Seeds - Planning the Garden

Seeds – Planning the garden


What to grow in our garden should be an easy task. We know what we like to eat, we can grow things, but how to balance growing the right amount and then using it.

In trying to be sustainable, I find myself reminiscing of the Victory Gardens of the war era. Millions of Americans planted these gardens for the war effort. The people grew vegetables, fruits, and herb gardens across the US, Canada, the UK and Australia. This was to indirectly aid the war effort by being sustainable. The gardens are portrayed in movies as morale boosters and they became a daily part of life on the home front. I remember the Victory Garden as a PBS show I watched in Chicago. I think it is still on. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/victorygarden/index.html

JenGod Blog has a really good link if you want to read the original (chapter one onlien) : Gardens For Victory, by Jean-marie Putnam and Lloyd C. Cosper, 1942, Harcourt Brace. The first chapter talks about better meals for less money. I’m all for that! Check out: http://jengod.blogspot.com/2008/11/gardens-for-victory-very-practical-book.html

So, the objective is to grow healthy food to eat, can and use for barter. We already do this to a small extent with our fruit, pecans and eggs. We are earning good will and people are keeping us in mind when they have excess. I’d like to make it things that we can harvest through the year (grow in small quantities in stages) or grow and preserve for later. We are enjoying dried apples and pears and apple sauce this season. We also have some canned apples for pie or cobbler. Pecans are being bagged and used for holiday treats too.

I’ve ordered from various companies in the past to get organic seeds but they seem to be coming down in price at this time and I’m finding them in a variety of places. They say that the two most important things to eat organic are apple sauce and peanut butter. I’m not growing peanuts (though they do fix nitrogen in the soil). We are not using any man made chemicals on the plants that goes against organic practices, so that’s fine. We will likely spray zinc for the Pecan trees and research suggests, magnesium, Other nutrients for apples include calcium, potassium, magnesium, manganese and boron.

The definition for organic gardening is the growing of vegetables, herbs and fruits using only things found in nature. No man-made chemicals. It is gardening without harmful and artificial chemicals, or other products not naturally found in nature. It doesn’t mean that you can’t use anything to control insects, disease or weeds.

The USDA has pretty strict guidelines for taking organic to the market, but it does involve a long process and certification. I’ve taken the training to get certified, but we get the benefits without the certification, so I think that is the direction to go. The path for Organic Produce to get to your table: http://www.gardenersnet.com/organicgardening/organicproduce.htm
So, the choices?

Organic Oregano – Italian: Organic Oregano Italian - Wonderfully fragrant, this perennial herb is as attractive as it is useful in the garden. 18 inches high and wide, the plant sports masses of red-flushed 1 1/2-inch leaves, topped by clusters of lavender-pink blooms all summer. Cut the leaves continuously for fresh Oregano for months! I have some of this in the lower garden and want to extend this to the vegetable garden too.

Organic English Thyme - Excellent for cooking, it keeps its flavor well. 12- to 18-inch-tall, 24-inch-wide plants set masses of long, slender stems topped with white to pale pink blooms in summer. Useful in the vegetable patch as an insect deterrent, too. I had this in Oak Park and it always smelled so good when you cut new herbs for the salad.

Organic Dill - Certified Organic for big harvests of large, delectable seeds and finely-cut fresh foliage. Plants reach 3 feet tall and 1 foot wide, attracting swallowtail butterflies to the garden. Very aromatic. Another plant I had in Oak Park, a large and really pretty plant as it goes to seed.

Organic Cilantro Longstanding - The slowest to bolt of any Cilantro, this plant gives you breathing room to harvest the leaves for fresh eating! 2 to 3 feet tall, the stems are topped by 2- to 4-inch flowerheads that fill with seeds and may be cut and then dried to harvest the seeds as Coriander. One winter we had this through the winter and it grew in the spring again. It's great for putting in the homemade salsa.

Organic Parsley – Italian Flat Leaf - Even more nutritious than curly-leaf types, this Italian Flat-Leaf sets masses of tangy, delectable leaves over a long season (all winter in mild and warm climates). 10- to 12-inch plants should be cut frequently to encourage new growth. I tried the curly-leaf parsley this year. I'm interested to taste the difference and to see if this area is mild enough to grow it year round.

Organic Chives - Delicate, onion-flavored foliage, 1 foot tall and 8 to 12 inches wide, with pink flowers used for flavoring and garnishing soups, potatoes, and salads. Growing up in Lansing Illinois, we smelled onions all summer. The name Chicago or Chigagou, an Algonquian word meaning "onion field." In explanation of this name, wild onion or garlic grew profusely in the area. I have this in the lower herb garden but I want it closer to the house too.

Organic Basil Nufar Hybrid - Genovese-type basil, Nufar Hybrid will provide you with months of large, flavorful leaves for cooking. Nufar grows 18 to 24 inches high and 12 to 15 inches wide. The dark green, shiny leaves grow up to 2 inches long on a tall, erect plant that is slow to bolt. Small terminal racemes of pink flowers are borne in summer. Another plant that I had good experience with this year. Apparently as the temperature started to drop at night, someone came close to the house and ate the last few leaves. They were a bit bitter after having gone to seed, I did save seeds, but this variety is resistant to disease common to Basil.

Part of Park’s 90324 Organic Herb Collection (Parkseed.com)

This next group is really weird stuff but looks good and apparently is easy to grow. They aren’t organic, but being heat tolerant, I’m hoping to have some good things to share that people won’t get normally.

Romanesco ‘Veronica’ – an 85 day cauliflower.

Mini Yellow Mirani Corn – a 75 day super sweet corn on 5 inch ear.

Carrot “Purple Haze” Hybrid – a 70 day hybrid purple violet flesh and orange core. Wild carrots were originally purple. Good raw.

Squash “Eight Ball” Hybrid – a 40 day zucchini with a really dark green flavor. They claim a succulent fruit 3-4 inches wide.

Tomato Pineapple – 85-95 day indeterminate pineapple tomato is a beefsteak type heirloom with fewer seeds. Indeterminate means that the end of the season is not finite and with good weather, it can continue to produce. We had a variety of tomato in the Oak Park garden that continued to produce into November and we picked the green tomatoes and they ripened through February.

All part of the Eat Your Weird Veggies Collection #90389

Red, White, and Blue Potato Collection – grow and harvest all season, potato salad galor this year.

Red - Red Cloud - 90 to 100 days. The best for frying, this red-skinned wonder is grown from Certified Organic stock for high yields of disease-free, super-yummy taters! Harvest the 4- to 8-ounce potatoes in midseason.

White - Yukon Gold - 70 to 90 days. The best yellow-skinned European type for baking, Yukon Gold is America's favorite. The spuds are medium to large (4 to 10 ounces), rounded, and packed with flavor so creamy they taste as if Mother Nature buttered them herself! Certified Organic plants are disease-free and ready to take off for an early harvest.

Blue - Caribe - 70 to 90 days. An early-harvesting, heavy-yielding blue-skinned variety, suitable for any purpose from baking to frying to boiling! The flesh is pure white, the texture "mid-dry," and the flavor indescribable! Start the season off in patriotic style with this reliable 4- to 8-ounce spud!
Part of Bulb Item #58772

Sweet Potato Vardaman - 95 days from setting out plants. Developed by the USDA especially for use in smaller gardens and limited-space plantings, Vardaman is a "bunhc" or "bush" variety instead of the traditional trailing vine. The plants offer big yields of superior eating-quality potatoes with golden-yellow skin and deep orange flesh.
Easy to grow and nutritious, sweet potatoes also store well. Set these plants 12 to 15 inches apart in 3-foot rows in a sunny, well-drained spot. After harvest, cure the potatoes in a warm (85 degrees F is preferable) location for 2 weeks, then store at 60 degrees F for 6 to 8 weeks. (Wow, I didn’t know that!) I've not grown sweet potato for eating, but I've had sweet potato vine on the porch in Oak Park.
Bareroot Item #44961

Baby Cucumber Cucino - 46 days. The perfect size for a single-serving salad, a snack, and a canape tray, these charming 2- to 3-inch baby Cukes are a gourmand's delight. With smaller seeds, less water, and more "meat" than full-size Cucumbers, they have a crunchier, more satisfying bite. And two bites is all you get -- they're the perfect pick-up nibble!
Cucino is very adaptable to unseasonably cold or warm climates, and very easy to grow. It needs no pruning, and its fruit is a fat-free source of potassium and vitamin C
Seeds Item #5600

My cucumbers never vined up like this. I'll have to do research.

Organic Pepper Early Jalapeno - 65 days. Where would we be without the Jalapeno atop our nachos and chopped into our Mexican food? Now everyone's favorite hot pepper is available in Certified Organic seed form, for a heavy-bearing little plant that will keep producing for months. Each is 3 to 4 inches long and about 1 1/2 inches wide, these cone-shaped, thick-walled fruits are borne in great numbers on very vigorous plants. They are ready to pick when dark green, delivering a wallop of pure heat! And if you want to keep pesky bugs out of the garden, edge it with Jalapeno plants! The hot fruit is a good deterrent to many destructive pests!
Start seeds indoors or, in climate with short growing seasons, outdoors at least one week after last frost. If starting indoors, allow 7 to 10 weeks for the seeds to mature into seedlings large enough to transplant safely. Fertilize when the blooms appear, and water well. Fruit is most nutritious if allowed to ripen on the plant. (Did you know that the rating for hot is called the Scoville Scale?)
Seeds Item #5856

Melon Hale’s Best Organic - 86 days. Chances are that if your grandparents kept a vegetable garden, Hale's Best was the Cantaloupe they grew. (Did they sprinkle their melons with salt before eating? My folks always did!) They loved its big oval shape,reliable garden performance, and juicy, succulent flavor. Well, some good things actually come back, and this heirloom melon is one of them! Available now from Certified Organic seed, Hale's Best is the best melon I know for sweet, juicy goodness!
The fruit weighs 5 to 6 pounds, and it's mostly flesh -- the seed cavity is small and the rind reasonably thin, with heavy netting and a slight ribbed shape. (The melons reach 7 inches long and about 6 inches in diameter.) The flesh is simply delicious -- strongly scented, very juicy, yet with a solid melon "bite" that fills you up nicely.
Hale's Best arises on strong, vining plants that can spread 5 feet wide and reach about a foot tall. The fruit matures in the hottest summer weather, just when a chilled melon is about the next thing to heaven! When I've grown these in the past, I've lost to a mold in Chicago and Northwest Indiana, so I'm hoping to figure out how to avoid that. Since it is dryer here, I'm going to try again.
Seeds Item #5843

Organic Granex contessa - 110 days. This is the white version of the authentic sweet onion popularized in Vidalia, Georgia. The bulbs are flattened and thick, stuffed with mild, sweet white flesh that can't be beat for raw or cooked enjoyment!This variety has much better storage ability than most sweet short-days, too, so you can keep even more of your delicious harvest! It's the absolute best we have ever grown for overwintering!
Space plants 2 to 3 inches apart in the garden. For mature bulbs, wait until the tops fall over after the growing season. Then dig up the bulbs, cure for 3 weeks, and store in a cool, dry place. I wonder if there is a way to braid these up?
Item #13121 pkg of 60

We still have some organic seeds for lettuce that we are still growing and we will start spinach in a few weeks in the green house. I think I also have some chili seeds and maybe squash from the neighbors.

Not sure what will work and if we will have enough space for this. I’ll have to go through and plan the spacing on paper.

Labels Copper Plant Markers 10 pk $7.95 Item #9153 (we have been using wooden stakes that washed off in the rain and sun bleached in the sun.