A Tale of Two Raised Beds

Some of you followed along as Dianne built and planted her raised beds.  I used her method when I built some raised beds last fall.  Unfortunately, the place where we "planted" those beds was deemed unacceptable by the contractor who is renovating our house.  So early this spring, we moved them to our next door neighbor's yard.

When we transported all of the fill, we were able to put all of it into one of the frames, due to the natural decomposition that took place over the winter.  That meant that one frame was empty, of course.  I didn't have time to go through the method that I used in the fall - layering shredded newspaper, shredded leaves, topsoil, and manure - because I wanted to be able to plant for this summer.  I remembered a mix from Square Foot Gardening, looked it up, and filled the second bed with it.  The formula is 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 vermiculite, and 1/3 compost mixture.  For the compost mixture I used cow manure, composted chicken pellets, some fish emulsion - basically all the different kinds of compost I could get my hands on one Saturday morning!

In mid-April, I planted tomatoes and herbs in Bed One (with the original fill) and yellow squash, zucchini, zinnias, and cucumbers in Bed Two (with Mel's Mix.)  The difference is astounding.

Can you believe it?

As it happens, I got a soil test on Bed One that showed a pH of about 7.4.  That's on the high end of what is recommended for vegetables.  One of the symptoms of a higher than desirable pH is chlorosis, where leaves turn light green or yellow, but veins remain green.  This is what is going on in the tomato bed.  The soil test also recommended that I add nitrogen as the plants became established.  What with trying to finish up the renovation, I haven't been paying too good attention to these beds.  So last weekend I added aluminum sulfate (to lower the pH) and nitrogen to the bed.  I also sprinkled some Epson salts around the tomatoes, per Dianne's advice.

I'll take another photo in a few weeks so that we can see if there's any improvement.

P. S. - Dianne is amazed as well and plans on changing her recommendation re the fill for raised beds!

So much happening at PAR Davies

Hi Everyone,

HARVEST TODAY 45 lbs.       YTD 221 lbs.

What a great day we had. MUCH was accomplished with Mary Elizabeth, Karen, G.A., Jamie, Trisha, Maxine, Susan, Nancy, Martha, Janet and myself. With all we did this post may be longer than usual...at least with more photos.

Mr. Stripey is much taller than all the other tomato varieties.

G.A. started out the morning by mulching our tomatoes. We couldn't mulch them until they were bigger and the roots were tougher. Voles love to get under mulch, and we waited longer than we would like, thus allowing the possibility of disease splashing on the plants from the soil beneath. Only one row of tomatoes seem to be susceptible to aphids and a disease causing leaves to spot and turn yellow. These are the Roma VF, which will not be planted again because of this. These were sprayed with Neem for the aphids.

We are starting to see lots of tomatoes.

However, the one variety that is excelling is Mr. Stripey! They are by far the tallest in my garden at home too. I remember at the Tomato Tasting last year that we really liked the flavor of these.

We had a nice varied harvest of squash, onions, peas, cabbage, kale, lettuce, a few strawberries, herbs, mustard, beets and chard, and Martha delivered all to the women's shelter.

Rainbow and white chard.

The last squash plant was uncovered, and the stem had been invaded by the squash vine borer. None of the others has been bothered yet, and no squash bugs seen. All areas around the stems were sprayed with Bt and the stems of the Cavelli zucchini and yellow summer squash were injected with Bt. We harvested three squash that formed under the cover, telling us for sure that these are self fertile.

Marinade injector used to inject Bt into the squash stems.

We harvested all the cabbage and kale in Bed 6, and prepared the bed with some of our beautiful compost for planting of the peanuts. Since no one had ever planted peanut 'seeds' before, we hope we did it right. The variety is 'Tennessee Red.' There were a few seeds left over in case there were some mess-ups. Tall sunflowers were planted at the end of the peanut bed.

Check out the picture below for the great compost sifter Bob made. The compost is full of earthworms, and after being sifted, almost has the consistency of earthworm castings....very rich and black.

Compost sifter and final result.

Some of the beets from the in-ground bed were harvested. They seemed to get larger than when they were planted in the raised beds! They were big and beautiful. We really need to quit planting them in the raised beds with results like this.

Detroit Red Beets.

We have harvested all of the Japanese Red Mustard and left one stalk to harvest the seeds for a fall planting. This was really some great mustard--large and pretty, and tasted good too. When we plant again we will know to space them just a little closer together, especially since the voles 'thinned' these out. So remember workers, don't pull this one out until we get the seeds. This will have to be checked on often to make sure the pods don't open and scatter the seeds.

Japanese Red Mustard plant forming seed pods.

We are harvesting the onions as they mature, however, we still have lots of smaller ones left, which will stretch out our harvest over the next month at least. The white and yellow onions are maturing much faster than the red ones.

Red, white and yellow Dixondale onions.

Martha picked a nice bunch of herbs to send along...Chinese celery, basil, chives, parsley and mint. Along with these we sent Nasturtiums, the flowers and leaves. We knew that the flowers were edible, but Martha told us that the leaves can be added to salads too. We taste tested the leaves and they were quite good with a nice bite. We are so glad the ladies at the shelter are as adventurous as we are...they stated that everything we send them is used. But we may have reached the limit with Nasturtiums! They are pretty even if they don't want to eat them.

Nasturtiums

One last prize specimen...the artichoke. There is only one remaining and it seems to be thriving. I have a few more started from seed, and hope that they reach a good size so they can be transplanted to the garden before it gets too cold. I have seen a whole field of these that were in the ground for four years in Memphis. However, I don't know if they survived last winter.

'Emerald' Artichoke

The leaf lettuce is still looking pretty and not bolting yet, but this may be the last harvest. There was more weeding done and cardboard put down in areas. Cabbage was sprayed in addition to spraying the cucumbers with the witch hazel mixture. Carl Wayne at the Victory Garden has been using this as a bug deterrent, so we are trying it too....2 oz. witch hazel to about a liter of water and a few drops of plain dish soap.

I apologize for the length of this report, but there is just a lot going on now--and this is good! We do have pest and disease problems, but are so thankful for our many successes. We learn something new every week.

'Til later,
Dianne

Memphis' Newest Arboretum

From the June, 2014 issue of Branching Out, the newsletter of the Tennessee Urban Forestry Council:

International Place, a campus of three 10-story towers on Poplar Avenue in Memphis, is a new Level 1 arboretum.

The global headquarters of International Paper has a 1.5-acre front lawn with 34 species of trees, including specimen oaks up to 36-inch caliper. The courtyard has a meandering stream feature, a small waterfall, and several understory varieties of trees.

Check it out!

Garden Contest!

The Commercial Appeal and Graham's Outdoor Living are sponsoring a garden contest with $2,192 in winner takes all prizes!  The deadline is June 13, so submit your photos now!

Ladies' Day at PAR Davies

Hi Everyone,

TODAY'S HARVEST 35 lbs.      YTD 176  lbs.

Just we three ladies in the garden today....Cathy, Mary Elizabeth and myself. We had to change our workday because of the rain forecast, so there were few workers...but much was accomplished.

Kale harvest sitting in the cabbage patch.

A good amount of time was spent on the harvest. We picked a few remaining strawberries and the rest of the radishes, onions, peas, cabbage, kale, mustard, lettuce and herbs. Cathy pulled out the pea plants in the in-ground bed and put them in the compost.

Strawberries tumbling over the sides of the bed.

Mary Elizabeth cut off all of the leaves of the tomatoes that were touching the ground. She said that we had many more tomato plants than she realized. A few of the Romas had some leaves worrisome for blight, which were removed and bagged. These plants were then sprayed with Neem, and we hope that it is a benign issue that will not progress. We noticed some aphids on the tomatoes too. Saturday these will be sprayed if that is still a problem.

Tomatoes and carrots.

Mary Elizabeth brought some blackberry starts, which we added to the blackberry bed. The rest were put on the front fence where some of our raspberries died of an unknown cause. Now we think there are three blackberry varieties, of which we hope at least one will be really good. The blueberries are really taking off though and look good and healthy.

Lutz beets and Nevada lettuce.

Next week the beets should be ready to start pulling. The Detroit beets in the in-ground bed did exceptional, however, the Lutz beets in the raised bed did not germinate very well as you can see by the blank areas in the photo above. The Lutz beets are not ready to harvest yet, but they are supposed to get large and still remain tender and not woody.

Florence (bulbing) fennel.

This is our first time growing fennel. We have the bulbing type and one plant of the Bronze (leafy) fennel, both seedlings started by Al Hayes. The bulbs are forming nicely and doing much better than I'd expected. I will be on the lookout for some good recipes using fennel to send along with the harvest.

Chinese celery and Nasturtium.

Another new thing this year is Chinese celery. Since it is near impossible to grow celery in this area, I was trying to find a substitute....so we planted Chinese celery and Lovage. So far the Chinese celery is the winner. The stems are hollow, but actually look like smallish celery stalks with very similar but stronger flavor. Great for use in soups or wherever a celery flavor is needed. The stalk can even serve as a straw!

Loaded up and ready to go...herbs, Chinese celery and lettuce.

Cathy added epsom salts to the peppers and tomato plants. Saturday these can be mulched. Cathy also delivered everything to the women's shelter.

Because there were only three of us, we weren't able to get as much planted as I had anticipated. On Saturday planting will be our main focus.

Pretty potato flowers.

Because of the voles, our potatoes are about half the crop we'd hoped for. What is remaining looks great though. We will need to plant something in the vacant spots in this bed. 

Now we can sit back and hope for a nice rain these next few days. The rain always gives us a growth spurt, so I can't wait to see what it looks like Saturday.

'Til later,

Dianne

Special visitor day at Davies PAR

Hi Everyone,

HARVEST TODAY 10 lbs.        YTD 141 lbs.

Today was a good day to work in the garden with Susan, G.A., Jamie, Karen, Martha, Cathy, John, Mary Elizabeth, Janet and myself. Harvest was smallish but varied...radishes, leaf lettuce, spinach, kale, peas, herbs, strawberries and mustard. We had three large boxes of the beautiful lettuce. Cathy delivered the produce to the women's shelter. As you can see in the pic below, the lettuce is overflowing the block holes. I think we found the best place to plant leaf lettuce, as it seems to thrive there.

Several varieties of leaf lettuce alongside the potatoes.

We got another nice harvest of strawberries with almost 3 lbs. I am really encouraged by this since last year we had very few berries that weren't eaten by something. The Lacinato kale is still putting out even as it heats up. I've read that this is one of the more heat tolerant of the kales. We will certainly plant more of this in the fall. 

We sprayed some small beetle looking bugs on the potatoes, but then wondered if they were small lady bugs after seeing adult lady bugs later. I hope we didn't kill the good bugs!! John checked the kale and cabbage for worms but didn't see any. Mary Elizabeth had time to spray a portion of the cabbage after she noticed the dreaded white butterflies making rounds. We will finish this up Saturday.

 Red cabbage with white butterfly.

The tomatoes had grown quite a bit. The voles are consuming fewer each week as the roots get tougher and less appealing. One of the trellised cherry tomatoes was replaced with a yellow pear-shaped cherry. The peas planted in the in-ground beds are not doing as well as last year, but the ones in the raised bed are doing nicely. A few cabbage could have been harvested today, but we decided to give them one more week to get a little larger. From then on we ought to be able to harvest cabbage for the next several weeks.

'Alaska' peas harvested from the trellised raised bed.

A row of Jade greens were planted and sweet potatoes were put in the spinach bed. Jamie and G.A. put up the fences down the middle of the two onion beds, but we didn't have time to plant anything. One bed will be Minnesota Midget Cantaloupe and the other Bubba's Black Beans...these will be planted Saturday.

We obtained a colorful sign to display which tells visitors exactly what we do. We got this from the Plant a Row for the Hungry organization, and we are now 'official.'

Sign is at the front gate.

We had a group of Master Gardeners from Fayette County visit us at noon today. Janet and I gave them a tour of our garden explaining what we are doing this season but also what we've done in the past--successes and failures, organic pest control and fertilizers, crops that we have grown and things that we have learned. They were very interested and spent an hour in the garden. Before they left, the group toured the Manor House.

Fayette County Master Gardeners.

We were so happy to have the opportunity to meet and share with the Fayette County folks and that we were able to learn from each other. Every garden is different, and we are always eager to learn new things. Every gardener I've ever met loves to share....their produce and gardening tips.

'Til later,

Dianne

Brewing Comfrey tea and many other late spring garden chores.

 Hi Everyone,

TODAY'S HARVEST 6 lbs.       YTD 101 lbs.

The garden looked good after the rain. Not as much vole damage visible today. Gardeners present were G.A., Karen, Bob and myself.

G.A. fertilized the garlic bed with fish emulsion, and Wednesday we will fertilize the onions using same. I think we have about a month to go on the garlic yet.

The garlic bed is looking good. 

Bob worked on the irrigation system and will finish that up when Jamie gets back. G.A. planted a new type of bush bean in one of our containers. It is supposed to be especially for containers and small spaces. We got these from Anne Krekelberg last year for evaluation (for Harris Seed) and finally got them planted!

G.A. planting container beans and Bob working on irrigation system.

Karen planted garlic chives and dwarf zinnias in the block holes. The zinnias under the muscadine are emerging, and the muscadine is shooting out lots of growth. I hope we can get it climbing on its wire soon.

Karen planting in the block holes with covered squash on the left.

G.A. cut down the entire comfrey plant about 5 inches from the ground, and this was put in a 5-gallon bucket, covered with water and closed up to steep. In about 2-3 weeks we should have comfrey tea. This will be diluted and used to fertilize our tomatoes, peppers and squash. Last year it was our primary fertilizer for these three crops. G.A. suggested that we divide our comfrey plant and have two in the bed, which I think is an excellent idea. I'll check and see what time of year is best for this. It may be that we will need to wait until next spring for best results.

Comfrey ready to steep.

We were able to harvest strawberries, lettuce, radishes and cilantro. These were taken to the women's halfway house. I was amazed that the voles left us a whopping pound and a half of strawberries! We should be able to pull out all the rest of the radishes in the two onion beds on Wednesday. Many are bolting.

Beautiful strawberries...enough to make strawberry shortcake!

G.A. planted the yellow Italian pole beans around the red trellises. I can't wait to see what these look like. I checked the cabbage and kale, and so far no return of cabbage worms. The green cabbage is really heading up nicely, and the red cabbage is just starting to get little heads.

Pretty 45-day cabbage, which I believe has been at it more than 45 days!

The tomatoes are really looking good despite the critters eating them. We replaced two tomato plants today with several more needing replacement, and I will get these for planting on Wednesday. G.A. planted two 'Celebrity' today. There will be an abundant array of varieties to taste test.

Tomato beds with companion carrots on the right.

The covered squash is looking good with blossoms emerging. Wednesday we can check to see if there are any female blooms, at which point we will hand pollinate the butternut and yellow squash. The zucchini are supposed to be self fertile, so we can wait a while and see if this is true. 

Clockwise starting at top left ground cherry, Cavilli zucchini under cover, and BJ's lettuce.

That is all the garden news that I can think of for today. I am looking forward to seeing what has developed when we get to the garden on Wednesday.

'Til then,

Dianne