Here are two simple approaches to getting more beans than you’ve dreamed possible.

Plant Both Bush Beans and Pole Beans

• The bush beans produce earlier than the pole beans. The beans tend to come on all at once and the the plant is finished. By then, the pole beans start to set.

• Pole beans take time to make vines (up to 10 feet worth), so the beans come on later. Beans will set for 1-2 months depending on your weather. That’s a lot of bean-y goodness!

Space-Limited Gardens: Multiple Pole Bean Crops

• Plant a succession of bush beans 2 weeks apart.

• If you plan to be gone for a few weeks, then figure that into your plantings. There is no need to have beans setting when no one is home to enjoy them.
• Get a jump on the season by starting bean seeds indoors or in a green house. Keep those seedlings warm! They are heat lovers. Do not set the seedlings in the garden until the soil temperature is about 70 degrees.

Here’s the rub: Tomato seeds germinate at temperatures between 70 and 80 degrees. Can you provide that kind of consistent heat in February or March? I can’t. If the air temperatures are too low, the seed will simply rot. Break my heart!

Serious greenhouse operators have heating devices for such situations. Seeded flats sit on heated pads until germination is complete. Seedlings can handle cooler temperatures, so they are moved off the heated pads and other seeded flats take their place. This is a great system, but the heating set-up can be expensive.

An alternative to the traditional heat set-up is to use a pet heating pad. They come in a variety of sizes and prices, but much less pricey than the traditional seed starter set-ups. Pick one with a water-proof surface and you are in business. Amazon has a good assortment to choose from here.

Happy planting!

Variety

When you select your own varieties from the many different seeds available, you find a treasury of vegetables that you’ll not find in the market. You can be eating red carrots, watermelon radishes, pineapple tomatoes, and purple broccoli. Choose from a variety of sweet Italian peppers, various paste-type tomatoes, bush green beans, and pole green beans.

With seeds, you can be wild and extravagant andyou can be 99% certain that no garden center will be carrying these seedlings among its spring offerings.

Experiment! Try varieties you never heard of. It will just cost the price of the pack of seeds. Go through seed catalogs and drool. Once you’ve ordered seed from a company, they will probably send you a catalogue for the next couple of years. Save the catalogs and dream about next season.

Save Money

If your garden is sizable, seed starting is the way to save money. This past planting season, I estimated that if I had to pay commercial prices for the seedlings I set out, they would have cost me $200. That doesn’t fit my money-saving plans!

Having a large garden lets you over-plant and then thin as the plants grow. You eat the thinning, giving you a crop almost immediately after planting. More savings! Having your own seedlings makes this possible.

Extend The Season

To get the maximum harvest from your plants even if your season is short, get a jump start planting seeds indoors. This can give you a 2-3 months head start.

To get an even larger harvest of favorite vegetables, plant three varieties – an early season, mid season, and late season. Good seed catalogs will give you the information you need to make your selections. For example, if tomatoes are your favorite, you would plant an early season, a mid season, and a late season tomato. By the time the late season tomatoes are ready for harvest, the early season tomato plants will probably be pooped out and ready for the compost. You can have several more weeks of garden tomatoes this way.

Plan gardening trellises for these climbers with a mind toward sunlight and easy harvesting. The vines will need sun for the plants to thrive but they should not be so high that it is unreasonable to pick the vegetables or fruit.

This is also your best opportunity for repurposing old structures as garden trellises. We found a garden using an old swing set for training vines. Now my son wants a real swing set in the garden, in part for the purpose of a trellis and in part so that he can take a break from helping with garden chores by jumping on a swing in the garden. (It’s a thought all right.)

We have used the sides of a recalled baby crib and old remnant fencing to help guide our plants in the right direction.

Of course, there is the new construction option as well, particularly if you are going for a particular look in the garden.

Add to the comments with any interesting trellises you’ve used in your garden or noticed in other gardens.

1. Watch the stems. When they begin to turn brown and look a bit shriveled, it is time to cut.

2. Use heavy-duty pruners to cut the stem, leaving an inch or two attached to the squash. This bit of stem acts as a plug, keeping the butternut from drying out prematurely.
3. Leave the butternut in the garden for about a week to cure. Turn it about 1/4 each day.
4. Handle your squash carefully. Bruises and cuts will cause it to break down more quickly.
5. Wipe off the outsides of the butternut with a solution of 1 tablespoon bleach to 1 gallon of water. This kills fungus that might start working on eating your squash before you do.
6. Store your butternut squash in single layers, in a cool dry place.
7. Check every couple of weeks for spoilage and remove any offenders before they affect the good butternuts.

Enjoy your harvest for months! We have had butternuts last six months.

We used to ripen tomatoes on our window sill and are here to report that’s a bad idea. Ripening tomatoes need dark, cool spots, not bright warm spots like a window sill.

As you would ripen avocados, place the tomatoes in a paper bag and place the bag in a cool spot. Ideally you would place one tomato in one bag by itself but depending on how many tomatoes you have you will quickly run out of bags. As an alternative, use an egg carton for smaller paste tomatoes and even for the smaller round tomatoes you harvest. Place the carton in a cool place. In our picture here, the picture to the left is the tomatoes as they came out of the garden. The middle picture is Day 5 and the right picture is Day 10. Of course the cartons were closed and set in a cool dark room during those days, not left on our back porch step waiting for more pictures.

This time last year I had transplanted my summer vegetables into bigger pots and was holding them in a make-shift greenhouse. This year the summer vegetables are already in the ground and growing just like it was summer.

Vegetables are very specific about the temperatures they need in order to grow a crop. Those vegetables do not flex with erratic weather. The gardener must be flexible. I’ve flexed like one of those slinky toys the kids love and it looks like my flexing is finally paying off.

Air Temperatures

We have been having lovely warm days. All the vegetables enjoy this weather but the night temperatures drop into the low forties and high thirties. The beets are fine with this arrangement — they seem to thrive. But you cannot leave a tomato out in those night temperatures. The poor plant smiles during the day and then goes into shock at night. The tomato plant will probably survive the trauma, but it will not grow and vine and flex its little tomato muscles. Most of its energy goes into just surviving.

A common practice in this area has been to cover tomato seedlings with translucent paper hot caps. This works fine for a couple of weeks until the plant is too big for the cap. If the temperatures have not risen, the now-uncovered tomato plant will sit shivering, not growing.

This year I have planted tomatoes in a bed that is a miniature hoop house. The translucent plastic that covers the hoops at night protects the bed from dropping temperatures. If the daytime weather gets cold, I leave the plastic in place around the clock. Usually I uncover the bed in the day to keep it from over-heating and cover it again in the early evening to keep it warm overnight.

Soil Temperatures

When the warm days of summer arrive, you tend to not recognize the soil still being cold. If you were a summer vegetable, you would definitely notice. Most of the summer vegetables will not start growing well until the soil temperature is nearly the same as the air temperature. Did you know that it takes six weeks for the soil to warm up to that level?

Here’s the key: Start warming the soil well in advance of your proposed planting date. I’ve done it two ways:

1. Prepare your bed with amendments and other soil-building work and then cover the bed with 6-mil black plastic. Weigh the plastic down so it stays in place. I usually use old metal fence posts for this. Do this six weeks before your planting date and the soil will be warm and ready. A couple bonuses with the plastic is that it keeps the moisture in and the weeds down. Pull back the plastic and you are ready to plant.

2. Put hoops across your prepared bed and cover the bed with translucent 4-mil plastic. With a hoop bed, both the air and the soil warm up. This year I have planted tomatoes in a hoop bed that was stuffed with cool weather vegetables a few weeks back. I planned my harvest of these cool weather vegetables to create open areas to plant the tomatoes. Pulling a plant leaves a hole. I fill the hole with compost and plant the tomato in the compost. By the time the tomatoes get bushy, all of their beet and garlic neighbors will be gone. I will fill those holes with compost as a side-dressing for the tomato plants that will probably be as tall as me by then.

This is the start of a great tomato summer!

Like tomatoes, peppers are a warm season crop. Peppers are very similar to tomatoes in the way they are planted and grown. They are generally easy to grow and you should be successful on your very first round. Here is some information to get you started growing peppers.

Pepper Varieties

Peppers break down into hot peppers and sweet peppers. Within each of those two categories are scores of different varieties.

Sweet Peppers

Believe it or not, there are more sweet peppers besides the common bell peppers. After you have explored the range of sweet peppers, bell peppers will seem boring. Take the sweet banana pepper for instance. Slice it fresh into a salad. The texture is crunchy and the flavor is rich and bright. Try making your favorite pasta sauce with sauteed sweet Italian peppers and you will want to never be without sweet Italians again. The pimento pepper is a long-season pepper that produces thick-walled rich red goodness. Strips of roasted fresh pimento pepper served in a salad make you want to cry that you did not plant more. Check out this chart for descriptions of some of the less marketed sweet peppers.

I wrote a more in-depth discussion of sweet peppers, describing flavors and variety on our sweet peppers resource.

Hot Peppers

A passion for hot peppers has swept the country and along with it, a passion for growing hot peppers. If you are new to scene, you must get some understanding of the broad spectrum of heat in different hot peppers. They range from mildly hot like the Fresno chili to firecracker hot like a Thai chili. Look over the Scoville chart on pepper heat to see how extremely broad this heat spectrum is. Decide which hot peppers are right for you.

Hot peppers vary in size and shape. You can find large ones to stuff with cheese and turn them into chili rellanos. You will also find hot peppers that are slender and no more than an inch long. Some of the hot peppers are picked green, like the jalapeno, but will turn red or dark orange when fully ripe. Hot peppers reach their full heat and flavor when they grow past the green stage. Check this chart for a description of some of the hot peppers.

Every hot pepper fanatic has at least one hot pepper book. Here is one book you will enjoy as a gardener.

For more information on pepper varieties, try this species guide and seed exchange link.

Have fun! This is rather like a treasure hunt.

When To Plant Peppers

If you are starting your own pepper seeds, it takes about 8 weeks from the sowing of the seed to putting the seedlings in the ground. For most locations, you need to start your seeds indoors or in a greenhouse in January or February. Counting backwards, you need to order your seeds by December.

If you are buying pepper seedlings, they go in the garden when the night temperatures stay above 50 degrees and there is no danger of frost. To stretch the season, warm up the soil by covering the bed with 6mil black plastic for a few weeks before planting the seedlings and then rig a way to stretch a floating row cover over the bed for a few weeks. This could buy you as much as a month of extra grow time, maybe more. Often I buy a few pepper seedlings available in the valley below us. The valley is warm enough for planting outdoors. We are not, at least not for a month. I keep the seedlings in a greenhouse situation, watering them with diluted fertilizer and repotting them if necessary.

How To Plant Peppers

Follow these basic steps for planting peppers:

1. Prepare your garden bed by digging in finished compost and loosening the soil down to 18 inches or more. Use a low nitrogen fertilizer. Too much nitrogen results in a great big green plant with little crop.

2. Space the pepper plants 12-18 inches apart, depending on the variety. Some are more explosive than others.
3. Sink the plants about an inch below the soil level. Like tomatoes, peppers put out roots along the main stem. These added roots contribute to plant strength and larger harvest. If the seedling has begun to bloom, pinch off the flowers. Let all the energy in the beginning of the season go into growing a robust plant. The crop will follow.
4. After the soil has warmed to match the temperature of the air, spread a good mulch to conserve the moisture. Peppers need a consistent supply of moisture. On a really hot day, one pepper plant may require a gallon of water. Plan to watch the watering closely.
5. Stake the plants as they grow and put on the weight of the pepper crop. Staking is an absolute necessity with some varieties of peppers to keep the branches from breaking under the weight of the crop.

For more pepper planting savvy, check out this video by John of Grow Your Greens. He is planting 48 pepper plants in a raised bed. John’s videos are filled with gardening wisdom. While you are seeking a bit more information, here is an article from Organic Gardening.

Growing Peppers in Containers

Peppers lend themselves to containers, just be certain the container is 14 inches deep or more. Use a mix of half potting soil and half finished compost. Plant in the container in the same fashion as for planting in the ground. There are two advantages to growing peppers in containers:

1. The pots can be moved around to provide the perfect growing conditions for your peppers. If a heat wave hits, move the pots to a cooler spot to keep the peppers from getting sun burned. As the season wanes, you can move the pots to catch the lengthening sun rays.

2. Peppers are subtropical perennials. If your pepper plants can be preserved from the winter cold, they can be set out again in the following season. If you have the space, it is certainly worth the effort. When winter is near, prune back the plants and move them inside or to a greenhouse for overwintering. Give the peppers as much light as you can manage. Keep them watered but not wet. In the spring you will notice new leaf buds forming on the branches. Set the plants outside when you are two weeks past frost time and the night air stays above 50 degrees. Keep the water and the fertilizer going and you will be amazed at the huge crop you get from a second-year pepper plant.

Harvesting Peppers

For the best flavor and the highest nutritive values, peppers should be harvested when they are ripe. Ripe peppers are not actually green. Peppers left to ripen will turn red, orange, or sometimes yellow. The yellow sweet banana pepper turns bright orange when it is ripe.

Here is the dilemma: Pepper plants that have peppers ripening will not set more peppers. The result will be a small crop. If peppers are picked when still green, the plant will set more peppers in an attempt to produce seed.

Here is a suggestion: Plant a few of any given variety that you intend to pick green. Plant a few more that you set aside to produce ripe peppers of that variety. The ripe peppers have a richer, more complex flavor than their green counterparts. With this plan, you can have your cake and eat it too.

When you remove peppers from the plant, clip them with garden shears or pruners. Leave an inch of stem on the plant. Do not pull the peppers by hand. This could damage the plant.

About a month before the first expected frost, prune the top of the pepper plants and pick off any small peppers just getting started. This encourages the plant energy to focus on the larger peppers, bringing them to maturity before the end of the season. It is just a little work with a big payoff.

Storing Peppers

New gardeners will often ask how to store peppers. The answer is that peppers really do not store. Pick them and use them fresh. Peppers are a warm weather vegetable and do not thrive in the refrigerator. Both the flavor and the texture suffer. Peppers will last for a day or two on the kitchen counter. For the finest pepper experience, pick them and consume them in the same day.

Preserving Peppers

Fresh peppers may not store well, but their remarkable flavors do. This is one reason for growing several varieties. Some peppers you will enjoy fresh and raw. Those same peppers may taste colorless when cooked. As you experiment with different pepper varieties you will find your favorites. For freezing and canning, sweet Italians have it hands-down for me. Every hot pepper I’ve met dries well and sweet banana peppers are my favorite for pickling.

As far as your preserving method goes, decide on which method will produce the pepper product you will use the most. Start there. It’s a sad thing to see someone can 25 quarts of pickled pepper only to consume 2 of them and give the rest away. Preserve peppers in ways that you will use and enjoy.

Drying Peppers

Drying is the oldest of the pepper preserving methods. In hot climates where hot peppers thrive, you will see strings of peppers threaded onto fish line, hanging in the shade to dry. Where there is space, gardeners will spread hot peppers out on an old screen door supported by sawhorses. As long as there is shade, this is a fast and efficient way to dry peppers.

The more modern version of drying peppers happens in a food dehydrator like the Excalibur, about the most effective drying machine around. You can dry the peppers whole, halved, or diced depending on the pepper variety and your intended use for the dried peppers. The drying process is fast so the colors stay bright. The heat is low so the food is still considered raw, with nutrition still pretty much intact.

Bottle up your dried peppers in glass jars with tight-fitting lids. Stand back and admire your work. It really is a beautiful sight! Then place the jars in a cool dark place.

Freezing Peppers

I have two favorite ways of freezing peppers based on how I use those peppers later in my cooking. Just know that frozen peppers are soggy after they thaw. If you are using them in soups and stir-fries it doesn’t matter.

(For a more in-depth look at both of these methods, check out our resource on freezing peppers.)

1. Frozen, Raw Pepper Pieces Pick your peppers early in the day. Wash them and set out to dry. When they have dried remove stems, pith and seeds. Cut the peppers into pieces the size you will use in cooking. I love small pieces to add to stir-fries. Spread the pieces out on a cookie sheet in just one layer. Do not pile the pieces on top of one another. Move the cookie sheet to the freezer. When the pepper pieces are frozen (in an hour or two), scrape them loose and immediately move to a freezing container, either a plastic freezer bag or a plastic container that is freezer worthy. Work fast. You want the peppers to stay frozen and loose in the container. This way when you want a cup of pepper pieces all you have to do is open the container and pour out the amount you need.

2. Frozen Roasted PeppersThis second method involves roasting and appears to be labor intensive. Well, it probably is but you end up with the most delectable pepper additions for soup and sauces all winter long. This exercise is one of the most satisfying of all food preservation I do. Clean your peppers, remove the seeds and pith. Toss with olive oil and crushed garlic. Place in a single layer on a sided cookie sheet and roast at 450 degrees until the peppers are thoroughly cooked. Your kitchen will smell heavenly. Cool the peppers enough to handle then put into a food processor. Blend into a creamy mass. Put large spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet. What about the cookie sheet you just used? You don’t even have to wash it first. Form the pepper mounds as if you were making cookies. The mounds should not touch. Freeze until firm. Pop the mounds loose and freeze quickly as in #1. Drop frozen pepper mounds into soup, stews, chili beans, spaghetti sauce.

For sweet pepper mounds I most prefer sweet Italian peppers. Any frying pepper will perform well with this technique. For hot peppers I like to mix in sweet banana pepper for color and to water down the heat. I then have a chili paste that can be added to cooked dishes, used as a dip for folks who are addicted to chili heat and flavors, used as a thin spread on lavash rollups and lots of other uses. When I run out of my own chili paste I feel like shutting down the kitchen. It’s that good!

Tomato Plants – Great Diversity

Tomato plants come in an assortment of body styles, come with a myriad of fruit varieties and have a number of specific growing conditions they have adapted to. Tomato plants come in two distinct body styles or growing patterns.

The determinate type of tomato plant is low and bushy. This type tomato does not benefit from pruning. In this sense, the determinate tomato is easier to manage but it does not produce as large a crop of tomatoes as does its cousin the indeterminate tomato plant. Patio tomatoes — those tomatoes recommended for container gardening — fall into the determinate class of tomato.

The indeterminate tomato grows tall and much more resembles a vine than the indeterminate tomato plant. If you are looking for a large harvest, the indeterminate tomato is the plant for you. With staking and pruning, the indeterminate tomato can be coaxed into a vertical garden scenario. This works especially well if you want to plant numerous varieties of tomato in a small space. Here is a video demonstration of this process.

Tomato plants produce a plethora of sizes and shapes in its fruit. You need to understand this as you explore seed catalogs, even as you read the tomato descriptions on seedling plants at the nursery. Read through to get information on whether this plant produces grape-sized tomatoes, plum-sized tomatoes, or whopping 1 and 2 pounder tomatoes. If the description is unclear, your best leave the tomato plant behind. A couple of years ago, I planted a six-pack of what looked like a yellow paste tomato. I was excited about using it for cooking and canning some sauces. Those six plants produced tons of itty-bitty salad tomatoes, the kind that sell for a fortune at Whole Foods. My problem was that I wasn’t selling. I wanted to can them.

Some tomatoes are great for slicing and eating fresh, but not so hot for cooking. Other tomatoes are prime for cooking and canning. Some tomatoes are known for their sweetness, others for tartness, still others for a complexity of flavor. Some tomato varieties ripen very early, others in mid-season and some in the late season. If you have a short summer, forget the late-season tomatoes. You will never see them. Whether you plant two different varieties of tomato or twenty varieties, study it out to have a pretty good idea of what you can expect in size, color, flavor, time of harvest and use.

Tomato Plants by Climate Zone

Tomato varieties have been developed to grow in almost any location imaginable. Hawaii has tomatoes developed just to grow there. Other tomatoes are destined to grow in areas like the Pacific Northwest while others are developed for the Southwest or the Midwest or Florida. What is important to know is what varieties do well in your particular location. Search advice from local gardeners, the County Extension Service, and local nurseries. If you are a new gardener, stick with those tomato varieties that have a proven winning track record with the locals.

Tomato Seeds

Tomato seed falls into the open-pollinated or the hybrid category. Depending on your long-range goals, this information could be critical for you. Below find a couple rules of thumb, but for a more in depth presentation read this fine article.

Tomato Seeds: Hybrid Tomatoes

Hybrid tomatoes are the offspring of two very different parents of the same species. You will recognize a hybrid by the “F1″ on the seed packet or the seedling label. Hybrids are developed to produce greater disease resistance and higher yields. Some gardeners find the hybrids lacking in flavor. Flavor is so subjective that you should decide this for yourself. If you plan to save seed, hybrids will shoot you in the foot. Seeds from hybrid tomatoes do not come true — next season’s tomato may look awfully strange or produce a lackluster crop. Plant seeds from a hybrid tomato and be ready to be completely surprised (or dismayed).

Tomato Seeds: Open Pollinated & Heirloom Tomatoes

Open pollinated plants cross pollinate or self-pollinate. Tomatoes self-pollinate. This means that the seeds have a 91-99% chance of coming true. These are seeds you can save from year to year. Not surprisingly, heirloom tomatoes are open pollinated. These heirlooms may have descended from hybrids many generations back, but they have stabilized and produce true to form in the current generation. Open pollinated tomatoes will mutate and adapt to your soil and growing conditions over a period of time. You end up with your own very unique heirloom. Open pollinated seed can be recognized by the presence of OP on the seed packet or by the absence of the F1 hybrid indicator.

Tomato Seedlings

Tomato seedlings available in nurseries are predominantly hybrids (F1). A few of the heirlooms (OP) like Brandywine and Green Zebra are beginning to show up among the all-time favorite hybrids like Early Girl, Big Boy and Celebrity. Independently owned nurseries appear to be going out on a limb more with the heirlooms. Luis’ Nursery near Visalia, CA carries a nice selection of very robust heirlooms for a brief period of time each spring. In choosing your seedling packs, look for tomatoes with thick stems and thick leaves. The thicker the better! Avoid leggy plants or ones that have started to flower. These plants may have started into advance middle age and will not produce well for you.

Growing Tomatoes from Seed

Growing tomatoes from seed is a simple process, but it does take some time. Tomato seeds should be planted indoors or in a greenhouse 5-7 weeks before the last expected frost. This chart may help you with determining when that might be in your locale.

When you grow your own tomatoes from seed, the whole wide world of tomato goodness is available to you. You will find yourself leafing through seed catalogs year-round looking for new and different tomatoes to add to your collection.

Here are a few tips:

• Plant the seed in a soil-less potting mix. You can pick this up at any nursery. Using any other potting medium risks micro-organisms that can take out your seedlings before they even get their first set of true leaves. Cover seed with about 1/4 inch of planting mix.

• Keep your seedling flats moist with a plastic cover until germination takes place in 7 to 14 days. This set up can be as simple as placing the flat in a plastic trash bag.
• Until your tomato seeds have germinated, keep the flat in a place that provides warmth: 65-75 degrees. Some gardeners use special plant heating pads for this. After germination the seedlings can handle temperatures down to 55 degrees.
• Seedlings are best bottom-watered in the early days because they are so fragile, easily broken. Bottom watering is simply putting the flat into a slightly larger pan with sides and keep an inch worth of water in the pan with sides. Water will wick up into your flat, keeping the soil moist.
• When the tomato seedlings put on their first true leaves (those that look like tomato leaves), transplant the tomatoes into 4 inch pots. Use a good organic potting mix. Toss in a bit of finished compost if you have it available.
• With every other watering, include a little fish emulsion to keep your tomato babies well fed.
• Give your tomato seedlings as much light as you can, either in a green house, under grow lights or in a very bright window.
• Set the tomatoes in the garden when the nights get no colder that 55 degrees. To get a jump start, warm up the soil by covering it with 6mil black plastic for 6 weeks before planting and then arrange for tomato caps, a floating row cover, or some form of protection for the fledgling tomatoes. If you are not familiar with floating row covers, take a look at this video. You can find row covers such as this one on Amazon.

For a nice review of the above information watch this quick video.

When To Plant Tomatoes

You will get the choicest information on when to plant tomatoes from veteran gardeners in your area. If you know no gardeners, check in with your local Extension Agent or Master Gardening Program.

A local feed store in our area sells what they call “freeze tomatoes.” The feed store owner explains that folks buy the tomatoes in the few warm weeks of February and then return in April for more tomato plants after a freeze took out the first crop. If patrons listened to the old store owner, they would wait until April to pick up their tomato seedlings.

Tomatoes are a warm weather crop. You can manipulate your garden environment to build warmth before the natural warm arrives. Address both the soil temperature and the air temperature. When summer arrives and the air is balmy, your soil is still cold. It takes six weeks for the soil to warm up to the air temperature. You could have the experience of setting out tomato seedlings only to have them sit, shivering, until the soil warms up enough to get the growth going.

To warm up the soil, cover the tomato bed with 6mil black plastic six weeks before planting the tomatoes. The plastic cover also works to keep in moisture and keep down the weeds. Some tomato growers keep the plastic in place and pop holes in it for planting the tomatoes. You can see this in a number of videos recommended in this article.

To keep the air around the tomato seedlings warm, you need to be creative. Paper tomato caps will buy you about a month of warmth before the seedlings are no longer seedlings. Once the tomatoes fill the cap, the cap must go or the tomato plants risk bending into strange shapes and possibly burning against the paper sides. If you are not growing dozens of tomatoes you might try the wall o water contraption (here at Amazon) that uses water to absorb the sun’s warmth in the day and release it at night.

You could rig some version of hoop house to cover the tomato plants, covering the hoops with 4mil clear plastic. You just have to be on the job with this idea, lifting the plastic in the hottest parts of the day to keep the tomatoes from getting cooked. This hoop house idea helps with warming both the air and the soil.

How To Plant Tomatoes

One little trick on how to plant tomatoes goes a long way in your tomato-growing success. Come planting time, about half of your tomato plant’s stem needs to be in the soil. You will probably have to pinch off a set of leaves or two to accomplish this. Then, either set the plant into a deep hole for planting or trowel out a little trench and lay the plant sideways to cover the bottom part of the stem. Roots will develop on the buried stem, providing a much better foundation for good tomato plant growth. If this is hard to picture, check out this video tutorial on planting tomatoes.

Staking Tomatoes – The Indeterminates

Indeterminate tomatoes will grow to 8 feet if the conditions are right. Staking just makes sense. Tomatoes can be allowed to sprawl, but there are some really good reasons for staking:

• You can plant more tomato plants/varieties in a given space if you stake the tomatoes.

• It is far easier to manage and harvest your tomatoes if the plants have been staked.
• Staking your tomato plants keep the fruit out of the soil and away from the critters that like to chew and the micro-organisms that cause rot.

View this video for some savvy on how to stake individual tomato plants. If you are growing a number of plants, there are other more efficient ways to stake. Take a look at this demonstration of the basket weave staking method. Brilliant! This method will also work with the determinate tomatoes. This is a tomato staking method that is economical and less labor intensive than some of the other tomato staking methods.

Tomato Cages – The Determinates

Since the determinate tomatoes are bushy and grow to no more than 4 feet, tomato cages are an answer to keep the fruit off the ground. Cages can be purchased at most garden supply places in the spring or you can order them from Amazon — here is on option. Watch this video for a demonstration of making your own tomato cages. The gardener uses reinforcing wire for pouring concrete, but his method can be adapted to lighter weight materials as pasture fencing. The video is helpful and fun.

Tomatoes get staked and caged in many different ways. It is always fun to check out the creativity of tomato gardeners. Community gardens are a treat in this respect. Watch this video tour of tomato caging in a community garden.

Pruning Tomatoes – The Indeterminates

To get the biggest possible tomatoes from your indeterminate tomato plants, the plants should be pruned as well as staked. Indeterminate plants have a main stalk that will flower all the way up to their 7 or 8 foot height. Suckers form along the main stem. These suckers flower but produce much smaller tomatoes than the flower heads on the main stalk. Solve the problem by pruning the suckers. This 10 minute video gives a wealth of information on the how and why to prune your tomatoes. The demonstration is given in a large green house but can be adapted to the home garden. Notice the tomato plants growing out of black plastic row covers — this is also adaptable to your home garden.

Tomato Fertilizer

If you have a new garden or have not spent much time in building your soil, you will want to invest in some tomato fertilizer. Check with your local nursery or order it on Amazon.

Here are a couple of home-grown tips for fertilizing tomatoes:

• Add crushed egg shells and/or spoiled milk to your tomato beds. Tomatoes appreciate the extra calcium.

• Do not overdo the nitrogen or you will get a forest of green leaves but no tomatoes.

Growing Tomatoes in Containers

Tomatoes in containers is a definite possibility. Consider container gardening if you have no room to plant in the ground or if you have such pest problems that containers make more sense. For growing tomatoes in containers consider these points:

• Choose determinate tomatoes — the kind that bush. Nurseries will often label tomatoes that do best in containers. If you are mail-ordering, make certain that your tomato selection is recommended for your growing region.

• Plant in large enough containers to support good growth in your tomato plant. A five-gallon sized pot is good.
• Use a top-quality planting mix and incorporate finished compost if you have any available. It is hard to overdo the compost if it is finished and sweet-smelling.
• Place the containers in the sunniest location you can manage. You will probably need to move your containers a few times during the growing season as the sun continues to move.
• Arrange for regular watering, either by hand or by an automated watering system. Here is a video showing how to put together a self-watering tomato container. The concept is brilliant. The demonstration is for the benefit of the camera — it is not safe! Do the work on a work bench with some safety shield over your eyes.
• Feed your tomatoes regularly. They will repay you at dinner time.
• Containers for tomatoes can be anything that is large enough and drains well. This video of growing tomatoes in a potato bag will get your creativity going on what kind of containers work for tomatoes.

Tomato Diseases

Unfortunately, tomatoes do have diseases that can seriously effect the way you grow this crop. Fusarium wilt, verticillium wilt, nematodes, and tobacco mosaic virus are the usual offenders. Tomato diseases is a complex study as you can see from this chart put out by Cornell University. Your local County Extension Agent and the Master Gardening program will give you the most help in dealing with tomato diseases. Here are a couple of pointers to help:

• Shop the hybrids that have been developed to withstand one or more of these tomato diseases. Seed catalogs will give you the information on this. This is where hybrids shine.

• Practice crop rotation in your garden as most of the tomato diseases are soil- born. Give at least four years of grace from one tomato planting to the next. In those four years, the soil-born problems weaken hopefully to the point of no longer falling in the tomato disease category.

Tomato Worm

The horned tomato worm looks like a Dr. Seuss creation. As if the green, white, and black coloring isn’t enough, this tomato worm comes with a horn on its head. These worms feed on the undersides of tomato leaves. Despite their outrageous coloring, the worms are hard to spot. Doing a daily walk-through will help you spot tomato worm’s damage early. Early is a key. Look for tomato worms early in the morning before the sun sends them into hiding. You will have to hand pick the worms. If you are squeamish, enlist the kids. Throw the tomato worms to the chickens. This sounds brutal, but you have to think “food chain”. If you do not have chickens, you probably have some big bird that likes big worms. How about a pigeon, raven, sea gull, hawk?

When To Pick Tomatoes

Each tomato variety has its perfect color that comes on when the tomato is ripe. The longer you grow tomatoes, the better you will get at spotting this. The ripe tomato is also just a bit softer than the unripe tomato that is sporting some color. Just beware in squeezing the tomatoes too much in deciding what to pick. You do not want to bruise those tomatoes that are not yet ready. Experience is the best teacher regarding when to pick a tomato. If you happen to pull a tomato too early, set it on a sunny window ledge for a couple of days. It will ripen — not as well as those in the garden — but it will ripen.

Storing Tomatoes

New gardeners often ask about how to store tomatoes. If you are a long-time gardener, the question sounds odd. Tomatoes do not store, at least not in the sense you can store potatoes or onions or winter squash. Tomatoes do not even keep well in the refrigerator. The refrigerator wipes out some of the flavor and changes the texture. Could this explain the mushy tasteless tomatoes you find in the grocery store? Pick tomatoes when they are ripe and keep them on the kitchen counter, out of direct sunlight. The tomatoes will stay nice for several days unless they were over-ripe when picked. What do you do with the extra bounty? You have a few choices:

• Dehydrate your tomatoes, especially if they are a paste-type.

• Freeze them.
• Can them.
• Share them with the neighborhood.
• Put up a tomato stand and sell them.

This post was shared at Traditional Tuesdays, Fat Tuesday, Tip Me Tuesday, Tuesdays at the Table. Real Food Wednesday, Fight Back Friday

Growing Potatoes For Nutrition

An average potato has as much potassium as a banana as well as 2 grams of digestible protein. Additionally you get iron, vitamin c and b vitamins. Most of the nutrients and fiber are in or close to the potato skin. Most of us peel the skin away because we don’t know where that skin has been or what has been sprayed on it. When you grow your own potatoes, this is no problem. Just scrub away the dirt and keep the skin intact, vitamins and all.

Potatoes have gotten a bad rap for making people fat. To set the record straight, the potato described above has about 80 calories. Anyone who gets fat on that potato needs to take a close look at what they poured over the top of the potato.

Growing Potatoes For Variety

Potatoes come in all sizes, shapes and colors. Actually, there are thousands of varieties. You would never know that shopping at the grocery. Some farmers markets offer a variety of potatoes in the late summer season. But if you want to really enjoy the broad scope of the potato world, you will have to grow your own.

Growing Potatoes For Flavor

Once you have tasted a newly harvested potato, you will never be satisfied with cold-storage potatoes available at the grocery store. Remember the tomato reference at the beginning of this article? The taste of a just-picked tomato is unbeatable. Same with potatoes!

Then factor in the flavor differences between those thousands of varieties of potatoes. Some potato flavors are more unique than others. The only way to capture the flavor world of potatoes is to grown them yourself.

Potato Vocabulary

As you begin your adventure in growing potatoes, you may be intimidated by all of the terminology. There are two distinct types of potato in cultivation — waxy and starchy, but there are also “new potatoes” and “heirloom potatoes.” Here’s a quick primer on these concepts.

Waxy Potatoes

Waxy potatoes are high in moisture and low in starch. These are the good boiling potatoes that hold their shape after they are cooked. A type of pectin helps these cooked potatoes hold together. Given a choice, you will use the waxy potato in potato salads and in soups and stews where you want the potato to hold its shape. A word of caution: Even waxy potatoes will break down if cooked long enough. The smaller round red potatoes you can purchase at the market fall into the waxy category. The small waxy potatoes tend to be a shorter season crop.

Starchy Potatoes

Starchy potatoes are the Russet type that is low in moisture and high in starch. These are the great bakers that turn light and fluffy when baked, calling out for butter or such. The starchy potatoes tend to be the longer-season ones.

Middle Ground: There are a few potatoes that have characteristics of both the waxy and the starchy potato. Yukon Gold is a good example of this. Yukon Gold is waxy enough for potato salad and starchy enough for mashed potatoes. This is probably one reason for its popularity.

New Potatoes

New potatoes is a term used to refer to potatoes picked in an immature state (small). New potatoes is a marketing term often referring to small red potatoes so we often think of new potatoes as being waxy. Actually, they are, regardless of whether these potatoes were pulled prematurely from a waxy potato cultivar or a starchy one. Picked early enough, even a starchy potato variety is waxy.

Heirloom Potatoes

Heirloom potatoes are those cultivars that have not been bred for large size nor with a toughness that is helpful for cross-country transportation. Though they cannot make long distance trips, they will thrill your heart in the kitchen. Discover flavors you have never experienced before with heirlooms. Work with colors like blue, purple, pink and yellow. Usually the more pronounced the color, the more pronounce the flavor. In addition, data is showing that over-hybridization of produce is diminishing its nutritive value. With heirlooms you can avoid this problem.

Fingerling potatoes are usually members of the heirloom club. These potatoes are small and often finger shaped. Some look a bit arthritic for fingers, but the flavor is usually superb in the fingerlings. All that I have tried are waxy. They have held their shape no matter what I’ve done with them. Besides the excellent flavor, fingerling potatoes add an artistry to any dish. These are a conversation starter.

Seed Potatoes

Potatoes grow from other potatoes. The parent potato is known as a seed potato. More than likely you have had potatoes sprout in the bag before you could use them all. The sprouts came from little “eyes” on the surface of the potato. All potatoes have them.

When you order seed potatoes you will probably receive whole potatoes. They will not be large. You may also receive some potato pieces. The potatoes and the pieces will each have eyes, probably several eyes on each. These eyes are the key to your potato harvest.

You could use potatoes from your pantry as seed potatoes but this is not wise. Those potatoes could be harboring a potato disease that could get started in your soil and give you trouble for years to come. Buying certified seed from a professional potato seed producer will cost you more in the short run and save you big headaches in the long run. Many good seed potato producers sell online. Or you could check out this potato seed catalog list from Washington State University.

We also like this catalog for potato varieties and for education on growing potatoes.

Planting Potatoes – Which Varieties?

You need to decide on your priorities. Do you want fresh potatoes that you use as you harvest? Do you want potatoes that will store for several months, keeping you in potatoes for the Winter? Do you want both waxy and starchy potatoes? How about a variety of both? Spend some time thinking and creating your plan.

If you have a long enough growing season you could plant enough different varieties to supply you with early crop, mid-season crop and late-season crop. Plant enough of the first two categories to eat them fresh and then store the late season crop. Good storage potatoes usually are late season, by the way.

When To Plant Potatoes

Potatoes do best in cool weather, so the trick is to get them in the ground by your last spring frost. Actually, the seed potatoes can go in a couple of weeks earlier than that as long as the soil has reached 45 degrees or more. The little green shoots will just be pushing through the soil when frost season is over. If an untimely frost threatens your plants, protect them with a leaf mulch or a floating row cover.

Check with the local gardeners to see if you can get two potato crops: once planting in early spring and one planted in early fall. Potatoes require 2 1/2 to 3 months for maturity. Some potatoes are quicker to the finish line than others, so check with the local gardeners on potato selection advice.

How To Plant Potatoes

There are more ways to plant potatoes than I can count, but the basic idea is this:

1. Keep the seed potatoes in a warm place for about a week to start the eyes to sprouting,

2. If you are going to cut the seed potatoes to make more seed potatoes, do this a couple of days before planting so the cut places can scab over. The cut portions should be 1 inch square or more.
3. Place the seed potatoes, eyes facing up, in soil and cover with about four inches of soil.
4. As the potato plant grows, keep pulling more soil up around the main stem. When the plant start to flower, stop this soil pulling. Potatoes will grow along the length of this stem. That’s why you want a long one.
5. Provide the potato plants with plenty of moisture, especially during the flowering stage. Some gardeners pinch off the flowers so they don’t take energy from the tuber production.

Where To Plant Potatoes

The harder question to answer is exactly where to plant your potatoes. Home gardeners have become very creative in this enterprise. One of my gardening heroes, Ruth Stout, started quite a revolution when she stopping covering her potatoes with soil and simply covered them with straw. She grew huge amounts of potatoes and saved herself the work of digging them. The key to her success was powerfully rich soil she had been building for years.

No matter where you plant your potatoes, make sure the soil is rich. If you are planting in a container, like a barrel, box, or bag, use compost. Most people who have attempted growing potatoes in containers and failed have used potting mix. Most potting mix will support plant growth but not fruit production. What you need is compost — finished, sweet-smelling compost!

Here is a video to get your imagination going on just where you will be planting your potatoes. This one shows how to plant potatoes in a bag. You can actually buy bags for the job.

This article at Organic Gardening describes seven ways to grow potatoes to spur your imagination.

This video gives instructions on how to build a potato box. This method is labor-intensive on the front end but if you plan to be a long-term potato gardener, take a good look at this method of growing potatoes.

When To Harvest Potatoes

After the flowering stage has begun, you can pull new (small) potatoes from your plants. Do this only if you have a few dozen plants and can spare the young crop. Pull one potato from each plant no more than a couple times a week. The rest of the potatoes will continue to grow for the later harvest.

Ideally, you will harvest your potatoes when they are mature and of good size. The prime indicator of a mature potato crop is the fading and drooping of the potato plants. Their job is done. Withhold water for about a week after the plants start to go down hill. During this time the skins toughen up a bit which is necessary if you want to store them. The tougher the potato skin, the better those potatoes hold up on storage.

There is a wide range of growing times with the vast number of potato varieties. If you plant a short-season potato, a mid-season potato and a long-season potato, the seed potatoes will go in at the same time, but the crop in come in at staggered intervals. This type of harvest is a goal to strive for if you are a big potato lover.

How To Harvest Potatoes

Remembering that the potatoes form up along the buried stem, dig far enough out from the potato plant to not cut into those potatoes. Use a spade or garden fork to lift a large clump. Then using your hands, feel around for the potatoes. The thrill of finding the harvest is somewhat like the discovery at an egg hunt.

As you pull the potatoes from the vine, gently brush away the soil. Get rid of the dirt without bruising the skin. Low-sided cardboard boxes like empty beer flats are a good way to manage the potatoes at this point. You can move several pounds at one time without disturbing the potatoes too much.

(If any of the potatoes get nicked or bruised, take them to the kitchen and use them up ASAP.)

Your harvested potatoes need a week or two in the open air to cure. The skins will get even tougher (which is good). The drying area should be out of the sun and it should be dry. An shed with some air flow is a good choice. Do a walk-through every couple of days checking for spoilage. If any of crop seems to be deteriorating, get those potatoes out of there fast before the spoilage spreads.

Storing Potatoes

You will need a short-term storage option for your summer harvest of your smaller, waxy potatoes. Those wonderful little waxy potatoes with the high moisture content will not last long in the warm summer air. If you dig them all at once, consider storing them in a refrigerator. Some hard-core gardeners keep a refrigerator dedicated to holding produce.

Another way of handling your waxy potatoes is to keep them in the ground. Dig them as you need them, especially if you are using potatoes almost everyday. If you are troubled with gophers or voles, this storage plan may not work for your potatoes.

For the starchy, long-season potatoes, you have the option of long-term storing. Read through the seed catalogs to get an idea about how long your particular varieties will hold in storage. The ideal storage temperature for potatoes is 40 degrees although folks have reported good results at 50 degrees.

The storage area should be dark and dry.

The storage containers must allow for ample circulation. If you have the space, just keep your potatoes in the boxes used for curing. This way you will be able to easily check for spoilage during the storage time. Culling out the potatoes that are beginning to spoil is a major key in keeping your potato harvest.

Potato Diseases

There is quite a list of potato diseases, but the home gardener can usually avert them with a few precautions.

1. Plant only certified seed potatoes. They are certified to be disease-free. Therefore, you can plant the seed potatoes being confident that you are not introducing disease into your soil. Although it is tempting to save some of your own crop to use as seed potatoes, again, the best course is to order new certified seed.

2. Determine what the disease is that showed up in your potato plants this year then shop the seed catalogs. Find varieties that are resistant to that disease.
3. Remove any plant that appears to be ailing. Remove the plant, the root, and any tubers that are forming. Burn them or put them in the trash. Do not compost them. The heat from the compost pile may not be enough to kill the disease organisms.
4. Put your potatoes on a 3-4 year crop rotation. This means you will not plant potatoes again in that spot for at least three years to give the soil-born diseases a chance to weaken or die. Tomatoes, peppers and eggplant are in the same family as potatoes, so you will not plant potatoes where these three veggies have grown in the last three years. Penn State puts out a simple chart with invaluable information on crop rotation. Make a copy and hold on to it.

You can find a number of chemicals for treating potato diseases but if you are building an organic garden, this is out of the question. Go for best practices and you will most likely get a good potato crop.

If you have a need to go in depth on potato diseases, this potato publication will help.