A Big Change In Garden Plans

I re-built my entire raised bed vegetable garden this year.

It was a lot more work than I expected and it has put me behind schedule on much of my planting. At the end of June I had one major construction left; building the corn bed and the fence to go around it. It was one of the things on my 2007 garden to do list, and was to provide protection for the corn and trellis space for cucumbers, melons, pole beans, miniature pumpkins and flowers. It was an idea that began when snow was on the ground and I was excited to do it. Even though I was way behind schedule, I set out to build my 6 foot tall fence.

It was hard work driving the fence posts in with a sledge hammer. The posts were so long that I had to get up on a step ladder to drive them!

Finally the fence posts were in and it was time to attach the fence.

I had never done this before and had no idea how to do it. I tried attaching the fence with the little hooks built in to the post but that didn't work. It was also near impossible to stretch the fence taught by myself. I kept getting scratched by the end of the fence. Also the posts were level and straight but the ground sloped. Bottom line, I was in over my head.

By now it was almost the 4th of July and time for our family vacation. So what did I do? A pessimist would say I admitted defeat and threw in the towel. An optimist like me would say I improvised and switched to plan B for the garden design.

I took down the fence (getting scratched even more) and dug out the fence posts.

I rounded up my scrap wood and built two more garden beds.

I decided we would have to wait another year to find out if Mirai 301BC corn is really the corn that everyone talks about. I planted my root-bound cucumbers in one of the beds along with another sowing of bush green beans. I used the other bed to solve another problem. I had planned to till an entirely new area for a pumpkin patch but hadn't done it yet. So instead of engaging in all of that extra work, I planted my pumpkin plants in the other bed where the corn was to go. It is at the far end of the garden so the pumpkin vines will grow out into the yard. I will try to stay ahead of the vines and put down tarps and old carpet to kill the grass and allow the vines to lay on top. Next year, I will then make more garden beds in that spot.

So here is the finished product:

You can't see the plants very well but they're there. In another month they will take over the entire area!

These changes are indeed a compromise from what I had hoped to have, but isn't that how gardening goes? Does it ever go exactly as planned? I am just happy that finally - in July - I'm finished with my spring plantings. I hope its not too late to get a Fall harvest before frost.

It is just about time to begin the Fall planting for the Winter harvest!

Quick and Easy Watering Tip

We finally have gotten some rain here, so there is no longer an eminent danger of the garden plants dying. There still hasn't been enough rain for them to flourish so I will continue using the new watering technique that my wife came up with during this drought.

We used gallon milk or water jugs as slow drippers next to each plant. Here's how you do it:

Collect some jugs and rinse them out. Then poke eight or ten small holes in one side as low as possible. Use a straight pin instead of a nail so the holes will be very small. I've heard of people making the holes in the bottom of the jug, but I put them on the side down by the bottom. If you put the holes on the actual bottom, you have to make larger holes or they will be clogged by the soil.

Once your jug is ready, fill it with water and put the cap back on about half way. You can regulate how fast the water drips out by how tight you put the cap on. If you want it to drain quickly, leave the cap off.

I use this technique next to larger plants like tomatoes or peppers. In the above picture, the milk jug is watering a cinnamon basil plant. If you want to use dripping jugs between rows, you can poke holes in two opposite sides to water a part of each row at the same time. I like to keep the holes only on one side though, to control the water flow better.

The more jugs you have the better with this type of watering. Each morning, my wife or I take the hose out to the garden and fill up all of the jugs. We move them around to plants that were not watered the day before. Obviously, if you have a large garden, you can't water every plant this way, but since you fill up the jugs with your garden hose, you can then spray the other plants directly.

This slow drip method works better than directly spraying with a hose or sprinkler though. Since the water leaks out slowly, it is a more deep watering. The whole gallon of water makes it to the plant roots and no water is wasted.

If you are having a dry summer like we are here in Kentucky give the jug method a try!

Tomato Cages from the store are not good enough!

I tried to get away with using average store-bought tomato cages with my extra early tomatoes. They were just the average four ring "cages" that you can buy at most garden centers, hardware stores and even grocery stores.

I wouldn't reccomend them because the one on the left fell over!

At least my curtain rod stake (gardeners will use anything) kept the cage from falling all the way to the ground.

I was able to repair the problem by securing some other collapsible tomato cages to the outside of the flimsy cages.

Now that these early girl tomato plants are upright again, they are over four feet tall!

I have about 40 more tomato plants that are still small. They will all need some kind of support as well. The store bought cages WILL work for some varieties if they are bush type or determinate. The indeterminate tomatoes need something better. My favorite methods are the "Florida Stake and Weave", "Topless Tables" and my own special "tomato trellis". I will write about all of these more as the season goes on. I wrote a post last year about my tomato trellis and topless tables if you want to know more about them.

As for now, I'm just glad that my extra-early tomatoes are still growing. My goal is still to have ripe ones by my birthday on June 24th. That date is coming up soon. Here is what the tomatoes look like right now:

Do you think they will make it in time?

The Pros and Cons of Heirloom Tomatoes

This year I have decided to grow a number of open-pollinated Heirloom tomatoes.

These are my 2007 selections. The photos came from Totally Tomatoes with the exception of the Homely Homer photo, which may or may not even be an heirloom. Homely Homer is an interesting story all to itself. Perhaps I will share that later on a post of its own. Anyway, Totally Tomatoes is where I bought most of this years seeds.

I am a tomato fanatic. I love the taste of tomatoes! To me, organic garden vine-ripened fresh tomatoes are like candy is to a child. Not just any candy either. Tomatoes are like special Christmas candy that you can only get one time a year. When most people think of tomatoes, they think of plain red tomatoes. Possibly a beefsteak type. Today's "normal" tomatoes are hybrids that have been bred for disease resistance and good looks. I like the "normal" hybrid garden tomato very much. Let's think of it as the Christmas candy cane - special but common and abundant.

I don't know about you, but at Christmas when I was a kid I wanted more than just candy canes. There were always many other "special" candies like creme drops, ribbon candy, chocolate Santas, orange slices and more. By comparison, if you want "special" tomatoes, you need to grow heirloom varieties. There are so many different flavors and colors of heirloom tomatoes.

So what are the pros and con's of growing heirlooms?

Pros:

Exceptional flavor

Highly unusual and interesting

Sense of heritage and history

Cons:

Not disease resistant

Pests prefer them

Lower yields

The first pro is what I described above with the candy reference - superior and varied flavor! Last year I grew Brandywine, an Amish variety dating way back to the 1800's. Brandywine was by far the best tasting tomato I'd ever eaten! That's why I'm trying so many heirloom varieties this year. I'm growing another Amish variety, Dixie Golden Giant from the 1930's that is said to have "delicious, fruity flavor with few seeds." I also chose Caspian Pink, originally grown in Russia in the area between the Caspian and Black Seas. According to Totally Tomatoes, it was the only tomato that BEAT Brandywine in taste tests!

The 2nd reason to grow heirloom tomatoes is because some of them are very interesting! Look at the pictures of Aunt Ruby's German Green tomatoes, Kellogg's Breakfast, and Black Krim. Aunt Ruby's German Green is described as an "Heirloom green beefsteak with a deliciously sweet flavor that's enhanced by a spicy undertone." Okay, that's different. Totally tomatoes calls Black Krim "A most unusual novelty that is sweet and tasty".

The uniqueness doesn't stop at the tomato fruits either. Some heirlooms like Brandywine and Pruden's Purple have old-fashioned leaves that look more like potato leaves and tomato leaves. Here is one of my Pruden's Purple seedlings:

The third "Pro" is that it is fun to look up the origins of each heirloom variety. Each one has a special heritage of its own. There are varieties available from many different time periods and from all over the world. You may even be able to find a variety that is hundreds of years old from your home town! I am growing Kentucky Beefsteaks which are enormous orange beefsteaks that began right here in my home state.

Okay, enough of the "fun" talk of how great heirloom tomatoes are. Let's get into the "cons " or drawbacks of growing heirloom tomatoes.

First of all, true "heirlooms" are more than fifty years old and are still true to their parent plants. That means they have not been altered in any way like hybrids have. So the same thing that makes heirlooms great also make them very susceptible to disease and pests. Hybrid varieties many times have a series of letters after their names, like VFNT. This means the plants are resistant to verticillium and fusarium wilt, nematodes, and tobacco mosaic virus. Many heirlooms can be wiped out by these diseases. Hybrids are not necessarily bred to be resistant to insect or animal pests but it has been my experience that garden pests prefer the heirlooms (that's no surprise). My Brandywines last year were heavily attacked by Blister Beetles, Tomato Hornworms, and all of the low fruits were eaten by turtles.

The third drawback with heirloom tomatoes is that many of them don't produce as much fruit as a hybrid tomato plant. Mel Bartholomew of Square Foot Gardening" is always saying, "you only need to grow one tomato plant per person in your family". With heirlooms, I don't agree. When growing heirlooms, you should grow several plants as insurance against pests, disease and low yield. This is also why I am still growing 12 kinds of hybrid tomatoes.

So it comes down to exceptional flavor, being unusual and interesting with a sense of heritage versus being susceptible to disease and pests with possible lower yields. Do the pros outweigh the con's? For me they do. Bring on that yummy "candy-like" flavor! Bring on the strange and interesting qualities. Bring on the rainbow of colors!

And bring on the pests. I'm ready for a good old-fashioned battle of good versus evil. Heirloom tomatoes are worth fighting for. Wish me luck!

Ripe Tomatoes in June!

One of my gardening goals that I outlined in my 2007 Garden To Do list post was to have ripe tomatoes by July 1st. That means that sometime in the month of June, I what to see this in my garden:

This may not seem like a big deal to you southern gardeners, but I am in northern Kentucky - just 20 miles from Ohio. Around here we don't get to eat garden fresh tomatoes until the middle of August.

My birthday is on June 24th and I can't think of a better birthday present than a BLT sandwich made with an organic garden fresh tomato!

This may not be possible because I haven't done all of the things originally planned to achieve the goal. So what are the things I've done to accomplish harvesting extra early ripe tomatoes? It hasn't been easy and is actually pretty labor intensive.

I started with the tomato variety Early Girl which has a faster maturation than most. Jet Star or July 4th would also be good choices for extra early tomatoes. I sowed the seeds in a cell pack on Valentine's Day, two or three seeds per spot and put them under a shop light in the laundry room where it stays warm even in winter. After the seeds germinated, I thinned each pack to the strongest looking seedling. As soon as they had true leaves, I transplanted them to individual peat pots and put them under my main grow lights. After a couple of weeks, I transplanted the best four plants again to an even larger container. Then, on Easter,  I planted the best two to yet an even larger container.

Each time I transplant them, I place them deeper in the new pot because new roots grow from the buried stem. I trim off the lower leaves to be able to bury the plants even deeper. This intensive transplanting is designed to keep the plants growing as if they were outside. Plants will fill up the pots they are in and stop growing. That doesn't damage the plant for main season growing, but this operation is for extra-early tomatoes.

During the whole process, I try to keep as much light on the plants as possible. After transplanting up from the peat pots, it takes two shop lights just for these four early tomato plants. It becomes a bit of a challenge finding bigger containers each time. My intermediate containers were the plastic covers from a spindle of 100 CDs. The neat thing about that is that you could actually see all of the roots as they reached the outside of the container. One of my larger pots was an old child's sand bucket. When I use items like these, I drill holes in the bottom of the container for drainage and for bottom watering. I never spray water on any of my seedlings. I always bottom water by pouring water in the trays and letting the roots or peat pots soak up the water. Here's a photo montage of the steps I've just outlined:

 

The last indoor transplant took nearly an entire bag of soil-less mix per plant. I let them grow in these containers for a few more weeks but they quickly outgrew the light table and had to be moved to the floor.

 

This weekend I moved them outside to be hardened off and finally planted them outside yesterday!

I wanted to put black plastic down below them to warm the soil and build wood frames with thick clear plastic wrapped around them to act as night "greenhouses". I hope I don't need them and I hope the tomato plants were put outside early enough to still get ripe tomatoes in June. Cross your fingers for me!

I will keep you posted on their progress.

Why Grow So Many Different Tomatoes?

As I was sharing with a friend my list of vegetables to be grown this year, he exclaimed "My goodness, why so many different kinds of tomatoes? They're all the same aren't they? Can't you just grow one variety of tomato?"

How insulting. To me that's like asking "why do you enjoy eating so many different kinds of dessert? Apple Pie, Hot Fudge Sundae, Pineapple Upside Cake, Cherry Pie, Chocolate Cake, Turtle Cheesecake, Peach Cobbler - They're all the same aren't they? Can't you just eat one kind of dessert and never eat any of the others? Variety is the spice of life and there are more tomato varieties available than dessert possibilities, especially for the home gardener. We are not limited to growing only the cultivars that travel well or are long keeping. We can look for flavor and interesting qualities. There are literally hundreds of different types of tomatoes. So how do I decide which ones to grow? When thinking of desserts there are different categories. For instance there are the pies, the cakes, cobblers, ice creams, etc. I think of tomatoes in the same way.

To me there are 2 main categories of tomatoes:

Heirloom Tomatoes (open pollinated)

Hybrid Tomatoes

Each category has 5 main sub-categories:

Early type tomatoes

Main Season tomatoes

Beefsteak Tomatoes

Cherry Tomatoes

Paste Tomatoes

Each Sub Category can come in several different colors:

The obvious red tomatoes

The less acid yellow tomatoes

Pink, Orange, Green, Purple, and "Black" tomatoes

Then there are what I call specialty categories:

Clusters or Vine Ripened types

Grape tomatoes

Varieties suited best to be sun-dried tomatoes

Etc.

Even within the same category, there are many different tomato flavors. With so many different choices available the question should not be "Can't you grow just one type of tomato?"! The question should be "How do you keep from growing 50 different types of tomatoes?"! That is why I have to cap my tomato team to 20 players (I have to have room for other veggies too).

I listed the varieties of tomatoes (and everything else) in a previous post, but the list has changed a bit. The main reason for the changes is because after growing Heirloom Brandywines last year, I want to try many other heirlooms. I didn't realize before that Heirloom tomatoes should be considered a whole main category. I will write a whole post about the benefits of heirloom tomatoes soon. As for now, I want to share my updated list. My original strategy was to have two different varieties for most sub-categories. That way if, God forsake, I lose a variety to pest or disease I have a backup. Here is what I will be growing this year:

Early Girl (Early type)

Celebrity (Main type)

Burpee Big Boy (Main type)

Park's Whopper (Beefsteak type)

Burpee Supersteak(Beefsteak type)

Lemon Boy (Main type, yellow)

Golden Girl (Hybrid - Main type, yellow)

Gardener's Delight (Cherry type - red)

Sun Sugar (Cherry type - yellow/orange)

Cluster Grande (Cluster - Vine Ripening type)

Roma (Paste type - Salsa!)

Principe Borghese (Sun-Dried type)

As for the heirloom types that I will be trying this year, Park Seeds gave me the idea to grow a "rainbow tomato garden". I bought an heirloom rainbow blend seed pack from them with six different types of tomatoes, all of different colors. The only problem was that the seeds were all mixed together in the pack. I would have to grow all 20 or so seeds to be sure I would get all the varieties. Good idea Park, bad execution. Instead of growing their mix, I went to Pinetree Seeds, Johnny's Selected Seeds, and Totally Tomatoes and found my "heirloom rainbow" varieties. Here is what I settled upon:

Brandywine (red - last year's champion)

Dixie Golden Giant (yellow)

Kellogg's Breakfast (orange)

Caspian Pink (pink)

Aunt Ruby's German Green (green)

Pruden's Purple (purple)

Black Krim (black)

Last but not least I found a variety called Kentucky Beefsteak. It is an old fashioned giant orange heirloom originating from the hills of Eastern Kentucky. I just had to have it since I live and garden in Kentucky, and my brother lives at PureWater Hollow Homestead in Eastern Kentucky. This one's for you Eric!

There you have it - this year's top twenty tomato types. They have all recently been repotted into peat pots and are still living happily under the grow lights. Soon they will make their way to the outside garden and then... to my plate. I can hardly wait. I will eat so many tomatoes that I will get fever blisters and be too full for dessert.

I'll trade a garden fresh organic heirloom tomato for a hot fudge sundae any day!

My New Double-Decker Grow-Light Stand!

I finally have enough room to start all of the plants indoors that I want (I think). I have built a double-decker light stand that has 8 shop light fixtures, and can accomodate up to 12 flats of plants!

My younger daughter helped me build it, and both daughters help plant seeds to grow under the lights. Since it is kindof a family thing, I wrote the complete post on our family blog, "Little House and the Big Garden".

Please go to that post if you want to read more about the stand, and see more pictures.

Sorry about the re-direct. Thanks for reading!

Our Garden is like Major League Baseball!

Today is the first official day of Spring! Professional Baseball's Spring Training is already in full swing, and it's opening day is only 11 days away!

I am a bigger football fan than baseball fan, but what says spring and summer better than Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie and Gardening?!

During the NFL playoffs, I compared my gardening to the NFL, so I thought I should switch sports now to officially welcome Spring.

Introducing The NatureHouse Gardeners Baseball team!

But wait, I now write in another blog with the rest of my family called "Little House and the Big Garden". There I am known as "Pa". In honor of this new blog, maybe the team should be called the LittleHouse Gardeners. I haven't been blogging much on either one lately, but I have been planning my garden on paper. So now I have plans for a new field and a list of teams and rosters.

I organized what is going into the vegetable garden under these categories (teams): Tomatoes, Cool Season, Main Season, Fruit, Decorations, and Annual Flowers.

The rosters of each team can get quite lengthy and some need a bit of explanation. For today's post, I will simply list them all. In subsequent posts, I will explain each "team" in more detail. Are you ready? Its a long lineup. Here goes:

Introducing the NatureHouse Tomatoes:

Early Girl

Kelloggs Breakfast

Prudens Purple

Brandywine

Aunt Ruby's German Green

Dixie Golden Giant

Black from Tula

Cherokee Purple

Big Rainbow

Park's Whopper

Burpee SuperSteak

Burpee Big Boy

Gardener's Delight

Cluster Grande

Golden Girl

Sun Sugar

Sweet Million

La Rossa

Roma

Principle Borghese

Introducing the LittleHouse Cool Season Players:

Broccoli-Green Goliath

Head Lettuce-Sumertime, Tom Thumb

Leaf Lettuce-Buttercrunch, Simpson Elite, Pinetree Lettuce Mix

Spinich-Space, Melody, Bloomsdale Long Standing

Peas-Mr. Big, and a player to be named later

Snap Peas-Super Sugar Snap

Onions-Super Star, Alisa Craig, Yellow Spanish

Carrots-Short 'n Sweet, Nantes Half Long, Little Finger

Radish-Cherry Belle, Easter Egg

Beet-Detroit Dark Red

And now for your Main Season NatureHousers:

Give it up for the new Naturehouse Fruit Varieties:

Watermelon-Sugar Baby, Glory Sugar

Cantalope-Ambrosia

Strawberries-Cavendish

Blueberries-Jersey

Maybe a Cherry Tree?

These newcomers will join our existing Apple, Peach and Pear trees.

Next up, the Naturehouse Decoration Dudes:

Pumpkin-Howden, Jack Be Little, Lumina, Dills Atlantic Giant

Gourds-Bird House Mix, Penguin, Assorted Gourd Mix

And last but not least, introducing the LittleHouse Annual Flowers:

These will be managed mainly by my daughters, so this roster is subject to change or be added to without notice.

Nasturtium

Sweet Pea

Morning Glory-Milky Way

Cosmos-Seashells

Zinnia-Cut & Come Again

Four O'clocks-Kaleidoscope

Convolvulus-Blue Enchantment

Impatiens-Dwarf Pink Baby

Marigold-Sugar & Spice, Happy Days, Double Dwarf, Dwarf Bolero

Sunflower-Mammoth

And there you have it ... The comprehensive list of players for NatureHouse / LittleHouse 2007! Their playing fields have been drawn up on paper and construction will soon begin. Several players have begun warming up inside under grow lights. Many more will soon join them. Stay tuned for more updates on the pending season and players! Will all players actually get in the game? Will they all hit a homerun, or will some strike out? Many questions will soon be answered.

What does your "player list" consist of? What vegetables will you be growing that I have left off my list? Are you as anxious to get started as I am?

Dum dum da dum da dum .... CHARGE!

How to get rid of Blister Beetles Organically

I do not believe in using chemical pesticides to rid garden pests. So how do we as organic gardeners get rid of pest insects? There are many ways, but that is not the topic of this post. This post is about my garden's arch enemy: The Blister Beetle!

The blister beetle is usually a problem in alfalfa hay fields, but for some reason, they were especially attracted to my heirloom tomatoes last year!

Perhaps one of the drawbacks to growing heirloom tomatoes is that they are less resistant to disease and to pest insects.

Blister Beetles get their name from the fact that they contain a toxin called cantharidin that will make your skin break out in blisters if you come in contact with it. They don't spread their toxin by biting you. Usually you would need to touch a crushed beetle to break out, but some people can have an allergic reaction just from touching one of the live beetles. They crawled over my hand while I was taking the above pictures and I was fine. The blister beetles in my garden did eat a lot of tomato foliage, but the most disgusting part about them was that they left huge droppings behind as well!

Enough already! They disgust me so!

Carrots Love Tomatoes, by Louise Riotte is the foremost authority on companion planting ideas. Riotte writes in the book that horseradish will keep blister beetles away. Using horseradish root in water as a spray will deter many insects. She goes in to what deters animal pests as well. I am following her advice and growing morning glories on my fence to keep deer away and cucumbers to keep raccoons away. Radishes next to those cucumbers will keep the striped cucumber beetle at bay.

This is a great book because in addition to advice on what to grow to keep pests away, it lists what vegetables and herbs will enhance the growth of others if grown at close proximity. The title tells of one; carrots love tomatoes.

I am planning where to place each vegetable in my garden this year based on these companion planting recommendations, which is number two on my to do list.

So there you have it, number two and three on my list. I hope to be able to write about most of the items on that list.

Thank you for reading this whole post. I apologize for the disgusting beginning. Now you know why I'm determined to be ready for the blister beetles this year!

2007 Garden to do list

I have come up with a “2007 vegetable garden to do list” to keep me focused on what can be changed to improve the garden this year. Each item is designed to improve the harvest, add beauty, make the garden more inviting, or to have more fun in the garden this year. Here is the list:

• We will add many flowers to the vegetable garden.
• We will use companion planting strategies.
• We will grow Horseradish to keep Blister Beetles Away.
• We will build a tall fence around our corn to keep critters out.
• We will use vertical gardening techniques to grow crops on the fence.
• We will use raised beds and square foot garden beds.
• We will make the paths and spaces between beds larger.
• We will use the Florida Stake and Weave for many of our tomatoes.
• We will try to have early tomatoes ripe by July 1st!
• We will grow many new heirloom tomatoes!
• We will use more composting techniques including "worm composting".
• We will try for giant pumpkins!
• We will try some new vegetables and fruits that we haven't grown before.

Now for a few more items that I need to address BEFORE the outdoor season:

• I need to write a comprehensive list of the vegetable and flower varieties we will grow this year.
• I need to map out the placement in the garden of each plant on graph paper.
• I need to write out the calendar schedule of when we will start each vegetable indoors, and when we will plant each outside.
• I need to finish building our double-decker grow light stand.
• I need to manage all of the seed starting under the lights.
• I need to create the NEW outside beds.
• I need to build all trellises and plant supports in advance.
• I hope to make a working cold frame for hardening off the plants.

I realize that my list is pretty big. I will try to write posts addressing each thing on the list to either report that I accomplished an item, or explain my ideas. Later in the season I will report back on each item to see how I did. As I write a new post, I will update this post by making each item on the list a link to the corresponding post. Posts will appear in either Out in the Garden or Little House and The Big Garden, and the links will take you to the appropriate one.

This post will become "home base" for monitoring and reporting my "to do list" progress. Doing all of this may be more for me than for you the reader, but possibly we will learn some things together.

Happy Gardening 2007!

A Black Widow and Square Foot Gardening!

I am currently reading Mel Bartholemew's "All New Square Foot Gardening" book and it is just as good as his original Square Foot Gardening book from many years ago. Here is a picture of the two covers:

Notice that among other things, he has chaged the way he lays out his squares. In the old days he just layed down wide boards to walk on in between his garden squares. Now he builds raised bed squares and spaces them farther apart with grass growing in between them.

Well Mel, I can give testimony as to one reason that is a better idea. Last season, I layed down planks in between my different kinds of beans like that to walk on. This fall when we cleaned up the garden I turned over the plank and guess what I found living under there? I found ants, worms, slugs and THIS:

Isn't that great for Valentines Day! I'm pretty sure that is a black widow spider! Of course I did not get to see its belly to check for the diamond pattern.

What do you think? If anyone reading this agrees that it is a Black Widow, please comment. If I'm wrong, then tell me what kind of spider it is. Here are a couple more pictures of it:

I have video of it as well, but I couldn't figure out how to get it embedded in this blog. (If anyone knows how to to that, I would appreciate some pointers)

So anyway, this season I will have to think twice about using boards to walk on since it provides great cover for such creepy spiders! I don't like Black Widows living in my garden!

On the plus side, it sure makes for a great addition to my close-up bug photo collection!

Fungus Gnat and a New Blog!!!

I enjoy studying insects and their role in the synergy of a garden. I do not believe in chemical insecticide because there are many beneficial insects that are killed along with the pest insect you have sprayed. Call me weird, but because of this interest in garden insects, I try to photograph them whenever possible. Take a look at my posts from this summer titled "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" or "Space Alien or Garden Pest" to see what I mean.

Well here is one more insect picture for you: A Fungus Gnat living in the soil of our Hippeastrum flower.

What, you don't see it? Then let's zoom in to a close up!

You might think this picture is gross or weird, but it was very difficult to take. A Fungus Gnat is only 2-3mm in length - very small! The adult females (pictured above) lay eggs in the soil and the larvae feed on fungus in the moist soil. They are a small nuisance indoors, but outside they help in organic decomposition.

Now, do you want to see a picture of the giant Hippeastrum flowers that are blooming far above this little gnat? If so, I'm going to make you wait a little. Pictures of the flowers will be added to our next post on our new family blog: Little House and The Big Garden!

I am very excited about this new blog. It will still discuss our garden, but it will also deal with our other family interests. The best part about it is that my wife and daughters will also be writing posts. They already have in fact. Come on over to Little House and The Big Garden and leave an encouraging comment on my wife or daughter's first post! Then stop back by tomorrow to see the beautiful Hippeastrum (without the gnat!). Blessings to you all!

Carrots still hanging out in the garden!

It is very cold today in Kentucky. It was only 14 degrees when I woke up this morning. This weekend was much warmer though. On Saturday it was in the 50's, so the whole family got outside for some much needed sunshine and fresh air. We cleaned up fallen branches and moved some lumber that we use for our garden beds. We also measured out the spots where we will enlarge the garden this year.

While inspecting the existing garden area, my daughter found several carrots left over from last summer still in the ground. There were no tops left and we had weeded the entire bed when we pulled up the existing plants last fall. I'm not sure how they were missed, but there they were. We pulled them up and they looked okay - no insect damage or signs of rot.

I have been reading Eliot Coleman's Four Season Harvest, and in it he writes about planting carrots in the fall and leaving them "stored" right there in the ground ready for harvest all winter long. Our carrots were planted in early summer, so we weren't sure if they would still taste good. We were curious if they would taste alright but nobody wanted to try them. What we needed was a guinea pig or two to be the first to eat them.

So we fed some to our resident guinea pigs, Fizzy and Sammy who loved them! I then tried one and it wasn't bad. It wasn't at peak flavor, but it tasted good enough for me to believe Eliot Coleman is right about planting late carrots for winter eating.

As for Fizzy and Sammy, they actually acted more excited eating these carrots than they do when we give them store-bought carrots. It has been a while now since they got to eat any fresh produce actually grown in our garden. Come to think of it, it has been too long now since WE have eaten fresh from the garden.

I am going to try to implement some of Eliot Coleman's ideas this year to keep us eating from the garden longer. According to Eliot, we should be able to harvest year round! That sounds good, doesn't it?!

Secret Fortune: Money, Money, Money!!!

My secret fortune has been revealed, and I like the sound of it - $ Money, Money, Money! What am I talking about? My kids bought their dear old gardening dad a little present. It was a small aluminum can called "Magic Sproutz Secret Fortunes".

I think they bought it at the Dollar General store. All you're supposed to do is pop the lid, add water and wait for a plant to grow and reveal your secret message! We didn't really believe anything would happen and nothing did for over a week. Then all of a sudden a large sprout pushed its way up and out and grew in to some kind of large bean plant!

The secret fortune was revealed even before the plant grew leaves however. As soon as the plant sprouted, it pushed up what was the largest seed I think I've ever seen which revealed the fortune in writing!

Each side was different. Money Money Money on one side and a dollar sign on the other. Here is a picture with me holding a quarter up to it for size reference.

This was a fun little novelty which I recommend if you can find one. It would be great for you gardeners who are itching to watch something grow. I just hope your secret fortune is as good as mine!

Heirloom Tomatoes - Brandywine, Prudens Purple & More!

Last year, I grew a lot of wonderful tomatoes!

As I told you before, my favorite was the Amish heirloom variety "Brandywine".The look of the plant and the fruit was quite different from the hybrid tomatoes that I was used to, and the taste was magnificent! Because of the success from last season's Brandywine plants, I have decided to experiment with growing many more heirloom tomatoes this year!

The ones on my A-list that I have ordered so far are more Brandywine, Prudens Purple, Kelloggs Breakfast and Aunt Ruby's German Green.

These pictures are taken from the Pinetree Seeds website, which is where I'm ordering them from. I'm also ordering Dixie Golden Giant, Black from Tula, Big Rainbow, and Cherokee Purple - all heirlooms.

I never used to grow heirlooms because I believed that it was too hard and I was unaware that there were so many different varieties. They are more difficult because they do not have any disease resistance bred into them. They have not been altered at all in fact. Heirlooms are true open-pollinated seed plants. You can actually save the seeds from heirlooms and grow them again year after year (which I do not do because I worry about cross-pollination). If you try to save the seeds of hybrids, they will not reproduce true to the parent plant, but hybrids are usually very resistant to diseases. The other draw back with heirlooms is that not as many tomatoes grow on each plant as do the hybrids. Usually the heirloom plants are much larger even hence taking up more room. Last year I had a bit of a problem here because I did not stake or cage my Brandywine plants. I grew over 40 tomato plants and didn't get around to supporting all of them. I tried many different kinds of support as I discussed in "Tomato Cage Alternatives".

I plan to use the Florida "Stake and Weave" method this year to support the heirlooms. I will discuss that in greater detail later. As for now, I have to decide if I will try any other heirloom tomatoes this year. I welcome any suggestions or comments about heirloom varieties that anyone likes or dislikes. Last year I grew 20 different tomato varieties. This year I may top that mark with at least a third of them being heirlooms. I am very excited to find out what each one is like. Of course I will report back to you each step of the way!

The Corn That Everyone's Talking About!

The Corn That Everyone's Talking About! Bicolor Mirai 301BC from Park Seed. Park claims that this is the sweetest tasting and most tender corn EVER grown. So I ask you, has anyone heard of this before?

I know, I know, every seed company claims that every variety is the best. I've even seen some companies claim that two or more varieties of a certain vegetable that they offer are the best. We all know there can only be one "best". We also know that nobody can prove that a variety is truly the best, so it is a pretty loose claim. Nonetheless, the discription of Mirai 301 originally from Japan intrigued me enough that I bought some. Look at some of the quotes below, taken from their description:

"This gourmet corn is requested by 5-star restaurants . . . as well as by anyone who has ever tasted it!"

"These ears are 7 to 8 inches long, with good "tip fill" (meaning that the kernels stay plump and delicious all the way to the end of the ear instead of petering out!) and excellent coverage by dark green husks. Once picked, the ears last up to 6 weeks if refrigerated! (But you'll eat every last one LONG before then!) The 7-foot plants are very, very heavy-yielding, quite tolerant of stress, and show good resistance to Stewart's Wilt and common rust."

Park's Director of Seeds, Stephanie Turner, is quoted as saying "I have never tasted anything like it in my life" and "I sampled it raw in the field, and it was all I could do not to eat the entire cob!"

So, will it live up to the hype? I was sold on it so much that I plan to put up an 8 foot fence around it to hopefully keep the Deer and Racoons out. If nothing else, it will give me plenty of material to blog about this spring/summer.

The seeds arrived in the mail the other day. Anxiously I opened the envelope to see this miracle corn and here it is

Could this be the beginning of a new "favorite"? Is everyone really talking about it? If not, will they be after I grow it this season?! Stay tuned and find out! Same Bat Blog, Same Bat Garden!

A Snow Day Out In The Garden

After a week of planning this summer's garden on paper and ordering seeds and seed starting supplies, I was treated to a bit of reality today. We got our first snow of the winter, so this is what the garden currently looks like.

Since it was Sunday I got to enjoy the snow with my daughters. We had a lot of fun building a snowman and sledding.

Since there are no plants blooming outside, we have to get our natural color and energy from the birds.

So I guess it doesn't bother me that nothing is growing in the garden right now. For this season, all is as it should be. Besides, we are still making compost that will go into the garden this spring.

I have too many seeds...but want more!

I recently went through all of my seed packets from previous years. Look at this mess!

Even though it looks like I have a lot of seeds, a gardener never has enough! Actually my "seed tool box" was in desperate need of a good cleaning. I had many packets from as far back as 1998. I decided too... gulp... throw some out. That is really hard to do as a gardener. I threw out only seeds that I sow directly in the garden. Things like corn, beans, pumpkins and squash had to go. I kept old seeds for crops like lettuce, spinach, tomatoes and cucumbers. The difference here is that I plant these indoors under florescent light. I will just plant double of these to compensate for a possible poor germination rate. I can not afford poor germination when it comes to the crops that are planted directly in the soil.

Another good reason to get rid of some old seed is to make room for new seed! I have placed orders with Park Seed and Pinetree Garden Seed already, and plan to get some things from Johnny's Selected Seeds and probably more from Pinetree.

Pinetree has always been my favorite seed company because they offer good quality seeds at about half the price of most other companies! I like Park and Johnny's because they both offer many unique varieties. I am getting some crazy tomato and corn cultivars! I will tell you more about that in future posts.

As for now, it is time to dig out my florescent shop lights and seed starting supplies and take over the corner of my basement family room once again. As soon as my new seeds come in the mail it will be time to get my fingers dirty and plant some lettuce and onions! I can hardly wait!

The Garden is like the NFL

I know I haven't posted in a while, but this is the off-season for me out in the garden. But even though it is the off-season, it doesn't mean I haven't been thinking and working on next season's garden. My garden is a lot like an NFL football team. Let's call my team the Naturehouse Gardeners!

The NFL off-season for a team is spent figuring out which players and coaches are good enough to remain and which ones need to be cut. They look to add new players to better next year's team. They also look back at the season that has just ended to figure out what worked well and what didn't. All teams but one did not achieve their goal of winning the Super bowl. They try to learn from last season's disappointments so they can do better this season!

These are the things I have been doing in the past couple of months. I have been pouring over seed catalogs looking for new star players to draft! I have decided to cut some of my under-achieving vegetable varieties. I am redesigning my whole game plan. I am even planning to double this year's playing field!

I have carefully looked over last year's "touchdowns" as well as the "dropped balls", and will report some of that to you here in this blog.

Actually, I hope to start posting regularly again. Even though the NFL is currently in its Post-Season from last year, The Naturehouse Gardener's are about to begin their Pre-Season for 2007! Many players will soon report to my basement to begin their season under the grow-lights!

So as I'm watching the NFL playoffs this weekend and next, I will be mapping out the 2007 garden and figuring out what plants will occupy what spot on the field. Of course I will also be dreaming of winning the super bowl of gardening in which every vegetable grows to perfection and every flower is beautiful!

If you are reading this, chances are that you are also a gardener dreaming of a winning 2007 garden. I know it is only January, but I must ask you that famous question:

Are you ready for some Football

Gardening?!!

I sure am!

Blessed with Compost!

I don't actually have finished compost (yet), but I have been blessed with the ability to make great compost in the form of a new Tumbleweed Compost Maker!

I have always wanted a compost tumbler, and this a great one. It was given to us by one of our church's new pastors and his wife. They are both wonderful people and great Christian mentors. They didn't have room for it at their new house, so they graciously gave it to us. We got it just before our trip to my brother's but we didn't have time to put it to use until this weekend.

It was another beautiful Saturday, and we did some yard work and general garden cleaning. We put some fresh grass clippings and fallen leaves in the tumbler and mixed in some half finished compost, some tomato plants, spent peppers cucumbers and onions, some old straw and even a little garden soil.

The girls helped gather the "ingredients" and layered it up in the tumbler alternating the "greens" and "browns". If you are not familiar with composting, mixing green and brown material helps to speed up the aerobic decomposition. The other things that help to make compost quickly are water (which I will be adding) and good air circulation. The tumbler style composting makes it so much easier to get air and water in! When composting, you also need to mix up a compost pile from time to time to keep the microbs active and keep the air in. (without proper air, the compost can begin anaeorobic decomposition, which can stink!) With a conventional pile or compost bin, you have to do this with a pitchfork. With our new Tumbleweed, you just have to tumble it a few times. I don't think I will have any problems getting volunteers to perform this task! The girls really liked that part.

With our new tumbler, we don't have to walk to the back of the garden to add to the compost pile any more. I think composting will now be more of a family event. The girls saved their eggshells from breakfast Sunday morning to add to the tumbler.

I will post later to show the finished compost from this first batch. I will then take some of it to our friends at church who so generously gave this wonderful composter to us!