2010 Vegetable Garden Winners

The winners are:

1. Sweet Millions (tomato)
2. Lemon Boy (tomato)
3. Big Bomb (pepper)
4. Orlando (eggplant)

I planted all of these plants in February and March of this year. They were given one application of cottonseed meal in the middle of summer, but that’s it as far as fertilizer (and no pesticides were used!). They all put on a great show in the spring, survived a Houston summer, and produced into the fall and winter.
Tomato plants in Houston will often get as tall as the cage you have around them. Both the Lemon Boy and Sweet Millions grew up and over the 5 foot cages they are in. In mid-summer after the other tomato plants died, these still had some green leaves and were producing new stalks from the base, so I cut them back to about one foot tall and let them keep growing.
My favorite is Sweet Millions, pictured on the left after I cut it back and it again grew up and over its cage. I’ve picked about 200 Sweet Millions in the past week. Yes, folks that’s right in December!

The first Lemon Boy of the fall crop was picked a couple of days ago. There are a few more starting to blush, but tonight's low is expected to be 35, so they probably won’t hang in there much longer.Why can’t we get one of those weird Houston December warm fronts? I really could use some fresh tomatoes…
I bought the Big Bomb peppers in hopes of recreating an awesome tapas dish I had in Auckland, NZ last year. It was basically peppers stuffed with cheese, but it was really good.
While this one was the right size and shape it was way hotter than the ones in New Zealand. Too hot for me, but my husband loved them. He dried them in the food dehydrator and pulverized them in the coffee grinder. Now he has hot pepper powder for the year.
The Orlando eggplant is amazing. It has been producing heavily all year long. It is about 4 foot tall and almost as wide. Many online sources say you can pick the fruit when it is a small as 2”, but I picked mine anywhere from 5”-8”.
On a side note, I also planted an eggplant variety called Turkish Orange. I have to say, that I was not very impressed. It was growing next to the one in the picture above, but was eventually overshadowed, so I pulled it up. It may be because I didn’t know what to do with the little orange tomato looking eggplants, but I probably won’t try them again.
In the foreground of the above picture is broccoli. My Saturday harvest included broccoli, tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant…all at the same time!

Planning a Fall Garden @ Urban Harvest

Last week I attended one of Urban Harvest’s classes called Planning a Fall Garden. The instructors were my neighbors, Gary Edmondson and Ray Sher. I think they have been on the Westbury Garden Tour just about every year. They have turned their entire yard into a fruit and vegetable garden with some flowers thrown in for good measure. Ray sells his city grown produce on Saturdays at the Urban Harvest Eastside Market. He is also the mastermind behind the new Westbury Community Garden.
I’ve actually already planted my fall garden, so why go to a class on planning a fall garden? Well, you never know what you might learn. This class was great for both novice and more experienced gardeners.
Here are the top ten things I learned:

1. Do not use bark mulch as a mulch for your vegetable gardens, it may contain natural growth inhibitors and it can rob the soil of nitrogen. You should always use partially decomposed material as mulch. They recommended alfalfa hay or compost.
2. Cottonseed meal is a good fertilizer for just about anything.
3. You can use tree leaves as a mulch for fruit trees but not veggies.
4. They recommended a digging knife, expensive, but worth it.
5. Save your seeds in the refrigerator in a sealed container with a little rice or powdered milk to absorb any moisture.
6. If you have old seed, a good way to test if it will germinate is to put it in a damp paper towel. Keep the paper towel damp, after a couple of days start checking daily if the seeds have germinated.
7. Put soft phosphate or bone meal in the planting hole of onions and tomatoes.
8. Plant leaks in a trench and slowly cover them as they grow.
9. Put garlic in the refrigerator for 2 months before planting. For Houston, plant garlic in mid-October and harvest in May.
10. There are two kinds of arugula. The one I am familiar with is spicy and has an oak leaf shape and is referred to as wild. The other (Astro is one variety) is less spicy, has a more rounded leaf, and has shorter time to harvest.

If you are new to fruit and vegetable gardening in Houston, I highly recommend Dr. Bob Randall’s book, Year Round Vegetables, Fruits, and Flowers for Metro Houston.