The Trials and Hardships of Gardening in Central Wisconsin

Nasturtiums growing out of cement block

Garden blogs can be informative to others or simply a record keeping method for the gardener.  Generally, I turn to the blogs I follow to be amused or inspired.   Some bloggers are all over the humor and melodrama of gardening, others natives, sustainability, and birding, still others collecting, growing, and propagating the rare and unusual.  Some bloggers write about their gardens in far away places I'll never have a chance to visit. Blogs are the horticulture magazines for the digital age.   (A little I fear as YouTube is standing in for the great gardening television shows of past decades.)  So I was saddened to pull up this blog and see towel thrown in.

We all want our happy endings.  We want solutions, fixes, answers.  I followed this particular blog because she, like me, struggles with weather and gardening conditions in Zone 4 in the Upper Midwest.   She is in particular a vegetable gardener in my zone.  There are quite a few vegetable gardeners in my area or gardeners who grow vegetable also, but in limited ways.  There is NOT however, a lot of shared knowledge.  I think that makes for a lot of pain for gardeners here. 

There are people trying to grow food who are not seriously involved growing those vegetables.  Not all of us have the time or inclination.  Even those who do not, want to know how to harvest basil, how to store it, how to preserve cucumbers, or how to freeze tomatoes.  The internet is that first source of information for many, especially those of us not just throwing money at our pain.

The half-completed cement block planting wall and vegetable garden/potager planting area beautification plan called for something like this.  I have had a hard time sourcing cement block, however.  Ace Hardware has cement block at nearly $3.00 a block.  Say what?  Just so you know cement block typically sells for about a dollar around here, and sometimes you can find it at the local (state of WI) home improvement chain, Menard's, for 88 cents.  My closest source for that sort of thing, though has been sold out three separate times, this year.  So my project is uncompleted.

It is a project in which there was a lot of interest during my recent Garden Walk.  I wished I had been able to finish it because it is a solution for many gardeners' problems.  It is an organic pest deterrent.  Rabbits can not reach the eggplant, lettuce, basil, or whatever grown in the top tier.  It can be a means of re-purposing cement block (there seems to be a lot of gardeners with a few stray blocks laying around from building projects or whatever).  It also is a heat sink, which may be just the thing for tomatoes, eggplant, or peppers, especially in cool and wet  growing years.  It can be an inexpensive decorative element and add structure to a garden.  And, we haven't even talked about weed control!

Eggplant 'Millionaire' also growing out of cement block, the earliest I am ever going to get an eggplant, days from transplant to harvest.

My potager started a lot of conversations about problems gardeners are having; like, Colorado potato beetle devouring everything.  CPB do not like basil (go figure!) or 'All Blue' potatoes.  Intermingling basil and eggplant is an incredible organic deterrent.  They (CPB ) also seem to leave the 'All Blue' and even to a lesser extent 'Red Gold' alone, versus 'Red Norlands' and 'Red Pontiac' which they simply devour.

Or the conversation with another gardener about why her hanging basket with nasturtiums intermingled with other plants with dissimilar growing requirements weren't looking so nice now, in mid-July.  (Nasturtiums do not bloom well in nutrient rich environments.)

So in addition to garden art you can make, I see a lot of people looking for which blueberries to grow, how to prune a dappled willow, how to prune grapes or how to stop fungal diseases organically.  When you come up with solutions, bloggers, share!

And, when I actually finish this cement block project I will share.

Postcard from the Family Garden

Cabbage 'Red Acre' and sage

'yum Yum' pepper

'California Wonder' pepper

Amaranth

Sweet corn 'Early Sunglow'

Amaranth

Leaf lettuce mix

Pineapple sage


Cucumbers and tomatoes

'Contender' beans

Potatoes and tomatoes

Sweet potatoes

Turnip greens

Mizuna

P.S. Wish you were here! It would beat a lousy t-shirt!

Winter Sowing: Onions

Onion seeds sprouted and growing n the potager. Still green, although the ground is nearly frozen.


I'm not sure what it is all about, but my attempts at growing onions is a bit like thinking you can put your money in a savings account these days and have the interest grow your money into something worth talking about. My onions, like money in a savings account, result in onions little bigger than the onion sets with which I begin.

Always willing to try something new, I've decided to plant my onion seed in the fall, following the idea that I plant garlic cloves in the fall and that onions I fail to harvest seem fine in the spring.

Last January, I thought to plant the appropriate long day length onions starting them from seed under lights. I also started leeks. The generic sets available here are simply white, yellow, or red-- no stated day length. I thought starting my own sets might be the answer. The onions I choose were a flattish red onion and got to the appropriate size, which is to say about 1 1/2" in diameter. The leeks, I am told were harvested and eaten on a regular basis by my brother, although I didn't get any from the family garden.

So while I seem to plant quite a few, my harvest of onions seems less than I would expect. So I will dream of nice spring onions. I planted 3 rows each about 8 feet long.

I have also left some late beets and carrots in the ground with the same expectations, that I will have tender young things early in the spring for salads. My celery never amounted to much although I did dry some of the tops for additions to pizza and soups.




I've started thinking about getting some microgreens growing under lights. I have some basil cuttings I have in glasses of water that have rooted and should think about planting, too.

What herb talks about fresh more than basil?

UPDATE: Although we had an incredibly mild winter, the beets and onions were nowhere to be seen. That's a first for me with carrots; so I have to wonder if a vole, mole or some other creature didn't reap the benefits from my work. Also very few of the onions survived to the next spring. I did, however, miss one of the pitiful leeks I harvested in 2011 and harvested it at the perfect size in September 2012 to make a WONDERFUL leek, red potato, and sweet red pepper soup.

Harvest Is Coming In

Tomatoes in my village garden. The vines at the family garden have four times the tomatoes set.

I'm on my last jar of salsa, my last jar of pickle relish. I'm out of tomato sauce and sweet red pepper spread.

So, it's a good thing I've been able to pick my first couple tomatoes and filled a tub with 30-some cucumbers. I picked a patty pan squash yesterday, too. The cantaloupe and squash have put up lots of blossoms and there is evidence of busy bee successes in the tiny, but swelling melons forming behind the twisted blossoms.

Now preserving the harvest will begin to take priority over weeding.

Yesterday, my sister-in-law and I harvested basil. We had decided to attempt to freeze chopped basil blended with olive oil. I've chopped basil and simply measured out usable amounts and frozen into Ziplock bags in the past. While this method results in a usable product, the color is less than desirable, being a deep black green. The first thing I noticed about the oil and basil processed with a food processor was the nice color. We decided to half-fill the cubes sections in the ice cube tray, press, and then add some additional oil on the top. We covered the tray with tin foil and put it into the freezer.

We did not use salt or water, simply basil and olive oil.

I have attempted to dry it. Sometimes I am able to dry the basil and maintain its good color. Other times, a fail, the basil turns brown or black.

Some tips, if you intend to dry the leaves of basil: Choose undamaged, clean and dry basil. Sometime simply washing the basil with cool water will turn the basil brown. If you must wash the basil versus wiping off the dust or dirt, use warmer water and pat dry, do not crush between paper toweling. Dry while still attached to stems. I have had better luck drying basil as quickly as possible, for example in my standing pilot gas stove versus hanging over a bar in a dark place.

Once dry to crumbly stage, detach leaves from stems, and store in a labeled glass jar in a dark place. I like to add a couple grains of rice to each jar to absorb any atmospheric humidity.

Tomorrow: Harvesting dill.

Harvesting Basil and What High Temperatures Mean for Gardeners

Basil leaves being held in a canning jar.


Yesterday, my thermometer on the south side of my house read 100 degrees. Now, official highest temperature anywhere in Wisconsin was 97 in Waupaca, where the family garden is located. That 100 might be accurate. With the high dew point that's a 117 degree "feels like" temperature. That's about 50 degrees hotter than my preferred temperature of about 65 degrees!

Plants don't feel temperatures the same way we do. The high humidity actually works for plants lessening the amount of moisture a plant gives up to the air. As the skies have been overcast without beating sun, although it is dry, it is not like our plants are experiencing this heat dome as we are. Our plants are growing fast and a little extra moisture will go a long way now. I watered extensively on Friday and Saturday to build up moisture in the soil.

For those of you considering planting fall and winter veggies, with this heat, I would hold off on that plan. Seed germination drops off dramatically at temperatures above 80 degrees for many of these vegetables. If you feel you are loosing too many days, I would water the soil amply the night before and then mulch liberally with a couple inches of finely shredded straw or shredded paper after seeding with a plan to remove it within about 10 days.

This is probably not a good time to transplant or plant perennials or shrubs, but if you must, water well, water foliage to keep transpiration levels low, mulch, and consider trimming back as much top growth as you feel you can.

Lastly, these temperatures have forced me indoors and to play in the kitchen. I thought I would pass these tips along for storing and using basil. Basil is one of my favorite herbs. I plant a lot of it, grown, from seed each year, and almost always run out.

Basil likes it hot. Keep basil flowering tips picked off. When it flowers, the flavor and the texture changes, so keep it picked back. Harvest it down growing tips to about a quarter inch above each joint. When using always discard the stems and any flowers, use just the leaves. Try to pick early in the day if you are storing any quantities, but picking as close to using it is always preferable.

Basil does not like temperatures below 40 degrees. Resist the urge to store basil in your fridge. Temperatures below 40 degrees will brown your basil as if it has been touched by frost. Storing the clean leaves in a container in a dark space maintains moisture content and color for many days with very little wilting.

I have had good results (good color and shelf life), drying basil by placing in an oven on a cookie sheet at 145 degrees for an hour and leaving them in the oven (my oven has a standing pilot and is probably always between 90-110 degrees) for a couple days to finish drying. I then store them in a Mason jar.

Enjoy the heat, if you can. If not, pick basil...