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Gardening for the Pandemic

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I harvested the first radishes from my new garden earlier this week. Not everyone loves radishes, but we do, and these are the first crop from a new garden in a new yard, with different soil and in an unfamiliar climate zone. They also are the first organically-grown radishes we’ve seen since the pandemic kicked into action.

First radishes, pulled May 4.

The news is full of stories about problems with the food supply chain that have resulted from the pandemic and lockdowns.

Evidence of the supply-chain problems that all of us can see is in the grocery stores. Their shelves have carried fewer items, and less variety, than they did only a couple of months ago. As my Louisiana sister says, her shopping list has become a wish list.

We are not the only ones, I know, who have decided to enlarge the vegetable garden, to make sure that we will, at least, have some fresh vegetables while the food-supply chain gets unkinked. We also have been growing sprouts and microgreens, to help our groceries stretch a little further.

Sprouts and microgreens

  • Sprouts growing in two mason jars.
    Growing sprouts is one way to provide fresh salad greens without visiting a grocery store.
  • Wood flat with microgreens growing in it
    Microgreens can be grown in a wide variety of shallow containers.
Joe made the microgreens box out of an old fence picket.

We grow sprouts even when there isn’t a pandemic, so we already had jars and the sprouting lids. In the picture above, the large jar is a half-gallon size, and it is growing a mix of sprouts that includes radishes, alfalfa, and some other seeds. The smaller jar has mung bean sprouts.

When sprouts in a jar reach our preferred level of maturity, Joe shakes off as much of the water as he can, puts the dry-ish sprouts in a fresh container in the fridge, and then he starts a new batch of sprouts in the (cleaned) jar. He has observed that if the sprouts are very wet when they go into the fridge, they don’t stay fresh as long.

Joe is especially fond of sprouts, so he makes sure that we have a steady supply and that they are high quality.

We buy seeds for sprouts by the pound; a pound of seeds makes a lot of sprouts and lasts a long time. We did order more seeds a couple of weeks ago, and the selection at that time was limited. I have seen, though, that a supplier for Amazon.com currently has alfalfa seeds for sprouting.

We had seeds for microgreens already, too, but Joe built the box out of a fence-board that he found lying on the ground (with some other fence boards) by the back fence. The “soil” is a mix of compost, sand, and organic potting mix (equal parts), since my supplies of each, except for sand, are low. I have grown microgreens successfully in organic potting mix and in plain compost.

Edibles in Containers

One of the first crops I ever grew — decades ago — was cucumbers, and they were planted in pots on a front porch. The porch was “old-timey”, with metal scrollwork supports holding the roof-overhang in front of the door. The cucumber vines climbed up the scrollwork, and they made a surprisingly large number of cucumbers.

Some new gardeners, or gardeners with limited space, might want to expand their food-growing for the pandemic by planting in containers. Plenty of people grow vegetables in containers with good success. Here are some examples:

Bush bean plants growing in containers, lined up on a concrete-block wall
Bush beans growing in containers.
Three terra cotta pots, with a young pepper plant in each, lined up on a blue bench.
Pepper plants growing in terra cotta pots.
  • Tomato plant in large container.
  • Peppers and basil in bag of potting mix.
  • Boxes lined with plastic as growing containers.
  • Raised beds using wire fence and landscape fabric to hold soil.
Official planting pots are nice, but not necessary, for growing food.

Gardeners who are rigging up their own growing containers should keep some guidelines in mind:

  • Provide drainage holes in the bottom, so the containers don’t fill with water in a big rain and drown the plants.
  • Use a potting mix designed for outdoor plants, or a good compost, to fill the containers. If in a windy area, add some sand to the mix, to make it heavy-enough that the container stays upright.
  • Match the size of the full-grown plant to the container. Minimum size for a tomato plant is a five-gallon bucket, and that is a bit tight. Peppers and eggplants can do well in slightly smaller containers.
  • Container-grown crops will need more watering, more often, than in-ground crops.
  • If growth and production seem to stop, while the plants don’t seem diseased and the weather is not super-hot (which can slow plants down), they may just need some fertilizer to resume growing.
  • If the potting mix used in containers already contains fertilizer — it will say on the bag — don’t add more unless it is needed (see note above). Too much fertilizer can promote spectacular leafy growth, but it can also stop the plant from making things like the tomatoes or peppers that you planted it for.

How important is it to grow vegetables right now?

We are living in a weird time, and some of that weirdness has caused losses in the global food supply. An example in the Southeastern US was described by Florida’s Agriculture Commissioner Nicole “Nikki” Fried in a Covid-19 crop assessment report, which listed crop losses for her state. These include:

  • 75% of the lettuce crop
  • 50-75% of the green bean crop
  • almost 100% of the cabbage crop
  • possibly 20-25% of the pepper crop
  • potentially the entire cucumber crop

The losses are not from pests or diseases, but are from crops being plowed under rather than harvested. The usual buyers are not buying, and there is no profit in the harvest.

Florida is not the entire world, but Fried’s report provides a snapshot of the kinds of losses that can occur elsewhere. Most of these lost vegetables in Florida would have ended up in restaurants, schools, and other parts of the food service industry; they would not have been sent to grocery stores.

Shifting the destinations, from food processors to grocery stores, for instance, for all of these vegetables is not easy, apparently, which means that if we want to enjoy plenty of fresh vegetables, foods that support our good health, then we might want to grow a few of them ourselves.

How much can we grow?

Most of us can’t grow a whole lot, certainly not even all of our own family’s vegetables. I saw a recent article about an examination of the food-growing potential for Sheffield, England, and it determined that Sheffield could, if it used all the available gardens and greenspace, provide the recommended five-servings of vegetables per day for 15% of its people.

In other words, the food-growing potential is large, but it isn’t enough to feed everyone in Sheffield all of the vegetables they need to support good health. Many of our cities in the US may face a similar shortage of growing space. However, that doesn’t mean we should give up on growing good food.

In my own home, the sprouts and microgreens add up to a few servings of fresh greens each week. We have radishes to add our meals over the next few weeks, and then there will be green beans, cucumbers, zucchini, and more, but all in home-garden-sized amounts. For example, when we harvest green beans, it will probably be one cup at a time. Even this, though, contributes to the whole.

Any food from our garden reduces the amount we need to buy from other sources. This leaves more for others who might not be gardening. Growing some our own vegetables also makes it easy to share with our neighbors when a crop does really well.

Considering the losses on US farms, the waywardness of the food delivery system, and the randomness of supplies in grocery stores, my handful of radishes is currently a bright spot in my own food supply.

Are Ladybugs Eating My Squash Plants?

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The little orange, dotted beetles that are eating my squash plants actually are in the ladybug family. Most beetles in the ladybug family do not eat plants; instead, they eat pests like aphids and whiteflies and are great helpers in our gardens. Mexican bean beetles and squash beetles, which look a lot alike, are exceptions. They are garden pests.

Right now, it is squash beetles in my garden, eating my squash plants.

It may look like ladybugs are eating my squash plants, but it is really squash beetles doing the damage.
It may look like ladybugs are eating my squash plants, but it is really squash beetles doing the damage.

How to identify squash beetles

The first big clue that they are not Mexican bean beetles is that they are on my zucchini, not on beans. Squash beetles eat plants in the squash family, like zucchini, squashes, and cucumbers. Bean beetles eat plants in the bean family.

Another is that their babies, also called larvae, have dark spines. The spines on Mexican bean beetle larvae are yellow, with dark tips as they get older.

Another clue is the method of eating. Both the babies and adults often gnaw a trench around the patch of leaf they are getting ready to eat. You may notice semicircular lines at the edges of damaged leaves.

One theory about why they do this is that the trenching prevents sap from running into the desired area. The sap may carry nasty chemicals that would interfere with the beetles’ eating.

Organic control of squash beetles

For now, I am hand-picking and smashing the beetles, both adults and larvae. The damage on my plants isn’t severe, and the number of beetles is low. Today, I found and smashed seven adults and one larva.

If the infestation gets bad enough that smashing is insufficient, there are a couple of organic-approved options to try. University of Connecticut agrees that hand-picking can work in small gardens but suggests that products containing spinosad might help if a beetle-damage gets very bad.

Another pest in my garden right now is armyworms

Armyworms have eaten all the leaves in this patch of cleome.
Armyworms have eaten most of the leaves in this patch of cleome.

I found armyworms in the garden today, too.

They were on both patches of cleome (spider flowers), and they haven’t left many leaves. When I realized what the pests were, I removed all the plants, with caterpillars attached, and stuffed them into a large bag.

That bag is now sealed up and ready for the municipal compost truck to pick up on Friday.

Armyworms can eat a garden to the ground in just a few days, which is why extreme steps are needed. If you see these in your garden, do not delay even one day in removing them!

Better news in the garden

First leaves on carrot seedlings are strappy and narrow; the next leaves are more feathery.
First leaves on carrot seedlings are strappy and narrow; the next leaves are more feathery. PHOTO/Amygwh

Elsewhere in the garden, the carrot seedlings are sending up the “true” leaves that come after the first leaves. The first leaves that come out of a seed rarely look like the leaves on a mature plant.

For carrots, the first leaves are narrow and strappy. They are the ones that unfolded out of the seed, which is why the first leaves are often called seed leaves.

Do you see the seedling on the far right in the photo? The one leaf that is wider and more feathery gives a clue what the mature leaves will look like.

Also in the garden, there are tiny caterpillars on the pipevine plant. I planted the pipevine with these caterpillars in mind. If all goes well, a few of them will survive to become pipevine swallowtail butterflies, which are beautiful.

Caterpillars on a leaf of pipevine. If all goes well, they will mature to become pipevine swallowtail butterflies.
Caterpillars on a leaf of pipevine. PHOTO/Amygwh

 

Urban Garden Ideas from Garfield Park Conservatory

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I know, Garfield Park Conservatory is outside the Southeastern US, but the ideas offered in the garden in Chicago transfer to Georgia easily. I visited there this past week and brought back pictures to share.
Urban Demonstration garden in Chicago uses containers and trellises to grow more food in less space.

Crops in containers

Containers for garden crops were enormous, and this is probably for the best. Smaller containers heat up faster on sunny summer days, and roots are in danger of overheating as a result. With larger containers, roots are more protected. The soil may also dry out more slowly in a huge container, since there is so much of it.

Different structures supported plants throughout the garden. In containers, plants like eggplants and peppers need support just to keep from falling out of the pots as their fruits get large and heavy.

For smaller plants, like some of the peppers, supports were slender bamboo canes pushed into the soil around the plants. This can be enough to keep them from falling over.

For tall, heavy plants, like some of the eggplants, four  bamboo poles (sturdy ones) were set firmly into the soil near the edges of the pots. Then heavy twine tied those all together, to hold up the plants.

For tomato plants, which can become very heavy, twine is insufficient to hold up the crop. Tomatoes in containers had four bamboo poles stuck into the pots like for the eggplants, but instead of twine, metal fencing (field knot fencing, I think) with a wide mesh was wrapped around the poles to create a tomato cage.

Trellises for vining crops

One in-ground trellis in the garden was built from wood. The wood pieces were wide enough that squashes could be set on the slats, like shelving. This is a brilliant way to protect developing crops like squash and melons from soil-borne funguses, like Southern blight, that could rot the fruits!

Cucumbers were vining up some of the same metal fencing that supported the tomatoes, but the cucumbers were planted in the ground, not in containers.

Other small garden ideas from the park

'Burgundy' okra is a good choice for small gardens.
‘Burgundy’ okra is a good choice for small gardens. PHOTO/Amygwh

Smaller varieties of some crops were being grown, like ‘Burgundy’ okra, which is both beautiful and shorter. I grow ‘Cajun Jewel’, which is also short, in my small garden, but it doesn’t have the amazing red stems that ‘Burgundy’ has.

The demonstration garden also showed an alteration of one raised bed, with a little ground-level area created at one end. Strawberries were growing in that space. Since they are a shallow-rooted crop, strawberries don’t always need to be in a deep, raised bed. A picture is in the photo-collage above. It looks like a wading pool for toddlers built next to the big-people pool.

Meanwhile, in my own garden

This is my weekend to start some fall crops. For me, the first will be carrots and winter radishes. If you are in the Southeastern US and are not sure what to plant or when to plant it, there is a book (!) available that can help.

If you already know, but have just one or two questions, please feel welcome to use the contact page to send me an email. I would be happy to help.

-Amy

 

Wood Pallet Gardens

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Using wood pallets for plant display and support can be a low-cost option for creating a vertical garden. Wood pallets can also be re-constructed into garden benches. You already knew that, right?

I knew that, too, before visiting Italy, but I hadn’t seen so many wood pallet gardens in public spaces. This blog post shows some ways wood pallets have been put into productive use in small towns in Tuscany.

wood pallet creates vertical plant display at restaurant entrance
Wood pallets create vertical plant display at restaurant entrance. PHOTO/Amygwh

Wood pallets as vertical gardens for small spaces

Small businesses use wood pallets to make their storefronts more attractive. The pallets don’t need much construction work to re-fit them as vertical gardens. When placed by a shop’s entrance, the pallet-gardens of living plants, and especially flowers (which are mood enhancers), give a signal to shoppers that the store is a good place to visit.

The vertical gardens created with wood pallets are usually stained or painted to match or complement other parts of the storefront, and they always look good.

They also look pretty easy to set up. A homeowner, or apartment renter, or condo-dweller, who has a narrow planting space could use wood pallets in a similar way to create a vertical garden for food plants.

In these vertical gardens, the planting spaces are not always packed solid with potting mix (I checked). Instead, in some, the plants are in individual pots. This would make replacing mature/finished plants an easy task. Just replace a pot containing an old plant with a pot containing a younger, less mature plant!

Small crops that could grow in the small spaces in this plant-support system include salad greens, small herbs, strawberries, and edible flowers.

Wood pallet for plant display and support by a storefront.
Another wood pallet for plant display and support by a storefront in Tuscany. PHOTO/Amygwh

One of our local, posh restaurants has its sign mounted on stacked wood pallets. The wood has been sanded, then either stained or painted with chalk-paint (I can’t decide which), then distressed by sanding again.

The stacked pallets include a couple of wood planting boxes, complete with the living plants that we find so appealing, wedged between slats. It looks much more elegant than it sounds. See the image in this post for La Briciola Ristorante.

The particular version pictured below doesn’t allow for as many plants as the ones above, but gardeners are creative. There is probably a way to increase the number of planting boxes supported by the pallets.

Wood pallet benches as plant supports

The red bench made from wood pallets in the “inset image” at the top of this blog post is one of many brightly painted benches in the town of Chianciano. We first saw them last summer, and they still are all over town this summer.

Wood pallet re-used as plant display and restaurant sign.
Wood pallets re-used as plant display, restaurant sign, and leaning post for my Joe. PHOTO/Amygwh

The benches create cheerful spots of color in the mostly-stone town, and each one supports a container-plant display.

The overall impression created is one of welcome. I suspect that was the the goal.

Another wood pallet bench in the same town isn’t brightly painted, but it supports container plants in a completely different way. The plants are in a “holder” along the top of the back, leaving more room for people to sit on the bench! Tiny wood pallet gardens on bench-backs could be useful for spaces where sunlight might not reach the ground.

Wood pallet bench includes built-in space for container plants.

The back of the bench is supported by a post, so any sitters who want to rest against the back can do so without tipping over. It’s a pretty clever design, and space for plants is a great addition.

The bench also provides advertising space for the store it sits across the sidewalk from. The name of the shop is stenciled across the upper piece of wood on the bench’s back. It is possible, though, to create your own garden logo to stencil across that upper piece of wood. You can advertise your personal garden philosophy instead of a store.

Are you short on garden space? One or more of these wood pallet creations may spark an idea of a way to create more space for garden crops in your own yard. If repurposed wood pallets work for these towns in Tuscany, for shops and for restaurants that serve Amazing Food, then they might be ok for suburban Atlanta, or Birmingham, or Laffayette.

Best wishes for great — and creative — gardening!

 

-Amy

Small Garden Ideas from Tuscany to Use Anywhere

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In hilltop towns in Tuscany (where I still am, for my husband’s job), bare ground is a rare thing. People here have had centuries to figure out where and how to grow herbs, flowers, and small vegetable plants in these mostly-stone towns. This makes Tuscany a good source of small garden ideas.
Examples of small garden ideas from Tuscany, for both in-ground and container gardens.

Small Garden Ideas for In-ground Gardens

For in-ground gardening, a small area can be blocked out with stones, one way or another, and one or more plants wedged into the dirt. The surface of the planting space might be just one square foot. Plants grown this way are usually tall, like rosebushes and grape vines.

Before seeing these tiny plantings, I would not have thought that one or two square feet of space was enough. Now, I can easily imagine planting a tiny garden that nourishes one or two beloved plants.

I am not sure how the small-space plants  grow so well with the limited surface area, for water to soak through to the roots. If I hadn’t seen so many plants grown this way, I would not believe that it could work!

Small garden ideas from Tuscany include the use of poles to support plants.
Poles set teepee style are ready for plants to grow. PHOTO/Amygwh

Slightly larger “yards”, that have more bare ground, make use of vertical space, too. Trellises or poles set teepee-style support lanky plants. Pole beans, cucumbers, and tomatoes are in this group.

Small Garden Ideas for Containers

Not too surprisingly, the most abundant form of small gardens I’ve seen in Tuscany are container gardens. In densely populated parts of towns, I see more herbs and flowers in pots than vegetables.

One herb plant can produce a lot of flavorful leaves for use in the kitchen. This makes herbs a good crop-choice for a gardener whose space is limited.

Outside the historic centers, outside the city walls, people have slightly more space for gardening. This is where I have seen more vegetables and fruits (strawberries, lemons, pomegranates) growing in containers.

These container gardens usually hold just one kind of crop in each container. However, there may be several pots with flowers in them set nearby. The grouped-containers give the planting a sense of abundance.

Lemon tree in container in Tuscany
Lemon tree in container in Tuscany.

In the U.S., I have seen more diverse single-pot plantings that provide a different visual effect, if that is important for your yard.

My time in Tuscany has helped me see container plants and their potential in a whole new way. Hopefully, the pictures here will provide other small-space gardeners with some useful ideas, too!

Container Edibles Can Work in Formal Settings

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A co-worker, many years ago, who knew that I love plants, asked me what she should plant in a very large blue glazed pot that she had just bought.

Beautiful container plantings of mixed flowers and herbs decorate various areas at Calloway Gardens and Hills & Dales Estates in Georgia.
Container plantings of mixed flowers and herbs, along with kale and Swiss chard, decorate various areas at Calloway Gardens and Hills & Dales Estate in Georgia.

At the time, all I could imagine was a central cluster of three dwarf okra (like ‘Cajun Jewel’), surrounded by bush beans and  bright orange ‘Tangerine’ marigolds. Even now, that still seems like it would be just about perfect in a large blue pot.

There are plenty of people locally, though, who would hesitate to plant such a mix, even if it appealed to their own sense of aesthetics, because many Homeowner Associations (HOAs) prohibit the planting of edibles where they can be seen by the public.

However, there are also gardeners who are untroubled by such rules but who want to maintain a formal style while including more edibles in their yards. These gardeners might consider mixing herbs and leafy greens in with their cool-season flowers.

On a recent trip to Calloway Gardens and Hills & Dales Estate (both are about an hour’s drive South of Atlanta), the cool-season container plantings included parsley, red veined sorrel (at Calloway), Swiss chard (Hills & Dales), and several kinds of kale. These herbs and leafy greens either accented the floral display, or, in a few instances, they were the main feature.

All of the containers plantings were beautiful, and they did not look out of place, even among the clipped boxwood hedges, stone columns, and statuary.

I will be curious to find out how the plantings change for summer. Parsley works the whole year here in the South, but other herbs and greens will need to be switched for plants that can take a lot more heat. Maybe it will all be changed to okra, marigolds, and bush beans!

If you were putting together planters for a formal setting, that had to stand up to a Southern summer, what edibles would you include?

Small Garden in Early Spring

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My small organic vegetable garden is providing greens right now. Kale and spinach are growing together in a half-barrel in the front yard. I started these indoors, from seeds, while it was still winter. Before moving them outside permanently, I used one of those warmer weeks in February to harden them off. By “harden them off”, I mean that I moved them into a dappled sun area for a few hours while it was warm. Each day, the plants spent a little more time outside. After six days of this transition-time, I set the small plants into their current positions in the half-barrel planter.

Half-barrel planted with kale and spinach, organically grown.
Winter-planted kale and spinach produce plenty of greens in early spring. PHOTO/Amy Whitney

In this little greens-garden, three kale plants are clustered near the center, and nine spinach plants are set, evenly spaced, in a big ring near the outer edge.

These container-greens, along with the rocket that is still growing with cilantro in another large container, add variety in texture and flavor to lettuce-based salads.

The kale is producing enough leaves that some can also go into a white-bean soup in a few days, with plenty left for other purposes (shepherd’s pie, pizza toppings, salad, etc.).

Organically grown garlic, planted in fall, as seen in spring.
Intensively-planted garlic grows throughout the winter, making a small forest of garlic. PHOTO/Amy Whitney

Also in the garden, the garlic, which was spaced in a grid-pattern at planting time, resembles a little forest.

This was planted back in early winter (I missed the recommended October planting time for my area). The stems rising out of the ground look thick enough to make decent-sized bulbs, so maybe the late planting won’t hurt the harvest too much.

Garlic, shallots, and onions all benefit from a little extra fertilizer as they start making their bulbs (now, in my garden), so I am applying fish emulsion fertilizer (the 2-3-1 version), mixed with water in my watering can, every 7-10 days.

My onions are not bulbing onions — I planted the bunching type this year — but the extra fertilizer helps them, too, to make more little onions.

Fall Garden Planning guide for vegetables in the Southeastern US.
A guide to choosing and growing crops and setting a planting schedule that will work for a fall garden in the Southeastern US.

Also — my biggest news — my little book on Fall Garden Planning is nearing completion! I should be receiving a couple of “proof” copies this week. If all looks good, the book will be available within a few weeks.

Writing it, and learning all the technology bits to get it published, has been a grand adventure! I have been lucky, too, to have some very tolerant/patient friends who read an early version of the text and said nice things about it even though it had a long way to go.

Best wishes for great gardens!

-Amy