It’s January and for the first time in my life when this month hit I was excited to get gardening catalogues and start my planning.

Admittedly I’ve done nothing BUT I am excited! Doesn’t that count?

This year I’ll try and do better by the onions, carrots and lettuce. I’m thinking of picking up a few more Smart Pots for those. Not too many because I’m still gardening in a small space.

I’m finally reading my copy of Momma’s Guide to Growing Your Own Groceries by Kimberly Eddy. That has me stoked even more. True this gardening guide is not written with the container gardener in mind but it is written to help you get started growing items you will actually eat (rather than just start fondly at). Having lived in Europe Kimberly’s book is great with practical advice on thinking through the placement, design and application of your garden so that your grocery budget will be reduced (the ultimate goal).

Kimberly has been at this (13 years in 2005) much longer than I have (year 2 wahoo!) so I’m counting on her advice to help me have a better harvest. We did GREAT! with our tomatoes and potatoes last year. This year I’m adding better cucumbers, lettuce, onions, carrots, and peppers to the bunch.

So are you gardening this year? And if so what are you planting?

I know I’m actually a bit late in posting this but hey! I’ve been busy.

So tomato season is over. We fluctuate in temperatures and haven’t gotten down to freezing…yet but we did already take down one tomato plant.

So where are you with your kitchen garden? Here are some tips I came across when trying to decide what to do with the tomatoes.

1. If your tomato plants still have plenty of tomatoes still on them and you just aren’t ready to give up yet even if winter is knocking at your door you can uproot your plants and hang them upside down somewhere like your garage or basement. Apparently some have gotten tomatoes well into December with this method. I was going to try it but it just seemed a tad messy for me and remember I’m the squeemish gardener.

2. You can pick all your green tomatoes and make up all kinds of green tomato salsas and my mom’s favorite fried green tomatoes. This did not ring my chime so I passed on this.

3. You can pick your big green tomatoes, clean and dry them and either put the all in a box or wrap them individually in newspaper and put them in a box in the garage or basement. Check them every other day or so and when you see some starting to ripen place them on the window sill.

We did this. We had a TON of tomatoes and handed them out with still more than enough for ourselves. We washed about half of them (before becoming exhausted) and wrapped those in newspaper. The rest we just put in a box. Funny enough the ones in the newspaper are ripening the fastest. Our windowsill is very colorful.

I’m also a freezing a few whole. Following this tip.

This week’s Dollar Stretcher Tips has a great tip for stretching your tomato growing season. I had truly wondered about this and I aim to try it. Read it here . Scroll down to Stretching Tomato Growing Season.

You’re Welcome

Okay I think it’s officially fall. The start of school and the month ‘September’ do that for me.

But my tomatoes think that NOW is the time for them to get going.

They are growing beautifully!

It’s annoying and so wonderful all at the same time.

The amish paste are doing the best. There are tons of them and the plant is just growing crazy.

One of the black tula plants, which I thought surely had given up on life revived and has a ton of tomatoes.

The golden (something or other, I’ve forgotten the name) has finally given us two tomatoes and they are the biggest the whole garden has seen.

The only thing that has happened is about two weeks ago my husband and peanut daughter went out there when I was busy elsewhere and pruned everything. Now they don’t do all the reading, analyzing, and agonizing that I do. They just cut what looked bad and IT WORKED!

Go figure…

Wheee!

So today the Quinn family got out early to harvest their potato yield. If you remember we have been testing out growing potatoes in the Smart Pots all summer. Apart from great soil preparation and haphazard watering (over the balcony) we have done precious little to these potatoes.

We grew the German Butterball and some rogue russet from Wild Oats that was going to seed in the fridge.  That was a last minute decision and not a bad one

So here is the potato gardening in a summary fashion (you know like “sum it all up”).

• We grew our potatoes from seeds from Seed Savers
• in Smart Pots
• using this method
• My husband laid the pots on a flat piece of wood that was sitting on top of some 2×4’s over the dirt (good decision)
• We picked a few new potatoes when the flowers died off
• We found some of those green seed pods and made the decision to get rid of those too.
• The foilage started to die back about 2-3 weeks ago (recommended time) and based on work schedules, school starting and the season we made the decision to harvest today.
• There were big VERY VERY ugly slugs and LOTS of spiders under the wood but we had not seen them all summer… well the spiders yes but they are always here.
• We planted 2.5 lbs of the German Butterball. They are estimated to yield between 2 to 3 times their planted amount. We are estimating we yielded about 10 to 13 pounds.
• Our rogue potato, of which I have long forgotten how many I planted, yielded some nice sized tuber and probably about to 10 lbs.
• It is rewarding to see the fruit of your labors even if it is not gargantuan amounts. We are sharing with family and hopefully next year we’ll have some for friends
• I will be planting these again next year. This time using all of our pots for the German Butterball (you just rinse them out and keep them in the garage…after removing the spiders of course). I’m going to try and save a few of ours for seed but order again from Seed Savers. The only thing I might change is how many go in each pot. I have to do some research. Everything else worked well and it was a great learning experience and activity for our daughter.

Whew! The gardening advice never ends!

We have some very flucuating weather as of late and as a result I’ve had some misses with a few tomatoes. I allowed a couple to ripen on the vine and unfortunately this happened during a heat spell which has left them mushy. Ick! Nothing worse than a mushy tomato.

So here I’m linking you up to some good tomato picking tips

• Hyde Park Garden Fair Vegetable picking tips (scroll to the bottom for tomatoes)
• Tomato Casual. None of these were the reason for my tomatoes being mushy but just in case this might happen to you…

Oh woe is me. Naive am I. I thought that the blossom end rot was the worst of it.

I was out watering the tomatoes and giving them the once over when I notice a little pile of what appears to be bird poop on a leaf. Not really wanting to deal with it I sprayed the stuff with my Garlic Barrier when they started to move. All of them!

I most wanted to let out a blood curdling scream and run for the hills but after disposing of the mass I ran into the house and jumped on the computer.

Thank goodness my peanut was taking a nap at the time. She proclaims all bugs beautiful and would have wanted to save them or something.

They may be tomato hornworms or what have you. After various pictures and videos I began to get nauseous and called my husband to whine.

I found that most gardeners swear by Bt and more specifically Safer 5160 Caterpillar Killer with BT.

There was some business about corn and tomatoes being planted together (which I have) which like I said the nauseau was setting in so I just had to get the job done.

After a few trips this morning I found the stuff and my husband and I hosed down the plants this evening.

I do happen to have a home next to an open field that probably used to be farm land. I think the bugs go out at night with little headsets on and call in to each other on who’s garden to attack next. Did I tell you about the time I was out gardening and two mating bugs decided  my head was the place to land? They love me. They just love me. I’m itching just talking about it.

Mind you I keep talking about having a strong stomach and I thought I did. I was a pre-med student in college. Autopsy, open heart surgery, various experiments. I could discuss this stuff over dinner but these bugs? Aaaarggh!

I tell my husband that had we lived in pioneer days we would have starved to death.

Oh this is the video that sent me over the edge.

Tomatoes, Black Tula

I didn’t realize it has been since the middle of June since I posted a blog update. I’ve been busy. Who hasn’t? But most importantly (at least as far as the blog is concerned) where are we in gardening?

Well after weeks of agonizing because I wasn’t seeing any bees I discovered little green tomatoes on my tomato plants.

Now about that. We know that the tomato flowers need to be pollinated for tomatoes to appear and we rely on bees to pollinate them. Apparently the pollination of tomato flowers is so easy that a good breeze can accomplish it. There are also the toothbrush and paintbrush methods which I was headed towards but I did not realize that the heavy winds we get at times could be taking care of this for me. I also did eventually see some nice big bees. I guess they visited when I wasn’t looking. By the way I learned all of this couresty of my master gardener friend.

Also our corn is incredibly tall. I’ve got to read a little bit more about what to expect there but they do drink a TON of water. In this heavy duty self-watering container I need to water daily.

The strawberries seem spent. It probably didn’t help that my daughter plucked all the green ones off in the effor to ‘help’. Bless her heart I couldn’t stop laughing.

The lettuce is still hanging in there. I harvested a bunch of leaves last week for salads and really need to go sow more seeds.

The onions have all been pulled. I need to work on them. I do have one going to seed so he is left out there so I can harvest the seeds.

The potatoes are growing away. The green stuff seems to be dying back a bit so I expect to harvest them before long.

The carrots??? A joke on my porch.

I have one rogue cucumber plant. He looks so unhealthy but he’s growing really well. His leaves have spots etc.

Oh I got the garlic bug repellent juice. I spray all the time.

I should figure out how to label these updates. I also need to post the pictures I took. I’m writing content before adding that great media but here is my exciting container garden update!!!

I know you have all been wondering and tearing your hair out for the next installment of The Container Garden – How Not To…

All kidding aside here is the update.

Carrots: I don’t know where these are. Seriously. My sister says I they come up as little tiny sprigs reminiscent of tiny chives but mine are so tiny there are almost invisible. She has bigger ones in her kitchen window. My verdict is still out on these. I have some mini tom thumb variety growing.

Corn: The corn sprouted so fast I’m a proud mama. I need to thin them now as my little Peanut and I planted 3 per hole. They have two long leaves each. These are also in the Garden Patch pot.

Cucumbers: My first two transplants died. I have another growing in my office but I’m not sure I even want to continue with him. I may put him in my rogue pot. More on that later.

Herbs: My aunt gave me one of those dollar store herb selections and I planted the whole pack in a pot. I’m not even sure what it was. It’s growing kind of. We’ve had a ton of rain so I had to move the water drain catcher thingsy from under most non-self watering pots.

Lettuce: We’ve eaten all of the transplants bought from Whole Foods…or is it Wild Oats? Oh well. My family says this was not a true  test of my gardening skills because they were already doing so well when I purchased them. My indoor flat is not doing well. I put it in more light but I think I’m going to scrap the indoor lettuce. The seeds I started in a pot (non-self watering) with some onions are doing really well. This was a mix from Seedsavers.org. I’m going to sow some more in a week or so to have continuous lettuce for a while.

Onions: These just baffle me. They are doing so well in a pot that I forgot to put the bottom on. They are big and I’m just going to leave them alone. I don’t even remember if I added fertilizer (keep notes unlike me). These were the onions I bought in a bunch at the beginning of the growing season. I put some more out a few weeks ago since they seem to like pots.

Potatoes: I am just so tickled at the potatoes. We have… well four pots actually but one is just

a very small pot I started so my daughter could really see the potatoes. We have 3 big Smart Pots on the ground and they are doing really well in there. We covered them with the next layer of peat moss/ soil mix.  We are following this method pretty much to the T. Just using Smart Pots instead of barrells.

Strawberries: These poor babies have been in a pot most of their lives. I’ve been carrying them around as we move hoping to put them in our backyard when we finally buy a home. I purchased them before I got married so they are about 12 years old now. They are in a Garden Patch pot and have several flowers on each little plant. I’m glad they didn’t give up on me.

Tomatoes: Tomaotes. So tempermental but so worth it. I have my second transplants outside permanently as of Sunday. So far so good. One did go and break in half on me so I gave that to my daughter who was making ’soup’.  My first set all turned into my version of lazy compost except one plant which had hardened up and was growing well. It actually has a flower on it. Replace the Gold Medal I lost today. I don’t know which variety it is though so this will be interesting. All the tomotoes are in Garden Patch planters.

I have one rogue Garden Patch pot where I put thinnings and odds and ends to see what will happen. I really shouldn’t be wasting a self watering container like this but my husband and I like to do things like this for surprises.

We have the potatoes out. They are in Smart Pots. I purchased 3.2 15 gallon and one 30 gallon. I’m trying German Butterball potatoes from Seed Savers. We’ll see how they do. According to the potato in a pot article I linked to earlier you start off with the soil halfway and then fill it as the plants grow. I won’t tell you how I planted potatoes the first time many years ago. It’s a wonder they grew at all and the reason I read so much.

We had a really warm day here early in the week and since my little almanac thingy says that the end of April is supposed to be a good time to plant after the last frost I went for it and transplanted my tomatoes, cucumbers and we started the corn….big mistake.

First off I was replanting a cuban oregano for my mom and I made the grave error of setting the pot on the banister right above a tomato plant. It promptly fell off and beheaded the plant.

Secondly the next day we experienced cold wet weather complete with heavy winds. Since you only plant two plants per pot about 4 of mine look like wilted lettuce. Extremely wilted lettuce.

Thank goodness a few weeks ago I had a feeling I was going to have problems with my first batch of tomato seeds so I started some more. They are growing nicely under the lamp.

Thirdly the cucumbers just died period in the wind. They couldn’t take it at all and it’s hard not to burst out laughing whenever I look at them. I’m only planted two plants and even though I wasn’t committed to them I think I’ll try again after reading a bit more about them.

The onion starts are doing well considering they are all in too shallow of pots. I’m just leaving them and I’ll see what happens. If nothing else we have some nice green onions.

The carrots have sprouted but I have some teeny round ones I would have rather planted than the Nantes that I did plant.

The strawberries continue to do well and it will be interesting to see what they produce. It’s been so long that I’ve had them I’ve forgotten what variety they are. Either June bearing or ever bearing. I think they are the ones that produce twice a year but then I think I say that every year. I have moved with them 5 times over the last 15 years and have been keeping them in a rather too small pot until they find their permanent home. They still aren’t home but I decided then needed a better pot.

My lettuce in a pot indoors has sprouted and well…we’ll see. The lettuce out doors (the ones from starts) are doing well and we had some amazing turkey with Caeser dressing sandwiches last week with them. There wasn’t enough for an all out salad yet so we just had them on some sandwiches.

The main thing is we’re having a blast. Yes it would be nice if something actually came from all this but I did not use all of my seeds so there’s always next year. Well that’s my update so far.