Peppers in a Grow Box

We grow lots of veggies in our two side-yard raised beds.  The beds are relatively small, but since the soil is rich, we use succession planting, and we plant our veggies intensively, we're able to get a lot out of those beds even though they each get only part sun.

We extend our veggie-growing space using containers.  This year we're trying out Grow Bags and Grow Boxes, compliments of the companies that make them.  I'll show you what we did with the Grow Bags in a future post.

Last May, we were lucky enough to attend Garden2Blog 2012, hosted by P. Allen Smith and sponsored by a number of garden industry companies he partners with.  After the event several of those partners shipped us free products to trial.  The Grow Box, along with Black Gold organic soil we received from event sponsors were used to grow these peppers.  

For the second year, our peppers are growing in our front foundation landscape where we actually have full sun.  We've grown peppers successfully in our part-sun veggie beds, but they ripen quicker and are more productive out in front.  

We had a bumper crop of all sorts of colorful peppers in individual pots last year.  The downsides of individual pots were how much time it took to water them, how much water it took, and the amount of space needed for all those pots.  All the downsides are solved with the Grow Box.  

As unbelievable as it seems, there are eight pepper plants jammed into this planter, and they are easily as productive, if not more so, than they were last year in individual pots.  Thanks to the unique design of the Grow Box with it's very efficient use of water, they've needed a lot less water a lot less often.

today's harvest

After trialing our Grow Box with peppers this year. I'm sold.  They're a fantastic option for small-space veggie gardeners.  They'd also be great for gardening with children, an easy-care option for patio and balcony gardeners, and wonderful for older folks who find traditional vegetable gardening too physically taxing.  For me, they add precious space to our veggie-growing real estate and are attractive enough to plunk down amidst the flowers growing in full sun in our front foundation landscape.

Our veggies are grown organically, so naturally we use organic soil in containers.  I've been pleased with the quality and performance of Black Gold.  I love that Grow Boxes offer organic fertilizer as an option for their kits.  New fertilizer and organic jute covers can be ordered separately, and the box and soil can be re-used in future gardening years.  

Many thanks to the nice folks at Black Gold for the soil, and Garden Patch who makes the Grow Box for letting us test their products.

Baby Pak Choi

Earlier this spring I received an offer I couldn't refuse: a Media Kit from Renee's Garden, which included my choice of 18 free packets of seeds. Now that our weather has sufficiently warmed, (finally!) last weekend many of those seeds were sown in our two tiny raised bed veggie gardens. Earlier this spring I sowed a few cool-season vegetables including Renee's Broccoli Raab Super Rapini (also delicious, and all gone.)

I took advantage of the opportunity to try a number of new varieties, and in some cases, entirely new-to-me vegetables, including the broccoli raab, and baby pak choi. I have eaten pak choi (also known as bok choy,) but have never grown it until this spring. I grew Renee's F-1 hybrid Baby Pak Choi Green Fortune. Beautiful, tender, sweet, crisp, and delicious, its small size is perfect for a small vegetable garden like mine. Although neither of our two raised beds receives full sun, the pak choi grew very fast, and very well. Before planting, the soil was amended with organic vermicompost from my basement worm bin. (The red wiggler worms are fed only organic kitchen and garden scraps.) No other fertilizers were used or needed.

Traditionally used in stir-fry in Asian cuisine, I've yet to try it that way. Green Fortune is so delicious raw in salads, that's how I've been eating it, every day for over two weeks. And no, I haven't gotten tired of it. Besides eating it myself, I have also been using it as the vegetable in George's homemade dog food. He loves it too! He eats it mixed in with his food, and also enjoys it picked straight from the garden, as a treat unadorned. Since it's an early-spring vegetable that matures quickly, I planted a lot of it. After it's all harvested there will still be time to fill in the empty space in the garden with summer vegetables. As you can see in the photo above, I've already done this in one section of the garden, with tomato plants surrounding the remainder of a row of pak choi. Well-planned succession planting is one of the ways we manage to get an incredible amount and variety of vegetables even from our very small beds.

Pak choi is very low in calories, yet is one of the most nutrient-dense foods available. A nutritional powerhouse, it's packed with vitamins A, C, K, carotene, lutein, B vitamins, respectable amounts of several minerals including calcium, iron, magnesium, manganese, and zinc, and 28 different polyphenols, including kaempferol, a phytonutrient shown to have strong anti-cancer properties.

Renee's Baby Pak Choi Green Fortune has been very easy to grow, not bothered at all by pests, and very productive. I'm so glad I picked it as part of the Media Kit. I will definitely grow this again!

Today's Harvest

Yay - the first cucumber! Last year cucumbers were started in the basement around May 1st, and they produced like crazy beginning in early July. We had such a bumper crop I ended up making several jars of bread and butter pickles with the extras we didn't consume or give away. We've been enjoying the delicious (if I do say so myself) pickles since, and the last jar is almost empty.

This year I started cukes from seed in the west veggie bed in mid-May. Unfortunately cutworms destroyed all the seedlings within days of their emergence. So about a week later I started more seeds in the basement, and let the plants grow there until they started vining. They started producing male blooms weeks ago, and finally, finally the female blooms are coming. It will be a late harvest, but I'm thrilled finding the first ripe cucumber of the season this morning. Needless to say, I'll be keeping the cucumber seedlings in the basement in the future until they're sturdy enough to foil the cutworms.

It's been a great year for tomatoes. Every couple of days I gather the ripe ones. The photo is representative of what I harvest several times a week. We really don't need thirteen tomato plants, but I've been enjoying experimenting with several heirlooms I've never grown, along with the usual staples I've loved for years. We've been enjoying them all for weeks. The yellow pears came from a volunteer plant that I left in the east veggie bed. They're not my favorite cherry-type tomato, but they're not bad and they're kind of cute.

Except for a few tomatoes that have fallen to the ground and gotten yucky, not a single one has gone to waste. Several batches of salsa have been made, some have been eaten out-of-hand, especially the cherries, others have made wonderful pasta sauces, and many have been shared with friends and clients. For sauce, after cooking the tomatoes and running them through a sieve, I add a small can of tomato paste to thicken them up instead of boiling them down forever. Adding the paste minimizes cooking time and heating up the house during what has already been a hot enough summer.

There are beets out there ready to harvest, and I even picked a few beans I missed yesterday. The peppers picked yesterday ended up in a delicious Thai curry dinner, made with leftover jerk chicken, organic coconut milk, peanut butter, garlic, onions, herbs, spices, and peas, and served with organic brown Basmati rice. Guess what's for lunch today!

gratuitous dragonfly photo

Speaking of bumper crops, we've had a bumper crop of dragonflies this year. I've had several up-close and personal encounters with them, having them land on me and land nearby. A couple of weeks ago one landed on a daylily in a client's garden, and seemed to be checking me out quite intensely, for a really long time. As I moved around the garden, he followed, and was my companion for at least 20 minutes. I've wished the camera was with me to capture images of the dragonflies encountered this season.

This one was resting here for a nice long time, and was accommodating enough to wait for me to grab the camera. I believe it's a female Green Darner.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Lakota Twins

The twins are doing great - growing nicely, getting a little bigger every day.

Sitting at the edge of the garden picking lettuce, cucumbers, peppers, or beans; big, bright, bold, beautiful squash blossoms perfume the air with the promise of more squash to come.

This year I planted two varieties of squash - Lakota and Red Kuri, both in the hubbard squash family. The twins are Lakota squash, a mid-1990's open-pollinated introduction developed at the University of Nebraska by Dr. D. P. Coyne. Dr. Coyne experimented with crosses and selections to assure more uniform pigmentation of this beautiful squash before making it available to the trade.

Lakota squash was developed from seeds obtained by the University from Nebraska's Fort Robinson, once a prairie Cavalry post, later an agricultural site, now a National Park. The variety it was derived from is no longer in cultivation. It had been grown by Native American peoples along the Missouri Valley for centuries before the arrival of Europeans to the continent. This indigenous squash was also cultivated by the troops stationed at Nebraska's Forts Atkinson and Robinson, and by early Nebraska settlers.

Since my maternal gardening roots go back several generations to the family farm in Nebraska and include Native American ancestors, the heritage of this squash spoke to me. I had to try it in my first veggie bed in more than five years.

Besides being delicious, winter squash is a nutritional powerhouse high in nutrients such as vitamins A, and C, potassium, manganese, folic acid and other B vitamins, omega 3 fatty acids and fiber, and low in fat. In addition, properly cut from the vine, cured, and stored under the right cool, dry conditions with space between them for air circulation, winter squash can be stored for several months.

When ripe, the twins will be deep orange and green. Lakota squash is described as having a sweet, smooth, nutty flavor, similar to Red Kuri, which I love.

If I hadn't tried Red Kuri squash a couple years ago and then couldn't find it anywhere again, I might not have a veggie garden this summer. I can hardly wait to try these squash, and the Red Kuri too!

Squash and other vining plants can be trellised and grown even in a small garden like mine. Growing them on a trellis saves space in the garden, leaving room for growing more veggies. Even in larger gardens such as Mom's pictured below, trellising works very well with squash, improving air circulation and helping prevent fungal diseases, and keeping the fruit and foliage off the ground, freer of insect damage.

It seems most people have a love it or hate it relationship with squash. Since I was a little girl I've always loved it. What about you - love it or hate it? If you love it, what's your favorite variety?