It's time to start growing potatoes - Making Tater Tote Grow Bags

I was thumbing through a grower supply catalog not long ago and noticed an ad for Potato grow bags.  I've never grown potatoes before but I had heard that they weren't particularly fussy about how they were grown.  I remembered my Great Uncle Arthur growing them in straw.   I didn't particularly care for the price listed in the catalog so after searching the internet, I found this website for  Potato grow bags.  I've made 4 for my own purposes and an additional 4 for an intrepid friend the try as well.  Now is the time to start growing potatoes in this part of Texas, here goes a new experiment in growing.  I'll keep you posted and will post pictures as they become available.  For my local followers, if you are interested, I still have more of the fabric.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Tater-Totes-Potato-grow-bags/

The Winter Garden

The winter garden is growning quite well.  We spent the better part of October tearing up the old garden beds and putting in the six - new square foot garden 4 x 4 beds.  The first bed on the left, I discovered does not get enough sun currently, so I've rolled some extra chicken wire over it to keep the cats and squirrels out and will plant in it when the curvature of the sun changes.

The bed in front on the right, is full of broccoli and brussel sprouts.  The broccoli is just now forming tiny baby heads.  It will be interesting to see how fast they form.  I have three box covers made out of chicken wire and 2"x 2"x 4' squares.  These are currently covering 2 boxes on the left and 1 box on the right as these do not have all of the squares in use and I wanted to keep 4 legged critters out.

The middle box on the right is boasting healthy squares of radishes, romaine lettuce, parsley, swiss chard and kale which I am harvesting regularly.  Behind the kale and swiss chard is an ailing chive plant which I plan to move to some empty space between the kale and radishes.  Everything has gotten too tall and the chive plant is not happy.

I can happily say that the garlic, kolirabi, and onion sets are all doing quite well.  The kolirabi is beginning to form the bulb which gives the plant the nickname of cabbage turnip.

In a few weeks I will be sewing together some Tater Totes: Potato Grow Bags.  Here in southeast Texas the chart I'm following says I can plant potatoes between the middle of January and the middle of February.    I remember my great Uncle Arthur growing potatoes in straw and this seems to work on a similar principle.  I got my idea for making grow bags from the following website:  http://www.instructables.com/id/Tater-Totes-Potato-grow-bags/  This will be a grand experiement, as I have read that potatoes in the grocery store are coated in a lot of pesticide residue.                                                  

How to remove a stump in 2 - 3 days instead of 2 - 3 years

Remember this? This stump was in the corner of my garden bed. The picture shows what I did to kill the stump by placing a pile of lighted charcoal briquets on top of it. It scorched it but it wasn't a big enough effort to actually make it disappear.

I have been waiting for my tree man to come and grind this stump out but business has been slow, so they haven't needed to rent a stump grinder and they were not sure how long it would be before they would be using one. I waited three weeks and then decided if I wanted to finish the garden beds, I would need to take matters into my own hands. What you see in the picture is only part of the stump. When we cleared the dirt away we discovered it had a broad base. A friend had come out to see if he could cut it closer to the ground but the wood proved harder than his chain saw could handle, So there was still more stump above ground then would be good for a garden bed.

Last Wednesday, I decided to really apply the charcoal burn out method. This time I piled charcoal all over the stump and kept adding more and more briquets as the old ones burned down. To prevent my yard from catching fire due to the breezes blowing around sparks, I covered it with a flipped over galvanized oil pan. By Thursday, about 1/2 the stump was gone. I poked the loose stuff, scooped off the excess charcoal dust so as not to get the growth inhibitor coating of the charcoal into my good growing soil; and began the process of adding more burning briquetts to what remained. By Friday, I had accomplished my goal;instead of a stump, a hole appeared in it's place. Now it looks like this:

Milk Jug Seed Starters

I found an idea in the November 2011 issue of The Herb Companion. I'm not wild about the idea of setting up grow lights in the dining room, but starting seeds in a milk jug (which I have plenty of on a regular basis) and putting it outside in our mild climate is very appealing.

I'm going to start my Mortgage lifters (big, sweet, pink tomatoes) and the free (from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds) Riesentraube Tomatoes (German for "Giant Bunch of Grapes) in this method so that I can have them to go in the ground as early as January. I've put tomatoes in that early before with success.

To see the article Go To:
www.herbcompanion.com/gardening/cold-frame-for-herbs-make-milk-jug-seed-starters.aspx

22 November 2011 - I just learned that this technique is called "Winter Sowing". More information can be found at www.wintersown.org. It appears that it can be done anywhere, not just here in the deep south.

The Fall Garden 2011

It's a little late to get started but the weather is so mild I thought I would just proceed.  I've planted the following this week:

12 - Broccoli plants
4 - Brussel Sprout plants
3 - Kale plants
2 Kohlrabi plants - I'm waiting for the seeds to arrive
2 parsley plants
4 romain lettuce plants
1 - bunch chives
leeks,  18 white onions, 4 - garlic cloves
1 - winter squash (sugar bear) plant - it was something I found at the independent nursery a few weeks ago - It sounded like a bush variety of acorn squash - it may be WAYYY TOO LATE to put it in the ground but who knows. If I could grow any squash without the southern squash vine borer destroying it, it would be a good thing.There are male blossoms developing on it now.

The day after I brought the Kale home I discovered a whole lot of little holes in the leaves but I couldn't see anything to cause it.  I bought some BT concentrate and sprayed the leaves top and bottom and as I did so I finally discovered who was making all the holes.  My Kale was infested with cabbage worms.  One of the beautys of Square Foot Gardening is that it is an easy thing (if you do it early enough) to find and destroy crop pests.  I squashed a LOT of worms, yesterday.

I still have mixed lettuce, radishes, kolhrabi seeds and two different kinds of carrots to plant.  I had never heard of Kohlrabi before this year but it is on a chart from the county extension service that recommends what can be planted and grown this time of year.  I am told it is a mild tasting tuber, similar in taste to cabbage.

Out with the old, In with the new

After reviewing the successes and failures of this past spring and summer and considering the over-all success of my whole growing system in Texas, I decided it was time for a change.  For years I have used a modified version of the square foot gardening system, but I decided to go all the way and really do it the way Mel Bartholomew suggests.  On several weekends this fall, my DH and I have worked to pull up and break down the old, pre-2003 pressure treated wood grow boxes and replace them with  4' x 4' grow boxes constructed of 2"x 8"boards.  Where each 4' x 16' grow box used to set 3 - 4' x 4' boxes will go in its place.  Currently, three of the 4 completed boxes are sporting chicken wire covers that will provide protection from birds, squirrels and cats.  I'm excited.


The tree stump that sat for so long in the corner of one grow box is waiting for our tree man to come with a stump grinder to grind out the stump for us or the grow box will be too shallow for most vegetables.  I hope he comes soon as this box and the one behind it(which is only a mound of dirt right now)get the most light through out the day.  One box is so shaded by the trees on the other side of the fence that it will have to wait until spring before I can plant in it.  I have rolled the chicken wire over that box to keep the cats out of it.

Since I don't have quite enough dirt/compost to fill the boxes, my DH purchased a load of super compost to mix into each box.  It's a combination of mushroom compost, composed horse manure, and ground up trees.  (I'm not sure why the soil places around here are so intent on adding ground up trees to every compost mix they make, but they are).

They say it's not a "SFG" unless it has square foot designations.  I looked at numerous options and decided that the cheapest 48"wide window blind at Walmart was the best option.  I carefully screwed each strip down to the wooden frame so it wouldn't blow away.  Hopefully, I won't be leaching PBA into my soil.

Things are looking GOOD!

Beware "Matt or Mike's Wild Cherry" tomato and what I learned about leeks

THE SPRING/SUMMER 2011 GARDEN REPORT

I grew 5 different types of heirloom tomatoes this year - Cherokee Purple - which I really loved - it was the largest type of tomato I have ever grown and was everything it was promised to be.  Large, sweet and meaty.  I wish it had produced more than I got.
Costoluto Gero - in terms of flavor this was my least favorite variety - it was acidic in flavor, prolific during the spring and always seemed to be the one I found when I was looking for tomatoes to pick.  I've discovered I do not care for acidic tomatoes and I was glad when it stopped producing and didn't come back in the fall.   It was a little larger than best pack size.
Eva Purple Ball - this was a nice tomato, I enjoyed it when I could find it but I think it was overwhelmed by its neighbors.
Black Plum - this was a prolific producer, with a smaller fruit that the standard Italian Plum tomato plant you buy in the Lowes or Home Depot garden centers.  I don't know that I will get it again.
Mike's or Matt's Wild Cherry - the optimal word for this plant is "WILD".  OMGosh!  This plant was CRAZY!! It was a pretty tame looking 6" plant for a month and then all of a sudden, it took off!  It became a monster in my garden bed, sending out branches in all directions. I found it growning everywhere.  All of the other tomato plants had to compete with it for space.  I was picking "Wild" Cherry tomatoes in and through every other plant in the garden.  What was worse is that unlike, a plump, sweet, 1-inch "Sweet 100" the tomatoes on this plant were about the size of the end of your little pinky finger.  When you popped it in your mouth you had the sensation of eating mostly tomato skin and  little else.  I will NEVER grow this one, again and I will warn everyone to do the same.

TRYING TO FOIL THE BIRDS

I decided if I were going to protect my tomatoes from the birds, I would need to build some protection.  I took PVC pipe to create a frame work than I  attach deer netting.  Unlike bird netting which is 14' by 14', deer netting is 7' wide and 100' long.  I was not content with just wrapping it around the sides of the frame work, I decided to run netting across the top as well.  This worked well until the Mike's Wild Cherry grew through the roof.  I couldn't reach most of those tomatoes so I let the birds have them.  This picture doesn't show the tomatoes through the roof but try to imagine tomato vines growing 3 or so feet into the air above the roof line all the way across the top of the tomato house and every single vine came from Mike's Wild Cherry.

OTHER THINGS LEARNED  SPRING AND SUMMER 2011

I learned that leeks are a cool season crop and when the tomatoes took over and the weather became unbearable the leeks simply disappeared.  I had placed the cucumbers - a bush variety - about 3 feet in front of the tomatoes but found that this was not a wise decision.  Although I was training them up, they were inside the tomato house and therefore often obscured by the netting and Mike's Wild Cherry.  I can't begin to count the number of cucumbers I didn't find until they became large yellow balloons with large seeds and a bitter flavor.

I found that the tomato house was great for tomatoes but lousy for plants that needed pollenators in order to produce fruit.  Next year, I will make the structure smaller so that it only encloses the tomatoes and not everything else.  Eggplant and peppers did poorly.  Basil got lost in the tomato vines but managed to reseed itself.  I put in bush beans in another section of the middle garden but once again the squirrels and birds plucked out the seeds as they broke through the ground.  Instead of 36 plants I got 5.  I was able to pick a few summer squash before the southern squash vine borer found it and destroyed the plant.

We worked all summer long, watering the tomatoes during the long drought we are experiencing in this part of the country, in hopes of having a great fall crop.  In September, I noticed the leaves on the tomato plants looked misshapened, which seemed odd.  As I looked closer, I discovered that every tomato plant was infested with mealy bugs.  The simple solution was to spray everything with Safer Insecticidal soap or make a homemade solution, except with the vines up through the roof it was inpossible to reach and clear the problem, so I decided to tear the whole thing down.  Better luck next year.

This year's grand experiement was successful in some ways but not so much in others.