Setting the Goal High

I found a website/social network today called FreedomGardens.org, a great site if you're serious about creating an urban kitchen garden or interested in homesteading or just vegetable gardening in general. I signed up to become a member so I could look at some of the forums and different email groups (specifically the ones about south Florida gardening), and in a forum titled How Much to Plant [per person] someone in Tampa quoted Tom MacCubbin's book, The Edible Landscape (about Florida urban kitchen gardening), as saying the following:

Asparagus 10-15
Beans, Lima
- Bush 40
- Pole 20
Beans, Snap
- Bush 50
- Pole 20
Beets 20-30
Broccoli 3-5
Brussels Sprouts 2-5
Cabbage 3-4
Cantaloupe 6
Carrots 60-70
Cauliflower 4-6
Celery 8-10
Chinese Cabbage 6-10
Collards 8-10
Corn 15-20
Cucumbers 3-4
Eggplant 2-3
Endive/Escarole 8-10
Kale 10-12
Kohlrabi 10-15
Lettuce 10-12
Mustard Greens 15-20
Okra 8-12
Onions
- For Eating Fresh 15
- For Storing 20
Parsley 2-3
Peanuts 5-10
Peas, English 60-70
Peas, Southern 15-20
Peppers 3-5
Potatoes 20-30
Potatoes, Sweet 5-10
Pumpkin 2-4
Radishes 35-50
Radishes, Winter 15-20
Rhubarb 2-3
Spinach 30-40
Squash, Summer 4-6
Squash, Winter 4-6
Strawberries 20-25
Swiss Chard 6-8
Tomatoes
- For Eating Fresh 3-5
- For Processing 5-10
Turnips 5-10
Watermelon 2-4

I almost fainted ... that is until I realized that we're talking rotating crops, different seasons and the fact that I wouldn't plant everything on that list because we just wouldn't eat it. I've already ordered my heirloom tomatoes for February from Laurel's Heirloom Tomatoes (I'm going to try to keep tomatoes going 9 months out of the year) and on FreedomGardens.org I found a place to buy seeds specifically pointed to the south Florida gardener called Southern Exposure Seed Exchange that looks fabulous.

Now I'm trying to figure out how much my neighbors would be offended if I put a 20 x 3-foot raised bed in the front yard for potatoes. They've done okay with the blueberry bushes I got last week - only a couple sour comments - "Don't you think the neighborhood kids are going to eat them all?" and "Are you going to do something other than cinder blocks?" I used the cinder blocks because the blueberry bushes came in earlier than expected and I wanted to get them planted before the plants were injured - the poor things had just traveled in a box for 2 days. My plan is to replace the cinder blocks with some of those extra pavers on the side of the house.

More about the blueberries later. For now, I think I'll just concentrate on planning next season's beds.

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Please Excuse My Dust

I'm making a blog site change and switching to a new template. Please bear with me until I get it looking the way it should.

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The Joys and Pitfalls of an Urban Kitchen Gardener

At the risk of offending wildlife lovers, I have to say this. I think I hate birds. Make that birds and squirrels. All right, really only the birds and squirrels in my back yard. Last week I planted radish, carrot and beet seeds in a raised bed in the back yard interspersed with the lettuce seedlings I had planted the weekend before. And contrary to every seed packet's germination predictions of 7-14 days, but true to south Florida's balmy winter temperatures (we've stayed in the 70s for the last month or so), within 3-4 days the seeds had sprouted. The beets came first and the next day the radishes started poking their tender heads out.

My precious little vegetable seedlings were doing just fine for the next couple days as I dutifully went out every morning, watered to keep them moist and coaxed them along with a few maternal pearls of encouragement. And then came the birds and the squirrels. Something ate every last one of them, leaving only perfect soil-filled holes and an empty peanut shell as evidence. Arggghhh! It happens every year. I know the birds and squirrels have a right to coexist, but can't they coexist somewhere else? On the bright side, whoever it was left the lettuce untouched. On an even brighter side, I've ordered bird netting.

Azoychka Heirloom Tomato with Flower

Yellow Submarine Heirloom Tomato with Flowers

Broccoli with Emerging Floret

What's to keep an urban kitchen gardener from giving up? Why tenacity, of course. Tenacity and the fact that I can see the first florets emerging on each of my broccoli plants and gorgeous sunny yellow flowers on the majority of my heirloom tomatoes signaling the vegetal treasures to come.

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A Weekend of Shopping and Planting

Okay, okay, I know I told myself that I would complete the back yard before I started working on the front yard. But I couldn't help myself. My intention Saturday was to drag pavers from the side of the house to the back yard to start building a bed for butternut squash and peas, so they can climb the back fence and not take over the entire back yard to get destroyed by my puppies or electric lawn mower like they did last summer. Instead, I decided to go plant shopping (just to look, of course) and that's a dangerous thing for me.

Coco Plum with Baby Plums

At Pop's Nursery on the east side of University between Sheridan and Stirling, I couldn't resist and picked up a cardboard palm, a coco plum, 2 lemon thyme, 2 variegated oregano, 1 spicy oregano, 1 dill, 9 romaine-looking leaf lettuce, 2 cilantro, 1 flat-leaf parsley, some red onions, and another Lantana red mound. My dad decided to make the trip to Pop's with me to kill some time and I have to say he's a good sport. He didn't start to panic until he thought I had accumulated enough plants that he'd no longer be able to fit in my Prius. The conversation went something like:

Daddy: "Ara, I think you've got enough. They aren't going to fit in the car."
Ara: "Daddy, not to worry. The back of the Prius is bigger than you think."
Daddy: "Ara, really, it's enough now."
Ara: "Daddy, we can put some plants in your lap."
Daddy: "Ara, there is no way this is all going to fit in the car."
Ara: "If we have to, Daddy, we can always strap you to the top of the car for the ride home."
Daddy: [Just a worried look on his face while he begins to sing in an effort to keep himself from being annoyed with me.]
Ara: "Daddy, we live close enough that if worse comes to worse, I can leave you here with Pop while I drive home and empty the car, and then I'll come back and get you. You won't mind, will you, Pop?"
Pop: "Where do you live? If he's going to keep singing, I'll drive him home."

What a relief. Everything fit in the car, including Daddy. He just had to keep the Lantana Red Mound between his feet on the floor board.

Lantana Red Mound with some Basil and Liriope poking into the picture

On Sunday, I had another reason to shop. I needed some organic compost to work into the bed where I wanted to plant the herbs, so I headed out the door. Daddy didn't feel like coming with me. Hmmm. I don't know what made me do it, but I decided to stop at the K-Mart Garden Center. It's not a place I frequent and they certainly don't have good plant stock, but I was thinking maybe they'd have some cheap pots to do some container planting. No pots I liked, but to my surprise they had all their 2009 Burpee seeds on sale for 40% off. 40% is 40%, so I stocked up on rainbow chard, spinach, beets, carrots, peas and a few others I can't think of right now. No organic compost at K-Mart, though, so off to Home Depot, where they always have it. And then I started planting.

Red onions, lemon thyme, basil and Lantana Red Mound

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Still Need Convincing?

Spiral Raised Bed - interesting idea for a front lawn.

Some Scary Facts About U.S. Lawns

• Residential lawns comprise 23 million acres of land in the U.S.
• 58 million Americans spend $30 billion per year for lawn care.
• 270 billion gallons of water a week are used to water U.S. lawns. That's enough to water 81 million acres of organic vegetables for a summer.
• $5.25 billion per year is spent on fossil fuel-derived fertilizers for lawn care -- the majority of this ends up as pollution in our surface and groundwater, increasing our risk of cancer, heart disease and birth defects. Just switching to organic fertilizer and compost would eliminate a good part of this pollution.
• 580 million gallons of gasoline are used to mow lawns each year. A good chunk of this creates air pollution because of evaporation and another chunk pollutes our groundwater because of spillage.
• Running a gasoline-powered lawn mower for an hour produces pollution equivalent to driving a gas-powered car for 20 miles.
• 67 million pounds of synthetic pesticides are used in the upkeep of U.S. lawns each year, the majority polluting our surface and groundwater.
• $700 million is spent every year on those 67 million pounds of pesticides.

Still need convincing? The average lawn in the U.S. is approximately 1/3 of an acre. That's enough space to keep a family of 6 in organic vegetables year round and still have a small patch of grass! So next time you have the urge to plant something, make it edible!

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Heirloom Tomatoes and Tomato Growing Tips

A Green Zebra heirloom tomato planted 11-29-2008

After failing at my first attempt at seed starting last year (I'm sure it was me) and doing the Home Depot tomato plants this past summer (which actually did quite well), I decided to go for organic heirloom tomato plants this year and I ordered them from Laurel's Heirloom Tomato Plants in California. I've been looking at her site for a while and decided to go for it. What the heck. If I can get some interesting, really tasty tomatoes out of them, they'll be worth the money (and it really wasn't that much a difference in price between her and Home Depot). So I ordered 10 plants, among them Green Zebra, San Marzano, Azoychka, Yellow Submarine, Brandywine OTV, Anna Russian, and Martina's Roma (because she was running low on the San Marzano).

I was lucky enough to get to place the order with Laurel directly and it was immediately obvious that this woman is a tomato mama. She told me she expected to ship by November 17th, but if the plants weren't big enough for shipping she would hold them up a few days. Some people might get miffed at this, but I found it endearing. It told me how much she cares about her tomatoes and whether or not they will make it through the shipping process. And she was basically right on -- I got the email on the 18th that they would ship that day and they arrived by the 20th unscathed with nary a leaf bent. I was amazed as I've never received shipped plants before.

Laurel has some great tomato growing tips on her website, some of which I'll summarize here:

• Do be sure to give the tomato plants plenty of space - they need air circulation.
• Do be sure to plant in fluffy organic soil and composting material. I try my best to use homemade compost from veggie scraps in my UCT9 garden composter from Urban Garden Center. If I don't have enough, I purchase organic compost.
• Do plant the tomatoes quite deep. This year I pulled off the tiny lower leaves and planted right up to the biggest set of bottom leaves. Tomatoes will shoot roots out of their stems and it will make for a much sturdier, productive plant.
• Do use tomato cages or some sort of support system for the tender tomato leaves and fruits. It keeps the plants off the ground, reduces insects and increases production. I got my tomato cages a few years ago at Gardener's Supply Company and actually have to order more this year.
• Don't overwater or underwater. Get yourself a moisture meter to be certain when the tomato plants need watering (I picked one up at Home Depot for $14.95 in the orchid section). Tomatoes should actually hit the dry stage before you water them.
• Don't get the leaves wet. Make sure to water at the base of the plant.
• Do mist the leaves with liquid kelp/fish emulsion fertilizer once a month. It promotes flower and fruit growth.

My intention is to eventually plant enough tomatoes year-round to keep us in tomato sauce, tomatoes for stews and soups and, of course, fresh eatin' maters. Is there anything better than a freshly sliced tomato just out of the garden with just a few sprinkles of kosher salt? I'm not sure how many plants I'll need to keep going to keep the 3 of us (my husband Mickey, my dad and me) in tomatoes year-round, but 10 is the most I've ever planted, so let's see where that gets us.

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My Edible Yard

Broccoli and Brussel Sprouts planted in raised bed 11-16-2008

I've had a small vegetable garden in my back yard off and on for several years now with 2 (sometimes 3) 4' x 8' raised beds and some containers, but I've recently been inspired by a gardening-foodie blog called DigginFood to use my entire yard as a kitchen garden. There are lots of other sustainable/urban gardening sites out there, but Willi is a Master Gardener, as well as the West Coast Editor for Organic Gardening magazine, and she has a wonderful sense of how to pair vegetable and flowering plants, not to mention a great eye for taking photos. The other thing I like about her site is that she combines her love of gardening with her love of food and cooking, and the joy she obtains from both is palpable in every blog entry.

Anna Russian heirloom tomato planted in container 11-29-2008

So here goes my attempt at creating something similar in my yard - just on the diagonal opposite side of the country. My hope is to share the satisfaction I receive from gardening, watching small seeds and seedlings in the process of growing, and the trials and tribulations I go through discovering what plants grow best where and with what. I realize that I can't do it all in 1 season, so I'll try to photograph and blog as I go along, adding a section to the yard each season until I accomplish my goal.

Please feel free to use the comment section of this blog to offer advice and/or comments, or to share recipes, favorite tools, successes, failures, etc. etc.

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