Bagels & Bugs

Bagels & Bugs

Join Us for Breakfast & Organic Pest Prevention Talk

Join fellow gardeners to learn about organic pest prevention and control from local entomologist,

Phil Pellitteri. Bagels, coffee and juice will be provided. Please bring along your questions and specimens!

Saturday, July 21st 9:30-11am

East Madison Community Center, 8 Straubel Ct

RSVP to Michelle Shively 246-4730 ext 208. Save your spot today!

More about watering

Watering Tips from Madison FarmWorks

I just received some great watering tips from Megan Cain of Madison FarmWorks. She asked people to forward to gardeners, and while I did just write about watering, this is a bit more comprehensive and comes from a true "expert" from the field.

Most plants need only 1 inch of water per week

I am still watering my garden like I always do - once per week very deeply. In more typical weather, if it rains during the week I will skip watering if my rain gauge says it rained close to an inch. The exception to this rule is newly seeded crops - depending on the crop I water seeds every 1-3 days. I have also noticed that new transplants are suffering from the excessively dry soil - so they might need more watering until their root systems get established.

Many plants will suffer from being overwatered

There is no reason to water already established plants more than once per week unless there are visible signs of distress. This is not good for them! You can cause disease to spread in your garden by overwatering. Many vegetables like tomatoes and squash like drier conditions. Mature plans prefer the soil to dry out a bit between watering.

Water less frequently and more deeply

Frequent and shallow watering will cause your plants' roots to stay at the surface of the soil. You want deeply rooted plants - so water less often and for a longer duration. Deeply rooted plants will be more equipped to handle dry conditions because they will be able to access the moisture deep in the soil. 

Water at the base of the plants

Overhead watering is inefficient and can be damaging to plants because it is more likely to spread disease. I like to use a wand and hold it at the base of each plant for 20-30 seconds. Yes, this takes a long time - but you're only watering once a week now that you've read this message! Drip hoses or tape are also a good option for watering at soil level.

Water early in the morning or in the evening

Much more water is lost to evaporation when you water in the middle of the afternoon.

Mulch, mulch, mulch

Bare soil is not advisable for the vegetable garden. Mulching thickly with hay or straw retains moisture in the soil. It also will keep down weeds, help with disease issues and break down and add organic matter to your soil.


Please forward to all of the gardeners you know! If you have any questions, contact Megan at Madison FarmWorks at megan@troygardens.org. 


And don't forget your daily rain dance!

New look for the blog

Now more than a year into this blog, it was time for an update. Big shout-out to Molly who created the new header for the blog. It was a nice barter for some gardening phone support! I've also been playing with the layout to make it easy for people to subscribe and find previous posts. 

Shout-out as well to my friend Tim who, during a great Facebook thread about a new name, came up with The Urbane Farmer. It fit all my criteria, short, catchy and descriptive of who I am.

It's hard to believe that I've been blogging now for more than a year, starting with a post titled "You can take the man out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the man." My mom often said that about me, so shout out to MOM as well, who has inspired me more than she knows to reconnect with gardening, grow my own food, prepare it well and to take the next obvious step, preserve it for good eating in the winter. Watch for adventures in canning this autumn!

I'd also like to acknowledge my husband and silent partner in this blog. I write 'em, and he quietly goes in and fixes grammar and the occasional typo that I miss because I'm so excited about the first garlic or earthworms or mulch.

Finally, thank you to those who read and follow this blog, I truly enjoy the experience, relish your comments and hope you are having as much fun with this as I am.

American Family Gothic

Revisting Tara's mobility-accessible garden

In mid-June, I helped my friend Tara wrestle a neglected mobility-accessible garden into submission. We won that first "Battle of the Weeds" (see blog post) and had a nice time connecting while we worked.


I wanted to see how the garden was progressing and reconnect with Tara, so Jay and I invited ourselves to visit her community garden bed. The heat had kept Tara away from the garden -- who didn't it keep out of the garden? But with the welcomed break in temperatures, the three of us went to see how it was doing.


The bed didn't look anything like when we first planted it. The tomatoes were progressing nicely and there were peppers soon to be harvested. Tara also planted kale and basil (she kept nibbling on the kale during our time in the garden :) and we all removed basil flowers and kept "oohing" and "ahhhhing" at the heavenly scents our work released into the air.


A few things that make this garden bed mobility accessible:

• it's located just off a paved bike path (easy wheelchair access).
• it's located just off a road with parking, again, easy wheelchair access.
• the garden is built up 36 inches on the bike path side, and 25 inches off the ground in the back (there is a bit of a slope). This makes it easy to sit on the sides and work without standing or squatting. 
• there is a path around the bed (that is to say, there aren't gardens immediately adjacent, allowing for easy access from all sides).

This bed isn't 100 percent wheelchair accessible because of the slope and the unpaved path around the garden. But Tara is able to wheel to the garden and, because she is able to get around on crutches, can access the rest of the bed when she needs to.

Tara showing Jay the kale (behind the tomato plants).

Tara and I pruned the tomato plants, removing suckers to improve fruit production and removing the lower branches and leaves to delay the inevitable blight later in the season.

What a lovely way to spend a Sunday evening -- in the garden with a friend!

Proper watering techniques in a drought

We're having practically drought-like conditions in Wisconsin. But you can still overwater your tomatoes (and the rest of your garden for that matter). All the reading I've done says that at this stage in the growing season, you need to soak your plants with an inch of water (remember rain gauges?) once a week. Overwatering will produce leafy plants with little fruit and can weaken plants. Here's a great article explaining blossom-end rot and what can and can't be done to prevent it.

Mulch

You can help the soil maintain moisture by heavily mulching your tomatoes. Our community garden provides bales of marsh hay for garden mulch. Use "slabs" of hay around the base of the plant to both maintain even moisture between watering, to protect the soil from erosion and to keep weeds to a minimum. Straw, plastic and any number of other materials work as well. Wood chips are not good for annual plants such as tomatoes, wood consumes nitrogen from the soil as it decomposes, stealing it from your plants.

Even watering

If a plant receives excess water, the roots can’t breathe, and will rot. The gardening Web site Suite101.com says, “Over watering also leads to fungal diseases and mold. Once root rot begins the plant will start to die, but if it’s caught early enough, it can be saved. Signs of over watering include: wilting, yellow leaves, mushy stems and mold growth on the soil.” 

Check out the rest of this excellent article on proper tomato watering techniques.

Construction has started in community garden

I was in the garden at noon, watering, and there was nothing to be seen. After work, I arrive to find the new electrical junction box into huge pieces of construction equipment sitting on top of our ex- pumpkin bed.

First garlic harvest

I walked through the garden today to see if I needed to water anything. Considering how dry it's been, the soil was moist to the touch under the thick hay mulch. I looked up to see a few of my co-workers taking photos with something that looked suspiciously like garlic. I went over to see what the excitement was about, and indeed, they were ooohing and aaaahing over a lovely crown of garlic newly plucked from the soil. I offered to take a photo of the three of them with their camera, and went back over to my garlic stand.

What was under the soil? What did my crowns look like? I couldn't wait, so I got a little hand trowel and dug up a crown.

Oh man, it was huge! I mean, I had no idea what I'd pull out of the ground, and the size of this "duganski" crown surprised me.

The crown is nearly three inches wide, and it's just asking to be eaten. While garlic needs to cure for long-term storage, I couldn't wait to see what was inside.

The crown after cutting off the top, roots and peeling back the first few outer layers.

The crown after peeling off all the outer layers.

About this garlic - Duganski, ordered from Territorial Seed Company. Planted in October under heavy mulch. Pulled mulch aside in March. Fertilized twice with Bonnie Herb & Vegetable 8-4-4 Plant Food. This crown pulled on June 25, 2012.

You can learn more about how to prepare garlic for long-term storage at this great video. I'm going to take this guy's advice and dig one crown a week to see how they are doing - I want to maximize size while getting them out of the ground before the outer skins begin to disintegrate, compromising long-term storage. 

Please share your garlic stories here; when do you pull your garlic out, how do you prep and store it, and what's your favorite varieties for growing in northern climates?