Lettuce is a lovely and versatile crop. One of the first crops to be harvested in early summer, lettuce adds that crunch to an everyday dinner salad. Lettuce and cilantro are the two crops I could harvest so far. To anyone that grows food in their backyard, the first harvest of crops is so exciting. It is the result of your hard labor. The first harvest becomes a delicacy in that sense.
I transplanted lettuce in the ground around April 24, 2016. The young seedlings were surprisingly hardy in fluctuating weather of early summer. Winds, rain, sun...it took it all. I grew a french heirloom variety of butterhead lettuce, the seeds of which were organic. I made sure I grew the lettuce without the use of any harmful chemicals. When dry spells of summer winds started in May, I found some pests hovering around the lettuce. Spraying a home based insecticidal soap solution was the only thing that I used twice in last 40 days before harvesting lettuce. The solution worked pretty well and stopped pest infestation before it becomes unmanageable. I read online quite a lot when I need help on certain topics. One common argument I often come across is that using insecticidal soap solution is not entirely organic since soap itself is synthetic. I agree. However, I think it is better than store brought organic sprays and protects your crop from pests damage pretty well. As a beginning farmer, it would have been disheartening to loose all of your crop to pests. Some cultural or biological control has to be done if pests are imminent. Some measures, like growing a variety of flora around your garden, are wonderful ways to attract beneficial insects that eat the bad bugs but it takes time to implement a garden rich in diversity. If pests damage is happening now, one can't wait for beneficial flowers to bloom and parasitic wasps to come and pray the bad bugs. Spot treatments have to be done sometimes. It is also important to understand that stressed out plants suffer more damage than healthy ones. Stress, it seems, is bad for every living being, plants and humans included.
Covering young plants with a row cover or tulle also protects them from insects and birds. In my garden however, I am still in the process of building infrastructure to have a set up for all row covers on every vegetable. My focus will be to provide row covers or netting for brassica crops first before anything else.
I transplanted 22 eggplants today in a new bed and a few Hungarian Heart tomatoes in another bed yesterday. I could only plant 8 Okra seeds out of 30 that I seeded. Blame it on poor germination and a probably a few human errors of sowing deep and watering unevenly.
A challenging and beautiful root crop that I planted in pot this year was Ginger. Ginger is less famous in kitchens than garlic. However, it is an extremely nutritious root, is used widely in teas and adds a little heat when put in curries and Asian stir-fry vegetables. I use ginger generously in my morning tea and in many other recipes. While ginger is a tropical root and cannot be grown on land here in zone 6 of northeast USA, I wanted to learn to grow this root crop in home. I started researching about growing ginger in home and what it needs for an optimal growth. There is very little literature available for growing ginger in USDA zone 6. I had a hard time finding anything about growing ginger in university publications of Rutgers, Cornell and other universities in the east coast. It seems not many commercial scale small farms, even those with greenhouses, grow ginger for the market. While stores stock up local produce in summer, there is absolutely no locally grown ginger that supermarkets stock.
I purchased an organic ginger root from store, washed it and put it in the potting soil in a big pot on March 21, 2016. The shoots started coming up in a few weeks. Since ginger requires lots of sun and warm weather to grow, I had to keep the pot outside in shaded sunlight everyday until harvest. Protecting the potted ginger from winds can be a challenge. There were many sunny and windy days in summer that required extra caution when placing the ginger pot outside. Ginger takes around 10 months to mature. I harvested in November which was too early harvest. I got very little additional root growth.
Summer is exciting. Seeds are out in the garden, the weather and growing conditions are yet to decide the successes and failures ahead.
I transplanted lettuce in the ground around April 24, 2016. The young seedlings were surprisingly hardy in fluctuating weather of early summer. Winds, rain, sun...it took it all. I grew a french heirloom variety of butterhead lettuce, the seeds of which were organic. I made sure I grew the lettuce without the use of any harmful chemicals. When dry spells of summer winds started in May, I found some pests hovering around the lettuce. Spraying a home based insecticidal soap solution was the only thing that I used twice in last 40 days before harvesting lettuce. The solution worked pretty well and stopped pest infestation before it becomes unmanageable. I read online quite a lot when I need help on certain topics. One common argument I often come across is that using insecticidal soap solution is not entirely organic since soap itself is synthetic. I agree. However, I think it is better than store brought organic sprays and protects your crop from pests damage pretty well. As a beginning farmer, it would have been disheartening to loose all of your crop to pests. Some cultural or biological control has to be done if pests are imminent. Some measures, like growing a variety of flora around your garden, are wonderful ways to attract beneficial insects that eat the bad bugs but it takes time to implement a garden rich in diversity. If pests damage is happening now, one can't wait for beneficial flowers to bloom and parasitic wasps to come and pray the bad bugs. Spot treatments have to be done sometimes. It is also important to understand that stressed out plants suffer more damage than healthy ones. Stress, it seems, is bad for every living being, plants and humans included.
Covering young plants with a row cover or tulle also protects them from insects and birds. In my garden however, I am still in the process of building infrastructure to have a set up for all row covers on every vegetable. My focus will be to provide row covers or netting for brassica crops first before anything else.
I transplanted 22 eggplants today in a new bed and a few Hungarian Heart tomatoes in another bed yesterday. I could only plant 8 Okra seeds out of 30 that I seeded. Blame it on poor germination and a probably a few human errors of sowing deep and watering unevenly.
A challenging and beautiful root crop that I planted in pot this year was Ginger. Ginger is less famous in kitchens than garlic. However, it is an extremely nutritious root, is used widely in teas and adds a little heat when put in curries and Asian stir-fry vegetables. I use ginger generously in my morning tea and in many other recipes. While ginger is a tropical root and cannot be grown on land here in zone 6 of northeast USA, I wanted to learn to grow this root crop in home. I started researching about growing ginger in home and what it needs for an optimal growth. There is very little literature available for growing ginger in USDA zone 6. I had a hard time finding anything about growing ginger in university publications of Rutgers, Cornell and other universities in the east coast. It seems not many commercial scale small farms, even those with greenhouses, grow ginger for the market. While stores stock up local produce in summer, there is absolutely no locally grown ginger that supermarkets stock.
I purchased an organic ginger root from store, washed it and put it in the potting soil in a big pot on March 21, 2016. The shoots started coming up in a few weeks. Since ginger requires lots of sun and warm weather to grow, I had to keep the pot outside in shaded sunlight everyday until harvest. Protecting the potted ginger from winds can be a challenge. There were many sunny and windy days in summer that required extra caution when placing the ginger pot outside. Ginger takes around 10 months to mature. I harvested in November which was too early harvest. I got very little additional root growth.
Summer is exciting. Seeds are out in the garden, the weather and growing conditions are yet to decide the successes and failures ahead.
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