Another update to our garden. We are starting to do our summer harvest of tomatoes (pretty late as compared to other years due to a cool and wet June), artichokes, onions, beets, squash, beans, peppers, and eggplant. We have been picking strawberries throughout the year and they have been good. I highly recommend Albion strawberries (read my post on those for more info).

We are still waiting for our melons. Cantaloupes are looking great and should be on here soon and the watermelons need to get bigger.

I have been disappointed with my raspberries. They have grow great and produced but the birds are eating them before they are big enough to pick. We will be buying a fake owl to see if that will help.

A word on our tomatoes. I am starting to see signs of fusarium wilt in our tomatoes. This is a fungi that block water to the leaves and eventually kill tomatoes. This problem is due to our inability to rotate our crops. Homeowners are constantly dealing with this problem. As we continue to not rotate the fungi will build up stronger and stronger each year and soon we will not be able to grow tomatoes, peppers or eggplant, (solanaceous crop). There are a few ways to solve this. First and easiest is to plant only hybrids that are resistant to these diseases. We planted a few this year and those are doing fine. The other, which we will eventually do is to solarize the soil and kill everything that has built up over the years. This means that we will pretty much have to take a year off since you need to take 6 weeks in the hottest part of the summer. Anyway, watch out for this in your own garden.

As for our Fall garden, we have missed the window of opportunity. As you might experience, life got in the way. We should have planted first of July, but since I have been away on work and Mindy takes care of 5 kids, plus family vacations etc, we didn’t get our Fall crops in time…errrrrgh. Well, we shall enjoy what this year has to bring and just try and plant some lettuce crops that don’t take too long for the Fall.

Sorry to all those you follow this blog. I have been very busy with high priorities in my life. I have not neglected the garden however, just the blog. Here are some updates on my garden along with pictures. Feel free to ask questions or comment on if you feel that you are not getting a desired yield.

We have had a pretty good season so far. We had a lot of moisture and a relatively cool June. This had a good effect on our Spring crops. You may notice some rows that I am working on. Those were my Spring crops such as romaine lettuce, peas, broccoli, cauliflower and spinach. All did well except the cauliflower. As predicted it went to seed too fast. I will be planting the real crop of cauliflower and broccoli for the Fall and should get a great yield.

I will be planting my Fall garden this week for crops that I want to mature well before the first frost but during cool weather. Fall crops are usually better than Spring crops for this reason.

Here are my tomatoes that I will be letting grow across the black plastic with no supports. These I grew indoors directly from seed, very satisfying.

Here are my melons, cantaloupe and watermelon. They are doing great.

Artichokes, they are just starting to grow buds

Onions, this is probably the best crop I have had yet. I attribute it to the great weather. I also grew these direct from seed indoors.

We were gone for two weeks so our swiss chard in the background is really big. We just had some last night and it is still good at that size.

Hopefully, your gardens are all doing well too.

I got two calls today about planting corn so I decided I should post about the types of corn and things to consider when planting. First thing you should know is that there are three different types of corn, su, se and sh2. Standard corn or (su) is your field corn, it takes a while to mature and prefers warm temperatures and a fairly long season. It is great tasting when picked right off the stalk, but quickly turns its sugars to starch, so it is better if you eat it quickly. I haven’t planted very many varieties since I always plant Silver Queen when I do corn, but according to the Utah State corn fact sheet, Earlivee, Jubilee, and NK199 are good varieties for Utah. I personally love su corn.

Sugar enhanced or (se) has been genetically modified to be more sugary and not convert to starch as quick. It doesn’t necessarily mean its better, but if you get a chance to plant this corn then you should along with (su) corn. Recommended varieties include, Incredible, Sugar buns, Miracle, and Peaches and Cream.

Super sweet corn or (sh2) is supposed to be even sweeter than the other types, it should not be allowed to “tassle” at the same time as the other types. Cross pollination of this type makes both types not taste as good. Therefore, you should look at the maturity dates and make sure to plant so that they mature about 3 weeks apart. Recommended varieties include, Honey and Pearl, Phenomenal, How Sweet it Is, Supersweet Jubiliee.

One of the best ways to plant corn, assuming you have the room, is to plant so that you will get corn all season. Therefore, you buy 6 plus varieties that all mature at different dates, this will enable you to pick each day rather than it all coming on at once.

Now you need some room for corn, the reason for this is because they pollinate each other. At minimum you should have at least 3 rows approx. 15 feet long for decent pollination. Each silk leads to a kernel, if the silk is not pollinated then the kernel will not grow. That is why you see some corn with patches of kernels that don’t grow.

Corn is fairly easy to grow in Utah and now is the time to get it in the ground. Note: technically you should wait until danger of all frost has past, but I usually plant one week before frost free date.

Be sure to watch for pests, especially when it begins to tassle. Earwigs and worms love corn, I spray BT when silks begin to emerge to keep this problem under control.

UPDATE: 2010

I have ordered a newer type of corn called “Triplesweet” corn or “Synergistic”. This corn is 25% sugar enhanced and 75% super sweet kernels. I have heard good things so I am planting it this year. I am going to plant Serendipity and Honey Select, both from Park seed. They say that they need no isolation from other corn, which is the big plus for me and one of the main reasons I have stayed away from super-sweet varieties. I don’t have much room for corn and I would rather not stagger the planting dates.

I just planted my tomatoes today. It was pretty satisfying since I started them indoors from seeds. I planted 4 different varieties, Big Beef, Beefmaster, Park’s Whopper, and Early Girl. All are indeterminate tomatoes except for one determinate start I bought from the store for cherry tomatoes.

For those of you who don’t know about different types of tomatoes there are three basic types, determinate, semi-determinate and indeterminate. Determinate tomatoes are “bush-type” tomatoes that grow to about 4 feet tall and set fruit once and then die away. Indeterminate tomatoes grow long vines, get more than 6 feet high and produce all through the growing season. In fact, an indeterminate tomatoes would not die if it weren’t for frost, disease or lack of care. Semi-determinate tomatoes are bush like, but have a longer growing season of fruit.

There are many considerations for planting tomatoes in Utah. One of the biggest considerations is when to plant. Tomatoes will die if exposed to frost or chilly weather. You should wait until two weeks after your frost free date to pretty well guarantee your plants will not be harmed. If you protect your starts then you can plant earlier. I planted today, three weeks before I should because I planted under hotcaps, like so.

These hotcaps act like a greenhouse and keep warm air in and cold air out. Not only will this protect it, but it will also help it grow faster because tomatoes like temperatures over 70 degrees. Some people like Wall-O-Waters, which work just fine too, but I prefer these at $.25 a piece with no water or stakes to mess with. When the plants begin to push the tops of the hotcaps after a couple of weeks then you slice the top open and gradually expose the plant to the elements a day at a time. After about 5 days you should be able to take it off completely and just throw it away.

When you plant a tomato, make sure to plant it all the way until about the last 4 inches. The stem, when planted in dirt, will produce more roots and you will have a better root system. Here is an example.

Another consideration is spacing. This will depend on how you will stake the tomatoes. Let me begin by saying that there are many methods of staking. I will focus on two, staking in some manner, or not. If you stake tomatoes then you should plant 2 feet apart in a 2-3 foot row. You can use those dumb cages they sell at the stores, as you can see, I think they are worthless, or you can build your own system that would probably be more adequate. For me I prefer to not stake them and let them grow out across black plastic.

If you have the space, this is the best method in terms of ease and yield. When the plants are staked the leaves don’t get as much sunlight and don’t stay as warm. When you let them grow over black plastic you maximize the leaves getting the sun, which is what produces the fruit and the vines heat up from the black plastic, which they love. I was taught this method by Dr. Gordon Wells and I have seen considerable improvement. This year, I am going to do my traditional method over the black plastic and then I will stake up two others and then actually count the production for comparison. That is why you see two off to the side in the picture. Those will be staked and the other 5 will grow out 5ft both ways.

This is why you need alot of space. When you don’t stake you need 4-5ft on both sides of the plant and about 5ft between plants in a row for adequate space. This means that you need a spot about 10X25 for 5 plants. This happens to be the exact size of black plastic that Home Depot sells. (Update: I have been using different black plastic which I like better, for more information please see my post on the subject.) It works perfect for this. You need to have an irrigation method which I have talked about in other posts, to go under the black plastic. I use drip irrigation.

Once I take the hotcaps off, I will put the black plastic on and never have to weed or worry about rotting tomatoes touching the ground. Note that you should irrigate beyond just next to the plant since the root system will be quite large.

Don’t be deceived by me only having 5+ plants, I am going to get a ton of tomatoes with just these plants because of this method.

Last, make sure you don’t water too often, water deeply and infrequently. See my post on this.

When to plant your summer crops can be tricky because the weather doesn’t always abide by averages. The general rule is to wait until all danger of frost is gone. Well…that could be today, maybe. According to the National Weather service there is a 50% chance of it getting to 32 degrees as of May 1st. However, after May 22nd there is only a 10% chance that temperatures will get to freezing for Spanish Fork, Utah. You can find all of this information for Utah on my homepage links section or click this link for anywhere in the U.S.

Since the weather can do what it wants, some would suggest to wait two weeks until after the average frost free date to plant, in order to be safe. However, in Utah we have a pretty short season and therefore, there isn’t alot of time to spare so we tend to push the limits on this. If you want to push the limits, here are some things to consider. Keep in mind that by taking any advice below, you may lose seeds/plants if the weather isn’t “average”.

First, you can generally plant seeds 7-10 days before your frost free date in order to get a jump. Even if it gets really cold one night, the soil doesn’t get as cold unless it is cold for a while.

Second, consider hotcaps or Wall o waters for tomatoes. You can plant under these 3 weeks early and potentially get a jump. If you plant any sooner, they may grow to big too soon for the protection to work adequately. I will be planting my tomatoes under hotcaps this weekend.

Third, you can try from transplants. Vegetables like melons, cucumbers, squash, corn and beans really don’t respond well to transplants, but you can certainly try. Peppers, eggplants and tomatoes work well from transplants so this will give you a needed jump on the season with these.

Finally, don’t be too concerned about getting things in the ground too early. Everything should have time to grow. This post is mainly for fanatics like me that aren’t very good at being patient.

There is good reason here in Utah to watch the weather forecasts and such to protect your plants during certain conditions. We got 8 inches of snow in the last 24 hours.

I chose not to protect because I only have hardy plants out, but I didn’t anticipate this much snow. Had I been wiser I could have constructed wire frame row covers that also help keep out frost. Anyway, I will probably be fine but something to consider. If I lost anything it will probably be the artichokes. Hope not.

I have been looking forward to this day for over 5 weeks. Mainly because that is when I planted the seeds for the starts that I put out yesterday. They grew wonderfully using a simple light system (see post). Not only was I able to get an early start, but each plant cost me about $.20 between seeds, soil and peat pots. That is a lot better than $1-3 for starts in the store.

I planted broccoli, cauliflower, head lettuce, romaine lettuce, spinach, swiss chard, and onions. The broccoli, cauliflower, and head lettuce are more of an experiment since they don’t do as well in the Spring as they do in the Fall. I have already seeded carrots and peas.

Note: I planted some seeds I didn’t use for starts at the same time out in the garden to compare with my indoor starts. Obviously they didn’t grow as well, but I wanted to know how much of a disparity there would be. The results were significant. With each vegetable that I planted in the garden, they were barely even up with seed leaves while my starts were 3-4 inches tall with 4-6 true leaves and an established root system.

This is highly significant for anyone trying to get Spring crops out of crops such as head lettuce, broccoli and cauliflower. These crops will “bolt” when it gets to hot, therefore, unless you get a jump on the season by using starts, you pretty much don’t have a chance in Utah by direct seeding in the Spring. You should do well in the Fall though.

For anyone looking for information on spacing, thinning, watering requirements and such please refer to the planting guides or read some of my other posts.

We recently purchased and planted our strawberries. We were really excited about this because of the newer varieties that we have learned about. Over the years many new varieties have come out and many more will continue to come out. California is the major producer, so if you are trying to find a good variety, find out what they are growing.

We have learned that for Junebearing strawberries, Chandler or Ventana is the best in terms of size, flavor, yield, etc. As for everbearing/day-neutral strawberries, we have learned that Diamonte is the best, however, recently a newer better berry which surpasses the Diamonte has come out. It is called Albion. So this year we planted both Albion and Ventana. Of course, alot of this is subjective, but it is a good place to start anyway.

There are many things to know about strawberries and so I would refer you to the strawberry fact sheet for many of the specifics.

As for our garden, we use the black plastic method in a row. This means that the strawberries can’t put out their runners to create new strawberry plants. We pinch the runners off and do the initial planting 12″ apart which is pretty close together since we don’t let them runner. The reason for this is that we feel that the plants, at around $.25 a piece are cheap and we want to enjoy them as soon as possible so we don’t let them put their energy into creating new plants, instead we make them put it into the fruit. Another benefit of the black plastic is water conservation, since the berries like the moisture, and the fruit doesn’t tend to rot when touching the ground.

Also, remember that strawberries like a lower pH than most vegetable, therefore, I add extra sulfur when I fertilize to accomplish this. See post on this.

While strawberries do the best in California, the still do well in Utah. One problem we frequently have is iron chlorosis, so you will need to watch for this.

You can see this problem in the leaves noted be green veins with a yellow leaf.

This is due to improper fertilization or irrigation. If you have this problem read here.

We just planted our bare root raspberries yesterday. This was highly satisfying because we have heard about this type of variety and are anxious to grow it. Dr. Gordon Wells and the local nursery, Garden Plot both recommended Autumn Bliss. It is a red raspberry with excellent size and flavor. It is also an everbearer so we won’t have to continually have vines that need pruning and training. At the end of the season you just cut everything down to about 4-6″ above the ground. 

The main reason why these are so great is because they set fruit about three weeks earlier then other varieties and produce until the season is over. That means a larger yield, sooner. So for us, it has the best of all worlds. Due to the nature of this variety and and our garden space, we went ahead and purchased 30 roots and planted them really close together, 12″ apart. Most people will plant them farther apart and let them fill in the bed with more canes. We don’t want to wait so we planted them close and should have a good yield even this first year. Some will suggest we not let it set fruit the first year for root growth however, both Garden Plot and Dr. Wells says we can get the fruit this year and not harm anything. 

This picture is hard to see from this angle, but here is the row. We made the row too big so we will have to figure something out. 

Here is another angle where you can see the canes in the back ground.

As for the time of year, this is about the earliest to plant them. It is good to get them in early, but you don’t want them in too early. 

If you want to buy this type or for other berries, grapes etc. call Garden Plot. Not your biggest nursery, but they fill a nice niche. The owner is Gordon Platt and he is a really nice guy. 

985 S 1950 W, Springville, Ut   (801)-491-0606

This is the nursery behind the Walmart in Springville. I got a good deal, cheaper than ordering online, especially considering the shipping. If you can’t go to a local nursery, then I would recommend Indiana Berry Farms for this and other varieties.

Here is the Utah extension guide on raspberries in general.

My family doesn’t eat as many peas as I would hope. I happen to love eating them right with the pod, especially sugar snap peas. However, since we don’t eat that many, my wife doesn’t want to plant very many. Contrary to her desires, I will be planting more than we can eat and here is why. 

Most peas, like beans (Fabaceae family) are leguminous plants. This means that they “fix” nitrogen from the air into the plant and soil. Nitrogen is what plants need to grow and produce food. So having a plant that makes its own is a very good thing. This also means that the soil with the leguminous plant in it will have more nitrogen for other plants. When green leguminous plants decompose, they also have the same effect and add nitrogen to the soil. 

It is for this reason that I will be planting peas, where my melons are going to go. I will try and harvest the peas before the melons need to go in so it won’t cost me any space. If I don’t get a harvest in time then I am out $2.39 for the 3oz bag of seeds. I will till in the pea plants right into the soil and thereby improving my soil significantly. If I were going to get really serious, like many others are, I would plant peas all over the garden where my summer crops are going. It would provide benefit to all of the soil. 

For more information on growing peas, here is all you need to know by the Utah State Extension service.

http://extension.usu.edu/files/publications/publication/HG_Garden_2005-09.pdf

I will be growing Little Marvel and Sugar Snap Peas this year.

I am also experimenting this year with the early season. Since peas don’t mind cold, I am going to see how they do with planting them a week or two early. I planted two small rows on the 3/4/09 right before a snow storm and again after the storm on 3/6/09. Let’s see how they do. Note: I soaked the peas for 6 hours to “chit” them. I rinsed twice a day for three more days and then planted.

I am hoping to find out two different things. Will I still get a 63-70 maturity even when planting in cold soil or will the grow slower. I would also like to see if the peas can handle this cold of weather. Again, a $2.00 experiment.