It’s that time again, and if you live anywhere near the Central Pennsylvania area it may be worthwhile to take a ride over to Lancaster, PA this weekend for the annual Herb & Garden Faire at the Landis Valley Museum.

This has become my favorite spring gardening event because there is always a great turnout of terrific vendors offering all sorts of interesting plants, seeds, crafts, and gardening accessories for sale.

If you’re drawn towards unique, rare, and heirloom plant varieties then the herb fair is the perfect place to do a little shopping for the garden. From vegetable transplants, berry canes, herb plants, water lilies, fruit trees, antique roses, ornamentals, and native plants… you can find them all for sale this weekend at the museum.

It’s not just about heirloom plants though, the Weathervane Museum Store will be open with its collection of books, gifts and artwork featuring PA German craftsmanship. In addition some of the vendors specialize in a variety of handmade crafts such as baskets, brooms, pottery, herbal soaps, and other handcrafted items for the home and garden.

The Herb & Garden Faire takes place on Friday, May 9th and Saturday, May 10th. Hours are from 9am to 5pm on both days and admission is $6.00 with children under 5 admitted for free. You can find directions and more information on the Landis Valley Museum website, or view the vendor list here.

So if you need to pick up a few heirloom tomato plants, some herbs for the kitchen garden, or a last minute Mother’s Day gift, just stop in at Landis Valley Museum this weekend and be sure to say hello if you see me wandering around with an armload of vegetable seedlings.

A recent article discussed a problem with lettuce and other vegetable plants bolting and going to seed prematurely, but flowering is just a part of the natural cycle of things out in the veggie patch.

A look around the back yard revealed quite a few edible plants that are bolting and flowering, but for the most part it’s not a problem if it occurs at the proper time and shouldn’t be taken as a sigh of something gone wrong.

Here’s just a sampling of all the vegetable seed factories currently in production out in the garden:

Kale - This one is at the top of my list and I frequently refer to it as mock broccoli. It’s not only attractive with the reddish tinged florets of this “wild kale mix” variety, but it’s also edible and delicious whether you enjoy them cooked or raw.

Arugula - Not mush to feast on here but I do like the odd looking flowers and tiny pods that adorn the the seed stalks. My plan is to let a few of these plants fully mature to produce a crop of seed for growing arugula sprouts in the kitchen, and additional arugula plants in the garden. Continue Reading About “Seed Stalks Parading Through the Veggie Garden” »

The veggie garden appears to be off to a great start and we’ve been enjoying perfect weather for growing; cool nights, mild days and now the fortune of a slow soaking rainfall to provide needed moisture to the garden.

It has turned sharply colder and today I heard rumors of frost warnings going out for the Central Pennsylvania area tonight. That’s not surprising, but what is, is that I’ve heard more than one local gardener talk about plans for setting out their tomatoes and other frost tender seedlings… well I sure hope they’re well covered!

No Need to Rush the Tomatoes, Instead Enjoy the Greenery

We have a pretty long growing season so I never rush and usually don’t plant warm weather crops out into the garden until after mid-May. That doesn’t mean a delay in harvesting fresh produce from the vegetable patch. Here’s a short list of the vegetables that I’ve been harvesting and enjoying already this spring:

• Leafy Greens – Including kale, collards, mustard, arugula, cress, and spinach. All of these were over wintered from fall plantings and have been ready for harvesting since the beginning of April!

Continue Reading About “Garden Log 4-28-08: Off to a Great Beginning” »

You planted lettuce seed with visions of harvesting beautiful heads of sweet and tasty heirloom lettuce, but almost overnight the plants began stretching for the clouds and turned bitter… a familiar tale of a gardener’s grief:

“Please help I planted romaine lettuce with no knowledge of what I was doing. The plants have not died instead they have long stems and flowers. I do not like to throw away any plant that is alive yet I do not know what to do with them?” – Olga

When lettuce bolts and runs to seed long before the plants mature it’s usually a sign that the plants were stressed in some manner. That’s not uncommon and can be the result of drought, high temperatures, overcrowding, or other unfavorable growing conditions.

A Plant’s Prime Objective; Be Fruitful and Multiply

The plant’s ultimate goal is to produce offspring and if it senses a threat to achieving that objective the response is often to speed up maturity in an attempt to bear seed before it is too late. In this case the romaine lettuce couldn’t produce a lush head of edible leaves for whatever reason, and instead it ran to seed prematurely. Continue Reading About “Good Lettuce Gone Bad: Bolting and Flowering” »

I knew that I wasn’t the only organic gardener flaunting the vegetable gardening rules and trying ideas that stray from the norm.

Jack recently sent in the following email in which he shared a tip for harvesting collard greens, along with some interesting observations on the state of affairs in the dwindling seed industry:

“Hi Kenny, I liked the page you have on the web about collards, and I though you might find my somewhat unconventional harvest method interesting. I discovered this method by chance or maybe desperation.”

Doing Away with the Book… and Tough Collards

“Collard greens are not part of my culinary heritage. I started growing them to expand my repertoire of fall and early winter vegetables, and so I harvest the big outer leaves for cooking as all my garden books said I should. This made for healthy eating, I kept telling myself, but it also seemed like a sort of penance, not to mention the long cooking time.” Continue Reading About “Secrets to Harvesting Tender, Sweet, Greens” »

Seems like some of you were surprised by the previous post to discover that I don’t always follow all of the conventional and established rules of vegetable gardening:

“I really like your website… your honesty about breaking a cardinal rule and not hardening off your cool weather seedlings, got my attention!” – Cameron

Well I usually do harden off my transplants and always recommend that you do likewise to protect your precious seedlings, but it’s true that I have managed to cheat occasionally and have gotten away with it. If a little insubordination catches your attention then here’s a long list of popular gardening ideas that I always refuse to abide by:

1. An edible garden has to be an eyesore – In reality a planned out and well tended vegetable garden is every bit as attractive as a flower or ornamental bed. You may not want to place them in your front yard, but there are a ton of great reasons to grow vegetables as part of any home gardening landscape.
2. You must grow veggies in rows – Organized and orderly maybe, but just plain boring and inefficient in my book. Give me a raised bed that is inter-planted with a mix different of crops arranged in a matrix pattern that covers the entire bed. It can’t be topped for yield, appearance and making life simpler for the organic gardener.

Continue Reading About “Vegetable Gardening Rules Just Made to be Broken” »

It’s been pretty raw outside for the past week but despite the wet and chilly conditions it’s an ideal time to get out and take care of a few transplanting tasks in the vegetable garden.

Sure, it’s not the most agreeable time for an organic gardener to be outdoors, but it is perfect weather for setting out hardy veggie transplants, relocating over wintered crops, or thinning direct seeded plants to give them additional space to grow and mature.

Reducing Plant Stress When Moving Seedlings

Transplanting just before wet and cloudy weather rolls in will result in the least amount of stress, transplant shock, or stunting for the vegetable plants that are being uprooted, handled, and replanted. The young seedlings will barely notice the disturbance and will happily continue growing without interruption.

But I only advise roaming around in a wet garden to those who use raised beds and can move about without trampling on the actual growing areas of the garden. As long as you don’t do any serious cultivating or step on the beds you can get away with gently transplanting into a raised bed garden even in the midst of a light rain shower. Continue Reading About “Rainy, Cool, and Cloudy: Veggie Transplanting Time” »

The previous post shared some photos of a number of hardy and resilient plants as they awakened at the first hint of spring, but that wasn’t the full story… I hate to admit it but there are also a bunch of slackers out there in the vegetable garden this spring!

It wasn’t the harshest winter that we’ve seen here in PA however we did suffer through our share of damaging ice storms and freezing temperatures. As far as a snow cover is concerned, there wasn’t much of it around to insulate the garden and shield those over wintering plants from the wind and cold.

No Pampering Allowed in the Garden this Winter

I’ll confess that it was tough love for all this winter out in my back yard. Nothing was protected from Old Man Winter, with the exception of the shredded leaf mulch applied to the garlic bed, a potted fig tree that went into the garage, and those pampered Bay Laurel plants that spent the winter indoors under a sun lamp.

Other than those exceptions everyone else was left to fend for themselves this winter. No floating row covers, no wall of water devices, no blankets of mulch, no seed in the bird feeders (thanks to the squirrels), no heater in the pond (instead the pump ran all winter), and I didn’t even put the tops out on the cold frame. Continue Reading About “From Rugged Veggies to the Garden’s Biggest Wimps” »