The
summer garden's plants are in their little starter pots right
now (vaguely reminiscent of training wheels on a bicycle)
really begging to be transplanted into the earth. Tomatoes,
peppers and cucumbers, the stalwarts of our summer garden are
almost ready to hit the big time. In some years, it's too cool
until after your taxes are done, but in many others, heed
their pleas and put them out sooner.
It
seems the crops most of us think the 'value crops' are the summer
crops of the Southern California garden. Back in March, I sowed a
couple of short rows of purple snap beans, so I have some lovely
little summer plants already up in the garden, about five inches
promising the goodies to come. Some folks swear they are 'purple
green beans, ' but that seems a little goofy to me. They aren't
green, they're purple – until you cook them; when they are cooked
to a delicious al
dente
'done,' then they become a deep luscious green. It's a perfect
veggie for someone learning how to not overcook vegetables.
They
are good, but in my book, they aren't the real deal of the bean
world. In April, we put out the main crop of snap beans. It's
pretty common to plant green beans, including, Blue Lake, Kentucky
Wonder, Romano and others, either as a pole bean or a bush bean.
Pole beans need something to climb on and tend to produce more beans
over the entire season. If you want to eat your beans freshly picked
at a number of meals over the season, pole beans are your bet. If
you plan on pickling, canning or freezing a bunch of beans for the
cooler months, bush beans with their tendency to put on all their
crop in the space of three or four good pickings will be the ones you
go for.
I
plant a lot of bush beans for drying – the plants stay in the
garden until they are withered brown stalks with the bean pods still
on them, until the beans begin to fall out from the dried pods. Then
I pick them.
I
like to plant yellow beans, also called 'wax' beans. I hated yellow
beans as a kid, mainly because they were different and I never saw
them for sale in the grocery store; I didn't want to eat anything
that wasn't 'normal.' As far as I can determine, this is the only
instance of conformity I've ever committed. Now that I am an adult,
I've come to love the yellow beans, especially when pickled.
The yellow ones are like 'sunshine in a jar' that I can put on
sandwiches and in salads all year long. Yum! I look for Pencil Pod
or Carson, both of which are straight, delicious and good croppers.
When it comes to pickling or canning, you only have to pack one jar
with beans to appreciate the importance of a quality like 'straight!'
In
all of this, I don't want to miss noting that I did an experiment a
few years back putting a row of Romano beans up against Kentucky
Wonder which had been my standard for a good many years. Romano won
hands down so hard I've not planted Kentucky Wonder or any of the
round green beans since! Some folks don't care for the taste of
Romanos, but I find them as delicious as any bean I've ever had. And
they are 'meatier' and, for my money, more productive over a longer
period of time.
For
something a little different, plant Dragon Langerie, a Dutch variety
that has purple stripes down the large flat yellow bean. They can be
quite large and still tasty. And showy! Or, Scarlet Runner beans.
What a showy vegetable! First they have a bright red (scarlet, get
it?) flower. The green beans can get what large, about ¾ inch
across, and up to 12 inches long! Even at that stage they have a
crunchy deliciousness that the size belies. After getting a little
tough after a while, you can pick them and shell out the soft bean
seeds – called 'shelly beans' in the south – and cook with a
little butter. If you wait a bit longer, the seeds get hard and you
have a dried soup bean – all this production in a plant you would
be proud to put on a trellis at your front door! I didn't even tell
you that the seeds are a brilliant purple splashed with black –
this is one of the stand out plants of the bean world. Can you guess
if I'll grow it again this year?
In
the first half of the month, start planting beans, green, yellow and
purple of all varieties, directly in the garden, I don't bother with
transplanting from beans in starter packs, it's a lot more work for a
very dubious gain. You can put out any bean from tax day on, but I
usually wait yet another month for the beans I want to dry, like the
famous Italian Cannelini, American Cranberry Bean or Black Turtle.
I want these to ripen when the garden is basking in the dry heat of
late summer/early fall. There are a lot of drying beans, but a
gardener of a small plot can be forgiven if they pass on many dried
beans – it can take a bit of space to get a decent crop. For the
best drying bean selections look into Native Seed/SEARCH in Arizona
or Seed Savers Exchange in Iowa.
Don't
forget Lima beans! These big meaty bean seeds are really a winner in
soups and stews. The climbing Lima bean variety “Christmas” is
perennial in our climate and produces loads of red and white (the
reason for calling it “Christmas” I believe) year in and year
out. These vigorous vines demand to be put on a really sturdy fence
– they will pull down anything less (as I can attest). If you can
only afford one or two plants, they'll still make it worth your
while. Keep them picked – it can be a bit of a chore to keep after
them.
About
the same time you are putting your green and yellow beans into the
garden, set out a couple cucumbers. I like Armenian and Japanese
cucumbers,each of which have the same mild flavor and awesome crunch,
even though they couldn't look any more different! The Armenian
cucumbers are a light green almost bordering on yellow, with smooth
skin covering a straight fat cucumber while the Japanese are a very
dark green, with massive prickles on a furrowed and absolutely
convoluted twisty narrow cucumber. Both are delicious. The Japanese
cucumber will bear over a longer period but there is much more eating
on each Armenian cuke, so it probably ends up with both being about
the same. Give them plenty of room! If your garden is small, make
these gangly fellows climb a fence, a trellis or something up versus
over the ground – and your other plants – which they will do with
impunity!
At
some point, everyone is tempted by the Lemon cucumber. This is an
heirloom that looks so cute in catalogs. I have grown it several
times and each time I've found myself asking, “Why?” It's not
all that good, it's a labor to peel (five Lemon cukes equal less food
than one Armenian or Japanese) and the vines can engulf a small home!
OK, that's a bit much, but I've seen it cover a ten by ten foot
garden bed without looking back. And it does produce well, but not
like some of the more traditional cukes. Too much labor per bite.
That should be a veggie growing matrix: Labor Per Bite; the LPB is
too high.
The
beans and cucumbers aren't all we are planting out right now. I
haven't even mentioned later in the month! After the taxes are in,
set out growing plants of peppers, eggplants, okra, melons, zucchini,
summer squashes and tomatillos. Sow seeds of corn directly where
they will grow. Pumpkins are a winter squash and all those hard
skinned squashes should go out in May or so. They are really heat
lovers. And demand space or something on which to climb!
You
say you want pumpkins for Halloween? Check the packet for the days
to harvest. On the coast, we need to add almost a month to that
which means you need to get them in sooner rather than later. You
can skip the 'add a month' part, if you are more inland; but a
pumpkin that is ripe before you need it, will keep. A pumpkin that
isn't ripe until Thanksgiving can't be transformed into a Jack o'
Lantern until the last minute because it will rot very quickly.
“Early” really is more better than late in this case. And your
dates to harvest could be slowed down if we get a heavy dose of June
Gloom on the coast making that extra month essential. Without June
gloom, you don't have to add that month.
Peppers
and eggplants are easily grown once it has warmed up. They usually
get about 3½' tall and need about 18” between plants. As with
most vegetables, you need to give them all the sun you can. You can
also try growing some lettuce in the shade of larger plants. Lettuce
dislikes heat, but I like tomatoes and lettuce (my annual BLT) at the
same time and it's easier trying to get lettuce in summer than
tomatoes in winter.
I
love peppers but I hate eggplant. Both however, are beautiful
additions to every garden, I grow eggplant as an ornamental and give
the produce to someone who cares to eat it. Peppers come in a wild
variety of colors – all start green and eventually change to
whatever color they want to be – every green pepper you've ever
eaten would have turned to some other color if we'd only practiced
more patience. I like Anaheim, Early Jalapeno and Corno di Torno
(Italian for 'Horn of the Bull') for warmer peppers and Cubanelle,
Sweet Banana and Marconi for a sweet pepper. Eggplants can be Asian
or Italian – I like the Italian Listada
de Gandia or
Rosa Bianca, primarily because they are very good looking in the
garden. I have no intention of eating them. There are deep purple
ones (almost black) and white ones as well as Turkish Orange and
green eggplants. Very pretty.
Okra
can be planted late in April/early May. Clemson's Spineless,
Burgundy, Annie Oakley, and Star of David all are prolific producers.
Put on a pot of gumbo in late summer! I'll eat 'em if I don't see
'em. There is a red variety called 'Burgandy' which is stunning! All
okras, being mallow family members, have wonderful flowers and are
stunning in the garden. I have been feeling better about okra as
edible lately.
Not
enough has been said yet about basil, but Genovese basil is the best
in my book. Not just good production, but wonderful aroma and the
taste is incomparable. Pinch the tips of each branch as flower buds
begin to form all summer to keep it producing – once there are two
pair of leaves on a stem, that stem will commence to flower. Pick
the flowers before they have set seed, use them in cooking or making
salads. Once the seeds begin to mature, the plant begins the process
of dying.
If you keep it well picked, the plant gets bushier and bushier and
you get a lot more basil from each plant. Throw the pickings in
soup, salads or directly in your mouth! It's a win/win type of
situation.
Sweet
corn is another delight of the summer garden. It is a little tricky
to grow in our small gardens though. Corn, like all the cereal
grains, is wind pollinated. However, unlike the other grains, corn
has male and female flowers. The tassels atop the plant are the
'boy' flowers and the silks on the ear are the 'girl' flowers. The
tassels produce loads of pollen that must reach the silks to
fertilize them and create the corn seeds. This is hard to do if you
don't have a lot of corn plants with pollen to blow onto the silks.
It is best to plant corn as a block of plants rather than long rows.
There needs to be a critical mass of male flowers to produce pollen
to fall on the silks. You can shake the flowering corn stalks to
cause the pollen to fall down and assist in corn sex if you're the
adventurous type. Play some seductive music. “Was it good for you
too?”
If
you've ever eaten an ear of corn and found a spot where there was a
space instead of a kernel, that shows that one silk was not
pollinated: every kernel has its very own silk. To get a fully
populated ear of corn, every individual silk must be fertilized.
Also
at this time, you will put out plants of zucchini and soon
afterwards, so-called 'Winter Squash.' Zucchini and the yellow
crookneck squashes with soft skin are called Summer Squash because
they are eaten in summer; while the hard rinds of squashes and
pumpkins can be saved to be eaten in the cold (read 'non-gardening')
months of winter. I usually set a plant or two of summer squash in
the garden and plant seeds of the winter varieties. Both can be put
out by seeds or by transplant, it's just the habit I've gotten into.
Zucchini and summer squashes can be large leaved plants that don't
ramble a lot, but get quite large. Winter squashes and pumpkins
ramble everywhere – the larger the fruit, the larger the leaves and
the greater potential with smashing other, not as large, veggies.
Winter squashes resemble cucumbers in this way, except that cucumbers
are more delicate than squash.
If
you have an unused trellis, consider one of the climbing summer
squashes like Zuchetta
Trombonicino Squash.
There are others with similar habits – but you'll have to grow
them from seed! Check the seed catalogs for a description that
matches this one. The fruit on these plants can get to be three or
more feet long and when they are hanging down from a trellis they
create a magical experience for children and the childlike as they
walk between the hanging fruit – and mighty good eating too! Keep
them picked and plan on having these gorgeous soft squashes to share
with friends and neighbors. My catalog says they 'may be grown on a
pretty strong trellis” and I would say that's just a bit
understated. In our small gardens, growing these plants on the
ground will take up too much of your gardening real estate and if you
try a wimpy trellis, you'll get the plants growing on the ground as
well, among the shattered parts of the wimpy trellis!
There
is little hope of April showers in our area, although they are not
unheard of. In many years, one or two will show up, although they
don't usually provide us with much rain. Get your garden beds
mulched as soon as you can. A lack of mulching will allow that water
to evaporate and you will need to water all that much more. Add
mulch to about three inches deep – don't cover your plants or
freshly sown seeds, but all over the spaces between plants. And as
plants get larger, add mulch around them. It will save you in
weeding later on, the roots of plants will feel better and the
critters in the soil are all much more happy!
It
might seem early, but begin to think about saving seeds from some of
the plants you put out now. Beans are easy in this regard, as are
tomatoes and lettuce. Especially if you start your planting off with
saving seed in mind. And it is NOT too early to think about seed
saving; lets take a moment to think what you would need to do to save
the seeds from some of the plants in your garden. Look elsewhere in this blog to find much more on seed saving!
Saving
seeds from year to year only needs a little extra attention in what
you already do and a little more record keeping so you can say 'this
came from that and not from that' with assurance. This little effort
will enrich your gardening in unexpected ways. The season I started
to plant my garden with the intention of saving seeds for the future,
both my garden and myself were changed in ways I did not anticipate.
I have heard other folks describe a similar phenomena once they
became parents – the future has new meaning and new importance and
weight. In addition, I became more intimate with the phenomena of
life that exists in the garden, feeding on the flowers and the seeds
that I allowed to flourish. I don't, as I've said, use any
pesticides in my garden and depend on a multitude of insects in the
garden as my 'pest control.'
Plant
beans apart from one another, at least a few feet with something
taller growing between them. Although science says there is little
chance of cross pollination between beans, their research is done in
insecticide-soaked research plots. In your organic garden, you can
get some crossing so planting your different varieties somewhat apart
with something tall between them will help keep the beans self
pollinated so they remain the same bean year after year. (The bean
remains the same.) Designate a couple of plants from the beginning
to be seed producers and mark them with some colored flags or colored
tape found in hardware stores (this 'tape' is a lighter version
non-sticky flagging tape, like a light version of 'Police Line – Do
Not Cross' seen at crime scenes), buy a couple of colors to use for
different purposes. Chose a plants of early, middle and late
production. Chose plants with qualities you like (production,
disease resistance or straight beans) if you want to carry those
qualities forward. Tie the tape securely around the plants you will
save for seed. Simply let the plant make beans and leave them on the
plant until the pod is drying out. Gather in the dried up plants and
allow to dry in as cool a place as you can find until they are really
dry.
To
insure there are no insects in the beans, put them in the freezer for
a few days once they are dry enough (hit one with a hammer – if it
shatters, it's dry enough!), pull them out, allow the condensation to
disappear and put them into jars with extra head room (air space
above the beans) and store them in a dark, cool place until needed to
eat or to replant.
Tomatoes,
eggplants and peppers are a little more demanding because they
produce over the whole summer, or at least that's what we hope for.
They are mostly self-fertile, so if you're saving seed for yourself
only, you might find it acceptable to have two plants of each
flowering at the same time. If you plan on sharing the seed with
others who might not have the same forgiveness gene as yourself,
you'll need more rigor. I had a handyman build me a couple of frames
that cover a typical eggplant or pepper. These frames are of 1 x 2
wood on to which I can staple some porous fabric, called 'spun
fabric' or 'row covers' – sometimes you'll see the brand names
Remay or Agri-Grow. This fabric allows air, water and sunlight to
pass but no insects – in fact it is used over rows of plants like
cabbage to protect the plants from the cabbage moth. It is rather
inexpensive and can be used for more than one year. Just make sure
the bottom of the fabric has solid continuous contact with the soil
The frames should be good for several years especially if you coat
them with linseed oil.
Start
with these easy to save seeds – on down the road, you can learn to
save seeds from the more demanding plants like squashes and
cucumbers. Both of those are more promiscuous than any animal ever
thought to be and are pollinated by bees. To get pure seed from them
requires to manage their sex life and that can be really demanding.
Or
corn, beets and chard which are wind pollinated. In fact, is is
because they are wind pollinated that many folks are upset with
genetically modified organisms grown indiscriminantly in America's
fields. The pollen from GMO plants can easily be blown into non-GMO
cropland contaminating those plants with the genetically modified
material. The wind blown pollen has created a scarcity of corn
varieties that are NOT contaminated with this unproven, and largely
unwelcome, tehcnology.
Once
you find yourself saving seed, you'll really feel a connection to
your forefathers and foremothers! They saved seed all the time
because it was their only source for seed other than neighbors –
and I'm sure that sharing their seeds was one of the annual
highlights of the community. It can become a part of your annual
harvest festivals, of which Thanksgiving is the ultimate.
Boy
are we busy this month! Don't worry. If you fail to get everything
done, you can keep at it for the first two weeks of May. There is no
need to rush in Southern California. Our climate forgives us for
being too early or too late most of the time, so you can go wrong,
but you have to work at it pretty hard.
Start
These In Containers
|
Start
These In The Ground
|
Move
to the Ground from Containers
|
Winter
squash
More
basil, if needed
|
Beans
of all kinds mentioned in the text
|
Tomatoes
Basil
|
More
summer squash, if needed
|
Squash
(some folks prefer this to staring in containers)
|
Peppers
Eggplant
Summer
Squash
|
Corn
|
Cucumbers
|
|
Refer
to the text for exact dates.
It
is with trepidation I share the following recipe: I have often
thought I need to enter this in the county fair because it is a
winner for those of us who love rhubarb pie – you cannot find a
decent one made commercially, that's for sure. A rhubarb pie cannot
be made with a ton of sugar that covers the tartness of the rhubarb.
This is a single-male modified Martha Stewart recipe and it is
delicious.
I
have not mastered making pie crust as of this writing – that is the
only reason I have not sought a ribbon with this pie: it seems unfair
to buy a crust for a pie that will be judged. I intend to learn how
to make a good crust and then, look out! The blue ribbon will be
mine!
David
King's Most Beautifully Delicious Rhubarb Pie!
2
double pie crusts
2½
pounds fresh rhubarb, cut into ½ inch pieces, or 2 20 ounce packages
of frozen rhubarb, thawed and drained (I have never used frozen
rhubarb, it was in the original recipe however)
1
cup sugar, or to taste
½
cup all-purpose flour
1
tablespoon ground cardamom
1
teaspoon nutmeg
Juice
and grated zest of 1 bright-skinned orange
Preheat
the oven to 350 ° F
Cut
the rhubarb into pieces to fill your pie crust. Combine all
ingredients except rhubarb in bowl. Spoon this mixture over the
rhubarb as evenly as you can over the rhubarb – the act of baking
will take care of the distribution of the sauce.
Bake
for approximately 50 minutes, until the filling has bubbled and
thickened. Let cool on a rack before serving.
Makes
one large or two smaller pies.