Tag: vegetable

Posted on in Gardening, Veggies

Spinach

spinach_dbg_20100417_lah_2909True confessions… I am allergic to spinach. Very sad, I know. So, I don’t grow it. Everything I’m about to tell you about spinach cultivation I learned from such wise gardeners as David Whiting, Colorado State University professor and State Coordinator for the Colorado Master Gardener Program, and Diane E. Bilderback, one of my favorite garden writers (and, along with Dorothy Hinshaw Patent, author of my favorite veggie gardening book, Garden Secrets).

The first tricky thing about spinach is when to plant it. Being extremely day-length sensitive, it is sure to bolt when it receives 14 or more hour of daylight per day. You can squeeze in a crop as soon as the weather is warm enough (and thankfully, spinach is relatively hardy), or wait until days are getting shorter again and plant for a fall harvest.

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Posted on in Gardening, Veggies

Amy’s Garden

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After months of planting, watering, mulching, and pulling weeds, I tend to run out of steam by the end of August. The heat and the bugs are taking their toll, we’re actually getting a little tired of zucchini (imagine that!), and I am in desperate need of encouragement.

When my friend Amy asked me to come see her new garden, I jumped at the chance. She wanted some advice, but I wanted motivation Looking at someone else’s plot always inspires me to get back outside in my own veggie beds.

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Posted on in Gardening, Veggies

Which Varieties are Best for Colorado?

seed-catalogs_lah_2733Seed catalogs are beginning to arrive in our mailboxes. With all the brightly colored photos of perfect vegetables and flowers, it’s tempting to order one (or more!) of each. Most of us, however, have limited garden space. We need to make some hard decisions.

Which varieties should we order? What will thrive in Colorado? Which ones really taste the best?

Most catalogs have some sort of icon indicating which variety does best across the country. The problem is that we don’t live in the rest of the country. We live in Colorado. Our soils, weather, water, even the quality of light here are all different from most of the United States. When a company recommends a product that grows well in Pennsylvania, or California, or Arizona, there is no assurance that it will do as well here.

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Posted on in Chickens, Gardening, Soils, Veggies

Composting with Chickens

eggs-and-chickens-067It’s time to clean out the chicken coop. All summer my little flock has been happily picking weed and grass seeds out of the straw I spread in their coop last spring. At the same time, they’ve broken down the big pieces of grass stem into finer shreds. And, best of all, they’re balanced all that carbon with some nice, hot chicken manure.

Now that the weather has cooled a bit, I’m willing to venture out to the coop with a rake, scoop, and wheelbarrow. All that compostable material is heading for my veggie garden.

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Posted on in Gardening, Veggies

Grasshoppers

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They’re chewing holes in my big, beautiful chard leaves, leaving tiny dark pellets of digested foliage to mark their conquests. They jump aside as I walk through the knee-high grass in our field. Until I moved to Colorado I had idea how plentiful grasshoppers are (we’re home to over a hundred different species!), or how much frustration they can cause a gardener.

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Posted on in Gardening, Surviving Winter, Veggies

Beautiful Edibles

733-lunch-1I love salads. Wash and tear some crisp, homegrown lettuce. Add a few sprouts, some mizuna leaves (mizuna grows exceptionally well in my garden) and other greens. Slice up some green onions, cucumbers and tomatoes, throw in a few flowers, and whisk together a light vinaigrette to pour over the top. Toss it all together, and yum!

Wait, you say. Flowers? You put flowers in your salads?

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Posted on in Gardening, Veggies

Sky-High Pumpkins

ian-with-pumpkin-2010-10-31Cinderella rode to the ball in one. Peter kept his wife in another. At Halloween, we carve them into jack-o-lanterns. Today, we make pies* out of them.

Besides all that, pumpkins are nutritious (lots of Vitamin A, potassium, and fiber), delicious, and just plain fun. It’s not surprising, then, that I get so many questions on how to grow them.

Living at 7,000 feet as I do, pumpkins aren’t a sure bet in my veggie plot. Gardeners at the other end of town, 1,000 feet lower, are able to produce enough pumpkins to make them commercially successful. Here, I have to baby them along and hope for a long growing season.

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Posted on in Books, Gardening, Media Reviews, Veggies

This Book Shouldn’t Be a Secret

“My zucchini plants produce flowers, but no squash. Why?”

“Every year my lettuce gets bitter, then blooms. How can I keep it from bolting?”

“I set out my broccoli two weeks before the last frost, when the books tell us to, but it never got big, and it only produced tiny one-inch heads. What did I do wrong?”

“I want to be a better veggie gardener. What book should I read?”

garden-secretsI’d just given a two hour talk on high altitude vegetable gardening, and a crowd of people surrounded me, anxious to ask questions.

Happily, I knew the answers to all those questions. That’s because I’ve read The Book of Garden Secrets. It’s the most helpful book on vegetable gardening I’ve ever read. Since I’ve read dozens of books on growing veggies, this is high praise indeed.

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Posted on in Gardening, Veggies

Planning Your Veggie Garden: How Much Should You Plant?

264-wheelbarrow-of-veggies-closeupYour seed catalogs are well-thumbed by now. You have all your favorite varieties flagged, along with some new offerings you’re eager to try. After months of indoor weather, the gardening urge is looming large. It’s tempting to go overboard, and order every seed listed. Making a vegetable garden plan will help keep your cravings in proportion to your needs.

Even if you’re not much of a planner, some simple steps now will pay off in fewer problems and less work as the season progresses. I’ll start at the beginning: how big a garden should you grow? Cultivating more veggies than you can use increases your expenses, your work load, and your need for compost, water, and pest control.

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