| Late yesterday afternoon I made a trip around the borders with my hedge shears in hand. I wanted to get late summer and fall bloomers like phlox, mums, solidago, and giant rudbeckia cut back before the anticipated soaking rain arrived. If I had to start over with my gardens and borders, I’d especially have a lot more of these fall bloomers. They look good in the spring, the summer — even during drought –, and are spectacular in the fall. But like everything, there’s always that little secret that will enable these plants to receive a #10 rating rather than just a #5 on a scale of 1 to 10.  Mums in bloom by our front walk. Just the right height because they were cut earlier in the season. Most gardeners I know who don’t know this little easy piece of information are always complaining about how the mums get so tall, fall over, and look ugly when they bloom. Or about how the phlox is too tall and awful looking. Many times gardeners who know this little tidbit, still won’t do it. They just can’t bring themselves to believing that the plants will recover from such brutal treatment and look gorgeous as a result of it. Even if they’ve seen proof. (I know this for a fact because I’ve had gardeners come here, see, learn the secret and then come back and tell me they just couldn’t do it and so their plants were still awful looking in the fall.) The Secret Mums and phlox have grown profusely over the last two weeks. Yesterday, some of mine were a foot high and others were 2 1/2 feet already. I cut them all back to the ground! Sometime in May they will make a full recovery and then I’ll cut them by half. At the same time I’ll take out thin stalks and leave the stronger ones. (If you haven’t already taken out unwanted growth earlier in the spring, now would be the time.) A couple more times before July 1st, I’ll pinch or cut the top inch or so off the mums. Just to insure they look their best. Other late summer and fall blooms that benefit from cutting back severely - With garden-worthy solidago you don’t have to do as much. Just trimming the taller stalks back is enough to increase the plants fall display.
 Garden-worthy solidago takes very little care. But a little trimming in the spring can make it even better in the fall.
- Plants like Giant Rudbeckia that can reach 10 feet or more, need to have their lush spring growth cut to the ground. Whether you’ll cut them again in a month or so depends on how short or tall you want them. I usually cut my Giant Rudbeckia twice and then in bloom time the stalks stay at about 4 or 5 feet — just the right size for my borders.
 Giant Rudbeckia will grow 10 feet or more if you don't cut it early in the season. This 4 1/2 feet size is just the right size for my Fence border. - Heliopsis, Helianthus, and Asters also benefit from cutting lush spring growth back to the ground.
 Asters.  Heliopsis and Helianthus can look similar. Final Thought This is an easy little secret that can take your fall borders to the next level of beauty! Cut now to ensure a greater fall display. _____ Related Posts: Phlox and Mums – A Timely Tip
Mums – Flowers – The Crowning Glory of Falls Display
_____ Organic Gardening is easy, effective, efficient — and it’s a lot healthier. _____ All content including photos is copyrighted by TendingMyGarden.com. All Rights Reserved. On Wednesday April 18th we finally had a few hours of mist and one shower that lasted about an hour. It was like a magical potion for my potted seedlings, garden plants, and borders. Potted seedlings like parsley had just been sitting there. With their drink of water every other day (from the municipal water supply), they hadn’t been doing any growing. The minute the rain came they about doubled in size. Garden plants don’t get any watering. I did have a gallon or two of rain reserve left, but was saving that for newly planted seed and seedlings. The garden LOVED the rain! My cabbage and broccoli doubled and here is three day later and they’ve tripled in size. Lettuce and greens rationing is over for the time being. Finally getting leaves of lettuce that are 2 and 3 inches long — rather than 1 1/2 inches long.  And I’m getting twice the picking I was getting before the rain! Many plants in the border must have thought that rain meant they should start blooming— which they did not long after it stopped. Touring after a rain that breaks a season of drought is magical. I wanted to share some of the magic, so Bill took pictures for you. I was especially pleased to be able to get a picture of the garden in almost all of its entirety before it grows so much it would be impossible. Hopefully, you had a nice rain in your garden. The weather forecast here is calling for a good amount of rain Sunday. I’m hoping we’ll get a soaker rather than just a few minutes. Bill and I hope you enjoy the walk around the yard and garden.  Turning into our driveway and looking left, these are the borders you see. White iberis has been blooming since the end of February.  This is what you would see to the right of the first picture above. Baths Pink started blooming in profusion right after the rain.  Close up of Bath's Pink.  Continuing the view, but closer to the house. The azalea by the house started blooming right after the rain.  First daylily to bloom.  As you come up our walk to the house this verbena would be blooming to your right. It was blooming before the rain.  This shows the parking area and our fence border that runs parallel to it.  I planted this rose last year in the fence border. It opens yellow and turns white. It'll be very noticeable after it get's a little bigger.  This peony in the fence border is huge and was in full bud before the rain.  Immediately after the rain the buds started to open.  The vegetable garden is the fenced area. I'm picking lettuce.  As I walk into the garden I can see the back border and meadow.  This is a better view of the island bed of clover and poppies in the meadow behind the garden. The distance from this lettuce (bottom of picture) to the fence is about 15 or 20 feet, but it doesn't appear that way in this picture.  The Poppies were "Closed due to Rain" on Wednesday.  Poppies were open for business the day after the rain.  Sweet William started to bloom after the rain. The borders and gardens promise me more to come! ___________ Organic Gardening is easy, effective, efficient — and it’s a lot healthier. ___________ All content including photos are copyright by TendingMyGarden.com. All Rights Reserved. I had a conversation the other day with a long time reader of TMG who has the same inclination about organic gardening as I do — and that is: — to come as close to organic as I possibly can. And as I’m sure you know, that can be difficult at times. Every time you turn around you find something else is polluted or has chemical residues that will be harmful. Our conversation started discussing the condition of her tomato seedlings. They weren’t as robust as she would have liked and she was wondering what I thought. Although it can be comforting to ask someone else, she really already knew how they would probably do based on last years results. What really needed to be discussed (and was) was what she could do to get the seedlings to look better. But that’s a topic for another post.  Reader's tomato seedlings about 5 weeks old. By the way, have you already guessed how her less-than-robust little seedlings will probably do? If you’ve already read about what happened to me last year with my peppers in the post, It Ain’t Necessarily So you’ve guessed that they’ll do fine. In spite of the fact that her seedlings looked the same last year as they do this year — once planted in the garden they grew large and gave her tons of tomatoes — many more than she could use. And you might be interested in knowing that was only her second year of gardening and only the first year of trying to improve the soil! Yes, it’s amazing what those plants can do in spite of us. Back on Topic Before calling me she had just visited one of the garden centers to get some straw and had seen how great their seedlings looked. Then she had wondered if she shouldn’t get a few of their plants as a back up just in case and was asking me what I thought. Would they be harmful to her garden?  Tomato plants forced to grow with Miracle Grow®. It’s pretty hard to tell someone else what they should do, but I can tell: What I’ve done in the past – What I think — and Why: Years ago I would buy 8 tomato plants and 8 pepper plants at a garden center to get me started earlier. Totally at the mercy of the weather I started my plants (warm weather crops included) in a flat, on the ground, and uncovered during April each year. I knew nothing of the wintersown method and other ways around not having an inside set up for starting seed. And I must say, there were years that my seedlings looked as bad or worse than my readers. I knew Miracle Grow® was a chemical product nurseries probably used, but I didn’t know to what extend it was harmful as I do now. I also didn’t know about the company – Scotts — and their partners — Monsanto. I did know that chemicals force the ground — or the plant. That was the fact that made me know the principle was wrong and I never used it. Miracle Grow® can be toxic to your soil and plants. An Organic Gardening Magazine article (July/August 2000) quoted soil expert Robert Parnes, Ph.D. Dr. Parnes said this type of fertilizer acidifies the soil and can cause permanent damage. It is probably more harmful to soil organisms that any other nitrogen fertilizer. He also said these fertilizers are deliberately manufactured to be spread at high application rates in order to obtain maximum yields with no regard to the adverse effect on the soil — like decreasing available nutrients in the soil. Miracle Grow® potting soil contains plastics and wetting agents. Most wetting agents are detergents; many are known to be capable of causing cancer. That Scotts offers organic products is almost a joke. Their products are against the very principles of organic growing. I would never consider buying any of their products — including their organic products. Did you know Scotts Company is Monsanto’s exclusive agent for the marketing and distribution of consumer Roundup®. The history of Monsanto reads like something out of a nightmare. If you want to learn more read my post, Monsanto – Don’t Entrust Your Life to Them.
But then I figured although the seedlings had had a steady diet of Miracle Grow® to make them look beautiful while they awaited a buyer— they’d outgrow it and thrive once they got in my garden soil. When first planted they always had withdrawal symptoms. After about a month of looking like they might die, they’d finally take root and grow like crazy. They’d give me lots of produce, even though I always noticed more symptoms of various blights on those plants than on the ones I had grown myself. Even though I’m not buying any seedlings now, I had a friend — a conventional gardener — who brought me 3 tomato plants last year that were much larger than mine. They even had tomatoes on them. I didn’t ask, but I’m pretty sure he uses Miracle Grow®. I pinched all the buds off and all the little tomatoes and then planted them in my garden. They went through withdrawal and then did great and gave us our first tomatoes of the season. The Best Advice The best advice on vegetable plants is to grow your own whenever possible. Even if you have no experience — you and your plants will probably do just fine. Remember my example and my reader’s example. If we can do it, you can do it! The second best advice on vegetable plants is to buy from an organic grower. If you’re not quite there yet and you have no other place to buy — than a conventional nursery — then you have no other choice until you can do better. Even with seedlings started with Miracle Grow, your vegetables will be a much better quality than those you buy in the big stores.  My 3 week old tomato seedling is about 6 inches. This is the best size to buy when you can. Look For:
Plants that are short. About 4 to 6 inches.
Have NO flowers or buds. (If all they offer are plants with flowers and buds, take the buds and flowers off.) Plant them in soil that is rich with organic matter and water in, then mulch. How to Plant the Tomatoes Plant tomatoes up to the first set of leaves. Roots will develop along the stem and you’ll get a plant that is able to yield more tomatoes. Final Thoughts If you walk towards organic and do THE VERY BEST you are able to do, that’s all any of us can do. ______ Organic Gardening is easy, effective, efficient — and its a lot healthier! ______ Related Posts:
It Ain’t Necessarily So
Monsanto – Don’t Entrust Your Life to Them. ______ All content including photos is copyrighted by TendingMyGarden.com. All Rights Reserved. Greens — especially lettuce — always remind me of the various accounts of Christ feeding the multitudes with several loaves of bread and a few small fish. Unless you depend heavily on your garden for food you may not know why I relate lettuce to these biblical accounts. I’ll explain. In the fall I sow a lot of lettuce and spinach. With a little protection from severe cold these crops last through the winter. And although they’re not gonna’ grow as quickly as in spring and summer— they’ll grow enough to give you a a few fresh salads and/or stir frys to remind you that spring is on the way. The Real Payoff of Fall Plantings
The real payoff of fall plantings comes in late winter — long about March. Little by little that lettuce feels the pull of the light increase and the change in the earth and starts to grow. And although you’ll be starting new lettuce seed about then to take over when the older plants wear out, those plants that have overwintered will in all probability be your main source of lettuce for 3 or 4 weeks. While you’re enjoying your salad everyday, the seed of your newly planted lettuce, beets, chard, spinach, and kale will be germinating. Then you’ll start to add another tiny leaf of those plants to your daily picking.  New lettuce coming up. For the last two years I’ve lost most of lettuce and spinach I’ve sown in the fall — I think to slugs. (Yes, I have a plan to prevent that this coming fall — but that’s another story.) Only a little patch of spinach — maybe 2 feet x 3 feet — made it through last year. Only about 5 lettuce plants made it. I started picking on a daily basis the first week in March because by then I’m starving for greens. Everyday, I’d think to myself — surely I won’t get any tomorrow. (One would think this was my first year growing lettuce — rather than my 34th!)  Small patch of over wintered spinach. For about 21 days — it was only those poor little over-picked plants that gave me lettuce for our lunch. After 21 days I started adding a leaf of beet, chard, newly grown spinach, and/or new lettuce that was barely out of the ground. (How it’s managed without rain I don’t know!)  This is the size of lettuce I pick in March. Here it is 7 weeks later and I’m still picking those poor little plants — in addition to all the new stuff that’s coming!  This is what my little spinach patch looks like now after I've picked it all winter and everyday for the last 7 weeks. Not too impressive for a visitor. One More Story After all this ravishing of spring lettuce and spinach, I know you must wonder if one can ever “see” the lettuce (or spinach) in my garden. The answer is yes — in June when growth peaks it’s very visible. You’ve seen many pictures in past posts and already know I have hundreds of lettuce plants every year. I’m such a lettuce fanatic that I couldn’t stand being without it, especially come March after a long winter of rationing. That being said, I have to share a story with you that always makes me smile. We had customers come one day (our shop is in our home) about 3 years ago to pick up a copy of one of Bill’s Northern Neck Illustrated Journals. (It was after lunch and we had just finished a huge bowl of lettuce.) They commented on the yard and told me they had a wonderful garden. They asked if I grew any vegetables. I said yes. They wanted to see the garden. We walked out back and stood at the garden gate. One topic lead to another and they showed me pictures on their cell phone of their lettuce. It was lush, gorgeous, tall and huge. (Obviously, not picked.) I said how beautiful it was and that I loved lettuce. As they looked across my garden they said, “If we had known you loved lettuce we could have brought you some!” The moral of the story is — if you want lettuce that makes a big show in late winter and early spring don’t eat it all. And of course, the story of the loaves and few small fish comes to mind.  This big bowl feeds 4 normal people or 2 lettuce fanatics (us). Multiply 2 or 4 servings by 21 for the first 3 cold weeks of spring or multiply by 49 for bowls picked to date since the first week in march. Doesn't make a show in the garden, but it sure is good! __________ Organic Gardening is Easy, Effective, Efficient — and it’s a lot healthier. ______ Related Posts: Lettuce – There’s No Right or Wrong Way
Greens – Now is the Time to Plan for the Heat of Summer
Lettuce – Eating Fresh Even After it Stalks
Lettuce – Delicious as a Cooked Green Lettuce Bitter? Secrets to Keeping it Tasty
Lettuce – Spinning Like a Great Chef
Spinach Talk Lettuce – Favorites, Tips, and Several Sources Lettuce – Plant in the Fall – Harvest for 3 Seasons Lettuce – A Teaser and Reminder
Lettuce – Time to Plant _____ All content including photos is copyrighted by TendingMyGarden.com. All Rights Reserved. Last year — after 12 years of not growing any beds of annuals — I decided to create two island beds of wildflowers in a relatively small rectangle of wild-grassy area that’s framed by my borders in the back of our property. One would be twice the length of the other and their shape would be oblong ovals. Bill and I didn’t want to go through any major soil preparation work. I wanted to experiment — and if it worked — great. And if it didn’t we could just mow it down with the lawn mower. The Plan The idea was to plant white clover all around the perimeter of each bed. This had several purposes. White clover is beautiful and bees love it. It can be mowed down and will come right back. It helps choke out weeds and keeps them from encroaching into the middle of the bed where I planned to sow poppies. Once established these bed should be able to pretty much take care of themselves with minimum attention from me. In the middle of the smaller bed I sowed California poppies. In the middle of the larger bed I sowed Red poppies. The results were spectacular. For more pictures and details on preparation see my original post.  California Poppies are in this smaller bed and were the first to bloom.  The red poppies in the larger bed bloom as the California poppies diminish. I thought it was much more beautiful than the photo shows. And Then What Happened? The poppies reseeded themselves and I also gathered seed to save. The clover came back thick and lush except for in a few spot where the seed had washed away in the original sowing. The spots have been reseeded and when they germinate they should close in the openings this year.  This will be the second year for these two beds. The clover in this smaller bed is already lush except for this bare spot. I've sown more seed --- so the spot should close in this year. In late winter when it was mild with nice rains, the self-sown poppies germinated. There were seemingly hundreds of them coming up in the middle of both beds. Absolutely ideal. The seedlings were very small. In the middle of all that wonderful weather — we had a freeze. The seedlings died. There’s Always a Silver Lining However, I had noticed that in addition to the small seedlings there were good sized poppy plants coming up IN the clover and along the outside edge of the clover. These did wonderfully through the freeze and kept right on going. They are now in bloom.  These are the poppies that grew strong and made it through the freeze. The seed fell and grew right in the clover.  This picture shows the open center of the longer bed. At the bottom right -- you can see the beginning of the smaller bed with the poppies that are blooming now. Final Words – Great Potential for these Easy Care Beds in Spite of the Set Backs Since the freeze I sowed the poppy seed that I had saved into the beds and sprinkled lightly with straw. Since then we’ve had no rain — or at least nothing more than a drizzle or two. No seed has germinated. I’m hoping this spring drought will break and that when we get rain the seed will take off and still make an even more spectacular show than last year. In spite of the set backs of the freeze and the spring drought, I see great potential for these two beds of easy-care annuals.  Blooming California Poppies that came up in the clover. Note the buds for new blooms with their pink rims.  California Poppies that reseeded in the clover. END____________ Source for Wildflower Seed: Vermont Wildflower Farm Organic Gardening is easy, effective, efficient — and it’s a lot healthier. ____________ Related Posts: Backyard Landscaping Ideas – Wildflowers ___________ All content including photos is copyright by TendingMyGarden.com. All Rights Reserved. ___________ I was out in the garden this evening transplanting lettuce and lamenting the spring drought we’re having. Beds that are heavily mulched are still ok. Nice moist soil beneath the mulch even though we’ve been at least a month with nothing but a drizzle. But beds where I’ve planted crops like lettuce, kale, turnips, carrots, onions and radishes and then just sprinkled a thin layer of straw on until they could grow up a bit — have lost a lot of moisture and are dry by comparison. I’m especially concerned about beds that I had designated for tomatoes — usually very heavily mulched this time of year. This year I planted cabbage and broccoli in those beds to be followed by the tomatoes. Then I only mulched lightly because I thought the broccoli and cabbage would grow, the rains would come, and then I could mulch heavily. Hopefully the drought will break and I will be able to reserve the moisture for my tomatoes with heavier mulch. They’ll need it for the all-to-probable summer drought. Fortunately, spring droughts are rare. By the time the more-normal droughts of summer come, cold weather crops are grown and mostly finished. Warm weather crops are getting big and can hold their own for a good while in the heavily mulched beds of my garden. Then I got to thinking about the famous “one inch of water” per week. You know — the one that seems to be in every article you read about every vegetable you could possibly want to grow. They all say — and onions <or whatever the crop is> needs one inch of water per week. Wonder who ever came up with that and just how it was determined. I guess somewhere in the world somebody gets an inch of rain a week, but it’s certainly not in my garden. And I could almost bet it’s not in yours either. So who was this person that knew about every vegetable needing an inch of water? If you’re new to gardening you’ve probably read those articles and have seen visions of the vegetable immediately dropping to the soil stone dead if it doesn’t get the required one inch of rain. Those who still want to garden and with the means to do so — probably look into what system they can use to supply this one inch a week. I only have two barrels to catch reserve rain water. But if I had a system to catch a LOT of rain water and then pump it to the garden —- I could get real excited about watering. Unfortunately, that has not been my situation for almost 35 years and I don’t think anything will change anytime soon. So I don’t water unless it’s with a sprinkling can and that’s only enough water to water in my newly transplanted seedlings. I would not use any kind of municipal water supply for consistent watering and I would also hesitate about well water unless it had been tested to see if chemicals had seeped into it. Here in Virginia — drought in summer is the norm. Thankfully, no one ever told any of my crops they needed an inch of water a week. And I keep telling them how great they’re doing — so they live up to what I expect of them. Just kidding of course, —- but it makes the point. Sure, there are some years that you’re going to lose some harvest because of a severe drought. But if you prepare your soil deeply, add lots of organic matter and mulch heavily —- those losses will be minimum. One more Thing If I were set up to water — I would NOT water once a week. I would keep tabs on soil dryness, but I would especially look to the plants. As dry as things are in some of my planted beds — the vegetables in them are looking great. They’re not growing as quickly as they might — but they look healthy and ARE growing. Even my onions have already put out roots that are 8 inches long. (I measured when I pulled a spring onion for lunch.) They’re using those roots to go for that water that’s down deeper. If you water when you think the plants need it — rather than when the plants really need it —- it keeps them from putting down deep roots. Deep roots are your best bet for a hassle free garden! Wishing you rain in due season and great success in your garden!
_________
Related Posts:
Should You Garden if You Can’t Water – YES! Needs One Inch of Rain a Week. Oh Yeah?
_________
Organic Gardening is Easy, Efficient, Effective —- and its a lot healthier.
_________
All content including photos is copyrighted by TendingMyGarden.com. All Rights Reserved. If you want to get as much of a harvest as possible from almost any of your vegetables and fruits, a good principle to remember is the more you harvest the more the plant produces. If you stop the harvest and the fruits or vegetables remain on the plant, the plant will stop producing. An Example A friend of ours would never pick his tomatoes until bright red because he thought if they weren’t vine ripened they wouldn’t taste as good. Needless to say, his plants stopped producing literally months before mine did. After letting him taste some of my tomatoes that were picked when they were almost all red and then allowed to ripen in the house, he was shocked that they were just as good as his vine ripened ones. Let’s talk Peppers A reader of TMG, who is a long time gardener, brought up an excellent point by leaving a comment on my post Peppers – Almost an Extra Month of Red Ones. She said: - “I have found that when a pepper turns red it signals the plant that it doesn’t need to keep producing as much. To counter this, earlier in the season I wait until a pepper shows a little red before picking it. It continues ripening to full red once it has started, even on the kitchen counter. Later in the season, when any new fruit would be caught by frost before ripening anyway, I let the peppers fully ripen on the bush.”
Ripening off the Plant
Although I have on several occasions picked peppers that showed a little red and left them to ripen on a counter, I have not had the success that this reader has had with this very convenient method. The peppers look great for about 3 days and continue to turn red; but after that they loose the quality of a freshly picked pepper. The skin becomes not as turgid as when it was harvested. I feel at this point, they loose some of their nutrient value as well as their good looks. Memo: Peppers picked and held in the crisper box of the refrigerator will keep beautifully from 2 to 4 weeks. Keep in mind however, that one picked before it’s fully red will not ripen further in the refrigerator. Clarification on the Signal to Quit Just to clarify — one pepper turning red will not signal the plant to stop producing. Just as one or two tomatoes or strawberries on a plant will not signal the tomato plant or strawberry plant to stop producing. (And I don’t think my reader meant to imply that just one would send up the signal for the plant to call it quits.) It’s the plant that has all its peppers turning red — with none of it’s fruit being picked — that will “think” it’s finished producing new fruit and it’s only job is to finish ripening what’s left. How I Make Sure they Keep On Producing
To make sure my plants keep producing as long as possible — but maybe not quite as abundantly as possible — I pick some of the peppers when they’re big, but still green. I usually choose the ones that are not as perfectly shaped as others, or maybe have a bug hole, or seem to be “just smaller” than the others. And of course, as soon as my peppers are really red — I harvest them that day. So — from a plant that gives me lots of red peppers — I probably don’t get quite the number of peppers as my reader. But I get a LOT — both red and green. And my plants are still producing when frost comes. How I Make Sure we get Enough Now that I’ve become a red pepper fanatic, I don’t know that it’s going to be possible for me to get as many as I really want. But it will be possible to get a lot. I usually plant at least 12 pepper plants. I harvest at least 5 or more peppers per day for a four to five month period. To be conservative in my estimate, let’s say 4 months x 30 days = 120 days x 5 peppers = 600 peppers. Pretty conservative figure, and I think the real figure would be closer to a 1,000 peppers. I know you must be wondering what in the world we do with all those peppers. Well — we eat them. If you are not depending on your garden for most of your food — you probably will not relate. But — red peppers especially are easily devoured for mid day snacks and lunch. Green peppers are usually cooked in various dishes for dinner. And then of course, I like some frozen for winter. If I can find a place in the garden, I’ll plant more peppers this year. The Bottom Line on How to Harvest More Peppers Sow bountifully to reap bountifully. Then harvest more so your plants will produce more. Related Posts Almost An Extra Month of Red Ones _________ Organic Gardening is easy, effective, efficient — and it’s a lot healthier. _________ All content including photos is copyright by TendingMyGarden.com. All Rights Reserved. _________ There’s no right or wrong way to grow or plant lettuce. It’s a matter of what works best with your set of variables — which are many in any garden. If you don’t have enough lettuce to suite you after mid March — or if you’re having trouble getting it to grow — you need to try another approach. The only way you’re going to know what works best for you is to try them all. Two things you should also consider before you begin. #1. How you want to harvest. If you graze continually like I do, not much space is required between plants. If you want to have big heads of lettuce allow about 6 inches between plants. #2. Watering.
I use a watering can filled with my rain water reserve to water in my seedlings after planting in the garden. After that, I depend on rain. Even if I were set up to water, I wouldn’t — unless I could save more rain water. Although I’ve hauled a bucket or two to select spots in my garden in times of drought, I always fear that the water from the tap will cause more harm than good. It’s filled with chemicals and chlorine. I read years ago in Organic Gardening Magazine (back in the days when it was really great) that water like our tap water causes plants to be unable to take up the nutrients they need. Four Ways to Grow Lettuce You can adjust any of the methods to better suit your situation. Or you can come up with you own method. #1 Direct Seeding can be the quickest most hassle free method of getting lettuce. I say can be — because some people don’t have as much success with it as others. With me — sometimes it’s a big success; sometimes it’s not. Scatter your seed or plant in rows — whichever you prefer. Cover lightly with a sprinkling of straw. Water or wait for rain. When it get’s about an inch high – thin if you want. Since I graze all my lettuce everyday, I don’t bother with thinning if one spot or two is a bit thick. (I have MANY lettuce spots in my garden.)  I spilled some Outredgeous Red lettuce seed here and this little patch came up. If you haven't tried this lettuce you really should. It's gorgeous and delicious. #2 Start in Flats and Transplant into the Garden This was my most successful approach for almost 30 years. I scattered my seed in a flat in my seed starting area outside and waited for it to germinate. If the temperatures were right, it germinated in a couple of days.  Lettuce seedlings coming up in the flat.  Lettuce seedlings in flat. Some of the seedlings have already been transplanted to the garden. When the lettuce was about an inch or so high, I scooped out a handful each day and took it to the garden to plant. I make a furrow with my finger and placed each seedling about an inch or two apart. Pulled the soil over the roots in the furrow. Watered between furrows. Sprinkled with straw. And waited.  A friend picking lettuce in June that was planted as described in the previous paragraph. If you have a slug problem you can use Escargo around the lettuce to keep it from being damaged. (You want the EscarGo Slug and Snail Control rather than the EscarGo Supreme which has additions that may be harmful to the beneficials.) #3 Start in Flats; Transplant to Pots; Plant in Garden Here’s one reason for the extra step of transplanting to pots before planting in the Garden: For the last month we’ve had no more than a drizzle of rain. Drought in the summer is bad enough, but I really hate drought in the spring. Because that’s when there’s so much planting taking place. I use a watering can to water in the lettuce right after it’s planted, and then I depend on the spring rains. Some of the beds that I allocated for lettuce this spring have gotten a bit drier than usual because my straw was not as deep on those beds. (Hind sight is good but never solves the immediate problem.) So in early April — rather than transplant the inch high seedlings to the garden, I’ve transplanted them to small pots. (2 or 3 seedling per pot)  Green Deer Tongue transplanted to pots. As of today – about 10 days after potting — I’m planting them in the garden. The roots are much more developed and after watering them in I think they’ll do ok if we get some kind of break in the drought by the end of the month.  Larissa Lettuce ready for the garden.  Bronze arrow lettuce seedling transplanted to pot. #4 in Gallon Plastic Jugs using the Wintersown Method This is one of my favorite methods. You start out with your growing medium being moist and you can pretty much forget having to worry about keeping the soil moist because the jug acts like a terrarium or little green house. Sow the seed (not too thickly) into the soil in the bottom of the jug. Tape the top to the bottom so there is no air gap. Remove the jug’s cap for ventilation . Wait for it to germinate and grow. Transplant to the garden or to small pots as described in the methods above. Final Thought – Plant Consistently The only other thing you need to do to have lettuce most of the year is plant consistently. Do succession planting in September through October. Keep under row covers or cold-frames for the cold of winter. Start planting again the first part of the year through May. Even if you loose some like I did this year you should still be harvesting a bowl full of baby lettuce and greens at least once a day by mid March.  Picking of April 10th for lunch. Bowl of baby lettuces with an occasional leaf of beet and spinach. Related Posts:
Lettuce – Time to Plant Looking at Winter-sown Seedlings and the Garden You Can Plant in December Seed Not Germinating? Seedlings Disappearing?
Lettuce Favorites, Tips and Sources Lettuce – Plant in the Fall; Harvest for 3 Seasons __________ Organic Gardening is easy, effective, efficient — and it’s a lot healthier. ________ All content including photos are copyrighted by TendingMyGarden.com. All Rights Reserved. I can’t say that I don’t enjoy having a good part of the world’s knowledge at my finger tips via the internet. It’s great to be able to research something from the comfort of your home at almost anytime day or night. But I think we’ll all agree it can at times be information-overload. If you’re new to a subject, you’ll interpret the information you find totally different than a person having lots of hands-on experience. Like most things in life — the more you already know — the better you can sift through the information to choose what’s valuable and what’s not; what’s true and what’s not. I can’t help but feel fortunate about NOT having had the internet when I first started gardening 34 years ago. I’m convinced that if it had been available it would have taken me much longer to be successful in gardening. As it was —- I was hungry and wanted to eat. So I gardened and ate. Pretty simple. To further make my point, I’ll use peppers as an example. If you’ve read my other two posts on peppers (post one, two) you know my history with peppers. I’ve always had peppers and plan to have a lot more this year. But had I read — as a new gardener — all the information available online about peppers — I think I would have been convinced that they’d be too difficult to grow. According to everything I’ve read, peppers need just about everything I could never give them. Boy! I’m sure glad my peppers didn’t know. Below I’ll address some of the concerns folks have and then give my approach to handling it: - Peppers are said to require moist soil continually. I’m not set up to water and never have been. I mulch heavily to try to conserve as much moisture in the soil as possible.
- Peppers are said to need certain kinds of fertilizer. I try to add as much organic matter to my garden beds as I can in the form of leaves and straw. And cover crops whenever possible. (For years I didn’t grow cover crops.)
- Peppers are known to thrive in a temperature band of 60 to 85 degrees. In the summer they spend a lot of time in my garden in a band of 85 to 100 degrees.
- They’re very cold sensitive. But in the fall when temperatures fall below 60 regularly, they are usually still giving me peppers up to and sometimes past the first frost.
- Another “fact” that many gardeners hold dear is that when two seedlings come up together, you should cut one off and allow the other to grow strong.
Last year my friend who is so good with peppers, brought me several of his 3 inch sheepnose seedlings that he had no room for. In one pot two seeds had germinated right next to each other and were entwined. It was either cut one off at the base (as would be the popular choice) or plant them together and see what happens. I planted them together and they grew to almost 6 feet tall and about 3 feet wide — taller than any of my other peppers. They gave me dozens and dozens of peppers and were by far one of the most beautiful sites in my garden. When seeing it, some visitors to my garden wanted to know what kind of tree it was. Obviously, the outcome was dependent on other circumstances — not just the two peppers growing together. - Another very popular “fact” about peppers is that the seedlings will become stunted and never recover if the soil or the air temperature is much below 55 degrees. I’m sure for the most part that must be true, but I have to tell you I can’t help but laugh when I think of what I experienced with peppers seedlings last year.
I started my pepper seeds at the end of February. Way too early! It stayed cold through May and hot weather crops like tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant didn’t care for that. Temperatures were below 55 degrees much of the spring. I kept the flat inside until the peppers germinated. Since I don’t have room or enough light for them— I put them outside under a cold frame the day after they broke the soil. They were about an inch (certainly no more than 1 1/2 inches) and they stayed that height through May even though I transplanted some to their own little pots. My friend and his wife came over about mid May to bring the pepper seedlings I mentioned previously. I showed them my little tiny seedlings. Well, his wife just burst out laughing. He — not believing that I planted these pitiful little seedlings in February — said, “But you just planted those, right?” I said. “Nope — they’ve been just like that since February!” He didn’t say but I knew he was thinking it was good he brought me a few peppers because I’m sure he was convinced that I’d never get peppers from those tiny seedlings that had been stunted for 3 months. Surprisingly, all grew to at least 3 feet and several reached 4 and 5 feet. The plants were loaded with peppers all during the growing season until after the second frost.  Pepper plants - No longer stunted! These are about 3 1/2 feet.  This once little guy reached 5 feet and gave me some of the most beautiful peppers I had!  Carmen Peppers ripening in abundance. Hard to believe this plant was an inch tall for 3 months! Final Thoughts You can be successful with peppers or just about any vegetable that is known to grow in your area, if you follow basic garden principles. Prepare the soil deeply, add lots of organic matter and mulch. This will make healthy soil and if you have that — nature will balance the natural occurrences in your garden and your garden will thrive. There are so many variables from season to season and garden to garden. Nothing is ever the same. And obviously there will be times that somehow the stars align perfectly for conditions that peppers (or any other vegetable) love. Then they will thrive even more. Reality is that you’ll have excellent years, and sometimes you’ll have less than excellent years. That’s just the way of things. Peppers seem to already know this and most of the time are perfectly willing to sit and wait for the right conditions. So when you read all the stuff that’s out there about peppers or any other vegetable —- just remember — it ain’t necessarily so. _____ Related Posts: Peppers – Almost An Extra Month of Red Ones Peppers – Can’t Get Sweet Red Ones? Here’s How.
_____ Organic Gardening is easy, effective, efficient —- and it’s a lot healthier. _____ All content including photos is copyrighted by TendingMyGarden.com. All Rights Reserved. Ever since I can remember I’ve harvested my vegetables almost daily to keep them producing and increase the harvest. I guess that was one of the reasons I gardened for many years before finding out that virtually all peppers turn red when they’re mature. It’s been so long I don’t remember the details, but I guess finally I read something in one of the seed catalogs that finally clued me in.  In past years these long Carmen Peppers would have been picked at this stage. I thought then --- that this was the mature stage. I didn't know that virutally all green peppers will turn red and be even more delicious. Even after learning that fact, I had a hard time getting red peppers. I grew mainly bell peppers and banana peppers and if I left them on the vine long enough for them to turn red, something started eating on them — or they would rot. (I found out later that one possible cause for the rot was an insect that laid its eggs on the blossom and they hatch and developed inside the pepper.) Then I met a friend who seemed to always have an abundance of red peppers. From him, I learned that with certain varieties you can get red peppers sooner. He was good enough to share some seed with me and I grew the same two unnamed varieties that he grew — a sheepnose and a large, long pepper.  Sheepnose variety grown from my friend's seed. Green bell peppers are still a must-have in my garden, but I’ve become a red pepper fanatic. Although I’ve progressed from having no red peppers to having 4 or 5 red peppers a day —– I WANT MORE! I want enough red peppers to freeze for the winter as well as to eat daily. And I want them even earlier in the season. How to Get that Extra Month of Red Peppers The majority of peppers take about 100 or more days to mature. By finding varieties that mature in 65 to 75 days you can add almost a full month more of red peppers to your season. In the interest of time (life is short) I wanted a pepper that was not only early, but had already been tried and proven true. So I did a little searching. As a result of that – here are the 5 main varieties of peppers I’m growing this year. #1 – Ace is said to be the first pepper to turn red in almost any garden, ripening in 65 to 70 days! It is a medium-sized pepper that does well even in cool weather. The only thing I found that was a negative for me — was it’s thin walled. But still — I’m trying it just to get an early red pepper. #2 – Lipstick is considered by many to be THE most delicious sweet pepper. From the description – I can see why: heavy, thick, juicy and sweet and ripening to a rich red. I’ve already got these seedlings up and running. The seed germinated better for me than any pepper seed I’ve ever had. (Lipstick is available at Diane’s Seeds and Gurney.) (Matures in 70 to 73 days.) #3 – Jupiter Bell is an heirloom from Annie Heirloom Seeds that I want to grow because it’s a typical green bell pepper that ripens early. It might be my imagination, but I think bell peppers have a unique flavor that other green peppers don’t quite capture. (Matures in 70 days.)  Bell Pepper #4 - Last year I grew a hybrid called Carmen. We really enjoyed it and consider it one of the best and sweetest peppers we’ve ever had. I couldn’t resist saving the seed although I know it’s a hybrid and will not produce peppers that are identical to what I had last year. Nonetheless, I will be anxious to see what comes. If its offsprings are not close, I’ll end up buying seed again next year. Carmen Peppers ripening in abundance. #5 - After growing Sheepnose pimento pepper, I’d never want to be without it. So it’s on my list again for this year.  Sheepnose pimento variety of pepper. Final Thoughts Red peppers are almost like a different vegetable than green peppers. They’re sweeter, have twice the amount of Vitamin C, are high in Vitamin A and potassium and low in calories. They’re great sliced or diced; in salads, stir-frys or roasted. And almost as importantly to me, they’re beautiful ornaments for my garden.  A variety of Sheepnose peppers Organic Gardening is easy, effective, efficient — and a lot healthier. _______ Related posts: Peppers – Can’t Get Red Ones? Here’s how. _______ All content including photos is copyrighted by TendingMyGarden.com. All Rights Reserved. | Receive my new posts via email:Thank You for Visiting!
My name is Theresa and I've been organic gardening in Virginia for more than 34 years and have been cooking for more than 50. Please stop by often to be entertained, encouraged, and learn things about organic gardening and cooking the easy way --- here a little, there a little --- from my stories, tips, anecdotes, experiences, and explanations. What readers say:" I like your way of gardening! Not much hassle but great rewards." "I love your common-sense approach to gardening." "---that’s why I’m a reader here – no “overwhelm” just practical advice – that works." "I’ve been gardening for over 30 years but have learned so much from your posts. I appreciate your thoroughness and orderliness. Thanks so much." "Gardening is so much easier and productive since I've met you, Theresa. I really mean that--you have helped me so much! I used to break my back fighting weeds, poor soil, etc. Not any more!" |
