Visit My Amazon Store – My Favorite Garden Supplies
|
 Isn’t this an interesting tomato? What a dramatic presentation! It’s an open-polinated heirloom tomato of Russian origin called Black Sea Man. These are medium sized fruit on short potato-leaf plants. I think I might try growing these because they’re so pretty. That’s the beauty of starting your own seeds – you can grow whatever you want.
This year I’m going for different colored tomatoes, like this gorgeous Burpee beauty, Tye Dye.  I just like the name, but they’ll make for beautiful salads.
I’ve grown the heirloom Cherokee Purple before and it was so prolific I couldn’t use all of them. The problem was that to me they had a faint odor of old gym sox. I was probably just sniffing my upper lip, but they turned me off. Rick ate a few of them, however and loved them.
Of course, I always grow my favorite tasting and best producing tomato, Burpee’s Brandy Boy. It’s like the heirloom Brandywine, but is more disease resistant and higher yielding. They make the best tomato sandwiches! 
These little Chocolate Cherry tomatoes are always well received on the salad platter. They’re another open-polinated heirloom tomato that bears sweet juicy little fruits all season long. 
Whatever type you choose, shop around first. There are practically an infinite number of web sites through which you can order lots of seeds, seed starting kits, and grow light systems. Try Gardener’s Supply for your seed starting supplies, and Wayside Gardens for your seeds. Both links are available on this page.
Happy gardening!
Yesterday I picked lettuce again. I took the outer leaves from every plant and it took me about 30 minutes. I harvested enough lettuce to completely fill my garden basket and the plants still look pretty much the same! We had a big salad last night for dinner and I have a 2 gallon ziplock bag full of the remaining lettuce in the fridge. The lettuce I grow is so tender it would never make it to market unscathed. As Rick was raving about the salad he was eating, I told him “you’ll never get this kind of lettuce in the store or in a restaurant!” I encourage you to grow lettuce. It’s one of my favorite crops because not only is it beautiful, but it’s hardy in colder temperatures, produces a lot of salads over a couple of months, and it’s indescribably delicious. Last night I topped it with a few cherry tomatoes and some cubes of feta cheese and drizzled olive oil and fresh lemon juice all over it. Add a generous pinch of salt and a few coarse grinds of black pepper and voila! Delicious tender tangy fresh salad. Yum.
I’m still waiting for my onions to mature. I think the cold shocked them but they’re still alive. This week I’ll concentrate on watering them well and fertilizing them with some kelp and see if they start to fatten up. I’ve pulled a few but they were still skinny. They taste just as good but it takes 4 or 5 to highlight a salad.
This is thyme growing in the front of the lettuce bed. It is happy being in the full sun and it doesn’t encroach on the lettuce or vice versa. Fresh thyme is always a good herb to add to most savory meat dishes, onion soup, most soups for that matter. To remove the leaves, just strip the little stems from the top down. In soups, I usually tie a few sprigs together with some kitchen string so I can remove the stems when the soup’s done. It adds its own special flavor to foods, having sort of a lemony taste.
Whatever your preference, if you love it, grow it!
Happy gardening!
 These broccoli plants are still producing florets. I have to admit that I’m getting a little sick of broccoli. These plants are prolific, too. I picked them clean a few days ago, and there are probably a quart’s worth of florets on these three plants alone. My cabbage patch broccoli is also still producing.
 I have pulled the cauliflower plants, and have harvested two heads of cabbage, giving these remaining plants more room, better sun and better conditions to grow large crisp heads of cabbage. This cabbage was so sweet and tender!
My lettuce and carrot bed is also looking great. We’ve harvested 2 large bowls of lettuce already – this stuff grows like crazy.
 Isn’t it pretty? Lettuce is one of my favorite things to grow. You can’t buy this kind of lettuce in the store, I guarantee. It’s so tender. Did you know that when you pick lettuce, the plants exude a milky white fluid similar to milk weed? This disappears after a few minutes.
If you grow lettuce in South Florida, you’ll need to provide some shade for the tender leaves once the weather starts warming up. There are a few ways to do this. I saw a garden where the owner put tomato cages around the lettuce bed, then laid wood lathe trellis on top of the cages and secured them to the cages. This provides partial sun, which in our Florida summers is a good thing. This is actually also a good idea for any tomato plants you plan on growing in the summer. Once the plants are pretty big and the fruit begins to set, put a trellis over the top of the upper cage to prevent the fruit from getting sun scorched. And remember, when the sun is hot, NEVER water during the intense sunlight hours. The water acts as little magnifiers and will burn the leaves. Either water early in the morning or at dusk.
Happy gardening!
These cherry tomatoes are ripening rapidly. Just last night I harvested about 50 ripe ones. You can see that there are another 20 or so that are starting to blush on this plant alone. This variety is “Sweet Million” and I hope it lives up to its name. The fruit so far is fantastic – sweet and with that fresh acidic bite that makes them so much better than store bought.
We’ve had yet another cold front push through our sunny domain. I can’t remember having such a chilly winter since I moved to Florida in 1986. I love it. We get enough 94° weather here and I get sick of sweating. Gardening is much easier when it’s cool, too, but the fruit is slower to mature and ripen. Presently I have about 500 cherry tomatoes and 20 or more beefsteaks on the vine. The cool weather doesn’t really affect them, although it’s a well known fact that chilling tomatoes below 40º changes their flavor. I don’t think that holds true for fruit that’s still on the vine. At any rate, I’ll let them have a few days of full sun before I harvest them.
 Pictured at left is a cluster of 5 beefsteak tomatoes on the vine in my third bed. As you can see, one of these beefsteaks is already blushing. I’ll probably pick it later on today, as my neighbor just told me it’s supposed to get down into the 30’s again tonight. I have lots of blossoms again on these vines since I fertilized last week, so I’ll probably cover the tomatoes and lettuce again tonight. Sometimes the plants have a hard time setting fruit when it’s too cool, and I want my second crop of ’maters. So it’ll look like a ghost town again tonight and tomorrow. That’s ok.
Do you see how the bottoms of all my tomato plants are bare with the exception of the tomatoes themselves? That’s because I’ve stripped off all of the branches that didn’t bear fruit to give the plants more energy to feed the fruit that’s growing. Doing this also helps to prevent mildew and fungus from growing and killing the plants. It also makes them easier to photograph. But the greatest benefit is that the plants behind the tomatoes now are getting enough sunlight to grow. Tomato plants automatically lose some lower leaves anyway, so make sure to pull them off the plants as well.
Check the weather for your area – especially those of you in west Palm Beach and Broward counties. Cover if you must, and enjoy the cool temperatures.
Happy gardening!
I love a thick blanket of alfalfa and other leafy sprouts on a sandwich, no matter what they are combined with. My husband loves them almost as much as I do, so I’m constantly sprouting something. There are three different basic types of sprouts: leafy, brassica, and bean, and each has some specific sprouting techniques. All require that you clean and disinfect your sprouters before you begin. I soak mine in a sink full of hot bleach water for 15 minutes, then rinse thoroughly and dry them before beginning. This disinfection helps to prevent the sprouts from rotting on your counter. You will be providing an optimal growth environment of moisture, warmth and light; you want to make sure you’re not growing any unwanted fungi or bacteria.
Leafy, grassy sprouts such as alfalfa, clover, cress, radish, dill, fenugreek, and mustard are all small seeds that will grow into beautiful tender tasty sprouts. To sprout these, put one or two tablespoonfuls into your sprouter (if using the Easy Sprouter, make sure you have the alfalfa insert firmly pressed into the bottom.) Fill it with cold water and let them soak for 8 to 10 hours. Make sure you stir them well and break up any clumps of seeds that are holding together. After they’ve soaked, rinse and drain them well, shaking off any excess water. I bang the plastic containers on the side of the sink a few times to get all the collected water to drain out. The Easy Sprout makers recommend putting them in a nylon net bag and spinning them over your head. This works, but makes a big mess and sends the cats running for cover. Both methods accomplish one thing: removing all excess water. This is very important. If you leave the seeds too wet, they’ll mold or rot instead of growing. Repeat this rinsing and draining every 9 to 10 hours or so. Taste the seeds as they grow. You may find you like the seeds before they’re fully sprouted. At any stage you eat them, they are packed with flavor, life and nutrition.
Once the primary leaves have sprouted, the hull will come off of the seed. These are simply removed by filling the sprouter with water and letting the hulls float off the top of the water where they can be scooped out with a tablespoon. On the smaller seeds, the hulls aren’t that big of a deal. Hulls from seeds like broccoli, radish and beans are more pulpy. If not removed, these hulls will begin to ferment (read: rot) because they are now dead. I float them off with my salad spinner. Place them in the spinner basket, run cold water into it, breaking up the sprouts with your hands. The hulls will break away from the sprouts. Push down on the sprouts and the floating hulls will run right over the edge of the basket. The hulls that sink instead of floating will be in the bottom of the basket after you spin the sprouts dry.
This is also the time when the sprouts’ leaves will begin to “green up” from the light. There is no need to put them outside or in a window sill. The simplest way to green them is to put the sprout containers on the counter and leave the kitchen lights on for a day or two during the day. Once they’re the green you want, they’re finished sprouting. Rinse them one more time, drain well, and leave them to sit out for another 6 to 8 hours before putting them in the fridge. At this point, I usually put them into zipper bags and store them in my vegetable drawer.
Brassica sprouts include broccoli, cabbage and radish. Broccoli and radish seeds mixed make a delicious sprout “caviar” when eaten after soaking and then letting them drain for 12 hours. As they grow, their roots grow fine hairs on them and will look like mold growing on them. Don’t worry, it’s not mold. Just rinse them with cold water and all the little “hairs” will lie down. It’s important to break up any clumps that form when sprouting them, as this will affect the quality of the finished sprouts. These sprouts can be very spicy, and I love to put them in salads, salsas, and slaws.
Bean Sprouts: Traditional mung bean sprouts (the kind you get in Chinese food) are also easy to grow. Soak the beans for 12 hours. Rinse and drain well with cold water. Put a weight on them (I use another sprout container filled with water) and put them under the counter in the dark somewhere. They grow best under pressure and in the dark. (These sprouts will only get fat and white if you grow them like this. Otherwise, they’ll be skinnier and sprout green leaves, at which point they begin to get tough.) Rinse, drain and repeat three times a day. When the hulls separate from the sprouts, put them in your salad spinner filled with cold water, skim off all of the hulls, drain and spin several times and store in the fridge in a plastic zipper bag. They’ll keep for weeks.
Some legumes, like lentils, beans and peas are ready to eat in 36 to 48 hours. They are grown in much the same way. Soak them for 10 to 12 hours, then rinse and drain well and repeat the rinsing and draining until you observe the little germ emerge from one end of the bean. Lentils sprout in 24 hours. These are my favorites because they’re so versatile. We sprinkle them on salads, in soups, in mashed potatoes, in casseroles, really in just about every savory thing I make. They are little protein powerhouses and add a wonderful crunch and live taste to everything. Adzuki, garbanzo, mung, lentils, peas and peanuts are all great mixed together and sprouted together. Try making sprouted lentil soup some time. Using sprouted lentils of every variety you can find, follow your favorite recipe as usual, only reduce your cooking time by half. Sprinkle some live raw sprouts on top of each bowl for a great garnish. Sprout multiple kinds of beans for soup. I often sprout the dry 15 bean soup mixes I find at the grocery store. Sprouting beans before you cook them provides the much needed enzymes that aid in digestion. If you sprout your beans before cooking them there will be no need for Beano.
Happy sprouting!
All year long I grow sprouts on my kitchen counter. I grow all kinds of sprouts, too: leafy sprouts like alfalfa, clover, fenugreek, mustard, dill, and arugula, along with grains, lentils, peas, and numerous beans. No matter what the weather is outside, we enjoy these fresh bursts of nutrition in salads, on sandwiches, in soups, even as a snack all by themselves.
I’m one of those people who loves sprouts of any kind. For years, I bought them in the local produce section, but was often put off by news stories of salmonella in store bought sprouts, and I found that they spoiled rather quickly in my fridge. I decided one day to invest in a couple of easy sprouters, some seeds, and my salads haven’t been the same since!
There are a variety of sprouters available, and like most things in life, I’ve found that the simpler, the better. I particularly like a product called the Easy Sprouter, available here: www.sproutamo.com . This unit is inexpensive, foolproof even in the hot Florida summer climate (where sprouts tend to rot on the counter), and also doubles as a storage unit for the grown sprouts in the refrigerator.
Sprouting seeds, beans, nuts and lentils is a great way to maximize the nutrition in your food. Sprout your beans before you cook them and say goodbye to gas. Everyone knows to soak their beans overnight before cooking, but if you rinse them after soaking, and allow them to sprout for 24 hours, rinsing every 8 hours or so until the little germ appears at one end, you’ve successfully caused the digestive enzymes to flourish in the bean. Now you have no need for digestive enzyme supplements! Your sprouted beans are tender enough to toss into salads, and cook very quickly. Sprouted lentils, garbanzo beans, dried peas, peanuts and almonds are all an easily digested source of protein and can be sprinkled on soups, salads, pasta, sandwiches, eggs, or rice and add a nice crunch and the fresh live enzymes that enhance digestion.
You can have these fresh vegetables in 3 to 4 days, and a tablespoon of small seeds like alfalfa, broccoli, radish, cress, fenugreek, dill, arugula and clover produces over two cups of sprouts. Larger beans like mung, garbanzo, peas, adzuki, and lentils also produce sprouts in abundance. I use ½ cup of these in a sprouter, as opposed to 2 Tbsp. of the small seeds.
There are many web sites devoted to sprouting and buying seeds, nuts, beans and legumes. I love the www.sproutpeople.com site for its vast wealth of information, and their seed mixes are wonderful. I follow their sprouting instructions rather than the instructions that come with my sprouters, and I have great success with every batch.
Micro greens are a current gourmet addition to many restaurants. They are sprouts that are allowed to grow to about two to three inches in height, at which time you trim them rather than eat the roots. They are simple to grow on your counter. The easiest way to grow them is on a hemp bag or baby blanket soaked in water, resting on a sheet pan.
These fingertip gardens are fun to grow, fun for children to learn about how things grow, and are a great source of live food for your family in any crisis situation. A few pounds of seeds can keep your family in fresh live food for over a year, so they are well worth the initial expense. They are a delicious addition to our diet. My favorite sandwich is still avocado, cream cheese, tomato and sprouts on whole grain nutty bread. Experiment to discover what types of sprouts or micro greens are your favorites then enjoy growing your own.
Stay tuned; tomorrow I’ll share my foolproof method for growing sprouts. Life feeds on life!
Happy gardening.
Square foot gardening is the best way to maximize your garden’s growing potential. I’ve done it both with and without the help of grids like the one pictured above. Mel Bartholomew says that the grids are essential for utilizing every possible inch of space in your raised beds, and his web site sells both these wood lathe grids as well as other types. I bought these one year, thinking that they were pre-assembled. They weren’t. What arrived was no more than 1″ wood lathe strips with some holes drilled in them, along with some plastic clips to hold them together. What cost me over $60 at Mel’s site could have been purchased at Home Depot for under $25. Now I know. While the grids are great for keeping your garden in order as well as for spacing of plants, there were two things I didn’t like about these particular lathe grids. I felt that I was wasting all the space UNDER the wood, and they were so big they impeded the placement of my tomato cages. I won’t use this type again.
Another method of marking your grids is with string. By pounding a few large-headed nails into your beds every foot, you provide an anchor for the stringing. These nails also can be used as an anchor for your trellis netting. I like this method the best. Even though I have to redo the grids every season, they don’t get in my way and I can ignore them for things like tomato plants, which take up 4 square feet per plant.
Here’s an example of a planting guide utilizing the square foot method. This particular bed is a salad bed, and as you can see, the tomato and eggplants both take up the back half of the bed, each utilizing 4 square feet. Looking back at the guide on the right, I plan an entire square at least for each crop. The spacing depends on the plants. Onions can be started at 36 per square foot, or 6 rows of 6 onions per square. As they grow, thin them by pulling a few spring onions to use for salads, so that eventually there are 16 per square foot, with a 3″ spacing between them. Carrots and radishes can be spaced 16 per square, as can lettuce in the beginning. Peppers need one square foot per plant, and basil and marigolds can be tucked in wherever they’ll get sun, usually around the tomato or pepper plants.
When I use seed tape, I don’t mark off the squares, as in my lettuce and carrot bed. I still utilize the grid spacing, but divide the bed into four equal rectangles, 1′ x 4′ as below. This allows me to plant 4′ long rows of lettuce and carrots quickly and easily. I like seed tape because it makes planting tiny seeds so much easier than sowing by hand.
Plan your planting, then mark your grids (or don’t.) Enjoy the time outside with your Creator, and above all,
Happy gardening!
The addition of wasabi makes this dish outstanding. This recipe utilizes fresh herbs from your garden as well. You can peel the potatoes if you like; I prefer them with the peels on. Serves 4
- 4 medium large potatoes
- 1/4 c. milk
- 1 tsp. wasabi powder or 2 tsp wasabi paste
- 2 Tbsp. butter
- 3 Tbsp. Greek yogurt or sour cream
- 1 Tbsp. minced parsley
- 1 Tbsp. minced chives
- salt and pepper to taste
Scrub the potatoes, remove any eyes and cut into large chunks. Cover with water and bring to a boil, adding 2 tsp salt to the water. Boil for about 15 minutes or until a paring knife can be easily inserted into the center of the largest chunks. While the potatoes are boiling, stir the wasabi powder into the milk until dissolved. Let it sit while the potatoes cook; this will develop the heat in the wasabi.
When potatoes are done, drain them well and put them back into the pot you used to boil them. Add remaining ingredients and mash until they’re smashed but still have some lumps. Serve immediately.
Let me preface this post by saying that the best soil amendment is organic compost made from a variety of vegetation. It will have the greatest amount of nutrients for your plants. Mel Bartholomew recommends that whenever you pull a plant, work in some compost in that square and re-plant. There are plenty of articles on the Internet on making your own compost.
I like to keep it simple when it comes to fertilizers. I always top my beds off with a mixture of Miracle Gro moisture control potting soil and peat moss, mixed with worm castings (which I buy from Gardener’s.) The potting soil has little slow release fertilizer balls in it and gives a nice boost to growing plants. When the tomato plants begin to blossom, I fertilize them with either Miracle Gro for Tomatoes, or a nice organic tomato fertilizer that I get from Gardener’s Supply. And I always use Sea Magic, a powdered kelp fertilizer that’s full of micro nutrients. It has astounding results, producing more tomatoes with better flavor (as well as nutrition, I would think) than plants grown without it. Last week I noticed that the Whopper tomato plant of mine was turning yellow. I dumped a big glug of Sea Magic concentrate right around the stem. The next day the leaves were green, and the plant was vigorous once again.
Corn needs nitrogen, so you want to pick a high nitrogen fertilizer for your corn bed. I used a dried blood product one year. It smelled so bad I never used it again, but it worked, sending my corn into it’s own kind of heaven. It greened up and shot right up. Other organic fertilizers include fish meal, fish solutions and manure derivatives.
You will notice that the fertilizer packages have three numbers on them, known as the N P K values. These numbers stand for the nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium content and represent the percentages of these nutrients. Multi purpose fertilizers may be 8-8-8, meaning they contain 8% Nitrogen, 8% Phosphorus and 8% Potassium. A tomato fertilizer will usually have a higher percentage of Phosphorus, and the numbers might read 8-16-8. Rock Phospate will read 0-10-0 or even 0-30-0 for triple strength rock phosphate. A higher concentration of this mineral is great for carrots and root veggies. Higher phosphorus values will help your tomato and eggplants to send out blooms, hence more fruit. High nitrogen fertilizers may read 15-5-5 or 15-10-10. Nitrogen helps the green foliage of your plants. Too much nitrogen in your tomato fertilizer will decrease your fruit yield, however, so stick to a tomato fertilizer for these plants.
The numbers are no mystery but if you’re confused, just get a multipurpose fertilizer for all the green stuff growing, add some rock phosphate to the root veggies and nightshades (tomatoes, peppers), use a good tomato fertilizer for your nightshades and always mix them with a fish emulsion or kelp fertilizer like Sea Magic.
Foliar sprays are readily absorbed. There are many ways to do this; I like to keep it simple. I put about 1/2 cup of Miracle Gro tomato fertilizer powder into the Miracle Gro sprayer attachment, and fill it up with Sea Magic concentrated liquid. (One packet of Sea Magic makes one gallon of concentrate.) The sprayer will dilute it to an acceptable level. I spray the foliage, especially the undersides of the leaves where the most nutrients are absorbed. It’s simple, quick and effective. This mix will usually result in a second production of blossoms, facilitating a second harvest from most varieties.
Spray in the morning or evening, and not before or after a rain or irrigation. Keep it simple and fertilize at least every 2 weeks.
Happy gardening!
|
Order BiotaMax Today at www.biotamax.com. Put my name (Marian) in the referral box so they know I sent you.
Ask the Gardener for Easy Sprouters Do you have questions? Email me via the contact page. If I don't have your answer, I'll try to find someone who does.
For information on ordering the Easy Sprout sprouters at a discounted price, email me via this page.
I love this sprinkler and these tomato cages.
|
Recent Comments