Harvest Monday and vegetable update

Thinned out lettuce continues to be my Harvest Monday story. On Saturday midday, I checked in on my Minton Stable Garden plot as I waited to receive a walking tour that a BNAN volunteer was leading. We were one of the final stops of the handful of featured Jamaica Plain community gardens, and by that point, only a few people had stuck with it (my theory: the tour shrank as it passed Doyle's), but they were impressed with the attention many people have been giving to their plots. After hearing me ramble on about the history of the garden and showing them the John Carroll memorial and wildflower area, they were interested in what I was growing. So I showed them the lettuces, snap peas (some about 8 inches high), the Chinese cabbage and broccoli raab I had planted from seed about a week ago that were germinating, the strawberries (with small white fruits budding), and the mound of black-eyed Susans (now the circumference of a large hula hoop and in sore need of thinning). As you can probably guess, I was without my camera, so you'll need to rely on older photos and your imagination.Lunch was calling, so before I left, I thinned out the Summertime Iceberg and Forellenschluss Romaine lettuces. To understand why they need to be grown in the sun, one needs only to compare this harvest (above) to the thinner, wimpier leaves picked earlier this evening (below) from the shady backyard garden my daughter and I planted. The MSG crops seem to have more bones to them, and if we continue to enjoy daytime temperature ranges in the 50s-70s, I'll be posting photos of full, crunchy heads by the beginning of June. If you want to compare these lettuces to others across the country and beyond, visit the Harvest Monday posts listed at Daphne's Dandelions.But I don't want to jinx the situation. Anything can go wrong; today I encountered a familiar-looking scourge on my Tyee spinach. Already. I'm beginning to wonder that the only way to avoid leaf miners is to grow spinach in the fall.At home, I've been hardening off my tomato and brassica seedlings. Last week I transplanted my Black Prince and Rose de Berne tomatoes into larger containers and practiced more vigilance in giving them some time on the sunny front porch, and my efforts are paying off. They are catching up to where they probably should be at this time, and I may be able to plant them out this weekend.I can't seem to achieve the same momentum for my broccoli and cauliflower. One year ago today, my Fiesta organic broccoli was not only twice the size as this year's, but already in the ground. This year, I'll be lucky if I can plant out all six of these: two Charming Snow cauliflower, three Fiesta organic broccoli, and the most advanced, the Piricicaba broccoli. I had started four times as many seeds; if I had had more time I would have moved more into larger pots, but I doubt the results would have been different. Now I'm wondering if I can still plant them out this weekend or if I need to wait for them to fatten up a little more. That, along with the arrival of the community garden compost delivery from BNAN and the purchase of a new camera (I've narrowed it down to a particular Canon model) will hopefully happen soon.

The year in gardening 2009/Resolutions for 2010

My plot back in early September

The past year may go down in history as one of the worst years in gardening, at least in the past decade. Above-average rainfall and below-average temperatures during the crucial months of the growing season resulted in a below-average yield, especially with tomatoes. In November, I abandoned my experiment of determining how much I benefited monetarily from planting and harvesting edibles, reporting a negative balance. And on some days, I spent more time clearing out infected fruits and vegetables than harvesting healthy ones.

The Minton Stable Garden in bloom, August

However, I still find gardening to be a satisfying act, providing physical and emotional benefits to those who participate in it. Another year at the Minton Stable Community Garden led to more friendships with gardeners and other Steering Committee members. A community of bloggers provided advice and ideas for improving my garden practices as well. And the rain had some advantages, including a lower water bill for the community garden (only $141.82, down from last year's $203.40). As long as I have my 140 square feet in JP and land at home, and Massachusetts hasn't yet disappeared under rising sea levels, I'll continue gardening. Here is my second annual set of lists, with items not in any particular order.

Top 5 successful plants:
1. Kentucky Wonder pole beans
2. Fiesta organic broccoli
3. Forellenschluss Romaine lettuce (grown in Minton Stable Garden)
4. June-bearing strawberries (before the botrytis set in)
5. Volunteer raspberries--they liked the fall conditions

Top 5 failures:
1. All tomato varieties (except volunteer cherry tomatoes)--due to below-average temps and late blight
2. Anything I tried to grow in my backyard--too shady
3. Spinach after the invasion of leaf miners
4. Irises I tried to transplant to a sunnier location in front yard--maybe they'll bloom next year
5. Zinnias--planted late and not given enough room

Resolutions for 2010:
1. Continue growing the same volume of tomatoes, trying some different varieties, but make a point of pruning them to strengthen plants and ensure that they get more light.
2. Grow more varieties of broccoli, like Piricicaba and broccoli raab, and other plants, including kale and other greens, coriander, parsley, and other herbs, carrots, and cauliflower.
3. Reduce the size of the strawberry bed to make room for the raspberries.
4. Keep trying to achieve that fall crop of greens, perhaps by planting better varieties sooner, starting some indoors in August so they can grow out back under row covers, or by some other means.
5. Be more aggressive in thinning out perennials, to avoid diseases like powdery mildew or to keep them from taking over my MSG plot. Black-eyed susans, anyone?
6. Take better photos, including sharper close-ups and documentation of the garden over time.

Happy New Year! I'd be curious to read the resolutions of other gardeners.

Monday harvest/plot update - The cleanup continues

As expected, my harvest is dwindling in a few areas, particularly my stunted snap peas and my Kentucky Wonder pole beans. The latter aren't crazy about the advance of fall and nighttime temperatures in the 40s; the only beans that didn't turn limp in protest were buried under the plants' leaves. My raspberry plants are still new and few, and that was reflected in the amount of fruit I picked. The amount of broccoli side shoots remains constant, and although I pick only a few every few days, the combination of those and the pole beans have been a sufficient contribution to my small family's balanced diet. To see how other garden bloggers are doing with their harvests, check out the list at the bottom of Daphne's post.

I spent an hour and half at my Minton Stable Garden plot today, primarily pulling out my blighted and finished tomato plants (as you can see in the before and after photos below). Although I've read and heard reports that spores of diseased plants can travel through the air and infect other plants, the plant matter can be composted. Only blighted potato tubers should be disposed of separately, and since I'm not growing any potatoes in the MSG, I'm not concerned. Nevertheless, I bagged up the plants and weeds I pulled today to put out with yard waste at home, since the MSG bins are over capacity and won't be cleared and taken away for several weeks. Other chores I completed included weeding, harvesting, cutting back more of my spent perennials, tying up my raspberry plants to keep them upright and safe from being choked by my pole beans, and clearing strawberry runners from my raspberry patch and other areas of the garden.I still need to figure out how much broccoli I have harvested since my last tally, so I'll just add in the beans:

Previous benefits total: $131.80
1/5 pound (estimated) pole beans: $0.20
New benefits total: $132.00

Current costs total: $171.57
New balance: -$39.57

Short on time this evening. More totals to come in a future post.

See how they've grown

My visit Wednesday to the Minton Stable Garden in the rain turned out to bring more relief than I had expected. We have had another week of weather that varied only in the intensity of the precipitation--rain falling in gentle drops, as a fine mist that rendered umbrellas useless, and steady waves of thunderstorms that seemed like they would never end. If the conditions left humans irritable and depressed, how were the plants responding?I had thought I'd seen the end of the strawberries, but still came away with a handful that were in their prime; a few were even the 2008 size. My tomatoes had also shown signs of growth and my pole beans (above), which I thought I had planted a bit late, were about 6 inches high and undisturbed. Also, my echinacea had begun to bloom.
Of course, I didn't need to be concerned for the plants known to endure day upon day of temperatures that often don't make it past 70 degrees F. As you can see in the photo of the vegetable end of my plot, the remaining heads of lettuce had not bolted, and the broccoli had grown a great deal. Despite the tangled mess my snap peas are in, I still harvested about a half pound.A few days ago at the Harvest Coop I noticed that snap peas were priced at $4.59 a pound (which seemed kind of high, so I wondered if the weather was negatively impacting the overall harvest). In total, from my yard and MSG plot, I have picked about one pound total, so now I'll calculate the value of my harvest for the past week:

Previous benefits total: $75.50
1 pound of snap peas at $4.59/lb.: $4.59
1/2 pint of strawberries at $3.99/pt.: $2.00
2 heads of Romaine lettuce at $2.49/each: $4.98

New benefits total: $87.07

Total costs so far: $167.07

Current balance: $-80.00

The garden has grown so much that it's difficult to see across to the plots on the opposite end. Compare this shot with the beginning of the season in late March, and even these photos from early May.And to end, here's my latest garden envy photo: someone already has raspberries!

Not what I ordered

Once in a while, you don't get what you asked for. Like all these extra rainy days. "That's not what I ordered," you say. "I think that was for the other table over there, the one with the drought."The strawberries have definitely had their fill of precipitation as well as temperatures around 60 degrees F. The number of soft and rotted fruits have caught up with the number of healthy ones. As you can see in this photo, taken about a week ago, many of the berries in the shovel appear to have some sort of blight, possibly botrytis, a fungus disease that favors the current weather conditions. I've been doing my best to stay on top of this problem and dispose of the diseased berries, though I'm overdue for a visit to my plot.

Another less serious but notable item that I had not ordered was what appears to be snow peas in my sugar snap pea crop. Another MSG member had mentioned the same situation in her plot. I don't think it's fair to implicate Fedco, since I experienced the same phenomenon with a different brand of snap pea seeds last year. It's not such a big deal anyway, since only a few plants out of the whole crop produce the different variety, and the pods are healthy and fine. But it's a little unnerving to leave a pod on the vine with the expectation that it will puff out into a sugar snap, only to have it become overripe.
What causes this variation? I'm no geneticist, but I wonder if it has anything to do with what I read in this source: "The modern sugar snap pea is the progeny of a cross between a snow pea and an ususual pea that was tightly podded with thick walls." Some kind of cross-pollination issue, perhaps. I'll try to remember to post a photo of some plants in my garden, if it ever stops raining. I've only harvested a few, so far, so I'll keep them out of my latest benefits of gardening statistics.

Previous total (benefits): $29.13
5 heads Romaine at $2.49 each: $12.45
8 1/2 pints strawberries at $3.99 each: $33.92

New benefits total: $75.50

Total costs so far: $167.07

Current balance: $-91.57

I think we're near the end of the strawberries, however. I wondering if I'll be able to fill a pint container with healthy fruit when I visit the plot tomorrow.

Strawberry Test Kitchen

The berries are ripening faster than we can pick them. A couple of pints on Sunday, but no one was able to visit the plot on Monday. So on Tuesday, it meant spending the time I had allocated for weeding and a project at home on harvesting even more strawberries, about 3 1/2 pints. For about every five ripe or slightly overripe berries there was a rotted one to dispose of, and since I am out of town at the moment and unable to get back until tomorrow, I anticipate there will be even more.

At this point, my plans are for the berries to appear in some form at three potlucks later this week. One recipe I hope to try is a Strawberry Chiffon Pie; if I can't pull it off for the event at my daughter's school on Thursday, I might have it down in time for my friend's fundraiser on Friday night. Without reliable refrigeration at the MSG barbecue this Saturday, it might make more sense to bring strawberry shortcake (either making a simple shortcake or buying one), and hope that the kids don't have mischievous plans for the whipped cream.

The reason for the title "Strawberry Test Kitchen" is that I like to think of my first attempt at any recipe as an experiment. That way, if I screw it up I'll feel less disappointed. Also, there's always some ingredient that I have to either omit or substitute, so it's a test to determine how badly the recipe needed it. That was the case Monday night when my daughter and I made a half-batch of Strawberry Italian Ice (no, I'm not getting any kickbacks from Better Homes and Gardens!). We didn't have an orange handy for the grated orange peel, but after tasting the results yesterday morning, I think we managed just fine without it. The boiled sugar and other ingredients gave the ice the right amount of sweetness and enhanced the flavor of the strawberries.

So many strawberries, so little time. What would you do?

The benefits and costs of gardening update

We've been having yo-yo temperatures these past few weeks--a day or two near 80 (as in the picture above) and then back down to the 60s. Luckily the nighttime lows haven't dipped to frost levels so we need not worry much about the welfare of our tomatoes. However, those plants do seem to have gone on strike, refusing to grow. Like the Boston Globe writers who rejected a pay cut, they're unhappy with the conditions.

One bright spot in the overcast weather is that it might help delay my lettuce from bolting, which is good news considering how much there still is. I've picked the equivalent of another Olivia's container of leaves and four small heads of Romaine for potluck and home salads. My not-so-scientific estimate is that two heads is the equivalent of one from the supermarket. At Whole Foods market today, a head of organically-grown Romaine cost $2.49 a head.

The strawberries in my Minton Stable Garden plot have not been deterred by our little cold spell. At this point, my family and I have picked about 3 1/2 pints. I suppose I should find a good recipe for a torte in order to keep up; so far the only ways we have been enjoying the strawberries have been 1) straight up, 2) on top of a Junior's cheesecake my husband brought home from Brooklyn last week, and 3) in a fruit cake my daughter baked from a recipe that was part simple cake instructions found on the Internet and part improvisation of what we had in the fridge. I looked for organically-grown strawberries at Whole Foods, but found only the conventionally-grown Driscoll's at $3.99 a pint, so I'll go with that.

Today was not all gain, however. I had to pick up a roll of gardening twine to finish making a trellis for my pole beans to climb; that set me back $2.40, including tax.

So, the up-to-date benefits tally is:
Previous total: $3.59
Container of salad greens: $3.59
2 heads of Romaine equivalent $4.98
3 1/2 pints of strawberries $13.97

Total benefits: $29.13

And the costs:
Previous total: $164.67
Gardening twine: $2.40

Total costs: $167.07

So the total balance taking benefits and cost into account is -$137.94.

If this sort of analysis interests you, then you should also check out Daphne's blog. On the right side she is keeping her tally. She is using a more scientific approach of measuring her yield by the pound; I had thought of doing the same but I don't have a scale and didn't want to add to my expenses. Daphne is also operating in the red, but given the variety and scope of her garden I think she has a better chance than I do of ending the season in the black. I'm looking forward to seeing if she does.

Update on my plot

The advantage of the medium of blogging is the ability to bypass the editorial process and post news as it happens. However, today I find myself breaking this important rule to present you with photos taken three days ago (the horror!) and report on Thursday's and Saturday's MSG visits. Imagine if the Boston Globe waited until today to report an incident that occurred on Friday? Luckily, My Dirt is unhampered by the pressures to keep current or suffer from more financial consequences; when you have no budget, you have no budget to lose.So with this in mind I'll keep to the business of earning through my harvest, which is now picking up, and I'll update you on the estimated value of my yield sometime this week. In the meantime, here's a photo of the first June-bearing strawberries, picked from my plot on Thursday. When I returned yesterday I filled a recycled pint container with more and picked four small heads of Romaine lettuce. I was rushing around on errands yesterday in preparation for company last night, so no time to take out the camera.The leaf miner on my spinach had reappeared on most of the few leaves I had left remaining, so I pulled out all but my two healthiest plants. But my biggest concern was that a few of the lower leaves of my broccoli plants were showing a similar blight. On Thursday, I pulled off those leaves and took this photo of one of my plants out of concern for a few holes in the upper leaves. Luckily, there were no new signs of the blight yesterday, and, surveying the broccoli in other plots, I have come to believe that the holes are not necessarily a sign of danger (alternative interpretations are always welcome!).
In the flower department, I planted zinnia seeds in a new location, because I needed last year's space to start some Kentucky Wonder pole beans. Better late than never, I guess. No worries with the California poppies, however, they self-seed every year, and have been in bloom for the past week or so. One of the coolest features of this annual is the contrast between the papery bright-orange fully-opened flower and the way it looks closed, a delicate light-green cone served on a bubble-gum pink plate. As for my perennials, I can see the white beginnings of buds on my blanket flowers, the plants' eggplant-colored leaves can be seen in the right rear of the poppy photo.

I will finish this post now so I can take advantage of the glorious weather we are having; it would be sacrilegious to squander this opportunity by spending it in front of a screen. I'll leave you with my garden envy photo for this post: some irises from another MSG plot. I had never seen irises of this color, sort of a combination of sepia and pink.

April showers bring...

...Yeah, right. Some flowers, yes, but more work than anything else. May is one of the busiest months for gardening. So much to put in, so much to take out. And a few flowers, too, but in addition to nursing a cold, I've been tackling my to-do list, which has included:
1. Pulling thousands of maple seedlings out of many square feet of garden space in my mostly shady yard--they will grow anywhere.
2. Mowing at the Minton Stable Garden for a few hours. I had signed up to do this last weekend to not only take care of some of my work requirement, but because a friend had also volunteered and there is too much grass for one person to tackle.
3. Taking my broccoli seedlings inside and outside each day for the past week to harden them off.
4. Digging up some of my black-eyed susans, beebalm, and Solomon's seal and bringing them to the Perennial Divide. As you can see in the picture above, BNAN volunteers laid out the donated plants by variety and people who were interested could take one of whatever variety they wanted. I did not find anything that I needed or had the space for, but I purchased a few native perennials from the City Natives nursery.5. Weeding my MSG plot and thinning/harvesting more lettuce and spinach. I like putting bleu cheese and candied walnuts in a salad and making a meal of that.6. Spreading some salt marsh hay on the plot to keep the weeds down. Also, weeding the strawberries and noticing how they are coming along.
7. Planting out some of my broccoli seedlings (my babies!) at the MSG.
8. Keeping my tomato seedlings (still indoors) watered.

And I'm not finished! More weeding, and figuring out when, where, and how to plant the tomatoes. Then it will be time to sow some more seeds: basil, green beans, zinnias, etc. This is the way it is this time of year. When I was working 9+ hours a day in my old job, I couldn't break free until July, and by then it was too late and hot to plant perennials, or to start much of anything from seed. So I am rather fortunate to be able to put in 1-2 hours a day now so I can escape the July heat and reap more benefits later on.

Bonding over bindweed

Yesterday was the first Minton Stable Garden work day for the 2009 season. After I signed in, Terry, the Steering Committee member in charge, gave me two options. I could help with the weeding of the grassy near the fence along Dungarven Road, where lots of burdock and even a few rhubarb plants (which we have decided to keep) had sprouted up. Or, I could grab a shovel or hoe and help dig bindweed out of one the the heavily infested plots. The first option was pretty well covered, so I decided to join a few others for what one gardener had referred to as "bonding over bindweed," and put in my first work hour battling our horticultural equivalent of the swine flu.
Native to Europe and western Asia, bindweed is thought to have made its way to the US as early as the 1700s as a seed contaminant. Highly adaptable and proficient in finding light, bindweed will aggressively rob other plants of soil nutrients and space to grow. According a link I found about how to control it, bindweed is often referred to as wild morning glory or creeping jenny, and it is so widespread that there are words for bindweed in 29 different languages. Although I was short on time yesterday, I managed to take a few photos, including the one above of a few plants in the plot that was next to the one that four of us (including the plot-holder) dug up.What we tried our best to do was dig around the bindweed and pull it up, roots and all. Yet sometimes, despite our best efforts, we'd feel the snap of the plant breaking apart, and we'd have to dig further. We were doing that anyway, since the goal was to extract every possible piece of root, from the thick white arteries that you can see in the bag, to the smaller thread-like offshoots. We also pulled some of the bindweed from neighboring plots, though the infestation had not yet risen to the same point of severity. In any case, the gardener in the above plot, who will have to start over, and his neighbors will have to remain extra vigilant, checking for new growth weekly for the rest of the season.
What was the origin of the MSG infestation of bindweed? Could it have arrived with a load of free compost, or with some strawberries that were transplanted from an outside garden? Regarding the latter, if you look around the MSG you will find many strawberry patches, often the result of plants spreading in from neighboring plots. Some gardeners like myself had kept them as an experiment, and after a successful harvest considered them a mainstay.

This plot holder also had a strawberry patch, yet despite the possible risks of more bindweed, he has decided that in addition to tomatoes, he will keep growing strawberries. They seem to do well here, as opposed to in my backyard, where they had been eaten so often by some critters that I had to give up on growing them there, so I really can't blame him.

So, in the end, enough about the plants we don't want. With tulips in bloom everywhere, let me end this post on a brighter note.

Community gardener check-in: Daniela

This season I've been trying to make good on my original mission to highlight the efforts of my fellow gardeners.  Like some bloggers, I have been shy about revealing my body of work and even more hesitant to shine the Internet spotlight on others.  Yet as I was thinning my lettuce and spinach yesterday and realizing that dull and un-postworthy those activities were, some new material walked through the gate: Daniela and three of her four children, including her newest, born last November and snuggling comfortably in her mother's sling.

Although I run into Daniela from time to time and my daughter and one of her sons once participated in JP Children's Soccer together, this was the first time in about two years I had actually caught her tending her plot.  "So are you going to write about me?" she immediately asked after I told her about the blog.  She is no stranger to the medium, maintaining her own blog read by family members, including those in her native Switzerland, so she had no issue with being the subject of today's post.

Her main tasks yesterday included thinning out her garlic (shown above), which has been growing in her plot for the past three years, and her strawberries.  She also planted carrot seeds and prepared an area for salad greens.  The radishes she started two and a half weeks ago (below) are progressing nicely (by the way, if you are curious about what that generally looks like, check this out).  When I first glanced at the shape of the leaves, my immediate reaction was: bindweed?  Since the warnings about the spread of this unwanted invasive, I've become a little obsessed.  With the exception of the radishes and garlic, her plans resemble mine, with zinnias, tomatoes, and broccoli or brussel sprouts on the way.  

I have known Daniela since she started gardening at the old stable garden in 2002, and she has always been one of those women about which I wonder, "How does she do it?"  Not only has she been able to forge a multilingual existence in a new country, but raise and homeschool her kids.  And make it look so easy.  I had forgotten to ask if the garden had a role in her curriculum.  After seeing Elias, her oldest, pull wayward strawberry runners without being prompted, I wouldn't be surprised if some of her instruction took place here.

Although she misses having a much larger plot in the old garden, Daniela believes that the reconstructed Minton Stable Garden is an improvement, because more gardeners can participate.  The location of her plot--it's the one on the corner closest to the shed--is also ideal.  Her baby can lie in the grass across the path and her other kids have a safe common area nearby where they can run around.

The costs of gardening and other updates

Friday afternoon around 4:30, my daughter and I took advantage of the 70-degree heat and headed over to the Minton Stable Garden. The children outnumbered the adults; at one point I counted eight, and those were only the ones that were ex utero. The oldest, my eight-year-old, helped water the plants in our plot. The spinach is now about an inch high, but the lettuce has yet to take off, with a leaf span of not quite a centimeter across.

Also coming up are tulips and a few perennials, including echinacea and black-eyed susans. California poppies, an annual, have self-seeded from last year, their thin, light green tendrils peeking out of the soil. Asa, my plot neighbor, alerted me that her raspberry plants, located about a foot away from the border of my strawberry bed, were starting to send runners underground, and wanted to know if it was okay if she could pull any she found invading my plot. I told her not to worry about it; if she was able to take care of it that was fine, but I didn't mind pulling them out as I handled my regular weeding. The only real issue I had last year with her raspberries involved trying to keep my daughter from eating them.

I took a few photos, including this wide shot above. I try to avoid close-ups of children out of respect for families' privacy. My friend Terry suggested the shot below of this row of plots, starting with mine in the foreground. Next is Asa's and you can see that she has laid down some salt marsh hay to keep down the weeds.

Last year this much was scarce, but nearby Allandale Farm has managed to get a shipment already, so last week we bought a bale of it for the home and community garden plots. This leads me to the latest update of my ongoing calculation of my food growing costs for the season:

Previous total: $120.92

MSG annual plot dues: $28.00

Bale of salt hay w/tax: $15.75

New total: $164.67

It'll take a few months to reap anything to offset these expenses, but it should be worth it.

One area of growth

There is nothing like a sunny Sunday in the 60s to treat the seasonal depression brought on by a near week of raw air, spitting rain, and stories of economic gloom and doom. After sleeping in, tackling my shrinking Sunday paper, and running a few errands, I made it over to the Minton Stable Garden to put in a little maintenance and appreciate something that is still growing.

I encountered nearly a dozen people gardening, walking dogs, or just relaxing on the stone benches. Asa, my plot neighbor, was there with her two sons, including her not-so-newborn, whom I met for the first time. When I arrived she was finishing up a task that was on top of my agenda: weeding and thinning the strawberries, and making sure that the patch was free of bindweed. In the presentation at last week's meeting, the Steering Committee warned that this highly invasive weed has a tendency to spread among strawberries; both plants have persistent root systems. Bindweed continues to threaten the MSG. An investigation by the Steering Committee revealed that about four plots are so seriously infested that the soil in them may need to be replaced. Although I saw one plot covered with plastic yesterday, it was not announced which areas were affected.

On a brighter note, my spinach and lettuce are starting to appear. As you can see in this photo, our soil is littered with small rocks, presumably washed or blown in from the footpaths, so the spinach sprouts may be hard to notice. I ran into another gardener who shared my complaint that the peas (which I planted nearly two weeks ago at home) have yet to be seen.

Then we turned the faucets--still no water. When I asked Allan from the Steering Committee about this, he joked that he should just make a pin that says "April 23" and wear it everywhere because of all the times he's been asked. The water won't be turned on for another few weeks. The copper pipes don't benefit from the same warmth as those in our homes so it's best to wait until they are no longer frozen and at risk of bursting. With more showers in the forecast today, we probably won't have to haul too much water to encourage more growth. It is April in Boston, after all.

The year in gardening

The year is almost over, and the reflection virus has been unleashed.  Top ten lists are dominating print and online media--the top ten movies, the top ten news stories, etc.  Regarding the gardening season, I have collected my own data on what has and hasn't worked, and made resolutions for 2009 as I put my community garden plot to bed.  Here are my lists, not in any particular order, with a few links to past posts.

The top 5 successful plants in my plot:

1.  basil

2.  June-bearing strawberries

3.  Sungold tomatoes*

4.  eggplant*

5.  California poppies

The top 5 failures:

1.  watermelon* (my daughter really wanted to grow it, but I had my doubts)

2.  bell pepper*

3.  fall lettuces* (Bibb and Romaine, planted too late)

4.  the other heirloom tomatoes* I planted (some had ripened but not without rot, catfacing or other problems)

5.  Scarlet Nantes carrots (they had been covered for a while by squash leaves from a neighbor's plot, and I harvested only about a half dozen)

*started in pots by others, and transplanted

Resolutions for 2009:

1.  Provide more supports for tomatoes, especially large varieties like Brandywine.

2.  Contain the strawberries so they don't spread like crazy.

3.  Grow the following:  green beans (haven't head of any Mexican bean beetle infestations lately, and Curtis's crop left me envious), spinach, brussel sprouts, and broccoli (mildly successful in my backyard, would like more).

4.  Skip the following:  peppers (not reliable), carrots (not reliable plus cheap to buy anyway), and some squash varieties that take up too much space.

5.  Start more plants indoors and sow more varieties into the plot, when possible.

6.  Mulch earlier to combat the spread of pigweed and other weeds.  Try to find salt hay before it becomes scarce.

7.  Plug some important gardening reminders into my calendar (such as starting my fall lettuce earlier, from seed).

8.  And finally, keep up the blog.  The exercise in blogging has helped me expand my knowledge of gardening and connect with other gardeners.  Now that I have a better camera (a Christmas present) and some experience, I hope to reach out to more gardeners and deliver more informative and relevant posts.

Happy New Year!  If you have any thoughts or resolutions, please share them.

The Uninvited Guests

One perk that often comes with community gardening is the free plants that you can get out of the deal. No, I'm not referring to perennial divides or seed giveaways, but the unintended gift of volunteers that grow in your plot, either from scattered seeds or runners. One gift that we have received has been the strawberries originally planted by Asa, who gardens in an adjacent plot. She has apologized several times for this invasion.

Why apologize for a volunteer when we are busy anyway, pulling out weeds and thinning out seedlings? In the case of strawberries, perhaps because of their viral nature. They're the guests that won't leave, and by letting them in, you are leaving the door open for more. Ours hopped the fence two years ago, and this year the party has been in full swing.

I believe that what we have growing in our plot is one of the June Bearing varieties, because they bear large fruit in June and send out many runners. Another variety bearing small but intensely sweet berries is intermingled and yields fruit around the same period.

The strawberries have claimed a significant portion of our plot, stretching out from our neighbor's border in the shape of a camel's hump. I've taken to yanking out the runners that have ventured beyond this area, in order to make room for my tomatoes, basil, green peppers and zinnias, but I'm sure some are still lurking under my coreopsis and blanket flowers. I'm not sure what else to do; I'm not concerned about killing them off. They are hardy plants that can withstand being stepped on and they will return despite the pulling.

The area of our little patch is about 12 square feet, and I estimate our total yield to be at least eight pints. My daughter and I snacked on so many of them as we harvested that I wouldn't trust that figure. We were sorry to have picked the last fruit about two weeks ago, but we'll continue to make room for these guests (to a certain amount) for years to come.