, then, additionally, on the soil surface, add worm castings and a light layer of manure, cover with compost, cover all with mulch to keep your additions moist and from washing away. Gently water in. 

Kidney bean time lapse 25 days|soil cross section. Showing how roots and upper part of plant grows  Please also enjoy the comments!

Keep a sharp eye on tomatoes. If your soil has fungi, that’s wilts or blights, immediately remove leaves touching the ground or will touch the ground if weighted with water! Trim so neighboring plants don’t touch and spread diseases. Remember, the wilts are spread by wind as well as water, so neighboring plants are very likely to give it to one another. Try planting other plants between, especially HOT peppers! See Companions above. You can still do rows, just mix up the plants! Your healthier tomatoes will produce more, bigger toms, and longer.

POLLINATION is vital & easy to do!

 

Hand Pollination of Cucurbits! In left image, male flower on left, female right.

Improve your tomato, eggplant and pepper production by giving the cages or the main stems a few sharp raps, or gently shake the stems, to help the flowers self pollinate. Midday is the best time. Honey bees don’t pollinate tomatoes, or other Solanaceae! Build solitary bee condos for native bees. Native bees, per Cornell entomology professor Bryan Danforth, are two to three times better pollinators than honeybees, are more plentiful than previously thought and not as prone to the headline-catching colony collapse disorder that has decimated honeybee populations. The very best Solanaceae pollinator is a Bumblebee!!! See more! Plant plenty of favorite bee foods, especially ones with purple and blue colors, their favorites!

While you are helping your tomatoes pollinate, if you are growing them in cages, also very gently help them up through the cages. Remove any bottom leaves that might touch the ground when weighted with water. Remove any diseased leaves ASAP! Do NOT put them in compost! Bag and trash.

Squashes, melons and monoecious cucumbers can easily be hand pollinated. Cukes are notorious for needing help being pollinated! Cucurbits have male and female blooms on the same plant. If there are not enough pollinators about, we need to help. Also, multiple visits from the bees are required for good fruit set and properly shaped cucumbers. Male flowers open in the morning and pollen is only viable during that day. Hand pollinate during the morning hours, using only freshly opened flowers. You can use a small pointy paint brush, a cotton swab, Q-tip, your finger, and move pollen from the male stamen to the center of the female flower. Or the best, most complete method is to take the male flower off the plant, pull the petals off, and gently roll the male flower anther around and over the female stigma in the center of the female flower. The pollen is sticky, so it may take some time. One male anther can pollinate several females. Repeat. Female blooms will simply drop off the plant if they are not pollinated or not pollinated adequately. So when your cukes are in production, you need to do this daily for more fruits.

Don’t be confused by the little fruit forming under the female flowers and think pollination has already happened. The flower needs to be fertilized, and adequately, or the fruit just falls off. Flowers not pollinated enough, that don’t abort, make misshapen fruits. That goes for corn having irregular to lacking kernels. Strawberries are called cat-faced. Squash and cucumbers can be deformed. On an unwindy day, tilt the stalk so the corn tassels are over the silks and tap the stalk. You will see a shower of pollen fall on the silks. You may need to do it from one plant to another so you don’t break the stalk trying to get the pollen to fall on silks on the same plant.

Planting a lot of plants close together stresses the plants. At higher densities, plants compete for water, nutrients, and sunlight, and the resulting stress can lead to a higher proportion of male flowers, less female flowers, the ones that produce. If you really want more fruit, give them room to be fruitful. The same goes for other stresses – damage from insects or blowing soil, low light intensities, or water stress – less female flowers are produced.

Weather affects pollination. Sometimes cool overcast days or rain, when bees don’t fly, there is no pollination. High humidity makes pollen sticky and it won’t fall. Not good for wind pollinated veggies like tomatoes. Drought is a problem for corn pollination. Too high nighttime temps, day temps 86°F and above, will keep your tomatoes, cucumbers and other vegetables from setting fruit unless they are high temp tolerant varieties. Too windy and the pollen is blown away. See Pollination: Honeybees, Squash Bees & Bumblebees!

If it is your cucumbers that are not pollinating well each year, try parthenocarpic varieties. Parthenocarpic varieties produce only female flowers and do not need pollination to produce fruit. This type of cucumber is also seedless. Try a few varieties and see if you like them.

Did you know? Flowers can hear buzzing bees—and it makes their nectar sweeter!

SIDEDRESSING! This IS the time! Feeding when your plants start to bloom and produce is a pretty standard recommendation. But if your baby is looking peaked, has pale or yellowing leaves, an emergency measure could be blood meal. Foliar feeding a diluted fish emulsion/kelp is easy for your plant to uptake. Foliar feeding a tea mix per what each plant might need, is the ultimate feed and it’s not hard to make tea mixes! Your lettuces love it if you scratch in a 1/4″ chicken manure, but no manure in a tea on leaves you will be eating! Pull your mulch back, top with some tasty worm castings, that light 1/4″ layer of manure, cover with a 1/2 – 1″ of compost. If you prefer organic granulated fertilizer, easy to apply, sprinkle it around evenly. But remember, that has to be repeatedly applied. Recover with your mulch, straw, then water well and gently so things stay in place. That’s like making compost and worm tea in place!

Face up to pests! It’s easier to deal with them when there are only a few rather than losing your whole plant or a row of plants. This is the time you will see Cucumber beetles foraging on Cucumber, zucchini flowers, on Tomatillos. They are deadly to cucumbers because they transmit bacterial wilt and squash mosaic virus and cucumbers are the most susceptible to the wilts than any other garden veggie. Squish those beetles. Put one hand under where the beetle is, reach for it with the other hand. Be prepared! They are fast and can see you coming! See more Here are tips for Beetle prevention for organic gardeners:

• If possible plant unattractive-to-cucumber beetle varieties. In 2012 U of Rhode Island trials, best pickling choices are Salt and Pepper and H-19 Little Leaf. Marketmore 76 was tops for slicing cukes. If you find more current research on best varieties, please let me know!
• Plant from transplants! The youngest plants are the most susceptible.
• Interplant! No row planting so beetles go from one plant to another.
• Delay planting! In our case, most of us already having planted cucumbers, can plant another round late June or when you no longer see the beetles. Start from seeds at home now since transplants may no longer be available in nurseries later on.
• Plant repellent companion plants BEFORE you plant your cukes. Radish with eggplant, cukes & zukes act as trap plants for flea beetles and to repel cucumber beetles. Radish are the fastest growers, so get them in ASAP if you didn’t before.
• Natural predators are Wolf Spiders, daddy long legs and Ground Beetles! Let them live! They eat beetle eggs and larvae. And there is a tachinid fly and a braconid parasitoid wasp that parasitize the striped Western cucumber beetle, and both sometimes have a large impact. When you see a dark hairy fly, don’t swat it! It is doing important garden business!
• Here is a super important reason to use straw mulch! Per UC IPM ‘Straw mulch can help reduce cucumber beetle problems in at least 3 different ways. First, mulch might directly slow beetle movement from one plant to another. Second, the mulch provides refuge for wolf spiders and other predators from hot and dry conditions, helping predator conservation. Third, 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. It is important that straw mulch does not contain weed seeds and to make certain that it does not contain herbicide residues which can take years to fully break down.’
• Organic mulches foster diverse populations of beneficial soil microorganisms that trigger the plant’s internal defenses.
• At the end of the season or when your plants are done, remove garden trash, tired mulch and other debris shortly after harvest to reduce overwintering sites.

If you are by a road or in a dusty windswept area, rinse off the leaves to make your plants less attractive to whiteflies. Also, asap remove yellowing leaves that attract whiteflies. Pests adore tasty healthy plants just like we do. They also make us see which plants are weak or on their way out. Give those plants more care or remove them. Replace them with a different kind of plant that will do well now and produce in time before the season is over. Don’t put the same kind of plant there unless you have changed the conditions – enhanced your soil, installed a favorable companion plant, protected from wind, terraced a slope so it holds moisture, opened the area to more sun. Be sure you are planting the right plant at the right time! Remove mulch from under plants that were diseased and replace with clean mulch. Do not compost that mulch or put it in green waste. Bag and trash it.

Please always be building compost and adding it, especially near short rooted plants and plants that like being moist. Compost increases your soil’s water holding capacity.

Reduce your carbon footprint! Grow local!

Mary Alice Ramsey in her North Carolina backyard. Photo by Hector Manuel Sanchez

May You enjoy a super beautiful, bountiful and a juicy June!

Updated annually

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Check out the entire June 2023 Newsletter!

Peppers, HOT or Not!
Veggie Feeding Schedule for Your Delicious Summer Favorites!
Container Gardening, Garden Anywhere!
Vacation, Super Busy?! Self Watering Systems!
Special Treat! Sweet Summer Magic: Solstice Honey Cookies!

Upcoming Gardener Events: Santa Barbara’s 49th Summer Solstice Parade June 24, ROOTS! July 21 & 22 43rd Annual Seed Savers Exchange Conference! Reminder! Get lodgings for the 10th Annual National Heirloom Exposition, Ventura CA Sep 12-14! Don’t miss this superlative event!

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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!

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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.
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   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.
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   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!

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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.

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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

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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!

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September 2022 Last Summer Harvests, SeedSaving, Fall Transplants!

This veg garden is at Gaia Retreat, in Bundjalung Country, Brooklet, Australia. They are approaching vernal equinox now, while we in SoCal are soon upon autumnal equinox. Their cool plants are finishing while we are starting ours! This spot offers a fine shed, a native bee home low on the pole and a three floor bird apt at the top! 

It’s definitely fall now. In coastal Santa Barbara July, and now August, there have been lots of cool  overcast days and mildews to match. Some plants never got full stride, some are ending a bit early. Some possibly record breaking heat is predicted here at the very end of August and early Sep at 80 and over for over a week! If you love your summer plants a lot more than winter plants, you can take a chance. Plant that last batch of bush beans, even pole beans, and early cold tolerant determinate bush tomatoes. More likely it will be better to get those winter plants going a few days after the heat, like mid September, otherwise there may be early bolting. That will give you time for second plantings November/December. If late August was hot where you garden, and so is September, it will be a tad challenging getting winter seeds and starts going. Extra watering will be critical; shade may be needed for seedlings.

Many of you that had HOT August weather haven’t gotten transplant starts going, but have started seedlings at home. Rather than planting out your seeds garden wide, it would be easier to plant them in a shaded patch for transplant later. Caring for them will be all in one place, easier to cover if needed. See the details: Veggie Garden Nursery Patch Many veg gardeners are still waiting until the bolting time passes in your area. California has had severe fires; other areas flooding, floods feared in after fire areas. Here are some tips for remediation and recovery if you are in extreme conditions. Call in Permaculture teams to make the best new beginnings. Even many of them have never been so challenged and are learning as they go. Take time to work with the team as much as you can. Get connected with experience leaders. Collaborating is productive.  

Last Harvests are being collected and stored, seeds saved! See more about SeedSaving!  How to Save Tomato Seeds! 

Many have been prepping their soil as various summer plants are finishing and space becomes available! When you do, make your fall planting beds extra yummy! Add 5-10% compost, and, if you have them, add 25% worm castings – seeds germinate better and plants do especially better with worm castings! Manure amounts depend on the type of manure and which plants. Rabbit poop manure can be used immediately with no composting – get some at the shelters! We want rich soil for big winter plants so they can make lots of those marvelous leaves for greens too. Winter plants like brocs, collards, cauliflower, cabbage and chard, are heavy producers, need plenty of food, but remember, winter is cooler and slower. Reduce you feeds potency by about 50%. Know that Carrots need little if any manure. With too much food/water they grow hairy, split /fork. Peas are legumes and usually feed themselves! Smart Manure Choices  More winter Soil tips!

It’s BRASSICA time! They are the mainstay of winter gardens! Their nutrition can’t be beat! Kale’s the Queen! Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, Cabbages, Cauliflower and Collard greens! Then there are all the mini Brassicas, the fillers and littles – arugula, bok choy, mizuna, kohlrabi, mustards, radish, turnips. Rather than plant just six packs of transplants, put in seed at the same time when possible and stagger your plantings of the large Brassicas. Rather than all six cauliflower coming in at once, plant two now, two later and so on. Adjust that, of course, if you have a large area available to plant and a lot of people to feed! Another way to do it is to get varieties with early, middle and late maturity dates and plant them all at once! Plant both mini and monster cabbages at the same time! Minis come in sooner, while waiting for the monsters! Successive plantings mean a steady table supply.

There’s kale and there’s kale! This truly tasty purple curly leaf kale image is by Steve!

Finicky, or bored, eaters may enjoy a selection! Fall veggies come in lots of shapes and colors! Kales are renowned for their beauty and varieties – classic curly leaf, plain and simple flat leaf like in the image a left (less aphids and easy to hose away), Red Russian, Elephant, Red Bor that is really purple are just a few! Cauliflower comes in traditional shape and spiral, classic white plus yellow and purple and green! Get seed packs of them all and mix them together! Carrots already come in color mix seed packets! Circus Circus is a fun choice, especially when your kids are planting! Thumbelinas are faster producers for excited kids. Beets are terrific fun! Yellows, reds, pinks, whites and Chioggias (concentric circles of colors)! You can get them in rainbow mixes just like getting rainbow chard mixes! Rather than have your finicky, or bored, eater say no, open up that catalog or take them shopping at the nursery and let them pick what they would like to try!

More ‘littles,’ understory veggies that love cooler weather are beets, carrots, celery, chard, cilantro, leeks, spinach and especially lettuce – now is the time for tender butter leafs and heading lettuce! If you anticipate a hot Sep, plant more heat tolerant lettuces.

The SoCal winter legume is PEAS! Peas are like beans, our summer legume; they come in bush and pole types. And those come in three main types – English shelling, eat-’em-whole snap peas and flat China/snow peas! They are super easy to sprout! Definitely plant some every month or so. They don’t live all season long. When they are done, they’re done. It is true that picking peas, just like picking beans, is labor intensive. I eat a lot of mine before they get home, so I don’t mind. Bush peas come in first and pretty much all at once; pole come on later and continue to produce. On the first round it makes sense to plant both at once! If you don’t have time to do seeds, and aren’t wanting varieties nurseries don’t carry, just wait and when they arrive, get six packs! Transplants are always stronger than tiny seedlings. But do cover your plants if they show signs of being pecked by birds! That’s little V shaped nibbles on the leaves. Aviary wire is your best choice because it allows pollinators access and it is durable. You can clothespin or use clips for harvest and plant care access to hold openings closed when not in use.

CARROTS! Compost, yes! They want easy-to-push-through soil. Manure, no! Makes them hairy and they fork. And over watering, irregular watering, can make them split. Build your beds up so they drain well, are above the coldest air that settles low down. PEAS! The same. Compost to keep the soil loose and have water holding capacity for these short rooted green People. This winter legume makes their own Nitrogen, so feed only lightly if at all. Decide where both of these will be planted and amend accordingly. Conveniently, Peas are enhanced by Carrots! Start your carrots as much as 3 weeks to a month before you start your peas so the Carrots will be up and helping.

If your ground hasn’t been planted to peas before, or if you don’t know if it has, it’s more than wise to use peas specific inoculant at planting time. Seeds may be unable to start, if there isn’t ample Rhizobium leguminosarum, a nitrogen fixing bacteria, available to them. The bacteria ‘infect’ your plants and cause them to make the nodules they need for quality survival. Without those nodules, they are feeble, struggle and produce little. Very sad. See more and how to use the inoculant at Peas!

Presprouting your Peas is easy and it’s fun to watch them come to life! Fold a paper towel in half on a plate. Spritz the half on the plate with water. Lay on your seeds about an inch apart. Cover and spritz until good and wet. Put them in a warm place ie top of fridge, out of sunlight. Check them about every 6 hours; keep them moist. Water well at bedtime so they make it those 8 hours. Take them to work with you if it’s only you doing the parenting. While you are waiting, put up their trellis if they are pole peas.

When the little sprout is 1/4 to 1/2″ long, depending on temps it takes 2 -5 days, gently put them in the ground sprout (root) down, right at the foot of that trellis. Don’t forget to use the inoculant! Gardeners vary greatly on how they space those pealets. 1″, 2″, 6″. There is good reason to leave a little more space. More air circulation makes for less mildew that Peas are quite susceptible to. You can put the pea practically at the surface! But do cover it a bit so it doesn’t dry out. Next thing you know, you will have little plant sprouts coming up! The nice thing about presprouting is you know if you’ve got one! If a seed doesn’t sprout, you won’t be wondering like as you would had you planted it in the ground. That’s why some gardeners always presprout their Peas. If you plant early fall there may still be some warm days. Be prepared to give them some shade if they need it. They are short rooted and, and in those conditions, may need water daily or even twice daily. Transplants will be along at your nursery…see more on how to pick the best varieties for you!

Onions For the biggest, sweetest harvests, late summer and early fall are the prime times to sow seeds of short- or intermediate-day onions. Fall-sown short- and intermediate-day onions tend to yield more and are larger and sweeter than those seeded or transplanted in early spring.

Varieties that do better in winter are long beets like Cylindras – at left, long radishes like Daikons, pretty China Rose and handsome Long Black Spanish! Plant small beets like Dutch Baby Ball for quick beets while your Cylindras are growing twice to three times bigger! All about Beets, So Sweet!


Companion planting combos make a difference! Carrots enhance peas, onions stunt peas. Late summer plant the carrots on the sunny side at the feet of finishing pole beans. The Carrots will be up for when the beans are replaced by winter peas! Combos can use space wisely! Carrots grow down, peas grow up, perfect! Cabbage babies need to be planted 12 to 28″ apart! A healthy plant will take up much closer to that 28″. They take a long while to grow, head, head tight! While waiting, plant lettuces that repel cabbage moths, or other small fillers, that mature sooner, in the space between the Cabbages. You can do this at home amongst your ornamentals, and/or in containers too! Fillers can be onion/chive types, beets. Short quickest growing winter radishes can be among the long slower growing carrots among the slowest growing, your cabbages. Cilantro makes brocs grow REALLY well, bigger, fuller, greener! Research has shown there are less aphids when you intermingle different varieties of brocs! See more!

No need to plant blocks or rows of smaller plants, unless you want to for the look. Biodiversity works better and uses space more wisely! Scatter them about on the sunny side between larger plants as an understory – living mulch! If it happens to be flowers, they bring pollinators right to your plant! Plant different varieties to keep your table exciting. Don’t plant them all at once, but rather every week or two for steady table supply. If you would enjoy a quick payback for your table, select the earliest maturing varieties.

If you have lots of seeds, over planting is an age old practice. Plant too, too many, then thin them with tiny pointy scissors, aka harvest the young, and eat ’em! Young radish sprouts, teeny carrots, little Brassicas of all kinds are wonderful in a salad! If they get a little big, steam them or add to stir fries and stews. Another way to do it is plant flats of lettuces, toss an entire packet of seeds in a small spot, Mesclun mixes, micro greens and mow or thin them! Tender baby greens! If mowed, they will grow back 3, 4 times.

When planting in hot fall weather, plant your outdoor seeds a tad deeper than you would in spring; soil is moister and cooler an extra inch or two down. It’s the law to keep them moist. If you plant successively for steady fresh table supply, plant a batch in September, again in October. Days will shorten and start cooling, but early fall you are taking advantage of a fast start because your plants will grow quickly in the warmer weather now than later on. September plant from seeds & transplants if you can get them, October from transplants. Be careful which plants to plant ~ see bolting!

Winter Feeding Lettuces like a light feed of chicken manure cultivated in. All the winter plants are heavy producers – lots of leaves, some of those leaves are monsters! Cabbages are packed tight, leaf after leaf! They may need a light feed. Remember, it’s cooler now, so their uptake is slower, so give them liquid feeds, teas, half strength, and things easy for them to uptake.

Keep letting your strawberry runners grow for Oct harvest. Store them in the coldest part of your fridge for them to get chilled. Plant in January. OR. Let the babies grow through winter and get the earliest spring berries! Very carefully remove old parent plants. If the roots are entangled, cut the parent plant off just below the crown. If you replace your strawberries annually, as commercial growers do, in Santa Barbara area try Seascape, bred locally at UCSB. Seascapes are big fill-your-palm plentiful berries, firm, tasty, store well, are strawberry spot resistant! They have strong roots that gather plenty of nutrition. Plan ahead! Call ahead, earliest January, to get the date bareroots arrive – they go fast! Seascapes and other varieties are available as transplants later if you miss the January window. If you will be planting bareroot berries in January for April eating, remove old plants.

Some gardeners like precise and efficient organization. Others like every square inch planted like Food Forests. Some of you carry your layout plan in your head, others draw and redraw, moving things around until it settles and feels right. Others let it happen as it happens… Do add a couple new things just for fun! Try a different direction. Add some herbs or different edible pollinator flowers. Leave a little open space for surprises! Leave some space for succession planting. Stand back, take a deep breath and ask yourself why you plant what you plant and why you plant the way you do. Anything been tickling the back of your mind you are curious about? More about Designing Your SoCal Winter Veggie Garden!  Consider a Food Forest Guild!

Soil is always first in garden care! An old adage is ‘Feed the soil, not the plants.’

Winter plants need different care than greedy summer production plants, heavy feeders. Special soil tips for your winter plants! Almost all soil can do with some compost. Some say the most important soil tip of all is Gopher wire prevention, LOL, and I can tell you the misery it is to lose a prime plant in full production that took months of growing and TLC to get there. Grrr! See Gopher prevention

The right soil! Many veggies like slightly or more acidic soil! Use that azalea/camellia compost! SoCal ‘winter’ plants in blue. Acid tolerant veggies: beans, broccoli, cabbage, turnips, carrots, cauliflower, lettuce, celery, cucumbers, garlic, onions, corn, sweet peppers, pumpkins, winter and summer squash and fruits tomatoes, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and many herbs. Acid loving veggies are radish, sweet potato, parsley, peppers, eggplant, potato, rhubarb. Note that there are varying opinions on these choices. Some say some of the acid tolerant veggies prefer acidic soil! Please see Sasha Brown’s post for more details, pH and tips!

Per GardenGuides.com there’s no reliable way to guess about or estimate soil pH, so having the soil tested is the best approach to ensuring that your vegetables have the proper acidity levels. The Cooperative Extension System offices in your state can help with this. My note: If you have a small plot like our community garden 10X20s, it may not help to soil test because there is so much variance within even a couple feet, but you can do it and see! You can get a pH meter if you want only pH readings. Or you can get a soil test kit that tests for soil deficiencies and pH! Best 2022 Soil Test Kits compared

Here are lists of veggies and fruits pH tolerance. 7 is the neutral point. I was surprised at the acidic tolerance of the majority of plants! See Acu>Rite’s site for shrub and tree pHs. These pHs are not to be confused with the alkalinity/acidic qualities of the veggies and fruits when we eat them! See chart!

You can add tasty items to the planting holes too! Some plants might like a bit more manure. Add a handful of bonemeal for blooms at 2 to 3 months, and also add bat/seabird guano for continued later blooming at 4 months! It takes that long for it to become available to your plants. A handful of powdered milk is for disease prevention. Worm Castings are super valuable, give immunity and increased water holding capacity! You may have some specials of your own depending on the soil in your area and which plant you are planting there. Some gardeners spritz the roots and planting hole with Hydrogen Peroxide to add oxygen, help plant roots absorb nutrients from the soil and more!

If you need to skip a beat, take some time off from the garden, let it rest, but be smart and let nature rebuild your soil while you are resting!

1. You can cover it deeply with all the mulch materials you can lay your hands on up to 18′ deep. Believe me, it will settle quickly to less than half that height in a few days to a week depending on temps! Let the herds of soil organisms do their work over winter. That’s called sheet composting or composting in place, lasagna gardening – no turning or having to move it when it’s finished. All you have to do is keep it moist. If you live in a windy area you might cover it.  If you are vermicomposting, have worms, add a few handfuls to speed up and enrich the process. Next spring you will have rich nutritious living layers of whole soil ready for planting for no work at all! Yarrow and Comfrey leaves also speed composting. Lay them in and on.
2. You can plant it with green manure. Laying on lots of mulch is a ton of work when you do it, just gathering the materials can be a challenge. Green manure takes some work too, but it has awesome results as well. You broadcast a seed mix of legumes and oats and let them grow. Bell beans, Austrian peas, vetch and oats from Island Seed & Feed in Goleta is an excellent choice. Legumes gather Nitrogen from the air and store it in nodules on their roots! N is the main ingredient your plants need for their growth! The oat roots break up the soil. They dig deep and open channels for water and air flow, soil organisms. Cover Crops  Living Mulch

Here’s the schedule:

1. Oct 1 plant your living mulch/cover crop – put this on your garden calendar! Bell beans take that long if they are in the mix or are your choice. Use the specific FRESH inoculant to produce the Nitrogen nodules on the legume plants.
2. About Dec 1 chop down/mow, chop up your living mulch and let it lay on the surface. Studies show there is more nutrition if it is let to lay before turning under. Keep your chopped mulch moist, not wet, until it is tilled in. Being moist aids decomposition. If Bell beans are in the mix, chop when it first flowers or the stalks get too tough to easily chop into small pieces.
3. Mid Dec till in your living mulch for mid January bareroot planting. The little white balls on the roots are like a beautiful little string of pearls. Those are the Nitrogen nodules legume plants make! If there are no nodules, you either forgot to use the inoculant or not enough. The whole purpose for growing the legumes is for these Nitrogen rich nodules that restore your soil, so it is critical to use that inoculant! When you turn the chopped bits under, also turn in the right compost at the same time! For strawberries, or other acid soil loving plants, add acidic compost. If your soil needs more water holding capacity, choose compost with slightly chunkier bits.

If you aren’t planting bareroot berries in January, you can plant your soil feeding cover crop September, just be sure you have enough time for when you plan to plant in spring.

Pest and Disease Prevention Drench young plants, ones you just transplanted, with Aspirin solution to get them off to a great start! Drench your seedlings when they get up a few inches. One regular Aspirin crushed, 1/4 C nonfat powdered milk, heaping tablespoon Baking Soda, 1/2 teaspoon liquid dish soap (surfactant), per gallon of water. Aspirin triggers a defense response and stimulates growth! Powdered milk is a natural germicide and boosts the immune system. Be sure to get the under sides of the leaves too!

• Brassica pests! Lots of ants and lengthwise curling leaves are the giveaways for aphids. Aphids carry viruses. Aphids come in green, black, red, yellow, brown or gray. Avoid over watering that makes for soft plants, tender leaves that aphids thrive on, and ant habitat. Spray the aphids away, make the ants leave. Get up under those leaves, and fervently but carefully do the tender center growth tips. Do it consistently until they don’t come back. Cinnamon works sometimes and other times not at all. Boo. But when you are starting seedlings it prevents molds and damping off. Sprinkle it on the soil in your six pack. Doesn’t hurt to get it on the leaves. Get it in big containers at Smart and Final/bulk stores. Reapply as needed. There are other spray mixes that get rid of those aphids. Water and Vinegar, or hydrogen peroxide, alcohol, a few drops of simple dish soap. If you want to spend more money, use Neem Oil. Soaps, neem oil, and horticultural oil kill only aphids present on the day they are sprayed, so applications may need to be repeated. Plant garlic and chives among your Brassicas! Their strong scent repels aphids. IPM re Aphids
  
  Most of all, generously plant CILANTRO among your Brassicas! It repels aphids as well as attracting bees and beneficial insects!
• Later on, the most prevalent disease problem is mildew. Give your plants some room for air circulation, feed and water less so they don’t get so soft. It is much harder to deal with mildew once it has started. Better to do preventative treatments of the Aspirin Solution.

September is still Seed Saving time for some areas and some plants. Make notes on how your plants did, which varieties were the most successful. These seeds are adapted to you and your locality. Each year keep your best! Store your keepers in a cool dry place for next year’s plantings. Generously gather seeds for upcoming January Seed Swaps! If your area doesn’t have a seed swap, start organizing one!

Don’t forget winter food for our pollinators! Borage is a beautiful cool season herb with edible flowers, blue for bees! It has a large 3 to 4′ footprint, so allow for that or plan to keep clipping it back. It is a helper companion plant, so when possible, plant it right in the middle of your other plants! See more about Borage!  What flower colours do birds and bees prefer?

Plant Sweet Peas for Christmas bloom! Plant gift plants or bowls or baskets for the holidays! 

Have you put up your Greenhouse yet?! Get going! DIY Hoop houses are quickly built, inexpensive and do the job admirably! See also Greenhouses in Climate Emergencies. You can start more seedlings, overwinter sensitive plants – eat tomatoes in December! A greenhouse may be perfect for you – the right size, easy to maintain!

Have fun! September gardens are a magical time of creativity and transition!

See wonderful August summer images at Rancheria Community Garden – See the giant Double Beefsteak Tomato, Specialty Beans, Bule Gourd, Birds, Beauty and Seeds! We are Sowing the Future!

Updated annually

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Check out the entire September 2022 Newsletter!

SoCal Fall/Winter Veggie Soil Tips for Delicious Returns!
Super Fall, Winter Veggie Varieties, Smart Companion Planting!
Bolting aka Running to Seed! Causes and Prevention!
Love Kale! Beauty, Super Nutrition, Easy to Grow!
Taming Your Butternut, Waltham, Winter Squash!

This month’s topics are how to prepare for and start us fall planting – Soil, healthy productive Seed choices, Garden Design that includes companion plants and understory planting places, plus, how to safely cut up your winter squashes!

Upcoming Gardener Events! Santa Barbara City College Permaculture Design Course, Lane Farms Pumpkin Patch, 43rd American Community Gardening Assn Conference. The next National Heirloom Expo will be in 2023! Jan 29, 2023 FREE 15th Santa Barbara Community Seed Swap is ON!

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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! 

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Hot August 2022! Delicious Harvests, SeedSaving, Fall Starts!

July has been coolish, lots of overcast and mildews, some plants never got full stride, some are ending a bit early. If you figure August won’t be hot either, extended harvests are unlikely. Instead, get those winter plants going. That will give you time for second winter plantings November/December. If August is hot, it will be a tad challenging getting winter seeds and starts going. Watering will be critical; shade may be needed for seedlings.

For those of you who planted early spring, many of your plants are now finishing. It’s time to save seeds from your best plants! Clear space and ready your soil for winter planting. Start mini nursery seed beds in your garden or for transplanting from local nursery starts as soon as they become available. If you haven’t installed gopher protection wire, this is the best time, as summer ends, fall begins!

Just getting started in a new garden, or you just love to plant?! Summer plants you can still plant for fall harvests are early varieties of determinate tomatoes, bush beans and corn. Today, 7.31, I saw six packs of peas at a nursery! Hope they are late summer hardy! Corn is more disease prone at this time though. Tuck in your year-round fillers, beets, bunch onions, carrots, summer lettuces, winter radish, to keep a colorful and delicious variety on your table.

ONIONS For the biggest, sweetest harvests, late summer and early fall are the prime times to sow seeds of short- or intermediate-day onions. Fall-sown short- and intermediate-day onions tend to yield more and are larger and sweeter than those seeded or transplanted in early spring. Onions have stupendous flavor and come in white, yellow, red!

In our hot Santa Barbara foothills and further south, watch your melons, big squashes and pumpkins for their best harvest time – when their stem is brown and dry, or they ‘slip’ off the vine. Let your winter squash harden. When you can’t push your fingernail in winter squashes, and the stem is brown, it’s ready to harvest. Hold off irrigating melons about a week before they will ripen so their sugars will concentrate. Harvest okra while it is small and tender – bigger is NOT better!

Keep up with harvesting so plants don’t quit producing. More about harvesting! As in July, keep up with watering just beyond that dripline, maintain trenches and berms, replenish mulch.

If you want to extend your season, give your favorite late summer/fall heavy producers a good feed to extend their harvests. Eggplants have a large or many fruit, beans put out a ton of beans, tomatoes, big or small, are working hard, peppers can be profuse! They like a tad of chicken manures scratched in, bunny poop and straw (pick up at Animal Shelters), well aged horse manure and compost makes them dance with the faeries in the night time! If you are avoiding digging pests, use alfalfa meal, but avoid worm castings that attract them. Do this also if you planted late or have second rounds that are just beginning to bud and bloom. Compost is #1 because it gives a sustained feed and increases water holding capacity.

• First, pull back your mulch, scratch the soil lightly to break up any crusty area. Scratch only around your plant in spots, not the whole area. You want to leave the majority of the surface feeder root system intact because they are where your plant uptakes nutrients, oxygen and water.
• Use a spade fork to open holes around your plant, water well.
• Lay on what you are adding on the surface out to just beyond the drip line. If your plant has grown beyond the basin you made for it, enlarge the basin to fit it.
• Mix your amendments in gently in a few spots or not at all, so as not to break surface feeder roots. Feeder roots not only supply your plant with food, but also uptake water so needed in late summer in SoCal.
• Pull the mulch back into place, replenish if needed, replace if it is no longer doing its job.
• Water again, gently so not to wash the mulch away, to let the water and nutrients soak in. You can water once then come back and give them a third round of water to let it soak down a little deeper. The nutrients from the feed drizzle down and act like compost tea.

Fertilizers highest in P, Phosphorus – the P in NPK, keep blooming and fruiting optimum. Liquid fertilizers are absorbed easily and promptly, and there is no root damage. Now is the time you wish you had added mycorrhizae fungi, the good guys, at planting time, to enhance Phosphorus uptake! Aged organic compost makes for healthy roots that make their own natural organic phosphoric acid that helps break down compounds of calcium and phosphate into a usable, soluble form. It’s too late to add bonemeal or seabird guano. They take 2 and 3-4 months respectively to become available to your plants for blooming. They are another must add at planting time. NOW, Phosphorus from fish bone meal 3-18-0 is easily taken up! So is chicken manure 1.1-0.8-0.5, but the P is a lot less. Add chicken manure using the process as in the list above. Lettuces thrive on chicken manure feeds! Again, don’t use these if you have digging predators like raccoons.

• Peppers specially like a foliar feed of non-fat powdered milk (Calcium) and Epsom Salts (Magnesium & Sulfur). They also can use more Potassium. This time of year kelp meal is good source and releases quickly. If you have predators about, don’t get the kind mixed with stinky fish emulsion.
• Foliar feed all your plants with a super mixed tea – no manure in teas you will use on leaves you will eat, like lettuce! At the same time, for deeper root feeding, use a spade fork to make holes about your plant. Push it into the soil, wiggle back and forth a bit, then pour the rest of that tasty mixed tea down the holes. Replace the mulch and water well at soil level to a bit beyond the dripline.

Seeds are your last harvest! Allow your healthiest top producers to seed. Tie a ribbon on plants (at top and bottom or where you might grab it if in a weeding frenzy) or on fruits you want to save seeds from so you don’t accidentally harvest them too soon! Each year keep your best! Remember, these seeds are adapted and localized to you, your location, how you garden! Scatter some seeds about if they would grow successfully now! Or just scatter them about and when it’s the right time up they come, even if it’s next spring! Many seeds, especially self seeders, will come up quite well on their own, even the tiniest ones like Breadseed Poppy, chamomile and lettuce! Some need Cold Stratification, overwintering in the ground, or some time in your fridge!

Save enough seeds for your own planting, for several rounds of planting across next year’s season, for replanting when there are losses. Save some to give away or share at the seed swap. Our 2023 Santa Barbara area Seed Swap is January 29! If you are willing, take some of your extras to a local Seed Bank! While you are there, pick up some of your favorites and some new ones to try out! Keep the local race going. 2020 Note! As your plants come into seeding time, consider sharing them as soon as possible! “Little Free Seed Libraries” are Sprouting Up to Help Gardeners Share Seeds in Troubled Times. Take a look at some very clever and loving ideas!

Store your keepers in a cool dry place for next year’s better than ever plantings. See more about SeedSaving!   How to Save Tomato Seeds!

After seedsaving, when your plants are done, let them go, compost if pest and disease free, start clearing space for fall soil prep.

Fall Soil Prep!

August is perfect time to ready your soil for the very first fall plantings, starting mid-August from seed!

At this time of year, seasonal change, before deciding how to prep your soil, decide what you will plant! Some plants are perfect this time of year and the next couple of months. See Photoperiodism! Know if your favored plants need regular or acidic soil. Make or amend accordingly for more bountiful harvests! Maybe put the acid lovers in a area of their own?

Designing your garden depends on your microclimate, seeds you have or can get, transplants you can get, the amount of space you have, whether you will be growing a soil feeding leguminous cover crop. How you prep your soil depends on what your soil already is like, what your plants need. Many plants need slightly acidic soil. Some areas need more rich soil for high production winter ‘heavy’ feeders. Some want a little sand, others don’t want soggy feet. If you are planting seeds, do the seed beds first! Seeds germinate faster and healthier with worm castings. 25% is ideal. Be sure to protect this area from worm loving predators like raccoons. Shade it if needed.

EMPHASIS! Some would consider the ultimate ‘soil prep’ to be installing GOPHER wire protection, LOL! Here we are at the turn of the season, a very good time to do the job. Water well and deeply each of 3 days before if your soil is hard deeper down. Test a spot first. Get a team of friends together and go for it! Appoint a watcher to play music, make sure everyone stays hydrated. Bring gloves, wear sturdy shoes or boots. You may not be able to do the whole area at once, but do what you can. You will be so glad you did! You can do it!

Cover crop soil restoration! You can plant herbs, Calendula, all sorts of things, but a Green Manure mix including lots of legumes and oats does the best. Legumes collect Nitrogen from the air, N being the number one element plants need for leaf growth! Know that Nitrogen fixing plants don’t pull nitrogen from the air on their own. They actually need help from a common bacteria called Rhizobium. Whether you are planting cover crops, beans or peas, if there is no Rhizobium in the soil from previous plantings, add the bacteria to the seed mix, making a seed covering slurry, then plant immediately. Legumes deposit the N on their roots in little nodules. When you turn the legumes under, they not only feed your soil with their leaves, but those little nodules on their roots! Beans and Peas are legumes. Always cut off rather than pull out their roots. Leave those roots there to feed your soil! Their nitrogen isn’t released until the plant dies. The deep roots of oats loosen your soil, creating channels for oxygen and water and soil critters to navigate. Also, they produce more growth in late fall/early winter than in spring! Perfect for winter crop plantings! The Basics – Cover Crops   In depth about Living Mulch!

If you have enough area, plant one space entirely with a cover crop. If your area is smaller, each year plant a different section with your cover crop. Some years you can get two cover crops in, especially if you are planting successively for a steady table supply. When the first patch is done you plant it. You start your second patch where another area has been finishing. Or if you are doing one area for early planting, save another for planting bareroots in January.

If you are inclined, always be making compost with clean garden waste, kitchen scraps. Decide where you want to compost; leave space next to it so you can move your compost back and forth. Or you can move your composter around to enrich the soil there. The fastest way to compost is to make a pit or a trench. Add your healthy green waste or kitchen waste, chop it fine, turn it in mixing it with your soil. If you trenched it, turn it a few times over the next few days. If you have a pit, turn it two to three times over the next few days, then add it where it is needed when it is done. To balance the materials, add dry newspaper or something dry that decomposes quickly. Straw can literally take months. If you don’t have dry material, add bought compost that has plenty of bark type bits for water holding capacity and to keep your soil looser.

If composting isn’t for you, buy the best in bags you can! In addition to the basics, we want to see worm castings, mycorrhizae fungi, bat guano, kelp meal, maybe some peat to loosen clay and add more water holding capacity, chicken manure. If you soil isn’t loamy and doesn’t hold water well, look for a texture that has bits of bark that will add more water holding capacity.

Start Seedlings for transplant, or plant seeds right in the ground! 

Seeds germinate really well, quicker and healthier when worm castings are added to your soil along with the compost. Castings strengthen your plants’ immune systems germination is faster, they have water holding capacity! Add 25% for best results. Boost up seed beds and add amendments out to the dripline  where you will be installing transplants. Put a stake where your planting holes will be so you can add more at those points when you install your transplants. See Soil for Seed Starting! DIY, Pre-made Remember to protect any areas where you use worm castings in advance!

Plant seeds of small plants where they will live permanently as space becomes available. That’s beets, celery, chard, mustard greens, parsley, winter radish varieties, kohlrabi, Mizuna, bok choy, rutabaga, turnips. Peas are a well favored winter crop! Pole peas go up on the trellis, save space! Sow carrots (they do best from seed). Keep the soil moist and shaded until they’re up, and then gradually allow them more sun over a week’s time. Some plants, especially hard seed carrots, do well in mini low sided trenches where they keep more moisture to germinate.

Plant the seeds for biggies in little nursery areas. Plant them far enough apart that you have plenty of space to get your trowel in, not damage any neighbor seedling roots, to transplant them to their permanent home as space becomes available. That’s Brassicas: cabbage (especially red, and savoy types that resist frost better), broccoli, Brussels sprouts, collards, cauliflower and kale babies!

Winter plants that get a good start while there is still some heat, will be producing a lot sooner than plants started when it gets cooler. You will have a much earlier crop, plus time for a successive crop, maybe start another round in December! Be sure to leave space to plant additional rounds to keep a steady table supply. You can plant the waiting to space to quick small growers for table variety. Just harvest them when you are ready to plant your second round.

If planting from seed is not for you, no time, gone on vacation, of course you can wait and get transplants when the nurseries bring them in. Just know nursery selections are not as big as what you can buy as seeds. They sell what sells most. Island Seed & Feed has the best and greatest selection of organic seed in the Santa Barbara area, and there are marvelous ethical seed companies. Be sure to get seed varieties that are right for your area! Always choose the best, varieties that resist or tolerate pests or disease, that in winter can withstand frost/freeze.

Keep harvesting, do your soil preps, plant some seed, and wait for September or October for transplants. Labor Day weekend is a favorite big planting time for many gardeners, and that’s only a month away now! At that time you can plant both seeds and transplants of the same plants! Effectively that’s two rounds at once, the seeds, depending on weather, coming in six to seven weeks after the transplants!

See Super Fall Veggies for help choosing the very best varieties and Fall companion planting! Don’t forget to plan space to commingle your valuable companion plants! They enhance growth, repel pests, can help withstand diseases. Here’s your quick handy list of winter companions:

• Cilantro with Broccoli! It makes brocs grow REALLY well, bigger, fuller, greener!
• Celery, potato and onions enhance broccoli flavor! Chamomile is thought to too and, called the Plant Dr, heals nearby plants!
• Lettuce among, beside Cabbages to repel cabbage moths
• Chives, Cilantro, Garlic, Geraniums, Lavender, Mint family (caution – invasive), and onions are said to repel aphids.
• Mustard and nasturtium can be planted near more valuable plants as traps for the aphids. A word to the wise, nasturtiums are often snail habitat.
• Calendula is a trap plant for pests such as aphids, whiteflies, and thrips by exuding a sticky sap that they find more appealing and delicious than nearby crops. Plant them a bit away from the plant you want to survive.
• Peas and carrots are terrific together but NO onion family with Peas!
• Include winter blooming flowers and herbs plus habitat for your pollinators!

PLEASE plant winter habitat and flowering plants for our beneficial insects, for bees! Here’s a BC list of 10 Plants that Help Bees through the Winter If they will grow there, they surely will grow here! More on our pollinators! We depend on bees for our survival!

Among HOT August days, there are hints of fall. Days are a tad shorter; shadows fall in different places now. For us SoCal gardeners it’s time to design – Think Big! It’s in our minds, maybe put to paper. What will be new and different this year. Will you relocate your garden, reroute your paths? Start a Food Forest?! What new foods will we try, is there a more productive or resistant variety? Will you be adding compost space, or a worm bin? Would you like raised beds on legs this time? How about a greenhouse?! Have you ever planted a green manure cover crop? Will your soil be different? Will you be planting tall indeterminate peas in a cage that shades, or quickie low bush peas? Both?! Is the gopher wire installed yet? What about greywater systems? Rainwater capture?

Put your feet up, review your garden notebook. In the starlit cool of late summer evenings think it through…. Dream about your new winter garden…

See wonderful July summer images at Rancheria Community Garden, including a fasciated cucumber!!! We are Sowing the Future!

Updated annually

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Check out the entire August 2022 Newsletter!

Winter Garden Design! 
Veggie Garden Nursery Patch!
Broccoli, the Queen of Brassicas!
5 Simple & Easy Storage Ideas for your Harvest Bounty!
*NEW! Dehydrate?! EZ, No Storage Expenses, Use Less Space, Nutritious Tasty Results!

This month’s topics are to prepare us for getting winter seed in hand, determine how many of what your design calls for. Nursery Patches are a great way to start while summer crops are finishing. Broccoli, for many, is their number one winter crop and there are many varieties that make a difference. Simple storage for favorites for winter use and efficient dehydrating!

Upcoming Gardener Events! Santa Barbara City College Permaculture Design Course, 43rd American Community Gardening Assn Conference. The latest word on the National Heirloom Expo that I could find says ‘We look forward to the Heirloom Expo in 2023, Check back for updates!’ Jan 29, 2023 FREE 15th Santa Barbara Community Seed Swap is ON!

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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! 

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Super Spring & Summer Veggies Companion Planting Tips!

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

When you plan your garden layout, before you purchase seeds or transplants, factor in your valuable companion plants!

From the beginning, for both your crop and its companions, 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! When choosing Cilantro, a winning companion for so many plants, get bolt resistant varieties! See more about Bolting!

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! If you miss that window, plant them ASAP! They will still help!

Strengthen your summer garden with Companion Planting Teamwork!! Organize your Companion plant sets! Keep the biodiversity rolling!

• 
  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 to avoid wilts and blights. It takes a while for Basil to get big. Plant well in advance. Companion plants often look lovely together!
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• Beans, Cukes, Dill, RADISH Combo! Depending on ground temps, in SoCal, tuck in some bean seeds where the winter 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. Radishes deter Cucumber beetles. Radish grow quickly, but so do beans and cukes! If you want your radish to protect them, start it in plenty of time for it to get big and helpful. Overplant so you will have some radish for eating too! Dill, a classic with cucumbers/pickling, helps cucumbers by attracting beneficial predatory insects.
• Planting Borage with strawberries and squash is smart! Its magical Blue Star Flowers attract bees and increase yields! Borage also repels pests such as Tomato hornworms, Japanese Beetles, cabbage worms and butterflies! It aids plants it is interplanted with by increasing resistance to pests and disease. It is also helpful to, and compatible with, most plants. This beauty likes cool weather, plant it early right in the middle of your garden, so it serves many of your plants! Make it the hub of the wheel! Borage
• Garlic and Chives’ strong scent repels aphids. Plant freely right around, beside, under, plants needing them but NOT with or near legumes like beans or peas! The onion family stunts them.
• WHITE Potatoes with Zucchini to repel squash bugs. When planting potatoes for immediate needs, plant them near the surface rather than deeply and have to wait longer for them to appear.
• Radish with eggplant, potatoes, arugula, 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, is called the Plant Dr! Cilantro grows pretty quickly. Chamomile takes some time. Scatter seeds soonest!
  Like Alyssum, lettuce and beets, frilly carrot foliage is lovely living mulch. Be sure your soil is soft, no stones, for carrot growth, but not manured or they get hairy and sometimes fork.
• Pepper plants repel cabbage worms! Hot peppers emit a chemical from the plant roots that helps prevent Fusarium wilt, root rot, and a wide range of other plant diseases! Plants most susceptible to Wilts/Blights are tomatoes and cucumbers.
• Eggplant releases potassium for tomatoes to benefit from. Tomatoes have a relatively high potassium requirement.
• Calendula traps aphids, whiteflies, and thrips!

  

• Marigolds are brilliant and called the workhorse of pest deterrents!
• Alyssum, Beets, Lettuce and Carrots make great understory companions below larger plants like peppers, eggplant. They act as living mulch, keeping soil cool and moist and you have food! If you already have enough lettuce, beets and carrots, etc., 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 in late summer remove spent larger plants, open up spots and put in your first winter plants! See much more – Living Mulch/Green Manure!
• Lettuce and Alyssum are great among Brassicas like Broccoli, Cabbage, Kales because they repel Cabbage Butterflies!
• Nasturtiums are a trap crop that grow year round in SoCal. Some insects, including the dreaded aphids, love nasturtiums and they prefer them over cabbage and other tender vegetables. Plant the sacrificial nasturtiums safely away from your aphid susceptible plants and your prized roses! Aphids favor yellow nasturtiums. Nasturtiums are said to improve the flavor and growth of cucumbers! Depending on your plant’s sizes, know that healthy nasturtiums easily quickly get over a foot tall and multiply! They can shade or overgrow smaller plants, and slower growing transplants. They quickly recover if you trim them…
• Plant whole sets of companion plants as in the image at the top! Very efficient use of space!
• Flowers are always companion plants because they attract Pollinators and beneficial insects! Plant little flowered plants and big flowered plants for different sized pollinators, and tubular types for hummingbirds and bumblebees. Honey Bees like purple and blue best. Plant so there will be blooms in all seasons so the pollinators have year round food and you have all year beauty! Save Bumblebees Remember that native bees, more efficient pollinators than honeybees, need native plants they are adapted to. Plant plenty of native flowering plants!
• Biodiversity is another form of companion planting. A wise choice may be to alternate, zig zag, okra, peppers, eggplant and tomatoes, putting the shorter plants slightly on the sunny side. If you are growing shorter varieties of okra, maybe your tomatoes will be the tallest. You could plant a tomato, a pepper, okra, then an eggplant and pepper, okra, tomato, pepper. You get the idea, mix it up! If you are doing side by side rows, plant each row in a different order. This stops pests and diseases from going plant to plant along a row, or row to row. You are using the stars of your garden as companions!
  
  Under, along, beside, among, you plant your understory companions! No extra plant patch space is needed for these plants. Super efficient planting per square foot!
  
• Circumstantial Companions! Any plant that serves as living mulch, happily under, beside, among larger plants, is a companion plant at that time! That’s leafy understory veggies like lettuce, beets, carrots, etc., and soil improving legumes like vetch, Austrian peas, clovers that grow well in your particular soil.
• There is a little known, but becoming known, category of Companions called Halophytes! There are numerous definitions of Halophyte, but for our simple use here, that means it is ‘…capable of normal growth in saline habitats and also able to thrive on “ordinary” soil.’ Garden Purslane, Portulaca oleracea, is such a plant! I let it grow freely throughout my garden, letting it self seed annually, because they not only remediate salt-contaminated soils, but remove pollutants and render them harmless as well as being special food! Purslane contains one of the highest known concentrations of Omega-3 fatty acids – five to six times the concentration in spinach. Chickens grazing on purslane produce high omega-3 eggs. Purslane, is one of the halophytes with the highest potential as a vegetable crop for saline irrigation in times to come. See Super Herb Powerhouse Purslane!

You may have noticed several of these companions are edible flowers! Calendula petals are edible and medicinal. Chives, Garlic and Basil give great flavor! Citrusy Marigold is used as a substitute for saffron! Nasturtium blossoms have a sweet, spicy pepper flavor. Its pickled seed pods are caper substitutes! Borage blossoms and leaves have a cool, faint cucumber taste. Cilantro blossoms, like the leaves and seeds, have a strong herbal flavor. Use raw. See more at What’s Cooking America? Edible Flowers Chart!

SUMMER BRASSICAS! That’s generally biggies like our broccoli, kale, cabbage and ‘littles’ like arugula, mustard greens, Mizuna, radish.

• Broccoli! Research has shown there are less aphids when you plant different varieties of brocs together! At least plant two different kinds, one of each in one place, then in other places. This keeps diseases and pests from spreading one plant to another. Please see Broccoli, the Queen of Brassicas for more varieties! Whether you mingle your broccoli varieties or not, cilantro makes brocs grow REALLY well, bigger, fuller, greener! PLUS, it repels aphids! If that cilantro taste isn’t for you, it is such an excellent companion, grow it anyway! If you like it, all the better! Snuggle it closely, so it will grow up among the leaves of the plant it is to help! Grow lots! I like the scent, it’s pretty and when it blooms it brings pollinators, then seeds for next year! Scatter some of those seeds right there so more little plants will come again soon to replace those that bolted. Comingle it throughout your garden. In SoCal, winter, early spring are best times for cilantro. It doesn’t bolt so fast then. Summer it bolts, winters it can freeze, so replants go with the territory.
• Cabbages grow huge, depending on the variety, an easy 2′ to 3′ footprint, but slowly. If you love cabbage but can’t eat a huge head, select varieties that mature sooner, harvest when smaller or grow minis! Mini Pixie Baby is a white; Red Acre Express is a red, both tasty! Plant any variety cabbage you like, though red and savoy types, resist frost better! It is said lettuces repel cabbage butterflies. Put a few lettuces between the cabbages. Plant lettuces from transplants because dying parts of Brassicas put out a poison that prevents some seeds, like tiny lettuce seeds, from growing. Red cabbage shreds are pretty in salads. If you are making probiotic sauerkraut, let the heads get very firm so your sauerkraut is good and crunchy! See growing magnificent cabbages!
• Kale, the Queen of Nutrition! Kale’s attractive greenery packs over ten times the vitamin A as the same amount of iceberg lettuce, has more vitamin C per weight than orange juice! Kale’s calcium content is in the most bioavailable form – we absorb almost twice as much calcium from kale than we do from milk! Also, kale is one of the foods that lowers blood pressure naturally.There are several varieties! Dense curly leaf, a looser curly leaf, Lacinato – Elephant/Dinosaur long curved bumpy leaf, Red Russian flat leaf, Red Bor a medium curly leaf, and Red Chidori, an edible ornamental kale! And there are more amazing choices! Plants with more blue green leaves are more cold hardy and drought tolerant! ThousandHead kale is enormous, more than waist deep! It has a long harvest, and exceptional cold and heat tolerance! See more about Kale!Aphids and whitefly love Kale, and other Brassicas, so along with that Cilantro, plant garlic and chives among your Brassicas! Their strong scent repels aphids. You might want to choose Kale varieties without those dense leaf convolutions that make it difficult to get the aphids out of. But for the footprint per return, curly leaf kale can’t be beat. Keep watch. With your hose, spray those little devils away. Get rid of the ants, water and fertilize a bit less so the plant is less soft. Remove yellowing leaves immediately. White flies are attracted to yellow. Take a look at this Mother Earth page for some good practical thinking and doing!   

May, June, plant another round of your favorite heat lovers – again, preplant super companion plants to enhance and protect them! Might be eggplant, limas, bell peppers and pumpkins! Transplant or seed different varieties of beans, cucumbers, eggplant, melons, hot 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 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!

If you have more space or you lost a plant here or there, think on putting in some perfect companion plants! One or all of the Three Cs are super!

1. Calendula – so many medicinal uses, bright flowers, and traps aphids, whiteflies, and thrips! Yep. Plant Calendula by tomatoes and asparagus.
2. Chamomile –  is called the Plant Dr! It heals neighboring plants and improves the flavor of any neighboring herb! The flowers make a lovely scent and the gentle tea is sweet.
3. Comfrey – aka Knitbone, is an amazing medicinal herb, a super nutritious compost speeder upper! Plant it by your compost area. UK gardeners make Comfrey Tea for their Tomatoes!

Tasty herbs – chives, parsley, or more permanent perennials like rosemary, oregano (invasive), thyme and basil are flavorful choices that often repel pests and bring pollinators. Perennial basil is terrific year round pollinator habitat!

You can go happily quite crazy picking veggies and their companion varieties! If you can’t make up your mind, if one is an All America Selection, AAS, go for it! They are generally superb. You may have a dilemma whether to go with heirlooms only or some hybrids too. Nature hybridizes plants all the time, so I feel good with both. A hardy heirloom tomato is good, but Hybrid tomatoes generally the best choice if your soil has wilts or blights.

Get used to thinking in plant combinations! Do it until it’s automatic. Whenever you think of tomatoes you think Basil, whether you eat basil or not. It’s about growing more tomatoes! It’s just not a row of interplanted varieties of Broccoli, but in the same space is cilantro, carrots, beets, flowers and herbs around, beside, between! Besides planting to enhance or save your plants, this type of biodiverse planting is healthy and takes up less space! Little if any pesticides are needed – less cost. Happy plant communities help each other thrive, produce more!

Note that due to incredible variances of temps, soil, varieties, not all companion planting works for everyone or every time. Observe your combinations and adjust your strategies! Sometimes a ‘helpful’ companion abundantly out grows and shades the plant you are wanting to protect or enhance. So that companion with that plant may not work for you. Remove it and try a different variety of one or both plants, or try a different pairing of companions.

May you and your garden enjoy each other’s company!

See also Super SoCal Fall, Winter Veggies Varieties, Smart Companion Plantings

Updated 1.26.23

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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!

 

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Short Day, Long Day, Day Neutral Plants – Photoperiodism!

Light. Some seeds want NO light, others require it to germinate. Some plants prefer light and grow toward it while others like it more cool in the background. Shaded plants that need more light can switch the up button on and can outgrow their neighbor. Some prefer different wavelengths. Roots generally like it good and dark, thank you.

I have seen references to short and long day onions and how you plant them at the appropriate times. I’ve heard of day neutral strawberries that produce any time of year when conditions are right. Little did I know that a Long Neck Garlic means it is a long day garlic; it doesn’t have a long neck! Nor did I know that there are long day and short day Brassicas! I had that discussion with another customer at a nursery! He said the growers know about that and select the right varieties for us per our area. If the variety does well for us, when we decide to plant from seed we buy those varieties, never knowing they were specific to our territory!

Discovered by Charles Darwin and his son about 1880, Photoperiodism triggers flowering – reproduction mode, bulb formation, and dormancy! It’s the light conditions required for vegetative growth, leaves, versus reproductive growth, flowering, or bolting. It allows the plant to sync up with changes in the season. It is also related to other growth-related mechanisms in plants that depend on photoperiod (large cycles of growth and rest, disease and pest resistance, and more). Technically, research shows it is the night most plants go by. Long nights equals short days, less than 12 hours, for bloom formation to occur. Short nights equals long days, more than 12 hours of light needed per day! The importance of knowing if your plant is a short day or long day plant or day neutral, is knowing what type of plant and variety you have and when is best to plant it! That also means it’s critical information for buying the right seeds! Even the different varieties of a plant have different needs! 

Nighttime chemical processes happen until they are interrupted by light. So ‘night’ means the amount of uninterrupted darkness! That is what determines the formation of flowers on most types of plants. Poinsettias are picky! Mike Nuckols says they ‘will not bloom until the plant experiences 14-hours of uninterrupted darkness daily for many weeks. Even 15-minutes of light during the night will keep a poinsettia from flowering.’ So don’t place them where lights will be turned on at any time during the night and don’t go snooping around with a bright flashlight!

It is important to know per the region you live in and whether you will get a crop at all. The number of Days to Maturity also comes into play. It is one thing if you are in Alaska with almost 24 hour summer day lengths, or planting in Washington or Maine, northern US areas, where summers are short but days are longer! Or in Orlando Fl where the day length is much shorter!

Here’s another look at day lengths per latitude! Per Mr Reid, the length of a day changes far more during the year at higher latitudes than at lower latitudes. (Latitudes beyond 66°33′ are not shown because the Sun does not always rise or set at these latitudes.) The graph runs from one winter solstice to the next, with the two equinoxes clearly visible in March and September. Santa Barbara CA is 34N25.

While in Alaska, horticulturist Mike Nuckols found that ‘planting any variety of beets other than the day-neutral variety ‘Boltardy’ would result in only greens and no beetroot, even when growing conditions were otherwise perfect. Other varieties of beet immediately went to seed [bolted] in the long days of summer.’

Planting the right plants at the right time avoids bolting! Yes, bolting happens when there are dramatic weather changes and your plant is fooled into thinking the season is ending and puts up a flower stalk. But planting a long night winter lover, like beets, some Bok Choy, flower, bolt prematurely if planted during long day periods. They think they had winter and it’s time to seed. It would be the same for some night loving winter type lettuces. See more about Bolting

Special notes about BROCCOLI, a SoCal winter favorite. Mike knows his stuff! ‘Flowering vegetables like broccoli are similarly affected by photoperiod. Many older varieties of broccoli perform best when grown in the cool, short-days of early spring and fall. [In SoCal that translates to the shorter days of fall/winter. Keep in mind that Mike is speaking from Watertown NY at 44° North.] If planted during summer, these varieties are more likely to flower before they have grown large leaf and root systems, resulting in spindly heads. Cornell and other universities have conducted considerable research in recent years to develop varieties that are less affected by long, hot days of a typical east-coast summer, potentially opening up a new crop for summer harvest.’

Sonoma County, northern CA, 38N44 at Santa Rosa, Master Gardener Rebecca Goodsell presents this for your consideration: There are two distinct types of broccoli: short-season and long-season. ‘Short’ and ‘long’ refer to the days between transplanting and harvest. Short-season varieties take 60-90 days and can be started from seed between March and July. The long-season varieties take 90-120 days, coming to maturity between December and March. [When these plants are coming to maturity is well past the long day time. They like the cooler weather and start their production in short days times.] These are tall plants, often up to 3’ when the first heads appear. (The short-season varieties, such as Calabrese and De Cicco, are tolerant of summer heat and much shorter – about 1 ½’ tall when the first heads appear.) The days to maturity on seed packs are from time of transplant, not from the seeding date.

Note that spring plantings for the long-season type cross that 12 hour long and short day divide in June, Summer Solstice. Success with those would be best with heat tolerant varieties. Though the days are shorter, July and August are hotter! If you plant a 120 day variety in March while it’s still cool, the 4th month will be June! Right away you are hitting hot weather when your plant starts producing! You will be harvesting June and July for sure, likely August too if your variety has good side shoot production.

Also, if you are growing in an area that gets frost in October, you’re not going to be planting the long season 90+ days to maturity varieties in late summer! There isn’t time! Even if you do indoor starts, the plant has to mature and then there has to be enough time to harvest the main head and subsequent side shoots. Translate that 120 days to 4 months then add a month+ for the harvest. In coastal SoCal, the land of rare frosts to none, you can plant as you wish, though why wait 4 months for your broccoli?! Some of the new hybrids produce large heads much earlier, and often large side shoots at the same time!!! Early Dividend Broccoli comes in at ± 55 days from transplanting! Check out these great tables at Johnny’s Select seed! Note the harvest time is included!

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!

Since Broccoli tolerates light frost, you can plant transplants you start at home 4 weeks before the first frost date, soil temps about 50°! Wherever you are, just be sure you start them just after the 10 hour days finish. They will grow slowly in the cold soil temps, but will pick up speed as the soil warms.

Please see the Miles Away Farm Tip 6 for Oregon State University research results and a table showing how important the planting time is!

Johnny’s Selected Seeds says Cauliflower, another Brassica, starts to develop a head when days get shorter. Better to plant earlier in the short days period. If you plant too late, like in SoCal you can, and your plant gets into the long days period, you may never get a head or get a tiny head that turns into a long single flower stem. So cauliflower is an easier crop in the north than in the south. Johnny’s tips us that cooler temperatures during head development also lead to better flavor. In SoCal, optimum shortening cooler days allows early fall planting. Caulis take 50 to 100 days, depending on variety. Carefully pick your days to maturity variety to fit the window you will use or prefer, or wait until the right time to plant!

ONIONS are different, have both short and long day varieties! High Mowing Seeds explains that technically, by definition, ‘…all onions are long-day because they all require >12 hours of daylight to form a bulb. The distinguishing factors are as follows: short-day onions start forming bulbs with 11-12 hours of daylight. Long-day onions need 14-16 hours of daylight to start forming bulbs. Intermediate-day onions need between 12-14 hours of daylight for bulb formation. Thus, if you live in a location where the longest day length hovers around 14 hours but doesn’t get much longer, long-day onions will not perform as well as short-day or intermediate-day onions.’ If your day length is longer, more Northern gardeners will plant only long day varieties, the onions that like long days! They have shorter summers but longer hot days. It’s quite different than Honolulu at 21° N, their longest is 13h 25m! In Honolulu it will be short day varieties only.

Cornell University specifics: In the north, choose long-day varieties which need about 14 hours of light to form bulbs. Short-day varieties, such as the famous Vidalia onions, grow best in the South.

Spring-sown early varieties can be harvested just 60 to 80 days after planting. Storage varieties require 90 to 110 days to mature from direct seeding, and come in yellow, white and purple varieties. Sweet or milder varieties do not store well, and should be eaten soon after harvest. See more details and their varieties list for Cornell in New York at latitude 42N45, longest day lengths June/July 15 hours – long day onions for them!

Short Day Plants require 16 hours of uninterrupted night. No scouting around with your bright flashlight or turning the lights on for a peek!

Many spring and fall flowering plants are short day plants, including African marigolds, celosia, Christmas cactus, chrysanthemums, cosmos, Easter lilies, hibiscus, poinsettias and zinnia.

Crops: Rice, cotton, soybeans, green gram/mung bean, jowar/sorghum.

Studies show some plants that grow in northern climates need not only a specific photoperiod but also prolonged cold temperatures to stimulate flowering. This process, called vernalization, is required by cabbage, celery, magnolias and beets. Further significant info on vernalization at Michigan State U! Since we don’t want those particular veggies to flower, unless we want seeds, we don’t mind if they don’t! See also Cold Stratification for Some of Your Seeds to break seed dormancy.

Notice there are no short day standard veggies listed! It is always emphasized the veggies need 6-8 hours of full sun to produce not just flowers, but those fruits too! It takes additional energy to make fruits! What is important is when and where to plant those long day veggies!!!

Long Day Plants need more than 12 hours of light, are stimulated by a flash of light at night! They need the summer pollinators, birds and bees.

Vegetables: Beets, carrots, chard, dandelions, lettuce, radish, tuber formation in potatoes, spinach, sugar beets, turnips.

Grains: Barley, oats, wheat.

Summer blooming flowers: Asters, carnation, coneflowers, California poppies, fennel, irises, petunia, salvia, snapdragon, sunflower.

Day Neutral – flowering does not depend on day length

Amaranth, corn, cucumbers, kale, pea, tomatoes, some sunflowers and some strawberries. Brassicas, Brussels sprouts and cabbage. Geranium, impatiens, and begonia.

Explore further details of category designations at UMass Extension

If you live away from the equator, you have long and short days. Let’s say you are planting humble turnips, a long day bulb plant. In the northern hemisphere you plant in spring, say in May, set to wait your 55 days to maturity. But as the good weather days get longer, and you cross into the short but hot days at Summer Solstice, thinking it’s time to reproduce, it bolts, any turnips you get are likely woody! If you are a seed company, you are happy to get seeds quickly, you collect the seeds. As a gardener growing for food, plant instead in mid August when days are getting shorter and the hottest days have likely passed. You get turnip bulbs because as the days get shorter, it’s not time to reproduce! In SoCal you could wait a tad longer…

In general, root crops love cool weather fall/winter planting when the energy goes more into the ground. The soil stays more moist, the roots are cool. Carrots grow long and develop strong sweet flavor. With beets you get great greens too. Grow parsnips and long winter radish – Daikon, and long cylindra beets.

You can see how horticulturists, farmers and home gardeners can tinker with the timetable. For example, OSU extension horticulturist Ann Marie VanDerZanden says ‘You can bring a long-day plant into bud formation and eventual bloom early before our day lengths surpass 12 hours. Put the plant under grow lights for a few hours a day beyond natural day length for a few weeks. Adding supplemental day length to stimulate early blooming is a common practice in the nursery and fresh flower industry, especially this time of year, for Valentine’s Day and Easter flowers.’

Santa Barbara CA is at 34N25 latitude. June and July days get up to 14.5 hours of sunlight. Table of hours per Latitude

Photoperiodism is crucial to farmers, greenhouse growers and us home style urban veggie growers! There are plenty more details about it, sub categories, ongoing experiments, scholarly studies. If you need that info, check online at Wiki, research sites, universities, progressive seed houses like Johnny’s that grow seeds and do trials and research for farmers.

As Kathy Wolfe writes, ‘There are so many variables to keep track of when growing vegetables: weather-related factors like temperature and moisture; differences in day length at different latitudes; light requirements of different vegetables and even different varietals of the same vegetable.’ Take notes, keep records, keep links that are helpful references, stay up on the latest varieties available. Many of the plants we grow today are the result of successful breeding. In recent times, heat and drought tolerant hybrids from Israel have become especially important and become standards in the US. See Einat Paz-Frankel’s, NoCamels Israeli Innovation News post! The renowned Professor Elwyn M. Meader developed the Royalty Purple Pod Bean due to his wife’s suggestion that it would be easier to pick beans if the pod color differed from the vine color. Delightfully dear.

This is Gurney’s® Blue Ribbon Hybrid Broccoli! This fantastic variety took the blue ribbon in our 2014 trials for its large, healthy plants that produce giant green-blue heads. It continued to produce huge side shoots throughout the season. Early harvest and sweet, non-bitter flavor with buttery-tender texture  from season’s start to finish. 52 DAYS! Photo by Jen Nova/Gardens Alive!

Buying the right seeds, planting at the best time at your location brings plentiful results and great happiness!

As one gardener says, ‘It’s the little changes that make the largest changes!’

Updated 11.27.22

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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!

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September 2021! Delicious Harvests, SeedSaving, Fall Starts!

There’s kale and there’s kale! This truly tasty purple curly leaf kale image is by Steve!

It’s definitely fall now. In coastal Santa Barbara July, and now August, have been cool, lots of overcast and mildews, some plants never got full stride, some are ending a bit early. An ‘Indian summer’ of extended harvests seems unlikely. But if you love your summer plants a lot more than winter plants, this is the time to take a chance. Plant that last batch of bush beans, even pole beans, and early cold tolerant determinate bush tomatoes. That will work well when it starts getting cooler later. More likely it will be better to get those winter plants going. That will give you time for second plantings November/December. If late August was hot where you garden, and so is September, it will be a tad challenging getting winter seeds and starts going. Watering will be critical, shade may be needed for seedlings.

Many of you that had HOT August weather haven’t gotten transplant starts going, but have started seedlings at home. Rather than planting out your seeds garden wide, it would be easier to plant them in a shaded patch for transplant later. Caring for them will be all in one place, easier to cover if needed. See the details: Veggie Garden Nursery Patch Many veg gardeners are still waiting until the bolting time passes in your area. California has had severe fires; other areas flooding, floods feared in after fire areas. Here are some tips for remediation and recovery if you are in extreme conditions. Call in Permaculture teams to make the best new beginnings. Even many of them have never been so challenged and are learning as they go. Take time to work with the team as much as you can. Get connected with experience leaders. Collaborating is productive.

Last Harvests are being collected and stored, seeds saved! See more about SeedSaving!  How to Save Tomato Seeds!

Many have been prepping your soil as various summer plants are finishing and space becomes available! When you do, make your fall planting beds extra yummy! Add 5-10% compost, and, if you have them, add 25% worm castings – seeds germinate better and plants do especially better with worm castings! Manure amounts depend on the type of manure and which plants. Rabbit poop manure can be used immediately with no composting – get some at the shelters! We want rich soil for those big winter plants so they can make lots of those marvelous leaves for greens. Winter plants like brocs, collards, cauliflower, cabbage and chard, are heavy producers, need plenty of food, but remember, winter is cooler and slower. Reduce you feeds potency by about 50%. Know that Carrots need little if any manure. With too much food they grow hairy, split /fork. Peas are legumes and feed themselves! Smart Manure Choices

It’s BRASSICA time! They are the mainstay of winter gardens! Their nutrition can’t be beat! Kale’s the Queen! Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, Cabbages, Cauliflower and Collard greens! Then there are all the mini Brassicas, the fillers and littles – arugula, bok choy, mizuna, kohlrabi, mustards, radish, turnips. Rather than plant just six packs of transplants, put in seed at the same time when possible and stagger your plantings of the large Brassicas. Rather than all six cauliflower coming in at once, plant two now, two later and so on. Adjust that, of course, if you have a large area available to plant and a lot of people to feed! Another way to do it is to get varieties with early, middle and late maturity dates and plant them all at once! Plant both mini and monster cabbages at the same time! Minis come in sooner, while waiting for the monsters! Successive plantings mean a steady table supply.

Finicky, or bored, eaters may enjoy a selection! Fall veggies come in lots of shapes and colors! Kales are renowned for their beauty and varieties – classic curly leaf, plain and simple flat leaf like in the image a left (less aphids and easy to hose away), Red Russian, Elephant, Red Bor that is really purple are just a few! Cauliflower comes in traditional shape and spiral, classic white plus yellow and purple and green! Get seed packs of them all and mix them together! Carrots already come in color mix seed packets! Circus Circus is a fun choice, especially when your kids are planting! Thumbelinas are faster for kids. Beets are terrific fun! Yellows, reds, pinks, whites and Chioggias (concentric circles of colors)! You can get them in rainbow mixes just like getting rainbow chard mixes! Rather than have your finicky, or bored, eater say no, open up that catalog or take them shopping at the nursery and let them pick what they would like to try!

More ‘littles,’ understory veggies that love cooler weather are beets, carrots, celery, chard, cilantro, leeks, spinach and especially lettuce – now is the time for tender butter leafs and heading lettuce! If you anticipate a hot Sep, plant more heat tolerant lettuces.

The SoCal winter legume is PEAS! Peas are like beans, they come in bush and pole types. And those come in three main types – English shelling, eat-’em-whole snap peas and flat China/snow peas! They are super easy to sprout! Definitely plant some every month or so. They don’t live all season long. When they are done, they’re done. It is true that picking peas, just like picking beans, is labor intensive. I eat a lot of mine before they get home, so I don’t mind. Bush peas come in first and pretty much all at once; pole come on later and continue to produce. On the first round it makes sense to plant both at once! If you don’t have time to do seeds, and aren’t wanting varieties nurseries don’t carry, just wait and when they arrive, get six packs! Transplants are always stronger than tiny seedlings. But do cover your plants if they show signs of being pecked by birds! That’s little V shaped nibbles on the leaves. Use aviary wire, fine netting or tulle, or your preference per you needs. Tulle is easy to install and lift for harvest access, less strong – winter storms may be a challenge, the birds don’t get tangled in it.

CARROTS! Compost, yes! They want easy-to-push-through soil. Manure, no! Makes them hairy and they fork. And over watering, irregular watering, can make them split. Build your beds up so they drain well, are above the coldest air that settles low down. PEAS! The same. Compost to keep the soil loose and have water holding capacity for these short rooted green Peaple. This winter legume makes their own Nitrogen, so feed only lightly if at all. Decide where both of these will be planted and amend accordingly. Conveniently, Peas are enhanced by Carrots! Start your carrots as much as 3 weeks to a month before you start your peas so the Carrots will be up and helping.

If your ground hasn’t been planted to peas before, it’s wise to use an inoculant at planting time. Or, you can presprout your Peas! It’s easy and fun to watch them come to life! Fold a paper towel in half on a plate. Spritz the half on the plate with water. Lay on your seeds about an inch apart. Cover and spritz until good and wet. Put them in a warm place ie top of fridge, out of sunlight. Check them about every 6 hours; keep them moist. Water well at bedtime so they make it those 8 hours. Take them to work with you if it’s only you doing the parenting. While you are waiting, put up their trellis if they are pole peas. When the little sprout is 1/4 to 1/2″ long, depending on temps it takes 2 -5 days, gently put them in the ground sprout (root) down, right at the foot of that trellis. Gardeners vary greatly on how they space those pealets. 1″, 2″, 6″. There is good reason to leave a little more space. More air circulation makes for less mildew that Peas are quite susceptible to. You can put the pea practically at the surface! But do cover it a bit so it doesn’t dry out. Next thing you know, you will have little plant sprouts coming up! The nice thing about presprouting is you know if you’ve got one! If a seed doesn’t sprout, you won’t be wondering like as you would had you planted it in the ground. That’s why some gardeners always presprout their Peas. If you plant early fall there may still be some warm days. Be prepared to give them some shade if they need it. They are short rooted and, and in those conditions, may need water daily or even twice daily. Transplants will be along at your nursery…see more on how to pick the best varieties for you!

Onions For the biggest, sweetest harvests, late summer and early fall are the prime times to sow seeds of short- or intermediate-day onions. Fall-sown short- and intermediate-day onions tend to yield more and are larger and sweeter than those seeded or transplanted in early spring.

Varieties that do better in winter are long beets like Cylindras – at left, long radishes like Daikons, pretty China Rose and handsome Long Black Spanish! Plant small beets like Dutch Baby Ball for quick beets while your Cylindras are growing twice to three times bigger! All about Beets, So Sweet!

Companion planting combos make a difference! Carrots enhance peas, onions stunt peas. Late summer plant the carrots on the sunny side at the feet of finishing pole beans. The Carrots will be up for when the beans are replaced by winter peas! Combos can use space wisely! Carrots grow down, peas grow up, perfect! Cabbage babies need to be planted 12 to 28″ apart! A healthy plant will take up much closer to that 28″. They take a long while to grow, head, head tight! While waiting, plant lettuces that repel cabbage moths, or other small fillers, that mature sooner, in the space between the Cabbages. You can do this at home amongst your ornamentals, and/or in containers too! Fillers can be onion/chive types, beets. Short quickest growing winter radishes can be among the long slower growing carrots among the slowest growing, your cabbages. Cilantro makes brocs grow REALLY well, bigger, fuller, greener! Research has shown there are less aphids when you intermingle different varieties of brocs!

No need to plant blocks or rows of smaller plants, unless you want to for the look. Biodiversity works better and uses space more wisely! Scatter them about on the sunny side between larger plants as an understory – living mulch! If it happens to be flowers, they bring pollinators right to your plant! Plant different varieties to keep your table exciting. Don’t plant them all at once, but rather every week or two for steady table supply. If you would enjoy a quick payback for your table, select the earliest maturing varieties.

If you have lots of seeds, over planting is an age old practice. Plant too, too many, then thin them with tiny pointy scissors, aka harvest the young, and eat ’em! Young radish sprouts, teeny carrots, little Brassicas of all kinds are wonderful in a salad! If they get a little big, steam them or add to stir fries and stews. Another way to do it is plant flats of lettuces, Mesclun mixes, micro greens and mow them! Tender baby greens! They will grow back 3, 4 times.

When planting in hot fall weather, plant your outdoor seeds a tad deeper than you would in spring; soil is moister and cooler an extra inch or two down. It’s the law to keep them moist. If you plant successively for steady fresh table supply, plant a batch in September, again in October. Days will shorten and start cooling, but you are taking advantage of a fast start because your plants will grow quickly in the warmer weather now than later on. September plant from seeds & transplants if you can get them, October from transplants.

Winter Feeding Lettuces like a light feed of chicken manure cultivated in. All the winter plants are heavy producers – lots of leaves, some of those leaves are monsters! Cabbages are packed tight, leaf after leaf! They may need a light feed. Remember, it’s cooler now, so their uptake is slower, so give them liquid feeds, teas, things easy for them to uptake.

Keep letting your strawberry runners grow for Oct harvest. Store them in the coldest part of your fridge for them to get chilled. Plant in January. If you replace your strawberries annually, as commercial growers do, in Santa Barbara area try Seascape, bred locally at UCSB. Seascapes are big fill-your-palm plentiful berries, firm, tasty, store well, are strawberry spot resistant! They have strong roots that gather plenty of nutrition. Plan ahead! Call ahead, earliest January, to get the date they arrive – they go fast! Seascapes and other varieties are available as transplants later if you miss the January window. If you will be planting bareroot berries in January for April eating, remove old plants. A wise choice is to restore your soil by planting green manure in October. Here’s the schedule:

1. Oct 1 plant your living mulch/cover crop – put this on your garden calendar! Bell beans take that long if they are in the mix or are your choice.
2. About Dec 1 chop down/mow, chop up your living mulch and let it lay on the surface. Studies show there is more nutrition if it is let to lay before turning under. Keep your chopped mulch moist, not wet, until it is tilled in. Being moist aids decomposition. If Bell beans are in the mix, chop when it first flowers or the stalks get too tough to easily chop into small pieces.
3. Mid Dec till in your living mulch for mid January bareroot planting. The little white balls on the roots are like a beautiful little string of pearls. Those are the Nitrogen nodules legume plants make! For strawberries, or other acid soil loving plants, add acidic compost at the same time. If your soil needs more water holding capacity, choose compost with slightly chunkier bits.

If you aren’t planting bareroot berries in January, you can plant your soil feeding cover crop September through 3 1/2 months before you plan to plant in spring.

Some of you carry your layout plan in your head, others draw and redraw, moving things around until it settles and feels right. Others let it happen as it happens… Do add a couple new things just for fun! Try a different direction. Add some herbs or different edible flowers. Leave a little open space for surprises! Leave some space for succession planting. Stand back, take a deep breath and ask yourself why you plant what you plant and why you plant the way you do. Anything been tickling the back of your mind you are curious about? More about Designing Your SoCal Winter Veggie Garden!  Consider a Food Forest Guild!

Soil is always first in garden care! Winter plants need different care than greedy summer production plants, heavy feeders. Special soil tips for your winter plants! Almost all soil can do with some compost, but plants differ about their pH, like strawberries prefer their soil a tad to the acid side. If you plan to have a berry patch, keep that soil at the right frequency! Some say the most important soil tip of all is Gopher wire prevention, LOL, and I can tell you the misery it is to lose a prime plant in full production that took months of growing and TLC to get there. Grrr! See Gopher prevention

You can add tasty items to the planting holes too! Some plants might like a bit more manure. Add a handful of Bonemeal or bat/seabird guano for later blooming. A handful of powdered milk is for disease prevention. Worm Castings are super valuable, give immunity and increased water holding capacity! You may have some specials of your own depending on the soil in your area and which plant you are planting there. Some gardeners spritz the roots and planting hole with Hydrogen Peroxide to add oxygen, help plant roots absorb nutrients from the soil and more!

If you need to skip a beat, take some time off from the garden, let it rest, but be smart and let nature rebuild your soil while you are resting!

1. You can cover it deeply with all the mulch materials you can lay your hands on up to 18′ deep. Believe me, it will settle quickly to less than half that height in a few days to a week depending on temps! Let the herds of soil organisms do their work over winter. That’s called sheet composting or composting in place, lasagna gardening – 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. Next spring you will have rich nutritious living layers of whole soil for no work at all! Yarrow and Comfrey leaves also speed composting. Lay them in and on.
2. You can plant it with green manure. Laying on lots of mulch is a ton of work when you do it, just gathering the materials can be a challenge. Green manure takes some work too, but it has awesome results as well. You broadcast a seed mix of legumes and oats and let them grow. Bell beans, Austrian peas, vetch and oats from Island Seed & Feed in Goleta is an excellent choice. Legumes gather Nitrogen from the air and store it in nodules on their roots! N is the main ingredient your plants need for their growth! The oat roots break up the soil. They dig deep and open channels for water and air flow, soil organisms. Cover Crops  Living Mulch

Pest and Disease Prevention Drench young plants, ones you just transplanted, with Aspirin solution to get them off to a great start! Drench your seedlings when they get up a few inches. One regular Aspirin crushed, 1/4 C nonfat powdered milk, heaping tablespoon Baking Soda, 1/2 teaspoon liquid dish soap (surfactant), per gallon of water. Aspirin triggers a defense response and stimulates growth! Powdered milk is a natural germicide and boosts the immune system. Be sure to get the under sides of the leaves too!

• Brassica pests! Lots of ants and lengthwise curling leaves are the giveaways for aphids. Aphids carry viruses. Aphids come in green, black, red, yellow, brown or gray. Avoid over watering that makes for soft plants, tender leaves that aphids thrive on, and ant habitat. Spray the aphids away, make the ants leave. Get up under those leaves, and fervently but carefully do the tender center growth tips. Do it consistently until they don’t come back. Cinnamon works sometimes and other times not at all. Boo. But when you are starting seedlings it prevents molds and damping off. Sprinkle it on the soil in your six pack. Doesn’t hurt to get it on the leaves. Get it in big containers at Smart and Final/bulk stores. Reapply as needed. There are other spray mixes that get rid of those aphids. Water and Vinegar, or hydrogen peroxide, alcohol, a few drops of simple dish soap. If you want to spend more money, use Neem Oil. Soaps, neem oil, and horticultural oil kill only aphids present on the day they are sprayed, so applications may need to be repeated. Plant garlic and chives among your Brassicas! Their strong scent repels aphids. IPM re AphidsMost of all, generously plant CILANTRO among your Brassicas! It repels aphids as well as attracting bees and beneficial insects!
• Later on, the most prevalent disease problem is mildew. Give your plants some room for air circulation, feed and water less so they don’t get so soft. It is much harder to deal with mildew once it has started. Better to do preventative treatments of the Aspirin Solution.

September is still Seed Saving time for some areas and some plants. Make notes on how your plants did, which varieties were the most successful. These seeds are adapted to you and your locality. Each year keep your best! Store your keepers in a cool dry place for next year’s plantings. Generously gather seeds for upcoming January Seed Swaps! If your area doesn’t have a seed swap, start organizing one!

Don’t forget winter food for our pollinators! Borage is a beautiful cool season herb with edible flowers, blue for bees! It has a large 3 to 4′ footprint, so allow for that or plan to keep clipping it back. It is a helper companion plant, so when possible, plant it right in the middle of your other plants! See more about Borage!  What flower colours do birds and bees prefer?

Plant Sweet Peas for Christmas bloom! Plant gift plants or bowls or baskets for the holidays! 

Have you put up your Greenhouse yet?! Get going! DIY Hoop houses are quickly built, inexpensive and do the job admirably! See also Greenhouses in Climate Emergencies. You can start more seedlings, overwinter sensitive plants – eat tomatoes in December! A greenhouse may be perfect for you – the right size, easy to maintain!

Have fun! September gardens are a magical time of creativity and transition!

Updated annually

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Veggies – Japanese Winged Beans, Flowers, Birds, Butterflies, an Urbane Digger Bee, plus a female Flower Fly! Please enjoy the abundance and adventures of bright August summer images at Rancheria Community Garden! We are Sowing the Future!

Check out the entire September 2021 Newsletter! It includes these and more!

Love Kale! Beauty, Super Nutrition, Easy to Grow!
SoCal Fall/Winter Veggie Soil Tips for Delicious Returns!
Super Fall, Winter Veggie Varieties, Smart Companion Planting!
Bolting aka Running to Seed! Causes and Prevention!
Taming Your Butternut, Waltham, Winter Squash!

Upcoming Gardener Events! 42nd American Community Gardening Assn Conference. National Heirloom Expo canceled until September 2022, Loomis CA Eggplant Festival, Jan 30 FREE 13th Santa Barbara Community Seed Swap is ON!

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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. All three 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!

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August 2021! Delicious Harvests, SeedSaving, Fall Starts!

July has been cool, lots of overcast and mildews, some plants never got full stride, some are ending a bit early. If you figure August won’t be hot either, extended harvests are unlikely. Instead, get those winter plants going. That will give you time for second plantings November/December. If August is hot, it will be a tad challenging getting winter seeds and starts going. Watering will be critical, shade may be needed for seedlings.

For those of you who planted early spring, many of your plants are now finishing. It’s time to save seeds from your best plants! Clear space and ready your soil for winter planting. Start mini nursery seed beds in your garden or for transplanting from local nursery starts as soon as they become available. If you haven’t installed gopher protection wire, this is the best time, as summer ends, fall begins!

Just getting started in a new garden, or you just love to plant?! Summer plants you can still plant for fall harvests are early varieties of determinate tomatoes, bush beans and corn. Corn is more disease prone at this time though. Tuck in your year-round fillers, beets, bunch onions, carrots, summer lettuces, winter radish, to keep a colorful and delicious variety for your table.

ONIONS For the biggest, sweetest harvests, late summer and early fall are the prime times to sow seeds of short- or intermediate-day onions. Fall-sown short- and intermediate-day onions tend to yield more and are larger and sweeter than those seeded or transplanted in early spring. Onions have stupendous flavor and come in white, yellow, red!

In our hot Santa Barbara foothills and further south, watch your melons, big squashes and pumpkins for their best harvest time – when their stem is brown and dry, or they ‘slip’ off the vine. Hold off irrigating melons about a week before they will ripen so their sugars will concentrate. Harvest okra while it is small and tender – bigger is NOT better! Let your winter squash harden. When you can’t push your fingernail in it and the stem is brown, it’s ready to harvest.

Keep up with harvesting so plants don’t quit producing. More about harvesting! As in July, keep up with watering just beyond that dripline, replenish mulch.

If you want to extend your season, give your favorite late summer/fall heavy producers a good feed to extend their harvests. Eggplants have a large or many fruit, beans put out a ton of beans, tomatoes, big or small, are working hard, peppers can be profuse! They like a tad of chicken manures scratched in, bunny poop and straw (pick up at Animal Shelters), well aged horse manure and compost makes them dance with the faeries in the night time! Do this also if you planted late or have second rounds that are just beginning to bud and bloom. Compost is #1 because it gives a sustained feed.

• First, pull back your mulch, scratch the soil lightly to break up any crusty area. Scratch only around your plant in spots, not the whole area. You want to leave the majority of the feeder root system intact because they are where your plant uptakes nutrients and water.
• Use a spade fork to open holes around your plant, water well.
• Lay on what you are adding on the surface out to just beyond the drip line. If your plant has grown beyond the basin you made for it, enlarge the basin to fit it.
• Mix your amendments in gently in a few spots or not at all, so as not to break surface feeder roots. Feeder roots not only supply your plant with food, but also uptake water so needed in late summer in SoCal.
• Pull the mulch back into place, replenish if needed, replace if it is no longer doing its job.
• Water again, gently so not to wash the mulch away, to let the water and nutrients soak in. You can water once then come back and give them a third round of water to let it soak down a little deeper. The nutrients from the feed drizzle down and act like compost tea.

Fertilizers highest in P, Phosphorus – the P in NPK, keep blooming and fruiting optimum. Liquid fertilizers are absorbed easily and promptly, and there is no root damage. Now is the time you wish you had added mycorrhizae fungi, the good guys, at planting time, to enhance Phosphorus uptake! Aged organic compost makes for healthy roots that make their own natural organic phosphoric acid that helps break down compounds of calcium and phosphate into a usable, soluble form. It’s too late to add bonemeal or seabird guano. They take 2 and 3-4 months respectively to become available to your plants for blooming. They are another must add at planting time. NOW, Phosphorus from fish bone meal 3-18-0 is easily taken up! So is chicken manure 1.1-0.8-0.5, but the P is a lot less. Add chicken manure using the process as in the list above. Lettuces thrive on chicken manure feeds!

• Peppers specially like a foliar feed of non-fat powdered milk (Calcium) and Epsom Salts (Magnesium & Sulfur). They also can use more Potassium. This time of year kelp meal is good source and releases quickly. If you have predators about, don’t get the kind mixed with stinky fish emulsion.
• Foliar feed all your plants with a super mixed tea – no manure in teas you will use on leaves you will eat, like lettuce! At the same time, for deeper root feeding, use a spade fork to make holes about your plant. Push it into the soil, wiggle back and forth a bit, then pour the rest of that tasty mixed tea down the holes. Replace the mulch and water well at soil level to the dripline.

Seeds are your last harvest! Allow your healthiest top producers to seed. Tie a ribbon on plants (at top and bottom or where you might grab it in a weeding frenzy) or on fruits you want to save seeds from so you don’t accidently harvest them too soon! Each year keep your best! Remember, these seeds are adapted and localized to you! Scatter some seeds about if they would grow successfully now! Or just scatter them about and when it’s the right time, even next spring. Many seeds, especially self seeders, will come up quite well on their own, even the tiniest ones like Breadseed Poppy, chamomile and lettuce! Some need Cold Stratification, overwintering in the ground, or some time in your fridge!

Save enough seeds for your own planting, for several rounds of planting across next year’s season, for replanting when there are losses. Save some to give away or share at the seed swap. Our 2022 Santa Barbara area Seed Swap is January 30! If you are willing, take some of your extras to a local Seed Bank! While you are there, pick up some of your favorites and some new ones to try out! Keep the local race going. 2020 Note! As your plants come into seeding time, consider sharing them as soon as possible! “Little Free Seed Libraries” are Sprouting Up to Help Gardeners Share Seeds in Troubled Times. Take a look at some very clever and loving ideas!

Store your keepers in a cool dry place for next year’s better than ever plantings. See more about SeedSaving!  How to Save Tomato Seeds!

After seedsaving, when your plants are done, let them go, compost if pest and disease free, start clearing space for fall soil prep.

Soil Prep!

August is perfect time to ready your soil for the very first fall plantings, starting mid-August from seed!

Designing Your Garden depends on your microclimate, seeds you have or can get, transplants you can get, the amount of space you have, whether you will be growing a soil feeding leguminous cover crop. How you prep your soil depends on what your soil already is like, what your plants need. Some plants need slightly acidic soil. Some areas need more rich soil for high production winter ‘heavy’ feeders. Some want a little sand, others don’t want soggy feet. If you are planting seeds, do the seed beds first! Seeds germinate faster and healthier with worm castings. 25% is ideal.

Some would consider the ultimate ‘soil prep’ to be installing gopher wire protection, LOL! Here we are at the turn of the season, a very good time to do the job. Water well and deeply each of 3 days  before if your soil is hard deeper down. Test a spot first. Get a team of friends together and go for it! Appoint a watcher to play music, make sure everyone stays hydrated. Bring gloves, wear sturdy shoes or boots. You may not be able to do the whole area at once, but do what you can. You will be so glad you did! You can do it!

Cover crop soil restoration! You can plant herbs, Calendula, all sorts of things, but a Green Manure mix including lots of legumes and oats does the best. Legumes collect Nitrogen, the number one element plants need for leaf growth! They deposit the N on their roots in little nodules. When you turn the legumes under, they not only feed your soil with their leaves, but those little nodules on their roots! Beans and Peas are legumes. Always cut off rather than pull out their roots. Leave those roots there to feed your soil! Their nitrogen isn’t released until the plant dies. The deep roots of oats loosen your soil, creating channels for oxygen and water and soil critters to navigate. They bring nutrients up from deep below. Also, they produce more growth in late fall/early winter than in spring! Perfect for winter crop plantings! The Basics – Cover Crops   In depth about Living Mulch!

If you have enough area, plant one space entirely with a cover crop. If your area is smaller, each year plant a different section with your cover crop. Some years you can get two cover crops in, especially if you are planting successively for a steady table supply. When the first patch is done you plant it. You start your second patch where another area has been finishing. Or if you are doing one area for early planting, save another for planting bareroots in January.

If you are inclined, always be making compost with clean garden waste, kitchen scraps. Decide where you want to compost, leave the space next to it so you can move your compost back and forth. Or you can move your composter around to enrich the soil there. The fastest way to compost is to make a pit or a trench. Add your healthy green waste or kitchen waste, chop it fine, turn it in mixing it with your soil. If you trenched it, turn it a few times over the next few days. If you have a pit, turn it two to three times over the next few days, then add it where it is needed when it is done.

If composting isn’t for you, buy the best in bags you can! In addition to the basics, we want to see worm castings, mycorrhizae fungi, bat guano, kelp meal, maybe some peat to loosen clay and add more water holding capacity, chicken manure. If you soil isn’t loamy and doesn’t hold water well, look for a texture that has bits of bark that will add more water holding capacity.

Start Seedlings for transplant, or plant seeds right in the ground! 

Seeds germinate really well, quicker and healthier when worm castings are added to your soil along with the compost. Castings strengthen your plants’ immune systems! Add 25% for best results. Boost up seed beds and where you will be installing transplants. Put a stake where your planting holes will be so you can add more at those points. See Soil for Seed Starting! DIY, Pre-made

Plant seeds of small plants where they will live permanently as space becomes available. That’s beets, celery, chard, mustard greens, parsley, winter radish varieties, kohlrabi, Mizuna, bok choy, rutabaga, turnips. Peas are a well favored winter crop! Pole peas go up on the trellis, save space! Sow carrots (they do best from seed). Keep the soil moist and shaded until they’re up, and then gradually allow them more sun over a week’s time. Some plants, especially hard seed carrots, do well in mini low sided trenches where they keep more moisture to germinate.

Plant the seeds for biggies in little nursery areas. Plant them far enough apart that you can get your trowel in to transplant them to their permanent spot as space becomes available. That’s Brassicas: cabbage (especially red, and savoy types that resist frost better), broccoli, Brussels sprouts, collards, cauliflower and kale babies!

Winter plants that get a good start while there is still some heat, will be producing a lot sooner than plants started when it gets cooler. You will have a much earlier crop, plus time for a successive crop, maybe start another round in December! Be sure to leave space to plant additional rounds to keep a steady table supply.

If planting from seed is not for you, no time, gone on vacation, of course you can wait and get transplants when the nurseries bring them in. Just know nursery selections are not as big as what you can buy as seeds. They sell what sells most. Island Seed & Feed has the best and greatest selection of organic seed in the Santa Barbara area, and there are marvelous ethical seed companies. Be sure to get seed varieties that are right for your area! Always choose the best, varieties that resist or tolerate pests or disease, that in winter can withstand frost/freeze.

Keep harvesting, do your soil preps, and wait for September or October transplanting. Labor Day weekend is a favorite big planting time for many gardeners, and that’s only a month away now! At that time you can plant both seeds and transplants, effectively two rounds at once, the seeds coming in six weeks after the transplants!

See Super Fall Veggies for help choosing the very best varieties and Fall companion planting! Don’t forget to plan space to commingle your valuable companion plants! They enhance growth, repel pests, can help withstand diseases. Here’s your quick handy list of winter companions:

• Cilantro with Broccoli! It makes brocs grow REALLY well, bigger, fuller, greener!
• Celery, potato and onions enhance broccoli flavor! Chamomile is thought to too.
• Lettuce among, beside Cabbages to repel cabbage moths
• Chives, Coriander, Garlic, Geraniums, Lavender, Mint family (caution – invasive), and onions are said to repel aphids.
• Mustard and nasturtium can be planted near more valuable plants as traps for the aphids. A word to the wise, nasturtiums are snail habitat.
• Calendula is a trap plant for pests such as aphids, whiteflies, and thrips by exuding a sticky sap that they find more appealing and delicious than nearby crops. Plant them a bit away from the plant you want to survive.
• Peas and carrots are terrific together but NO onion family with Peas!

PLEASE plant winter habitat and flowering plants for our beneficial insects, for bees! Here’s a BC list of 10 Plants that Help Bees through the Winter If they will grow there, they surely will grow here! More on our pollinators! We depend on bees for our survival!

August is a lovely time for a garden party…perhaps at the Full Moon? Wear your loveliest summer hat… Afternoon Garden Tea Party by illustrator Kate Greenaway

Among HOT August days, there are hints of fall. Days are a tad shorter; shadows fall in different places now. For us SoCal gardeners it’s time to design – Think Big! It’s in our minds, maybe put to paper. What will be new and different this year, what will we try, is there a more productive or resistant variety? Will you be adding compost space, or a worm bin? Would you like raised beds on legs this time? How about a greenhouse?! Have you ever planted a green manure cover crop? Will your soil be different? Will you be planting tall indeterminate peas in a cage that shades, or quickie low bush peas? Both?! What about greywater systems? Rainwater capture? In the cool of late summer evenings think it through….

Updated annually

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Veggies and Flowers, Birds & Bees! July brought so many exciting pleasures and surprises! See wonderful July summer images at Rancheria Community Garden! We are Sowing the Future!

Check out the entire August 2021 Newsletter! It includes these and more!

Winter Garden Design! 
Veggie Garden Nursery Patch!
Broccoli, the Queen of Brassicas!
5 Simple & Easy Storage Ideas for your Harvest Bounty!
THE LARGER SOIL PEST – GOPHERS

Upcoming Gardener Events! Santa Barbara City College Permaculture Design Course, Soil Not Oil 7th Conference, 42nd American Community Gardening Assn Conference. National Heirloom Expo canceled until September 2022, Jan 30 FREE 13th Santa Barbara Community Seed Swap is ON!

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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. All three 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! 

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June 2021! Pollination, Feeding, Super Harvests!

What’s a garden for? Fertility and good living! Bridgette and Hoyt got married on a supermoon evening at Lyons Farmette & River Bend, Lyons CO! 

June is Midsummer Magic month! Divine small Faery beings will be celebrating your garden! June 21, 24, 25 or a date close to the Summer Solstice, any day June 19–24, is celebrated as Midsummer Night; June 24 is Faery Day! In Santa Barbara the 2021 Summer Solstice festival and parade will be virtual, airing on YouTube June 27!

Abundance is flowing, harvests are happening!

In our area, near the beach in Santa Barbara, the weather has been so cool and cloudy that tomatoes are barely coloring up. However, their sidekick basil is potent delish, Zucchini and lettuces of all kinds are being eaten. Some gardeners are eating first beans. Peas, cool temps lovers, are still producing well! Haven’t seen any cukes even blooming yet, BUT, the 30th I saw the first western striped cucumber beetle. BAD news, a vector for bacterial wilt and mosaic virus! Please – very carefully read the info in Pests below and the link about them there. Bell peppers are budding, humongous Seascape strawberries are here and tasty! Be careful with some of your harvests. Clip rather than break away and damage or pull your plant up.

Cherry tomatoes come in first. Fertilize your toms with a slow release fertilizer, like alfalfa pellets, once the fruiting begins. See the Summer Feeding Schedule for all your favorites!

I have had the pleasure of growing Pink Boar Tomatoes, from the Wild Boar series bred by farmer/breeder Brad Gates. As High Mowing says, ‘Deep pink skin is stunning with contrasting olive stripes and luscious deep red flesh,’ and it was!

Unexpected benefit! Reviewer Rebecca of Old Mosses Secret Garden said: I bought [Brad Gates Blue Berries] tomatoes for my whimsical choice. My experiences were similar to others opinion, they are abundant, vigorous and salad enhancing, plus they make a wonderful antioxidant jam spread. What I wanted to share about the blue berry tomatoes is that they are top of the menu choices for BATS. Bats were not on our urban radar, four years later five thousand bats have moved in and troll the garden where the fence lines are abundant with these little tasty gems, which get devoured. This plant is the greatest organic gardening boon ever sprouted. For fair reveal though I have hundreds of evergreen spruce that also get bat vacuumed for more meaty choices, so Thank you Baker seed, your diligence to excel is my secret weapon for a fantastic garden.

Harvest at your veggie’s peak delicious moment! Juicy, crunchy, that certain squish in your mouth, sweet, full bodied flavor, radiant, vitamin and mineral rich! Besides being delicious and beautiful, it keeps your plant in production. Left on the plant, fruits start to dry and your plant stops production, goes into seeding mode. The fruit toughens or withers, maybe rots, sometimes brings cleanup insect pests that spread to other plants. Keep beans picked, no storing cucumbers on the vine. Give away or store what you can’t eat. Freezing is the simplest storage method. Cut veggies to the sizes you will use, put the quantity you will use in baggies, seal and freeze. Whole tomatoes, chopped peppers, cut beans, diced onions. Probiotic pickle your cukes. Enjoy your sumptuous meals! Sing a song of gratitude and glory!

Plant more! Try some new ones too!

In those empty spots you have been saving, plant more rounds of your favorites! Check your lettuce supply. Put in more bolt resistant, heat and drought tolerant varieties now. Some heat tolerant lettuce varieties are Sierra, Nevada, Jericho, Black Seeded Simpson. That ruffly little beauty queen Green Star has excellent tolerance to hot weather, bolting, and tipburn. Rattlesnake beans keep right on producing when temps get up to 100 degrees! Plant more of everything except winter squash, big melons, pumpkins, unless you live in the hot foothills.

Put in plants that like it hotter! Long beans grow quickly from seed now. They grow later in the season when your other beans are finishing. They make those enormously long beans in the ample late summer heat. Keep watch on them, in spite of their size they grow quickly. Harvest promptly, usually daily! Certain varieties of them don’t get mildew either! Their unique flavor keeps your table interesting. Plant Okra now, it grows quickly in this warmer weather! More eggplant and also tomatoes you have been waiting to put in the now drier fungi free ground. Plant mini melons like Sugar Baby watermelons!

For those of you that are plagued with fungi diseases in your soil, the drier soil now makes this a better time to plant. Select wilt and blight resistant Tomatoes. Remember, when you plant your tomatoes and cukes, build a mound and make a basin whose bottom is higher than the surrounding soil. You want drainage and a wee bit of drying to reduce the potential of fungi – verticillium and fusarium wilts, blights. They have deep roots, so water nearby plants but not your Tom! More Special Planting and growing tips for your Tomatoes and Cucumbers!

Companion Planting Teamwork

Plant WHITE potatoes with Zucchini to repel squash bugs, radishes with cukes and Zucchini to repel cuke beetles, and radishes with eggplant, potatoes and arugula to repel flea beetles.

If you have more space or you lost a plant here or there, think on putting in some perfect companion plants! One of the Three Cs are super!

1. Calendula – so many medicinal uses, bright flowers, and traps aphids, whiteflies, and thrips! Yep. Plant Calendula by tomatoes and asparagus.
2. Chamomile –  is called the Plant Dr! It heals neighboring plants and improves the flavor of any neighboring herb! The flowers make a lovely scent and the tea is sweet.
3. Comfrey – aka Knitbone, is an amazing medicinal herb, a super nutritious compost speeder upper! Plant it by your compost area. UK gardeners make Comfrey Tea for their Tomatoes!

Tasty herbs – chives, parsley, or more permanent perennials like rosemary, oregano (invasive), thyme are flavorful choices that often repel pests.

Hot Peppers emit a chemical from the plant roots that helps prevent Fusarium wilt, root rot, and a wide range of other plant diseases!

Pat Mycorrhiza fungi right on the roots of all your transplants except Brassicas. 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. Support your local nurseries.

Here’s your tending list for Beauty and Bounty!

Water regularly so everyone is moist the way they like it! Seeds and seedlings daily, even 2 to 3 times daily on super hot days. Shading them may save their lives. Peppers like moist, so as they need it. Others not so water critical on average need an inch a week; water beans, cukes, lettuces and short rooted varieties of strawberries more frequently – lettuces could be daily on hot windy days. To double check use the old finger test or push your shovel in and wedge the soil open enough so you can see if it is moist as deep as it needs to be. Watering at ground level, rather than overhead watering, keeps your plant dry. That means less mildew, less fungal diseases, especially for fuzzy leaved plants like toms and eggplant. They don’t like water on their leaves.

If at all possible, water in the AM before 10:30 to let leaves dry before evening to prevent mildew – beans, cucumbers and squashes are especially susceptible. Plant fewer beans further apart for air flow. If your plants are near a street or there has been a dusty wind storm, wash the dust off your plants so they can breathe, and to make them less attractive to Whiteflies.

Some plants need MULCH now, and if the mulch is tired and flat, replace it with fresh clean mulch. No more than an inch of straw mulch under toms and cukes. They need airflow so the soil can dry a bit and reduce harmful fungi. Otherwise, put on 4 to 6 inches minimum to keep light germinating seeds from sprouting. Mulch any Brassicas you are over summering – broccoli, kale – 4 to 6 inches deep for them too. They need cool soil. Melons and winter squash – Butternuts, acorn, pumpkins – need heat! They are the exception – no mulch for them if you are coastal. Yes, they will need more water, so be sure their basin is in good condition and big enough so they get water out to their feeder roots. Put a stake in the center of the basin so you know where to water when the leaves get big. The only place for straw for them is right under the melons. See more at Mulching ~ Why, When, With What, How Much?!

Keep a sharp eye on tomatoes. Remove leaves touching the ground or will touch the ground if weighted with water! Trim so neighboring plants don’t touch and spread diseases like the wilts or blights. Remember, the wilts are spread by wind as well as water, so neighboring plants are very likely to give it to one another. Try planting other plants between. You can still do rows, just mix up the plants! Your healthier tomatoes will produce more, bigger toms, and longer. 

POLLINATION is vital & easy to do!

     

Hand Pollination of Cucurbits! In left image, male flower on left, female right.

Improve your tomato, eggplant and pepper production by giving the cages or the main stems a few sharp raps, or gently shake the stems, to help the flowers self pollinate. Midday is the best time. Honey bees don’t pollinate tomatoes, or other Solanaceae! Build solitary bee condos for native bees. Native bees, per Cornell entomology professor Bryan Danforth, are two to three times better pollinators than honeybees, are more plentiful than previously thought and not as prone to the headline-catching colony collapse disorder that has decimated honeybee populations. The very best Solanaceae pollinator is a Bumblebee!!! See more! Plant plenty of favorite bee foods, especially ones with purple and blue colors, their favorites!

While you are helping your tomatoes pollinate, if you are growing them in cages, also very gently help them up through the cages. Remove any bottom leaves that might touch the ground when weighted with water. Remove any diseased leaves ASAP! Do NOT put them in compost! Bag and trash.

Squashes, melons and monoecious cucumbers can easily be hand pollinated. Cukes are notorious for needing help being pollinated! Cucurbits have male and female blooms on the same plant. If there are not enough pollinators about, we need to help. Also, multiple visits from the bees are required for good fruit set and properly shaped cucumbers. Male flowers open in the morning and pollen is only viable during that day. Hand pollinate during the morning hours, using only freshly opened flowers. You can use a small pointy paint brush, a cotton swab, Q-tip, your finger, and move pollen from the male stamen to the center of the female flower. Or the best, most complete method is to take the male flower off the plant, pull the petals off, and gently roll the male flower anther around and over the female stigma in the center of the female flower. The pollen is sticky, so it may take some time. One male anther can pollinate several females. Repeat. Female blooms will simply drop off the plant if they are not pollinated or not pollinated adequately. So when your cukes are in production, you need to do this daily for more fruits.

Don’t be confused by the little fruit forming under the female flowers and think pollination has already happened. The flower needs to be fertilized, and adequately, or the fruit just falls off. Flowers not pollinated enough, that don’t abort, make misshapen fruits. That goes for corn having irregular to lacking kernels. Strawberries are called cat-faced. Squash and cucumbers can be deformed. On an unwindy day, tilt the stalk so the corn tassels are over the silks and tap the stalk. You will see a shower of pollen fall on the silks. You may need to do it from one plant to another so you don’t break the stalk trying to get the pollen to fall on silks on the same plant.

Planting a lot of plants close together stresses the plants. At higher densities, plants compete for water, nutrients, and sunlight, and the resulting stress can lead to a higher proportion of male flowers, less female flowers, the ones that produce. If you really want more fruit, give them room to be fruitful. The same goes for other stresses – damage from insects or blowing soil, low light intensities, or water stress – less female flowers are produced.

Weather affects pollination. Sometimes cool overcast days or rain, when bees don’t fly, there is no pollination. High humidity makes pollen sticky and it won’t fall. Not good for wind pollinated veggies like tomatoes. Drought is a problem for corn pollination. Too high nighttime temps, day temps 86°F and above, will keep your tomatoes, cucumbers and other vegetables from setting fruit unless they are high temp tolerant varieties. Too windy and the pollen is blown away. See Pollination: Honeybees, Squash Bees & Bumblebees!

If it is your cucumbers that are not pollinating well each year, try parthenocarpic varieties. Parthenocarpic varieties produce only female flowers and do not need pollination to produce fruit. This type of cucumber is also seedless. Try a few varieties and see if you like them.

Did you know? Flowers can hear buzzing bees—and it makes their nectar sweeter!

SIDEDRESSING! This IS the time! Feeding when your plants start to bloom and produce is a pretty standard recommendation. But if your baby is looking peaked, has pale or yellowing leaves, an emergency measure could be blood meal. Foliar feeding a diluted fish emulsion/kelp is easy for your plant to uptake. Foliar feeding a tea mix per what each plant might need, is the ultimate feed and it’s not hard to make tea mixes! Your lettuces love it if you scratch in a 1/4″ chicken manure, but no manure in a tea on leaves you will be eating! Pull your mulch back, top with a 1/2″ of compost and some tasty worm castings! If you prefer organic granulated fertilizer, easy to apply, sprinkle it around evenly. But remember, that has to be repeatedly applied. Recover with your mulch, straw, then water well and gently so things stay in place. That’s like making compost and worm tea in place!

Face up to pests!

It’s easier to deal with them when there are only a few rather than losing your whole plant or a row of plants. This is the time you will see Cucumber beetles foraging on Zucchini flowers, on Tomatillos. They are deadly to cucumbers because they transmit bacterial wilt and squash mosaic virus and cucumbers are the most susceptible to the wilts than any other garden veggie. Squish those beetles. Put one hand under where the beetle is, reach for it with the other hand. Be prepared! They are fast and can see you coming! See more Here are tips for Beetle prevention for organic gardeners:

• If possible plant unattractive-to-cucumber beetle varieties. In 2012 U of Rhode Island trials, best pickling choices are Salt and Pepper and H-19 Little Leaf. Marketmore 76 was tops for slicing cukes. If you find more current research on best varieties, please let me know!
• Plant from transplants! The youngest plants are the most susceptible.
• Interplant! No row planting so beetles go from one plant to another.
• Delay planting! In our case, most of us already having planted cucumbers, can plant another round late June or when you no longer see the beetles. Start from seeds at home now since transplants may no longer be available in nurseries later on.
• Plant repellent companion plants BEFORE you plant your cukes. Radish with eggplant, cukes & zukes act as trap plants for flea beetles and to repel cucumber beetles. Radish are the fastest growers, so get them in ASAP if you didn’t before.
• Natural predators are Wolf Spiders, daddy long legs and Ground Beetles! Let them live! They eat beetle eggs and larvae. And there is a tachinid fly and a braconid parasitoid wasp that parasitize striped cucumber beetle, and both sometimes have large impacts on striped cucumber beetles. When you see a dark hairy fly, don’t swat it! It is doing important garden business!
• Here is a super important reason to use straw mulch! Per UC IPM ‘Straw mulch can help reduce cucumber beetle problems in at least 3 different ways. First, mulch might directly slow beetle movement from one plant to another. Second, the mulch provides refuge for wolf spiders and other predators from hot and dry conditions, helping predator conservation. Third, 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. It is important that straw mulch does not contain weed seeds and to make certain that it does not contain herbicide residues which can take years to fully break down.’
• Organic mulches foster diverse populations of beneficial soil microorganisms that trigger the plant’s internal defenses.
• At the end of the season or when your plants are done, remove garden trash, tired mulch and other debris shortly after harvest to reduce overwintering sites.

If you are by a road or in a dusty windswept area, rinse off the leaves to make your plants less attractive to whiteflies. Also, asap remove yellowing leaves that attract whiteflies. Pests adore tasty healthy plants just like we do. They also make us see which plants are weak or on their way out. Give those plants more care or remove them. Replace them with a different kind of plant that will do well now and produce in time before the season is over. Don’t put the same kind of plant there unless you have changed the conditions – enhanced your soil, installed a favorable companion plant, protected from wind, terraced a slope so it holds moisture, opened the area to more sun. Be sure you are planting the right plant at the right time! Remove mulch from under plants that were diseased and replace with clean mulch. Do not compost that mulch or put it in green waste. Bag and trash it.

Please always be building compost and adding it, especially near short rooted plants and plants that like being moist. Compost increases your soil’s water holding capacity.

Reduce your carbon footprint! Grow local!

Mary Alice Ramsey in her North Carolina backyard. Photo by Hector Manuel Sanchez

May You enjoy a super beautiful, bountiful & juicy June!

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

Updated annually  

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Summer Solstice and Father’s Day are June 20 this year! Congratulations to Grads and their families! Here are some wonderful ideas for green and loving gifts for any and all! You can even start some seeds now! Click here

May 2021 was a way cooler than average, no rain, but a FIRE! Please enjoy a delightful array of early summer images at Rancheria Community Garden! You may get some ideas for those Father’s and Grad’s prezzies! We are Sowing the Future! Happy gardening!

Check out the entire June 2021 Newsletter!
It includes these and more!

• Peppers! HOT or Not!
• Veggie Feeding Schedule for Your Delicious Summer Favorites!
• Container Gardening, Garden Anywhere!
• BAGS! The Quickest & Easiest Way to Start Your Veg Garden!
• Special Treat! Sweet Summer Magic: Solstice Honey Cookies!

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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. All three 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.

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May 2021! Radiant Flowers, Luscious Veggies!

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

Coolish April temps but bell peppers planted early are growing well! Night temps have been in the late 40s, early 50s. Daytime has generally been mid 60s, but we are predicted for early 70° temps right away! The ground temp April 28 at 9:30 AM, Rancheria Community Garden (3.5 blocks from the beach) was 62° both in the shade and sun. Sweet peppers need nighttime temps that are 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. 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. 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 will 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 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!

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 tomatoes:

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

Check out this nifty page of heat tolerant tomato varieties at Bonnie Plants! If your plant is not heat tolerant, wait. When things cool down, it will start making flowers and setting fruit again. See also Tomatoes are the Fireworks of Your Summer Garden!

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!

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!

Companion Plants! 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.
• 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. 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!
• 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! More at SFGate
• 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 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!

Now is the time watering becomes critical!

SEEDS need to be kept moist. If they dry they die and 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… Always purchase extra seed for accidents and incidents, ie birds or insects, high temps.

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, not often 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!

• 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.
• 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.

Most plants need to be kept moist. Kept moist. Dry crusty soil keeps your soil from breathing. Compost, 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 dripline. 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 get nutrition and moisture for your plant, and it will set your production back if your plant has to stop, gets hungry, must regrow them. 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, 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 air is cooler, 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, enhance each other’s growth so they are strong and pest and disease resistant. Mix it up! Less planting in rows, more understories and intermingling. 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 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 months later uptake when your plant gets to flowering time.
   – Add Jamaican guano high in P, Phosphorus, at planting time. It 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. Other guanos don’t have this particular NPK ratio.
   – 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 acidic compost in strawberry patches and work in a little 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 bath 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.
9. Harvest promptly. Insects and diseases can signal when plants/fruits 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. 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, 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.

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 wilt wilts, Fusarium and Verticillium, and mosaic virus, deadly to cukes. 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. Could be right in your front yard! 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.

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 Stripes of Wildflowers! Here are some special considerations – Courting Solitary Bees!

To plant a seed is to believe in tomorrow. Audrey Hepburn, born May 4, 1929

Updated annually

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April we had varying hotter and cooler than average weather, but very few plants bolted! Some flowers came in early! See our images:  an unexpected cheddar cauliflower, Sweet Peas galore, amazing BreadSeed Poppies, Beans, Tomatoes and summer squash blooming, and more! You may get some ideas for those Mother’s Day prezzies! We are Sowing the Future!

Check out the entire May 2021 Newsletter:

• The Magic of Melons ~ Cantaloupe, Honeydew!
• Pollination: Honeybees, Squash Bees & Bumblebees!
• Mulching ~ Why, When, With What, How Much?!
• Super Success with Tomatoes that Make Trusses!
• Upcoming Gardener Event!

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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. All three 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.

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