Vegetables – Page 7 – Center for Urban Agriculture

Horticulture in 1935

November 30, 2015November 4, 2015 by Becky Griffin

The old ways are not always the best ways. Recently a relative of B. B. Higgins of Griffin, Georgia found a bulletin written by Mr. Higgins who was a botanist at the Georgia Experiment Station. The following was written in January of 1935:

Soil For the Pepper Seedbed

Where clean woods soil is available it is advisable to use new soil for the pepper seedbed each year. When it is not available, the old soil may be used several years provided it is sterilized each year before the seed is planted.

If high pressure steam is available, it is the cheapest and most effective means of doing this. An inverted pan of sheet iron may be made to fit inside the bed walls and attached to the boiler by means of rubber hose. The seam should be run in at 80 to 100 pounds pressure for about an hour, or until a potato placed 12 inches below the surface is thoroughly cooked. The pan may then be moved to another section until the entire bed is sterilized.

The soil may be partially sterilized quite satisfactorily with formaldehyde solution (known commercially as “Formalin”). One gallon of commercial formalin is sufficient for 100 square feet of soil.

First spade up and pulverize the soil. Add 1 gallon of formalin to 99 gallons of water and apply evenly over the soil with a sprinkling can, at least 1/2 gallon per square foot. The soil should then be covered with tarpaulins or other heavy cloth. Two or three layers of old sacks is quite satisfactory. This cover should remain in place 2 to 3 days. It should then be removed to allow the fumes to escape.

As soon as the soil is dry enough it should be spaded over and aired out thoroughly. The seed should not be planted until at least 2 weeks after treatment.

The formalin treatment will not kill all nematodes. If the root-knot nematode is present the soil should be steam sterilized, or the bed over to a new location.

None of us in 2015 would consider using formalin in our garden and steam treatment has long been replaced by the use of heavy black plastic to heat our soils – much safer to apply than steam. Still, doesn’t this make for a minute or two of interesting reading? Remember, this method was promoted in the 1930s.

Reviewing this bulletin emphasizes how important it is to rely on current research-based information. In this age of “the university of Google” and Wikipedia, it is extremely easy to get information that isn’t research-based, is out of date, or is just wrong. With today’s wonderful publishing tools anyone can make an official looking publication. The lesson – know your sources. Looking for information put out from major universities and sources you can trust. Don’t entrust the health of your garden to incorrect information!

Happy Gardening!

Food Safety in the Georgia Community and School Gardens

November 30, 2015October 28, 2015 by Becky Griffin

How much do you know?

How much do you know about food safety in the garden? In the heat of the summer do you immediately store your harvested produce in iced coolers? Do you know the safe practices for using manure or compost in your garden? How about sanitizing the containers you use to transport your produce?

No gardener ever wants someone to become sick from the food they have grown. Whether growing food for your family, a food pantry or a farmers market you need to take time to learn some basic food safety.

On-Line Food Safety Course

UGA Extension Food Specialist Dr. Judy Harrison has adapted one of her trainings to become a free on-line self-study course. Enhancing the Safety of Locally Grown Produce is training for small and very small farms but the information is applicable to community and school gardens. Included in the course are printable fact sheets and even a safe practices check sheet. Topics covered include land and water use; worker hygiene; sanitation of equipment; and safe storage and transport.

The course takes about two hours or so to complete. At the end of the course you can take a short survey and print a certificate of completion. THIS IS NOT A CERTIFICATION COURSE, however, it is good training that follows the USDA’s Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) principles and gets you started with basics of food safety. If you have any questions contact Dr. Harrison at judyh@uga.edu.

You local UGA Cooperative Extension office may also by offering food safety courses. I encourage you to invest the time in learning food safety practices and

Happy Gardening!

Sweet Potato Harvest Time in Georgia

November 30, 2015October 21, 2015 by Becky Griffin

It is sweet potato (Ipomea batatas) harvest time in Georgia. At this point your potatoes should have been growing for 90-120 days and you will want to harvest them just before frost.

School gardeners sometimes use sweet potatoes as a way to keep their gardens productive, and relatively carefree, during the summer. Harvest is a fun way to get students involved.

Community gardens sometimes have a plot just for community potatoes. Maybe it is time for a harvest party!

Sweet Potatoes Harvest Time in Georgia — Victorian Garden, Savannah

Home Garden Sweet Potatoes is a useful guide to growing and harvesting this delicious crop.

Harvesting Your Sweet Potatoes

Northern Georgia has already experienced a light frost (October 19th) so set aside some time to get this chore completed. Once temperatures get cold your potatoes may start to rot in the ground.

On harvest day your soil should be dry. It is difficult to harvest underground crops in the mud!

Find the primary stem of your plant. The crop may be formed up to 18 inches from that stem so use that as a guide. Garden forks work well if your soil is loose enough. Be careful; the potatoes can bruise very easily.

Storing Your Sweet Potatoes

After harvest, cure the unwashed potatoes by letting them air dry in a shady location at a warm temperature for several days. Next, carefully store them in a cool, dark area for several months. Do not store them in the refrigerator.

Some gardeners report success by wrapping each potato in newspaper and storing them in plastic bins. Others store their harvest in plastic bins of clean sand. Many community gardeners don’t have a large storage area and they use their attic or garage for storage. Which ever method you choose, protect your potatoes from rodents.

You can enjoy sweet potatoes in many forms – baked, mashed, and in muffins. Most Southerners have delicious memories of sweet potato pie!

Happy Gardening!

Grow Georgia Sweet Onions!

November 30, 2015September 23, 2015 by Becky Griffin

Onions are a wonder in the Georgia garden. They are cool-season crops that require very little work. Ever wanted to try growing them? Now is your chance as Willie Chance gives us valuable instruction. Willie says….

The Cherokee rose is the state flower and the brown thrasher is the state bird. What is the state vegetable? The Vidalia onion!

Actually, most gardeners cannot grow onions and officially call them ‘Vidalia onions’. Production of certified Vidalia onions is limited by a marketing order to a specific area in south-central Georgia. However, gardeners can grow sweet onions by following certain practices.

Onions have two major flavors. Sugars make them sweet but pungent chemicals make the onions ‘hot’. A sweet onion has enough sugar to make it sweet but more importantly – it has a low level of the pungent compounds. The most important factor in making onions ‘sweet’ is having low levels of these pungent compounds. Levels of these compounds in the onion are controlled by proper variety selection, fertilization, watering, and time of planting.

Garden Chores for September – October in Georgia

November 30, 2015September 16, 2015 by Becky Griffin

The change of seasons doesn’t mean that gardening chores stop. It just means they change a bit.

What Should We Do in the Garden?

According to the Georgia Vegetable Garden Calendar for this time of the year we need to:

Choose the mild weather during this period to plant or transplant: beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, collards, lettuce, mustard, onions, radishes, spinach and turnips. Plant your second planting of fall crops such as collards, turnips, cabbage, mustard, and kale.

Refurbish mulch to control weeds, and start adding leaves and other materials to the compost pile. Store your manure under cover to prevent leaching of nutrients.

Water deeply and thoroughly to prevent drought stress. Pay special attention to new transplants.

Harvest mature green peppers and tomatoes before frost gets them.

Harvest herbs and dry them in a cool, dry place.

And, most importantly, enjoy the cooler weather and enjoy your garden.

Happy Gardening!

September is Hunger Action Month

November 30, 2015September 2, 2015 by Becky Griffin

September is Hunger Action Month. A 2014 Hunger in America study showed that 1 in 7.5 people in metro Atlanta and northern Georgia relies on food pantries and meal service programs. This includes over 164,000 children and 64,000 seniors.

As gardeners we may be in a unique position to donate fresh food to a local food pantry. Most food pantries are stocked with canned and dry goods. Fresh food for their clients could be life changing.

Is your community or school garden donating to a food pantry? Some gardens have specific areas dedicated to donation. The entire group is responsible for working those areas and someone is assigned to harvest and deliver the produce.

Some gardens were formed with the purpose of growing food for others.

Lettuce is Luscious in a Georgia Community or School Garden

November 30, 2015August 26, 2015 by Becky Griffin

Lettuce is a great cool-season crop to grow in Georgia, especially leaf lettuce. Growing leaf lettuce means you don’t have to wait for the lettuce to make a head. You can begin harvesting as soon as the leaves are large enough to eat. With names like Firecracker, Tango, and Drunken Woman the expectations for flavor are high!

The Urban Vegetable Garden at Gwinnett Tech

November 30, 2015July 22, 2015 by Becky Griffin

Tony Gobert is so passionate and enthusiastic about Gwinnett Tech’s vegetable garden and the school’s Certificate in Sustainable Urban Agriculture that his face lights up talking about it. On a recent tour I saw a garden FULL of plants. It is urban, intensive agriculture at its best. This garden has a lot to teach community and school gardeners. Tony was happy to tell me all about it.

Located along Sugarloaf Parkway in Gwinnett County, Georgia, the garden is laid out to work with nature. The plant rows are laid out to follow the contour of the land. Before the vegetable garden, the land had a history of large runoff problems after rain storms. Tony and his team turned this negative into a positive by controlling the flow of the water so that it provided irrigation to the vegetable plants. “Work with what you have,” Tony says.

Being part of an educational garden, there are experiments everywhere. Which creates a better plant in the long run, potatoes started in the greenhouse or potatoes started by slips in the ground? What is the

Urban Vegetable Garden at Gwinnett Tech — Tony Gobert uncovers a very large radish.

best way to use worm castings? The students can answer these questions because they have tested their hypotheses by planting and growing – not just reading a textbook. The students are also trying their hands at growing fruit trees in different ways and growing different types of alliums. There are even banana plants. Why not?

This is a food production garden. The produce goes to Gwinnett Tech’s popular culinary program. The agriculture students learn about what it takes to supply a client as well as other lessons in ag economics. They are taught seed saving techniques and also how to make money during the slower season of the garden.

In many areas there are multi-crop plantings. For example, a Winesap apple tree is grown using a unique tree trellis. Underneath are blackberry bushes. During the cool-season months when there are no leaves on the tree, onions are planted just outside the blackberry bushes.

This is true intensive gardening which can translate well in a community garden setting. Peanuts are planted between rows of corn. The peanut plants help fix nitrogen for the nitrogen-loving corn. Blueberry bushes are planted in the middle of the strawberry patch. Their roots use different soil zones. Also, crop rotation and successive planting are thoughtfully carried out.

Tim Daly, a Gwinnett County Extension Agent, is a fan of the garden. Tim was curious about a squash variety that was advertised to grow very large squash plants. “Daly’s squash” is part of the garden this year. Tony is feeling hopeful they will get a prize winning squash from that plot!

This garden is just getting started. The initial planting was done in April 2014. A pollinator plant strip was added in November 2014. There are plans for 30 raised beds. The program that supports this garden is also just getting started. The certificate program in Sustainable Urban Agriculture was started in 2013. Students are required to take classes in food production, soils, and pest management. Three other courses are required to finish the six course program. Tony is a teacher at heart and he is excited to hear what his first graduates of the program are doing now as well as the plans his current students have. This is a fantastic addition to the urban gardening movement in Georgia!

I hope you can incorporate some of Tony’s intensive multi-planting systems in your own community or school garden plot.

Happy Gardening!

A Beautiful and Edible Landscape-A Guest Post by Joshua Fuder

November 30, 2015June 24, 2015 by Becky Griffin

Herbs and shallots among evergreens and annuals.

Many of us have community areas of our gardens. Those spaces can give us an opportunity to show how people can incorporate food crops in a home landscape. This week our guest blogger, Joshua Fuder, gives us some ways to do this. Josh writes:

During a vacation in France last year I had an awakening of sorts in terms of my philosophy on garden design and plant selection. A number of the gardens and public parks that we visited incorporated vegetables like Swiss chard and kale in with annual flower plantings. As an avid gardener and even more avid eater I wondered why I wouldn’t incorporate more vegetables and herbs into more traditional ornamental plantings. I’ve always appreciated the beauty of the edible plants but never considered their value in an ornamental sense.

Gardeners in Georgia might consider incorporating edibles for a number of reasons:

Sun Exposure-Ornamental beds are often the best or only location in homeowners yards that
Rosemary, sage, and shallots among evergreens and annuals.

receive sufficient (at least 6 hours) sunlight for vegetables and herbs.
Convenience-Ornamental plantings are often close to the areas of the yard that we use most so if your edibles are incorporated you may find using fresh ingredients easier. It is also easier to stay on top of weeds and insect issues if you are visiting the area more frequently.
Reduced Grocery Costs – Many edibles, especially herbs can add to your monthly food bills if you buy from grocery stores.
Improved Health – Fresh vegetables are a great source of vitamins and minerals when properly prepared and gardening can be great exercise.

The key to creating a visually appealing edible landscape is the artful combination of annuals and perennials. Most edibles are going to substitute for the use of annuals but there are some options for shrubs, vines, and small trees.

A Beautiful and Edible Landscape — Golden purslane under lilies and dahlias mixed with shallots.

Annual Color: Rainbow chard, purple mustard, kale, lettuce can all add dramatic affect with their foliage and mid-rib color variation. Calendula and nasturtium are both edible flowers that can add color to salads and nasturtium leaves can be used in pesto. Basil comes in many varieties and colors, consider the dwarf boxwood variety to create more formal lines. Taller plants like corn, okra, and Jerusalem artichokes can be planted at the back of a garden to create height and screening.

Groundcover: Thyme, oregano, and savory make great evergreen ground covers. Goldberg Golden Purslane and New Zealand spinach (or tetragonia) have succulent leaves and a sprawling growth habit. Strawberries will also sprawl out and cover an area as well.

Shrubs and Perennials: Blueberries have become a major cash crop in Georgia but are beautiful plants that have spring flowers, summer fruit and fall color. Pomegranate, figs and jujubes are all great plants that grow well in our area. American Hazelnut is deciduous shrub/small tree that grows well in our area. Rosemary is a great addition with its evergreen, needle-like foliage. Garden sage is also evergreen and has a wonderful softness to its leaves like a ‘dusty miller’ or lambs ear.

Edible Vines and Climbers: Structures like arbors and trellises are a great way to add interest in your

garden and there are some great substitutions for the climbing rose or clematis you may have in mind. Muscadines are extremely hardy and have few problems compared to many of the bunch grapes. If you want an annual plant that is easier to control you can consider Malabar spinach which has delicious greens and beautiful red stems. There are all types of beans that will grow rapidly and cover a structure. The Chinese Red Noodle bean will produce one to three foot long burgundy beans that will amaze.

Trees: Apples are well suited for northern Georgia and can maximize a small space with a few espaliered trees. The serviceberry (juneberry) is a great alternative to a crapemyrtle and the birds will love it. Mulberries are delicious and very easy to grow, just make sure they are planted in an area where you won’t mind a mess. ‘Montmorency’ and ‘Balaton’ are varieties of Pie or ‘sour’ cherries that are great small trees that perform well in our area as well.

Joshua Fuder is a UGA Extension agent in Cherokee County, Georgia. Joshua has grown many different types of fruits and vegetables. He grew vanilla, coffee, pineapple, and black pepper while serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Vanuatu (an island nation in the South Pacific).

Happy Gardening!

Harvesting Garlic from Your Georgia Garden

November 30, 2015June 10, 2015 by Becky Griffin

Harvesting Garlic

If you planted your garlic in the fall it is probably about harvest time for you. Here are 5 easy steps for a successful harvest:

Step #1 Harvest at the right time. Look for the garlic tops to start turning yellow. When they start to fall over it is time to harvest. Don’t wait until the tops are totally dry.

Step #2 Discontinue watering a week or so before harvesting to give the garlic bulbs a chance to dry out.

Step #3 Don’t pull the bulbs out by the tops (leaves) but gently dig them out using a garden fork. Be very careful not to puncture the bulbs.

Step #4 Brush off the soil and let them air dry in a shady, dry spot for a couple of

weeks. Many gardeners use the leaves to hang the garlic up to dry. Stay away from humidity. Hard to do in a Georgia summer, I know.

Step #5 Once the bulbs are dry remove the leaves and trim off any roots. Brush off any dirt, keeping the wrappers in tact.

Bonus Step Start planning those delicious garlic dinner dishes!

For more information on growing, harvesting, and storing garlic see UGA’s Garlic Production for the Gardener. Your UGA Extension agent also has answers to all of your vegetable gardening questions.

Happy Harvesting!

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