A Helping Hand
When you live in a cold climate and transplant spring vegetables into the garden, it’s beneficial to give them a weekly feed with a diluted kelp solution. Plants started indoors or purchased, are trying to produce new roots after being transplanted. This requires nutrition, which is in short supply because of the cold soil. When the soil is cold, plants have a much more difficult time getting nutrients from the soil.
Foliar feeding is the best way to give you plants what they need. While I often advocate a liquid fish/seaweed mixture, I find that sometimes this can attract racoons and skunks to the garden. Liquid kelp doesn’t have the same effect and it provides just the right amount of food when mixed half strength and used weekly. One thing to note is that liquid fertilizers can burn the leaves of plants if used in the morning on a sunny warm day. It’s best to water in the late afternoon when using a liquid feed. Your plants will thank you and you will have lush lettuce and other vegetables much more quickly than without the added fertilizer.
My favorite brand of liquid seaweed (or fish/seaweed mix) is Neptune’s Harvest. I’ve tried a wide variety of brands and find this one to work best for me. In fact, I like it so much I buy it by the five gallon bucket. I always give any transplants a watering straight away with a foliar feed and find that it helps them settle in much quicker. Tomatoes, peppers, and other fruiting plants get a feeding at the first fruit set as well. In my exeprience, this increases yeild and helps reduce drop-off of immature fruit. The variety of minerals and nutrients in kelp makes it a fantastic addition to the garden (in liquid or powdered form, more on that in the weeks to come).
What’s your favorite type of fertilizer to use in the edible garden?
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Mickey Mouse Tulips
The first fall after we purchased our new house (way back in 2003), I planted tulip bulbs. I found the bulbs on clearance at my local Target store, they were called ‘Mickey Mouse’ tulips. I planted the few bulbs from the package and was excited when they came up the following spring. Little did I know that these few bulbs would naturalize and reproduce. Each year I had a few more flowers, which is unusual for tulips. I passed a few bulbs along to my mom and they started reproducing in her garden as well. When we moved to Maine, it happened in the fall and I forgot to dig up bulbs to bring with me.
Last spring, I finally remember to dig a few up at my mom’s during a late spring visit. You can imagine how happy I was to see their little sunny red and yellow faces in the my garden this spring. There are two bulbs so far, but it looks as if the two bulbs I brought have already started to multiply. It’s wonderful to have these little lovelies in my garden once again.
Do you have any plans that you have acquired, then lost, then reacquired?
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Quote of the Day: Joy Larkom
“Potagers, ornamental vegetable gardens, call them what you will, are seductive masters. Create one of your own, and it draws you to it like a magnet. There’s a deep satisfaction in a beautiful, purposeful garden. Beware though, if you are serious about producing vegetables, of forfeiting productivity to the easy charms of herbs, self-seeding flowers and topiary shrubs. ‘There’s nowhere left to plant’ is not an uncommon cry, and ironically, the larger the garden, the worse that problem can be.”
Joy Larkcom in Creative Vegetable Gardening
It’s no secret that growing vegetables is my passion, but I also love a beautiful garden. Even though the tidy, neat rows of a classic food plot in the back yard is quite lovely, I much prefer the potager type look, where vegetables and flowers are mixed together in creative ways.
I’m finally at the point in my garden here in Maine, that I’m starting to add the hardscape features and plan the layouts of the gardens. Hedges are being planned, walkways are being set out, edges are being defined. Funny enough, the above quote is true, the larger my gardens are the less space I feel I have left for the vegetables.
The best way I have found to combat this is to grow a bit less, since I almost always end up with way more vegetables than I need, scaling back the amount is the best way to find space for everything I want to grow. I’d rather have artichokes and green beans instead of just green beans. I’d rather have onions and carrots than just onions. It’s like a puzzle to plan a garden, a little time spent defining edges and planning in the beginning help make everything fit in the end.
Do you find your vegetable garden always too small?
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Friday Favorite: Quercetin
This Friday favorite is for Mr Chiots, who suffers terribly from seasonal allergies for the entire spring/summer/fall. In the years we’ve been married he’s pretty much always been on some sort of prescription for them, but they all quit working after a year or two and he has to move on to something else. The drowsiness and other side effects were also an issue for him with the prescriptions. Four years ago, a friend recommended trying Quercetin. Low and behold, this product is a lifesaver for him. He LOVES it!!! It works beautifully for his allergies (another bonus is that it’s very inexpensive).
I thought I’d share here in case any of you suffer from allergies and would like to give it a try. He takes two capsules at breakfast, one at lunch, and two at supper. He’s tried other brands of Quercetin and this one with added C and digestive enzymes works best for him. His favorite part is that there are no side effects, no drowsiness! So, if you also suffer, give this a try, it may just work for you as well.
Do you have seasonal allergies?
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Tips and Tricks
I’m an efficient person, my mind is always trying to figure out how to maximize time and effort. I probably missed my calling in life and should have become someone who consults businesses on efficiency and process. When I garden, my mind is always trying to find ways to maximize my time and effort. There’s always a yard stick in my garden, laying in wait for planting and seeding time. I noticed this year that my yardstick was no longer legible. After considering my options, I realized that marking my long handled garden tools would be the best way to have a measuring stick at hand all the time.
Long handled tools are generally long enough to mark out at least 3 and a half feet, which is about the most I ever need. Now I can start measuring out the distance between my tomato and pepper stakes without hunting for the yardstick.
How do you measure for planting?
