locavore « Gardenpoiesis: Adventures of a Naturalist

Plant Plot Produce

June 1, 2024

The weather has been excellent for my garden plot this season, so far. It has not been excessively hot and there has been rain on a regular basis – no watering required.

Most of my plant seed is from Baker Creek Rare Seed in Missouri. I have successfully grown plants from some seed that was 3 years old.

I have just harvested my first orange and purple baby carrots, Georgia sweet onion, Swiss chard, Italian chard, Japanese Komatsuna, white turnips, little Gem and Tom Thumb lettuces. I had harvested all the radishes about a week prior to this.

In Baker Creek, Food, Gardens, locavore, Plants, Sustainability

Tomato drama

July 22, 2022

You grow the tomato plants from seed to seedling, then you plant them in the garden plot. The plants have to survive the obstacle course of; squirrels digging them up, rabbits or moles eating the stem, wind and rain beating them down, insect predation, and more…😱

Time goes by…. the plants have grown tomatoes. Looking great. The pruning, correct fertility, adequate water has worked its nature magic. That is; you have TOMATOES.

Now, there is a new set of interested predators. Not sure which, but most likely racoons or opossum came during the night and took bites out of the low hanging, beautiful fruits. What a damn shame!

For immediate protection, “what to do??” Grab some grocery store bags and put the lowest and ripest fruits inside. Next go to Amazon and buy fruit netting bags designed for just this sort of protection. That worked! Only lost 4 or 5 nice size fruits to the critters (so far). Those that survived the ordeal, are delicious.

(well….they didn’t survive being eating by the gardener LOL)

In Food, Gardens, locavore, Sustainability, Tomato

New Kuroda carrots

July 9, 2022

I’m growing carrots for the first time this year. The carrot seed variety I choose was New Kuroda from Baker Creek Rare Seed in Missouri. I choose this variety to grow both in container, and in the earth. The variety is a shorter type. I wasn’t certain about how friable the soil in the garden plot would be; a longer carrot variety might not be able to penetrate the soil.

Also the variety was developed to withstand higher temperatures without bolting to seed production. Planting in a patio container is obviously a constraint on root production and creates a higher potting soil temperature.

The carrots planted in the garden plot were protected with an insect barrier cover; so no problem with those creatures. I didn’t thin them as much as I should have to increase the production. They looked so beautiful to me that I hated to remove them from the plot. I did do some thinning as the carrot tops got larger. That made a difference. The carrot, fresh from the soil taste was really good. Excellent raw and cooked.

From seed to first harvesting of plants was about 80 days. I harvested all the container plants at about 95 days. Here’s some photos from garden grown ….and container grown.