We have officially passed our final frost date (FFD) for Chattanooga! We're in Zone 7b, and our FFD was April 1-10, 2014. Since we had a freak snowstorm the last week of March, I decided to wait until the end of the FFD range (even though our nights have been in the 50's), just to be sure. Having hardened off all my indoor starts, it's time to plant everything outside. (My wife is especially happy about this, because my starting trays have taken up two end tables positioned in front of a South-facing window in our living room for months now!)
This post will be kinda wordy, but I need to record all my thoughts to remind me of this stuff next year. Over the last week, I have been doing a lot of thinking. Last weekend, when I was at Home Depot, I noticed the size of all the plant starts. Not that I was having size envy or anything, but those things were HUGE! Of course, I know that they were grown in a large greenhouse by professionals, but it got me thinking about the summertime temperatures in Chattanooga. We have hot and humid summers, with temps reaching 102°F with relative humidity in the 90%'s. Yes, it's miserable.
I have a lot of vegetables planned that are hardy cool-weather plants, like kale, broccoli, and spinach. I began to worry that the tiny plants I had started in my living room would not be matured enough to eat or produce fruit before the intense heat comes, which can be as early as June. This is a concern, because when that happens, plants like broccoli and cauliflower do a thing called "bolting," which is essentially focusing on producing the next generation of its species. When broccoli bolts, it turns very bitter and those nice heads of broccoli explode into dozens of flowering stalks which produce and spread seeds. At that point, that vegetable's usefulness is over, and I had been hearing people warn against planting too late in the South.
I decided to revise my garden project scope. At first, I wanted to do everything from seeds. I discovered that there were many plants that just didn't want to grow like that. There are a lot of variables to look at, but the fact remains that I didn't have a full garden, ready to transplant with guaranteed success. This is a learning process, so I decided to mix things up. I have spent all this money and time on the research, boxes, and soil, and I really do want a crop this year. I noticed at Home Depot that they had solid starts of many of the heirloom varieties I was currently growing at home, so I decided to incorporate some of those into my own garden.
There are a few plants that I just gave up on for the moment and bought outright, and then there are some that I only bought a few of. With things like Roma tomatoes and Lacinato kale, I bought about half my proposed stock in Home Depot starts, and they went into the garden alongside some of my indoor starts. This allows me to have a crop this year, minimizes the chance of total disaster, gives me a bit of a "peek into the future" as to what to expect as my little starts mature, and best of all, it staggers my crops, hopefully giving me a longer harvest season.
One thing I want to be careful of, though, is being impatient. I am a pretty patient person by nature, but I was getting a little anxious about my tiny baby plants. But then, while I was a Home Depot, I overheard a woman in the same aisle say to her husband, "Eh, I can just do these by seeds. It's only April, you know." That really got me thinking that my concerns regarding the heat wave we'll inevitably get in June might be impatience, or at least ignorance. I'm gonna stick with my 50/50 plan for now. By next year, I'll have some experience under my belt and some real data to look back on.
This post will be kinda wordy, but I need to record all my thoughts to remind me of this stuff next year. Over the last week, I have been doing a lot of thinking. Last weekend, when I was at Home Depot, I noticed the size of all the plant starts. Not that I was having size envy or anything, but those things were HUGE! Of course, I know that they were grown in a large greenhouse by professionals, but it got me thinking about the summertime temperatures in Chattanooga. We have hot and humid summers, with temps reaching 102°F with relative humidity in the 90%'s. Yes, it's miserable.
I have a lot of vegetables planned that are hardy cool-weather plants, like kale, broccoli, and spinach. I began to worry that the tiny plants I had started in my living room would not be matured enough to eat or produce fruit before the intense heat comes, which can be as early as June. This is a concern, because when that happens, plants like broccoli and cauliflower do a thing called "bolting," which is essentially focusing on producing the next generation of its species. When broccoli bolts, it turns very bitter and those nice heads of broccoli explode into dozens of flowering stalks which produce and spread seeds. At that point, that vegetable's usefulness is over, and I had been hearing people warn against planting too late in the South.
I decided to revise my garden project scope. At first, I wanted to do everything from seeds. I discovered that there were many plants that just didn't want to grow like that. There are a lot of variables to look at, but the fact remains that I didn't have a full garden, ready to transplant with guaranteed success. This is a learning process, so I decided to mix things up. I have spent all this money and time on the research, boxes, and soil, and I really do want a crop this year. I noticed at Home Depot that they had solid starts of many of the heirloom varieties I was currently growing at home, so I decided to incorporate some of those into my own garden.
There are a few plants that I just gave up on for the moment and bought outright, and then there are some that I only bought a few of. With things like Roma tomatoes and Lacinato kale, I bought about half my proposed stock in Home Depot starts, and they went into the garden alongside some of my indoor starts. This allows me to have a crop this year, minimizes the chance of total disaster, gives me a bit of a "peek into the future" as to what to expect as my little starts mature, and best of all, it staggers my crops, hopefully giving me a longer harvest season.
One thing I want to be careful of, though, is being impatient. I am a pretty patient person by nature, but I was getting a little anxious about my tiny baby plants. But then, while I was a Home Depot, I overheard a woman in the same aisle say to her husband, "Eh, I can just do these by seeds. It's only April, you know." That really got me thinking that my concerns regarding the heat wave we'll inevitably get in June might be impatience, or at least ignorance. I'm gonna stick with my 50/50 plan for now. By next year, I'll have some experience under my belt and some real data to look back on.
Before the weekend arrived, I completed the trellises on the two garden boxes that would need it the most- tomatoes and peas. Back when I did the first one on the snap pea bed, I strung the trellis with wire. That turned out to be too hard on the plants, bending and cutting the vines. So, I removed the wire from the trellis and replaced it with nylon string. The other trellis is a duplicate of this design. I think the string will be a bit more forgiving on the plants, and when the season is done, I can possibly just cut the string and take down the entire bed worth of plants, instead of attempting to unwind them from the old wires.
Either way, my only concern is wind. We get some heavy winds through the valley where I live, and I'm concerned that that might catch all those vines like a big green sail and snap the wood trellis frame. Since I already have the spool of galvanized wire, I'm going to add a length from each top corner of the trellis down to its corresponding front corner of the box to act as a guy-wire against the wind.
Either way, my only concern is wind. We get some heavy winds through the valley where I live, and I'm concerned that that might catch all those vines like a big green sail and snap the wood trellis frame. Since I already have the spool of galvanized wire, I'm going to add a length from each top corner of the trellis down to its corresponding front corner of the box to act as a guy-wire against the wind.
Without Further Ado...
BOX 1: (back row l-r) Roma Tomato (1), Roma Tomato (1), Roma Tomato (1), Brandywine Tomato (1);
(front row l-r) Garlic (9), Roma Tomato (1), Roma Tomato (1), Bull's Blood Beets (9)
(front row l-r) Garlic (9), Roma Tomato (1), Roma Tomato (1), Bull's Blood Beets (9)
BOX 2: (back row l-r) Lacinato Kale (1), Lacinato Kale (1), Lacinato Kale (1), Lacinato Kale (1);
(front row l-r) America Spinach (9), Marigolds (4), Danvers Carrots (16), Danvers Carrots (16)
(front row l-r) America Spinach (9), Marigolds (4), Danvers Carrots (16), Danvers Carrots (16)
BOX 3: (back row l-r) Bountiful Bush Beans (1), Bountiful Bush Beans (1), Bountiful Bush Beans (1), Lacinato Kale (1);
(front row l-r) Packman Broccoli (1), Packman Broccoli (1), Packman Broccoli (1), Packman Broccoli (1)
(front row l-r) Packman Broccoli (1), Packman Broccoli (1), Packman Broccoli (1), Packman Broccoli (1)
BOX 4: (back row l-r) Amish Snap Peas (8), Amish Snap Peas (8), Amish Snap Peas (8), Amish Snap Peas (8);
(front row l-r) Danvers Carrots (16), Danvers Carrots (16), Danvers Carrots (16), Italian Parsley (4)
(front row l-r) Danvers Carrots (16), Danvers Carrots (16), Danvers Carrots (16), Italian Parsley (4)
BOX 5: (back row l-r) America Spinach (9), Tuscan Blue Rosemary (1), Genovese Sweet Basil (4), Danvers Carrots (16);
(front row l-r) Green Onions (16), Genovese Sweet Basil (4), Italian Oregano (1), Chives (16)
(front row l-r) Green Onions (16), Genovese Sweet Basil (4), Italian Oregano (1), Chives (16)
BOX 6: This entire bed contains Tribute Strawberries (24)
*Items in Orange were purchased at Home Depot.
Number in parentheses after each item denotes how many plants can fit into each square foot, according to the Square Foot Gardening Handbook.
Number in parentheses after each item denotes how many plants can fit into each square foot, according to the Square Foot Gardening Handbook.