Planning Gross Farms 3.0

It's been a while since I published a post on this blog. There a few reasons for that. After the 2014 gardening season wound down, I decided to focus on getting my dissertation written. I'd been sitting on an almost-finished proposal for over a year. After nine months of solid focus, I defended my dissertation in September 2015. This gardener now has a Ph.D.! 2015 was a great year for gardening but I didn't have time to write about it.

Also in fall 2015, my husband accepted a job offer with the company I work for. This meant we were both commuting almost an hour each way, which seemed silly. We started to hunt for a home closer to work, in the country, with lots of land for us to pursue our hobbies (including gardening). We found it! In December 2015 we moved into our new house in the tiny hamlet of Kroghville, WI. It's located on a 1.6 acre lot and was previously home to a master gardener, so there are beds everywhere, mostly filled with perennial flowers. We took 2016 as a year to figure out what is really growing here, and how we might want to adapt it to make it our own.

Existing Spaces and Plans

We certainly have an amazing canvas to work with.

The side border and the front of this perennial garden will stay in flowers for the foreseeable future, although we have a lot of work to do to clean them up. They've been spreading and left unweeded for a few years.

At about the point where the pergola is built, I'll start my vegetable garden. There's about a 400 square foot area here for planting. When possible, I"ll transplant some of the special flowers that are currently in that space. Plans for that space include peppers, eggplant, potatoes, tomatoes, squash, beans, cucumbers, and strawberries. There is an existing rhubarb plant.

The further back you go along the fence, the more overgrown it gets. I've started clearing a 28' x 5' bed here.

Plans for this space in 2017 are garlic, corn, and and asparagus patch.

On the west side of the house is an amazing pond. Between the perennial border and the pond is a 60' x 6' strip of grass that is difficult to get to with the mower, and holds a lot of water. I'm going to remove the grass and put in six 3' x 8' raised beds, surrounded with stones.

Plans for this space in 2017 include: onions, carrots, fennel, celery, beets, chard, kale, broccoli, and tomatoes.

This will give me a total of 684 square feet of growing space in year one, if I can get it all in this spring.

Initial Preparation

I've already started on the side border, and have a 8' x 4' block of German Extra Hardy garlic planted that I picked up at the local farmers market. The purchase of a new rear-tine tiller made this job a bit easier—and more fun!

Seed Order

Yesterday I placed my seed order. Here are the varieties I plan to grow in 2017 (will all be started from seed in my basement or in the beds).

• Asparagus: Will decide on variety when I see what the local greenhouse has.
• Beans: Rattlesnake, Purple Pod
• Beets: Lutz Winter Keeper
• Broccoli: Arcadia
• Carrots: Mokum (early), Dragon (main crop), New Kuroda (late/storage)
• Celery: Conquistador
• Corn: Golden Bantam 8 Row
• Cucumber: Diva, National Pickling
• Eggplant: Black Beauty, Slim Jim
• Herbs: Florence fennel, Caribe cilantro, Dukat dill, Greek oregano, Italian parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme
• Kale: Red Russian
• Onion: Yellow Sweet Spanish, Red Wing
• Peppers, Sweet: California Wonder, Sweet Banana, Chocolate Beauty, Purple Marconi, Lilac Bell
• Peppers, Hot: Cayenne - Long, Early Jalapeno, Habanero
• Potato: I have ideas but might see what the local garden center has to offer.
• Strawberry: Will wait on local garden center
• Squash, Summer: Lebanese White Bush, Zephyr, Cash Flow zucchini
• Squash, Winter: Red Kuri, Waltham butternut, Vegetable spaghetti
• Tomato: Plum Regal, Blondkopfchen, German Pink, Moonglow, Incas Hybrid, Little Napoli Hybrid, Health Kick, Riesenstraube

This is actually a short list compared to past years, but I'm starting slow (for me). I've also signed up for another half share of a CSA just in case I don't have the luck I suspect in our first year here. I anticipate I'll be preserving a lot of food in 2017!

2014 Seed Order

You didn't hear from me much last year because I was without a garden. However, by September we had all the raised beds constructed and filled in the back yard, so it will be full steam ahead in 2014! Look at all the growing space I have:

That's eight 3'x3' beds, and 16 8'x3' beds (set up in adjacent pairs).

I've been using some garden planning software to lay everything out and plan for succession planting. Even with so much space, I'm still tempted to overdo things. There are currently 75 cloves of garlic (Music) planted, and the following seeds have either been ordered or will soon be ordered. Time to start a seed starting calendar!

• Arugula 
• Asparagus: Jersey Knight Hybrid
• Bush Beans: Royal Burgundy
• Fava Beans: Windsor 
• Beets: Cylindra, Golden, Chioggia 
• Broccoli: Calabrese, De Cicco
• Brussell Sprouts: Long Island Improved
• Cabbage:Premium Late Flat Dutch
• Carrots: Cosmic Purple. St. Valery
• Cauliflower: Early Snowball
• Celery: Tall Utah
• Chard: Rhubarb Red
• Corn: Blue Jade, Bear Paw Popcorn
• Cucumbers: Parade, Crystal Apple
• Eggplant: Black Beauty
• Genovese Basil
• Chives
• Cilantro
• Bouquet Dill
• Garlic Chives
• Florence Fennel
• Mint
• Greek Oregano
• Giant from Italy Parsley
• Green Culinary Sage
• Thyme
• Kale: Halbhoher Gruner Krauser, Red Russian
• Lettuce: Forrellenschluss, Red Iceberg, Green Oakleaf, Tango
• Leeks: Blue Solaise
• Onions: Alisa Craig Exhibition, Yellow Sweet Spanish
• Peas: Sugar Lace, Mammoth Melting Sugar Snow Pea
• Sweet Peppers: Chervena Chushka, Bull Nose Bell, Chocolate Beauty, Miniature Yellow Bell
• Hot Peppers: Chinese Ornamental, Joe’s Long Cayenne, Jalapeno Traveler Strain
• Potatoes: Purple Viking, Yukon Gold
• Radishes: Cherry Belle, French Breakfast
• Rutabaga: Joan
• Spinach: America, Strawberry Spinach
• Summer Squash: Black Beauty Zucchini, Golden Zucchini 
• Winter Squash: Pennsylvania Dutch Crookneck, Waltham Butternut, Table Queen
• Strawberries: Honeoye
• Determinate Tomatoes: Rutgers, Oregon Spring, Tip-Top, Principe Borghese, Roma, Martin’s Roma, Silvery Fir Tree
• Indeterminate Tomatoes: Brandywine, Blondkopfchen, Dr. Wyche’s Yellow, Dester, Italian Heirloom, Riesentraube
• Tomatillo

More Seeds!

Last Saturday I started my tomato and pepper seedlings. I planted 24 tomatoes and 19 peppers, a few varieties of each (listed in my garden planning post). I planted each one in a 2-inch pot so it would have some room to grow. I also placed them on a heat mat, which is new for me this year. The heat really worked - my first tomato seedling only took four days! It was an Italian tomato. I've had to water the seedlings at least twice a day because they're drying out so fast.

The first pepper seedling popped up today (Aurora) but I was expecting most of those to take about 14 days to germinate. My onions finally seem to be hitting their stride, and most of the swiss chard seedlings look great. The lettuce greens seem pretty flimsy....I'm realizing I started them in seed starting mix but they probably could have gone right into soil. Maybe I'll remedy that later today.

As my husband and I talk about canning, he's concerned we might not have enough tomatoes. I'm more concerned with the limited garden space we'll have. Regardless, I started 7 more Amish Paste tomatoes today.

The weather last weekend was a bit of a tease. It was in the 50's and I got our compost pile going. Now there are snow flurries outside and the temperature likely won't top 20 degrees this weekend. Grrr, Wisconsin.

Seed Starting

I got antsy last weekend and started some spinach, arugula and yellowleaf lettuce seeds in hopes of having some fresh greens before I can get them from the garden. I didn't water them correctly (I have a spray bottle now) so the germination was a bit uneven, but I'm hoping that will be fixed this week.

Today I planted onions (36), two kinds of swiss chard (12), parsley (24) and chamomile. The new seeds are on a warming mat under the lights, and they look quite happy. These all should actually be started next weekend, but I'll be out of town.

When I first started gardening (2 years ago), I had no idea how to start seeds. Now I'm feeling a bit more confident. For other neophytes out there, here's a quick example of the different shapes and sizes seeds come in.

So you get a sense of scale, here's the paper I wrote on, next to a seed packet.

Next up: I'll be starting peppers and tomatoes on March 20.

Seeds & Grow Rack

Today I placed my seed order with Seed Savers. I ordered everything listed in the previous post, for a grand total of $124.02. I also took a trip to Lowe's with my husband, and purchased the materials for a seed starting rack. The 6-foot utility rack, 2 shop lights, light bulbs, power strip with timer, S hooks, zip ties, and 4 small bags of potting mix came to $152.79. So, start-up costs this year are a little high (especially considering I'll be expanding the garden plots), but it's going to be a fun season!! Once I start my first seeds, I'll take pictures.

First seeds of 2010

In 2009, Aaron and I planted some common herb seedlings, as well as three types of tomatoes (Patio, Big Boy, and.....something else). The herbs thrived and the patio tomatoes were great, but the rest of the tomatoes were taken by blight. All of our plants were grown in container in our driveway or on the balcony. We still have basil, thyme, chives, parsley, oregano and sage growing in our kitchen. I made pesto in the middle of winter!

I planted our first seeds today. I bought them all at Outpost Coop. All are organic, and many are from the Seed Savers Exchange. They're planted in organic pots so I don't have to do much work to transplant them - just put the pots in the ground/larger pot and they'll become part of the soil.

I got lots of herbs, and a few more varieties of tomatoes. It's more exciting this year, because we're moving into our first house at the end of May. Some of these plants may make it into the ground! Although many will stay in containers, I'm hoping to find some ground space for tomatoes and basil, and the spearmint will probably grow well behind our garage. I'll spend the summer and fall testing our soil, plotting our garden space, and creating a plot and/or raised bed. For sure I'll be adding some compost from Growing Power, and starting our own compost pile behind the garage. I'm excited!

Seeds I started today:

Tomatoes:

• Beefsteak (2)
• Speckled Roman (2)
• Silvery Fir Tree (2)
• Moonglow (2)
• Blondkopfchen (2)
• Sweet Pea Currant (2)

Herbs

• Genovese Basil (24) - we need more pesto!
• Basil Mix (6)
• Spearmint (2)
• Garlic chives - 4", scattered
• Oregano (6)
• Thyme - 8", scattered - about 20-30 seedlings

Parsley seeds need to soak for 24 hours, so those will be started tomorrow. I'm planning about 24 of those. I have cilantro, but won't start that for quite some time.