Green thumb?

It's already mid-80s here and I have yet to plan the garden. So tomorrow is garden day: peas, beans, lettuce, tomato, and maybe corn and sunflowers. :) My husband and I wrote a plant based love poem for Valentine's day the seems applicable:

Roses are brown.
Violets are brown.
It must be time-
To get out of town.

Welcome to more Southern Arizona gardening!

Motatoes

Last year, I noticed one bushy little plant and another spiny looking plant growing in our backyard. We hadn't planted anything yet, but the one looked vaguely like a tomato and the other looked like onion. I left them, just to combat the urge that most desert dwellers have of removing all green things (as they are generally weeds). Turns out it was, in fact, a tomato and not, in fact, an onion. Still not sure what it is. This winter blessed us with a few hard freezes, so the tomato plant died, while the unidentified spiny thing still lives on, but not without bestowing some lovely tomatoes. None were ripe before I picked them in order to avoid the freeze, but after sitting in a sunny window long enough, they did ripen. Tasty!

Once we came to the runty, end of the line, last to ripen, tomatoes, I realized I should save some seeds. How does one save tomato seeds? A consult with Dr. Google revealed that the seeds must ferment in order to something, and such and such, and so forth. I understood enough to place the seeds in water for a while,  with regular rinsing, until scummy stuff starts growing and then go from there. Dutifully, I put the seeds in water on top of the fridge and ignored them... for several days, a lot of several days, until I noticed that a few, or all of them actually, were sprouting. Apparently the soak had worked and these were viable seeds. So we put them in a pot and now, for the first time ever, I have grown a tomato plant from seed. Proud moment. Hopefully they will survive to be more than the current 2 inch height.

Garden: Summer 2012

This weekend marks the beginning of the Summer 2012 Gardening Experience. We're growing Botanical Gardens here! We planted basil on Friday and pole beans on Saturday. Guess who already has basil sprouting?!

The secret? I soaked the seeds for a few hours before planting. Sure, it's a little early to report, but after returning from vacation to a drooping and dried basil plant that had a tragically short life, I'm excited to have pesto possibilities once again.

Maybe the beans will come up tomorrow...or the next day. We hope to add in tomatoes and possibly strawberries. Since we recently expanded our outdoor living space, we have more room to grow stuff, though we still need pots to hold the plants. Or maybe we can build one of these.

Someday my garden might look like the photo, only with more edibles. But, it has to start at the very beginning...and I live in the desert. That doesn't mean I have to stop dreaming!

Please don't eat me!

I like wildlife. I even like little animals in my garden. But we have a problem. The leaves on some of our plants started looking like this (see photos) this week. It didn't look like bugs, because it had kind of a beaky look to the bite marks. I wondered if lizards ate leaves...? and I wondered if birds ate leaves. After much pondering, I still hadn't come up with an answer, until yesterday when I found a little yellow bird standing on our bamboo pole pecking at a tomato leaf. Scandalous!

So now it's time to decide how to stop the problem, maybe

without destroying the wildlife... though the cat stuck up the tree last week during the thunder storm was a bit of a bother, mostly because her owners were whistling at 11:00 pm trying to get her down, which really wasn't very effective. So far I have only thought of netting, and have yet to try it. If you have other opinions or ideas, please share.

Pineapple

Say Hello to my pineapple. I grew it with the help of my brother. It took 5 years to mature, which happened to be the time my parents were considering permanent removal. Luckily, it started blooming about the same time they got serious about taking it out.

My brother and I each took the top of a store-grown pineapple, let it dry for a few days, to prevent root-rot, and then planted it. We watered, watched, and mostly waited until 4.5 years later, on the day I was leaving for Stockholm, I noticed a flower stalk coming out of the center. It was a proud moment. 6 months later, we enjoyed the fruits of our labors, well, fruit. Bugs ate the other one.

What I learned:

• It's actually possible to grow pineapple, and no, they still don't grow underground, as I've often heard.
• Drying out the pineapple is necessary! It will rot otherwise.
• Some suggest watering from the top of the plant rather than at the base. That way the water catches in the leaves, like rainwater.
• Patience is a virtue - a very tasty one!
• The plant needs a good amount of sun and good soil. Our plants had mediocre soil and semi good sun. Maybe that's why it took so long.
• Experts, if anyone online is an expert, suggest placing an apple core in the plant center and covering the plant with a plastic garbage bag for a week to encourage flower growth. I tried it and it mostly burned the plant cause it got too hot under the bag.
• The flower is really cool! It's blue!
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Lettuce...eat!

In light of the new food guide, here's another segment on how our tiny garden spot is contributing to the vegetable group.

Lettuce is a spring and fall crop, though I tried during the winter too, since it is usually mild here. That didn't work too well, but once it warmed up a bit, they did fairly well for having less than a square foot space to grow. The photo is the final harvest, and though it's not much, nutritionally or monetarily, it has added to the fun in our food. It's been 100 F enough, and they gave baked often enough, that it is time to pull out for a new summer vegetable, still TBD.

Things to remember:

• As always, avoid over watering!
• Plant every two weeks during the spring and fall, or when you have spring and fall like weather, in order to have a constant crop. This what I want to try next time.
• Harvesting the leaves increases production.
• The variety lettuce pack is nice because of the...variety!
• Once it gets too warm, the plant will send up a flower stalk. Clip it off to force the plant to produce a little longer, though it means that the leaves are going to get tougher.

(Does you know how to make the font color change? I highlight the word and tell it to change, so it does, but it doesn't publish that way. I could learn html, and edit that way, but why doesn't it just behave?)

Pea pests - Spider mites

Much to my dismay, the pea plants came under attack last week. As I picked our scrumptious single pod, I noticed the leaves at the base of the plants turning yellow and drying out. Initially, it looked like the 85-90 F weather was killing them off, yet the top of the plants still looked fine. I took a closer look and found the largest plant covered in these little teeny black dots under all the leaves. (My tune in my head suddenly switched to the song about 'Little Black Things' that my dear brother taught me. Thank you, dear brother.) They moved all over and had built little webs at the base of each leaf. After some research, I figured they were spider mites and wanted them gone. They survive off the the juice in the leaves, which ends up killing the plants.

So, after more research, I found an at home recipe to get ride of them here. I used a modified version, since 1/2 gallons of this stuff was a little much for my tiny garden.

Recipe: 2 cups of water

5 Tablespoons potato flakes

1 Tablespoon buttermilk.

Stir. Apply.

Potato flour might have dissolved better, but I have yet to find some. So, I loaded my mixture into a washed out hairspray bottle that we had just finished off, and sprayed this all over the plants, especially on the bottom of the leaves. This is supposed to suffocate the little guys. After it dried for about a day, I washed it off and it looks like all the mites have gone to their Maker, though I will keep checking for signs of return. Maybe the plants will survive long enough to give us TWO pods now!

Peas

Peas straight from the pod put a smile on my face, so they got a spot in my little garden. We planted in September or October the first time, since winter only lasts about a week around here, so we felt pretty good about it. The one or two pea plants grew about 3 inches in their short life. Undaunted, I tried again, this time planting about 15 peas in just a few inches, hoping some would come up. It took a few weeks, but eventually 1, then 2 more, and now 6 plants are growing. Most experience gardeners would tell me to thin them, in such a tiny space, but I didn't because 1) it's hard throwing out perfectly good plants, 2) the hot season is fast approaching, so I wanted to let the survival of the fittest define a winner, not myself, and 3) I just wanted something to survive, and maybe get that one pea pod, fresh and tasty!

And today, as we speak, two little pea pods are on their way to consumption, as seen in the photo. There is even a third blossom, but it is a race between it and the drying leaves at the bottom to see who wins out. I'm cheering for the blossom.

Things to know

• Peas are self-pollinating, meaning the blossoms are built in a way that one flower can pollinate itself without the need for bees, insects, or humans with brushes to produce a pod.
• Peas need a good amount of water, but remember that over-watering is really easy in a container.
• Peas grow best in 75 F (~24 C) or less, though freezing is maybe a bit too nippy. These 90 F days have not killed the plants yet, but they aren't really happy about it.
• Staking, tying, trellising, or using vertical space in anyway is a good thing. We tie the plants to a bamboo rod using a stable, but stretchy material, like t-shirt material. If the tie has no stretch, it can cut into the plant and will break off the shoots. If it is too stretchy, the plant will flop over, covering up valuable ground space for other plants.
• Peas can grow in partial shade. These plants get about 3 hours direct light on a good day and some dappled light for another 3 hours. So far, that's been okay.

Further research ideas:

• What natural fertilizers do peas like best?
• Do they grow well inside and how much shade can they tolerate?
• What are good plants to rotate in after the peas die off?

Have any insights you want to share?

Tomatos

Fresh from the garden, fried, grilled, baked, stewed, chopped, juiced, diced, sliced, stauteed, broiled, any way you like it, tomatoes can do it. Okay, maybe not ice cream or pastries, but close. That's why I wanted some in my garden.

We made an attempt last fall, but the plants eventually went the way of all the earth. I suspect they didn't have enough sun or space for the plant to be really happy, so some soil beastie was able to kill them off. (It might be the same problem taking hold of the bean plants, as it is the same pot.)

Soil, light, and space

This time we started afresh with new organic soil and a solitary cherry tomato. It started growing fairly well and now is about 2 feet high. I chose a cherry since it requires less energy to ripen, given the smaller size. The lighting is still a concern, (sunlight = energy) as the patio only gets about 4 hours of direct light. The recommendation is no less than 6, from what I've read. Space is also a concern, but so far the plant seems okay in its 12 inch diameter pot. We will see.

Pollination

However, tomatoes generally do not self-pollinate, it must be done by hand, or by bees adn other bugs. Since bees don't often find my garden, I had to learn how to pollinate the tomatoes. Unlike most plants, using a brush isn't enough, so various gardeners, sorry I didn't keep my sources, recommend vibrating the flowers with an electric toothbrush for a few seconds. This dislodges the pollen enough to pollinate the flower. Personally, I prefer the old non-electric toothbrush, which is not a judgement on those who have made the switch, I just want to be able to brush my teeth when I travel, or camp, or when the power goes out indefinitely. So, I resorted to the next best thing: my husband's beard trimmer...with his permission, of course. Granted, trimmers are made for cutting, so one must take care to avoid severing flower from plant. I have yet to loose a flower in a beard trimmer accident. These gardeners also say this should be done every day around noon in order to have the best chance of pollination. From what I've seen, it's working, though it may be some little bee that has done the job. Whatever it is, our kitchen is ready and waiting.

Bean thinking...

Fresh beans don't excite my taste buds quite to the level of fresh peas and tomatoes, but they aren't too far behind. This is our second try of plants and what to learn from it:

• Beans, like peas, are self-pollinating.
• When the plant is healthy and happy, the beans grow fast and furious, so daily checks are necessary. Young, thin beans are tastier than old, hard ones.
• Pole beans grow better if there is something to grow up. We have bamboo poles and tie the plant with stretchy material as it grow up.
• Bush beans, like bush peas, apparently grow better in low light than pole varieties. We have only tried the pole types so far, but we've had some success.
• Beans fix nitrogen in the soil, which is good, and it makes beans a good choice to follow other crops in the garden for crop rotation. Peas are similar here too.
• As always, avoid over-watering. Our garden is in containers, which makes it easier to over water, especially if the soil does not drain well. Soil prep is a lot more important than I expected, so our soil is not as great as it will be someday when I figure it out. :)

Quality soil and good drainage are key to not having the leaves look like the photo. It may be root rot or some other fungus, but the plants are not looking healthy like they did last week. These plants may have to go the way that all things go soon so that we can treat the soil and start again. My advisor, aka Dad, suggested cooking the soil at about 200 F for a few hours to destroy any bugs, otherwise the continued use with just reinfect the new plants. Since we are entering the hotter weather months, maybe I can try the solar oven to heat the soil and avoid using the oven. That would be smelly and, yes, a bit dirty.

If anyone has specifics on what makes the leaves look like this, feel free to share.

Food on the balcony

Our 'yard' consists of the 6x10 ft balcony. We tend to avoid spending time out there, as our downstairs neighbors enjoy using their patio to smoke while discussing personal matters, personal enough they are not worth repeating, with each other or with the person on the other end of the phone. Thankfully our sliding glass door offers enough of a sound barrier that we can almost not hear what they say about 3% of the time. This is not a complaint, but that's how it is.

However, I wanted to make the space useful anyway, so we planted a little container garden. It has beans, garlic, peas, basil, lettuce, spinach, and the newest edition, a cherry tomato.

Growing food naturally and self-reliance have become more and more interesting to me in the last few years, so I checked out a book by R. J. Ruppenthal called Fresh Food from Small Spaces: The Square-Inch Gardener's Guide to Year-Round Growing, Fermenting, and Sprouting. If the title isn't too long for you, the book actually has a lot of cool hints on growing stuff with what you have. He says that you can probably grow 10% of your own food, even in an apartment or cold weather climate, if you know how.

These are the most helpful things I've learned so far:

• Avoid over-watering. That is the way most people kill container plants. It prevents the roots from getting oxygen and allows for root rot. This is probably how I killed the first round of planting.
• Avoid over-fertilizing. This is number 2 killer. Also, use natural, slow release fertilizer to get the most nutrient rich food (i.e. food like it's suppose to be).
• Even if the amount of sun you get is limited, plants can still grow, if you reflect light and move your pots around to follow the sun, if possible. Too bad we can't all have one of these: http://greenupgrader.com/files/2008/10/image1.gif

I have noticed that some of the plants will start to dry up right where it meets the dirt, like someone who squeezes the toothpaste tube in the middle. The picture shows two healthy plants on the left and one that is starting to rot on the right. The roots look fine, and so do the leaves for a while, until the whole thing dries out. Any ideas on what causes that?