Tag: gardening

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Welcoming Rain to the Garden

During times past, gardens were put in and everyone hoped for the best. There were no hoses and water taps. Instead, gardeners were welcoming rain to the garden to get the crops they needed to survive the winter.

tomatoes welcoming rain to my garden
Tomatoes are 95% water. Regular rain or watering is essential for them to get big and ripen. When water arrives haphazardly, almost ripe tomatoes often split their skins.

Irrigation Systems

When I was young, my father had large gardens. There was a trough along each row of vegetable. Once a week the hose was brought over and water ran down one trough, then another until the garden was watered.

Now I listen to people at the Farmers Market talking about various soaker systems. Some use hoses with holes in them. Others have pipes with nozzles at intervals.

These soaker systems are better than my father’s troughs as they deliver water directly and more often to each plant. There is less erosion, less evaporation.

Watering the Garden the Hard Way

My garden is across the county road from my house. We are miles away from any city or rural water system. There is an old dug well with a hand pump near the garden, but it can’t water the garden.

There are seven water barrels in the garden. Five of them will hold 55 gallons of water. The others are smaller. Water moves from them to the plants in watering cans. A watering can doesn’t hold enough water to satisfy a big tomato plant busy making tomatoes.

Using the Creek

Once a week during a hot, dry summer, I start up the water pump down by the creek. It pumps enough water in an hour to soak the garden.

This sounds great. In terms of water, it is. In terms of work, it isn’t. The discharge hoses are heavy and clumsy. They must be moved from one side of the garden to the other.

By the end of the hour, I am soaked. Some plants are crushed. And the hose is left draped down pathways to trip me up until the next week when it will move to other pathways as it switches sides of the garden.

The other problem is the creek. It no longer has a deep pool near the garden side. Instead, I have to excavate a pool and trench so enough water flows over for the pump to pull it up to the garden.

Welcoming Rain to the Garden

Last week I ran the pump. The garden was again getting too dry. I hauled water to the tubs from the rain barrels, but most of the garden waited.

I procrastinated.

Then the rain came. Over an inch of rain fell and the garden is watered for the week. And the pump will remain idle until next week. Unless the rain comes again.

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Kombucha Monster Squash

Since I have only a few goats now, I decided to stop growing the monster squash. My goats like butternut and so do we. Then I got seeds for kombucha monster squash.

Kombucha Monster Vines
The fence is six feet tall. The gate bar is nearly seven. The Kombucha monster squash vines grew over them faster than I could try to turn them back. Sometimes it seemed as though the vines added two or three feet overnight. I gave up and let them go.

Why Another Big Squash?

Of course, the packet didn’t admit it was a monster. It was just a big, winter squash.

Years ago, our market had sold kombucha squash in the fall. We tried it and liked it.

The squash was medium in size. It had a nice texture baked and a good flavor. Of course, it never showed up again.

This year Pinetree Seeds offered Kombucha winter squash. It immediately went on my seed list.

Kombucha squash growing on the ground
There are several easily spotted Kombucha squash growing on the ground. They are roughly round and ribbed.

Maybe I Should Read the Packet?

Kombucha is a hybrid squash between a Cucurbita moschata and a Cucurbita maxima squash. It requires a pollinator like butternut or Hubbard.

Most summer squash is Cucurbita pepo as are sugar pie pumpkins and cucumbers. These are bushy or have shorter vines.

Butternut and a couple of other winter squashes are Cucurbita moschata. They have longer vines.

Giant pumpkins are Cucurbita maxima. These have huge leaves, huge vines, in other words, they are monsters.

Look at the Leaves!

I planted several butternut and kombucha seeds in my squash section. The little plants didn’t look like a problem.

Then the roots hit the stash of compost under their hills. The leaves spread to a foot and more wide. The vines approached the thickness of my wrists and started streaking across the section.

Kombucha Monster Squash

The vines filled the squash section and climbed the fences. One climbed the mulberry tree in the little chicken yard. Others began spreading across the tops of the tomato vines next door.

One thing seems to be true. These squash vines are prolific. There are squashes on the ground under the vines. There are squashes hanging from the fences. One is hanging in the tree!

We and the goats should have plenty of squash to eat this winter. That depends on when I can get into the squash section to retrieve them.

And, perhaps, I should mark out a bigger, more isolated squash section for next year.

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Watching Tadpoles Grow Up

One of the fun things to do in my garden is watching tadpoles grow up. Four rain barrels attract grey tree frogs to come courting.

This is one of those activities parents and science teachers love to set up for children. All it takes is a bowl, algae source, water and tadpoles aka as polliwogs.

Watching tadpoles grow up begins Gray tree frog
Late afternoon finds this gray tree frog sitting on the edge of a rain barrel waiting for his part in the evening chorus.

Getting Started

Occasionally I spot one of the frogs sitting on the edge of a barrel. Usually I only hear them when I am out doing evening chores.

Sneaking up on these male frogs is difficult. No matter how quiet I try to be slipping up to the garden gate and in, they go silent and sink down into the water or into nearby plants.

Since there are rain barrels around the house, the tree frogs are there too. These are often not as wary. They sit on the edge of the barrel, throats extended and calling.

watching tadpoles grow up begins with eggs
All of those tan squiggles are tadpoles growing in their eggs. The eggs were laid a couple of nights ago. The tadpoles will break out of their eggs in a couple more days.

Morning Evidence

Masses of eggs on the water surface give evidence of the night’s activities. These globs of clear jelly float making it easy to see the tiny tadpoles inside.

Each tadpole has a tiny sac of yolk. They begin as a tiny black line that wiggles. Each day the line gets longer and fatter.

After a few days, the egg mass sinks down into the barrel.

watching tadpoles grow up
Tadpoles grow fast in the rain barrels. After a couple of weeks, these are getting ready to start growing legs.

Watching Tadpoles Grow Up

Half inch long tadpoles line the rim of the barrel. They swim across the water. A slap on the surface causes them to sink down into the depths.

Each day the tadpoles get bigger. Tree frog tadpoles get about two inches long. Their bodies are black and fat.

Back legs appear and get longer. They just hang, not moving. The tadpole seems to not even notice them.

In the rain barrels, I rarely see the front legs appear. Instead I see tadpoles becoming frogs. They are no longer bulbous, but long and narrow, little frogs with tails.

The next morning, if I get there early enough, I find these tiny frogs climbing out of the barrel. Tree frogs have sticky toes, so the plastic barrel sides present no problems.

Tiny frog ready to leave the rain barrel
Tree frog tadpoles are a good choice to watch as they grow up. They are little frogs in a matter of weeks. Bull frog tadpoles may take a year or two. This tiny frog will leave the rain barrel tonight or tomorrow night.

Where Do They Go?

Baby frogs have a tough life. They must hide from a slew of enemies. My garden has plenty of hiding places.

Sometimes I startle one and see it leap away to find a new hiding spot. The garden provides plenty of insects to feed these little carnivores.

Unfortunately, their diet doesn’t include squash bugs.

There is another kind of tadpole – very different from these. They are baby salamanders. Read about them in “Exploring the Ozark Hills“.

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Garden Tub Greens

Spring is here in the Ozarks. It could still frost, but days are warm. It’s time to start those garden tub greens.

Snow Peas in Raised Garden Bed
Although I do grow some taller snow peas in the ground with a trellis, I have much better luck with these shorter purple pod snow peas in the raised bed. Raised beds are a big version of a garden tub.

Which Greens?

There are several to choose from. The big question is whether or not frost will still visit. That takes bok choi off the list for a couple more weeks.

Thumbing through my line of seed packets, I take out Napa cabbage, beets, kohlrabi, green onions, red and green lettuces, tatsoi, red and green mizuna and carrots. These should take a light frost.

Savoy Cabbage in raised bed
Savoy cabbage gets too big for a tub container, but is fine in this long raised bed. The mesh is some voile I found on sale. It isn’t real sturdy, but works well to keep cabbage moths off and is light enough to rest over the plants.

Why Garden Tub Greens?

My garden soil is still cold. The tubs sit out in the sun and warm up. All of the greens I’ve chosen may like cooler weather, but they don’t like it cold and damp.

The one disadvantage is the size of the tubs. Some of these do get big, so I can’t plant very many. My other option is pulling some like beets early for just the greens.

Another consideration is how long these take to mature. Ozark springs can be long and cool. More often they are short and become summer almost overnight.

Mulched Garden Tub
I tend to really bury my containers with mulch over the winter. In a normal winter, most of the mulch would rot. This past winter has been dry, so I am having to remove the top layer when getting ready to plant.

Planting the Tubs

My garden tubs have mulch on them. Most of this mulch needs to stay or the weeds will have a party.

So I clear a ring around the tub a few inches inside. Seeds are planted in this ring.

The weeds will still have a party. At least, they will try. But it will be a small party.

Garden tub greens planted
The ring is down to dirt. The surrounding mulch helps keep moisture in the tub as it, like all containers, dries out quickly. I prefer using a ring around the tub for planting. This has Chinese or Napa cabbage planted in it.

Succession

About the time these greens are ready to harvest, summer will be moving in. I can still grow greens in some of the tubs, but ones that can take some heat.

Most of the tubs will have peppers, eggplant and other summer crops to fill them until fall cools things down again.

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Filling Garden Tubs

I have written about using tubs in the garden before, but it bears repeating. Since I am filling garden tubs again this year, it’s a good topic as I’ve learned more about them.

The tubs I am writing about are the empty plastic tubs from cattle licks. There are lots of cattlemen around me and these tubs are popular ways to add nutrition for their cows. My feed store buys back the empties and sells them to people like me so they are not left to get trashed out in the fields.

setting up garden tubs
My garden tubs began as cattle lick tubs and are a nice size. The first step is to drill drainage holes. Then the tubs are set where they will stay as moving full tubs is very difficult and back breaking. I like the tubs because they come in a variety of styles and colors. These pepper tubs are blue and white.

Preparing the Tubs

Drainage holes are the first step. Originally I drilled several half inch holes in the bottom of the tubs necessitating use of blocks under them.

There are several difficulties with this approach. One is finding enough blocks, bricks or rocks to set under the tubs. Another is trying to pull the weeds that inevitably start growing under them.

I now drill these holes in the sides about two inches from the bottom. The tub can be set on the ground. The base provides a water reservoir for dry weather as tubs dry out fast.

filling garden tubs
Because I live near a creek that floods regularly leaving big gravel bars behind, I have a selection of gravel to choose from. As I drill four holes in a tub, I start with four larger flat rocks to cover the holes. Then I go to fist size rocks to fill up to a bit above the holes. It’s interesting to go gravel hunting as I never know what I will spot. Some rocks glitter with crystals. On rare occasions one will have an ammonite fossil in it.

Filling Garden Tubs

First and foremost is setting the tub where it will stay. Second is a layer of large gravel. I like some large, flat ones for over the drainage holes. The rest is fist sized or larger to a depth just above the drainage holes.

Then comes the dirt. It takes a lot of dirt to fill one of these tubs. My preference is a mix of dirt and compost. In reality, I use compost (sometimes pure in a pinch), dirt, sand and red dirt (clay). This last must be very well mixed in.

dirt filling garden tubs
I have a mix of clay dirt, potting soil and compost in these garden tubs. They aren’t quite full, but close.

Using the Tubs

Most vegetables have shallow roots, so the tubs work well. One tub is sufficient for one tomato plant, three or four pepper plants or a ring of greens. I do put mulch on top to help hold moisture in.

The tubs do heat up when in the sun. I felt the dirt one sunny summer day and it was warm enough, if it was water, to take a bath. Vegetables don’t appreciate this.

produce in garden tub
This is one of the garden tubs in my garden proper with red Benigorro mizuna growing in it. The Jerusalem artichokes are in the background. Garden tubs need regular watering.

I hang sun screens on tubs in the sun. Others I place so they get afternoon shade.

Filling garden tubs is work and they do wear out in five to ten years, but they let me grow many things I couldn’t otherwise – like carrots – and my peppers prefer growing in tubs.

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Wonderful Seeds

Like most people, I don’t bother looking at those wonderful seeds when I order or plant them. I look at the goal: the produce they will become.

Perhaps we should take a closer look at these amazing things. And it is amazing that something only a sixteenth of an inch in diameter can become a four pound cabbage.

Wonderful seeds like Savoy cabbage
As a gardener, I start with seeds like these for Savoy cabbage as they give me more varieties than commercial transplants.

Wonderful Seeds

When I wrote “The Pumpkin Project”, I did several investigations about seeds. Different varieties of pumpkins can have very different sizes of seeds.

Different vegetables and flowers have very different seeds too. Some, like portulaca (moss rose) have seeds almost too tiny to see. Cabbages and their kin have tiny round seeds. Lettuces are flat.

Each of these seeds has the potential to become a plant many times the size of the seed. Squashed inside that seed is an embryo plant and endosperm or food for that plant.

wonderful seeds become seedlings
My seed starting preference is potting soil in Styrofoam cups, two seeds to a pot. These Savoy cabbage seedlings are just big enough to be separated into one per pot.

Seeds for Food

We eat lots of seeds. Perhaps you think of nuts. However, flour is ground up wheat seeds. Corn meal is ground up corn seeds. Beans and peas are seeds.

Wildlife eat seeds too. Turkeys and deer eat acorns. Squirrels eat those and other nuts. Birds feast on grass and other seeds.

Each of those consumed seeds could have become a plant. In a way we are lucky they don’t all have a chance to grow.

Cabbage transplants
My Savoy cabbage is started in January so I can transplant it to the garden in March, before my frost date. Cabbage takes a lot of cold. The mulch helps keep the soil from freezing and later from getting too warm for the plants.

Prolific Plants

What if a single dandelion invaded a lawn one spring. By the end of that spring, if all of the seeds it produced grew in that lawn, there would be no lawn. That expanse would be a field of dandelions.

Don’t believe me? Get a dandelion seed head and count all the seeds in it. How many of these does a single plant produce in one spring?

Resulting Savoy cabbage head
I grow Savoy cabbage because I love the crinkly leaves. This variety has smaller heads, just right for only two people.

In the Garden

I might have a fairly large garden. It produces, I hope, enough produce for us to eat for the entire year, fresh or stored. If everything goes well, there will be extra to sell to cover my seed costs.

Even so, I rarely use all the seeds in a packet. Each of those wonderful seeds wants to grow and I feel bad about not giving them a chance. Some of them will get lucky when they get shared with other gardeners.

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Getting Garden Seeds

My favorite wish books are arriving: the seed catalogs. The pictures are gorgeous. The varieties are tempting. In a month I will be getting garden seeds.

After drooling over the seed catalogs, it’s time to settle down into some serious garden planning. Getting garden seeds shouldn’t mean a pile of unopened packets sitting in the seed box for years.

Getting Seeds catalogs
Although Pinetree and Baker’s Creek are the main two companies I order from now, I have ordered from Shumway, Gurney’s, Jung’s and Johnny’s among others.

Serious Garden Planning

I do have a fair sized garden. However, it is finite. Mature plants take up space and don’t do well crammed in making both growing and harvesting difficult.

Every year I start with a garden diagram and a list of must grows. These are penciled into various beds. Leftover spots can be filled in with other plants.

My garden diagram needed before getting seeds
The main garden is roughly 50 feet square with the front section 16 feet square. This is not really accurate or entirely to scale. This does not matter as the only purpose is to let me decide what will be planted where.

Before going wild with the order form, there is another consideration: What will be done with the crop? Why purchase and grow a crop no one will eat?

My garden is in the Ozarks. Growing conditions aren’t the same as other places. Plants get hit with heat, humidity, flood and drought. Lots of vegetables don’t do well under these conditions.

Wild consumers are another consideration for me. Although we love eating sweet corn, I never grow it. The raccoons move in and demolish the crop and I refuse to camp out in the patch with a gun every night until it is picked.

Maturation time is important too. Tomatoes taking over three months to mature a crop are not on my list. Cabbage and other cole crops must mature before the weather gets too hot in summer or too cold in late fall.

Back to the Catalogs

Once the planning is done, it’s time for getting garden seeds picked out and ordered. My orders go in the first week of January as those leek and cabbage seeds need to be started by February.

My spring garden is a going concern already with garlic and onions. The cabbage (Savoy preferably) and leeks go into the garden in March. I have almost three months to get ready.

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Changing Colors

Nothing stays the same one day to the next. They may be similar, but never exactly the same. It shows a lot with changing colors.

Winter

Hills are gray all winter. Bare branches are gray. The sky is often gray.

On clear days the sky is a deep blue. The pastures are a rusty tan. Occasional pines are dark green with the red cedars a gray green. Mosses and lichens glow green on the trees and ground.

One day the air seems lighter, warmer. The sun rises higher and stays a little longer each day. Then the changing colors start.

Spring

At first the green is only on the forest floor and in the pastures. Then the spring ephemerals start emerging. Blues, pinks, whites erupt under the still bare gray trees.

From my barn door I watch the hillside beyond the pastures. One day it is still gray. The next there is a delicate hint of green.

As the spring ephemerals finish blooming and set seed, the hillsides turn spring green with new leaves. Other plants grow up hiding the fading ephemerals and add color to the forest floor.

Summer

Changing colors in the sky reflect the change in the seasons. The sky is now a lighter shade of blue. The clouds have white tops and puffy shapes.

On the hillsides the green has deepened to a mature green. Even there the greens vary from one kind of tree to another ranging from Kelly green to dark green.

Flowers are changing colors too. They now tend more to the white and yellow flowers on taller plants.

Sugar Maple changing colors
Although sugar maples are native trees, this one was planted in the front yard before we moved here. Bald Faced Hornets built a nest in it one year as I found out the hard way. Orchard orioles nested in it another year. This year it was late changing into fall colors.

Fall

It is fall now in the Ozarks. The hillside I watch is turning orange slowly as frost is late this year. Flowers are again mostly the blues, but darker than in the spring.

Many people love the changing colors of fall. They are pretty, but I know they are fleeting. Soon the hillside will again be gray under gray skies leaving me counting the days to spring.

See how colors change through the Ozark year in “Exploring the Ozark Hills“

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Planting Garlic

I needed another writing project. Not really. But I seem to have one. So many posts I write are about my garden that I now have an essay on planting garlic.

Ozark Gardening

Most gardening books are about northern states. What works in those places might work in the Ozarks, but probably won’t quite. The Ozarks is unique for gardening.

This area is far enough north to have seasons with occasional really cold winters. The cold usually doesn’t last for more than a week or two so the ground doesn’t freeze and stay frozen. Snow melts sometimes as it falls or within a few days.

The area is far enough south to get hot, humid weather. Along with this is intense sun that can burn up vegetable plants. Few vegetables can withstand full sun in the Ozarks.

garlic is the new garden beginning
I did use a trench in the mulch when I used hay flakes. Now I use loose hay bedding and make little wells for each clove. Either method works as long as the mulch is open above the clove so the plant can grow up quickly.

Climate Change

We had a severe drought back in 2012. The hay burned up before it could be cut. Creeks, ponds and wells went dry.

After that year, the weather has become more and more erratic. Gardening methods of many years suddenly failed.

Rain patterns changed. Now there are months of lots of rain, then months of drought. Rain often comes as downpours triggering flash floods.

Even so, Ozark gardeners rise to the challenge. And I am one of them.

Planting Garlic

Some crops are staples in my garden. There are the usual summer ones of tomatoes and peppers. I add okra and squash, both winter and summer.

Another annual crop is garlic. For thirty years I have defied gardening advice by planting garlic in the same bed. I plant it under heavy mulch without waiting for freezing temperatures.

There are now two garlic beds in my garden. The cloves go into the beds in late September. I’ve planted it already and am now watching for those garlic blades to poke up above the mulch.

By frost I hope to have two beds with rows of garlic plants. This is another reason besides having my own garlic in the kitchen: planting garlic is a success story in my garden.

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End of Summer

The end of summer arrived with a thud this year. Temperatures dropped. And the garlic chives began blooming.

Along the road the yellow ironweed is blooming. The first asters are blooming. Grass pollen is tickling the nose.

Garlic Chive flowers
When my garlic chive patch, all eight feet by ten feet of it, blooms, it looks like a field of snow. Once the sun warms it up, the insects move in and the hum can be heard all over the garden.

My Garlic Chive Patch

Many years ago my father gave me a pot of garlic chives. It was only a ten inch pot. It fit easily into a square foot of garden space.

This year my patch is close to eighty square feet. New patches keep showing up around the garden, in the lawn, along the edges of the lawn, wherever the birds dropped seeds. Their white flower umbels are easy to spot, not just for the color, but also for the hum surrounding the plants.

Bee Fly on Garlic Chive flowers
Although this insect looks a bit like a bee and might even sound like one, it is a fly. One way to tell is that it has only one set of flight wings. Bees have two. Sweet nectar attracts these insects as well as bees.

What Do You Do With Them?

All spring and summer I get this question. There must be some reason I allow this much good garden space to be covered with these plants.

I really don’t need this big of a patch. Sure, garlic chives are great in scrambled eggs, stir fries, mixed into soft cheese and relished by the goats. Still, half this patch would be more than enough.

Buckeye Butterflies on Garlic Chive flowers
Buckeye butterflies are easy to spot with the many eyes on their wings. These are enjoying nectar from my garlic chive patch.

End of Summer Beauty

Late August is the highlight of the garlic chive year. Snowy white flowers open and send out the message they are open for business. The pollinators arrive.

Small and large bumblebees, honeybees, several kinds of wasps, beetles, a variety of butterflies, bee flies, native bees move in creating a hum easy to hear all over the garden. They are so busy with the flowers I can walk through the edges and be totally ignored.

Along with the pollinators come the spiders. Webs appear. Flower spiders lurk.

Winter and lean times are coming for these creatures. This is a good chance for them to finish raising their over wintering queens or store up honey.

I really don’t need all of these garlic chives. However, this end of summer chives makes it worthwhile to have my patch.