The Vegetable Bed Becomes the Kitchen Garden

Last spring I eagerly built a 4' x 4' raised bed for vegetables, convinced I would get a bountiful harvest. I know a lot about gardening, but I lacked experience with vegetables. I carefully followed the instructions in the All New Square Foot Gardening book, and my garden looked beautiful and organized most of the summer. I learned a lot, but I can't say I produced a lot of vegetables. I think my biggest mistake was underestimating how much sun I got in the spot where I located my bed. I also had a few watering issues--forgetting to water on a couple of hot days and, later on, getting too much rain for the tomatoes.

Last year's vegetable bed, as you can see, is covered in
shade in the middle of the afternoon. The mint and parsley
don't seem to mind, though.

This year, I've expanded quite a bit. The biggest change came when I decided to start a fresh cut herb business. My single small raised bed has now become seven raised beds that cover a total of 144 square feet. They contain a mix of mostly herbs, some vegetables, and a few flowers. Why flowers? Well, in addition to being great for cutting, they also will attract beneficial insects to my little organic garden.

My planting plan is loosely based on square foot gardening in order to make the most out of my space. With some of the perennial herbs, though, I had to give them a little extra space (especially mint and oregano), so they don't fit neatly in little squares. You'll see some gaps in my garden right now, mostly because plants are expensive! I'll take cuttings of some of my perennial herbs and fill in most of the holes this fall.

To save some money, I learned a lot about starting plants from seed this year. Starting from seed also allows me to experiment with varieties that are more disease resistant or tolerant of our Southern heat. I had success with growing tomatoes, peppers, parsley, and basil from seed indoors. (The chives were a flop.) I also planted squash, bean, sunflower, zinnia, and cilantro seeds directly into the garden.

If you look closely, you can see my little tiny tomato seedlings
in the upper left hand corner.

My focus on vegetables was on things I wanted to eat and weren't too hard to grow. Roma tomatoes are so versatile and perfect for salads, salsa, and homemade spaghetti sauce. Pole beans just seem like a staple of summer. We found this unusual white patty pan squash with some friends at a farmers market last summer, so I hunted down some seeds and planted it this year. My husband likes to grow and cook with some unusual peppers, so I planted these just for him.

That squash plant will fill up that bed and
then some by the end of the summer. I
don't think the beans will mind.

Everything else is herbs: basil, chives, cilantro, mint, oregano, parsley, rosemary, sage, and thyme. The tall grassy thing in the pictures is garlic--not really an herb, but an important culinary seasoning. I chose the herbs I thought people most commonly cooked with to start out with. So far they've produced enough to satisfy the demand at my local farmers market and then some. If you live in Macon, you can find me and my herbs at the Mulberry Street Market on Wednesday afternoons.

My little basil plants got a slow start this year.

If you're curious, here's my complete planting list:

Vegetables
Tomato 'Granadero (F1)'
Pepper 'Capperino (F1)'
Squash 'White Bush Scallop'
Pole beans 'Garden of Eden'

Herbs
Onion chives
Spearmint
Greek oregano
Common sage
French thyme
Rosemary 'Tuscan blue'
Basil 'Aroma 2 (F1)'
Basil 'Nufar (F1)'
Cilantro 'Slow Bolt'
Italian parsley

Flowers
Sunflower 'Summer Cutting Mix'
Zinnia 'All Summer Cutting Mix'

What are you growing in your kitchen garden?

The Fungus is Among Us

My little garden has been fairly productive, despite my hiding inside from the heat, rain, and mosquitoes. I emerge for a few minutes every couple of days to make sure everything's still alive, pick caterpillars off my tomato vines, and harvest the fruit of my springtime labors. I've continued to harvest some beans every week, and the cherry tomatoes have been tasty (I just have to make sure to harvest them while they're orange--by the time they're red the heavy rains have split the skins). My little sunflower just emerged in the vegetable garden this week, too.

I bought a sunflower "mix", so the color was a bit of a surprise.
What do you think of my little burgundy sunflower?

At the beginning of the summer I was worrying about my plants getting enough water in the heat of July. Little did I know that we would have record rainfalls! All that wet foliage is the perfect breeding ground for fungus, one of the many plant pests that can plague your garden.

I'm not talking about the mushrooms that might pop up in your backyard--those are usually harmless (to your plants, at least--I don't recommend picking one and eating it unless you're an expert). I'm talking about the fungi you might not even realize are fungi: blackspot on your roses, powdery mildew on your crape myrtles, and Botrytis on your strawberries. There are also the ones relatively unseen: the ones with crazy names (like Pythium and Phytophthora) that cause root rot, crown rot, and damping-off. From a distance it might look like your plant is dying for no reason, but upon closer inspection you'll see the real culprit.

I took a walk around my garden and discovered a few fungi affecting my plants.

Entomosporium is a common fungal disease
on Indian hawthorn.

The shot-hole fungus on my ornamental cherry
tree loves all this rain.

I'm pretty sure this is a type of fungal leaf
spot on my lemon balm.

I'm not sure what fungus is growing on my
potted palm. I'm hoping it's just feeding
on the dead leaves and won't hurt it.

As you can see, it's not always easy to identify the many fungal diseases that plague our plants. Unless you're a plant pathologist, though, it's not really necessary to know all of them. When I worked at the USDA Fruit & Nut Lab in Byron, GA, the plant pathologist I worked with would take samples of diseased pecan leaves and stick them in petri dishes to see what grew--a bacterial leaf spot or a fungal leaf spot, for example. If your plant looks diseased, the simple fact that we have so much rain makes fungus a likely candidate. So if you suspect fungus in your garden, here are some tips for treatment:

• If the damage is mostly cosmetic, don't worry about it. Many fungi, like those pesky leaf spots on Indian hawthorn, won't kill your plant. I don't like to go overboard with the chemicals, so I tolerate a certain level of disease on my plants. It's not worth spraying my huge cherry tree when I know the fungus will go away come fall. That same leaf spot affects my lemon balm every summer, but the damage is always minor.
• If the damage is minor, remove the infection. If there are spots on only a few leaves, remove the diseased leaves and throw them away (or compost them thoroughly). Clean up the fallen leaves under your plant where disease might be hiding. A lot of disease spreads by rain splashing off of existing infection.
• If there are black spots on your rose, go buy a fungicide for roses. Now. Blackspot (yes, that's actually the name) is a fungus that plagues most roses. It not only causes black spots but yellowing and defoliation. It can make your beautiful rose bush ugly fast. Buy a fungicide for roses.
• If the damage is significant, talk to a friendly professional. The nice people at your local garden center (not Home Depot or Lowe's) probably know a lot about plants. They can recognize powdery mildew in an instant, and they can recommend the best sprays for various diseases. If you don't know a good local garden center, look up your county extension agent. You can take a leaf sample down to their office, or snap a couple (close-up) pictures with your phone and e-mail it to them. They likely have a plant pathologist on staff who can ID it for you, and they'll tell you what to buy at Lowe's or Home Depot (or whether you should give up altogether and burn your plant to the ground).
• If you're using a spray, follow directions. Read all that fine print. The time of day and weather conditions can greatly affect the effectiveness of your spray. You also want to pay attention to safety warnings (like "avoid contact with skin").

Whether or not you're battling fungus now, there are things you can do to prevent future fungal wars:

• Amend your soil. There's not a whole lot you can do once your plant has root rot or crown rot except keep it from happening again. If you have heavy clay soil (common in the South), water won't drain well, and fungus can breed that can kill your roots. Mix in plenty of organic matter (such as compost) before planting to improve drainage. If you're gardening in pots, always use fresh soil (since old soil may be harboring disease) and make sure there's a hole in your pot so water can drain.
• Buy disease-free plants. Buy your plants from reputable sources, and inspect them carefully before taking them home. You don't want to bring disease home with you.
• Buy disease-resistant plants. If you don't want to spray for blackspot, there are disease-resistant varieties of roses you can buy. My 'Flower Carpet' and 'Knockout' roses, true to their care-free promise, have remained blackspot-free. My other roses have not been so lucky. It's the same with all kinds of plants--some varieties are more resistant to disease than others. When you're buying vegetables, read the seed packets to find disease-resistant hybrids.
• Clean up your garden. Those fallen leaves may look like great mulch, but they're breeding grounds for fungus. Rake them up in the fall and either bag them or compost them. If you choose to compost, make sure they're good and decomposed before using the compost in your garden.

Happy gardening!