Late, but not really

Memorial Day weekend is the traditional planting time for warm-weather crops like tomatoes and peppers, so the nursery was almost out of plants when I went today. Except it's not really late; it's just that Memorial Day was early. It's probably better to say that these plants can safely go into the ground the last weekend of May, which is the next two days. So I'm right on schedule.

Or I would be if I'd done any bed prep before now. The weeds have pretty much taken over.

I'm not planning a big garden this year. Just half a dozen each of grape tomatoes and banana peppers, some lettuce and swiss chard and herbs (in containers), plus some yellow squash if the critters don't get to them, and maybe some butternuts (ditto on being subject to critters). I've also got, for the first year since planting 3 years ago, lush rhubarb plants. (Forgot to get a pic; will try to remember and edit tomorrow.) I'm also experimenting with some potatoes that sprouted in the kitchen. I remember reading that they're treated to prevent growing, so I'm about to find out if it's true. They're planted in a bucket, so I can keep topping it off as (if) they grow, and, in theory, have a whole bucket full of potatoes in the fall.

So, yesterday I got some dill seeds, since it's been a while since they self-seeded, and planted them in a bucket with some pre-existing thyme. Today I bought six-packs of grape tomatoes, banana peppers, and yellow squash, for a total of a little less than ten bucks.

I'm expecting rain over the next 24 hours (ridiculously humid weather since yesterday), so no watering yet. I'm hoping to plant the banana peppers (the only seedlings left) tomorrow in between showers.

It should be a cheap growing year, since I already had two bags of compost. I bought some potting soil for the outdoor containers, so that's another five bucks or so. I've already got copper fungicide for the tomatoes. Oh, but I bought a new lopper and a new rake, so that's another fifty bucks or so, but they need to be amortized for the next ten years or so. I may also decide to get some mulch, but I'm not sure I'll need it. There's a pile of grass clippings I can grab, and that may be enough for the small beds I've planted this year.

A different kind of recovery

Lots of people are thinking about starting vegetable gardens this year, and it seems like a good time to get back to my own garden. This recovery won't be a financial one (despite the economic crash and hardships) but more like a recovery of our footing, after such a massive upheaval in our normal lives from the novel coronavirus.

The last couple of growing seasons weren't great, mostly because ever since contracting Lyme disease from ticks in my own back yard, I hadn't been particularly enthusiastic about spending time out there. I think I'm ready to venture out again.

I was out puttering around in the garden today, the first nice day in what feel likes six months. Two (of three) rhubarb plants are looking better than ever, so I weeded around them and added a bunch of composted manure, and will toss some mulch around them the next time I'm out there. I also transplanted the third plant (which broke into two, so now there are four plants, albeit small ones), which wasn't doing well in another location. It too got a bunch of manure to be followed by mulch.

I expected the asparagus to be up, because I keep hearing of other gardeners in the state starting to harvest the spears in the last two weeks. I must have a different microclimate (maybe they have raised beds, and I don't), because they usually sprout in early May for me. It is early May, but apparently still too early. Or else my neglect has finally killed them, but I tend to think that every year, and it's just me being anxious for fresh asparagus. When eaten directly in the garden, or within a few hours of harvest (as opposed to days) it's excellent uncooked. Sweet and just a little crunchy.

Ironically, last fall was the first time in probably 20 years that I didn't get around to planting the garlic for this year's harvest. We won't be deprived though, because I have millions of volunteer plants. The heads will be small, because they're too crowded to grow to full potential, but perfectly edible. At some point, I'll transplant them somewhere with better spacing, to be next year's main crop.

Garlic for 2019

Planted 79 cloves (all Russian, I believe) today. Also somewhere between 100 and a 1000 bulbils (also mostly Russian), although "planting" may be an exaggeration -- more like tossed them all on a lightly dug up patch of ground and covered up so no one could see the evidence of the mess. Except next spring, it's all going to sprout and look like a little rectangle of newly seeded lawn, so my laziness won't be invisible any longer.

The bulbils are intended as a nursery for future plants. I'll transplant them in the spring, most likely, but not plan to harvest them until 2020 (when my garlic farm cozy mystery is released!).

Costs for 2018

This is going to be a sparse planting year. I'm having trouble getting inspired after last year's encounter with Lyme-carrying ticks. Plus, the garden area has gotten increasingly shady as trees have grown around it.

So, I'm keeping both planting and costs down.

So far:

Onion sets:  $3.99
2 tomato varieties (grape and San Marzano), red sails lettuce, swiss chard bright lights, banana peppers, basil, at $3.19 each = $19.14

Total: about $23

The lettuces, swiss chard and some of the basil was planted in the "annex" next door.


Updated to say that the investment was largely a net loss. Except for the garlic crop, which was pretty much the same as past years, except a higher percentage of the Russian variety compared to the German variety, everything else was essentially a loss. Got maybe a handful of grape tomatoes, a dozen or fewer banana peppers, no swiss chard (planted in a planter with unexpectedly terrible soil), no onions (due to drought at key growing times). Got some basil, which was frozen with olive oil for perking up winter meals.

Fall planting for 2018

I'm still not recovered from my resistance to being outside after getting Lyme Disease this summer and seeing far too many deer ticks (including one that got on me just a week or so ago).

But I finally got the garlic planted for next year. Except I forgot to count how many cloves I had. Probably in the 60 to 75 range for the Russian variety. We'll see when they come up next spring. And I forgot to set aside some seed cloves of the German variety, so I decided not to worry about them, since I've got volunteers all over the place in order to continue the line. I did have a handful (maybe twenty cloves?) of the German variety, and I did toss them into the garden. They were on the small side, though, so not likely to be much of a harvest from them next year.

Recovery versus recovery

My garden suffered this year while I was recovering from some health issues (Lyme Disease, among other things; I became part of the statistics on the increase in incidence and wasn't at all inspired to go outside where I might get munched on again by a disease-bearing tick). It didn't help that we were in drought for much of the summer. Plus, there was more critter damage (wiped out the green beans and swiss chard), now that my garden cat is gone.

Here's the dreary harvest totals (and most of the harvest is from spring and early summer, before the Lyme and drought hit):

asparagus: 18 stalks
rhubarb: 2 1/4 pounds
Russian garlic (smaller heads due to drought): 61
German garlic (also smaller): 60
Shallots: 4
Grape tomatoes: 6 handfuls
black raspberries (plentiful, but I was too sick to harvest): 1 cup
yellow squash: 2
zucchini, pumpkin, butternut, swiss chard, beans: 0
paste tomatoes: less than a dozen
basil: 2 cups
dill: produced seeds, but not harvested due to being sick

Planting 2017

So far, we've got:

80 Russian garlic (planted in 2016)
60 German garlic (planted in 2016)
6 shallots (planted 10 in 2016)
the usual rhubarb and asparagus (perennials)
the usual perennial herbs (sage, rosemary, thyme, chives)
bramble patch for black raspberries (perennial)
6 banana peppers
16 New Ace peppers
5 cherry tomatoes
6 Roma tomatoes
a row of green beans (not up yet)
a row of swiss chard (not up yet)
3 or 4 yellow squash (not up yet)
dill in a bucket (with nasturtiums)


I still need to plant a zucchini or two for zucchini bread and maybe bread & butter pickles.

The spring tatsoi went to seed due to some unusually hot weather.

I'm waiting another week or two before starting the butternut, so it won't get too big before the garlic it shares space with is harvested.

The garlic count above doesn't include some transplanted rounds of Russian, and there are quite a few of those.

I waited too long to plant snap peas due to variable weather. I'm considering planting a fall crop.

No onions this year. The local nursery has changed hands, and they only offered white onions, and I prefer growing the red ones.