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I suppose Nature gets pretty tired of us whining about it being too cold or too hot, too wet or too dry, so she simply hands us all of that in one season, and one can’t help but wonder what she’ll do next year. The growing season of 1997 wasn’t the best, it wasn’t the worst, here in our low U.P. garden. The corn was late so I didn’t get a dry corn crop, but I managed to harvest, and dry, a good amount of green corn, in spite of the raccoons getting past our electric fence. Dried green corn is one of my favorite garden “preserves”. You can use any kind of corn, sweet or field. When it is at the fresh eating stage steam cook the ears about 10 minutes, just as you would for eating, then cut off the kernels and dry, preferably in a solar food dryer. It takes only one or two good sunny days to dry. In the winter throw a handful or so into your dry bean dishes, or soups or stews, for some delicious eating. Tomatoes were pretty good. A smallish, soft, yellow tomato called Wendy was a new find for me, early maturing and good, if mild, flavor. I continue to plant a few of the old indeterminate Yellow Paste, a small pear shaped yellow tomato with a great flavor, just perfect for popping into your mouth when walking through the garden. I tried a new staking system for the indeterminate plants, poles tied into four pole tipi’s, each leg set outside one plant and that plant tied to that leg as it grew. The poles were 1-2 inch poplar saplings, 5-6 ft tall, the legs set two to three feet apart. They were easy to set up and worked great. To cover when the fall frosts came I just laid blankets along either side of the leaning wall of tomato plants. Squash wasn’t as successful. The plants were great and I got a great crop of good looking squash of a wide variety of shapes, sizes, colors - about 140# in all (a LOT of squash for a family of two people and two cats). But the flavor wasn’t there, it was quite edible but not very sweet. Several years ago I planted four different early varieties of heirloom squash of the Maxima species in order to get a good crossing. My plan was (and is) to continually select from this crossing to end up with an early, variable, broad genetic base, squash of a small size and good flavor. I did fine on the vigor, size, and variability this year (I find a variety of colors and shapes a lot more fun). But I lost the sweet flavor (the originals were all of good flavor). Maybe it was the weather, maybe the line, but next year I will go back a year in my seed line to try again. Blight was the word with the potatoes. Almost all of my plants were dead by the end of August. It was a good year to weed out some of the worst of the blighted varieties. But in spite of all the blight we had plenty of potatoes to eat and tubers for seed next year. And some nice surprises. The best of the old varieties were Ackersegen, Purple Cowhorn, and Blue Victor (but it also had a lot of scab - a problem in my garden), and a newer variety I got from a friend called Cranberry. My own potatoes (tubers saved from plants grown from seed planted two years ago) did very well with both blight, scab, and yield. Of the five ManyTracks “varieties” I saved tubers from four. Next year I’ll have a larger planting to judge from. All potatoes were planted 12” apart with two rows per 4 ft wide bed, about 4-6” deep with a shovel of compost on top and lots of mulch (I don’t bother to hill). For a great source for a wide variety of potatoe seed try Ronniger’s Seed Potatoes in Moyie Springs, Idaho. Georgescu Pepper was a newcomer to my garden, a variety I found through the Seed Savers Exchange - sweet, non-bell shape (though it generally is), a yellow, thick walled type from Romania. I transplanted the plants into cold frames, five per frame, and as it was a cool summer I left the frames on, adding additional ones as the plants grew (taking the windows off in the summer when the frosts were over but putting them back on in the fall). And did they grow! The 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 ft frames were too small for such lush plants and I got a bit of mold growing in the lower regions. But I also got peppers, large good tasting peppers, all too rare many years in this area. I even had some mature to color (a gold color in this case) on the vine (in the cold frame) so was able to save seed. I’ll plant this one again. And will plan my pepper planting around growing all year in the cold frames in those all too common cold summers. Parma Giant Swiss Chard, planted from seed I grew last year (from Seed Saver ME BO W), did very well and I dried enough leaves to see us through several winters (as well as eating much of it fresh in salads and soups). My seed bed planting (to overwinter for growing seed next year) also looks great. A new (to me) parsley - Delikat - from Seed Saver MN TJ J was also a success and I left enough plants to grow seed next year (if the winter is mild enough or we get enough snow for the plants to over winter well - same with the overwintered swiss chard). As always I transplanted several plants of each (parsley and swiss chard) into our small greenhouse bed for winter greens. Though not the best seed making year I did get a good crop of Victoria Spinach seed and a little onion seed. The difficulty of getting an onion seed crop makes me particularly appreciative of the multiplier Potato Onion. Though not large they are dependable, giving a fresh onion crop in that time between the last of the stored onions and the first of the seed or set grown onions. And they do store well, they are the last ones still in good shape. Plus the small bulbs make great pickling onions - a very versatile onion. Southern Exposure Seed Exchange in Earlysville VA sells Potato Onions. As always, good yields and bad, I had an enjoyable year in the garden, with plenty to eat and some to give away. What more can one ask for. Even in our rather short season area Nature feeds us well. updated 8/19/98 Copyright © 1997, 1998 by Susan J. Robishaw |
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