November 29, 2016

my first seed catalog!

Now I have my reading material! I’m excited to see all the pictures and descriptions of vegetables, herbs, and flowers. I think I might get my seed order in early this year. So many vegetables to choose from. And this is only ONE catalog so far.

November 19, 2016

Roger Swain’s vegetable variety list

Here’s a list of vegetable varieties Roger Swain recommended in my master gardener class: Onion: Stuttgart Peas: Oregon Giant snow pea (3.5 ft tall) “the finest pea out there” Lettuce: Black Seeded Simpson (has the best taste) Cabbage: Murdock (big!), for storage: Danish Ball Head Turnips: Hakurei Kohlrabi: Kossak (big) Potatoes: Green Mountain Carrots: Dragon (purple), Nantes (orange) Eggplant: Hansel and Gretel (small cluster forming fruits, Hansel is deep purple, Gretel is white) Pepper: Habanada (a heatless habanero) Corn: Mandan Bride (a Flint corn for grinding – don’t grow sweet…

November 17, 2016

Master Gardener class with Roger Swain

I keep writing about this. What a treat the class was!! It was so great to hear Mr Swain talk from 9 am to 3 pm all about vegetables. I have 12 pages of notes. I wish I had a tenth of his knowledge. And a tenth of his ability to entertain a class. Super. Anyway, here is a list of some of the highlights in his presentation: – Local food production: 20% local food production is a good goal for New England. Currently it’s about 5-7%. NE has the…

November 16, 2016

the basics of growing a vegetable garden

I have a giant notebook compiled from my Master Gardener class. Of course, the vegetable section was one of my favorites. I was interested to see how our manual breaks down the major components of growing a vegetable garden. 1) Planning and 2) Maintaining growth momentum. Planning includes site selection, soil, type of garden (raised beds, etc), how you will irrigate. It also includes planning what to grow, how much, and what to plant where. It includes deciding whether to grow from seed or use transplants, where to obtain these,…

October 28, 2016

tallying my homegrown versus store bought vegetables

I’ve weighed all the vegetables and fruits in our house now and here’s what I’ve come up with: Garden grown: 221 lbs Store bought: 98 lbs Proportion of home grown: 69% Wow. I had no idea. This includes 34 lbs of my winter squash, 19 lbs potatoes, 11 qts canned tomatoes, 75 pints of other canned fruits or vegetables and 24 lbs of fresh tomatoes ripening on my counter. I’ll put the tally on my sidebar. I’ll keep track as we buy and grow for a year. I know the…

October 28, 2016

how much of my family’s vegetables do I grow?

I write in my header for this blog that my goal is to grow all of my family’s vegetables. I never actually figured out what amount I do grow and if I am getting better – or worse… In my Gardening class yesterday, Roger Swain said that NE grows only about 7% of our local food and the rest we import from elsewhere. We have so much land we could use, but we don’t. He said home gardeners don’t really contribute a significant amount – and we could. In 1944,…

October 10, 2016

garlic sources for planting

I’ve been asked me where I buy garlic and for other sources so I thought I’d post this list again. I posted it last October too. Here’s the list of garlic seed sources that people have recommended in response to my post a few days ago. They look awesome! I can’t wait to try out some. If you have a source you like, let me know and I’ll add it. Pacific Northwest: Filaree Garlic Farm – So many! This source was seconded and thirded! Washington State Adaptive Seeds: Good selection,…

September 12, 2016

fall vegetable varieties

These are the varieties I planted for our fall seedling sale: Broccoli, Bay Meadows and Arcadia Kale, Nash’s Green and Vates Beets, Touchstone Gold and Red Ace Cilantro, Calypso Swiss Chard, Bright Lights and Peppermint Calendula, Flashback Escarole, Natacha Lettuce, Cherokee, Monte Carlo, and Allstar Mix Bok Choi, Black Summer and Win Win Mustard, Scarlet Frills Spinach, Emperor I’ll let you know what grows well. This year, it seems very dependent on the weather. Who knows what fall will bring here in the NE!!

March 30, 2016

updates are out for Skippy’s planting apps

Updates are out for many of our calendar apps, including Skippy’s: Vegetable Planting Calendar Spring Planting Calendar Fall Planting Calendar Of course, if you have these apps, you already know this, because the updates show up automatically at the Apple App Store. Updates for our Flower & Herb Calendar and the Winter Calendar will be out soon. The update corrects the reminders function so it works with any iOS version. Note: If any apps freeze after installing an update, just delete the app and reinstall it from the app store.…

March 15, 2016

garden plans and bed preparation

I’ve finished up my garden plans. Just in time to start preparing the beds for planting. ROTATION: To make new garden plans, I rotate my root crops (especially onions, garlic and carrots), as well as my tomatoes and potatoes. I try for a 3 year rotation. I don’t worry about rotating things like squash, greens, beets, cabbage, corn, beans, basil etc, though they usually end up in a different bed because of rotating the roots and solanacea. It’s recommended to follow a rotation of heavy feeder, light feeder, legume (soil…

weeks and counting until my last spring frost