Showing posts with label hoop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hoop. Show all posts
The tomato report 2013 (or, lets hear it for the little guys)
I wouldn't say this year is a banner
season for tomatoes. But I'm not complaining! It's been an
outstanding year for so many things, I think it might have been too
much to deal with 20 pounds of tomatoes at a time. It's been a
mostly cool summer around here, and fruit has come in slow but
steady. I am getting near to hitting most of my preserving goals (I
even made ketchup last week) and barring unforeseen calamity the
usual end-of-season harvesting should get me enough salsa and canned
tomatoes for the year.
I have heard a fair amount of
complaining from local gardeners about the late start. It was pretty
cold in May, so if people were hesitant to plant, their harvests have
come in pretty late. Some are just starting to get ripe fruit in
mid- to late- August! Here's my tip to finicky-climate tomato
growers: Diversify!
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| A pretty good representation of this year's harvest proportions |
The small-fruited plants I grow, mainly
plums (I have roma, principe borghese, and black plum this year) are
truly the backbone of my operation. If I only grew long-season large
fruit, I'd never have enough volume to preserve until very late in
the year, if at all. I love a juicy brandywine tomato, and some
years they lead the pack by weight harvested, but in years like this
I didn't see a big pink beauty until August 25th. The
first Roma and Principe (not even in the hoop house, mind you) were
picked on July 9th! These little guys are also extremely
prolific, and excepting tasks that involve peeling them in great
quantities, they are a perfect all-purpose tomato. We dehydrate,
sauce, ketchup (is that a verb?) and of course EAT them in just about
everything. I've even peeled them for salsa, but it gets a little
time-consuming.
My second tip for short season growers
is: start (a few) early—and maybe a few late.
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| 7 plants, neatly trellised via the weaving method. |
I started about a half-dozen tomatoes
inside about 3 weeks ahead of the rest. The plan was for these to go
in the hoop house early: which they did. I planted two of them in
hoop house in mid-April (somehow I have lost the date!) and they
spectacularly died on a 19-degree night on April 20th.
(There's a small chance I could have saved them with an additional
layer of protection, but the forecast was about 10 degrees off that
night...) Anyway, they were replanted on April 27th, and
one of these early plants also went into my outside garden on May
13th. Both the hoop (Principe) and outside plant (Roma)
produced their first ripe fruit on almost the same day. They are
both 75-85 day varieties. Interesting!
The lesson I learned from this is
starting plants early really does help, but then again, who wants to
babysit 20 tomato plants for 3 extra weeks? My inclination is to
keep starting a few early: I don't need all my fruit ripe in July,
just enough for fresh eating and a few BLTS. The rest of my plants
were started March 29th, and planted mid-May, and I've been quite happy with
their performance. Having a few extra plants to start early also
makes me a lot more patient with planting the rest of my crop.
Also—I stuck a last leftover Speckled Roman in the
ground really late, and have been very happy with a robust plant
fruiting up when the first main harvest wave is over. Staggering
plantings can really help with a changeable weather year: last
season when we had an extended 100 degree heat-wave my plants stopped
setting fruit altogether. I had friends who planted really late and
their tomatoes were happily growing vines during this hot spell, and
proceeded to produce a bumper crop after the heat broke while mine
were still recovering. Unless you want all your tomatoes ripe in
the same week (I don't!), both staggering plantings and diversity of
varieties can spread out your harvest, and mitigate the effects of
bad streaks of weather.
And as for that hoop house?
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| 2 tomatoes on the left, not trellised neatly at all--pretty much one massive bush. |
My assessment after two hot-seasons of
growing, is that the hoop doesn't really extend my tomato season that
much. Because of it's small size—and our specific spring climate—I can't see
getting them in the ground more than a few weeks early—and I've
done that in my regular garden just with a few improvised cloches.
They might extend later in the season, but realistically I need to
pull plants in October anyway to close up the hoop and plant for
winter.
BUT, again, I am not complaining about this.
The difference between plants grown in the hoop and outside is
staggering. The plants grown under cover are GINORMOUS. They are
lush and chunky, even with pruning are several times the physical
leafy volume than my outside plants, and their yields are much
higher. So far I've limited myself to 2 plants a season—they just
get too huge to fit more in there if I want to grow peppers and
cucumbers and more—and keep my planned rotation in the beds. I'm
still playing around with my varieties: this year I have a plum (the
principe) that is outstanding. The second, a Cherokee purple, is my
first attempt at a full-size fruit inside. It is healthy and pretty
prolific, and I'm looking forward to good eating tomatoes well into
the fall. I might try, next year, one of my big paste tomatoes to
see how it does. I've also jokingly thought of putting ALL my
tomatoes in there some year, ha. I generally grow 14 plants, and I
could probably get the same harvest with 7 inside. Maybe one year I
will try it.
Varieties grown this year:
Amish paste
Black Plum
Brandywine
Cherokee Purple
Italian Heirloom
Italian Roma
Principe Borghese (pole)
Speckled Roman
Sun Gold (Cherry)
Hoop house gutters
Well hello there. My updates here have been sporadic of late, but this seemed like a project that might be of interest to a few folks out there.In the pendulum of weather that is our new reality, last year's extremely early and hot spring, followed by severe drought, has been replaced by a cool, late season-start and tons of rain. It's now the 2nd wettest year for Madison on record! It's been a frustrating whiplash year for many gardeners (and farmers) in Wisconsin, but thanks to the hoop house and raised beds I haven't been too far behind, and I'm just enjoying the lush landscape.
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| We might bump this out a few inches for clearance on light-rain days. I can't decide if the barrel or flexible bucket is best yet. |
So with last year's lack of rain, the hoop got watered along with the rest of the garden. Our water set-up is awkward (we have eventual plans to remedy it); it's hard to be motivated to drag out the hose when the only spot you need to water is 10 x 12 and in the farthest uphill corner from the faucet. So I've been experimenting with catching rainwater on the roll-up sides of the hoop, and it worked well enough that I invested $4 in a length of gutter this weekend. The gutter is simply screwed into the hip board on one end, and attached with a simple bracket at the other.
Last evening it rained for the first time since we installed it, and we ran out mid-storm to watch the progress. Success: even in a short downpour we easily caught 4-6 gallons while we were watching, and it took me a few minutes to fill up my big watering can and distribute the bounty. I think my plants will be happy with real rain too: we're on city water and besides the cost, I am glad to avoid chlorine and other additives.
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| The roll-up sides are just secured with bungees to keep them out of the way, and with the gutter attached to the hip board we avoided putting any fasteners through the actual plastic. |
If this rainy weather keeps up, and we continue to have success, I'll probably put one on the other side as well. If you wanted to get fancy, you could install downspouts (and possibly a drip hose?) to redirect it. For now, I'm planning on watering when it rains anyway, so I don't think we'll have a storage issue, but it might be fun to have a retention barrel with a few water hyacinths.
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| The simplest of brackets... |
It's the simplest of ideas: I keep thinking I wish I had done it last year, and then I remember that it never rained!
Ah, spring, and an actual follow-up
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| a perfect way to start the morning....also, I have suspicions there's a toad sleeping right under my coffee cup. |
The hoop house is a huge help with impatience (I'm sure I've said this before). Even though I'm not as far along as I thought I'd be by now, I can at least plant peas, when outside many of my beds are still frozen. I can pretty much see the chives growing at this stage--and a green onion that I (improperly) harvested last week grew a new 2-inch shoot in a matter of days. Spring is so miraculous.
Salads are back on the menu, and we've been harvesting spinach regularly, if not in mass quantities.
Wonderfully wet
As I write this, a sandhill crane is honking somewhere overhead, and there is a big patch of visible grass on my sunny hill. Winter is definitely retreating. She is taking her sweet time, with lots of snow and below-normal temperatures, (and some showy hoarfrost, just to remind us that we do in fact, like winter around here) but she is no match for the lengthening days.
So I am grateful for mud season this March, and equally grateful to have the hoop house, where I can get my gardening season started despite the slower start to spring.
on second chances
Sometimes, with gardening, you can recoup your losses.
Our first round of broccoli, except for a head or two, pretty much burned up. But without any effort on my part (and some wonderful rain and cooler temperatures) the second growth of side shoots is looking wonderful.
In a moment of optimism (even before the drought eased) I planted late-summer crops of beans, beets, cucumbers, cauliflower, carrots; and so far they are doing well. A few of my tomato plants have recovered--though several are looking quite bad for this time of year, I think the heat and drought stress followed by more normal moisture levels encouraged some disease. I did find a few cherokee purples hiding in the bush this week
And I must say, I was skeptical of using the hoop space for growing tomatoes. Up until this year, I have zero problems in our climate growing them in the traditional fashion. But, this year, if it wasn't for the 2 plants inside, I know we would not have enough fruit for salsa or sauce.
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| hoop house romas |
Other crops inside are not the greatest--peppers and zucchini were slower to mature than my outside beds, though are doing fairly well now. I had high hopes for melons and cucumbers, but neither did well at all. In fact the only vine that did survive turned out to be a volunteer climbing zucchini! It took me a painfully long time to realize that the one thriving plant in the row was not a cucumber--though I did catch on quite a bit before I found this, HA.
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| I so wish this was a melon taking up all the space instead. Oh well! |
I biked to the big Saturday market this week, and felt pretty happy comparing our bounty to theirs. Sometimes it's good to remember what you have. And for what I haven't. I bought a big tub of cucumbers, just in case our fall crop fails--and satisfied my need for quick dills and fermented sours. And a big bag of Door County peaches--which were happily eaten with no fanfare or thoughts for the future.
As it is, this in no stretch will be a banner year, but at least we have plenty to eat around here, and a bit to put away for winter. I can't decide if we'll have a long fall growing season, or if the year will continue at an accelerated rate--June in March, August in June--September in August--will we have winter early and just drop the last month off the calender entirely? Actually I think that would be okay with me.
hoop-la update
Just a quickie update as there's so much going on these days, last night we finally had some rain so I think we get a day off of backyard digging! My plans today are to re-vamp the hoop house, pulling out some overgrown and/or blooming bits that have been replaced by new plantings. This should make room for new things to go in: leeks, more plantings of carrots, and perhaps a couple of tomatoes. I have spares in case anything goes wrong...
Temps are still dropping to near (or even below) freezing at night, even inside the greenhouse. I suspect the warm soil keeps most of the plants pretty happy, though the other morning everything was good and crispy when I was harvesting before work. It does make me leery of planting my summer stuff, or even leaving my bedding plants in overnight, except for the alliums and cabbages.
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| these three rows were started from seed (in February!). They sprouted in March and are finally catching up to their siblings started indoors and transplanted later, but nowhere near the size of their overwintered cousins. |
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| I perhaps started too much new kale, and a huge patch of cilantro. Also--should I eat those last leeks, or let them go to seed? I can't decide.... |
The hoophouse, it is exploding. Still. I *think* we made it through the heat wave without a ton of bolting, and the second round of plantings should hopefully grow up in somewhat regular spring temps (it's only in the 30s so far today).
There is also a new four-legged resident.
The magnolia is blooming a month earlier than last year, which was 2 weeks later than the year before. So I guess only half a month early?
And this year's madness: stage one of a giant terracing project. It seems daunting, but then I look at how far we got last year. And we didn't even get started until late April.
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| girls, don't eat the pink grass! |
Not much of a food garden project, though the grape vines will benefit from the shored-up soil, and we'll most likely end up adding more. We are recycling some landscape timbers from elsewhere in this initial stage, but the main player in this project will be stone--a first for us.
starting early
Colander season has started early this year. We went from being very scroogy with picking greens, to having a couple of meals a week being spinach-based, to yesterday, when I realized we were seriously going to have to plan our meals around the hoop this week. El's right, a hoop house does extend the number of times the garden reaches points of excess, even when you are growing on a smaller scale. Last year, it was mid-April when we were eating spinach non-stop. *
- stuffed pizza (well yes, that's nothing new, but adaptable to the seasons!) with spinach and leek, plus homemade sausage from a class I took this winter. And a salad on the side.
- indian food: not sure the exact menu, but indian cooking is a great way to use up both misc. veggies in your freezer, and greens. I'm thinking saag or fritters with spinach, and a vegetable korma with eggplant, broccoli, and green beans. I might try making paneer for the first time.
- green enchiladas: cheese enchiladas with a spicy spinach-based sauce, an epi recipe
- midwestern meze: this one we do a fair amount--basically a fun night of lots of side dishes and breads and snacks. But, the mix changes with the seasons. This weekend will probably be roasted potato/kale salad, lots of veggie pickles, a bean dish (hummus, or a bean salad), and maybe a soup.
- eggplant parmesan: a quick weeknight dinner with frozen breaded eggplant and last summer's tomato sauce. No greens here but we'll probably have a salad on the side.
* of course, this year is a little strange, considering we hit 80 degrees yesterday--that's 15 degrees higher than the last record high for the date, and the earliest we've hit 80 in history. EVER. Beautiful, but a little scary.
Early spring hoopdate - March edition
It doesn't feel like early spring: our forecast is in the 70s for the next week. While I had resigned myself to a non-wintery winter, this is getting a little unnerving. I was re-reading last year's garden notes, in mid-March I was excited for days in the 50s, and we hit a very cold stretch in April. So we'll see how it goes.
With a forecast of clouds on Sunday, I was set to plant: but almost changed my mind when it turned sunny and the hoop shot to 100 degrees. I opened up the doors and went ahead, giving everything a good drink to minimize stress. The hoop-raised plants are pretty used to extremes, and as of yesterday they looked fine and happy in their new homes. I also planted a couple of experimental rows of peas.
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| wee baby mache, larger than life size. |
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I looked back at my notes from last year (see a pattern here?) and growth-wise, the hoop house plants are doing a little better than last year's low tunnels, and that may just be due to the warm winter we had. Seed-wise, it seems last year's schedule--I started spring seeding in early- to mid-march--is about right. So, except for harvest access, (and of course, the added value of hanging out in some sunshine on a winter's day!) it seems to me that low tunnels are equally as effective at winter gardening endeavors.
I do love my big hoop (I think I've said that out loud about six times this weekend) but it's nice to know that simpler and smaller alternatives can work just as well.
