I thought you might enjoy this video I took of my veggie garden in early August 2023. When I see this video now, the garden looks pretty good. I just want to see some GREEN now instead all this white snow but I know we need as much snow as we can get due to our droughty area. Yes I said, ‘droughty’! Walk with me while I do this year’s summer tour of the veggie garden.
Category Archives: general
Dec 1 final harvests
Harvested carrots and lettuce On Dec 1, 2023
I decided I better pull out the second crop of carrots before the ground freezes sometime in December. We got 6-10 inches of snow the past few days and even more out in the open. If I had waited, I might not have gotten them out.
The first carrots I planted in late spring by direct seeding and harvested most in September. They kind of stalled out in July but came back in September when the temps were cooler. I did a succession planting of more carrots in August-Sept.
In the garden on Dec 1, the remaining carrots were covered with 12′ of snow. So I dug through the snow till I saw the row cover I had put over them when the nights got cold in November. I pulled back the row cover exposing the carrots. It brings such joy to see how well they did. I think they got so long because I had planted them in a 12′ deep raised bed that I made to grow potatoes one year. The carrots loved the extra depth.
And over in the greenhouse, I had transplanted lettuce starts in early September. I kept the greenhouse windows completely open to keep it cooler and a fan to help as well. Then when it got cold at night, I covered the lettuce with some row cover to protect them. I also buttoned up the greenhouse to keep the cold out but did open the door and some windows in the day when it was warmer. Yesterday I harvested the last of the lettuce. Some had bolted and gotten bitter. The chickens got them. But a lot was still good and hadn’t bolted so that is now in the refrigerator.
I always start lettuce seeds in January inside under lights and put them out in February in the unheated greenhouse. I just grow cold varieties in the winter and use row cover to keep them above freezing at night. So we have lettuce all the way through May. Then the greenhouse gets too hot so don’t grow anything in summer. I did a 2nd succession crop of lettuce in late August-Sept when the temps start to drop. Success! Nice to see some green (lettuce) and orange (carrots) so late when everything is covered with snow. Now the garden is truly done!
Tomatoes done November 2023
We just finished eating the last tomatoes picked in October before a frost. The last ones pictured on the left, were Large Barred Boar.
I had 6 bags of green tomatoes that ripened inside. Pretty good having homegrown tomatoes through end of November. Bittersweet in that I am glad the season is over but sad there will be no more wonderful tomatoes till next July.
I start the season in March growing out the seeds inside under lights-8 months is a long time. I won’t eat a store bought or restaurant tomato so now it’s a long wait. I have made plain tomato sauce, roasted them, dried them, used them in tomato soup, and made pasta sauces using them. My friends have given me tomato tapenade and tomato chutney they made too. Nice!
During wintertime, I will review my notes about which tomatoes did well, which had problems, which had low production, and which new ones I liked or not and why. I don’t rule out anything that didn’t do well, especially this season with no water and intense heat but will give many tomatoes a second chance. I will research the internet looking for possible new varieties to try for next year. I have a stable of tomatoes I grow every year and always try a few new ones as well.
Cleaning up the garden
So by now you have either cleaned up your garden or hopefully finishing up. I’m in the latter camp. I took out all the tomatoes and their cages before the ground freezes which historically is sometime in December. If I had waited, they would freeze in the ground and I would have not gotten them out till spring. I know because I did this once and it was no picnic getting them out later rather than sooner. Lesson learned.
Plus I’ve taken out almost everything else that is not a perennial. I continue to water the perennials by hand about once every 2 weeks and as it continues to get colder, I will lessen the watering of these. This week the nights will be in the 20’s so here we are.
The drip system was shut down and timers stored inside so they didn’t freeze at night. I still have some straw left in the beds which I’ve started raking up and storing in garbage bags as it is organic straw mulch which is hard to find. Normally I would just compost the straw and digging the rest in the beds but i can reuse this. If I had leaves, I would have dug them in as they are gold in the garden. All the perennials are either sleeping or going to sleep.
Good night sweet garden-see you next year!
Dismal veggie gardening season in 2023
Hello Folks! Where has the summer gone? I haven’t written since August and I think it’s due to the HEAT, drought and NO MONSOONS. I became depressed because I had to use so much water to keep everything alive. And even then everything struggled in the heat anyways with enough water including me! Plus I wonder, is this the future with climate change? I hope this was just a bad season.
STRUGGLES
It was a tough year in the garden for me. And even though the picture above looked great, there were many challenges this year. The kale got eaten by squirrels, radishes fried, the cabbage rotted or got eaten, the garbanzo beans fried, the pepper patch with 18 different peppers were attacked by mice who ate holes in them to get the seeds. Interesting enough the mice did not attack the hot peppers, only the sweet peppers. The mice and squirrels do not like hot peppers. The deer ate a lot of my grapes, A packrat ate some cucumbers but it didn’t matter because the heat made most of them bitter. Plus the packrat liked tomatoes too. The individual raspberry fruit actually fell apart with the heat so not good there either. I understand all living creatures need to survive and will go into our gardens and eat our veggies because they too struggled this year. I notice when we have a good year weatherwise, they don’t come into the garden so much.
GOOD NEWS
There was some good news-not all bad. The blackberries did well, the tomatoes did come in only later because of the heat and the cherry tomatoes did really well. We just now are finishing the tomatoes for the season and it’s November! The strawberries made fruit and were harvested in early June before the heat really came on. The carrots stalled out but came back once the heat left and now we are getting some great carrots! The lettuce was great in the spring in the greenhouse where the beds there are protected from mice and I replanted in the greenhouse in Sept and now have great lettuce with these cooler temps. The peppers actually did really good production wise except for the mice. Oh, and the flowers did really well which is food for my soul and the pollinators.
I will write more and post more pics in the coming days. May you have a restful off-season and dream of what will be for next season!
And so the cycle of life goes…
‘Show and tell’ garden photos-August 2023
Triple Crown Blackberry
Borage flowers
Buschbonne Cannelino Roso bean
Violetta cauliflower
Cool season bed_chard
Cosmos flowers
Emerite green bean
garden view
Mohawk Beans/flowers
Zinnias flowers
Mohawk dry bean bed
Pasilla Baijio pepper
Zinnias, Himrod grapevine and Amaranth
To see descriptions, hold cursor over each image
Took row covers off tomato plants today-August 3, 2023
I promised my followers that I would tell you when I took my row covers off the tomato plants. I did this today.
Here is a video I took on July 18, 2020 but basically looks the same as today.
I have heard from several sources that we might not get a monsoon pattern setting up here in August and that alarmed me. We have never NOT (I know, a double negative) had a monsoon season in the 27 years I’ve been here and now this. I decided to chance it and take off the row covers. I didn’t see any any leaf hoppers today but that doesn’t mean anything as they are so hard to see.
So I am hopeful that they are gone. Who knows, maybe they have a limited lifespan in summers.
I’m not telling you to take them off-that is your decision, but I will deal with whatever mother nature gives us…and it is soo good to see my beautiful tomato plants! Good luck!
Class followup
GARDEN CLASS FOLLOWUP
Here is the handout with the class notes from Tuesday:
I also had someone ask me about the 2 Perennial Chard-Spinach and Perennial Arugula which is called Sylvetta that I talked about. You can google them to see which seed companies might still have some for this year. You just have to give them a space where they can come back each year. I am just now trying them so I don’t know how they will do but hope they will do well in my garden and yours.
Fall Garden Class August 1
Hard to believe but it is time to start your fall veggie garden! Fall is one of the easiest season to grow veggies. Please join me, “The Tomato Lady”, to learn how to plant a successful fall garden. Presented by the Santa Fe Extension Master Gardeners
Planting Your Fall Vegetable Garden
DATE: Tuesday, August 1st, 5:30- 7:30 p.m.
LOCATION: Southside Library 6599 Jaguar Dr. Santa Fe, NM
COST: FREE!
Free seeds will be available from the Seed Library located in the Southside Library
HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE!
2023-A beany kind of year!
Rouge de Paris dry bush bean from William Woys Weaver
The past 2 years, I’ve been growing out some rare veggie seed varieties from William Woys Weaver (I call him W3), who has collected many rare seeds over the years. Last year for him I grew rare cowpeas but this year I chose beans. This is in addition to my regular tomatoes, zukes, winter squash, cauliflower, chard, beets radishes, cukes and peppers and different varieties of berries/grapes .Good thing I have a BIG garden!
W3 wants his growers to grow out seeds that are getting older to keep the varieties viable. He sent some seeds, you can’t even find online. So this year I’m growing Landreth’s bush bean, Six Nations bush bean, Early Mohawk bush bean, Rouge de Paris bush bean, Wild Pigeon semi-pole bean. All of theses are dry beans. I am also growing one cowpea, Big Red Zipper, a pole cowpea (think black eye peas as we call them in the US) which has long pods with 8-10 large red cow peas that are so beautiful.
The only seeds that did not germinate well was the Landreth’s bean, where only 6 plants germinated out of 30. The seed I received for Landreth’s bean was 6 years old, so it is getting up there in age so I won’t get a lot but he will get whatever I get in the end. This is a good lesson to start saving your seeds! I am also allowed to keep some of each variety as well if I want.
In addition, I am growing out my friend, Lava Ewersmeyer’s, Garrofon Pintat pole butter bean which hails from Spain and Buschbonne Cannolino Rosso bush bean from Germany-both are beautiful white with red splashes. Lava lives in Berlin and here in Santa Fe, enjoying duel citizenship. Lava also gave me seeds for the Lava Red pepper ( a Corno de Horno variety) and Ruthje cherry tomato, both are outstanding which I grow each year as well. Thanks Lava!
Growing new varieties of seeds I’ve never tried before keeps me interested in gardening and I am saving seed that might otherwise go extinct which is important. Hopefully some will be fantastic! I really like bean seeds as so many of them are really beautiful.
Oh and I am growing one green bean for fresh-eating-Emerite pole bean which is a gourmet french filet bean that you can get in the US. I just have to keep up on picking them as if you let them get bigger than a pencil width, the skins get woody. So I pick often when they are ready (which they are not yet).
July Garden- Tomato Update
Last year’s Black Cherry tomatoes. They are still green right now.
In case you wondered what happened to me, I have been super busy putting in the garden in May and June. The garden is now completely in. I just noticed I haven’t posted since March. Sorry-the garden called.
So instead of giving you what’s been going on in the garden all at once, I will break it down into several posts.
Let’s start with my favorite crop, TOMATOES!
I started my tomato seeds inside on a heat mat, under lights on April 14th. The tomatoes have been in the ground since May 10th. I put them in young. I don’t wait for them to get to gallon size. They seem to adjust better outside when I put them in younger.
I consider that date kinda late since I usually try to put them in the ground the first week of May. We had a cold snap the first week of May so I waited. I always put them in the ground with wall of waters around them for protection from cold nights, especially when I put them in early. My goal is to get them to set some fruit before it gets too hot. They are out of the wall of waters now (one must take them out when it gets hot and it is hot 90°F+ right now and they are protected from the beet leafhopper under MEDIUM WEIGHT row cover NOT heavy weight which will hold in too much heat at this point. Funny I hadn’t seen any leafhoppers until we got hotter. Now they are here. Keep your tomato plants completely covered until the monsoons come. Looks like it is coming in later than last year but hopefully within the next 2 weeks. I’m tired of looking at the plants with row cover over them, but whatch you gonna do? To take them out now could spell the end to many of your tomato plants, so keep them covered. Leafhoppers bite the plant and give them a deadly virus hence the cover. And since tomato plants are self-pollinating, they can be covered.
I did see some of the plants set their fruit (earlier before the heat set in) when I peaked inside the covered cages. And more will come so I don’t worry. Just wish the extreme heat would end.
When the heat reaches 92°F and above, the tomatoes will drop off their blossoms. This is called blossom drop. They will set the blossoms into fruit when the temps are lower than 92°F. Tomatoes continuously put out blossoms. Once the fruit is set, the plants aren’t picky about high temperatures and the tomatoes are not likely to fall off. Then we get to worry about other things-more diseases, bugs etc. but not while they are covered…
I try to grow some early mid and late season varieties of tomatoes so I get some throughout the season. Here is a list of my tomato varieties this year 2023:
CHERRY TOMATOES
Ruthje-red pointy-as sweet as Sungold-65 days to harvest
Moby dwarf (trial)-yellow-63 days to harvest
Black Cherry-black-65-75 days to harvest
Fruity-cherry-red-65 days to harvest
EARLY SEASON
Large Barred Boar-bicolor-65 days to harvest
Goliath-red-65 days to harvest
Large Barred Boar-bicolor-65 days to harvest
MID-SEASON
Black Sea Man-black/purplish-75 days to harvest
Cherokee Carbon-Black/purple-75 days to harvest
Cherokee Purple-brick color-75 days to harvest
Marmanade-Red-67 days to harvest
Juane Flamme-orange-70 days to harvest
NEW! Abraham Brown-black/brown-75 days to harvest
Paul Robeson-black/brick color-75 days to harvest
LATE SEASON
Lucky Cross-yellow-74 days to harvest
Big Zac-red-80 days to harvest
Virginia Sweet-yellow bi-color-80 days to harvest
NEW! Giant de Bolzano-red-80 Days to harvest
Goldman’s Italian American-red paste-85 days to harvest
Greens update
I grew too many greens this year. I planted more seeds than I needed because I thought the seeds might be too old so I planted more in case the germination rate was low. Guess what? They all germinated.
Lettuces have been transplanted outside in green house-Thursday Mar 23, Pak Choi, Bok Choi, arugula, spinach and a few more lettuces are going into cold frame up by house. I had to fix 2 areas from mice or bigger animal-one big hole where someone dug in from the under a side board in my cold frame and in the green house, mice were getting inside a completely covered bed that has been mice proofed for 3 years. I dug down in the cold frame, removed the soil where it was. I used hardware cloth to block the underside and the inside and outside of the wall to block out whatever got in there. Hopefully this will solve the problem. And on the inside of the green house, where I have 2 eight foot beds that are completely covered I put self sticking window gasket on the edge of the lid and a latch where there may have been a gap for a small mouse to get through to close up that possibility. The green house looks good with no one nibbling on the lettuces. Since I just planted more in the cold frame, the verdict is out if I’ve thwarted the rascal. A few days will tell if I succeeded.
When I put the lettuces in the green house last week I forgot to look at the weather for that night before I planted them and afterwards saw the projection! It was suppose to get down to 21 degrees that night here in Santa Fe. Stupid me! I’m always telling everyone to look at the forecast before planting in early spring. The greenhouse stays about 5-10 degrees warmer than the outside air. I freaked a bit so I put down 2 sheets of medium weight row cover on top and that night I put a 3rd sheet of row cover over it, hoping they would all survive. I use medium weight row cover which has about 3-4 degree protection from freezing weather. It worked-so all of them came through beautifully. Just goes to show you I should listen to my own advice! I lucked out!
Successful Seed Planting class handouts
For those of you who attended the class I taught last night at the Seed Library in Southside Library, Santa Fe, thanks for coming! All 58 of you! And thanks to the Santa Fe Extension Master Gardener for putting this class on. Even if you couldn’t attend the class, you may find the handouts useful.
Don’t forget you can pick up seeds at the Seed Library at Southside Library starting MARCH 25.This will be in lieu of the various seed booths around town.
Below are the handouts as pdfs so you can print them in case you need them.
Easier seed starting schedule
So after thinking about my last post, I realized it might be too much info (TMI). So today I am giving you just some starting dates and planting out dates that I use here in Santa Fe, Zone 6B. You will need to transplant anything you start inside as it gets bigger before planting outside.
This schedule will be simpler to follow (especially if you only grow a few veggies) and if you want to see when to plant up to a bigger size pot, you can always go to my very detailed schedule from before. Also be aware this is MY schedule and I use row cover and wall of waters to be able to put the crops outside earlier AND weather will always influence when I plant outside. If you don’t use these aids, transplant tomatoes, peppers and eggplants in JUNE.
FEBRUARY-MARCH
-Start COLD SEASON CROPS-INSIDE-greens-lettuce, arugula, spinach and Asian greens, cabbage
MARCH
-EARLY MARCH-INSIDE COOL SEASON CROPS kale, chard, broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi
-EARLY MARCH-INSIDE-start peppers and eggplants
-MID-MARCH-TRANSPLANT OUTSIDE COLD SEASON CROPS (with protection) IN GREEN HOUSE OR COLD FRAME OR MINI GREENHOUSE-all greens that were started in FEB
-LATE MARCH-inside-start tomatoes
APRIL
-Transplant starts OUTSIDE-beets, kale, chard, broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, cabbage, onion sets, garlic
-OUTSIDE-DIRECT SEED-Radishes, flowers, carrots, beets
MAY
-plant OUTSIDE-tomatoes (WITH PROTECTION), flowers, and anything above you haven’t planted outside yet
JUNE
-Plant OUTSIDE transplants of tomatoes, peppers, eggplants (if you don’t use wall of waters)
-DIRECT SEED WARM SEASON CROPS OUTSIDE-more flowers, corn, beans, cucumbers, squash, melons, pumpkins
Here it is as a pdf SIMPLIFIED SEED STARTING SCHEDULE so you can just print it out.
Seed Starting Schedule-2023
With all the snow outside right now isn’t it too early to start seeds inside? NO!
My radio show will air on Saturday, Feb 25 on KSFR 101.1 radio station and airs the last Saturday of every month where I give tips and advise about gardening for the following month. March will be about my seed starting schedule which I’ve already started but many veggies can be started later too from the schedule.
I want to talk about my planting schedule for 2023. Thought you readers might be interested. Of course, the dates are not carved in stone and changes a little each year but it tells me when I should get growing and how I think when starting crops. Some are started inside and later many warm season crops are started inside and more warm season crops will be direct seeded into the ground when the ground warms up in June. If you plan to grow veggies this year, it is good to be organized. I need to see it in writing.
This may seem a bit much to make up such a detailed schedule but I grow so many varieties of veggies and they each have their own growing season so it keeps me on track. You can use mine or make your own up-you can do it simply in a notebook but I hope this will help you start to think of your planning.
You can listen to the show and pick up the notes and schedule after the show or get them here. This is shown BELOW as a jpeg, but you can print it out the pdf ( 2023 SEED STARTING SCHEDULE) I also have it as an Excel file (2023 SEED STARTING SCHEDULE for those of you who have it-that way you can adjust your own schedule)
Please note that once I plant the early cool season crops outside, I use row cover (polypropylene fabric) over them on a cold nite to keep them from freezing. I have people ask if they can use a sheet-NO and one person told me they used a sleeping bag-NO! It didn’t work! ( I told them the only way they could use that was if they were in it!)
For germination tips, go here: Also here is (Zone 6a): SEED GERMINATION CHART which gives the optimal soil germination temperature of crops and how long to germinate.
Later when ready to transplant tomatoes and peppers/eggplants outside, I will use wall of waters (WOWs) to help start the season earlier so if you don’t use either of those aids, then you will have to wait till danger of frost is over. These two aids are invaluable and will give you a head start on getting some of the crops outside in earlier.
I have already started INSIDE with lettuces, spinach, arugula, bok choi, and pak choi. All these will go from the germination trays to pony packs and then after they are big enough, go in either the Green house or cold frame. Seems early? YES but I want to get to harvest the cool season crops before the heat comes and they take 30-60 days to grow to harvest. Must get them out of the house before we start tomatoes inside on March 28 as we need the space inside by then!
PEPPERS
The next thing I will start are peppers inside on Mar 1 (on the schedule), because they take a long time to get sized up. I always said wait until June 1 but if you have wall of waters (WOWs) they might help get your pepper plants outside a little sooner. Even then, it is still very cool at nite. What happens to peppers if you plant outside when it is still cold at nite? They will stall out and stop growing! And they won’t start growing again-then you would have to buy some because it will be too late to start them again.
TOMATOES
Next- will plant tomato seeds on March 28.
NOTE: Before it get’s hot in JUNE, take off the WOWs as you can fry the plants-all plants. BUT if you don’t have WOWs, wait till June 1 to plant peppers/eggplants and May 15 for tomatoes outside.
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For March-to recap
Cool season crops inside, under lights -NO heat mats early March
Warm season crops inside-Tomatoes/peppers/eggplants under lights with HEAT MATS and a THERMOSTAT will help keep the temperature at the correct germination temp. Notice peppers/eggplant seeds are planted earlier because they take so long to size up before planting outside and tomato seeds are being planted Mar 28 this year.
If this is too much info, go buy your plants ready to transplant-you can still use the schedule. Why do I grow my own varieties? Because there are so many more great varieties of veggies you can grow IF YOU START THEM YOURSELF.
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LEGEND FOR SEED STARTING SCHEDULE below (in case you don’t know what my initials mean)
seeds/i=starting seeds inside under lights/no heat for cool season crops/warm season crops also get a heat mat.
tranplant/pp/i=transplanting up to pony packs-still inside under lights (4 or 6 cells-like what you buy flowers in)
transplant GH/CF-transplant into unheated Greenhouse/cold frame. Use row cover over crops at nites to protect from cold-I sometimes use 2 layers of row cover if very cold.
DS outside-Direct seed outside
I write notes all over the schedule so I see what I did for next year. For instance, I changed my cold season crops (lettuces/spinach/arugula) to a later date. No reason except I didn’t check last year’s dates and am late, but not too late. I try to be done with them when it gets too warm in the green house or cold frame which is usually around late April-early May before they bolt. Bolting is when they produce a flower stalk which makes them bitter. I either compost them then or feed them to my chickens. I don’t like bitter greens.
2023 SEED STARTING SCHEDULE (EXPAND TO SEE BETTER OR JUST DOWNLOAD ONE OF THE THE FORMATS)
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