Sage Gardens

So I was slicing up some red bell peppers to grill along with our steaks last night. I sliced off the tops of two peppers, and this is what greeted me:

Nothing like peppers with a happy face surprise inside!

Yes sir, we have vegetables sprouting

It’s about time!

As I’ve mentioned before, I prefer to let the gardens go wild during the winter months. This makes it easy for me when the weather is cold and ugly (and so are the plants), but it means everything looks like a battle field (which it pretty much is–me vs. weeds) when it comes time to plant.

The Vegetable garden after sitting all winter (facing north)

The Vegetable garden after sitting all winter (facing south)

It’s weedy, it’s ugly. What it needs is a good tilling.

The garden is a little over 3,000 square feet (not counting the herb beds in between), so I like to tackle it with what I affectionately refer to as my “Samurai” Hoe and Shovel (both made from Japanese rolled steel), and my trusty 6hp Craftsman Rototiller.

A couple of tiller runs and a heaping helping of compost later

Goodbye weeds, hello rich loamy soil! (although my cat obviously thinks “hello litterbox!”)

An hour or so of dirt and weed wrestling later, and I’ve got beautifully turned planting beds.

After that I add about 300 pounds of compost brewed from chicken manure, goat berries and last fall’s plant cuttings (we’re an organic operation - compost is like gold) and make another pass with the tiller.

After tilling in the compost I line up the beds and lay down the drip irrigation (a must here in dry Southern California). I like to use bulk 1/2 soaker hose– the kind made from recycled tires– connected to standard PVC sprinker pipe.

My nextdoor neighbor, an irrigation consultant for the big avocado groves in the area, thinks that this is way too low tech, but I think it’s the best thing for smaller gardens with raised beds. I’ve tried spot drippers, drip tape and overhead sprinkler systems, and soaker hose is by far the cheapest and most efficient. It costs only about $10 for 100 feet, and it provides nice even watering directly to the soil along the entire length of the beds. Plus, it think spreading out the watering (as opposed to merely watering at the plant’s base) encourages plant roots to branch out making the plant grow faster.

Bulk soaker drip lines are laid down on the beds

Yes, every couple of years you do have to replace the lines because the get clogged with dirt and minerals. And gophers will chew through it given the chance. But over all, the cost savings more than makes up for the inconvenience. I can replace soaker hose lines four or five times and still only spend half what I would on other irrigation systems.

Almost ready for planting

Once the irrigation is in place I’ll run the water for a short time a) to make sure there’s no leaks, and b) to help settle the soil some before plants go into it.

With this done, I’ll be ready to plant next week.

Ok, finally got some seeds in the dirt in the greenhouse.

What did I plant? Well, pretty much all the seeds I got from Pinetree Garden Seeds with the exception of the peppers and some of the tomatoes (I think it’s still too cold at night and they won’t germinate. Better to wait a couple more weeks on those.)

I also planted two varieties of tomato my mom got from Tomato Bob. They’re mostly international and and heirloom varieties, so I’m kind of intrigued. (Will they look foreign?)

• Stupice is from the Czech Republic. Produce a lot of small (1 to 2 oz.) but flavorful fruit.
• Black Krim is a Russian variety with a brownish-red color and green shoulders. It’s supposed to be very colorful sliced, but I’m also hoping that because it’s from Russia it’s a short season tomato.

Blah….

Not only has it be raining almost non-stop this month, but now we’ve hit a cold snap. I can’t remember the last time we had freezing weather in March (our typical last day of frost is February 15), but temps have actually dipped into the low 30s / upper 20s four nights in a row.

My bananas and sasparilla are fried, as are most of my seedlings in the greenhouse. Even the peach tree, which had already flowered and was beginning to leaf out doesn’t look happy.

Guess I’ll have to wait another week or so to see where this weather goes.

The mail man just dropped of a nice fat envelope full of seeds from Pine Tree Garden Seeds. I really like Pine Tree becuase they have a broad variety of vegetable, herb and flower seeds, but they come in smaller packages that don’t cost very much. So rather than spending $3.99 on a packet of seeds I might not like, I’m able to buy a whole bunch of different varieties at 85 cents to $1.25. If I don’t like one, or it just doesn’t do well in my area, I don’t feel like I wasted a whole lot.

So what’s going in to the garden this year?

Favorites year-in-year-out

• Increadible Sweet Corn — Big yellow ears, a fast grower (65 - 70 days), and super tasty. We pick it an throw it right on the BBQ grill in the husk. Sweet and delicious every time, and quick enough that we can get 3 rotations in every year.
• Pinetree Lettuce Mix — A mixture of all sorts of loose-leaf lettuces. I buy the once ounce pack, which is more than enough to keep producing tons of tasty lettuce all year long.
• Italian Large Leaf Basil — Pesto isn’t pesto without it.
• Sweet Banana Peppers — Perfect in salads, satuted or grilled. I used to think of these as smaller, slender peppers, but these grow long and fat enough to stuff.
• Romano Pole Beans — Fast growing pole beans that produce a wide, flat pod that’s very good when picked when young. The plants will easily grow 10-12 feet and produced a couple of pounds of beans per vine. When my kids were young I used to gow them to make a “bean teepee” the could hid in.
• Striata Di Italia Squash — A lot like a zuccini, but striped. I like them because they’re different, but they still taste great fresh or cooked.

New This Year

• Green Globe Improved Artichoke — I grew the regular Green Globe `chokes for years until the plants finally died out. I don’t know what’s “improved” about these, but I’m looking forward to fresh picked artichoke again.
• Small Miracle Broccoli — Supposed to be more compacts heads than other varieties, but still have good flavor.
• Early Triumph Cucumber — A great slicing cuke that just returned to Pinetree.
• Onions - Olga, Super Sweet, White Spanish, Super Star and Greek Salad — Normally I just buy onion sets and grow the same old varieties every year. Thought I’d change things up this year which a whole mix.
• Sweet Peppers - Big Bertha, Orange Sun, Sweet Red Cherry — I love peppers (hot and sweet) so much that I’ll try and grow just about every kind at least once.
• Principe Borghese Tomato — This is supposed to be a good sun-drying tomato (actually the sun-drying tomato in Italy). I’ve always had good success drying Roma tomatoes, so I’m interested to see how these compare.
• San Marzano La Padino — Another Italian tomato, this one a paste variety. I make a lot of sauces, so I think it’ll be good.
• Brisk Green Pak Choi — The family loves stir fry. These are supposed to be good.

Now that the greenhouse is ready, I can’t wait to get in there and start planting!