It’s officially growing season and we are underway.
To kick things off, I’ll begin where we ended previously when describing how some of the crops looked soiled… in a bad-soil kinda way.
The investigation continues to determine why some crops, both directly sown and transplanted have had less personal growth than I’ve had in my last few major life changes. Last post I left off talking about how my new soil is likely the culprit. This would explain why every type of plant has been establishing itself/growing pitifully OR not growing at all and withering away.
To corroborate this theory as quickly as possibly I ordered a soil test to send off pronto. I did one last season when I threw stuff in-ground, so I was more curious about what ground I was throwing said stuff into. However, I was not expecting to need a soil test on what is more or less bagged soil marketed as ‘raised bed’ mix. I thought I could just blindly trust the people responsible for stamping ‘raised bed’ onto the bags I bought and be done with it. From my posting about this on various online gardening forums, I’ve discovered – HOW could I BE so STUPID to ASSUME such a thing. Therefore, a soil test was ordered to get to the bottom of what we’re working with.
I used the same soil test company: www.mysoiltesting.com. They ship a box with pre-paid packaging and a little container with some liquid solution inside. You mix a sample of soil into the solution and send it off to their lab. I grabbed some soil from near the onions and near the cabbage as my focal points.
In hindsight this wasn’t the smartest move because I’d already amended this soil (as you’ll see further below), but at least it will convey where things stand currently.
After I shipped that off it was time to pivot to short-term solutions. I should mention, the long-term solution is layering compost in the fall for a slow release of nutrients during next year’s growing season, but last I checked, we’re not quite in next year’s growing season. We’re in this year’s growing season. That means throwing various fertilizers at the wall and seeing what sticks.
Until the soul tests tell us what’s actually lacking (if anything), I’ve chosen three soil amendments to throw at said wall. These amendments are:
- Worm Castings
- Bone Meal
- Fish Emulsion
Worm castings (worm poop) seem like an overall good first step to amend the soil with, especially since there are little to no worms that have made their way into the 14″ or so of new soil.
Bone Meal is a 6-8-0 fertilizer. For those unfamiliar, this is the percentages of nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium inside. What are these good for? Plant health. What numbers are good numbers? The ones that help plants. How do you decide on what ratio? Easy, you decide based on plant needs. Ok Ok. I asked these same questions and was confused for awhile about what they actually mean for plants.
The numbers X-Y-Z on fertilizers always represent nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium respectively. When to decide a higher number of one nutrient versus another can be summarized with the following handy phrases:
“Roots (nitrogen), Shoots (phosphorus), and Fruits (potassium)” … or
“Up (nitrogen), Down (phosphorus), and All Around (potassium)”
That’s easy enough for me. Considering the leafy growth has been looking putrid the past month, and the crops like radishes are slow to form the bulbs, I opted for a higher nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizer with bone meal that is “slow release” meaning the plants use it over time, and then mixed some water-soluble fish emulsion to my watering can’s water and watered all the plants to give it a more immediate nitrogen boost. Ok, that enough nerd talk for now. Onto NEW PLANTS 🌱
Everything but the herbs planted below in 63P was directly sown. That’s because these plants don’t historically do well when transplanted due to their delicate roots. Perhaps one day I’ll challenge this assumption by starting these crops indoors, pulling them out of the soil every morning, blow a military whistle and yell at them to toughen up, then putting them back. Stay tuned in a few years when I report my findings on this transplanting strategy. Could be a tip I include in a future New York Times worst-seller.
Anyhow, on Mother’s Day weekend Morgan took some time out of her busy schedule to stop by and help me with the big day of sowing. Here’s her wearing her new favorite hat.
Ok now onto the new stuff in the garden. Well… one more detour.
I finally built the last plot 🎉 This concludes all the beds you will see in 63P. Aside from screwing on some railing, after 3 months of continuous building I can safely say there are no more pieces of lumber nor bags of soil I have to transport down to the plot and install. Both my body and the interior smell of my car is thanking me profusely.
Ok NOW I can get to the juicy part. Let’s go through bed-by-bed and see what the completed sown no-vacancy 63P looks like.
Zeppo
In the west corner, weighing in at 7’x3′, we have team Cants & Cukes. The Charentais Superprécoce Du Roc cantaloupe (that’s right, I slipped that name into yet another blog post) and Morden early pickling cucumbers in the wet patch. These are small cucumbers meant to pickle and fit in mason jars. The reason I chose this variety is that it’s a very early variety that matures in 45-50 days.
Chico
In the north corner, weighing in at 8’x4′, we have team Beans & Aromatic Machines. These are bordered with three different pole beans; “Trionfo Violetta” – a purple-podded pole bean, “Rattlesnake” – a speckled pole bean, and “Gold Nectar” – a yellow-podded pole bean. If these grow into their potential than there will be fun ornaments hanging all over this plot, providing some shade to the cilantro and parsley planted below.
Harpo
Clocking in in the east corner, we have tiny teeny team zucchini. For now I can sit back and scoff at how puny these little seedlings are, but in no time at all they will soon be a jungle swallowing me into their canopy never to return again. For these summer squashes I’ve got 2 zucchini varieties; Black Beauty (which is not black, it’s your basic green zuke) and Goldini 2 which is a yellow variety but similar in form to a traditional zucchini. If you can’t tell I’m enjoying planting various colors of similar crops.
Morgan had the grand idea to interplant some nasturtiums in the corners to help give some flower-powered foliage to the beds and help manage insects for both pollination and pests. I’m always curious with nasturtiums what color flowers they will be. It’s like a party bag, you never know what you’re gonna get.
Groucho
We’re already familiar with Groucho, which has been the focal point of the blog up until now. The onions are still sad, the radishes and carrots are very slow to grow, yet the cabbages show signs of life again after the amendments that were added at the beginning of this post. Everything’s just being a grouch in Groucho I suppose. Time will tell how all these crops fair, but the soil test results will hopefully be illuminating.
Gummo
Gummo kicks off our winter squash real estate hosting a mound of Gill’s Golden Pippin acorn squash. Gill’s Golden Pippin is an heirloom variety developed in the 20th century from Gill Brother’s Seed Company out of Oregon. I’ve read that these are 5-10x more flavorful than typical acorn squash and can achieve a high fruit set per plant; up to 10 fruits in some cases.
If you look closely above, I snuck in some red and green romaine lettuce varieties. Time will tell if I planned my shading well enough for these lettuce to both grow and survive throughout the coming summer months. I also amended these seedlings with a sprinkle of bone meal, worm castings and fish emulsion watering. This is a great time to plug readers with a reminder that I don’t know what I’m doing 🤷🏼♂️
Big Bertha?
I’ve yet to name the giant horseshoe bed, and don’t think it will have an official name until it’s rebuilt. However we can give it a temporary name until then. In the past I’ve called it the ‘Mansion’, but now ‘Big Bertha’ is a worthy candidate. I’m open to ideas.
Here we have a nice centerpiece donated by Morgan’s mother Rosalie of chives that are now blooming. If everything else in plot 63P dies a fierce and fiery death I can at least say that we had blooming chives. Glass half full folks, glass half full.
The two watered mounds on either side with sprouts peeking through wrap up the rest of the winter squash varieties.
Closest to us in the above picture we have ‘Blue Kuri’, a blue-grey variety of Kabocha squash. I chose these both because they keep well, and Morgan likes making Kabocha squash bread which is pretty tasty. This seed comes originally from a German seed grower named Wim Brus for Bingenheimer Saatgut seed company. Apparently he’s spent years selecting it for quality on his farm in the mountains near Bologna, Italy.
Farthest from us in the above picture we have ‘Early Remix’ butternut squash, purchased from Adaptive Seeds in Sweet Home Oregon. Similar to the Morden’s early pickling cucumbers, I selected this variety for its relatively early maturation date.
Introducing … Al Shean!
The newest kid on the block has arrived. Al Shean. Al Shean was the real-life uncle of the Marx Brothers, which is fitting as this rasied bed is off on it’s own living it’s best independent life. This is the first (and last, and only) bed added to the plot by yours truly that isn’t a replacement of an existing bed when 63P was inherited. I chose this location because it didn’t interfere much with walkability in the plot, and was in an area good for growing tall crops while minimizing shade interference over the rest of the plot.
Not only is this bed 95% complete, but it’s already been planted. Cue a smattering of golf audience-level clapping. This will be the dry pole bean plot, so the hope is to try harvesting these beans as a storable staple crop after the season ends, versus the snap pole beans in Harpo for harvesting and eating raw or cooking off the vines. Let’s dive in.
I enjoyed choosing some unique dry bean varieties, all with a different look. Left to right we have:
- Diecimino – an Italian heirloom variety from Tuscany. Tall vines and slender pods that are great in soups
- Khabarovsk – sourced from Khabarovsk, Siberia, these are large beans with a cooked texture remniscent of creamy potatoes
- Broughton Astley – Small snap-bean flavor grown in the village of Broughton Astley, England for over 40 years.
- Poletschka – a family heirloom sourced from the western Ukrainian village of Kostilinyky, a stark-colored black bean but with more flavor
- O’Driscoll – A fun speckled bean that’s a true heirloom from the O’Driscoll family in England
I’m exciting to see what happens here.
Abbot
Abbot is the name I’m giving to one of the two raised beds I built in our backyard. This year Abbot is planted with three pole indeterminate tomato varieties in the back; a traditional red ‘Sweetie’ variety, an orange ‘Sun Gold’ variety and a dark purple ‘Chocolate Cherry’ variety. In the front is a single determinate bush tomato ‘Glacier’ variety. These were all grown from seed and I’m filled with anxiety about them surviving the new soil that is an identical mixture to the other raised beds in 63P.
You will also see Morgan’s fingerprints at work planting a couple corner nasturtiums. Taking bets on what colors these end up being. Not shown are basil starts and seeds, both green and purple that may or many not make it. If they don’t survive then I won’t take pictures and pretend you never read this. If they do survive and thrive I may just dedicate an entire blog post to their wonderful selves.
Costello
Costello wraps up the final raised bed of the season. Outside of the square Gummo bed in plot 63P, Costello is the deepest bed and may just be the largest bed by volume. The goal was to have a bed designed for root vegetables if/when desired. This year Costello will be home to potatoes. We’ve got three potato varieties in the works. Two of them are classics: Yukon Gold and Red Norland. The third variety is called Rasberry, which has a purple skin and a purple flesh. It’s not great as a storing potato but is a fun variety on the plate.
I learned through some of my readings that potatoes actually do really well in poor soil, which is why they’ve historically been such a staple crop for peasants and famine-dwellers of the past. They aren’t super picky, and in fact don’t thrive if the soil is too rich in nutrients. Go figure. Seeing the potatoes thrive was an indicator for me that perhaps the new bagged soil I bought wasn’t as nutrient-dense as I imagined. Gotta keep your eyes peeled and your head on a swivel in the garden. You’ll never know what you’ll come up with or deduct trying to track down issues.
In summary, here is a bird’s eye view of everything to officially fill out the garden plot for summer. There is basically no vacancy left to kick off the growing season. Hopefully it remains that way and there aren’t many casualties, otherwise this adventure will take new and harrowing turns.
If you haven’t deducted yet on your own, the next figurative storm looming on this guy’s horizon is trellising. A large majority of what’s been described above is vines. Vines on vines on vines. Pole beans. Pole tomatoes. Sprawling squash. Melons. Cucumbers. I predict a large chunk of my future will be allocated to full-time trellis building. I have no idea how to tackle this yet, but the clock is now ticking. The time to work under pressure is now!
Phew! What a lengthy post. Thanks for sticking around. Until next time
AA
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