Ode to Rutabaga

I just had to write some more about growing Rutabaga in Florida.  The variety I grow is 'American Purple Top', which is probably the most popular and widely grown. Most people are turned off by Rutabagas in the grocery store because they look so much like Turnips, which is a valid concern. I have grown two varieties of Turnip that were purported to be non-bitter and  delicious and it was a lie, Turnips are gross. But I was pleasantly surprised by Rutabagas. Their flavor is very mild, and they are an excellent replacement for potatoes.

Peeled Rutabagas ready for the cook pot

Rutabagas in the Florida garden are very easy to grow during the winter season, they can take unseasonable heat as well as our brief cold spells and frosts. I barely even fertilize them, and they are unfazed by too much or too little rain/irrigation. Most often I find half of the Rutabaga above ground as the root swells, but they are not tender and do not need to be covered with more soil.

Fresh Rutabaga just pulled from the garden

They do not split or get get pithy as other root crops will often do, so they can be left in the soil until you are ready to eat them.

They produce a copious amount of foliage, which can be eaten as greens, but I haven't tried this as I already have so many other varieties of greens in the garden during winter. However, my chickens and compost pile do appreciate this abundance.

Small Harvest

Since I usually only harvest what I plan to eat, I don't take the time to photograph actual harvests. Today I pulled more than usual and had them drying out from washing, so my husband convinced me to post a picture of my veggies.

The description is clockwise: The radishes I usually don't eat, I grow and cut the greens for my chickens. However, today I pulled a handful to eat with a salad. The small pile of ugly peas are the only crop of English Peas this winter, they were NOT happy with how warm this winter has been. Under the English Peas are a few stalks of the sprouting Broccoli, 'Apollo'.  Then the last of the Sugar Snap Peas from the existing vines.  These will be pulled shortly and I will re-seed for a second crop, the peas are so sweet and delicious that I have no idea why I even tried with the English Peas. And finally, the first carrots of the winter garden, including a few of the famous purple carrots. 

Garden Update

Just an update on the status of the winter veggie garden. The main heads of the 'Apollo' Broccoli are ready for harvest! The seeds were put in around the middle of October, and grew very well, probably the best Broccoli variety I have planted yet. My other Broccoli varieties are nowhere near ready to produce heads yet. Flavor is really good raw, and from what I've researched the side shoots that the plant will keep producing will be even better tasting.

'Apollo' Broccoli

The greens are growing faster than we can eat them. It's my first year growing Kale and it has been very successful, pest and problem free with great flavor. We have only eaten them as cooked greens, so we will have to try making Kake chips this weekend.  And the Spinach Mustard has exceeded my expectations. Soft, prolific growth that is excellent as a cooked green, even if it is just a mite bitter as a raw green but good on sandwhiches. Cooler weather may even sweeten up the flavor enough to use it for spinach salad.

Spinach Mustard in the garden

Carrots are growing like crazy and I should be able to start pulling some by January, can't wait to see the purple variety!

Carrots

 Growing Cabbage is an exercise in patience, they seem to grow so slowly that you stop really looking at them. Then one day you look over and see that they are finally forming some heads and get excited. Then you wait another month or two until it's finally large enough to harvest. There is no instant gratification with Cabbage.

'Early Jersey Wakefield' Cabbage

Sugar Snap Peas are about done, but I am contemplating planting another crop of them. They grow so fast and taste so sweet it would be well worth going though the effort. Maybe with the cooler weather coming the new vines will last longer.


Rutabaga is probably the most under appreciated vegetable that a gardener can grow. This is another easy to grow vegetable. If you have Rutabaga seeds, you will not go hungry. The germination rate is 100%, in fact I find Rutabagas sprouting where I did not plant any. There are no pest issues, they don't require any fertilization, and rate of growth is pretty fast. I think the biggest thing going against Rutabaga is the name, people hear the name and automatically think it will taste bad. Then you factor in the appearance, it looks like a turnip. Which everybody knows tastes bad. But Rutabaga are pretty good. I cut them up and use them as a replacement for potatoes in stews, and they are pretty good roasted with olive oil, garlic and onion powder.


It's been a bad winter for lettuce, too warm which of course caused my lettuce to bolt. But even before it bolted the flavor was really bitter so I ended up pulling it all and composting it.

'Black Seeded Simpson' Lettuce

I can't complain about how the winter garden has performed, I wish it was a little cooler but the majority of the crops have produced very well. Nevertheless, I have begun to get seed catalogs for 2014, and am getting excited to order seeds for the spring/summer garden!

Onions in the Garden

Probably the easiest and most utilized crop any gardener can incorporate into their vegetable garden are onions.  Think about it, how many recipes do you use call for onions? I find that most call for them, and I'll add onion to any recipe that doesn't already include it (red bell pepper too, but we'll save that for another post). I usually add onions to my garden in November or December at the very latest. Onions are usually grown from sets or bulbs, these are seeds that are partially grown out. I try to find them locally, mostly because it is cheaper and easier than ordering online and getting them shipped. I have been told that growing onions from seed are not very difficult, just time consuming. Since the sets are so easy to find and grow, I haven't really found the urge to start them from seed. There is so much work that already needs to be done, I generally seek ways to make gardening easier, not more complicated. This year I purchased onion bulbs in early November. To clarify, bulbs are semi grown onion starts with no foliage growth out of the top. These are easy to find in seed stores early in Fall. Most people are tempted to find the largest bulb with the assumption that these are further along in the maturation process. However, I find that the smaller ones usually 'plump' out better in the spring. In December I was also able to find onion sets, these are small bulbs with growth sprouting from the bulb. I find that the sets produce a fully bulbed onion in the spring more reliably than the bulbs, so I generally either wait for these to be available or plant out both. And I only purchase short day onion varieties, the long day varieties will never bulb out in Florida. The Granex is usually the most readily available, which is a versatile, well flavored yellow onion.

You can't rush onions, they are not going to be ready until Spring, no matter what you do. So if you insist on trying to rush them with fertilization, you will end up with incredibly healthy green growth above ground, and but no bulbing to the onion. Since it is going to be a good number of months maturing, I like to plant onion sets and/or bulbs in areas where they will not be in the way of both winter and spring crops. I also like to grow a lot of onions, but I don't want to take up all my regular vegetable garden space with them. So if I decide to plant them in the vegetable garden I space them out so that I can interplant other crops between them. Otherwise I plant them in the bed areas around the garden that I ulitize for flowers and anything else that I'd like to grow out under irrigation.

 Onions coming up in some space between my peach tree and grape vines.

Onion sets in the garden next to the Spinach Mustard (which I am especially proud of).

As far as nutritional needs for onions, you have to try pretty hard to mess them up. The first year I grew onions I fertilized the hell out of them which gave me decent sized bulbs but thick necks and crazy vegetative growth.  Thus I learned, onions do not need or appreciate a lot of nitrogen. Since then, I have been more conservative with my approach to fertilization. Now I stick to bone meal and Epsom salts for supplementation. They really do not need much more.

Winter Vegetable Garden Update

The garden is doing very well, the weather could be a little cooler but overall the night temperatures are low enough to keep my veggies happy. I tried some new varieties this winter, and for the most part I am pleased.

The Mustard Spinach and Kale are a success, growing quickly, no pest issues, and very tasty as cooked greens.

Mustard Spinach

Kale

The Vit/Mache are not faring as well, the seeds took a long time to germinate and the growth is very slow. I haven't removed them as I would like to see how they perform as winter progresses and the weather gets even cooler. As a size comparison, in picture the cotyledon leaves to the left are from radishes that I planted a little over a week ago and the Mache was planted a little over a month ago. They are practically the same size.

Mache/Vit

The Broccoli 'Apollo' are doing well, they are progressing as quickly as Broccoli usually does and seem very healthy. They too were planted a little over a month ago.

Broccoli 'Apollo'

The rest of the garden is doing well, but it is the usual varieties that I am already familiar with: Sugar Snap Peas, Carrots, English Peas, Rutabaga.

Carrots

Garden 

Beds for Vegetables

It's October and time to wake up my sleeping soil.  After almost 7 weeks of solarizing under a sheet of plastic, the plastic is removed and the garden is divided into beds. My main vegetable garden is approximately 24' x 32', so I divided the space into 9 beds with nice wide pathways between. The beds are 5' x 8.5' with 2' walkways around them, these walkways are essential to give me enough room to work on the beds.

Next I add the soil amendment material because as you can see from the picture, the soil is pretty sandy. Every year I add some type of soil amendment, whether it 's compost purchased from a landscape yard or horse manure I haul in from a stable. The result is a beautiful soil that will yield me lots of vegetables. But after a year of growing, irrigation and rainfall, the bulk of the organics have broken down/washed out/blown away/disappeared into the soil profile and left me with sand. This year I amended with a combination of composted cow manure and peat.

The soil was tilled completely before I covered it with plastic back in August so I don't need to haul that gas powered monster out again. Besides, the more the soil is tilled the faster I seem to lose my organics. But I definitely need to integrate this material somewhat, so I get out the garden weasel and give myself an upper body workout turning the soil.

Once I have the soil just slightly turned I water it down and top dress it with a slightly composted mulch mix.  This will continue to add organics, yet will suppress weed growth and hold soil moisture. The walkways will be mulched as well, but I prefer to use pine straw for this, mostly because I like how good it looks contrasting with the mulched beds. A garden should be planned and laid out so that it will be successful and maintenance friendly, but I also like mine to look good.

Seeds for the Winter Garden

I had a pleasant surprise when I came home today, my seed order from Territorial Seed Company was delivered.  Here is the breakdown of what I ordered and why.

Broccoli Veronica- this is a Romanesco type of Broccoli that is just too cool looking not to try. I'm human, sometimes I grow things just because they look cool.

Broccoli Apollo- this variety produces a smallish main head, and then will keep producing several side shoots that can be harvested over quite a long period of time. I like this type better than the broccoli varieties that produce a very large main head but no side shoots. The flavor is sweeter and it is easier to utilize throughout the growing season. Unless you stagger the main head type you end up with a bumper crop all at one time and then nothing the rest of the season.

Cauliflower Purple of Sicily- as I have stated in an earlier post, the white cauliflowers do not set heads well for me here in Hernando County. I blame it on the occasional warm periods we will have throughout the winter. However, the purple/violet variety easily set heads and the flavor is outstanding.  Also, having purple cauliflower in the garden is really funky looking, and so much fun to give away to people. The color of  purple cauliflower is not subtle, it is very purple!

Mustard Komatsuna Sharaku- I am very excited to try this green. This is a Japanese mustard spinach, that is supposed to have the heat and cold tolerance of mustard, and the flavor and tenderness of spinach.  I have tried several times but I am unable to grow spinach in my garden which I believe is due to an intolerance to heat and humidity (the spinach, not me).  Hopefully this variety is a successful combination of the best traits for both greens. This is my first time trying it, and I'll definitely be reporting my results.

Vit (Mache)- many of the seed catalogs I look through rave about the flavor of vit, which is used as a salad green.  After a while you begin to wonder what the hype is about and order the seeds just to see for yourself. So that is what I have going on with this.

Carrot Purple Haze- how can you go wrong with a purple carrot. I actually don't care for carrots, although I will occasionally juice them for health benefits. Mostly I grow carrots in my garden for my mother who absolutely loves them, and I can't wait to see her face when I hand her a pile of purple carrots!

Vegetable Gardening Seasons

So many people tell me that they have tried vegetable gardening but that it didn't go well so they gave up. When I ask them what they tried to grow and when, I discover that half the problem is that they did little to no research and planted crops out of season. While I love the trial and error approach to gardening and do not let failures discourage me, I find that many others take failures as a sign that they have a 'black thumb'. So here is my approach to crop selection and seasons, others may differ, but this is what works great for me.

Fall/Winter Garden: grow carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, greens (lettuce, kale and collards), peas (English and Sugar Snap), winter squash, onions, beets, radish and rutabaga. This is by far the easiest season to grow, it's not quite as hot, and the bugs and weeds have backed off. I like to have this crop in the ground by late September to mid October. There's not as much of a time constraint for this garden as you can grow up until you want the garden free for your Spring garden, which for me is mid March. Star performer for this garden are the Sugar Snap Peas, I prefer 'Guisante'. Also the Broccoli and Cauliflower is important, because you really can taste the difference with the varieties I grow and harvesting fresh. I prefer 'Pericicaba' Broccoli and any of the violet varieties of Cauliflower. For some reason the white Cauliflower varieties do not set heads well for me, but the violet seems to handle our central Florida winter unpredictabililty better. Do not expect to harvest the onions during this garden, they will take until late Spring to be ready to harvest.

Spring/Summer Garden: grow tomatoes, summer squash, corn, cucumbers, green beans, and peppers. I'll start seeds for tomatoes and peppers in my little greenhouse but it's not essential, tomatoes grow pretty fast and just start your peppers from starts instead of seeds to get a head start. You can also do melons but I fight with powdery mildew here in Hernando County so I skip them. The trickiest part is timing starting your seeds after the threat of last frost. This past spring I got caught being a little too eager and was in the garden at 8 p.m. the night of a late frost putting crop covers over my tender little babies in the dark. I usually try to have my plants/seeds in the ground by mid March so that I can beat the intense heat and torrential rains of late July with my tomatoes. With tomatoes I only grow from seed. One spring I lost my whole tomato crop early due to a bacterial infection that I believe was brought in by a seedling I purchased. Tomato is king in my garden for this season, and Parks Whopper is always a great performer. Large fruit, good solids vs gel ratio, great flavor, great disease and split resistance. For cucumbers I like 'County Fair', it's a good pickling and fresh eating variety that is resistant to powdery mildew. For summer squash I like 'Fancycrook' and 'Sunray', completely for their powdery mildew resistance. Powdery mildew is my biggest issue so I aim for appropriate crops with resistance to this.  By the end of July this garden is usually so overridden with stinkbugs, weeds and fungal issues that I am ripping everything out and calling it a day.

From August to October I take a well deserved rest, and so does my soil. Contrary to popular advice, I keep my vegetable garden in the same location every year. Therefore by August the soil is full of weed seeds and pathogens of every variety. This is when I take out my clear plastic sheeting and cover the entire growing surface, thus solarizing the soil. I will let the sun bake and kill the bulk of my pest, weed and disease issues. It just make sense to do this because if I left the soil uncovered I would be facing an unholy weedy mess. It must be working because I have surprisingly few issues. Giving myself a rest also works well, by mid-September (now) I'm rested up and jonesing to get a garden going again.

Rutabaga from my Fall/Winter garden of 2012.

Baby banana peper from my spring/summer garden 2013.

Growing Fruit Trees in Different Zones

Every zone has it limitations for what you can and cannot grow, which can be frustrating to experimental gardeners. However, I have found a way to expand my growing zone, taking over the yards of friends and relatives who live in different zone. For instance, my parents live in Pinellas approximately a mile from the coast so they are a very mild zone 9B/10A. The downside is that they live in a subdivision and don't want to just grow tropical fruit trees for me so there is only so much I can plant in their yard. But I did manage to get them excited about a Mango tree I bought them for Christmas, and then later I snuck over some seedling Papaya trees. The Mango is the variety 'Nam Doc Mai', which I bought from Jene's Tropicals in St. Pete.  This nursery is great, for the tropical fruit garden they have multiple sizes of every conceivable fruit tree, it's awesome! This mango variety is semi-dwarf, with excellent flavor and fiberless flesh. I can't wait for this thing to produce fruit, but as you can see from the picture below, I may have a year or two (or three) to wait. The Papaya I grew from the seeds of a solo papaya I bought from the grocery store.  I had no idea that Papaya's were so easy to grow from seed, so I'm looking online for seeds for some more exotic varieties. But it really is as simple as planting the seeds from the fruit you get at the grocery store. Now that I've opened the door to growing tropical fruit it's really difficult not to check into what else might be interesting to grow. I've recently heard about Mysore raspberries which are a tropical variety of raspberry that I may need to convince my parents they need to grow, and maybe an Avocado tree tree, and a Lychee, and a .....

So my parents house covers my tropical zone, but there are crops I'd like to try that have a higher chilling requirement than my Hernando county location will accomodate. Fortunately my husband recently acquired a hunting cabin in N. Florida that sits on a couple of acres.  The property already has an established Pear tree that was loaded with fruit this year (I see pear canning in my future).  Last year I agreed to support the Arbor Day Foundation's Hazelnut Project, and am the proud owner of 6 Hazelnut seedlings. However, it would seem that my Hazelnuts are a little too far south for their comfort. Despite my best efforts, the foliage is stippled with necrotic lesions and the trees just aren't thriving. As soon as they go dormant this winter I'll plant them up at the hunting cabin which is zone 8A. I think they'll appreciate the longer dormancy and higher chilling hours. I have plans for a few other species at this location. I definitely would like to grow  an Amling Pecan, as they are a papershell that produce fruit early. I am also looking into some Apple varieties as well as I just cannot get them to succeed in Hernando, even the low chill varieties.

 I recommend this approach to gardening as it's a subtle/low pressure introduction to gardening for people in your life who do not garden currently. Just be careful to select friends or relatives who share well, I have doubts that I will get any of the Mango's from my parents tree:)

Florida Kiwi

I am an adventuresome gardener and will attempt to grow just about anything. Earlier this year I was intriqued with the idea of growing kiwi vines at my Hernando County home. While researching how to grow Kiwi vines, I found many online posts from fellow Floridians discussing a lack of success with bringing their Kiwi vines to the point of fruiting.   I am also a confident, somewhat egotistical gardener, and dismissing the failures of others, I went forward with obtaining some Kiwi vines.  I was going to order them online but happened to come across some at Lowe's.  From my research the varieties best suited for my central Florida location are Vincent and Tomuri. Kiwi's need a male and female for pollination, Vincent is the female and Tomuri is the male. Most nurseries sell them individually but the pots at Lowe's have one vine of each. First I worked some good compost into the soil, then planted my vines on a pergola in a partially shady spot adjacent to my vegetable garden.  To keep the roots cook I dressed the bed with a good layer of mulch, and have been administering a light top dressing of fertilizer every two months.  I planted the vines back in May, and they exploded! Below are pictures of the vines as they are at present. I'm actually hoping they go dormant this winter or they are going to take over my garden. I feel good that my vines are growing well, so we'll see if I get any blooms next year. Even if they never fruit, I have to admit they are a pretty vine for my pergola with their big, bright green fuzzy leaves. I am also reading a little bit about golden or yellow kiwi, so maybe I need to add to my fruit collection....

Grape Vines

I'm going to try my hand at growing the native Muscadine grape at my house.  This decision was made spur of the moment (most of my best decisions are) at Wal-Mart when I walked past a table in the garden section selling grape vines. I picked up two Nesbitt's and a Noble.  Since I did not plan this purchase it took me a few days to decide where to plant and trellis these vines, and finally settled on clearing an area along the side of the vegetable garden.  Below are some pictures of the vines and my fancy trellising system. I'll use any excuse to buy interesting bits of hardware, and this trellis was the perfect excuse, so I included a close up of my rigging (feel free to be impressed).  And since I am out of green tie tape, and apparently there is a nationwide shortage of the stuff as I am unable to find any, I had to resort to orange flagging tape. It's not pretty but it did the job.

Fruit Trees!

I love the idea of growing my own fruit, and with that in mind I planted a small orchard last year on an additional piece of property that we own about 5 miles away.  It's a 5 acre parcel and we hope to some day build on it, thus selling our current house. Because of this, I have been abstaining from planting trees on our current property. I know it would break my heart to part with them, especially if they were mature and producing fruit. However, I'm one of those people who enjoys coming home from work and checking on the garden, pulling a few weeds or doing some trimming. Having the orchard off site does not give me the day to day satisfaction of watching the trees grow and fussing with them. So today I gave in and decided to add a few trees to my existing garden area (actually I succombed to my envy of another central Florida gardening blogger bragging about peach and plum harvests from the fruit trees in his yard).  I located a small local fruit tree nursery and paid them a visit, Twin Cedars Nursery on SR 50 just east of Brooksville.  I was impressed with the selection and quality of the plant material, and the pricing was very reasonable.  I enjoyed chatting with the nursery owner, who was very informative, sharing with me local knowledge and performance expectations for the plant material.  I ended up purchasing a Gulf Beauty Plum, a Florida Belle Peach and a Mullberry that the owner refers to as a Clayton (after the property owner whose tree the nursery owner collected cuttings from, he assures me the taste of the fruit will convince me the effort was worth it).

The information I received about these trees: Plum 'Gulf Beauty' - scab resistant, heavy producer with good flavor, and does not need a pollinator (according to the nursery owner, not IFAS).  Peach 'Florida Belle' - older variety that produces larger fruit, great flavor, self pollinated and very low chill hours. As for the Clayton Mullberry, I have no idea what to expect, but I was told that the fruit will taste amazing.

The first step was to amend the bed areas where I was installing the trees. As all Central Florida gardeners know, our soil is pretty sandy. Lucky for me, our neighbors had a couple of large Live Oaks cut down and chipped up a little over a year ago. This mulch has been sitting in their yard just cooking into a beautiful, earthworm filled compost. So I took a couple of wheelbarrow loads of this and worked it into the soil with my beloved garden weasel.  I bought this little gem from Big Lots for $10 on a whim and have found it's the perfect tool for working small areas of soil.  Then the only thing left was to install my trees, and hope the dogs don't pull them out.  They should do well in their new home as they will be getting full sun and are under irrigation.

Crop Selection

Despite how much I like to try new varieties, looking through my notes from last years Fall/Winter garden there are some varieties that did so well that I'm definitely planting them again this year. What's really nice is that I still have seed left from last year.  Here are the veggies and varieties that worked really well for me here in Hernando County last year:
Little Marvel English Pea-fast growing flavorful pea, very productive.
Guisante Sugar Snap Pea-very fast growing, great flavor, very productive.
Pericicaba Broccoli-produces a sweeter broccoli, with smaller florets.
Violetta Cauliflower-purple heads, good flavor.

These are my sugar snaps from last year, I underestimated their height potential when planning to use large tomato cages as supports. I ended up rigging tomato stakes to the cages to give them more support. It worked but looked pretty raggedy:) These are by far my favorite winter crop to grow as they tolerate a variety of weather conditions, produce prolific amounts of pea pods, and the taste is wonderful. My husband would eat handfuls of them straight off the vine (a benefit of growing them organically). The picture below is a baggie full from one harvest, and I harvested probably three times weekly. 

Getting the Fall/Winter Garden Ready

I'm getting excited about my Fall/Winter garden getting close to planting! I have seed catalogs ordered and they should be here any day so I can get seeds ordered. I had a fungal outbreak take out a whole crop of tomatoes a few years back which I believe began with seedlings I picked up from a hardware store. Since then I start practically all my veggies from seed. Currently I have the soil solarizing under a thin layer of clear plastic. I have done this every summer for approximately 6 years and have few issues with pests, disease or weeds. The plastic goes on early August and will come off sometime mid to late September. I have learned to use a thinner plastic as it seems to conform to the soil surface better which allows for better heating (and it's cheaper to buy).