Summer-themed posts

Here is a post with links to articles we've written that are relevant to this time of year. Happy Gardening!

Planting a fall and winter garden: Most home gardeners have one major planting in the spring and once these plants reach maturity and die, that's it for the season. By planting succession crops it's possible to increase the yield of your garden considerably. It can seem counterintuitive to start seedlings in the heat of summer for fall and winter crops but seeds need time to germinate before they can be transplanted out into one's larger garden area. Also, having just celebrated the Summer Solstice, each day reduces in length and by September this can have a marked impact on how much growth each plant puts on in a day. Follow this link for many tips on planting a fall and winter garden.

Transplanting Beet Seedlings: A few years ago, we discovered that beet seedlings transplant quite readily. Your nursery soil must be quite loose (so the beet roots don't get damaged when you dig them up) and you need to prep the receiving soil also to minimize transplant shock. This saves seed, and room in the germination process as you only transplant the viable seedlings.

Saving Tomato Seeds: Though for many of us in the northern hemisphere, in early July most tomatoes are only just beginning to ripen, here's a DIY guide to saving seeds for next year's plants. All you need is a half-gallon mason jar (or something similar) some cheese cloth to keep fruit flies from proliferating and a place to dry them out of direct sun and safe from mice (who love to eat the seeds!). Note: this only works with non-hybrid/open-pollinated/heirloom varieties of tomatoes.

Saving pea seeds - a low tech method to prevent 'pea weevil' damage: Pea seeds are very easy to save; most varieties (all?) will 'grow-true' (not cross-pollinate with other pea varieties grown nearby at the same time). The only tricky part is that in many regions pea seeds are susceptible to infestation of pea weevils which can make your pea seeds unable to germinate. Here's a low-tech method to prevent pea weevil damage that we have had great success with.

Tips for Maintaining a Well-Stocked Pantry: We understand that not everyone who follows our blog has garden-space or the ability to apply our gardening tips so here's a post for everyone! Whether your goal is to weather the next short (or long-term) power outage in your area, you want to stock up to hedge against rising food prices in anticipation of crop-losses due to fertilizer and water-shortages and other stresses on our food systems, or you'd just like to be able to open your cupboards and have some variety to choose from without having to go shopping so frequently, this post is for you!

A little farmer/gardener humor:  "Mama don't let your babies grow up to be farmers..." 

A Moneyless life: Living in the Gift Economy:
In 2015 Jo Nemeth left her job, closed her bank account and said goodbye to the last of her money. Eleven years later, Jo lives a healthy, fulfilling life while dramatically reducing her personal ecological impact. In this 16-min. video, she shares her journey from terrifying climate grief to a place of purpose and contribution. "Truly inspiring on so many levels!"

 

Love from Llyn and Chris and the Sharing Gardens (Image by Mike Brunt: https://www.secretlifeofseeds.com/)

Valentines Day - Time for Pea Planting!

Garden tips for Peas: In our region (Zone 8b - Last frost-date zone map - USA), its ideal to plant peas around Valentine's Day. This gives them the best head start for blooming in time for the longest possible harvest season. The problem is that, here in Alpine/Monroe, Oregon, the soil is often very wet and cold this time of year and, even if you get a good start sowing seeds directly in the soil, the March and April rains can significantly retard their growth, the seedlings can rot off at soil-level, or slugs can decimate your starts.

If you have outdoor raised beds, direct sowing shouldn't be an issue but if, like us, you don't have that luxury, what follows is a method we've used successfully for several years to deal with these challenges. 

By starting seeds in pots and later transplanting them it will increase your chances of an early, abundant edible-pod pea harvest. 

For this method you will need a greenhouse (or indoor seed-germination set-up), and live in a similar climate as the Sharing Gardens (we're in zone 8b, according to the this zone map of typical first and last frost dates). You can start your seeds in pots much earlier than you would be able to direct sow them outside. Depending on when you start the seeds, they can be transplanted into a greenhouse for earliest pea-production, or later, to beds outside.

 

Peas, started in pots.

For plants that will be grown to maturity in our greenhouses, we start our seeds as early as the first week of January. These are then transplanted to greenhouse raised beds by mid-February. Seeds started in pots in mid-February can be transplanted to outside beds in March. 

 

By starting our first batch of seeds at the new year, we can be eating peas by late March and on into April - at which point the peas we plant outside the greenhouse will begin producing and carry us through May or June!

You'll need:

• Seeds: Our favorite varieties are: Sugar Snaps - delicious pods/shorter trellis - 6' or Melting Sugar - need a tall trellis - 8' - very prolific but not as sweet.
  
• Soil
• 4" pots (4-6" deep) - the deeper pots give more time before plants become root-bound. You'll need one pot per two seeds. Plants will be transplanted at a spacing of 6"-8".
  

Fill pots to within a half-inch of the top. Water the soil to help it settle.

Poke two seeds, in opposite corners, about the depth of one knuckle (3/4" or so). That's two seeds per pot. This gives each plant enough soil to germinate and grow to several inches in height before you transplant. Cover the seeds with soil (about the depth of two seeds-deep) so they're not exposed to sun. Water them gently. Do not over-water. Seedlings can rot if soil is too damp.

Plant two seeds in opposite corners.Note: Since having first written this article, we have now shifted to planting two seeds per pot but do not have photos to reflect this.

Keep the potted seeds protected from marauding slugs by putting them up on a table, or putting a milk-carton collar around them. (Link to post on Re-Purposing Things - including milk-cartons as collars). 

 

If you're planting in January, you'll need a greenhouse, or indoor germination set-up to protect them and keep soil in pots warm enough for germination. If you wait until mid-February, pots can be outside in a sunny place, protected from north winds. Temporarily bring them inside if faced with a severe freeze.

Pea seedlings in pots. Pea leaves and tendrils are edible and delicious in salads.

When they are at least 6", and no longer than 12", you can put them in your garden, or greenhouse beds. Best to wait until their root-systems are quite dense in the pots -- almost "root-bound". They will be easier to transplant without damaging the plants. On the other-hand, if you wait until the stems are too long, you risk breaking stems during transplanting so it's a matter of finding the right balance.

 

These peas are ready to be transplanted! In fact they're almost too well developed! Tendrils from neighboring plants are starting to entwine. Pea plants are very fragile and you must be careful not to break the stems.

Transplanting: Plant each 4" pot (with its two seedlings) about 8"- 10" apart with thin bamboo stakes or other climbing trellis in between each clump of starts. (Note: peas need a trellis with stakes or caging that is less than 1/2" (1 cm) in diameter. They climb using tendrils (instead of wrapping around the trellis - like beans) and won't be able to grab and climb if your trellis/caging uprights are too thick.)  

 

Pea-plants are not typically transplanted but sowed directly in place. They are very susceptible to shock so be gentle with the roots and stems. Best to have your trellis in place before you transplant so you don't injure roots driving in the stakes.  

 

If slugs are a big issue in your area, planting them in milk-carton collars can make a big difference. We also typically sprinkle about a teaspoon of iron-phosphate ("Sluggo") around each bunch of plants. This is an organically-approved way of dealing with slug/snail infestations in your garden. (LINK to article about iron phosphate).

The plants might go through a little stress from transplanting but once they acclimatize to their new environment they'll be well along the way to yielding a bounteous and long-term harvest!

Good idea to have trellis in place before you transplant peas (so you're less likely to damage roots). The plants will go through a little stress from transplanting but once they acclimatize to their new environment they'll be well along the way to yielding a bounteous and long-term harvest!

 

John and Llyn transplanting pea-seedlings outside in early to mid-spring. It's a good idea to have your trellis in place before you transplant peas (so you're less likely to damage roots).

Sara picking peas in the greenhouse in April. Note: peas need a trellis with stakes or caging that is less than 1/2" (1 cm) in diameter. They climb using tendrils (instead of wrapping around the trellis - like beans) and won't be able to grab and climb if your trellis/caging uprights are too thick.

Pea-vines headed for the compost pile. Peas, being legumes are able to add nitrogen to your soil through a symbiotic relationship with organisms that grow on their roots. This will help improve your soil, particularly if you leave the roots in the ground when you cut down the "greens" to add to your compost pile. (Link: Saving pea seeds - a low tech method to prevent 'pea weevil' damage)

Growing food together, grows community too!

Other relevant posts for early-spring gardening:

Can I Speed Up Potato Sprouting?

Do I Need to Buy Seed Potatoes or Can I Just Grow Potatoes from the Grocery Store?

Sprouting potatoes? What to do.

Onions - Growing From Seed

Winter Digest (Carport-frame greenhouse design, Potatoes, Celery, and Beets & Carrots for Seed - and more)

This digest includes many posts that gardeners may find relevant for this time of year (January, zone 7B, northern hemisphere, Willamette Valley, Oregon). Enjoy! (Carport-frame greenhouse design, Potatoes, Celery, and Beets & Carrots for Seed - and more)

Here is our newest post. It outlines a simple way to grow carrot or beet seed from a root harvested in autumn and then re-planted at this time of year. Note: this only works with open-pollinated/non-hybrid carrots and beets. The amazing thing is that one seed/one carrot or beet can yield thousands and thousands of seeds. Nature's economy! Re-planting Carrots or Beets for Seed 

We had such good results from this experiment the past two years that we've already started some seeds this year. Every year is different but we hope to have bounteous, early crops to show for our efforts again this spring. Starting Seedlings Directly in Greenhouse Raised Beds

It's very gratifying to grow your own celery and not very difficult. We've discovered that celery plants can be cut back to the crown and re-grown, yielding twice as much food from this tasty and nutritious plant. (Despite its low-calorie content, celery provides several micronutrients. It contains potassium, folate, choline, vitamin A, and vitamin K. Celery also offers some natural sodium and fluoride - LINK). Here is a post with step-by-step instructions to grow your own. How to Grow Your Own Celery  

Our most popular posts pertain to growing potatoes. (As of this writing, their combined totals are over of 262,000!) Now is a good time begin preparing sprouted potatoes for planting (before the sprouts get too long and gangly) and/or to begin looking for small, chicken-egg size potatoes that are showing early signs of sprouting where ever you buy produce. Note: only use organically-grown potatoes for 'seed' as commercially-grown potatoes are often treated with a sprout retardant to give them a longer shelf-life.

Sprouting potatoes? What to do. 

Do I Need to Buy Seed Potatoes or Can I Just Grow Potatoes from the Grocery Store?  

Can I Speed Up Potato Sprouting? 

"When should I plant my potatoes" and "what if they don't have any sprouts yet"? 

Digging potatoes is one of the funnest garden tasks!

Here is another classic post (with close to 30,000 views) with step-by-step instructions for turning a metal, carport frame into a functional greenhouse/grow-tunnel. You can start a lot of plants and grow a lot of food in a greenhouse this size! And it's not that expensive to make. Carport-Frame Greenhouse Design

Kaitlyn filling pots with soil with the carport greenhouse behind.

We built raised beds along the edges of this greenhouse for three-season growing directly in the ground. In late winter/early spring we set up slatted tables on saw-horses to grow out 'starts'.

This will be the seventh season we've grown all our starts with soil we made ourselves and it looks like it will be another great year! Growing plants without a lot of concentrated soil amendments/fertilizers or animal by-products means they're slower to grow but they seem to be more resistant to pests and diseases. They are also more nutrient-dense since they don't have as much water-weight. Here's a previously written post that explains how we create our own soil (with a little help from the worms and micro-organisms in our greenhouse paths!) Making Your Own "Veganic" Potting Soil in Your Greenhouse Paths - Using Worms

Another, shorter post on how we create our own potting mix, compost and garden-soil in our greenhouse paths: How we grow...Veganic Community-based gardening  

And last but not least, if you need a dose of inspiration to encourage you to be generous in your sharing, here is an excellent presentation on the topic: Giftivism: Another Name for 'Sharing' - 'Reclaiming the priceless' 

Enough and to Spare, To Give and to Share!

Cindy sorting beets and carrots. 

Harvest totals and garden update:

Hi folks - We had a beautiful post almost finished when we lost it to a computer glitch. Arrgh...We'll recreate it soon but the gardens have really kicked into high gear in the last couple of weeks and we've been harvesting and weeding and watering like crazy! Here are the harvest totals so far this year, some pictures of many of the wonderful people who help to grow the food and some recent pictures of the gardens so you can enjoy the beauty and abundance. Much love, Llyn and Chris

So far, we've been sharing produce out of the gardens for 18 weeks. Depending on when the first major frost hits, we could be past the half-way mark of garden productivity but the next 15 - 20 weeks will also be way more productive in terms of how many pounds the gardens will yield. So, we could be looking at a record year! (For those of you who are new to the Sharing Gardens, here's a quick overview of our project.)

Donated to S. Benton Food Pantry: 507#
Donated to Local Aid Food Pantry: 455#
Donated to THIP class being led by our local Health Clinic ("Total Health Improvement Program"): 268#
Shared with Share-givers (volunteers): 284#
Used in canning projects so far: 36#
Potatoes harvested so far (that weren't counted in other totals): 94#
CSA member-boxes: 408

Grand total so far: 2,052 pounds!

Huge thanks to all the contributors who are helping to make this, our 11th season, such a success!

We love it when Cindy and Jim's grand-kids come to The Gardens. Here are Adri, Kaylynn and Jace helping Llyn harvest cucumbers, one of their favorite snacks!

Cindy, Rook and John, weeding. On our volunteer days, we often team up and swarm a whole quadrant of the gardens together leaving no weeds behind! This massive amount of weeds is put in our compost bins where the heat of their decomposition kills a majority of the weed-seeds.

This picture was taken July 31st. The gardens are in full bloom!

Here's Becky, weeding beets. Becky is one of our newest 'share-givers' (volunteers). She brings a friendly and playful spirit.

Jace (left) munching on a carrot, to keep up his strength for the potato harvest. We harvested 30 pounds that day off of six plants and they're looking beautiful. Our best year for potatoes yet (and we still have many more plants to harvest, well into the Fall).

Here's one quadrant of the garden in late July. Provence squash, cabbage, Delicata squash and  four rows of blue corn. All but the cabbage will provide storage-food to get us (and the Food Pantry) much of the way through the winter.

Megan, our youngest 'share-giver' (who also started this year), teamed up with 'young-at-heart' Jim - who's been coming since 2011. Here they are trimming the tops off onions.

With this team of guys, weeds don't stand a chance! Our motto is: "Weed 'em and reap!"

A late-July photo taken of the NE garden-quadrant. From top-left to bottom-right: Blue-corn (dried and ground for cereal and baking), red potatoes, a mixed row of celery/collards/kale, a row of cucumbers and a row of kidney beans which we dry for soups and chili. (Marigolds and Cosmos flowers in the foreground.)

Jim harvesting soft-ball sized Elephant garlic. We filled that wheel-barrow, mounded high, twice.

Adri helps Grandpa Jim and Chris with a potato harvest. Kids love this job because it's like hunting for eggs on Easter; you never know how many you're going to find!

Bean tipi at entrance to garden and Sunship greenhouse. The beans are called Giant Greek White beans and we got the seed for them out of the bulk-food section at our local natural foods store. They had made the beans into a salad for their deli and were delicious! We like them as much as Scarlet Runner beans for flavor and grow to be 2-3 times the size! (LINK to Scarlet Runner Bean post)

Cindy with an early crop of onions and greens. Cindy's been coming since 2010 and never misses a garden-day if she can help it. We love her cheerful, 'can-do' spirit!

Dear Rook, in his third season, has fallen in love with being in the garden (and we've fallen in love with him)! He loves to help people and to serve, and has come to embody the spirit of the Sharing Gardens. "Gee, it's great to be alive!"

Harvest Totals - 2018, Fall Highlights and Gratitude

Adri and Cindy; summer bean picking time!

Hello friends - Well the hubbub of the holidays is retreating in the rear-view mirror and we're settling back into our garden routines as days get longer and we continue to prep for the first round of seed-planting in mid-February. This post is an end-of-the-year report on our donations to local Food Pantries, some highlights from the end of last year's garden season and some gratitude to our supporters - near, and far.

2018 - A great year for peppers!

Harvest totals: 2018 was the first year we had a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture - LINK). We had seven 'share-holders' who received boxes of produce for 25 weeks, from Mid-May to early November. We had to stop one week short of our 26-week goal due to a killing frost but our 'share-holders' were happy with their produce; in fact the most common 'criticism' was that we gave them too much food! We also fed ourselves, and our core share-givers; those who help us grow, and deliver the food (Cindy and Jim, Rook, Sabine, Cathy Rose, Eliza, Rod and Thorin) with weekly boxes and additional surplus for dehydrating and canning purposes.  

So, a lot of food came out of the gardens!

Fall Harvest (ahead of the frost) - Cayenne peppers and green tomatoes.

"Green" tomatoes, ripening on the porch.

Our donations went to three food-pantries: South Benton Food Pantry (Monroe, Oregon) - they receive the majority of our donations as they are located right next to the Sharing Gardens. Local Aid (Junction City) - a full-service community center (professional-clothes 'free-store', fuel-bill assistance and more) - Here's a link to a short video about them. And God's Storehouse (Harrisburg) a simple pantry run entirely through volunteers and donations.

SBFP: 1,798 pounds of produce and over 200 'starts'/seedlings.

Local Aid: 630 pounds,

God's Storehouse: 75 pounds

Total donations: 2,503 pounds

Pete Alford - delivery volunteer to Local Aid.

Our donation-numbers were lower this year than in the past, but still quite respectable. We hope to provide as much, or more next year.

Summer in the Gardens: Bean tipi on the right...

...Bean tipi in the Fall! We grew many gallons of Scarlet Runner beans (our favorite!) -  a LINK to our post about Growing Scarlet Runner beans.

Fall highlights: We had gorgeous weather for much of the Fall; temps in the 70's, partly cloudy (with big, puffy, white clouds) - for many weeks in a row. This made it very pleasant to be in the gardens (though we could have used a bit more rain...). In early November we had several cold nights in a row which knocked out the heat-loving plants (tomatoes, peppers - etc) and mostly brought the season to its end.

Hedgerow of sun-flowers; we grow these mainly for the birds to enjoy.

A great season for leaves! The drier weather meant that autumn-leaves stayed light and easy to rake and bag. We are grateful to the City of Monroe for posting an article (included in everyone's water-bill) requesting people bring us their leaves. We estimate that 25-30 bags of leaves were dropped off by the town's citizens; we picked up another 18-20 (from folks who couldn't bring their own) and we gave away over 50 leaf-bags we'd saved from previous donations, dried and rolled in groups of 6. That's a bunch of bags that didn't end up in the land-fill after only one use! We continue to recycle them for future seasons.

One of the trailer-loads of leaves the Crosby's donated.

One of the 25 trailer-loads of leaves donated by the Stones

Our 'neighbors', the Crosby's raked up four big trailer-loads of leaves and delivered them to the gardens. And Chris worked with our other neighbor - Victor Stone - who loaded 25 trailer-loads of leaves using his front-end loader which we brought to the gardens and distributed as a thick mulch in garden-beds and around our orchard trees.

Llyn, distributing leaves to feed the Gardens.

Our "chip's" come in! We managed to connect with the foreman of the tree-trimming service that's been servicing our town and surrounding areas and invited him to dump loads of wood-chips here. We use them to cover our driveway, to feed our mushroom bin and to mulch around our fruit-trees. We received four big loads (and could have had more delivered but that's all we could use).

Chris and John Kinsey distributing wood-chips.

Bird-feeder party! In early December we invited Cindy and Jim Kitchen to bring four of their grandchildren for a bird-feeder party. It was a highlight for Chris and me during the holiday season.The Kitchen's daughter Jamie, brought three of her kids and two, sweet Mexican girls who she knows from the "English as a second language" program she leads at her children's school. After making several dozen feeders (with pine-cones we gathered on our land, peanut-butter and millet, and sunflower seeds we grew last summer), and garden-cart rides, we headed inside for homemade chili and corn-cake.  We look forward to some more kid-oriented activities in this year to come.

Bird-feeder-making party! Pine cones, peanut-butter, millet and sunflower seeds. The birds love 'em!

Li Hung, an exchange-student from China giving the kids a cart-ride.

Gratitude: Tina and Swede continue to gather walnuts from their trees and bring them to us. Being vegetarians, we especially appreciate this local source of plant-based protein. One of our two walnut trees fell over in December and the other one is leaning dangerously over our house so we've decided to prune it way back. This will mean our walnut supply will be strongly diminished next year so Swede and Tina's gift will be even more appreciated than before!

John Kinsey continues to find many ways to support the program. At this time of year it's mainly by bringing us leaves he's raked from his neighbor's lawns and through a weekly pick-up of coffee-grounds - a free resource from coffee-shops that we use to increase soil-fertility LINK.

Cash donations: The Garden received donations from four households totaling $850. Thanks to Judy Peabody, John and Donna Dillard, Jim and Cindy Kitchen and Mike Weaver for your generosity.

Last year's indoor pea-patch in April. They grew another 3-feet and produced copiously before quitting in June.

Looking forward: On Saturday, January 5th (new moon), we'll be starting climbing peas in the greenhouse.

We already have over 250 onions planted (for greens, and some will form full bulbs).

The first major round of seed-planting begins on Valentine's Day (Chris' birthday) - broccoli, lettuce, celery, and more....

OSU Service-Learning students from 2018 showing a week's lettuce-harvest to donate to Local Aid.

OSU students are scheduled to come assist us with whatever needs doing on Feb. 16th through their 'service-learning' program (4-6 students for four hours); we have been hosting groups of students several times a year since 2012!

We hope this post finds you thriving and finding ways to help make this world a better place.
As Mother Teresa once said,  

 “If you can’t feed a hundred . . . . feed one.”  Mother Teresa

Caleb, reaching for Whole Grain No-Knead bread - recipe (with home-grown blue-corn meal we grew ourselves - LINK, and other flours).