Grow Your Garden Free Ebook!

There is nothing I love more than planning gardens. There is such anticipation in the planning: what will grow, what new things do I want to try, what do I love to eat? I casually advise friends and family, occasionally drawing up a whole plan. Last year I attempted to inspire beginning growers with a series of basic edible gardening articles I published on this blog.

This year, I collected and expanded those articles into the Grow Your Garden ebook. Because I dream of a world with a garden in every backyard, I am making this ebook free for all!

Download your copy by visiting the ebook page. Feel free to tell your friends and family too – free downloads are unlimited.

All I ask in return is that you gently tend a piece of earth and savor the edible results. Share your plans, challenges and triumphs with me by email, in comments on Hounds in the Kitchen, or on the Hounds in the Kitchen Facebook page.

To bigger gardens, Rachel

PS. I just added a donation button if you want to support future educational endeavors of Hounds in the Kitchen. Look for it under the picture of me cooking on the right hand side of this site.

Organic Seed Potato Order 2011

Local folks, are you interested in growing potatoes? Last year a small group of us ordered seed potatoes together to save on shipping. This year I offer to organize a group to do the same.

If you want to participate, fill out the order form below. I will accept orders until Monday February 28 at 8 pm. Totals will be emailed on Monday evening with payment (paypal preferred, cash or check accepted) due March 4, Friday. I will order Saturday morning for delivery around March 15. Pickup will be at my home in the Clintonville area of Columbus Ohio.

Cheers!

Sexy Homegrown Tomatoes Bare All

Oh, Julia Child, you dear pink tomato.  Your blushing beauty covers your spicy inside, tempting gardeners for decades. Cherokee Chocolate, dark enchantress of the bunch.  That Christmas colored skin of yours yields to a dark juicy flesh, dripping with sunlight transformed to sweetness.

Then there's you, Rutgers.  Your pleats, your bulbous inundations, inspire a thousand delicious thoughts.

All together, you are a brothel of diversity, a color, size, and flavor for every preference.

Sliced raw, you bare your internal beauty, solid flesh giving way to juicy pulp and life renewing seeds.  Your eclectic flavors and textures are inspirational, a summer sensual feast.

Summer in Full Swing!

Summer is running away with my sanity, I think. I still haven't recovered from waking every day at dawn on the canoe trip, so I'm lacking sleep.  There are so many events, activities, plans, and parties that I can barely keep up with myself.  In fact, I'm writing this post on OSU campus in a short break from my volunteer role as an orientation coordinator for the 4-H International Program.

Next week looks to be a little calmer so I hope to post more camping reflections, recipes, and a garden update.  For now, here's a list of homesteading related newsbytes:

• Columbus Food Adventures launches tonight!  I'm so proud of fellow blogger Bethia Woolf for creating this food tour business to showcase Columbus' great food scene.  When life slows down (when will that ever be??) I can't wait to join one of the tours.
• My Clint Eastwood plum tomatos are coming in like crazy.  Fortunately my palate isn't tired of them yet so I'm eating them fresh, sliced, and as toppings for anything I can think of.
• We've also recently harvested several perisian pickling cucumbers, a zucchini, lots of herbs, kale, broccoli, and carrots.  This is a great time of year to be a gardener!!
• I haven't tasted any of the other tomato varieties yet because a certain four birds keep pecking at them before they ripen. 
• We're building some chicken wire fences around tomato beds this weekend.  Can you say UGLY?
• I'm taking a beekeeping class from the Franklin Park Conservatory starting the first week of August.  Our plan is to gather supplies and confidence this winter and add a hive of bees to the backyard in early spring.
• Next Tuesday is kid's day at the Pearl Alley Market.  I'll be there with Lil and maybe some friends to check out the summer vegs and the special kids events: juggler, balloon art, COSI, and more!
• Speaking of markets, I'm going to the 15th and High Market as soon as I finish this list.  I'm excited!
• Alex's birthday is on Monday.  His present from me is something that will be useful to both of us in the kitchen and I really can't wait for him to open it.
• I'm making a blueberry pie for his birthday dinner on Saturday.  I've never made a blueberry pie before.  Pie crust I have down; suggestions for a great filling recipe are welcome!
• Lil videorecorded and narrated another chicken video.  It's long but very cute (once you get past her kicking at them!) if you want to check out the backyard birds on youtube.
• If you have even more time, here's the Flickr set of my best 300 pictures from the Canada canoe trip.
• Local Matters has two Food Educator job openings listed here and here.  I volunteered with their Food is Elementary program and the curriculum is exceptional.  If you want to make a difference in the health and lives of children, I encourage you to apply.
• I'm hosting lots of events in August.  Learn to can,  join me at the Goodale Park Music series, check out The Hill's Market Kids Day August 21, and send your child to Kids Cook Dinner or Food Art camp with me!

I feel better getting all that out there and now I'm off the market.  Have a great one!

Building Garden Beds

Now that you've decided what to plant and where to plant, it's time to build your beds! The most basic technique for creating a garden bed is double digging.  As the name implies, double dug beds are carefully turned with a garden shovel once over the whole surface.  Some peat moss and/or compost can be sprinkled on top and then the whole bed is dug again.  Each round of shoveling should be at least four inches deep.

Our strawberries, garlic, and kale are all relegated to double dug beds.  It takes me approximately 1 hour to double dig a 4 foot square bed.  My body is achy for a few days after because double digging is hard work!!  We line the beds with rocks or bricks if we have them to provide a visual reminder to little feet that plants are growing there.

A tiller will do the same job as a double digging in far less time with less effort.  Most of us backyard gardeners do not have a gas powered tiller easy accessible, but they can be rented.  We have never chosen a tiller to avoid the rental fee or the hassle of transporting it.

The next common bed style is the raised bed.  Here, sides are built from lumber and dirt is filled in the top.  The Pioneer Woman has a great tutorial for building your own raised bed.  We follow a similar procedure except we use 2x8 or 2x10s instead of using two layers of 2x4s for the sides.

Sides may be built from treated or untreated lumber, recycled plastic lumber, or cement blocks. Cedar is a naturally occurring wood that resists rot.  Plastic lumber will last for a very long time, though it is heavy and costly to transport initially.  Cement blocks are a popular choice at community gardens because they can be easily reconfigured or moved.

Some publications will tell you to avoid treated lumber at all costs. I was skeptical so I asked Alex, a material scientist by education and profession, to review research about the safety of treated lumber in the garden.  He concludes that vegetables grown in treated lumber beds do not uptake the chemicals in treated lumber.  While I still have hesitations about the worker safety of those who make treated lumber, we do use it for our raised beds because it is the cheapest long lasting material.

To anchor or not to anchor?  Many plans recommend digging 6 to 12 inch holes and setting posts in them to anchor the sides of the raised bed.  Others use stakes.  We subscribed to this philosophy for the first few beds we made.  It's not that hard, but we questioned why it was necessary.

In our second round of bed building, we skipped the anchors.  In our experience, the raised beds sides do not bow or move.  The weight of the soil holds everything in place just fine.  If you are looking to save some labor and cost, skipping the corner anchors might be a good choice.

Soil for raised beds can be purchased from a plant nursery, the city, or a dirt and mulch company.  If you have a hearty compost bin you can use that too.  Last year we filled our beds with soil 'thrown' from the Jones topsoil Slinger truck.  We mixed in our homegrown compost and some peat moss too.  This year we will purchase some compost from Denise at 2Silos farm.

If double dug and raised beds aren't your style, there are alternative beds.  You might plant in a bucket, straw bale, or potato tower.  The most recent edition of Mother Earth News details a simple soil bag plan.  Several companies make raised bed corners or corners and sides that gardeners need to simply assemble.

Are you building new beds this year?  How are your existing beds made?

Starting Seeds

There are oodles of books about starting seeds from people far more qualified than me to be dispensing advice.  If you really want to know everything, I suggest searching out references at your local library. What we do here is a casual process guided mostly by the backs of the seed packets and our own yearning to be outside.

Indoors we will soon start some peppers, tomatoes, and herbs.  Our setup is a simple plastic tray with peat pots and a hardware store fluorescent light suspended on top.

As soon as we can work the soil, around the end of March, we will sow potatoes outdoors in our potato tower (post in progress).  Peas, shallots and greens will come soon after in early april.  Greens can be started indoors but with our limited seed starting space we just start them outside.

This year we'll add asparagus to the garden and sow the crowns sometime in mid April.  They need deep and well drained furrows according to the OSU extension fact sheet.  The extension publishes fact sheets on most varieties of home garden vegetables and are worth a look.  They are hybrid and chemical proponents, so just ignore that advice if you are going for a more natural approach.

Everything else will be direct sown around May 1.  The traditional frost free date is May 15, but I am usually willing to take the risk by May 1.   I cover beds with old sheets for the night if there is a late frost.

Direct sowing is one of Lil's favorite garden projects.  She is good at punching her finger down to make holes and covering the seeds back up.  We label rows with old plastic silverware, popsicle sticks, or whatever else is available.  I lust after reusable metal row markers.

Around mid May there's an inevitable trip to the garden center and we can never seem to resist buying a few more seedlings.  This year we plan to visit Jon Fisher tomato greenhouse on the recommendation of neighbors to add some variety to our tomato plantings.

We sow many seeds two or three weeks in a row to extend their production.  Peas, squash, beans, carrots and greens are all good candidates for this.  In the fall after early season vegetables (peas, broccoli, greens) have gone by, we will sow late season vegetables like carrots, beets, chard, kale, and lettuces in their rows.

To keep everything in order, I generally arrange seed packets in a box based on their planting date.  I put them at the back of the line after they are planted.

A friend just shared this awesome planting calendar calculator.   I will probably  print a copy for the seed packet box so I don't have to keep everything in my head.

What's your seed starting plan?

Planning Garden Location

Location is the next consideration for  gardens after motivation and plant selection.  The ideal location will have 6 - 8 hours of sunlight a day, access to rain barrel or hose water, and convenience to the kitchen. In less than ideal locations or apartment dwellings, look for sunny spots where you can locate movable containers. To choose a location, observe the sunlight over a few days.  Generally, yards on south facing sides of structures will get more light in Ohio. Be sure to consider side yards and front yards as planting locations.

Trees not only reduce sunlight but dense roots make planting difficult.  Further, walnut trees release a tanin through their roots that kills nightshade family plants including tomatoes and green pepper.  Choose a location as far from trees as possible.

When picking the place for your edible garden, choose the size of your beds at the same time.  Ideally, beds will be no more than 4 feet wide to allow for easy access when weeding and harvesting.

How much space do you need? It varies.  I'm willing to bet that once you start gardening you will always want more beds.  For your first garden, 40 - 50 square feet will go a long way.

I like to visually draw my garden.  Plan Garden has an planner that makes and stores your plans online.  It costs $25/year.  An alternative is to download Garden Planner, which is free for 15 days and $20 to purchase.  Pen and graph paper are also great!

The Grow Your Garden assignment this week is to choose the location for your garden.  Draw your bed(s) and begin to envision your new landscape.

I had every intention of sharing a video look at my garden beds with you.  Nature had other plans, however, and my beds are covered with a foot or more of snow!  Below is a quickie outline I made of the garden as it stands now.  We plan to demolish our deck and add another two or three beds this spring.

Don't forget about the seed potato group buy!  I'm collecting orders until February 23.

Seed Potato Group Buy

Do you want to grow potatoes this year?  So do I! However, I don't have much space for them.  Potato tubers are usually sold in two pound bags at the minimum, which is more than I can use of any one kind.

Let's pool together and share an order of potatoes.I would like to grow Cranberry Red, All-Blue, and German Butterball potatoes.  The Seeds of Change catalog suggests that 2 pounds will plant 20 row feet.  Potatoes should be planted 10 - 12 inches apart.  I'm thinking we could split down to a half a pound, which will be 4 - 5 tubers, or a single 4 foot row, producing about 5 pounds.

If you want to share, fill out this order form completely.  Each half pound will cost $3 including shipping, assuming I get enough of you to order with me.  I will take orders until February 23 and request payment soon after.  Seeds of Change expects to ship on March 15, after which pickup will be at my home in Clintonville.