Making a 4 X 4 Concrete Raised Bed - First Try

Many years ago, our dear neighbour, Ken, gave us the forms he'd made up for pouring concrete raised beds.  By the time we'd made 6 beds, the forms had seen their best days, but there was still some life in them so we passed them on to friends.  Ken's ingenious plan used long, thin boards, joined by metal corner pieces and kept in true with metal snap ties which had been cut down for the purpose and joined the inside to the outside.  U-shaped pieces over the tops kept the sides from bowing out when the concrete was poured.  These forms produced beds with an inside measurement of  3.5' wide by 14' long and with 4" thick walls.  Since there are cedar trees nearby, drainage pipes were installed under the sides and then concrete bottoms were poured to keep out the invasive roots.  This is what we've been gardening successfully in ever since.

Ken's concrete raised bed forms

We now have a little more room on the plateau since my husband pulled out the black currant bushes.  We never got enough currants to do much with - the birds were well fed!  The space provided isn't big enough for Ken's forms, but my husband thought there'd be room for a few 4'x4' beds (again, inside measurement).  Since we had quite a bit of fir milled from trees on our own property that now had powder post beetle in it, he used this wood to make the forms.  It's not good for anything else but firewood now!

Forms ready for filling

The pour went well - we used 5 wheelbarrow loads to fill the sides.  Since the lumber used was 2x6 and the sides 4' long, we didn't need all the strengthening material in the sides.  The bottom would be poured later.

Almost filled

The problem arose when my husband went to take off the forms.  We'd had lots of rain on the forms after the pour and the wood swelled.  The outside boards came off easily - the inside ones not so much! A few chips resulted from the effort of prying loose the inside boards.

Forms off - just the bottom to pour

My husband plans to make different forms for his next attempt and will use 3/4" plywood for the sides this time joined by metal L-brackets.  When we pour the next bed, we'll finish the bottom of the first one.  We're hoping to be able to fit in 4 of these new beds.  We also plan on making a portable cold frame top that we can move from bed to bed.  This will help extend our growing season.

Kale - The Superfood!

I'm growing quite a few kale plants this year but haven't used it in very many ways other than in coleslaw, in soups and stews, etc.  I've resolved to branch out and use this valuable plant a lot more in the future.  To this end, my daughter-in-law has lent me her copy of "The Book of Kale" which gives lots of information on just how terrific kale is as well as growing instructions and how to use kale.  I'm truly amazed at how jam-packed kale is with goodness!

The other day I served a simple salad of young kale leaves chopped up, apple chunks and a dressing of 1/4 cup olive oil, 2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar, 1 Tbsp honey and salt and pepper.  My husband loved it! Now that's truly amazing because I've always had a problem getting him to eat cruciferous vegetables!

Fresh ingredients for a tabouli salad

My daughter-in-law's book has some wonderful-looking recipes, and today I tried out Tabouli with Quinoa and Kale.  Everything was ready to be picked in the garden except, of course, the tomatoes.  Last year's garlic is starting to deteriorate, but is still better than most of the garlic found in the stores right now.  Likewise, the flat-leaf Italian parsley is starting to go to seed, but there are still good leaves to be found. I picked a variety of young kale leaves - Siberian, Red Russian, Lacinato - and pulled up some of my Apache scallions.  The lovely purple of the base adds colour to the salad.  And even the quinoa was grown in my garden!  The cup required for the salad used about a quarter of my harvest from last year.  No wonder I'm not planning on planting it again!

Tabouli with Quinoa and Kale

2 cups of water (plus stems from kale and parsley)
1 cup quinoa
1 cup minced kale leaves
1 cup minced parsley
2 large cloves garlic, finely minced
1 cup scallions, chopped
2 large tomatoes, chopped

Dressing

1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 Tbsp fresh mint leaves, chopped
salt and pepper

Boil the stems of the kale and parsley with the water for a couple of minutes, then strain out the solids.

Add the quinoa to the vegetable stock, bring to a boil and simmer gently for 15 minutes.  Cool and then add to remaining ingredients except the tomatoes.  Salt and pepper to taste.

Refrigerate for at least 2 hours and add the tomatoes just before serving.  Keeps well (without the tomatoes) for several days.

Applesauce Cake

Tonight my Dad is coming for dinner.  We're having the Chicken with Gremolata Crust (recipe in this blog titled Aconite, Snowdrop - & Chicken!) with rice and a kale salad using fresh kale from the garden.  I always make a dessert when Dad comes, so today I made an applesauce cake.  The recipe comes from my old favourite, the Five Roses, A Guide to Good Cooking with a few changes.  I'm using applesauce made by my daughter and raisins I dehydrated last fall.

The homemade raisins give the applesauce cake a nice tangy bite.  Since my daughter's canned applesauce already contained cinnamon, I toned that down a bit.  Of course I used butter instead of the shortening called for in the recipe.  My daughter, who hates raisins, would probably use chopped walnuts instead.  The cake turned out excellently - moist and flavourful.  Definitely one to make again!

Applesauce Cake

1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 cup shortening
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 cup applesauce
1 cup raisins

Leave 1 Tbsp flour to dust the raisins.

Mix all dry ingredients together.

Cream the shortening; gradually add brown sugar and cream well until light and fluffy.  Add egg and beat well.  Add the dry ingredients alternately with the applesauce beating after each addition until smooth.  Fold in the floured raisins.  Bake in a greased and floured 8" square pan at 350 for 40 to 50 minutes.

The recipe goes on to suggest various icing options but I think the cake tastes just fine as it is.

See How They Grow!

With virtually every nook and cranny planted, gardening becomes plucking out any weeds and watching things grow.  If you click on the pictures, you'll get a better view of how things actually look.

The Three Sisters garden is charging along nicely.  The corn and beans are getting so tall that the Remay cloth soon won't fit.  We have one week left of cooler temperatures and I'll try to keep it on for a few more days, but hopefully the cover won't be needed after that.

The difference between the little corn left out in the cold and the rest of the corn plants is still very obvious.  I'm sure shorty will catch up, but he'll probably take longer to set cobs.  Remay does make a difference.

The snow peas are charging up their fence and the lettuces between the zags are doing well - actually getting away on me!  I moved 3 carrot pots into the space left when the radishes finished.  My first planting of carrot pots are just about ready to be pulled.

And as for the tomatoes, I'll have to start setting up the tomato frame soon.  Even little Beth's Big Fat Tomato (bottom right) is doing well.  I'll be sure to save seed from this one so I can get an earlier start next year.

The bees are busy in the chives and at first I thought I'd actually seen domestic honeybees, but on closer inspection, I don't think they are.  It's been a while since I've seen domestic bees.

Too bad the dullish day doesn't do justice to the pond.  It's looking quite spectacular right now with a vibrant mix of colors and textures.  The idea to build the pond there was the brain child of our dear friend, Beth - of the BBFT Beth.  It was a terrific idea!  The vegetable garden is just above the pond to the right.

We spent most of the day pouring concrete for a new raised bed.  The next post will document our progress.

Why I Use Remay Cloth

It's amazing how the Three Sisters garden is growing.  Today I had to take the Hot Hats off the zucchini because they were filling the insides of the cloches!  And since it was such a warm afternoon, I pulled back the Remay cloth to check on the plants and give everything a good watering.

A tale of 4 corn seedlings

On one portion of the garden, the Remay cloth is not quite long enough to reach the bottom of the bed. One little corn plant is exposed to the elements.  As you can see in the picture above, it's considerably smaller than its brethren and not as dark a green.  I'm going to keep this little guy out in the cold so I can compare its development to that of the others.

When the weather is hot, corn grows at an amazing rate - you can almost see it growing!  And I was treated to a pleasant surprise - the corn seedling I'd discarded because of a damaged root decided to sink its remaining root into the soil and is almost as big as the rest of the corn!  That's what water, rich soil and protection will do for plants.

The Three Sisters Garden is thriving!

I'm letting the Three Sisters Garden enjoy the sunshine this afternoon, but we're in for some more cloudy, cool weather tomorrow, so I'll cover it all up again.  The squash and zucchini plants will be covered with some old Remay cloth I have in the potting shed.

Pruning Tomatoes

When a friend came over to pick up the tomatoes I'd saved for her, she asked about pruning tomatoes.  Her father had told her to take off all the side shoots on a tomato plant.  I've also heard people say you should pick off the leaves around the tomatoes so they can ripen.

To prune or not - that depends on the kind of tomato plant you are growing.  A determinate, or bush plant, doesn't require pruning.  It's supposed to be compact and if you take off the shoots you are severely cutting your production.

Gold Nugget already flowering

I'm growing 2 determinate cherry tomatoes.  Gold Nugget is a really early one (notice the flower in the photo above!) and as it's a bush tomato, I leave it alone.

Gold Nugget - side shoots and all!

Another cherry tomato in the garden is Principe Borghese.  It's an indeterminate, or vine, tomato.  You would take away the side shoots on it.

Principe Borghese with side shoots removed

That said, however, rules are also made to be broken sometimes.  On a cherry-sized tomato like Principe Borghese, I leave some of the side shoots so I get better production.  I probably would remove all side shoots on the larger tomatoes I'm growing - such as Moneymaker and Bonny Best.  And definitely all of the side shoots on Beth's Big Fat Tomato as it will probably turn out to be a beefsteak variety.

One rule I always follow with tomatoes, though, is as fall approaches, I remove all flowers so that the plant can concentrate on the developing tomatoes.  Oh!  And never remove leaves from a tomato plant. The tomato plant needs the leaves in order to grow and be healthy.  Think about it.  And tomatoes can ripen very nicely without sunshine - like on your kitchen counter.

Three Sisters - Part 5 - All Planted!

Although the weekend has proven to be overcast and showery, it's still quite warm.  The beans and squash are starting to send out roots from the pots so it's more than time they went into the ground.

First the beans were planted, each bean surrounded by a bottomless-topless water bottle to protect them from woodbugs. 17 beans seedlings were nestled into the soil and the last 2 seeds were also planted and protected.  These beans are all the Italian heritage beans from seeds given me by a friend of my husband.  He's been growing them for years and the original seed came from his family in Italy.  When the Remay cloth comes off, I may have to give each bean a bamboo stick to climb until the corn is tall enough.

Then the squash were settled in.  I planted 3 butternut squash, a delicata, a patty pan and a spaghetti squash - the last three courtesy of a friend.  Finally 3 zucchini were planted in the tires at the front of the Three Sisters Garden.  All squash in the central part of the bed were protected by Hot Hats purchased from Lee Valley.  The rest of the bed is covered with Remay cloth until the weather is reliably warm.

The final outside chore for today was to put protection in front of the mason bee boxes.  I found several straws on the ground, probably the result of a woodpecker discovering some easy dinner, and a number of the holes in the plastic boxes have been breached.  We've never experienced this before. My husband stapled mesh over the shelf to keep the predator away.  The blue mesh was on a gas cylinder and the black mesh was unsuccessful gutter covering.  Sure hope it works!  Next year we will have to come up with something more permanent - some kind of metal mesh which doesn't allow a beak to force its way through.

Three Sisters Part 4

Water lines in place and one bed of corn planted

Yesterday the first component of the Three Sisters garden was set into the ground.  Peaches and Cream corn had been started in a block of small pots and since corn sends out long taproots, it must be planted soon after it sprouts.

Corn seedlings waiting to go to their new home

Armed with my trusty plastic knife to pry the seedlings out of their temporary homes, I was ready to plant the corn.  I had started 35 seeds of corn.  34 sprouted and one was damaged while planting, so 33 corn plants were nestled into their new homes and watered well. In the evening, I topped the corn beds with Remay cloth.  This keeps in the warmth while allowing air and moisture through.  Corn started under Remay cloth is half again ahead of corn not so protected.

The squash family - plus some basil

The other components of the Three Sisters garden are doing well in the potting shed.  The butternut squash has been slow to sprout and I'd given up on it when some of the seeds suddenly decided to get down to business.  The zucchini has been up for some time now.  A neighbour is planning on giving me more squash plants and I'm wondering now where on earth I'll plant them!

Beans thrusting up from the potting mix

The beans have also been sprouting.  It looks like I have 16 plants of the Italian heritage beans and at least 5 of the Fortex.  Some of these plants will go to my daughter-in law's new garden.  When the corn is about 6" high, I'll be planting the beans.  At the rate the corn is growing that might be next week!

And now for a couple of non-Three Sisters pictures!

Mexican Orange Blossom (Choisya) frothing around the entrance to the pond

Cherokee Chief Dogwood blooms starting to open.

Planting Tomatoes

We have a weekend of gorgeous weather ahead of us with temperatures in the 20's and overnight temperatures above 10 C.  It's time to plant tomatoes!

Time to plant tomatoes

And about time, too, because the tomatoes in the potting shed are getting rather large.  I've already put out 3 in containers protected with hot caps.  These are all cherry varieties - Sweet Baby Girl, Gold Nugget and Principe Borghese.  I'd been going to put a 4th in a half barrel, but cedar roots have invaded the barrel and I won't waste a tomato under these circumstances.  It'll be flowers for that container this year and then the barrel will be dismantled.

Principe Borghese tomato protected by a hot cap

Before planting can begin, the site must be prepared.  Several weeks ago I had added lots of compost and a couple of wheelbarrow loads of SeaSoil, then placed the drip irrigation line.  Each of 14 holes in the tomato bed received a cup of homemade fertilizer (see March 2nd post) which was dug in and then watered.

The tomato bed ready to receive the young plants

Then 12 tomatoes were set in place with the soil level brought up to the first leaves of each plant.  By planting them deeply, the tomatoes will send out more roots up to the soil level, making them stronger.  I planted 4 each of Bonny Best, Moneymaker, 3 Principe Borghese and 1 Sweet Baby Girl.  The final 2 spots are being saved for experimental Beth's Big Fat Tomato when the plants get a bit bigger.

Plant tomatoes a bit deeper to encourage root growth

Tomato cages were placed over each plant.  When they grow bigger, I'll set up my tomato frame which is made up of bamboo poles lashed together.  It's strange looking, but it works!  Once the plants are well established, I'll finish the bed off with a mulch of chopped maple leaves.  Tomatoes need lots of water and the mulch, which will be on top of the water line, will help keep moisture in.  Not enough moisture and you start getting blossom end rot, which can also be a sign of not enough calcium.  Since the homemade fertilizer has lots of that, it won't be a worry.

Nearly all planted

Finally, I took the hot caps off the container tomatoes.  Since it's such a warm day, the tomatoes were wilting a bit.  Garden setup is now almost complete.  There's just a small space in one bed to take some more kale and swiss chard plants and, of course, the Three Sisters bed to do in a couple of weeks.

Principe Borghese in his half barrel