Backyard Garden Update 1

The backyard garden is doing well. Most of the seeds I planted have germinated and the seedlings are well on their way. I have picked a few small radishes here and there and they taste pretty good. I will probably pick the rest of them in about a week. The spinach and lettuce are all doing surprisingly well; I planted them about 6 weeks ago and will probably start cutting off some spinach leaves for salads soon. The sugar snap peas are also doing well, although I would estimate that I only had an 80-85% germination rate which is good but not as good as I wanted. Most of the pea plants are standing at about 18" now.


Next week I will be starting bush green beans: tenderpod and another variety with purple pods (Liz's pick). I'm also trying to find some edamame (soybean) seed to plant as well. More updates to come.

Has anyone seen my blackberry?

With the recent rainfall and warming trend here in Baltimore, my blackberry cane has awakened from its winter dormancy. Actually it has been growing new shoots since early April, however the rate of growth has really took off recently. I have even noticed a new primocane shoot poking through the ground; hopefully more shoots will start coming out of the ground too.

This year, I was given two additional plants (roots purchased via mail order) which I will transplant in a few weeks once they grow a little more. I’ll be sure to report on their progress throughout the summer.

For those of you unfamiliar with cane fruits (blackberries and raspberries), the plants grow canes on a two year or biennial cycle. New canes, called primocanes emerge from the ground in spring and grow to about 8 feet in length, producing lots of leaves and shoots, but no berries. The following season, the old primocanes become known as floricanes, and produce blooms and berries. At the end of the season, the floricanes will die and can be cut back to the ground, leaving the new primocanes that have emerged in the current year. An established plant will continue this phase for decades.

I have been told that blackberries are very easy to grow, and once established, will produce loads of canes and fruit. I personally began my blackberry experiment last year by buying a plant from my local big box store and planting it along the perimeter of my back yard near a fence. I planted the bush and waited for it to start producing fruit. My mistake was that I allowed the plant to produce blooms followed by approximately 2 dozen berries. If I would have pinched the blooms instead, the plant’s energy would have instead been directed to the roots, thus producing more primocanes for this year. Instead, my plant only produced a single primocane (this year’s floricane) which will produce fruit this year. It was a good learning experience to say the least. Another fact I learned, is that birds love to eat blackberries! This year, I will purchase netting to drape over my plant so that hopefully I will be able to reap some of the rewards for myself.

Some additional quick facts on blackberries (and to a lesser extent, raspberries):

• Plants can be purchased as erect plants (strong canes needing little or no support), semi-errect (somewhere in the middle between erect and trailing), or trailing (prolific canes that need to be trellised).
• Plants can be purchased with or without thorns; the varieties with thorns are probably more productive.
• When ripe, the berry will be completely black and pull easily from the vine (requires very little force). In my experience, berries with even a small amount of red will taste a little bitter.
• Picked blackberries will retain their stem, whereas, raspberry stems will stay on the vine when picked.
• Blackberries will grow in various conditions including poor soil and limited sunlight, but like most plants they will grow best in well drained fertile soil with adequate levels of sun.
• Blackberries are high in fiber and contain significant amounts of essential vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants.

Book Review - My Empire of Dirt by Manny Howard

In my previous post about gardening resources, I mentioned your local library as a good source of finding gardening books. During one of my trips to the library, looking for gardening books of course, I came across "My Empire of Dirt: How One Man Turned His Big-City Backyard into a Farm" by Manny Howard. I found it quite by accident. The book was staring at me from eye level on the shelf so I picked it up and took it home with me.

From what I gathered after reading the introduction and first few chapters of the book was that Manny Howard was a writer who bounced around various writing gigs eventually ending up as a sort of freelance writer for the New York Magazine. One day Manny was approached by the editor who asked if he would write about the locavore movement. In case you have never heard of this movement, locavorism is the pursuit to primarily buy and/or produce locally grown food and other necessities. Locavorism has become especially popular in the last several years for various reasons. Back to Manny...the primary stipulation for Manny's writing project was that he was required to live off of only the food he grew in his backyard garden for 1 month. In case you were wondering, Manny lives(ed) in Brooklyn, to my understanding in a large house with a sizable (by Brooklyn standards) backyard.

In the book, Manny describes in great detail the various plans he has envisioned for his garden. He plans on starting plants on top of his basement wet bar. He plans on raising tilapia which will be housed in some sort of swimming pool. Manny devotes a chapter to the tilapia project which turns out to be quite humorous. He plans on raising rabbits to be used for meat, which he describes in various sections throughout the book.

Manny has grand plans for his locavore garden project which I assume was either wholly funded or cost reimbursed by the magazine. In a way, I admired Manny and his project, wishing I had the time and resources to do what he was doing. Albeit, Manny had to contend with family obligations and relationships at the same time as he was dealing with preparing his garden beds and raising his rabbits and chickens. I guess you could call Manny the Willie Wonka of backyard gardeners. He attempted just about everything you could do in the backyard, and he managed to fit it all into his Brooklyn lot.

The book was entertaining but at the same time insightful. Manny was fairly knowledgeable from a research perspective going into his project, but he learned a great deal through experience by the time he was finished. That in itself is admirable and it is something all of us experience every season we garden. From a writing perspective, Manny's self-deprecating humor made some of the more dull and undesirable gardening topics both interesting and entertaining.

For an easy and entertaining read, I would recommend this book. You'll laugh and probably learn something at the same time.

You can check out Manny's article as it appeared in the New York magazine. The book builds upon the original magazine article.

Garden Resources

One of the good things about backyard and community vegetable gardening is that a ton of information is available to gardeners.

There are loads of books available for reference, with titles such as "All New Square Foot Gardening" by Mel Bartholomew and "Your Farm in the City" by Lisa Taylor and Seattle Tilth coming to mind. Both of these books along with countless others should be available at your local library...they are at mine.

Another good resource is the Internet. Unfortunately, the quality and level of detail of information you find on the Internet varies. Generally if you type a phrase into Google about gardening you will taken to an about.com article or something similar which is good, but generally very abbreviated. In my opinion, the best and most relevant source of information relative to your geographic location is your state's extension service.

In my state, the University of Maryland manages this service. They also happen to maintain a very well designed and useful website. The University of Maryland extension started an initiative specific to food and vegetable gardening called Grow It Eat It. This website is loaded with information such as vegetable profiles, how-to videos, gardening publications, community gardening resources, and details on how to contact the extension for additional information. Hopefully your state maintains a similar service and website.

Here are some links to the pages I commonly visit on the University of Maryland extension websites:

• Vegetable Profiles - a good source of information on how and when to plant, care for, and harvest commonly grown vegetable varieties
• Food Gardening Publications - detailed guides and reports on how to perform various gardening tasks such as composting, establishing gardens, and managing pests
• Community Gardens - a source of information on community gardening, including a directory of some of the known community gardens located throughout central Maryland
• Spring Frost/Freeze Dates - a chart listing the main towns and regions throughout Maryland along with the probability of frost occurring on certain dates
  

Early Garden Pictures

In case you were wondering, I am located in Baltimore, Maryland which lies within USDA zone 7. The weather has begun to warm up with average day time temps in the 60s and night time temps in the 40s. It has also been fairly rainy. I managed to get my backyard garden setup for the season around the middle of March. I planted sugar snap peas, leaf spinach, radishes, and various varieties of lettuce all from seeds. Most of the seeds germinated around early April and are now growing fairly steadily.

On 4/12 I was notified that the community garden was plowed and ready for planting, albeit a little muddy. My assigned plot is 132. On Sunday, 4/17, my son Cameron and I went to find plot 132 and stake our claim. It turns out plot 132 is in a fairly decent spot. It's accessible my vehicle via a gravel road and grass path. It's in the back of of the garden area off the main road. I'm glad its accessible that way I won't need to worry about tramping through another person's plot, but at the same time I'm hoping my plot isn't overly attractive to vandals. I guess it depends on how you define "community"...my definition doesn't include stealing...we'll see who is right. While searching for our plot, Cameron and I met another gardener named Johnny, who is a past gardener here. He was very nice and explained the ins and outs of the garden and helped us find our plot. It turns out that I used to work with Johnny when I was in college. When I told him that, we ended up having a 1 hour conversation, much to the chagrin of my 3 year old. Sorry bout that buddy!

My plot is roughly identified by the red lines...

Venus Flytrap (not the Dionaea muscipula variety)

An introduction...

You may be asking what a Venus Flytrap has to do with vegetable gardening? Probably not much, unless you are fond of their young shoots in your salads or on your sandwiches. Then what is my point? My point is that vegetable gardening itself can be a trap that like a Venus Flytrap will lure you in and eat you whole.

This is not meant to be an alarming prophecy designed to scare people away from gardening. Just a metaphor for how gardening in general can attract new people who have good intentions of producing lots of fresh vegetables but end up biting off more than they can chew (no pun intended). I hope more people take up vegetable gardening like me, but at the same time hope these people realize how unpredictable and disappointing it can be at times.

I must admit, I am a fairly new gardener myself. This season will be my 3^rd year growing my own vegetables in my own garden. Each year has seen an improvement over the last, and I must say that I have learned a great deal from my experiences. In my backyard, I built a small raised bed garden (48 square feet) that I now use to grow leafy green vegetables, peas, and green beans with great success. I also have a blackberry bush that was planted last year and should be producing fruit this year on last year’s growth. One change (and it’s a big one) I made this year over last year is the addition of a community garden plot.

When I discovered the Double Rock Community Garden last spring, I had grand visions of acquiring a plot and growing loads of tomatoes, peppers, squash, and all the other popular summer vegetables. However, all my inquiries went unanswered, so I took that to mean that my community gardening pursuits were not meant to be. This year was a different story. I was sure to contact all the right people this year, and by divine providence I received a response. To make a long story short, I successfully obtained a 20’ x 20’ plot (that’s 400 square feet!). Is this starting to sound like a Venus Flytrap?

My intentions this year are to use my backyard garden for the things that have always grown well there…the veggies that do well in partial shade, and to use the community garden plot for the veggies that need full sun.

Using my past experiences and lessons learned, my goal is to grow a decent amount of produce that will feed my family and can be shared with friends, but at the same time, not get overwhelmed by the whole process and get sucked into my very own Venus Flytrap.