The Vegetable & Herb Garden

(also on the Gardening Blog)

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The Vegetable & Herb Garden was begun in 2009. It was originally one-half the size, but a year later was enlarged to 12 ft. X 19 ft. It is made up of several raised-bed partitions. Each board is 8ft. X 6 in. X 1in. with gravel between two of the rows for easy access. Each growing area is 4 ft. X either 8 ft. or 12 ft. In 2020 two new raised beds that we got from Gronomics were added. They are each 4 ft. square and 16 in. tall. These were each covered by Pop Net Screen Mesh as well as two other ground level plots. We had such good luck with the mesh two additional Pop Nets were ordered so that all of the veggies can be planted under them in the future.

A trench was dug all around the perimeter and 3 ft. of chicken wire was laid in it to keep out the gophers. Another 3 ft. of chicken wire was strung on posts all the way around the top of the garden to keep out the rabbits. (It doesn't stop mice or birds!). There are two breaks in the chicken wire on one side of the garden that are used as gates. In 2013, sturdy wooden gates with latches were added making it easier to enter and leave the garden.

The garden areas were dug up from the original soil and amenities are added each year to boost the organic content. The amenities have included Soil Mender Plus, horse manure and mulch made from kitchen scraps throughout the year. We have a compost pile where the bees were kept in previous years. All of our kitchen scraps except meat and citrus rinds are put there during the year.

Each year vegetable seeds are begun in the sun room of the house in March to be planted in the garden after the danger of the last frost is over on May 15th. (Some cold-hardy plants can be put out a little earlier). In January seeds are chosen and ordered. Most are ordered from Fedco Seeds.

The herb garden occupies a portion of the vegetable garden. It is 4 ft. X 10 ft. and is left alone except to add new herbs and mulch each year. Among the herbs that are grown are rosemary, tarragon, thyme, oregano, marjoram, basil, summer and winter savory.

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2024

In the middle of March old greens seeds were scattered in two of the beds. On March 31 yellow and sweet onion sets were planted to be used as green onions later on in the season.

On April 20 we planted Fedco seeds in pots in trays in our sunroom. They will be nurtured there for a about 6 weeks before putting them out in the garden. We planted Nero di Tuscan Lacinato kale, tatsoi, Winter Density lettuce, Choko pac choi, Bright Lights chard, Red Russian Kale, Vates collards and Yokatta-Na Chinese Cabbage. Some even started germinating by the 24th!

On June 2nd we put out all of the veggies from the sunroom and put Pop Nets over them. By June 16th they were all doing well due to the rains that began that month. Tomato, eggplant, shishito peppers, sweet peppers were bought as small plants and put out in the back garden. Bush beans were started as seed as well and began to sprout.

On June 22nd many older unused veggie seeds (mostly radishes), zucchini, dill and basil were planted or scattered as well. Since the monsoon rains began many of them sprouteds soon after. Began picking leafy veggies (Nero di Tuscan Lacinato kale, tatsoi, Winter Density lettuce, Choko pac choi, Bright Lights chard, Red Russian Kale, Vates collards and Yokatta-Na Chinese Cabbage) by the end of June. We had several good monsoon rains at the end of June and first of July which really got the veggies growing!

Picked the first zuchinni on July 17. Also many shishito peppers ready to pick. All of the leafy greens growing and being used and given away. Small tomatoes and flowers abundant as well, but will be some time before they are ready to pick. Began picking leafy veggies (Nero di Tuscan Lacinato kale, tatsoi, Winter Density lettuce, Choko pac choi, Bright Lights chard, Red Russian Kale, Vates collards and Yokatta-Na Chinese Cabbage) by the end of June. We had several good monsoon rains at the end of June and first of July which really got the veggies growing! July monsoon rains came, but unfortunately missed Eldorado most of the time. Some off and on short rains, but nothing great. By the end of July the tatsoi, lettuce, most of the pac choi were eaten. The tomatoes have lots of flowers and some small fruit. The shitos are producing well as are the other larger peppers. Eggplants and zuchinni are coming along and are promising.

On Sept. 12 I pulled up the Nero di Tuscan Lacinato kale, Red Russian Kale, and Vates collards. They slill had edible leaves but were gettiing leggy and had aphids. This leaves the eggplant, zuchinni, peppers and tomatoes which are all doing quite well.

By October 6 the nights are getting into the 50's and the veggies are not thriving. All that was left are the large peppers, zuchini and tomatoes. Will take out the zuchini and all of the others as they ripen. I am saving a couple of the peppers as they turn red to collect the seeds for next year. Took out pepper plants on Oct. 8 and tomato plants on Oct. 11.

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2023

Three kinds of tomato seeds were planted in small pots in the sunroom on April 18th to be put in the Wall Garden next month. They were Territorial seeds of Sungold cherry, Pink Berkeley Tie-Dye slicing and Stupice slicing. Takara Shishito peppers seeds were also planted in the sunroom into small pots. All of the tomatoes began to germinate and by April 21st all varieties were up and growing well. The Shishitos began to germinate on April 26.

The complete veggie garden was planted on May 14. Susan planted everything from seeds then we installed Pop Net Screen Mesh over them all except the Oceanside spinach and the Balboa arugula. The seeds that were planted were: Red Russian kale, Apollo broccoli, Bright Lights chard, Winter Density Bibb/Romaine lettuce, Vates collards, totsoi, Shuko pac choi, Toyko Bekana Chinese cabbage, Early Wonder tall top beets, Scarlet Nantes carrots, Yaya Nantes carrots, White Egg turnips, Nero de Tuscana Lacinato kale and Hakurei turnips. Bunching onion and sweet basil seeds were also scattered in the herb section of the garden.

On June 8 leafy veggie seeds were replanted around the small plants that had come up from the first planting. No monsoon rains at all in July or the beginning of August. I pulled up all of the leafy veggies in the main vegetable garden on August 5th. The hot weather this year seemed to have stunted the leafy green veggies although I watered them regularly.

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2022

April is a busy month preparing for the spring and summer growing season. We planted the the Fedco seeds that will be planted in the garden later on in small pots in the sunroom on the 11th. They included Red Russian Siberian kale, Takora shishito peppers, Vates collards, Nero di Tuscana Lacinto kale, Shuko pac choi, tatsoi & Bright Lights chard. Plants around the farm are beginning to bloom on time as in the past.

The veggies did very well as they matured in August. There were many monsoon storms that brought a lot of rain to our area. By the end of August we had pulled up the pac choi, tatsoi and green and yellow zucchini that we bought at Home Depot. The yellow zuchinni did the best. The shishito peppers did not do well and were pulled up as well.

By September some of the veggies had finished producing. These were the Shuko pac choi, tatsoi and the green and yellow zucchini. The veggies still producing in the garden were the Red Russian Siberian kale, Vates collards, Nero di Tuscana Lacinto kale, the spinach, carrots & Bright Lights chard. In addition two varieties of small red tomatoes, a variety of some sort of volunteer tomato and two sweet yellow peppers that were purchased at Home Depot. We were still having monsoon rains at the beginning of the month and the temperatures were warm during the day (80's), but falling into the 40's and 50's at night. The spring onions were still producing that were planted either as bulbs or seeds earlier in the season. There were also lots of basil plants that were planted by seed.

In October the nights are getting colder so everything was pulled except some carrots, spinach, kale, chard and collards.

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2021

October is the last month of the growing season. It is the month that we have our first freezes. All of the heat loving summer crops are pulled up- tomatoes, zuchinni and peppers. The spinach, kales, collards, chard and carrots wil be left until they are also too frozen to eat.

September was a good month for veggie production. This was the best season yet using the raised beds, Pop Nets and having lots of monsoon rains.

By August we had so much produce we were giving it to neighbors and friends. During the month we gave away and ate zuchinni, Romaine lettuce, spinach, banana peppers, tuscan kale, collards, chard, carrots, red kale and arugula. We already ate all of the pac choi and tatsoi. The shishito peppers and the small tomatoes began producing as well.

On July 3 we planted Shuko pac choi, tatsoi, arugula and Density Bibb/Romaine lettuce seeds directly into the raised beds where other veggies either didn't make it or were pulled up and eaten. The Oceanside Spinach, shishitos, Vates Collard, Nero di Tuscana Lacinato Kale, Scarlet Nantes Carrots, banana peppers, eggplants, tomatoes and zucchini plants are all doing well with the more frequent monsoon rains and higher temperatures. We will probably eat all of the pac choi and tatsoi that were planted as seedlings from our sunroom before the end of the month. The other greens will be cut and eaten as needed during the summer and fall months.

On June 11 we thinned the seedlings under the Pop Nets. We had our first veggie stir fry with the thinnings!

On May 22 twelve Shishito pepper plants that were purchased at Agua Fria Nursery were planted in the raised beds in the veggie garden under a Pop Net Screen Mesh. Tomato, eggplants and banana pepper plants were planted in the raised beds in the Wall Garden.

On May 12 we planted some of the small cold tolerant plants from the pots that were growing in the sunroom into the new larger raised beds covering them with Pop Net Screen Mesh. These were: Red Russian Organic Siberian Kale, Bright Lights Chard, Shuko Pac Choi,Tatsoi, Vates Collards and Nero di Tuscana Lacinato Kale.

On May 9th we planted seeds directly in the two smaller raised beds under Pop Net Screen Mesh. We planted French Breakfast Radish, Oceanside Spinach, White Egg Turnip, Scarlet Nantes Carrot, Misanto Rose Radish and Winter Density Bibb/Romaine Lettuce.

On March 27 we planted vegetable seeds in small pots in the sunroom that would be put into the garden in May. We planted Shishto peppers, banana peppers, eggplants and tomatoes in pots as well on April 4th. All of the seeds were purchased from Fedco Seed Company.

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2020

By the end of August the garden had matured. The collards, dino kale that were planted in one of the raised beds were doing great. The other box with the chard and the brocolli had been breached from underneath by the little squirels. They ate the chard as best they could but not the brocolli. Next year I will remove the soil from the boxes and put wire on the bottom to keep them out. The shishitos are doing well, but had to be recovered because of the squirels. The tomatoes did not do as well as expected. They grew well, but only the sun golds produced very many tomatoes. The others did not ripen well. Perhaps due to the weather - exceptionally hot and no monsoon! Only the arugula and spinich did well on the ground under the Pop Nets.

On April 3rd we started seeds in pots in the sun room to put out as small plants into the vegetable garden in May. All of these seeds are from Fedco Seed Company. They included: Vates collards, Nero di Tuscana Dinosaur kale and Bright Lights chard. Also planted 240 Stuttgarter Riessen yellow onion sets, arugula and Cherry Belle radishes. Created a hoop house with sun screening material. In this section planted Tatsoi Asian greens, Ocenside spinach and Shuko pac choi. In April additionally planted in pots in the sunroom: Piracicaba Non-heading broccoli, Takara shishito peppers, Green zebra tomatoes, Rose de Berne and Sun gold small fruited tomatoes.

On May 20 we planted the collards, kale and chard and brocolli in the new raised beds that we got from GronomicsThese were each covered by Pop Net Screen Mesh to keep out the critters. Earlier in the month we made several trips to Newman's Nursery to get bags of topsoil and soil builder (45 bags) to fill the raised beds. This new method of gardening should keep us from having to bend to the ground to harvest the greens and keep out the pests (mice and birds) that have eaten our plants in past years.

Twenty-four shishito peppers were put out in the garden from the sunroom on June 12. The weather is finally getting to 80 plus degrees every day and they should thrive. They were also planted under two more Pop Net Screen Mesh nets. All of the greens planted earlier are doing great.

On July 20 we planted more seeds straight into the garden in rows under Pop Net Screens. We planted Bright Lights chard, Tatsoi Asian greens, Ocenside spinach, Shuko pac choi and arugula for our fall garden. There was great germination and in three days we had the Tatsoi Asian greens and Shuko pac choi coming up. All of the tomato plants are looking good and many of them are full of flowers and some even have little tomatoes on them.

Most of the shishito pepper plants have flowers and we are looking forward to a nice crop in another month. (An interesting aside. Some of the shishito peppers were covered by Pop Net Screens and some were not. There is a noticeable difference between those under the screens and those that are not. The ones under the screens are much larger and have many more flowers.)

Shishito peppers - left no netting, right Pop Net Screen

in September the nights are getting cooler (50's) and many of the plants have finished producing. I pulled up the tomato plants (which didn't produce much fruit) on the 20th, broccoli on the 21st and the shishito peppers and broccoli and spinach on the 23rd. Still have chard, kale, collards and arugula uncovered.

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2019

Started no seeds in the sunroom this year. Bought all of the plants from Agua Fria Nursery. Put in 12 sunglold tomatoes, 8 shishito peppers and 4 Japanese eggplants. They all did fairly well, but not as good as I had expected. There were no pests this year. Harvested everything except the eggplants and removed them before going to Hawaii by the 17th of September. (The miscellaneous old greens seeds that were scattered in the Garden Annex did the best of all!)

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2018

Didn't start any seeds this year in the sunroom. Since we had very bad luck last we decided only to plant fully-grown plants. Planted zuchinni plants in late May, but most were eaten either by birds or by mice. The two eggplants that I planted look ok. On June 7, I planted various tomato plants, shishito pepper plants and chard. We'll see what happens! I plan to water them everyday now that the weather gets to 90 on some days. Also, we have had less than an inch of rain since last November!

Planted more zuchinni plants, 2 bell peppers, 4 more Early Girl tomatoes on June, 14. Something continues to chew at the leaves of all the plants. Either mice or birds! By late summer they were all producing. The sungold tomatoes, peppers and eggplants did the best.

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2017

All of the cool weather crops were started in cow pots from Fedco seeds in the sun room on April 20 and were put out on May 7 (5wks). Strung party banners around the newly planted crops and put each plant in a paper cup with the top cut out for protection from the birds and mice.