Category: Spring

Crop List 2019

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Tulip this morning, poking her head out on my back porch

Here is my final crop list for 2019. (SHPC=Sand Hill Preservation Center):

  • Cucumbers: Longfellow slicer (have)
  • Tomatoes, early: Break O’Day, Paul Robson (all ordered from SHPC)
  • Tomatoes, mid-season: Dr. Wyche’s Yellow (ordered from SHPC)
  • Tomatoes, late: Green Zebra, Baker Family Heirloom (all from SHPC)
  • Eggplant, Pingtung Long (ordered from SHPC)
  • Eggplant, Fairy Tale (ordered from Johnny’s)
  • Hot pepper, Thai Bangkok (ordered from Johnny’s)
  • Butternut squash (have)
  • Basil, Genovese (have)
  • Carrots, Bolero (have)
  • Carrots, Rainbow (ordered from Johnny’s)
  • Radish, French Breakfast (have)
  • Garlic, Russian Red (hardneck, saved), Transsylvania (soft neck, Burpee)
  • Beets, Golden beets (have)
  • Potatoes, Banana fingerling (ordered from Fedco Moosetubers)
  • Swiss chard, Bright Lights (have)
  • Kale, Tuscan (have) and Curly (have)
  • Lettuce, butterhead, Kagran summer (ordered from SHPC)
  • Lettuce, leaf, Bronze Beauty (ordered from SHPC)
  • Greens, fall green mix (ordered from SHPC)
  • Peas, sugar snap (ordered from SHPC)
  • Pole beans, Kentucky Wonder (have)
  • Bush beans, Tendergreen (have)
  • Spinach, Bloomsdale (have)
  • Bok choy (have)
  • Leeks (buy seedlings)
  • Rosemary, sage (have)
  • Parsley, thyme (buy seedlings)
  • Nasturtium, Dwarf Jewel (have)
  • Cosmos, Versailles mix (ordered from Johnny’s)
  • Dahlias (have and/or buy tubers)
  • Zinnias (have)
  • Marigolds, petite mix (ordered from SHPC)
  • Sunflower Hopi Dye (ordered from SHPC)
  • Ornamental kale, Crane Feather Kind White (ordered from Johnny’s)

I placed my Fedco order on January 31, my Johnny’s order on February 4 and my order with Sand Hill Preservation Center on March 9.

Hay

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Today, I spent a couple of hours in my plot weeding (in particular the Yellow Nutsedge), spreading the hay I got last week and thinning the butterhead salad. I harvested the remaining radishes and sowed new ones. I also sowed more kale, carrots (Bolero), butternut squash (might be too late, but the first time around nothing came up), golden beets, mixed greens and nasturtiums.

I love using hay in the garden. It smells good, looks pretty and does a great job suppressing weeds and retaining moisture. I still had a thin layer from the winter but used up about half the bale to fortify it. Where I had freshly sowed seeds, I did not mulch with the hay but will do so once the seedlings appear. That’s why you see those thin lines of soil in the picture below.

 

Salad

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I spent some time in the garden today weeding and planting. The cucumbers I had direct-sowed a few weeks ago have not made an appearance (it worked last year) so I planted some seedlings in their spot, a cucumber “Gateway” and an eggplant “Calliope”. I also planted a hot Thai pepper next to the pole beans, which are starting to poke through the soil. I got those three plants from Whole Foods, a new (last minute) source of seedlings for me. Three of the four overwintered dahlias came in nicely. I also sowed more cosmos (with the dahlias) and kale (next to the Swiss Chard) and walked over to Agricultural Hall and got some hay from Bill. I plan to add a heavy layer of hay to suppress the weeds in my plot – yellow nutsedge and bindweed seem to be out of control.

Our community garden is right along the Southwest Corridor Park and tomorrow morning, hundreds of bike riders will be starting (and finishing) their annual Bike-A-Thon rides right across from our garden. Our family has been supporting Bikes Not Bombs for years, both by fundraising and riding the Bike-A-Thon and by volunteering. My husband and 12 year-old son volunteered last night. They prepped food for the riders and got to take some of it home. So tonight for dinner, we will have Bike-A-Thon pasta and a side salad with lettuce (Butterhead “Kagraner Sommer” from Renee’s Garden) and breakfast radishes from the garden.

Garden Day

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Today, I spent 3,5 hours in the garden weeding and planting (bush beans, pole beans and carrots). I had neglected a large section of my plot that had not been planted yet (basically the entire right side of the plot starting at the pea trellis all the way to the fence) and it was overgrown with all kinds of weeds of the worst kind, including bindweed and yellow nutsedge. I have so much nutsedge in my plot, it is almost tragic. All of it was still small and growing and had not flowered or gone to seed. I used to use the compost from our community garden bins in past years and must have introduced the invasive weed this way. I got it all out (for now) and I feel very accomplished. The plot looks nice and clean. I also laid a new brick/paver path down the middle. Now I need to get more hay or straw to mulch the garden as the salt marsh hay cover is getting thin in some spots. No sign of the squash or cucumbers yet. I hope my direct sowing method worked. The nasturtiums I planted the same day are coming up, they are still tiny, I did not see them two days ago. I also hilled my potatoes today and they are now at ground-level. I took out the kale I direct-sowed a while ago. The plants were scrawny and chewed up. I will try to get some transplants. I also harvested some radishes and rhubarb.

May plantings

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Today I put a few tomato seedlings in the ground (2 Momotaro and 1 Brandywine) and also direct-sowed butternut squash (Waltham) and cucumbers (Longfellow). I planted my dahlias (four out of the five I overwintered in the basement survived) and sprinkled cosmos seeds in between.

The basil plants had some damage from something/someone chewing on them, there were some big holes in the leaves. I hope they will recover.

Mid-May Harvest

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Rhubarb, asparagus and a giant overwintered leek.

I planted basil and sage in the plot and checked on the progress of my vegetables I planted from seed: the peas, radishes, lettuce and chard came in nicely. The beets are just starting to show. So does the kale but the flea beetles are hard at work here this spring. The carrots are a no-show.

The seedlings – Brussels sprouts and leeks – are looking good.

 

Back Porch

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Over the past couple of days I finalized my back porch plans. As usual there will be lots of herbs, which will make it easy for me to put the final touches on our family dinners. Specifically, I planted cilantro, Thai basil, Greek oregano, mint, sage, lavender, German thyme and rosemary. The sage and the rosemary are leftovers from last year that I overwintered in our kitchen, the sage is slowly coming back to life after I had chopped it back to a small stump. The mint is from my community plot, where despite my best efforts to eradicate it, it keeps coming back every year.

I also have basil in a big pot growing together with a hot pepper (Jedi) and flat parsley growing with a Japanese eggplant. In addition, there is a pot where I sowed butter lettuce and another one with rainbow Swiss chard. The last big pot is empty and will likely have a patio-style tomato.

First Harvest

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With help from my plot neighbor David who generously offered to share his bounty. About a third comes from my asparagus micro-patch, seen below a couple of days earlier, the rest is from his patch. And this asparagus mushroom tart is what I will be making for dinner tonight, but I will use regular pizza dough instead of puff pastry and will substitute cremini mushrooms. So good!

Planting potatoes and back porch plans

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Today I planted my potatoes. It is a bit late, but so is everything this year. I planted Magic Molly, a purple variety, and Banana fingerlings, both seed potatoes from Moose Tubers in Maine. The Magic Mollies (six cut-up pieces with nice large eyes) went in next to the fence behind the asparagus and the fingerlings were planted in two rows next to the garlic. When I was digging the trenches, I found a ton of worms in the soil. Yay! I also planted sunflowers in my plot.

On our back porch, I planted Swiss Chard, lettuce and nasturtiums and transplanted some mint I had weeded out in my plot into a planter. Other plans for my back porch include tons of herbs – sage, thyme, rosemary, parsley, basil, Thai basil, maybe cilantro -, eggplant, hot pepper and perhaps a small-fruiting tomato variety. And a few pots with flowers.

Seedlings

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I have been volunteering at the greenhouse at City Natives on Tuesday mornings. I had done that years ago and started again this spring. What a magical place to be, especially during our cold and wet spring here in Boston. Those tomato seedlings in the picture above smell so lovely – the smell of summer! I love helping to take care of the seedlings in the greenhouse and hoop house and the vegetable beds outside. Especially, since I did not start seedlings myself this year and my garden is just waking up after a very long winter. So good to get gardening again!

City Natives is an educational urban farm, run by The Trustees of Reservations. The farm runs classes on-site and throughout the city, teaching urban gardeners anything from garden planning over pest control to foraging and bee-keeping. Most of the seedlings will be sold at two plant sales, at City Natives on May 12 and on May 19 in the South End.