April 28, 2008

carrot bed

Yesterday morning I planted a bed full of carrots, parsnips and onions at my new community garden plot. I planted seeds for the carrot varieties Mokum, Oxheart and Coreless Amsterdam and the parsnip variety Cobham Improved Marrow. Also Stuttgart onion sets. I alternated carrots with onions, hoping the rabbits won’t smell the carrots with all the onion smell. We have two days of rain coming, so I think they’ll get off to a good start.Daucus carota

April 25, 2008

planting potatoes

My first crop is planted at my new community garden. Yippee!! (I know, it just looks like a pile of dirt.) I’ve been saving old potatoes to plant and they were growing before they hit the dirt. I have read warnings not to use supermarket potatoes for seed because of sprout inhibitors. It appears any of these have worn off of these spuds. I use the trench method to plant potatoes. I dug a little trench and spread out the potatoes. I then planted each, sprouts up, about 3-4 inches…

April 24, 2008

seed potatoes

I have a lot of potatoes that I’ve been saving. They are very anxious to get into the ground. All are sending out sprouts. All are supermarket spuds. I thought the mail order seed potatoes were too expensive. Last year supermarket my potatoes grew great. My collection includes a nice Idaho baker, a Yukon Gold, a whole bag of mixed fingerlings (a mix of La Ratte, Russian Banana, French and Rose Finn), and a white sweet potato. My plan is that Friday is potato planting day. This will be my…

April 9, 2008

what’s wrong with my onions???

I often have trouble with onion seedlings. They shrivel up and die a week or two after sprouting. The ones in the tray (the photo on the left) started dying a couple weeks ago. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. Fortunately, I also did some winter sowing and seeded onions outside in plastic bottles (photo on the right). These are doing much better. They look good to me. They are growing very slowly, but surely. Last night I picked up my new book, The Gardener’s Bible (my bedtime reading),…

February 15, 2008

round black Spanish radish

Last year I bought some radish seeds called a round black Spanish. Well, they didn’t even sprout for me, but I’ll try again this year and give them more sun. In the mean time, I was surprised to come across the same radish in my local supermarket. It was grown in Vermont. It turns out that the round black Spanish radish is a nearly forgotten vegetable. It is quite bitter when eaten fresh, but is a good keeper and mellows with time. I was a bit hesitant to try it,…

January 20, 2008

collecting seed potatoes

My husband brought home a nice bag of fingerling potatoes from our local warehouse store yesterday. A mix of La Ratte, Russian Banana, French and Rose Finn (though I don’t know which are which). Since these were varieties I was planning to mail order as seed potatoes, I immediately pulled out a bunch. I’ll save these for planting instead of ordering and paying for shipping costs. Last year I had very good luck with planting supermarket potatoes. Why not? I also noticed I had a Yukon Gold that was beginning…

November 25, 2007

winter root veggies

On of my favorite vegetable combinations for this time of year. Its a mix of carrots, parsnips and beets. I wrap the beets in foil and bake at 375 for an hour, then peel and slice the next day. Boil sliced carrots 8 minutes, adding sliced parsnips for the last 5 minutes. Then mix everything in a baking dish with herbs and olive oil and bake for a bit. Good additions are potatoes, celeriac and onions. I have a rutabaga in the fridge I will try soon too. I also…

October 27, 2007

carrot problems

Aarrgg! My carrots are all infested with root maggots. They look disgusting. I will have to pull and dispose of the entire crop. Very disappointing. Root maggot controls include crop rotation, immediate turning of soil in the fall, beneficial nematodes, and row covers. Next year I hope to plant my carrots in my new community garden plot, which will have more sun. It looks like people there worry more about rabbits as carrots are covered with chicken wire not fabric. Daucus carota

October 5, 2007

beets

I have a few good sized beets now from a spring planting. Still a lot of small ones. The seeds were called Rainbow Beet Mix from The Cook’s Garden. Its described as a mix of all of their beet varieties that will mature at different times over a long season. An added comment on the weather: I thought this was fall. Its as hot as mid-summer today! Good thing I planted a lot of fall crops. If this keeps up, my garden will grow until Christmas! And my nice fall…

September 30, 2007

lettuce and radish are growing

I haven’t picked lettuce from my garden in months. But finally its growing. Our nights have cooled off. Days too. I planted 6 or 8 varieties a week or so ago. My garden looks like spring with all the little lettuce sprouts. Even my radish have sprouted. I also have a few rows of greens (escarole and arugula) that I planted mid summer and never really grew, until now. My garden will be filling the lettuce bowl soon – I hope.

weeks and counting until my last spring frost

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