Garden Preparation - April

At last it's time to give in to some of your stronger vegetable gardening urges! If you haven't already started, here's a short list of things to -- assuming that you've completed preparations for March...

Yes, yes - start those tomatoes and other warm weather plants now in your cellar or on the table by the window. Remember to keep the soil warm and moist. 

As mentioned here last year, as well as in probably every other gardening blog for the great Northeast, plant your peas, parsnips and spinach outside.

If they're ready, set out broccoli, cabbage  etc. 

• If you want to protect these plants from root maggots in an organic manner, consider employing a maggot mat.  Unlike a collar around the stems as a shield against cutworms, the mats are laid  tightly flat around the stems. [Use a heavy paper or landscaping cloth slit into the center with just enough of a hole for the stem.] Root maggots are the larvae of small black flies that lay eggs around the stems. By using a mat you can prevent the hatchlings from first burrowing into the ground and then burrowing into the plants.

• If you already have seedlings started in small cell or plug flats, for example, remember to transplant them to larger containers after their first true leaves appear.  Containers between 3" x 3" and 4" x 4" should serve the purpose.

•  If your garden soil is no longer wet, i.e. it doesn't stay in a ball when you pick up a handfull and gently squeeze it, you can now add your compost.  This will give the compost a headstart on starting its final decomposition making more nitrogen available.

Selecting tomato plants

As the month progresses, if you haven't started tomato seedings, you might  be feeling guilty and starting to  think about buying tomato  plants  now appearing like weeds in garden centers.

Resist those urges to buy. It's still too early - you will need to keep them warm & moist probably indoors until the end of May. [You will be able to buy plants from at a local  farmer's market well into June.] 

But, if you can't resist your urges, at least follow the advice of Craig LeHoullier (Epic Tomatoes, 2015) and DON'T BUY plants that:

• Look too big or look too leggy for their pots;
• Show discoloration or any blemishes on their leaves or stems;
• Have flowers or small fruit; or
• Look crowded or wilted.

• and, I would add, don't be afraid to ask where the plants come from... A  local source, not Canada or North Carolina, is preferable because the plants will be more acclimated and are less likely to have pests and diseases from those other locations.

Seed Saving Suggestion

I recognize that not many garderers now might  be thinking about saving seed but it just recently occurred to me that instead of either throwing out or recycling all my plastic pill vials, I could, at least, reuse some of the larger ones for saving seeds.  [I wouldn't  be surprised if I were actaully the last gardener in Rensselaer County to realize this  repurposing of these amber colored containers, but in case I'm not the last one...] I always have some seed packets that are torn or worse for wear at the end of a season that have left over seeds in them or sometimes I have heirloom (non-hybrid) seeds that I want to save. Anyway, just a thought...

And remember...

"April prepares her green traffic light, and the world thinks GO." - Christopher Morley

Book Recommendation - Epic Tomatoes

Spring, when gardeners and vegetable eaters turn their fancies to tomatoes...

Epic Tomatoes - How to Select & Grow the Best Varieties of All Time by Craig LeHoullier (Storey Publishing, 2015) is a beautifully designed and illustrated book about tomatoes. In fact, it is visually mouth-watering and clearly reflects the author's professed passion.

LeHoullier has been growing tomatoes for 35+ years. His specialty is heirloom tomatoes -- he is, btw,  responsible for the naming of the Cherokee Purple way back in 1990. He also authors a blog, and his website  includes many videos about basic gardening techniques.

All  aspects  of growing tomatoes  from starting seeds to saving seeds for next year's harvest are, needless to say, thoroughly covered for backyard gardeners in this book. Although Epic Tomatoes describes the characteristics of  250 tomato varieties, LeHoullier  clearly favors the heirloom types.  He also slips in  a handful of recipes and a little information about preserving, but these topics are clearly secondary to his simply wanting to help gardeners grow and enjoy the fruits of Solanum lycopersicum.


LeHoullier breaks up the major sections of Epic Tomatoes by highlighting the superior features of each of his ten favorite heirloom varieties. The sections on pests and diseases cover the most likely problems a backyard gardener may encounter. Symptoms and solutions are well explicated and  the accompanying illustrations are unambiguous.  These along with a few other miscellaneious topics are further augmented by another section  consisting of  answers to gardener submitted questions that is reminescent of James Underwood Crockett's Victory Garden books.

For beginning  gardeners his advice about using containers applies not just to tomatoes but to using  containers in general is right on target - although most gardeners will probably choose not to convert their driveways into container garden sites.  LeHoullier also mentions how to use straw bales in lieu of planting beds for tomatoes, but you may want to checkout the fuller treatment concerning straw bales in his second book,   Growing Vegetables in Straw Bales - Easy Planting, Less Weeding and Early Harvests.  For the truly curious gardener, he even discusses how to breed your own varieties.

 In short, if you know a gardener and are stumped  about what to give them sometime for a present,  give them this book.  They will thank you and hopefully share their tomatoes with you!


And remember...

"To grow a tomato or a pepper and prepare a meal from your labor

and care is primordially satisfying." - Neil Newman

What's in Your Garden Soil:  The Carbon : Nitrogen Ratio 

Master Gardeners are always talking about using  cover crops or compost as two very important means of providing nitrogen (N) to a garden, but there is another element that influences how much N and in what form N may be present in soil. That other element is carbon (C), and we will now  review why that relationship is important as well as why  backyard gardeners should be atuned a little into the carbon/nitrogen (C:N) ratio.

Plants obtain carbon from the atmosphere by converting carbon dioxide via photosynthesis into sugars that are used to fuel their cellular processes.  Not all of this captured carbon, obviously,  is used as fuel. Plants also incorporate carbon into their cellular structures in  the forms of cellulose and lignins. A tree, remember, is one big edifice of mostly cellulose.

Where does nitrogen (N) come into play?

Nitrogen Cycle. Source: scied.ucar.edu

N is needed by living cells  to make the proteins  that are essential for growth. Plants obtain their N from soluble compounds such as nitrate  (NO3-), nitrite (NO2-), ammonia  (NH3), and ammonium (NH4+) that are available in the soil. These compounds are the result of a number of different processes involving the conversion of either atmosperic N or N from  biologic sources by the actions of various mircroorganisms. A few plants, like legumes, also can convert atmosperic N into a usable form.  Few plants, by the way, can handle ammonia directly; most plants need it to be  converted by bacteria into either nitrate(NO3-) or nitrite (NO2-

How does carbon (C) come into play?

Lots of carbon   actually can be  found in  soi and comes mainly from the   remains of decomposing plant  cellulose. This carbon  soil is not used by living plants, but it is the bread and butter for bacteria.  These bacteria, however,  also use available N sources in the soil as they  breakdown cellulose and multiply.  In the short term high amounts of   C in soil can spur rapid bacterial growth subsequently depleting  the available N for  plants.  In the long term because bacteria incorporate relatively a lot of N into their proteins, when they die and their proteins decompose, soluble N will become available again to plants albeit maybe later in the growing season when plants may be in a different growth stage and need less N.

So how much carbon (C) is too much?

As you can see, the amount of carbon versus nitrogen in soil can become a seesaw-like activity.  The ratio of C to N can vary considerably  during a season. Because soil microorganisms usually become active before plants, they can get a head start on plants for available N. If the C/N ratio is high,  e.g. greater than 33:1, bacteria may easily out compete your raddishes. This is why gardeners and farmers use cover crops and  fertilizers in the spring - to ensure that there is enough N in the soil for young plants to thrive.  

• FWIW: Gardeners  know that  using sawdust as a mulch in a garden (its C/N ratio is around 400:1)  is a "No, No" because all of the available N might be taken up by feasting bacteria.  Gardeners using straw as a mulch (its C/N ratio is about 80:1) run a similar but reduced risk, although these gardeners are probably  also adding  compost  to their gardens to maintain an overall healthy C/N ratio. 

What is a good C/N Ratio?

Depends... there is  lattitude,  and the C/N ratio naturally fluctuates due to moisture levels, temperatures, soil characteristics and plant growing cycles during the course of a growing season.   Typically a ratio between 12 - 15:1 is considered good for vegetables. In that ballpark range bacteria populations seem to be relatively stable. There is enough available N   for bacteria to break down cellulose and for  plants to grow. On the other hand, a low C/N ratio  (e.g. 9 - 10) may not be necessarily bad. Decomposition will be slowed, but will continue at a steady rate assuming you have a soil with sufficient humus content.  

What about the C/N Ratio in my compost pile?

New green organic material like clover, coffee grounds,  grass clippings & other common yard/garden waste added to a compost pile  will moderately increase the C/N ratio. The ratios of these items are in the range between 20 - 30:1.  Weeds, vegetable scraps and hay   bring higher C/N ratios  in the range of 20 - 35:1 to a compost pile. By turning over your compost for aeration and keeping it moist, you can promote the nitrification process. You can also add manures (C/N 15:1 typically) to give it quick boost of N.  When decomposition is completed, your pile will eventually wind up with ratio of around 12:1.

There are methods to determine the C/N ratio of large compost piles. These require  that you know the quantities of the materials,  e.g. tonnage,  in the pile and their basic chemical compositions.     For the backyard gardener,  however,  the        fundamental    question simply is  "Are your plants looking healthy and green?"  If yes, no problem.  If no,  you have some investigating to do because it may not be just a whacky C/N ratio...

And remember...

"If you wish to grow anything, you must understand it and to understand it in a very real way." - Russell Page

Garden Preparation - March

March! Backyard gardeners are probably getting itchy just thinking about digging into their vegetable beds, but so far March looks a lot like February - cold and white.  Here are a few activities that might help pass some time and make you feel that you're getting into the swing  of another growing season. March taxes my creative juices, but like having hot tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich on a cold day,  doing a few familiar activities can be  satisfying enough while waiting for inspiration...

Prune in  cold weather before the evil organisms reactivate
in spring. Photo: Applegarth Farm, MN

• There is still time to catch up on the pruning that you've been procrastinating about... get out there in the snow and carefully trim the grape vines,  remove last year's canes from the raspberry patch and cut the suckers and shoots on your ornamental crabapples!  

• Peas, peas, peas... Later this month, assuming it's warmer and the ground is thawed, you might consider planting peas.  Pea seeds hold up well in cold ground.

• Start cabbage, broccoli and collards as well as lettuce indoors. Unless you have a greenhouse, it's still too early to start the warmer season veggies - like tomatoes - resist that urge.

• And, of course, you can  clean gardening tools. 

• Later this month when the ground becomes clear of snow, if you have a deep layer of mulch on your garden, rake it temporarily away from your rows or cover the rows with landsaping cloth to enable the sun to warm the soil. Note:  if you remember that part of your garden was over run with weeds at the end of last season, use black plastic instead of landscaping cloth to kill the weeds.

• If you don't have a cold frame, much less a greenhouse, start saving those 1 & 2 liter clear plastic bottles and 1/2 and 1 gallon milk jugs (these translucent jugs work, too).  If you do decide to rush the season, by cutting off the bottoms and removing the caps you can use these containers as little cloches to protect your sensitive seedlings when you abandon them outside.  For other ideas about extending your growing season, this  Cornell guide provides more ideas.

And remember...

"The "control of nature" is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy,

 when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man." - Rachel Carson