Vertical Gardening on a Budget!

The things I am most looking forward to in my garden this spring and summer come on vines. Cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, peas (English and Sugar Snap), and beans. To make the most of my smallish yard, and give these little guys room to spread, I had to rig up some trellises and other vertical gardening set-ups, but as we are still in the "growing every day!" phase of our new business, I can't spend a whole lot of money. I have scoured the internet, but most of what I found and loved was beautiful and costly. Someday I will have gorgeous wrought iron Eiffel Tower plant stands, but not so much right now. Even the ones that required re-purposed wood would end up costing me, as I don't have much of that.  I finally came up with some plans that work for me.

Branch Arches (free)

I needed somewhere for my sugar snap peas to climb, and I love the idea of a tunnel of vines. We also had an abundance of branches suddenly, as we had a not-that-young-anymore cottonwood tree that was growing in a pot near the house that had to go. And by in a pot, I mean roots through the bottom of the pot very deep into the ground, and by near the house I mean two feet away from the house and banging up against our second-story bedroom window at every little breeze. Since moving it wasn't an option, being so firmly rooted, it met a sad demise at the hands of my husband's hatchet. Not being willing to let its sacrifice be in vain, we chopped and sorted the branches by size. The long, skinny, bendy ones became my archway. I stuck groups of three branches into the ground (about a foot and a half deep), and arched them together, securing with wire (that my dad had in the garage, that my grandfather saved for "just in case" and over thirty years later we found a good use.) As the Sugar Snap Peas grow, I am slowly training them to grab onto the branches with loosely tied twine.
Later in the season, I'm going to start some beans up the other side of the arch.


Hanging Baskets ($5-ish)

I read somewhere that peas and beans can grow in hanging baskets. Also, tomatoes that tend to vine, such as cherry tomatoes, can be done in baskets. I had some wire fruit baskets lying around, so I took an exploratory trip to the dollar store to see what I could stuff them with. I chose a woven basket that fills the bottom level($1 each), some spanish moss($1 per bag, fills one basket), and light brown dish towels (2/$1). If done over, I'd go with a different color towel. I was going for the burlap look, but I think it looks more like a formerly-white-but-now-stained towel.
The bottom level was easy. Basket + some moss + a coffee filter (to keep the dirt in) + potting soil.
The middle level was just the folded up towel + coffee filter + soil.
The top level was moss + coffee filter + soil.
I stuck English peas in the top two and green garden beans in the bottom. I hung them in the sunniest corner inside my screen porch.

Variation: Tomatoes!

Same layering process, only this time I planted some baby cherry tomato seedlings that I have been raising from seeds in my Guest Bedroom. These claim to be viney and very prolific yielders, so I'm excited about that.
Something I like about the hanging basket is that I can easily move it into the screen porch and back out again as weather changes. We had a really hard rain this week and I didn't trust little bitty seedlings to it. Bonus: The wrought iron bracket I hung it on was made by my grandfather 50 years ago.

Twine Pyramids ($14)
I had the great idea to grow beans and peas on the sides of my screen porch so that in the summer, maybe I'll get a little more shade. Then I realized that the vines may invade the screen itself and I needed a way to keep them back. I found the solution at the hardware store. I got some screw-in hooks ($5 because the only ones I could find were in a picture hanging kit but now I have a lot of them), a roll of twine ($3), and two packages of tent stakes ($3 for 6).


I installed the hooks as far out on the awning as I could get them, ran some twin through them, and staked the ends down in a triangle shape. The bonus to this (other than making a bunch of them for cheap) is that I can always add lines of twine between the three pieces to add more support, or more big lines just by throwing another stake in the ground. So far, my English peas seem to approve. Later there will be beans, too.

Turmeric!

So there's this nice leafy plant that grows in my yard. It comes up in spires that quickly uncurl into glossy green fronds. It's very tropical looking and pretty. However, underneath is something even better. It's turmeric! You dig up the plant and just below the surface is a big clump of orange fingers (rhizomes) that smell earthy but also kinda like Indian food. So you break them up and wash them off, and now you have a wonderful and flavorful spice.

One inch of grated turmeric substitutes for one teaspoon dried turmeric in your recipes. Make sure to wear gloves when working with this stuff. You know the yellow stain that mustard leaves? It comes from turmeric.
My landlord claims that turmeric prevents all cancers. I'm not certain that this is true, but I would be willing to agree that it's probably good for you. Plus it's tasty. Here's what I made with it:

Turmeric Rice and Broccoli Chicken Stir Fry

Ok, it doesn't look like anything special, but it's really good. Doesn't take that long, either. 

I found the Turmeric Rice recipe on food.com. The Turmeric Chicken and Broccoli Stir Fry  came from tablespoon.com. These recipes are both wonderful and I highly recommend you try them. The only change I made was to use fresh turmeric instead of dried. I peeled the skin off and grated it on a grater plate (ceramic plate with spiky bits that you rub the fresh root on) and used it with the ginger instead of with the dry spices. Enjoy!

Surprise Tomatoes!

Back in summer of 2012 (probably July-ish) I noticed some cute little sprouts in my compost bin. (At that time, it was a literal bin...a small rubbermaid bin with holes drilled in it. I carefully transplanted the little sprouts into the flower bed. Most of them met their demise by weed-whacker-weilding gardener, but two lived. Of those two, one grew only about 16 inches tall, and the other became a fabulous cherry tomato vine!

 Now, while I originally assumed that this would end poorly for the little guy, as winter was coming, I started to notice how vigorous it was. By mid-November, I found this.
Crazy, right? But it kept on going! Suddenly, tomatoes were ripening every day!

I started to take more care to keep this plant healthy. I already have acidic soil, which the tomato seems to like. It's in a corner of my flowerbed facing south, so it gets lots of sunshine. That particular corner gets warm, even in the winter because it's sheltered from wind but sunny. (We have a window-mounted  thermometer, named Wildly Inaccurate Thermometer, who claims --among other things-- that the temp gets up to the 90's in winter... which I doubt. But that corner is warm.) I have had to throw a few blankets over it when the temperature crept down into the mid-30's at night, just a few times. Thankfully we never had a hard freeze. I hate freezes.

 By January, I started to pull them when they were just starting to turn and let them ripen on the windowsill.

Then Mrs. A told me that if you hang red Christmas ornaments on your vine, it will confuse the birds.

Notice how the (seemingly) nicest, reddest tomato is fake? Well, birds go straight for that and then think "What's up with these tomatoes? I'm outta here!" and the others survive. So now I have been able to let the tomatoes safely ripen all the way on the vine. The question now is, what to do with them all?
I have added them to BLT's (Slobolt lettuce also from the garden), canned for sauces and soups (more on that later), given to friends, family and neighbors, and still they come!  Yay for Surprise Tomatoes!

Fruit Fun!

There are many things I like about this house. One is the fireplace in the office for cold mornings. One is the screened in porch, which is just heaven on a summer night. But out in the yard is another thing: an abundance of fruit trees. Let me give you an idea of what we are working with here. 

Sour Oranges. Not good eating, but pretty good for marmalade.

Tiny sour oranges. Same problem as the big ones, just more of them. We did get some good oranges and some tangerines that were perfect, though. 

Bananas!

So many bananas! I pulled some off the tree and made banana bread. I felt like a pioneer. 

Grapefruits. So delicious!

We ended up with about 50 of them from mid-November to late-December.

Greek platter put together for the Olympics. The mint and the figs grew in my yard. 

 And there were some things that didn't go so well. The papayas that never ripened, for example.
Also, the pomegranates that got all diseased and sad. Gosh I hope those grow better next year.

New Garden!

January 21, 2013

East Yard, AFTER

The temperature outside is currently 70 degrees and it is sunny and wonderful. Although I know it is foolish to believe we are in the clear, I feel Spring coming and I am absolutely giddy about it. I took the advice of many, many books and internet sites and am only planting winter crops, although I want to just put everything in the ground now.  I have put seeds in the garden: sugar snap peas, English peas, green onions, white onions, beets, radishes, lettuce, cress, endive, and parsley. 

I have put sprouts in the garden of garlic, white onion, pineapple, and celery.

And I have several herbs still kicking from last season: spearmint, peppermint, lemon balm, rosemary, chives, oregano, Armenian basil, sweet basil, and cilantro. Of course, there's also my pride and joy: Surprise Tomato! It sprouted in the compost heap in late summer from what I suspect was one of those Nature Sweet tomatoes you buy on the vine. I stuck in in the ground and it just took off running, and has been producing cherry tomatoes all winter.

On my windowsill in the kitchen I have some sprouted garlic and green onion, some chocolate mint from Mom's garden, and some heirloom red onions from a fellow gardener's stock.  There's also a spider plant from my classroom and the ever-present pile of tomatoes ripening. Whew! (And that's not counting the fruit trees that came with the house, but that's another post.) 

Now, other than fruit trees, the garden here was a bit of a mess. 

East Yard, BEFORE

We're still in the process of clearing out the junk we've found in the backyard and pulling weeds and scrubby bushes and such. There was also a decided lack of sunny beds, since our backyard is aimed south and almost all of the beds could pick between morning sun, afternoon sun, or neither, since they were completely shaded by fruit trees. (Did I mention so so so many fruit trees?) 

We added one large raised bed and three small raised beds to extend the space for veggies. 

I'll keep you posted as things grow in. I can't wait!!!