Grow the right crop at the right time!

Previously, we learned about plant parts that we eat. With Carrots and beets, we eat the root; with celery and asparagus, we eat the stem. With lettuce and kale, we eat the leaves; with artichokes and broccoli, we eat the flower. With tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, melons, squash and green beans, we eat the fruit, which is the part that forms after the flower and contains seeds. With corn, peas, and dried beans, it is the seed itself that we eat. We even made a video about the plant parts we eat!

Understanding what part of the plant you are trying to grow helps a lot in trying to plan a successful garden where you are doing your best to create the ideal environment for the plant you are trying to grow.

Fruits and Seeds Like it Hot!

1. Fruits and seeds generally need a long, hot growing season (except for peas)
   

2. We start many of the fruits inside, because they need a head start in order to produce fruit. An exception is beans, zucchini and cucumbers, who produce fruit in about 50 days.
   

3. Most members of the seed group and the gourd family don’t like their roots disturbed, so where we have to start them ahead, we use peat pots.
   

4. Some fruits, and basil and okra, are especially sensitive to chilly air, so we wait an extra week after the last frost to put them out.

Roots and Leaves love it Cool!

1. Leaves and Roots generally grow more quickly than fruits and seeds, and like cool weather best.

2. When it gets too hot, some leaves, like spinach and lettuce, just give up, and they go to seed (bolt).

3. Roots can generally grow all summer, but they taste better when they grow in cooler weather.

If you continually plant more roots, you will have a continual supply to harvest.

5. Some leaves, like swiss chard, kale, and lettuce, can have their leaves cut for salad, and grow leaves back for a continual harvest. These are called “cut and come again” plants.

We also learned about plant families, and similarities and differences within families. We learned that even though potatoes are in the same family as tomatoes, they are roots, and they can be planted 6 weeks before frost. Tomatoes are killed by frost and like it hot. But they can share the same pests and diseases.

Seed Sale a Success! Let's start planning!

I just placed the order for the seed sale and we were very successful! Thank you for your orders and for those of you who got additional orders from friends and family. We had sales of $745.00 (plus $102.00 of seeds for our garden). We sold a lot of Zinnias, Cosmos, Sunflowers and Herbs, and by buying lots of the top sellers in bulk, we were able to save almost $200. Fedco gave us a group discount of $179, which brings us down to $484.00 that we paid to Fedco. So overall, we earned $260 for our garden plus $100 of free seeds. That’s the good news. The exciting part of all this is that we get to repackage over 500 packets of seeds. If anyone would like to participate, the seeds should be in two weeks from now.

We will also be looking for help in finishing the garden. We will need to build 4 additional 13 foot beds, or 4 six foot beds and 4 7 foot beds. These need to be built before or around Easter to get ready for our salad gardens. If you are able to help with this, let us know. If you are not handy with wood, there will be plenty of opportunities for helping in the future.

This Thursday, we will be learning about time and temperature, or which vegetables like to grow when it’s hot and when it’s cool, and how many days does it take for them to be ready to harvest. We will then select vegetables for our spring garden.

Seed to Salad | Cornell Garden-Based Learning

Seed to Salad | Cornell Garden-Based Learning
Look here to see the beginning idea for our garden. It was later expanded to incorporate the Junior Master Gardening program curriculum. When we complete enough projects, we will be eligible for Junior Master Gardener Certification.

A big Thank You to all the Garden Fairies!

Eight garden beds are built and in place! Thank you to Joe Fedorko for 3 hours in the cold and damp today building perfectly straight beds for our Salad Gardens.

A big thanks to the Cring family for donating the wood we used today. Corry Lawler has also donated some boards for the spring to finish the side beds.

Mrs. Robbins brought fabulous manure. My friends Karen and Phil brought hay and apple sludge. Steve Flynn is bringing spent grain from the brewpub. The Village crew brought dirt and leaves, and Kris Dimmick spent 3 hours helping mow those leaves, not to mention bringing me the mowers and the gas.

The guys at the school have helped hammer in posts and move big piles of leaves. The Miller women helped shovel and cart dirt. Carmel and Nicki hustled rotting jack o lanterns and brought coffee grounds. Sharon Murray raked and shovelled one day and turned the chaos into piles and paths.

We will be looking for more garden fairies (people who make wishes come true!) and garden gnomes (people who will help watch over the garden) in the future. Let me know if you are interested in becoming a 4-H leader or helping with the garden in any way.

We are in the process of setting up the beds for the garden

I chose a project called "Seed to Salad" that I found on the Garden based Learning section on the Cornell Cooperative extension website. Each 4H member will get a 3x3 square of garden. They will design salad gardens to mimic quilt block patterns, or maybe a design of their own choosing. We will plant cool weather crops that can be harvested by the end of the year (lettuce, spinach, beets, carrots, swiss chard, green onions) and have a salad party.

Because the planting will start in early April, we needed to have the beds ready for spring. I don't know if any of you have tried to dig a garden at the end of March, but it is pretty muddy. And if you till a patch when it is wet, you actually will compact the soil.

Instead of tilling the ground where the garden will be, I chose to take advantage of the large quantity of dried leaves available in the fall and try a method call sheet composting or "lasagna gardening" where you layer different organic materials in thin layers alternating with soil, and by spring, you should have beds that are fully decomposed and ready to plant.

The ideal ratio of Carbon to Nitrogen in a compost pile is 30:1. Leaves are higher in carbon (high carbons are referred to as "browns"), so you need to alternate them with higher nitrogen materials (called "greens") like coffee grounds, manure, grass clippings, and vegetable peelings. Besides using the leaves to build the raised beds, I am hoarding the leaves to use as mulch, and to have an adequate source of "browns" to balance out the "greens" in the summer compost.

We still need more sources of greens to balance out the browns. Mrs Robbins brought beautiful aged manure from her farm, but we need to get more.