Melon en Surprise was Auguste Escoffier's title for a five line description of a tasty combination of melons and other fresh fruits in his 1903 masterpiece Le Guide Culinaire. Of course, Escoffier was working from the notes and techniques of...

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Best Cold Frame Site

A cold frame can help you extend your growing season by capturing the warming rays of the winter sun and holding them. Even the simplest cold frame can lengthen your growing season by several weeks. To get the most out of your cold frame give some forethought to the site where it will best perform. Here are some tips for situating your cold frame:

• Site the frame where it will receive sun from mid-morning to mid-afternoon in the winter and early spring.

• Site the frame so that it faces south, southwest, or southeast; this will ensure the greatest exposure to solar heat during the winter months when the sun tracks furthest to the south. (For those of you who live in the Southern Hemisphere, site the frame to face north.)

• The back wall of the frame should be at least a few inches higher than the front wall so that the top or sash is angled and receives maximum sun exposure. Commonly, the front of the frame is 4 to 10 inches lower than the back side allowing for the maximum sun exposure.

Continue reading "Best Cold Frame Site" »

Harvest to Table's New Encyclopedia:
The Kitchen Garden Grower's Guide

A practical vegetable and herb garden encyclopedia

From the soil to the plate, The Kitchen Garden Grower's Guide is exceptionally penned and easy to follow. It provides answers to basic and in-depth growing questions. It includes how to plant, how to grow and care for crops, how to harvest, how to store and how to prepare vegetables and herbs. From asparagus and beet greens to Belgian endive and strawberries, this book helps readers organize a small garden close to the kitchen that offers their favorite, fresh-picked-at-the-peak-of-ripeness small crop-and the template on how to orchestrate the effort.

Making a Cold Frame

Boards, planks, bricks, concrete blocks, even bales of hay or mounded soil can be used to make a cold frame. Often a home-made cold frame is a simple four-sided wooden box with no bottom and a clear glass or plastic top. A cold frame can be permanent or portable.

Cold frames can vary in size: 3 feet wide by 6 feet long is the size of an average home garden cold frame. The back side of a frame is usually taller (often 18 to 24 inches high) than the front (commonly 8 to 12 inches high) with the clear top sloping down from back to front allowing rain to run off and sunshine to flood in. The taller the frame the taller the plants it will accommodate. A home garden cold frame need be no deeper than a person's reach (24 to 36 inches); this will allow plants to be tended without stepping into the frame.

Wooden-sided frames are can be made of long-lasting wood that has not been chemically treated: well-cured pine, cypress, redwood, or chestnut can be used. The translucent top or lid of the cold frame can be made from a standard window sash--approximately three by six feet. Several sashes can be placed in a row to make a long cold frame. Sheets of Plexiglass or other plastic sheeting also can be framed to create the cold frame lid. The lid or sash is usually hinged to the back side of the frame but an unhinged lid can simply rest on the top of the frame.

Continue reading "Making a Cold Frame" »

Cold Frame Calendar

As the seasons progress there are several uses for a cold frame.

• Start cool-temperature spring vegetable seeds and seedlings in late winter.

• Start summer warm-temperature vegetable seeds and seedlings beginning in early- or mid-spring.

• Start fall and winter crops under shade cover (replace the frame's glass or plastic sash with framed shade cloth).

• Protect warm-temperature crops from an early frost before harvest.

• Protect cool-temperature and cold-tolerant crops for harvest through the winter.

• Over-winter cold-tolerant crops started in fall for renewed growth and a spring harvest.

Continue reading "Cold Frame Calendar" »

Cold Frame: Extend Your Vegetable Garden Season

A cold frame is a bottomless box with a clear or translucent top. It is set on the ground or over a planting bed to capture solar energy and heat the air, soil, and plants inside. A cold frame can extend the growing season by one to several months.

Cold frames can be made of heavy lumber, cinder blocks, concrete, or clear plastic. The transparent top or cover is tilted toward the south or southeast to catch the sun. The back side of the cold frame is commonly six inches or more higher than the front to give a slope to the top cover (or sash) so that rain will run off and the sun's rays will strike the inside of the frame more nearly at right angles.

Cold frames can vary in size: 6 feet long by 3 feet wide is the size of an average home garden cold frame. A small cold frame is commonly no wider than a person's reach so that plants can be tended to without stepping into the frame. A typical cold frame is usually made eighteen to twenty four inches high or deep at the back sloping to twelve to eighteen deep at the front. The deeper the frame the taller the plants it will accommodate.

For most home vegetable gardeners, nearly all the plants in the vegetable garden can be started successfully in a cold frame or hotbed (a hotbed is a heated cold frame--sometimes heated by electricity or solar power or by--in decades and centuries past--decomposing steer or horse manure placed below the inside planting bed).

Continue reading "Cold Frame: Extend Your Vegetable Garden Season" »

Seed Failure Troubleshooting

When a seed fails to sprout there is usually a simple and easily correctable reason. Here are the most common reasons seeds do not sprout along with troubleshooting solutions.

Soil is too dry. Small seeds sown very near the surface often fail from lack of moisture. They may have enough moisture to germinate, but then the soil becomes so dry that the sprout which is beginning to push out from the seed is dried up. Neglect that would do no harm to seedlings an inch or two high will prove fatal to seeds that are just germinating. Check soil moisture once or twice a day. Keep the soil evenly moist and not too wet. If you are germinating seed indoors keep containers away from excessive heat or drafts. Cover containers with plastic or glass until seeds sprout.

Covered too deeply. Seeds covered too deep may not have the strength to push through to the surface; they are weakened by the struggle. As a general rule sow seeds twice to three times their diameter. Check the proper seeds sowing depth on the seed packet. Tiny or very fine seed can be scattered on a potting or seed starting mix surface and lightly pressed into contact with the mix.

Continue reading "Seed Failure Troubleshooting" »

Vegetable Garden Location

There are a few basic requirements for creating a productive and enjoyable vegetable garden: convenience, sunlight, good and well-drained soil, and easy access to water are foremost. Here is a run down of these basic requirements and a couple of additional considerations for making a vegetable garden.

Convenience. Select a spot near at hand, easy and quick to get to. Choose, as you can a spot, close to the kitchen. A garden close by will capture your spare moments for tending and for watching the garden. And a garden close by will be greatly appreciated once you have made a dozen time-wasting trips for forgotten seeds or tools, or gotten your feet soaking wet by going out through the dew-drenched grass.

Exposure. A yield of delicious vegetables is greatly beholden to exposure. Site your garden in an "early" spot--a plot facing or sloping a little to the south or east that seems to catch sunshine early and hold it late--eight hours of sunlight each day is optimal. Make a "sun map" of your yard tracking the sun across the property in the course of a day. Avoid situating your vegetable garden in the shadows of buildings, trees, and fences. Choose a spot that is out of the direct path of chilling north and northeast winds. A building, a fence, or a hedge to the north of your plot can protect your garden from chilling winds. Even low-growing shrubs or young evergreens can protect vulnerable tender vegetables.

Continue reading "Vegetable Garden Location" »

Windowsill Gardening: Growing Vegetables Indoors

Small vegetables--many leaf crops and even compact and miniature varieties of fruiting crops such as tomatoes and peppers--can be grown indoors in a sunny, bright windowsill year round.

Vegetable gardening indoors has most of the same requirements as an outdoor garden: bright light, water, nutrients, and protection from pests and diseases. Since space is likely to be more limited growing crops indoors, choosing quick-maturing crops planted in quick succession is your best strategy; for example, sow a few seeds of leaf lettuce each week and harvest leaves often while they are still young and tender.

Here are tips for growing an indoor vegetable garden:

Crops. Choose compact, miniature, or dwarf varieties of crops and crops that are quick maturing. Small, quick-growing crops will require less space and time to reach harvest.

Click here for list of Dwarf and Miniature Vegetables for Containers.

Click here for a list of Quick-Maturing Vegetable Varieties.

You will have the best success growing indoor crops close to the natural season each crop grows outdoors. Cool-weather crops such as leaf crops and root crops are a good choice for the autumn and winter indoor garden; these crops naturally require less bright light. Warm-weather crops--fruiting vegetables such as tomatoes and peppers--require longer days to ripen, so planting these in spring and summer makes sense.

Continue reading "Windowsill Gardening: Growing Vegetables Indoors" »

Simple Seed Starting

Getting seeds started indoors can be as simple as re-purposing pressed-paper egg cartons. Egg carton cups are just the right size for starting seeds and growing seedlings on to size. Half egg shells and newspaper cones set in egg carton compartments will work just as well.

Poke a hole in the bottom of each egg compartment (or egg shell or newspaper cone) and fill with moistened sterile seed starting mix. Use the egg carton lid as a tray beneath the compartments.

Sow two or three seeds in each compartment and just cover them with seed starting mix; the rule of thumb is to cover seeds to a depth of three times their diameter.

Use a clear plastic bag as your seed-starting greenhouse. Place the egg carton in the plastic bag (don't tie the bag--germinating seeds need fresh air) and set it in a warm, light place--on a kitchen countertop or under fluorescent lights. A consistent temperature of about 70 to 75°F is best to ensure quick sprouting. Keep the starting mix just moist until seeds germinate; remove the plastic bag if mold should start to grow.

Continue reading "Simple Seed Starting" »

Vegetable Garden Calendar

One of the most challenging aspects in gardening is to get things started at the proper time. Success in the garden often depends on timing.

Planning the work ahead is important. A simple checklist can be used to make sure that everything is started and carried out at the proper time--starting with preparing the ground and the sowing of seeds.

Here is a month-by-month calendar of operations for the vegetable garden. Use this checklist as a timely reminder of things to be done or as the basis for your own check list. Keep your schedule of garden reminders in a Looseleaf notebook with a section for each month. A Looseleaf notebook will allow you to make changes and add information. You can add to and modify this calendar from year to year, and you can post the calendar for the month in the garden or in the garden shed.

JANUARY

Probably one of the good resolutions made with the New Year is a better garden for the coming season. Psychologists say that the only hope for resolutions is to nail them down at the start with an action--that seems to have more effect in making an actual impression on the brain. So start the good work by sending at once for several of the leading seed catalogues.

• Planting Plan. Make out a list of what you are going to want this year, and then make your Planting Plan.

• Seeds. Order your seed. Order now while the seedsman's stock is full and before the spring rush.

• Manures and compost. If you have a place under cover where you can collect manure and compost for the coming season, do it now, or if the weather allows, add these to your garden now. Soil amendments can often be gotten less expensively at this time of year. If possible, add compost and rock phosphate now to allow for several turnings.

• Frames. Even at this season of the year do not fail to air the frames well on warm days. Practically no water will be needed, but if the soil does dry out sufficiently to need it, apply early on a bright morning.

• Onions. It will not be too early, this month, to sow onions for spring transplanting outside. Try Prizetaker, Ailsa Craig, Mammoth Silver-skin, or Gigantic Gibraltar.

• Lettuce. Sow lettuce for spring crop under glass or in frames.

• Fruit. This is a good month to prune grapes, currants, gooseberries and peach trees, to avoid the rush that will come later.

Continue year on next page and see Related Articles:

Continue reading "Vegetable Garden Calendar" »

Vegetable Garden Planning

Experienced gardener or new gardener your gardening success will be greatly helped by planning the garden before you begin the growing season. The purpose of a garden plan is to make your work less and your returns more. A garden plan and a couple of supporting lists can guide you this growing season and growing seasons to follow, telling you what improvements to make next year and the next.

Here are four planning tools you can use this year (use them, modify them, use them in combination as you wish, and you will gain greater efficiency in gardening):

• Planting Plan

• Planting Table

• Check List--for planting and growing

• Garden Record

Planting Plan

A planting plan is a map of your garden--of the whole garden or a specific planting bed. Design your vegetable garden--lay it out--on paper first. Tracing pads of graph paper comes in 8½ inches by 11 inches or 11 inches by 17 inches. You can choose from several grid sizes: four squares to the inch are practical for laying out a garden to scale. On tracing paper, mark off a space the shape of your garden. (Why use tracing paper? You can overlay this year's garden on the plan for last year's garden--or do this in the future. This will allow you to plan crop successions and rotations.)

Continue reading "Vegetable Garden Planning" »

Working the December Kitchen Garden

As winter weather sets in early this year--just about everywhere, now is a good time to update your garden records from last season and review your garden design. What worked and what can be improved this coming growing season? Now is the time to plan layout changes for the garden and begin mapping our crop rotations and successions for the coming year.

The spring seed catalogs have started arriving so this is also a great time to prepare seed and plant orders for spring. Plan a continuous harvest for the coming year and order your seed accordingly.

Here are some things you can do now--in December:

Plant. Plant witloof chicory roots in pots of sand and light soil mix and place them in a dark place at about 45ºF. Harvest young shoot as they appear.

Cabbage. Near the end of the month start seeds of cabbage and hardy lettuces indoors. In warm winter regions you can sow hardy and half-hardy cool-season plants such as lettuce and cabbage-family crops in the garden or under cloches. Be patient, crops grow slowly during short winter days. (There is no growth when the day light is less than 10 hours. Don't expect new growth until mid-January.)

Tomatoes (yes, tomatoes). Tender vegetable seeds such as tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants that require 12 weeks or more indoors can be started late this month.

Asparagus, artichokes and rhubarb. These perennial crops can be set out in the perennial section of the garden this month or next. Place perennials at the edge of garden where they can produce for several years without being disturbed. Other perennials include horseradish, sage, mint, and rosemary.

Continue reading "Working the December Kitchen Garden" »

How to Grow Peaches

The peach is a semi-hardy deciduous woody perennial tree. A standard-sized peach tree will grow to 25 feet tall and just as wide if not pruned. A dwarf peach will grow to 6 feet tall and wide. For the best productivity, keep standard peaches pruned to about 15 feet tall. Most available peach varieties are grafted, meaning the root system and the fruiting section of the tree is different.

Peaches usually come to harvest from mid- to late summer. Peach fruit requires 3 to 5 months to reach harvest from the time flowers are pollinated. Peach trees have fruit producing lives of about 12 years.

Peaches are divided into freestone and clingstone cultivars. The flesh of a freestone peach will separate easily from the seed. The flesh of a clingstone peach does not. Freestone peaches are best for eating fresh out of hand. Clingstone peaches are a good choice for cooking and preserving.

The flesh of the peach fruit is most often yellow, but some cultivars have white flesh. White flesh, like yellow flesh, is tender and tasty.

Continue reading "How to Grow Peaches" »

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Harvest to Table's New Encyclopedia: The Kitchen Garden Grower's Guide

A practical vegetable and herb garden encyclopedia

Harvest to Table's New Encyclopedia:
The Kitchen Garden Grower's Guide