Fertilizer

I almost never add fertilizer to my vegetable garden, relying almost solely on compost and occasional green manure. I have not noticed any deficiencies in the growing plants.

This year, however, two of my experiments involve using just compost as the growing medium. I will be growing carrots and potatoes in 12 inch deep wooden frames filled with compost. I would expect that the nutrients available to the carrots and potatoes would be limited, especially early in the growing season, since the compost in essentially sterile. To remedy this I will be adding green sand (for potassium), bone meal (for phosphorus) and blood meal (for nitrogen). My supplies are from Lee's Feeds.

The bags do not each provide the exact amount for 100 sq ft, although the bone meal does. I added the recommended amount of green sand and blood meal for 100 sq ft to the bag of bone meal and ended up with a mixture of about 34 cups (presumably 22 1/2 cups of bone meal - I didn't measure but relied on the bags statement that one pound was 2 1/4 cups - 6 2/3 cups of green sand and 4 1/2 cups of blood meal). Since this is the recommended amount for 100 sq ft then I would add the 34 cups to 100 sq ft. For the first carrot frame, which is 1.5 ft by 3.5 ft, or about 5 sq ft, I will add around 1.7 cups of the mixture.

We will see what happens.

Gardening has started

Finally the snow is gone from the garden. Nothing survived the winter and the remains of the leeks, kale, parsley and collards - all things that did overwinter the year before - have been removed and the garden beds raked to an even surface.

Two days ago (April 9) I sowed seeds for lettuce and beets in that part of the garden that gets sun later in the day and also planted peas. The soil temperature was at least 44 degrees Fahrenheit.

There was a report in the newspaper a week or so ago that the very cold winter killed many grape buds and so I am wondering whether our Concord grapes were affected. I think there are buds on what remains after my pruning but won't know until I see buds actually swelling, opening and growing. Perhaps nature did the pruning for me.

I am building frames from old fence slats to fill with compost and use to grow carrots and potatoes. They will be near or on the driveway. I will fill the potato frames with compost from OCRRA but for the carrot frame(s) will first sift the compost through a screen of 1/4 in hardware cloth. It is a tedious process. OCRRA also sells 1/4 inch screened compost through some of the garden centers and I may decide to buy some of that to make the process easier.

We will open the pond today or tomorrow - that is, install the pump and get the system going. After this harsh winter we did not expect any of the frogs to have survived and their bodies have begun to appear. But they did a little better here than in the swimming pool from which they came.

The rhubarb has begun to appear through the gallon bucket of compost that was dumped on top of each plant last fall. Oops! I forgot that there is one rhubarb plant at the end of one of the beds. I just raked that compost into the bed the other day.

Most of the snow is gone. A quick look at the garden beds suggests that almost nothing survived the winter even with the blanket of snow that covered the garden throughout the season.

I was surprised that the leeks didn't survive. They are there but they are very mushy. When I tried to pull one up, even after loosening the soil under it, it just broke apart and left the mushy top in my hand. I did not mulch the leeks and I don't think that I did in prior years. I know that we harvested a lot of leeks after winter last year. I suppose the cold, cold weather just did them in.

A Google search brought this:

In colder areas, extend the harvest season by mulching deeply around plants (up to 1 foot deep) before a hard freeze. You could continue harvesting leeks until they are locked frozen into the ground, but don’t let that happen. Dig them first and store. Freezing would be the method of choice - a minute of blanching first.

Grape Pruning

This is the year to figure out how to prune our Concord grapes. Despite my concern last year that there were too many bunches of grapes for proper development, a lot did mature and I processed more than 70 pounds of prepared grapes. That is a lot of grapes to squeeze to separate the insides (pulp and seeds) from the skin. Except for the seeds, the rest is used. There are still jars of frozen processed grapes in our freezer even though we have already enjoyed an abundance of grape pies throughout the winter. Not to mention the jam and the grape juice.

Nonetheless, the grape arbor is an unruly tangle of vines of various sizes crossing each other at various angles, the newer ones mostly heading from north to south. (The vines were planted on the north side of the arbor.)

I know the basic drill, which is to find last year's new growth and cut those canes back to leave three buds per cane. The buds will develop into the new grape bunches. But I don't want as many bunches as last year. The bunches did not fully develop. That is, while many of the grapes in each bunch developed into nice purple grapes, quite a few others didn't. And the grapes seemed smaller. I want fewer bunches but completely formed and ripened bunches of large grapes. My goal is 80 to 100 bunches. That would mean pruning back to 30 to 35 pruned canes since three buds are left on each cane.

It occurred to me that instead of trying to start with the new growth I should go back to the two original plants (planted in 2009) and see what is growing from them (presumably in 2009 and 2010). Then follow each of these "secondary" vines and see what grew off of those, and so on. Sort of create a map of each vine. That way I can try to divide up the canes I prune this year somewhat equally among the vines they come from.

So far, trudging out into the snow of this winter, I find that each of the two plants divides into two vines at the top. Originally these vines were trained along a wire about six feet above the ground. I suspect that each of these vines was supposed to run so that one from each plant met one from other plants in the middle and the remaining vines going in the opposite direction would continue to the end of the structure. That would provide a vine covering the whole length of the wire, like two big Ts next to each other. Each plant also has a lower vine that goes along a lower wire that was part of the original structure. I suspect those vines could be removed because very few, if any, grapes develop there. But I will leave them this year to see.

All might have been fine if I had not decided to build an arbor early in 2012, I believe, so that the grapes could grow over the path next to where they were growing. But I did and I basically abandoned the wire structure (although it is still there). Then I started encouraging the new growth to go over the arbor. In 2011 all of the grapes harvested (25 lbs) were to what would be the north side of the arbor. In 2012 presumably because of the same conditions that wiped out the apple and pear crops, we harvested only 9 lbs of grapes and they also came from off the north side of the arbor . But then came the gangbuster crop of 2013. The grapes were pretty equally divided between the north side, the arbor itself, and the south side, though somewhat heavier on the south side. That means that I should be able to find some of last year's growth all over the arbor and be able to prune so that I get grapes again this year from all parts of the arbor.

Now it is time to read what I have accumulated earlier about pruning grapes and see if I can figure out the one question that has bothered me for several years. It seems to me that new growth and each year's grapes will continually be farther along the vine than the year before since the grapes are on the prior year's growth, which was on the growth of the year before that, etc. How do I get new "spurs" to form that will be the basis of next year's new growth?

On the Our Edible Garden webpage for grapes I wrote about last year's fruiting canes, which are to be removed, and last year's new shoots, which is where this year's grapes will grow. Obviously I didn't look to see what these were during the year.

Next year will be even better!

This was an excellent gardening year. We harvested a little over 600 pounds of fruits and vegetables. For the five years we have kept records this year was only exceeded by 2010 when we recorded 626 pounds.

A large factor was the grape harvest. Notwithstanding my concerns that my lack of pruning knowledge left far too many bunches for the plant to bring to maturity we harvested 70 pounds of processed Concord grapes from the two vines. That represents a lot of grapes to process. Processing involves picking each grape and squeezing out the pulp and seeds and depositing the skins in a separate pot.
My hope next year to prune more effectively and end up with fewer bunches of grapes that bear more and larger grapes. A smaller harvest, in terms of pounds, would be okay. The 70 pounds is the processed weight of the grapes. From one measurement 90 ounces of grape bunches resulted in 74 ounces of processed grapes. That would mean I picked about 85 pounds of grapes.

We harvested more blackberries (20 lbs), blueberries (24 lbs), cherries (16 lbs in our first year of picking), currants (10 lbs), garlic (15 lbs), kale (41 lbs with more to come), pears (43 lbs - and this weight is after preparing the pears), and peppers (33 lbs) than in any of the prior four years.

I have not grown potatoes for the past two years and this year's summer squash harvest was 36 lbs (compared to 45, 60, 109 lbs the prior three years). I only grew three plants this year. I had thought that they were not infected by squash vine borers although when I removed one of the plants it did have them in its stem.

Next year, in addition to pruning the grapes properly, there are some other changes to make. I want to grow ground cherries in a contained space. They grow taller when they are not allowed to spread out. I plan to grow them in an area surrounded by three foot fencing. Not sure how I will harvest the ground cherries but I think it should be easy enough to reach over the fencing.
I also want to space out my peppers even further than I did this year, and, put the red peppers on the outside. They also need to be grown in a sunnier location in the garden. I purchased some longer posts to tie them to since the wooden ones I used were too short.
I want to try to grow cucumbers on an inclined trellis so that they hang down for easier picking. Also I plan to start the cucumbers inside and then spray them regularly with kaolin clay (I have a lifetime supply) to prevent the cucumber beetles from infecting them with wilt. I only sprayed once or twice this year and the result was that some plants seemed unaffected (or uninfected) while others wilted.
Basil needs to be planted in its own area (as opposed to under the tomatoes as I did this year). Tomatoes were poorly attended to this year. I did not remove the suckers and tie up the main stem as frequently as I did in the past. Although we had 91 lbs of tomatoes (compared to 94 lbs last year) the quality (and size) was not as good even though I grew twice as many plants. Some were experiments in the straw bale (see earlier post) and some others were overcome by the flowers growing in the adjacent garden - there was no path separating them.

We will be planting a new pear tree next week and expect that the harvest from what drops out of the backyard pear tree will be significantly less next year since that tree seems to be dying.

I'm not planning to grow anything new next year. We had no soybeans this year (the old seed didn't germinate) and not very many fava beans (4 pounds). I will plant both next year and try to stake the fava beans and also see if they produce a second crop (see earlier post).

Straw Bale Update

Strawbales August 26th

The six nice firm straw bales that were set out on the driveway at the beginning of the season are breaking down. On the left of the photo the tomato plants are tilting and the bale is about half of its original height.

Production by the tomato plants in the bales has been significantly less than the same seven plants that are in the regular garden. Although these plants produced the first tomatoes the difference in time was only a few days. When I was keeping track of the individual plants the straw bale plants produced about half of what the garden bed plants did. And after that the difference increased. The plants that produce the larger tomatoes (brandywine, Hungarian heart, jetstar and Polish linguisa) were far less productive than those in the garden bed.

Location might have been a factor, these plants being on the shady side of three arborvitae, but it is more likely that lack of nutrients and inability of the straw to retain moisture the way that soil does were bigger factors. The plants were watered daily and were provided with green sand, bone meal and blood meal mixed with compost but that wasn't sufficient.

The squash plant did fairly well and kept up with the squash plant in the garden for quite a while. The first squash were picked from the bales on July 4th and the first from the garden on July 16th. As of August 10th, when I stopped keeping track of where squash came from, the plant in the bales had produced 10.7 lbs and the plant in the garden 10.2 lbs. Then there was a five day period in which it was watered only once and production dropped after that.

One problem with the bales is that water tends to run to where the edges of the bales meet and, over time, enlarge the gap between the bales. I tried to counter this by planting in the middle of the bales.

It will be interesting to see how much structure is left in the bales at the end of the season.

Suggestions for Next Year

I am not always thinking ahead. I continue to plant too close together, I sometimes plant too much or too little of something, and I frequently see ways that I might do things differently. Included in those categories this year are:

1. Plant peppers with space between the rows. Last year I just planted the peppers too close together. I improved this year and put more space between them. But they are still too close together, such that the ones in the middle seem not to produce very much. I think that in the space where I had 34 pepper plants I could plant 24 with more space around each plant and get similar quantities of peppers. I will still plant them about 12 inches apart but with about 24 inches between rows. I also have longer stakes for the peppers but only used a few of them this year because I already had them tied to the wooden stakes.

2. Don't plant so many tomatoes. This year, because of the straw bale experiment, I planted nearly twice as many tomatoes as I would otherwise. I ended up planting 17 plants, as opposed to 6 last year. (Six is not enough.) I think about ten plants would be sufficient. I will not plant the Ida Gold and Glacier tomatoes again. They are both determinate plants and have small tomatoes. The Ida Gold had very tough skins and the Glacier tended to crack. Instead I will plant one early tomato (such as Fourth of July).  I also need to find a way to support the large yellow determinate tomatoes. They produce well but I put them in tomato cages which do not provide enough support and many of them ended up on the ground. The Polish linguisa and Hungarian heart tomatoes are good varieties. Not sure about the Jetstar or Brandywine.

3. Plant fewer cucumbers and have the poona kheeras grow up a slanted trellis. Perhaps then the cucumbers will hang down under the trellis. The lemon cucumbers grow throughout the garden, which is a problem because they invade the space of other plants. One solution may be to plant them in the blueberry area, but this requires having the blueberry harvest done before the cucumbers have grown very much. We prefer the lemon cucumbers.
The use of kaolin clay seemed helpful. It appears that some of the cucumbers were infected because they have wilted. Others, however, were apparently not affected. It may be that some were effectively sprayed while the others weren't. The cucumbers near the trellis were planted there from seed and sprayed as they grew but they were only sprayed twice and their location made it difficult to do so effectively. Some that I started inside and sprayed thoroughly and planted elsewhere in the garden seem to be fine. Cucumber beetles have been present throughout the gardening season.
Spraying the patty pan squash plants was effective for both plants, and the production has been excellent (sometimes a little more than we can handle).

4. Prune the grapes. We have far more grape clusters than the two plants can handle. The grapes are small and it remains to be seen how many will ripen. I pruned the grapes in March. I pruned again later but there were still way too many. I assume that if I prune properly, so that there are perhaps 40 to 50 clusters, the grapes will be larger and the clusters filled in. This will take some serious and thoughtful pruning.