And when we have had frosts as early as half way through September, we can’t have them sit there and sulk. We need them to get going right away so that they form flowers and make fruit. For years, we tried everything and then, stumbled upon something that just worked great – putting them into plastic milk jugs. Last summer, we had plenty of room in the garden, so I put the peppers back into the garden and got…NO PEPPERS. So, this year, as a demonstration, I’m growing them both ways.

Three of the same variety of pepper plants went into the garden and right next to them, the three plants in milk jugs. The soil and compost are the same. I’ll give them the same care.

And I’ll bet you a nickel that the ones in the milk jugs will do a lot better.

I’ll keep you posted.

But, a couple of things that I noticed when we were out there:
1) It’s been a very very dry spring – ordinarily, at this point, not only would the soil be colder, it would be a lot wetter as well; digging in it would have been a disaster – producing our own version of gumbo. When we were putting out the plastic, I wanted to pull up some of the old plants from last year. It looked dry enough so the DH pulled out a shovel and came up with – buried treasure!!!

A couple pounds of onions that got missed last fall – still hard, still good, not slimy. For those onions to have stayed that hard even into the spring means that it was pretty dry there before it got cold enough for the soil to freeze and it stayed dry around the onions so that even though it rained pretty heavily a couple of weeks ago, the soil was frozen solid around them and they did not get touched. We now have fresh onions. Yay! On the other hand, if we (and the local farmers) do not get some good rain, the pastures are going to play out by July and they won’t get more than one good haying. Not good. One of the reasons we got out of livestock was that within a ten year period we went from being able to keep the sheep and goats on pasture through the fall….to having to start feeding them hay by September. This…gets….expensive. Can we all say, “Climate Change”? When I was a kid, farmers in this area got THREE good cuttings of hay – timing of rain is imperative on this. Now, if they get two, they feel lucky and the second one will usually be about half the quality of the first.

2) During the fall and winter, our contractor ran his cement truck, dump trucks and back hoe over part of the garden – but the rhubarb STILL came up. Which only goes to show you that there are perennials in the veggie garden that cannot be killed no matter what you do. On the other hand, it also means that we will be having rhubarb that will be ready to eat by the end of April – major early start for rhubarb here. When we first planted that patch 25 years ago, we did not get rhubarb until May. See item (1), Climate Change…

But, before I forget, let’s talk a little bit about black plastic. We spread this out on the beds at this point for several reasons:

First: It helps warm up the soil. Right now, the soil is 42-43 degrees F. The sooner the soil gets warmer, the sooner we can get those members of the cabbage family which have been growing under the lights in the basement out of the basement (I really need the room for the chicks which I think will be arriving on Monday, courtesy of the US Postal Service) and into the ground. The way things are warming up (yes, I know, global warming is a hoax), if we don’t get them into the ground soon, the air and the soil will warm up so fast that they will bolt (send up a flower head and go to seed) before we can eat them.

Second, and in a way, just as important, warm soil makes weed seeds germinate, so we will have a chance to get the weeds while they are young and innocent – and yank them out.

Third, because we live in an iffy gardening situation, the only way we can get red tomatoes in enough time to actually EAT them, is to get the soil warm enough so that we can get plants in as early as we possibly can..even if we have to protect them with plastic or something else.

I know the Ag folks at Mississippi State have done work with different colored plastics, finding red plastic to be particularly effective for tomatoes, etc. , but…I can’t find red plastic for the life of me and I can always find thick tough plastic in black. Thin plastic is sort of worthless – the UV rays just break it down and we have had to replace it yearly. The thick stuff that we are using now is on its third year down, so it’s paid for itself already. Once we start putting things in, we will uncover the bed totally, fold up the plastic and put it away. We will probably be covering the little plants in plastic against the frosts for a while, but the ground by that time will be warm enough to generate a good bit of heat on its own. Commercial folks do this differently – they keep black plastic on the beds on a permanent basis and grow in what they call tunnels (these are hoops set into the soil which come in various heights) and which are covered with long sheets of heavy row cover (one trademark is Remay), which not only keeps the heat in but also keeps the bugs out and off the plants, so that they don’t have to use pesticides. When the time comes for flowering and pollination (which of course is much later in the year, and much warmer), they just roll up the sides of the tunnels so that the bees can get in. With any luck, by next weekend (the first weekend in April – woohoo!!), as long as we have some warm days this week, we will have warm enough soil to get some things in the ground.

This post is cross posted atOxdown Gazette.

Actually, look at the picture above: I took that yesterday, Christmas Eve day in my garden here in Upstate New York. Those are brussels sprouts, frozen but still cookable and edible. On Dec. 24th!! So, if you get started with more garden stuff this week, you can, even in the coldest places (well, maybe not Alaska…) have something out in your garden that you can harvest a year from now and use to feed your family (ahem..disclaimer: you will have something out in your garden that you can harvest…except if the bunnies and deer get to it. RIP: the kale that was also standing in the snow last week, sniff).

For those who missed, here is a hint – you can still do this because fresh compost does not freeze. As a matter of fact, if you go visit your landfill/composting facility, you may find that the big black mountain standing there is sending off a plume of steam. Composting creates a whole lot of heat. So, if you want to do the deed NOW (and loosen up that waistband from the holiday cookies!!! You will get a two-fer out of it!!), follow the instructions in our last episode. You may have to break through the outer frozen crust to the warm compost underneath – think of it as a giant vat of crème brulee, ok? Tomorrow’s Garden:Today! Part 1

For everyone else, who were good little Munchkins and now can look out, smugly, at the side yard with the mounded rows of compost on top of cardboard, the rest of the lesson is for YOU, mes petites choux (which is French for “little cabbages,” which, by the way, is not a bad thing to grow).

Today’s lesson revolves around the issue of: What should you do now? It’s December. It’s cold. It’s thoroughly uninspiring out there. You’ve never done this before. What can you do now to move the process forward? Well, it means that you need to make some decisions about (cue the scary music) What You Are Going To Grow.

Check list for deciding:

1) What does your family like to eat in terms of veggies?
2) What other veggies are in the same family that they haven’t tried yet but that you’d like to try out.
3) Is this garden strictly for fresh eating or do you want to do some freezing, drying or canning too? Or is it strictly for stocking up?
4) Where do you live?

So, in terms of the check list and using the Chez Siberia family as the example:
1) Broccoli
2) Cabbage, brussels sprouts, kohlrabi and kale
3) Both – we blanch and freeze broccoli, leave the brussels sprouts and the kale out in the garden and the kohlrabi keeps in the bin in the fridge.
4) Ah – this is important. Read this if nothing else. The USDA produces a Climate Zone Map which, in a general sort of way, tells you what zone you are in depending on where you live.

USDA Zone Map

It tells you basically how many frost-free growing days you have. If I look at that map, it tells me that I’ve got a couple of weeks in May and all the way into October to grow – wow – that’s 136 days. That’s amazing.

Except…it’s not true. We can have funky weather even into June and we have had killer frosts as early as Sept. 17th. So, I usually knock one zone off it and figure that I’ve got 3 weeks in June for sure, July, August, and through the end of September (and I cross my fingers behind my back and am always prepared with some plastic or The Big Blue Tarp if the weather folks predict frost).

This number of days is a very important tool for you because no matter what you like, there are types of plants and seeds that take so long from planting the seed to producing mature, ripened fruit or tubers under the ground or whatever, that you won’t get anything if you just put out seed and wait. So you need to cheat.

Cheating in the garden means that for certain plants, you jump start them in the garden by either buying plants at your local greenhouse or you get seeds and start them under lights, on a warm window sill or go whole hog and get a warming pad, lights, etc. and produce all your own plants.

Now we need to be honest with ourselves (because at Aunt Toby’s, we are all about the self-reflection and honesty). I can tell you because I’ve been gardening for…well, we won’t go into that, but it’s a whole mess of years, trust me. I can tell you that raising your own plants for the garden is like getting a new puppy in the house – you’ve got to keep track of where they are all the time, clean up after them, train those babies and make sure all their needs are covered. If you do not, they will die, or they will be leggy (which is almost as bad) or some other issue. So, if you want, this first year, just throw in the towel right now and be prepared to go to a greenhouse and get the plants. Find a co-worker or friend who gardens and ask them, “Which is the best local greenhouse for garden veggie plants?” Not the cheapest place. Not the closest place. Not the place that has huge numbers of flats sitting out in the sun on hot asphalt (I’m talking to you guys, Big Box Stores), but the place that plants them at the right time, takes care of them, has knowledgeable people there that you can ask questions of, etc.

When you grow your own, the sky is the limit – you can grow those French tomatoes and Peruvian potatoes and all that. But even with a good local greenhouse, they are going to make some pretty strict decisions about what they are going to carry and sell. They will have a) plants that a lot of people ask for both by type (like tomato) and name (Big Boy, Early Girl, etc.), and b) plants that will have a high level of success in your area. So, starting with those your first year is a great way to start. Do that for 2-3 years and you will get a feel for how things work in your garden and you can start talking to other gardeners in your area as to what THEY grow, what works for them, etc.

On the other hand, if you want to know how to choose seeds, here are a couple of examples of tomatoes to give you an idea of how to make the choice:
Czech Bush……….70 days from transplant
Gold Medal………..90 days from transplant

“From transplant” means that you start the seed, grow it up into a little plant that is about 6” tall, all leafed out and stick it in the ground. 70 or 90 days from that moment is when you can first expect to get ripe tomatoes out of it. And you need the ground to be nice and warm also.

So, that means that if you plant it mid-way through May, the earliest you will be able to get tomatoes to eat is probably going to be the end of July – and that is if everything is perfect – so it will more likely be into August for Czech Bush and into September for Gold Medal. If you live in a place like southern PA, MD, VA etc., Gold Medal would work for you – north of those areas, I’d go with Czech Bush because you want to make sure you actually GET tomatoes.

There are other plants that a) don’t take a long time to go from seed to harvest and b) don’t require really warm soil – lettuces and some things from the cabbage family come to mind. There are others that you will still want to grow from seed because they don’t transplant well, but they still want “warm feet” – things like beans, squash, cucumbers, and corn. So, you can plan to plant your lettuce seeds, esp. if you plan to cover the bed with some sort of row cover or plastic or whatever, weeks before you can put in the beans, etc. and those tomato plants.

And finally, HOW do you find seeds? Well, you can go to your local garden center, but they usually don’t put their fresh (that is, the 2009 season) seed out until it’s close to gardening time for your area. And if you want to try your hand at starting tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, etc., you are going to need those seed long before that, so you need to go to the internet. Search on terms like: garden seeds, vegetable seeds for colder areas, vegetable seeds for contests (that is, if you want to try to grow the biggest pumpkin or whatever). There are regional seed companies all over the US and into Canada and you can find pretty much whatever you want. You can find seed houses that do nothing but tomatoes and peppers; short season seed houses; seed houses that concentrate on French veggies or Italian or Mexican or Asian. You can always search on “xxx seed” where “xxx” is the veggie of your choice. If nothing else, you can sign up to get “the gardener’s wish book” – seed catalogs. There is nothing like sitting there with the wind and the snow howling outside, looking at luscious photographs of vegetables and flowers. Gets millions of people through the winter, those things do.

So, your assignment is:
1) If you have not done the compost and cardboard bit, follow the instructions in the posting I linked to above and go for it.
2) If you are ready to think about seeds, go to the internet, search for some seed houses that will have what you are looking for in terms of veggies and have them send you their catalogs.
3) Go to the link for the Frost-free map and find out how long your growing season is, so that when those catalogs come in, you can start to plan.
4) Rummage around and find a couple of pieces of ¼” grid graph paper so that you’ll be ready for the next assignment, which will be “how to plan out your garden.”

(originally published at Oxdown Gazette)