2008 Garden Awards and Yearbook

And now, ladies and gentlemen, awards and accolades will be presented to the best garden performers of 2008!

Most Aptly Named:
Provider Green Bean

Most Adorable:
Hakurei Turnip
8-Ball Zucchini (runner up)

Biggest Disappointment:
Carson Yellow Wax Bean

Least Successful Category:
Tomatoes
Bell Peppers (runner up)

Most Successful Category:
Turnips

Category I wish I had more of:
Carrots

Category I wish I had less of:
Greens

Most Pleasant Surprise:
Amour Pickling Cucumber
Celery (runner up)

Most Useless Vegetable of All Time:
Kholrabi

Most Underutilized (by me):
Summerfest Komatsuna Greens
Goldberg Golden Purslane

Most Prolific per Area:
Purple Top White Globe Turnip
Sunburst Patty Pan Summer Squash

Sunburst

Most Rewarding per Effort:
The Herb Garden

Cool Names:

• Scarlet Queen Turnip (most evocative)

The Scarlet Queen

• White Satin Carrot (sexiest)

White Satin

• Sugarsnax Carrot (most descriptive)

• Provider Green Bean (most apt)

• Purple Top White Globe Turnip (most obvious)

Exactly what it looks like.

• Cupidon French Filet Bean (most lyrical)

Cupidon, by W. A. Bouguereau.

• 8-Ball Summer Squash (most amusing)

Eight Ball

Described as "Moon Food":
Purple Kholrabi
Toscano Kale
Sunburst Patty Pan Summer Squash

Most Beautiful:
Redleaf Amaranth
Garnet Giant Mustard Greens

Most Unpleasant Tasting:
Garnet Giant Mustard Greens

Agreed Upon as Most Delicious:
Cauliflower

And finally...

If I had to take one variety with me on a space ship/desert island:
Provider Green Bean (greatest overall nutrition, yield, and ease of growing)

If I were to sow one variety in the garden of my enemies:
Garnet Giant Mustard Greens

Planting Turnips, Carrots, Radishes, Greens, Green Onions and assorted seedlings

Whoo hoo I did it! I finished planting everything I needed to get into the ground right away. The only things left are finding space for the remaining cole crop seedlings and digging a mound for my fall garlic planting. I finished not a moment too soon, since we're expected to get pounded by storms this evening.

Freshly planted garden, viewed from the SW corner.

And from the NE corner. Yeah, my rows aren't perfectly straight, but I don't think the plants will care.

July 16th Planted:

Roots

• Hakurei Turnip (38 days)
• Purple-Top White Globe Turnip (55 days)
• White Satin Carrot (68 days)
• Sugarsnax Carrot (68 days)
• Miyashige Daikon Radish (50 days)
• Scarlet Queen Green Stem Turnip (43 days)
• Shunkyo Semi-Long Radish (32 days)

Greens

• Garnet Giant Mustard Greens
• Toscano Kale
• Champion Collards
• Redleaf Amaranth
• Goldberg Golden Purslane
• Summerfest Komatsuna Greens
  
• Cooking Sorrel

Onions

• Evergreen Hardy White Bunching Onion
• Nabechan Bunching Onion

Cucurbits

• 8-Ball Summer Squash (2nd planting)
• Sunburst Patty Pan Summer Squash (2nd planting)
• Amour Pickling Cuke (2nd planting)

Misc. Seedlings

• 2 Watermelon Seedlings (var. unknown)
• 4 Cayenne Pepper Seedlings
• 4 Brussels Sprouts Seedlings
• 2 Purple Kohlrabi Seedlings

For most of the plantings I did a box-style layout, giving turnips 6-8" and carrots and radishes 2-3". I planted a lot of the Hakurei turnips, because I liked them so much. I really hope they grow well. The greens should be exciting too, though I don't know if the kale and collards will get beyond the 'micro-greens' stage. I tried to arrange the root crops so that the quick-maturing varieties were in a very sunny spot, which I can sow with a fall crop of greens or peas.

At this point my space is pretty much used up. I'm kicking myself for not having the neighbor till the garden further east, but I was too lazy to move the giant rock pile out of the middle of the paddock. Most of the west side is unusable because of the shade from the maple trees. Oh well...I can always refine it next year.

In other news, my peppers are looking droopy. I'm trying to water them well, but they just won't perk up. Maybe with the coming rainstorm, all the fertilizer will be mobilized and the plants can take it up and be happy. If the peppers bite the dust I'll gladly plant other stuff in their place, since it's prime real estate.

Fertilizing, Planting Beans

I had hoped to plant my beans in the cool of the evening last night, but I had forgotten to order rhizobium inoculant. I know it's not essential, as there should be some living in the soil already, but it's strongly recommended for first-time gardens. Planting so late, I didn't want to take a chance by not using it. I called around a few places, but they asked like I'd asked for the spleen of Jimmy Hoffa, so I gave up on planting last night. This morning I was in luck--I called Joel's Greenhouse in Pine Island and they had some packets left. It's really a great greenhouse (I hadn't gone before because the quickest route there is a gravel road that my Hyundai hates), and I couldn't resist buying a few other things.

I got a cayenne pepper plant, a burpless bush cucumber, an acorn squash seedling, some curly parsley, and some dill seeds. Can never have too much parsley around here. I also picked up a pair of fine-tipped Fiskars snippers like mom has, and a pair of lightweight gloves with nitrile fingertips, which are both very difficult to find. I think the seedlings, which were very well-established, must have only run me $8 or 9 since everything's on sale. Their prices are higher than at the garden stand by The Hub, but they had far better quality and selection, so I'll probably use them exclusively next year.

Fertilizing

Since I haven't had a year to accumulate any compost or develop the soil, I decided to use synthetic fertilizers. I picked up a bag of Vigoro Tomato and Vegetable Fertilizer, which is 12-10-5 plus some micronutrients. I probably should have added this when I was planting, but I didn't have any yet. I sprinkled something approximating the recommended amount around the tomatoes, peppers, and cabbages. Since I had to sprinkle it over mulch, I have no idea how much will actually make it to the root zone, but I figure that something is better than nothing. It wasn't expensive, just $3.66/bag and I'll only need 1.5 bags. I tried not to get any on the leaves or stems, for fear of causing fertilizer burn. I also integrated a small amount into the soil before planting the beans (I tried to keep it minimal because I didn't want to discourage the rhizobium.

July 15th: Planting the Beans

These I planted across the mound, next to the peppers (which are planted along the south side of the mound). I planted two rows of four beans 12" apart and 36" from the next set of two rows. The beans were spaced at 2-3" within the rows. After placing the beans in each furrow, I sprinkled the rhizobium inoculant on top and buried the beans 1" deep. I watered well and mulched the area between the sets of double rows. The soil is nice and warm, so hopefully they will germinate quickly. If I find any gaps in a few days I'll plant more seeds.

The varieties were: Cupidon French Filet, Carson's Yellow Wax, Provider Snap Beans, and Jumbo Green Beans. I alternated rows of these to allow for within-mound variation.

I bought the smallest packets of each, and each one contained a ton of seeds, so I may sow some more in a low-demand area and see if they grow. Maybe I should clear an area next to the fence so they can grow up it.

Getting your seed shipment may be even more exciting than getting new shoes.

Planting the Seedlings: Tomatoes, Peppers, and Cabbages

This weekend I began planting the starts. I planted:

July 11th : tomatoes
July 13th: cabbages and peppers

I also threw the dill plants into the ground because they were looking so wretched. I have little faith that they'll survive, but it's worth a shot. I still have more cole crops to plant, it's just a matter of finding sunny space for them.

Variety-wise, I basically went with what was available at the garden stand. The tomatoes are a random assortment including Better Boy, Brandywine, Rutgers, and some yellow full-size and cherry toms. The cabbages included Savoy, Stonehead, Discover, and Red Acre. The peppers weren't well-labeled, but I think they were all sweet peppers.

For all the seedlings, I tried to mix the varieties around so that I wouldn't have all of one type in a single location, in case that spot's bad for growing.

I also took a few approaches to the planting itself. The tomatoes were really leggy, so I removed their bottom leaves and buried them quite deep. Since they were already so tall, I had to mound soil up around them to keep the stems buried. This might have been a bad approach from a water management perspective. I mulched heavily around the mounds using oat straw. I placed the tomatoes in the second row from the north. They will get excellent sun there, but won't be shaded by taller plants. I may have spaced them a bit close--I used a checkerboard pattern with ~24" between plants, giving 3 offset rows in the mound. If I get a single tomato out of this I will be amazed.

When I watered the tomatoes I noticed that a lot of the water was running into the walkways, so I took a slightly different approach with the peppers. These I placed on the furthest north mound, where they will be next to the green beans, but not in their shadow. Between the peppers and the beans I made a trench, where most of the water flows. I hope this will make a little reservoir of moist soil whenever it rains or I water. I have not mulched these yet and I'm not sure if I will.

For planting the cabbages I got cleverer still. I placed each cabbage plant in a small depression, so that they will be surrounded by moist soil after I water and the water won't run into the walkways. I mulched heavily between the plants to discourage weeds, hold more water, and keep the soil cool. I've heard that cabbage roots are delicate and they often don't survive transplanting. I tried to be gentle with them, but they were terribly root-bound in the pots. I teased the seedlings apart while holding the rootmass in a pail of water--a technique I perfected on swallow-wort, of course. So hopefully these little guys will survive. I would really like to put up a bunch of sauerkraut from my own garden.

Next I need to plant the herbs and I'm trying to monitor the garden to find a sunny spot that's not in high demand from vegetables. I will be receiving my seeds early next week and then I will plant those.