Category Archives: Summer gardening

Still time to plant zucchini in some locations

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goldmine zucchiniThey say 1 zucchini plant will feed an entire family. I’m a believer in that. My experience has been this: the original zucchini plant does well and then finally dies, but there’s still a fair amount of warm weather available. Why don’t I just plant another one? The reason why is that now its too late in the season. I like to plant another zucchini about 4 weeks after my first planting. That way I’ve got plenty enough to take me until frost. Here in zone 6, we still have time to plant one more zucchini before it’s too late.

Like you, I’ve grown many different varieties of zucchini. Black beauty is a standard and its easy to grow and a good producer. Because its so readily available, I now grow a few other varieties.

This is goldmine-a yellow zucchini with a nice white stripe down the length of the fruit. It goes great with its companion safari-a green zucchini with a white stripes. If you’re looking for a way to mix it up a little bit with zucchini, these are great additions.
For those in the area, I will be teaching the seasons first winter low tunnel garden class. I would love to have a greenhouse but it doesn’t work for me. They are expensive, and usually permanent. You can do virtually the same thing with a low tunnel, although you will be harvesting in challenging weather sometimes. If you’re interested registration is simple. We cover how to build a structure that holds up under snow load, what crops do best in our climate, and when to start them. Class is about 75 minutes long.

Growing leeks

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leeks 070816I’ve already begun to think about the fall harvest season. That means starting a couple of things inside for transplants to go out in the garden soon. Lets talk leeks. If I were to wait until fall for planting them it wouldn’t allow enough time to harvest them this year.

There’s many different varieties of leeks, and I’ve tried lots of them. These are a variety that only take 75 days from seed to harvest. Many leeks take upwards of 110 days. My method of growing leeks is a little different. A chef would tell you that the most desirable part of the leek is the white stalk. The more white portion the better. I would encourage you to visit the produce section of your supermarket and check out the leeks. The white portion is usually pretty short: 3-4 inches. I try for 6-8 inches of white, and its very easy to do.

I start by placing leek seeds in a container as shown. The container itself isn’t very deep, and it’s got 4 holes on the underside for drainage. After a short time you’ll end up with skinny little transplants. I get mine to a certain size before transplanting. When I see leek roots beginning to come out of the drainage holes, its time for them to be transplanted. Hardening off is not necessary.

From here I will plant each individual leek start in a hole thats been made with a pencil. How deep do you plant them? I like to plant them so that about 2 inches of the leek remains above ground. I don’t even backfill the holes with dirt. As I water the holes fill up naturally and without even trying I can get a good 6 inches of white on my leeks-sometimes even more.

Now is the time to plan for things like leeks, green onions, kale, cabbage, and brussel sprouts[ois skin=”3″]

Square foot gardening-keep growing summer greens!

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braising greenIn addition to the many designer lettuces that I love to grow in the summer months I also add some different things-like these braising greens.  Planted 16 per square for a dense harvest, they are delicious and come up quickly.  After 45 days you can either harvest the entire square for a saute, or clip them about an inch above the grown for a cut-and-come again crop.  The second cuttings aren’t as clean looking but they still taste great and grow back quickly.

All week long we’ll have temperatures in the 90’s.  Looks like summer has arrived early.  I’ve begun plantings for summer lettuces in anticipation of a long, dry, and hot summer.  Trying to grow lettuce in this environment is a huge challenge-many gardeners don’t even attempt to do it for that reason alone.  I’ll have an ebook coming out very soon that will teach you how to grow lettuce right through the summer months.  It takes a little more effort, but it is so worth it.  Since nothing can beat the taste of those just harvested off-the-vine summer tomatoes, you might as well have the best tasting lettuce around to go with them.  I’m hoping to finish it in a week.

Writing doesn’t come easy for me.  It’s taken 2 years to put this ebook together.  Much of the material was written in a timely fashion, but it’s all other things that bog me down.  I won’t bother going into it, but I think you’ll be pleased with the information contained  in the book.  Aside from the growing techniques taught, I think the best part is that I’ve actually done what I’ve written about.  And I’ve done it successfully for a long time.  So, keep an eye out.

For folks that live in northern Utah I’ve got a couple of classes being offered in the next couple of months.  If you’re not a square foot gardener but would like to be, there’s a class for you.  If you’re interested in learning how to have a winter garden in our zone, there’s another class for that as well.  Please pass the word along to friends, neighbors,  and family members who would be interested in attending.  Thank you[ois skin=”3″]

This years tomatoes in my square foot garden

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IMG_2202It’s been all over the place for temperatures this spring.  We’ve had weekends where it was in the mid-70’s.  We’ve even had a couple of 80 degree days. Like other neighbors I begin to think its time to start planting even though there is still some much cooler temperatures ahead,  along with the possibility of a frost and lots of rain.

My tomato plants were looking pretty good inside so I thought I’d take a chance on them right now.  I hardened the plant off, and then I’ve protected it with a simple empty plastic container.  Some folks might call this a cloche.  I use the cap to moderate the temperature.  If the sun is coming out at all, I remove the cap because it will really heat up.  If it’s raining or generally a cloudy day, I’ll keep the cap on.  The cap is always on at night.

So far, so good.  My tomato plant is thriving nicely.  I’ve got about a dozen more started inside that will be hardened off this weekend.  By Mothers Day they’ll be in the ground.  All this work in an effort for the first tomatoes in the neighborhood-it really doesn’t matter too much.  Even if you got out and buy a large tomato plant with yellow blossoms on it, we all seem to get our tomatoes within the same 2 week period of time.

The varieties I’m growing this year are all my favorites: san marzano, sun gold, red cherry, rainbow cherry, 5 star grape, sun sugar, new girl, and rose.  Paste tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, and slicing tomatoes-each only taking up 1 square foot of space.  It’s a great way to garden[ois skin=”3″]

My favorite cilantro variety

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calypso cilantroCilantro is one of those herbs you wish could stay around a little longer. It’s great for the cooler weather but bolts and goes to seed as soon as the weather warms. Is there a variety that goes deeper into the summer? Up until this year I had little success lengthening the harvest into the summer months. I had experience with this variety from Cooks Garden this spring and summer. It called calypso. Besides being delicious, it made it’s way fairly well into the summer months. It eventually went to seed but it lasted about an extra 6 weeks, which is significant for us.

After direct seeding it came up within a week, was easy to grow, and tasted absolutely delicious! I’m pretty sure I’ve now found my go-to cilantro. You can click on the Cooks Garden icon in the sidebar to learn more about it. It looks like there’s some other happy calypso fans as well-check out the customer reviews.

I was able to sneak some calypso in two squares of my square foot garden for the winter. It’s doing very well and I can’t wait to use it through the winter. Spacing for cilantro in the square foot gardening method is one plant per square. The other great thing about cilantro is that it’s virtually pest free. I’m trying to remember the first time I had any problem with bugs and nothing comes to mind. If you’re a warm weather gardener and you love cilantro, you should try this. If you’re a cool weather gardener and love cilantro try this for the flavor alone. You won’t be disappointed.[ois skin=”1″]