Super Sugar Snap Pea

Pea 'Super Sugar Snap' (Pisum sativum) Seeds

Today marks the beginning of spring in my garden because the first seeds that would grow in my little garden this year just got planted.  Our weather here can change swiftly from cold (Foothills-cold) to hot (Inland-hot) which poses a challenge in  scheduling to plant any of the cool season crops such as peas.  In previous years, the consistent problem has been having the temperatures get critically high before my peas produce pods.  Hopefully this time will be different.

Super Sugar Snap is an earlier variety, maturing within 64 days from planting.  It is supposed to have shorter veins than the older varieties which would make it snap better and more fun to eat.  Another favorable feature of this variety is its high resistance to powdery mildew and leaf roll virus. We need to understand that the conditions that favor the growth of powdery mildew is the same as the conditions required by the most of the cool-season crops: High relative humidity (RH) at nighttime; drier or low RH during daytime; and mild temperatures (70-80 ºF).  Therefore, in choosing a variety, diseases resistance must be given special consideration. 

Every day spent tending the garden is a beautiful day.

Herbs - Spice Up Your Garden

Chives and Garlic chives

Herbs play a significant role in the flavor structure of a given dish.  The world, although geographically separated, are defined by the culinary flavors as determined by the indigenous herbs on top of the food available in the land.    Modern technology has allowed plants to  cross geographical borders and to be cultivated far from their places of origin but the different cultures have long been steeped in the herbs that they had from time immemorial.   For example, garlic chives and garlic with fish sauce and vinegar says Philippines;  the combination of mint and oregano with Feta say Greece; curry (a mixture of many herbs and spices) and coconut and some spicy peppers say Thailand; Wasabe on soy sauce and seaweed say Japan - just to name a few.  That is reason that sometimes the addition of a specific herb to your dish at home brings back memories of a place that you once visited.

However the reason I'm writing this article is to remind home gardeners that herbs should be part of every garden.

French Tarragon

Herb Garden..  Herbs are better when they are fresh when their aroma has not left them yet.  That is why some grocery stores now carry live herbs that you can grow in your kitchen.  But believe me, they don't do well in the kitchen unless you they get at least four hours of sun in there.  The best solution to having a good and prolonged supply of herbs is to have an herb garden - even if it is done in a container.    It does not have to be sophisticated; a good-sized container and some potting soil and some hours of direct sunlight.

Italian Basil

Choose Herbs That You Like.  There is nothing more useless than planting herbs that you do not use.  Well, I take that back because if you don't use them they will flower and attract bees - which is a good thing.  But if you grow herbs for culinary purposes then you better plan on the ones you like on your food and actually use.  Keep using them to encourage new growth.  Clip off the flowers to keep them going for a while.  And for annuals you might want to plant a second batch.  

Since most annual as well as perennial herds produce mostly in the warmer months, it is a good idea to preserve some of your harvest.  The Internet provides a vast information on how to preserve the different herbs.  As for my family, we like to make basil pesto in the summer - then freeze them.  We seem to always have frozen pesto in the freezer ready for use in various dishes.  This year, because we planted a lot of cilantro, we might have enough to make cilantro pesto. 

Near the Kitchen.  There is a great benefit in growing herbs in places where they are visible from your kitchen.   Sometimes we pull out the drawer in the fridge to check what herbs we have but won't it be nice to look out the window to see which herb you can use for your dish?  When we can see them from the kitchen window we get reminded to harvest them and sometimes to water them - especially during the hot summer days. 

Cilantro (Coriander)

Every home should have a functional herb garden, I think.  

Strawberries: Understanding the Effects of Photoperiod and Temperature

Have you ever wondered why some strawberries bear fruits earlier than others?  Have you ever wondered why some strawberries bear fruits longer than other ones?  Or for that matter, have you ever wondered why some plants flower only at specific times of the year?  

Definitions

Before we answer these questions, here are three terms we need to define for ease of understanding:

1. Photoperiod or Daylength is the number of hours of daylight during a 24-hr period.

2. Flower Initiation - is the beginning of reproductive phase in plants which is triggered by biochemical and hormonal changes in the plant.  For us gardeners, we would see this phenomenon later when visual indicators are met - flowers are out.  

3. Remotancy is the ability of a plant to bloom repeatedly throughout the growing season.  This is an important characteristics for flowering well as fruiting perennials because it prolongs the productivity of the plants. 

Photoperiod and Flowering

It has long been established in plant science that flower initiation is influenced by photoperiod. Extensive research has been done to show chemical and hormonal changes that correspond to varying photoperiods.  Shifts in hormone levels induced by photoperiod either lead to initiation or inhibition of flowering depending on the genetics of plants.  Angiosperms - flowering plant species - have been classified into three categories based on their response to daylength as follows:

     Short-day (SD) plants are those that bloom only when the daylength is less than twelve hours.

     Long-day (LD) plants are those that bloom only when the daylength is more than twelve hours.

     Day-Neutral (DN) plants are those that can bloom regardless of the daylength.

Strawberry Varieties and their Response to Photoperiod

Strawberry is one example of a plant that is responsive to photoperiod. which plays a significant role in its flower initiation as well as remotancy.  Strawberry varieties are classified according to their flowering response to this factor.  

June-bearing varieties - SD strawberries.   These are recommended for canning purposes because they yield a heavy crop in the summer.  They are the varieties that are generally grown commercially. June-bearing varieties bloom in spring when the days the less than 12 hours and warm enough for plants to grow at a reasonable rate.  In the fall when the days get below 12 hours of daylight, they undergo flower initiation again.

Ever-bearing varieties are LD strawberries.  These varieties start to bloom late in April when the daylength exceeds 12 hours and all the way to autumn when daylength shortens to under 12 hours again. Ever-bearing strawberries are recommended for a kitchen garden where fresh strawberries every now and then is desired.

Day-Neutral strawberries are those that are not significantly affected by photoperiod.  They bloom regardless of the photoperiod as long as other factors are favorable for growth.

Temperature and Fruit Setting 
Can we then say that strawberries will always bear fruit when the right photoperiod is achieved?  The answer is no.  The story is not that simple. The effect photoperiod on flowering assumes optimum temperatures.  After flower initiation occurs, temperature comes in and plays a significant role in the development of the flowers into a fruit.

In our area (Zone 9), June-bearing varieties, can start to show flowers as early as February but such flowers fail to develop into fruits because the temperatures are too cold for fruiting.  Similarly in the fall flowering is triggered again by the shorter photoperiod but such flowers fail to develop due to low temperatures.  The reason for the characteristic heavy crop from June-bearing strawberries is the favorable temperatures in the spring to early summer for fruit formation.

For ever-bearing varieties, we would expect that once the photoperiod is long enough that they would continue to produce fruits all summer long.  Not again.  Because they bloom later in the season, high temperatures (Zone 9) limit fruit development. Studies have shown that although flower initiation occurs under high temperatures on ever-bearing varieties, the percentage of fruit formed over  the number of flowers is significantly reduced (1). This is the very reason for the characteristic continuous fruiting with relatively low yields on ever-bearing varieties.  In spite of their remotancy, only few flowers successfully develop into fruits.

Photoperiod determines flower initiation; temperature determines the development of the strawberry fruit, but the behavior of the plant is determined by genetics.

Apple of the Earth

Potato (Solanum tuberosum) 'Yukon Gold' 

Once again the earth has given forth its fruits through the humble night shade the French appropriately call -- Pomme de terre! 

Last winter I planted some sprouted potatoes from my pantry and under minimal input and less than six hours of sunlight (due to its location), here they are, food once more and even more.  Since I planted them from leftover tubers, I didn't do as much management as I would have. However, there are some things that can be done to optimize potato harvests.  For the sake of those who are interested in trying potatoes in the future, here is a list of activities worth considering:

1.  Hill-up the soil during early growth of the stems.  Stolons (the part that becomes tuber) grow on buried parts of the stem.  Covering more of the basal stem allows the formation of more tubers.  Since my potatoes were grown in large pots, I could have simulated hilling-up by adding more soil at the base of the plants;

2.  Water when necessary.  Use rainfall instead of the temperature as basis for watering.  The low temperatures of winter is often deceiving.  I tend to assume the soil is moist when the air temperature is cold.  My mistake.  After tuber initiation, consistent water supply (along with other factors such as sunlight and fertilizer) is very important for a good bulking rate (enlargement) of the tubers;

3.   Apply a second dose of fertilizer.  Fertilizer was basally applied but I skipped the necessary side-dressing which would have enhanced and prolonged foliage growth that results in large potatoes.  

Looking Back: Lessons Learned in Tomato Growing

Fig. 1   'Super Fantastic' tomato.

Tomato is one of the favorite vegetables in our home. Every year, we grow different vegetables.  Since we moved to this area (fifteen years ago) I cannot remember a single summer when tomatoes were not grown in this garden.  I can remember a time when my second daughter was just three and I found her in the garden her mouth bleeding and blood dripping all over her white shirt.  Or so I thought.  But to my relief, I also found tomato seeds with the red fluid oozing from her mouth. She has been in the tomato path where she ate, who knows how many, cherry tomatoes straight from the plants.  :)

As the summer draws to an end and the summer vegetable garden begins to fade, I thought I’d look back.  Everyone knows how to grow tomatoes but there are things each gardener learns through experience.  For the record, here is a list of some of the useful lessons I learned.

Fig. 2     Almost-perfect fruit set.

Optimum temperatures for tomato fruit setting are between 70 and 85 degrees F. 

Lesson 1.  Plant early in the season – protect them if you need to.
 As early as March, when other gardeners were still anticipating more frosty nights, we planted tomatoes. As a result, we enjoyed eating our own home-grown tomato salad early in the season. There is a small window in the temperature range when tomato blossoms set - and the optimum day temperature range being 70-85 degrees F. When night temperatures are cool (consistently below 55 degrees) or when day temperatures are hot (day temperatures of 95 degrees with night time temperatures of consistently above 75 degrees), fruit setting is jeopardized. Planting early prepares tomatoes for fruit setting prior to the occurrence of optimum temperatures during that season. The plant should be blooming by the time temperatures are right because this part of the country (Zone 9) heats up within a short period of time. There is nothing worse than having tomato plants that are beginning to bloom in the dead of summer. No amount of blossom spray will correct the effects of our area's intense summer temperature.

Consumption and utilization of produce is the ultimate measure of success in vegetable gardening.

Lesson 2.   Stagger planting of similar maturity-date varieties. 
This is especially important when planting determinate varieties which yield one heavy crop on a short period of time.   Planting tomato successively at two-week- interval provides a progression of harvest rather than an overwhelming amount of harvest at one time. It prolongs harvest period and makes canning even more manageable.

Fig. 3   Tomato varieties in this basket: Cherokee Purple; Super Fantastic; Yellow Pear

The soil is like a plant nanny that holds food and water for the plant. 

Lesson 3.   Recondition old soil. 

Continuously planted soils get depleted over time. Between the amount plants take up and amount water carries through run off and percolation, available nutrients in the soil can rapidly diminish. This is a mistake I had overlooked this year. Just because, my garden produced vigorous plants in the past, I took the soil condition for granted - a critical part of the garden was neglected.  Therefore, by the end of this year, I plan to cover the area with chicken manure and leaves that will fall from healthy deciduous trees. Then add a small amount of complete organic fertilizer.  This recipe will encourage microorganisms and earthworms to do their job on boosting the condition of the soil.

Tomatoes stop being productive under extremely hot and dry conditions.

Lesson 4.   Plant Tomatoes where they get late afternoon shade.
While tomatoes are a summer crop, they reach optimum production at relatively low temperatures.  When temperatures are high, the stomata close and thus halt production (photosynthesis).  In this part of the country (Zone 9) temperatures get in the high nineties up to over 100 degrees.  It is a good idea to position the tomatoes in an area where they get a relief from the intensity of the summer's afternoon sun.  Not only does the production rate is reduced, problems such as scalding, blossom-end-rot, and leaf curling become a problem. Some gardeners provide shade for the tomatoes during the late afternoon to reduce stress from high temperatures, water deficit and high radiation.

Fig. 4   Fresh from the garden.

Gardeners don't work alone, they have natural allies. 

Lesson  5.  Attract Blue Jays to the garden to eliminate problems with tomato/tobacco hornworm. 

When it comes to finding the most devastating caterpillars in the tomato garden, blue jays are the best.  It is good to encourage them to linger in the garden.  Set out some large-seed bird food such as corn and peanuts in the garden and provide a source of water for them such as a simple bird bath.   In my garden, the promise of fruits from the grapes, pears, apples and plums lure the jays as well as the mocking birds (both are great hunters of caterpillars) to stay around.  It’s been years since we had problems with tobacco hornworm.  

Radicchio in my Kitchen Garden

Radicchio (Cichorium intybus) made it into my vegetable garden when my husband sowed (literally poured) a packet of Salad Greens seeds in between tomato plants last summer (2013).  The seeds emerged quickly, produced healthy foliage till they began to bolt and produced flowers.  Autumn came; one type of the greens continued to grow and did not bolt.  Then winter came; the leaves of this plant began to form heads - like that of cabbage.  The new leaves also began to turn wine-red in color.  It was then when I began to wonder what this plant was - Radicchio!

When Monocle Magazine named radicchio Vegetable of 2014, I was determined to keep a close observation on these curious plants growing in my garden.  The mildly bitter and vibrant red radicchio is considered a super food due to its high antioxidant content.  It was tempting but I resisted harvesting them.  At this point they were more valuable as a learning tool than food.

Spring came and the radicchio heads began to unfurl and flower initiation began.  The plant finally began to bolt.  The ground-hugging salad item suddenly turned into seven-foot flowering plant.  Beautiful blue flowers opened every morning and faded in the afternoon.  This scheduled flower opening made the bees busy during the cooler time of the day.  Indeed, radicchio is a good insectary plant.  Being a member of the Asteraceae plant family (commonly known as aster or sunflower family), the flowers are designed in such a way that insects can land on them with conveniently.

 Plant radicchio for food, beautiful flowers and insectary plant.

Tomatoes in September

Fig. 1   Harvest ('Sun Gold' and 'Super Fantastic' -  September 18,2013)

Today my husband brought in these tomatoes from the garden.  They are still producing and the fruits are still sweet and juicy.  Here in our area, as long as we continue to tend to these indeterminate tomatoes, we can expect to have fresh tomatoes until early November or Thanksgiving depending on the weather.  

Fig. 2  Super Fantastic showing flower buds as of September 18, 2013

As seen on the growing tips of the indeterminate 'Super Fantastic' tomatoes (Fig 2) flowering continues even as we approach the end of summer.  In fact, they will continue to flower until the temperature gets too cold. (Determinate tomato varieties, on the other hand, will cease to flower in spite of favorable growing conditions.)  At some point however, even when the flowers set, low temperature will hinder the fruits from growing into reasonable-size tomatoes as they will also fail to ripen.  This is the reason for fried green-tomatoes in my kitchen.

Fig. 3  Beautiful fruit set

I also noticed some signs of tomato worm damage in the tips of the tomatoes.  Fortunately, because we have resident Blue Jays in the garden, the damage is not extensive at all.  

 How are your tomatoes doing this month?

Bitter Gourd

Momordica charantia L.

Family:  Cucurbitaceae

Common Names in the US*:  Bitter Melon; Bitter Gourd; Balsam Pear

One vegetable vigorously growing in my garden at this time in the season is the bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L.).  This vegetable was a part of my everyday diet in my earlier years.  Sadly, it has increasingly become a rarity since I moved to California.  But this trend is soon to be reversed. With my success this year, bitter melon may yet become a regular item in my summer garden.

Bitter melon is an important vegetable crop in the Philippines and all of Asia.  The fruits and leaves are edible - both bearing a strikingly bitter taste that varies in intensity depending on variety.  

In my village, bitter gourd is believed to be purgative.  Newborn babies (before their first taste of their mother's milk) are given a teaspoon of bitter melon tonic - pure extract from the leaves of the plant. This blackish-green delight is bitter enough to squeeze every facial muscle of the infant.  As if this is their initiation into the world.  However, this does not diminish the fact that bitter melon is an acquired taste even to Filipinos.  For my grandmother, the more bitter the parya (Ilocano word for bitter melon) the better it is.  But to my grandfather, parya and food did not go together.

   

In the bigger world, bitter melon has gone a long way.  Extensive research has led to understanding the medicinal properties of the plant down to molecular levels.  Bitter gourd has emerged to be one of the most significant botanical remedies for type 2 diabetes.  Recently,  AVRDC - The World Vegetable Center spearheaded a project called the Bitter Gourd Project which "aims to improve the incomes and health of the poor in developing countries, particularly the quality of life of diabetics, through scientific research on bitter gourd (Momordica charantia L.)."  But as for me, bitter gourd or bitter melon is just one of my favorite vegetables in the world.  

Now let's talk about the plant. 

Bitter gourd is tender perennial - in this area it is treated as an annual plant.  The vine grows eight to ten feet in length with robust branching and foliage growth.  It looks delicate but its every node bears a tendril that allows the plant to secure itself easily on trellises or other plants.  The palmately lobed leaves are beautiful.  

The flowers are bright yellow and very fragrant.  Just like all other plants in the Cucurbitaceae family, the bitter gourd is a monoecious plant - having separate male (staminate) and female (pistillate) flowers on the same plant.  Only the pollinated female flowers turn into fruits. 

Fruits of bitter gourd are generally warty with colors ranging from dark green to white.  They can be small and rounded (one-inch diameter) to large and elongated (3-inch diameter and 15-inch long).  The plants growing in my garden have small and elongated fruits with an average length of 3 inches.  

Growing Bitter Gourd

1. Choose sunny location - afternoon shade in hotter climate like mine.  Bitter gourd can be grown directly into the soil or in containers. Mine is growing in a five gallon bucket.
2. Incorporate compost or decomposed animal manure into soil.  
3. Plan and install support structures for plants (I attached wire mesh on the fence but you can used bamboo stakes or trellis). 
4. Direct sow plants in warm soil after the last frost.  Water the seeds thoroughly.  It takes about a week for seeds to emerge.  
5. Protect seedlings from snails and slugs - I've learned it the hard way.
6. Water regularly to keep soil moist but not wet.  
7. Mulch to conserve soil moisture and reduce weed growth.
8. Fertilize bitter gourd when there are two tendrils stretching out of the stem.  Repeat every two to three weeks. 
9. Yellowing of the leaves can be a sign of nutrient deficiency.  Remember:  Low-dose fertilizer applied frequently is better than high dosage at a less frequent interval.  
10. Check for pest and diseases regularly.  
11. Harvest fruits when they are green and shiny.  When fruits begin to turn yellow then it is too late.

Have you ever grown bitter gourd in your garden?  And have you eaten bitter gourd before?  What did you think? 

Edibles in Bloom

Fig. 1   Thai Basil (Ocimum basilicum)

This is a partial glimpse of my vegetable garden this year.  Instead of showing the fruits, I chose to focus on the flowers.  Flowers are generally the early indicators of a forth coming harvest for any food crop.  For some plants such broccoli and cauliflower, the flower directly translates to the crop yield. Still for other annual plants where the leaves are the harvestable parts, flower initiation marks the cessation of productivity. 

Fig. 2    Cilantro (Coriandrum sativum)

Basil
Basil and cilantro (Fig. 2) are among of my favorite herbs of all times.  Basil is generally a summer crop and a long-day plant, which means that it flowers when the daylength (photoperiod) is longer than 12 hours per day. Thai basil (Fig. 2) is particularly sensitive to increasing photoperiod - the seedlings almost always have flowers when I buy them from the nursery.  For a plant where the leaves are the harvestable/edible part, this poses a problem.  However, that is when management comes into play.  It is my practice to  decapitate my basil plants at the slightest hint of flowering in order to induce branching and prolong vegetative growth. 

Fig. 3    Meyer Lemon (Citrus x meyeri)

Citrus
The 'Meyer' lemon seems to be enjoying its current location (Fig. 3).  When my father-in-law and his wife could not get it to fruit in their shady front yard, they gave it to me - knowing that we have the sun here.  So far it is looking good. 'Meyer' lemon, which is believed to have originated from China, is different from the true lemons such as 'Eureka', 'Lisbon', and 'Ponderosa' in that it is sweeter and less rindy (thinner rind).  Such characteristics are attributed to a genetic relationship to the Mandarin orange.
Now there are two types of lemons in my backyard.  I have yet to succeed in growing the Filipino lemon - Kalamasi (Citrus microcarpa).  



Fig. 4     Celery (Apium graveolens)

Celery

Last winter I planted a row of celery (Fig. 4).  It was great to have something green in the garden during the dead months of winter.  It was but we could not use it all up.  I left the plants to flower to encourage the pollinators to linger around.

   

Every gardener in our area would be interested to know that celery is deer resistant.  But then again - as I always say when people ask me whether a plant is deer resistant or not - it all depends on how hungry the deer are. 

Fig. 5    Italian Sweet Pepper (Capsicum annuum)



Fig. 6     Phaseolus vulgaris

Beans

Not all good things are meant to be for the gardener. I planted beans and watched them grow all the way to flowering (Fig. 6). One morning after I took the picture above, all those plants were defoliated. Everything above ground was gone except for the stems. To say that I almost cried is an understatement. The voles are here and they are destructive! Some say that voles come every three years; 2012 appears to be third year. Sadly, we'll have no beans this summer.

Fig. 7   Thai Pepper (Capsicum annuum)

Fig. 8     Fingerling Potatoes (Solanum tuberosum)

Potatoes 

From last year's harvest, I saved the really small tubers and planted them in early spring.  If it is still true that the condition of the foliage (Fig. 8) is an indication of what lies underground, then these spuds must be hiding some gold in the ground.  Unless, of course, my enemies (voles) have dig a secret tunnel to get to the tubers.  

Fig. 8     Tomatillo (Physalis philadelphica)

Tomatillo

This is my first time growing tomatillo.  So far the plant is doing what it is supposed to.  Flowers hang from the branches but there has been no sign of fruit as of this time.  I keep my fingers crossed on the possibility of homemade salsa verse. 

What's flowering in your edible garden today?

Sweet Potato

 Fig.1     New sweet potato (Ipomea batatas) plant.

Nostalgic Introduction

If anyone would make a movie about my childhood days in the Philippines, sweet potato (Ipomea batatas) would show up over and over again in the background.  Sweet potato is a must-have crop. The roots are eaten as source of carbohydrates prepared as dessert or snack food.  Although it is nutritious and readily available, it does not have the reputation as a staple food unlike rice (Oryza sativa), corn (Zea mays) and cassava (Manihot esculenta).  As a root crop it has a low acceptance possibly due to its flatulent characteristic.   The young leaves, however, have a better reputation as green vegetable.  They are cooked in stews or prepared as wilted salad.  When wilted (not over-cooked) they taste like spinach.  Believe it or not, some varieties taste better than others.   The vines and the older leaves are used as feeds. 

Growing sweet potato is very easy.  In fact the American expression "Piece of cake", can be translated in Ilocano (my native dialect) as "Kasla agmula ti kamote" meaning "It's like planting sweet potato". There was a time when the roadsides in my barrio (village) were all planted with sweet potatoes.  They were beautiful.  Here on the temperate side of the globe, there is also an increasing popularity of the Ipomea (sweet potato) as an ornamental plant mainly for its foliage.

Fig. 2   Sprouts arising from stored sweet potato roots. (January 31, 2012)

Fig. 3 A clean cut on one side of sweet potato.

Regenerating Storage Organs
Now in my house, away from the barrio where I grew up, sweet potato only shows up on Thanksgiving and Christmas.  A month ago while cleaning my pantry, I was in luck!  I found two large sweet potatoes that were sprouting.  The immediate thought that came to mind was planting material.  They have been sitting there for at least two months.  Sweet potatoes, commonly known in the US as yams, are storage organs where food and moisture abound. Because of that, the cells within the root are kept alive and capable of regeneration - starting a new plant.  This is true for most of the food we eat that come in various forms of storage organs such as bulbs (onions - Allium cepa and garlic - Allium sativum); rhizome (ginger- Zingiber officinale); tubers (potatoes - Solanum tuberosum); and corm (taro - Colocasia esculenta).  All of these examples will regenerate when the right conditions are met.  In the home, the pantry seems favorable enough to initiate new growths on such vegetables.

Fig. 4 Wet paper towel encourages root growth on a sprouting sweet potato.

Conditioning the New Sprouts.

Plants grown in the dark, such as those shown on Fig. 2 are etiolated and lanky. This, however, can be improved by exposing them to diffused light.  What I did was cut one side of the root (Fig. 3) to provide a flat surface that would rest on the wet paper towel on a dish (Fig. 4).  It has been my experience that growth of adventitious roots is enhanced by moisture - so the paper towel was kept wet at all times. 

Fig. 5     One week of exposure to light resulted in healthy-looking sprouts.

Garden-worthy Plantlets.

After eight days of exposure to light, the sprouts showed a significant change in coloration (Fig. 5 and Fig. 2).   The young sprouts begin to produce chlorophyll giving the leaves a green color.  They have grown to be more stocky and strong.  The same principle applies to potato (Solanum tuberosum) seed tubers. When their sprouts are pale, give them some time to get exposed to diffused light before planting them.

The roots  (Fig.5) look like they are ready to meet the soil but I will have to keep them inside for a little bit longer until the temperatures get warm. 

 

The Role of Sweet Potato in Another Country

I invite you to watch this video to see how sweet potato is being used to end hunger in Mozambique.

New Residents

Mrs. Quail sits under the canopy of a lettuce plant.

Quails don't walk slowly when they know I am in the garden.  They fly away.  When I saw Mrs. Quail walk quietly away from the vegetable garden, I knew she was hiding something in there.  Like discovering some treasure, I found ten speckled eggs nestled under the ruffled lettuce leaves. 

We have been gone away for a long time this summer.  Mr. and Mrs. Quail decided that the garden was a promising place to raise a family.  Here they found food, water, and shelter. 

Ten tiny speckled eggs.

A few years ago, we had another quail nest in a pot of ivy geranium.  My children looked at the mother quail sit there every day.  Then one day, all they saw were egg shells.   My kids were very sad.  However, a few days later, we saw a family of quail with twelve chicks cross the lawn in a single file.  They were so cute!

This time my younger daughter visits Mrs. Quail every morning.  She hopes to be able to see the chicks when they hatch and before they leave their nest. 

Planting of the next vegetable crop will be delayed until the eggs are hatched.

Mini Garden Beds

Fig. 1   Lettuce plants growing in miniature garden beds.

Raised-bed gardening can improve plant growth, conserve resources, and prevent soil compaction and erosion.  Let me explain.  The use of an enclosure, no matter how simple (Fig. 1 and Fig. 2), allows soil and other soil-amendments to remain in place - defying erosion.  Garden beds define the places that are exclusively for plants and are off limits to traffic. Water and fertilizer can be applied right where they are needed. 

We experimented on using Redwood fence boards to make simple garden beds.  The soil underneath is relatively good hence there was no need for a deep bed.  Some of the beds were made small to facilitate succession planting.  A new crop can be planted in a bed without having to wait for the other beds to be ready.  Succession planting prolongs the length of harvest season for any given crop.

So far, I am very pleased with the outcome of this experiment. 

Fig. 2   Good soil is contained in the garden box.

For the small spaces in your garden, try these easy mini-garden-beds. 

Kitchen Garden: On a Good Start





Fig. 1    Colorful chards.

 

Many times in the past I was deceived by our spring weather.  It would start to get dry and warm by March and I've interpreted those  as a signal to plant warm-season vegetables.  Then we would get a sudden cold temperature damaging young plants.  This year however, has been mild that I was able to grow cool-season crops before it got too warm.  The temperature is staying consistently pleasant and gradually increasing.  The weather has been very favorable for starting new plants - both annuals and perennials.  As I write this post, the temperature outside is close to 80 degrees F - the warmest day of the season (in our area), so far. 

Here is a list of the vegetables and herbs that are currently growing in my garden:

 

Lettuce

Swiss Chard 

Arugula

Tomato

Cucumber

Raddish 

Potato

Jalapeno Pepper

Japanese Eggplant

Zucchini

Strawberry

Rhubarb (new this year)

Onions

Chives

Garlic Chives,

Cilantro

Basil

Italian Parsley

Fig. 2   Swiss chard 'Rainbow' (Beta vulgaris)

This is my first time planting 'Rainbow' Swiss chard in my garden and I am glad I did.  They are very healthy and colorful (Fig. 1 and Fig. 2).  They are very nutritious and yet they look so ornamental.

Fig. 3     Arugula (Eruca sativa)

I have a pomegranate tree growing in a large pot (Fig. 3) and I thought of planting a fast growing annual crop with it.  The tree was still leafless at the time of sowing; now its leaves provides a slight shade for the arugula.   This arrangement works really well that it will surely be repeated next year.  I did the same thing last fall when I planted bok choy with a Ficus tree.   

  

Fig. 4    Lettuce (Lactuca sativa 'Red Sails' and 'Black-Seeded Simpson')

I planted two varieties of lettuce namely, 'Red Sails' and 'Black-Seeded Simpson'.  Both varieties have similar growth habits (Fig.4); the leaves are crumpled with edges that are frilly.  'Black-Seeded Simpson' has bright and almost-neon green leaves.  'Red Sails' is an award winning variety with glossy red-purplish leaves.  It is fast maturing (45 days) and resistant to bolting or flowering which allows for a prolonged season of great tasting lettuce.

Basil are just emerging with their first set leaves, pole beans seeds were planted last week. 



Fig. 5    Easter Sunday: Kids invaded the vegetable garden in search of eggs.

It's that time again when plant parts that we consider food begin to find their way to the kitchen. 

Halloween Tomatoes

Old and sagging.

Pecked with developing pus.

Shrivelled with crusty scab.

Bruised, wounded, and fungus-infected.

Wrinkled and leathery.

My tomato plants need to find their resting place.