I’m starting to think that one of the reasons those seedlings are still alive is their location, which is in the path between two beds. The DH, when he cleaned out those beds, added compost and dug everything into two long humped up beds, so those seedlings are actually rather protected. But that is not the reason for this post.

Very few of us have heated greenhouses at our disposal, so the best we can really do between now and when we can get back out to start gardening again, is a sunny window sill. There are a few things that actually are grow-able under those circumstances. Leaf lettuces are one type of thing if you have been able to hold onto some of your seeds from the warmer gardening season. Another thing you can do is to save onions (or their cousins, shallots, garlic, and so on) that might have sprouted in the bag in your closet or drawer, and put that into a pot. What you are seeing in the photo at the top is a cluster of something which is referred to as ‘multiplier’ onions. When we got these from the nursery (I am almost sure I got them from Territorial Seed), we planted the onion sets just like regular onions. As you go along with multiplier onions, they will start to throw off more bulbs. These will form green leaves which you can use as green onions or you can let them all mature, and then split the bulbs up and replant the smaller ones for next year. Multiplier onions are winter hardy, so literally you can plant them right after you dig them up, at the same time you would plant garlic cloves.

In this case, though, when I dug up one cluster, it had already started to grow green shoots, so I figured this would be a good way to get some green onions over the winter and have something growing on the window sill. At the moment, that pot is out in our unheated greenhouse at the back of our house (this one actually has the short side facing south, so it is not exactly the most solar-effective unheated greenhouse going, but I can tell you that once the sun turns the corner in February, that sunroom will get warm enough for us to open the windows and door into the house and it is extremely pleasant) and I’ll be bringing it in fairly shortly for a stay on a sunny window sill in the diningroom.

So. Check your onion bag or the drawer in the fridge – if you have onions, shallots or garlic that have started to sprout, don’t throw them away. Pull out a pot (or even re-purpose something like a big yoghurt or cottage cheese container with a couple of holes punched in the bottom with a knife), put in some potting mix, put in the bulb, cover with more potting mix and put it in a sunny spot.

Instant winter garden!

Now, one of the things about bushes and perennials is that if there is anything at the ends (like the seed heads on these grasses and the dried up papery flowers at the ends of my hydrangea bushes), the snow will weigh them down and pull the entire thing down to the ground. With a woody plant such as a hydrangea, we’d end up with deformed plants in the spring. So, I took out my clippers and cut down the grass and snipped off the flower heads on the hydrangea so that we won’t have that problem.

Not that I got it all done, but this week, weatherwise, is supposed to be very good in the Northeast, with nice warm temperatures, so before dinner, I will get the rest of these done. As a side note, the temperatures will be in the 60s, so anyone still looking at a bit of outdoor caulking or painting can still get that done over this week.

Another thing I happened to notice is one of the beds in the garden has some interesting stuff growing in it. Actually, this is in the path between two beds in the vegetable garden and it is very interesting to see that the whole thing basically is now paved with good sized seedlings. Considering that we have had night time temperatures between 15 and 20 degrees F., this is sort of astonishing. The ground must still be in the 40-50 degrees F. range for anything to germinate and even then, it has to be something really hardy.

Ding! We have a winner. Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close up: check out the shape of those seedling leaves. Heart shaped. Anyone guess what that is? Yes, you in the back? Mmmhmmm – that’s right. Cabbage Family!!!

If my memory serves, what was in the bed next to it were lots and lots of plants of various sorts of Chinese cabbages and mustards (which has been wonderful stuff; we still have some growing). Some of these DID bolt and go to seed during a dry period late in the summer, so these are the culprits. I could dig them up, I suppose but for the moment, I am more inclined to try another one of my experiments. I’ll mark these, mulch them with leaves for the winter and see what happens in the spring.

Another plant which we’ve been keeping our eyes on this summer and fall is the celery that we grew. This looks like celery but has a much stronger flavor and texture. I was very concerned when I went out after the snow and saw this: I tried to shake off some of the snow and some of the branches of the plant actually broke off in my hand. This plant was frozen SOLID. I walked away, thinking that we’d lost the entire thing and gave up on getting anything to save. A couple of hours later when I went out again, after the sun had come out and the snow had melted, I expected to see a pile of mush.

Instead, I saw this: The plant HAD been frozen solid but once the snow melted and the temperature started to warm up, it was good to go.

A good thing to remember.

To reprise, this summer weather was not the best. Wet early, then hot and dry. Then brain-fryingly hot while the DH and I were away with little rain. Then very rainy when we got back. Not the best Rx for veggies that grow under the ground, which are very dependent on temperatures and steady water. (note to self: take vacations AFTER harvest time – everyone will be much much happier)

So, this summer for things such as onions, beets, carrots and garlic has been stress-city. And I could tell when I dug the garlic patch up that 3 out of the four varieties of garlic I planted last fall were not happy campers at all. Which is saying a LOT since garlic is one of the easiest and most forgiving of veggies.

I planted two varieties of hard neck garlic (which is called ‘hard neck’ because the stem dries up, gets hard and stays out there like a flag pole for you to see) and one variety of ‘soft neck’ garlic (and ‘soft necks’ are just the opposite – the foliage dies down when the garlic bulb has matured and is ready to dig up). The soft neck garlics did make bulbs, but the bulbs were small and the cloves of garlic were even smaller, which is a definite disadvantage in terms of how we store garlic. We dig up the bulbs, wash them off, separate all the cloves, peel them and freeze the individual cloves on a cookie sheet, putting them into zip lock(tm) bags for use as we need them later. Peeling zillions of teeny garlic cloves today was patience-trying to say the least.

One of the hard neck varieties just went nuts and bolted, sending out flower heads (after we’d gone on vacation; I HAD cut off the scapes earlier in the spring to prevent this but I think the hot dry weather just sent a message to the garlic plant to do whatever it could to ‘be fruitful and multiply’ out there), which developed into bulblets at the top of the plant. This totally drains the energy from the grown bulb underground, so I ended up with a crop of bulblets (which I can plant in the garden this fall) at the tops of the plants, and teeny weeny garlic bulbs underground. Can we spell ‘disappointment’? The soft neck garlic was just blah.

The winner was one of the hard neck garlics – Music, which actually was a replacement for Siberian Garlic which the provider no longer had when I ordered. The description reads: “Mid-season. Music hits the top of the charts when it comes to yields. In trials at Michigan State University, Music out-produced all others with a harvest of over 13,500 pounds per acre! White skinned with just a blush of pink, this garlic makes big cloves that are easy to peel. The taste is a medium hot, true garlic flavor that lasts for a long time. Music will store 9 months to a year. Very cold tolerant.”

As you can see from the photo at the top, ‘big cloves” is not an overstatement. The bulbs were about 3-4″ across with the cloves as wide as 1.5″ at their widest point. Very impressive, given the lack of water and super hot weather we had in July. So, I chose the three largest bulbs, cleaned those up and will be using those cloves to plant soon for next year.

There are all sorts of reasons for choosing a particular garlic that has done well in your garden to save for seed the next year. In the case of Music, it was not just the huge bulbs with super big cloves. Another thing is resistance to soil molds. With the rain that came after the hot dry weather, some of the other garlic bulbs were showing mold issues. Another thing, and I realize this is sort of picky on my part but this drives me nuts, is that the other varieties tended to shatter. That is, the bulbs tended to break apart as I was digging them up. Now, I supposed this is not a big deal but any clove I miss in the dirt becomes a volunteer the next year. Which is not a terrible thing but if I am making a conscious choice for a particular variety, I don’t want any refugee cloves hanging around in the dirt. I didn’t chose that variety for a reason. In the case of Music, the cloves remained firmly attached to the hard neck and the growth plate at the bottom. No shattering. Another definite advantage.

Today, things look very different. The bags were a complete success, but they could have been a disaster, given the horrible hot and dry weather the Mid-Atlantic states had while we were away. Like any container planting, these needed attention, which was provided by our intrepid son, who stayed at home to work, take care of the chickens and turkeys, interface with Septic System Man and his evil minion, Electrical Pump Person, and water what needed watering.

He watered the basil-in-a-bag every couple of days during the hot spell, and saved it all. Thank goodness for him.

Now, I have to admit that the first thing I had to do was pinch back the incipient flowers at the tops of the plants when we got back, but I will be able to start harvesting very soon, and turning this into dried and frozen herbs and also pesto. Also, another advantage we had in saving this was that the bags were located in an area which gets shade from a maple tree during the hottest part of the day, which helped keep the contents of the bags cooler.

So, next year, if you buy the super-gigantic-hugey-anything larger and it’s going into a truck size of bagged grow mix or peat moss or even chicken feed, save…the….bags. Just roll them up and tuck them away so that if you end up in the same situation we did (too many seedlings and no place to put them), then you can get some compost and turn your bags into grow bags.

This works.

Tonight for dinner, I went out and harvested a bunch and then remembered what they were supposed to be and was really sort of ticked off at myself because these are NOT Soloist Chinese Cabbage – they might be some sort of bok choi but they are NOT any sort of Nappa cabbage.

But, when life sends you plants you don’t know what the heck they are, you can always make the vegetable version of lemon aid, which is a stir fry:
UFO Stir Fry:

Some sort of Chinese cabbage thing, out of the garden, cleaned, and chopped up.
One inch of a ginger root, peeled and chopped up fine.
One red bell pepper, chopped up.

Heat up oil in an electric frying pan and add ginger and red bell pepper and stir around on medium high heat.
Add chopped up UFO Chinese cabbage, stir around and around until wilted.
Dress with a little low sodium soy sauce and serve.

When the diners ask, ‘What IS this?” You really can say, “I haven’t a clue.”

Enjoy.
(Soloist Chinese Cabbage photo courtesy of Territorial Seed)

But not everything that is called ‘compost’ is equal to this standard. I remember once the DH top dressing a whole row of newly planted tomatoes with litter from our chicken house that he’d allowed to sit around. Within three days, the leaves on the plants turned white and started to drop off. Ayyyy! Too much ammonia in that ‘compost’ and actually, it had not really composted at all! We were able to save most of the plants by pulling the top dressing off and watering the plants to a fare-the-well. So – just leaving something around , especially if it’s under cover, is not going to cause the material to break down and become safer for plants. Another story, and more recent, is of a school organic garden project in California where the product they were being given to put on the beds, plant in, and come into contact with, were actually bags of stuff that contained ‘composted sewage sludge’ – which actually is not safe at all – that stuff contains things like cadmium, lead and arsenic. Treated sewage sludge really is not safe for growing vegetables at all (the plants will take up the heavy metals) and children should definitely not come into contact with it.

Here’s another example, from right now. We ended up with a few extra tomato plants and the DH already had plans for what we’d been composting in the bins since last year, so he ran off to the township landfill to get some of THEIR compost and potted up the plants. We went on a trip recently and when I got home, I got a good look at those plants. And compared then to the tomato plants we’d put into the garden, tucked into their well dug over, amended with compost out of our bins beds.

Wow. Those potted up tomatoes look nasty. They basically had not grown at all and the leaves had started to yellow or curl or cup, generally showing deformities and doing the plant version of sending out SOS all over the place. When I dug around in the pot, it hit me between the fingers that what the DH had planted them in was actually slightly composted wood chips. Just a lot of wood chips – and nothing else.

Not good. Not that you can’t use wood chips as part of the recipe for a compost pile, but to make that stuff cook up, you need literally a 50-50 mix of chips and high nitrogen materials like manure in order to get it to cook up and leave you with enough nitrogen to feed plants. Wood chips by themselves bind up nitrogen and minerals, which is what happened to these tomato plants. The yellowing and leaf deformities were caused by the fact that the plants could not access any nutrients. The wood had bound them all up.

So, I knocked them out of the pots, stole some of ‘the good stuff’ out of the bin of ‘our’ compost that the DH had put through a sieve, and repotted them. I’m hoping that the little buggers will take the opportunity to realize that they’ve got ready food and will take off and look like the picture of the tomato in the garden bed.

Close call.

For more information on how to make the sort of compost pile that will produce great compost, go here: Composting 101

We love outdoor kitties and although I know there are a lot of folks here who love their kittehs and keep them indoors, I am more than happy to encourage cats who like to take up the odd residence in our garage and barn. Not that we feed them or anything, but I certainly don’t chuck rocks and we have had over the years some very home bound felines who we took to the vets for spay/neutering/shots and so on, just to keep things in the family so to speak.

But the other afternoon, after the DH and our son came in from the barn, they mentioned that they had seen a creature out in the field that they had never seen before. Upon description, I knew that our ‘wild kingdom’ episodes would be taking on a whole different dimension because this, my friends, is no ordinary little bit of fluffy wildlife. We have seen all sorts of critters up in the field and have seen the results of visits from bears and other creatures, but to see one of these sent a chill from my head right down to my toes.

Fisher, or as some people call them, ‘fisher cats’ (versus ‘pole cats’ which is a name for their weasely cousins, the skunks). This is number two on the Weasel Hit Parade, after Wolverines. Fishers, depending on which sex, can range from 30 inches to 47 inches and can go up to 11 pounds. In the last century, they were hunted and trapped to near extinction but have made a huge bounceback in the Northeast.

They are also ferocious predators of literally anything, which means that any wildlife that wants to get into our garden is a target (Yay! Fisher Cat!), and our chickens and turkeys will be in danger as well (Boo, Hiss). On the other hand, they are the only predator which will successfully and for choice, go after porcupine. They climb anything, including trees.

So, the trick is to make getting AT the livestock just annoying enough that they move on to other more lucrative wildlife like the bunnies and woodchucks and won’t bother the chickens. I realize that we might have some losses this year but we are in hopes that the moveable pens are tight enough and hug the ground closely enough that they can’t wiggle under and grab anything for a quick drive by meal.

At least, that is the theory. So, if I had to put out a menu for them, I’d have to go with Fricassee of Lapin and Chuck de Bois rather than Coq au vin.

For more on fishers, go here: fisher
(photo courtesy of guppiecat )

Well, if it’s something that you would be putting into a pot and putting onto your deck or into a flower box, then go ahead and put the plants into a big pot and keep it in a sunny place and keep it watered. Even if it’s nice in the day time and gets chilly at night, you can always put it out on the deck in the pot during the day (as long as it’s warm in the daytime) and drag it in at night.

But if we are talking about something like bushes or trees? The number of times I have gotten directions with plants that say something like, “If you can’t plant right away, open the plants and put into a bucket of water,” is legion.

Don’t do that.

I’ve done it in the past and guess what? The reason I can’t get them into the ground right then and there is the same reason that the plants are still in the bucket two weeks later and when I have planted them later, the plants have died. Toes up. The plants ‘drowned’ while they were in that bucket, no matter how often I changed the water.

The ticket is to get them in the dirt, any sort of moist dirt, ASAP. You can deal with the actual planting in a bit as long as the dirt is moist and the roots are covered up well.

Heeling in is an old technique but for some reason, it is not covered extensively in gardening books. I went through every book in our library at Chez Siberia and the only book that covered it AT ALL was the Rodale Organic Gardening Encyclopedia (which is a good reason to keep that book on your ‘books worth having’ list and when you go to used book stores or library sales or whatever, getting it). We ordered some hazelburt trees and an amelchior (what is referred to in some areas as ‘Shad Bush’, “Shad Blow”, or in Canada, as “Saskatoon”), which showed up on Monday of this week from the nursery in ‘so far in upstate New York that they really CAN see Canada from their kitchen window”. Their directions were to get those babies in the ground, even if the top was frozen (which it was because of the cold wet weather we got last week).

What we found was a) the top of the dirt in the garden WAS frozen, but when the DH hacked through it down a couple of inches, the dirt below was nice and soft. Perfect.

Here’s how to do this: Dig a trench with a sloping side that is deep enough to handle the roots. Lay the tree or bush into it, roots down and throw the dirt from the trench on top of the roots, burying them. Then if the dirt is not moist, water. Make sure the dirt on top of the roots does not dry out.

At the same time, if you already have not done so, take the opportunity to follow the directions that you got with the plants to dig the appropriate size hole in the place where you will want to put the plant permanently.

Now, just a thought for this fall – let’s say that you want to get bushes or trees this fall but don’t have a place for them yet or you get a bargain on some bushes and don’t have time this fall to get them in. You can use the same technique, though I would suggest that the best place to heel them in would be a) NOT on the south side of your house and b) ON a side of your house that is the most protected from the wind as well. This way, they will have some protection over the winter and in the meantime you can decide where you want to put them and get the holes ready in the spring.

Don’t be afraid to use the internet or mail order to order trees and bushes – Americans have been doing this for at least 150 years, with a lot of success. But you need to just think through the idea of where you will put them if you are not ready for them when they arrive.

There you go.

photo: State Library of New South Wales via Flickr

At Chez Siberia, we LIVE ‘belt and suspenders’ because I hate it when I’m right – but I’m really upset when I’ve not taken the precautions. So, here’s Aunt Toby’s take on the nuclear situation in Japan right now.
Being a food person (and if you were standing behind me, you’d see evidence of it all the time — I not only stand on my nutrition principals, I sit on ‘em too), the first thing I thought about when I heard that the Japanese would be doing a release to lessen the pressure was – oh, shit – America’s fruit and veggie supply is based on the West Coast. At the moment, what they are talking about in the atmosphere is Cesium (if you live in the western half of the US, you might want to call up your physician or local health department (if the Republicans haven’t budgeted them out of existence) to discuss Potassium Iodide to block your thyroid from taking up the radioactive iodine, especially if you have infants, children, lactating moms or pregnancies in your midst.

But back to food. Make no mistake about this – radiation can be taken in not only through breathing it in but also ingesting it. Whatever is out in the fields when the winds in the atmosphere hit the West Coast will be contaminated and I think we should all take the position that given the state budgets and the people in power, no one out there is going to stand over the farmers and orchardists with firearms and cans of gasoline to make sure everything in the fields is destroyed so that none of it gets into the food chain.(You’re especially screwed if you like broccoli)

Sort of tough for people who buy their fresh fruits and veggies at the grocery store:”California produces more than half the nation’s fresh fruits and is the leading producer of fresh vegetables…California plants more than 80% of the nation’s broccoli acreage. California also produces 75% of the nation’s spinach, 75% of the nation’s fresh tomatoes, and 95% of tomatoes used for processing….Apples, strawberries, grapes, oranges and peaches made up 69 percent of the value of US fresh market production. California is the leading producer of all these fruits except apples; Washington State accounts for half the nation’s supply.”
West Coast Green

Many people are making comparisons between what has happened already (and what might possibly happen) in Japan with the explosion and fire at Chermobyl. Hundreds of technicians and firefighters died within a couple of months of that event due to radiation sickness and massive increases in thyroid cancers has been one result; the health of people in the region is still monitored, 25 years later. What happened at Chernobyl

But from an agricultural and food aspect, what happened from Chernobyl?
“Twenty four years after the catastrophe, restriction orders remain in place in the production, transportation and consumption of food contaminated by Chernobyl fallout. In the UK, they remain in place on 369 farms covering 750 km² and 200,000 sheep. In parts of Sweden and Finland, restrictions are in place on stock animals, including reindeer, in natural and near-natural environments. “In certain regions of Germany, Austria, Italy, Sweden, Finland, Lithuania and Poland, wild game (including boar and deer), wild mushrooms, berries and carnivorous fish from lakes reach levels of several thousand Bq per kg of caesium-137″, while “in Germany, caesium-137 levels in wild boar muscle reached 40,000 Bq/kg. The average level is 6,800 Bq/kg, more than ten times the EU limit of 600 Bq/kg”, according to the TORCH 2006 report. The European Commission has stated that “The restrictions on certain foodstuffs from certain Member States must therefore continue to be maintained for many years to come”.[6]
As of 2009, sheep farmed in some areas of the UK are still subject to inspection which may lead to them being prohibited from entering the human food chain because of contamination arising from the accident:
“Some of this radioactivity, predominantly radiocaesium-137, was deposited on certain upland areas of the UK, where sheep-farming is the primary land-use. Due to the particular chemical and physical properties of the peaty soil types present in these upland areas, the radiocaesium is still able to pass easily from soil to grass and hence accumulate in sheep. A maximum limit of 1,000 becquerels per kilogramme (Bq/kg) of radiocaesium is applied to sheep meat affected by the accident to protect consumers. This limit was introduced in the UK in 1986, based on advice from the European Commission’s Article 31 group of experts. Under power provided under the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985 (FEPA), Emergency Orders have been used since 1986 to impose restrictions on the movement and sale of sheep exceeding the limit in certain parts of Cumbria, North Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland… When the Emergency Orders were introduced in 1986, the Restricted Areas were large, covering almost 9,000 farms, and over 4 million sheep. Since 1986, the areas covered by restrictions have dramatically decreased and now cover 369 farms, or part farms, and around 200,000 sheep. This represents a reduction of over 95% since 1986, with only limited areas of Cumbria, South Western Scotland and North Wales, covered by restrictions.[15] ”

Chernobyl: Plant and Animal Health

For several really detailed maps of radiation contamination around the world from Chernobyl, see Chernobyl radiation: where it went

One thing you will notice is that although the other sites cited here talk about contamination in the UK, this is NOT noted on these maps, which only goes to show you that you can have contamination which is not necessarily officially noted. So far, except for a highly suspect map coming out of a private firm in Australia, I have not seen any info on the potential radiation plume except at Accuweather.com where there is a very nice discussion about potential paths, standard high pressure domes in the Pacific and the amount of time it might take radioactive particles to cross the Pacific. Winds at Japan power plants

But again – back to food. At the moment, if I lived on the West Coast, I’d be buying up whatever canned goods I could and whatever fresh produce I could find and freezing it or home canning it as quickly as I could. What is on the shelves and out in the fields TODAY is fine. Two weeks from now will be another deal entirely. I have not seen any discussion yet about fruits and veggies grown in greenhouses or in high tunnels; keep your eyes out about that. Ditto on dairy produced in closed systems (which California is the king of, by the way – most cows in California do not see the light of day or green grass… ever). If you have infants at home on formulas, stock up now.

Remember: ingested radioactivity is actually more dangerous than the stuff on the skin that can be washed off. Here is some really good information from (doG help us) New Jersey for their farmers; it is very possible that your state agriculture and markets or emergency preparedness department will be sending out the same sort of information for your state’s farmers, so you might want to call or check out the government web sites in terms of what might or might not be available this spring and summer at your local farmers’ markets:

“How could radiation affect my crops?
Radioactive particles could cause external contamination of your plants. You may not be able to harvest some ripe fruits and vegetables. Fruit that doesn’t have to be picked right away can be saved. It can be picked after the contamination is gone. County agricultural agents will tell you if the crops are safe.

What growing vegetables would be safe to eat?
Vegetables that have leaves, pods, or fruit can be cleaned and eaten. Washing is the best way to clean them. The outer layers of green vegetables should be removed and thrown away.
Roots and tubers like potatoes and carrots don’t absorb much radiation. Underground crops can be eaten after normal cleaning or peeling.

Will the emergency affect my business?
A serious accident may affect your business for several weeks. As mentioned before, you may not be able to harvest ripe fruits or vegetables. If there are delays in milk pick-ups, you may have to throw away milk you can’t store. Another effect might be public reaction. People may not want to buy products from farms near the power plant. State officials will tell you how much contamination your farm experienced. They will also tell how to market your crops and dairy products.

How long could radiation affect my land?
Generally, several weeks. After that, most land could go back to its normal use. State and federal officials will check your land. They will tell you when it is safe.,..

Why is it so important to protect dairy animals?
One of the materials a nuclear accident could release is Iodine-131. If a person or animal eats food or drinks water with Iodine-131 it gets into the body. Cows with Iodine-131 produce contaminated milk. Humans can be harmed if they drink the milk or eat the dairy products. So, protecting your dairy animals is important. By protecting them, you keep the supply of dairy products pure. And you protect people from the harmful Iodine-131.

How can I protect my dairy animals? Products?
You should do these things to protect your dairy animals:
• Take the animals out of the pasture. Don’t let them graze.
• Keep them inside if possible.
• Feed them only stored food.
• Water them only from protected water supplies.
• Use protected self-feeders and automatic waterers if you have them.

What about other kinds of livestock?
Again, take care of your dairy animals first. Shelter them. Give them protected feed and water. Other livestock can be protected the same way. If you have extra shelter, feed and water, give it to them.

What about poultry?
Poultry can be given the same care as other animals. If they are outside, move them indoors. Give them protected feed and water.
Taking care of poultry may be less of a problem. They are usually raised indoors and given stored feed. This means they are already well protected. Also, poultry have more resistance to radiation.

FISH AND MARINE LIFE
Fish and other marine life raised in ponds may continue to be harvested unless appropriate State or local government officials have determined through laboratory analysis of samples that they are contaminated. Samples of water, fish and marine life from open bodies of freshwater and saltwater should also be analyzed to ensure that they are safe.

HONEY
Honey should be stored unused until the State has a chance to inspect it.
farmers and radiation contamination

Slow down, Bucko. Let’s throw a little science on this, ok?

A couple of years ago, we grew tomatoes that we had dreams about. The descriptions in the catalogs were uniformly exquisite.

And then we got a cool, wet summer.

And late blight.

And tomatoes? Well, those fantasies stayed fantasies because we got no tomatoes. And we got no peppers either. Anything that needed ‘hot feet’ was just a dead loss.

So, this year, I decided to do this whole seed thing in a much more scientific way. If I had any sort of clue as to what sort of summer the long range forecasters thought we would have, I’d have a shot at beating the first frost with some red tomatoes and peppers that were not nubbins.

So, this year, I am consulting this site here: Long Range Forecasts

Which has these wonderful maps (Aunt Toby dotes on maps. Bar charts too, but that is a discussion for another time; I’d put one up but they are ‘all rights reserved’ but trust me on this one; they are great maps) which show me that, oh dear. We are not only going to have a cool summer early when I want it to be hot, we’re going to have a cool and DRY summer and then it will get hot later. So, on the one hand, I’ve got to take into account that I won’t have the sun and temperatures working for me in terms of things like tomatoes and peppers, but on the plus side, since it won’t be wet, the blight thing might not be as much of a factor.

What to do? What to do? And what if the long range forecasters are wrong? What if I do have a hot summer? How do I hedge my bets here?

Well, first of all, even the most cold hardy tomatoes and peppers, the ones with the shortest seasons, are not necessarily the worst choices for a hot summer. They will just develop and mature faster if it’s a hot summer, as long as I can provide steady sources of water. Which we can at Chez Siberia because we have TWO sumps which run most of the time all year round (yes, I know but I actually have two separate basements and my house is at the bottom of a hill). The DH has run hosing from the sump closest to the garden so we have steady water for the garden no matter what. And since we’d be running those sumps in any case (because otherwise, the basement would be 18” deep in water in about two hours if we did not), this is as good a use for the water as any.

So, I’ve got my water and I’m going to choose the shortest season, best tasting tomatoes and peppers (and if I was an eggplant person, I’d go for the shortest season, best tasting eggplants I could find too). So, what is out there that is a candidate?

Less than 60 days to first ripe tomatoes:
Early Girl
Early Wonder
Glacier
Kimberly(will set fruit well in cool temps)
Matina
Oregon Spring (nearly seedless)
Prairie Fire
Silvery Fir
Sileta
Stupice (From Czecholoslovakia – we grew this last year; great taste and productivity)

Sixty to 70 days to first ripe tomatoes
Applause (good for tighter growing spaces)
Better Bush
Bush Beefsteak
Fireworks
Grushovka – 65 days are you have canning tomatoes
Jetsetter
Legend (this one has strong resistance to late blight fungus)
New Big Dwarf (2’ plants make these great for container growing)
Red Rocket
506 Bush

We like to can a lot of pear tomatoes; our choices for this year will have to come from this list:
Super Marzano: 70 days
Victoria Supreme: 70 days

For sweet peppers:
Better Belle: 65 days
Biscayne: 65 days
Bounty: 65 days
Corno di toro: 68 days
Cubanelle PS: 65 days
Flexum: 65 days
Giant Marconi: 63 days
Gypsy: 60 days
Roumanian rainbow: 60 days (we grew these last year – they were wonderful)

Now, I love hot peppers but if we have a cool and/or wet summer, they don’t do well here, so I don’t bother.

So, there you go – use a little bit of science to modify what you put into the garden and you just might do better than you think.
(photo courtesy of AJ)