garlic envy

I visited my Mom 's garden yesterday. I weeded her paths dense with purslane and grasses. I fertilized her tomatoes and squashes, pulled her spent pea vines, and gave Charley a bunch of old broccoli stems and a few last peas to eat.

I also pulled my Mom's ripe garlic. I had serious garlic envy last year. My heads were so small, hers were nice, and I vowed to work on my soil to get heads as big as hers. A week ago I finished pulling my garlic and it is much bigger than last year's. I was pleased. But yesterday, head after head, I pulled my Mom's and it's amazing. Even bigger than it was last year and definitely bigger than mine. ---- So I still have garlic envy. And will vow another year to work on my soil.

Mom's garden

This morning I visited my Mom and planted more of her garden. It's doing really well I have to say. Much more is planted there than in my gardens. Today I planted seedlings: 7 tomatoes, several peppers, a couple broccoli, some escarole, and a couple each of yellow summer squash and zucchini squash. Also I planted seeds for beets, sunflowers, and nasturtiums. I forgot to take photos. Next time.

mom's garden

My mom's garden looks pretty good. I planted winter rye that did very well over the winter. I am gradually working on turning it under. I planted Super Sugar Snap peas at the far end of this photo and have branches in for support. Mom's garlic looks really good. It's about the 3rd or 4th year now that I have used a portion of her harvest for replanting.

visiting my parents garden

My parents gardens is especially beautiful this year. I am envious of their garlic. It is beginning to form scapes. The plants are big and deep green - no yellow leaves yet. My garlic has suffered from my under-watering and, though it is also beginning to scape, has yellowing leaves already. A friend has a recipe for garlic scape pickles that I look forward to trying soon.

planting mom and dad's garden

I brought my parents 5 or 6 trays of seedlings I raised. We planted them in their old garden and in a newly dug up addition. In their old garden, we planted basil (Nufar), peppers (sweet, Bell, Joe Parker NuMex, Amelia Cayene and Thai hot), eggplants, tomatoes (early planted Siberian Red, Orange Blossom and Pink Beauty) and parsley. In the new addition we planted winter squashes (acorn, Waltham butternut and buttercup) and summer squashes (Yellow Crook and quik pik, and zucchini Elite and Romanescu) and cucumbers (Diva and Straight 8). We reserved a bed for a second area of tomatoes.

The new addition was lawn a few weeks ago. Last week, we bounded the edges with deer fence, and I dug three beds, each about 3x5 ft. To dig, we first laid an inch or two of compost on top of the grass and then I manually turned it all (sod and compost) under. My dad later broke up the clumps of sod a bit and topped it with landscape fabric. He said to me today, "Have you done this before?" I said, "No."

Today, I used scissors to cut holes in the landscape fabric for planting. I planted squashes and cucumbers and for each, I first dug a hole and then added a good handful or three of potting soil, then tamped in the seedling.

Actually we tried a version of this addition last year and it did not work for squashes. Don't know why, though I think partly it was because it was unfenced and the deer ate it. It's an experiment. Theoretically it should be beautiful with big plants and a rich harvest. We'll see.

mom and dad's garden

On Monday, my parents and I worked a full day in their vegetable garden. We planted tomato, pepper, lettuce, sunflower, basil, cilantro, squashes, marigold, cosmos, daisy and cucumber seedlings. Dad staked his recently planted snow peas.

Some type of bug was eating the broccoli, cauliflower and bok choy that we planted a couple weeks ago. My guess it was the green caterpillar of the white cabbage butterfly. I replaced some of the seedlings, searched for green caterpillars (I found one) and then covered the patch with hoops and row cover.

We planted 4 types of pumpkins and winter squashes: Butternut, Buttercup, New England Pie pumpkin, Cinderella pumpkin (Rouge Vif d’Etampes) and a couple giant pumpkin seedlings. The giant pumpkins are at the edge of the compost pile and the other pumpkins an squashes just outside the garden fence. Last year, the squash vines took over the garden and even pulled down parts of the fence. This year they will have room to roam.

Last year I planted much too many cucumbers in Mom and Dad's garden. I thought they wouldn't want ANY this year, but, no, they want tons again. I planted 8 varieties: Diva, North Carolina pickling, Sumter pickling, Boston pickling, Straight Eight, Sweet Success, Tokiwa and Sooyow Nishiki. About 20 seedlings - and then Mom added a few more seeds for good measure. They grow up the 5 ft deer fence around the edge of garden, so they don't really take up any space. When my nephew comes to visit, he runs to the garden to pick cukes and eat them immediately. Then he gets a big grin on his face.

Dad wrote down all the varieties and where they were planted for his records and then we called it a day. As we were marveling about the full garden, Mom remembered the beans - we forgot to leave room to plant beans! Arrgh. Well, as Mom emailed to me later in the week, they found a place to squeeze in 2 rows.

mom and dad's garden

I've been helping my parents with their garden. Early this spring, on a March day that broke records (temperature in the 80's!), my son and I spread and dug in 3 cubic yards of compost. We also planted peas, lettuce and root vegetables. Last Friday, I brought them more seedlings and seeds. The garden is looking great. Mom is already picking a little new lettuce and using up the kale that overwintered. I got my potatoes and some extra asparagus roots planted at my community plot today, but still no seedlings (other than a few very early tomatoes). I hope I will get to do some transplanting in my garden soon.

my parents garden

On Father's Day, I visited my parents and helped a bit in their garden. My dad hoed the tomatoes and planted beans, I pulled some garlic and labeled plants I gave them earlier in the spring. I also planted nasturtiums and giant sunflower seeds here and there. They have been picking lettuce, spinach, and arugula all spring. They have nice fennel, peas, red cabbage, napa cabbage, beets, and celery coming along. Also tomatoes, peppers, basil, and cucumbers. Arugula and bok choy have gone to seed, with flowers adding color and attracting beneficial insects.




My dad planted a couple of my giant pumpkin plants in the middle of his front yard. They will cover a newly installed meter and have LOTS of room to sprawl over the grass. This variety is reputed to produce several 100 pound pumpkins per plant. Cool!

mom and dad's vegetable garden

On Saturday, I helped my parent's with their garden. Mom is still recuperating, but doing GREAT. She was the supervisor with her captain's chair. Dad and I got the garden all set for fall.

We removed all the old plants: tomatoes, squashes, and cucumbers. Picked green tomatoes. Pulled a few onions that had been hidden.

We left the big curly kale plants, a bunch of 4 foot tall bell pepper plants, a nice patch of basil, rows of bright yellow marigolds, a 3 foot sage plant, a big tomatillo plant, a row of rainbow chard, and a row of red beets.

There were a lot of garlic sprouts coming up from heads that didn't get harvested. I dug all these and moved them to the other end of the garden. So many it made a triple row!

As we worked the air was quite chilly - maybe 50*F and Skippy had stolen my sweater again. We marveled at an enormous V-formation of geese that flew overhead. Must have been more than a hundred, all honking to each other and heading due south.

I moved a row of lettuce and beets that were in the area we wanted to rake and seed with cover crop. I put them in with the garlic row. The greens will be harvested within a month so they won't bother the garlic. I also added a few new spinach and escarole Frisee seedlings. Then I covered this row with hoops and row cover. I'm curious to see how it will fare as the cold weather comes. The row cover lets light and air in, retains humidity and warmth, and protects from wind. It will stay on for a couple months, or maybe all winter.

We seeded about half the garden with a mix of clover and winter rye.

There was a frost warning for their area, so our last job, as the sun set, was to spread sheets on the peppers, basil and flowers. These sheets will come off tomorrow morning.

a sad story about potatoes

Yesterday I visited my parents and we dug potatoes from their garden. We were looking forward this. But we didn't have very good luck :(

Dad dug, I sifted through the soil and grabbed the potatoes, and Mom washed them. But there were hardly any. And the ones we did find were half eaten! Another critter! Its too bad. They had little tiny tooth marks and very large portions of the potatoes were missing.

I thought the critter was maybe a mole. My sister suggested a pocket gopher might be more likely to eat potatoes. She says moles are more likely to eat worms and other insects. What the heck is a pocket gopher? Are there gophers in Massachusetts? And why didn't we have at least a hint there was an animal down there eating or potatoes?

Rodents eating vegetables seems to be a garden theme for me this year....

mom and dad's vegetable garden

Can you believe the size of these vegetables! Twice the size of mine.

mom and dad's vegetable garden

Last weekend I brought all sorts of seedlings up to my parents for their garden. Tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, eggplants, pumpkins, winter squash, summer squash ... We had a wonderful time planting together. The seedlings we already planted are doing well too.

double digging

Before we planted my Mom and Dad's garden last Sunday, we double dug it. My dad gave us instructions. (I had already spread a good 4 inches of new compost on the garden.)

First we dug a 12 inch trench and moved all the dirt to the far end of the garden. (We I say "we dug" here, I will mostly mean "my husband dug".) Then we turned the adjacent soil into the trench to progressively move the trench down the garden. The result is a bed loosened and amended 12 inches with minimally disturbed "structure", which means happy worms and other soil inhabitants.

The bottom layer was dense and very hard to dig. I hope this year's vegetables will benefit from this nice preparation. It took about 2 hours for the 3 of us. A good team project.

planting Mom and Dad's garden

After double digging the new compost into Mom and Dads' garden, we planted:

One row of marigolds, Lemon Boy, Petit mix and Fireball
3 Early seedlings tomatoes with Wall-O-Water on green mulch film
One row cabbages: Radicchio, Savoy, Wong Bok and Super Red
One row salad greens: Elegance mix, Black seeded Simpson and Red Romaine
One double row of onions: Ruby Ring, Frontier, Sweet Yellow Spanish and Ailsa Craig
Two long rows of potatoes: Butte, All Blue and Cobbler

preparing Mom and Dad's garden

Yesterday I went up to my parents house and enjoyed a day in the dirt. I had ordered a truckload of compost to be delivered. I was expecting a morning delivery, but as my luck had it, it was a 5:30 pm delivery. So I had time to do a lot of raking and prep work, but had to scramble to get the dirt spread and turned before dark.

My parent's garden plot is about 15 by 50 feet, by my guess. It is against the woods with a westerly exposure, so it gets lots of midday and afternoon sun. As the trees to the east grow, my parents have been gradually inching the garden out into the yard to get more sun.

The plot has a few things growing in it now. Perennial rhubarb, and herbs oregano and sage. Also three nice rows of garlic.

I had meant to order enough compost for a 2-3 inch layer, but looks like I was off by a factor of 2. It was pretty intimidating after the truck left to be standing there by an enormous pile - just me and my shovel and the setting sun. I surprised myself and did get it spread. Then I limed (10 lbs) and added a little organic fertilizer (Garden Tone, 5 lbs). And I was able to turn about half of the plot before Skippy insisted it was time to go home.

I ended up with 4-6 inches of compost. This is almost too much, but from what I've read, it should be OK. I will try to go back and double dig the whole plot down to 12 inches. (My Dad may get a friend in with a big rototiller before I get back to it, but I just hate to think what that does to all the worms he has.)

The compost is dark and even and looks great. No mixed in trash, no sticks or rocks. Just very nice and good smelling stuff. I hope it will produce a bumper crop!

Note added: Here's the link for the compost that I added: Agresource Compost. Looks like its already pH adjusted - so I didn't need to add lime. I'm also noticing that the weeds prior to prep seem to be "sweet" soil weeds: dandelions and chickweed. Well, at least tomatoes like the soil sweet, as do peppers and zucchini. The carrots and beets may not appreciate it. We'll see.

mom and dad's harvest

My dad sent me this photo of the vegetables they picked from their garden this week. Looks like they are eating well. Many of these are plants I grew from seed this spring. My parents' garden always produces super broccoli. And they are ahead of me on the summer squash and cucumbers. I'm wondering if that is a garlic head in there? I'll have to ask them.

some wet photos from Mom and Dad's garden