Blog - VEGarden

Recent VEGarden Posts

Old Post I Never Published

This was from last summer. I never did complete what I was going to do here: i know all our readers have been clamoring for another one of my posts. in between studying analytic philosophy and relearning german again i’ve been reading Epitaph For A Peach which i picked up at the salvo for a song. its about a third generation japanese peach farmer whose old-fashioned peach farm can’t break even. just as the bulldozers are about to do what bulldozers do (bull? doze?) he decides to give it another go. he farms less for profit than family, the land, and deliciousness, but as my father would say “we aren’t running a charity here.” since getting big or out have...

Anticipation

Here’s a fairly good picture of the garden. It’s hard to get a sense of the size from a picture, especially at this point. It’s been mowed, and the Tractor Guy dragged a tiller through it once to break up the sod (though you can’t really tell). We’ve missed the planting date for peas, and hope that it stays cool enough for some lettuces. It’s difficult working at the mercy of someone else’s schedule and equipment. But as long as it is tilled and workable by May 15th (our average last frost date), we’ll be fine. Chris graduates in two weeks, and I’m really busy with my business so we don’t have too much time to put into it at...

Pineapple Tomato

Seed Source: Amish Land Seeds Date Planted: March 11, 2007 We wanted a marbled (bi-colored) tomato for the garden this year, and were not overly impressed with the Marvel Striped tomato variety we grew last year. Amish Land Seeds describes these plants as very heavy-producing with all fruits weighing over a pound. I don’t know much about this variety, but we’ll keep this page updated as time progresses! We have 22 Pineapple tomato seedlings. View all tomato varieties

Great White Tomato

Seed Source: Amish Land Seeds Date Planted: March 11 & 23 Great White and Pineapple Bi-Color were my first heirloom choices this season. The description of this tomato at Amish Land Seeds boasts heavy yields, large fruit, and “hands down, the best tasting white tomato [the grower has] ever eaten.” Very tempting! I ended up ordering more seeds of this variety later, which is why we have two planting dates. We have 20 Great White seedlings. View all tomato varieties

Prize of the Trials Cherry Tomato

Seed Source: Seeds of Change Date Planted: March 5 & 23, 2007 Indeterminate We grew these nearly-perfect orange cherry tomatoes last year, and loved them so much we just couldn’t resist for this year! The photo is from last year’s garden (to be updated later this summer), and it’s actually a smaller tomato for this variety. The plants were very productive and yielded beautiful spheres with no cracks. We don’t have as many cherry tomato plants as slicing plants, but we do have 18 of these tomatoes. Our other cherry varieties are Sweetie and Gardener’s Delight. View all tomato varieties

Oaxacan Pink Tomato

Seed Source: Seeds of Change Date Planted: March 5, 2007 Indeterminate Oaxacan Pink tomatoes are from the Oaxacan region of Mexico. We grew these tomatoes last year, but sadly didn’t save any seeds. They were good, but not as exciting as the Amana Orange tomatoes were. Last year, these tomatoes varied greatly in size – from tiny cherry-sized (or even smaller!) to good palm-sized… on the same plants, even! I wish we had thought to save seeds from both extremes on this plant. We’ll see how they turn out this year, and maybe next year’s seeds will be our own. We only have 9 Oaxacan Pink tomato plants this year; I’m not sure if they are quite suited for a...

Amana Orange Tomato

Seed Source: Our own seeds from 2006. Originally from Seeds of Change Date Planted: March 5 and 23, 2007 Indeterminate The Amana tomato is a fairly large sized orange tomato named for Amana, Iowa. It has a mild flavor, but makes an excellent slicing tomato, as it is very fleshy with little juice. We saved seeds from a couple different tomatoes, and stored them a plastic bag over the winter. I was excited to see the seedlings pop up this spring! We have about 37 Amana seedlings. View all tomato varieties

Mikado White Tomato

A.K.A.: Shah Tomato Seed Source: Amish Land Heirloom Seeds Date Started: March 23, 2007 “Mikado” is a comic opretta by Arthur Sullivan and W. S. Gilbert that opened in 1885 in London. It is likely that the tomato was named after this opera, as the history of the tomato can be traced back to about 1886. The Mikado White Tomato is commonly known as a brandywine tomato for its flavor. The seedling picture was taken on April 26, just about a month after emerging from the dirt. We have 18 Mikado White seedlings for the garden this summer. Watch this post and the Tomato Varieties category, as we will be adding more varieties soon and updating each page frequently throughout...

To Plow or Not to Plow?

Photo: Okra Seedlings The last few days have been a bit nerve-wrecking. Oh, the anticipation of starting a project that we just can’t start yet! Our new garden plot was mowed, but we got 1-1/2″ of rain the same evening, so no tilling yet. Now we’re considering having it moldboard-plowed before tilling. The moldboard plow basically flips the soil over, so the grass dies. But, it has to be disked following the moldboarding, because the moldboard plow makes such a huge mess of the soil that it can’t be tilled. The advantage of moldboard plowing is that it can be done when the soil is wet – like today – while tilling needs to be done when the soil is...

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Our area has been participating in a ten-year drought for… well, about ten years now! We got about 1/4 inch last â€“ great for the dirt, but not great for getting our untouched land mowed and tilled. We met out at the new garden with the Gary (henceforth known as the Tractor Guy). He was planning to bush-hog the tall grass at 9 this morning, but it had to be put off because of the rain. It’s afternoon now, and hasn’t rained since… we were out there for three hours this morning and got a lot of sun and a lot of wind. The Tractor Guy said that he would bush-hog soon – in an hour even – if the...

Last year’s garden in the backyard and compost

Here is a bed in the back I tilled under. I planted rye late last summer (or was it fall?), but it didn’t take too well. I think I should have watered. Over to the left is a bed of garlic which must’ve died with the weird weather we had. I stupidly forgot to put any straw on top. Oh well. I talked to Herman the allium man a few weeks ago and I plan to do a fair amount of garlic this fall. UPDATE: I saw what I can only imagine is two little garlic sprouts when I was out today. Thats the compost. For those of you that aren’t all that acquainted with compost I can assure you...

Change of plans

New adventures never come without twists and turns. Try a new recipe, you may need to learn some substitutions. Try a new haircut, you may need to buy a hat. Try a new garden, you may end up relocating to the other side of the driveway. Unfortunately, the neighbor already brush-hogged (a.k.a. mowed the very long grass) the plot we thought we were going to do. But then we were left with a pile of logs and a pile of boards that were larger than they looked before he mowed. Plus, the words “We can till once the mole is dead” didn’t really ring too well in our ears. After eyeing the pile of wood (which would need to be...

Gardening at Night

Ok so Jessi has been razzing me for not posting on here and I can’t fall asleep so here goes. The picture is because every post needs to have its own picture, its night as I write this, I have been listening to REM lately and the EP pictured, in addition to having a gargoyle as the cover, happens to have a song called “Gardening at Night”. The weather has been fantastic the last few days and I feel that my seasonal affective disorder is finally descendent. Its spring from here on out! After I wrote a paper about film genres or something Jessi and I checked on our seedlings at Morning Sky Greenery. They have been doing well for...

Space issues?

Last year we had a heck of a time getting okra to germinate. This year I lined a mason jar with sandpaper, put a bunch of okra seeds in it, shook them vigorously, and then removed the sandpaper and soaked the seeds overnight. We planted the okra yesterday and today here’s what I found in the jar full of unused seeds! Plus, the tray of okra seedblocks are already starting to come up! Scarring, soaking, and a night in a room with a space heater does the trick. Here is the list of what we have planted in the last three days: (One tray = 50 soil blocks… 50 plants) Peppers (4 new trays, the list includes a bunch from...

Seeds and Snow

April 10th we got an inch of snow. The same day, a box from Jordan Seeds arrived with… well, at least tens of thousands of seeds. We’re playing in the big leaugues now I guess – if you don’t want packets of NK seeds from the hardware store, then you have to buy seeds in one thousand packs. So, any home gardeners that may be reading this… if you’re interested in cauliflower, broccoli, spinach, peppers, squash, or other vegetables… we’d be happy to sell you an assortment of goodies! It warmed up quite a bit today and the snow is starting to disappear. We had hoped to get the garden plot tilled before April 15th so that we could plant...

Planted: 286 Tomatoes

My 2007 garden plan calls for 285 tomatoes. As of yesterday, we have planted 286 cells/soil blocks of tomatoes. This is a closeup of Heirloom Great White Tomato seedlings, planted about a month ago and moved into larger pots. (These were planted before we got our soil block maker). I had thought we were a bit behind on planting, and so we rushed to the hardware store Saturday morning to see what they had. I actually found some heirloom varieties there, so we’re giving them a shot. Plus, we needed a “red” tomato, because until yesterday we had only planted white, orange, pink, bi-colored, and paste tomatoes! Eventually we’ll have info about every variety of every vegetable/fruit we’re growing, probably...

Soil Blocks

Here we have a half-tray of cabbage and a half-tray of brussels sprouts planted in soil blocks. Chris made these soil blocks, and they are exactly what they sound like: blocks of soil in which you plant seeds. We ordered a Soil Block Maker from Johnny’s Selected Seeds, and have been trying our hands at this plastic-free method of planting seedlings. With about a thousand seedlings that need to be started before the garden is tilled (!!), these should save time, space, and headaches. These blocks are made out of mostly a soilless mix that we got from Morning Sky Greenery, and also some plain old “dirt” which helps the blocks hold together. Peat moss, vermiculite, and perlite gets a...

Pictures of the new garden plot

Here’s a picture of the area that we’ll be gardening this summer! We drove out there yesterday in the pouring rain… we were hoping to do some more measuring, but it was too wet and would have been fairly unpleasant. With the dry summer last year, the rain is welcomed – our area in Minnesota is still in a drought. The spot we’ll be gardening is roughly 200 feet x 150 feet. It’s located between the driveway and a grove of trees, and then between the barn and the road. The photo above is taken from the driveway, looking toward the grove. Here’s from the road looking at the barn: We have some piles of wood to move, and then...

The Garden Plan.

Today I made a diagram of what needs to be planted and where it all goes. This is just a small section with peppers, herbs, carrots, and onions – you can click here for a PDF version of the whole plot. I’ll include a low resolution version of the whole thing at the end of this post, too. I think we’ll be growing most every vegetable that we can think of… but maybe we missed something. We are hoping to bring in some money at Farmers Markets this summer (and we have some really unique ideas for drawing interest), so we’re trying to focus on crops that bring in money: tomatoes, peppers, greens, and squash. In this plan I’ve included...

Market Gardening

We have been hinting at what’s going on with VEGarden this summer… here’s the plan: This summer, our garden is moving to a 2/3 acre plot 15 minutes out of town. We will be gardening on the land of one of the Food Co-op Board Members. The purpose it to see if we can, and if we enjoy, large-scale gardening. Also to see if we can make a profit selling vegetables. The previous post shows the site we’ll be gardening on. Our garden will be directly north of the driveway, between the barn and the road. I did bring a camera out there to take pictures, but the batteries were dead! I’m sure many, many pictures will come in the...

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