Preparing the Vegtable Bed

Today is the official last frost date for Raleigh! Ive been waiting for months, but its finally time to put in the warm weather vegetables. But first, some work had to be done...

 

Having our raised vegetable bed on a moderate slope, summer irrigation waters slowly wash down the organic matter, leaving the top layer of the soil with mostly sand. To remedy this, and add nutrients to the bed, each spring we prepare the vegetable bed by turning composted cow manure into the top 6-10 inches of soil. We also apply earthworm castings and TomatoTone to the top of the soil after planting.

However, this was not the first step in preparing the vegetable bed: it was harvest and clean up! The first thing to go were the Brussels Sprouts. Planted late in the fall, these guys shot up after overwintering, and although sprouts were beginning to form along the stem, the warm weather caused them to flower and the sprouts stopped developing when only the size of peas. We left them in for a few weeks to enjoy the flowers, but they ultimately ended up in the compost pile. The spinach and parsley fared better, although what looked like a bountiful harvest of spinach turned out to be infested with aphids. The parsley was really the standout, and the 10 plants I started from seed last spring yielded a huge bag of parsley. The individual plants were very impressive, the largest measuring over 1-inch in diameter at the base (pic below left). I was able to get 13 bunches of parsley out of this. Figuring out what to do with it has been the hardest part, and everyone Ive asked either has parsley or does not use it. Luckily an area garden center patricipates in Plant a Row for the Hungry, a great program that delivers fresh produce to those in need, and they will take my parsley! The 'Quinault' strawberries were left in place (below right), and are now covered in little white flowers, a promising sign of a big May harvest.

 I already put a few herbs and veggies in, but have plans for more. Ive learned over the last few seasons what I do and do not use from the garden, and have put together a good list of edibles for this year.... although I'm sure I will be forever adding to it!

Herbs in the garden:

• Sweet Basil
• Genovese Basil
• Flat-leaf Parsley
• Boquet Dill
• German Thyme
• Chives 
• Kentucky Colonel Mint
• Arp Rosemary

Veggies in the garden:

• 'Mountain Fresh' Tomatoes
• 'Green Zebra' Tomatoes
• 'Black Krim' Tomatoes
• 'Smarty' Grape Tomato
• 'Brandywine' Tomato
• Jalapeno Peppers
• Mixed Bell Peppers
• 'Black Beauty' Zucchini
• Straight-neck Summer Squash
• 'Homemade Pickles' Cucumbers
• 'Kitchen King' Garden Beans

"Shall I not have intelligence with the earth?  Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself."  ~Henry David Thoreau

Hop Projects

Hops (Hululus lupulus) hold a special place in our garden. Brian is a home brewer, and we both love our beer! Growing hops is one of the rare opportunities to combine two passions for us. We have grown them in our garden for 2 seasons now, and were needing to expand our trellis system, thus the hop project began with cedar timbers, some free ground, and a shovel.

Most of the hops grown in the US are from the Willamette Valley in Washington, with Oregon and Idaho being the other major producers. However, with the recent microbrewery craze people have started looking for local sources, and a few hop farms popped up in Western NC. There is little known about hop production in the state, and we are interested in trying out different varieties to see what does best. We use what we grow in our brews, but never get much of a harvest here in Eastern NC. Our summers are too wet for their liking, and the shorter daylight hours mean a late harvest. In the spring we dig and split the some of the rhizomes and pot them up in the greenhouse. Maybe one day we will have enough rhizomes to trade or sell.

We use a grape trellis for support for hops in our vegetable bed (see surviving vegetables post), but we wanted something more fit for the hops twining habit. This area used to have a mature dogwood and pink azaleas. The dogwood died last summer, our neighbor told us the older couple living in our house had left a whole bag of fertilizer to leak on the base. With the dogwood gone, the azaleas get too much sun so we took them out too, and have a big space for projects. For the arbor here we went with the traditional tee-pee style, it reminds me of a Maypole. Brian dug 2-foot deep holes to anchor in the 3- 10 foot cedar timbers. Its a easy design, upright posts with string strung from a stake in the ground to a screw in the top. I will note at this point that I mostly watched, or as I like to call it "supervised", and took pictures.

 The birdhouses give it a little interest... although they might be a little close together to get many birds nesting. The three poles each have a different cultivar. We have Humulus lupulus 'Mt. Hood', 'Chinook', and 'Willamette'. On the other trellis (in the veggie bed) we have 'Centennial'. 

Next update: Harvest Time!

 

"A mouth of a perfectly happy man is filled with beer." ~Ancient Egyptian Wisdom, 2200 B.C.

You Say Potato

I'm a sucker for starches and love cooking with potatoes, making them a must have in our garden. This is our second year growing 'Red Norland' potatoes, but this year we are also adding 'Yukon Gold' and 'Kennebec', all varieties of Solanum tuberosum.

I bought these seed potatoes almost a month ago. They have been sitting in a cool room where they get lots of light but no direct sun. Within a week  the brown eyes sprouted and grew slowly while I forgot about them, waiting for the right time to plant. 

A couple of the 'Kennebec' potatoes were a little too big (the recommended planting size is 2-3ozs, and these were more like 4-5) and I wanted to split them, both to help them grow and increase the harvest. The package recommends dusting the cut surfaces with a powder fungicide, but not having any on hand, and wanting to experiment a little I tried a different way. I learned in plant pathology that potatoes, when cut, have the ability to heal over and form a new cuticle layer (skin). They can be cut with a sharp, sterilized knife  (dipped in diluted bleach) and set back in the cool room to cure, cut sides up. Generally this is the practice used in commercial production, since it is more cost efficient: all it takes is a little time (and no touching). After two weeks I could tell they were ready, the cut surface became dark and calloused, and the sprouts started growing again. 

Both the 'Red Norland' and 'Yukon Gold' are early potatoes, and I will harvest them when they flower to get yummy buttery fingerling potatoes. The 'Kennebec' are late variety, I will harvest them when the plants die and get big starchy potatoes perfect for my Basil Mashed Potatoes (I'll have to post the recipe when the basil comes into season). I plant everything in huge 15 gallon pots dug halfway into the hillside on the South to keep it cool in the summer. The open side makes for an easy tip-over-and-harvest. I fill it halfway with mushroom compost, add potatoes (I put the 'Red Norland' and 'Yukon Gold' together here), and add 3 inches more of compost. I'll have to pick up some more compost to cover the sprouts, which will hopefully pop their heads up in about 3 weeks. I'll count this as my first planting of summer edibles... something to get excited about.

"Found a little patched-up inn in the village of Bulson. Proprietor had nothing but potatoes; but what a feast he laid before me. Served them in five different courses-potato soup, potato fricassee, potatoes creamed, potato salad and finished with potato pie. It may be because I had not eaten for 36 hours, but that meal seems about the best I ever had." ~General Douglas MacArthur

Surviving Veggies

Although by June I'm cursing the heat in Raleigh, I do love our mild winters. So mild, in fact, that we can grow some herbs and veggies year round! Besides gardening, cooking is another one of my passions, and I love where the two intersect.

We inherited this raised bed on the side of our house from the previous owners, an elderly couple who also loved to garden. Since this is a South facing exposure, they used it to grow annuals. We found it was more useful for us as our herb and vegetable garden. 

The trellis is one of Brian's projects, originally designed for Grapes, it now is used for growing Hops. I think it is a great way to make a bare wall interesting!

Besides our veggies, we do have a few perennials in the foreground. Some gorgeous Irises that one of Brian's co-workers brought to work 3 years ago have multiplied and will burst into a deep purple bloom in May. And we have a Yarrow stuck in there somewhere, a great "biocontrol" plant which attracts beneficial insects to the garden.

There is also a patch of 'Quinault' strawberries, which I guess is a fruit not veggie, but its perennial nature makes it a great transition plant to the perennials at this end. We got these strawberry plants late last year and only got a couple berries in the fall, but I'll let you know how they do this spring, as they are supposed to be a great all-season variety.

Brussels Sprouts

Lettuce Mix

This winter we chose some basic veggies that we could start from seed: spinach, lettuce, Brussels sprouts, and cilantro. The lettuce, a Mesclun Mix, was the stand out performer, and lasted through the snow beautifully. However, as you can see, no Brussels Sprouts to harvest yet, maybe with the warmer weather they will continue to grow... I'm not holding my breath. I wish things would have turned out better with them, but we got things in the ground a little too late. That seems to be the problem with Raleigh weather, our tomatoes last until October, making us not want to till the garden until late in the season, but in doing that we miss the best window for winter plantings!

Italian Parsley

Chives

 I also have been doing a little experimenting with which herbs will survive the winter in Raleigh. I know Cilantro will tough through, and have grown in for a few years now. This year I decided to let the Parsley go and see how it would handle the cold. I was amazed at its resilience! I could cut some sprigs, which looked wilted in the cold, and as soon as I put them in water in the warm kitchen they perked right back up and were great for cooking! Chives were another experiment, although I knew they were perennial bulbs. The foliage died down in late December, but since having these warm spells has sent up luscious new growth that I should be able to harvest in a few weeks!

Viola 'Marley'

And lastly, I had to show just a little color! I figured I'd include this one in the veggie post since the flowers are edible. This 'Marley' Viola toughed it out all winter in its pot and just put out a new flush of delicate violet flowers. I normally tend to go for Pansies over the smaller Viola's for winter color, but I couldn't pass up this little gem!