What Good Thing Did We Learn?

[digitS']

Have we done this for 2016?

I try to do an ongoing TEG babble about the good things (& bad) going on through the season. Sometimes, I get ahead of myself. Good turns out not to be so great; bad turns around to be good ... or, at least, okay. One season's trials don't indicate the long-term. I try to hold back seed so I've got a 2-year commitment. After that, I'm fully biased one way or t'other .

I have never cared for the stems of Swiss chard. I discovered chard Verde da Taglio in 2016, thanks to @ninnymary . It is, however, very much like the "perpetual spinach," that I have grown before. The seed for that variety is not commonly available so now I have more than one route to go with ordering.

It seems to me that Americans should be able to do better than this non-spinach's name, "perpetual spinach." Verde da Taglio means "cut greens," as best as I understand - so, I'm not necessarily suggesting that one either.

We could just call them "beet greens." I grew white beets for the first time in 2016, also. Although they developed rather huge roots, the leaves tasted like Verde da Taglio!

Growing red beetroot, yellow beetroot and white beetroot at the same time led me to decide that I like red beets best. And, yet!!! Baby beets with the leaves are a dinner favorite. Green beet leaves retain that good flavor well. Perpetual spinach - Verda da Taglio chard - white beets, one of these should be included, every year, although ... I'm biased towards Verde da Taglio .

it was ongoing:
May
July
August

Steve

 

[ninnymary]

Glad you're biased, besides Verde da Taglio sounds better.

Mary

 

[Zeedman]

Well, I learn a lot each year, so absent a scoreboard, it is hard to keep track.

- Ongoing, that different vegetables have not only different water needs, but different water tolerances. As in, if you have a location that is fertile but poorly drained, it is a great place for cowpeas, and a poor location for garlic... especially when it won't stop raining. Had to move my garlic crop to another friend's property last year (less fertile, but with better drainage) and had a 50% improvement the first year. I anticipate even more improvement, from the larger cloves planted last Fall.

- Peppers loved all the rain, they were on the lowest, muddiest side of the garden - and gave me my best crop ever. Memo to self: plant them in that area every year.

- Take my own advice, re: covering seedlings for squash & cukes. Couldn't get the covers on last year due to weather, and had a great year; so tried going without covers again this year. Big mistake - swarms of cucumber beetles destroyed all my winter squash seedlings, and severely crippled the cucumbers & watermelons.

- If I want to get seed from garbanzos, I need to put mouse traps around the plants early. Voles cut off the entire row at the ground, just as seed was beginning to mature. The second time they've done this, voles seem to have a special place in their black hearts for garbanzos

- Need to put mouse traps on my patio, if I am drying seed there. Voles got into a garbage can (!!!) where I was drying a soybean variety, and completely harvested that seed before I discovered what was going on. I moved all other soybeans, and caught the offending rodents two days later.

Have I mentioned how much I hate voles??? The only pest I'm unable to fence out (other than occasional visits by wild turkeys). Had a family of feral cats on the property last year that kept the voles in check, but they moved on this year. I'd thought about putting out cat food to keep them around, but all that would probably do is attract the local raccoons... and I don't want them taking up residence in my outbuilding again.

- If growing beans for dry seed, where Fall rains can be heavy, pole varieties are better. The elevated pods dry out faster, so less spoilage. I was often trudging through the mud between bouts of rain to harvest bean seed in 2016, but surprisingly little was lost.

- If growing beans for dry seed, where Spring rains can be heavy, start some in peat pots as backups. That saved my bacon in 2016; nearly all of the beans I direct seeded rotted in the ground, due to sustained heavy rainfall after planting. The transplants that replaced them produced 32 pounds of seed.

Incidentally, most of the beans started in pots were from 2009 seed, and using old seed protocols, still had 90-100% germination.

- Grow okra on the South side of a structure. In my climate, the cool-sensitive okra really benefits from that extra reflected heat. Ditto in the garden, where I planted it on the South side of trellised pole beans, for protection from cool breezes. This was the second consecutive year I tried this, with great results; the true test will be how well it works in a cool summer (not that I'm wishing for one, mind you).

- Tomatoes can cross heavily, but that seems to be variety dependent. Had one variety (Roughwood Golden Plum) show about 30% crossing from saved seed, so will have to bag blossoms next year to clean it up. This is only the second time that I've had tomatoes cross. I grow different varieties at least 30' apart (with trellises of pole beans & plantings of squash or cukes between them) and that isolation method has been highly effective. The only other tomato to cross was Federle, which had over 50% crossing - twice(!!!)... too promiscuous for me to keep growing it.

- Tried a new vegetable, Liso Calcutta Gherkin. Similar to West India Gherkin, but fewer spines, and grows much larger before developing seeds - to about 2" long. Really good flavor, and large enough to slice into a salad. The yield was not impressive; but this was an under-achieving year for all cucurbits (except for bitter melon), so I will grow it again next year from saved seed.

- Still adjusting seed starting dates, after switching over to a stronger light setup two years ago. I use 6-bulb high bay T-8 fixtures (which have high-efficiency reflectors) and 6500K bulbs. The seedlings grow faster than they did with my old T-12 shop lights, so tomatoes & tomatillos were outgrowing their pots. I already planted 7 days later this year, will go to 10 days later in 2017.

That light setup is incredibly effective... the transplants require very little hardening off, and even onion seedlings don't get leggy.

That's about all I remember, off the top of my head. Looking forward to 2017!

 

[Nyboy]

Zeedman what about getting your own cats Many places have what they call barn cats. Friendly cats that don't or can't live in house.

 

[so lucky]

@Zeedman, just a word of caution about mousetraps: I had them set in my chicken pen (at night, when the chickens were locked in their house) and accidently caught a cardinal in one. It came in early in the morning before I was there to cover the traps and let the chickens out. It was beyond help, and I had to put it out of its misery. It made me sick to do that. After that, I put the traps under wire baskets and other frames that the birds couldn't get to, but mice/voles could.

 

[Beekissed]

I learned that I don't need to get my tomato and pepper plants out so early(been doing it mid-May all my life because that's when my parents did theirs and their parents before them, etc). They just sit there in the rain and cold all spring until finally the soil warms up at the end of June or even into July and they can start actually growing....meanwhile, as they sit there doing nothing much, they are attacked by fungus and pests.

I learned that melons don't do well here, so don't take up space in the garden with them.

I learned to not crowd my vines and to not plant my tomatoes in a block any longer...this past year we had blight for the first time ever, but all the tomatoes growing outside that block of trellises were fine...the spores just traveled via the wind and infected the whole crop that were trellised there. Next year I'll have a length of trellis for tomatoes here and there throughout the garden, but none next to another or where the wind can transfer spores. I'll also trellis cukes and beans on the tomato trellises, so they will be scattered away from one another as well.

I learned that potatoes don't do well when the soil is too rich in manure and compost...lots of long, green vines, no blossoms and scabby and small spuds, if any at all. I also learned not to plant potatoes from a gardener who had already told me they have a HUGE slug problem at their place. I have never had slugs in a garden, so didn't think or know to clean his spuds thoroughly before introducing them into my garden...too late now, I'll be dealing with slugs from now on.

I learned that sweet onions just do not grow here, no matter how they are planted, be it seeded directly, planted from plants, etc. Neither does garlic. Third year trying to get sweet onions to grow and they either just die or never get big enough to bulb out.

I'm still learning this BTE method of gardening and it seems to be a steep learning curve, but so far I'm not having great success with it. Mediocre at best, though some would look at it and say it was growing very well, we've always had much better gardens in the past. Not sure if it's just the time and global warming symptoms or the method at this point, as others seem to have the same symptoms in the garden and they are not using this method.

I learned that I'm going to have to be more proactive about pest bugs...we've had more in the past two years than I've ever seen in our gardens in 40 yrs combined.

 

[thistlebloom]

I learned that a method of gardening that works well for some doesn't necessarily translate into success for my garden locale. I bought the book, loved the pictures, followed the directions, dreamed big, and had the worst garden ever. Ever.

Start my seeds for tomatoes and peppers on time. Don't spend a bunch of money on starts like I did last year. Could have bought far more produce than I harvested for less money. What I thought I would be saving in time and hassle just didn't balance out.

Don't stress so much over what the kids will plant and harvest. Those things are important, but less so than the things we learned in spite of the epic garden failure. And the kids seem to be more about being and doing together than what the harvest actually weighs.

 

[Nyboy]

Bee ducks love eating slugs

 

[Beekissed]

Bee ducks love eating slugs

They also love water and I live on a ridge top meadow...no open water source. Trying to provide ducks with clean, open water so they can live a healthy life is more problematic than trying to rid the slugs in other ways. Tried it, it was not successful and caused a lot of work, bother and stress, not to mention lots of money spent....all things I eschew in my life. Love ducks, but can't provide the kind of life I'd want for them where I live.

 

[journey11]

I learned that I don't need to get my tomato and pepper plants out so early(been doing it mid-May all my life because that's when my parents did theirs and their parents before them, etc). They just sit there in the rain and cold all spring until finally the soil warms up at the end of June or even into July and they can start actually growing....meanwhile, as they sit there doing nothing much, they are attacked by fungus and pests.

Yes! Me too. I was so surprised how much healthier my tomatoes were last summer when I unintentionally planted them late. And they weren't too far behind on bearing either. I did not get early or late blight or septoria on them. Or blossom end rot, which I think is exacerbated by too much rain. No sense in "mudding them in" only to lose them to disease.

I will plant a few in early May in my raised beds though. Everything does better in the raised beds. I did have to pot my transplants up a size into cottage cheese containers so they wouldn't get root bound while waiting. With all the trips to the hospital last spring, it's a wonder I even pulled off a garden last year.

I am going to try not to plant too much this year. Things have changed a lot for me, more demands on my time, more stress, so I have to keep it more manageable.