It's Easy Being Green

This has certainly been a challenging gardening year, at least for us here at the Half-Acre Homestead. Not only do we have significantly less time to work in the garden (due to the impending arrival of baby girl #2 in the next few weeks) but the weather has just been a bear this year.

All varities of squash have set nicely this year but so far nothing has matured. Every plant has been attacked by squash vine borers and died.

We had an early tease of a warmup early this spring but then the weather turned cold and downright nasty. Cool, rainy weather stuck with us through the end of June but that now infamous 2011 Heat Bubble has built up and doesn’t seem to be looking to leave anytime soon.  Our garden plants were slow to start and are now battling high-heat and humidity.

As a result, this past week marked the arrival of the first ripe tomato. It’s happened significantly later this year than last. Our spring planted squash plants (pumpkins, zucchini, yellow squash) are all dead now, thanks to an outbreak of squash vine borers. The wasp-like insect lays its eggs on squash seedlings. The grub-like infants grow in the stem of the squash plant, boring out the inside of the steams as they eat. Eventually the plant can’t exchange water or nutrients and withers. We’re hoping a second planting will start producing in enough time to save our squash season.

Our popcorn patch has wasted no time shooting up toward the sky and looks to be producing quite a few ears of future popping goodness. Eggplants have also been extremely slow this year both growing and with fruiting. Etna bush beans (used for drying) have been doing very well and produce abundantly. Our pole beans on the other hand have yet to set pods even though they’re covered top to bottom in blooms.

Hopefully things will eventually catch up but if they do, we’ll probably already be gone to The Farm in Summertown, Tennessee to welcome our newest member of the family into the world. How does your garden grow this year?

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This week around the Half-Acre Homestead has proven to be just as crazy as any other.  Our main car had some catastrophic engine problems and now sits back out our mechanic’s shop in several pieces.  One of the fuel injectors (something they just so happened to work on a month ago) completely broke off and fell into the engine.  We are waiting to see how he’s going to take care of us, especially since we just dropped $1300 with him to have the fuel injectors fixed and now this huge mess.

Add to that the usual madness that surrounds spring weather here in the Midwest.  We’ve started our yearly battle of cold air taking on warm, moist air and have already had some severe storms because of it.

Tuesday night was no exception.  A strong, wavy line of severe thunderstorms formed out in the plains to our west and barreled into our area, sometimes racing at 90+ miles per hour.  We kept an eye on the wall of tornado watch boxes steadily marching toward us on the National Weather Serivce radar and put our severe weather plan into place.  Without a basement, we must resort to taking shelter in the downstairs bathroom which requires a little bit of prep to make our stay more “comfortable”.  Pillows and blankets make a trip to the dry bathtub more enjoyable.

We knew the situation was serious when windows started getting blown out of homes about 60 miles to our west in Illinois.  Wind gusts were topping 100 miles per hour with the cluster of storms headed right toward us.  About 15 minutes before the line’s arrival time, we woke up our Darling Daughter and locked ourselves in the bathroom.

Several trees around our house were ripped from the ground, some landing on the nearby railroad tracks.

Listening to our emergency radio, we heard the TV station get hit with a tremendous force of wind and hail.  At one point, even meteorologist Jeff Lyons had some worry in his voice and indicated they might have to move to shelter in a moment.  Just about 5 minutes later, the storm finally hit us with a tremendous roar and energy that only Mother Nature at her rarest can dish out.  A cell that was tornado warned was moving right over the top of us.

We emerged from our bathroom storm shelter about 30 minutes later and found we still had a roof, four walls and all of our windows (minus one screen that blew out).  Our neighborhood is newer and pretty much void of any big trees associated with the upper Midwest.  After 2008’s terrorizing ice storm and living beneath three huge trees gripped by the thick frozen coating, we knew trees over the house were trouble.  This lack of big trees proved to pay off for our area, with no real damage to be seen except a neighbors mangled backyard trampoline.

Metal debris from a nearby building was strewn through this soybean field at Kansas & Hwy 57

Driving to work yesterday I got to see what that full force of wind did to our area.  The airport weather station a mile to our south measured a peak wind gust of 76mph during the storm but just to our north, the impact seemed to be much worse.  Trees snapped like twigs were strewn all over the Indiana Southern rail line, on driveways and along the shoulder of Highway-57.  Railroad crossing gates were left bent at 90-degree angles and wrapped around support poles.  A nearby soybean field was littered with house-sized sheets of metal ripped from an industrial building across the street.  Shoe Carnival’s huge distribution center was closed after a portion of the roof was ripped off and tossed into a pile.  A concrete block barn across the street was leveled, pieces of twisted metal left wrapped in electrical wires across the street.

This concrete block barn took a massive hit, leaving a pile of rubble beside Hwy 57

This barn seems to be a total loss. Some corrugated metal roof sections were wrapped around power lines across Hwy 57 from this barn

A bulge can be seen in the middle of the roof at the Shoe Carnival distribution center. Two days later their roof is repaired.

To me, just a weather nut, it looked like the storm cell that hit us was indeed producing at least a weak tornado.  Our area has endured straight line wind events topping 60+ mph before with just some minor tree damage.  This was something completely different.  Luckily no injuries were reported and crews were busy picking up the pieces the very next day.

We’re under the gun again for severe weather on Friday, just enough time for us to catch our breath and do it all over again.  But hey, nature’s yearly temperature clash keeps things interesting as usual around the Half-Acre Homestead.

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Glorious is the only way I can think to describe the sudden onset of balmy temperatures and sunshine the past couple of days.  Yesterday we climbed into the land of the 60’s and it felt downright amazing.  Even before the first cup of coffee was finished here at the Half-Acre Homestead, we threw open the door and rushed outside to enjoy some fresh air.

Everly, much like the rest of us, has been getting an extreme case of cabin fever as of late.  There is only so much indoor activity to keep toddlers occupied and for our resident garden faerie, it’s just too much time cooped up inside the house.  She had a blast throwing bags of leaf mulch around the yard to help stymie the springtime mud pie that our grass turns into this time of year.  We also took the opportunity to move our rabbit hutches from their temporary home in the garage to their more permanent spot outback.  This gave Everly the opportunity to chase the lop-eared rabbit throughout the flower beds as he explored and munched under the February rays.

Today marked another stupendous day outside and so we relished it.  Darling Daughter and I poked around in the kitchen garden to take a look at everything coming to life this week.  Long lost garlic and onion bulbs have started shooting up all over the place.  Rhubarb crowns are beginning to break the soil’s surface and reach for the light.  Lemon balm, chives and sage are beginning to leaf out in their hotboxes as well as the rosemary bushes which are still triumphantly marching through the winter fully clothed.  Strawberry plants began peeking out from underneath their leaf mulch this week as well, heralding the bright red berries that will soon grace them much to Everly’s daily picking delight.

Strawberry plants are beginning to peek out of their leaf mulch this week as if trying to shake winter off for good

Homestead Hottie briefly joined us in the garden before tossing her cookies down one of the walkway aisles (her story here).  The pregnancy was getting to her today, well the whole week for that matter.  Everly and I looked on in worried support until the spewing stopped and then quickly ushered our poor Homestead Hottie back in to flop on the couch.

Later as the thermometer climbed to the 70-degree mark and there was no rain in sight, I set out to finish Talina’s Valentine’s Day present.  Built from recycled wooden pallets, I’ve been making a potting bench for my Homestead Hottie’s gardening fun.  Everly loves to be involved in any project, especially building and she has great fun helping to wrangle loose screws and sit on boards while Daddy screws them down.

Our Darling Daughter loves project time around the Half-Acre Homestead. Notice some of our cloth diapers getting some welcomed solar bleaching out on the line today too.

Just as the sun set tonight, I finished building the upper shelves.  It took little time to complete and looks great in a eco-chic sort of way.  I was thinking about painting it several different bright colors to match our outdoor cushions but Talina likes the look of the wood.  Rough cuts, nicks, old nails and discoloring will all show through a couple of nice coats of sealer.  It’s what makes the potting bench unique.  I’ll take orders if anyone else wants one.  I can guarantee no two will look alike!

The middle shelf on the hutch still has bark attached to the edges, helping to make it truly unique

Have you been out in your garden lately?  What is beginning to come back to life?  If you recycle wooden pallets for projects, let me know what you’ve turned them into.

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Headed into late-October, our tomato plants here at the half-acre homestead are still happily trucking along.  I’m proud to report that the more than two dozen that we started with are all still here.  Granted some of them not as excitedly as others but they are still here nonetheless.  That is despite what the local cooperative extension considered a terrible year for backyard tomatoes.

Here in southwestern Indiana a cool, very wet spring was followed by an extremely long and oppressive heatwave.  Temperatures and humidity collided to keep us in the triple digit temp index for much of the Summer and it certainly wasn’t pretty for us humans or the fauna we so desperately try to control.  There were also reports of widespread early blight mainly due to the soggy wet spring weather.  Luckily blight didn’t make it into our brand new square foot garden or the extra tomato patch planted out back.

Tomatoes of all shapes and sizes were affected by splitting this year. From top left Cherokee Purple, Amish Salad, Brandywine (pink with green shoulders), Chocolate Cherry, Ultimate Opener, Thessaloniki (yellow)

We did have an insane amount of tomatoes that split for no apparent reason this year.  Tomatoes tend to crack when over-watered or after a heavy rainfall because the fruit goes through a rapid growth spurt afterward, causing the tomato’s skin to stretch and split.  Wide fluctuations in fruit temperature can also be a cause, especially if your tomato plant has lost a large amount of leaves.  The fruit will expand as it heats up during the day when the sun shines on it.  After sunset, the fruit rapidly cools and contracts.  That cycle over and over again stresses the tomatoes skin and can also cause splits or cracks.

Our Brandywine tomatoes (first year grown) would split even while green and we lost at least half of our potential harvest throughout the summer to the splitting.  Once they split, cucumber beetles would burrow into the tomato and create a home and eat until they rotted the entire fruit.  The cucumber beetles were one of the worst pests we encountered this year and they attacked just about everything they could get their little legs on.  Cherokee Purple tomatoes were also hit hard by splitting.  Chocolate Cherry, Ultimate Opener and Amish Salad tomatoes proved to be very split resistant.

The biggest producers in our square foot garden this year proved to be the Chocolate Cherry, Ultimate Opener, Amish Salad and Brandywine.  This plants had the most success with setting fruit and growing an abundant crop.  While we lost a lot of the Brandywine tomatoes to splitting, both the Chocolate Cherry and Ultimate Opener persevered through the long, hot and dry summer with little guff.  Our one Chocolate Cherry tomato plant produced at least a quart basket of tomatoes each week, more than enough to top our salads throughout the week.  We found the Chocolate Cherry to be more acidic than we like but would definitely grow them again based on how prolific it was.

Ultimate Opener put on a huge flush of growth after getting established in the square foot garden and at its height, reached about 8 feet tall.  This tomato flowered profusely and set fruit easily during the first half of the summer growing season.  The fruit is rather small, not good for slicing, but was really tasty.  Like the Chocolate Cherry, Ultimate Opener produced a quart basket or two of fruit each week.  In the triple digit heat wave the plant had obvious problems getting tomatoes to ripen so most were picked while showing a slight hint of red.  They colored up on the kitchen counter just fine though.  As we headed deeper into the heatwave there was a noticeable drop in blossom production and there was even some leaf loss.  The Ultimate Opener is looking bare but still alive and ripening a few golf-ball sized tomatoes each week.

Amish Salad produces a large, oblong cherry tomato perfect for salads of course.  This tomato plant grew rapidly and produced a half to full quart of ripe red tomatoes each week.  The heat didn’t seem to impact fruit set or ripening at all.  Unfortunately I planted this tomato too close to two others, Cherokee Purple and Tloculula Ribbed.  They grew into each other and just crowded each other out with growth later in the season.  This created a remarkable decrease in fruit.

The Brandywine tomatoes that made it to harvest were huge, weighing in at close to a pound each.

Brandywine tomatoes with their big, potato-like leaves, grew rapidly and didn’t let the oppressive heat stunt them.  Fruit set was great and during the first half of the summer these plants produced tomatoes that I would gather weighed about a pound.  They were huge…at least the ones that didn’t split and get attacked by cucumber beetles.  Their pink, purple and green colors inside made a feast for the eyes.  The Brandywine flavor was also superb especially with a dash of Pink Himalayan Salt across the fresh slices.

For every success there were also some duds this year.  I wasn’t impressed with Oregon Spring, touted to be one of the first producers of ripe tomatoes.  This plant struggled most of the year and blossom set was slow at best.  It has produced less than five tomatoes the entire season, none of which did well trying to ripen in the heat.  Yesterday though, in the cool of fall, I noticed the most beautiful deep-red and ripe tomato awaiting our morning garden walk.  I guess Oregon Spring redeemed itself and left me with a good memory.  Last impressions count, right?

Thessaloniki was another heirloom variety I was excited to try but ended up disappointed by the results.   The tomatoes are said to get to baseball size but in triple digit heat, most of mine only reached the size of a golf ball.  Fruit set was also pretty poor.

Tlocolula Ribbed heirloom tomato was a dud for most of the season but now is turning into a winner.  The plant was slow to grow but later bushed out and blossomed frequently but was slow to set.  I think being planted too close to another tomato plant also caused some problems for this one.  It didn’t set fruit well in the heat and has just recently produced a flush of fruit.  Their texture is wild to look at in the garden with all sorts of different, deeply wrinkled shapes.  I’m inclined to try it again next year to see what happens.

I think this Cherokee Purple tomato was smiling that it never did split and was off to our table

Another dud that I plan to give another shot is Cherokee Purple.  This tomato was quickly crowded out by others growing next to it and that seemed to be a major detriment.  It produced a few fruit early in the season but proved to be very susceptible to splitting.  The extreme heat seemed to bring fruit production to an all out halt.  Now that it is cool, Cherokee Purple has produced another tomato or two as we sprint deep into fall.

Just this afternoon we picked another basket full of green tomatoes, trying to beat a heavy rainfall expected for our region tonight.  Some of the tomatoes were showing signs of splitting (probably due to the cool overnight temps) and we wanted to stop them before they went bad in the rain.  Even though there is less than a week before we hit the month of November, our still producing tomato plants would make you think it’s still summer.

What is your favorite tomato variety to grow and why?  Share your experience below and maybe we’ll discover a new tomato variety together!

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This past week we had a brief taste of Autumn here in southwest Indiana.  We fell out of our 90 degree temperatures and sticky humidity to land in a string of a few days that left us topping off right around 80 degree during the day and dipped us well into the 50’s at night.  It summoned the first opening of the doors and windows of the season, bringing a halt to the endless whine of the air conditioner for the first time in about three months.

Admittedly the delightfully cool temperatures were a bit of a shock to the system.  My Homestead Hottie bundled up in her fuzzy housecoat and flip-flop slippers morning and night, only breaking free during the afternoon warmth.  I, attentively watching marinated chicken grilling over red hot coals out on the deck, found myself standing as close to the grill as I could get without climbing right in and singeing myself to a crisp.  Darling Daughter has taken to pulling pairs of sweat pants from her dresser and waving them about until we get the message and put them on.

While we were grateful for the change in temperatures and the flirt with Autumn, we’ve found ourselves back in the upper 80’s this week.  The air conditioner has come back on and the windows and doors have found themselves sealed tight, waiting for the next opportunity to let the outdoors in.  The Indian Summer is a good reminder of what is to come and a spur to kick us into gear and hopefully get a good fall crop of vegetables sown before our first frost of the season.

For the past week we’ve been pulling plants ravaged by the long Summer season and sending them to the composter, the beginning of  a re-birth that will find them once again turned back into the soil but in a completely different form than the started.  The open space feels weird.  Sure the garden beds are beginning to look much more clean and tidy but I begin to feel  like I lost a good friend.  I’m missing a plant that produced so much and yet it feels like I just didn’t have enough time together.  The counter tops here at the Half-Acre Homestead tell me otherwise though, filled to the brim with fresh produce and at least two-dozen red, yellow and green hued canning jars preserving the Summer’s bounty.

Some have told us we’re about four weeks away from our first frost.  The long, warm Summer would tell me otherwise and thanks to a quick glance at the Farmer’s Almanac Frost Predictions this week, the good people there predict we’re about 60 days away from our first brush with Old Man Winter.  That means there is plenty of time to reap more goodness from the garden beds before we have to put it away.  Homestead Hottie and I have been busily sowing lettuce, spinach, peas, snow peas, carrots, potatoes, green onions, swiss chard, turnips, beets and radishes.  All are cool-season crops that, in theory, should grant our dinner plates with some more wholesome goodness before we begin dipping into storage.  I’m also experimenting, planting some Butternut squash to see if by chance we can eek out a supply of sweet winter treats.

It is also time for me to dig out a large stack of old, wood-framed windows I picked up thanks to Freecycle.  They will form at least one new cold frame in the square foot garden, hopefully keeping one of the beds warm enough to extend the season for some produce into Winter.  My to-do list once again begins to grow making me feel a bit like the local squirrels beginning their seasonal acrobatics, hop-scotching around to build their nest and food cache before a long Winter’s rest.

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Welcome to our SFG

My square foot garden (I’m going to resort to calling it an SFG from here on out to save space) has reached an important milestone in it’s development this week. It’s 6 weeks old *tear, sniffle, sniffle* and my how it’s grown!

At this point every square is filled in with the exception of several dud strawberry plants that did not grow. I ended up purchasing these boxes of plant crowns grown by Van Zyverden at Sam’s Club this spring. I ended up with 80 strawberry crowns and not a one of them sprouted. While being disappointed, I’m not surprised. This green thumb hasn’t had a very good track record with Van Zyverden products and have had to write to them on several occasions to get replacement plants. A simple internet search shows the web awash with similar experiences. I have a letter off to them even as we speak and have resorted to giving up after 6 weeks of no life and have started planting over the top of the dud strawberries.

Peering over the gate at the SFG. Notice the rain water barrel against the house. It usually is full with only one storm.

Looking to the west in our SFG. The tepee in the center used for the snap peas and snow peas is made from the giant sunflower stalks I saved from last years garden. They're strong and light!

In the meantime, everything else is off to the races. We’ve been unseasonably cooler than normal around here in southwestern Indiana the past few weeks with a plethora of rain. Snow peas and snap peas are still doing wonderfully, climbing their sunflower stalk tepee and producing a handful of new pods every few days. It’s enough to whip together shrimp and snow pea stir-fry which is currently on the menu.

Snow peas and snap peas climb the sunflower stalk tepee, reaching toward the sky. The tepee would work great for any type of light, climbing plant like a flower, peas or beans. I saved and dried the stalks from my giant sunflowers last year and tied them together to form a tepee.

A half dozen mustard greens have produced non-stop this Spring and are still going as we race toward Memorial Day

Mustard greens will also find their way into this stir-fry having put on a new flush of growth every couple of days. It’s enough to fill up a colander and they’re delicious any way we’ve prepared them.

The broccoli plants are beginning to form their heads this week and the brussel sprouts look like they’re about ready to grow their hardy stalks too. Our summer veggies are beginning to take hold as our temps edged into the 80’s the past couple of days. The tomatoes are getting a good flush of first flowers while also putting on good top growth. The peppers, while still small, are flowering too. Sweet corn is about 3-4 inches already. Squash plants and melons are beginning to stretch out and ramble around. Potatoes look like bushes already. We got to pick our first two strawberries of the summer on our homegrown plants and they were delicious.

Little E and I picked up these great strawberry plants from the Southwest Indiana Master Gardeners plant sale. There are three different varieties growing. We're going to see who does the best!

Weeding the SFG is an amazing experience. The soil mix makes it so easy to pull out the weeds and grass. In fact, T and I can blitz the weeding chore every few days and it only takes about 15 minutes to get the whole garden done. I’ve never met an easier garden to weed other than the one that doesn’t exist! I can’t wait for the bounty to come and am so pleased with how well the SFG is growing. So how does your garden grow?

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Imagine the joy of this past Saturday.  The sun was shining.  The sky was a vibrant blue.  Birds were chirping.  It warmed up to a positively balmy 50 degrees.  The snow had completely disappeared.  Now imagine today’s disappointment when I awoke to see another dusting of snow outside!

Mentally, we are definitely done with Winter.  I’m not sure what has all the sudden pushed us past the tipping point here in our household.  Maybe it’s the cabin fever talking but regardless of the reason, we want to see an end to our current season.

My "pile" of seed catalogs. It's one of my many piles that endlessly frustrates my poor wifey.

I’ve been trying to make myself feel better by burying myself with a pile of colorful and always enticing seed catalogs.  It makes me not only feel better but provides a little glimmer of hope that I will one day be back outside, enjoying the warmth and sunshine while laboring or simply enjoying our garden.

As you probably remember from previous posts, I’ve been toiling with my vegetable gardening “method” for the year.  Historically, our little family of three has moved just about every year, going from one rental to the next.  That won’t happen this year since we’ve actually solidified our existence and purchased a house.  Now we can put down some more permanent roots in our garden as well.

Last Fall, I took some time and read Lasagna Gardening.  I’ve known for awhile that no-till gardens are much more environmentally friendly and figured Patricia Lanza’s book might be enough to spur me in the no-till direction when planning our permanent veggie garden.  About halfway through her book though, I was frustrated.  What I needed to know, the way to lasagna garden, was literally two paragraphs worth of material in the beginning of the book.  Lay down a thick layer of newspaper to smother weeds and grass and then simply pile up loose, friable, organically supreme soil for your garden beds was the basic gist.  I’m glad I only checked the book out at the library and didn’t waste the money buying her book.  It was perfect for a beginning gardener who might be discovering this new found hobby but not for me.

I felt like I didn’t have many other options though and tried to mentally design how this lasagna garden would look in my backyard.  Our yard is already small and so I was really only looking to expand my vegetable space to about 19 feet by 12 feet, a little more than 200 square feet.  I started looking for cast-offs from everyone’s front yard, Fall decorations: straw bales.  Lanza’s soil mix suggests straw as a good component to help build your raised beds up above the original soil surface.  The idea is that the straw will compost with your other organics and produce a top-notch soil.

As Winter pushed deeper into the calendar, my straw bales sat untouched, well at least by me.  Dixie, our doofy but lovable dog, has been smart enough to use the straw bales as a warming perch this winter.  Every morning she sits with a yoga-like patience atop those bales, warms herself in the early morning sun and keeps watch for the mouser cat Haley to wander back from her early walk to eat breakfast.  The more Dixie sits, the more the straw bales break down making it easier to spread into future garden beds but frankly she seemed to be getting more use out of it as a makeshift sundeck.

Dixie sits atop her straw bale sundeck. It's a product of my procrastination and her keen, dog-like ingenuity. To the right you can see our composter, poorly visited bird feeder (which will be moved) and a torn up piece of trellis used to keep Dixie off of what was left of the collard greens.

Knowing my yearning to pick something, my wife gently nudged me in one direction with a little Valentine’s Day present.  It was Mel Bartholomew’s All New Square Foot Gardening:  Grow More in Less Space.  His concept, ditching the inefficient practice of gardening in long single rows, made much more sense for our tiny backyard.  I haven’t blogged a bit lately, in part because I’ve spent the past seven days reading Bartholomew’s book from cover to cover and embarked on the design process of our own square foot garden.  Check back tomorrow for more on how I designed our 2010 vegetable garden and what I’ve been able to get done so far.  Hopefully it will trigger you to start planning your own and make the most of your garden space and your wallet!

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