A few weeks ago, I gave you my list of things I do not grow in my garden, either because they just don't grow well here, or because I don't like them enough to bother with them. But of course, any list like that begs the question: What DO I grow?
So glad you asked! Here's a very long answer.
First, the things I like enough to start seeds for and keep inside my house for two months before I can plant them outside:
Cabbages--These are fun because they're often the very first thing I harvest and preserve. Although they are typically presented as a fall vegetable to be kept into winter, I have not had luck starting them in summer and getting any kind of harvest in the fall. Our falls feature quite hot days, thanks to our intense sun, and also a lot more little bugs that want to eat the cabbages. So these are a spring crop for me. This year, I have I think ten plants currently in the bathroom waiting to be transplanted. We give several away, and with many of the rest, I make sauerkraut. I might try some other canning recipes this year, too, if I get enough cabbages.
Kohlrabi--In many ways, kohlrabi is not a very practical plant to grow. It's huge, taking up a lot of garden space for just one baseball-sized (or smaller) harvest. And then, when the edible part is harvested, so much of the tough outer part is cut away that it really ends up being very, very little food for the work and space. However. I love it, and so do my children, and I have never seen it at a grocery store. So I grow it. A prime example of something that's worth it to me, but might not be to you.
Basil--Primarily for pesto. There's such a great return on basil, because it's so expensive to buy at a store that I would never buy enough to make pesto. But if I grow it, I will always have cubes of pesto in the freezer for winter. Also, fresh basil for roasted tomato sauce is the best.
Tomatoes--Speaking of roasted tomato sauce, can't make that without the tomatoes. It is definitely a battle growing tomatoes here, thanks to our chilly nights, hot days, dry air, constant wind, terrible hornworms and army worms . . . pretty much everything conspires against tomatoes. But I refuse to be defeated, because tomatoes are my favorite thing from the garden. We eat them fresh during the season, of course, but what I really like them for is roasted tomato sauce for pasta and pizza. Or just plain roasted tomatoes, canned and ready to be used in enchiladas or chile or whatever. In order to have enough to can, I have to have A LOT of plants. Last year, I think I ended up with around 30 producing plants, and I still wished I had more. I just don't get the pounds of actual tomatoes off my plants here like I did in New York, but as I said, I refuse to be defeated. So I just plant more.
Green onions--A new experiment this year. Anything that comes up as a thin, wispy seedling--onions are pretty much the definition of that--has almost no chance outside in our dessicating wind and heat. So I started them inside, in the hopes they'll be a little hardier when I transplant them.
And now for the seeds I put directly in the ground:
Beets--Beets are funny here. They seem to be very patchy in their germination and survival, so that maybe a quarter of the seeds I plant actually make it to the plant stage. But the ones that do make it get HUGE. And I love, love, love having pickled beets for salads in the winter, so I just plant a really big bed of them and expect to have a lot of attrition.
Carrots--Like beets, lots of attrition. But these are particularly beloved by my children, so I still plant a lot of them.
Parsnips--A new thing for me this year. I expect they will behave much like the beets and carrots, in that I won't get a large percentage of the seeds through to harvest, but the ones that make it will be very good. We shall see.
Rutabaga--Same deal as the parsnips. New this year, probably will follow the root-crop pattern, but we'll have to see. I know it's not a universal opinion, but I seriously love rutabaga, so I really hope it works.
Radishes--Radishes do not do well here. Our hot sun tends to make them woody and spicy very early in the spring. Luckily, my children like spicy radishes, so I just pull the radishes pretty small. Not much of a harvest, but they are a fast maturing vegetable, so they don't take up a lot of garden space for long.
Lettuce--Somewhat surprisingly, lettuce does do well here. As I noted before, I'm not great at succession planting, and anyway it's really too hot and dry in the height of summer for good lettuce. However, lettuce will prolifically re-seed itself, so I always have lots of volunteers that are ready when the stuff I've planted is either not ready yet, or already bolted. I appreciate anything that will volunteer. So much easier on me.
Snow peas--I plant these quite early outside, and sometimes the harvest will go into June, thanks to our cool nights. We eat a LOT of snow peas during the season--my kids pull them right off the vines before I can even get them inside--and I always think I should plant more. They take up a lot of room, though, and require a lot of trellising, so I don't.
Cucumbers--I'm not even going to bother planting typical varieties of cucumbers anymore. All I want cucumbers for is refrigerator pickles and fresh eating, and the Armenian cucumber (technically a kind of muskmelon, like cantaloupe) provides that along with a much greater resistance to dry, hot conditions that make for sad, bitter cucumbers.
Green beans--These are what I pickle instead of cucumbers. I grow Kentucky Wonders, which make some really big, long beans that are perfect for dilly beans. And of course, we eat a lot during the season. I also always blanch and freeze at least one gallon bag of them, which my children prefer to eat frozen. Another thing I always need to plant more of but don't. All that trellising again.
Calabaza/calabacita--Our most unique vegetable, the seeds for which originally came from our friend Rafael. The calabacitas this squash produces are my stand-in for zucchini, because I think they're better than zucchini. The mature calabazas provide hundreds of pounds of winter squash for the freezer. The vines of this plant are incredibly long and aggressive, and they irritate me every year when they invade every neighboring area of the garden, but I tolerate it because of the harvest from them.
Winter squash--A. has developed his own strain of winter squash by allowing cross-breeding and only saving seeds from the ones we really like to eat, so now we have a sort of winter squash that has very orange, sweet, and fairly dry and non-stringy flesh. This is what I use for pumpkin pies.
Garlic--A.'s thing. I love the scapes so much we could never have enough garlic. Although really, yes, we have more than enough garlic. We need to find a better way to store it, though. It always dries out long before the end of winter.
Special mention to the perennials, which grow incredibly well here:
Asparagus--This will be the first year that I can freely harvest our first row of asparagus, which needs few years to get established. I'm excited. We also put in another row last year, which means in a couple of years, we're going to have incredible quantities of asparagus. Yay.
Rhubarb--I think of rhubarb as a very northern vegetable, but it does really, really well here. We should have great quantities of rhubarb this year, which I'm looking forward to.
Parsley--We just planted this last year, and I think it will come back this year. We'll see.
Dill--Not technically a perennial, but it re-seeds itself and grows every year with no work on my part, so it might as well be.
Raspberries--We have three canes we're trying to get established. Berries are not a natural for our environment, so we'll see how that goes.
We also have dozens of peach, apricot, and apple trees around that are still getting to a harvesting stage, as well as some grape vines, but that's more orchard/vineyard, so we'll leave it here.
So tell me, my fellow gardeners: What's in your garden?
Congratulations on making it to the harvesting stage for your asparagus! That's such a good feeling. We plant:
ReplyDelete* Tomatoes (three kinds this year - beefsteak, San Marzano, and a new-to-us Pink Brandywine)
* Peppers (green, jalapeno, and poblano)
* Green beans (both regular green beans and purple green beans)
* Zucchini
* Yellow summer squash
* Butternut squash
* Cucumbers
* Small sugar pumpkins
* Carrots (with a similar success rate to yours)
* Snap peas
* Asparagus
Last year we planted golden, pink, and blue/purple potatoes because someone gave us seeds for them. I don't know if we will purchase the seeds ourselves to do it again, but they were great fun.
This will be our first year for strawberries. My dad gave us all of his strawberry plants and we transplanted and covered them in the fall. Hopefully something comes of it! We also purchased cantaloupe seeds. My kids love cantaloupe and those seeds will pay for themselves in a hurry if this goes well. I may forego the pumpkins to give space to cantaloupes this year.
They have KY WONDER bush beans..no trellising needed and yum.
ReplyDeleteI'm a terrible planner. I should stop confessing all these personal failures, but here we are again with a fact of my life.
ReplyDeleteI planned not to garden this year because sometimes it's such a burden. I get busy with work and the garden suffers. I don't super love gardening, but I love the idea of gardening, so then that makes a bit of a pickle, and not dill (har de har).
Then I looked at grocery prices a couple months ago and realized/recognized that trend dictates that I will garden. So be it.
This year, the lettuce and radishes are in the ground as of yesterday.
We will also have cucumbers, tomatoes, bell and jalapeno peppers, and probably green and/or wax beans. (The beans usually come off when I'm at my busiest and so there ends up being a lot of waste because I can't take care of them in a timely enough way.)
If space allows, I'll put in pumpkins and calabaza, and maybe cantaloupe if my in-laws don't. And that'll do it.
Early things (in raised beds because the fellow who tills our garden doesn't do it until at least the second half of May): spinach, radishes, peas (snow or sugar snap), lettuce, kohlrabi (same experience you have).
ReplyDeleteThe year before last we planted one bed of asparagus. I really hope we get a lot this year!
Later things in the big garden: Jade green beans, bird egg beans, zucchini, tomatoes!, green peppers, hot peppers, watermelon, "winter squash," cucumbers.
My "winter squash" includes pumpkins or whatever seed I have. I save from year to year, so I'm guessing my squash are similar to your husband's. But I keep adding new ones because every now and then, I'll buy what I call a pretty squash. Some women squeal over shoes; I squeal over pumpkins and squash.
Re: cucumbers--We've finally found a cucumber we like that doesn't get bitter for us! Russian pickling cucumbers. We had a long season of them last year, and they didn't get at all bitter! Next step-- making non-mushy canned pickles. We're fairly certain it's our water.
I also have an herb bed that gets pretty scraggly-- dill, cilantro, and parsley will usually grow. And sometimes basil. I planted rosemary last year.
We have a few other random things from time to time.
I cannot WAIT to have land for a garden someday after the military! Ahhh my dad always grew snow peas and raspberries in his garden growing up, and I'd sneak them like the deer lol my favorites were the heirloom tomatoes! Those are my dream crop :)
ReplyDeleteRuth T.: Ooo, peppers! Thanks for reminding me! I need to get some pepper seeds and start those. I had banana peppers one year from some random plants A. got at the grocery store that did pretty well, and got REALLY spicy, probably because of ourhot, dry conditions. So I think if I tried jalapenos, they'd be inedible. :-)
ReplyDeleteG.P.: That's a thought. Although I keep having less garden space every year thanks to perennials and fruit trees, so I was thinking I might have to set up a really bit A-frame trellis made with cattle panels in the middle of the garden, rather than relying on our existing walls and fences.
Karen.: I always wonder about September, when I'm back at work and the garden is completely out of control, why I bother. But I always get excited again in the spring. I hope you find space for the calabazas. It makes A. so happy to think of them growing all over the country.
Jody: A. buys squash sometimes too, just because they're pretty. I hope you get a lot of asparagus too. Nothing compares to homegrown asparagus.
Melissa: Nothing compares to homegrown tomatoes, either. I saw on your blog that you're stationed in Alaska next. We dad was stationed at Eielson for a few years when I was a kid, and he had a garden there. I don't remember tomatoes--possibly the season is too short--but I do remember giant carrots. All that sunlight in the summer . . .
My brother in Fairbanks always has a garden. He mainly writes about his rhubarb pies. Cabbages love Alaska! Mil
ReplyDeleteI start tomatoes and peppers early; they're on a cart next to a large southern exposure window, enjoying grow lights in addition to the spring sun. I'll start carrots, parsnips, and turnips after the danger of frost has passed. Dill and parsley reseed themselves nicely. Rhubarb will come up on its own. I've tried asparagus, and it just hasn't happened for me. I need to find a location for foraging the wild asparagus in the spring, really.
ReplyDeleteI grew up gardening with my parents and eating the results of our labor year round. I planted gardens many years but never had much to show for it because full time work got in the way. At least that was my excuse. This year I am focusing on potted herbs.
ReplyDeleteCilantro also comes back. Considering the cuisine it's common in, I suspect it will do well in your climate.
ReplyDeleteChives too. They're basically a grass, and they're already pretty thick by the time they break ground.
For keeping the cabbage, I pickle it for a non-creamy coleslaw. Goes great on/with pulled pork, brisket, or anything else that you need to balance a lot of fat.
Shred as normal, put in a jar, add a mix of red wine vinegar, apple cider vinegar, and white or white wine vinegar; plus salt and more ground black pepper than you think you need. I keep in the fridge for 2 months+. One of these days I'm going to try canning it and see what it's like after a few months on the shelf.
Keepers for the SE Neb garden
ReplyDeletePotatoes (just 2 rows this year, I can them.)
Onions. Will be trying plants instead of bulbs.
Broccoli to freeze
Cabbage to can.
Trying cauliflower this year.
Maybe a row of green beans.
Tomatoes! Because I love them so much. Fresh, salsa, juice, sauce.
Peppers, jalepeno and sweet
Chard, spinach, other greens if I can find the seed.
Beets and carrots. The seed tapes are amazing for sowing carrot seed.
Herbs: Basil, Thyme, Oregano, Rosemary and Bay if I can find a plant. The dill & cilantro come back.
Perennials
Asparagus
Strawberries
Elderberries
Black Walnuts
I need to plant some new rhubarb. My one plant is old and small.