Moxie Gardener

Grow your own pumpkin for Halloween.

Pumpkins are perhaps the quintessential symbol of Halloween in America.  Children all over America carve or help carve a pumpkin each year for Halloween.  Next year, try growing your own Halloween pumpkins.

Pumpkins, along with their close relatives, squash, are native to the Americas.  Like American cities, they sprawl all over the landscape and require a lot of room to spread out.  (Compare to European cities with narrow streets and no front yards.)

Pumpkins fall botanically into one of three categories:  Curcurbita Moschata, the squash and commercially canned pumpkin varieties; Curcurbita Maxima, the giant pumpkins for contests; and Curcurbita Pepo, the miniatures and Jack-O-Lanterns.

Pumpkins take a long time to mature, from 90 to 160 days, depending on the variety.  Start seeds indoors 2 to 3 weeks prior to your last frost.  You can also direct seed after the date of your last frost.  Plant in hills 4 to 6 feet apart or 1 to 3 feet apart in rows 4 to 6 feet apart.

Pumpkins like rich soil so add compost and fertilize with high nitrogen (first number) fertilizer in the beginning of growth and switch to high phosphorous (middle number) fertilizer just before the flowers begin to bloom.

Pumpkins have both male and female flowers on each plant and each flower lasts for only one day.  They unfurl at dawn and begin folding in on themselves about midday.  By dusk, the bloom is closed in on itself and sealed forever.

Water heavily, as pumpkins are 80 to 90% water.  Watering is best done with a soaker hose to prevent spreading disease.

Leave the two main vines on each plant and selectively prune the side shoots, depending on how much room they have in which to grow.  Clip the shoots off when they first develop.

You may need to adjust the position of the pumpkins to achieve the symmetrical shape so desired for a Jack-O-Lantern.  Gently adjust them so that they are sitting on their “bottoms.”  Use care when relocating; don’t bend or break the vine.  It’s OK to uproot a portion of the vine to relocate the pumpkins, just don’t break or bend it.

Harvest your pumpkins when the fruit deepens in color.  Cure in the sun for ten days (cover if frost threatens).  After curing, move to a cool place, ideally around 45 to 55 degrees F.  Each pumpkin vine will yield about two pumpkins.

Pumpkin vines can grow six inches or more in a single day and are the largest vegetable in cultivation.  Growing pumpkins for Halloween can be a rewarding way to teach children about gardening.

Spring Salad Greens

We’ve all seen the “volunteers” popping up in expected or unexpected places in our gardens.  “Volunteers” are plants that get started from seeds produced and scattered by our “on purpose” garden plants.  Some seeds lay dormant for years before unexpectedly popping up in the garden.

So why can’t I garden that way on purpose?  Why can’t I plant spring greens seeds in fall to overwinter and produce an extra early crop in spring?  I’ve noticed “volunteers” usually germinate earlier than planting guidelines given on seed packages.  Overall, volunteers tend to bloom or produce earlier than “gardener” seeded crops or transplants started in the house.

Several plants in my garden produced seeds this year and there are other seeds left over from spring planting.  Why not experiment and plant them this fall to see if any survive winter and germinate in spring?

This afternoon I went out and planted seeds of radishes, green onions and five different spring greens:  spinach, purple mizuna greens, arugula, pak choi and a combination of two different lettuces.  Following is the general procedure I followed:

1. Removed weeds and surface mulch to compost pile.  Some seedlings of radishes were growing in the bed and I left them to see if they survive.
2. Spread about a half inch of finished compost over the bed.  Used claw to mix into topsoil and smoothed bed.
3. Planted seeds much deeper than I normally would in spring.
4. Planted seeds more thickly than usual.
5. Did not water after planting.
6. Uncovered now, will be covered before freezing weather settles in for good.

I planted the greens nine to a square foot, using the square foot method.  The radishes were planted four to each of the squares in a square foot divided into nine smaller squares.  The green onions were randomly scattered in a bed where some summer “volunteer” green onions are already growing.  This bed does not conform to the square foot method; its area is a “sort-of” rectangle of approximately three square feet.

The soil should be thawed out by mid-April at the earliest, unless we have an unusually mild March (not likely).  I predict the seeds will germinate by late April.  By Memorial Day, I should be harvesting baby greens and radishes.  The green onions will probably reach pencil size by the Fourth of July.

Of course, this is assuming the seeds survive winter and germinate.

I’ll post follow-ups for each of the vegetables and report their germination date, approximate rate of germination, and the date of first harvest.

Nature provides abundant materials in fall to enrich your garden soil.

Fall is the best time to improve your soil.  Improve and prepare your soil in fall for planting the following spring. This allows you to plant earlier in spring because the planting bed is already prepared.

Organic matter added to your soil and turned under in fall decomposes faster because the soil is warmer than it is in spring.  By the time spring arrives the organic additions to your soil will already by decomposing.  Nutrients will be available immediately for seedlings and transplants.

Manure should also be applied in fall as the heat generated as it decomposes can burn tender seedlings and transplants.  By spring your garden bed will be enriched by the decomposed manure and the plants will benefit.  Add other organic soil amendments for fall soil improvement, such as peat moss, half-decomposed compost, hay, straw, grass clippings, and fallen leaves.  These will enrich your soil and decompose over the winter, hastened by the heat of the manure.

The addition of lime or sulfur to adjust the pH of your soil is best done in fall.  The particulars are beyond the scope of this article, but add lime or sulfur in proportions recommended by the entity who pH tested the soil sample you provided to them.

To improve your soil without scrounging up the large amount of organic matter necessary to make a difference, try planting a cover crop.  After the crop matures, turn it under with a spade or rototiller and it will decompose and add humus and nutrients to your soil.  Some recommended cover crops are:  annual rye, oats, soybeans, vetch, alfalfa, field peas, buckwheat, and clover. 

Rye is recommended for late fall planting of a cover crop.  It is a fast growing crop and will die off over winter and enrich the soil when you turn it under in spring.  As a general guide, you should plant your fall cover crop a month before your first expected hard, killing frost (not to be confused with a light freeze).  Even if you plant your fall cover crop later than that, any growth, however immature, will enrich your soil when turned under.

Use buckwheat for a summer-planted cover crop.  Plant where you have harvested the spring lettuce plantings.  Cover crops can even be planted between the rows of your vegetables beginning in August, even if you have not yet harvested your vegetables.  Summer-planted cover crops should be turned under in fall.

If your garden is on a hill, an overwintering cover crop will stop soil erosion when spring rains arrive.

Feed your garden soil every fall with some organic matter.  It is perhaps the single most effective way to improve your garden’s productivity, as well as the health and quality of your plants next year.

The wilted leaf of a tomato plant kissed by the first frost of the season.

Our first freeze of the season happened the other night, about two weeks later than average.  It wasn’t a killing frost, just a dip right to freezing.  Most plants survived, but the tomatoes, peppers, beans, and basil are history.  Most of the flowering plants are looking a little straggly.  Others have ripe seeds which need to be collected before they scatter.

Marigolds  and calendulas (if you cover them) will continue to bloom after a light freeze until killed by a hard frost, as long as you deadhead them.  Ditto for pansies and violas.  Fall asters and mums both have flowers that last a long time and will continue to show color until a hard, killing frost.

The sunflowers that didn’t freeze are splotched with brown rust and the zinnias with powdery mildew.  They should be pulled and the diseased foliage put into the trash.  Toss the petunias.  A slight kiss of frost puts them out of service and they tend to look ragged by fall.

Don’t cut down all the spent foliage on the perennials.  Some provide outstanding winter color and interest.  Other perennials help trap leaves, debris and snow in their stems which provides extra winter protection for their roots.

It’s also time to cover and/or protect hybrid and sensitive garden roses for winter.  The showy tea roses and others in that class need more protection from winter the further north you live.  Here in Minnesota the best way to guaranty their winter survival is to bury them.

Leave the broccoli stalks in the ground after cutting the mature heads; they will continue to put out side shoots until severe freezing weather arrives for good.

Most herbs—except basil, cilantro and Rosemary—will continue to grow until a hard killing frost.  Even here in Minnesota, I am usually able to pick fresh herbs with which to make stuffing for the Thanksgiving turkey.  I do pile some leaves on the parsley if a hard freeze is predicted though.

Turn the compost pile after you’ve added the frostbitten and spent plants from your garden clean-up.  Compost piles generate heat as decomposition occurs.  The compost pile will remain active for several weeks after freezing weather arrives for good.  Continue to turn the compost pile every seven to ten days until it freezes.  You will be rewarded in spring with nearly finished compost, great for mulching spring plantings.

If you have one, set up a cold frame, preferably over some fall-planted salad greens.  The greens will continue to grow, slowly, until severe sub-zero weather arrives for good.

Fall may have arrived and Jack Frost may have killed off some plants in the garden, but for die-hard gardeners like me, the season is definitely not over.

Parsley overwintering indoors.

As I was digging up my Rosemary the other day I noticed my parsley:  green, healthy and happy in the cool fall weather with a fresh flush of new growth from recent rains.  I decided to try overwintering my parsley indoors under lights alongside the Rosemary.  After all, it’s a four foot fluorescent light.

I never would have considered overwintering parsley, but another gardener told me about the parsley she has kept for two winters that is now in its third summer, without going to seed.

Overwinter parsley under similar conditions as Rosemary.  Put it in a clay pot with indoor potting soil.  Keep in a cool place in front of a south-facing window or under lights.  Parsley likes more moisture than Rosemary, so water when soil begins to feel dry.

I was all ready to cut back the parsley I potted up but so far the leaves are not drooping with transplant shock.  If they do droop, I can always cut the older, outside leaves and leave the newer, center leaves closer to the growing crown.

A former neighbor of mine had a perennial patch of parsley.  Every year she had a mixture of one- and two-year-old plants.  The two-year-olds would flower and set seed and the one-year-olds she would use in the kitchen.  “The ones with flowers are too bitter,” she told me.

Every summer the new seeds would ripen and naturally scatter in the bed.  A few would germinate that summer but many more would overwinter and germinate the following spring.  Most of the one-year-old plants would survive winter, become two-year-old plants and then set seed.

Her patch was of curly parsley, originally grown from a single plant that survived winter to set seed the following year.  She never covered her perennial parsley bed.

Remembering all of this as I potted up the parsley to bring in the house, I decided to try keeping alive until spring the remaining parsley plant in my garden.  Usually I grow parsley in a container near the back door.  The container freezes solid in our bitter Minnesota winters, killing the parsley, so consequently I’ve never grown parsley into a two-year-old plant.

Next spring I’ll report whether or not each plant survived winter and whether or not it appears to be going to seed.

Two-year-old Rosemary potted up for overwintering indoors.

I dug up my Rosemary plant today to pot up and overwinter indoors.  Last night was our first frost of the season.  I covered the Rosemary last night but don’t want to chance forgetting it when it invariably freezes again in a few nights.

This particular Rosemary is two years old and has doubled in size each year.  Last summer it grew in a clay pot sunk into a larger container garden of herbs.  This summer I planted it into the ground in a corner of a flower bed whose soil has never been amended.  Two years ago the flower bed was a patch of struggling grass overrun with weeds.

This Rosemary grew so much I don’t have a clay pot large enough for it so it’s temporarily in plastic.  Rosemary overwinters indoors much more successfully in a clay pot.  They don’t like wet feet or soggy soil.  At the same time, if they dry out they’re dead.

Last winter I put my then-one-year-old potted Rosemary in a south-facing windowsill with blinds that were pulled up daily.  New growth was spindly and weak until late March, when its new growth became more robust as the days lengthened.

To pot up Rosemary for wintering indoors, select a clay pot one to two inches larger than the root ball.  Use regular indoor potting soil.  The addition of a little sand will be helpful; Rosemary prefers sandy soil.

Drive a spade into the ground all around the plant before lifting out of the ground.  This will sever the longer roaming roots and minimize tearing many more roots.  (Note to self and others who like to plan ahead:  about two weeks before you plan to dig up your Rosemary, drive a spade into the ground all around the plant.  You will sever the longer roots and the plant will produce a compact root ball directly beneath its main growth stem.  This will make the Rosemary easier to dig up and it will suffer less transplant shock.)

When transplanting, make sure to fill in all air pockets with soil.  The roots will dry out quickly if they are not in contact with the growing medium and the plant will die.  Tamp bottom of pot on a hard surface several times firmly to further fill in the air pockets.  Gently firm the top of the soil with your hands.

Water thoroughly with tepid water and place in a cool part of the house with good light for a few days.  When it looks like it is recovering from transplanting, move it under grow lights or to a south-facing window.  Avoid dry, overheated rooms which cause the soil moisture to evaporate quickly and the leaf tips to turn brown.  The ideal conditions for Rosemary are cool, sunny and slightly humid.

I’ve kept and lost several Rosemary plants over the years.  Invariably the ones I’ve lost have been the ones whose soil dried out too much.  Water when soil feels dry to the touch.  Remember:  If it dries out it’s dead.