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Garden Gifts for Spring

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Spring and summer can provide one or more gift-giving opportunities for gardeners. Choosing the right gifts, though, can be difficult. What will your gardener appreciate? The best place to start is with any tools or supplies that your gardener might have mentioned needing.

If, however, your gardener has not offered any suggestions — or maybe has, but you’ve forgotten what they were — here are some ideas that may help:

Gifts for the gardener

Oilcloth half apron with three gingham check pockets and yellow floral background.
PHOTO/greatergood.com

A cheerful and practical half-apron with roomy pockets, made of water-repellent oilcloth is fun to wear and keeps seed packets and small tools from getting lost in the garden. I have a similar apron that a gardening sister bought for me one year at a craft fair. I love mine! Your gardener might like one, too. The apron linked here is sold by an animal rescue group, with proceeds going to support its work.

Mini pruners from Corona tools. A 5-inch long pruning tool might not seem super-practical on first sight, but I use mine to harvest greens and vegetables like peppers. The small pruners are easier to keep in my apron pocket (see above) than larger pruners, and they are also easier to use in tight spaces than the kitchen shears that some gardeners use for the same purposes.

Fall Garden Planning book explains how to choose crops, create a schedule, and prepare the garden for fall planting.

My Fall Garden Planning book can help your gardener prepare for the whole gardening year, which extends well into fall and winter for gardeners in the Southeastern U.S. I have been told that the book is easy to both read and understand, and that it’s helpful. Of course, that was the goal!

For gardeners who tend to “walk on the wild side”, the book The Wildcrafted Cocktail would be a fun addition to the cookbook collection. On days when the weather is not great for gardening, the gardener can spend enjoyable time in the kitchen with foraged foods (including daylily buds – which many gardens can provide) preparing elements of the various cocktails.

A Gift for the garden

Texas Tomato Cages are pricey, but I love mine. These are wide enough for good stability and tall enough to contain most tomato plants. The cages come in two sections that stack together (securely), and here is another great feature: they collapse to nearly flat for storing when not in use. They can be hung up — out of the way — in the shed or garage in winter.

If your tomato plants tend to erupt out the tops of your cages, extensions are available to make these even taller. You can see one of the cages – without an extension – in my earlier blog post about planting tomatoes. We also use the Texas Tomato Cages at the Plant-a-Row-for-the-Hungry garden for which I am a volunteer.

If none of the above seem like a good fit for your gardener, check out the gift ideas provided by a couple of my gardening friends:

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Growing Summer Salad Greens and Potherbs

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Many of the most well-known salad greens, like lettuces, and potherbs such as spinach and collards, are cool season vegetables. That means that they do not stand up well to summer heat, especially the intense and humid heat of the Southeastern U.S.

Jewels of Opar plant with pale green, slightly succulent leaves, growing near the base of a wooden half-barrel.
Jewels of Opar is both beautiful and edible.

However, the onset of summer does not necessarily mean the end of garden salads and cooking greens. It does, though, mean that our summer salads and cooking greens might look and taste a little different from those we enjoy in cooler weather.

What is the difference between salad greens and potherbs? In general, we eat the salad greens raw and the potherbs cooked. Some greens can be used both ways. The list below is not a full list of all the possibilities; it is a start, though, to help diversify our gardens and our diets.

Salad greens we can grow in summer

Lettuces

In the Southeastern U.S., growing full-sized summer lettuces — that are not too bitter to eat — is difficult in a home garden. However, some gardeners in the Southeast cannot imagine life without garden-fresh lettuce. The good news is that it is possible to keep growing lettuce here, in the summer heat, but the gardener will have best success when harvesting the lettuce as “baby greens”.

That means harvesting the lettuces when they are only about four inches tall, letting them regrow once (maybe) for a second harvest, then starting over with another bunch of seeds. Lettuce plants in the garden eventually will turn bitter in the summer heat. Planting a new patch of seeds every few weeks lets a gardener harvest fresh lettuce that is still sweet.

Planting the lettuces in a spot that gets afternoon shade, with rich moist soil, and not allowing the soil to dry out, can help delay the bitterness.

Chicories can be grown and used the same way in summer – harvested small, grown in rich, moist soil, in afternoon shade, to minimize the bitterness.

Purslane and Jewels of Opar

These plants are grouped into the same plant family: Portulaceae. Both have leaves that are a little tart, or maybe lemony in flavor, and succulent — plump with an interesting interior that skirts the edge of slimy.

Purslane pops up in my garden on its own. I have never planted seeds for it, but buying seeds is possible if this plant doesn’t just magically appear in your summer garden. Baker Creek sells seeds for both green purslane and golden purslane. They grow well in full sun.

  • Small plants of purslane, each with about four succulent green leaves, coming up in brown soil.
    Purslane seedlings in the garden.
  • Purslane plant with small, plump leaves surrounded by large green leaves of squash plants.
    Purslane plant in a space between leaves of a squash plant in the home garden.

Jewels of Opar (see photo near top of this article) is a cultivated plant that self-sows in many yards after the first plant becomes established. I have written about Jewels of Opar in a previous blog post, but the best news is that the plant is attractive enough to grow in a flower border. If your garden is in the front yard, this is a salad green to try.

Parsley

The strong flavor of parsley is not a favorite for everyone, I know, but this green is an essential ingredient in the Mediterranean salad known as Tabbouleh. The Lebanese version includes a lot more parsley and less bulgar wheat than some versions, and it is a good argument for including more parsley in other kinds of summer salads.

Parsley may be my favorite summer salad green. My garden has four parsley plants in it right now, growing to hugeness.

Potherbs we can grow in the summer garden

Swiss Chard

Two clumps of 'perpetual spinach' Swiss chard in a summer garden, with light green upright leaves that are almost arrow-shaped.
‘Perpetual spinach’ Swiss chard.

Some Swiss Chards languish in the summer heat, but I have had good success with a variety called ‘Perpetual spinach’. If you enjoy beet greens, this is an excellent similar-flavor substitute for summer.

Smaller leaves, harvested while still tender, can also be used as a salad green.

Amaranth

White flower heads on tall amaranth plants that have long narrow dark green leaves.
Amaranth flower heads and large, mature leaves. New, small leaves would be better to eat.

Leaves of amaranth wilt pretty quickly when they are cooked, so have the garlic chopped and ready to go before adding the leaves to a hot pan with olive oil. Like for many other plants, new small leaves are tastier than older, larger leaves.

Some varieties of amaranth grow very tall and are cultivated for their seeds, rather than as greens.

Look instead for a variety like Baker Creek’s ‘Green calaloo’ or ‘Chinese multicolor spinach’. These are cultivated for their more delicious leaves.

Malabar spinach

Many years ago, when I was growing malabar spinach, our substitute mail-carrier was from Barbados. One day, when she was delivering the mail, she stopped to ask about our garden. She said that our malabar spinach was the green her mother cooked for her family back home. She called it REAL spinach. I quickly harvested a large pile of leaves for her to take home, and told her to stop by any time for more.

Once established, this crop is a vigorous vine. Be sure you have plenty of room and a strong trellis before planting this one. The thick leaves are more mucilaginous inside than most cooking greens, but the slimy aspect is lessened with cooking. According to our mail carrier, adding a few chopped leaves to soups is a good way to work your way toward eating them as a stand-alone dish, if they don’t appeal at first.

I never managed to love this crop, so we don’t grow it any more. I have met, though, plenty of gardeners who do love malabar spinach and who can’t imagine not growing it in the summer garden.

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How to Plant a Tomato

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Most of the work of planting takes place before the actual planting day; the work is in soil preparation and careful selection of your tomato variety, finding one that will do well in your yard and that makes delicious fruits.

Once that part is done, though, there is more to consider. I made a little video that tells about setting a tomato transplant into the ground and how to defend it from cutworms. Here is the video:

The tomato that I planted today is a Park’s Whopper. I don’t usually plant my tomatoes this early, but I know that plenty of gardeners are planning to do just that this weekend. Hopefully, the video will be helpful.

After the planting, the protecting

After planting the one tomato plant, I laid a thin layer of newspaper on the soil around it, to keep fungal spores from splashing up onto the leaves from the soil below. Then I spread a thin layer of pine bark mulch over the paper, to hold it down.

  • Small tomato plant in the garden, with thin layer of newspaper spread on the ground around it.
    A thin layer of newspaper helps protect the plant from soil-borne leaf diseases.
  • Thin layer of pine bark mulch surrounds small tomato plant.
    Thin layer of pine bark mulch holds the newspaper down and adds another layer of protection.

When the plant looked well-defended from soil-borne leaf diseases, I wrapped the lower part of the cage with clear plastic sheeting. The reason for the wrapping was primarily to protect the plant from too-low temperatures.

Tomato cage with lower portion wrapped in plastic helps protect early-planted tomato from cool night temperatures.

We are still having some nights with temperatures in the 40s. On the coolest nights, with the sides already protected, it will be easy to cover the top to hold in some extra heat.

The peppers and remaining tomato plants will get planted in another week or so.

For now, I will keep bringing them into the house on cool nights. However, they will all get the newspaper and mulch layered around them after planting.

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Growing (and Eating) What’s Good for the Garden

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New gardeners often are advised to grow foods that they and their families like to eat. It makes sense. Why grow tomatoes if no one at home will eat them? That advice, though, is less firm for gardeners who have been working their soil for a few years. Longer-term gardeners should consider branching out a bit, with regard to what they grow. Here is why:

Different crops can improve your crop rotations

Crop rotation is the practice of growing different kinds of crops in succession within a growing space. “Different kinds” here means plants from different plant families. An example of crop rotation, to illustrate the practice from one space in my garden, is this: kale (fall/winter), followed by peppers (summer), followed by garlic (fall/winter).

Why should you be concerned about your crop rotations?

Bowl filled with shelled cowpeas surrounded by garden vegetables including okra, tomatoes, and peppers.
Cowpeas, in the bean family, help diversify my crops in summer.

University of North Carolina’s article, Advantages of Crop Rotation, explains that rotating crops can reduce buildup of pests and diseases. It can also improve the balance of nutrients in the soil and improve soil structure.

Organic gardeners, especially, who may see themselves as stewards of the soil, will find that crop rotation is a practice that can enhance their gardens.

A chef argues for eating more kinds of crops

I remember reading a Yale Environment 360 interview with chef Dan Barber who explained how he came to understand that supporting sustainable agriculture can mean learning to eat new crops.

The central example discussed in the interview was a farm that was growing emmer wheat, an ancient variety that Barber was excited about using in recipes. This is the relevant bit in the interview:

…I was standing in the middle of a field, and all of a sudden discovered that he [the farmer] was growing very little wheat, and that instead he was growing a whole suite of lowly grains like millet and buckwheat and barley, and leguminous crops like Austrian winter peas and kidney beans. He was growing a lot of cover crops like vetch and clover. And they were all meticulously timed and spread out among the 2,000 acres I was standing in the middle of. And that’s when I sort of had this agricultural epiphany. But it led to this gastronomic epiphany, which was that here I was as a farm-to-table chef waving the flag of sustainability and realizing that I wasn’t supporting most of the farm. In the case of Klass [the farmer growing the emmer wheat], he needed these lowly crops and cover crops and leguminous crops because his soil health needed it to grow wheat. You couldn’t get the wheat unless you grew all these other crops. And you had to time it in this way that brought the fertility to the soil to give you this incredible tasting wheat.

Diane Toomey, How to Make Farm-to-Table a Truly Sustainable Movement, interview with chef Dan Barber, Yale Environment 360, 15 Sept. 2014

Most of us are not going to develop elaborate rotations for the production of emmer wheat, but the interview made me feel like less of a loon for growing – and learning to prepare and eat – crops that are not my favorites, all because I thought they’d be good for the garden.

Adding more plant families to the rotation, for home gardens

An example of adding beets

Red beet with red-veined green leaves growing in soil.
Garden beet in April.

Years ago, I decided to expand my spinach/amaranth family plantings by growing beets, even though I didn’t really like beets. I could have planted more spinach, instead, but the phosphorus level in my soil was a little high. I knew that a root crop like beets would use up some of that extra phosphorus, helping to rebalance the nutrients in my garden’s soil.

Over time, as a result of this decision, I learned how to prepare beets in a way that Joe and I actually like. Now, beets are just one more good food that we look forward to bringing in from the garden.

I have worked on collard greens in the same way, but with less success. The good news is that Joe likes them.

Why grow collard greens?

A good reason to grow collard greens is that collards (and mustards) help suppress the root-knot nematodes that are such a big problem in Southern soils. At the garden/farm where I used to volunteer, the winter mixed-greens crop of collards, mustards, kale, and radishes was called a “fumigant” crop for the good work it does in cleaning up the ever-present nematode pests in the soil.

These greens can stay in the ground all winter long in the South, harvested leaf by leaf, so they work on the soil for many months. Tilling in the remaining leaves and roots about a month before spring planting just frosts the cake of their beneficial effects.

Plant families for garden crops

The list of plant families that include food crops, to enhance your own garden crop rotations, is large. Here are examples of plant families and some crops in each one:

  • Tomato family – tomato, pepper, eggplant, potato, tomatillo
  • Cabbage family – cabbage, broccoli, kale, collards, mustards, radish, turnip, kohlrabi, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, arugula/rocket
  • Bean family – bush beans, pole beans, Lima beans, peas, Southern peas, cover crops like clover and vetch
  • Onion family – onions, garlic, shallots, chives
  • Carrot family – carrots, parsley, cilantro, parsnips, dill, fennel
  • Spinach family – spinach, Swiss chard, amaranth, beets, Good King Henry
  • Squash family – cucumbers, summer squashes, zucchini, winter squashes, pumpkins, melons
  • Sunflower family – sunflowers, lettuce, chicory, radicchio, escarole, endive
  • Mallow family – okra, roselle
  • Morning glory family – sweet potatoes
  • Mint family – mint, basil, oregano, thyme, anise hyssop, rosemary, sage, marjoram
  • Borage family – borage
  • Grass family – corn, wheat, rice, oats, lemongrass
  • Buckwheat family – buckwheat, French sorrel (and rhubarb, which is not a plant for the South)

Growing some chicories

Pale green lettuces and dark red radicchio plants growing together in a garden bed.
Radicchio (right) is a kind of chicory, which is in the same plant family as lettuces (left). Growing them together makes crop rotation simpler.

Personally, I would like to see more gardeners branching out a bit into the unknown, in terms of crops. That is why I took seedling chicories to the Soil3 Garden Show, to give away with a handout of information about chicories.

I have found that these plants are relatively pest-free in our area. For organic gardeners in the South, pest-free crops are an amazing gift! Chicories also have deep roots, which can help break up heavy soils and can bring up nutrients from deeper soil layers.

Clump of 'Italiko rosso' chicory - upright leaves are dentate and have red veins.
‘Italiko Rosso’ chicory in the fall, ready for harvest to use in salads or on pizza.

In addition, they are useful in the kitchen as greens, which we all probably need to eat more of (chop some up to put on your pizza), and the roots can be roasted to make a coffee substitute. If the plants stay in the garden over a winter, they will produce a tall stem with blue flowers, in spring or early summer, that will support many pollinators.

Not everyone will appreciate the bitter flavor of chicories, but if you like the flavor of radicchio in your salads, you may like other garden chicories, too. The very first one I grew, Italiko rosso (which Baker Creek labels as a dandelion, possibly because of its leaf shape), is still a favorite.

Hope your gardens are all growing well!

(If this blog post is interesting or useful to you, please “like” or “share” it. Thank you!)

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After the Soil3 Garden Show

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The Soil3 Garden Show gave us all plenty of opportunities to learn more about gardening and to make new gardening friends. I had great conversations with fellow-gardeners, and the handouts in our “swag bags” contained helpful information.

Information from presenters

Woman with long hair standing next to taller man, both middle ages, both wearing glasses, standing in front of a banner that says Small Garden News.
Me (Amy) with Ken, longtime gardening friend and leader at my local Plant A Row for the Hungry garden, who also attended the Soil3 event. PHOTO/C. Sqrow, another gardening friend!

Night Song Native Plant Nursery in Canton, GA, provided a list of native edible plants. Many of these are lower-care fruits, like elderberry, paw paw, persimmon, and mulberry. Unlike most cultivated apples, peaches, and pears, these native plants need very little (or zero) pruning or spraying.

The handout provided by Brie Arthur contains a summary of the main points of her Foodscape Revolution. It also includes a short list of ideas for limiting mammal-damage in the garden – like from deer.

I am adding her favorite deer repellent, I Must Garden brand, which incorporates botanical oils, to my post about protecting plants from deer. Just so you know – I cannot find confirmation that the product is OMRI-approved; strictly-organic gardeners will want to try PlantSkydd deer repellent, instead, even though it will smell less pleasant.

On display at the Garden Show

Of course, Soil3 offered an attractive discount on its cubic-yard bags of OMRI-approved compost. The sales tent was a busy place during breaks between presentations, and the main vendor area was also busy with gardeners considering purchases of plants and other garden-related items, and asking questions of the expert gardeners on site.

  • White tent, table covered with green cloth, and bright yellow bags of Soil3 artfully displayed.
    Soil3 display and sales tent at the garden show
  • Vendor area at the Soil3 Garden Show

Participation of local college students

Lanier Technical College horticulture program sold plants grown by its students, with proceeds supporting the program. Lanier Tech students also entered the Raised Bed Garden contest. They put together an “adaptive” garden space, for people with physical limitations.

The tilted container-beds that improve access to the far-side of the bed, the one container that rotates like a “lazy susan” serving tray, and the drainage system that keeps wheelchair-bound laps dry, were all impressive. I was told that the students took turns using a wheelchair and a walker to gain an understanding of the modifications that would be most helpful.

  • Wheelchair and walker by garden at table height that holds three container garden "beds".
    Raised bed demonstration garden built by Lanier Tech students.
  • Accessible garden container with edible plants including peppers.
    Garden “bed” is higher in back than in front.

If you bought plants last weekend

I hope no one north of Atlanta planted the tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, basil, and other summer vegetables that they took home. North Georgia had a freeze warning Sunday night, and none of those warm-season crops takes well to temperatures in the low 30s.

Most of the other plants, though, should be planted soon, if they haven’t been yet. That includes the dill, borage, fennel, and bee balm (Monarda) that I saw at Lanier Tech’s booth, and the fruiting shrubs and trees offered at the Night Song Native Plant nursery booth.

The attendees

I visited with many wonderful people, some of whom agreed to take home a tiny chicory plant – that I had brought to give away – to try in their gardens. For many gardeners, new crops are an adventure!

I also met a family that has a homestead business in Georgia, the Rehr family of Big Bear Homestead. We talked about gardening in Georgia, and I learned about their work with pastured animals and about rebalancing the local animal populations through trapping.

Best wishes for great gardening! – Amy

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Soil3 Garden Show in Cumming, GA

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On Saturday, March 30, Small Garden News (aka: Amy) will be at the Soil3 Garden Show in Cumming, GA. The event will be at Silver City Farm, an inspiring setting; the weather is forecast to be warm and sunny; and there will be fellow-gardeners everywhere you look. It will be a great day!

Fall Garden Planning book explains how to choose crops, create a schedule, and prepare the garden for fall planting.
My book will be available at this Soil3 event.

The lineup of presentations, about organic gardening, mixed garden landscapes, and edible native plants, will be perfect for beginning the new garden season. In addition, there will be raised bed garden examples, as part of a competition, that could provide planting ideas for new gardeners.

Plants and garden-related items (including my book!) will be sold at the event’s Garden Market, and food trucks will be on site at lunchtime.

Soil3 is the product used the past few years at the local Plant-a-Row-for-the-Hungry (PAR) garden to fill raised beds and amend the soil of in-ground beds. If you want to see whether Soil3 really works in the garden, view pictures at my post about the Winter Harvest at that garden.

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Garden Crops in March

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Spring crops in the Southeast are in a mixed state of early, middle, and late, here in late-March, in terms of being ready to harvest.

Your fall-planted kale may be starting to send up flower-stalks. Mine is.

When leaf-crops like kale start to make flowers, it means they are going to stop making new, tasty leaves very soon. When you can see flower buds forming, it is time to harvest the rest of the crop. I brought in my kale this weekend.

  • Small garden patch with cilantro on the left, white flowers of rocket on the right, and dwarf kale growing in the background.
    Cilantro (L), rocket gone to flower (R), and kale (background)
  • Cluster of flower buds at tip of kale plant in the garden.
    Tip of central stem of kale with a cluster of flower buds.

Any early-planted rocket will have sent up flowers, too. When the space is not needed right away for another crop, I leave these in the garden for a week or so, for the bees. Fall-planted cilantro may be flowering in a few weeks, too. Mine is starting to show a thickened central stem. This is usually the first indicator that the plant will switch over to making flowers soon.

  • Four-petaled white flowers, two of them, with pale pink variegations.
    Flowers of earlier-planted rocket. Bees love these.
  • Later-planted rocket in a half-barrel.

If you planted a later patch of rocket at few weeks ago, it may be at a perfect size for harvesting right now. Mine is planted in the half-barrel. Leaves from my later patch have been going into sandwiches and salads for a couple of weeks. It is about time to plant another round of rocket, to avoid having too large a gap between crops.

Bowl of harvested salad greens, with green lettuces and rocket and red lettuces and raddichio.

The spring garden can provide other salad-type greens, too. A small home garden might not have a large salad patch, but it can produce specialty greens that make meals more interesting.

My garden has been giving us rocket, radicchio, and a dark red lettuce that make beautiful salads.

‘Garden babies’ lettuce and some radicchio in a March garden.

Some gardens will have large beets, ready to harvest, started last fall. Spring-planted beets may still be just clusters of small leaves (like mine).

Salad radishes planted in late February may be ready soon, too. My ‘German Giant’ radishes were planted in the same bed and at the same time as my beets. The radish roots are more than a half inch across already.

Knowing that the spring crops are nearly done would be more sad if I weren’t looking forward to summer crops. I have started tomato and pepper plants in the house, and I have seeds for many more kinds of veggies that I am planning to grow.

How is your garden growing this Spring?

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Planting Dates for Summer Garden Vegetables

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As spring advances and weather warms, the urge to plant the summer garden becomes almost overwhelming. Knowing which crops can stand a bit of cooler weather and cooler soil can help us make good choices about what to plant when we just can’t wait any longer.

Understanding the last frost date

Most of the garden vegetables that we grow in summer are frost tender, which means that they won’t survive freezing weather. This is why most seed packets use the “last frost date” — the expected date of the last freezing temperatures — as a marker for when to plant summer crops.

Where I live, the average date of the last frost in spring is in mid-April. The date is not exact; we estimate the date based on the dates of the last frost in previous years. Annoyingly, we won’t know the exact date of the last frost for this year until we are well past it. Some years, the last frost in my yard is in March, and one year my yard had a frost on April 23rd.

The role of soil temperature

Cucumber seedling with three true leaves, already planted in the organic home garden.
Cucumber seedling transplanted into the garden in April.

Part of finding the best time to plant vegetables is knowing the best temperature for seeds to sprout and for plants to grow. Texas AgriLife Extension points out that these two temperatures are not necessarily the same. For example, bean seeds may sprout best at a soil temperature of 85 degrees F, but that temperature isn’t best for plant growth and productivity.

The AgriLife article lists reasonable, “compromise” soil temperatures for planting many crops:

  • cucumber (64°F)
  • cantaloupe (68°F)
  • okra (73°F)
  • pumpkin (75°F)
  • squash (70°F)
  • watermelon (72°F)
  • beans (72°F)
  • beets (45°F)
  • tomato (55°F)
  • turnip (50°F)
  • corn (55°F)

From the list, you can see that beets and turnips (cool-season crops) can do well in cooler soil, corn and tomato plants slightly warmer, and cucumbers and cantaloups a bit warmer still. This information can help in planning your schedule.

Recommended date ranges from University Extension programs

UGA publishes a Vegetable Planting Chart that shows suggested planting dates for garden vegetables. The dates are for middle-Georgia (a line through Macon across the state), which means that the dates need to be adjusted for areas north and south of that line.

Tomato transplants for the organic home garden, indoors under lights on a cold day.
Tomato transplants for the organic home garden, indoors under lights on a cold day.

For my area, just north of Atlanta, I would add about two weeks to the ranges in the UGA planting chart to get a reasonable planting date range for my garden.

North Carolina State University Extension publishes a planting chart for Western North Carolina. The dates are similar to those that I would use for my garden.

You may notice that the recommended date-ranges in the linked publications for spring planting can be quite large – up to six weeks for some vegetables. The whole range of dates might be good theoretically for a particular crop; however, for organic home gardens, there are some good reasons for choosing to plant either at the early end of the range or the late end.

Reasons to consider dates at the edges of the recommended ranges

For both bush beans and pole beans, I usually plant as early as I think the plants can survive the experience. The early planting — as early as the first week in April, if the weather forecast looks ok — means that I start harvesting beans before the end of May. By the time the Mexican bean beetles show up to demolish the plants, I will have harvested plenty of beans.

I also choose an early planting date for cucumbers, squashes, and melons. Those plants all are attacked by mildew diseases in late summer and an assortment of pest insects in mid to late summer. Early planting allows a larger harvest, before the plants are affected by whichever problem attacks first. For these crops, planting seeds in the first week in April, or transplants a week or two later (when the soil is warmer), can make a big difference in how much food I can harvest before the plants die.

Okra and sweet potatoes are two crops that I plant at the later end of the recommended planting date range. Both of those two crops grow slowly in cool weather, and I have found that keeping ahead of the weeds, which grow faster, is more work when these two crops are planted early. When okra and sweet potatoes are planted later, in early or mid May in my yard, they grow fast enough to shade the ground sooner, and weeds have less chance to take hold.

Tomatoes are another crop that I plant later than almost every other gardener I know. My experience is that later-planted tomatoes, like at the end of April or early May, are less troubled by blossom-end rot than earlier-planted tomatoes. They also are more likely to survive whichever soil-borne wilt disease is in my yard, and infection by the ever-present early blight disease is usually less severe.

Organic gardeners won’t use the chemicals that are available in garden centers to control all the above problems. Instead, we have be a bit wily about getting around the diseases and pests that can reduce the productivity of our organic home gardens. I have found that adjusting my planting dates to the edges of the date ranges, for some crops, is all the “control” I need.

Of course, keeping a good attitude about the vagaries of the natural world also helps.

Amy’s planting schedule

In case you are curious, this is when I plant the standard summer crops, most years, in my garden, zone 7B, just northwest of Atlanta:

  • first week in April – plant seeds for bush beans and pole beans if forecast is ok; if a freeze is in the forecast, I start these in a flat or tray, to transplant to the garden after a couple of weeks. I also start squash-family plants – cucumbers, zucchini, winter squashes, melons – in little pots this week, to transplant to the garden when the soil is warmer.
  • mid-April – plant corn, if any is planned. For me, that is usually popcorn. Early planting for corn reduces problems with corn ear-worm. Later plantings almost always have more ear-worms. Plant the transplants (beans, squash family plants) when the first true leaf is a couple of inches across.
  • late-April – plant pepper plants, and seeds for Swiss chard (if planned).
  • early May – plant tomato and eggplant transplants, seeds for okra.
  • mid-May – plant sweet potato slips.
  • mid-summer – plant Southern peas when one of the earlier crops comes out of the garden (bush beans or cucumbers are usually the first to go). After bush beans have been gone from the garden for a couple of weeks, if there aren’t any pole beans also in the garden to harbor more Mexican bean beetles, plant a new patch of bush beans.

What the above schedule doesn’t show is that I start tomato and pepper plants from seed, indoors, in early March. It also doesn’t include annual herbs, like basil or borage, or flowers, like nasturtium and Zebrina hollyhock, that I plant most years.

Protecting early-planted crops from frost

The summer crops are frost-tender, but I plant some of these crops early enough that the risk of frost is high. A couple of different strategies can be used to protect your crops.

The first strategy is the use of transplants to allow an early start for some crops, like beans and cucumbers. This strategy takes some planning, and it takes space in your house. It also, though, protects plants from cooler weather, since they are indoors. The plants can be planted into the garden when the risk of frost is lower.

The second strategy is the use of row covers to protect tender crops in the garden from a light frost. If a hard freeze happens and the row cover does not fully protect a crop, some replanting might need to be done. The good news here is that most seed packets contain enough seeds to replant a small home garden.

For further reading, my older post about planting seeds in the garden contains reminders about planting depth and plant spacing that might be helpful.

(If this post is helpful or interesting, please “like” or “share” it. Thank you!)

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Broccoli, Beets, and Boron – Updated

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Soils in the region where I live are short on the mineral boron, an essential plant micronutrient. The University of Georgia soil lab doesn’t measure boron levels in its routine test for garden soil, but it does include a recommendation to add some to a home vegetable garden. This is the recommendation:

“Apply 1 tablespoon of borax per 100 feet of row to broccoli and root crops such as turnips and beets. This can be applied by mixing the borax thoroughly with approximately 1 quart of soil in a container and then applying the mixture along the row; or it can be mixed with a quart of water and applied to the soil in solution.”

University of Georgia, Soil Test Report, basic soil test for Home Vegetable Garden, 2018

What is a micronutrient?

The micronutrients are needed in tiny amounts, but they are essential for plant growth. Boron is one of several micronutrients that plants need. Other micronutrients include copper, iron, and nickel, among others.

For boron, the difference between not-enough and too-much is a pretty narrow range, according to K. Kelling at the University of Wisconsin and Ron Goldy at Michigan State Univ. Extension. This means that great care must be taken to not use too much.

How does boron help plants?

Golden beets growing in the garden - beets are a crop that need a little more boron than others.
Golden beets growing in the garden – beets are a crop that need a little more boron than others.

UMass Extension, Amherst, says that boron “is required for many different aspects of plant cell functioning, including  protein synthesis, development of cell walls, carbohydrate metabolism and sugar transport, pollen growth, fruit set, and seed production.”

Sounds important, to me!

What happens when plants don’t get enough boron?

The UMass information about boron deficiency lists these possible effects of too-little boron:

  • “stunting and distortion of the growing tip”
  • “brittle foliage and yellowing of lower leaf tips”
  • reduced flowering
  • reduced fruiting
  • distorted fruit
  • “brown heart” (mushy brown centers) in root crops like turnips and rutabagas
  • hollow stems in broccoli and cauliflower
  • brown or otherwise discolored curds on cauliflower

Kelling’s Soil and Applied Boron publication adds that cabbages that are low on boron may show an “internal breakdown of head”.

Which plants need the most boron?

Some vegetable crops need more boron than others.

Broccoli growing in the organic home garden.
Broccoli growing in the organic home garden.

Ron Goldy’s U Michigan publication lists crops and their relative need for boron. The high-need vegetables for boron he includes are these:

  • broccoli
  • cauliflower
  • celery
  • table beets
  • turnips

How can I provide boron to my garden?

One way to add boron is to follow the instructions on the UGA soil test report, to mix a tablespoon of borax in water or with soil and to spread that across a 100-foot row of garden, especially in areas where higher-need vegetables are growing. If your garden is not in rows, or is smaller, it will need less borax.

The borax you will need is in the laundry section of your grocery store, in the box of 20 Mule Team Borax. This should be fine for organic gardens, because it is a mined mineral.

You will need to be careful with this product, though, because it is easy to use too much. Do not apply the boron every year without having the boron levels tested at a reliable soil lab.

If you prefer to use another product, one that contains many micronutrients, including boron, to safely fill any gaps, try kelp meal. It is much more difficult to use too much boron when using kelp meal, because it is a much less concentrated source of the micronutrient. There is enough, though, to help your plants. Just follow package directions for safe use in your organic home garden.

Georgia isn’t the only state with low-boron soils

The 20 Mule Team Borax company notes that boron will be at low levels in soils that are sandy, or acidic, or that are low in organic matter (like Georgia clay!), or that are in areas of high humidity.

The company has found that low-boron levels are a common problem in soils east of the Rockies and in the Pacific Northwest. The middle of the country and the Southwestern region mostly have sufficient boron.

To learn more about soil fertility in organic home gardens, read my posts about potassium sources, soil pH, building good garden soil, and side-dressing your garden crops.

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Build Bee Hotels for Native Bees

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Planting more bee-friendly flowers is a major way we can support native pollinators like our solitary bees — the ones that don’t live in hives — but planning safe nesting sites can also help.

Some of the solitary bees we can provide nesting sites for most easily are different kinds of tunnel-nesting bees, like Mason bees and Leaf-cutter bees. You may have seen various versions of these hotels for sale at garden centers and online. Most include blocks of wood with holes drilled through or bundles of tubes such as straws or bamboo.

Bee hotels for our native, solitary bees can increase the number of pollinators in our small gardens, without taking a lot of space.

My husband made this bee hotel for tunnel nesting bees.
Bee hotel for tunnel-nesting bees.

What you need to know to build a bee hotel

I am not going to give specific “how to” instructions for putting together a good bee hotel, because University of Nebraska has done an excellent job in their publication, linked here: Creating a solitary bee hotel. It includes photos showing a diversity of bee hotels.

However, these are University of Nebraska’s basics:

  • Build a frame for your blocks or tubes. The wood should be untreated. The frame should be about 6-inches deep.
  • Fill the frame with blocks of untreated wood in which holes are drilled to create the tunnels.
  • More simply, skip the frame and just drill holes in big-enough pieces of untreated wood.
  • Different diameters of holes attract different kinds of bees.
  • In general, tunnel diameters should range from 3/32″ to 1/2″. The Nebraska publication includes a chart that shows which bees use which sizes of tunnel diameters.

The Nebraska publication focuses on drilled blocks of wood. Xerxes Society’s publication Tunnel nests for native bees tells more about using bundles of hollow stems or straws to create nests for tunneling bees. In general, though:

  • gather your hollow stems, all about 6-inches long
  • bundle them together in a protective container
  • inside the container, the stems/straws should be horizontal

If you do not have a ready source of bamboo or other hollow stems, consider these Milliard Mason Bee Nest Tubes, made of cardboard.

Cleanliness saves (bee) lives

Parasites, moulds, and diseases can build up inside a bee hotel if it is not well-maintained.

Blocks should be replaced after one or two seasons of use. Old blocks that may still have bees developing inside should be kept aside someplace cool and dry until the following spring, when they can be set out for the bees to emerge.

Hollow stems and straws should be replaced, also, after they have been used and vacated.

After a couple of years, if the bee hotel is still holding together well, in winter, remove the blocks and bundles of tubes, then sanitize the frame by soaking it for about five minutes in a strong bleach solution. After the frame has dried completely, refill it with fresh blocks or tubes.

Smaller bee hotels may be better than larger ones

The Xerxes Society publication includes this information about the benefit of creating several smaller nests and hanging them at intervals through your landscape:

This prevents the unnaturally high populations found at nest blocks with many holes, and mimics natural conditions of limited, spatially separated nest sites. These smaller nests also decompose more rapidly, and can be allowed to simply deteriorate naturally, while new small nests are added to the landscape periodically.

Xerxes Society. Tunnel nests for native bees.

Keep the hotel simple

Insect hotel seen in Florence, Italy, in 2017.
Too much going on?

Entomologist Jo-Lynn Teh-Weisenburger, in a blog post on the site The Entomologist Lounge, cites information that indicates the “increasing number of badly-designed artificial nesting sites contributed to higher loss of (solitary) bees by parasitism.”

The problem seems to one of trying to do too much with one hotel. She says, ” The warning sign of such designs is the unnecessary use of pine cones, glued snail shells, wood shavings and clear plastic tubes.”

Teh-Weisenburger suggests that better success may come when we focus on the kind of insect we want to attract and support. After creating a successful nest habitat for that insect, then we might consider adding structures — elsewhere in the yard — for other species.

Placement of the new nest

Bee hotels need to be set in place in early spring, before the first solitary bees emerge to start looking for flowers and for nesting sites. In my yard, that means placing the bee hotel in the yard by mid-March.

Publications agree that the bee hotel for tunnel-nesting bees should face south or southeast, to catch the morning sun, and it should be mostly in the sun all day. The hotel should be 3-5 feet above the ground, and any vegetation in front should be pruned away. It needs to be secure, so the hotel doesn’t sway in the wind.

Tunnels will stay drier if the hotel has a bit of a roof built onto it, that overhangs the front.

If the information in this post is interesting or helpful, please “like” or “share” it. Thank you!

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