Garlic: Sweet and simple!

Two Types:
hardneck:  AKA  topset garlic - They produce fewer, but larger cloves
softneck: They produce smaller, but more numerous cloves

* Garlic takes about eight months to mature in your garden - You should plant these by September 30
* Plant your garlic where it will get full sun and where the soil is slightly acidic
* WEED WEED WEED - The less weeds in your garlic bed the less work later.
* Add Harvest in the City Compost to the area that you will be planting the bulbs.  You are doing this to insure that you have a combo of moisture retention and good drainage.
* Plant garlic bulbs 2 inches down and 5 inches apart with the pointed end pointed up.
* Top dress the garlic bulbs with Harvest in the City Compost.  This will help to keep weeds down and grass out.
* Mulch after the ground freezes to protect your garlic.
* Before you harvest wait until the plants turn yellow and fall over.
* For the hardneck variety: In the spring you will get tall straight stalks with curly Q's on top, they are called scapes.  You can harvest these to cook with when there are 2-3 Q's on top.  If you want your bulbs to get bigger, leave them.... but they are DELICIOUS! Your choice.

That's all - easy Parcheesi!!!  Let me know how it goes.

Here are some of the upcoming topics, in no particular order:
1) onions
2) groundcovers
3) thinning your veggie sprouts

ONE WEEK LATER!!

One week has passed since we planted the two types of radishes. The row on the left is the Chinese Red Meat Radish and the row on the right is the Round Black Stanish Radish.

We now have sprouts about 1.5"-2" tall. We will allow these to go for a little while longer before thinning them out. Keep following and see how these wonderful radishes continue to grow.

What does N-P-K mean?

Nitrogen-  Phosphorous - Potassium (a.k.a. Potash)

There are 3 numbers on fertilizers or composts that correspond  to the percentage of these nutrients. 

Here is what each nutrient is good for:
Nitrogen helps plant foliage to grow strong
Phosphorous helps flowers and roots grow and develop
Potassium (Potash) is important for overall plant health

So next time your local garden store sales person says that you want to get a fertilizer high in nitrogen, make sure that your getting the one that has a large first number.

Good luck - Ask questions - Have fun!!!

Ellen- Thanks for the inspiration!!!

How you can get a free pail of Harvest in the City Compost

Harvest in the City Compost will be the door prize at the following workshops:

SIGN UP TODAY FOR SEEDS FALL WORKSHOPS

Four Kitchen Gardens for Fall: Classes taught by Frank Hyman

Fall Vegetables, Fruits, Herbs and Perennial Vegetables Gardening Classes Taught by Frank Hyman and hosted by SEEDS. One hour of slideshow with a handout followed by one hour of Q&A in the SEEDS garden. $15-$25 sliding scale. Cash or check only, payable to SEEDS.

Pre-registration requested by emailing - Frank Hyman HERE

To learn more about Frank, visit www.frankhyman.com.

Check out his instruction video here

Classes listed below will be held at: SEEDS Office 706 Gilbert St.
Durham, NC 27701. 919-683-1197

Sat., August 28, 2:30-4:30 pm - Growing Vegetables in Fall

You can harvest fresh, nutritious vegetables through the fall, winter and spring with fewer weeds, diseases and bugs than in summer.

Sat., September 18, 2:30-4:30 pm - Growing Tree Fruits & Berries

Even a small garden can produce fresh, juicy fruits and berries. Sat., September 25, 2:30-4:30 pm Growing Asparagus, Artichoke, Rhubarb and Other Perennial Vegetables Learn about delicious vegetables that don’t need to be replanted every year.

Sat., October 9, 2:30-4:30 pm - Growing Herbs for Beauty, Fragrance, Flavor (and Deer Resistance!)

Kitchen herbs are drought-hardy, evergreen, fragrant and deer don’t like them.

rain rain

COME ON RAIN  - - - - - doing a dance as I type- - we need it all day long not just in buckets full for 10 minutes - - - I will take what I can get.....
COME ON RAIN!!!!!

Here is our pup, Jake, basking in the sun right before the rain hit.

Fall garden continued

It didn't take too long to ready our garden for the fall.  The hardest part was sweating our tushes off in this g-d awful hot weather!!

But a nice cold beer was waiting inside for us.

Here is the final product.  In the bed closest to us, I left the marigolds (garden bed one), the middle one (garden bed two), I decided to leave the Tam Jalepeno's because they are still doing great and not taking up much room.  And in the last bed (garden bed three) we left the herbs (medicinal and culinary).

Here is the Tam Jalepeno - a little bit smaller then the regular ones and NOT as hot.  They have been great to use in fresh salsa.

Here is the medicinal herb part of our garden.  It is small - but growing.  We have sweet annie, calendula, and borage.  That's all for now.

The BIG suspense of what we planted this weekend!!!! The first veggie seed to go in the ground were radishes.  We planted 2 types: Chinese Red Meat and Round Black Stanish.  Here is everything else that we planted in the gardens: Bull's Blood beet, Batavian Full Heart endive, De Meaux endive,  Extra Dwarf Pok Choy, Waltham 29 Broccoli, Rapini Broccoli, and Romanesco Italia Broccoli Rabe.

I also put in cowpeas that I will leave in as a ground cover through the wintertime. 

I will talk about ground covers and when to plant onions and garlic next time. 

I am also trying to get a video off my phone that I took of how to plant veggie seeds.  I will share that with too.

HAPPY GARDENING  - AND STAY COOL!!!!!

Ready your fall garden

Sorry for the delay in posting this.  If anyone knows me (Jessica), they  know that I go to bed early.  So instead of getting around to this post, I passed out.


In Durham, NC we have an extended growing season.  Since it’s hot here from about mid-march to October, we are able to have an abundant spring and fall garden.  

Northerners, this may not apply to you; except for planting garlic or onions which you can leave, pretty much unattended, through the winter to harvest in the spring.  My parents did this with garlic last season and they had a successful spring harvest.  To harvest a crop in the spring before you even plant your garden, gives you a great feeling of accomplishment.  

Here is what we are going to do with our garden this weekend to ready it for fall heirlooms seeds. (The veggies I list are the ones that are currently there)





Garden bed one: tomatoes (Sungold, Black Cherry, Pink Thai), marigolds, and sweet basil

-   We will harvest the rest of the crop; even if there are cracked tomatoes we can seed save.  
- Pull out all of the plant debris to be used in our compost pile.  This is a great practice because even if you don’t plant a fall crop in the space, you don’t want to encourage insects and diseases to hang out over the winter.
-  Till and incorporate Harvest in the City Compost.  We are going to be using this compost because the fall is a great time to add fertilizer.  Although compost is NOT considered a fertilizer, Harvest in the City Compost helps to maintain balanced N-P-K soil.  We love this compost and so do our plants.  Adding compost will also improve soil drainage, water holding capacity and loosen up heavy soils.  If your garden is prone to erosion, don’t turn your garden till the spring.
-  We will leave the marigolds in the ground and just deadhead them.  Marigolds help to keep unwanted bugs away.
- We will harvest the rest of our basil because it starting to flower and we will make pesto with it.

Garden bed two: peppers (Tam Jalapeño, Chinese 5-color, mini bell), purple tomatillo, Emerald okra, marigolds and sweet basil

We grouped together these plants because they are companions.  Companion planting is important since you want your plants to be able to live harmoniously.  For example, if you plant sweet peppers as an ornamental plant around an apricot tree, be aware that peppers are prone to certain fungus which will harm the apricot tree.  NOT A COMPANION PLANT.

Here is a great website to see what to plant if you are having bug issues and want to ward them off naturally: http://davidson.ces.ncsu.edu/content/Companion+Planting


Garden bed three: parsley, sage, borage, stevia, calendula, petunias, sweet basil and purple basil, purple hull pinkeye (cowpeas)

In this garden bed we will only pull out the cowpeas.  The cool thing about cowpeas is that you can do seed saving right on the vine.  We had a good harvest this year.  Some of them we will save to replant in the spring and many of them we will use to make winter soup.  The herbs are still doing great since we have been using them all summer long. The more you harvest off of herbs the more they will give you.  

This is a great time to take a soil sample in to the local extension office. This will keep you current on your soil status.  Here is our extension office website: http://durham.ces.ncsu.edu/


I will write more later about the crops to plant.  I think that this is enough information for now.  

Happy gardening!!!  

Good luck getting your spring garden ready for some fall loving!

Our fall garden plans

Here are just basic notes - we will add more tonight.

-Pull out all plants that have gone to flower unless you want to save seed (lettuce, herbs) or that are not producing any more veggies
-turn over soil
-add Harvest in the City "nutrient filled" Compost
-plant fall crops
-HHHUUUUMMMM What to plant?

Who ate our peppers and tomatillos?

HORNWORMS!!! Those little buggers feasted on our harvest.

Our first sighting of a hornworm was munching away on our beautiful Chinese 5 –Color heirloom Peppers. We were bummed out, but removed the hornworms and moved on with our lives.

Then the hornworm got to our purple heirloom tomatillos that lived adjacent to our peppers. This happened when Aaron and I went away for week. We came back to find our prolific tomatillos eaten down to the stem. ALL of them are gone.



Here are two natural solutions to this problem if you are away:


1) Have a friend tend to the garden to keep an eye on the hungry hornworms.

2) Hope and wish and pray that the braconid wasp will prey on the hornworms. You may not need that much luck, but if you are not around to see the wasp arrive, don’t do what we did, use a “life line” and call a friend.




Since we decided on solution number 2 (but the wasps never showed up), here are some facts about the wasp and why you want to leave them to do what they do- EAT THE HORNWORM FROM THE INSIDE OUT!!!!


The braconid wasp lays its eggs inside the hornworm. Once the wasp hatches, it will eat their way out, killing the hornworm in the process. It’s kind of a gross thing to see this happen, but you are better off letting them do their thing because once they hatch there will be enough wasps to keep your garden hornworm free.

Let us know if you had any hornworm experiences and what you did to solve the problem. Next time we will call a friend to help us!

Who are we? We know (but we are ever changing), do you?

Glad you're joining us!  We are Jessica and Aaron and TOTALLY new at this bloggin' thing.  Check out our website: www.harvestinthecity.com for more information about who we are.