My Gardening Wish List for 2014

As I sit around my house, tapping my feet, waiting for January to come to an end so I can start preparing to start seeds, I find myself thinking about the fun new garden accessories I want this year.

I realize my list is really simple, but I am very practical about things - as I'm only in my third year of gardening. Yet I have realized how much of a nerd I am when it comes to gardening, I am excited no matter how vanilla my list.

Here are five:

1. Tomato Cages
So simple, I know, but I love the fact the cages linked above are square, and not cone-shaped like a lot of tomato supports. They also appear to be much stronger than those I’ve used in the past. My tomatoes always get much higher than I expect – a good thing I think – and more unruly than I expect. So having a stronger cage is worth paying a little more. And with my plans for increasing my tomato yield significantly this year, I need a consistent support.

Around the Web: Gardens Helping People

I love hearing stories about communities that have built gardens to empower different parts of their populations.

Like this community garden focused on helping the Burmese refugee population. 

I also like hearing about gardens as an outlet for those who need one, as well as a way to build skills that can be marketable, such as landscaping.

Like this prison that is implementing a garden project in partnership with Planting Justice and the Insight Garden Program. 

Here’s an old video of the San Quentin prison garden program:


San Quentin Prison Garden from Emily Bender on Vimeo.

3 Things I Learned from My Newbie Garden in 2013

In the spirit of taking stock in the new year, I've given some thought to one of my newest hobbies: gardening.

At the risk of a little bit of cheese, here are three lessons I took from my gardening experience in 2013:

2 More in the Garden: San Marzano Heirloom Tomato and a Golden Bell Pepper

I planted two more veggies in my garden today in space left blank by failed garlic and onion. These will be my final additions until maybe August when I plant some fall crops, including some winter squash and some more lettuce.

I decided I loved tomatoes too much not to add a third to my garden this year. I chose an heirloom variety, San Marzano, a thinner, pointier early version of a Roma tomato. I plan to use it to make tomato sauce for chili, which is a favorite of mine in the winter!

I also added a pepper plant, this one a golden bell pepper, which joins a macho nacho hot pepper (like a jalapeno) and a simple green bell in the garden.

Purplish Spots Mean My Basil Has Burned ... I Think

I was thinking that the purplish spots on my sweet basil were actually just how my basil was supposed to look. I planted the basil in my garden, between my two types of tomatoes. If what I'm finding on the Internet is true, I may have planted the seedling too quickly before hardening it off.

I harvested a pile of leaves today from the plant, so I'm hoping that the two tomato plants it's near will grow and shade it sufficiently to protect the basil going forward.

Other than what appears to be burned leaves, the plant is growing well, much better and faster than the basil growing in a container on my deck. It gets full sun for much of the day, which basil is supposed to love, and sufficient water. I'll be watching it to see how it does!

Our Daily Salad Routine, Now Straight from the Garden

How wonderful is it that I can just walk out to my garden in the morning and harvest some lettuce for my salad for lunch? Pretty darn wonderful.

I was almost tempted yesterday to skip my daily salad. For over a year now, my husband and I have been taking salads nearly daily to work for lunch. I think it's made a huge difference in our health, and on our wallet.

Inspired by ... New Ways to Eat Rhubarb

Did someone say margarita? Yup, that's right, apparently rhubarb can be pureed and added to a margarita or to a smoothie.

It can also be roasted and sprinkled with sugar then added to salad greens (which I have plenty of!). Or added to salsa.

So says this blog from the Smithsonian Magazine on Five Ways to Eat Rhubarb, my inspiration for the week.

Why? Well, while according to a few sources, I can't eat a lot of my rhubarb plant this year in its second year, I still plan on harvesting some of it. And it's getting big!

This picture of my rhubarb was taken a couple weeks ago.
It's starting to get very tall.

First Harvest Results in a Lovely Salad with Blueberries and Yellow Cherry Tomatoes

Growing lots of lettuce!

When I discovered my spinach had bolted, I decided to start harvesting my other lettuce for a salad. It turned out really well.

I took some red sails lettuce, some romaine, buttercrunch and a few pieces of kale. Added some blueberries and some yellow tomatoes for a deliciously sweet and fresh salad.

Yum!

An assortment of fresh garden greens!

Added blueberries and some yellow tomatoes. Delicious!

Hello Bolting Spinach

My spinach has bolted. As an amateur gardener, I was not expecting this to happen so quickly. Blame my ignorance. I planted my spinach probably four weeks ago now, before two snowstorms hit. And it hadn't got that big yet. (I guess I could have planted it earlier?) We didn't actually have that many hot days - just a few.

I discovered in my daily check of my garden yesterday that it had bolted, or gone to seed. So because I had company and we were having a nice grilled meal, I decided to harvest the spinach right away for a salad. Otherwise, as I've read, the spinach becomes bitter. I still have two spinach plants remaining, but I'm keeping a close eye on them.

Bolting spinach

Harvesting the bolting spinach

Why Does My Arugula Have Holes?

I have five arugula plants. Every single arugula plant looks like someone took a pin and poked holes in it.

I did a quick search on one of the best resources for gardening out there, and found that the likely culprit is flea beetles. 

Arugula with holes in it

Inspired by … Edible Landscaping

Starting small, with deck planters of lettuce
and herbs. I also have lettuce in smaller pots
on our table on the deck, and a bigger pot on
the ground with kale.

I have fallen in love with the idea of using edibles to landscape. Filling my deck with plants we can eat just seems like a double bonus: Nice greenery to look at and fresh greens and herbs to add to salads all summer long.

I enjoy browsing the web and looking at beautiful pictures of yards that my yard only aspires to be.

Here are a few of the recent articles and photos I’ve been inspired by:

• Houzz.com’s Edible Garden
• Feast Your Eyes on Edible Gardens – Houzz.com
• 7 Edible Garden Ideas – Sunset
• Make an Edible Garden Border – Sunset
• Growing Vegetables in Pots and Planters – Gardeners Supply blog

Building My Defenses Against Pests, Naturally

In my second year of gardening, I'm super-paranoid that my garden is going to get taken over by pests of all stripes. The horror stories I read online have entire gardens getting swallowed whole by a monster swarm of something - slugs, beetles, whatever.

Last year I had very little issue with pests in my garden, which is lucky because I had no idea what I was doing. I've read a lot since then and of course learned from the issues I did have last year.

While my gardening is not strictly organic, I have no desire to put pesticides on the plants I plan to put in my mouth. I also respect the animals - including my dog - that may venture into the garden from time to time.

What surprised me in my reading was that certain plants actually can act like pesticides without the chemicals. Plants like garlic, onion, sage, mint and others have a stronger smell and may mask the smell of other plants that attract the insects we do not want to attract to our gardens. Certain flowers are recommended as well. I plan to plant some of those as well right next to my garden.

There are also plants that attract the right kind of insects to your garden, but I haven't gotten that far yet. Baby steps.

I started with sage and mint.

This weekend I planted both. I planted the mint in containers, set in two places in the garden.

Water Drops Like Diamonds

After watering my garden by hand this weekend, I noticed what looked like a diamond on one of the kale leaves. It was a water drop. The water just beads up on the rougher texture of kale. I thought it was beautiful.

So I had to take a picture:

New Growth After the Snowstorm

A second snowstorm hit. Actually, the third, but the second since I planted my garden. I actually planted additional lettuce, some arugula and a few more kale plants the weekend before the second. But my garden survived. You'd hardly know it was hit.

Weekend Project: Mesclun in My Deck Rail Planter

I finally got one of my deck rail planters set up this weekend. I planted mesclun mix, another great container plant. My man doesn't like flowers on the deck - we don't want to attract the bees while we're having a beer. I have to say that that's fine with me. For some reason, I can't keep flowers alive.

So this year we're planting lettuce and herbs on the deck.

My Garden Survived the April Snow in Colorado

I planted last weekend, and then several inches of snow fell, starting the next day. We had several days of snow this April. A good thing for the drought, a bad thing for, well, people who really want spring to start. I guess the former is better.

I covered my lettuce and spinach (and rhubarb because it was close to those) with a light row cover the morning I knew it was going to snow. I laid it loosely over the plants and staked it down. I'm not sure if they really needed it, given the hardiness of a lot of lettuce and spinach types. I left the kale open and the onions.

My garden is in the bottom left of this picture, the day it was snowing. This isn't the full amount of snow we received.

I checked on it the next day or may have been the second day after the snowfall, when the snow had started to melt.

Getting Cool Weather Plants in the Ground: Lettuce, Kale and More!

I planted some cool-weather veggies last weekend - pre-Snowpocalypse here in Colorado. (For the third week straight it snowed, in April.  I'm ready for spring!)

I was so eager to get out there, and I wanted my lettuce to get a good start this year. I know that you can plant lettuce even earlier than I did, as it is a frost-hardy plant, but being a beginner, I'm pretty cautious.

I even expressed doubts about planting when I did; my husband responded by telling me to trust myself. I've read so much online and in books about gardening this year that I have too much information in my head, and it's making me think too hard about what's right and what's wrong. I didn't think at all last year, and things turned out OK. I think a new gardener needs to balance what they find in books with what they find with experience.

My Top 3 Challenges in My First Year of Gardening

Given that I had no experience gardening, it should come as no surprise that I ran into my share of challenges in my first year in a garden.

Thank goodness for Google and Facebook. Both were great resources.

Here are the biggest challenges I had last year in the garden:

1. Not knowing whether a bug was “beneficial” or “harmful.”
There are entire books on insects and their effect on the garden. I haven’t read any of them – yet. I didn’t even know there was an entire science behind what to plant and locating certain flowers and herbs to attract or ward off insects.

Zucchini Galore: My Favorite Zucchini Recipes

2012 was the year I discovered vegetable gardening. And one of my more successful plants (it grows whether you want it to or not!) was zucchini - that is, until it took over the garden and I had to remove it. It was the main culprit in overcrowding my garden, resulting in a fungus on the zucchini plant’s leaves. (I treated it with neem oil, a surprisingly versatile substance.)

Note to self: Only plant one zucchini plant next year, and give it plenty of space!

Until my zucchini got a little crazy, I fully enjoyed the rewards of my harvest. What to do with all that zucchini? Fresh sliced zucchini, sautéed, salted and served with something grilled, it is always great.

Why I love rosemary and basil: They survive

Travel is bad for plants because my husband is even less of a plant person than I am. Here is what my rosemary and basil plants I am growing as I learn to garden looked like when I returned from Washington D.C. I was gone for five days.