*sigh*

Listen people…planting guides are just that:  GUIDES.  They are not bibles, they’re not edicts handed down from on high, and they’re not immutable law.  They’re the average results from the average varieties grown the average way….none of which you are required to adhere to.   

We grow carrots and onions nearly year round here, despite the “recommendations” of the planting guide. We do it in small crops, in raised beds, we use drip irrigation that waters from below (which avoids most fungal issues), and we generally grow the smaller varieties that better suit our space limitations.

Honestly, only October through March??  Carrots and onions need at least some heat to grow, and those seeds we started in November did indeed sprout, but they didn’t start really growing until last month.  Yes, July/August/September here in Florida are going to be bad times for fungus-susceptible plants as it rains pretty much every day, but your April planted carrots are going to be harvested by then.  I can tell you from direct personal experience that our container and raised bed grown carrots had zero fungal issues last year.  Maybe it is the improved air circulation around the containers/raised beds, eh?  There’s a factor that’s not going to be included in your planting guides.

Scallions, shallots, bunching onions….we grow these all year.  I’m actually trying some long day onions this year (started in January) even though technically we Southerners don’t have long enough days for them to bulb, but after Googling around and reading reports of success from others, I’m damned well trying them.

And why would you not TRY?  The only thing it costs you are seeds and time.  Experimenting with varieties/methods is one of the great joys of this whole gardening thing.

Here’s something else I’m not supposed to be succeeding at…growing Tall Bearded Irises that actually bloom!

Not only is it blooming, but that’s the FOURTH time it has done so in the past two months.

I’ve decided, looking at the backyard gardens of others, that I am not maximizing my planting box space as I could be.  I like things orderly – a shock to any childhood friends (hell, post-college too!) reading this, I know – but I think that’s causing me to waste a great deal of space.  Peppers, for instance, do get rather bushy when mature, but really only at the crown, the foliage tapers to a few leaves about midway down the plant.  So there’s space under them for things like carrots, onions, chives.   The same is true for tomatoes, and even some bush beans.  So I’m revisiting the boxes, planting a few rows of carrots here and there, sowing a few onions.  These things we’re growing don’t have to be in straight orderly beds, they can be tucked in anywhere you have a little extra space, curved between two plants, zig zagged, whatever fits.  Nor do the crops have to be especially laaarge.  A few rows here and there will keep you in carrots and onions for weeks.

That said, can someone please explain to me why I have thought it necessary (with EIGHT tomato plants already blooming/fruiting, three more almost there, and six others just sprouted) to start yet another EIGHT MORE varieties, as well as FOUR MORE pots (2 seeds each sowed for all, and I DON’T thin, people) of the Campbell’s tomatoes??  Just where do I plan to grow all these things…on the frickin’ roof?

Would that I could, people.  Would that I could.

Here, have a pic I inadvertently left out of yesterday’s epic, of some really-needs-to-get-planted-soon Cosmos (shot with my beloved 105mm lens) while I contemplate where to put 24 more frickin’ tomato plants:

Oh, and the very best part??  I’M THE ONLY ONE IN THIS FAMILY WHO FREAKING EATS TOMATOES.

*sigh*

Purple Dragon, Hercules and White Satin varieties.

With the increase in cultivated area this year (.004 of an acre, woo!), I’ve decided I’m going to weigh our harvests as they come in, see how much a backyard “farm” can actually produce.  We’re off to a great start, harvested 3 1/2 lbs of carrots yesterday!
 

Those are Hercules, Purple Dragon (still our favorite), Atomic Red and Yellowstone.  The latter two were deemed tasteless and the entire crop consigned to the compost heap.  That’s the beauty of this…you can experiment with new varieties and if you don’t like them, all you’ve lost is time.  The rejects go into the composter and make lovely soil amendments for next year.

Remember the crystal apple cucumber?  It’s gone all Plan 9 From Outer Space:  
 

I had to remove the strawberry plants from the box as they were getting covered over, and put up a side trellis so the crazed vines would leave the climbing rose alone.  Should be a good year for cucumbers.

The shoepeg corn is going strong:
 

The first round of peppers is blooming like mad:
 

The pumpkins impress even before fruiting.  Those leaves are easily dinner-plate sized:
 

Some of the tomatoes are doing magnificently, fruiting already:
 

(Carbon)
 

(Chocolate cherry)

While out front the flowers are coming along nicely.  Like this seed-grown Cape Daisy:
 

The amazing 8 foot tall hollyhocks:

The grown from seed (last year) alyssum have finally decided to thrive:
 

The Red Hot Poker is busy self-propagating and may actually grace us with blooms this year:
 

The tall strawflowers are so tall we’re having to use the multi-trunk crape myrtle to help support them.  A true embarrassment of riches:
 

The daylilies are awakening.  This is Ming Toy:
 

This is the variety we haven’t any clue about.  There are so very many peach/pinks with green/yellow eyes:
 

Finally, the piece de resistance.  Grown here in zone 9a, and blooming like there’s no tomorrow, it’s a Tall Bearded Iris (Mariposa Skies):
 

Let’s hear it for experimentation!

This is pissing me right off, I tell you.  All the tomato seedlings were started inside in pure peat, hardened off on our fence shelves, and were not final-potted until they had at least two pairs of leaves.  The tomato on the left, spanking right along.  The tomato on the right, spindly and yellowing.  What the entire hell is that about?  The only difference is the pots…the one on the right has a small reservoir down in the bottom, though well away from where even the mature root ball will end up.  About half my 8 tomatoes are puny and yellowing, and the other half are monsters from some kind of radioactive waste dump horror movie.  Like this Carbon:
 

Had to quit measuring it because my yardstick is now too short.  

Other delights in the garden today include the sprouting Jacob’s Cattle bush beans:
 

The getting on up there soybeans:
 

The blooms on the first round of pepper plants (Whitney, Red Bell, Paprika) that were started with the tomatoes back in January:
 

A volunteer tomato plant from the compost that was added to this box:
 

We’re going to let it grow here, despite it being well outside the screened pool enclosure, partly to see how it will go, and to potentially give the tree seedlings a little shade in the furnace blast that is July/August around here.  To that end I’ve been investigating hornworm defense today, and am thrilled to discover that BT handles them just fine, as do the little predator wasps attracted by companion plantings of dill and fennel.   Bonus!

The Delice De Table melon plant is ignoring the fact that it is only about five inches tall, and is literally covered in blooms:
 

This crystal apple cucumber is the oddest plant I’ve ever seen.  Its stem is like a ribbon, flat and multi-layered:
 

And the top of the three foot tall plant looks distinctly like a sunflower:
 

Note the plethora of blooms though.  It’s all good.  For me anyway, this guy is having a rough day:
 

And this guy got into some of the local mushrooms, I think:
 

“I’M upside down?  No, YOU’RE upside down.”  

I think he needs an intervention.

In a word…unfreakingbelievable.  And all we’ve utilized thusfar is worm juice (the water that filters down through the castings into the bottom of the Can O’Worms) in a 50% solution with water:
 

But as you can see, the results are impressive:
 

That is the biggest tomato bloom I have ever seen.  And this Carbon tomato is now taller than my yardstick:

The trident maple bonsai next to it spent some hours root-soaking in the solution, as did the crape myrtle bonsai:
 

Everything else in the garden also had a little taste, as well as some kelp concentrate, and (including the increase in sunlight over the past few weeks) you can now pretty much watch everything grow before your very eyes.  The galisse and green lance:

Soybeans and savoy:
 

Carrots, carrots and Fresca strawberries:
 

More and MORE carrots, and Ishikura onions:
 

Strawberries and melons:
 

Figs and pumpkins:
 

Cucumbers, strawberries and oregano:
 

Shoepeg corn:
 

Peppers and strawberries:
 

And celery, which may or may not actually get full growth now that the temperatures are in the 80s:
 

I love being a backyard “farmer.” 

The point of micro-irrigation, by the way, is two-fold:  first, it uses far less water to irrigate directly at the roots of the plants than to spray water everywhere with a hose;  second, some plants are very susceptible to mildew/fungus, most of which are encouraged, to say the least, by wet foliage.  

The kits that are available bill themselves as specifically for “container gardening” or “vegetable gardens,” but the sad truth is none of them are exactly what you need.  They’re more sampler packs, containing a certain number of fittings and drip/sprinkler heads.  So unless you have a really small space (and don’t care if everything gets watered a different way), they can only be considered starting points.  

After trying everything in the packages, here’s what we ended up with (important note: Home Depot has a very fine selection of microirrigation supplies, a la carte, in their plumbing/pipe section)…

The main line from the hose bib has to be 1/2″.   (Take it from me, even for a small space, 1/4″ is not sufficient.)  So, you need the following to get started (examples are from dripdepot.com, an excellent place to get what HD doesn’t have/carry):

• 1/2″ Polyethylene Tubing – This is the main water supply.
• Permaloc Female Hose Thread Swivel Adapter (HD has these with filter screens already in them) – This attaches the 1/2″ tube to the hose bib.

The left is the irrigation system for the perimeter boxes.  It has an inline filter that’s somewhat larger than the inside-the-swivel adapter filter, but seriously, how much crap is getting into a hose that’s never removed?  So, we went with the much simpler rig on the far right hose for the patio boxes.  Yes, hose splitters are important – just never run them all at the same time – as you always will need a spray hose handy.  Or maybe that’s just us…

• 1/2″ End Cap – This is to close off the end of the 1/2″ tubing to form a closed system.
• 1/2″ Tubing Holder Stakes – these will hold your 1/2″ tubing flush to the ground (though I’d bury it in high foot-traffic areas, leaving it above ground where the 1/4″ tubing connects).

These are the two main supply hoses we run, both have been buried (AND staked down underground) in all the walking areas.

• 1/4″ Microtubing – This is what will run water from the 1/2″ tubing to your plants.
• Microtube Stakes – These are used to hold the tubing and aim drip emitters exactly where you need them (ie. at the base of a plant).

Microtube stake holding a flag dripper at the base of a melon.

• 1/4″ Barbed Connectors – These are used to connect the 1/4″ tubing to the 1/2″ water supply line.

Just punch a hole in the 1/2″ line, and connect a 1/4″ line with dripper/sprayer using a barbed connector.  It pops right in the hole and, if done right, does not leak. If it does leak, big deal, it’ll only be a little bit.

• 1/4″ Barbed Tee – These are also used to connect the 1/4″ tubing to the 1/2″ water supply line but in a slightly different fashion.

We use these to add the dripper perpendicularly to one long line, as in the narrow boxes.

• 1/4″ In-Line Shut Off Valve – Just what it says.   Honestly we only use two of these, before the sprayers under the lemon and lime trees, because those guys do not need water every day, only about once a week.  Deuced handy though.
• Standard 1/4″ Punch – This is used to pop holes in the 1/2″ line to insert the 1/4″ barbed connectors.
• Goof Plugs – For when you screw up with the Standard 1/4″ Punch and need to close the hole.  Work out your plan beforehand and you’ll need less of these.
• 360 Degree Adjustable Dripper – This we call a spider, since the water flows out in that pattern.  It is a low-flow dripper, we use them mainly for our round pots.

Used here, naturally not in a round pot, but to water all four of these watermelons at once.  The spray is low enough that it will be under the melon leaves when they get bigger.

• 360 Degree Vortex Sprayer – LOVE this one, though Home Depot’s version is 0 to 20 GPH, which is a faster water flow, and better for the carrot beds in which we are using them.  We also use these temporarily where we have seeds direct-sown.

Waters everything in a 3 foot radius.

• Button Drippers – We use these with the microtube stakes to direct water precisely at the base of established plants.

Button dripper and microtube stake at the base of a red bell pepper plant.

• Flag Drippers – We use these also to deliver water directly to the base of plants, though they emit a small stream of water (speed depending on which GPH  you purchase) instead of a drip, so we use them where a higher water volume is required.

First is delivering water to one of the climbing roses via 1/4″ tubing.  The second is punched directly into the 1/2″ line to water the oregano plant at the back of the cucumber box.

We also use several larger sprayers (picked up at Home Depot), this one to deliver water in a wide pattern around the fig tree and the two pumpkin hills on either side:
 

And these for the tree and corn boxes:
 

The last one can be adjusted via a knob on the side to increase/decrease the spray radius. 

It all may seem complicated (increased no doubt by my “explanation”) but it really isn’t.  The key to success is to lay out your plan on paper before doing anything at all, and make sure you don’t get overly ambitious and try and do too much…there is only so much space that can be supplied by a single 1/2″ line, and the water pressure decreases the more sprayers you add.  Home Depot has a handy little booklet they offer at no charge in their irrigation section, pick one up, read, then make your plan and buy your supplies. 

The savings – in both money and sheer time spent watering – make this a must-do for backyard gardeners.  What used to take me well over an hour – and jacked our water bill up by $30/month in the heavy growing season –  now takes about ten minutes per zone, and I expect similarly dramatic savings in the water bill next month.  So, get thee to irrigating!

–Let me just take a moment right here to emphasize that gardening and cooking are not the sum of the parts of me, and yes, I am both right-leaning and a gun owner/collector/shooter.  Some individuals on Twitter seem to have alternate conceptions and decided I needed unfollowing after tweeting about our difficulties finding ammo today.  Or hell, maybe that was just the Last Boring Tweet they could stand and it’s pure coincidence.  Either way, I am who I am and apologize to no one for any of it.–

This was the line outside our local downtown event center at 9:30-ish this morning:

There were at least triple that many people already inside, and while gun show crowds are, by definition, vastly more polite than crowds encountered anywhere else, getting through that mass of asses and elbows – with both kids in tow – had me (and my PMS) snarling. 

So, what better way to decompress than to come home (attempt and fail miserably at a nap) and dig in the dirt.

Several of the romanescos were ready to harvest today:
 

We like these very much.  Lots of crunch, and a nice, mild broccoli flavor.  The perplexing thing is the enormous plant that produces the lovely fractal heads…once they’ve produced ONE head, they’re done!  This enormous, HEAVY plant has nothing left to give, it has to be yanked up and composted at this point.
 

Oh well, they’ll make some damnfine compost.

In other news…

One of the pitcher plants is about to grace us with a blossom:
 

Yep, they actually bloom! 

The carrot spirals are going strong:
 

And the myriad greens are ready for scissor-cutting.  This is Green Lance and Galisse:
 

This is Yukina Savoy:

The Green Lance has a very mild spinach flavor/texture (and actually can grow taller, eat the stems like broccoli), the Galisse a beautiful butterhead texture/flavor, and the Yukina Savoy has a stiff texture with a stronger spinach-y flavor.  Together, they make one damnfine salad:
 

We shredded the leaves to remove stems on all but the Galisse, threw in some romanesco sprigs, and tossed it with an Italian vinaigrette to go with our pasta.  The Boychild – notoriously picky about salad lately – ate every shred.  And the very biggest benefit…I am not running to the bathroom as would have happened with store-bought salad.  TMI, yeah, but hey, compelling evidence in the argument to grow your own.
 

Tuscawilla Tigress – SIX separate clumps

Benchmark – THREE separate clumps

And the completely gratis Barbary Corsair, featuring two separate clumps.  Each clump is, of course, plantable and will grow up to be an entire plant.  So we basically received ELEVEN daylily plants for the cost of two.

So, naturally, I ordered eight more varieties today.

I just love companies who do things like this (ie. Nola’s Iris Garden), it costs them nearly nothing, and nets them one happy gardener with a relatively widely-read blog, and (most-importantly) a Google-indexable rave review.  So, if you need daylilies (and really, who doesn’t??), please join me in rewarding Oakes Daylilies for their excellent customer service.

The daylilies out front went mad this winter, tripled and quadrupled themselves, so I decreed the front bed around the crape myrtle be QUINTUPLED in size.  That’ll show ‘em.
 

Yeah, it’s huge.  It’s also shaped, inexplicably, like an egg.  

Out back finds the tomatoes ready for transplanting.  They go in pots inside the enclosure, of course, because tomato cutworms are pure lime-green evil. 
 

The tomatoes are also surrounded by multiple basil plants, since whiteflies really suck (heh), and companion planting lore has it that basil can be quite the deterrent.  Plus, when things start to ripen, pluck tomato, pluck basil leaf, wrap together and nom right there.
 

We filled the new boxes with some good soil and the contents of our compost bin (hurrah!), and transplanted the melon starts:
 

While at Lowe’s picking up basil plants (yeah, I have seeds, but I was ready to PLANT, dammit) I ran across these nice-sized Sequoia and Quinault strawberries, snapped up a dozen and a half, and they’re going along the fronts of all the melon boxes:
 

The cucumber box, too:
 

The melons will grow from hills in one end of the box, down to the lower end of the box (hence the arrows), and as the pepper plants mature, I’ll be putting a few of them in between the vines.  Later when it’s bean planting time, we’ll just place the tripods around the vines and let the beans go on up and do their things.  When you’re space-restricted like we are, you gotta go vertical.

The tree nursery is coming along.  Husband transplanted the volunteer maples into the box with the being-nursed-back-to-health pomegranate (suffering from too much frost and too much kitty attention):
 

Speaking of kitties…here’s Oliver, still sporting his shaved leg, supervising the entire proceedings from a place of shade and comfort:
 

He climbs in those pots I’m going to use HIM for mulch.

*It’s a Twitter joke, not a misspelling, I promise.