Spring Garden Guide

Spring is not far away and it’s time to begin planning your spring garden. This January and February have been cooler than last year (A year ago, it was 65 degrees on Feb 8th), so I’m holding off planting for a bit, plus my garden is too wet to work.

A Few Tips
1. Don’t till your garden while the soil is sticky wet, wait until it dries a bit. If the soil sticks together, you will have hard, dirt clods for a good while. If it’s too wet, which mine is right now, just wait a few days, let the wind and the sun dry it out a bit. Toquerville has had 4.5 inches of rain the past three weeks. That’s a lot of water, let the soil dry out.
2. It’s still not too late to till in leaves or other compost material, but get it in the ground. A few weeks of sun and additional tilling, and it will be broken down nicely. Here’s a rule of thumb: it takes as long to compost a material as it did to grow it. So if you have two year old sticks in the garden, it will take two years to break it all down. Leaves? They are out and grown to size in a matter of weeks, so a few weeks of leaves in the ground, and they’re done. If you tilling in now, plant your early garden in another spot, and plant your later crops where you’re now mulching in compost material.
3. Plant what you eat. It doesn’t make sense to grow things because they’re easy (like radishes), if you don’t like radishes, then try to push them off onto your neighbors.
4. Grow only the quantity of a crop you and your family can eat, or give to family and neighbors. Remember your neighbors are also gardening (probably), so go easy on the quantity. It’s better to grow a wide variety of crops, in small amounts you can eat, than to grow a lot of zucchini (for example) that you can’t give away. A full row of zucchini will feed the entire town, but several rows of melons will go fast.
5. Nearly all crops do best, produce the best fruit, best flavor, best size, etc, when they grow fast. So if you plant early and the temperature stays cold, they won’t grow much, but will sit in the ground, waiting for birds to eat them down.
6. Planting onions from seed can be tricky to obtain a good germination. When I plant seed, I cover with white plastic until they germinate, it works well. But I prefer planting the small dry sets, every set grows, they get growing faster, and still reach a nice size. Plant sets with the bottom down. Sets are fail proof.
7. Fruit trees should be pruned by now.

Crops To Plant Now
The following crops can be planted now, and for the next couple of months. If the garden can be worked, isn’t too wet, and it warms up a bit, these crops will grow in cool weather:

1. Peas – can go in the ground anytime now
2. Broccoli – wait a couple of weeks, plant sets deep to avoid wind damage
3. Carrots – wait until it warms a bit, they’ll germinate better (a week or two)
4. Beets – wait until it warms a bit (a week or two)
5. Onions – can go in the ground anytime now
6. Spinach – can go in the ground anytime (I’m harvesting spinach I planted in late August)
7. Lettuce – wait until it warms a bit, and protect it from birds

Keep in mind the birds are hungry right now, and until things green up, they will be looking at your garden as food for them.

Plant In April-May (just wait until temperatures are in the 65-75 range)
1. Tomato
2. Potato
3. Corn
4. Melons
5. Squash

Varieties of Preference
I believe in planting the right varieties, varieties with the best flavor, that do well in this climate, and that provide good production. Here are my preferences:

1. Corn = Miracle Corn (great flavor, 70 day maturity, doesn't blow over
2. Tomato = Celebrity, Better Boy, Floramerica (hard to find), great slicing tomato. Rowpac, Columbia and Salad Master all claim to be resistant to the Curly Top virus.
3. Cantaloupe = Ambrosia, by far the best flavored cantaloupe on the market. This variety has a poor shelf life, so you will never find it in the grocery store, so you must grow your own.
4. Beets = Ruby Queen, or Detroit Dark. Both varieties do well.
5. Onions = Sweet Spanish. I grow onions to last through the winter, Sweet Spanish is a good flavored onion, and will last through the winter. Sweeter varieties like Walla Walla, and Texas, do not store well, but have nice flavor.
6. Watermelon = I had good success with the Crimson Sweet, but haven't really tried other varieties. Melons were flavorful, good size, and disease resistant.
7. Squash = I grew zucchini, crookneck, spaghetti, and Toquer Squash with good success
8. Crenshaw melons and Casaba melons do well here, get them in early (April-May) and enjoy them all summer

Season's End

On October 30th, Toquerville got some frost, and pretty much ended my gardening. I picked the last of my green beans the night before, and picked the rest of my tomatoes. I still have beets, carrots and spinach we continue to enjoy. Though we have not had a freeze yet, my garden has pretty much stopped growing. Last year, our first freeze came on October 12th, but after that, it didn't freeze again until December 5th. But length of day, and soil temperatures are such that plants will no longer do much growing. This spring, temperatures did not warm until about mid-April.

I have tilled up my garden, tilled in a few leaves, grass clippings, and some manure I brought in. I also tilled in a large bale of straw in an area of my garden which is heavier and has more clay. Now is the time to get compost working in your garden. Come planting time in the spring, your straw, leaves, and other material will all be broken down and fully composted.

Season Summary
It was a wet winter and spring, so the beet leaf hopper was particularly bad and affected everyone's tomatoes, potatoes, and nearly all vines. The leaf hopper population is dependent on the weather, the wetter the winter and spring, the higher the leaf hopper population; the drier the winter and spring, the lower the leaf hopper population. Still, even a low leaf hopper population can wreak havoc with your garden. I avoid using pesticides, but may have to do more next year to fight the leaf hopper.

I felt I had a successful garden, but some crops were better than others. My corn was great, cantaloupes, crenshaw, and watermelon were all good, but diseases hurt quality and production. Beets, carrots, broccoli, onions, and squash were all very good for me.

My observations are these: I will plant a bit later in the spring than in the past, to try to avoid the beet leafhopper, hard winds, and cold temperatures. I probably won't do much before April 1st. I put in a drip watering system this spring. I like it, conserves water, works off my timer, and allows me to work in the garden while I am watering.

Varieties of Preference
I believe in planting the right varieties, varieties with the best flavor, that do well in this climate, and that provide good production. Here are my preferences
1. Corn = Miracle Corn (great flavor, 70 day maturity, doesn't blow over
2. Tomato = Celebrity, Better Boy, Floramerica (hard to find), great slicing tomato. I may have to consider varieties resistant to the blight.
3. Cantalooupe = Ambrosia, by far the best flavored cantaloupe on the market. This variety has a poor shelf life, so you will never find it in the grocery store, so you must grow your own.
4. Beets = Ruby Queen, or Detroit Dark. Both varieties do well.
5. Onions = Sweet Spanish. I grown onions to last through the winter, Sweet Spanish is a good flavored onion, and will last through the winter. Sweeter varieties like Walla Walla, and Texas, will not last through the winter.
6. Watermelon = I had good success with the Crimson Sweet, but haven't really tried other varieties. Melons were flavorful, good size, and disease resistant.
7. Squash = I grew zucchini, crookneck, spaghetti, and Toquer Squash with good success

Garden Basics
1. Your garden success is only as good as your soil, add humus, compost, fertilizer, and other soil conditioners now until the ground freezes.
2. Determine the varieties you want to plant next year, and make sure you can find those varieties come planting time. 2009 was perhaps one of the most active gardening seasons in years--and nurseries and garden centers ran out of a lot of seeds, so buy early.
3. Weeds, even winter weeds, harbor pests, sap nutrients from your soil, and multiply faster than you can say Jack Sprat. So keep weeds out of your entire yard.
4. Fall and winter is a good time to service your tiller, lawnmower, weed eater, and other equipment; clean air filters, check oil levels, and do general cleaning of the equipment.
5. Pruning can be done at anytime, but pruning in the spring, just before fruit trees bloom, is the ideal time. Allow the trees to take the strength from the leaves and branches, down into the roots, then prune in the spring.

The Fall Garden

My summer garden is about done. I just finished my second crop of sweet corn. Again, I've never grown better corn, and yes, I'm still sold on Miracle Corn, my new variety of choice. The corn's flavor is superb, large ears, and matures in about 70 days. The corn grows only about 6ft tall, thus resists lodging during strong winds. And it pollinates very successfully, even on the edges of the crop. I'm also sold on placing a couple of drops of vegetable oil on the silk, shortly after it appears--this prevents worms and bugs from entering the ear of corn. It is 100% successful, if applied in a timely manner. The result? perfect ears of corn with no worms or bugs.

I currently have tomatoes, green beans, beets, carrots, and spinach in my garden. We ate our first green beans yesterday, are enjoying a late tomato crop, and have harvested some spinach. The beans were planted July 18th, the spinach and beans were planted on August 10th. I should have beets ready later in October. Other falls crops can also be planted; broccoli, lettuce, cabbage, and other cool weather crops.

I have applied a load of manure on the greater part of the, now unused, garden soil, and tilled it in. I will also till in large quantities of leaves as soon as they come down. Fall is the time to prepare the garden for spring planting. You took a lot out of your garden, you need to put a lot back. Manure, leaves, compost, sawdust, any biodegradable material should be tilled into your garden.

I tend not to want to pay for the manure I put in my garden, so I ask around and find horse owners, or other folks with animals, and ask if I can relieve them of some of their manure (they are always anxious to get rid of some of that stuff). Some with tractors and loaders will even load my truck for me, so all I have to do is empty the truck and place it in my garden. Chicken and Turkey manure is too hot for the garden, but if mixed with other material (leaves, sawdust, etc) it becomes a great garden fertilizer. I prefer horse manure, it isn't too hot (nitrogen content), and horse owners tend to buy the best hay, with few weeds, so I "import" fewer weeds than with cow manure.

Squash Bugs

Nothing is quite as ugly, smelly and destructive as squash bugs. Squash bugs, Anasa tristis, are a difficult garden pest to control, but there are options. Squash bugs prefer yellow crookneck summer squash, and they prefer this variety over zucchini and other squashes, although I don't find them very discriminating. They also favor pumpkins, and spaghetti squash. Squash bugs will thrive in, on, under, and around all squash plants, melons, pumpkins, cucumbers, and all cucurbits.

In my garden they seemed to favor the squash (crookneck and spaghetti), and avoided watermelon. Since my watermelons turned out quite good, I may plant more watermelon next year.

Sylvan Wittwer suggested to me, to use drip lines, and as the plants grow, move the lines further away from the plant base. Squash bugs like moist areas around the base of the plants, so removing the moisture from that area greatly reduces the attractiveness of the plant base. So this year, with a drip system installed, I tested this theory. My first row of garden, next to the lawn, had a Toquer Squash, a pumpkin, and a spaghetti squash. This was my control because it got overspray from the lawn sprinklers and the base of the plants were usually damp.

The remaining rows of cantaloupe, crenshaw melons, crookneck, zucchini, watermelon, and spaghetti squash, received the benefit of my moving the drip lines away from the base of the plants, as the plants grew. The drip lines ended up about 1 ft away from the base of the plants.

Clearly, the squash bugs preferred the first row of vines that tended to remain damp from the lawn overspray. Some of the other rows of melons, etc, where the base remained dry and open to the sun, squash bugs were much less prominent. So this does help--but the bugs will still come, they just won't be as "happy" and don't seem to reproduce nearly as fast in the dry conditions.

In addition to the above cultural practice, I also did the following:

1. Each day, I would scour the vine leaves for the eggs of the squash bugs, and squish these with my fingers. I was interested that the bugs laid eggs both under the leaves, and on top of the leaves. As the garden got bigger (quite a few melons), examining all the leaves became a bit of a chore, but I still tried to spend a few minutes each day looking for eggs, and eliminating them before they hatched.

2. I would also lift up the ends of the squash plants, every morning, and look for bugs, and squish them on the spot. This works well with the crookneck because you can lift up each vine all the way back to the base and see the bugs, and get rid of them. If you're squeamish, wear gloves.

3. Later in the summer, the squash bugs will accumulate under and on the fruit of the plants. As the foliage of the plants deteriorates through the summer, they will begin eating the squash, melons or pumpkins, etc. So I would lift or turn each squash (spaghetti), melon (cantaloupe and crenshaw) and expose the bugs, and squish them enmasse.

Historically, pesticides are not effective against adult squash bugs, and sprays or powders must be sprayed on the under side of plants and leaves to get to where the bugs are, and this is difficult to do. I do not even attempt to spray for squash bugs, and I tend to avoid using pesticides generally.

Strong, healthy, vigorous plants will withstand the effects of squash bugs better than weak or less thriving plants, so this should always be strived for. My experience is, doing nothing is not a good option--the bugs will win, your plants will lose, and you won't get much production.

Mid-Summer Report

Corn
The Miracle Corn I planted in May was a huge success. It was easily the best corn crop I've ever grown. I really liked the variety, large stalks, large leaves, not too tall (6 ft), two large ears per stalk, full rows of kernels, great flavor.

You'll notice in this picture there are no worms. I treat the newly emerged silk with two drops of vegetable oil, which prevents worms and other bugs from entering the growing ears. This is an easy, non-pesticide method that works 100%.

This crop is finished, but I have a fall crop of Miracle Corn on the way.

Watermelon
I have never had success growing watermelon, but thought I'd give it another try in Toquerville. I planted Crimson Sweet, and this melon was the first one I harvested, about 20 lbs, the flavor was very good, juicy, and I'll probably grow watermelon again, although I think I'll try the seedless variety next year.

Onions
I harvested my Sweet Spanish onions, had an excellent crop, with nice medium sized onions. I'm not satisfied with my drying methods yet. I have tried laying them on the ground, in the shade. This worked pretty well, but you have to keep turning and moving the onions until the tops are completely dried. I have tried tying the leaves together over a line, in the shade. This worked pretty well too, but they would sometimes fall down, or blow down if there was a strong wind, and squirrels or animals would take them. This year I tried pulling them and just leaving them on the ground (dry ground). This worked ok for some of the onions, but too high a percentage "cooked" and were spoiled by the sun.

Cantaloupes
We have been eating cantaloupes for a month. I plant only Ambrosia cantaloupes, by far the best flavor of any cantaloupe, but they have a very short shelf life (which is why you won't find them in any grocery store). The cantaloupes are not as large this year, as last, but still of normal size and excellent flavor. Curly Top killed about a third of my cantaloupe plants.

Summer Squash
My zucchini, crookneck and spaghetti squash all produced well. The curly top took both my zucchini plants, and both my crookneck plants, but I replanted both and have not been without summer squash yet. Quality has been excellent.

Pumpkin
Curly Top killed my one pumpkin plant, but we still got three pumpkins off it before it was gone.

Potatoes
The Curly Top eventually got to all my potato plants, but I still got a fair harvest, the potatoes just did not get as large as they should. The red potatoes did much better than the white "gold" variety. We've been enjoying the potatoes, and the flavor is very good, potatoes are just small.

Toquer Squash
I have a Toquer Squash vine growing in my garden that has become very large, spreading far and wide (I was warned it would do this). It contains several large, maturing bell shaped squash, and does not appear to be affected by Curly Top. When mature, this squash weighs 20-30 pounds. I got these seeds from my neighbor who grows the squash also. I'm impressed with the sweetness and flavor of this squash, plus it being a winter squash, should store well for some time.

Curly Top
Curly Top has damaged my tomatoes, potatoes, spinach, squash, pumpkin, cantaloupe, crenshaw melons, pumpkin, and cucumbers. Harris Seed is sending me a sample bottle of "GreenCure" which is effective against all blights (Curly Top is a blight), but they don't guarantee it. I am going to try it next spring. I am unwilling to give into the widespread damage of Curly Top. If anyone has experience with "GreenCure," I'd love to hear about it.

Summer Corn

On May 9th, I planted four rows of Miracle Corn, on July 13th (70 days), I harvested the first ears...and was it ever tasty.

Miracle Corn is a hybrid derived from Golden Jubilee, my previous favorite corn, that has twice the lysine and tryptophan (proteins) of other corn varieties. Miracle was developed to fight malnutrition in third world countries. It's a relatively new corn, being available for only the past few years.

I have had difficulty the past few years getting two, large, full ears of corn on each stalk; Miracle corn delivered for me this year, however. Frankly, I was impressed. I have never seen better corn in the field, and its flavor is impressive. Miracle is supposed to hold its sugar longer before turning to starch, than other varieties, as well.

Beginning early last fall, I tilled in large amounts of mulch and leaves, then applied mono-ammoniumphosphate every two to three weeks through my drip system. At 30 days from planting, I "turned" the furrow against the young corn and applied a side dressing of 16-16-16.

When the silk appeared, I applied two drops of vegetable oil to the silk, using an eyedropper. This prevents worms and bugs from entering the ear of corn, giving full, clean, worm free, ears, without using pesticides. Stalks grow about 6 ft high.

I plan on a second planting towards the end of July, same variety, different location in the garden.

Potatoes

I have updated my June 23rd post with additional information regarding curly top and tomatoes. But curly top also infects potatoes as well as other garden plants. Indeed, variety seems to be important in fighting curly top.

Potatoes
I have two rows of potatoes, planted from seed potatoes. I have observed that the red potatoes are virtually unaffected by curly top, but the white (actually gold) potatoes are largely infected and dying. I am harvesting some nice "new" potatoes from these dying plants, but fear I will not get many mature ones.

Melons
It is also my observation, to date, that Crenshaw Melons are not affected by curly top, but Ambrosia Cantaloupes are, somewhat. The effect on Ambrosia is not significant, but has taken two of my plants.

Squash
In my garden, this year, my Crookneck Summer Squash was completely taken by curly top, but my Zucchini is unaffected.

My Spaghetti Squash, Big Max Pumpkin, and Toquer Squash are, so far, unaffected by curly top.

Cucumber
The cucumber I planted early, all died, presumably from curly top, but cucumber I planted later, are so far unaffected, and are thriving.