Computer Gardening - NOT Farmville!

In chatting with some friends on Facebook about seed planting times, especially in reference to the act of remembering to plant said seeds, I recalled something as well. I wrote a blog post awhile ago with a link to an excellent online seed starting chart. In that same post, I talked about other online gardening resources. Since that was a whopping two years ago and a million things have changed since then computer-wise, a good old blog post rewrite is in order.

Seed Starting/Planting Charts: I used Organic Gardening Magazine's seed starting chart for years until I found this online version that calculates the math for me. Check out the "lazy gardener's seed starting chart" at You Grow Girl. All you have to do is download it, and enter the recommended planting date for your time zone. It consists of a list of common garden veggies, how long they take to grow from seed, and how many weeks before or after your last frost date that they should be planted. It also specifies whether the plant should be seeded directly into the ground, or started indoors under lights.

Another option is at "The Vegetable Garden". This site also does the thinking for you by allowing you to enter your zip code to get your USDA planting zone. After that, you can use their zone specific planting guide to determine when to get established plants into the ground. This guide will NOT help you start your own seeds, and you need to intuitively know if they are referring to planting direct by seed, or planting established plants. This one also gives a broader range for planting dates, whereas the You Grow Girl chart is more precise. Either way, it's better than guessing!

Online Garden Planners: Two years ago, I was claiming to "still love my pencil/graph paper/college rule notebook." Bah! Never again. This will be my third garden season using the Mother Earth News  online vegetable garden planner.  It rocks, and I'm hooked. I made a map of my garden, drew in the established raised planting beds and fixed paths, and perennial vegetables. Every season, I keep that layout and move around my annual vegetables in a new saved plan. In this way, I can manage successive sowing and crop rotation. The planner has extra features as well, including planting charts and email reminders.

You can try the service out for yourself for 30 days to see if it would be useful for your garden, and the demo videos show you exactly how to input your garden bed layout. After that, it's a subscription service of $24 per year. For a small garden, this planner is overkill. Also, the planner only includes vegetables, herbs and fruit crops. If your garden is mostly flowers and landscape plantings, the database is inadequate.  

Gardening Apps: I hung around on Google Play and tried out a few smartphone based garden planners and didn't like them much. Other planners had terrible reviews and I didn't even try them. I think I am personally not inclined to involve my phone in gardening, which is wise on my part. I garden like the Muppet Show's Swedish chef cooks. Things get thrown, tools get damaged, and I wind up speaking in foreign gibberish. My phone had best stay out of the fray.

However, if you garden more like Martha Stewart, in your pressed khakis and perfectly clean SPF 50 lightweight gardening shirt, you might successfully garden and update your phone at the same time. To that end, I am filching some app reviews from a recent article from one of my favorite publications, The Herb Quarterly.

Map it - "Garden Tracker" (Apple) - $1.99. This might be a good (and cheap) option for small gardens. The app allows you to lay out a rectangular garden up to 2500 square feet and fill it with 65 veggies and herbs. It includes info about planting, garden pests, and lunar phases. If you use this and like it, let me know.

When do I plant? - "Gardenate" (Android) - $1.99. Enter your zone, and get info on what you can plant each month.

For city folk - "Urban Gardening" (Android) - free. Get news from various blogs about container gardening on balconies.

Herbs for beginners - "Herbs+" (Apple) - $2.99. Gardening and cooking tips for 40 common herbs.

Name that plant - "Botany Buddy" (Apple) - $9.99 and "Landscaper's Companion" (Apple and Android) - $4.99. Botany Buddy has in depth coverage of about 2000 plants, while Landscaper's Companion catalogs 25,000 plants in 17 categories.

Name that tree - "Leafsnap" (Apple, Android in development) - free. This one uses visual-recognition software to identify a tree by a picture of the leaf. How freaking cool is that?? I can't wait for the Android version. Currently it only covers trees native to the northeast, but they're working on covering the whole U.S.

Name that shroom - "Wild Mushrooms of North America and Europe by Roger Phillips" (Apple) - $1.99 and "Roger Phillips Mushrooms" (Android) - $3.99. Go mushroom hunting with this app, which covers 1500 varieties of edible, poisonous and hallucinogenic mushrooms. Have fun, and bring snacks!

Name that critter - Apps from the National Audubon Society (Apple and Android) - $4.99. Decide between birds, butterflies, insects, spiders and other garden friends.

Name that wild food - "Wild Edibles" (Apple), $7.99. Naturalist and funnyman Steve Brill made this app. We followed him around on a local tour presented by our county park system, and when it was through, considered ourselves fully informed about the food value of our local "weeds." If Steve isn't coming to your town, you can get the app instead.

At this point in an ideal world, I would insert an image of my growing seedlings or some screenshots of my online garden planner. But I have yet to document this year's gardening attempts, and my garden plan is too big to upload to the web. In the meantime, here's a nice picture Tom took last summer of The Buddha, a grasshopper and a bunch of zinnias. Happy spring!

Garden Status Update

No, my garden is not on Facebook. But here is what's up as of 3/24:

Indoor seeds: Almost all of the tomatoes are doing well and have their first set of true leaves except for my San Marzanos (10 year old seeds - I guess they are finally dead). Despite my best efforts at labeling, I have two sets of seeds marked "Great White", one of which is thriving profusely and the other which has no hints of seedlings whatsoever. This will be an adventure. The peppers and eggplant are coming up more slowly and the tomatillos are not up yet at all. The rest of the seeds are so-so. The Bea fennel, celeriac, parsley and shiso are not up yet. The others are producing, even the mystery seed. The next step will be to leave one strong seedling in each cell of the tomato and pepper packs. The others will stay as-is since they were sown in plastic grape tomato containers and will get planted earlier than the others.

Outdoor seeds: None of the herb seeds in my Earth Boxes came up. Either it's not warm enough in the greenhouse or they all rotted from being constantly wet and cold. We'll have to see about that one.

This weekend I started some cold weather seeds in the greenhouse to get a jump on the planting season. These are, for the most part, normally sown outside directly in the soil in April.

Box #1: Spinach - Baby's Leaf, Mustard Greens - Florida Broadleaf, Escarole - Eros, Kale - Lacinato, Purslane - Golden, Mibuna - Early

Box #2: Turnip - Golden Ball, Beet - Chioggia & Touchstone Gold & Cylindra, Parsnip - Hollow Crown, Swiss Chard - Bright Lights

Soaked seeds were planted along the fence among the grapes, about 24 feet each of the Burpeeana Early and Super Sugar Snap. Sweet peas were planted in pots and in the rose bed.

General maintenance:
Weeded the pea bed. Started to lay cardboard out for garden bed paths (to be later topped with straw).

To Do:
Finish weeding raised beds in lower part of garden. Continue to lay out cardboard and keep an eye out for straw for sale. Rebuild collapsed asparagus bed. Start artichoke and parsley seeds. Thin tomato seedlings and feed with fish emulsion. Fertilize asparagus, blueberries, hydrangea, rhodes.

Peas Interrupted

What is WITH this weather. Normally, I am getting my peas into the ground now. Today my ground is covered with sleet and ice and generally unpleasant forms of precipitation. And although I have read that you can just push aside that snow and plant your peas anyway, I'm not doing it. Why? Because the ground beneath is full of sleeping weeds that I didn't get to yet during the balmy weather at the beginning of the month. I am sure, based on past experience, that I will accidentally pull up peas if I weed after the fact. Also, it's damn cold out there, and I'm not that dedicated to the cause. I have another plan.

Instead, I am going to start my peas between wet paper towels placed in plastic bags, all 3rd grade earth science style. I've noticed that this somehow gives me multiple weeks jump in pea production. I believe this is because I am not good at keeping peas consistently watered, and therefore it takes them at least three weeks to come up when they go right into the ground. But if I sprout them first a little indoor, I can see their little heads peeking up through the soil within a week.

This year, I'm planting only two edible pea types - one snap pea (Super Sugar Snap) and one shelling (Burpeeana Early). I usually plant too many types, never label them properly, and never know when to pick them. I'm going to grow these in the grape beds so i can trellis them up bamboo poles while stabilizing the poles with the grapevine wire.

While I have peas on the brain, I'm also soaking some very adorable sweet peas. Contrary to what their name implies, these guys are not edible, and may even be poisonous. The flowers are beautiful though and good for cutting. I'm trying three kinds: "Color Palette Cupid" - 8" tall and destined to be a spring centerpiece on my patio table. "Explorer Mix" - 2.5 feet tall and meant for my giant deck planter. "April in Paris" - 8 feet tall. I think these will hang out in the same bed with my perfume rose.

Regardless of my hesitation, snow or no snow, those peas have to get in the ground this weekend. My pea planting schedule will not be interrupted!

Seed Starting: Heirloom vs. Hybrid vs. Wacky

"I don't have time!" I said to myself. "I have too much other shit to do!" I declared. "I'll just have to buy actual plants this year." Decision made.

But then I found myself again at Home Depot for a bag of dirt. Sixty dollars later I am carrying out an infant, a bag of dirt, and a pile of seeds. (Note: infants not for sale at Home Depot)

First, a lesson in seed terminology. Second, my list of seeds started this week including an explanation of the bizarro ones.

Heirloom vs. Hybrid Seeds
The above terms used for plants and seeds describe how a plant has come into the world. Heirloom plants are older varieties whose seeds have been saved and passed down over time. The plants are "open pollinated" and seeds from an heirloom vegetable will produce plants that have the same properties as the parent. In the case of tomatoes, heirloom plants also might be "determinate" which means that they grow to only a certain height and their fruits ripen all at once. "Indeterminate" varieties grow more like vines, and the fruits ripen in succession and produce all season long. All the heirlooms I grow are indeterminate, which means we have a fabulous time ever year figuring out the best way to support them while they grow. But more on our trellising adventures later in the season.

On the other hand, hybrid plants are intentionally produced by cross pollinating two different varieties of plants in hopes of developing a version with specific qualities of both parent plants. Seeds from a hybrid plant will not produce the same exact plant as the original. Hybrid plants are often bred for convenience (small plant sizes, disease resistance, fruits that package well and don't bruise) rather than flavor, which is why I usually go heavy on the heirlooms. However, I do think that a hybrid home grown tomato is better than what you can get in the store, so my "Beaverlodge" tomato variety is an early hybrid that I can usually get to produce in early July.

My Heirlooms:

• Pepper - Corno di Toro
• Tomato - Polish Linguisa
• Tomato - Great White
• Tomato - Purple Calabash
• Tomato - Yellow Perfection
• Tomato - San Marzano
• Tomato - Sugar Snack

My Hybrids:

• Tomato - Beaverlodge
• Eggplant - Little Prince

My Wacky Stuff (Another note: "wacky" is not a seed type. I just don't know what these things are and am figuring that you don't either):

• Root Parsley "Hamburg" and Celeriac/Root Celery - We're big fans of root vegetables here. Big. And there are way more interesting root vegetables than carrots. These two are delicious, and add a fun twist to mashed potatoes or a roasted veggie platter. They both taste like their edible foliage, but are milder. In these varieties, the roots are the stars.  
• Tomatillo - Fundamental to salsa verde, tomatillos are a Mexican food staple and a member of the same plant family as tomatoes. One plant produces like crazy, but I can never stop myself from planting two of them.
• Broccoli "Romanesco" - I suck at growing broccoli so I don't have high hopes for this. I might grow it in the greenhouse to try to avoid the inevitable cabbageworm attack. If it does actually grow, it will produce a whole head of lime green, pointy florets that look similar to Madonna's cone bra in her Blonde Ambition tour.
• Shiso, Green - I've never grown this and am not sure I've even seen it in real life. Shiso is a traditional Japanese cooking herb with aromatic cinnamon-flavored leaves. Also comes in purple. If it works, we might see some fancy new recipes coming from Tommy-San.
• Malabar Spinach "Red Stem" - Another newcomer to my garden. This is a tropical vine that grows in the heat of summer, and is described as spinach-like. I love the idea of a spinachish plant for summer, so we're trying this.
• Epazote - Herb native to South America and used in Mexican food, especially bean dishes. This has the potential to be a rotten weed in these parts, so grow in a pot and watch for volunteer baby plants in your garden beds. I haven't had a chance to cook with this, but it's supposed to help bean related digestive problems. Here's to hoping.
• Cavolo Broccolo Spigariello, called "leaf broccoli" - I got these seeds in the Christmas Tree Shop of all places. It attracted me because the whole rack of seed was all in Italian and I couldn't identify the plant in the picture. Google tells me that this has little broccoli heads but is really grown for the leaf and harvests like kale. It's a cut and come again plant that will grow all season. Let's see if it works.
• Fennel, Bulbing "Trieste" - Tom is totally obsessed with fennel bulbs for cooking and insists we grow as much of this as possible. We never use all that we grow. I used to think that was fine because the plant would flower and go to seed, but seeds never seemed to appear. It turned out that some fennel varieties are grown for seed and others for the bulb, but there are no varieties that do both. If you know of one, dear reader, please inform me! In the meantime, we will be growing the "Trieste" variety for seed, and also the ......
• Fennel, Seed "Bea" - ..... and this one for seed. I named it "Bea" after a sweet gal named Bea Kunz, owner of Sage Hill Farms, who graciously sent me this seed. I can't wait to grow it and harvest my own! If I get a good enough crop, maybe I will take a page from the book of Bea, and share my harvest.
• Mystery Seed - This is thanks to my excellent labeling skills. What is it? Who knows. It could be a kind of basil. Or maybe columbine. As of now, it is planted, and we will just see what develops.

Thanks for reading, and we'll see you next week!

Laura