Free Tomatoes, Cucumbers and Cantaloupe!

A nice lady had about 35 free tomato plants listed on Craigslist. I was the lucky recipient! Several varieties of paste tomatoes and some good slicers. Most of the tomatoes should make it, although a few were small and are struggling with the transplanting. The new tomatoes made up for the many tomatoes that I killed.

The same lady also gave me two cantaloupe plants, so we’ll see how that goes!.

We managed to snag two free small cucumber plants from another person on Craigslist and found a place for them in our yard.

Sticks and String!

Some tomato plants are getting big and the peas are growing like crazy. Both were overdue for some support. Ryan and Calvin and I pruned the lilac trees and used the trunks and branches for tomato stakes and to build a pea trellis. Ryan (age 4) really did cut down two lilac trees all by himself with a two foot hand saw. I gave Calvin (age 2) a coping saw with the blade turned to the inside so that he couldn’t really cut with it. He eventually decided he wanted to help me push the bow saw back and forth, so he did.

The dirt was soft enough that I could just hold on tight to the stick and lean on it and I could get the stick in deep. Except on two of them where I hit a rock. Nothing too fancy, just sticks and twine.

The pea trellis is a bit fancier. There are two arches/x shapes with a cross beam,all lashed together. There is string zig-zagging up and down and across along the rows. The peas have been climbing it enthusiastically. If they keep going I might need to build it taller!

Hey Buddy!

This is the first flower bud I saw on any of my squash/pumpkin/cucumber type plants. I have since seen several more. I’m not sure if this is a squash or pumpkin. I love squash and pumpkins. We made our own pumpkin pie filling a few years ago and it was great. Now that we have a pressure canner, I plan on putting some away so we can have it all year long.

Harvest!

The spinach is up and being eaten. We take in just as much as we want at a time. Tonight we brought in just the handful show below to make some cracker spread.

The radishes are gone. We ate a lot of tops in salads, but the radishes never really plumped out so I took them out once they started getting tough rooted and flowering. I think I didn’t thin them soon enough.

The peas have started! Just a handful of pea pods tonight but everyone enjoyed them, even Mr. Picky himself (Calvin). We planted peas that are meant to be eaten as pods as well as regular eat-the-peas peas, but I’m not sure which variety this was. I think it was the eat-the-pods type.

The cilantro is about 2 inches tall and we have been snitching a leaf now and to eat on the spot, but not enough to call it harvesting.

That’s it for tonight!

I like squirrels. They’re cute and fun to watch as they scamper all over the yard. They annoyed me a little bit when they followed me around the yard as I planted beans, digging up the seeds as soon as I had turned my back. When they chewed open several plastic Easter eggs and a toy baseball it was just a minor inconvenience. But eating my radishes out from under me was more than I could take.

A week or so ago I pulled a handful of radishes from the garden right before watering. I rinsed them off and set them on the ground while I watered. I walked across the yard, watered a 10 foot section of pole beans and walked back. In that short time a squirrel had taken a big bite of my lunch. I think the word disgruntled might describe how I felt.

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After lunch I started looking into squirrel control. Here’s the rundown if you want to remove squirrels from your property (either killing or live trapping).

Minnesota DNR Rules Concerning Nuisance Animals

The Minnesota DNR’s website on taking nuisance animals says you can take mink, squirrels, rabbit, hare, raccoon, lynx, bobcat, fox, muskrat, opossum,  beaver and unprotected birds including the English sparrow, starling, and common pigeon if they are causing damage.

If you do take (kill) or trap one of those animals, you need to notify a Conservation Officer within 24 hours. If you are relocating the animal you will need to take them at least 15 miles away to drop them off, or they could come right back.

If you’re in Fridley or elsewhere in Anoka county, your Conservation Officer is Lisa Kruse at 651-430-1189. For Conservation Officers elsewhere in Minnesota please see the DNR phone directory.

The last caveat is that you need to also obey local rules and regulations.

Fridley Ordinances Concerning Trapping Squirrels

For all things animal control related, we’ll now turn to the Fridley City Code, section 101, Animal Control, subsection .02, Wild Animals and Birds. Squirrels are rodents, so this section applies “Nothing in this section, however, shall prevent property owners or their agents from eradicating rodents on their property through the use of traps, poisons or other such lawful means…”.

So if it’s squirrels you’re after, go for it. Just don’t forget to call the DNR afterwards, obey animal cruelty laws as well as gun laws.

Fridley Ordinances Concerning Rabbits and Other Anti-Garden Forces

If you wish to trap a non-rodent nuisance animal (such as rabbits), get ready for some leg work. Fridley requires a permit to take nuisance animals, but no one I spoke to could remember having issued such a permit. The permit requires a letter of indemnification to the city, a site plan, a list of how many animals will be removed and of what kind, how you will dispose of them, ID of the persons taking the animals, method to “secure the property from public intrusion”…

The long list of requirements started to make sense when a police officer I talked to explained that it had been illegal to trap/kill any animals in Fridley until a few years ago when there were too many deer causing problems near the dam. Deer sized traps would possibly be dangerous to people, and people trying to approach a trapped dear really could get seriously hurt.

After talking to the help desk , the department of public works, the department of community development, the help desk and the planning department someone named Julie knew what was going on. (Despite getting passed around, everyone was very friendly. It just took a bit to find who I needed to talk to.) She said that the position that had been in charge of that was gone, and she though that the police were now handling it. Since she wasn’t sure, she took my number and said she or they would be in touch. 20 minutes later I was talking to Police Captain Robert Rewitzer who confirmed that he was the man to talk to.

He explained what I would need to do to get the permit, and that it would go through him. He was also the one who explained that the code was put in place with deer management in mind. Captain Rewitzer said that trapping squirrels is OK but that if a rabbit got caught no one would probably mind, as long as that was not the primary intention.

Between his description of the permit process and his suggestion that no one would mind it sounded like he was implying that if someone had rabbit problems they should just take take care of them without a permit. Of course he wouldn’t actually suggest technically breaking the law, and if someone reported you I’m sure he would have a duty to charge them with a misdemeanor per city code section 101.20.

Action Time?

So, how much of a nuisance and how much damage justifies trapping and killing squirrels or rabbits? Does it matter that I’m raising food for my family, and not just flowers for enjoyment? I did put up a rabbit fence around the main garden, but that doesn’t keep out the squirrels. I’m pretty sure that they’re the main reason my green beans didn’t come up. I saw them back in that corner consistently after I planted. Now though, there aren’t any more seeds for them to dig up in the garden,  but they do continue to make divots in the lawn.

Would you kill a squirrel or rabbit eating your garden?

One of the grape plants (the Valiant) has a couple of bunches of tiny little grapes. They’re about the size of the head of a round headed pin. I wasn’t expecting to get any grapes this year, so if we do, it’ll be a fun surprise.

The neighbor’s rose bush has been slowly creeping through the fence. We have a few shoots that actually come from the dirt on our side , and several shoots that poke on over from his yard. I have been cutting them as they start to open, and they smell TERRIFIC in the house.

I’m not really a flower guy. I’m not anti-flowers, it’s just that if I’m going to care for a plant,  I want to eat it. Having the few flowers around that can fend for themselves is nice though. We’ve got the lilacs and the roses, and a Gerber Daisy in the front yard.  I don’t water them, don’t weed them, and have only pruned the lilacs once, and they somehow manage to thrive. I wish my tomatoes were more like them!

Despite my excitement about gardening, it turns out I’m still a novice. In fact, I killed off most of the rest of our seedling tomato plants. I had been growing them in the basement under lights, and brought them outside to harden off. Unfortunately I left the lid over the plants while I was at worked, and I ended up with a pile of steamed dead tomato plants.

I’m probably going to have to go buy some pre-grown plants at this point and transplant them.

Dead Blueberry Bush

One of our blueberry bushes didn’t take root. The leaves are almost completely dried up, and it’s not looking too good. All the other blueberries are doing great. I’m not sure what’s up with the one plant. It’s right in the middle of the line, and all that soil had been well mixed before planting.

Strawberry Planting

Our strawberries arrived yesterday! I had already weeded the strawberry patch last weekend so we were all set. A previous owner of our house had put in a two foot wide swath of ugly white landscaping rocks along either side of the driveway, and alongside the walkway to the house. We shoveled and picked those rocks out, and put in some good black dirt / composted manure mix, which I think the strawberries should appreciate.

We got 25 Cavendish, 25 Winona and 50 Annapolis, all from Nourse Farms.

One thing led to another yesterday, and we didn’t start planting in earnest till about 9:45. Our great neighbor lent us a halogen work light and an extension cord, so we just kept working. It took till at least 11:30 to get everything done and cleaned up. (ok, so it wasn’t quite midnight burials, but it sounded ominous.)

If you didn’t know (and I didn’t, till yesterday), strawberry plants can be planted from essentially just the root and a tiny (1 inch!) bit of stem. Thinking back, this makes sense now since strawberry instructions tell you to mow them down in the fall.

We spaced the plants about a foot apart going down the driveway, but then we staggered them between either side of the two foot strip. Hopefully that’s a good enough spacing for them. We might have ordered too many.

The strawberries are one of our most anticipated crops. Since we won’t have a fence up around them, I’m sure the bunnies are excited too.

Garden plots are available to request starting two days ago (March 23) and I assume till they run out.

http://www.ci.fridley.mn.us/community-gardens

From description on the community gardens page, looks like this is the place.

So instead of a quick trip with the tiller I get to spend some quality time cutting sod. Below you can see I have a measly 3×12 foot section cut so far. I think it’ll take another 3 hours to cut and move the rest.

From the corner closest to the bottom of the picture to the fence is 25 feet. From that point up to just before the telephone pole is 25 feet.

Above is the patio and stairs that we made last year. We got all the bricks from Craigslist and Freecycle for free. Before we put in the patio there was a dingy rotting deck. Under the deck was mostly bare dirt, a two food wide swath of gravel around the edges and a bare pvc pipe that the sump pump dumped out of (just to the surface

I dug a 5 foot deep 4 foot diameter hole and filled it with the gravel to use as a dry well. I then buried the sump output pipe so it now spits out into the gravel filled hole. That got rid of most of the gravel, but we still didn’t have grass. The sod I will be moving won’t completely fill the area, but it will be a good start.

Cutting Sod

I don’t know if this is the right way to cut sod, but it has been working well so far. I have just been digging straight down with the shovel, then prying back. I do that in a straight line across the 12 foot wide area I am clearing. I then do the same thing again two shovel widths away. I then cut the sod horizontally into about 18 inch wide strips — determined by how much I can easily pick up at once. With the sod cut like that it tears out pretty easily, about as tough as pulling duct tape off a floor.

Planting Sod

The area we wanted the sod was already bare dirt. Once I saw how thick the sod was, I shoveled down the dirt so that the sod would be level with the edge of the patio. I then raked the surface up so that the dirt wasn’t all compacted and so hopefully the sod can take root more easily. After placing the sod, I gave it a good watering and will continue to do so any time the dirt around the edges starts to dry out until it is established.

Finished

Here’s a picture with all the sod in, about a week after the original post. There was enough to come straight down to the existing grass, and part way around the side. We’ll have to figure something else out for the rest of the dirt area, like maybe buying some grass seed. You can see that the lumpiness is slowly disappearing as compared to the picture from the day I put the first sod down.

The seeds in a fruit or vegetable usually have the genes of a mother and father plant. Whatever type of plant polinated the fruiting plant will determine what happens genetically. So the first reason the seeds might not do what you want is because they’re from two different kinds of plants. As an example, crab apple trees are frequently used to polinate other apple trees. A crab apple Honeycrisp mix is probably not going to be that tasty.

So let’s say you’re careful. You hand polinate a plant so you know that the pollen came from the same type of plant. It’s all good, right?

Maybe, but probably not. Unless the seeds say “Open Pollination” or “Heirloom” the plants you grow will probably be sterile. Seeds that say Hybrid on them will likely be sterile or produce a different type of offspring.

The solution to seeds that don’t sprout is to use Open Pollinated or Heirloom seeds. You can save the seeds from those plants, and replant them the next year. I have noted previously that we spent over $160 on seeds this year. If I had seeds from a previous  garden, I wouldn’t have to buy seeds again.

By now you’re probably thinking “cool, he’s going to start saving seeds this fall then”. Well, maybe. Here’s the thing. Some seeds need to be fermented before they can be saved. Others need to get a cold treatment to simulate being left out over winter. Then they have to be dried and stored propperly. Keeping track of what needs to be done to what kind of plant is starting to sound like real work! I am not 100% convinced that it’s worth it.

The issue of making sure that the seeds I am saving aren’t crossbreeds is also a concern. My garden is small and diverse enough that the brandywine tomato could be pollinated by the roma tomato. Making sure that isn’t the case would require me to either plant only one kind of tomato or to manually polinate the seed tomatoes. Again, more work.

The other issue I have with seed saving is that gardening to me is about the food I get out of it. Many of the hybrids are more productive or disease resistant than their heirloom counterparts. Besides, I intend to eat every last one of my tomatoes — I don’t think I’ll be able to save any if I wanted to.

If you said “Why, it’s the same image, the first one is just zoomed in a little bit!”, then you’d be right. So why did I insult your intelligence with such an obvious question?

Because Burpee is using the same image both for chard and for rhubarb! And because I accidentally bought Chard which I didn’t want.

Granted,the name “Chard Burpee’s Rhubarb” does include the word Chard in the name. In my defense though, I had just finished buying “Banana Legs Tomatoes” (which are neither banana, nor leg) and I can’t think of anyone who has ever said “hey, I’m growing chard this year!”.

I ended up buying rhubarb elsewhere (Burpee doesn’t carry rhubarb seeds, just transplant roots) and I guess we’re going to have some chard this year.

Price: $290.58    Planting Date    Company    Item Number

$2.25    3/26/2010    Totally Tomatoes    01433

$2.25    3/26/2010    Totally Tomatoes    01730

$2.95    4/2/2010    Burpee    60103A

$2.95    4/23/2010    Burpee    62026A

$1.75    4/23/2010    Totally Tomatoes    02220

$2.25    4/23/2010    Totally Tomatoes    02134

$8.10    4/9/2010    Victory Seed Company    Victoria

$3.95    4/30/2010    Burpee    51995A

$2.95    4/30/2010    Burpee    65904A

$3.95    4/30/2010    Burpee    57117A

$4.95    5/28/2010    Burpee    65010A

$7.90    5/28/2010    Burpee    51474A

$7.90    5/28/2010    Burpee    61240A

$4.95    5/28/2010    Burpee    60491A

$2.95    4/16/2010    Burpee    61929A

$25.50    5/14/2010    Hartmanns    BB-R-1900-1218

$17.00    5/14/2010    Hartmanns    BB-R-2100-1218

$3.25    3/26/2010    Burpee    60310A

$31.98    5/7/2010    Linder's Garden Center

$16.50    5/14/2010    Hartmanns    BU-R-9000-0040

$2.95    4/16/2010    Burpee    60723A

$2.95    4/30/2010    Burpee    50393A

$2.95    4/30/2010    Burpee    53744A

$2.95    4/30/2010    Burpee    51847A

$1.95    3/26/2010    Totally Tomatoes    03028

$2.15    3/26/2010    Totally Tomatoes    03083

$2.15    3/26/2010    Totally Tomatoes    03217

$2.95    3/26/2010    Burpee    60816A

$2.95    4/16/2010    Burpee    60855A

$16.00    5/14/2010    Hartmanns    RB-R-4400-0011

$16.00    5/14/2010    Hartmanns    RB-R-4300-0011

$4.95    4/30/2010    Burpee    67017A

$2.95    5/21/2010    Burpee    61069A

$17.85    5/28/2010    Nourse Farms    Annapolis

$12.30    5/28/2010    Nourse Farms    Cavendish

$12.30    5/28/2010    Nourse Farms    Winona

$2.25    4/16/2010    Totally Tomatoes    00050

$1.50    4/16/2010    Burpee    54981A

$2.10    4/16/2010    Totally Tomatoes    00112

$4.95    4/16/2010    Burpee    57125A

$2.35    4/16/2010    Totally Tomatoes    00481

$2.15    4/16/2010    Totally Tomatoes    00618

$2.75    4/16/2010    Totally Tomatoes    00696

$2.45    4/16/2010    Totally Tomatoes    00747

$1.95    4/16/2010    Totally Tomatoes    00768

$2.65    4/16/2010    Burpee    61218A

$2.95    5/21/2010    Burpee    62364A

This list has the actual catalog numbers of where we bought stuff, the recommended planting dates (if given) and days to maturity for the specific seeds we bought. I’m keeping track so that at the end of the summer we can decide what we liked and didn’t like. Usually we lose the little seed envelopes and then we’re like “um, it’s some kind of tomato, and it tastes good”. Not this year!

Before the garden is set up, we’re going to have a few other garden setup costs to take care of too. We need to get materials for a rabbit proof fence, rent a tiller, get and apply fertilizer, get some seed starter trays and get at least two more 4 foot fluorescent lights.

We’re going to start the seeds in our basement under the fluorescents. I have two 4 foot lights in the garage which aren’t being used and I think four of them will give me enough coverage.

For fertilizer, I am e-mailing some local alpaca farms to see if I can get some alpaca manure. Apparently horse, cow, chicken and pig manure have too high of concentrations of nitrogen to be applied directly to a garden. You have to compost those types, or apply in the fall so they can break down over the winter. Alpaca manure is supposed to be gentle enough to mix right in, is supposed to stink a lot less, and is supposed to have fewer weed seeds in it than horse or cow manure. Anyways, hopefully I can find some free alpaca manure somewhere close by.

For the rabbit proof fence, we’re going to get 3 foot tall chicken wire, bend an bury the bottom 10-12 inches of it, and hope for the best. We have tons of squirrels in our yard too, but I’m hoping they’ll be more merciful to us than the rabbits. I’m not sure what we’re going to do for the strawberry plants yet. They’re going to be in the front yard where chicken wire fencing would be undesirable. If anyone has a good idea for that, let me know.

Fridley, Minnesota Gardening Calendar

All of the plantings and transplanting should be on there now, and I’ll add more harvest/picking dates as I read the seed packets. Basically we’ll kick things off starting the weekend of April 2nd, and have something to do every weekend through October 8th, depending on the weather.