OKRA ~ Unique and Wonderful!

Some people would almost grow Okra, Abelmoschus esculentus, for the flowers alone! They are in the Mallow family.

Where does it come from? Baker Creek explains that ‘the exact origin of okra is unknown, although it is believed to hail from Ethiopia, Western Africa, and Southern Asia. Early accounts of the plant were mentioned in Egypt in A.D. 1216. Okra was introduced to the Americas in the 1600s, presumably carried aboard slave ships from Africa.’

In the USA, it is thought of as a Southern dish along with hominy grits, collards and cornbread! I love Baker Creek’s intro – Synonymous with Southern cooking, okra, also known as gumbo or lady’s finger, is an Hibiscus relative grown for its immature seed pods. Okra thrives in hot weather and is often the last one standing in Southern gardens when the punishing summer heat has brought less hardy vegetables to their knees. Few northerners realize that okra will grow just fine in their area, as the plants grow and produce seed pods quickly once summer has set in.

Varieties of many factors! 

You can choose from luscious Okra colors – Green, Yellow, ‘Jing Orange,’ Pink, Red, Burgundy, variegated! 

Thanks to C L Fornari, Garden Lady, for this stunning image!

In 1983 Clemson University introduced this gorgeous red burgundy okra. Now, perhaps, Burgundy Okra is the number one selling red okra. 55 days. Pods are a beautiful deep red, and stems are also red. Maturity in 49-60 days. Lots of tender and delicious 6 – 8 inch pods! Often planted as an attractive edible ornamental option. 

You can get Heirlooms and/or Hybrids. Hybrids are recommended in areas that have Verticillium and Fusarium wilts. 

The old standard, HEIRLOOM Clemson Spineless, is the most popular okra on the market. Burpee Seeds writes: ‘This is the 1939 All-America Selections winner. A favorite of American gardeners for over 80 years, vigorous 4′ plants produce an abounding harvest of spineless dark-green, grooved pods. Okra adds body and flavor to soups, stews, and relishes, and can be grilled, braised, steamed, and sautéed. Garden Hint: Soak seed in warm water overnight to speed germination. Pick pods when young at 2½–3″ long.’

There are smooth varieties, but the deeper the rib the prettier the star when you cut it crosswise! However, Louisiana Green Velvet is good for big areas. It is vigorous and it can grow to 8 feet tall with 8″ dark green, smooth spineless pods! About 65 days to maturity.

Tall or dwarf container sizes, pods long or stubby! Gardening Know How says ‘Other heirlooms include Cowhorn, growing to 8 feet (2.4 m.) tall. It takes three months for the 14-inch (36 cm.) pods to come to harvest [maintain tenderness at 10″ long!]. On the other end of the height spectrum, you’ll find the okra plant called Stubby. It only gets to just over 3 feet (.9 m.) tall and its pods are stubby. Harvest them when they are under 3 inches (7.6 cm.).’ Great container variety!

Here is a plentiful bi-color stubby called Hill Country red okra, or try Alabama Red!

Cajun Delight is a 4′ variety, an excellent choice for a short growing season in cooler climates, this hybrid matures in 50-55 days. Delicious dark green pods are 3-5 inches long, and slightly curved.

How many okra will you get per plant? Baker Creek says ‘This is the most productive okra we have ever seen, with plants producing as much as 250 pods per plant in a season and 44 young, tender pods in a single day.’ If what Baker Creek says is true, one plant may be all you need! It’s called Heavy Hitter! SEE SeedSavingNetwork.Proboards photo thread of the plants selected and perfected over decades by Ron Cook, a farmer 20 miles from Hulbert, Oklahoma. His plants get 8′ tall, 8′ wide, pods 6-8″ long, and watch out for the Water Moccasins! Mr Cook gives tips for growing, tending and harvesting. It is not frost hardy, so along with some other okras, in cool coastal areas, you can start them as late as June when it’s warmer. They grow quickly in the warmer weather. Buy early! In some Januarys the seed houses are sold out!

2023 Report! Last year I tried Heavy Hitter, an early super productive variety. We had a cool summer and the standard Burgundy Okra outperformed it. This red variety has always outperformed every green I’ve grown.

One seed company says Annie Oakley F2 is ‘An innovative, high yielding, spineless hybrid. Bears a generous crop of spineless, flavorful, slightly ribbed green pods. Compact, 4.5′ tall plant has short internodes and permits high-density planting. Pods are long and slender with a high degree of uniformity. Pods hold well at tender stage and are earlier in maturity when compared to open pollinated varieties.’ And there is no waiting for summer heat to plant them! It is well adapted to the cooler, shorter growing seasons of northern gardens. Start seeds now for April planting! 50 days to harvest! Spineless pods.

 Plan for Companion Plants!

Cucumbers, melons, eggplant, and sweet or hot peppers also like plenty of water. Plant cukes and melons underneath, or any of them, along the sunny side of tall okra varieties. BUT, skip at least a year before planting okra in soil where vine crops like sweet potatoes or squash have grown, because those vines can increase bad nematodes in the soil.
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! 
Eggplant releases potassium for the okra to benefit from.
Radishes loosen the soil for young okra roots. 
Basil’s strong fragrance repels flea beetles, stinkbugs, spider mites, aphids and whiteflies. If you live in a hot area, plant that Basil on the shady side of your okra.
Tomatoes can repel stink bugs and cabbage worms

If none of that appeals, consider planting a legume cover crop underneath your okra that adds Nitrogen to the soil when the cover crop plants dies. Those tall okra are heavy feeders.

Cosmos, zinnias, calendula and chamomile attract pollinators, resulting in large, plump pods!

As a companion plant itself, Okra’s sturdy stem makes it a good windbreaker, though it might be wise to stake them. Tall varieties give shade for lettuces, kale and many herbs including parsley, tarragon, chives and cilantro. These smaller plants in turn, make living mulch for the Okra.

A wise choice may be to biodiversely alternate, intercrop okra, peppers, eggplant and tomatoes, putting the shorter plants 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 growing row by row, plant each row in a different order. 

Planting and Growing 

Start your okra seeds indoors under full light 3 to 4 weeks before the last spring frost date. Or, start in the ground when the soil temp is 65° or 70°F, the warmer, the better.

Full sun is best in well-drained soil that’s rich in organic matter, on the acidic side, with a pH between 5.8 and 7.0. Keep in mind, okra does not like excessively rich soil. The contradiction is to side-dress the plants with 10-10-10, aged manure, or rich compost! Some say Okra will tolerate poor soil, little water. Plants will flourish with even minimal compost and irrigation. Others say keep it moist. Mine seem to thrive keeping them moist, the minimum is 1 inch of water every week. Depends on how hot your area is and your type of soil.

Plant seeds about ½ to 1 inch deep and 12 to 18 inches apart in a row. You can soak the seeds overnight in tepid water to help speed up germination. Germination takes 2 to 12 days. If you are planting tall varieties, space the rows 3 to 4 feet apart.

Thin or start transplants 1 to 2′ apart. Avoid having them shade each other and having to fight each other for nutrients.

Plant smart! Succession! Plant seeds and transplants of minis and bigger longer maturers at the same time to have a tasty succession of fresh okra for your table. Plant two or three rounds in case of crop failure and/or to have continuous crop if all goes well! 

Care and Maintenance

If you are in a hot arid area, when the plants are young, mulch 2 to 3 inches high. Since I live in a cooler coastal area, I don’t mulch them, but let the ground get hot.

Fertilize when transplanted. Sidedress at 8″ tall, when the pods set and at 4′ tall – some keep on fertilizing every 3-4 weeks! That keeps them going well, but no overfeeding or you get lovely leaves and few pods. If that happens, you can try adding fertilizers with a higher percentage of phosphorus compared to the percentage of nitrogen and potassium to stimulate blooming.

After the first harvest, remove the lower leaves to help speed up production.

If you live in a hot crop area, late summer prune off the top third of your plant. Stem buds will grow and you will have a second crop!

Pests and Diseases

Aphids. Jet those puppies with a forceful stream of water! Discourage the ants that bring and tend them. Use insecticidal soap is you have to. Plant plenty of habitat, flowers, for ladybugs, hoverflies and lacewing flies! Lacewings like little flowers like Alyssum. Beneficial insects like will also help to keep other pests away. 

Cool weather is not so good. Like Tomatoes and Cucumbers, Okra is susceptible to verticillium and fusarium wilts, which are soil/air-borne diseases that cause them to wilt and die. To avoid the wilts and blight, even if a variety is early cold tolerant, some gardeners still wait until June to plant, when the soil is drier, and they water less. Planting and care techniques are crucial. Please see Wilts & Cucumber Beetles, Tomatoes & Cukes for the important details! Some say, in general, don’t water your Okra until they wilt slightly. 

Root knot nematodes, Japanese beetles, stink bugs, corn earworms, and flea beetles are not their friend. Nor are fire ants that damage the flowers, causing the flowers to abort. Check with your local Extension agency for help. Use helpful companion plants right near your plants.

Harvest & Storage 

Harvest depends on the variety you planted. If you are growing stubbies, it’s sooner. If they are 14″ers, you will be waiting a little longer. But mostly, HARVEST promptly! It depends on when they get tough. You will know right away. I like to eat mine right off the plant. If your pods are over their prime harvest time, you won’t be able to eat those toughies. Hard to cut that fiber with a knife. Sometimes they grow really fast and you miss the catch. Check every day, every other day is taking a chance. Remove any that are past harvest time because they keep the plant from producing.

Farmers Almanac advises to ‘wear gloves and long sleeves when cutting the okra because most varieties are covered with tiny spines that will irritate your skin, unless you have a spineless variety. Do not worry: this irritation will not happen when you eat them.’ This is why many grow the Clemson Spineless variety.

Okra has a very high respiration rate at warm temperatures and should be promptly cooled to reduce heat and prevent deterioration. Fresh okra bruises easily, so handle gently.

Okra is best eaten right away within only two or three days. When ridges and tips of pods turn dark, it needs to be used immediately. Place fresh unwashed okra in a paper bag, or wrap it in a paper towel and place the paper towel in a perforated plastic bag. Put it in your veg storage drawer in your fridge. 

To store okra, freeze uncut and uncooked pods. You can then prepare the okra any way you like throughout the winter months. Or, check out these tips at the Spruce! .Can or pickle okra to have throughout the winter.

   

SeedSaving!

If you are growing more than one variety, to ensure pure seed, bag or cover your plant’s flowers!

Harvest pods for seed saving when they have turned brown, split and have begun to dry out. Bring pods inside to finish drying. Once totally dried out, twist pods to release the seeds, which are large and round and usually come free without any chaff. Simply store the seeds in a cool, airtight container, and they will keep for 2 to 3 years.

If seedsaving isn’t for you, let your plant seed out for the sheer floral beauty of the seed pods! The center image above is by the marvelous Nan Schiller, who is ‘always ready to dig into a new project!’

Delicious International Cuisine Choices!

Here is the detailed skinny on Okra nutrition from Specialty Produce! Okra provides a good source of vitamin C, vitamin A, folacin and other B vitamins plus magnesium, potassium and calcium. It is fat-free, saturated-fat-free, cholesterol-free and low in calories. A substantial source of dietary fiber, okra provides over five grams per three and one-half ounce serving. The extra folate supplied by this vegetable is beneficial to pregnant women. 

Okra Salad is perfect for summer meals ~
Okra skillet cornbread is a great treat for breakfast or summer evenings!

 

Have Okra for breakfast! Do thin diagonal slices, drop the slices into your scrambled eggs or omelet for some tasty crunch!

Okra may be eaten raw or cooked, and it’s a common ingredient in Creole cuisine.

Have your Okra baked, as oven roasted chips, roasted Bhindi masala, roasted Okra with coconut filling, fried, breaded and deep fried, a stir fried filling in a tortilla, grilled, in stews, seafood gumbo, Waakye – famous rice and beans dish of Ghana, Greek stewed okra in tomato sauce, sautéed with garlic and olive oil, fresh cut in salads – cut your slices at an angle, Japanese salad with dried Bonito flakes (Katsuobushi) or Okra Ohitashi – cold and marinated, pickled, pilaf or curried! Or, in Japan, my friend who lived there says they eat it uncooked, sliced paper thin in a marinade of lemon, vinegar and soy sauce. Same with cucumbers. Yum.

Do not wash until ready to prepare as water causes pods to become slimy. Do not cook in aluminum or cast iron as okra will turn dark. When cooked, red okra pods turn green. Raw red okra adds a colorful touch.

When cooking, here are several tips at How To Make Okra Less Slimy along with more yummy recipes at Huffpost! Know too, that its rich juice is also used to thicken sauces.

Bon Appétit, Dear Gardeners! Here’s to many new gardening adventures!

Updated 4.26.23

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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. In 2018 they lasted into September and October! Keep that in mind compared to the microclimate niche where your veggie garden is.

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Best Tomato Varieties to Grow!

Tomato Chef’s Choice Pink F1 Beefsteak, 2015 AAS Vegetable Award Winner

The request I got was what are the best cherry, the best heirloom, the best standard and the best beefsteak to grow in our area?! Quite reasonable query.

Santa Barbara has such a range of zones! And, if you ask 5 gardeners they will have 5 answers! That’s my experience gardening at a community garden.

Best depends on WHEN you plant. If you plant early, you want ‘early’ producers that are more cold tolerant, the smaller varieties. A month later you can go for the bigger toms. Beefsteaks don’t do well on the Westside unless you have a hotspot. Gardeners at the Terrace don’t get the best results with them. They take too long to mature and often don’t get big like a beef steak should, take forever to redden, thus, low production.

Best depends on whether your soil has Verticillium or Fusarium wilts, which the Terrace does. And the wilts are wind borne as well as soil/water splash spread. Heirlooms generally have little resistance and die first at our garden. And whether heirlooms do well has a lot to do with what the gardener does with their soil and whether they help them out weekly/biweekly with an immune building foliar spray like the mix of powdered milk and aspirin. Soil needs worm castings, that help with the immune system, and at transplant time mycorrhizae fungi sprinkled on their roots for greater uptake of nutrients and water. Best for us are tomatoes that have VFN on their tags ~ Verticillium, Fusarium, Nematodes resistance. Resistance is exactly what it means. The plants do die sooner or later from the disease no matter how much you do, feed, spray, treat.

How the gardener plants tomatoes makes a difference. Up on a mound with a basin on top. Top that with a 1/2″ of compost, cover that with 1″ of straw to let in air and sun to dry the soil but keep the leaves from touching the soil. Touching the soil is the main way toms get the wilts. Lower leaves that might touch soil when weighted with dew or by watering need to be removed ASAP.

The wilts can’t be stopped. Sooner or later the plant leaves curl lengthwise, get dark spots, turn brown, hang sadly. Plants can produce but it’s agonizing to watch. Sometimes they somewhat recover later in the season after almost looking totally dead. I think the summer heat drys the soil and kills enough of the fungi for the plant to be able to try again. When we think it is dead, we water it less. It’s better to water near a tomato, not right at its roots. It has a deep tap root and will find water from water you give to neighboring plants.

The best of each? Cherry, heirloom, standard, beefsteak? I believe often it is totally gardener preference. If they love that variety, they will pamper it like a baby and it grows and produces like crazy! Some gardeners love Lemon Boys that are practically tasteless to me. Some gardeners like a mushy almost grainy texture. Some gardeners far prefer taste to quantity of production. I personally don’t find heirlooms to be anymore tasty than the toms I choose, though I do love their color variations and odd shapes! I’ve chosen toms just because I like their name. And I don’t recommend doing that, LOL! Some plant that variety because that’s what their family planted, sentimental, and they swear it tastes better too! Genes, you know.

Other than that, if you want to get technical, AAS Winners are a total best bet! All America Selections is a non profit of 80 years standing! The 2014 tomato winner was a yummy looking orange heirloom! They are selected each year from the best that are produced, proven producers, disease and pest tolerance/resistance. Obviously color, size, taste and texture are personal choices and best becomes a moot point. I do a little of both. I primarily pick VFNs and let myself ‘experiment’ from time to time, and let at least one volunteer live out of pure curiosity! LOL

Mother Earth News has a great collection of gardener tomato variety preferences cross country. Check it out! For the Southwest, Sungold and other cherry tomatoes are the popular, practical choice. Those of us more coastal are very lucky to have a greater range of choice.

A technical point is some varieties of tomatoes are far better for tomato grafting than others.

So, best depends on best for what, when, where and who! Personal taste, soil conditions, when you plant, where you plant. A windless hot spot with lots of light even in a cool neighborhood works well so you have more choices of varieties that will succeed.

HEAT TOLERANT VARIETIES! Many plants start shutting down, dropping flowers, baby fruits, at about 85 degrees. But, like Rattlesnake green beans that produce wonderfully in temps up to 100 degrees, there are some terrific tomatoes that keep right on producing! Look at successful varieties grown in hot inland California, southern and desert areas to see their choices, not just in the US, but places like Israel too. In this SoCal drought heat, I highly recommend you take a good look at nursery tags! Query a knowledgeable nursery person if in doubt, and double check that variety online before you purchase. Best choices from now on, in the warmer winter and hotter California summers, needs to include heat tolerance! Key words in heat tolerant tomato names are heat, solar, fire, sun!

Many Happy Tasty Tomatoes to You!

Updated 1.3.2023

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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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MARCH, Celebrate Spring Planting!

Love your Mother! Plant bird & bee food! Capture water! Grow organic!

We had a terrific turnout, 102 gardeners, at our Master Gardener event at Mesa Harmony Garden yesterday! Many were members of SB Farm & Food Adventures! Please consider becoming a Master Gardener, joining Farm & Food Adventures, or volunteering at Mesa Harmony permaculture garden to promote our local gardening! It felt good to be introduced as a ‘long time garden advocate!’ Thank you all for coming!

Start MORE seedlings indoors for April/May plantings. Sow seeds. Transplant! If seeds and tending seedlings aren’t for you, get transplants and pop them right in the ground per their right times!

Night and ground temps are still a bit cool. Night air temps above 50 and soil temps 60 to 65 are what we are looking for. Growth stress is difficult for plants to overcome. Peppers, especially, will just “sulk” if their roots are chilled, and they usually don’t recover. They especially need nighttime temps above 55°F and soil temps above 65°F. While temps are still cool, start with small fruited varieties and cherry toms. Plant patio and determinate, early varieties for soonest production and/or if you have little space.

When the temps are right, put your seeds and transplants in at the same time. Seedlings will come along 6 to 8 weeks behind your transplants so you have a steady supply of yummy veggies! Succession planting makes such good sense. But if tending seedlings isn’t your cup of tea, just leave space and put in more transplants in 6 to 8 weeks after your first planting.

Choose drought and heat tolerant varieties as possible. The Farmers’ Almanac predicts a cooler summer than usual, or might that be cooler than last year’s hot summer?! Be prepared for either? If we get the heat, then melons, pumpkins, large eggplants, and okra will be on the menu! Drought conditions are still on, so do still keep water saving in mind. Think of waffle garden type techniques. Please see Drought Choices info before you choose your varieties.

Timing Considerations  Plant Winter squash NOW so it will have a long enough season to harden for harvest and be done in time for early fall planting. APRIL is true heat lovers time! Eggplant, limas, melons (wait until May for cantaloupe), peppers, pumpkins and squash! Many wait until April to plant tomatoes. Wait until the soil has warmed to 70°F before planting squash and melons. Some gardeners wait until JUNE to plant okra. It really likes heat and grows quickly when happy. Choose 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.

Right now plant cold tolerating quick maturing tomatoes, and pepper transplants. Outdoors sow or transplant beets, carrots, celery, chard, herbs, Jerusalem artichokes, kale, kohlrabi, leeks, lettuces, green onions, bulb onion seed and sets (be sure to get summer- maturing varieties), parsley, peas, peanuts, potatoes, radishes, shallots, spinach, strawberries, and turnips. Transplant broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, and kohlrabi seedlings. Time for heat-resistant, bolt-resistant lettuces of all kinds! Sierra, Nevada, Jericho, Black Seeded Simpson are some. Tips for super Successful Transplanting!

• Beans, Cukes, Dill, Radish Combo! Depending on ground temps, tuck in some bean seeds where the peas are finishing, intermingled with cucumber seeds that will grow low along the trellis, below the beans, plus a few dill to go with the cukes! Plant radishes with the cukes to deter the Cucumber beetles.
• Tomato Tips:  La Sumida has the largest tomato selection in the Santa Barbara area! Ask for Judi to help you with your veggie questions. Heirlooms are particularly susceptible to the wilts, Fusarium and Verticillium. Instead, get varieties that have VFN or VF on the tag at the nursery. The V is for Verticillium, the F Fusarium wilt, N nematodes. Ace, Early Girl, Champion, Celebrity, are some that are wilt resistant/tolerant. In these drought conditions, consider getting only indeterminates.
• This is the LAST MONTH to transplant artichokes, asparagus, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, kale; also strawberry, blackberry, and raspberry roots so they’ll bear fruit well this year.
• Indoors, sow eggplant, peppers, and more tomatoes for transplanting into the garden in late April or early May. Also sow cucumbers, eggplants, melons, squash and sweet potatoes.

Tomato Wilts Fungi  If your soil has wilts fungi, you can slow it down a bit, but not avoid it entirely no matter how careful you are.

• Water saving? Determinates grow quick, produce and are done! To keep having tomatoes you need to plant them again and again, taking water each time while they grow up to produce. Indeterminates vine all summer long, producing less at once but continuously, no period of no production, no wasted water. But if a determinate gets wilt sick, you can replace it and have more toms and another high production period. Good for canning! Your choice.
• When you amend your soil prior to planting, add a very small amount of coffee grounds, 0.5 percent of the material, to kill off some of the fungi. That’s only 1/2 a percent! More is not better.
• Make a raised mound with a basin on top. The raised mound technique lets the soil drain and be dryer, equals less fungi.
• Top the mound with 1″ compost and cover that with only 1″ of straw. This is to stop infected soil from being water splashed onto your plant. Straw gives airflow and the thin layer allows your soil to heat up. Happy tomato.
• Plant far enough apart so mature plants don’t touch each other. It’s sad to see an entire tomato patch go down. Not only do the wilts spread by water, but they are windborn.
• Biodiversity Break up the patch by planting other plants, like peppers or eggplants, alternately with your tomatoes. Plant them here and there. There is no law saying they all have to be together or in a row!
• When your plant gets tall enough, remove any lower leaves that would touch the ground when weighted with water.
• Remove any infected leaves ASAP, daily if necessary.
• Don’t water if other plants around your tomato are getting plenty of water. Tom roots go deep and your tomato can be semi dry farmed.
• Wait until May or June to plant in drier soil!

Gather March salad topper edible flowers! Arugula blooms, broccoli, chamomile, Johnny Jump-ups, onion!

Don’t forget to ferment probiotic, good bacteria, veggies ~ sauerkraut from your cabbages is excellent! Just about any vegetables and even fruits can be lacto-fermented, but fruits will need much less fermentation time as they contain much more sugar. Experiment with herbs and spices to your heart’s content!

Plant some lovely chamomile, cosmos, marigold and yarrow to make habitat to bring our beneficial good friends, hoverflies, lacewings, ladybird beetles, and parasitic wasps.

Spring blessings, Happy gardening!

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The Green Bean Connection started as correspondence for the Santa Barbara CA USA Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden. We are very coastal, only a mile from the beach, in a spring/summer fog belt/marine layer area most years, so 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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Leave a wild place, untouched, in your garden! It’s the place the faeries and elves, the little people can hang out. When you are down on your hands and knees, they will whisper what to do. All of a sudden an idea pops in your mind….

In the garden of thy heart, plant naught but the rose of love. – Baha’U’Uah
“Earth turns to Gold in the hands of the Wise” Rumi

See the entire March 2015 Newsletter! 

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Mediterranean Understory & *Guild Plants for Food Forests – Part 1

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This is one example of how to do a single tree simple mini system. It is designed by Joshua Reynolds at Texas Edible Landscapes. He sells these PODS, self-sustaining micro eco-systems, that can come with lots of variables per the plants you pick. July 2019 prices – Ready made, $550; custom is $750. Food Forests and Guilds are catching on!

There is nothing new about Forest gardens/Food forests. Indigenous peoples have always had them at the edge of the village. Many visitors never knew the garden was there since they didn’t eat the same foods. We have come to understand how these ‘food forests’ work. They have been being deliberately mimiced and with practice we have found out a lot more about why and how they work, and added a few touches of our own! At their height, they have literally brought an appreciation and respect for the importance of trees, how trees beget their own companion plants, called Guilds. They are ecological zones! Trees and other perennials have taught us their extended worth, much more than money, as we experience climate changes.

If you want to grow your own, if your land already has plants growing naturally on it, sit down with them. Maybe a bit each day for a few days. Let the land talk with you. Notice the lay of the land, how it flows.

Trees are your master plant. Plant a tree thinking in the long term of a food/garden forest, guild – mainly its mature height! What about shading your area, the neighbor’s area? It will be there a long time. Think carefully what tree that will be – a food producer? Will it interfere with the soil, limiting choices of what you will plant under, around, near it. Due to tannins and oils, oak, eucalyptus, tea tree, walnut pose a challenge. Do you want it to be a windbreak so the land will be warmed for veg planting? What does your space accommodate? Do you want full grown trees? Or would your space and palate do better with an array of different kinds of dwarf trees, mixed semidwarf trees grafted with different fruits or nuts at fruit picking reachable height?

Food Forest at Alan Day Community Garden, Norway, Maine

There are all different kinds of Forest gardens/Food forests! When permaculture first got popular, the hybrid garden design was used. It was a ‘U’ shaped area cleared among the trees, the opening to the south to allow the greatest amount of sunlight and heat to be received. The edges were natural, acted as windbreaks. The central, protected and warmer portion, was planted to veggies. Since then, as the idea of Food Forests has taken hold, they have been incorporated right into urban living! They are planned from the selection of useful food producing border trees and shrubs to learning about plant companion guilds with one central tree. That happened because few urban homes had room for more, so make the best use of the space you have! Some are planted in narrow side home strips or small yards, but they are cleverly and creatively happening! Your first job is selecting your space, designing as you can.

If you have enough space, you can use the old hybrid U shape more wisely, to great advantage! Our knowledge now is much more sophisticated. In these times of needing more sustainability, little land available, Food Forests now are tending to use more efficient low maintenance perennials, that survive for decades. A mature forest may not even be recognized as a garden. The levels blend just like in nature, self mulching, use less water. Harvesting may be done along the only opening which may be a broad path corridor. But if you love your annuals, plant them along borders or in sunlit areas, or just like times past, in that protected area. You can do as you wish! If you strictly want only a perennial food forest, please see GroCycle’s super post The Complete Guide to Food Forest Layers for site selection/prep, how to tips, details on layers, much more!

See Designing your SoCal Winter Veggie Garden! Think Big! to mix it up and broaden your long term plans!

Perennials are nature’s mainstays. They are efficient, no replanting season after season waiting for fruit to form. If the perennial is eaten for their leaves you have a constant year round supply, and once at maturity, some produce fruit/veggies year round! Many are natives perfectly suited to their area – water needs, that soil. Inquire locally! They are often heat and drought tolerant. They are water saving, not requiring more start start up water like newly planted plants. See more!

December, January are a great time to install native plants and fruit trees! Nurseries stock them bare-root then! See if any of this info affects where and how you place them. Your garden can start with a single tree in your backyard. Read Toby Hemenway’s book ‘Gaia’s Garden,’ especially the chapter on Designing Garden Guilds. Toby says “…biological support replaces human intervention, shifting the garden’s burden onto the broad back of nature.” If you have time and inclination, see Linda & Larry’s Food Forest Video! Besides their suburban Santa Barbara yard being a food forest, it is the epitome of edible landscaping!  

*Guild plants are plants that grow well together. It’s a LOT more than companion planting by twos, two plants that like, enhance, or help each other, though that is wonderful too. Happy plants make more food! Guilds are systems of plants starting with a tree if you have the space! If you can’t do a tree, start at the level you can – food producing shrubs are good too! Generally that tree is a fruit or nut tree that provides food. For lots of great ideas, check out Permies.com on Guilds. If you love the idea of guilds, and apples, check out the details at this Apple Tree Guild! – image at left. A large area super functioning guild utilizes both vertical space and horizontal overlapping circles!

Food forests are naturally occurring in nature. Permaculturists think of them designed in layers. From Wiki, adapted to one person’s Apple Guild example, running vertically from the top down:

1. The canopy – the treetops.
2. The understory or low tree layer – anything under about 4.5 meters. Our apple trees will be in this zone but in our neighborhood they’ll be some of the highest plants around so nothing will be competing with them for light.
3. Shrubs – our raspberries, broad beans, and blackcurrants are in this layer. Being larger, the vicinity of the apple tree will only sustain a few of these. Broad beans are a good bet since their roots fix nitrogen from the air and get it into the soil where the tree and other plants can use it.
4. Herbaceous layer – lettuces, dill, thyme, cabbage, rhubarb and so on. Anything that flowers with the apple blossom will attract insects which will help to pollinate the tree (without which, no apples).
5. Rhizosphere – root crops like carrots and potatoes grow here, so need to be kept far from the shallow roots of an apple tree.
6. Soil surface – home of our strawberries, sedum and clover. Clover is another soil feeding nitrogen-fixing plant.
7. Vertical layer – our hops, cucumbers, sweetpeas and vines grow here. Sweetpeas fix nitrogen in their roots, which can be left in the ground after they have died back – but they climb and have thick foliage, so only suitable for larger trees.
8. Some people include the underground network of some fungi as an eighth layer. In our garden the edible fungi include puffballs, though somehow we never catch them before they are football-sized.

That’s the vertical plane – there’s also a horizontal plane. An apple tree’s root spread is one-and-a-half times the diameter of its canopy and its principle feeding roots lie close to the surface, which tends to be where most of the soil’s nutrients are.

Your Forest garden/Food forest might look like William Horvath’s when it is mature. As your food forest grows, fills in, there will be no obvious layers. It will look just like nature does, blended, each plant getting sunlight per it’s height. William Horvath has ongoing experience with Food Foresting! See his detailed May 5, 2017 post and read the comments! 

When you are reading online, remember to pay attention to where the guild example is. There are super wet northern guilds, snowy mountains, humid southern areas, hot and dry south western desert types, snowy northern plains and central US flatlands. All will require their own special treatment. Your best guide will be Mother Nature herself. If you are a native plant fan, the ones in your area may be the most sustainable choice of all per water needs. What did the indigenous peoples eat there?

If you are growing for income, research to find the most productive trees and crops in your area will be key. If you want self reliance, diversity is key – what grows super well together. You want crops coming in all year – fresh potent nutrition makes for healthy lives, and crops that store well if you don’t have the all year option! Some gardeners opt for a combination of in-the-ground plants interspersed with greenhouses.

I am in hopes you will talk this up to your apartment owner, install it on your own property. No matter what the size, model your veggie garden after it, share it with every gardener anywhere, of any kind that you know. This principle is so important in many ways. Guild lists can be made for every area, plant zone, specific for every tree! Guild planting makes sense.

• It’s economical.  Low maintenance food forest plants grow densely, produce more for less work. We are making on prem food forests when times are hard and may get harder.
• Ecologically we are restoring native habitat when we plant and support those plants that use our water more wisely.
• It is sustainable –  produces more food on less land, uses less water, cuts food miles, less fuel, packaging.
• Health is prime as we eat organic, much more nutritious food that hasn’t been depleted by shipping, storage and processing.

Our list [SEE IT!] author is Linda Buzzell-Saltzman, M.A., MFT, co-editor with Craig Chalquist of the anthology Ecotherapy: Healing with Nature in Mind, Sierra Club Books (May 2009). She is a psychotherapist and ecotherapist in Santa Barbara, where she specializes in helping clients with career issues, financial challenges and the transition to a simpler, more sustainable and nature-connected lifestyle. Linda is an heirloom rose lover, current board member of the Santa Barbara Rose Society, founder of the International Assn for Ecotherapy and co-founder of the Santa Barbara Organic Garden Club! She cares.

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

More than a list of plants, Linda’s List gives tips for good growing, eating, and usage!

SEE PART 2, the List!

Updated 3.25.23

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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.

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Mediterranean Understory & Guild Plants for Food Forests – Part 2

Please SEE Part 1 before you read this list!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Mulching, Composting in Place – Some Like it HOT!

I used to be a total mulcher, covered my whole veggie garden. I’ve adjusted my coastal SoCal mulch* thinking to match the plant! Same goes for composting in place. That’s a good idea for some areas of your garden, other areas not at all!

If you are coastal SoCal, in the marine layer zone, your mulch, or composting in place, may be slowing things down a lot more than you realize. The best melons I’ve ever seen grown at Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden were on bare hot dry soil in a plot that had a lower soil level than most of the other plots. The perimeter boards diverted any wind right over the top of the area, the soil got hot!  It was like an oven! So, let it be bare! No mulch under melons, your winter squash, pumpkins except under the fruits to keep them off the ground, clean, above soil level insects.

For more heat, put up a low wind barrier – straw bales, a perimeter of densely foliated plants, a big downed log, be creative. Permeable shrubs are the most effective wind barriers. Let your peppers and jicama get hot! Eggplant are Mediterranean heat lovers! Okra is Southern, hot.

Tomatoes need dryer soil to avoid the verticillium and fusarium wilt fungi, no more than an inch of loose straw to allow airflow at soil level but keep heat down. Let ‘em dry nearby; water a foot or more away from the central stem. Let that tap-root do its job, get the water below the fungi, wilt/blight zone, the top 6 to 8 inches. Drier soil is not comfy for slugs.

Get cucumbers up on a trellis, then you won’t need mulch to keep the cukes clean and bug free, but rather because they have short roots. Preplant radish to repel cucumber beetles when your cukes bloom. The radish will provide a living mulch as their leaves shade the cuke roots. Eat a few radish, but let the rest grow out to keep repelling the beetles. In time you can gather their seeds. Plant heat tolerant lettuces at their feet to act as living mulch. They both like plenty of water to keep them growing fast and sweet, so they are great companions. Slugs and snails like peas and lettuce. You will need to use a little Sluggo or its equivalent if you feel comfortable to use it.

Clearly, no mulch, more heat, equals more water needed. In drought areas, plant in basins below the main soil level. Use your long low flow water wand to water only in the basin at the roots of your plant. Fuzzy leaved plants, tomatoes and eggplant, prefer not being watered on their leaves anyway. Since there is no raised mound, there is no maintenance needed for berms surrounding the basin, but you will need to keep the basin from filling in. Plant companion littles and fillers in the basin around the base of bigger plants. They will enjoy the cooler damper soil and provide living mulch to keep that soil more cool!

LIVING MULCH  is triple productive! It mulches, provides companion plant advantages, and is a crop all at the same time! Closely planted beets, carrots, garden purslane, radish, turnips act as living mulch to themselves and bigger companion plants you plant them by. The dense canopy their leaves make lets little light in, keeps things moist. Cucumbers under broccoli are living mulch while the brocs repel cucumber beetles! If you cage or trellis your beans, most of the plant is up getting air circulation, keeping them dryer, more mildew free, if you don’t plant too densely. They, cucumbers and strawberries, also have short feet that need to stay moist, so do mulch them – your beans and cukes with clean chop and drop, straw or purchased mulch.

Zucchini, doesn’t care. They are a huge leaved plant, greedy sun lovers, that are self mulching. But, you can feed their vine up through the largest tomato cages, cut off the lower leaves and plant a family of lettuces, carrots, onions, salad bowl fixin’s or basil on the sunny side underneath! Especially preplant radish to repel cucumber beetles! All of them like plenty of water, so everyone is happy.

Cooler crops, over summering Broccoli, Kale, Chard like moist and cooler, so mulch deeply very early in spring.

Boards as mulch! Your strawberries like slightly acidic soil, and acidic mulch – redwood or pine needles. Also, you can lay down boards between mini rows of strawberries to keep the soil moist under the boards, the soil between the rows that the berry roots have access to. It’s a variation on pallet gardening. The advantages of using boards are you can space or remove your boards so you can easily access the soil to add amendments, you can add or remove boards to make a bigger or smaller patch, you can make the boards the length you need or want, space them as needed per the plant. Planting between boards can be used for lots of other plants too if you won’t be planting an understory! As for your strawberries, as they leaf out and get bigger, in addition to the boards, they will be living mulch for themselves!

If you are going to mulch, do it justice. Besides wanting to cool your soil, keep moisture in, prevent erosion, keep your crop off the soil and away from bugs, and in the long-term, feed your soil, mulching is also to prevent light germinating weed seeds from sprouting. Put on 4 to 6 inches minimum, tomatoes being the exception. Less than that may be pretty, but simply make great habitat for those little grass and weed seeds! Mulch makes moist soil, where a rich multitude of soil organisms can thrive, including great fat vigorous earthworms! You see them, you know your soil is well aerated, balanced, doing great!

Mulching is double good on slopes and hillsides. Make rock lined water-slowing ‘S’ terrace walk ways snaking along down the hillside. Cover your berms well and deeply to prevent erosion and to hold moisture when there are drying winds. Be sure to anchor your mulch in windy areas -biodegradable anchor stakes are available. Carolyn Csanyi has some clever ideas on how to keep your mulch on a slope. Plant fruit trees, your veggies on the sunny side under them, on the uphill side of your berms. Make your terrace wide enough so you don’t degrade the berms by walking on them when you harvest.

If you mulch, make it count!  Mulch with an organic degradable mulch. Chop and drop disease and pest free plants to compost in place, spread dry leaves. Spread very well aged manures. When you water, it’s like compost or manure tea to the ground underneath. Lay out some seed free straw – some feed stores will let you sweep it up for free! If you don’t like the look of that, cover it with some pretty purchased mulch you like. Use redwood fiber only in areas you want to be slightly acidic, like for strawberries or blueberries.

COMPOSTING IN PLACE  Build soil right where you need it. Tuck green kitchen waste out of sight under your mulch, where you will plant next. Sprinkle with a little soil if you have some to spare, that inoculates your pile with soil organisms; pour on some compost tea to add some more! Throw on some red wriggler surface feeder worms. Grow yarrow or Russian comfrey (Syphytum x uplandicum) near your compost area so you can conveniently add a few sprigs to your pile to speed decomposition. It will compost quickly, no smells, feeding your soil excellently! If you keep doing it in one place, a nice raised bed will be built there with little effort!

You don’t have to wait to plant! Pull back a planting space, add compost you have on hand or purchased, maybe mix in a little aged manure mix, worm castings, your favorite plant specific amendments. Sprinkle some mycorrhizal fungi on your transplant’s roots (exception is Brassicas), and plant! Yes!

*Mulch is when you can see distinct pieces of the original materials. Finished compost is when there are no distinct pieces left, the material is black and fluffy and smells good.

Mulch is magic when done right!

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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!

Love your Mother! Plant bird & bee food! Think grey water! Grow organic!

Read Full Post »

Strawberry Tips for Tasty Super Berries!

• Strawberries are in the Rose family.
• The average berry has 200 seeds, the only fruit whose seeds are on its exterior surface!  The seeds are really the fruit!
• Usually grown from runner daughters, they will grow from seed.  Just throw down caps you bit the berry from.  Sooner or later, you will have a plant you didn’t ‘plant.’  Strawberry seed saving is simple.
• Eight out of 10 strawberries grown in the U.S. are grown in California!
• Strawberries came in second to blueberries in the USDA’s analysis of antioxidant capacity of 40 fruits and vegetables. They are also rich in dietary fiber and manganese, and contain more vitamin C than any other berry.

Image courtesy of StrawberryPlants.org

When do I plant strawberries?  Not now, NOVEMBER 1 to 10!  Yes, it’s that specific for winter chill at the perfect time!  They start producing runners now, but cut them off until early July!  Then let them grow, and cut off the new baby plants mid October for November planting.  Or, just let them grow to fill spots where, for one reason or another, a plant has gone missing, needs replacing, and/or another could fit in.  When those needs are taken care of, cut off the rest of the runners.  These runner plant babies will grow so fast you will be getting berries from them late summer and fall if you have everbearers/day neutral types!!

My plant isn’t producing….  

Variety – If it is an everbearer, day neutral, variety it will produce almost all year.  June/spring bearers put out a prolific batch in June, then it’s over.  No amount of care or feeding is going to make that plant have berries after June.  Sorry.  Best to get the varieties your local nursery carries.  Or talk with them about special ordering well in advance, so they can get the ones you want.
Temps – cold weather slows down pollinators.
Shaded – believe me, strawberries like all-day sun!  If you are going to tuck them in among other plants, be sure to put them on the sunny side!
Hungry – think about it!  A strawberry plant is often pumping out several berries at a time!  They are using up soil nutrition, so feed them!  Try a light solution of fish emulsion/kelp every other week over some sprinkled seabird guano or a well aged manure.  Give your strawberries a little fertilizer in the 0-10-10 proportions; that’s lots of phosphorus and potassium for strong roots and uptake of nutrients, blooms and fruits!
Water – don’t let them dry out, they will stop producing.  This month they tend to grow more leaves, send out runners.  Clip off the runners for now, so they don’t take your plant’s energy away from producing berries, unless you want more plants right away.
Mulching is good.  They love pine needle mulch, if you have some about, because they prefer slightly acidic soil.  Drape your berries over pine cones to keep them off the ground, out of the slug zone.
Age – First year plants and 3^rd year plants don’t produce as well.

My berries are really tiny!  Strawberry varieties vary from mammoth chocolatiers, to midget but mighty tasty alpines.  If it isn’t a variety issue, it may be diseased.  See below please.

Misshapen berries or split in two sections with a hole in the center 
Irregular watering  Your berry grows fast when it has water, then is restricted when it doesn’t….
Western Tarnished Plant Bugs, feed on the flowers and developing surface seeds that stimulate growth causing misshapen berries, hard clusters of yellow seeds on the tip of the fruit.  Clean up debris.  Once you see this, you are too late to prevent it any further.  Bummer.  UC Davis IPM Integrated Pest Management on Lygus Hesperus.  Image of typical cat-faced berries.
Pollination Strawberry flowers are usually open and attractive to bees only a day or less.  Temperatures below 60F, low night temperatures, & high humidity result in inadequate pollination, low yields of small or misshapen fruit.  Strawberries require multiple pollination for perfect fruit formation. Generally, as the number of pollinator visits increases, there will be an increase in fruit set, number of seed per fruit, fruit shape, and fruit weight.  ABOUT BEES:  per NCSU ‘Bees rarely fly when the temperature is below 55°F. Flights seldom intensify until the temperature reaches 70°F. Wind speed beyond 15 miles per hour seriously slows bee activity. Cool, cloudy weather and threatening storms greatly reduce bee flights. In poor weather, bees foraging at more distant locations will remain in the hive, and only those that have been foraging nearby will be active.  Pumpkin, squash, and watermelon flowers normally open around daybreak and close by noon; whereas, cucumbers, strawberries, and muskmelons generally remain open the entire day.’  So if the weather isn’t right THE DAY OR MORNING your flower opens…..

Whole plant has yellow leaves.  The most common cause is nutrient deficiencies due to overwatering.  Overwatering causes poor root growth making it difficult to move enough water to the leaves during hot weather.  Lay back on watering; give your babies some Nitrogen –fish emulsion/kelp.

Strawberry Pests
Pecked   If birds are pecking your berries, put bird netting or a wire dome over them.

Rebecca & David Barker, Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden, Plot 41, staked the chicken wire in place, push it up to harvest, down to just the right height when done!

Holes in them, Chewed  Silvery slime trails are the giveaway!  Use the pine cones to drape your berries over to keep them off the ground.  Put down some Sluggo or the like, to kill off night-time nibblers, slugs, snails.  Harvest regularly before the berry gets soft and smelly, just before the buglets are attracted!  Those little black pointy worms?  I’m trying to find out what they are.  If you know, let me know, ok?!
Uprooted  Sad to say, that sounds like ‘possums, raccoon, or skunk.  They are looking for your earth worms or grubs.  Just like bunnies, these critters won’t jump a low barrier.  They just go around it.  So install a foot tall perimeter of wire pieces, black plastic plant flats, old trellis parts, whatever you have around, or go get something that looks good to you so you will be happy.  Relocating the critters is a good choice because, they do have children, that have children, that…

Strawberry Diseases  StrawberryPlants.org for full list of diseases.  Here’s a link to the 3 Most common leaf diseases with images.

Angular Leaf Spot – exactly that.  Spotted leaves.  A cosmetic problem until it isn’t.  Your plant will produce, but it won’t thrive.  Spread by water, harvest before you water, water under the leaves, remove badly spotted leaves, don’t use them as mulch, wash your hands before going on to another plant.
Strawberry Blight – the fungus is often confused with angular leaf spot, overwinters in old leaves, remove them.  Remove old leaves from runner plants before setting.  All day sun, well-drained soil, in an area with circulation, equals less fungus.  For good air circulation, plant far enough apart, remove weeds, remove, replant and/or give away runner baby sets.  Plant resistant varieties for your area of your state.  Discussion of SoCal varieties.  When you buy new plants be sure they are certified from a disease-free nursery.  If you use a fungicide, spray the underside of leaves as well as the tops.

Successful SoCal varieties!

Chandler is the most widely commercially grown strawberry in California.  High yield, early producer, large southern berry.  It’s a June bearer, so if you want year round supply, this is not your berry.
Seascape is an ever-bearing, big day neutral, all year strawberry, harvests are more abundant in late spring. High yield, resistant to most diseases except leaf spot.  Reliable producer in fall, performs well in hot, dry climates.  Berry is bright red inside and out!
Oso Grande Another June bearer, high yield big berry, good in warm climates.

Eat your red  plump strawberries!  Fresh from your garden, strawberry Sundae, strawberry sauce, strawberry pie, cake, bread, strawberry ice cream, whipped cream, yoghurt, cream cheese, cheesecake, strawberry shake, chocolate dipped, strawberry lemonade, strawberry Syrah, and, as always, the traditional, Strawberry Shortcake!! 

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January! New Year, clear, crisp, pristine gardening

Or wear your awesome Sloggers!  With boots like these from Sloggers Garden Outfitters, No Problem!  Regrettably, their selection for men lags.  Oops, did I say that?!  No matter, buy some for your Sweetie!  Valentine’s Day is coming….

This is bare root time – plants without soil on their roots!  For us SoCal gardeners that’s cane berry bushes, deciduous fruit trees, strawberries, artichokes, asparagus, short day onions.  Think twice about horseradish.  It’s invasive as all getout!  If you do it, confine it to a raised bed or an area where it will run out of water.  Rhubarb, though totally tasty in several combinations, ie strawberry/rhubarb pie, has poisonous leaves!  That means to dogs, small children and unknowing people.  Either fence it off, or don’t grow it.  I don’t recommend it in community gardens because we can’t assure people’s safety.  Bare root planting is strictly a January thing.  February is too late. 

SoCal’s Lettuce Month!  They germinate quicker at cooler temps!  Grow special ones you can’t get at the store, or even the Farmers’ Market!  They like a soil mix of well aged compost, organic veggie fertilizers, chicken manure.  Lay your seeds in, barely, and I do mean barely, cover them, 1/8 inch, pat them in.  Water gently with a watering can, or use the mist setting on your sprayer.  Keep the bed moist.  That might mean watering even twice daily!  If it is going to rain heavily, cover the bed so the seeds don’t wash away.  Slug and snail cocktails (Sluggo) make sense or your seedlings may vanish.  If your seeds just don’t germinate, be sure your seed is fresh.  Feed the bed once a week.  Fast growth keeps it sweet; slow growth is bitter!  Eat the younglings you thin from the patch, or transplant them.  Pluck those larger lower leaves for robust winter salads!  Plant another patch in 2 weeks to a month to keep a steady supply! 

As you harvest your winter veggies, keep planting, from seeds or transplants.  Transplants will speed things up by a good 6 weeks if you can find them.  Your winter veggies are broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, lettuce, parsley, peas, chard.  Seeds of beets, carrots, lettuce, peas, radish, turnips, do well.  Pop in some short-day onions. 

Remember, harvest your cabbages by cutting them off close to the bottom of the head, leaving the bottom leaves.  New smaller cabbages will grow from those axils at the stem/leaf junctions.  You might get as many as four babies!  Do the same with lettuces!  Once you harvest your main broccoli head, let the side shoots form mini broccolettes!  The further down the stalk you cut, the fewer but fatter your side branches.  Pat Welsh, Southern California Organic Gardening, recommends the variety Bonanza.

The SideDress Dance continues – if you harvest, you fertilize.  That’s a good rule of thumb.  Sprinkle some fertilizer or drizzle your favorite liquid mix, especially before a rain.  Dig it in lightly, but not in a circle.  You don’t want to break all the tiny rootlets that spread out at the surface from your plant.  So do it on a couple sides max.  Dig it in a bit so the N (Nitrogen) doesn’t just float away into the air….  Use half strength of summer feedings to avoid a lot of tender growth a frost would take. 

Start seedlings of peppers!  They are notoriously slow growers, so to get them in the ground in March, start now!  Ask your Latino friends; they are experts!  When you see them planting, you do the same.  While you are at it, ask them if they happen to have any spare jicama seeds!  Fresh-from-the garden jicama is like nothing you have ever tasted! 

If you tossed wildflower seeds, keep their beds moist. 

Start a garden journal, especially enter your genius thoughts!  Domestic harmony?  Clean up your shed/working space, or build one.   Build a greenhouse!  Plan your spring garden, order seeds.  Order fall seeds now too so they won’t be sold out later on.  Build your raised beds – that’s with frames if you want frames, and start building your soil. 

Great Rain Tips!  Please click here!  Mulch keeps your plants from getting mud splattered.

Frost Watch!  Keep an eye on your weather predictions!  If it starts getting down near 32 degrees, run for the covers! That’s your cheap sheets you got at the thrift shop, spare beach towels, old blankies, and cover your plants mid afternoon if possible!  For things to know about cold weather plants, and more tips on how to save your plants, click here!

Do I see green leaves sticking out of the corner of your mouth?

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Delicious December, Winter’s June!

Glorious cauliflowers are being harvested, peas devoured, lettuce leaves eaten on the spot, mini carrots munched, radishes and arugula carried home for salads! In December, your August to October plantings are paying off!  Broccolis and cabbages are coming very soon!

Winter harvesting is so fine!  Cut and come again is the name of the game! Cut the main head from your brocs, continue to harvest the mini side shoots. Cut the cabbage heads above the lowest leaves, let 4 more form in the remaining leaf axils. Take the lowest lettuce leaves, the outer celery stalks, and keep right on harvesting! Pluck your peas to keep them coming. Pull tender young beets and carrots.

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

Cauliflowers – to tie or not to tie?  Some cauliflower is self blanching, that is, the central leaves naturally curl over the head, keeping it white! If your cauliflower doesn’t do that, and you want white heads, tie the leaves over the head as soon as it starts to form. You can tie it anyway if you want to, to guarantee that pristine color. They grow super quickly, so keep watch and harvest when they are still tightly headed! Sadly, if the temp is below 40 degrees, there is too much salt, not enough N (Nitrogen), or your plants dried out, no head may be formed. That’s called buttoning. Leaves stay small, a tiny curd forms but never gets big. If you grow purple cauliflower, no tying needed!

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Welcome to the Beauty of October Planting!

Happy October, Month of Magic!

The next months…so you can plan ahead!       

October  Transplants of all fall crops, but specially of cabbages and artichokes.  Cut Strawberry runners off to chill for Nov planting.
November  Seeds of onions for slicing.  Wildflowers from seed (don’t let the bed dry out).  Strawberries in no later than Nov 5.  More transplants of winter veggies.
December is winter’s June!  Crops are starting to come in, it’s maintenance time!      

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

Purple Broccoli, Bright Lights Chard, Cauliflower, Yellow Mangetout Snow Peas, Radishes or Beets of all colors, ‘Licous Red Lettuces!

This is Southern California’s second Spring!  Time to plant your winter garden, all the Brassicas, that’s, cabbage, brocs, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, collards, kales, plus celery, chard and peas, peas, peas!  All kinds!  And what I call the ‘littles,’ the veggies you plant all year, beets, bunch onions (the ones that don’t bulb), carrots (bonemeal yes, fresh manure no), radish, spinach, arugula, and, especially, all kinds of lettuces!   Plant gift plants or bowls or baskets for the holidays!  Start making holiday gifts, herbal wreaths, powdered herbs, pretty vinegars and oils, shampoos, soaps, or candles!      

Winter weather?  Bring it on!  Starting to cool down now!  Your plants will grow fast then start to slow down.  Less weeds and insects.  Aphids & White Flies are a winter crop problem (see below please).  Some people prefer the cool slower pace of winter gardening to the more phrenetic hot summer labor and work of big harvests, distribution, storage.  Harvesting cold hardy vegetables after they have been hit with a touch of frost can enhance the flavor and increase the sweetness of greens such as kale and collards.     

Extend the crop! Cut and come again!  Harvest your big greens – kale and collards, and lettuces leaf by leaf rather than cutting your plant down.  Many lettuces will ‘come back’ even if you cut them off an inch or two above ground.  Leave the stalk in the ground, see what happens!  Rather than pulling your bunch/table onions, cut them off about an inch to 2 inches above the ground.  They will come back 3 to 4 times.  Leave a potato in the ground to make more potatoes.  After you cut the main broccoli head off, let the side sprouts grow and snip them for your salads or steam them.  Cabbages?  Cut off right below the head, then let them resprout, forming several smaller heads at the leaf axils.     

Gather your last lingering seeds midday on a sunny dry day.  Dry a few seeds from your favorite tomatoes!  Sidedress continuing and producing plants.  Then cleanup!  Remove funky habitat for overwintering insect pests, fungi.       

Build wire bottomed raised beds for gopher protection.  For very useful information, please see University of California, Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Pocket Gophers.     

Prepare your soil!      

• If you are a new gardener at Pilgrim Terrace, ask other gardeners, or the previous person who had your plot, how the soil  was tended.  Some plots may need no amending, others may need a lot.  Add compost, manures, seaweeds, worm castings as needed.  Some people do the whole garden at once, others conserve valuable materials by preparing only where they will specifically plant, for example, a large plant like a broc.  If it is a lettuce bed that you will do repeated plantings in, you might opt to do the whole bed at once.
• Since mulch keeps the soil cool, some people pull it to the side in winter, to let the sun heat the soil on cool days.
• Simple soil test!  Test the soil by putting a drop of vinegar in a teaspoon or so. If it fizzes, it’s too alkaline. Then test it by putting in baking soda mixed with a little water. If it fizzes, it’s too acidic.

Garden Design       

• In addition to planting your veggies, plan ahead to plant flowers, to always have some in bloom, to attract pollinators.  Borage is a lovely plant, blooms all year, has purple blue star flowers that are edible and good for you!  Toss a few on top of your salads!
• Make habitat!  Plants for beneficial insects, poles for birds, rocks for lizards! 
• Plant tall in the North, the mountain end of our plots; plant shorties in the South.  This is especially important in our winter gardens because of the low sun long shadows.
• Give your big plants plenty of room to become big; plant fillers and littles (beets, bunch onions – the ones that don’t bulb, carrots, radish, spinach, arugula, lettuces) on their sunny south sides!
• Put plants that like the same amount of water together (hydrozoning). 
• Put plants together that will be used in the same way, for example, salad plants like lettuces, bunch onions, celery, cilantro.
• Biodiversity.  Planting the same kind of plant in different places throughout your garden.  It can be more effective that row cropping or putting all of one plant in one place, where if disease or a pest comes, you lose them all as the disease or pest spreads from one to all.
• Layering example:  Transplant peas at the base of any beans you still have.

How to plant!       

• This is the time to put your mycorrhiza fungi to work!  One of the great things mycorrhiza does is assist Phosphorus uptake.  Of the N-P-K on fertilizers, P is Phosphorus that helps roots and flowers grow and develop.  Sprinkle it on the roots of your transplants when you plant them!  More about mycorrhiza:  http://www.mycorrhizae.com/index.php?cid=468&    http://www.mastergardeners.org/newsletter/myco.html      Island Seed & Feed carries it.
• Use vigorous fresh seeds, choose vibrant not-fruiting transplants that preferably aren’t root bound (having a solid mass of roots).  If the transplant is pretty big for the container, pop it out of the container to make sure it isn’t root bound.  If it is the only one there, and you still want it, can’t wait, see what John R. King, Jr (2 min video) has to say on how to rehabilitate your plant!
• Lay down some Sluggo (See Slugs & Snails below) right away, even before seedlings sprout, when you put your transplants in, so your plant isn’t overnight snail and slug smorgasbord! 

Strawberry Runners!  Mid Oct cut off runners, gently dig up if they have rooted, shake the soil off.  Clip all but two or three leaves off, tie ‘em together in loose bunches. Plastic bag them and put in the back of your fridge for 20 days.  Plant them Nov 5 to 10!  Prechilling your plants makes them think they had a cold winter.  When days get longer and warmer, they will produce fruit, not as much vegetative growth.  You can then either keep your plants that produced this year, or remove and compost them, start fresh with new plants!     

Watering – Morning when you can because plants drink during the day, and we want them to dry so they don’t mildew!  Water underneath, especially late beans, and your new peas, who are especially susceptible to mildew.  Except for your short and shallow rooted plants, once a week and deeply is good unless there is a hot spell or rain.  Then, check ’em.  Poke a stick in the ground to see if the soil is moist under the surface.     

Happy playing in the dirt!

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