Some Suggestions for the Beginning Gardener

 If you're just getting into gardening, here are some suggestions to help you have a successful first year.

1. Start with easy crops. Here are several garden veggies that are good confidence-builders--they are fairly easy to grow, clearly show progress as they develop, are very forgiving, and generous with their bounty:

• Beets
• Bush Beans
• Cherry Tomatoes
• Garlic
• Green Pepper
• Lettuce
• Onion
• Pole Beans
• Radish
• Summer Squash

2. Plant your favorite(s). Even if your favorite is a little more work to grow, give it a try. There's no use in learning a new skill if you don't accomplish something pleasing for yourself?

3. Don't plant anything you're not going to eat. If you don't eat green peppers, don't grow them. Similarly, if you don't plan to eat a thousand radishes in a month's time, don't plant a thousand radish seeds. If you eat about a radish a day (that's a lot!), then plant a dozen or so every two weeks.

4. If you can't make it to the garden to work everyday, plant veggies that
don't need to be tended or harvested everyday: cabbage, peppers, tomatoes, carrots and beets.

Images from the Garden

February (So Far) in the Garden

Over the last couple of weeks the mini-farm has seen lots of activity.

We put in blueberries--three different varieties--and they are setting fruit already! We made a bed along the house of soil high in organic matter and therefore slightly acidic -- just the ticket for blueberries.

We will be transplanting several grape vines to new locations so our grape harvest will be low, so these berries will be a welcome alternative, along with the strawberries in the main garden. 

Cauliflower doing well. We had a lot more before the gophers started in. Now we have fewer cauliflower and hopefully no gophers.

Next, we have cabbage. Our favorite way to eat cabbage? Sauerkraut. Yummy and so good for you. We have about eight heads of this white cabbage, called Stonehead. Especially bred for those of us with hard heads? Perhaps not. This is our first year growing this particular variety so we are especially looking forward to tasting the harvest and the kraut.

This red cabbage makes great sauerkraut too. It turns out hot pink. Fun to look at and to eat.

[See Making Sauerkraut.]

The Romaine lettuce patch has suffered at the paws and jaws of the gophers. The survivors are looking good and will be ready to eat sometime in the next week or so.

Another cauliflower. Just couldn't resist taking and sharing this picture. Morning dew still on the leaves.

White Perennial Tree Collards. If you like greens, this is the plant for you! It grows like a tree, keeps on growing year after year, and it tastes great. Our favorite way of eating this is sauteed with onions and garlic. Mmmm....

[We have cuttings for sale.]

Fava beans. Good to grow in the cooler days of spring.

Dinosaur or Lacinato Kale. Tender leaves, prolific, mild excellent flavor. Also called palm kale because it looks like a miniature palm tree as it grows--though you couldn't tell that from this photo, showing just the upper leaves. The "dinosaur" skin look of the leaves lend a hand in getting a youngster to try it.

Shelling peas. Hardly any of these make it out of the garden. Even though we have bountiful harvests, these are great to eat right out of the pod, right there in the garden!

Purple Perennial Tree Collards. These are a more robust and rougher version of the white tree collards. Deeper flavor, more antioxidants, hardier in the cold, and more drought tolerant once it is established.

[We have cuttings of these for sale.]

 We made two gallons of Spicy Carrots. See our recipe here. (Lacto-fermented)

We harvested several Pennsylvania Dutch Crookneck Squash (one was about 20 lbs. [10kg]) and some Trombocino (or Zucchetta) Squash. Trombocino are interesting in that they grow very long (our longest was over three feet), have a small seed cavity at one end, taste similar to and look like zucchini when young, and look and taste like butternut squash (pictured; public domain photo) when mature. So we get summer and winter squash off the same vine.

Our Sulmtaler chickens (pictured) have started to lay again so we are getting ready to incubate a dozen or so eggs to hatch for meat chickens. This breed is Austrian, and at one time was prized in Europe.

We have a young brood of Buff Orpingtons that will begin laying in the next month or so. These will provide eggs for us with plenty to share.

Our mama Muscovy duck has also brought out 16 ducklings from her nest. We enjoy watching them grow. Better entertainment than anything on TV.


As always, we do not post updates here to show off, but rather to show you that if we can do it, so can you. We grow much of our own food on a suburban, quarter acre lot. Ask us how, we'd be glad to share what we know.

Food You Can Grow in Containers

Are you a little short on garden space? Here are some things you can grow in containers. Search online for specific tips and techniques.

Tree fruits

1. Apples can be grown in a container; you can also grow them on the balcony or other small space using a technique called espaliering.
2. Kumquats
3. Avocados
4. Blackberries
5. Blueberries (helpful video from Dave's Nursery)
6. Pomegranate
7. Cherries
8. Figs
9. Pears

Citrus fruits

Citrus trees are good for beginners and are easy to grow indoors.
10. Dwarf oranges
11. Grapefruit
12. Tangerines
13. Meyer lemons
14. Limes

Tropical fruits

Tropical fruits can be easy to grow indoors. (Moss in the City has container tips)
15. Bananas
16. Pineapple
17. Papaya
18. Guavas

Surprises

19. Asparagus (Some say no, but others have had some success with this in containers.)
20. Aloe Vera
21. Strawberries
22. Tea
 23. Quinoa!

Of Course...

24. Tomatoes
25. Summer squash
26. Other squashes, like acorn and pumpkin
27. Hot Peppers
28. Sweet peppers
29. Cucumbers

Melons

Look for compact or bush varieties. Growing vertically on a trellis is also an option.
30. Small cantaloupe
31. Jenny Lind melon (an heirloom cantaloupe)
32. Golden Midget Watermelon

Herbs

Most herbs will to well indoors in containers.
33. Basil
34. Oregano
35. Parsley
36. Rosemary
37. Chives
38. Catnip
39. Thyme
40. Sage
41. Parsley

Leafy Greens

42. Kale
43. Mesclun greens
44. Spinach
45. Swiss chard
46. Lettuces
 47. Mustard greens
48. Collard greens
49. Arugula

Root Vegetables

50. Carrots
51. Beets
52. Potatoes

Other

53. Sprouts
54. More sprouts: mung bean and lentil sprouts
55. Wheat grass
56. Kohlrabi
57. Turnips
58. Rutabagas
59. Celeriac
60. Parsnips
61. Jerusalem Artichoke
62. Sugar snap peas
63. Rhubarb (not ideal in a container, but it can work)
64. Mushrooms (tips online)
65. Pole Beans

Why Should Christians be Concerned with Industrialized Farming?

From Crosswalk.com:

Industrialized farming produces tons of food. But the methods involved should make every Christian stop and consider just where our food comes from. Are we truly being good stewards of God’s creation? Joel Salatin, owner of Polyface Farms (www.polyfacefarms.com) and popular speaker, thinks Christians must take a good long look at this topic. See the video here: Crosswalk.com

Strawberries, Onions, and Garlic

Believe it or not, Southern California gardeners, it's time to plant Strawberries, onions, and garlic for successful harvests next year. The following is from Pat Welsh's Southern California Organic Gardening (3rd Edition): Month by Month (a book we highly recommend).

The Secret Lives of Strawberries and Onions. Strawberries and onions seem at first glance to be an unlikely pair to lump together for discussion, but they share certain characteristics. In order to grow an abundant harvest of large, luscious strawberries and premium globe onions, you have to understand some of their innate secrets. Both are regional crops—that is, varieties of each are designed to be grown in certain Plant globe onions only from seeds, never from sets (small bulbs). Plant only such “short-day” (southern) varieties as ‘Grano’,‘Granex’, and ‘Crystal Wax’; put the seeds in the ground between the first and tenth of November or plant these varieties bare root in January). .... Also plant garlic now. Purchase large globes with good-sized sections in any market, or elephant garlic at the nursery or produce market. (It’s a different species, and milder, but grown much the same way.) Break up the garlic cloves and plant them individually, with the points facing up, in fertile soil rich in humus. Plant them in full sun, 4 inches apart and 2 inches beneath the soil surface.

Highly Recommended!

geographical areas and not in others. Both have specific temperature requirements that, for best results, require their being planted during an identical and extremely short slice of time—sometime between November 1 and 10—though they require this schedule for somewhat different reasons. Exhaustive tests by the University of California Agricultural Extension, paid for by strawberry growers, have proven that strawberries planted between November 1 and 10 get winter chill at the precise moment in their growing schedule to trigger fruit production rather than foliage. When planted at the wrong time they’ll put out runners but won’t produce much, if any, fruit. (Watch any professional strawberry growers near you as a good indication of when to plant.) Either plant runners from your own garden that you’ve already prepared as prechilled, bare-root plants (as discussed on page 362) or plant from bare-roots purchased from nurseries now. (See the box on page 383 for planting instructions.) As a general rule, don’t order strawberries, other than alpine varieties, from catalogs, because they usually don’t carry varieties that are adapted to our climate. Strawberries are a highly regional crop—even more so than onions. Just a few hundred miles up the California coast entirely different strawberry varieties are grown, so be sure that you plant a locally adapted variety, such as ‘Camarillo’,‘Douglas’,‘Sequoia’,‘Tioga’, or ‘Tufts’. Onions are photothermoperiodic—that is, they’re sensitive to temperature and also to day length. An onion plant is stimulated to stop making leafy growth and to start making a bulb not so much by temperature as by the lengthening of days, as the sun moves north in spring and summer. Each variety will form a bulb only after it has received a certain number of hours of daylight each day for a certain number of days. However, varieties vary greatly in the number of hours of daylight they need. Accordingly, all onions are categorized into long-day (northern), intermediate-day (central), and short-day (southern) varieties. Long-day varieties, grown in northern states and in Canada, need fourteen to fifteen hours of daylight to make a bulb. Northern European and Alaskan varieties need sixteen hours or more. No long-day varieties can possibly receive enough hours of daylight in Southern California to make a bulb. If you plant them your crop will always fail, and yet you can often find seeds of long-day onions on local seed racks, and almost all onion sets are of long-day types. These sets can be used only for growing scallions (green onions). Here, in order to get the best globe onions, we must plant seeds of short-day (southern) varieties in fall or, alternatively, plant intermediate varieties in late winter. Also, once an onion has reached a certain critical size, which differs by variety, temperatures of between 40° and 50°F will make it go to seed prematurely, or bolt. The way to grow good bulb onions here and avoid bolting is to follow this Rule of Thumb:

How to Plant, Grow, and Harvest Mesclun

When we are buying bags of this from the store for our salads, we refer to this as "weeds" or "salad weeds." There are several seed mixes available on the market. We like Lettuce Baby Mesclun Gourmet Certified Organic Heirloom Seeds from Botanical Interests. But there are plenty of others. By the way, we still call them "weeds."

The following is an excerpt from Pat Welsh's Southern California Organic Gardening (3rd Edition): Month by Month, a book which we highly recommend to our neighbors here in Southern California.


"Mesclun" (pronounced mess-cloon) is the colloquial term for "mixture" in Provence and refers to mixtures of young lettuces and salad greens. Traditional Provencal mescluns contain chervil, arugula, lettuce, and endive in precise proportions. American mescluns and those from northern France include a wide selection of exotic greens and even edible flowers.

• Purchase ready-made mesclun mixes or individual packages of salad greens for making your own mix. Choices include lettuces, arugula, endives, mustards, purslane, chicory, cresses, parsleys, fennel, escarole, mache (lamb's lettuce), miner's lettuce (Claytonia, perfoliata, Montia perfoliata), and others. (Shepherd's Garden Seeds and The Cook's Garden carry seeds. Addresses are listed on page 307.)
• Prepare a wide row in full sun. Or plant in a raised bed, half barrel with holes drilled in the bottom, or pots. Dig wide rows or raised beds deeply, mix in a 4-inch-thick layer of well-aged compost or nitrolized soil amendment. Apply organic fertilizer recommended for vegetables according to package directions, work this into the top 6 inches of ground, and rake smooth. For barrels, cover each drainage hole with a piece of broken crockery and fill with potting soil appropriate for vegetables. Mix in 1 gallon of commercial bagged chicken manure and an organic vegetable fertilizer according to package directions. Fill other containers •with the same mix. Water seedbeds and containers deeply and let the ground settle overnight.
• Divide the seeds into two or three batches so that you can plant successive crops. (Store remaining seeds in a cool, dry place.) Thinly broadcast the first planting of seeds in a block and rake gently into the ground, or cover seeds lightly by sprinkling the ground with fine compost or potting soil. Pat down.
• Some greens, including mustards, kale, chicories, and certain lettuces, grow larger and more vigorously than others. Plant these separately so you can harvest some when they are young to add to mesclun and let others grow larger for use in salads and other dishes.
• Sprinkle the bed and bare areas surrounding the bed with a bait labeled for the control of slugs, snails, and cutworms in the vegetable garden. Or use organic controls (as described on page 91). Optional step: Cover the seeded area with floating row cover, such as Reemay, available by sheet or roll at garden centers or through mailorder catalogs. Peg down the edges to protect from wind and birds, or build a lightweight, reusable wooden frame the size of the seeded area. (Use a staple gun to attach the floating row cover to this frame.) Remove row cover when plants are 1 or 2 inches high.
• Sprinkle daily or twice daily to keep seed moist. Water regularly by drip system, overhead watering, or hand-watering. Continue to control slugs and snails.
• Begin harvesting by thinning to package directions (pulling up whole plants) when they are 2 to 3 inches tall. When the plants are up 5 or 6 inches, begin regular harvesting by shearing the greens 1 inch above the roots; the plants will regrow and you can continue harvesting for several weeks. Or, for slightly larger plants, 5 to 6 inches tall, harvest by picking individual leaves from the outside edges of plants.
• Feed the bed once a week with a balanced liquid fertilizer diluted according to package directions. Or, alternatively, apply dry organic fertilizers onto the ground around the plants after harvesting and before rain. When rains aren't adequate, wash the fertilizer into the ground by watering overhead.
• Plant another patch for future harvests. Meanwhile, your first seeding of mesclun will provide salads for several weeks.