The Bruno-Metzger Garden in Late June

It's been awhile since I've shared our gardening adventures.  It's been a busy past few weeks, both in and out of the garden.  I'm excited to update you on how the garden is growing and share a few tips on weeding and pruning to help your plants reach their full potential!

Let me start with the flower boxes.  This was my first year growing flowers from seed, and I have found it very rewarding.  I always thought that growing flowers from seed was super hard so I never attempted it.  Turns out I was right, however I managed to successfully grow snapdragons, impatients, pansies, petunias, and geraniums.  They key is to start them early.  I started all my flowers late January, and some, like snap dragons and petunias, just started blooming a few weeks ago.  I'm pretty sure I started them early enough, I just failed to transplant them into a larger container in a timely fashion.

My dad and I had a greenhouse production with lights going on in our basement this year (check it out here), as we grew our entire garden by seed.  We were so concerned with the vegetables, the flowers got forgotten in their small start-up containers until well after they should have been transplanted.  I know this because I re-potted my impatients in a timely fashion and they started blooming in February. Yes, I neglected the others but they all bounced back fine.  Next year I will make sure to pay a little more attention to the flowers!

Another thing I discovered about growing flowers is if you are planning on planting flower boxes, either start the seeds in the boxes you are going to be planting them in, or if you start the flowers in starter trays, transplant them directly as little seedlings in their eventual respective home.  My dad came up with this genius idea, and it made my life so much easier.  Once it was warm enough, all I had to do was put the flower boxes outside already planted and growing!  I love easy, especially when there are over 200 other vegetables to plant!

Now let's move onto the garden.  I'll start with our herb garden in boxes on our deck that my dad personally built himself.  Last year was the first time using the boxes, and we forgot to put drainage in the bottom of them so nothing grew.  They sat in water for about a month before I realized a lack of drainage was stopping the herbs from growing.  This year we fixed the problem, and they are thriving. Chives and oregano are two herbs that will come back every year without any re-seeding, so keep that in mind.  Again, I love 'easy' gardening, and nothing is easier than plants that come back by themselves!  (My oregano did take much longer to start growing this year, we think it was because we had an exceptionally cold winter.  This year I am going to put my oregano pot in the garage to keep it from all the heavy snow and shield some of the cold.)

Next up: our sunflower and bean patches.  Sunflowers bring me such joy to watch grow and bloom because they are so big and seem to take on personalities.  Before you think I'm crazy, let me explain how sunflowers actually follow the sun throughout the day so they in the morning they are facing the east, and at sunset they are all facing west.  Now most plants follow the sun, understandably so, but because sunflowers are so large (and most enthusiastic to get direct sunlight it seems), they are the most noticeable.  Sunflowers also grow at an alarming rate and I love how they become giant green plant pillars in a few weeks.

We usually grow peas around the sunflowers because we like to conserve space in the garden, and because sunflowers grow extremely tall very fast the peas won't block their sunlight as they vine around the stems and fences.  Pea plants are very easy to grow and they always produce A LOT of peas. They also have a very short life cycle, so you can replant them two or three times throughout the summer, depending on where you live.  Our first round of peas is starting to wane, and it is almost time to rip them up and plant a new batch.  My aunt, who is a  master gardener, told me to lay the pea stalks on the garden aisles so they will decompose over time and replenish the nutrients in the soil. Genius!  I am all about natural ways to keep the garden well-fed.

Moving along to our pepper patches.   Peppers grow slow.  Very slow.  You need a lot of patience with pepper plants, but it is always well-worth the wait.  Last year was the first year we started growing our pepper plants from seed, and boy did it make a difference in the harvest.  I have never seen pepper plants with so many peppers before!  We plant our pepper plants closer together than recommended because we have found that it forces them to grow taller faster, and also helps stabilize the plants from the wind and rain.  I'm very excited for grilled peppers, roasted peppers, and stuffed peppers that are fresh picked from the garden!

Our squash plants line the outside of the garden on two sides.  We are growing butternut squash, buttercup squash, spaghetti squash, cucumbers, zucchini, and pumpkins.  My squash plants are one of my favorite parts of the garden.  I am squash crazed, and will eat squash in just about any form.  We even have squash growing in the front of the house!  All of our squash plants have their respective fruits growing already, and I am anxiously waiting for them to ripen.

We are constantly having to redirect the vines of the squash plants because they seem to have a mind of their own and creep into other vegetable patches where they don't belong.  These plants are very stubborn and we have to make sure we are checking on them frequently to keep them under control. All our rogue squash plants are thriving, and we are still waiting for their fruit to develop to know what type of squash they are.  I love veggie surprises!

This is our pumpkin patch.  I decided that I wanted an entire pumpkin patch so I an have a selection of pumpkins to carve for halloween.  Also I love pumpkin pie.  We are hoping to have a lot of pumpkins this fall from both types of plants: a sugar pie variety and jack-o-lantern variety.

I love the way the pumpkin vines grow.  Nature is an art; just look at how beautifully the feelers look before they unravel to grab the nearest fence to climb!

Here is our cauliflower and cabbage patch.  

I absolutely love the color of the red cabbage plants.  I am surprised the cabbages are doing so because they were one of the plants that survived the flood.  Obviously, they are extremely hardy.  I want to try to make my own sauerkraut this year out of some of the cabbage harvest.  That should be an adventure. If anyone has a good recipe, or experience making sauerkraut, please leave a comment!

Now let's talk greens.  We are growing buttercrunch and leafy green lettuce, dino and curly kale, red swiss chard, and collard greens.  I have been loving waling into the garden to pick my lunch/dinner. Big salads of baby lettuce and collards with fresh peas has been a staple lunch for me while I have been making a combination of sauteed baby kale and swiss chard with dinner.  So delicious!  Not relying on the grocery store to have a good batch of kale stocked feels so good.

When growing leafy green plants, it is important to prune the plants while they are young in order to give them enough room to grow into mature plants.  Most leafy green seeds are extremely small and therefore it is too hard to separate each seed while planting, so we sprinkle the seeds over the designated patch.  We allow the lettuce seedlings to get to about 3-4 inches before we start pulling plants out to allow room for a full lettuce head to develop.  By waiting for the lettuce to reach 3-4 inches, when you pull most of the plants out, you can cut off the roots and eat them!  I am slowly eating my way through the 7x2' buttercrunch patch and 4x4' leafy green patch.  It's a tough job, but someone has to do it.

Last, but certainly not least, there is our tomato patch.  I won't talk too much about our 125 plants (not including numerous potted plants on our back deck) because I'm sure my dad will be discussing them very soon.  What I will say is they all have tomatoes growing, many already in the ripening process, and some we have even already harvested.  There is nothing like a fresh tomato from the vine. We are well aware that in a month or so we will have tomatoes up to our ears and are going to have to start drying, canning, and freezing like crazy!

I hope you enjoyed my long-winded tour of our garden.  Feel free to leave leave a comment below, I'd love to hear about your garden!  Until next time, I hope you are having a wonderful and produce filled summer.

~Margaret

Sunflowers, Tomatoes, and Rogue Squash Plants...Oh My!

Squash plants are equivalent to an invasive bug species.  They are hearty as hell, popping up everywhere no matter how many times you turn over the soil in the spring and weed.  They are not picky about the soil, water, or sunlight.

Every year my dad and I have dozens of rogue squash plants popping up in random places.  However, unlike an invasive bug species, I love rogue squash plants!  It's impossible to be mad about MORE squash plants.  I am a squash addict: pumpkin, butternut, spaghetti, you name it I eat it.  As long as the squash plants come up in a part of the garden that won't hurt my other vegetables, I keep 'em!

This year, I have over 40 plants coming up all by themselves in both my sunflower patches.  Squash plants and sunflowers are great to plant together because the sunflowers grow fast and tall, while the squash plants will wind around the bottom of the area and grow their delicious fruits meaning you are wasting no precious garden space!  I get lucky every year and never have to actually plant the squash seeds.  I'm not complaining :)  To be honest, I have no idea what types of squash they are, but that's part of the fun.

Here we have rogue squash plants coming up by the squash we planted.  Only two of those circles were planned places for squash mounds.  Notice how we have happily accepted the orphan squash into our loving garden.  There is always room for one, two, three, or 30+ more plants :P

There are also a few squash plants growing in our front tomato patch.  Again, there is no danger here because the tomato plant is growing up while the squash plant will wind around the base.

So, if you find squash plants coming up in random parts of your garden, let them go!  They are always the healthiest and best producing squash plants.  If you don't have and squash, come on over and take some of ours!  We have about 50 to spare :)

~Margaret

It's June

Wow, it's hard to believe it's June already. Seems I was just heading down to the basement with packs of seeds in hand and dreams of the garden. That was over 4 months ago!

The "heavy lifting" part of the 2014 garden are behind us now. The seeds turned into seedlings and have moved from the basement to the garden. Actually to many gardens. There are about 6 gardens besides are own that have this years seedlings in them.  I gave a number of friends seedlings to grow at their houses for the first time this year. Yes, we're spreading the garden craziness as best we can.

As I was putting a window air  conditioner in one of the upstairs bedrooms today (the whole house system just doesn't quite do the upstairs bedrooms) I looked out the window and saw a very satisfying sight - an aerial view of the garden!

On the right side of the garden you can see this years water management project. We had to take down a couple cedars this year, which gave us some beautiful long straight trunks to use as a base for a water guide. Once the trunks were moved into position (fortunately they were fell very close to where we needed them), some clay (remember we really do not have soil) was piled against the trunks and that allowed grass to grow there for erosion prevention. You might be wondering how we were able to move packed clay, well with the help of our rototiller of course!  A couple passes along the desire path provide some manageable material to be moved into position. It would have been virtually impossible to move the clay by hand otherwise.

The lower right non-strawed patch is one of two sunflower patches, the other is visible on the left side in front of the house and chicken coop. Yes, I said chicken coop, my wife loves having chickens. This year we planted a variety of sunflowers, from 4'6' sunburst to 15' mammoth sunflowers. I can't wait to sit by the grills with a cold one, looking out over the garden with a sunflower privacy screen to my right.

The large plant you see in front of the garden is a massive lilac bush which was planted way to close to the deck as a mothers day gift many years ago. That little 3 foot plant is now over 12' high and 6' wide. We cut this bush way back last year, which of course made it grow even faster / larger this year. Reminder to self, think carefully before planting things - they get big! In this case, far to big to be moved by hand.

As I went downstairs, I smiled at the red cherry tomatoes in the kitchen. We kept two tomatoes in the kitchen and they are covered with tomatoes, including a number almost ready to be consumed.

As I mentioned, the heavy lifting is done for this year, the backyard garden is in grow mode. That doesn't mean we are completely done with planting. This past weekend we added a small corn patch in the front yard. Not really expecting much of a yield, but I am expecting a lot of smiles as I go out front. Actually, I had fun telling a neighbor that grass I was clearing with the rototiller was going to be replaced with a corn patch. I grew up on a farm with lots of corn and I guess I've talked about growing corn so much that Margaret said "don't put the rototiller away, that part of the yard gets lots of sun and no use, make it a corn patch". So we now have a suburban corn patch int the front yard.

Oh, back to the not quite done planting. Our back deck still has couple dozen tomato plants and a number of sweet peppers. One of this weeks must do tasks is find a home for these somewhere on the property. Not a lot planting, more a pondering task of trying to figure out where they can go. Oh no, the rototiller may have to come out again!

~Dennis

Progress

A couple weeks ago we started moving the seedlings into the garden. The new section of the garden was like a clay slurry, didn't inspire confidence in the plant growth.

The poor little pepper in the next photo had to be thinking "What are they doing to us, it chilly and there's not real dirt!".

I'm sure the tomatoes were not very happy either.

Now the plants in the "old" section were much happier with their surroundings. This soil has been worked for the past 5 years and is in OK shape. Every year the straw & newspaper (weed control) gets tilled into the sol along with the years supply of leaves. There's also the addition of some nice mulch from our compost pile which goes under / around all our friends.

Well, today I completed adding the newspaper and straw to the walkways - no more slogging through the clay slurry. I lay down 3 or 4 sheets of news paper (sometimes playing catch the paper when the winds comes along) and cover them with some straw. Besides providing a much nicer place to walk, this provides excellent weed control, retains moisture (we will get to the Sahara conditions in a few weeks I'm sure) and helps the clay turn to plant raising soil as it get tilled in with the fall leaves.

The Kale just looks so cozy sitting there between the straw.

Yes, those straw rows are nice and wide, 18" to 24" at least. After years of wiggling through the garden, it's time to walk easily among the fruit (well, veggies) or our labor. The Kale is coming back after the stunting it received from the rain deluge. Think it was getting tired or treading water to survive. Now it's still in clay (with some nice mulch right around the plants, but at least it's getting to dry out. Actually, everything is starting to pop!

Our newest member of the garden is turning out to be a strong, fast growing colorful plant. Never thought cabbage wold be so cute when it's little.

I went a little overboard with sweet peppers this year. They were very slow to start so I carefully separated each seedling into their own cow pots as they began to grow. Of course, they've now all begun to take off. So, what do your do? You expand your sweet pepper patch AND add a second patch of course.

We had a couple strawberry plants that had to get moved this year. Actually I'm surprised they are still alive. They were in a rather tough neighborhood in the back yard, lots of weeds and not much TLC. Anyway, we pulled them out of the ground and put them into a couple pots (pots embedded in wooden geese sculptures). The geese sculptures are my wife's, a find from one of her garage sale trips.

Of course there are still some over flow plants on the deck, even after sending many to news homes with friends.

This weekend hasn't been all about the garden. I've gotten to spend a good 8 hours or so per day getting things in shape, but we've had a little time distraction. You'll notice in the next picture the back of the house is sporting a fancy blue tarp. Pulled out an old (40-50 year old patio slider door for replacement only to find massive water damage to the structure of the house. Seems I'll be sharing my time between the garden and the new house project at least for a little while.

I leave you with one last photo of the garden, the new back half, It's looking pretty good. Today was a long hot day, but the end result makes me smile.

The Big Planting, Part I

This past weekend, I completed a marathon.  A planting marathon, that is.  My dad and I were up early on Saturday to start the long process of planting the 100 tomato plants sitting on our deck, under our make-shift greenhouse.  The morning started with a quick rototill and rake of the garden where we were going to be planting.  From there it was all digging, planting, and staking our tomato seedlings.

Ok, I'm missing a few steps.  We first laid out where we were going to plant the tomatoes,  deciding to make each row and aisle 2".  That will give the tomatoes plenty of room to spread their little leaves and us enough space to walk down the aisles without fighting the plants.  The two middle tomato rows were combined into a 4" section to conserve space, because what would we do without 100 tomato plants?!

The next phase of planting began with my dad giving the little guys a prep talk (pictured above), then involved separating the plants into groups by number.  (I think we both got a good enough workout sorting and carrying the tomatoes over to the prepared soil to call it for a day, but that's for the weak gardener :P).  My dad brilliantly numbered each type of tomato so while were staging planting and transplanting the seeds, we would be able to tell what type was what.  This year we planted 8 different tomato varieties, so having a system of knowing the type each tomato was essential!  I highly recommend labeling your plants, regardless of the size of your garden because sometimes you just forget.  Not to say there is anything bad about eating a mysterious tomato, however it makes good conversation to know the variety.  It also helps to know if you want to make sauce, salsa, sun-dried tomatoes, etc.

When we went to actually plant the tomatoes:

1. We dug holes about 1' deep and 1' wide, and about every 18-20".  Next, we sprinkled some good-quality garden soil on the bottom and then placed the tomato plant on top.  It wasn't necessary to add too much additional soil because we have been working our front garden patch for many years now, and the soil is very nutrient rich.  Sadly, the same can't be said about our back patch.
2. We filled in the sides around with the soil we dug up, then mounded the soil on top.  You want to cover the bottom few leaves of the tomato plant because they will sprout roots from the bottom stem, and it makes for a heartier plant.  If you want to know exactly why this happens, drop a comment and my dad will get back to you.  I'm no tomato connoisseur like him:) 
3. It was then time to stake the tomatoes.  This is super important, as tomato plants are vine plants, and like to climb. If you don't properly stake them the wind can easily blow them over and snap the stem.  For the past few years we have been using tomato cages to support the plants, but this year we branched out (and we had about 80 more plants than we did last year!), so we attached most to wooden stakes, and are going to train them to climb.  Using plant ties (more like double sided velcro), we loosely attached each plant to it's stake.

What's the difference between tomato cages and wooden stakes?

Tomato cages are so last year when it comes to growing tomatoes.  At least, every gardening magazine I have read says this, however I still think that cages do the job.  This might be because we have never staked our tomatoes, instead our caged plants have always grown well over 5' tall, and nobody can complain about that!

However, there are good points that point to staking tomatoes for maximum tomato production.  One reason to stake this year is the tomatoes will not grow bushy, as they do when they are caged, and less leaves will allow the plants to push more fruits and well as ripen faster because there will have more access to the sun without all the leaves.  Staking is also a convent solution to harvesting.  Instead of having to reach inside the cage, and dodge leaves to pick ripe tomatoes, they will be easily hanging next to the stake, free of tomato leaf jungle!  Overall, staking seems to be a better solution for both the plant and gardener, so I hope to successfully confirm this statement mid-summer.

If you go the cage route, make sure to drive a small wooden stake in next to the cage to support it, it's so sad when a big bushy full of tomato plant falls over because the cage couldn't support it (experience talking). Unless, of course, the plant is on your deck.  If you have deck tomatoes, your house/apartment will probably sufficiently block the wind and you won't have to worry about the wind knocking down the plant.

I hope I leave you today with a new-found excitement for planting tomatoes.  If you love pizza, pasta, salsa, bruschetta (the list could to on and on), then you love planting tomatoes.  Just plant one, even if it's on your deck, or heck, inside your house by the window!  You'll thank me in a month or two trust me.

PS.  While we spent a casual nine hour day in the garden, my dad had the smoker on with a delicious organic pork shoulder in it.  Just living the dream: gardening, drinking (water, obviously ;), and feasting on some smoked pulled pork!