Please do not hesistate to E-mail us your most pressing questions on How-To, Do-It-Yourself, Home Projects. We will try to answer as many questions as possible, and from time to time we will be posting the most relevant and frequently brought up subjects here. Tom has been a carpenter and gardener for many years and has no lack of knowledge when it comes to fixing things so go ahead and ask away!

It's Harvest Season!

One of our most favorite things to harvest is Basil.  We have harvested it a couple times this year already but now is the biggest harvest we've had.  We picked 2 1/2 bushel today!  We may have waited a bit too long and let a little too much of the flower blossom come on but we just trimmed it off while in the garden.  We harvested about 2/3 of the plant and left the rest to grow back, we should still get another good harvest before frost and lots of fresh eating before then.  To preserve your basil, hang dry it in a dark place then store it in a glass jar or freeze it by washing it and letting it air dry then put in freezer bags.  It is wonderful to pull it out of the freezer in the dead of winter!!!

Gardening from Martha's Vineyard

Hi,
> I found your Facebook page through my wife....LOVE IT! We just moved
> from NYC and finally have a backyard! I recently put in a garden ( my
> 1st time) its about 40 inches wide and 25 feet long. I put in beef
> steak tomatoes and cherry tomatoes, peas, red peppers, carrots, swiss
> chard, purple basil, and cilantro....i still have quite a bit of room
> is there anything else you recommend? We love greens....are there any
> that are easy to grow and will produce a large and long harvest? I
> also have been feeding my family well by fishing! Thank God im out of
> the city. Anyway, just wanted to say hello....keep up the good work!

Tom's answer:  That's great!!  It's always so exciting to begin a new gardening adventure.
If you like greens, and it sounds like you've got a good start, spinach is one of our favorites.  You can make successive plantings with it every few weeks and extend your season before the hot weather causes it to bolt (or flower).  This year we are hoping to try kale since we've been buying it at the farmer's market.  We really enjoy it lightly sauteed with sliced onion and a dressing of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and honey.  We also love to plant a good Spring Mix.   We have some Butter Crunch lettuce planted and this week the leaves are big enough to pick for the dinner table to go along with our fresh radishes.  Also, if you want to, on the very Northern edge of your garden you could plant some pole beans or cukes that would climb a trellis.  There are endless possibilities but I hope these few ideas help answer your question.

P.S. We are very excited for your new back yard!!!!!  We have some friends that just moved from NYC and have a nice back yard too, finally!  

Gardening, YES!

Because we got an early spring we were able to plant our onions, garlic, some radishes, greens, and spinach.  We planted them about 3 weeks ago so we didn't need to put our cold frame up.  They are all growing nicely after a weekend long rain and lots of sun to start our week.  In the raised beds of the garden that were planted last year we are trying not to till deeply so we are simply cultivating and weeding to prepare the soil.  We have heard that this encourages the  microbes already working in the upper layers of the soil rather than burying them deeply. We will still be aerifying the soil with the tines of the cultivator to encourage good root growth for the plants.  We'll see how this works with our peas and turnips that we just planted tonight.  We put our peas in a bit later than we wanted to but it is still a good time to sew these seeds.

March

A lot of times where we live, up here in the North, the frost comes out of the ground and we start thinking about what to plant in the garden.  We want to try planting some snow peas and green onion sets.  We may try a crude cold frame with some bales of straw and old window glass to get a jump start on some lettuce greens.  I've never tried radishes this early but if we get our cold frame built I may try some.  I'll keep you posted on our progress....

Carrots

"Just caught your blog.  Love it as usual!  I have been thinking about my carrots.  I never really grew them, so I never needed to know what to do with them.  We have quite a few and I thought about canning them, but then you said you are leaving yours in the ground and covering them.  Tell me about that and what you will do with them til the crop is gone and all are in your tummies.

Answer:

Carrots seem to get sweeter after a few frosts so we do like leaving some in the ground and enjoying them in the fall.  If we've planted enough we have some in the winter months, too. Some time in late November or late December we'll cover them with 10-12in of clean straw.  Something new we will probably try is using hay because we just recently heard that hay puts nutrients back in the ground when it breaks down and straw draws the nutrients out of the ground during decomposition. Once, I used dry maple leaves, they seemed to work also.  Avoid leaves with an acid PH such as oak leaves. 

As the snow comes and covers the garden, your hay or leaf mulch will insulate the ground and  keep it from freezing.  When you're ready for some carrots, make your way out to the garden, brush the snow back from the mulch and carrots where you plan to dig.  Pull back the mulch and pull up your desired amount of carrots and replace the mulch.  I like putting the snow back, too as it further insulates the ground. 

This is a great storage method that allows for fresh eating well into the winter months and doesn't use any freezer or pantry space!!  We love it!

Be Blessed!

Tom

O.K., are you all ready for our first question?  Here it is: 

"We are trying to figure out something to plant on our property that would sell good for next year. Still thinking about it and wondered if Tom has any good ideas on something that grows well, easy, and would sell.  I thought about garlic, know anything about it?"

Answer: 

I have grown garlic in the past by planting it in the fall and covering it with mulch for the winter once it has a start.  If planting this late in the season you may need to protect it with a row of cover fabric(black works best) to keep it growing until the tender green tops have emerged from the clove.  Once that happens, if they're not in a cold frame or greenhouse be sure to mulch them with 6-8" of clean straw for the winter. Some time in March, depending on the nighttime temps, about the same time you would plant early onions, uncover the garlic and replace the straw with the row of cover fabric.  As the days lengthen treat them like you would onions, they should continue to grow through the summer.  Harvest the bulbs when the green tops dry out. 

Here's an idea too, annual flowers and perennials are easy and fun to grow.  The annual flowers can be sold as cut flowers or as potted plants.  Perennials can be grown and divided from year to year as a continual source of revenue.  A few varieties that I have seen people grow successfully are daylilies, peonies, hostas, daisies, blackeyed susans, and many kinds of herbs. If you have children, this can be a really fun project for everyone!  Here is a great newsletter I've found that may give you some more helpful hints:  Mike McGroarty's 79 Second Newsletter.

Be Blessed!

Tom