Successful Veg Gardening in Heat! Before, During, After!

Protect your plants from a Heat Wave! Your system may be big like this one, or just as you need it, humble but perfect! Thanks to The Spruce for this great shade cloth image!

Take care of yourself!

While working wear that garden hat!

• Do your heaviest work early in the morning, as early in the day in possible, or in the evening…
• Slow down and pace yourself. Start slowly, pick up the pace gradually.
• Keep hydrated. You need water as much as your plants do. Drink more water than usual and don’t wait until you’re thirsty to drink more. Muscle cramping may be an early sign of heat-related illness.
• Wear loose, lightweight, light-colored clothing.
• Don’t forget the sunscreen!
• Tie a wet bandanna around your neck or even drape a wet cotton dish towel over the nape of your neck.

Temps in general are getting hotter. Know your area, like SoCal is in a drought area. It’s expected in summer, or it’s a hotter than average summer, or your micro niche is just a hottie and you know it! I watch the weather daily and a lot of my gardening choices depend on it.

Just a very long hot summer or a heat wave, here are some helpful pointers and things to know about how to get through it with flying colors and happy veggies! A few days of high temps is easier on your plants. Prolonged high temps is challenging for both of you. Sometimes there is also strong wind, high humidity, and high overnight temps.

Basic Garden Practices for areas that expect heat!

If you have a lot of heat generally, prepare your land with bioswales, shade trees and living wind breaks. Grow certain permanent heat loving plants that provide shade for the hot times. Plant them to the West to shelter more delicate plants from hot afternoon sun. If heat is a daily affair, install sturdy shade frames that can withstand substantial wind. See more ideas at Desert Veg Gardening

Well in advance, if you anticipate heat coming your way, select and grow heat and drought tolerant seeds, plants, flowers and herbs! Depending on your area, choose to avoid growing some plants in high summer. Plant in spring or fall instead. Some amazing perennials may be excellent choices. Chaya Tree/Tree Spinach and Tree Collards are two. Elizabeth Waddington writing for TreeHugger says ‘Remember, growing in rows in a traditional vegetable garden is not the only option. Perennial planting schemes like forest gardens can make your garden far more resilient, whatever extreme weather conditions climate change will bring.’

Perennials are always a winner because they don’t need to be planted/started over and over again, needing more start up water and waiting time for production. Many perennials can be harvested all year long! See more drought tolerant perennials at Grow Delicious and Amazing Edible Perennials!

Give your plants plenty of room! Space plants farther apart so they don’t compete for water and nutrients, which will help to reduce stress during periods of extreme heat.

From the get go, soil is always important because soil with a healthy amount of organic matter (about 5-9%) can make a difference in its ability to retain water. Gardens full of beneficial soil organisms also help plants tolerate periods of drought.

How you water is important! Long, slow that deeply saturates your soil. Usually you hear to let the soil dry so the roots will go deeper to seek water. Here’s the reverse: Water deeply so your plants can grow deep roots that can get moisture from more deeply in the soil during heat. Keep it moist routinely. Deep watering means you don’t need to water as often. Well watered soil maintains steady temperatures and is less likely to dry out.

Hand Watering Veggies?! YES! Plants have differing water needs. See more!

Consider planting IN furrows, not on top of them as is done in rainy country for drainage. Indigenous people worldwide have done this. New Mexico’s Zuni do this in a little more elaborate fashion with their Waffle Gardens. The berms around the planting areas hold in the water, act as windbreaks. The planting areas are ‘mulched’ with small stones. Stones were all they had in such a treeless area.

Anticipate! 

For high heat, heat waves, wait to plant seeds. Seeds can be planted, but if time is not critical, it may be easier and more successful to wait. If you must plant, put up sturdy shade, wind and bird/animal protection. Be sure the setup is easy to water. In extreme hot weather, seed and nursery beds may need three or four waterings in the day, along with smaller raised beds and containers. Soil can dry out quickly, form a crust seedlings can’t get through. It must be kept moist. Decide if you want to keep this commitment, and don’t go on vacation!

This is a time when a nursery patch is the right thing to do, or raise them indoors. Rather than have scattered plantings, put them all in the same area so you can conveniently tend them all at once. Plant far enough apart to get your trowel in to safely transplant later. See Nursery Patch!

No stressing your plants by transplanting, pruning or fertilizing. Many plants save themselves and shut down production during temps 75° F to 95° F, but especially 85° and above, especially if the soil is dry. It’s common with vining plants. Most tomatoes drop flowers. They do set again when temps lower. But that means they aren’t going to take up a bunch of fertilizer either, since they are slowing their growth. Fertilizing signals your plant to grow and that’s the last thing we need. Better to fertilize a week or two before the anticipated heat wave. Otherwise, wait until after the heat wave when things have had a chance to cool down.

WEED before you mulch! Seriously, LOL! Those weeds will grow fast, just like zucchini, in all that heat. They will put down roots and eat your plants’ nutrients, drink their water, and bigger is harder to remove! Ixnay.

Heat! Plant IN Furrows, Mulch generously, eat Carrots! Image from FarmersAlmanac.com

MULCH! Deep enough, it stops light germinating weed seeds from growing and using water. Light-colored mulches help to reflect sunlight. Any Brassicas you are over summering really prefer cool soil. Load mulch on 6″ deep not touching the main trunk. Otherwise put on 2-4″ under other plants except super heat lovers like melons, squashes (maybe not zucchini), and pumpkins. Short rooted plants like cucumbers and beans need it. Depending on how closely your plants are planted, some, like strawberries and lettuces, may be self mulching and do fine without mulch. Besides protecting your soil, mulching keeps it cool, from drying out by reducing evaporation, reduces runoff and your need for water.

Harvest!!! Two very good reasons for this! 1) It unburdens your plant from having to work during the heat and uses less water. 2) Insects hatch hungry at various temps. One is the Leaffooted Bugs, Leptoglossus zonatus! In a cool summer in some areas you aren’t likely to see these pups. But if there are three to four consecutive 80+ hot days, keep watch, especially on your tomatoes! Depending on what area you are in, that can be anytime from April on. 80+ is standard for summer temps. In my near-the-coast in Santa Barbara, not at our foothills, Santa Barbara Community Garden photo archives, they were here in September each time. In our foothills they may occur in August. [In 2022 I think they arrived at our coastal garden in early August.] If these visitors are common in your area, pick all the ripe tomatoes ahead of time to save them. You can safely eat the bug bitten ones, but they aren’t pretty. See more!

Precheck all water systems to see they are working as you want during the heat wave. Set timers to once, twice a day watering and open devices to more water delivered! In case of power outages, have a backup system or be prepared to go manual.

• Install additional outputs? Maybe closer together.
• Make sure the water serves your plant out past its dripline. Keeping those surface feeder roots moist is critical. That’s where your plant uptakes most of its nutrients, water and oxygen! If those die, your plant goes hungry and produces poorly.

Homemade Shade Cloth cover over wire frame, custom fit! Keep in mind how well your custom shading structures will store after the hot time is over. Image at SquareFootGardening.org

Make shade with whatever you have if it is a temporary high temp time. Shade cloth, available at garden centers, blocks 15%, 30%, 40% to 100! Use it to shelter particularly precious plants or plants that will need it. Thin leaved salad greens may need 50-60% shade. Squash and beans do well with about 30%. If you use row covers be sure there is plenty of ventilation. Rig up a frame or hoop and spread the cloth over one side or the top usually works well enough. Anchor it well. Try not to lay it directly on the plants so they have air circulation. The temperature under the shade cloth can be 10 degrees lower! That 10°can keep plants alive and stop some plants from bolting! Use shade cloth over cold frames, cloches and greenhouses.

If you are vermicomposting, growing worms, you might want to move them into the shade or shade them well.

Some butterflies receive essential minerals and other nutrients by ‘puddling’ in very shallow water, so give them a helping hand during the dry weather by creating a puddling pool. Fill a dish with gravel, mud, water & some larger stones for butterflies to perch on & drink. From Surrey Wildlife Trust, UK

WILDLIFE! Expect wildlife to come to town for food and water. Set up safe watering stations. Put water for birds, butterflies, bees, little animals, in a predator safe place at your garden! Lay in sticks, stones, gravel, marbles in a shallow bowl so bees and butterflies won’t drown. Keep it filled. Check it every day. In a bowl, bucket, tub, trough, inside and out, put in a secure sloped wire ramp all the way top to bottom so small and tiny little ones like mice can get in and out as the water lowers. You don’t want them to drown and pollute what precious water there is. For birds, raptors to hummingbirds, place your station no closer than about 10-12 feet away from shrubs or natural coverage. This allows birds to keep an eye out for predators that might be hiding in the trees or shrubs. It also provides a safe place to escape to that’s close enough for birds to quickly take cover if they sense danger. Put out food if safe to do so. This is small payment for the things the creatures do for us!

Be sure the greenhouse water systems and vents are all in working order! If they are electric you might reset the vents to open a tad earlier, and more water is delivered more frequently. In case of power outages, have a backup system or be prepared to go manual.

What if you aren’t going to be home?!? This is the one time a knowledgeable reliable person is needed to keep check on things for you. Period.

If you are home, gather ye buckets of that shower water! Use it where and as needed. Install rainwater harvesting systems for times like these.

During a heat wave….

Water your soil not your plants! Water between the plants to keep surface feeder roots alive and feeding. From Homesteadandchill.com

Keep an eye on younger more vulnerable plants.

Keep watering! Check your garden every day. Watering is vital. Water in the morning when moisture is slower to evaporate, to give plants time to take up moisture before the worst heat. If necessary, water a 2nd time in the cooler evening. No midday watering when the sun is directly overhead to avoid sun scald to the leaves and fruits. In fact, conserve water by watering the soil not the plant! Water plants deeply, at least to 6 inches down. Keep them moist and evenly watered. Watch your plants. If they begin to droop, it’s seriously time to get out the hose. UNLESS it’s chard or squashes. They droop on schedule middays in normal weather. If you mistakenly over water, plants can literally drown. Put your finger in the soil to see if the soil is dry! Or dig down in the soil 1 to 2 inches next to the plant to see if it needs moisture. Disturb as few surface feeder roots as possible.

• Hanging baskets and containers will need to be watered more frequently than plants in the ground. Be sure to check them often. Stick your finger in the soil to see when it needs water. If they are small, pick them up. If they are light, water. Consider moving potted plants into a shadier spot during a heat wave. Benedict Vanheems at GrowVeg gives these wonderful tips: Container plants dry out very quickly and may need watering twice a day, especially if it’s windy too. Check that the water is actually being absorbed – you don’t want it just running straight down cracks between the potting soil and container wall. Continue watering until you see water running out of the bottom. You can use pot saucers to hold the water around your pots for longer.
• Check and maintain Wildlife watering stations

If you didn’t get to it before, lay down that mulch after you water!

Keep harvesting! Fruit left to linger on the plant uses more water than needed. Harvesting keeps your plant interested in production. If you don’t harvest, especially with the heat, it may think it is done and curl up its toes and be done itself. If you are wanting seeds, this may be a perfect time to let the fruits you have chosen to dry well.

Not to worry. Your plant is smart not to produce during the heat when it can’t support the fruit. Per Marissa Schuh: Depending on the variety of the vine crops, hot temperatures can change how many male and female flowers are present. Typically, high temperatures (over 90° F during the day and 70° F at night) develop more male flowers than female flowers. This means that we may be seeing zucchini plants with prolific flowers and few fruit, because the flowers we are seeing are all male, thus do not produce the part of zucchini we like to eat.

Elizabeth Waddington is so right! ‘And finally, when enjoying your garden, think about ways to make the most of your home-grown produce. For example, create some cooling cordials, smoothies, ice-creams, or ice lollies [lollipop or Popsicle in the US] using the fruits and berries (and even vegetables and/or herbs) that you grow.’

After the heat wave!  YES! 

Reset all your water systems timers, frequency and amount, and the greenhouse water settings and vent timers. Check the Wildlife watering stations for water quality, enough water, and enough mud for the butterflies.

If the heat is not permanent, carefully store your shade devices. You may need them again. Make notes on discoveries or improvements to be made before next time. Put it on your projects calendar and attach detailed notes to the materials.

Check on mulch plant by plant. Some may still need it. Others may need it removed if it is late summer, fall approaching, days shortening, back to cooler nights and evenings. Mulch can cool your soil and shorten your season prematurely.

At left is neon pink Chard bolting. The leaves are still edible!

Expect Bolting! It is simply your plant putting up a flowering stalk to make seeds for the next generation. It is common at strong weather changes. When it has been cool, and heat comes on, your plant thinks it just had summer, so sends up a seed stalk! When possible, select bolt resistant seeds and plants. Day length may be part of bolting. Bolting! Select the right day length plants per season and your latitude! See important details about Photoperiodism.

Harvest any seeded fruits that have dried sufficiently for seedsaving. Have your seedsaving gear and storage jars handy! If you are preparing for January seed swaps, have your envelopes ready to label. More on SeedSaving!

Many times there is an after-the-heat-wave storm! It can be mild or a deluge! Good idea to wait and see a few days before planting seeds. If it has been a late summer heat wave, after such a storm it may be the perfect time to get fall seeds and transplants in!

Long term choices may be very meaningful in these times of planetary change!

Greg Seaman founded Eartheasy in 2000 out of concern for the environment and a desire to help others live more sustainably. He combines his upbringing in the cities of New York, Boston and San Francisco with the contrast of 40 years of living ‘off-grid’ to give us a balanced perspective on sustainable living.

July 2019 he said ‘Heat waves usually are of short enough duration that gardeners can manage to produce successful crops. Prolonged heat waves, of course, are more challenging and crops may be stunted or crop yields reduced. Unfortunately, the long-term outlook for our climate indicates that in upcoming years we gardeners will need to hone our hot weather gardening skills. The measures described above will likely be common knowledge in the years to come.’

If you have lived in the desert for any length of time, you have found ways to live there successfully with extreme temps and wind. As a gardener you probably select the toughest seeds of plants that survive these hot/cold and drying conditions. You may have installed bioswales and living wind breaks that also provide shade, and you are likely using indigenous techniques like the Zuni waffle Gardens that have improved your soil and output, cut water costs and plant losses. See more on desert veg gardening! You lowlander coastal gardeners may modify and incorporate some of these useful tips to your own needs.

2021! Here is Curtis Quam’s waffle garden in action! He tends it with his family at Zuni Pueblo, NM. It uses less water, increases food security!

May you and your garden be blessed no matter how hot or long the heat! 

Updated 9.10.22

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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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Veggie Seed Saving Plant by Plant!

Beautiful image from Thomas Rainer’s Landscape of Meaning Blogspot

Seed saving is really a no-nonsense game! It’s important right at home because the plant that grew best does well at your location! It’s important to our world community, as Thomas Rainer says, to preserve our garden heritage & biodiversity! Besides, it’s fun!

Did you let a couple of your carrots become full grown plants with elegant flowers that brought bees and pollinators?! If so, clip off some of those dry seeded heads, let them dry some more, then bag and tie with a ribbon to give as gifts to other gardeners! Or put the seeds in a snazzy little jar, label with year and name/variety and tie a ribbon on it! And, of course, store some for your future plantings! Any extra, share at your annual Seed Swap! That plant has done well in your microclimate niche and will make tons of more healthy carrots for you! Fennel is much like carrots, and has a lovely scent. I use it to flavor my rice, and they say it aids digestion! Parsley is a biennial, seeds in its 2^nd year.

Per goingtoseed.wordpress.com all Brassicas can be grown as biennials (planted in late summer and overwintered to produce seed in their second year). If you want seed the same year, the trick is planting early enough for seed to mature or, in this case, you want dramatic temp changes so it will bolt! Bolting, AKA, Running to Seed!

Lettuce seeds are very tiny and take some patience. Put a bag under the tufted seed heads, pull them off into the bag. Later, sit down and separate the seeds from the tufts. Don’t keep the tufts because they can rot. Since there are so many seeds, it won’t take long to gather a year’s supply. You really need to record your lettuce varieties, so if you plant from 6 packs, keep those name tags! Important: some lettuce seeds are surface planted, barely patted into the soil, others need to be planted a 1/4” deep. Be sure to record the variety and planting depth on your saved seed packets, especially if you will be sharing them at a Seed Swap.

Onions, chives, garlic and leek are pretty and fun! You’ll see the black seed dots all over the drying flower head. Put a bag over it, tilt down and shake it, Baby! If you want them anywhere and everywhere throughout your garden, fling a few far and wide! They will come up where and when conditions are right for them, and adorn that spot. Or simply clip off and lay a seeded head where you would like a patch to grow. The head provides natural habitat just like it does in nature, protecting the seeds and keeping them moist. Cilantro is so pretty and fragrant, repels cabbage butterflies! I let it grow randomly, flinging some of its seeds across my garden aiming for spots that will stay a bit moist or shaded. I can always transplant seedlings if I need one/some in another area. As seed it is called coriander. Let it dry completely on the plant if you want to jar it for gifts or storage for cooking or future planting. And if you love basil, gather ye basil seeds! 

Arugula and other Brassicas like broccoli, kale, and cauliflower come neatly in little pointy pods! Let them dry on the plant and they are yours if you get them before the birds do! You can fling them too, but the plant has a pretty big 1 ½ to 2’ footprint and some height if you let it grow fully, plus they like a lot of water. So I’m a little more careful where I dribble those seeds. Okra comes in big fancy dress-up pods! Let them dry on the plant then, over a bag or bowl, break open the pod to collect those awesome black seeds!

Here’s a clever tip for home growers from the UK Real Seed Catalogue! Many of the brassicas (cabbages, cauliflowers etc) love to cross with each other. Right. So only let one kind flower each year: you don’t really want to end up with some sort of sprouting-cabbage, or Brussels-kale. But that’s ok – the seed keeps for years and years – so you simply let only one kind of Brassica flower each year and not worry about cross pollination. You can still grow all the others – radish, Mizuna, turnips, arugula – to eat of course, just don’t let them flower.

Now if you are in a community garden or have nearby neighbors’ with flowering plants, this might not work. It is recommended to separate different varieties at least 1000 feet for satisfactory results or at least 1 mile for purity.

Let beans grow to full mature fat pods and dry on the vine for full nutrition from their mother plant. If it is July, even August, if you’re having a hot summer, tuck a few into the soil for another round.  Otherwise, pop your bean seeds out of the pod and store for next spring’s planting.

When are seeds mature? Seeds that dry on the vine may turn black in pods as Brassicas often do, as shown in the image. They may become brown in the air like beet or cilantro seeds. After lettuces flower they sprout little tufts. Below and attached to the tufts, are the tiny seeds, white, gray, brown or black. Be sure the seeds are dry when you pull the tufts. Bean seeds rock! They dry to many colors, some are speckled! Wet seeds are as you see them.

Dry seeds are easy to harvest, what about WET seeds, like tomatoes? No problem. Heirlooms are true, some hybrids are true, but most hybrids are unpredictable. There are three seed saving possibilities per Robert Pavlis, Garden Myths ~ Use the fermentation technique, rubbing, do nothing! Here are his thoughts on when to use which and why!

The method we hear about the most is fermentation. Put the little guys in water, let sit no more than two days. GrowVeg.com says: Recent studies (no link) show tomato seed germination is best when seeds are soaked for only one to two days before they are rinsed and dried. Fermentation times longer than three days substantially lower the germination rate from 96% to only 74% on the 4th day! Word. Scrape off any scum that has formed. Rinse, add water, do it again, until you have clean seed. Dry. See all the tips and details!

Other seeds, like in mature cukes, melons, peppers (different varieties need to be 500’ apart to prevent hybridizing) and squashes, are so simple. Let a cucumber yellow and dry. Just take the seeds out of an over mature fruit, clean, rinse, and spread them in a single layer on a screen, coffee filter or piece of newspaper, or a paper plate to dry. No ceramic or plastic. You want the water to wick away. They will stick to paper towels. Use a little dishwashing soap to remove sugar from watermelon seeds.  Pepper seeds are dry when they break rather than bend.  Oh, and melons, pumpkins, cucumbers, and squash need even more personal space – at least a half-mile is required to prevent hybridization.

Eggplant takes a little more work. Wait until it’s dull and shrivels on the plant. Cube it, mash the seeds out. Put them in water, toss the ones that float. Dry for 2 to 3 days, a week or more if your weather is damp.

Corn will hybridize. If you want what you want, then don’t save, buy new seed each year. Here are  important details for corn and other plants at Native Seeds!

Know that many hybrids will have mixed results, usually not true to the parent plants. Just saying.

Label everything with name, variety, year and location grown at! For example, beet and chard seed are virtually indistinguishable. Arugula seeds look a lot like broc seeds. They do. Both are Brassicas.

Store in airtight jars except legumes (beans & peas), which store best in breathable bags. To keep them dry, put a small cloth bag with about one-half cup dried powdered milk beneath the seed packets. Let them languish in a cool, dark, dry place like the fridge. Avoid opening the container until you are ready to plant. Check them occasionally for insect infestations. Remove seeds with bore holes and pray for the rest.

Stored seeds will retain their viability for different lengths of time depending on the type of seed, when harvested, how harvested and how you store it. You will see different lengths of time online. Here is a general guide:

Closing thoughts ~ When NOT to save seeds! Is there a possibility your plant has hybridized? Plants have different distances when this can occur. If in your yard, or you are growing closely in a community garden, what are your neighbors planting? What is your purpose for saving your seeds? Will you be giving some as gifts, sharing at a Seed Swap? If so, distance is crucial. To prevent hybridizing, some veggies need to be separated at least 5 miles, others less. A 5 miles radius is tough to check out in an urban neighborhood!

If distance is not a problem, one sure way to avoid hybridizing is, for example, to plant only one type of squash. Another way is to stagger planting, with plenty of time between, when other varieties of the same plant are/will not be in pollination also. If you are giving seeds away, will they be used as cooking flavoring, a healing remedy, or to grow new plants? Since most hybrids are unpredictable, at times the results can be disappointing, costing you time and possibly having no crop at all. If you are in doubt, or don’t know, don’t save or plant or give those seeds away. More info from Texas A&M! Who knows?! You may become a plant breeder!

Technically Inbreeding Depression is the decline in fitness and vigor with decreased heterozygosity. Inbreeding also reduces the reproductive ability. Both plants that reproduce either by self-pollination OR cross-pollination process can have the problem. The pea family and carrots are high in inbreeding. Corn is medium. Onion, squash, pumpkin, sunflower are a few examples of plants showing low inbreeding depression.

So if you have a small growing space, and are given some home grown seeds or are at a seed swap, ask questions. If any doubt, pass or thank and don’t plant. Get your seeds from a reliable seed house.

Thanks for your special care in saving and sharing your seeds. We are looking to pass along high quality seeds and successful growing of the best possible crops. We are sowing the future.

May you and your plants be happy and your seeds very healthy!

Updated 6.27.23

See also SeedSaving! A Beautiful Annual Ritual & Celebration!

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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 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.

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Successful Seed Varieties for Sep/Oct Planting!

Select the best varieties of these 3 popular winter plants – Chard, Broccoli, Peas! 

Be gathering up your seeds now, start them mid August!  Your transplants will go in the ground late September or October.

1) Chard is a super producer per square foot, also highly nutritious, and low, low calorie!  Select early maturing varieties for eating sooner!  It’s a cut-and-come-again plant.  Keep taking the lower older leaves as they mature to the size you prefer!

    Fordhook Giant is a mega producer, and is truly Giant!

    Bright Lights/Neon Lights makes a winter garden brilliant with color!  Better than flowers!

Make-you-hungry image from Harvest Wizard!

Simple Mucho Delicious Sautéed Chard Recipe!

Melt butter and olive oil together in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Stir in the garlic and onion, and cook for 30 seconds until fragrant. Add the chard stems and the white wine. Simmer until the stems begin to soften, about 5 minutes. Stir in the chard leaves, and cook until wilted. Finally, drizzle with lemon juice, sprinkle with Parmesan or your favorite grated cheese, or throw in fish or chicken pieces, or bacon bits, or pine nuts and cranberries, and toss!  Salt or not to taste.  Oh, yes.

2)  Broccoli is super nutritious, a great antioxidant, and easy to grow. 

Considered to be all season:

    Cruiser (58 days to harvest; uniform, high yield; tolerant of dry conditions)

    Green Comet (55 days; early; heat tolerant)

    All Season F1 Hybrid is my current fav!  The side shoots are abundant and big, easier and faster harvesting!  The plants are low, they don’t shade out other plants, and compact, a very efficient footprint!

Sprouting Varieties:

    Calabrese:  Italian, large heads, many side shoots. Loves cool weather. Does best when transplanted outside mid-spring or late summer.  Considered a spring variety (matures in spring).  Disease resistant.  58 – 80 days

    DeCicco:  Italian heirloom, bountiful side shoots. Produces a good fall crop, considered a spring variety.  Early, so smaller main heads.  48 to 65 days

    Green Goliath:  Early heavy producer, tolerant of extremes.  Prefers cool weather, considered a spring variety.  53-60 days

    Waltham 29  Cold resistant, prefers fall weather but has tolerance for late summer heat.  Late 85 days.

    Green Comet:  Early-maturing (58 days) hybrid produces a 6-inch-diameter head and is very tolerant of diseases, heat tolerant.

    Packman:  Hybrid that produces a 9-inch-diameter main head in 53 days. Excellent side-shoot production.

3)  PEAS are because you love them!  They come in zillions of varieties.  Plant LOTS!  I plant some of each, the English shelling peas in a pod, snow or Chinese flat-pod peas, and the snap peas that are fat podded crisp snacks that usually don’t make it home from the garden!  Snow and snaps are great in salads.  Well, so are shelled peas!  Snow peas can be steamed with any veggie dish or alone.  Fresh English peas require the time and patience to hull them, but are SO tasty who cares?!

For more varieties info, click here

F is Fusarium resistant, AAS is All America Selection, PM is Powdery Mildew resistant

China, snow, or sugar

F   Dwarf Grey Sugar

F   Mammoth Melting Sugar

Snap (thick, edible pods)

AAS, PM   Sugar Ann (dwarf)

PM   Sweet Snap (semi-dwarf)

PM   Sugar Rae (dwarf)

PM   Sugar Daddy (stringless, dwarf)

AAS   Sugar Snap

Whether you get these exact varieties or not, mainly, I’m hoping you will think about how different varieties are, of any kind of plant, whether that plant is suitable for your needs, if it has disease resistance/tolerance, heat/frost tolerance, if it is an All America Selection, what its days to maturity are.  A few extra moments carefully looking at that tag or seed pack can be well worth it.

Next week:  August in Your Garden! 

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Merry May Veggie Gardening to You!

Carpenter Bee - Male, AKA Teddy Bear Bee!

April 15, 2011 I had my first encounter with a huge male carpenter bee – see image! Awesome! They are all fuzzy and yellow (not all black like the females), sometimes called Teddy Bear Bees, and I could totally see why! They hover closely and look you right in the eye, buzz off and come back for another look! They are the largest bees found in California, don’t sting. What a pollinator!

Magic May, Mama Earth’s Bounty Month, It’s Cantaloupe Time!!

Keep planting your summer veggies and year-arounds! If you haven’t put in the summer heat lovers, do it NOW! That’s peppers, eggplant, okra, melons. Absolutely get winter squash in now. It takes time to mature and harden. Beans, beets, carrots, chayote, corn, cucs, summer lettuce varieties, pumpkins, radish, zuchs, chard, tomatoes, more tomatoes, turnips! Omigod, I’m hungry!

Harvesting is like pruning, no? So eat! Keep your plant producing by steady picking and plucking, no storing on the vine! Otherwise, it thinks it did its job, made those seeds, and folds up camp! Keep your broccoli harvested. If you see flower stalks, cut them off ASAP, back to where new shoots can come. If you are getting too many sprouts, cut them back further to slow them down. Eat those bitty zuchs, flowers and all! Use those herbs you planted – basils, thyme, sage, oregano. Just a few of their leaves rubbed, mashed, steeped, chopped, can add luscious flavors! Make pretty bouquet garni for giveaways! Parsley is SO good for you, and beautiful in your garden! Its second year it goes to seed, a biennial. Pull and cook the tasty roots in your soup, or let a plant or two go to seed to feed beneficial insects and reseed your patch.

Oh yes, and, of course, plant cosmos, marigolds, petunias, sunflowers, sweet alyssum, your favorite summer flowers!

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APRIL is for Heat Lovers! Pull back your mulches, let soil heat up, PLANT!

Why not start with an AAS (All America Selections) 2011 Winner?!
Pepper ‘Orange Blaze’ F1  Early ripening orange variety, very sweet flavor, multiple disease resistances!

AAS 2011 Winner - Orange Blaze F1 Pepper

Get out last year’s garden notes if you made any, and review for varieties you liked, where you got ‘em, how much to plant!

CORN!
Plant in blocks, not rows, for pollination.  When tassels bloom, break off pieces and whap them on the silks!  Each silk is one kernel, each needs one grain of pollen!
Corn hybridizes – plant only one variety, or varieties that don’t have pollen at the same time.  This is pretty much not doable at a community garden since everyone is planting all kinds at any time, so if you harvest seeds, don’t expect true results!

Heat tolerant, tipburn resistant lettuces – Nevada, Sierra, Black Seeded Simpson, Jericho Romaine
     Slo bolt cilantro, arugula in semi shade (among your corn?!)
Eggplant love humidity and heat.  Tuck ‘em in between, right up against, other plants.  Near the cooler coast plant the longer length varieties that mature earlier.
Jicama, limas, melons, okra, peppers, seed potatoes, pumpkins
From Seed:  basil (Nufar is wilt resistant), chard, green beans (while peas finishing), beets, carrots, corn, endive, New Zealand spinach, parsley, radish, squash – summer & WINTER, sunflowers, turnips.  Coastal gardeners, get your winter squash in NOW so it will have ample time to mature.
The radish variety French Breakfast holds up and grows better than most early types in summer heat if water is supplied regularly.

PreSoak and/or PreSprout for 100% success!  Click here for details!  Per eHow:  How to Soak Watermelon Seeds in Milk Before Growing.  Sometimes the seed coat carries a virus, and the proteins in milk will also help deactivate the virus.  Read more 

Transplants:  cucumbers (hand pollinate?), tomatoes, watermelon
WAIT FOR MAY to plant cantaloupe
Herbs from transplants – oregano, rosemary, sage, savory, thyme 

Plant successively!  If you put in transplants now, also put in seeds for an automatic 6 week succession!  Plant different varieties (except of corn if you want true seed – see above)! 

If you overplant, thin for greens, or transplant when they are about 2 to 3 inches high.  Lettuce, carrots, onions.  Too many stunt each other.  OR, this from Santa Barbara Westsiders Lili & Gabor:  Overplant mesclun on purpose, then mow the little guys!  If you are at home, plant densely in a planter bowl, cut off, leaving 1 ½” of stem still in your soil.  They will regrow, you will have several months’ supply of tasty baby greens.  Plant two or three bowls for more people or more frequent harvest!  Give a bowl as a gift! 

Tomatoes
Plant for excellence – Throw a handful of bone meal in your planting hole along with a handful of nonfat powdered milk, worm castings, compost/manures, mix it all up with your soil.  Sprinkle the roots of your transplant with mycorrhizal fungi!  That’ll do it!  Stand back for bounty!
REMOVE LOWER LEAVES OF TOMATOES  Wilt prevention.  Water sparingly or not at all after about a foot tall.  Wilt comes from the ground up the leaves and is airborne. Remove any leaves that touch the ground or could get water splashed.  Don’t remove suckers – airborne fungi can enter open wounds.
Sorry, NO HEIRLOOMS if you know the soil has the wilts.  Heirlooms don’t have resistance.  Get varieties with VF on the tag or that you know have resistance/tolerance.
Mid day, rap tomato cages or the main stem, to help pollination.  55 degrees or lower, higher than 75 at night, or 105 in daytime = bud drop.  Not your fault.  Grow early varieties first that tolerate cooler temps.
Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden Kevin and Mary Smith have had successes with 2 blight resistant/tolerant determinate varieties, New Hampshire Surecrop, a 78 day, great tasting slicer/canner, and Legend, a very early 68 day!  Ask for them, and more Jetsetters, with unbelievable VFFNTA resistance/tolerance, at your nursery.  See Tomatoes and Wilts here at the Green Bean Connection Blog for a list of additional resistant/tolerant varieties and tips!   

Maintenance!  Sidedress when blooms start.  Fish/kelp, foliar feed Epsom salt for Solanaceaes, seabird guano (not bat) for more blooms, manures for lettuces and leaf crops like chard, collards.

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Rainy Day Tips! Before, During, After!

Rainy Day Harvesting!

Anticipate! 

Fertilize before a rain so the fertilizer will soak in.
Take the cover off your compost to let it get wet.
Tie or stake plants that may topple from wind or weight.
Set up to harvest rainwater for later use! 
Make raised beds, mounds, to help with drainage issues.
Mulch to keep soil from splashing up on your plants, keeping your harvest clean, holding water in place to soak in, and keep soil from eroding.
Make ‘permanent’ pathways with boards, stepping stones, straw bedding, so you won’t be compacting your planting area soil when it is wet or dry!
Plant for air circulation so foliage dries quickly.  Plants too closely spaced, make a warmer micro environment, tend to get mildew easier.
Choose mildew resistant plants! 
Drench your young plants with a mix of a heaping tablespoon of baking soda, a 1/4 cup of nonfat (so it won’t rot and stink) powdered milk in a large watering can of water for mildew prevention and abatement.  It works for certain other diseases as well!
Water less frequently and at ground level, not overhead.

During a rainy period….

If you didn’t before, get out there in your rain gear and add some manure or fertilizer!  Great excuse to play in the rain!
Check frequently to see how your plants are doing.  Secure any tall plants, trellises that need it.
If a plant is too low and in standing water, raise it.  Put your shovel deep under it, put some filler soil underneath the shovel!  
Add more mulch if it has shifted or wasn’t quite deep enough to keep mud spatter from your plants.
Be sure your wormbox worms are not doing the backstroke!
Rebuild any drainage channel that has weakened, clear if clogged.
Make sure all your rain harvest system is working well.  Kudos to you for harvesting!
Practice arm-chair gardening!  Read garden books, magazines, browse web sites, buy some seeds from mail-order catalogs, design your new garden layout!
Get some seeds, soilless potting mix, gather containers with, or make, drainage holes.  Start some seeds!
If the rain is prolonged, uh, do an aphid, snail and slug check as frequently as you can.  Sluggo works on snails  and slugs even when it is wet.  Hard to believe, but, yes, it does.
If the rain is prolonged, do harvest your fresh and crunchy produce!  Lettuces will flourish!  Check on fast maturing broccoli and cauliflower heads to cut at peak maturity!  Gather your luscious strawberries.  Keep your peas picked to keep them coming!

After the rain!  YES! 

Do some thinning for air circulation as makes sense.  Often there is a growth spurt, and you can see where thinning is needed.
Repair areas where soil has washed away exposing roots.  Put some mulch on.
It’s often warmer after a rain, and it is the warmth that mildew loves!   Drench mildew susceptible plants with your mildew mix immediately, early in the day so your plants can dry.  If you prune mildewed areas off, remove those prunings, wash your hands and pruners before you go on to other plants.
Do what you do about snails and slugs.  Keep checking for aphids – blast them away with water or remove infested leaves.
There is often more gopher activity after rain has softened the soil, so be ready! 
In later days, after the rain, harvest first, water second!  That’s the rule to keep from spreading diseases spread by moisture.

Enjoy the superlative rapid growth of your very happy plants!

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Protect Your Veggies from Freezing! Cover and tuck ‘em in!

Chilly 2012 Winter Solstice morning, Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden, Santa Barbara CA

Cold season things to know about your veggies!

• Fertilize.  Healthy plants can withstand more cold. But. From August on, if you anticipate a cold winter, avoid applying fertilizer with Nitrogen, apply at half your summer rate, until after the last frost, to prevent a flush of tender growth that can be damaged by the cold.
• Cool season crops, such as broccoli, cabbage, peas, and onions, originated in northern areas, and can tolerate frost and light freezes of short durations with little damage, plant cold hardy varieties. But other tender morsels often die literal black deaths from killing freezes. Lettuces, marigolds, your fragrant basil, and peppers are usually the first to go.
• Better taste! Cool-season vegetables, such as carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts, produce their best flavor when they mature during cool weather. They react to cold conditions and frost by producing sugars, making them taste sweet, especially Brussels sprouts and kale, but also parsnips and leeks! Ask the folks at the farmer’s market stands if their farms have gotten a frost yet – farms in the country often get frost long before the cities.
• When there are several days at low temps, cole crops (cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower) and onion sets, produce a seed stalk, called bolting. Unless you want to save seeds, at that point, harvest good leaves for greens, give the remaining plant to your compost.
• Early spring planting! I’ve often said, ‘Who can resist early planting?!’ Cold spells do come after last average freeze dates. Most of our plants will be fine, but some plants are really sensitive. Bell peppers don’t like cold. If you have them as transplants, keep them inside for the duration. Many seeds may not germinate during this period. Water them sparingly so they don’t rot. Early planted Beans, Cucumbers and Zucchinis may not make it. Early variety tomatoes should be fine. If your lettuce gets frosty, not to worry. They amazingly usually make it ok. Good luck to you and your planties!

Frost we understand, but what’s a Hard Freeze?! When temperatures drop below 32° Fahrenheit (0° Centigrade) and remain there for several hours, even only 2 hours will do it, typically killing seasonal vegetation. Several hours at 25 to 28 degrees, ice crystals form not only on your plant, but in your plant, damaging the cell walls. The coldest time of day is just before daybreak. Clouds at night can absorb and reflect heat back to the earth. Wind can mix the ascending warm air with the descending cold air. Calm, clear nights pose the greatest danger of frost. WIND:  If it is windy, less worry. Cold air must settle to form frost and any wind will usually prevent this. Or, a wind may dry your plants, making them more susceptible to freezing!

Floating Row Cover, Winter Frost Blanket, over Tomato Cages – see how they are staked in place by the cages? One gardener calls these Plant Pajamas!

Frost or freeze survival….

Before!

• Watch your weather forecast religiously! Weather has no mercy.
• Water early in the day. Wet soil insulates and protects roots. The water warms up during the day and releases heat slowly during the night. The upper part of a plant may die, but the roots may be strong enough to push up new growth!
• Move frost tender plants under eaves, a spreading tree, into greenhouses, garage. Key word here is UNDER.
• Haunt yard sales, the thrift shop, for old bed sheets, blankets, tablecloths, curtains, towels, shower curtains, burlap sacks, tarps – many of these end their lives covering garden plants for frost protection! Use newspaper with clothes pins so it won’t blow around. Plastic can be worse than nothing if it touches the plant. Prop up an unused trellis, get creative! Use those wire tomato cages to support your covers! Lay them down among short plants, stand them around taller plants. At home you can lay out a folding chaise lounge chair, or lawn chairs, and cover them!! Secure the edges with stakes, rocks, bricks, or cover with soil. You can use upside down plant pots only if they are large enough that the plants they will cover don’t touch the pot. Put a rock on top to keep them from blowing over! That’s called a hot-cap! The beauty of floating row covers (see image), also called frost or winter blankets, is they can be left in place during the day! Cover the plants mid- to late-afternoon if possible, before temperatures start to drop.
• What you can’t cover, that is not frost hardy, harvest. Root crops such as carrots and radishes should be harvested or mulched heavily before a hard freeze.
• Depending on your situation, set up windbreaks.

After! 

• If you didn’t cover, wash your plants off before the sun gets on them. Sometimes that will counteract the freeze burn.
• If you did cover, take the covers off, before the sun hits the beds, so everybody can get their sun quotient for the day! Winter days are short!
• Dry out your covers, keep them handy.
• Damaged leaves appear dark green and water soaked at first, later becoming black. If your plant is totally gone, it’s compost, replace your plant. Except potatoes! They will resprout, give ‘em 10 to 14 days!
• Should you trim the ugly damaged stuff off and give your plant a lot of fertilizer to help it? Whoa, Nelly! That’s a NO! The damaged part is protecting the now undamaged part. If you trim and add a lot of fertilizer, tender new growth will form, and that will be toast if there is another frost or freeze. Wait to trim until no more frost is predicted, feed lightly.

Was that groaning, whining I heard? Stop it. Just go out there and cover your plants, no fooling around, you hear?! You will be glad you did, it’s your plants’ lives you are saving! Besides, reviving is harder than covering, and regrowing takes all that time all over again. Also, many will be well past the window for replanting, so cover, cover, cover! Better to have a yard full of ghosts (sheet covers) and look silly, than lose your plants.

Repeat, Religion! Watch WEATHER reports in case of freezes, heavy winds, rain. Santa Barbara’s average First Frost (fall) date AT THE AIRPORT is December 19, Last Frost (spring) date is (was?) January 22. That can vary from the coastal areas to the foothills, and our climate is changing generally to warmer, so these dates may not be viable guides much longer, if even now….

Keep watch and good luck!

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Updated 10.25.21

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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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