As we head into August and sow our second round of seed for a fall harvest, the process of thinning continues to stay relevant in our Teaching Gardens. Although all we sensitive gardeners feel a shot through the heart twinge of regret pulling out thriving seedlings, thinning is important for plant health. The practice of thinning allows plants adequate air flow, which prevents disease, and space to grow to maturity, which lessens the competition among seedlings for nutrients, water and light. By placing just a few more seeds than you need in each hole at planting time, and thinning later, you are ensuring that the healthiest plants survive. Plus, with thinnings from crops like lettuce, beets and spinach, you can create a micro-greens salad any fancy restaurant would be proud to serve!

Mel Bartholomew, the creator of the square foot gardening method, saw that people often wasted seed by not counting out what they planted. Instead, they dumped far more seed than necessary into a small area and eventually thinned out most of what they had planted. Square foot gardening attempts to conserve seed, time and energy by recommending 1 or 2 seeds be sown in each hole. In the case of beets, each seed is actually a cluster of seeds that will result in multiple sprouts, so only one seed is needed per hole. Once the seeds germinate, you’ll only have to pull out a few plants as opposed to many.

Carefully counting out seed also gives you the opportunity to cull, or sort, your seed. Empty a small quantity of seed into your palm and select only the very best looking seeds to plant. These will be large, plump, and blemish-free seeds. Discard any that are discolored, damaged or dried up. The practice is simple, but helps to ensure that you are only working with the best available seed, which will eventually produce the best possible plants.

Once your sown seed has produced at least two pairs of “true” leaves and the sprouts are about 3 to 4 inches tall, it’s time to thin. True leaves are the leaves that emerge after the first set of germinating leaves, which are also referred to as cotyledons or first leaves. While first leaves are typically thick and round or oblong in shape regardless of the crop variety, true leaves will be representative of the mature crop.

(illustration credit: www.chestofbooks.com from Pictorial Practical Vegetable Growing, Walter P. Wright)

 A, a, plants unthinned; b, plants thinned

B, c, d, unthinned and thinned plants at a later stage

C, thinned plants developing well

D, thinned plants ready for harvest

Before thinning, wet the soil to reduce damage to the plants you keep in the ground. With your fingers, lightly press on the soil around the seedlings you intend to keep; with your other hand, grasp the base of the undesirable seedling and gently pull it out, being careful not to disturb the soil more than is necessary. If the seedlings are too close together to pull out without disrupting the remaining plants, use a sharp pair of scissors to snip the unwanted sprouts instead. Spacing will vary according to the particular crop, so check your Growing Guide or seed packet for the recommended spacing distance.

We thought we’d share how everything is doing in our Teaching Gardens now that we’re halfway through our season. Compare with your own gardens and let us know if you’re having similar luck (or misfortune) in your neck of the woods!

BEETS– Eeks. Do we have to start with them? Leaf miner has been making a steady meal of the greens, despite our best efforts to squish the little white egg sacks on the leaf undersides. Our greens are also not especially green; they’ve gone reddish purple (and, no, they’re not a purple-leaf variety). Phosphorous deficiency? The wrong pH for beets, which prefer between 6.0 and 7.0? We’ll be soil testing in the fall to pin down the culprit.

BROCCOLI – Our broccoli definitely suffered from the early heat and did not produce well for us at all this year, with the exception of these beauties that came out of our Clinton site. They were among the earliest planted and seem to have gotten the timing just right.

WINTER SQUASH –  The Butternut vines have shot out in the last two weeks and are now making their way down the aisles in healthy, green swaths.

CARROTS – Ours are growing very well (despite most of our staff and Gurus insisting that they never have luck in their own gardens), but most of the roots are still dime-size in diameter – too early to harvest just yet. Except for our Teaching Gardener Maria’s carrots, which are downright amazing and got a round of applause last class.

CILANTRO – Always a polarizing crop! It’s growing well and our gardeners are either harvesting it happily or trying to give it away as quick as they can.

CUCUMBERS – They’re vining their way up our trellises and flowering – no fruit visible yet.

EGGPLANT – The largest our gardeners have is roughly the size of a golf ball, but the plants are hale and more pollinated flowers are obvious, so we have high hopes for a good year for eggplant.

GREEN BEANS – We’re elbow-deep in the harvest right now, but can’t wait to get the bean-beetle fodder out, out, out! Fortunately, most of the bean beetle damage occurred too recently to have inhibited the plants’ production. Still, next year, we’re considering using row cover for added protection against the pests.

GREENS – Our greens have almost uniformly begun to bolt. The July heat is too much for them so we’ve been scrambling to harvest what’s still useable and screwing up our faces as we taste test the arugula that’s gone by.

KALE – Yep. It’s growing. Slow. And. Steady.

ONIONS – Patience! If you want your onions to grow to their full potential, it’s not quite time to harvest. Ours are looking stellar this year and it’s been a test of patience not to pull them all out right this minute, but we’re waiting for the greens to brown and dry before we begin curing and harvesting.

PEPPERS – These caught us by surprise by maturing so quickly; we’re already harvesting beautiful bell peppers and flawless green jalapenos. Keep ‘em coming!

RADISHES – In all three Teaching Gardens, we’ve had our first envy-inspiring crop. If folks hadn’t planted radishes to start, the colorful harvest of their peers has inspired them to give them a try because, really, what’s more fun than pulling up glittering ruby root crops?

SQUASH – It’s that time of the season. The zucchini and summer squash have begun producing and the recipes for using them up have begun to dot our Teaching Garden conversations.

Our zuke obsession of the moment? Easy squash pancakes: 1 grated zucchini, 2 tbsps. thinly sliced scallions, 1 large egg, 4 tbsps. all purpose flour, ½ tsp. baking powder, salt and pepper. Stir and spoon into a buttered/oiled large fry pan over medium heat. You’ll get 5 zucchini medallions in just a few minutes. They’re great topped with Green yogurt or sour cream.

Sadly, in Leominster, powdery mildew is making itsway through the Teaching Garden beds thanks to a heavy infestation in a neighboring plot. We continuously prune the most affected leaves to prolong our plants’ lives and get as much production as we can, but once present, powdery mildew cannot be “cured.” We’ll spray with a milk mixture (1 part milk to 9 parts water) to slow the progression and hope for the best.

TOMATOES – The excitement is palpable in our classes where everyone is closely monitoring the ripening of their (and their neighbors’) tomatoes. Most have had one or two cherries so far, but we haven’t seen a fully ripe beefsteak just yet. Still, we daydream….stuffed tomatoes….BLTs…caprese salads….mmmm….

And that’s what’s growing in our Teaching Gardens! Let us know what you’re seeing in your own plots and we’ll keep you posted as the harvest continues. Happy gardening!

At GP, we are not professional chefs. We’re gardeners through and through. That being said, being a gardener naturally lends itself to improving your skills in the kitchen. It happens out of necessity more than anything; the onslaught of fresh produce can be overwhelming at this time of the year if you don’t have a few recipes up your sleeves to help you make use of it all in short order.

In general, some crops are easier to manage than others, namely, those which have become familiar stars in American fare, like potatoes, tomatoes and peppers. We’re sure you can think of plenty of recipes you already make that feature these tasty nightshade family members, but there’s so much more to be grown in the garden!

In our Teaching Garden, we host monthly Garden-to-Table cooking classes to tackle not just seasonal produce, but the unfamiliar crop. You know, the one you probably wouldn’t grow in your garden because you’re just not sure what you’d do with it if it happened to produce really well? Yeah, that one. Our goal is for everyone to leave class not only having tried a new dish, but feeling excited to include that crop in next year’s garden plan.

Enter garlic scapes.

 (Photo credit: Rebecca Siegel)

If in looking at this picture you’re still not really sure what you’re looking at or which green bit is the actual scape, you’re not alone. You won’t find these tasty delicacies in the supermarket, or even at your average farmer’s market, so many of our gardeners and volunteers have never heard of them, let alone seen and tasted them.

A scape is the flower stalk of the maturing garlic bulb. It begins as a straight stem, bends into a marked curlicue in early July, and then, as it prepares to open, straightens out again. In its early stages, the scape is most tender and ideal for harvest. Once the stem straightens out the second time, it becomes tougher, woody, and less desirable. The full harvest season lasts only a few weeks, so keep an eye on them or you’ll miss it!

So what can you do with garlic scapes? To start, they can be used as a substitute for garlic cloves in any recipe. Keep in mind, their flavor is milder than the bulb, so you’ll want to use a bit more to maintain that garlicky kick. They’re also great dressed simply, sauteed in olive oil, salt and pepper, added to an omelet, or included in a stir-fry.

If you find yourself growing a lot of garlic and you have a dozen or so scapes on hand, we strongly recommend you try our version of garlic scape pesto, the star of our most recent Garden-to-Table cooking classes.  The preparation is very simple and, because it only uses a few measuring spoons/cups, the clean up is, too. Like garlic itself, this pesto is endlessly versatile. We like it as is with good quality bread, but it adds great flavor to cooked dishes like pasta, chicken or pizza.

Garlic Scape Pesto

10-12 garlic scapes, chopped

1/3 cup sunflower seeds (can be raw or roasted, but always unsalted)

1/3 cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (or your favorite aged cheese, like Parmesan or Asiago)

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. pepper

1/3 cup olive oil

In a food processor, puree the garlic scapes, sunflower seeds, cheese, salt and pepper until very finely chopped. With the motor running, slowly add the oil. Taste and season with additional salt and pepper as needed. (Note: Homemade pesto keeps in the fridge, covered, for up to 1 week or frozen for up to a month.)

Tomatoes are often the most-prized plant in the garden; the succulence and sweetness of home-grown tomatoes just can’t be found in the grocery store. However, these vines call for more attention and devotion than many other crops. Specifically, most tomato plants require continual staking and pruning, called suckering, to reach their full potential.

Staking Tomatoes

There’s nothing worse than seeing a tomato eaten away by bugs just because it was touching the ground! If tomato plants are not held up, they become highly vulnerable to the damaging effects of bugs and disease. Many different methods exist for supporting tomato plants. Below are a few common techniques and the benefits and drawbacks of each.

The “Cage” Method

Tomato cages are often metal structures placed around each individual tomato plant. The primary benefit of using cages is that you only have to place the cage around once. This saves time in comparison to other methods in which you continually have to tie tomatoes as the plants mature. However, cages are expensive relative to other methods and can make access to the entire tomato plant – along with suckering and harvesting – more difficult because the center of the plant becomes hidden from view.

How to Use Your Cage: Bend the pointed ends outward before pressing into the ground with the tomato transplant neatly inside. Support further with a stake positioned just inside the topmost rung. This will help keep the cage in place.

The Individual Stake Method 

This method requires some kind of stake for each individual tomato plant. You can use stakes specifically designed for the job or improvise with a tall sturdy sapling, old broomstick handle, unused ski pole or just about any straight, strong pole. We use metal poles in our teaching gardens because wooden poles have the capacity to carry tomato blight (a devastating disease) from previous seasons. In contrast, metal poles may be reused for eons!

How to Use Your Stakes: Begin by inserting the stake as deep as possible into the soil, about 3-5 inches away from the base of the plant. Use a hammer or rubber mallet to drive the stake firmly into the ground. As the plant grows, tie a strip of old rag, panty hose, string or twine tightly around the stake and loosely around the main stem in a figure eight fashion. The stem needs to remain about 1 inch or more from the stake. If you tie the plant stem too tightly to the stake, the tomato will not be able to grow properly.

The “Florida Weave” Method

The Florida Weave method is used to support multiple tomato vines in a row with a weave of twine running between two strong end posts. This method provides easy access to each tomato plant for suckering and harvesting, is the least expensive option, and is also reasonably quick in comparison to individual stakes.

We selected this method for use in our own Teaching Gardens this season and, so far, have been pleased with the results! Our one suggestion: use sturdy end posts and be sure they are firmly in the ground as the weight of the mature tomato plants will slowly pull the stakes toward each other. We used narrow metal posts because they don’t harbor blight from season to season, but for this method, thicker wooden stakes might be the better bet.

How to Do the “Florida Weave” Method: This method sounds complex in writing, but we promise it’s simple in practice, so don’t be put off by the number of steps to get things started. Once the posts are in place, the weave is very simple to maintain.

Begin by inserting a stake as deep as possible into the soil, about 3-5 inches away from the base of the tomato plant at the beginning of your row. Use a hammer or rubber mallet to pound the stake into the ground. Repeat this process for the tomato plant at the end of the row. Take your ball of twine or string and tie a knot to secure it to the stake. Grip the twine and “weave” it behind your first tomato plant, in front of your second tomato plant, behind your third tomato plant, and so on. When finished, tie the twine to the second pole. Repeat the process starting from the other post. When you’ve completed the process, your tomato plants should be enclosed by figure eights. As the plants mature, continue to string twine every 6-8″ to provide additional support.

Stake early, support often

Whichever method you choose, supporting your tomatoes as early as possible, preferably within a week or two of transplanting, will make life easier on you. The longer you wait, the more unruly your tomatoes will become and the more difficult the tying or caging process will be. If you choose to stake your tomatoes, continue to add support every time the plants have grown about 6 to 8″ to keep them in line.

 

Suckering Tomatoes

What is a sucker? 

While not absolutely necessary, pruning tomato plants can maximize the number, size and flavor of your tomatoes. During their first several weeks in the garden, before blossoms emerge, tomato plants put their energy into growing new leaves and extra branches to hold those leaves. These side stems grow directly off the main stem. Suckers are new branches that grow out of the tomato’s main stem, just above a side stem (in the “crotch”). A tomato plant will produce suckers throughout the growing season.

Why prune suckers? 

Although it requires a bit of extra work, removing the suckers from your plants is beneficial in several different ways.

Earlier production. Fewer stems on the plant means more of the plant’s energy will go into producing fruit rather than growing stems and leaves, ultimately resulting in an earlier harvest.

Larger, healthier fruit. Overgrowth often results in the plant producing its own shade. Less sun reaching the leaves means less energy produced and available for fruit growth. Suckering ensures the maximum amount of sun reaches the leaves, is converted into energy and produces large, healthy tomatoes.

Disease prevention. Dense leaf growth can trap excess moisture and promote the spread of disease. Pruning alleviates this and allows for air to circulate around the plant.

How do you prune suckers?

Pruning suckers is best done when the shoots are as small and vulnerable as possible. Carefully grasp the base of the sucker and pinch it between your thumb and forefinger. This method is preferable to clipping or slicing as it results in a smaller wound on the plant that will heal more quickly. However, if a sucker has gotten away from you and grown too large to pinch easily, a clean cut with a sharp blade is better than a ragged wound created by wrenching and twisting off a branch.

Much to our dismay, a sucker once pruned is NOT gone forever! Tomatoes will often continue to produce additional suckers in the same stem-branch joint, so keep your eyes peeled and your pruners ready!

So go to it, Gardeners. Stake early, support often, prune with vigilance, and you’ll have prize-wining tomatoes before the summer is through!

Organic pest management can be tough!

You have to be vigilant and willing to squish some pretty fearsome-looking beasties (tomato hornworm anyone?). If you’re in a community garden setting, add to that the need to rely on everyone else to do the same and it’s an especially challenging task.

In our Teaching Gardens, the keys to success are pretty straightforward: know the good bugs (like lady beetles) from the bad bugs (like similar-looking Mexican bean beetles) and squish them as early on in their life cycle as possible so they don’t have time to produce the next generation.

We find that each year is different in terms of the types of pests we see and the degree of damage they inflict, but there are a few usual suspects, particularly in our Leominster Teaching Garden, which is the most well-established of the three gardens.

We’ve hand-picked (har-har) the 5 pests we’ve deemed the most destructive, most terrible, and most prevalent so far this season. Take a look and see if you’ve seen these seedy folks crawling around your garden neighborhood. If so, click on the photos to read our bulletins on how to handle them organically and in a small-space setting.

1. Cucumber Beetle

(photo credit: Jenn Forman-Orth)

2. Mexican Bean Beetle

(photo credit: Jenn Forman-Orth)

3. Cabbage Worms

4. Leaf Miner

5. Aphids

(photo credit: Jenn Forman-Orth)

And Honorable Mention goes to…..

Colorado Potato Beetle

Although we haven’t seen this pest in our Teaching Gardens yet, the nearby Cleghorn Peace Garden in Fitchburg has reported its presence among their vegetable plants so be on the lookout!

If you’re interested in more information on the Colorado Potato Beetle or any other pest, we recommend the following reliable sources:

UMass Amherst Extension Service:

https://ag.umass.edu/vegetable/insects/fact-sheets

University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension Service:

http://extension.unh.edu/resources/tag/Pest_Control

We’ve been working away in our gardens for two months now and it doesn’t get any better than the first real harvest of the season!

With an atypical spring just behind us (a slow, cold start, followed by extreme heat early on paired with periods of drought), we’re only just beginning to see regular harvesting of radishes, lettuce, arugula, kale and collards. The delayed start has us determined to make the most of our long-awaited veggies.

To take advantage of that fresh, just-picked flavor, a couple weeks ago we held our first Garden-to-Table cooking classes right inside our Teaching Gardens, preparing a fresh spring salad with all the fixings. This is a monthly feature of our Teaching Garden program – a way to demonstrate not just how to grow great produce, but how to make the most of it all once it’s harvested.

Our garden-to-table menus are always based on seasonal produce so we get the best flavor and the most nutrition out of our vegetables. Rather than follow a set recipe, we often prefer a flexible, general formula that adapts easily as the seasons (or what we have on hand in the pantry) changes.

GREENS

(lettuces, arugula, kale)

+

SEASONAL PRODUCE

(strawberries, green onions, sugar snap peas, radishes)

+

PROTEIN

(cannellini beans, pecans, sunflower seeds, Asiago cheese)

+

DRESSING

(1/3 c. extra virgin olive oil, 1 Tbsp. honey, juice of 1/2 to 1 lemon, salt and pepper to taste)

 

Don’t like cannellini beans? Try grilled chicken instead. Did you pick blueberries at a local farm? Toss them in! Was your lettuce a bust this season because of the heat? Opt for a grain-based salad instead with brown rice, whole wheat pasta or protein-packed quinoa in place of the greens.

And while there’s nothing wrong with store-bought dressing, making your own is super easy and means you have complete control over the ingredients, a.k.a no preservatives and no more sugar or salt than you want. To make your own, whisk together oil, an acid (like your favorite vinegar or fresh lemon juice) and seasoning of your choice (herbs, salt & pepper, honey). Whisk them all together until the ingredients emulsify, or combine. Store the mixture in the fridge for up to a week and shake it up before use any time the ingredients separate.

During our lessons, everyone helped out with preparations: cutting and washing vegetables, picking out choice greens to
throw in, and mixing the salad dressing. Everything came together in a snap, giving us plenty of time to enjoy the salad, the company, and the beautiful gardens!

What kind of seasonal recipes are you whipping up right now?