February—A Month of Contrasts

While most of the east and Midwest were getting slammed by horrendous snowstorms and flooding the first part of the month, here in Northern California we experienced another “false spring”, much like we had last year. Temperatures reached into the 70’s in some places with the resulting warmth causing many of the winter vegetables to bolt.

My Pak Choi varieties took the biggest hit, including ‘White Stem’, ‘Ching Chang’ and ‘Tatsoi’. But the 4” pots of ‘Tatsoi’ setting on top of the compost bed were not bolting, instead growing into huge, substantial plants. I didn’t have a spot for them in the garden so the pots were set over the fallow compost bed, along with some pots of Collards and Broccoli. I just bunched up the soil around them and left them for the winter. Their extremely healthy, robust growth confirmed what I was trying to change in my composting practices: switching from composting in separate bins to composting right in the garden bed.

For years I had been tending to 6 compost bins, made of circles of chicken wire that would get
filled with leaves, grass clippings, garden waste and kitchen scraps. Once one bin was filled, it was left to compost on its’ own while I filled the next bin. Usually every spring and every fall I would sift out the finished compost and work it into the cinderblock beds that are my vegetable gardens. It was great for keeping the soil loose and made gardening in the beds really easy to work in.

But I found that I had to add more fertilizers to get good growth from my vegetables as the years went on. And last years winter garden just didn’t have any oomph at all. Not only that, all of the cabbages, kale, kohlrabi, and Brussels sprouts got hit with a massive infestation of gray aphids and no amount of hosing off or insecticidal soap would stop them. My summer plants didn’t fare much better. The bush beans, melons, tomatoes and peppers just didn’t seem to thrive. Something was lacking in the soil.

I looked over where 3 of the compost bins were on one side of the yard, and then to where the other 3 bins were on the other side of the yard. Plants all around them were thriving and even getting a bit pushy. It was my eureka moment. All the wonderful nutrients that were being made from the breakdown of the compost by the microbes, earthworms and soil bugs were benefiting whatever plants that were reaching their roots under the piles. By the time I would haul the ‘finished’ compost to my garden beds, a good portion of the nutrients were used up.

That’s when a second light bulb came on. Why don’t I compost right in one of my cinderblock beds? It would mean keeping one of 5 beds fallow for a season to build up the nutrients, but it was worth a try. And to make a richer garden bed, I decided to concentrate on vermiculture to produce earthworm castings right in the garden bed.

So last October, I began to put all the kitchen scraps in one bed: egg shells, coffee grounds, fruit scraps and vegetable scraps only. No leaves and no grass clippings, just the type of food earthworms would love and could break down quickly into nutritious castings.

Now I can see how well it’s already working with the pak choi, collards, and kohlrabi—and with them still in their pots! Contrast that growth with the sluggish growth of the cabbage, kale, and Brussels sprouts that I planted last month in another tired bed.

One more month of feeding the bed should be enough, then one more month to let the earthworms finish everything off and it will be just the right time to put in tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and melons. I can taste them already!

Seed Catalog Orders

Now is the time to start going through your seed catalogs and putting in orders. Here are a few plants I’d recommend trying since they’ve done well for me in the past with few problems. These would be especially good for gardeners just getting started with growing vegetables for the first time.

Basil ‘Italian Large Leaf’—easy to grow and a constant supply of leaves for cooking well into September.

Beets ‘Cylindra’—very sweet with a deep beet flavor. The best beet flavor I have tasted in any variety. They’re long instead of round.

Broccoli ‘Premium Crop’—plants grow up to 2 feet tall and have very tight florets up to 5 inches in diameter. Delicious flavor.

Cauliflower ‘Self-Blanche’—absolutely delicious heads up to 5” in diameter, with a mild flavor and light sweetness. I’m not a cauliflower lover but having tasted it right out of the garden has changed my mind.

Cucumber ‘Armenian Yard Long’—very easy to grow vining cucumber that’s really a melon. You’ll be picking 12” long “cukes” within 6 weeks of planting.

Cucumber ‘Boston Pickling’—an old variety of pickling cucumber that can be harvested continuously once it starts producing. Excellent sliced up in salads.

Sorrel ‘Large Leaf’—a vigorous plant that forms a tight mound with leaves that can be harvested for soups and salads. It’s a perennial and makes a great source for greens year-round.

Kale ‘Nero Di Toscana’—also known as Black Palm this kale has very dark crimply leaves up to 10 inches long. Very winter hardy.

Lettuce ‘Nevada’—this is a Batavia type lettuce resembling an iceberg but a bit looser leaves. It is virtually resistant to insect or disease problems like tipburn, bolting, and downy mildew. Outer leaves are huge but just as sweet and flavorful as inner leaves. My number one favorite lettuce both for ease of growing and for flavor.

Lettuce ‘Paris White Cos’—a Romaine type lettuce heirloom from 1879. Super easy to grow in small garden areas since it grows upright rather than spreading out. Harvest outer leaves as the head matures. It has a very clean, rich lettuce flavor. Seeds may be hard to find; mine were from Burpee.

Mustard ‘Mizuna’—a graceful mounding plant with feathery leaves, this mustard is a must for novice gardeners to try. The leaves have a slight peppery taste and can be mixed with salad greens or added to oriental soups and stir-fries. Plant ‘Mizuna’ in the flower garden for a softening effect and for coverage of spring bulbs after blooming.

Onion ‘Red Wing’—these beautiful, glossy burgundy onions are super easy to grow and can take a lot of neglect. Pull the largest bulbs from the first season, store the smaller ones over winter in a cool place and plant out again the following year to increase the bulb size. It’s not a big onion, maybe up to 3” in diameter. The flavor is sharp and sweet and lends a great color to salads.

Baby Pak Choi ‘Green Fortune’—a newer heat-resistant variety that is slower to bolt than most pak choi varieties. It grows very compact and can even be grown in cinder block holes. When the plants do begin to bolt in early February, you can eat flower stems and all.

Pepper ‘Anaheim’—if you’re new to growing peppers or are worried about growing a variety that’s too hot, try the ‘Anaheim’ pepper. It has mild heat and is great in hot dishes like eggs and soups and, of course, stuffed as chili rellano. The plants stay under 2 feet and once flowering starts the bushes will produce peppers until the killing frosts in December.

Pumpkin ‘Sugar Pie’—this compact pumpkin grows very quickly and can have 6-8 pound pumpkins ready to harvest by early September. It stores well once picked and is excellent roasted with butter and brown sugar. The pulp also makes wonderful fresh tasting pumpkin pies.

Swiss Chard ‘Bright Lights’—no other Swiss Chard can stand next to this variety for ease of growth and its festival of colors. Delicious and colorful in soups and stir fries. Harvesting of the leaves can go on year round.

Pineapple Ground Cherry—for the sheer delight of trying something new, grow some ground cherries. It’s related to the tomatillo but has a taste between a walnut and a sweet green tomato. Different, yes, but well worth a try. Plants are very vigorous and fill out a 4-foot garden space quickly. Fruiting is constant and heavy.

Tomato ‘Burbank’—with hundreds of varieties of tomatoes available I still come back to the ‘Burbank’ for old-fashioned clean tomato flavor, juiciness and low acid. Introduced in 1915 by Luther Burbank, this tomato does very well in Zone 9 conditions. My seeds came from Seeds of Change.

Tomato ‘Green Grape’—Wow! Is all I can say for this tomato. I grew it for the first time this year from seeds given to me by a friend and can’t stop praising it. It’s a cherry type tomato that grows on very vigorous bushes that are covered with greenish-gold/red tomatoes. The intense, sweet-tomato flavor explodes in a mouthful of juice. The seeds I planted are from Heirloom Seeds and “came from Ruby Arnold (Aunt Ruby) of Greenville, Tennessee who passed away in 1997”.

Zucchini ‘Eight Ball’—most everyone grows zucchini in their vegetable gardens since it’s one of the easiest, and may I say prolific, vegetables to grow. So I want to suggest one of the more unusual ones, the ‘Eight Ball’. Different in shape from most zukes, the ‘Eight Ball’ is perfect for stuffing when it’s just under 4” in diameter. And it has a more distinctive zucchini flavor.

The Sun finally broke through the high fog today after many damp, dreary days. It's a good day to start my garden blog.

One of the reasons for my blog is to critique vegetables and flowers I've started from seeds to help Zone 9 gardeners choose plant varieties that do well under our weather conditions.

The plants are all grown in raised cinderblock beds (2 bricks high) and I compost directly into the beds at least 2 months before planting (more on that coming up).

All of my seeds are started in 6-paks that I'm reusing from nursery plants, then I transfer them to 4" pots once they've grown large enough to transplant.

I've been working on seed starting times based on harvest times and weather conditions. All seeds are started outside, with the 6-paks fully exposed to the weather conditions.

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So, here are my first plant notes for my winter-spring vegetables, all planted today in one bed where the soil is loose and moist from our past rains:

• Brussels Sprouts 'Long Island Improved' --started 8/23/10. Transplanted 4 4-inch pots. The roots were good but not excessive. Plants are 7-8" tall with light leaf chewing.

• Cabbage 'Late Flat Dutch' --started 8/27/10. Transplanted 4 4-inch pots. Roots light. Plants 8" tall with leaf spread 8-10". The stems are bare the first 3". A little bit of chewing on the leaves.

• Kale 'Dwarf Essex Rape' --started 8/26/10. Transplanted 2 4-inch pots. These plants are very healthy compared to last years. Roots are very heavy and thick. The leaf spread is over 18" and there is very little chewing on the leaves.