March planting list

Bang! This is it. The honest-to-goodness beginning of our spring gardening madness. Our average last frost date is 15 March. But the keepers of the Dallas gardening wisdom (the Dallas Planting Manual) say to keep a look out for the pecan trees to “bud out”, if you want the real deal.

There are three references I’m using, in order:
Collin County Master Gardeners
Dallas Planting Manual, The Dallas Garden Club of the Dallas Woman’s Club (Dallas, again)
Texas Organic Vegetable Gardening, J. Howard Garrett & C. Malcolm Beck (he’s in Dallas)
This will be my last month to use the TOVG, for reasons I covered last time.

I’ve put an asterisk by the ones I think I’ll be planting.

CCMG
beans, snap bush*, yellow bush, pinto (20th – 1 May)
beans, snap pole, lima bush, lima pole (20th – 20 Apr.)
chard, swiss (thru 10th)
collards (10th – 1 Apr.)
corn, sweet* (20th – 1 May)
cucumbers* (20th – 1 May)
kale (thru 10th)
lettuce* (thru 15th)
mustard (thru 1 Apr.)
squash* (25th – 1 May) (I’m on the fence. Last year was such a disaster! But I love me some squash.)
tomatoes* (25th – 15 Apr.)
turnip (thru 10th)
watermelon* (25th – 1 May)

DPM
pepper transplants*

TOVG
eggplant transplants (15th – 1 May)
cantaloupe (15th – 1 May)
pepper transplants (15th – 1 May)

Hmm, the list doesn’t seem to be that long. I guess it’s just the fact that the garden chores start coming fast and hard in March. Plus, when the tomatoes go in, the real dreaming starts. By the way, we just recently finished off the last of our canned tomatoes that Jan put up last year. We used most of it for pizza sauce with all of the pizza we’re eating now.

Harvesting now:

We just finished off the last of the fall broccoli crop. Well, we finished what we could and the rest is flowering. I need to get better at sharing overproduction. With the crazy glut of broccoli we had this winter, between us and two neighbors, we just had more than anyone could deal with without freezing or systematically sharing out. We shared some of it, but I’d like to do better next year.

We’re also harvesting lettuce, and the cilantro, chives, and oregano are coming in strong. We’ve been using the chives in omelettes. The cilantro is at-this-moment being cooked with tomatoes to go with green beans for lunch. And oregano is always welcome when pizza sauce is cooking on the stove.

I swear, cooking with fresh-from-the-garden produce is what this is all about. Heavenly.

Brick oven + Hard Work = Fun

Cheddar & Chive, 11 Grain Wheat, and Rye breads.

I’ll bet you’re wondering if we’re using the brick oven that Jan spent 6 months building, huh? Yup. Every single week. Honestly, I’m amazed. I thought the hard work was over when Jan finished the masonry. But he’s now making about 20 pounds of dough per week, between the pizza dough and bread dough. It’s usually a 2 day process, which takes up the vast majority of his time off from work. I’m in awe of his energy for this. Although I will say that both of us have been really happy with the way it’s brought our friends and neighbors even closer together. Jan fires up the oven for pizza on the first night, then fires it for bread the next day. It’s not unusual for someone to come over with a pizza or loaf ready to pop in the oven and take home. At the very least, Jan being outside so much makes for an easy target for neighbors dropping by and hanging out.

Preparing the chamber for pizza, by pushing the fire to the edges.

So many people pitched in when Jan was building, and they have all stayed close to reap the rewards. We’re working our way through hosting friends, family, and neighbors (weather permitting) over for pizza. Our house is small, so we can only accommodate about 2 couples at a time (or one family, when they come with lots of kids!). And Jan has been passing out extra loaves of bread each week: french, cheddar & chive, whole wheat, wheat french, 11 grain wheat, and rye so far. The 11 grain is garnering the most attention, but the cheddar & chive is my current favorite. He puts 1.5 potatoes into the dough, then sharp cheddar cheese and chives. There’s also a secret ingredient that I’m not at liberty to discuss, but it brought the bread to a whole new level from one week to the next. Mmmm. Experiment on me, baby!

Brick oven pizza from our own backyard.

This week we even bartered some bread for farm-fresh eggs. This is the life.

February planting list

Our average last frost date is 15 March, so the planting season is looming. This list will look pretty familiar from the fall.

There are three references I’m using, in order:
Collin County Master Gardeners
Dallas Planting Manual, The Dallas Garden Club of the Dallas Woman’s Club (Dallas, again)
Texas Organic Vegetable Gardening, J. Howard Garrett & C. Malcolm Beck (he’s in Dallas)
I’m making my primary list from the Master Gardeners, then noting any major deviations from the other two sources. But the Dallas Planting Manual is by far the most entertaining read. I just love it.

I’ve put an asterisk by the ones I think I’ll be planting.

CCMG
asparagus crowns (15th – 1 Mar.) (would love to, but don’t have room!)
beets (10th – 1 Mar.)
broccoli transplants (15th – 1 Mar.)
cabbage transplants (15th – 1 Mar.)
Chinese cabbage (15th – 1 Mar.)
carrot* (10th – 1 Mar.)
cauliflower transplants (15th – 1 Mar.)
chard, swiss (10th – 10 Mar.)
collards (10th – 1 Apr.)
kale (10th – 10 Mar.)
kohlrabi seeds (10th – 1 Mar.)
kohlrabi transplants (15th – 1 Mar.)
leeks* (10th – 25th)
lettuce* (10th – 15 Mar.)
mustard (15th – 1 Apr.)
onion* (10th – 1 Mar.)
peas, English & edible-pod* (10th – 1 Mar.)
postatoes, Irish* (10th – 1 Mar.)
radish (5th – 1 May)
rutabaga (1st – 1 Apr.)
spinach* (10th – 15 Mar.)
turnip (10th – 10 Mar.)

DPM
arugula
brussel sprouts
parsley*
strawberry plants* (I planted some in the fall, and will add more this spring – see how they do.)

TOVG
sweet corn (25th – 1 May)

Howard Garrett often recommends planting things earlier than the Master Gardeners do. I dug into this, and it appears to be because Garrett’s designation for our area (Zone 3) covers a huge swath of Texas, reaching pretty far south of us. So take his deviating recommendations with a grain of salt. In fact, I’m considering dropping him from my planting list references. I really like his book, Texas Organic Vegetable Gardening, for the details he gives about each veggie and fruit. And he does actually garden in Dallas. But his planting dates of not specific enough for our area.

The DPM reminds us to prune the roses. I don’t grow roses, but Rick does, across the street. And he has this one scraggly rose bush right in my line of sight from the living room. I threatened him all year that I will be pruning it this month. He says it’s an antique rose or some such, so it’s not supposed to be pruned. (snort) It’s just an eyesore, is what it is. I’ll take a picture for you. I can probably even find one from the middle of summer, to prove to you that I’m not just being clueless about roses. It’s pathetic. Some good tough love will wake it right up.

It’s also time to fertilize the trees and shrubs that will be putting on so much growth next month. I’ll be fertilizing the new fruit trees, the new elderberries, blueberries, crepe myrtles, and Japanese maple. The exception to this is not to fertilize the shrubs that are about to bloom, like camellias. They need to focus on blooming, not putting on new growth. Once they’re done blooming, you can fertilize them.

Now, get busy!

Waking up after winter

OK, I’m here, I’m here! For some reason, it’s been really hard for me to get started on this spring’s garden activities. I think a lot of it is that I am a fair-weather gardener. Most of my enjoyment of working in the garden is dependent on my physical comfort, which primarily relates to the temperature. For instance, today is chilly (currently 52) and windy as hell (north Texas is seriously windy – no hills to slow it down!). Ick. I just want to hide inside. So instead of weeding the strawberry patch or the fall-planted onions, or cleaning out last year’s growth, or dumping all of the dead potted plants into the compost, I’m working (inside) on the next couple of month’s planting lists. Heh. I’ll post those shortly.

We’ve had a really mild winter so far. If we get through the next month without a freeze, this winter will have been exceedingly mild. Our gas bill (which is driven primarily by our heater) was $100 less this month than last year. No kidding.

So with the mild winter, our fall garden is doing really well. We’ve been harvesting broccoli. In fact, we’ve had a bit of a broccoli glut in the last month, with three of us gardeners on this end of the block foisting broccoli to unsuspecting neighbors at random. They graciously profess to enjoy it. Now the unharvested plants are starting to bloom. Hopefully that will result in wild broccoli in my garden for the duration. I intentionally purchase open-pollinated varieties instead of hybrid varieties of pretty much everything that I grow, so that I’ll get viable volunteers. I hate the thought of the seed companies holding me hostage, even if their hybrids are “improved” or really, really cool (those are the ones that tempt me). My ideal is a cottage garden with volunteer veggies in all kinds of strange places. Less work for me.

The lettuce and spinach seeds from the fall are just starting to come into their own. I was surprised at how little they grew until lately. And the cilantro is really going gangbusters now. It’s such a cruel joke that the cilantro and tomatoes are separated into different seasons. I just live too far north, that’s all.

My neighbor across the street, Rick, has started his tomato seedlings in his greenhouse. He’s so on top of it. Now he’s going to plant his pepper seeds. I have my tomato seeds . . . but haven’t worked up the gumption to plant them in flats. It always sounds like so much work to me. It’s this weekend or never! Then I’ll have to buy the transplants, as usual. Lori and I swore last year we’d do more transplants from seeds in 2009. It just took too much garden space last year, waiting to see if the direct-seeded veggies would germinate. Icandothis. Icandothis.

Lori’s brief update from her garden a few blocks southwest from me:

“Cutworms have ruined half of the broccoli I planted. Very annoying. One of my students vaulted over the pepper and tomato seedlings I had sunning in the front yard. He didn’t make it, and neither did the seedlings. Carrot, radish, sugar snap pea, and kohlrabi seeds are in the ground now. I’m ready.”

Ack! I’m clearly the slacker here. Rick has his potatoes in the ground, too. Lori and I ordered potatoes and onions from Territorial for shipment “ASAP” (according to the catalog), but apparently their ASAP doesn’t mesh with our ASAP, so we’re both canceling our orders and getting them locally this week. I admit that I don’t have a good handle on local sources for veggie starts. McKinney Feed and Seed has some things. My favorite local nursery (Shades of Green) really doesn’t focus much on veggies, which is disappointing.

So, this is why I love having friends who garden. It keeps me motivated.

Speaking of motivation, I’ll leave you with a photo of my pathetic potato harvest from last year. I will do better this year. For a start, apparently red potatoes do better here than any other kind. Now I know.

Russian fingerling potatoes