Garden Poll

Please help us continue to better serve our community by filling out the following poll!  If you choose other, please comment below and tell us what you are interested in.

How to create Super vinegar weed killer or Vinegar-Up

How to concentrate vinegar for garden use : We use a concentrated vinegar instead of a roundup ready type poison for weed killing. Most household vinegar sold in stores is found to be 5% acidity and can usually be good enough for the creation of the weed killer. This means that you might have to use multiple applications to kill denser or stronger weed patches ( just like with roundup ) but that can get annoying and in the case of roundup too excessive.This system is minimalist so if you are anal retentive or OCD and after reading this you INSTANTLY have a better idea and want to design all kinds of gadgets you think will work better than this.... do it ! As far as my life is concerned the less specialty equipment I have, the better. Most equipment i use and keep around me have multipurpose uses but that's how i do things, you of course are different. You are only limited by your imagination and of course your storage capacity.  
Here is our system and it works for us .

Materials : Enough empty two liter bottles to accommodate all your vinegar plus a general storage container for the concentrate , a large funnel, an empty five gallon bucket, a couple of empty two liter bottles, a couple of pounds of gravel of any kind. a long screwdriver or dowel rod long enough to reach NEAR the bottom of the bottle. a old towel or a bunch of rags, a mix bowl and two ounces of dish soap and a mix ounces of regular vinegar 

First of all you will be cold distilling because most folks do not own a home still with a condensing column but if you do have one or are creative enough to make one, skip this part. Put your vinegar into two liter bottles and plais is your weep hole from which your acid will drain out of. Make sure your empty two liter with funnel is nearest to the corner. Push the towel in the five gallon bucket in front of the two liter ( this is a support trick to help support the empty bottle from tipping. You want to design something else...do it ). Place the frozen two liter upside down into the funnel and allow it to drain.The corner is used so you can lean the upside down frozen bottle up against it aiding you in supporting the inverted frozen bottle.. If you want to come up with a support mechanism of your own ...do it. As the bottle warms up to room temperature the acetic acid will melt first before the water will draining into the funnel and into the empty two liter below. When a head space is created at the top of the frozen bottle ( which is actually the inverted bottom of the bottle ) of about 1.5-2 inches more than your original frozen head space  , then that bottle is done. You may now proceed to repeat the process with another frozen bottle of vinegar.



Be very careful with handling this material and do not splash it around. This is acetic acid and can be VERY dangerous when concentrated.You are COMPLETELY responsible for what you do yourself if you act stupid and we are in no way responsible for your actions.

You may now proceed to part two and that requires you take about 3 ounces of vinegar ( unconcentrated ) and add two ounce of a dish soap in a separate container. Carefully mix the two together until the dish soap is dispersed into the vinegar. You are NOT trying to create suds but instead just mixing the two into one. Take your pump action sprayer and remove the pumping head. Place this mix into your sprayer and then CAREFULLY add a gallon of your concentrate. Your vinegar/soap mix will be easily dispersed into your concentrate effectively and you may now begin spraying.... that is after you have replaced your top. Be very careful as to what you spray and that also means yourself. Concentrated vinegar can be very painful to get in your eyes and mucous membranes and you way want to wear safety glasses and a respirator. Another effective way is to use a heavy duty kitchen glove that you wear and dip a rag into this mixure ,wiping it on the leaves of those plants you want to kill. Some plants like yucca may still require multiple treatments . Since the removal of the plants ( pulling, burning , mowing ) means the removal of most of the acid , there's no PH change . If you got sloppy a dusting of hardwood ashes would counteract the acid residue and you would also be  adding potassium , a necessary nutrient . 

Farmer Browns supercharged Willow water

Willow Water is a method to extract the rooting hormones indolebutyric acid (IBA) and Salicylicacid( SA), which are present in sufficient quantities in the Willow(Salix) trees to use as a liquid that stimulates root growth. 

Old world methods often suggest soaking the cut stems for up to a month in water. Most new methods suggest using 48 to 72 hour extraction process and those are available. What both of these systems lack is that most scientists agree the hormone itself is alcohol soluble. Our method fixes that and make a more concentrated tea. 

Carondelet Willow tea 

Gather willow branches from the first or second years growth that are green and yellow do not harvest any brown branches. Cut these branches into 1-2 inch pieces and place at the bottom of the 5 gallon bucket filling that bucket about a third of the way loosely. Pour a gallon and a half of boiling water on top of these branches and carefully place a dinner plate on top those branches. Safely use something to force the dinner plate down , making sure that the Willow branches are below the surface of the water. Allow this to sit overnight and cool. The next day add 2 shots of vodka 2 to gallons of water and pour this mixture over the dinnerplate making sure again that the plate is forcing the material below the surface of the water. Allow this to sit for 4 to 5 days. The alcohol will not only help you extract more of the hormone but after a few days time it would begin to disappear from the solution altogether. You may now remove the dinner plate and remove the cut Willow branches. Then what's next is  pouring off your liquid rooting supercharger into recycled ( if possible ) gallon jugs that you can store in the refrigerator for months.You can use this to water cuttings or use it to stimulate root growth when planting starters. We use it when transplanting anything to help reduce system shock and to encourage quick root growth. We have proven through experiments that seedlings watered with this grew faster than those that weren't. However you make your tea just remember that science in the garden can be fun as well as rewarding.

Perennial Vegetable Corner: Asparagus

Asparagus officinalis

Asparagus is one of the more familiar offerings on this visitation to various choices in perennial vegetable gardening.  This succulent vegetable is loved or hated in our American cuisine.  One of the oldest vegetables on record, it grows well in our region.  The following website has an excellent overview of establishing your asparagus patch:

Michigan Asparagus Advisory Board

Varieties original to the United States are Mary, Martha, and Waltham Washington.  Hybrid varieties provide more male plants than female and are the Jersey Giant, Jersey Knight, Jersey Supreme and Jersey Gem varieties.  Other varieties are available in the southern United States and Canada, but the Canadian varieties may not be available to the home gardener at this time.  Purple passion, pacific purple and other purple varieties have been selected for a genetic color mutation but turn green with cooking.  White varieties are the normal varieties that have been "blanched" by mechanical means by the gardener.

Suppliers:

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds

Territorial Seed

Grow Organic

Garlic of the Day: Inchelium Red

Found at the Colville Indian Reservation in Inchelium, Washington, this variety is a winner among braidable artichoke type garlics.  Large bulbs with up to 20 cloves in layers.  Stores well and the flavor increases during storage.  This bulb is a national taste test winner in the softneck division and has a robust but not overwhelming flavor.  Good in many climates.

Suppliers:
Territorial Seed Company
High Mowing Seeds
Southern Exposure Exchange

Perennial Vegetable Corner: Groundnut

Apios americana also known as Groundnut

A vine native to North America, the groundnut has edible beans and tubers.  Tubers are crunchy and nutritious and have high quantities of starch and protein.  Before the European settlement of this continent, native Americans got the majority of their crop from the wild.  Documentation does show that some tribes did transplant these vines near their settlements to make harvesting easier.  I have not tried to cultivate these but it appears that they would be a good companion plant with the ramps we talked about recently.  Interested in starting a growth of these in the city?  Let us know how it goes for you!

Suppliers:

Sand Mountain Herbs

Local Harvest

Garlic of the Day: Siciliano

Excellent for sauces and pestos, Siciliano is a tasty favorite among garlic varieties.  This is another softneck artichoke type that is good for braiding.  Richly flavored and mildly pungent, this variety is a good keeper for a home cook who enjoys flavoring with garlic.  An old world variety, it has only been available in the US for about a decade.  This is a moderate garlic and pairs readily with tomato, pasta and olive oil.  By infusing olive oil with it's flavor the home cook can have a superior cooking oil.  Early harvester, 10 to 12 cloves per bulb, and keeps for 5-6 months.

Suppliers:

Tanglewood Creek Family Farm

Hood River Garlic

The Cook's Garden

Perennial Vegetable Corner: Garlic chives

Allium tuberosum also known as Garlic chives

The last in our perennial allium family, garlic chives are a versatile contributor to the garden.  Easily grown from seed or by separating clumps, this is a carefree addition to the garden.  The flowers also provide for a pleasant addition to the landscape.  The flavor is mild and a cross between garlic and chives.  These are an excellent pot herb or garnish.  Flowers make an excellent garnish and bloom in mid to late summer.  There are even companies that produce and extract for it's aphrodisiac properties.

Suppliers:

Swallowtail Gardens

Local Harvest

Victory Seeds

Galic of the Day: Polish White

Harvest this soft neck variety in early summer and it will keep until mid winter.  This is a rich musky mellow garlic that is very popular in the United States.  This garlic has consistent yields and is easy to grow, very popular to grow in New England.  This garlic does well in cold weather and will produce 5-9 large cloves per artichoke type bulb.  It may have some purpling in the skin making it fairly attractive for display and braids well.  Excellent baker.

Suppliers:
Filagree Farms
Hood River
Karian Farms

People in Our Neighborhood: Farmer Brown

The Energizer Bunny that holds the garden together and keeps us moving forward is our own Farmer Brown.      He tirelessly challenges the gardeners he is working with to be more, bigger, better, faster, stronger.  It's rumored that Farmer Brown does not sleep and pulls all his energy from the rays of the sun and moon.  With a couple or three decades of experience under his belt, Farmer Brown is a fantastic resource and is generally available to teach those wanting to learn how to live sustainably and more in tune with the earth.

Farmer Brown has a degree in viticulture and enology which is often showcased at late night barbecues.  He recently brought a mulberry melomel along that was incredibly tasty and satisfying, but I have yet to taste anything bad from his cellars.  He had a farm in Chillicothe which has given him a great deal of animal husbandry experience and numerous 4-H awards in animal husbandry. Spent many years at the Livingston County farmers market and held a board position of treasurer there He also spent 10 years as a hydroponic grower. Sausage and artisan ham making, food preservation and butchering are just a few of the arts he picked up along the way. 

Spearheading the annual Garlic Fest in town, he throws his tireless determination into putting on a fantastic festival that grows every year.  It's a wonderful way to network with like minded gardeners and to learn more about the community at large.

In addition to the festival, he keeps multiple lots on track with many gardeners at the reigns.  This year he expanded our cooperative farmers to include an intern program.  In order to keep the garden servicing the community he also started a series of classes, the schedule of which can be found elsewhere on this blog.

If you come out and join us in our many endeavors, please make sure to check in with Farmer Brown and find your niche with us to continue to grow our gardening community and the communities of Carondelet and the Patch as a whole.  Together we will make a better place to live, work, and play and Farmer Brown is fantastic at leading the way.

Perennial Vegetable Corner: Ramps

Allium tricoccum also known as Ramps

Ramps are an early spring vegetable of the onion family.  They have a strong garlic odor and pronounced onion flavor.  The mountain folk of Appalachia have long celebrated spring with the arrival of the ramp, believing it to have great power as a tonic to ward off many ailments of winter. Indeed, ramp's vitamin and mineral content did bolster the health of people who went without many green vegetables during the winter.  These delicious greens can be pulled straight out of the ground and nibbled on by those with a passion for strong tastes.  Chopped they may be used in various cuisines.  Excellent paired with eggs or in stir fries, many people develop a passionate love of these vegetables after being introduced to their robust flavor.  Ramps grow wild all over the United States and a patch can be introduced to your backyard by transplanting a clump to fill in some of the shady spaces.  When picking out your space, look for dappled light or shade and plant in a wood chip rich area.   Recently, the Carondelet Urban Farm went on a field trip to Macoupin County, Illinois to dig bushels of ramps.  It was an exciting and taste filled day.  We have had some discussion of what we actually dug up and are awaiting expert opinion on what we brought home to transplant.  Ramps are a great plant to tuck in your landscape and nibble on in the spring of the year.

Suppliers:

Prairie Moon Nursery

Ramp Farm Specialties

Everwilde Farms

Garden Chores for July

It's July and you don't know what to do.  It's hot, the spring plantings are going to seed and it's time to move on.   Here's an easy list of ideas:

1.  Fill your empty spots with fall plantings.  Beets, carrots, beans, chard, endive, kale, kohlrabi, lettuce, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, late cabbage, cauliflower, late beets, celery, turnips, radishes, spinach and others.

2.  Dig in plenty of compost in your empty spaces.

3.  Check the number of frostless days left and plan accordingly.

4.  Mulch, mulch, mulch.  We are going into the dry part of the season, conserve all the water you can.  Mulch will keep down your weeds and lessen the amount your soil changes temperature.  Mulch will also keep ripened fruit from going bad on the ground.

5.  Get your canning equipment together.  Stage your jars, wash everything and clear your shelves for storage.

6.  Renovate your June bearing strawberry beds.

7.  Raspberries - remove 3-4 inches of shoot tips on new growth to encourage branching and cut out canes that just finished fruiting.

8.  Mulch around fruit bearing trees.

9.  Fertilize and dead head flowers to promote new blooms.

10.  Harvest herb leaves for drying before they start to bloom.

11.  Stop harvesting asparagus and rhubarb.

12.  Water at least weekly during dry spells.

13.  Keep tomatoes irrigated regularly to reduce blossom end rot.

14.  It's a good time to plant delphinium, daisies, forget-me-knots, pansies, lupines, dianthus, wall flowers, snapdragons, columbines, poppies, and evening primrose.

15.  Deadhead your roses

16.  Prune wisteria back hard.

17.  Feed all perennials, shrubs, and trees.

18.  Plant rhubarb, shallots, egyptian walking onions, and fava beans for harvest next season. (I usually wait for later due to frequent late winters here in St. Louis)

19.  Transplant strawberries that have rooted from runners.


Here's another excellent blog about what to do now:  A Way To Garden

Garlic of the Day: Silver Rose

Silver Rose Garlic is a softneck variety.  This artichoke bulb multiplies easily and is a great garlic for the garden.  One of the most attractive traits is the ease of which this garlic braids and keeps for up to 9 months making it one of the better keepers.  Silver Rose has a silver skin and rose meat.  It's a mild garlic but packs a little heat with little or no aftertaste.  Silver rose is a larger head with up to 12 cloves per head.  Rich and musky in garlickiness, yet mild in pungency.  These are a late harvest garlic and keep well into the next year.

Suppliers:
Gurney's
High Mowing Seeds
We Grow Garlic
Gormet Garlic Gardens

Perennial Vegetable Corner: Welsh Onion

Allium fistulosum also known as Welsh Onion.

Bunching onions that can be found at the grocery store are an excellent perennial vegetable for the home garden.  Growing 2 feet by 8 inches, Welsh Onion is highly edible.  Bulb, stem, and flowers pack a high onion punch when used in salads and sautes.  Easy to grow, it prefers a sunny location with light well-drained soil.  Juice is said to be used as a moth repellant.  Plants for a Future Database also lists numerous other uses including a sedative for children that can be made from this plant.

Suppliers:

Bountiful Gardens

Horizon Herbs

and many varieties at our local favorite:  Baker Creek Nursery

Resources:

Plants for a Future Database:  Allium fistulosum
Floridata
How to Grow Green Onions
Smart Gardener

Black Garlic

At the recent St. Louis Garlic Fest, we were asked numerous questions about Black Garlic.  Black Garlic is not a cultivar of garlic, it is a fermented product resulting from low heat and high humidity over many weeks.  Imagine my surprise when I picked up the most recent copy of Hobby Farms Home and there was an article on creating this elusive ingredient. (I'll have to make a more conscious effort to keep up on my reading from now on.)  Farmer Brown already makes this and has his own method.  We spend so much time on so many projects that I am not familiar with his techniques.  The Hobby Farm article outlines use of a slow cooker and a wet towel to create this balsamic-esque garlic.

There is another person who uses a modified appliance and a light bulb.  Outlined here, this is a relatively interesting method.  I googled how to do this and found a few people who just had no clue as well.  One reviewer misread an article at Black Garlic and interpreted it to say that this process occurred over high heat. That article was then quoted over and over again on other reviews.  I found a response in a chat room that stated that someone's older female Korean relative used a rice cooker to accomplish this.  Both my rice cookers auto turn off and I wouldn't trust them to the method.  I'm sure my house would burn down.  In the same chat room, a chef poo poo'd the idea of do it yourself and said to order it.  I'm not for that.  What is the fun of sustainability if I have to order something?

I even found this on Instructables, once you start combining appliances that I don't have to begin with, you've gone too far for me, but it might be worth a try for those that tinker as well as garden.

I'm intrigued, I expect Farmer Brown or Whole Foods will be getting a visit from me soon for some of this to experiment with.  I may even decide to try the crock pot method, we will see.  If you decide to try this out, let us know what you think.  If you try one of these methods, let us know how it works out for you.  I will be looking forward to your stories in about a month and a half.  I have a terrible weakness for Korean foodstuffs and love garlic as well.  Here are some links to help inspire you to new culinary heights!

Links:

Aged Black Garlic, A New Superfood?

Black Garlic Recipes

Black Garlic Noodles - Umami Blast

Black Garlic at Specialty Produce

The Health Benefits of Black Garlic

Umami Black Garlic

White Asparagus with Black Garlic Vinegrette  (someone needs to drop off a sample of this at my house)

Garlic of the Day - California Early

Todays Garlic of the day is .... the California Early !
This one of the two Gilroy cultivars is the one you're least likely to find in the local supermarkets because it is processed into dried and pickled and otherwise processed garlic products. California Early is a little bigger and sweeter than California Late, which is definitely on the hot side. Cal Early is said to be very early maturing but it seems to be more of a mid-artichoke-season garlic for us, though it is a prolific grower and a good commercial garlic. It does seem to tolerate our hot spring weather well and stores well also.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much better our Cal Early garlic was than the ones we bought in the stores. The difference our healthy soil and careful handling makes is phenomenal.When grown and harvested properly, Cal Early is an excellent all- around general use garlic and a wonderful baker.

It ranks 4-5 on the garlickiness scale and 3-4 on the pungency side. It has a semi-rich flavor and a little bite, but is still on the light side.

It's a very good growers garlic as it has many large cloves (even the innermost cloves are of good size) and it stores well under proper conditions. The Gilroy growers knew good garlic when they saw it, it was their agricultural practices and resulting soil conditions that made the difference.

 

Garlic of the Day - Paw Paw Garlic

Todays Garlic of the day is ...... The Paw Paw Garlic 

The rich, mellow Rocambole hardneck Garlic of the Midwest.

Rocamboles grow better in cold winter gardens.

Harvests in early summer - stores through fall into winter.

Paw Paw is rare because it is a full flavored mellow Rocambole with little or no hotness to the taste - excellent for Pesto.

Paw Paw is a generally good sized and can be a rather large garlic. Its flavor is rich and mellow like shallots but almost buttery and not hot or spicy and a warm pleasant aftertaste sticks around for a while. A very enriching taste experience and not one to burn your tongue.

From a grower's perspective, it grows well in cold winter areas and usually grows healthy surprisingly uniform sized bulbs. It has thick bulb wrappers for a rocambole and they have a lot of purple and brown layered across a white background - very attractive.

Paw Paw usually has anywhere from 8 or 9 easy to peel cloves that are of good size, with no smaller inner cloves. The outer bulb wrappers are thin and flake off easily so it is not a very good storer, but no Rocambole is. For those up north who want to grow their own garlic, it is said to grow well in wet conditions. It only takes a year or two to grow all you can eat. It harvests in early mid-season (Julyish) along with most of the other Rocamboles. Bulbs are usually over 2 1/2 inches in diameter and are of good size are grown primarily for their rich flavor and good growing characteristics.

Garlic of the Day - Applegate

Todays Garlic of the day is Applegate :
Harvests in early summer - stores into mid-winter

Applegate is a superb mild garlic that is excellent for raw eating as in pesto or added as something crunchy to tuna or chicken salad (it's that mild) or cooking where you want only the most delicate hint of garlic in your dish.

Applegate is an early harvesting fairly good storing garlic but should be grown in conjunction with a longer storing Porcelain or Silverwhite in order to be able to have good garlic year around.

Extremes of weather, such as extra cold or dry winters or high temperatures in the early spring can make it a warmer and stronger garlic. It is a wonderful garlic and I highly recommend it for those who love good tasting mild garlic. It is well worth growing and is a fairly early maturing garlic which you can be enjoying while most of the others are still in the ground.

Applegate is a good garlic to grow in warm winter areas.

 

Garlic of the Day - Sonoran

Todays garlic of the day is the classic ...Sonoran
Sonoran harvests VERY early - late spring to early Summer - stores until around November-December.

Sonoran is very early harvesting so you have garlic before anyone else and it grows well in the great American Southwest from Austin/San Antonio all the way to San Diego. If it grows well in the Sonoran Desert, for which it is named, it should grow well for you.
Growing it in conjunction with a longer storing garlic like Ajo Rojo may mean you never run out of good garlic.

Asiatic garlics typically have six to ten cloves per bulb in a circular configuration around a central scape. They're generally large bulbs with fat cloves. The bulb wrappers are firm, tight and vivid with broad, bold purple stripes merging into areas of solid purple. A very strongly colored garlic. The clove covers are a silky golden tan with a rosy aura. It is one of the very first cultivars planted in the fall and the first harvested in the spring around here. The taste puts it in a class almost by itself.

When you first bite into a clove there is a beautiful musky garlic flavor that has just enough pungency (hotness) to let you know it is real garlic but not enough to be offensive so you settle back and enjoy the marvelous flavor. And after a minute or so, the rich garlickiness is replaced with a smooth warm aftertaste that just makes you feel good.

If you are looking for an early season garlic that harvests before any of the others and is great for raw eating and stores about six months from harvest at room temp., this one is for you.

Garlic of the Day - Chesnok Red

todays Garlic of the day is ...... The Chesnok Red
Chesnok Red is yet another one of the garlics from the Republic of Georgia in the former USSR. Chesnok is a standard Purple Stripe and has the typical heavy purple striping that gives this variety its name. They have about as much purple as Rocamboles but the background color of the bulb wrappers is much more whitish, making for a very attractive appearance. Chesnok Red can become a rather large garlic with excellent growing conditions.

The outer bulb wrappers are a little thin & loose, but the more you peel away, the thicker and tighter they get (makes the bulb wrappers easy to peel). Once the cloves are revealed, they are seen to be large and with long thin points and are all milky white with cranberry-colored streaks up the outsides of the cloves whike the edges between the cloves are nearly solid cranberry and the elongated tips rather tannish. Large bulbs will have about a dozen cloves and even the inner ones are of good size. They can run an inch or two up the central scape (false stem) and are not only attractive but make the cloves easy to peel.

They have fewer but larger cloves (average of 8 to 10) arranged in a rather circular pattern. Although large bulbs will have about a dozen cloves and even the inner ones are of good size.

Chesnok Red is a full flavored garlic with a mellow aftertaste that sticks around nicely for a while. Best baking garlic and a great all-around garlic. Some years it can be hotter or milder than usual, but it is always fully garlicky.

Chesnok Red is the sweetest roasting garlic of them all; It doesn't just taste not garlicky, it actually tastes sweet. Garlic ice cream made with roasted Chesnok Red has the taste and crunchiness of butter brickle ice cream - try it, it's fabulous

 

Garlic of the Day - Georgian Fire

Introducing the " Georgian fire "
Grows well in most states even some years in Warm Winter Areas, but will be marginal there in years with early hot summers.
Harvests early-mid summer - stores into spring.

Georgian Fire, like most porcelains is a large and beautiful garlic with rich robust flavor that is strong and has an aftertaste that lingers. The clove covers are a light brown streaked with purple From a growers perspective, it is a large and healthy garlic to grow and appears to be relatively resistant to most of the diseases that can affect garlic. It originated in the Republic of Georgia. 

Unusual Favorites of Year's Past

I like to grow the vegetables that produce well for me, but there are a few things that have made it to my plant for the sheer fun of it list.

1.  Ground Cherry - These easy plants may be bought as starts from Seed Savers, or as seed from a variety of sources.  The fruit look like tiny tomatillos and have a tart pineapple taste.  My kids have both stood as toddlers eating them straight off the vine.  They dry well and cook into cookies nicely too.

2.  Cucuzzi Squash - This is an edible gourd. As with most gourds, plant them far from your home.  The vines are long and prolific.  They bear a lovely baseball bat size gourd that can be eaten when picked young. Even if you look every day, these will sneak up and scare you by not being there one day and being the size of your leg the next.

3.  Burgundy Okra - Lovely and tall, this is a wonderful plant to grace the garden.  These okra are more tender than others and have a wonderful flavor raw or cooked.  Instant ticket to feeling like you are the best gardener out there.  Pretty and huge.

4.  Red Chinese Long Bean - This yard long bean grows quickly and easily.  Tasty in bean salads and numerous other recipes, this bean loves the warm weather and needs a fairly tall trellis.

5.  Cardoon - A relative of the artichoke, these must be started indoors due to the long season that they need.  I rarely actually eat these which is a shame, but I love their exotic look.  It's a bit finicky, but the years they succeed, they provide a lovely accent to the garden.

March: What to Plant

Time to start if you haven't already!  Don't know what to plant?  Here's a helpful guide:

Brassicas:  Kale, Mustard, Cabbage, Broccoli, Cauliflower, and Brussel Sprouts

Beets & Turnips

Green Onions

Tomatoes, Peppers, and Chilies

Carrots

Eggplants

If you haven't gotten a head start, there is still time to plant broad beans, onions, leeks, peas, arugula, parsnips and spinach outside.  In flats you can still sow radish, lettuce, celeriac, celery, and globe artichoke.

Want some more help planning your garden?  Check out Sprout Robot!

Garlic of the Day - Amish

Todays Garlic of the day is the Amish ....Harvests early-mid summer - stores through fall into winter.
Amish Rocambole may be an heirloom garlic, who knows? (a garden plant whose lineage can be traced for a 100 years or more) It is a generally a vigorous grower with large foliage that is dark green and results in a pretty good sized bulb. Being a Rocambole garlic, its flavor is very strong, hot and spicy and sticks around for a long time. From a growers perspective, it grows well in cold winter areas, but does poorly in warm winter areas, and usually grows healthy fairly uniform sized bulbs. It has thin bulb wrappers that have a lot of purple and brown .Amish Rocambole usually has anywhere from 8 or 9 easy to peel cloves that are of good size, with no smaller inner cloves. The outer bulb wrappers are thin and flake off easily so it is not a very good storer, but no Rocambole is - through the fall and into winter. Great taste is their claim to fame, not long storage. For those up North who want to grow their own garlic it only takes a year or two to grow all you can eat. It harvests in early summer along with most of the other Rocamboles. Bulbs are usually over 2 1/2 inches in diameter and are of good size are grown primarily for their particularly rich flavor.

Time to Plant Potatoes, but What to Plant?

Potatoes are easy and fun to grow.  They are also very easy to plant.  Throw them on the ground, cover them with straw and keep adding straw when the plants grow 9" above the previous layer of straw.  It helps if you throw some manure on the ground first, but really they are not too high maintenance.  One of the most difficult decisions is what kind.  Rural King sells cheap 50 lb bags of the standard varieties, but what do the varieties mean?

Early, Mid-season, and Late

There are three main areas of harvest time.  Early are ready in about 90 days, while late may take 150 days to mature.  Early is great if you want baby potatoes to can up.  They have lower yields than the late varieties.  Late varieties are excellent if you want to store in your root cellar.

Eating Qualities

Texture, flavor, and even color vary from potato to potato.  Think about what you normally buy to eat and then look up the qualities listed in a seed catalog.  If you want to branch out, pick a new potato with similar qualities.  Waxy potatoes are good for boiling and stay firm when cooking.  These are great for salads.  Mealy potatoes are great baked, roasted, or fried.  Some are nutty in flavor and some are fairly mild.  Color may attract you as well, but often doesn't affect taste.

Disease Resistance

Some are better for some reasons than others.  If you ave nematode problems, you may want to search out a potato that is less effected by your local pest.

Early Varieties

1.  Foremost
2.  Red Duke of York
3.  Accent
4.  Caribe
5.  Chieftain
6.  Dark Red Norland
7.  Superior
8.  Adriondac Blue
9.  Adriondac Red
10.  Rose Finn
11.  Purple Viking
12.  Sangre

Mid-Season Potatoes

1.  Charlotte
2.  Belle de Fontenay
3.  Carola
4.  Kennebec
5.  French Fingerling
6.  Desiree
7.  Nicola
8.  Bintje

Later Varieties

1.  Yukon Gold
2.  Pink Fir Apple
3.  LaRatte
4.  All-Blue
5.  German Butterball
6.  Russian Banana

A more comprehensive list can be found here!

Understanding the Options When Ordering Seeds

Gardening is on an upswing in the nation currently.  With the enthusiasm, come the gardening catalogues, but how do you know what you are getting?  What do all the terms mean and how do you know you are getting heirloom vegetables and what are heirloom vegetables anyway?  Don't feel bad, terminology provides a stumbling block for many people, but we can try to help out a little.  I've been gardening since I was a child and it still trips me up.  Every year there seem to be new marketing words that I don't get.  Here are some explanations to help clear it up.

Organic Seeds

Organic seeds come from organic farms.  To understand that you need to know what organic gardening is.  Organic gardening isn't simply not using chemicals.  According to the IFOAM (International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movement), “Organic agriculture is a production system that sustains the health of soils, ecosystems and people. It relies on ecological processes, biodiversity and cycles adapted to local conditions, rather than the use of inputs with adverse effects. Organic agriculture combines tradition, innovation and science to benefit the shared environment and promote fair relationships and a good quality of life for all involved.”  What this means is that these farms may indeed use approved chemicals, but they do it in an environmentally friendly way.  Organic seed also has guidelines set by the USDA on how the seeds may be treated.  These processing techniques include treating seeds with hot water, using legume inoculants to protect against disease, pelletizing seeds (encasing them in a protective covering) as long as no fungicides are included in the pellet, as well as various other treatments such as the application of microbial activators and bacterial inoculants.

Heirloom Seeds

Seeds saved from one season to the next and passed down from people to people.  One of the Carondelet Garden farmers has a cherry tomato seed that he has over 50 years of saving!  Seeds were traditionally saved this way.  This doesn't mean they are organic.  It does mean they are probably open pollinated.  Seeds saved within a community can be specialized to the local weather.  A gardener may have selected for a specific characteristic such as taste, marketability, disease resistance, etc.

Open Pollinated Seeds

Open pollination is pollination by insects, birds, wind, or other natural mechanisms, and contrasts with cleistogamy, closed pollination, which is one of the many types of self pollination. Open pollination also contrasts with controlled pollination, which is controlled so that all seeds of a crop are descended from parents with known traits, and are therefore more likely to have the desired traits.  What this means is that the grower hasn't really selected for anything specific.  What it could mean to you is that you will find my variance in the characteristics of the plants.  Plants grown from controlled pollination will be more uniform and predictable.  I think this label is being used to promote a more organic feel to seed selections from catalogues.

Hybrid Seeds

Hybrid seeds are produced by companies through careful pollination of two specific varieties. Normally, this highly selective plant breeding is done to bring together two traits in each of the chosen varieties so that the resulting seed has both of the traits.  Seeds collected from these plants will not grow into necessarily the same plant.  The positives for hybrid seeds are that they tend to perform better in your garden in terms of more fruits and vegetables produced, more plants surviving disease and pests and more flowers. For a gardener, this can mean an increased return for all the time spent in caring for a garden.

Genetic Modification


Scientists can now bypass the traditional breeding methods of manipulating plant characteristics. Rather than cross-breeding plants, they can work directly with plant DNA -- the genetic code containing the blueprint for all characteristics. Scientists can now take pieces of this code with the qualities they want and insert them into any cell.  Genetic modification of seeds primarily occurs to make plants resistant to herbicides or pesticides. The field can then be sprayed, leaving the modified plants unharmed. This process is used mainly in crops grown on an industrial scale. This form of seed underlies a huge debate in food growing circles.  We believe you should "Just Say No to GMO".

What does all of this mean for you?  That depends.  If you are just starting out in gardening, probably nothing.  Get some seeds from neighbors or from the catalogue and have some success with growing.  If you are an experienced gardener, you can use these terms to better select for your needs and to establish your own seed library.  People used to save their seeds.  This saving inadvertently bred more varieties of vegetables each suited to it's own region.  Seed Catalogues sell to all growing regions and will breed to the lowest common denominator.

If you are serious about your seeds, I recommend joining and supporting Seed Savers.  It's worth the annual membership.

As always save your seeds and join our seed swaps.  The more seeds offered, the better we can meet the food security needs of our community.

Garlic of the Day - Rogue River Red

Todays Garlic of the day is.... Rogue River Red !! 
Rogue River red is an early-mid season harvesting medium-rich flavored and medium pungent softneck Artichoke with straw-colored clove covers and often a lot of purplish color to the bulb wrappers. Excellent all-around garlic that can be braided and stores into mid-winter.

It is good to grow these along with Porcelains or Silverskin garlics so you can have both early season and longer storing kinds. You may not ever run out of good garlic.

Grows very well in most of the USA and can even be grown in warm winter areas quite well.

Garlic of the Day, Burgundy Garlic!

 
and todays Garlic of the day is the stunning Burgundy!

 Burgundy is as beautiful a garlic as the name implies. The Creole group may well be the most beautiful of all garlics for more than one reason. It was hard to believe Creoles were silverskins as they don't resemble any other silverskins in any way. Botanists assu"red" us; however, that they were genetically silverskins, but it turns out not to be so. They are in an class all of their own and it shows. If I have a personal favorite garlic, this one is it. I love so many of them it is hard to pick a single one, but I could not leave these beauties off any list of favorites. They look almost too pretty to eat-until you try one, then you realize they're too beautiful not to eat.

The bulb wrappers have a lovely deep rose color to them and the more layers you peel off, the prettier they get. When you finally get down to the cloves, which are arranged in circular fashion around the center, much like rocamboles, the clove covers are almost "red" with delicate burgundy colo"red" vertical streaks. They look more like flowers than garlic and are so perfectly arrayed that you are reluctant to pull off a clove and disturb the symmetry of it all. You almost feel as though you are violating it. But you have to taste test it so you pull off a clove and peel its cover off and take that first bite almost with a feeling of regret and apologizing to it for doing such violence to it. You bite off the upper half of the naked clove and fall in love with it as it tastes every bit as good as it looks. Burgundy has a wonderfully mild, yet full flavor with only moderate heat. In my view, it is one of the best of all garlics for enjoyable raw eating. It is so good that you eagerly rip off another clove and dig in without apology (Once is never enough with a garlic like this.) 

Burgundy is about the size of the average silverskin and stores just as clean and firm almost as long, but not quite. Burgundy tends to grow clean also and seems almost immune to some of the problems that can plague some of the other varieties. That may be because Burgundy grows better in warmer climates than many kinds of garlic. Not all cultivars are well suited to growing in mild winter and warm to hot spring climates but the Creole garlics do very well here in central Texas and other warmer climates. The excellent condition of our original seedstock that we got from Filaree Farms in Washington implies that it does pretty good in the cold areas also. You might want to buy a handful of these garlics even if you hate garlic; they make a fabulous centerpiece for the festive table.

Welcome to the blog

Thanks for following us!  This is the site of our new blog following the activities of the Carondelet Garden Urban Farm.  Our mission is to grow and share food and the knowledge and skills you need to do the same.

Join us for our free class series and on our project days.  Mark your calender for the upcoming Garlic Fest, and feel free to contact us with any questions.

Please subscribe to our blog and recommend us to friends.  We love garlic, but hopefully we can help you in your journey through growing all kind of food!

Join Us! 2013 Workshop Schedule Is Released!