Now that you’ve created a healthy foundation for your garden (Chapter 6), and you’re equipped with a plan to make the most of every inch (Chapter 7), we’re going to look at some of the most popular vegetables. While most people think of vegetables as the main part of a seasonal garden, experienced homesteaders will tell you there’s a lot more to a diet, and thus the backyard farm, than just a handful of veggies.
There is something miraculous about growing a garden. A single seed takes dirt, sunlight, and water and transforms itself into an exponential harvest. A truly compounding investment, gardening can bring a large percentage of the meal’s food straight from the backyard farm. This section digs deeper into the most popular, and most valuable, vegetables for your garden.
We not only look at which vegetables to grow, but also why, what makes them special, and when you should think about adding one or more of these to your garden. In each section I also discuss some specific varieties to consider adding to your kitchen table.
The vegetables mentioned here are only an introduction to the many varieties that are available. Be adventurous with your garden!
These vegetables grow in the cooler seasons and will often bolt, or go to seed, during warmer weather. They can be grown in early spring, or often are planted in late summer to grow for a fall crop. Growing them in a fall garden is especially useful in places where a mild spring doesn’t last very long before summer heat turns brutal.
Beets are a root crop that is easy to grow and produces well. Beets are useful as food for not only the humans on the homestead, but as feed for the animals also. The sweet roots of sugar beets are used as a source of sucrose sweetener, and with good reason. Beets are a crop that is often overlooked in many diets, but has the potential to be a main staple in the homestead kitchen. Try growing cultivars that are white, yellow, or orange if you don’t like the red color that can stain hands.
Beet seeds are actually the fruit of the plant and are multigerm, which means more than one plant will sprout from a single seed. Sow one seed at a time, and space them about 3 inches apart. In the spring, you can begin planting 3 to 5 weeks before your last frost date, and in the fall start your last round of planting about 10 weeks before your first frost date.
When the seedlings emerge, you will notice that many of them have three or more seedlings in one clump. Thin out the weakest ones so that each clump has one strong seedling growing. Be sure to toss your thinnings to the chickens or goats or at the very least into the compost bin so you aren’t wasting them.
After the beets are well-started and have laves about 4 inches tall, go through and thin the survivors 5 inches apart. Beets will continue to grow as long as they have space and friable soil. Beets will be ready to harvest anywhere from 7 to 13 weeks or more depending on when in the season you’re growing and how the particular variety grows.
Beets are a drought-tolerant crop with enormous roots. Give them room to spread and they will do well even in poor soil. In fact, if the soil is too rich in nitrogen, your beets will produce large tops but broken roots. Beet tops are sometimes used as greens in the kitchen but I prefer chard or kale, and let the livestock eat the beet tops instead.
Harvest beets by selecting the largest ones first and harvesting as needed. This will allow more room for the smaller beets to continue growing. I know some farmers who simply dig every other one to get the maximum growing space for their beets.
OVER THE GARDEN FENCE
Beet tops and roots are often used as livestock fodder in small-scale productions trying to avoid using commercial feed. Beet tops can be twisted off the roots, dried, and then fed to any livestock on the farm. Whole beets should be broken, ground, or cut up in some way to avoid cattle and pigs choking on small beets. I’ve heard of ranchers using wood chippers, feed grinders, and even driving over beets to crush them before feeding to livestock.
The roots you harvest in the fall will store for several weeks in a cool root cellar. Roots harvested earlier in the season can be eaten fresh or even pickled and canned. And don’t ignore the tops, which can be eaten as greens similar to kale or collards!
Beets tend to resist most pests in the garden. Digging rodents can steal your crop sometimes, and the edible green tops are a lure for deer or wild rabbits. Leaf miners sometimes attack beet leaves but are not considered a huge problem in most areas.
Albino beet. As the name implies, the albino beet has a white-fleshed root.
Bull’s blood. A deep red beet with pinkish rings inside, the leaves are an attractive reddish-purple color. About 10 weeks to mature.
Chioggia. This gorgeous Italian heirloom has red- and white-striped flesh.
Heirloom Chioggia beets have beautifully colored roots.
(Photo courtesy of Baker Creek Seeds)
Giant Yellow Eckendorf. A huge rooting beet, the flesh is a golden yellow. The beets grow to be several pounds.
Ruby Queen. A popular canning variety that performs in poor soil and tolerates intensive planting.
Broccoli (Brassica oleracea)
Part of the Brassica family, broccoli is a vegetable high in vitamin C and calcium, which makes it a great choice for home gardens. A fast grower, broccoli prefers cool weather as it will not tolerate as much heat as the similar-looking cauliflower will. Broccoli grows easily from seed and can be planted in midsummer through fall, following the frost-tender vegetables. I love broccoli for extending the total produce grown in the garden each year.
Broccoli grows from seed to harvest in about 11 to 14 weeks although plants started in the fall will grow a bit slower than plants started early in the spring. They don’t like having their roots disturbed so start seeds in plantable pots. Begin hardening off the plants to move to the garden at about four weeks.
If you’re interplanting with summer crops, cut those vines/plants off at ground level after they are dead instead of pulling them up by the roots, so you don’t disturb the root system of your broccoli plants. In this case you can plant the seeds directly in the soil about 3⁄4 to 1 inch deep. I allow about 14 to 20 inches between my broccoli plants, which is pretty close spacing, and this allows the broad leaves to shade out weeds beneath them.
Grow your broccoli in soil that is between 6.0 and 7.0 pH and make sure they get full sun. Broccoli will take plenty of nutrients so rotate it in after a lighter feeder like onions or beans, and be sure you’ve applied plenty of compost or organic fertilizer (see Chapter 6). This same tendency to feed heavily will make your broccoli sensitive to weeds, so be sure you mulch thickly enough to smother out the weeds in your garden, and pull any stragglers in your garden area once a week.
All broccoli should be harvested before the green florets bloom into yellow flowers. When the yellow begins to show it is really too late, and it can happen almost overnight in the spring so watch out!
OVER THE GARDEN FENCE
I learned the first year we grew our garden that fresh broccoli is more tender than what I was used to buying in the grocery store. When you cook your garden-grown broccoli, you won’t need to cook it as long because it is fresh and harvested when ripe!
If you’re harvesting heading broccoli you’ll get one main, large head, so let it grow big enough to provide a decent harvest. Sprouting broccoli will produce side-shoots of broccoli as you harvest mature heads, so the more you harvest, the more it produces. Broccoli raab (pronounced rob) is usually harvested for its zesty greens and should be harvested before the florets mature to avoid a bitter taste—usually within a mere 50 days of planting. Romanesco varieties have unique spiraled heads and generally require a little more growing room.
Pests that attack broccoli are usually the same pests you’ll find on cabbage. Army worms, flea beetles, cabbage worms, and cabbage aphids can all attack the leaves. Cabbage root fly is a pest that can attack the root of the broccoli plant causing a sudden decline in a plant that otherwise seemed healthy. Rotating where you plant your cabbage family plants can help break the lifecycle of this pest and prevent attack.
Di Ciccio. An Italian heritage variety that offers heavy production of side shoots after the head has been harvested.
Early Purple Sprouting. This broccoli is a sprouting type with lots of side shoots. The broccoli heads are purple instead of green.
Small Miracle. One of the most compact broccoli plants available, this is one of the cultivars you could grow in a container.
Waltham 29. Pictured below in my garden, this broccoli produces side shoots in addition to the main head.
Most broccoli varieties produce a large head, but many old-fashioned varieties will produce additional side shoots.
Cabbage (Brassica oleracea)
Cabbage is a bit touchier than broccoli and will perform much better when planted for the fall growing season. Our Oklahoma springs generally don’t last long enough for our cabbage to form heads so I no longer plant it at the beginning of the season. Cabbage is one of the most cold-hardy vegetables and tastes better after a touch of frost.
Cabbage is a perfect example for why building your soil’s fertility naturally is so much more effective—when cabbage is fertilized too heavily and too quickly it can cause cracked heads that are weaker. Fertility built into the soil will be released as the plant needs it compared to the synthetic fertilizers that are poured over the top of the plant.
Cabbage can be started indoors and transplanted to the garden a few weeks before the last frost date. Seeds only need to be about 1⁄4 to 1⁄2 inch deep and planted 12 to 24 inches apart depending on whether they are an early maturing variety or a late-maturing variety. Cabbage doesn’t develop deep roots so be sure you water consistently to avoid stressing them.
Cabbage adds color to the fall garden as it’s available in both green and red varieties. Late-maturing varieties are much larger and can grow as big as a bowling ball at 6 to 8 pounds! Early maturing varieties are smaller and can be harvested much sooner.
Brunswick. Large, drumhead cabbage that is historically grown both for market and for long-term winter storage.
Glory of Enkhuizen. An heirloom variety known as a good sauerkraut cabbage. Medium-large, bright green heads mature in about three months.
Mammoth Red Rock. Deep red cabbage with huge heads are both colorful and flavorful.
Perfection Drumhead Savoy. Slower to mature, this large drumhead has crinkly or savoyed leaves. The leaves are milder and after a touch of frost, become very sweet.
DEFINITION
When talking about plants, the savoyed leaves are those that are crinkled. Sometimes you’ll see the term “semi-savoyed,” which simply means “a little crinkled.”
Savoy di Verona is an example of the variety of cabbages available if you use heirloom varieties and grow them from seed. This cabbage is variegated green and red with a pleasing mix of colors.
(Photo courtesy of Baker Creek Seeds)
One of the most pleasing surprises to me when we started our gardening journey was the amazing variety of lettuce available. Colorful! Delicious! Zesty! Sweet! The world of Iceberg lettuce is like black and white television—you don’t know what you’re missing until you switch to high-def color. There are four main types of lettuce you can try in your garden:
Crisphead lettuce is the type of lettuce you tend to think of at the grocery store like Iceberg. These are the most heat tolerant of all the lettuces but will also tolerate cool fall weather.
Butterhead lettuce has hearts as well as loose leaves. This type is drought and heat tolerant compared to many of the other varieties.
Romaine or cos lettuce has an upright form and doesn’t have a thick heart like the previous two types. Hardy in cold weather, the romaines generally do not tolerate heat well.
Loose-leaf or salad bowl lettuce includes a huge variety, such as black-seeded Simpson, Oak Leaf, and Red Sails. As the name implies, this type has loose leaves instead of a heart to the plant. It is the least heat tolerant.
Heirloom lettuce, like this Devil Ears lettuce, provides a myriad of colors and tastes not available in the grocery store.
(Photo courtesy of Baker Creek Seeds)
Lettuce can be grown anywhere that gets enough water to support it because periods of drought will cause bitterness in the leaves. When sowing seeds outside you want the soil temperature between 40°F and 75°F, because if the weather is too warm the seeds won’t germinate. Late fall or early spring is ideal for most of the lettuce types, especially in the warm southern climates.
Sow seeds indoors when outdoor temperatures are not quite ideal and then transplant to the garden at four weeks. Plant lettuce every couple weeks so you’ll have a plentiful harvest as the season progresses. I like to try to plant lettuce about 6 to 12 inches apart so I won’t have to thin it very much. The key is to plant a lot of different varieties of lettuce because there are so many colors and tastes to choose from.
OVER THE GARDEN FENCE
The darker the leaves of your lettuce (whether red or green) the higher in vitamin A that variety will be.
Lettuce can be harvested from the outside leaves in (except heading lettuces), so don’t be afraid to begin harvesting as soon as you get hungry but leave the growing center. Lettuce that has a heart should be harvested whenever the heart forms so that the lettuce won’t bolt, or go to seed.
Lettuce has a lot of pests that will attack the leaves. Aphids are one type of pest in particular and can be controlled by allowing predators to thrive in the garden. You can also rinse them away with soapy water spray. Slugs can be a huge problem with lettuce, and this is one case where a thick layer of mulch right around the base of the plant might be a problem and not a help. If you see chewed leaves and slimy trails you’ll know what your problem is. Beer traps or upside-down orange halves set nearby will help you naturally control the slugs in your garden if you’re prone to them.
Amish Deer-Tongue. An elongated leaf, and loose habit, has made this slow-growing lettuce a favorite in backyard farms for generations.
Black-Seeded Simpson. One of the most popular heirloom lettuce varieties, it matures early after only 45 days.
Buttercrunch Bibb. A popular heirloom variety, this cultivar was named All-American Selection when it was introduced in 1963.
Flame. A strongly colored red lettuce that is becoming more popular as a local market and gourmet offering.
Gotte Jaune D’Or. Also called Golden Tennis Ball, this loose-leaf lettuce is a bright, lime green.
Little Gem. A butterhead-type lettuce with small, compact heads growing only about 6 inches tall.
Oak Leaf. Uniquely cut leaf shape resembles an oak leaf, giving this slow-to-bolt variety its name.
Paris Island. A sweet-tasting Romaine type of lettuce with dark green outer leaves and a pale-green heart. Great for year-round planting.
Rouge D’Hiver or Red Winter. Highly cold-tolerant lettuce from the early 1800s, the leaves are dark purple-red.
Ruby Leaf. This is a highly attractive leaf lettuce with variegated red leaves and a green heart.
India mustard is grown for the delicious and nutritious leaves. I love adding chopped mustard to our stews in the winter to help boost the overall vitamins we are consuming during the times we have fewer fresh fruits and vegetables coming from the garden. High in vitamins K and A, mustard is also high in calcium and iron.
From seed-sowing to maximum harvest is about 12 weeks but you can begin cutting leaves within just a few weeks. Seeds will not sprout when temperatures drop below 45°F and should be planted 1⁄4 to 1⁄2 inch deep, much like lettuce. Plant mustard about 12 inches apart and you’ll find this plant a carefree, easy-to-grow addition to your fall garden.
As with lettuce, drought will cause the mustard plants to turn bitter and sharp. Harvest leaves around 45 days of maturity so you’ll have tender greens. Mustard can be eaten raw, which will have a more peppery flavor, or steamed lightly to bring out a natural sweetness.
Mustard has fewer pests than lettuce or cabbage, even though it’s in the broccoli family, too. If flea beetles become a problem, try adding a row cover. Club root can develop if you plant mustard in the same area year after year—so get out that garden journal and rotate your crops (see Chapter 4)!
Japanese Giant Red. This variety has purple-red leaves with green centers, and a strong, sharp flavor. Good for stir-fries.
Japanese giant mustard, an heirloom variety, has multicolor leaves.
(Photo courtesy of Baker Creek Seeds)
Southern Giant Curled. This heat-tolerant, American mustard has curled and savoyed leaves that grow upright. Foliage is bright-green and attractive.
Tendergreen. A quick-maturing mustard, the tendergreen has deep-green, glossy-looking leaves.
Peas are a great snack fresh from the garden and provide high levels of vitamin C and iron. Low-maintenance in the garden, peas don’t usually need extra fertilizer. Peas stop producing in the highest temperatures, so in areas with hot summers you’ll want to plant them in spring and later summer.
We started out planting peas in double rows on either side of a trellis and allowed all the plants to grow up. I read in Mother Earth News a suggestion to plant a shorter-growing variety beside the longer, rambling pea vines. Then the quick-growing short vines mature more quickly as well as helping to support the longer variety pea vines as they grow.
Sow your peas about 1 inch deep in soil that is not too cold or wet or the peas will rot. Spring plantings are often better started indoors and then transplanted outdoors when they have a good start of a couple inches. In the late fall, plant outdoors where the warm soil will help with germination. Peas can be soaked overnight to help increase the germination rate as well.
Peas mature between 11 to 14 weeks depending on the variety. There are four main types of peas. Snap peas are eaten whole with the peas still in the pods and are harvested when the peas just barely begin to show. Soup peas, on the other hand, are grown for drying and storing and so are harvested when they have dried completely on the vine. Snow peas produce tender pods, eaten whole, and are often added to stir-fries and salads. Shell peas, or English peas, are grown until the pea pods are full and are shelled from the pods.
HARVESTING PEAS
Use care when harvesting climbing peas so you don’t break the clasping tendrils when you pull off the pods. Hold the plant steady with one hand and pluck the pods off the vine with the other. Pick peas often to encourage healthy production and preserve extra harvest by freezing, canning, or drying.
Peas are sometimes eaten off the vine by birds and rodents. Mosaic virus can also be a problem in some regions, especially where peas are overcrowded or lack good airflow. Root rot is a problem where fungus gathers in the soil, and rotating crops can help minimize that problem.
Alaska. One of the earliest maturing peas, it isn’t always as tender as some of the other peas, but makes a great soup pea. Fifty days to maturity makes for a short growing time.
Lincoln. Also called the Homesteader, this pea is highly heat tolerant and wilt resistant. Compact vines produce loads of easy-to-shell peas.
Mammoth Melting. A sweet snap pea with wilt-resistant vines up to 6 feet long. Best in cool weather.
Sugar Ann. This sweet, edible pod pea took the All-American Selection prize in 1984 and grows on a more compact, container-friendly vine of 4 feet or less.
Tall Telephone. Also called Alderman. This prolific vine was named for Alexander Graham Bell and is great for canning and freezing.
Wando. A versatile pea that will pollinate well in cool weather, and holds up better in hot weather than most peas. My kids call this the Waldo vine.
Spinach (Spinacea oleracea)
There are two main types of spinach to try in your homestead garden. The first group of spinach is savoyed or semi-savoyed, which is the type of spinach with crinkly leaves that are a very dark green. Smooth-leaved spinach is a lighter green and has smooth leaves instead of the textured leaves.
In southern gardens, you can sow seeds in the fall about five to seven weeks before the first frost date, and you can begin harvesting as baby greens very quickly. In northern gardens, spinach will behave well when planted in the spring and not bolt too soon. Either way, plant your seeds 1⁄2 inch deep and 8 inches apart in loose, fertile soil. Spinach is one of the cool-season plants that is not in the Brassica family, so you can plant it where tomatoes grew in the summer or where broccoli and cabbage were the previous year.
You can begin harvesting delicious leaves from the outside of the plant as baby greens within just a couple weeks (as soon as plants reach 2 inches tall). Continue harvesting as needed from the outside of the plant until the spinach begins to bolt, or cut the whole plant when it reaches 6 to 8 inches tall. Sow new seeds every couple of weeks so you’ll have a continuous harvest through the fall and well into winter in some areas. Unlike lettuce, spinach freezes well so be sure to plant enough during the prime fall season to last through the summer when spinach won’t grow well—or in my area, at all.
Spinach doesn’t have very many pests but leaf miners can be a problem sometimes. If you see pale tunnels in your leaves, remove infected leaves and cover the plants with a floating row cover to keep the flies off the spinach. Slugs can be a pest on spinach, too, and if you see the leaves being chewed from the outside, try setting beer traps to control the overall population.
Bloomsdale. A long-standing spinach with excellent heat resistance, this spinach was first developed in the late 1800s.
Giant Noble. Huge spinach grows with a loose, open habit and outer leaves can be harvested in just a couple weeks.
Monstrueux De Viroflay. This spinach develops huge leaves nearly a foot long and is designed to grow quickly in the fall before winter weather sets in full force.
Swiss Chard (Beta vulgaris)
Swiss chard is in the same family as spinach and beets. In fact, Swiss chard is basically a beet that is grown for its stem and leaves instead of the root. And wow! What a colorful and tasty stem and leaves it produces! Swiss chard is one of those plants that is as much at home in the front planter bed as it is in the vegetable garden, because the brilliant colors are so attractive.
Sow your seeds outdoors when the soil is at least 47°F or sow indoors and transplant out in early spring. Plant seeds to 12 inches apart in soil mixed with new compost. Some swear by soaking the seeds overnight to help improve germination, so that’s something you can try if you want. Seeds will last for three years when stored properly, so don’t feel like you have to plant the whole packet—you can plant half and save the rest for the following year.
Swiss chard produces for a long time in the fall garden. You can harvest the outer leaves only when the plants are newer. On plants that are more mature, you can harvest the entire plant by cutting off stems about an inch above ground level. Swiss chard often regrows with new, tender stems that you can continue to harvest.
Keep Swiss chard watered consistently and mulch well, both to preserve the moisture and to keep water from getting on the leaves. If your growing season gets extended because of earlier planting in the summer or a mild early winter, renew the soil with an application of fertilizer and compost.
Swiss chard can be used as both a green and an asparagus or celery replacement in the kitchen. Stems can be lightly steamed, sautéed, or pickled, while greens can be dehydrated, blanched and frozen, or used in stews, omelets, and casseroles.
Leaf miners can be a problem for chard, as with spinach, and floating row covers are an easy way to help prevent this problem. If your seedlings aren’t growing well it could be because of weeds in the area, because Swiss chard doesn’t compete well with weeds. Clear your planting area before sowing seeds or transplanting, and then cover with a layer of mulch to smother out any weeds.
Bright Lights. Also called Five Color Sweetbeet or Rainbow Chard, this cultivar is quickly growing in popularity as a specialty market chard. Stems are produced in red, pink, yellow, orange, and white!
Flamingo Pink. This chard’s name is not an exaggeration; the stems are bright pink, almost neon colored.
Fordhook Giant. Burpee, a plant and seed company, introduced this heavy yielding choice with dark green leaves and white stems.
Ruby Red. My kids call this Christmas chard because the stems are cherry red while the leaves are dark green.
Warm-season vegetables enjoy basking in long days of sunshine. The longer days and warmer soil temperatures are what these plants need to produce the classic garden harvests of tomato, corn, and zucchini.
Beans (Phaseolus vulgaris)
Beans are a fabulous plant to add to the garden because as a legume they add nitrogen back into the soil. Add beans to your crop rotation in between heavy feeders such as tomatoes and broccoli. Harvest beans early for fresh green bean produce, or allow them to dry for long-term storage. Some beans have a vining growth habit while others have a nonvining, bushy growth habit.
Beans are high in protein and in many cultures they make up a large part of the daily diet. On the homestead, a stored supply of beans can make it easier to fill in the gap during times when the freezer is a little lower on meat. Even with literally hundreds of varieties of beans, growing them is relatively simple and easy to manage regardless of which type of beans you want. Many varieties can even be harvested as green or snap beans early in the season, and then allowed to dry for a soup bean harvest as well.
Beans are easy to plant directly in the garden when soil is at least 55 degrees. Plant the beans about 2 inches deep. Space them about 5 to 12 inches apart depending on the cultivar and whether you’re growing bush varieties or using a trellis for pole beans. Some more aggressive varieties may need to be spaced even farther apart, but with vertical garden techniques you can get away with more intensive planting.
Beans have a variable time to maturity depending on what variety you’ve planted, but generally you can begin picking snap beans within 8 to 12 weeks. If you are harvesting dried beans, allow around 12 to 16 weeks until the beans have dried in the pod on the vine.
OVER THE GARDEN FENCE
You can really maximize your snap bean harvest by picking your beans on a daily basis. The more frequently you pick the fresh beans, the more your plants will produce. When even a few of the bean pods reach maturity, your bean plants will stop flowering and cease production. Beans are commonly planted in succession so you can grow a new crop every couple weeks.
Dwarf bush beans will produce beans early, while pole beans will produce later in the season. Plant a variety so you can harvest throughout the entire summer. Beans are easy to can, freeze, and store dried.
Mexican bean beetles cause lacey patterns in the leaves where they feed and in severe infestations can even kill plants. Because the beetles overwinter in leafy debris, a tidy garden space with leaf litter, well-composted in a compost bin, can help break up the lifecycle. Parasitic wasps prey on these pests. Aphids and red spider mites can cause problems for bean plants as well. In both cases insecticidal soap sprayed on the leaves can help prevent infestation.
Contender bush bean. One of my favorite green bean varieties, this bush bean is prolific and produces early beans for fresh eating.
Jacob’s Cattle bean. This colorful bean is a bush bean that is white and brick red in mottled splashes. The beans mature to fully dried beans in 100 days.
Montezuma Red. Also called Mexican Red, this dried bean bush is a sprawling vine with fabulous production. Beans are deep red and tasty.
Purple-Podded beans. In my region, these are called purple-hulled peas and the variety we have in our family is a bush form. There is also a pole form that grows large vines. Both are highly prolific and good as early snap peas, shelled beans, and dried beans.
These purple-podded pole beans are easy to grow vertically. My in-laws often grow a purple-hulled bush variety at the ranch to feed both humans and cattle.
(Photo courtesy of Baker Creek Seeds)
Tongue of Fire. An Italian heirloom with pinto-type beans is a perfect drying bean. Flavorful when eaten fresh or as dried beans.
Topnotch. This bush bean produces tender, yellow pods that are perfect for eating fresh off the vine.
Carrots are a biennial root crop. The plant’s natural cycle is to develop a large, thick root the first year and then move quickly to flowering and seed the following spring. Carrots are related to the wild Queen Anne’s lace plants but bred for sweet, tender roots.
Carrots need loose, friable soil but grow better roots when they aren’t fertilized too heavily with nitrogen. Heavy nitrogen encourages thick top growth and too-fast root growth, which can lead to forking and splitting.
Carrots do not transplant well, so plan to sow seeds directly into the garden. These are one of the few plants I really do sow thicker than needed because my carrots never seem to germinate as well as the other plants I like, and have a higher die off in the first couple weeks as seedlings. Thin gradually so that at a month you have seedlings 4 to 6 inches apart.
THINNING SEEDLINGS
Some crops can be thinned by pulling the plant out and tossing to the chickens, goats, or into the compost bin. Others, like carrots, should be thinned by cutting off the plant at the ground level. We use a simple pocket-knife for this and just slice it through the soil severing the stem from the roots. The idea is to not disturb the roots of the surrounding plants while they are growing.
For the best, most tender carrots you want your plants to grow quickly and easily. If the roots have to work too hard to get through the soil, they will be tough and fibrous. If your soil is more clay, consider the shorter carrot varieties.
Anywhere from 9 to 20 weeks will be needed before harvest, depending on the variety and how soon you harvest. Pull carrots as needed for fresh eating, or at the end of fall for root cellar storage. The carrot roots can be stored in a basket of moist sand.
Atomic Red. Brilliant red carrots are high in beta-carotene and lycopene and grow about 8 inches long in 70 days.
Chantenay Red Core. This variety tolerates heavier soil than most carrots and is a super-sweet, 5-inch-long carrot.
Danvers Half Long. A tapered wedge-shaped carrot that grows 6 inches long. This carrot has been popular for more than 100 years. Good winter-storage and very tolerant of a variety of soils.
Parisienne. A French, round carrot grown for market, it’s a good choice for heavier soils.
Snow White. A white-fleshed carrot that matures at about 8 inches with a sweet, crunchy texture.
OVER THE GARDEN FENCE
In southern areas with mild winters, you can leave the carrots in the ground under a thick layer of mulch instead of harvesting them in the fall. Dig and harvest through the winter as needed!
Corn is actually a grass on steroids. It’s an improved grain and there are a couple different types. Field or dent corn is often grown for grinding to use as corn meals; sweet corn is what you usually think of as summer eating corn; and popcorn is a relative of the field corn and fabulous for snacking. Corn needs lots of water so its shallow roots don’t dry out.
Sow your seeds directly into the garden and watch out for crows and other hungry birds. We’ve seen them go down the row pulling just-sprouted seedlings up by the leaves to get to the seed below. Sow seeds at least an inch deep when the soil is warm because late frosts will kill the leaves. Plant corn in wider rows to help with pollination, because if you don’t have enough corn the fruit won’t form as well. Space plants at least 18 inches apart.
Corn is shallow rooted and feeds heavily so it benefits from added compost throughout the season. The extra soil built up around the corn stalk helps stabilize the corn plant and the added nutrients help feed it. This means corn also doesn’t compete well with weeds, so mulch deeply to help smother out weeds. In windy regions be sure to plant your corn rows where they will have some shelter from prevailing winds.
Corn is pollinated by wind, which is why planting in blocks is so helpful. You can also shake the corn stalks to loosen pollen and increase pollination. When the corn silk turns brown at the end, it’s a good sign that the corn is ripe.
Sweet corn begins to turn starchy as soon as it is picked, so for fresh eating there is nothing better than garden-to-table in a single day. Super-sweets will also not produce as sweet as possible if they cross-pollinate with anything other than super-sweet corn. Allow plenty of room between the different varieties if you grow more than one kind of corn.
Corn pests include large animals such as mice, crows, and raccoons. There are also plenty of insect pests such as earworms and corn borers, which will eat their way into the corn and destroy the harvest. Bacillus thuringiensis var. kurstaki or BTK can be applied to the leaves or tips of the ears where these pests are a big problem. Gardeners who are trying to avoid chemicals can use a drop of mineral oil on the silk to stop corn borers.
Blue Hopi. An ancient blue corn that was used for flour and corn meal. Matures in 110 days with 9-inch-long ears.
Country Gentleman. A sweet corn with pale yellow, 8-inch-long ears. Good for fresh eating and also freezes and cans well. Reputed to have high germination and pollination rates.
Golden Bantam. An early maturing corn that produces yellow, sweet corn in 75 days. The bantam corn only grows about 6 inches long on 6-foot stalks.
Painted Hill Sweet. Developed for cooler weather, this corn matures in 75 days and has multicolored kernels of red, blue, yellow, and more.
A favorite at our house, cucumbers are grown for eating fresh from the garden as well as for canning and pickling. Cucumbers are high in vitamin C and have a high water content, making them a classically refreshing treat from the garden. Think outside the traditional pickling cucumber when you choose varieties for the garden and look at cucumbers such as Asian cucumbers, which are beetle resistant.
Traditional gardening articles suggest growing cucumbers on hills and letting the vines ramble, but many gardeners find better success trellising cucumbers. Sow seeds directly in the garden after the other squash and melon seeds have already sprouted, when the soil is nearly 70°F. Plant seeds 1⁄2 inch deep and space them about 2 feet apart when growing up a trellis.
Begin harvesting cucumbers when they are large enough and don’t let them reach full maturity. If the seeds inside one of the cucumbers fully mature, the plant will stop producing new fruit. However, if you harvest cucumbers from the vines on a daily basis, you’ll get the most from each plant.
THORNY MATTERS
Stem rot and mosaic virus can be a problem if your cucumber vines are planted too early in the damp spring or if the vines are overcrowded. Growing up a trellis and allowing enough airflow around the plants can help prevent this. Cucumber beetles are often the biggest pest problem for cucumbers in the garden. Parasitic nematodes in the soil can help control the larvae and break the feeding cycle.
Lemon Cuke. A very unusual variety that grows round and yellow, resembling a lemon. Lemon Cuke has a mild flavor.
Marketmore. Matures in about 70 days; this cucumber has excellent yields and flavor. Dark green skin and 9-inch-long cucumbers. I like to harvest them around 7 to 8 inches.
Satsuki Midori. This Asian cucumber will tolerate part shade and produces long slender fruit up to 16 inches long. Nonbitter with thin skin, it’s perfect for slicing.
Straight-Eight. Grows to about 8 inches long, as the name implies. This All-American Selection winner has been popular since its introduction in 1935. Great for slicing and resistant to the mosaic virus.
Tasty Jade. Another great Asian cucumber variety, Tasty Jade grows 10 to 11 inches long on huge vines grown best on a trellis. Harvest the tender fruit only 55 days after planting.
White Wonder. An early maturing cucumber that will be harvestable in about 60 days. An albino-white cucumber, the White Wonder grows to about 6 inches long and has a wide, oblong shape. White Wonder has also been called Ivory King, Jack Frost, and Albino.
Garlic is one of those plants I think a lot of gardeners overlook, but it’s a must in our garden. Delicious seasoning in the kitchen and incredibly beneficial for health, garlic is something we use on a near-daily basis at our house. Growing garlic is easy and when you save your own seed stock you’ll find yourself with a strain uniquely suited for your local area.
Garlic grows best when it’s planted like the bulb that it is—in the fall at the same time you’d plant your daffodils. While you can plant in early spring, the bulbs will be much smaller. Plant in the fall when you start taking everything else out, and let it grow until you add the last of your tomatoes and eggplants at the start of summer.
To sow your garlic you won’t start with seeds, but rather with seed stock of whole garlic heads. Break the heads apart into individual cloves and plant them 2 to 4 inches deep with the root side toward the ground. Loosen the soil in the row around the garlic, making sure it’s easy to work, so the heads will grow as large as possible.
Mulch over in the winter to protect from the heaviest freezes; however, most garlic varieties will survive through zone 5. In the spring the garlic continues growing until summer when the leaves begin yellowing. The yellowing leaves are your cue to harvest.
Dig up the garlic cloves and let them cure for two weeks. There are two main types of garlic: softneck and hardneck. Softneck garlic can be braided because it doesn’t put out a central flowering stalk. Hardneck garlic often has a stronger flavor and will produce an edible flowering stalk. Hardneck garlic doesn’t tend to store as well, but softneck garlic can store up until the following spring.
DEFINITION
Curing a vegetable means letting the skin dry after picking so it will last longer in storage without rotting. Vegetables that generally benefit from curing include potatoes, onions, garlic, and winter squashes.
The flowering stalk, or seed scape, of hardneck garlic will grow in a large spiral around the leaves, and then end with the flower, which forms bulblets. These can be planted and will produce additional garlic, which is a nice way to increase seed stock supply in a pinch, or cut off the flowering stalk for slightly larger heads. For most gardeners you’ll want to cut the scapes off and use them in the kitchen so they don’t go to waste.
Garlic shares diseases that plague onions, too, so watch out for things like onion white rot or rust. Garlic cloves may also rot if spring is very damp and rainy. A virus called yellowing virus can also spread in stock that isn’t clean, so it is often best to start with certified clean seed stock. Rotating crops in the garden area can also help with all these problems.
German Extra-Hardy. Its high sugar content makes this an excellent garlic for roasting. A large and cold-hardy hardneck.
Inchelium Red. A mild-flavored softneck garlic that is considered one of the best-tasting garlics.
Polish. A hardy, softneck garlic with large, flavorful cloves.
Siberian. A cold-hardy, hardneck garlic with purple cloves. A popular hardneck variety.
Onions (Allium cepa)
Onions have a bit of a reputation for being picky and high-maintenance in the garden. When you prepare your beds nicely and plant the onions in loose, organic-rich soil, you’ll have a better chance of success. Be sure to match the variety you plant with your garden region as well.
Large onion bulbs are easily grown in the home garden, cured until the skins are dried, and then stored for use over several weeks.
(Photo courtesy of Baker Creek Seeds)
Plant onion sets or starts about 4 inches apart with the roots just barely in the soil first thing in the spring. If starting from seed, begin onions indoors in midwinter so they will be ready to set out in early spring. Onions are rather short-rooted, so they won’t compete well with weeds or tolerate heavy periods of drought well.
Onion tops can be harvested straight from the garden whenever you need green onions for seasoning or flavor. When the onion plant creates the green onion tops, they will put their efforts into the bulb creation. As the onion matures, the tops of the onions will turn brown and fall over.
Cure the onions by laying them in a sunny, protected place until the outer skins toughen. Long-day onions tend to form larger bulbs and store longer over the winter.
DEFINITION
Long-day onions form bulbs when the days are longer than 15 hours, so they are a good choice for southern gardens. In contrast, short-day onions produce bulbs when the days are 12 hours or less, so they are better suited for northern gardeners. Intermediate varieties fall in the middle.
Onions are prone to mildew and rotting if the ground is too wet during the time when the bulbs are growing. Overcrowding can also invite diseases in the onions. Onion flies lay eggs on young onion leaves or in the soil around the plants. Then the larvae eat through the stems, bulbs, and roots, so rotate crops to help break the cycle.
Ailsa Craig. Huge long-day onion that produces giant, softball-sized bulbs. The yellow flesh is mild and flavorful.
Red Burgundy. Glossy red onion with pink-tinted flesh. This onion stores well and makes a good slicer.
White Portugal. Introduced in the late 1700s, this onion has medium-shaped onions and sweet, white flesh. It’s maintained its popularity for so long for good reason.
Peppers (Capsicum annum)
Peppers are one of those plants that everyone thinks of when they think of growing a garden. Sweet peppers and hot peppers grow in much the same way and both, like tomatoes, enjoy the warmth of summer. Peppers have many uses in the kitchen, so it’s worth slipping these into the garden.
With hundreds of varieties available, you’re sure to find a handful of pepper plants that do well in your particular garden space. Plant several varieties your first couple years and try saving seeds (see Chapter 10) from the plants that perform the best to develop strains suited to your region.
Start your seeds indoors so that pepper plants have a head start when the weather warms up. Peppers can take up to 25 weeks to mature, so starting plants early will help gardeners in short-season areas enjoy a good harvest of peppers before cold fall weather sets in. Transplant pepper starts after hardening off into fertile soil with plenty of compost mixed in and mulch to keep the soil consistently moist.
When transplanting the plants you’ve started from seed indoors, a hardening off period will help the plants transition. With warm-season plants, if you move them from a sheltered, indoor location straight outdoors, your plants may die from the shock. Expose the seedlings to the outdoor environment in a sunny location protected with excess wind, for a couple hours per day. Slowly work your way up to a few hours each day by increasing the time of exposure until you’re ready to plant into the garden.
Space your pepper plants 12 to 18 inches apart. Provide supports, stakes, or cages as needed to prevent branches from breaking and to keep the fruit off the ground. Water regularly throughout the growing season and add fertilizer mix as a side-dressing. Peppers can be grown in containers, too, as long as they are not allowed to dry out.
Pick your sweet peppers when they are not quite fully ripened to encourage more fruit if you still expect warm weather. Otherwise let the peppers ripen for the fullest flavor or for saving seeds. Chiles and hot peppers are best ripened on the vine and care should be taken when harvesting the hottest varieties as they can burn the skin.
Common pests are usually the same as those for tomatoes—aphids, spider mites, and tomato hornworms all feed on the leaves. Blossom end rot can also occur when the plants are stressed by lack of watering or irregular water and in plants that are calcium deficient.
Anaheim. A classic hot pepper that matures in about 80 days. Fruits are 7 inches long and turn to bright red when they are mature. Bears fruit throughout the entire season.
Cherry sweet. Gorgeous fruits are cherry red and 1-inch-long, roundish peppers. This variety is more than 150 years old. Use this sweet pepper in pickle recipes and sweet salsas.
Golden marconi. These 7-inch peppers are a bright, golden yellow heirloom variety from Italy. Sweet pepper.
Habenero. A classic hot pepper for salsa and other Mexican dishes, the hot pepper matures in 85 days. Starts green and matures with orange-red coloring.
Purple beauty bell. A true purple pepper that matures in 70 days. Beautiful color on a prolific vine.
Sweet banana. A popular heirloom with long, yellow fruit. We get dozens on a single plant that mature in about 70 days.
One of the most productive vegetables for a small farm space. Whereas cereal grains like wheat take a lot of space to produce usable amounts, potatoes can produce 300 bushels or more on a single acre. Even 75 feet of potatoes (planted in three, 25-foot-long rows at our house) will produce more than 500 pounds of potatoes! You can expect that 1 pound of seed potatoes will produce anywhere from 10 to 20 pounds of potatoes or more.
Potatoes create an abundant harvest in a small amount of space. This 5-gallon bucket is overflowing with bounty from a single row.
Starting with certified, virus-free seed stock will help improve yields. When you save your own potatoes to replant in following years you will decrease the amount produced. Potato seeds aren’t seeds at all, but rather small potatoes, or chunks of potatoes, that are planted in the ground.
Potatoes for planting should not be from the grocery store as they will have been treated with anti-sprouting chemicals. Small potatoes with three eyes or less should be planted whole. Larger potatoes over 2 ounces and more than four eyes can be cut into pieces with each piece having at least two eyes and an ounce of flesh.
Each chunk of seed potato has at least three eyes, so it will grow well.
Dig a trench and plant your potato chunks 9 to 12 inches apart at about 4 inches deep. You want your potatoes to be planted about two weeks before the last frost so that the frost-tender vines will emerge to perfect spring weather. As the vines grow, be prepared to hill the potatoes in, or dig the dirt up around the plants.
The potatoes form on root nodules above the seed potato you planted, so as the vines reach at least 4 inches tall, dig them in. Each week, walk down the rows with the hoe and cover an inch or so of the vine with soil. Never cover more than a quarter of the vine at any one time, but do generously cover the vines and build up your potato hills.
Covering the growing vines with soil will give the potatoes more room to grow. It also makes sure that the sun is blocked from reaching exposed potatoes, which will make them green and inedible. Continue hilling up the potatoes as the vines grow until the vines stop growing and begin to fall over. We make sure to put a layer of loose mulch at this point just to help block weeds and sun.
When the vines turn brown and die the potatoes are ready to harvest. Dig your potatoes carefully to keep from cutting them accidentally. Any potatoes that you cut with the shovel are the potatoes you’ll want to put in your kitchen bin for eating fresh.
Potatoes for storing need to be cured before going into long-term storage over the winter months. Spread the potatoes out in one layer on a sheet or newspaper (we use feedsacks ripped open and laid flat) until the skin is dry.
My oldest son digging potatoes last year. The joy of harvesting potatoes becomes a family affair.
Potatoes share pests with tomatoes and peppers as well as having pests unique to them. Watch out for slugs and wireworms, which attack the tubers themselves. Mineral deficiencies affect the foliage and thus the total plant production. Other diseases that affect potatoes are viruses, nematodes, and scab. Excess lime will cause scab, but starting with certified seed stock will help minimize other diseases.
All Blue. A midseason potato with blue skin that holds color when cooked. Medium-sized potatoes mature in about 80 days.
Kennebec. A late-season, white-fleshed potato that is highly useful in the kitchen. Kennebec is a great winter keeper that resists viruses.
Russian Banana. An unusual Russian heirloom potato matures to a small, tender fingerling potato. The yellow skin and yellow flesh potato is highly flavorful and stores well during the winter.
Summer Squash (Cucurbita sp.)
Yellow crooked neck squash and zucchini are just two types of summer squash we make a regular part of our summer garden. Summer squash is picked when the fruit is still immature so the skin is thin and edible. Summer squash varieties don’t store well like winter squash, so they are eaten fresh when harvested or stored via canning and freezing.
Sow squash seed directly outdoors when the ground is warm—right about the last frost date in your area. You can start seeds indoors but use biodegradable pots so you can transplant without disturbing the roots of the plants. Plant the seeds individually 1 inch deep and space them 1 to 3 feet apart depending on the size of the mature vine and whether it’s a climbing or bush form.
When given fertile soil and plenty of moisture, squash will grow like a weed. You can see the growth each day when you check the garden in the morning! Squash flowers are male or female flowers and only the female flowers will produce fruit.
Having a variety of squash plants can help fertilization because male flowers appear a little before the female flowers. The female flowers have a miniature fruit underneath the flower. Male flowers have no miniature fruit visible and the flowers are edible.
Most of the summer squash varieties should be harvested at the 4- to 6-inch range. This means you’ll need to check your squash vines every day because a fruit that seems to be barely forming one day will suddenly be ready to harvest the next. Pattipan or other specialty squashes may have different sizes of maturity, but all summer squash are harvested before the seeds begin to mature.
Squash is prone to pests and grows through the warm season when creepy-crawlies are out and about in full force. If we notice an infestation of squash bugs we’ll run the chickens through the garden like a flanking cavalry to demolish the enemy. I’ve heard from others that their chickens won’t eat pests but their Guineas will, so you may want to experiment and see what works best for you. Don’t keep your poultry in the garden for too long, though, or they will peck at and destroy the plants you’re trying to grow.
Other organic methods of controlling squash beetles include hand picking (spray the plants with water first and it will be easier to catch the bugs) and floating row covers to prevent eggs from being laid. If you cover the plants with row covers, the flowers will have to be hand-pollinated.
Other pests include aphids, cucumber beetles, mites, and squash vine borers. Viruses and powdery mildew are diseases that can plague squash plants as well.
Black Beauty. A very dark green zucchini that is nearly black in color, the Black Beauty is a classic summer zucchini. Matures in 60 days.
Early Prolific Straightneck. This variety has been popular for almost a hundred years and won the All-American Selection in 1938. Lemon yellow squash with firm, flavorful flesh, the straightneck is highly prolific and tolerates heat well.
Peter Pan. A cute summer squash with flattened, patty pan–style fruit. The light green squash matures quickly, in about 49 days, and this squash was an All-American Selection winner in 1982.
Tomatoes (Lycopersicon esculentum)
The very definition of the ideal summer produce, the tomato is botanically a fruit even if it’s usually grown in the vegetable garden. There is no way to duplicate that fresh, home-grown tomato taste and I think that’s why tomatoes are the most commonly grown vegetables of home gardeners. Tomatoes are grown as annuals in most gardens, because they are so frost-tender; however, they are actually perennial plants.
Heirloom tomatoes allow you to grow a variety of colors, shapes, and sizes. These are several of the varieties available to the heirloom gardener.
(Photo courtesy of Baker Creek Seeds)
Tomatoes do well with soil that’s been amended with plenty of compost and organic matter. Using high-nitrogen fertilizers can cause excess leafy growth and not as much fruit, so building a balanced soil is the best tactic. Tomatoes need about 150 frost-free days to set ripe fruit, and most gardeners will transplant started plants to get as much of a head start as possible.
Tomatoes transplant easily and can actually develop stronger root systems from being transplanted. Start seeds indoors six to eight weeks before the last frost date. Keep the seedlings protected from chill and when seedlings have two sets of leaves, transplant each into an individual pot, covering one-third of the stem with soil. New roots will develop along the stem and help strengthen the plant when you move it out to the garden.
Determinate tomatoes tend to form a more compact bush form and will set fruit earlier. Determinate tomatoes also set most of their fruit all within a short time frame, which makes it easier for things such as canning and making sauce, but can make a less-flavorful tomato. Many gardeners pinch off the groups of flowers growing right beside the main stem, called suckers, to encourage more energy production to the remaining flowers and fruit.
Indeterminate tomatoes (typically vining plants) do not flower all at once, and thus do not set their fruit all at the same time. This is why indeterminate tomatoes often produce more flavorful tomatoes, even if suckers are not pinched off the vine. When you plant indeterminate tomatoes, you’ll want to be prepared for tall tomato vines—ours can reach more than 8 feet and we often trim the side branches to keep the plants from becoming overcrowded.
OVER THE GARDEN FENCE
Tomato plants should be kept up off the ground to prevent the tomatoes from getting mushy and rotten. Determinates tend to have a natural lift to their branches and often do well with a simple cage. Indeterminates can often have heavier branches and a more vining habit, and we’ve found that our plants need much more substantial support than the small cages.
Harvest tomatoes when they are ripe and the right color for the cultivar you planted. When frost is predicted, harvest any full-size green tomatoes you have left on the vine and store them in a dry, cool location where they will slowly ripen over the winter. Use tomatoes fresh, or freeze them to use later in stews, sauces, or salsa recipes.
Tomatoes can be plagued by tomato hornworms—large green worms that eat the leaves. These can be picked off by hand unless you see white, ricelike grains on the back of the worm. These white cocoons hold parasitic wasps that will emerge, killing the host, and flying off to lay eggs on other garden pests. Parasitic wasps are beneficial insects that help control the populations of these pests.
These white, ricelike cocoons are the pupae of parasitic wasps. Here you can see a newly emerged wasp leaving to kill more hornworms.
(Photo courtesy of Cindy Funk)
Colorado potato beetles and aphids are other pests that feed on the plant. Control both through beneficial insects, hand picking, and spraying leaves with insecticidal soap or even soapy water. Leaf molds, mosaic virus, and wilt are all worse in overcrowded conditions or when plants sprawl onto the ground instead of being supported off the ground. Blossom-end rot is usually a sign of soil that is not healthy and lacking in calcium.
Amish Paste. A great producer in the backyard, these 7-ounce, red tomatoes are great for paste and sauce.
Cherokee Purple. A purplish-red heirloom tomato that has enjoyed a renaissance in popularity. The large fruit matures at about 10 ounces and gets raves at taste-test competitions.
Radiator Charlie’s Mortgage Lifter. Endearing for the story behind the tomato’s development (see sidebar), this tomato produces a huge beefsteak fruit. Indeterminate and disease resistant, the tomatoes are highly prolific.
OVER THE GARDEN FENCE
Charlie Byles, the creator of the Mortgage Lifter tomato, sold so many of his seedlings for $1 each, he was able to pay off his home’s mortgage just by selling tomato plants. His breeding goal was a large, low-acidic tomato with lots of flavor and few seeds. And he succeeded so well people were willing to pay what was in the 1930s a premium price!
Yellow Pear. This tomato has been grown for hundreds of years and for good reason. The disease-resistant plant produces tons of yellow pear-shaped fruits that are 1 ounce in size.
Winter Squash (Cucurbita spp.)
Unlike summer squash, winter squash is allowed to fully mature on the vine and will develop thick skins that store well for several weeks. The winter squashes include pumpkins, acorn, and spaghetti squash. They are called winter squash even though they are grown during warm weather, because the tough skins are so well-suited for long-term winter storage.
Squash can be sown directly into the garden when the soil temperatures warm up to about 55°F. Seedlings dislike being transplanted, so if you start seeds indoors you’ll want to plant them in individual, plantable pots that will allow you to move them out to the garden without disturbing the roots.
Winter squash vines tend to grow very vigorously and large—it takes a lot of leaves to produce such heavy yields of large fruit! Provide your winter squash plenty of room to spread, even when growing them vertically, or they won’t produce as much as they should.
Winter squashes are available in a wide variety of types, shapes, colors, and sizes. This Galeux d’Eyesines, for example, has salmon-colored skin with unique warts caused by the sugar in the skin. The flavor is almost as sweet as a sweet potato, but with a smoother texture.
(Photo courtesy of Baker Creek Seeds)
Squash vines should never be allowed to dry out completely. Even slight wilting is a sign of an overstressed plant. Mulching your plants is necessary in areas with hot, dry summers, such as where I live.
Plants can take between 12 and 20 weeks to produce mature fruit, so check the information for each cultivar carefully and make sure you plant varieties that will perform well in your region. Warming up the soil where you plant your seeds can be done with a cloche so you can get the most warm-weather growing time as possible.
Harvest the fruit when they are fully mature and the skin is thick and hard. There should be a hollow sound when the fruit is thumped, and if the cultivar has a specific color, you should be able to see this color fully developed. Cut the fruit from the vine but leave a couple inches of the vine on the squash as a stem. Squash that you plan to store should be rotated gently on the vine so that all sides are exposed to the sun and the skin thickens and hardens all the way around.
If the fruits are too large to trellis, place a board under the squash to avoid rotting. If you’re aiming for a record-breaking large pumpkin, remove all the fruits except three or four early in the season. Otherwise let the fruits develop naturally and enjoy a bountiful fall harvest that will store nicely for as much as six months or more given good air circulation. See Chapter 19 for more information about root cellaring and storing food.
Winter squash shares many pests with summer squash and they can be combated in the same ways. Squash borer seems especially drawn to pumpkin vines and will tunnel through the stems, destroying an entire runner. If you see signs of a squash borer, an entrance hole with sawdustlike debris, slice vertically up the stem until you find the grub and destroy it. Cover the slit stem with a shovelful of dirt and it may reroot, preserving the growing fruit on the vine.
Amish Pie. An heirloom squash with tasty orange flesh that’s great for pie. The large fruit matures at about 70 pounds.
Green Hubbard. Matures in 95 to 115 days. Dark green squash grows 10 to 15 pounds with a sweet, golden flesh. This squash stores well and is an excellent choice for winter storage.
Seminole. Developed by Native Americans in Florida, try growing Seminole in areas that are hot and humid. Easy to store, the squash will keep for several weeks—probably through the entire winter.
