October Planting List – 2009

Yay! I win. I’m all caught up. So here’s what I’m doing this weekend. First, we planted a Teddy Bear Magnolia in the small bed near our back stairs. This ornamental bed has been driving me crazy since we moved in. Someone put a hydrangea in that bed, which a) is stupid in Texas, and b) is stupid in that location. This is my most difficult spot on our property because it gets complete shade until about, oh, noon. Then blazing sun until about 2:00. Then shade. Nice. Pretty much nothing prefers those conditions, and not many plants will even tolerate it. Also, I’ve been thinking it would be nice to add some screening material between our house and our neighbor’s. As much as I love her, my back door looks right into her den, where she spends her evenings. She waves at me. It would be nice for both of us if there was a touch more privacy, I think. So I took my troubling conditions and desires, and I consulted with the awesome folks at Shades of Green (see sidebar). Much to my surprise, we ended up choosing a magnolia! Being from the south, I adore magnolias. But my internal image of a magnolia is a huge beast on big properties. Enter the Teddy Bear. It’s branches stay closed up like an umbrella, and it only gets to about 17 feet tall and 10 feet in diameter, unpruned. I’m in love.

There are two references I’m using, in order:
Collin County Master Gardeners
Dallas Planting Manual, The Dallas Garden Club of the Dallas Woman’s Club

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

DPM
strawberries*
winter herbs (dill, cilantro)*
garlic*
parsley*
chives* (divide and replant the ones you have)

CCMG
garlic* (before 15th)
kale (before 15th)
leeks
lettuce* (before 15th)
onions* (before 15th)
radish
rutabaga (before 15th)
spinach*
turnip (before 15th)

I bought veggie starts of broccoli, cauliflower, buttercrunch lettuce, and cabbage. I know that’s kind of cheating, but they don’t cost much, and it’s nice to have an early crop while the seeded crops are coming in.

I harvested 54 heads of garlic this year, so both Lori and I will be planting out garlic from my stash. What a great feeling!

All I need now is onion starts and strawberries. I experimented last year with spring and fall strawberry beds. The fall bed did far better than spring. So I’m fully on board with adding strawberries to my fall planting list, which I read about in the Texas Gardeners magazine (see sidebar).

It’ll be good to get back into the garden, after being gone for a month.

September Planting List – 2009

Cucumbers on the left, soybeans in the middle, pole beans and bush beans in the foreground.

Again, for the sake of record-keeping, I’ll post the September planting list and harvest update, so I can move on with the October list.

There are two references I’m using, in order:
Collin County Master Gardeners
Dallas Planting Manual, The Dallas Garden Club of the Dallas Woman’s Club

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

DPM
cold hardy vegetables
onions (seeds and starts)

CCMG
beets (after 15th)
cabbage* (before 15th)
carrots*
chard, swiss (before 15th)
collards
garlic* (after 15th)
kale
lettuce*
onions*
peas, english (I have found peas difficult in the fall; although if I had been home, I might have done it.)
radish
rutabaga
spinach*
turnip

HARVESTING:
I harvested many pounds of sweet potatoes from the driveway bed at the end of August. This was my first time growing them, and it was a great success. They definitely take up a lot of room, but I love them, so it’s worth it. My husband doesn’t share my enthusiasm, so no need to grow too many. I cured them on the side porch for a couple of weeks, and now they’re in a brown paper bag in our hallway, with the bags of garlic.

The peppers, both sweet and hot, continue to come on strong. I have another round of freezing the sweet peppers ahead of me. I’m confident that we’ll have plenty for the winter and spring. And we have enough dried hot peppers to keep Jan happy, too.

Finally, the okra is still producing happily. It’s such a big, beautiful plant to have in the garden. Just a pleasure, as long as you wear gloves while harvesting. Those fine little hairs stick in my arms and drive me to distraction for the next hour after harvest. However, my neighbor says he kind of likes the feeling, so you may, too. That might explain why he harvested our okra twice while I was gone. We share alike in this neighborhood!

August Planting List (and update) – 2009

The driveway bed, with zinnias in front, basil behind, and okra behind that.

OK, I realize this list is coming waaaay late. But for the sake of documentation, I’m doing it anyway. I spent August rushing to make preparations for a month out of the country. So I actually did get my planting done, I just didn’t get a chance to write about it. I’m back now, and planning on catching up with my garden, both real and virtual.

I spent many hours before I left (all first thing in the morning of course, lest I get a heat stroke) cleaning the spring plants out of the beds and preparing for fall. I was very excited to see that, for the first time since we’ve been here, I have too much material for my compost pile. This is an excellent development, because we bring in straw for our compost piles. I would love to close that loop in our garden and create all of our own browns.

Once the spent plants were removed, the bed preparation consisted of adding compost and tilling it in. Because we have heavy clay soil in this area, many people recommend applying expanded shale (once), which breaks up the clay and improves the soil tilthe. I’ve never done it previously, because I’m quite happy with compost. But after talking with a bit of a fanatic at a party next door, I decided to run a little experiment in one bed. So I also applied a 1-inch layer of shale to one of the front beds where the fall crops will go. I’ll report back.

OK, on with the planting list:

There are two references I’m using, in order:
Collin County Master Gardeners
Dallas Planting Manual, The Dallas Garden Club of the Dallas Woman’s Club

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

DPM

arugula
beans*
broccoli*
brussel sprouts
cabbage*
carrots*
collards
lettuce*
mustard
parsley*
spinach*
watermelon

CCMG
beans
mustard
cauliflower
corn
cucumber*
kale
kohlrabi
peas, southern
potatoes*
rutabaga
squash
turnip

I have to preface this by saying that it was a complete leap of faith for me to do my initial fall planting and then get on a plane. While Jan has the best of intentions, I can’t expect him to look after my garden the way I do, and newly seeded beds generally need to be kept moist for a week or so. Fortunately, we had about a week and a half of rain right after I left, and he was saved!

I planted potatoes left over from the spring harvest into my fabric bags, in straight compost, on 11 August. I still haven’t dialed in the whole potatoes thing, and upon return I see they haven’t sprouted yet (it took about 3 weeks last year). I’m wondering if, even with the rain, they didn’t get enough moisture. That is one problem with the bags, as they are completely above ground.

I also planted cucumbers that day. By the time I got back on 28 September, they had grown to the top of the support and are starting to set cukes.

Finally, the week before I left (late Aug/early Sep), I planted bush beans (Royalty Purple Pod), pole beans (Stringless Blue Lake), carrots (Chantenay), chives, soybeans, marigolds and mammoth clover. Everything but the chives had germinated nicely by my return. I decided not to plant the cool weather crops, like broccoli and cauliflower, until my return. It was still pretty hot, and those things germinate better when it’s a touch cooler. Like now.

The mammoth clover is another experiment. I’m using it as a cover crop/green manure. I’ve seeded the half of the driveway bed that isn’t currently in okra. I’ll leave it until spring, then mow it down and till it under. If I can rotate this type of crop through the beds, then I can pull back on the amount of compost that I bring in from off-site. Another step in closing the loop on our little property.

July Planting List – 2009

I always feel like a slug in this scorching weather. It’s a good thing that there’s more work to be done in the kitchen than in the garden.

There are two references I’m using, in order:
Collin County Master Gardeners
Dallas Planting Manual, The Dallas Garden Club of the Dallas Woman’s Club

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

DPM
tomatoes (can’t seem to source transplants this time of year)
peppers (have plenty that are still producing like champs)
summer and winter squash
melons (my watermelons are doing great)
pumpkins*

CCMG
eggplant* (thru 15th)
peppers (hot and bell)
potatoes, Irish (after the 15th)*
pumpkins*
tomatoes

We are very busy keeping up with the harvesting. The tomatoes are coming in by the pound. It’s a beautiful thing! We have had 3 canning sessions, and there are more to come. Jan has been pureeing the small tomatoes whole (cherry, yellow pear) before canning. The larger tomatoes, we’ve been blanching the skins off, then coring and stuffing them whole into quart jars. (To blanch, just get a big pot of boiling water, drop the whole tomatoes in, boil until the skin breaks. Use tongs to pull each tomato out and plop it straight into a big pot of ice water. The skin will slide right off, core the tomato, pop it into a jar.)

We’re also harvesting cucumbers at a good rate; peppers are still cranking. We’re drying the hot peppers, and slicing and freezing the sweet peppers. I also sliced and froze the carrots and some of the onions. They’ll be perfect to drop into stews and roasts. The eggplants are tapering off. We planted a Fairytale transplant this year. It’s done really well. I bought seeds to plant and share with a neighbor during this 2nd season.

The basil is just about ready to start processing into pesto. We made it through all of last year with our pesto. We just made 2 or 3 big batches, then froze it into ice cube trays. Once the cubes were frozen solid, we popped them out and into freezer bags. One cube is perfect for one serving of pasta.

I harvested the corn a few weeks ago. I’m still trying to find the right variety. We grew Painted Mountain this year, and it was a little tough. Good flavor, though.

Growing strong: watermelon, okra, leeks, tomatoes, peppers, basil.

Old McGarrah

June Planting List – 2009

It’s official, Make McKinney Weird is one year old. OK, it’s not official. It will actually be on 8 June. But the June planting list is the first month that I’m circling back on information already discussed last year. Pretty cool.

There are two references I’m using, in order:
Collin County Master Gardeners
Dallas Planting Manual, The Dallas Garden Club of the Dallas Woman’s Club

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

okra*
pumpkin*
squash

If you look at last year’s list, you’ll notice this one is much shorter. That’s because over the course of the last year, I realized that two of the four resources I was using were too general to be very useful in our little corner of the world. The two sources we’re left with (listed above), combined with my experiences and those of my neighbors, leaves me with what you see here. So my planting lists are improving. Go with the most recent one.

And I should note that this month, CCMG actually doesn’t recommending planting anything. They say to get your okra in by 1 June. And wait until July to put your squash and pumpkin. So if you feel like it, relax! You could have a lovely month of harvesting, with no planting chores to attend to. That’s OK, you’ll be busy enough keeping up with the watering. I looked at our electric bill yesterday, and from May to June we go from using almost no a/c to using it every day! So prepare yourself.

I harvested one last big batch of shelling peas a few days ago, then pulled up the plants. I’ll be adding compost and planting my okra in that spot today. I’ve been soaking the okra seeds. They germinate so much better when they’re soaked first. If you don’t soak them, be sure to keep the planting bed moist every single day. Trust me. I had to replant the entire okra bed last year. But that’s OK. They’re so forgiving. And they won’t grow much anyway, until it’s hot, hot, hot.

I also harvested the entire garlic bed this week. 54 heads of garlic, in 7 different varieties! Last year we had only 14 heads, and ran out of garlic early. This year, I intend to get through to the next harvest without purchasing a single head of garlic from the store.

The onions are a different story. I planted most of the onion sets around the garlic this spring. I think they got too much shade from the garlics, so they have weak tops. I’m leaving them in the ground a bit longer to see if they beef up. Fortunately, I also planted some sets in other spots, and I have both Egyptian Walking Onions and Multiplier Onions in the ground from the fall. So we’ll be OK for our fresh onion needs, but I’m concerned about our storage onions. We made it almost all year from last summer’s harvest, so I’ll be bummed if I don’t get enough this year.

And finally – drum roll, please – I got my first tomato! I would love to tell you what it was, but I don’t know. I got half of my tomato transplants from my neighbor, and the other half from the Feed and Seed. Neither of those sources is big on labeling their transplants. So this year’s tomato fest is a total surprise. We’ll get what we get, and we won’t throw a fit (as my daughter’s teacher used to say).

Gardening between the rain clouds

We have had the most lovely, wet spring. After too many years of drought, this is such a relief. With all of the time I’m not spending watering, you’d think I would get around to writing more – but I’m afraid Jan and I spend too much time sipping wine on the porch, which just saps my productive energy right out of me. I’m afraid that’s why he brings me the wine; the Protestant work ethic makes him nervous.

Of course, the rain has not been such a blessing for some of my gardening friends. I have two friends gardening on one particular street, and their gardens both flooded. The weeks of standing water has done them no favors.

The first week of May, I planted sweet potatoes, Beauregard. What a great name. Makes me think of mint julips. I also got ahold of some gorgeous purple and white Dutch irises, due to the street construction that’s been going on since July. Of last year. 2008. Guh. Anyway, the city installed a sidewalk in front of a neighbor’s house, right through her tremendous iris garden. We all consoled her for a couple of minutes, then jumped in and swiped the uprooted irises. Next spring you’ll see them blooming all up and down our street. Heh.

sweet potatoes

To make room for the sweet potatoes, I pulled up some underperforming broccoli, broccoli raab, and spinach. All of these did well for me in the fall, but weren’t worth the time and space this spring. Maybe it was the multiple late freezes this year.

We’re currently harvesting:
shelling peas
snow peas (I’m not sure how I ended up with those; I don’t care for them.)
green onions
chives
stevia
strawberries (still mostly going to the mockingbirds, but Ella gets a few here and there)
banana peppers
jalapenos
marjoram
oregano
cilantro (the last of it was a week or two ago; the rest has bolted)

Our neighbors came over with new potatoes from their garden, but I haven’t dug into ours yet. A few potatoes go a long way in our house, so I can wait.

Everything else is going gangbusters. Even my corn looks fantastic. Last year it got bugs then blew over. That was Luscious. So this year I planted Painted Mountain. So far, so good.

Over the coming weeks I’ll be making my last harvest of peas, and pulling the plants to make way for the okra. Of the peas I planted, I would do Alaska and Wando again. I’ll stay away from Little Marvel and Oregon Sugar Pod. I’m not in any hurry to get my okra in, because everyone up and down the street seems to have planted some this year. So we’ll have plenty all season long.

Which reminds me, three of my neighbors (within a few blocks) have planted new gardens this year, including my next door neighbor, Rick. Who knows if having my veggie garden in the front yard has helped inspire anyone other than Rick, but it can’t hurt, right? I’d love to see everyone with at least a little patch of food growing. Maybe it’ll go viral in old McKinney. That would be weird. Good weird.

May planting list

Well, it seems the rush is over. The Dallas Planting Manual doesn’t suggest any veggie planting this month, and there are just a few recommended by the Collin County Master Gardeners. You’ve done the heavy lifting, now rest for a bit while your work bears fruit . . . so to speak. Because it’ll start back up again toward the end of summer.

There are two references I’m using, in order:
Collin County Master Gardeners
Dallas Planting Manual, The Dallas Garden Club of the Dallas Woman’s Club

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

CCMG
okra* (thru 1 Jun.)
peas, southern (thru 20 May)
sweet potato slips* (thru 15 May)

Garden update:

Germinated and growing nicely are: cucumbers, watermelons, edamame (soy beans), leeks, chives, carrots, spinach, broccoli raab, green beans, potatoes.

As I’ve mentioned previously, we’re growing potatoes in fabric pots this year. It’s working well so far. As the leaves grow, you just fill the pot up around the stems with compost or compost/soil:

I thought that the red potatoes that Jan got at the grocery store weren’t going to come up, but they finally did about a month after the seed potatoes we got from our neighbor. Very strange.

Larger plants that are still actively growing: garlic, onions, peas (which are flowering), all kinds of peppers (there’s even one little banana pepper already), tomatoes, eggplant, blueberries. There are actually blueberries this year! I can’t wait. All of the fruit trees are now fully leafed out, but we had a late freeze (or two) and it looks like there won’t be much fruit. But there are three lovely peaches on Jan’s white peach tree. The tree is so small that it seems impossible that it would produce this year, but so far, so good:

We’re currently harvesting: strawberries (coming in slowly), chives (mmm, cheddar and chive bread), green onions, marjoram, cilantro, oregano.

Our Farmer’s Market starts this Saturday. It seems like it’s been ages. I’m very proud this year, because we made the cloth shopping bags for the Market:

This picture was taken before the bags were printed with the Market logo. I’ll post another when I see the final bags.

April planting list

April is when my most favoritist veggies go in. I’m a warm-blooded girl and I must identify these heat lovers with backyards and beer in Austin. The Dallas Planting Manual says of April: “almost anything can be planted after April 15″.

There are two references I’m using, in order:
Collin County Master Gardeners
Dallas Planting Manual, The Dallas Garden Club of the Dallas Woman’s Club

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

CCMG
beans, snap bush*, yellow bush, pinto
beans, snap pole, lima bush, lima pole (thru 20 Apr.)
cantaloupe*
corn, sweet*
cucumber*
eggplant transplants*
okra* (5 Apr. – 1 Jun.)
peas, southern
pepper seeds and transplants*
pumpkins* (I’m on the fence; see squash.)
radish
scarlet runner beans*
squash* (I’m still on the fence. Last year was such a disaster! But Jan’s hoping for flores de calabaza, so probably.)
sweet potato slips* (15 Apr. – 15 May)
tomatoes* (thru 15 Apr.)
watermelon*

DPM
doesn’t differ from CCMG

Don’t forget your basil and other warm season herbs. You’ll need them for pizza sauce.

Garden update:

Since I’m writing this list in March, not much has changed since I posted the March planting list, as far as harvesting. However, the fruit trees in the backyard orchard have almost all broken bud: pears, plums, peach, Texas persimmons, the pomegranate in front. The apple and Japanese persimmon are maybe a day away. The blueberry bush is blooming away. We didn’t get any blueberries last year, so I’m crossing my fingers.

All of my early spring planting (basically, the February planting list) is done, so the few days of soaking rain we just got has been most welcome. I planted our potatoes into Potato Bins in the backyard. This is my first year to try this method. Last year’s potato harvest was less than stellar. And since we don’t want to put planting beds in the backyard with the doggette, these seemed like a good solution. I’ll keep you posted.

Other things I planted: chives for Jan’s cheddar chive bread (it takes an entire chive plant for one batch), onions for storage, onions for green onions, more strawberries, spinach, peas, broccoli transplants, leeks, carrots, broccoli raab (which we fell in love with last fall). I think that’s it!

Feed and Seed love

It takes so long for me to settle into a place after we move. You’ll find me hanging pictures on our one year anniversary in a new house, shocked (yet again) by the passage of time. Being that we move every couple of years (what did I calculate, 6 places in 10 years?), you’d think I’d be better at this by now.

Even harder than unpacking is settling into a community. The ebb and flow of habits and personalities in a new community is subtle, and newcomers have few access points. But here we are in McKinney, four years running (less than two in this house, though – sigh), and I’m starting to get it. I think.

As an old timer now (ahem), I have some advice that I’m going to foist upon you. Advice is too mild. I’m going to insist. If you are in McKinney, and have any interest in gardening, particularly vegetable gardening, get yourself to the Collin County Feed and Seed. 113 S. Chestnut St., just off Louisiana, southeast corner of downtown (972-542-5011).

Don’t waste your time at Calloway’s. And as much as I love Shades of Green, there’s no need to go all the way to Frisco. And I will personally beat you if you choose Home Depot, Lowes, or Walmart for your amendments and transplants. The Feed and Seed has compost to improve your soil, hay to mulch and add to your compost pile, seeds, timely and inexpensive fruit and vegetable transplants, a penny gum machine (a penny!), peeps and bunnies, strapping teenagers to haul your heavy load to the car, and more local gardening knowledge than you can shake a stick at. If you have any questions about what you should be doing in the garden this month, get over there and ask. Don’t be intimidated by your lack of overalls and your spiffy shoes. They’ll talk to you even though your fingernails are clean. And they’ll even be nice to you, to boot.

It is institutions like the Collin County Feed and Seed that make this old county seat a comfortable place to live. Not another antique store. Not expensive steak dinners in schmancy hotels. It’s the people who have been here their whole lives and can fill you in on the subtle comings and goings, if you’ll listen.

So go there first. Then if they don’t have what you need, (and you have established that’s not because you’re looking for tomato transplants after Easter) you have my permission to look elsewhere. You can find tools and landscape plants, annuals and some amendments at Calloway’s. You can find all kinds of wonderful seeds and lovely adapted plants and trees (including fruit trees) at Shades of Green. (Just don’t ask a cranky guy in a hat to help you choose a fruit tree that does well here. Trust me. You might get banished to Home Depot. All of their plants do well here.) And if you have a whole day to blow on gardening bliss, make a field trip to North Haven, in Dallas. (Links are in the lefthand sidebar.)

But the Feed and Seed is the beating heart of veggie gardening in McKinney. And it’s up to you to support them.

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.