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PublishedJuly 7, 2010
Ready for zucchini
Jokes about giant zucchinis aside, this crop is as productive and easy as the many recipes for its use. Three plants are enough for our small family. I start mine indoors from seed about three weeks before the last spring frost and then transplant one to the hoophouse for early production, and plant two others outside for extended production. The key to growing zucchini, of course, is to keep picking the …
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PublishedJune 9, 2010
Fowl talk at Small Farm Field Day
The Small Farm Field Day held at the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association’s Common Ground Education Center in Unity in late May offered a wealth of information and inspiration for those who want to raise fowl. In an amusing and informative presentation, Dana Manchester of Shady Hollow Farm in Morrill (shadyhollowfarm.com/) described the care and behavior of guinea fowl, a term that includes guinea …
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PublishedMay 19, 2010
Nasturtiums for fragrance and food
Nasturtiums love my little hoophouse, and I love growing them in there. Last year I grew them up the inside east and west walls of the hoophouse, where they got some afternoon shade, with tomatoes, bell peppers, Swiss chard and melons keeping them company in the sunnier parts of the 150-square-foot structure. I’ve never seen such happy, productive nasturtiums – nor have I ever noticed so much their rich, sweet …
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PublishedMay 12, 2010
Hosta: much more than a funky shade plant
Hosta, named for Austrian botanist Nicholas Host, is also known as plantain lily and, my favorite, funkia, after the German doctor Heinrich Christian Funck. Native to Japan, Korea, China and eastern Russia, hostas come in dozens of species and thousands of cultivars and hybrids. They are easy to propagate by division (ideally in spring, before foliage emerges; but just about any time during the growing season …
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PublishedApril 28, 2010
Seed pumpkins now for fall pies
Pumpkins (and winter squash), although they ultimately become sizable, tough-looking plants, are somewhat delicate in their early days. They are not frost-hardy, so should not be set in the garden until after the danger of the last spring frost has passed — mid- to late May for most of our area. They are long-season crops, requiring all the warm and hot, frost-free days they can get to mature a good crop in …
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PublishedApril 14, 2010
Cover crops and green manures protect and enhance soil
Got a bare patch of garden space where you want to protect or even enhance the soil? Cover crops and green manures are one way to do this. Cover crops are plants that are grown to protect soil from erosion and protect existing nutrients in the soil from leaching during rains and snow melt. They may or may not be incorporated into the soil later. Green manures are incorporated into the soil while they are still …
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PublishedMarch 31, 2010
Make a garden bed
Growing vegetables in beds is a good way to maximize the amount of food you produce in a given area. Beds can be densely planted because they don’t have paths through them; the soil in the bed can be built up with compost and organic nutrients over time to produce vegetables abundantly; and the soil won’t be compacted, so plants will grow larger — and may even resist pests more. At a recent Maine Organic …
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PublishedMarch 17, 2010
A low-tech, scissors and paper garden planning tool
My last Growing Points column listed U.S. Department of Agriculture data showing how many pounds of various vegetables, on average, each U.S. consumer ate per year. Having these numbers — and adjusting them to reflect your own likes and dislikes — can help you plan your own vegetable garden, but you need a little more data for that plan. You need to know the recommended row spacing for growing different vegetables…
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PublishedMarch 4, 2010
How many pounds of veggies can your garden grow?
The U.S. Department of Agriculture cites a figure of 420.1 pounds for U.S. per-capita vegetable consumption in 2008 and gives the figures in the table below for per-capita use, in pounds (farm weight), of selected commercially produced fresh and processed vegetables and melons for that year. (See ers.usda.gov/Publications/vgs/VGSTables.htm.) This figure suggests that a gardener who grows about 400 pounds of …
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PublishedFebruary 21, 2010
Saving seeds
Completing my seed order this year made me think: I’ve got to find time to save more seed of more plants this summer and fall; and I’ve got to do a better job of storing any seed, purchased or saved from the garden, so that it retains its viability as long as possible. Not that I’m not getting great value from the seed I order. Less than $4 worth of pole bean seeds should produce more than 150 pounds of beans. …
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