Good Earth Garden; 102

Well hi and welcome back to the good earth garden and happy Easter to you. I'm on my way to put in some new rhubarb plants because you've never seen rhubarb before. I just haven't had one in my pocket. That's the red stalk of the plant that's edible even though rhubarb is a vegetable. Time to cook it like a fruit like a rhubarb pie. In fact some people call rhubarb pie plant and has a wonderful tart flavor. And it's a delight to have in the garden because it's harvested so early April to June and most of Maryland and once you get the plants established each spring they'll come back for you. So it really pays to prepare the soil well when you're putting them in the ground. That's what I'm going to do right now so let me show you how. What I did here was prepare a trench. It could be as long as you want it but you can need to allow for two feet for each plant. And I've worked at the soil deeply. I dug it with the shovel that as far as I could get then used my garden for it to work out the soil and make it real loose. That way the roots won't have any obstructions and they'll be

able to grow straight downward and make good growth. Another thing I like to do whenever I'm putting in a perennial bed that's put in a good layer of manure and the bottom of the bed and that will feed the plant for years. Let's put some of that and now. A couple inches layer would be good. You really can't overdo it with rhubarb. Ok now I'm going to put a little sore all over this manure but to make sure there's some sort of covering it just in case it hasn't completely rotted it. I wouldn't want hot nor to touch the roots of my plants. Oh those nice words. Now I'm going to work in some Bohmian wood ashes both of those material supply good nutrients for root growth potassium and phosphorus.

The sprinkle some in something that you can add every year so I don't want to overdo it. This is a good practice for preparing any kind of perennial bed like for asparagus or strawberries or even perennial flowers. Well I do like to live in there and let me study the plants I'm going to put in. Now if you would order a rhubarb from a mail order source you'd probably just get bare roots packed in peat moss. Those you could you would plant about two to three inches deep. But these I got from a local nursery and they were going to pot it up. They're starting to sprout. So I'm just going to plant them to the same depth that they are in the pot. Let me take it out of the pot. There.

Now that I've got the plant out of the pot you take a better look at it you can see me turn it around here so you can see the buds. You could see the leaf stalk which is the part that you eat and by the way not all rhubarb plants have red stalks. Some are more green than red. So don't panic if yours aren't red and of course the leaf is at the end of the stalk one by the way don't eat the leaf it has dangerous concentrations of oxalic acid in it. So don't you eat it or give it to many animals to eat either. The only edible part is the stock and you can see where the stocks are starting to form. So the bud right here in the plant has large roots you can see these forming right here. They're yellow. I've used rhubarb roots and cooked and made a rinse to lighten my hair and let me plant this in here like I'm going to set it in here and then put some still around it. You see I need to feed here. OK. Paulsen so around it. So a lot of interesting history associated with rhubarb. It's been cultivated for about

3000 years. The Chinese use it more as medicine than anything else. The Roots has them laxative properties. And I just finished bringing the soil up around the plant I won't take the time to do that now. Thank you get a good drink of water. Spam hasn't been. Used much for food in this country since to after the Civil War. It's a familiar plant in New England because it's very hardy. It originated in Siberia so that gives you an idea of how much cold it can take. It's one of the benefits of living in Maryland where you do have a cold winter. Well as we move down we'll further you can see some plants that I've already. I've had here for a couple years and they're starting to leaf out too. These will be ready to harvest probably in April. And one thing I should mention is that

you don't want to harvest from the plants the first year that you plant them because they need to develop some strength before you start cutting them. The next you will be able to harvest some and we'll talk more about harvesting rhubarb. When harvest time comes and they go house and stocks them to pull here and about a month right now I want to go back and finish putting that many Spring Garden we started. Will I make my way back here. Probably my stuff up here. Could see that the lettuce in the spinach that we planted last week hasn't grown a whole lot. But I'm really pleased that I just made it through this cold weather we had some unseasonable cold nights had to come up a blanket at my cold frames and also I see coming up here a way that I had to get out of here. It's called Doc Wade and I mention it because the same family has rhubarb it has a big yellow root like that too. There's a lot of trouble dig up I better get it out before it eats up that spinach plant. And I'm going to plant some broccoli plants all in the

space in front of the peas about this section here. I'm going to plant things like I did some of the other transplants last week but I'm going to do one special thing with them. Broccoli belongs to the brassica family same family as cabbage and kale and kohlrabi. And these plants are somewhat subject to Cut-Worm attack. Now the couple has a nasty bug that comes out from underneath US soil and chews on the stems of the plants. You don't see it until you see the damage it come up in the morning and your plans are broken off and it's very disturbing. But it's an easy bud to get rid of what you do is make a collar that is down here for a second get rid of these yucky gloves because a newspaper or cardboard are worth just fine. Just tear off a piece and wrap it around the base of the stem Cut-Worm doesn't seem to be able to chew through that. And by the time his newspaper has deteriorated the stems of the woody not the worm can't shoot through it. And these plants are are of dwarf

the smaller variety of broccoli. It's called Green dwarf. I'm going to plant about 8 inches apart these plants only get about 8 inches tall but they make 6 inch wide heads so that's a good type of writing to plant in a small area so just bury that collar right with the plant. Put another one into it. OK. So about six inches apart let's see right about here. I usually plant things more in diagonals too. That takes up less space. Another thing I want to do to help prevent Cut-Worm attack is to work in some more wood ashes in the soil. That's good for growth too and it helps prevent clubroom and brassica type plants so it serves lots of functions

and I water these in a few minutes but I want to mention that broccoli isn't quite as hardy as some of the other members of the cabbage family. On a cold night it was going to get below freezing. I come out and cover them up. One thing you can use this thing called a hot cap. It's handy for covering single plants. You set it on top with you so around it they come in different shapes and sizes. Use wax paper ones only cost about 20 cents. Or you could use your old milk jug. I finally discovered a way to make these things from blowing over. You put a stake in a hole and that would work just fine too. I'm going to go finish in the small space. You can go on Easter egg hunt. In the summer house. Why have a lot of fun Dinah's these drags.

I'll tell you what I used to get the colors at the end of the show and I've managed to set about 8 broccoli plants in here that's going to be a lot of broccoli to harvest in June and once you've harvested the main heads you have a lot of side shoots for the rest of the summer. Now going to mark out some space for some beats. I'm just going to do half of this row right now onto the other half later. Now it's best to start beads from seed the seed is actually the fruit of the plant is a cork like capsules actually contain several several seeds. That's one big thing to come up in clumps. Now most root crops like beets and carrots it's better to use the seeds as opposed to buying transplants I never buy transplants of those because I don't like to be transplanted. These type of plants have one main root a tap root and so if that plant the roof is disturbed at all it's not going to grow you get for glowing carrots and knobby looking beads. So I always start from seed when you're planning beads. Now I've soaked these beads for about an hour and warm water and then help them germinate faster. I'm just going to

broadcast these. But an inch apart and this trough I've made. Beats making the best growth and cool weather you can plant them every couple weeks for continuous harvest up until about the first of June and then clam again in the fall. Now I'm going to cover these things about two to three times their thickness. OK well I've still got some more room here and I'm going to plant some carrots right in front of these. And I got a little this loose in the soil for the carrot because I'm going to press those right in the soil. And again carrots or root crops so you want to start from seed and these have real fine seeds. So I'm just going to press them right on the surface. The character the carrots that we eat now are sort of really only been around

since after the first world war. Most of the care of the people in olden times even though they've been around for a while where that wild carrot The Queen Anne's life that you've seen growing along the road it was thought of that's when the carrot sort of stirred the passions I guess what they meant by that was an aphrodisiac doesn't eat carrots anyway. But after the first world war they discovered that carrots had lots of vitamin A in them so they worked into cultivating of flesh your roots that would produce more neutral nutrition. So that's how we got those nice orange carrots. This Friday of carrots I'm planning on just sprinkling on the surface of the soil here is called consciousness. It's a small round riding that only takes 60 days to harvest. In Maryland it's much better to stick with short carrots around carrots feel a long cool season. And really loose sandy soil in order to grow those long rabbit ear types of carrots if they are grown in California. So here you better stick with the shorter types. I guess I'm just pressing these in the surface

because if you cover them with too much soil they're not going to be able to germinate and because carrots just take forever to come up. I usually plant a few rather seeds along with them. That sort of helps to mark the row. You remember that you planted something there. And also the radishes surface sort of break up the soil for the carrot so they can come up easier. Got to keep this bed well watered now with the carrots being right on the top of the surface like that as they dry out you'll lose them. OK that should do that. These back them they give both of these rose a good drink of water. Is that watering can. I'm just going to press these carrots in to the so a little bit now that it's moist. Just make sure they're slightly

covered with soil. I better mark these big rows do it before I forget what I've planted. A variety of beads that I didn't mention earlier is called Baby beets but now it's small golf ball sized beads. It's going to stick with the smaller types. You have planting in a small area. Just to recap this bed before we leave it that's almost planted now I've got a whole chunk of peas here. I expect about 30 plants a broccoli a good row of beets and carrots. A couple dozen onion sets and lettuce and spinach plants too. That's quite a lot to grow in a small space like this but at times some of these vegetables are ready to harvest will be time to plant some of crops like tomatoes and beans and corn. Mid-May is about right in most of Maryland if you want to be the first on the block with tomatoes or sweet corn testimony as you can get a two to four week jump on the summer season. Let me give you some ideas you can experiment with. And there's a couple provisions you have to allow for if you want to make this adventure and just starting getting an early jump on summer a safe bet you've got to get the sort of temperature warmer

most of these crops aren't going to do well not to so as at least 65 degrees. I just sort of lie there and go to sleep. And the thing you have to do is protect them from any kind of frost that they will get hit by frost. You'd lose them if you start all over again. So the overall objective then is the warm up the soil and to find some way to hold the heat in. And the easiest way that I know to heat up the soil is to use black plastic. I don't like the way it looks at all but it does work. It's amazing how much warmer it is under here. It is over here. That's something that you can put on your bed before you plant in. But this isn't this will warm up the soil but it's not going to do anything for the air temperature above over here I've got something I'll call grow two for right now. I've still got the black plastic on the ground and I've got a couple hoops along the bed that are supporting a type of plastic that these hopes in order to hold their shape to be fairly heavy gauge wire. Eight or nine gauge would be fine and the

plastic that I've stretched over the hoops is a special kind of plastic that has slits in it and this is important. It allows for ventilation in here if you didn't have slits in it it would get hot in there like you know how hot your car gets when the doors are closed and it's dark inside. Your plants would suffocate. You'd have to open this thing up every day and take it off and that would be a real pain. So this you can buy this type of plastic in rolls that comes already slid in. It's not that expensive but it's been hard to find. It's a fairly new product so no reason at all where you couldn't use a clear plastic and just put slits in it yourself. I'm just trying this as an experiment. That's a couple ways you can use a grow tube like this. You could plant your plants in it where they're going to stay permanently. I plant a row of corn in here or Oak Grove star some squash and then just take this covering off later in the summer when it's no longer needed. Or you could use it as a central location for housing or transplant that you're running out of room for in the house at least I am buried with plants and just keep them under here until the time is right to plant them in the

garden. I think that's what I'm going to do bring a few Tomate and pepper plants out here and see how they hold up. And there's a couple disadvantages that I see right offhand. Unless you have some way to lay a sprinkler hose in here you can just turn on and off. It's going to be a real pain to ride or you have to get your hands through here and water. Oh it really is a lot warmer in there. Or take the whole thing off and water and then it is hardly worth your while. The other disadvantage is that with the plastic exposed to the air like this you're not going to be able to produce. You know it's not going to be inflating enough of it we should get a sharp drop in temperature for these warm loving crops that get much below 40. I come out here with a blanket and cover the whole thing up. That really wouldn't be too much trouble. So that's something that you can give a try. It's one new type of product and I thought you might be interested in seeing what it looks like. Course you can wait till the weather warms up by itself there's nothing wrong with doing that. There's plenty to do in the meantime. Just some ideas for the week ahead. Again. Another project that I'm working on a plan I started these

indoors in late January. You like to start your own tomato plants indoors. That's a good time to do it and they will get to talk to you because you can keep prodding them in that developes 30 stems so you won't end up with plants that are up here with no leaves on the bottom. Now there's a special technique for doing this. Let me show you what I'm going to do. You point out first that there's some the reason you can do this with tomatoes is because of the type of stem that it has a tannic layer that's called an adventitious stem means that any time it touches the soil it will send out roots. The plant does that to give it some extra support. There's other plans to do that like sweet potatoes and potatoes. Now let me fill up this container with some soil so I can report this tomato I just using a milk carton here that I cut in half long ways because I'm going to lay the plant down on its side. Of course I punch the holes in the bottom here. That this wasn't a pea pot. I would take it right out of the container but I don't think I'm going to use these people anymore because they the roots cling right onto it and for tomatoes that sort of a problem when I want to

transplant it and just setting it down here like on its side and holding the stem up with my hand really leaves in the bottom or getting in your way would be covered with soil. Just pinch those off because I'll just drop it here and leave them leaves on top as they'll be able to feed the plant. Now just fill this back up with soil. For now I'm really gonna need some more room indoors with these long flat plants of tomatoes or the Roma tomatoes good type for making sauce. I'll give this a good drink of water and will be all set to go. Remember this technique whenever you plant tomatoes even in the garden you put them in the garden that way the the roots are much closer to the soil where it's warmer and they'll grow faster too so that's an extra plus

I want to tell you about those eggs that you saw earlier in the show. I've had a lot of fun experimenting with them. There's lots of different things you can try. The easiest thing to start off with is some onion skins. Most of us have those around the house. But you know the brown outer wrappings of the onion and I just stuffed this pot full of as much onion skins as I could put it in here and I put some eggs in there to put enough water in it to cover the eggs and brought it to a boil. The longer it cooks the darker the color gets. So keep a watch on them. And if you see the color that you want go ahead and take a map. Now these have already become a really rich rich bran surprise in favor of an onion skin. And once you've taken the matter of the pot rinse it off and water because that way when you sit him down and not leave a mark where the dye was and dry him off then you could rub some vegetable oil on him. That gives them a nice glisten. That's my dirty hands are making a mess here but

they really look pretty when they're finished that way as a bunch of other things you can try. Let me show you what else I used. OK. Here's these soft peach colored ones I use sassafras root. About a half a cup of a dried root that you'd use just like for sassafras tea. That made a nice delicate shade. This is an unusual one. I made BlackBerry vinegar every year and I dyed in the vinegar that was a purple color. I expected to get something more purple than that but it sort of came out sort of a very dark mottled purple. One of my favorites is blue here. I grow garden huckleberries there they make a berry a lot like a blueberry but they're actually it's made of family and they gave me a nice blue dye. Sometimes you take the water of the egg out of the water the dye is loose enough that you can rub it with your finger or something and make some texture to it. These are pretty too. These were tea bags and onion skins together. And over here is just plain coffee

strong coffee with the grounds in it. I'm laying the egg right in the shell. And you could eat it then in a cup if you eat it within a week or just let it dry out and ride in a cube for years that way. I've had a lot of fun experimenting with these eggs will probably come up with the new ideas on your own. I'm looking for a paint job anybody find a good guy that makes a pig let me know. And I'll always be excited to learn about the discoveries you're making in your garden organic gardening and still an infant science we can all benefit from sharing new ideas especially me. I've got 33 more shows to do. Thank you everybody. Lots of suggestions I'd be glad to hear from you. My address is gardening. Now when public television always knows Marilyn 2 1 1 1 7.