Getting ready for the 4th of July. This is for you Clint

Click to enlarge and print

This music is old. I hate to say very old because that would date me and I'm younger than you think. But for music printed on a mimeograph it's really very old! When my son learned this song in Primary he was a little person and he sang every word with gusto, ableit incorrectly. His favorite line was 'The rivers run from mountain peaks.....' But he always sang it 'The rivers run from mountain pigs........' He wanted to know why the rivers didn't like those mountain pigs. I played the piano for the Primay and I'd laugh so hard I couldn't keep my fingers on the keys.

Your turn to enjoy a couple of the songs we love to sing for the 4th of July celebration.

My flag, my flag is a good song for flag day which passed a few weeks ago. I got engaged on flag day so I still hang my flag and celebrate but I notice no one even knows what it is any longer. How very sad! It's just a flag but it stands for our country which is everything!

Have a good and safe holiday week-end and be thankful you have such a wonderful county.

Smiles

making Bushy Basil and Full Fuchsias!

A basil plant on it's way to tall and leggy

Basil is wonderful to grow and great to eat but if you don't learn how to pinch it all you will have is a big tall leggy plant. Fuchsias will be full and lovely if pinched as will many plants you love.

Here is how to do it.

Of course it's best when done with a young plant or starting in early spring for Fuchsias.

Find the center two leaves. Pinch them out.

Yes, good-bye, gone!

Do this all over the plant.

The plant will grow two little branch offs in that spot now.

Leave it be to just grow for a while.

But when those new two branches form their inter double leave, PINCH IT TOO.

Here is a test run, where would you pinch in this photo?

If you keep this practice up every few weeks you will have nice bushy plants with lots of nice Basil to eat!

YUMMY

This is one of my pinched fuchsia. See the two red stems at both east and west. Inside these stems I pinched out the two leaves as in the Basil. Now two week later you see two new stems starting. Two new stems. The branch now has four instead of two. That makes a fuller bushier plant.

how long before you can harvest your veggies?

My salad table and my harvest chart

The gardens are growing, at times it seems slow. Remember the heat units and the hours of sunlight and all those things I covered in the other gardening blogs? They are the issue that determine when I can eat my veggies. But here is a general list. I made my first copy of this list back in 1974 in the Ukiah Valley. Growing was a different project there so I've looked up in my sunset books and in the square foot gardening book and made a new chart. Adjust it to your weather and growing conditions. Did you note the date you planted? Did you use seed? This chart is from seed, if you used plants you will harvest sooner!

Another important thing to note is the regional seed types. These are developed to produce BEST in the area you live in. Maybe you know the names of these varieties. Here the names all say "Early" that tells me they have a shorter growing season which may work better for my frost dates. Seasoned gardeners know these area friendly varieties so ask! And note when you plant and when you harvest and see if it makes a difference.

From seed to harvest unless noted

growing season

Asparagus spring/summer 3 years to harvest

Beans summer 50 to 90 days bush 60-90 snap

Beets spring, summer, fall 55-80 days most in 60

Broccoli spring/fall 112 days(plants sooner)

Brussels sprouts summer/fall 120 days

Cabbage Spring/fall early 90-125 days late 125-150 days

Carrots all growing seasons 65-75 days

Cauliflower Spring/fall 98 days/ purple head another month

Celery hard to grow 120 plus

Chard all growing seasons 60 days

Collards summer/fall 75 days

Corn summer 75-90 days

Cucumber summer 55-70 days

Eggplant summer 133 days slow to sprout

Lettuce cool seasons 49-65 days approx

Kale cool seasons 60-80 days

Melon summer 75-95 early 110-120 late

Okra summer 60 days

Onions spring/summer 95-110 all onions sprout slowly

Garlic " 90 days

Leeks summer/fall 100 days

Parsnips 120 days

Peas Spring, fall 60-80 days

Peppers summer 65-85 days

Potato spring/summer/ fall 84-120 days use seed potatoes

Radish spring/Summer/fall 22 early 30-55 late

Salsify 150 days

Spinach spring/fall/winter with protection 40-50 days New Zealand 70 days

Summer squash Summer 50-65 days pick when small!

Winter squash Summer 84-120 days

Tomato Summer 60-120 days

Basil Summer 84 days

Cliantro summer 84 days

Chive Summer 112 days

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Now remember lettuce, chard, kale and Basil can be taken a leaf at a time

Onions don't care when you eat them they are still onions, drying onions are ready when the green leaves droop and they begin to flower. Fold them over to stop the flowering (eat those pretty flowers Yummy!) When leaves are dry gently dig up the onions. Chives grow better if you keep cutting the tops or the amount you want to use. Leeks need the soil pulled up around them as they grow or make a cardboard collar you can pull up as needed. Dig before your first hard frost, like an hour before dark when you hear frost is coming, he he.

carrots, broccoli, lettuce, beets and all the cool weather crops can be grown way into the fall and winter if you protect them! bails of straw stacked up and a plastic cover works, more later.

I took a planting calendar and circled the days to look for harvest items. I've reached the first dates with the lettuce and am waiting for the next planting I made.

questions? Ask them. I love answering them!

Looks like dinner tonight!

What do plants need to produce food

I'm moving on in my garden conversation. I know there was a lot to take in with my last posting about heat units and frost dates and micro climates. But just by reading it you will know something helpful about your growing issues and one day it will come in handy.

I love Sunset books.

Mine are really old but they have wonderful drawings. Look at the drawing above.

Looks like we are growing a crook neck squash.

It's looking like a scientific experiment.

Yes every time we plant something we are playing mad scientist.

See all the tubes coming off the plants beaker? The tubes are taking in fertilizer and soil nutrients and moving them to the plant

Another tube is pulling in the water and above it all the sun is blazing to make the experiment happen.

All those nice things being pulled into the plant makes it produce those tasty squash.

Looks easy enough.

Do you have seasons where you live?

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter?

Maybe just warm and cool?

Plants grow foundation growth in cool weather

They put down roots to find what they need and branch out with green etc.

Plants increase growth, produce food, food ripens in warm weather

Plants stall growth in cold and burn in Hot

Click to enlarge the seed packets above. Each company does this differently but the important information should be there. How long does this plant take to sprout (germinate) How long does this plant take to produce food. How deep should I plant these seeds and how far apart. Some seed companies even suggest where to plant and what to do to the soil. All of this very helpful

1) How long does it take to become food. This helps me play 'trick the weather' by allowing me to plant sooner and harvest longer.

These carrots take 65 days

The Lettuce takes 45 days

The Beets take 60 days

Why is this important? If I plant tender plants early I might have a freeze when the plants are just young and they would die.

If I plant too late then my plants might have green food on them when the season cools down in the fall and nothing will ripen. Happens here in the Pacific Northwest all the time. We eat a lot of green tomatoes

These seed packets say plant carrots as soon as the soil is workable (not frozen or soaking wet), beets plant from March to August, and Lettuce start early indoors, mid spring and again late summer to early fall.

With that in mind I think a planting calendar would be fun for everyone!

1) find out your last frost date

2) take a piece of printer paper and divide it by your growing seasons. For me it's May-Sept. but I will add a couple of months at the beginning for early starts

3) Draw a red line through the month with your frost date

4) check seeds you'd like to plant, how many days can they be planted before a the end of frost?

Here is an example of what I'm thinking you could do. Even if you only chart three plants or four it will help you plan for next year or your fall plantings

Carrots can be planted as soon as soil is warm......3 weeks after last frost, 4 weeks? count those weeks and put plant carrots on the time you can plant

Beets seems happy with most anything so it says anytime between March and August

lettuce can be put out after danger of frost....start it in doors 4 weeks before your last frost or start seed after your frost date. Put that on your chart

Here is a chart to give you an example. It comes from the "Square Foot Garden" book where you will find many helpful planting charts. However it is just as easy to take the things you want to grow and make your own chart.

Click to enlarge and see chart key

The other helpful thing I'd do for my garden is learn how to plant for continuous harvest.

If my carrots take 65 days to harvest and I want carrots each week I'd start threes weeks before the last frost and I'd plant 1/3 of my area in carrots, in three weeks I'd plant another 1/3 or my area for carrots, and I'd keep doing that every three weeks, planning the last harvest just as we go into the fall freeze.

I've harvested carrots even with the snow coming down they are so hardy.

Let's do it for the lettuce which I really do want some salad every week, every day even.

I'd plant the first seeds outside 7 weeks a head and then every week I'd plant another group. It feels funny at first leaving some of the planting area bare but as each group grows the space fills up and you collect leaves or whole lettuce bundles from the back are that you planted first. When the back area is harvested you can add some compost and re-plant as long as your calendar allows for the 55 days. It's like singing a round where one group is done singing they start the verse over again...Row Row Row your boat!

Lettuce will die with the first freeze of fall if left un-protected. Guess I should stop planting 45 days before the first frost of the fall.

Here is another chart to give you an idea of how to do this. If you really love these charts you can buy the book at

http://www.squarefootgardening.com/

So make a chart, it's a useful way to grow food.

(If you are puzzling over the seed packets please know I plant heirloom seeds when possible and hybrid seeds only when it's something I won't want to collect seed from but would like to eat)

finally done and ready to plant

Can you believe I mixed all this planting soil myself.

1/3 peat moss, 1/3 vermiculite, 1/3 5 different types of compost.

Now what to plant?

Long ago I learned to garden with the French intensive method. In reading up on this style of gardening I find that the only reason I might have learned this is because I lived in Northern California in the early 1970's where it was popular. The French love fresh food, who doesn't, and in town gardening space was very limited. So by preparing the soil intensively and planting closely you can have a larger than normal harvest for the space used. This Month I have headed back into this method of gardening. I am excited and can't wait to plant. It took two week-ends of good weather to build, make the soil mix and place the garden boxes in place. The easiest way to think of these gardens is to use 4x4 feet boxes, 6 inches deep. Remember I said big yield in small spaces. Each square is a foot and it keeps your garden organized to work in squares and not rows. If you want to know more go to the web site below. You can find a nice video and the links tell you just how to do it. I saw Mel in the 1980's on PBS. I think they need to bring his advice back we could all use some gardening questions answered.

http://www.squarefootgardening.com/

The next fun thing is my salad table. My sister always tells me when something good comes on Martha Stewart and she gave me a head up on a table you can grow your daily salad on. Bleach Boy took apart a very old redwood picnic table and turned it into a beautiful salad table!

The best directions for making one of these is here: http://growit.umd.edu/Salad%20Tables%20and%20Salad%20Boxes/index.cfm

Be sure you click on the green links on the left. They will give you great directions, hints on what to plant, the soil needs etc. I found the directions so good I could have made this myself easily, But bleach boy really did want to refresh that Redwood table!

I planted this salad table a week ago and I await little sprouts. I put in several salad mixes, a good way to get a variety of lettuces. There are some rows of onions and chives. This should be a tasty spot in my garden and I can roll it around for sun and move it right to my door for harvesting.

I guess the fun here would be to show you the very old table this was made from. A dear friend surprised us with a nice picnic table he made this was back in the 70's or so. I think it will last forever now!

This was a few years ago and the table was too rickety to sit on so the kids did some 4Th of July snakes on the table. Amazing how a trim on the saw brought out the beautiful healthy wood that was left hiding inside this old table. Oh how I love Redwood. Our first home was built out of Redwood! Here is the salad table the end of June, I've just planted the third area and I should have continuous salad until the first freeze and because this is on wheels I will move it to the rabbit barn which has windows and see if I can grow salad (albeit slowly) though some of the winter. Here is the square foot garden the end of June. Some bad weather, as in hail, and hard rains hit a couple of weeks ago and we were ready with our PVC pipe covers! works perfect!

So what did I plant, everything I love! Onions, broccoli, Asian veggies (which by the way grow really well and late into the season here in the Pacific Northwest) carrots, eggplant, tomatoes, kale, leeks, spinach, cabbage, two kinds of string beans, cucumbers, zucchini, sweet peas, Basil, beets and a lot of other tasty foods. The slugs finally found us and we have defeated that with a nightly collection and a 6 inch wide line of wood turning saw dust. So far so good. I lost a lot of plants in one night! SLUGS!

A Great idea from daughter in law

Ever forget something you wanted to do? Then the time for doing it passed and You could no longer do it? It happens all the time, but my daughter in law has a simple way not to forget.

We visited the family down in southern California last week. So did a lot of other far away family members. New babies will cause that to happen. Darling daughter in law didn't want to miss out on doing some fun things with everyone that came so she made a wall size calender. She wrote sticky notes of options and ideas of things to do during that time. As we arrived we were reminded to look at the wall calender. Took us a bit to get the hang of it but all you had to do was move a sticky note of something you'd like to do with the family to the day you'd like to do it. Amazing. Everyone would check the days to see what was happening and it went smoothly and not once was there a conversation about "should we do......or should we do......."

I asked for more information on this wall calender and was told they use it on a normal basis so as a family they won't forget some of the things they'd like to do.

Click on the photos and see how this might work for you. Very clever!

First what does a plant take from the soil

click to enlarge chart

I have a lot to share about gardening. It's hard to decide what will help the most. This is a bit of helpful information to get you ready for the longer posting I've been working on.

I loved Rebecca's garden, a TV show and web site all about gardening. It is gone now, who knows where Rebecca went and why she gave up passing along those wonderful gardening ideas but here is one of her great hints.

Everything you plant will take something from the soil and some plants will give back to the soil. If you know this chemical process for each plant you will help yourself grow the best food you can.

Study the chart and learn to what needs to be rotated

1) make a list of what you'd like to grow.

2) Put your list in their correct growing families

3) Keep the family groups together and rotate every year.

Remember each food family has different soil requirements which I will fully cover in the next posting. You must be sure to amend the soil to fulfill the needs of each kind of plant.

HINTS:

Nightshades heavy feeders: tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and potatoes

Roots Light feeders: beets, onions, carrots, turnips, parsnips

Brassicas Heavy feeders: Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and Brussels sprouts

Legumes Heavy givers: peas and beans

Vining crops heavy feeders: melon, squash, cucumbers

There are many other groups for vegetables see the chart below.

Rotating your crops will also cut down on bugs and disease

Compare your list of things to plant to the chart above.

How will you place your plants to make the best use of the soil?

Why I've been too busy to talk to anyone

This is a special dress for my grand daughter

I haven't met her yet but I will be very soon, getting on a plane in the morning and this is Penny who will be given her name and blessing in church on Sunday.......Now you know why I couldn't take any one's calls or help anyone out the last few days........SMILES

Penny and her big brother Flynn

cradle your Easter Eggs

How I loved my Scout leader years! They gave me a wealth of crafts to pass along. Today we have a little wash cloth bunny to hold your Easter eggs.

I don't have any pretty colored Easter eggs to sit in this bunny

I bought a package of inexpensive wash cloths.

It was a bundle of white, pink and yellow. Lucky me!

Starting at a point roll to the center. center

At the opposite point roll to the center.

The two fluted ends become the ears of the bunny Take the roll and fold in half.

The egg will rest at the folded end

The ears and face will be made at the loose ends

The face is made by Holding the ears up and folding the two ends in half.

A small rubber band is then placed over a hand full of the folded ears. This will make a tiny double cheeked face. Make the rubber band tight. If you don't have one tightly wrap string around the face. This is how it looks when the rubber band is around. The face is ready for eyes and a nose

This is how it looks from the side

I glued on eyes and a nose and tied a ribbon on his head, You can use felt for the facial features

Be sure and add a little pom pom for his tail.

Easter Goodies

Click to enlarge and print

I know the recipes look really old but that is because they are! Taken from a Girl Scout magazine from my high school years. Take the ideas and use them with the ingredients you like. I can see the egg in some pastel buttercream frosting. That would be pretty. Or dye some coconut and put it on the cakes. Just be sure and have fun!

Now the reward....Gardening tips

It's now time for Gardening ideas. And that really is the point, ideas to bounce around in your head. It may be Spring on the calendar but outside the Winter still rages on! Let's talk about weather then.....

What do you think plants need to grow and produce food?

Well I know what they don't need and that's a freeze. It will kill exposed parts of the plant and if it doesn't have a full deep root system the whole plant will die.

Where I live the last Frost date is May 13 but Everett closer to the water has a last frost date of March 23. You can learn your last and first frost dates (my first frost is Oct 5Th) a couple of ways. Washington State University hosts the Cooperative Extension in many county's here in Washington and they provide a valuable service including the frost dates. Sadly we may be losing these great services as the college has announced cutbacks on services. So don't wait to get information you need while it's easy to get. You can check with your local agriculture office or the college agriculture dept. Try online you may find your area on line. Know your city, and county.

OK put your thinking caps on and here is some other basic things you need to understand to be a good gardener.

1. Frost dates

2. micro-climate

3. Minimum winter temperatures

4. Accumulated heat units

5. Days of Sunshine

WOW just the list looks interesting doesn't it?

Let's start with Micro-climate.

The city my frost date is listed with says last frost Mar 23. This never worked out for me and so I called the extension office and they told me why. I live in a mirco-climate. A little area with it's own climate. I'm on the East side of a hill and across from me is another hill. This pockets the air, cold, wet, snowy, what ever we get and give me a different climate than the norm. So are you in a mico-climate? See the list below for ideas:

A. If you live near a large body of water you are less prone to frost and often cooler on warmest days

B. Elevation, the higher you are the cooler and wetter in many parts of the county, surely here in the Pacific Northwest

C. If you live between hills as I do, cold air is more dense than warm and it flows downhill. That makes my springs very late and my falls very early. Study out the land around you! Is there a tunnel for wind?

D. North-facing areas receive less heat from the sun and southern exposures have more heat. This may change your length of growing season. North areas grow slower, Southern areas grow faster giving me time to grow things that take longer to mature (be eatable!)

Look around see what you have that might change your climate. Are there lots of dense trees? A large rock formation? Hills? Is your land East, West, North, South facing, where do you receive most of your light from? I'm at a disadvantage as my property is on an east Hill and doesn't get much of the western light, but I do get some Southern so that helps.

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Minimum Winter Temperatures

There is a map that tells you what Zone you are in and what your low temperature is. It's wild to try to see the little bands of color and figure out what Zone you garden in.

http://garden.org/zipzone/ Try this web site to find your location close up. Also go to the home page for tons of great gardening ideas.

Each Zone designates an average annual minimum temperature.

Knowing your zone will only tell you the average least temperature.

I am in a Zone 7b with a mico-climate, the pacific ocean near by and lots of mountains. This means that in a zone 7b we get down to 5-10 degrees F. in an average winter with lots of other considerations. There are 11 planting zones across the U.S. and Canada. Don't place too much value on your Zone, they have to keep redoing these and there are so many other helpful considerations.

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Accumulated Heat Units

Plants need heat to grow. We didn't have any heat last year and everyone had tiny carrots. They just couldn't grow with so few hours of heat. Plants require a certain number of accumulated heat units to mature. If you can't get enough of your accumulated (meaning over the growth period of the plant) heat you may not be able to ripen tomatoes, pepper, grapes etc.

Knowing this number can help you be prepared to trick Mother Nature. The right kind of plastic under tomatoes adds heat, putting peppers on the South wall of your home adds heat units. Lots of tricks to try and they do work.

Where I live in Western Washington we gets 1518 units of accumulated heat, where as over the mountains where the wheat grows they get 2,500 units.

OK some heavy stuff for serious people. 50 degrees F is the most frequently used base temperature for warm weather crops (I will cover those in another posting)

To figure the Heat Units you take the difference between the *mean temperature for the day and 50 degrees F. If the *Mean temperature is below the base of 50 degrees then there are NO heat units for that day. OUCH

Example: a day with maximum temperature of 72 degrees F and a minimum 50 degree (base) would put the mean temperature at 61 degrees. That makes 11 heat units added to the accumulated for that day.

(*Mean temperature is found by adding the maximum and minimum temperatures and dividing the sum by 2)

Now don't trouble yourself with this unless you find it fun but do know that plants can't mature for eating without a certain amount of accumulated heat!

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Days of sunshine

Because I live with a lot of cloud cover and moisture in the air I have a very low light intensity most of the year. What that does is make me consider where to plant things. Plants that do well in part shade may need to be planted in my full sun area's. This can affect food in several different ways. Apples may not get red, hot pepper may seem mild, peaches won't be as sweet and Vitamin C in plants will be reduced. You can compensate for this problem as you can for too much sun. Move plants into more protected areas and in partial shade. I have gardened in both kinds of climates and they have their blessing and challenges.