Tomatoes are Female. Pole beans, Male.

Last summer, it was “Reflections on Tearing Lettuce.” This year, I have been musing off and on over the sex of my plants. There are male and female flowers on pumpkin vines, for example, so why not “male” and “female” plants themselves?

While not a comprehensive list of all things male, female or otherwise growing in my garden, a definitive few – the masculine and feminine, the tough and the tender, the sturdy and the dainty – make the cut as follows:

Female Plants

Tomatoes are most definitely female. With their hanging orbs perfectly cupped by a gentle hand and warmed by the sun, the fruits await a tender bite to release sweet, dribbling juices. When sliced, a gentle but skilled tongue can probe the gorgeous and glistening inner wells of the fruit for every last drop of sweet and salty goodness.

Summer squash - and the winter squash for that matter. The plants have a gently rambling form with bursting blooms and curlicue tendrils and are extremely productive. Plus the pollinating bees practically run each other over as they compete to enter the soft folds of the open, welcoming blossoms. There’s a lot of sex going on in the garden. And it’s constant in the squash bed.

Delicate fronds of Chervil and her subtle, mysterious taste.

Basil. Perhaps it is the way a good Genovese basil’s scent wafts up as you walk past, like a woman’s perfume. Perhaps it’s the lacy, ruffled edges of certain varieties that make it female. You tell me.

Rhubarb is female. My plant is a division from my grandmother. It has long, bright crimson stalks hidden beneath a canopy of large leaves. The leaves are poisonous but the stalks never fail to please and surprise. The raw taste will bite your tongue off, but its sweet and tangy flavor can be coaxed out by slow, steady, gentle cooking. And like a woman, the plant gets better and better with age.

Contrary to the knee-jerk “meat & potatoes” man’s meal image, potato plants are female. They have delicate, dangling lavender flowers that look lamentingly downward for the eyes to see, but like women, all their deepest secrets are buried beneath the fertile earth.

Male Plants

My climbing, vining, twining pole beans are male. This year, they have aggressively enveloped the three obelisks anchored in the bed and are venturing beyond, threatening to take over each other’s territory. If that’s not male, I don’t know what is. Also, this year, the bean plants are all boast and bravado: they’re puffing their chests, but not producing. By July of last year, I’d already harvested bales of beans. This year, it was slim pickings. These vines are all talk, no action. Definitely male. However, once the beans are prepared by an expert hand and transformed into a glistening tangle of oiled and herbaceous crisp-tender delight, they become female. The climbing bean exception would be Christmas limas. Once two thumbs gently ease open the pod, you reveal their hot fuschia striations of color. Those plants are definitely female from the start.

Tromboletta zucchini. Those hanging zucchinis are male, for obvious reasons. Plus, unchecked, the vigorous vines could overtake an entire backyard.

Tuscan kale is male, with its dark leaves, pebbled texture and plant heft and height.

Eggplants are male. I really gave this some thought because I just couldn’t quite decide. The leaves have a soft underside and the flowers are quite interesting. But they have a tough skin and take just sooo, sooo long to mature, if they do at all. Are they worth the wait? Some say eggplant is an acquired taste. But with the proper care and attention, eggplant can be trained and transformed in the kitchen into a variety of palatable dishes. That transformation is by a female hand, of course.

That’s not everything growing in my garden by any means. I’ve barely considered the cucumbers. Perhaps one night this week, after everyone’s in bed, I’ll sit on the patio with a glass of wine, survey my surroundings as the season winds down, and figure out the sex of my radicchio.

But for now, I think I need a cigarette.

Waiting for the Rain

The rain was supposed to come on Sunday, so we headed out in the morning to check the beds and harvest what had grown while the weather was still dry.

Pay dirt!

The chard was tall, thick and plentiful – just look at the glossy green leaves on the white variety. The radicchio (the last two of four heads) was huge, with green outer leaves and large, burgundy spherical centers. I removed the outer leaves (they can be pretty bitter), but kept them to wilt on a hot grill, which mitigates the flavor. The lemon cucumbers are coming in nicely, adding to the Kirby cucumber haul. We’ve been picking both red and orange cherry tomatoes for weeks, which never make it to the table; they’re so sweet straight off the vine. But our first really large tomato (German Gold, a pale orange variety) came off the vine with ease on Sunday. We left her blushing sisters to ripen just a bit further. We’ve got both Rosa Bianca and slender white eggplants on their way, as well as three dark green acorn squashes (too early!) almost ready to be picked and vines full of tennis-ball sized babies that should ripen into a basketful come September.

But no zucchini. Or pattypan squash. Naturally, just as soon as I’d made the boast that I was giving away mountains of produce did nature strike me back for the brag.

Last Sunday, we experienced a long, torrential downpour with force so violent that the beds were severely beaten down and some structures blown over. We lost power into the night as well. After righting the tomato cages and pole bean obelisks when the rain let up, I surveyed the damage. The center bed consisting mainly of squash had really taken a hit.

“Oh, they’ll bounce back,” I told myself. “They always do.” By midweek, some leaves were back up and filling in, but not many. Yesterday, I really looked: the storm severed a lot of the rambling vines right off of their main stems. Whatever little orbs I had growing on the vines before the storm were hollow, soft or simply dead. The vines themselves are bleached and turning dry. The main stems are trying to send off new shoots – nature is amazing – so I’ll keep you up to date on their success.

This weekend’s rain never did come. I really need to water, not just to keep up production, but to nurture the squash bed back to health.

But for now, let’s break even on Eco-nomics – I knew the chard would put me over the top. To be honest, I more than broken even a while ago. I haven’t been keeping up on the harvest tally like last year, and beyond this date, I may not do it to the dollar. Oh, the garden is producing – don’t get me wrong, I’ve picked more salads than I care to calculate, not even tallying the first two heads of radicchio – but I think I’ll keep a roundabout running total offline and approximate at the end of the season. And anyway, my pricing is admittedly somewhat less than scientific this time around and as last year, a bit on the low side.

Triple bale of chard $5
Radicchio $5
3 lbs cukes @ $.99/lb $2.97
3+ lbs cherry & other tomatoes @ $1.29 $3.87
2 lbs purple and yellow beans @1.29 $2.58
From $6.86 in the red last time: Ahead by $12.56

It’s a Potato! It’s a Potato!

It was time.

Turning fork in hand, I headed out to harvest some russet potatoes. The vines of one plant had been declining slowly in recent weeks, and I’d been itching to dig them up. Oddly, my daughter was not so into it, “Nah, I don’t feel like it.” But once the messiness began, she got into the game.

I found the first potato close to the surface, where I’d been peeking at it and checking on it for weeks. It was about the size of an elongated tennis ball. I gently but deeply forked a wide area around the plant and brought up another little guy. My daughter was not impressed. The next forking brought up a monster: it was HUGE! Even I couldn’t believe my eyes. That’s when she ran to the shed, retrieved her Dora the Explorer hand-cultivator and got really into it, digging through the pile of loose soil.

What she got was a rock – which, upon realizing it, she tossed immediately into a side bed. We both persisted. She found another rock. So did I. I forked some more. Things didn’t look promising.

“Mom, I found one!”

“Is it a rock or a potato?”

She moved her hand up and down as if to check the weight. She wiped off some dirt with her little nearly-five-year-old thumbs. Her eyes widened to the size of saucers.

“It’s a potato! It’s a potato!” she screamed and squealed, running in circles, waving the spud over her head. I started laughing my head off at her reaction. Senor Wences got spooked, bolted out from beneath the hostas and made it to the other side of the yard like a bat out of hell. And she’s dancing around in a loop, squealing with a potato. Yeah, life’s crazy in the backyard.

We dug and checked as if panning for gold until I felt safe no more were in the area. I left the other russet and the fingerling plant undisturbed, as their vines are still green and, I assume, nourishing their tubers.

So, in this instance, one-half a spud thudded into the ground on a whim yielded eight potatoes – nice return! Two are huge, almost the length of my daughter’s head. The others are of varying, medium size, with one tiny pepino. One of the larger ones was damaged during the harvest, so we used it in our Sunday dinner, cut lengthwise and grilled with olive oil, garlic and fresh rosemary. It was pillowy soft, sweet and whiter inside than any russet I’ve ever prepared. Since the potato was uncured, its skin came off almost completely with just a gentle scrubbing.

In fact, everything we ate Sunday night came from our garden, except for the chicken. I gave the bone-in chicken a super-herb treatment with parsley, sage, rosemary & thyme (nod to S&G there), steamed a huge quantity of the purple beans, made “summer on a plate” with tomatoes of all colors and lettuce-leaf basil, and prepared the giant potato with a buttercup squash, which was also excellent: very orange, sweet and quite pumpkin-y.

So, let’s update Eco-Nomics. It was a banner week and weekend for tomatoes, with over a dozen pounds by Friday and another five picked on Sunday. Until the potatoes came into our lives yesterday afternoon, I planned on writing their own entry. But for now, I’ll just let the pictures and poundage speak for themselves.

Russet Potatoes: 6 lbs @ $.89 = $5.34
Tomatoes: 17 lbs @ $.99 = $17
Tuscan Kale: $4
Haricot Verts: 1/2 lb @ $2.49/lb= $1.25
Purple Pole Beans: 1 lb (probably our last) @ $2=$2
Green Beans: 1/2 lb @ $.99/lb: $.50
Pattypan squash: 4 lbs @ $1.50: $6
Total: $36.09

Last Eco-nomics posting: $97.56
This harvest: $36.09
Ahead by a Total of: $123.65
“Whole Foods” Pricing: $129.65 x 3.5 = $467.78

Still Clipping Along

Our nights have grown very cool, very fast, but the garden is still clipping along and still producing. The cooler weather will suit my celery root just fine, which I’ll harvest later this month or in October. The fragrant, bulbous root ends are peeking out of the ground a bit, but still seem small. The potatoes may be ready soon; the vines appear to be on the decline, ever so slightly. I should start some new lettuce seeds over the weekend, and perhaps a row of Tuscan kale and a maybe few cauliflowers. Plus, at the rate my winter squash is still growing and producing new flowers and fruits, I’ll have a huge second harvest later this month – and butternut squash six-ways for Thanksgiving. I’m glad I made that impulse buy and “splurged” on that 20-cent package of seeds!

Another two week’s harvest, as of Friday, the 4th:

Lemon Cucumbers: 3 lbs @ $.99 = $2.97
Haricot Verts: 1 lb @ $2.49/lb= $2.49
Kwintus Beans: 1.5 lbs @1.29/lb = $1.94
Purple Pole Beans: 1.5 lbs @ $2=$3
Green Beans: 1/2 lb @ $.99/lb: $.50
Another 3 lbs Pattypan squash @ $1.50: $ 4.50
3+ pints of cherry tomatoes: $6
6+ Lbs reds, blacks, yellows, striped: $6
Total: $27.40

Last Eco-nomics posting: $70.16
This harvest: $27.40
Total: $97.56

I will indulge from here on out and include a “Whole Foods” price (see previous post). Whole Foods charges five (5) times what I “charge” here for my tomatoes; twice what I do for haricot vert; nearly 5 ½ times what I do for pattypan; 4 times for the chard; twice what I do for other beans … you get the picture. I think a factor of 3.5 should do it:
“Whole Foods” Pricing: $97.56 x 3.5 = $341.46

Whole Foods Pricing - Eco-Nomics

My friend stated flatly last weekend, “Elise, you’re selling yourself short on your blog.”

She maintains that I don’t enter the right prices in Eco-Nomics. While my method isn’t exactly scientific, I price my produce as I find it in my travels or in my supermarket circular or, to be honest, what I think it might cost as I type away blearily at night and err on the side of caution, on both pricing and weights.

Presented with an offering of fresh basil, a nosegay of chervil, a trio of lemon cucumbers and a mess of purple-podded pole beans, she said, almost salivating, “You have no idea what some people would pay for this.”

Perhaps I am selling a bit short. I could “charge” organic prices in Eco-Nomics for any and all that I harvest. I compost, so that’s natural stewardship of the soil. I don’t use pesticides, fertilizers, Miracle-Gro, sprays – the only thing that touches my plants is rainwater. If my daughter wants to pick and eat her way through the backyard any afternoon, I have no worries, and she’s done so since she was a toddler.

I take my mom to DePiero Farms in Bergen County some Sundays, since it’s also a nice place to walk around, and it charges $3.99/lb for heirloom tomatoes – not designated organic, just heirloom. I also go there in the hopes that I’ll find at least some of the things growing in my backyard for comparable pricing, from purple beans (no dice) to pattypan squash ($10.99/lb for baby pattypans.) That’s unconscionable – and ridiculous! First, I don’t pick mine at the ping-pong ball stage. And even if I did, there’s no way I’d enter that price into Eco-Nomics, because it’s not a price I’m willing to pay. And don’t even get me started on Rhubarb, which is a perennial and comes back for free every year in greater quantities: It costs upwards of $5 a pound, both there and at ShopRite when they have it.

Still, my friend persisted. So I finally headed to Whole Foods in the hopes that it would carry some examples of my produce, which would be organic as well, and I could find out what the store charges and what people are willing to pay for it. I hit the new Fairway for good measure as well.

Holy mackerel.

Organic Heirloom tomatoes cost $4.99 per pound at Whole Foods. The bin was colorful and enticing to be sure, and I gently went through it to see what sorts were represented: There were my Black Russians! And my daughter’s favorite yellows, among gold and green striped (got those, too), white (never grown them), the pale persimmon tomatoes (did those last year – scrumptious) and every shape and wrinkle of red. The skimpy pints of small “Gourmet Medley” tomatoes, at $4.99 each, could have come straight from my backyard as well: lots of orange and red and some purples. For five dollars. Five dollars. And people had them in their carts!

There were no purple beans at Whole Foods or Fairway, but I did find my little haricot verts: pre-packaged from Mexico, $4.99 for a one-pound bag at Whole Paycheck. Organic, yes, but I was somewhat surprised at the measly size of the pound-package. I’m underweighing and under eye-balling mine!

I also could not believe what $2.99 buys you in Swiss Chard: That price per bunch gets you, on average, 8 ½ stalks. I say 8 ½ because those that featured nine stalks had nine that were on the thin side – and I’m being generous in that assessment. Those that contained eight may have had wider stalks, but there were always one or two scraggly stragglers in each bunch, every time. Yes, I stood there counting the contents of twist-tied bunches of both red and white organic chard. You’d fare better at Fairway, with its $1.99/bunch price for at least a somewhat larger bunch of conventional red or white chard.

At least small pattypan squash didn’t cost $10.99/lb – it was “only” $7.99/lb. The butternut squash at both spots was new and fresh, first of the season like mine – but pound for pound, I’m glad I don’t need to buy it!

I had to stop there – or just stop here. I did canvass fully, but couldn’t find specifically what I was growing; only things that were somewhat close. I also must resist rambling on here like my overeager squash and bean vines. Suffice it to say, my friend is kind of right. Plus, I’ve got a potential gold mine back there, and a tasty one at that.

Theater of the Absurd

That seems to be what my backyard has become.

Heavy rains were to arrive by Friday night. So late in the afternoon, I went out to pick a few tomatoes and other things that the rain might knock off of their vines. I brought a large melamine bowl out, and started with the cucumbers. Filled within minutes, I had to go back inside to get the big colander.

Walking back to the garden, I noticed a buttercup squash was disconnected from its vine. Apparently, it was ready to be picked – it picked itself. I found another one. Then I checked the butternut squashes, which have been of the right color for weeks, but I didn’t know if they’d be ready – they are for winter storage. Well, they were. Back inside, to empty the colander. Then back to the squash patch for the last butternut and to check for pattypans. Back to the house to empty the colander, and out again to finally start on the tomatoes.

Oops, there’s a giant zucchini hanging from its climbing vines! Cut down with a knife, it doesn’t fit anywhere and is laid on a patio table. I also thought I’d check the “secret” potato plant behind that trellis. I don’t think I mentioned it, but about 6 weeks ago, I spied a familiar-looking plant in the back of a bed. I thought it was a potato plant, so I excavated a little and came up with a tiny, red new potato, and tucked it back into the ground. No, I did not plant new potatoes. I had and have no idea where it came from – did I compost some old potatoes at some point? I have things just growing out of nowhere, and this is not the only “surprise” plant. Like I said, this has become the theater of the absurd. I dig a bit with my fingers and the knife and come up with a handful of potatoes. Thank goodness I’m wearing something with pockets today.

Onto the tomatoes – finally. Large varieties first, so the heavy ones are on the bottom. OK, I still have room in the colander for the cherry tomatoes. They roll down to fill in between the large mortgage lifters, yellows and at last! A succulent Black Russian tomato larger than a man’s fist. My two cherry varieties fill the colander to the 2/3 point. May as well check on the beans in the next bed.

The haricot verts fill that last third. No, I am not going back into the house for the umpteenth time to empty this thing. I pile the purple beans on top. Then move onto the Kwintus pole beans, which I proceed to jam vertically into any space I find around the rim. I call my daughter over to hold out her dress, which we use to cradle the overflow.

Overflow is an understatement: just look at the kitchen counter! I’m laughing out loud at this point. I decide not to even deal with the chard. Where all of this came from? It’s ridiculous! And the thing is, while harvesting what amounted to a true and truly unexpected bounty, I spied a good deal more that needed another day or two on their vines. Come Sunday or Monday, we’d do it all over again!

In the interim, I made the freshest, most luscious panzanella salad with the tomatoes that night, a cucumber and farro grain salad side dish (recipe to come), a platter of grilled pattypan squash finished with Romano cheese on Saturday, a corn-basil-tomato and kidney bean salad on Sunday for Monday and Tuesday lunches, and broke out the ZipLoc freezer bags to start preparing produce for the winter.

Lemon Cukes: 4 lbs @ $.99 = $3.96
Haricot Verts: 1 lb @ $2.49/lb= $2.49
Kwintus Beans: 1+ lbs @1.29/lb = $1.29
Purple Pole Beans: Another lb @ $2=$2
3 lbs Pattypan squash @ $1.50: $ 4.50
2+ pints of cherry tomatoes: $4
2 Lbs Mortgage lifter reds plus the big Black Russian plus another lb of yellows: $5
One big zuchetta trombolina (2 lbs @ $.99) $1.98
2 large Buttercup squashes: $5
5 Butternut squashes of varying sizes, all nicely heavy: $9
Total: $39.22

Last Eco-nomics posting, in the black by $30.94
Plus Friday’s circus: $39.22
Total: $70.16

In The Black

While it has been all about chard and beans in recent weeks, we’ve turned the corner into real Jersey territory: Tomatoes!

We’ve got tomatoes in many colors: red, orange, yellow and purple, and awaiting a striped variety to ripen. For some reason, my daughter loves those yellow tomatoes: When we were selecting seeds from catalogs in January then starting them in peat pellets in early spring, she repeatedly (almost obsessively) had to make sure we had purchased and planted the yellows. We had seeds leftover from last year, which we used – but don’t tell her! While that first mortgage lifter picked last week was nearly as big as her face, she had a different gleam in her eyes upon proudly picking her first yellow tomato this weekend.

And yes, she ate it right then and there, like an apple.


Two week’s harvest, as of Saturday, the 15th:

Chard: 3 armloads @ $2= $6.00
Lemon Cukes plus some Kirbies: easily 5 lbs @ $.99 = $1.98
Haricot Verts: 1 lb @ $2.49/lb= $2.49
Kwintus Beans: well over 2 lbs @1.29/lb = $2.58
Purple Pole Beans: About 2 lbs @ $2=$4
Green Beans: 1 lb @ $.99/lb. (see below)
3 lbs Pattypan squash @ $1.50: $ 4.50
And Tomatoes!!!!
2+ pints of cherry tomatoes, mostly SunGold: $4
4 Lbs Mortgage lifter reds: $4
A pound of sweet yellows: $1
Total: $31.55

Last Eco-nomics posting, I was in the red by $0.60
This two-week harvest: $31.54
In the Black! By $30.94.


The chard seems to be slowing down a bit (whew!), although I still plan to use my trading tactic in future recipes and preparations. I thought that my bean vines had slowed completely – with only about 1 lb of filets over two weeks - so I let them be for a bit, and honestly forgot to look at them. Big mistake: The fridge is full of big bags of beans, including Kentucky Wonder pole beans, those 4-year-old seeds I came across and thought I’d plant because, hey, you never know. I had completely forgotten about those, since they’re planted in a different area than the others and they are now threatening to take down a gutter downspout.

I’ve said before that giving it away is half the fun of growing it, and with the addition of fresh-picked tomatoes, those around me are increasingly happy to take some harvest off my hands.

Summer on a Plate

The day has finally come: TOMATOES.

Awaiting extra sun and extra heat, my tomato plants have been falling over in recent weeks, weighed down by volumes of unripe fruit, soaked by heavy rains yet, to my regret, holding steady in their greenness due to cool nights and cloudy days. Staked or caged, most every one has required reinforcement. But yesterday, I relieved my heaving Mortgage Lifter plant by picking two violet-red near-2-lb tomatoes. She thanked me somewhat for the relief, and I hope I did her fruit justice.

Cut in half then sliced into wedges, alternating with two lemon cucumbers cut in the same fashion, the slices were arranged in a pattern around the rim of a large, 14-inch round pressed glass plate, atop a bed of shredded romaine lettuce. In the center, I heaped a half-pint of SunGold cherry tomatoes, sprinkled a good bit of finely diced Vidalia onion throughout, then topped the entire dish with a blizzard of basil in a chiffonade. A mild red vinaigrette made with the greenest, grassiest olive oil I have, drizzled atop, finished the dish.

It was beautiful, crisp, refreshing in this sudden onset of 94-degree heat and, most important, delicious. How could it not be? Nearly every element went from the earth to the table in a matter of minutes. I couldn’t believe it, but just one Mortgage Lifter tomato filled the entire rim.

I can’t wait to pick more.

June is Bustin’ Out All Over

Bustin’? Well, that remains to be seen. But at least it’s off to a good start. Sprouts are sprouting, plants are planted and vines are twining. But my level impatience this year seems higher than ever, if that’s even possible. Here we go, from bed to bed, front to back:

The patch of corn with sunflowers rising in the background is off to a good start. I staggered the planting this year in hopes that the harvest will be spread out over a few weeks.

Red carrots and Swiss Chard varieties are clipping along in the small bed that lies astride the garage. Christmas lima beans and Kentucky Wonder green pole beans are planted to climb the trellises we built last year. It’s hard to believe this small bed used to be my sole planting area.

Lettuces are growing pots, as is my thyme plant. I moved my radicchio to one of the pots from a ground bed due to rabbits. The thyme will be planted on the rim of the main beds, along with a division of my oregano, when I both remember to do it and find time. An impossible combination.

Squash bed (1st/smallest): Winter squashes in alphabetical order from front to back, Buttercup, Butternut and Delicata. The last, large double-mound contains pattypan squash. Three climbing Zucchetta Trombolina plants are near the rhubarb in a corner of the yard.

Middle bed: Lemon cucumbers and Kirby cukes are ready to climb the staked twine. The kirbies also have flowers.

Tomatoes: Area is packed full, but plants are small. Why? I have no idea. The soil was pre-warmed, which made them shoot up and produce early and prolifically last year. But considering the size of the plants, I think I could have just skipped the mess, series of incidents and ensuing drama of starting them indoors and instead, direct-sowed the seeds with the same plant size resulting. Such is life. It’s only the first week of June. There’s time. I like to think each little tomato plant is developing a huge set of roots underground, where I can’t see. I attempted to plant them in backwards-alphabetical order starting with “Y”, but that lasted for only 1-½ rows. When I planted the Black Cherry tomatoes (or Black Russian?) before the Sungold Cherries, I wasn’t about to take them up and start over. I figured I’d just remember which was which. [What was I thinking?] I know where the heirloom yellows and two San Marzanos are. The rest will tastily surprise.

The largest bed starts with watermelon radishes and four cauliflowers. Believe it or not, the three little ones have white cauliflowers growing inside – at a competitive size with that of the large-leaved plant. Behind those, you’ll find the beets. No, I don’t see them either. I have a confession to make: I’m an inveterate bad-waterer. Notice the soaker hoses I bought and put down just this weekend. Thought it was about time. A top dressing of composted leaf humus will be the finishing touch.

Yellow bell peppers, one purple pepper and Rosa Bianca eggplants doing all right. Common basil and lettuce leaf basil in the center of that bed. You’ll also see four celery plants, which I purchased for $2 at the farmer’s market. They don’t count toward the running total, or to the harvest tally. It would be impossible to calculate, since I pick the celery constantly and the stalks regenerate themselves during the summer. It’s a terrific thing to grow for that purpose, since I only need a stalk or two for a grain salad or other dish, hardly ever an entire bunch. Also, hot chili peppers – a pair of plants I found at that bastion of green, the Home Depot. I found a pot that had two tall, strong plants, so I couldn’t resist. My dad (and father-in-law for that matter) can’t wait for them.

Pole beans are also planted in alphabetical order from front to back: Emerite filet, Kwintus and purple-podded. I love garden beans. They’re easy and dependable. Just have your four-year-old poke her finger into the soil, drop the seeds in, and soon enough they’re all vining and twining their way up the poles. The three tee-pees will be just gorgeous once the plants fully cover them and start to flower.

Celery Root surviving. And …

Potatoes! Two russets and a fingerling plant. I can’t believe it! Those spuds I thudded into the ground came up! The plants are strong and actually quite attractive. I had chalked them all up for lost, since our black and white cat, Senor Wences, found the loose and deeply dug soil irresistible for digging and rolling. They truly appeared out of nowhere. The russets surprise me the most, since they were supermarket potatoes from a 5-lb bag, and were probably sprayed with an anti-sprouting agent. Two of two came up. The fingerlings came from potatoes purchased at Whole Foods, labeled organic, and I assume not sprayed with anything. Only one of three came up. Either way, the plants appear to be growing fast, and they are sturdy. I’ve never grown potatoes before and I’m excited to watch them.

Whew! That got long. Maybe June is bustin’ out all over.

Planting Party

It was a happy Mother’s Day. A crisp-breezed, blue-skied, birds-chirping, muddy, grubby, dirt-under-your-fingernails Mother’s Day.

We planted seeds and seedlings all afternoon.

The day started with a brunch at my mom’s townhouse and a stop on the way to purchase a floral hanging basket for her. My daughter and I went to a local nursery and farm where I also picked up a 4-pack of yellow bell pepper seedlings for $1.79. The plants looked terrific, and I’m happy to support that nursery and farm. It’s a small but longstanding business in competition with not one or two but three Home Depots in Bergen County, in addition to a Lowe’s that opened last year.

Plus, the excitement and prospect of planting them that afternoon made me stop by on the way back from my mother’s. I purchased a 4-pack of Rosa Bianca eggplants and a 3-celled pack of Kirby cucumbers that contained six plants.

Once home, my daughter and I got down n’ dirty, building the pole bean teepees and erecting a cucumber contraption we constructed from twine and some old garden edging we found in the shed. We cut holes in the plastic sheeting I’d applied weeks ago to pre-warm the soil, measured, dug, spaced, sowed, planted and watered for much of the afternoon, with, to my memory, just a few breaks: a game of tag, a change from soaked shoes to dry (hers), a change from a soaked dress to dry jeans (ditto), one stop to make a peanut butter and birdseed sandwich to fit into the suet feeder, another to make a peanut butter sandwich for the humans, the unraveling, re-raveling and unraveling yet again of the entire spool of twine, two glasses of pink lemonade, playing with the cats underfoot, an incident involving two bottles of bubbles – it’s a wonder we got so much done!

What’s in the ground now, coded with an S for “from seed” and a P for “purchased plant”:

Tuscan Kale and white cauliflower (S)
Watermelon radishes, Detroit red beets, golden beets (all S)
Radicchio (S) – my cats are not fending off the rabbits there.
Red Carrots, Rhubarb Swiss Chard & Rainbow Swiss Chard (all S)
One row of corn (S) – two more to come over the next two weeks.
Pole beans: Kwintus, Emerite Filet and Purple Podded (all S)
Winter squash: Butternut, Buttercup and Delicata (S)
Pattypan Squash (S)
Yellow bell peppers (P)
Rosa Bianca eggplants (P)
Lemon cucumbers (S)
Kirby cucumbers (P)

While we were at it, I tossed in three fingerling potatoes that had sprouted in the kitchen, plus a Russet that I cut in half and scabbed over. They went in just around the outer rim of the largest bed. We’ll see what happens there.

Tomato varieties (all S) and celery root (S) are going in soon. Zucchetta Trombolina and Christmas Limas (both S) will have to wait a week more. I didn’t pre-warm that bed.

In hindsight, I’m glad I bought the seedlings this weekend. I felt as if I were cheating in some way, but geez, do I have square footage to fill! After cramming crops into two very small beds near the house for years, I’ve realized that I need to reformulate my mental proportions. The area I ripped up last fall for gardening can hold a lot more that I’d thought.

So, let’s add Sunday’s expenditure to the tally. I had figured early on that only seeds would be part of my Eco-Nomics experiment, but I may as well add the purchased plants. It’s just $5.37, and including it in the running total will make harvest calculations that much easier.

Past total of Seeds,

Peat Pellets, other: $44.33

New Plants: $5.37
Total: $49.70

Eco-nomics

Every penny counts these days.

I’ve decided to keep a running total of any and all outlays for this year's crops, and this solo "Eco-nomics" entry will become a box in any subsequent gardening entries written throughout the season. But once I start harvesting, I'll tally up what it would have cost to buy at the supermarket. So far, the tally is:

Peat Pellets $ 5.50
John Scheepers Order $24.25
ShopRite 5/$1 Bin:
Cauliflower
Buttercup Squash
Butternut Squash
Total: $ 0.60
Home Depot
(Seeds 40% off packet price)
Red carrots
Rhubarb Chard
Total: $ 2.03
Kmart
(2 of 3 40% off packet price)

Corn
Rainbow Chard
Kwintus Pole Beans
Total: $ 5.18

Grand Total: $36.96

To be honest, I was a little surprised that I have laid out close to forty dollars so far on this venture. The Scheepers order was my biggest expense so far, but I love that catalog and its offerings, whether sturdy backbone basics of the home garden or esoteric heirloom goodies you won’t find anywhere else. Each packet is worth every penny. Plus, it is based in Connecticut, a neighboring state, so I may as well keep my semi-disposable income in the metro area.

The other items, generally little nickel, dime and dollar outlays, added up as well. But that’s about all I’ll be spending for a while, as far as I can think.

Now, if you’re reading this and thinking, “I’m starting from scratch and could never grow all of that for forty bucks,” you’re somewhat correct, yet you also could do it for less.

I’m lucky in that all of my seeds from last year are still viable, and I will be planting from almost all the packets. I don't use pesticides or fertilizers, so I'm financially ahead there, too. I use composted leaf humus from my town, which is free; I just have to shovel it into bags and bins in the trunk of my car. Plus, I compost all kitchen scraps in the ground throughout the fall, winter and spring. I will disclose that I have (or had, I spread them this weekend) two 40-lb bags of dehydrated composted manure left over from last year, so I’m ahead there as well. But once I hit the nursery for more, it will be documented here and added to the running total.

And if I weren’t so crazy, fantasizing about the backyard equivalent of a fruited plain with amber waves of grain, I probably wouldn’t choose so many perceived oddities, whether for color, origin or flavor. I really looked at the 5/$1 seed stand at the grocery store this week, and it had just about everything anyone could need to first, get started, and second, really produce the produce: lettuces, two tomato varieties, some herbs, some root vegetables, bush beans, peas, lima beans, radishes – 15 packets of those seeds would be only $3.00. The number of seeds per packet is decidedly fewer, but for 20 cents, how could you go wrong?

However, I like climbing crops, for example: pole beans, the Italian zucchini, and anything else I can train on a trellis. I have limited space, so I try to grow up instead of out.

And yes, I get overly ambitious. And yes, I like making the mess and relishing in all the anticipation involved in growing seeds indoors. But that’s half the fun of planning the garden.

Seedlings

Sometimes hope comes in the smallest of packages.

Garden seeds are the apotheosis of optimism wrapped in a dormant shell, sometimes barely the size of a pinpoint. They hold the promise of Spring, the renewal of life, the anticipation of summer days spent outdoors and summer meals picked fresh.

Nevermind that a Nor’easter blew through, dumping nearly a foot of snow throughout the state from Sunday into Monday. We were darned busy!

It started with Snowball cauliflower on Sunday afternoon.

My daughter and I set up shop on the kitchen counter, soaking peat pellets and fanning out our cool-weather crop seed packets like they were a winning hand of poker. She could hardly contain herself! The cauliflower seeds, those millimeter-sized brown b-b’s that miraculously grow into white basketballs, went in first.

We then started a half-dozen red carrot seeds. Yes, I know they’re probably better grown as direct-sow, but I just couldn’t help myself. While we were at it, we cracked open the rhubarb Swiss chard seeds and progressed right into the bright lights Swiss chard package as well. I love those seeds – they look like spiky landmines washed ashore in an old WWI war movie. That, or like the American sweet gum balls that used to blanket our lawn from the 70+ foot tree that formerly occupied the dead-center portion of our back yard and shade practically the entire lot. It was struck by lightning twice last summer (yikes!) and had to come down in the fall. But now, I’ll have full sun. That’s why I ripped up turf to create beds last fall and why we’re planting so aggressively (and voluminously) this year.

When all was said and done on Sunday, most of our cold weather crops were represented in the pallet of peat-pellets. Then the snow came.

And came, and came.

School was canceled, my boss told me to take the day off, then what else came? My John Scheepers package! This time, we could hardly contain ourselves! We had been reading, re-reading, checking off and adding more varieties since the catalog came in the arctic depths of early January.

Included were Indigo radicchio and Tuscan Lacinato kale – more cold weather crops to pre-sow. We planted only the radicchio into a neat row of six in our seedling terrarium. My daughter checked less than an hour later to see if they had sprouted.

My new Scheepers seeds joined their brother and sister packages of still-viable seeds left over from last year, together with new packages from other sources, including Burpee, Martha Stewart at KMart and The Cook’s Garden, which we’ve picked up in our travels over the past few weeks, waiting, waiting, waiting for the growing season to begin.

We’ll keep you posted.

FYI: What We’re Growing

Pole Beans: Kwintus, Emerité Filet Beans, Purple Podded pole beans [from last year]
Summer squash: Zuchetta Trombolina Zucchini [last year], miniature yellow Pattypan squash
Winter squash: Buttercup, Waltham Butternut
Celery Root [which I should start soon – 120 days to harvest]
Lemon Cucumbers
Tomatoes: Black Cherry [new], Sun Gold Cherry [repeat performance by request], Black Russian, Husky Gold heirloom, "Mortgage Lifter" red, San Marzano [seeds straight from Italy - I don't mess around]
Climbing sugar-snap peas
Rhubarb Swiss chard, Bright Lights (rainbow) Swiss chard
Nutri-Red carrots
White Snowball Cauliflower [from the 5/$1 bin – nice find]
Indigo Radicchio [bolt-resistant, perfect for our Zone 6]
Tuscan Lacinato Kale [an impulse buy while placing the online order]
Early Choice Sweet Yellow Corn [my daughter’s pick]
Catnip [her choice as well, although I didn't disagree. Nor will the cats.]

COLD SNAP, then Hope in the Mail

It came today.

The first garden catalog of the New Year with a bonus, my favorite seed catalog.

It’s as if they know exactly what I do daily in the depths of winter: stare out my kitchen window onto a stark blanket of white over barren ground, plot, plan and fantasize about what lies dormant beneath and all the new the green that I might be able to squeeze in come Spring. Once night falls and the yard is dark, I can pore over the catalogs in bed and dream some more.

It’s also as if they know I dug up a full quarter of my backyard last fall to make space for more crops and have been amending the soil with composted vegetation in pre-dug holes even up to this date.

Mind you, I do not live on a huge expanse of land. The “James Homestead” is settled on a 55’ x 125’ lot in a packed-tight little town of 10,000 or so residents. A nice size, mind you, but add the house, the front yard, a back patio, the concrete paths on both sides of the house, the 8-foot-wide beds of perennials and evergreens that ring the backyard, and the suburban requirement that you wastefully grow at least a patch of grass, and your growing space shrinks before your eyes. There’s not a lot of room for suburban farming.

But after last summer’s successes involving seeds, shoots, roots, vines, herbs and (of course) tomatoes, I plan to go whole hog this year. And my four-year-old daughter will have a very enthusiastic hand in it as well.

She selected most of the vegetables and varieties we grew from seed last year, and when you saw the plants and vines heavy with the rainbow fruits of our labor, you could tell. Just about everything we grew came in a color other than the “usual” shade: purple string beans, lemon yellow cucumbers, white eggplants, chartreuse zucchini, Christmas lima beans (green pods, but huge red-striped limas), rainbow Swiss chard, purple basil, plus tomatoes in seemingly every color but red: pink, two shades and sizes yellow, yellow and green striped, two shades and sizes of orange, and dark purple. What I wouldn’t do for a fresh-picked, sweetly acidic Black Russian tomato right now.

With limited space, we grew creatively. Actually, vertically. Once our windowsill seedlings reached a certain height, my daughter and I hit The Home Depot one morning, bought some pre-fab wooden lattice, 8’ stretches of lumber, took it all home, measured, sawed, sanded and nailed four trellises together. She did the measuring and marking with her sidewalk chalk, then hammered right along with me. I then sunk the trellises a foot deep in the ground. Voila! A 5’x 5’ plot grew from 25 square feet of space to well over 80 square feet up, down and around. My daughter could also walk inside the structure, reach up and pick what she wanted to eat, in addition to giggling and hiding inside the thicket of vines with the cats underfoot.

All that fun and produce came to a total cost of $30.14, including shipping from the seed company. The tomatoes alone were worth it per pound produced, but the zucchini nearly ran into tonnage after a while. My freezer boasts numerous Ziploc bags of it, as does my mother’s and mother-in-law’s. Last year’s catalog seeds are still viable, as are those fished on impulse from a “4 for $1” basket at the grocery store. So the beans, cucumbers, greens and most of the tomatoes will be on the menu again this year at no cost other than a little sweat and a lot of laughs in the garden.

We’ll do vertical crops on the trellises this year, too, but with my newly added space, I plan to plant for three seasons, starting in early Spring (maybe sugar snap peas? My daughter loves them) and ending with late Fall crops (I’m thinking cheddar cauliflower and a dwarf variety of cabbage). Radicchio will make an appearance both times.

The real crop production comes during that summer stretch in between. My daughter has already chosen Peruvian blue potatoes and Russian banana fingerling potatoes (that’s a good thing - I’ve been dying to try growing potatoes for a while). She also has her eye on Purple Dragon carrots, which have a dark purple skin and flame orange center. I’m looking at a winter squash or two to preserve with the potatoes over the winter. I know my husband likes butternut, but Zeppelin Delicata sounds good to me as well. It is somewhat smaller, is yellow with green stripes that turn orange after picking, and supposedly keeps very well for winter storage. All the better for when the Depression sets in.

I may be even more ambitious than I originally planned and attempt to grow cardoons, an heirloom Italian vegetable that looks like celery on steroids but tastes like mild artichokes. Cardoons grow on the sides of roads and are foraged in the Old Country, but I have a mind to try and cultivate them myself over here. The $2.95 packet of 100 seeds may well be worth it, considering that cardoons can cost upwards of $2.99 per pound, if you can even find them, and a good bunch easily weighs three pounds.

My husband has already put in his request for SunGold cherry tomatoes again, and some leafy greens in addition to the chard. Although we haven’t yet zeroed in on any new varieties, tomatoes will definitely make a repeat performance this year, as will the crazy climbing zucchini. I want yellow wax beans in addition to the purple pole beans from last year, but I don’t know if there’s a climbing variety.

The seed and garden catalogs will hold all the answers.

Give me a week. The catalogs will be covered in a Technicolor code of hi-liter pen colors for yes, maybe, must-try, climbing and cold weather tolerant. Then I’ll be back at the kitchen window, planning, plotting and awaiting the arrival of my order.