Weekly Gardening Outlook

This will be a continuing series where we look ahead at the coming week in gardening for the Northwest Arkansas area.

Rocky Top lettuce mix (week 2)

Pink Beauty radishes (week 2)

Dry weather this past week has required frequent watering of these new seedlings, especially the lettuce.

Swiss Chard

 These gems continue to produce for us, regardless of the weather.

Blue Scotch Kale

The kale hasn't taken off again like we had hoped, but the temperatures have been close to 90 over the last week.  Maybe when it cools down.

Celeriac growing nice big roots

 These aren't ready to harvest yet, but they are growing great!  Should be good recipe additions this winter.  We have enjoyed the greens as a celery flavor addition to many recipes this summer.

Purple "green beans"

 This was part of dinner last night.  Nothing like fresh from the vine to the plate in less than 30 minutes.

Jalapeño peppers to the left; Serrano peppers to the right

 The cooler weather has rejuvenated these peppers.  Believe it or not, they don't prefer scorching hot temperatures.

Evergreen bunching onions

These have provided us with fresh green onions for cooking all summer.

Things to be on the lookout for:

Harlequin bugs atop Swiss chard

TIP:  Spray the plant with water for a few seconds and, within a minute or two, any harlequin bugs will climb to the top of the plant.  This works for squash bugs and leaffooted bugs as well.  Once at the top, they can be sprayed with an organic contact killer like pyrethrin or hand picked/vacuumed off.  Even though pyrethrin is considered organic, we hand picked these off.  We will be eating the greens and don't want to spray them directly.

Weather outlook:

-Warm; upper 80's early falling to upper 70's later in the week, with a chance of rain every day.
-Ten day forecast

What's being harvested:

-Green beans

-Peppers
-Chard
-Tomatoes
-Celeriac leaves, basil, mint, and other herbs
-Apples

Weekly Gardening Outlook (The Third Season Begins)

This will be a continuing series where we look ahead at the coming week in gardening for the Northwest Arkansas area.

The protracted rainfall over the last week has been ideal for germination and growth of our recently planted salad mix and radishes.

Lettuce popping up (1 week)

Radishes coming up (1 week)

The late summer flush of produce is underway. The cooler, wetter weather has reinvigorated the garden.

New growth and blooms on tomatoes

New leaves, fresh beans, and new blooms on the green bean vines

Weather outlook:

-Warming back up to the mid to upper 80's all week, with a slight chance of rain Thursday.
-Ten day forecast

What's being harvested:

-Green beans
-Peppers
-Chard
-Tomatoes
-Celeriac leaves, basil, mint, and other herbs
-Apples

Jerusalem Artichokes (Sunchokes)

Eight foot tall sunchokes

Jerusalem artichokes (aka sunchokes) are members of the sunflower family that produce edible tubers in their roots.  They are not related to the globe artichokes with which you may be familiar.  The tubers are similar to potatoes in texture and taste when cooked.  Eaten raw, they are similar to water chestnuts.  Unlike potatoes, they require virtually no maintenance once planted.

Stand of sunchokes growing amongst the weeds

We ordered 1 pound of Red Fuseau Jerusalem artichokes in the early spring.  We specifically obtained this variety because the tubers are straight and easy to peel.  More traditional varieties are tedious to peel due to thier shape.  On April 8th, we planted them 4" deep in the area of our property that we allow to grow wild.  That's it; no further attention was paid to them.  Just plant them in a sunny location.  They began to emerge in late April and grew to 7 or 8 feet tall.  In late August they began to put on yellow blooms.  Today, we dug one plant up early to check on tuber development and found 10 young tubers forming in the roots.  Each one was about the size of a quarter, but will grow to 3 to 4" long and 1 to 1 1/2" thick.  They can be harvested anytime, but optimal size and taste will be after a frost has killed of the top of the plant.

Root bundle with several small tubers

Developing tuber

Jerusalem artichokes are known to be quite invasive (i.e. easy to grow), so we aren't sure if they will require replanting each year.  We hope that they are like our garlic and will return even after being harvested.  This year we will conduct an experiment.  We will harvest all of the tubers we can this winter, then we will see if new plants emerge from missed tubers on the Spring.  If so, great!  If not, we will have missed a year of production, but will have learned something.

Putting up the Harvest:

Harvest from the soil as needed.  Store for short periods of time in the refrigerator.

Weekly Gardening Outlook

This will be a continuing series where we look ahead at the coming week in gardening for the Northwest Arkansas area.

Late season tomato plants

It's late in the season and all the garden plants are showing their age.  Gone are the lush, blemish free leaves of early summer.  Nonetheless, the tomato plants keep plugging along, producing fat red fruits for us.  

Planting the fall salad garden:

Prepared location for lettuce planting

With about 5 weeks left until the first frost of the year and rain predicted for the next three days, it was a perfect time to rough up some dirt and spread some seeds.  Knowing that temperatures are going to continue to drop and the sun is moving lower into the southern sky, we chose the southern-most, sunniest locations to plant in.  All it took was a light raking of the soil surface, scattering seed by hand, followed by another light raking of the soil surface.  The soil needs to remain damp until the seeds emerge (about 7 days).

Rocky Top lettuce mix

Pink Beauty radishes

Free water.

Weather outlook:

Huzzah!

-Upper 70's to mid 80s, with a significant chance of rain throughout the week!!!

-Ten day forecast

What's being harvested:
-Peppers

-Chard 

-Tomatoes
-Celeriac leaves, basil, mint, and other herbs

-Apples

Salad Garden Update

White, pink, and yellow Swiss chard in our garden

During the hottest months of the year, our salad gardening is fairly boring.  Swiss chard with a few scraps of things like lambs quarters, nasturtium leaves, carrots, radishes, etc fill our bowls.  With the cooler weather comes the fall/winter salad crops.  We will be planting a salad mix called Rocky Top in the next few days.  Our kale has weathered the summer and is beginning to put on new growth.  We've never over-summered kale before, so we aren't sure how it will go.  The mighty chard will continue to produce for us even in cooler weather.  It, along with the lettuce mix can handle some light frosts before dieing back.  If the kale reemerges as we expect, it should produce for us well into the winter.

White chard in our garden

Pink, yellow, and white chard in a customer's garden

Blue Curled Scotch Kale left over from the Spring

New growth

Weekly Gardening Outlook (Rain!!!)

This will be a continuing series where we look ahead at the coming week in gardening for the Northwest Arkansas area.

There's rain in that barrel!

Someone out there has been working on their rain dance technique!  We haven't had rain in 6 weeks and have seen temperatures over 100 degrees during that time.  Last night a solitary thunderstorm cell dropped the wet stuff on us for 20 minutes.  Not enough to do much more than knock the dust down, but with the weatherpersons calling for a 40-50% chance of rain each of the next 3 days, we are hopeful for more.  Our rain barrel gathered about 15 gallons during that shower.

Spaghetti Squash / Squash Vine Borer Update:

Alas, we hardly knew ye.  The barrage of insect activity noted last week did the squash vines in.  They made it almost 8 weeks.  Next season, we will more vigilant and ready with BT for the borers and pyrethrin/neem oil for everything else.  If that doesn't work... the farmer's market is open 3 days a week.  Wish us luck!

Things to be on the lookout for:

Young strawberry plants for next season

Continuing with the theme, keep tabs on soil moisture.  As hot and dry as it has been, these late summer crops are already stressed.  Forget about them for a few days and you could lose them, missing out on the late season harvest.  Contrasted in the picture above are young daughter strawberry plants thriving in this dry spell surrounded by leaves from a nearby sycamore tree.  Those leaves are there because the tree is experiencing drought stress and is prematurely dropping its leaves. Our water bill has crept into three digits for the first time ever, but most of our crops are doing okay.  Don't be afraid to get your fingers dirty.  A finger in the dirt is the best way to estimate soil moisture.  A crust on the soil surface is okay, but try to keep the soil a few inches down as damp as a well wrung out sponge.

Weather outlook:
-80s all week.  Nighttime lows into the low 50s late in the week.  Fall is in the air!  A good chance of rain Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
-Ten day forecast

What's being harvested:
-Peppers

-Chard 

-Tomatoes
-Celeriac leaves, basil, mint, and other herbs

-Apples

Sweet Potatoes

Sweet potatoes have proven to be one of the lowest maintenance crops that we've grown.  We mail-ordered Georgia Jet sweet potato slips and planted 8 square feet (2 per square ft.) in early May after we were sure a frost wasn't coming.  From there, we guided them through the eight-foot tall cattle panel trellis as they grew.  The only pest issue has been a few Japanese beetles and a treatment of neem oil took care of that. 

     2 weeks

     7 weeks

     11 weeks

     14 weeks

Tips and Tricks:

The literature says Georgia Jets require 90-100 days from planting to harvest.  At 100 days we eagerly turned back the dirt under some of our outermost vines.  We found small potatoes as pictured above.  In Northwest Arkansas, we still have 50 days of growing season left.  Plenty of time to put on size.  This just shows that local growing conditions vary and that the "days to harvest" number is a guideline only.  We will check them again in 2-3 weeks and keep you updated.  They must all be harvested before a frost hits.  Even though they are under ground, they cannot handle it like a white potato.

Putting up the Harvest:

Harvest when the soil is dry.  Dig slowly from the edge, trying to avoid nicking the potatoes.  Put the potatoes in the shade for a couple of hours, then brush away as much dirt as possible with your hand.  Take any that are damaged into the kitchen to cook in the next day or so.  Put the rest in a warm (80-90 degrees) location, like a garage.  Cover them with a damp towel to help them heal over any abrasions.  After 10-14 days, put them into boxes with straw, wood shavings, or shredded paper.  Split them into several boxes if possible to reduce the risk of spoilage ruining all of your potatoes.  Store them in a cool (50-60 degrees) location.