A Lesson in Genetics

Here's a fine example of Brassica oleracea:

Broccoli

And another:

Cauliflower

And another:

Kohlrabi

And another:

Brussels sprouts

And another:

Kale - in desperate need of fertilizer

Wait, these are all the same species?

Yes, yes they are. Over the centuries of domestication people selectively bred and developed this species into several distinct cultivar groups, each valued for a particular trait or part of the plant. Kale and collards are prized for their leaves, broccoli and cauliflower for their heads of pre-flower buds, and kohlrabi for its specialized stem.

Which may explain why this popped up in the kohlrabi patch:

The leaves look more like cabbage, but the stem looks like a cross between kohlrabi and broccoli.

Kohlrabi on the right and left, mystery plant in the middle

Even after generations of breeding, every now and then the DNA spontaneously mutates and a plant with different qualities grows.

Plant breeders would use this to their advantage, trying to develop a new cultivar or variety through self-pollination or cross breeding. If they had the right laboratory equipment available a geneticist may try to to sequence the DNA and identify the specific gene mutation.

As for me, it's proof I have no business saving seeds from my plants to propagate the next year's crop. Who knows what may pop up if the bees and bugs transfer pollen from one cultivar to another. I'm perfectly content buying my seeds from the fine folks at Gurneys, Burpees, or Park Seed.

Frostbite

While I was vacationing in South Texas a few weeks ago the first frost of the season hit my garden. My indoor/outdoor thermometer (or rather, its memory) says it got down to 33, but the receiver lives in a protected area under the barn roof so I'm thinking it got a few degrees cooler than that.

I wasn't too worried when I saw the forecast - the cool season crops can tolerate these brief brushes with freezing temperatures. A few other crops though not so much.

The tops and edges of the bell peppers took a hit. I should still be able to pick a few more before I pull them out for winter.

The potatoes are done and ready for digging, while the row of Brussels sprouts in the same bed couldn't be happier.

The beets (as well as the kohlrabi) show no wear for the worse.

Because I was on vacation, I left it up to my house sitter if she thought the garden quilts would need to come out. But that wasn't necessary. The potatoes and peppers were near the end of their growing season anyway. Had this been as cold as last year's hard freeze I would have been a little more worried.

Beginner's Garden

I spent the last week with a friend in South Texas who just moved into a new home. The yards in that development are TINY but the city and the home owners' association collaborated to make a community garden in the park located behind my friend's house. Homeowners can lease a garden plot, and my friend decided to give vegetable gardening a try.

It's the wrong time of year to start anything from seed. The garden centers only have pansies right now, no vegetables. But we did use the opportunity to wander through and see what other people were growing. Lots of broccoli and cabbage almost ready for picking. I was surprised by the number of tomato plants hanging in there - but a neighbor said they had ripe tomatoes all winter long last year. Several also had good stands of asparagus. The impromptu garden tour gave my friend some ideas for what to try come February (when the threat of frost has passed) and we also discussed various stake and support systems people had for tomatoes and peas.

Even though the weather is too uncertain right now to try planting it didn't stop us from going shopping for garden tools. What do I suggest for the basics? Here's what we got:

Garden hoe:
A staple in any gardener's arsenal. There are a few different types of heads but this is the classic. The six-inch wide blade can be used flat for scraping the dirt for wide, shallow beds (like for planting lettuce or carrot seeds) or digging deep trenches in loose soil (potatoes). Or it can be turned on an angle for making long furrows (peas and beans). Also great for working compost into the top layer of soil or loosening up a large area.

Garden rake:

Don't get this confused with a lawn or leaf rake, this one has a very different purpose. The teeth are metal and about 3 inches long rather than the wire, plastic, or bamboo fan shape of the other rakes. This can be used for smoothing and leveling a planting bed, closing furrows and trenches, spreading mulch, or skimming the surface for roots and stems worked up from hoeing a large area. I've also used it for picking small rocks and dirt clods from an area. In spring (or summer, or fall) I'll use it to lightly work over an open area or even a mulch walkway to disturb any weed seedlings trying to get established - much more efficient use of time than hand pulling in an area where nothing of value is growing or planted.

Hand trowel: A must have for any gardener. Great for a number of tasks in small spaces. Loosen weeds, fill pots, dig short furrows for planting, create holes for transplants (especially those from 4-6 inch pots). Usually the blade is marked with a ruler to help determine the right depth to dig and plant. I like to splurge and go for the ergonomic handle. The holes are handy for hanging.

Hand transplanter: Not much different from the hand trowel at first glance. The blade is narrower and the end more pointed. This tool is good for spading into the ground to make a small hole for dropping in transplanted seedlings. It is also good for thinning (and transplanting) direct-sown seedlings. Honestly, I don't have one in my own garden, but it came in the combo package with the trowel.

Hand tiller: Just what the name implies, good for tilling the soil in tight spaces. I'll use this to scratch the soil around plants, loosening up the tiny weeds trying to take over my broccoli and tomato transplants. Also handy for "fluffing" the mulch around my herbs or mixing in the slow-release fertilizer into the soil around the rosebushes.

Gloves: This is one of those garden tools that I consider optional but others a must-have. I find it rewarding and therapeutic to get my hands dirty but I know others have their reasons (including having a job where dirt-stained fingernails are frowned upon). Don't get me wrong - when I'm playing with the rosebushes or other thorny things I have my gloves on. If you get gloves it may take some trial and error to find a fit, fabric, and brand that you like. These are cotton with palm dots for extra grip - what my friend was looking for. Mine have leather palms, which hold up better for pruning and trimming trees.

Watering can: The garden management provides hoses but I think there is something to be said for a plain watering can. We picked up a 2-gallon size, perfect for mixing fertilizer with the water.

And while we didn't pick these up, these are also strongly suggested for the first time gardener: 

Shovel: In my friend's community garden, heavier tools like this are provided. Actually, she already has a digging shovel (or rather, her fiance does) from their last house. Great for digging stuff up, spreading gravel (around her palm trees), planting things from big pots, etc. There are several types of shovels but the digging shovel (pictured here) is the most versatile. Transfer shovels are better for moving loose gravel and mulch.

Spading fork: I grow a lot of potatoes so this is a must-have tool for me. I also use it for turning my compost piles. A lot of people will use a digging shovel for the same purposes. And like the digging shovel, this is made available by the garden management for my friend's plot.









5-gallon bucket or any other large bucket with a handle. Very handy for hauling out weeds and dead plants, taking produce to the house, mixing potting soil for pots and small planters, etc. Again, for my friend this is provided.

Wheelbarrow: If there is ever a tool you want someone to provide for you, this is it. I'm partial to the one-wheeled variety. My coworker swears by the two-wheeled.



So, if you are looking for ideas for Christmas gifts, whether buying for yourself or someone else, make sure you have the basics covered.

Picking pecans

I have about a half-dozen pecan trees on the property, two that I routinely gather nuts from. It's a lot of shuffling through leaves and playing a wicked version of "Where's Waldo" only instead of a be-speckled geek in a striped shirt its brown striped nuts against a background of brown leaves.

How many pecans do you see in this picture?

Also, it's a lot of bending over and picking up. Fun for the first half hour, boring after that.

And then I walked into the local farm co-op this morning and saw this beauty:

It's a big wheel/basket contraption. On a handle! Roll it over the nuts you see (or don't see) and they pass between the wires and get trapped inside. When you get enough hold it over a bucket and spread the wires a little to shake the nuts out. I like this better than the ones I see at the big box stores because it's a heavier gauge wire - I saw some there last week and the flimsy wires were already bent from shipping.

This one is made by Duke Pecan. They don't have an online store but I did find this when I was tracking down info for a friend.

Please note, Duke Pecan knows nothing about this post. I happened to pull their product off the shelf at a retailer and liked it.

Water trough raised beds

One of my pasture water tanks sprung a leak.

See the pin holes in the rust?

Not too long ago my neighbor had one blow the side seam. Which means I now have a matched pair and I can expand my garden! Yes, I could go out and buy galvanized water troughs whenever I want to expand, but it just seems wrong when I know among my network of friends there will be at least one or two of us that have to replace a damaged trough every year. In that case, I'd rather buy a new one and replace an old one rather than see the old one get hauled off to the dump.

Don't get me wrong, I love my 8x4 raised beds. But as I expand my garden I'm getting into the part of the back yard where the septic and utility lines run. My 8x4 beds are permanent structures - if something needs to be done underneath them I lose the entire bed (or two or three) to a backhoe. If I have these tanks in the same spot, a front end loader can easily scoop them up and move them out of the way if work needs to be done.

Here's how I make them:

1. Drill drain holes. Probably not necessary for some people, but if we get one of these torrential rain storms with 5+ inches of rain in 24 hours, it needs to go somewhere.

I prefer working on the rubber mat flooring in the barn aisle. That way I can easily sweep up the metal filings rather than accidentally get them embedded in the bottoms of my garden clogs or flip flops later.

Cordless drill, metal-friendly bit somewhere in the 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch size, and the all important safety goggles are what you need to start. The OCD-tendencies in me like having nice neat rows with offset holes, but you can do whatever makes your heart happy.

1a. Plug the big holes. My friend uses permanently attached hoses and automatic floats to fill her tanks, which means the drain plug at the bottom is usually missing by the time I get the tank. Similar issue with the tanks that have split their seams. I'll patch it with a piece of window screen and caulk. I'm just trying to prevent dirt from falling out/through. Nothing special, just a bunch of caulk to adhere the screen to the side of the tank - I happened to have some window and door caulk laying around. Let this dry well before filling the trough with dirt. 

2. Place the troughs. I like a 3-foot spacing so I can easily get my wheel barrow in between them. I've also filled in the low spots on the ground with topsoil so the finished troughs are relatively level. I didn't do this with the first one I installed, and now if I water too fast it tends to run to one end. Oops.

And yes, I like to put landscape fabric down first. Helps keep the weeds down, and it's easier to do it now than to cut it in around the planters later.

3. Cover the drill holes with mesh. Yeah, it's optional, but I have nightmares about the fine particles settling through. And really, I'm recycling. I use the old top screens from my rain barrels - the one that have gotten stretched and snagged a little thanks to the cats. Trim them up a little and they are the right size for these 2x4 water troughs. I was going to replace those screens this fall anyway.

4. Fill. As with my other raised beds, my preferred mix is three bags (about 1-cubic foot each) of commercial topsoil and one 2-cubic foot bag of commercial garden soil. I'll mix up the first batch in the wheel barrow before shoveling it in. After that I'll usually start layering garden soil and top soil in the trough and mix it well with a shovel or garden spade before adding the next layers. It gets a little messy as it gets full, but I'm not as likely to spill as when I'm mixing in the wheel barrow and then transferring it scoop by scoop.

Topsoil on top, garden soil on the bottom, before I start mixing it in the wheel barrow.

I like this blend because the garden soil adds some good organic matter. The topsoil isn't always consistent - sometimes it has bits of mulch, sometimes it doesn't. I want the porosity of the garden soil but need the soil structure of the real stuff.

I like to fill the entire trough with soil. I know some people advocate putting gravel or empty plastic water bottles in the bottom but I have a problem with that. Any time you go to a bigger aggregate (gravel, water bottles) it changes the gravity flow of water through the column - or so I was taught way back in my soil science classes in college. The other reason I don't like to do that is because plants need a lot of root space. They say on trees whatever mass you see above ground there is a similar mass below ground. Given how large my pepper plants can get, that means there could be tiny roots going almost the full depth of the planter. I want to give them as much space as possible.

To fill these 2x4x2 troughs I used three 2-cubic foot bags of garden soil and 7-8 bags of topsoil. I do the topsoil/garden soil mixture all the way through and then top it off with another bag or two of topsoil to get it flush with the top of the trough. It will settle a little the first few weeks. If I have any compost available I'll mix that in to, mostly on the top layer.

5. Plant. Enough said.

Happy water trough gardening!

Sweet Potato Harvest, 2015!

A few weeks back it was time to dig the sweet potatoes! This year I tried something different - I put my nine plants in a big 8x4 raised bed. When the vines spilled over the bed I looped them back around so the runners could set more roots.

Last year I was having problems with the vines overflowing the water trough planter and setting roots and tubers in the walking path mulch. When I ran out of raised bed space this time I started giving the vines haircuts before they could set tubers.

Pre-harvest

I started by whacking off all of the vines, leaving a few inches remaining so I knew where to start digging. After that it was a systematic digging, sifting, redigging process. Some of the vines set tubers against the walls of the bed, which meant there were a few flat-sided tubers. The tubers went deep in some areas so I had to go back through and re-dig what I though I already got. But in the end this is what I came up with.

Left to right - big sweet potatoes, fingerling size sweet potatoes, surprise Yukon Golds

I also unearthed a few residual Irish potatoes (Yukon Golds) that were volunteers left behind from the spring crop.

Good roasting size 'taters in there!

Now they need to sit in the shed out of the sun and rain for a few weeks. The starches will start to convert to sugars and the skins will toughen up.

In hindsight, I liked the 8x4 raised bed better than the water trough, but next year I need to do a better job of watering and fertilizing. What I should have done was lay down a bunch of soaker hoses before the vines took off. Next time...

Invasion of the Caterpillars!

Just in case you think my mantra is "all bugs must die!" I submit exhibit A:

Every fall my garden becomes a larval nursery for some Swallowtail butterflies. They like dill and parsley. This year they found my carrots and parsnips.

It doesn't take long for them to do some damage.

Just working their way from one end of the bed to the other. Voracious little eaters, too!

Good news - the growing points on the carrots and parsnips are still in tact, so they will sprout new leaves within a day or so. Bad news, the caterpillars have eaten away all of their camouflage, so it won't be long until the birds discover a caterpillar buffet in this raised bed.

Kitty deterrents

My cats love my garden.

Curley in the sweet potatoes

They think it makes a great napping spot.

Mo in the peppers

They also think freshly planted raised beds make great litter boxes. They are outdoor cats, but apparently the soft soil in the raised beds is more appealing than the bedded horse stalls and loose dirt in the pasture.

As a result, it's not uncommon for me to have shallow-planting seedlings popping up outside of their prescribed rows, if they pop up at all (because they got buried).

I've tried a few deterrents over the years. First I used step-in posts and and attached netting. It worked for a few days, but soon the kitties figured out where to squeeze under the netting to get inside. By the way, this is also useless against chickens intent on devouring every little green thing poking out of the ground. But that's a story for another day. And as kitties become fond of the texture of the fluffy loamy soil it's like a thrilling and rewarding obstacle course.

First attempt, back when I first put in the raised beds. 2013?

I moved on to stronger physical barriers. Lattice works well - first I started with some scrap lattice from a trellis I took down when I moved in. Unfortunately those pieces eventually rotted and fell apart but I got a new sheet to replace it. Beds are 8x4, lattice comes in 8x4 sheets, coincidence? I think not.

The nice thing about the lattice is that you can still water without lifting it, and the sun can get through to help warm the soil. Seedlings can still pop up too, though once they start breaking through I usually take some scrap 2x4 or 2x6 wood and build up the corners to give them more space. I've used empty soup cans scrounged from my recycling bin too. A sheet of lattice this big and you will need some center supports - I usually plan my rows to have an open space in the middle for this reason.

And best of all - the holes aren't big enough for the cats to get through! However, if you prop it up too high the devious one will still try to get under there.

Built up with 2x6s and she still can only sit on top and watch.

I've also repurposed my shade cloth and hoop structures for some of my other beds. This one came in handy when I was starting carrots and parsnips. Those seeds are planted in very shallow rows and risk drying out if you don't water the soil enough. In this case the shade cloth served double duty - keep the cats out and protect the soil from evaporative moisture loss. For this water trough bed I used baling twine and a short bungee cord to secure the "skirt" on it.

In smaller spaces where I'm planting seeds between existing plants I've found this neat tool. They are called "Cat Scat Mats" and are available from Gardeners Supply. Also helpful for keeping cats out of pots and planters. I just wish they were a little bigger so they would cover more surface area in the raised beds. The nice thing about these is the spacing allows the seedlings to get a good start. Just need to take them out before the plant leaves get too big to easily pull through.

Cat Scat Mats from Gardeners Supply

As for the other new plantings, I'm not as worried. Potatoes are pretty tough at withstanding cat bathroom habits.

Dry-spell gardening

The calendar says its time to plant fall veggies! The weather on the other hand...

We haven't had a substantial amount of rain in weeks. My co-worker and I text each other rain gauge reports. The last comment I had was 1.4 inches on July 24. Before that, it was July 4.

Not much moisture in the ground to help get seeds sprouted. Here's my strategy:

1. Prep the furrows. I'm going with snow peas (already planted, the darker area running the length of the bed), beets and kohlrabi. This bed is one that is in shade by mid November so I need veggies that will mature quickly. I'm doing another bed the same day with carrots and parsnips.

2. Pre-water the furrows. Seed germination is dependent (among other things) of the seed being in contact with a sufficient amount of moisture so the embryo can do its thing. But if I water the seeds directly (especially little ones like kohlrabi and carrots) the large water drops could move them around and mess up the spacing. Better to wet the soil first.

3. Plant seeds and cover with soil. Sorry, forgot to take a picture of that, but you know the process.

4. Water again. Actually, I'll end up making several passes over this area for the next hour. My goal is to apply enough water so that it soaks all the way down to the seeds. And repeat every day or every other day until seedlings emerge. Its so hot and dry right now that the moisture is evaporating out of the soil.

With any luck, I should have little sprouts starting to poke through within two weeks.

Flowering carrots!

Yes! Carrots can produce flowers! How else do you think they produce seed for planting?

Do the flowers remind you of something else? Like maybe Queen Anne's Lace (aka wild carrot)? They have the same genus. Maybe parsley that's been allowed to flower? They are from the same scientific family.

Anyhow, back to my carrots. I left them in the ground a long time, so it makes sense that physiologically they thought it was time to flower. Like five months.

But what's beneath the surface tells another story.

As impressive as the tops were, the roots are rather puny. My pinky finger is the same diameter as some of these. Fertilizer is a good thing, but I didn't put it out often enough for these guys. Which also goes to show that what's in the soil around here is not enough by itself to grow a garden.

Why I'm not organic

I know there are some people who get into gardening because they want to take an organic approach to their food production. Great. I'm not one of them.

Don't get me wrong, everyone has the right to pick and choose how they garden. I'm just one of those who thinks the requirements to be truly organic is more than I want to deal with. And, I really like my Miracle Grow fertilizer.

The greatest gardening advance ever. OK, maybe I'm exaggerating a little.

Growing up we hardly ever used fertilizer on our garden. A good amount of rotted cow manure worked into the soil before spring planting was all we needed. Soil here is a different story. If I don't fertilize, sometimes as frequently as once a week, garden productivity is next to nothing. 

Alabama has notoriously poor quality soils. They don't contain much organic matter, which means the soil's ability to retain certain nutrients like nitrogen is not good. On top of that, the soil is usually quite acidic, which also messes with plants' ability to effectively utilize soil nutrients.

The basic fertilizer is a 28-8-16 formulation. The tomato and veggie version is an 18-18-21. Compare that to one of the organic products on the market that has an 8-8-8 formulation - I'd need to apply 2-3 times the amount of the organic product as I would need to meet what the synthetic version can do.


And then there is pest control. Now, I will admit that most of the products I use for bugs and disease are labeled for use in organic gardening, but I use them because they work so well.

What?!? You can use pesticides in organic gardening?? Yes, yes you can, if they are labeled for it. Case in point, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) products use a bacterium normally found in soil that is very effective against leaf-eating caterpillars.

Don't get me wrong, I have a good supply of Sevin dust in the tool room too, but what I like about the Bt product is that I can apply it with a sprayer wand - really helpful for tall and hard to reach areas. Sevin dust works great, but when your tomatoes are five feet tall I don't feel like breaking out a step ladder to get ahead of the hornworms using a powder. Bt does have it's limitations though. It's most effective when the worms are little, so you need to watch the garden closely to get the stuff on at a time when it will work.

Bt will get this itty bitty armyworm, but not his big brother

So, if you are into gardening because you want to try your hand at organic, go for it. It doesn't work for my situation, and I really enjoy the advances of modern agriculture. Just remember to read the label regardless.

Great stuff for controlling aphids and mildew, but need to wait two days before harvesting veggies

About those Brussels sprouts

A while back I promised an update on the spring Brussels sprouts crop. Regular readers know that I don't have the best of luck raising these plants.

This time I tried fall planting. They kind of stalled out through winter with little pea-sized axillary buds seemingly frozen in time.

Mid-December

With the extra protection of the garden blankets, the Brussels sprouts made it through some of those record setting cold snaps.

 Finally around February they started to grow again. And then March came!

Little green globes of goodness!

Yes, I get excited about vegetables!

And how were my first home-grown Brussels sprouts? Delicious! My preferred method of cooking was to drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with Kosher salt and pepper, and roast in the oven at 450 degrees. Mid way through when I shook the pan I also drizzled with some balsamic vinegar. Plan on 20-30 minutes depending on how "done" you like them. Me? I like them fork tender with a little browning/crunchiness on the edges.

Some nights all I had for dinner was a big bowl of these things.

I know it's July, but I'm already planning where to put the plants for the next fall crop. If I'm smart I'll get them planted earlier so I get a better start on the growing season.