What's Happening This Week in the Greenhouses

I have been spending more time in the retail greenhouse this week and I am just awed by the beauty of some of the flowers. Here are a few photos to get you in the mood too. Delicate folds and perfect gradations of pigment make for some intricate and dazzling begonias: Here is a dahlia that I am in love with:

These orange miniature roses are incredibly sweet near a stone wall or in patio conatiners:

And we have a full array of hot peppers now including:

And....

These Vanilla Marigolds are pretty special as well - very tall, upright and a creamy delicious....

Raised Beds

by Julie

My home garden is often neglected. There are a few reasons for that - 1.) I am way too busy in the spring and don't have the time, and 2.) I would rather go swimming in the summer than weed. Yes, it's true. Our Vermont summers are so short, that I often make choices that don't benefit the garden come August. So in the early spring, before I get too too busy at Red Wagon, I try to make gardening choices that will entail less work come summer and get the plants off to a really good start so that they are strong enough to handle my abuse and neglect later in the season.

This year, the Red Wagon crew came over and installed some great raised beds in the back yard. My regular garden is quite shady because of some neighboring trees (not mine or I would cut them down!) so I decided to put in some raised beds in the overgrown meadow behind the house and hopefully this will help me tame the wild. It's a sloping, wet mess with a huge forest of Japanese Knotweed trying to take over everything in its path. I have dug a trench around the knotweed and Elise covered a 20 x 20' patch of it with black plastic that my neighbor, Paul,  gave me (I think he is worried it will spread to his yard, I would be too if I were him). Hopefully the combination of black-out and containment will slow it down.

About half way through the installation, the raised beds look like this:

We filled the raised beds with leaves, composted donkey manure and a thick layer of compost from Red Wagon Plants, which is mainly potting soil from years past that was given to us by the plants that did not sell. It's a great fill for raised beds, and not readily available to home gardeners, but I would recommend a mixture of top soil and compost. In the first year of a raised bed, the bottom layer can be some rough organic matter such as leaves, lawn clippings, etc. Just make sure that there is a good amount of the actual planting medium (at least 8").

I used a thick layer of cardboard and burlap coffee bags under everything to smother out the grass.

Here are the finished beds:

Our workshop on April 17th will be all about raised bed gardening with special guests Markey Read and Tim King. Please call us or email us to register. ..... 802 482 4060 or julieATredwagonplants.com.

First Week in the Greenhouse

Last week was the first week back in the greenhouse and all the work went so smoothly it didn't even feel like work. It would take more poetry than what is in me to describe the joy I feel from being back at work and playing with plants. I am also so grateful for our amazing team of kind and hard working people - Allison Lea, Eric Denise, Dana Ozimek and Buddy Koerner. It makes a huge difference to have such an all star team of Red Wagon Plants allumni, and the plants feel the love and experience too. Here are a few shots of the week's progress.

Can you find Sandy peeking at everything in the photo above?

And here are a few of the 2010 geraniums.....

Hens and Chicks waiting for a warm spot in a rock garden or along a stone path.....

Some Sweet Allysum poking through...

Any signs of life stirring in your garden?

Happenings

Eric and Lindsay moving the bit of soil left over from last year into a greenhouse.

Charley's stone walls for the workshops he teaches. Red Wagon Plants and Queen City Soil and Stone own a greenhouse together so that he can use it in the winter for workshops and we use it in the spring and summer for retail sales.

Eric just finished installing a new heater. Our old heaters have been destroyed, one by one, by mud wasps that make their mud homes in the delicate workings of the motors or heat exchangers. We are replacing them with heaters that do not have nooks and crannies in which the wasps can hide.

Our booth at the NOFA conference this past weekend. It was great to meet customers and see friends, old and new.

Field Trip

Every winter, I try to have a field trip to at least one greenhouse business to see how other people do things. This time, I am heading off to Peace Tree Farm, Candy and Lloyd Tavern's very impressive and large operation in Buck's County, PA. I hope to get a chance to see their  very efficient systems at work. They are growing organic herb plants along  as part of their operation, and I can't wait to see it all and ask lots of questions. I first met Lloyd at a conference a couple of years ago and was really impressed with his vast knowledge of all things mechanical when it comes to greenhouse production. Our operation at Red Wagon Plants is not at all mechanized. .... everything we do is by hand, from filling the pots, to watering, to seeding, and carrying trays to the truck. Larger operations use machines for many of these tasks, and I avoid these machines because we are too small to warrant the cost, and I am a first class techno-phobe. Things just break if I come near them. So in an effort to get over some of my fear of machinery, I'll visit Lloyd and Candy and will be grateful for their kind exposure to greenhouse robotics.  Photos to come!

Making Plans for Spring

I have been making a few plans for the season, along with the help of my co-workers. We always come up with a few new ways each year to reach more people, be more informative and helpful and to make our workspace more efficient and comfortable. One of the best aspects of a seasonal business is the available time, each year, to reflect and improve. Every problem that occurs in one season has a chance to be improved upon the following season. This is true of gardening in general, but when that forgiving cyclical approach is applied to running a business, it can help everyone feel saner and ready for the challenge of a quick and furious growing season.

This year's areas of improvement are, drum role please...

Communication - we hope to better reach our customers with the information they seek. We are often asked questions about a growing method, a pest problem, a cooking question, etc and we hope that by making our website more informative we will be able to meet some of those needs.

Infrastructure - after the growing season we will be replacing the plastic on the three of our greenhouses. By replacing the plastic every 5 years, we insure that proper light levels are getting through the glazing. We will also take the time to regrade the gravel base in each greenhouse as a way to control weeds and water flow. We will replace the black landscape fabric over the gravel and that will give us a nice, clean start to the 2011 season. Keeping a greenhouse clean is one of the most important factors in organic production. Weeds, algae, and dirt are all great habitats for pests and disease; since we don't have the chemical means to take care of these problems, we must rely on simple hygiene and cleanliness. Eric Denice, our resident can-fix-anything delivery person and all around wonderful guy, will also be building some new benches to keep the plants out of harms way (ie, the hungry mouths of many, many voles). Last year, the voles destroyed tray after tray of broccoli, lettuce, kale and countless other tidbits. Raspberries in the mouse traps were the only thing that could compete a little with the tender green growth of our much loved plants. Sorry, voles, we had to do it.

Information Management - our database is a constant work in progress. We keep track of thousands of varieties on our database - this includes all the information we can gather about the plant including every time we have ever seeded it, how many weeks we seed it per year, what kind of pest problems it has, how well customers like it, etc. This has been an ongoing project of many years, and now it is finally at a point where all of that information gathering is proving useful and there is enough data in the system to simultaneously make my head spin and make heart leap. I love knowing when things are planted and how to improve the cropping strategies.  I am a secret computer geek who is really grateful her parents sent her to computer camp at the age of 12.

Community Outreach - As always, we will be working with many, many groups this year to donate plants to community garden projects. We hope to teach a few workshops, maybe one or two about canning and freezing the garden harvest, and also some hands on workshops in the garden, so people who haven't done it learn how to sow seeds directly, the best way to transplant our starts, etc. Our teaching and plant donations are the absolute best parts of this business. Few things give me more joy in my work life than driving around with a van full of plants that will be distributed to neighborhoods that need beautifying and to families that need a little help with their food. If you know of a group that could use some free plants for public gardening purposes (schools, churches, food banks, etc) please let us know, and we will add them to our list of Community Partners.

New Varieties for the New Year

We are adding so many new varieties for the new year. We will update the plant selection of the website and include all of the new selections for 2010, but for now here is a sneak peak.

This is a really fun summer squash with lovely shades of green and yellow, split right down the middle. The flavor is similar to any yellow summer squash, but the striped look is really fun in the harvest basket.

This next nasturtium is a new introduction from Johnny's Selected Seeds. It has such brilliant hues of yellows, oranges and reds. I think it will be a real standout amongst the herbs and edible blossoms in the spring garden. Nasturtiums are the work horses of the garden world - they just never stop producing their cheery blooms all season long.

A few customer have asked for this nostalgic, old-fashioned annual. It is a beautiful lime green flower with bracts and petals that dry perfectly along their regal, spiked stem. I just love these in bouquets with zinnias and ornamental grasses.

Round of Hungary Pepper is another customer request. It's a really sweet pepper with a flatened shape that is perfect for stuffing and baking. It is an heirloom and as such carries with it a full spectrum of flavors. Perfect addition to the grilled vegetables you may be looking forward to this summer.

We will continue to update you with all the new varieties, so keep checking in to see what's coming. And as always, we love to hear your suggestions, stories of what works well for you...our plants and your gardens have a lot to share!

Snow and greenhouses

Snow removal is a big part of greenhouse maintenance in the winter. Our greenhouses are really strong, made from tubular steel, engineered by Harnois, up in Quebec, and can handle a big snow load. The problem though, is once the snow slides off, it has to be cleared away from the sides so that more snow can slide off. If it builds up too much on the sides, it can put uneven pressure on the frame, and when another heavy snow falls, the uneven pressure combined with the added weight of the snow load can cause a problem. We have a snow blower to do this, but when it gets to be too much, we call in Roger Parker, a neighbor and all around helpful person who has an excavation business and owns every great piece of large equipment a person could want. His tractor and huge rear-mounted snowblower fits in between the greenhouses just fine and they can clear away the big snow piles in a few passes. It sure beats shoveling!

From the Valentine's Day blizzard of 2007

Seed Inventory

It's a good idea, if you start your own seeds, to do a thorough cleaning out of the seed supply every year. Keeping old seed around will just lead to frustration. Here is a basic guideline for seed shelf-life:

• 1 year: onions, parsnips, parsley, salsify, scorzonera, and spinach;
• 2 years: corn, peas, beans, chives, okra, dandelion;
• 3 years: carrots, leeks, asparagus, turnips, rutabagas;
• 4 years: peppers, chard, pumpkins, squash, watermelons, basil, artichokes and cardoons;
• 5 years: most brassicas, beets, tomatoes, eggplant, cucumbers, muskmelons, celery, celeriac, lettuce, endive, chicory.

I am never too sure about what to do with old seeds. Sometimes I throw them around on bare patches of earth to see what will come up and other times I sadly throw them into the compost or trash. Most importantly, I try to be really careful to order only what I can use within the lifetime of the seed.

Winter Work

Every day, I try to work a little and play a little. And come fall and winter, it is always a little bit of a challenge to find the right balance. I try to learn some new skill every winter and usually find a topic to study with a friend or two. This winter the skill is social media as a business tool - hence this blog and Red Wagon Plants presence on Facebook and Twitter. I am reading many interesting food blogs and a few homesteading and farming blogs, using Google reader to stay updated on these issues. It doesn't really feel like work, but I sense my slow passage up the learning curve and hope it translates into increased relationship with customers. Having a business that is only open to the public 2 months out of the year means that I spend 10 months not hearing from customers. My biggest goal with internet communication is to hear from customers more regularly throughout the year, and to track the progress of our plants.  So please, let me know. - Julie

Black Bean and Butternut Squash Chili

This is one of my favorite things to do with butternut squash, and every time I make it, I am reminded of my friend, Robin Holland.  She made it for a mom's group I was a part of when my daughter was a baby and a toddler.  A dozen or so of us would get together once a week, share an amazing meal and, together, relish in the joys and burdens of motherhood.  I still make this often, and every time, the flavors combine together to transport me back to those days.  There is something inherently grounding and warming about this dish.

Black Bean and Butternut Squash Chili

(enough for a crowd and easily reduced)

2 cups of dried black beans, soaked overnight, rinsed and drained (turns into about 6 cups of soaked beans

1 large butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and roughly chopped into 1" chunks

2 TBS olive oil

2 large onions, chopped

1 or 2 green or red peppers, chopped

5 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

4 bay leaves

6 TBS chili powder

1 tsp dried chili flakes

2 cups of apple cider

8 cups of water

Salt to taste (at the end)

2 to 4 TBS maple syrup

Chopped cilantro, jalapeno and lime wedges for garnish (optional)

In a large, heavy pot, heat the olive oil.  Add the onion, bell pepper, garlic, chili powder, pepper flakes, bay leaves, and stir until soft and starting to brown.  Add 1 cup of the apple cider, and scrape up the brown bits and allow it to cook down by about half the volume.  This helps to concentrate the flavors of the aromatics (onions, bay leaf, etc).

It should look something like this.

Next add the squash, and the soaked beans, the remainder of the liquid, and allow to cook over medium to low heat for about 1 1/2 hours, or until everything is soft. Finish the stew by adding the maple syrup, and about 1 TBS salt (I find the beans and the squash really need lots of salt).  Stir and wait a few minutes before tasting.  Adjust with more syrup or salt if needed.

This is great served with the garnishes, some corn tortillas or corn bread, and a piece of cheddar cheese.  The warmth and sweetness create a harmonious and satisfying balance.

Privacy from the Traffic to the Secret City

I like to plant perennials and woody ornamentals in the fall for two reasons: one, I finally have the time to do it, and two, they benefit from the cooler temperatures and the rainy days.  Today, I am planting a privacy screen between our house and the noisy road we live on.  While it's still a country road, the traffic is such that we cannot simply tune it out. There are cars every few minutes, and they are going way too fast.   We've determined there is a secret city over the ridge and all these cars are in a terrible hurry to get there.

My privacy planting is mirroring one that I already planted on the other side of the walk way.... Nine bark - those are the tall burgundy shrubs (Physocarpus), sedums (Autumn Joy and Madrona), some ornanmental grasses, some fall pink asters, and some heuchera or coral bells (Purple Petticoats).  Underneath, I will stash a bunch of pale Pink Emperor tulips and a few white daffodils.  I love keeping color combinations harmonious season to season and this creates a nice range of pinks, deep reds and maroons.  The grasses fill in to give it a naturalistic look and it only takes about two years for everything to grow up enough to become an 8 foot screen. I will stick in a few kale and chard plants come spring for the mandatory (in my mind) edible component.  In an effort to practice Gardening Without Guilt, I grow very practical plantings that will always accomplish a few of my gardening goals -- easy maintenace (it's okay if there a few weeds in there since it all looks like it belongs), habitat for wildlife (the birds and pollinators love these groupings of plants), beauty (to my eye at least) and harmony with some lovely edible plants (in this case it will be chard, kale and a few herbs).  The closer to the house we plant edibles, the more we will eat them and tend to them.  And by using plants for a privacy screen, we are not seeing the cost of and avoiding the aesthetic impact of a tall fence.

My plan is to add a few wheelbarrow loads of our compost, made from donkey manure (thanks to Pokey and Rosy, above), kitchen scraps, and garden debris.  Then I will work it all into the soil which was tilled up several weeks ago (and,no, I have not kept up with the weeding in the meantime).  The planting holes should be a couple of times bigger than the root ball of the plant, that way the soil can be loosened and worked up to create a welcoming home for newly spreading roots.  I don't add any fertilizer when planting in the fall because it encourages tender new growth that will not fare well in our frigid winters.

I like these types of plantings for the simple pleasure they provide as they grow up and the effect they have of anchoring the house into its place, making it more of a home and sheltering it from all those cars speeding off to their secret city.  I'll post a picture when I am finished.

Julie's Introduction

If you ask me, September is the best month in the garden.

The warm season crops are still doing well (in theory) and the colder season crops are starting to come back, thankful for the cooler nights.

The harvest basket seems to just fill itself up the minute I step into the straw mulched paths, pausing for a moment to ask if I should eat the raspberries before or after I do a little grunt work.

But while all of this pastoral musing seems idyllic enough, there are some other thoughts in the nether layers that I need to reckon with.

First of all, why is my garden so big?

Why is it that every April, the month of good intentions, I decide that this is the year I will finally find time to keep everything weeded and tended?

As we slide from April to September, my good intentions are slowly eclipsed by my desire to spend summertime in places other than the garden. I love to bike, hike, swim, row, travel, read in the hammock, and yes, I love to cook, hence the garden. But gardening feels like work when it is 95 F and the weeds are scratching my neck.

I used to feel guilty about all of this, but now I have learned to cope with the ebb and flow of my gardening enthusiasm-- what I am working on now is gardening without guilt.

While it is true that I am very passionate about gardening, I realize that there is a seasonal drive to every aspect of this hobby. Every gardener must come to terms with his or her own type of engagement in the garden. There is no right or wrong way to garden. There is beauty and purpose in every type of garden and what matters most is that a garden meets the needs of the gardener, not the other way around. Gardens without guilt are places of liberation and revelation....a place to accept both our shortcomings and our successes.

The food coming out of my garden this year is bountiful as always, and I have managed to learn a few things which have made the garden easier to manage in spite of its size. Over the next few months as we go through another autumn and winter cycle, I will reflect on what gardening means to me, what I do with the food from my garden, and how I go about deciding what to grow at Red Wagon Plants.

As I share these thoughts with you, I encourage you to share your notions about The Garden. What works well for you? What are the disasters? How does your garden fit into your life? This garden journal is a collective effort between the people of Red Wagon Plants and the family of customers created by all of those young plants going out into the world of our gardens. We hope you will share the thoughts you glean this season and keep the conversation going until we see you again in the spring.