Garden Desk

My daughters are gardeners too!

2008-05-13T23:26:00.006-04:00

I still have much to write about our visit to Baker Creek, but for the last two evenings my time was occupied with spring planting. The best part about it was that my daughters helped.

Tonight my 14 year old helped plant the third and final wave of the early tomatoes. We planted "Siletz" and "World's Earliest". It was a big help having someone help me remove the plants from the recycled CD spindle containers that they were planted in.

We put crushed egg shells in the planting holes to give the tomatoes added calcium.

My 11 year old daughter is great with a rake. Last night she worked up the soil in several of the existing raised beds.

I have different sized beds but I think my daughters like the 4'x4' beds the best. Just like Mel Bartholomew of Square Foot Gardening says, it is easy to reach any part of the bed from all sides. Here my daughters are planting green beans in one 4 foot by 4 foot bed:

Another great thing about raised beds is that you can sit or kneel in the grass and reach in to work the bed. Below my daughter is planting red onions next to the first early tomato batch. Onions are great companion plants for tomatoes.

Gardening with my daughters is great fun. I love when they want to help, but I never make them. When I was a kid, hoeing the garden was part of my chores and I hated it. It took me many years after that to actually like gardening. That is probably also why I don't like hoes (sorry Carol).

I want my daughters to enjoy gardening, and I think they do. They have grown up playing in the garden and helping as much or as little as they want. Now that they are getting older, when they do help, it helps a lot! Why this is great is not because more work gets done. This is great because it gives us some wonderful quality time to talk and be together in nature. I'll gladly take as much of that as possible, even if nothing we planted together grows at all.

Gardening with your children is a priceless gift indeed.

The Baker Creek Spring Planting & Heritage Festival

2008-05-11T20:40:00.009-04:00

It has been a whole week already since we were at the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Spring Festival. We went both days and had a great time. It was fantastic! We took several extra days and made a family vacation out of it. We also visited the Laura Ingalls Wilder Home & Museum, The home of the "Throwed Rolls", Lambert's restaurant, and the Gateway Arch in St. Louis.

As for the Baker Creek Spring Festival, it is pretty hard to explain so I will show it to you instead. Following are many pictures taken at the festival.

There were lots of great farms selling plants and other vendors:

There were at least three areas with fantastic live music and entertainment going on constantly. This was my daughters' favorite part of the festival.

There were also great speakers in the speakers barn. I was too busy listening to them to take pictures but my favorite was Len Pense. The day after the festival, we went to his farm to visit his revolutionary garden. I will be writing an entire post about him soon.

In addition to the speakers, the music and the vendors at the festival, it was fun seeing all of the buildings that make up "Bakersville".

Of course the most important building at Bakersville is the Baker Creek Seed Store where you can get seeds of hundreds (maybe thousands) of common or highly unusual top quality heirloom varieties!

I only bought a dozen or so seed packets because I had already ordered from Baker Creek by mail. Next year maybe I'll go back to the festival and buy all of my seeds there instead of by mail. I strongly recommend any serious gardener to do the same. If you don't want to wait a whole year to visit Baker Creek, they have another big festival in August and smaller ones every month.

I loved our trip to Baker Creek. In my next post I will let you know about some of the cool things I bought at the festival and about some of the people I met. And then I have to give a big update on my gardens here in Kentucky. We are now in the busy gardening season. Isn't it great?

Busy potting up tomatoes and getting ready for Baker Creek

2008-05-02T12:49:00.003-04:00

I have been extremely busy potting up over 100 tomato plants this week.

I had to transfer them from cell packs to individual peat pots or plastic cups. I wasn't planning to transplant so many, but lots of my friends and family are interested in my crazy heirloom varieties. I should have stopped saying "sure you can have a few of them" a long time ago. I was hoping to be able to speed things up this year by using soil blocks, but abandoned that effort early on. I don't have the larger 4 inch block maker yet which I would like for these tomatoes. I try to give these precious little tomato seedlings a lot of room to develop into strong healthy plants. I hope to get the larger soil block maker for next year.

As for this year, I have a few more varieties left to transplant today before we leave for the Baker Creek Spring Planting festival in Missouri that I wrote about in the last post.

I'm taking my laptop with me so I may still have Internet access. Email me or comment here if you will be at the festival too. My family and I are looking forward to it. See you in Bakersville!

Green Thumb Sunday Tomatoes and Going to Bakersville!

2008-04-27T09:15:00.002-04:00

The early tomatoes that were planted outside this week are doing great! Here is my first baby picture:

See it? Its right in the center of the picture, small but oh so cute. Grow quickly little fella!

Around here folks always say that if you don't like the weather just wait a day or two because it changes drastically. It works the same way in reverse too. Thursday and Friday were perfect Spring tomato weather days with highs in the 80's and lows in the 60's. Last night however it got down to 36 degrees and tonight is supposed to be even lower! Yesterday I had to spring into action and construct the temporary lean-to greenhouse. Last night, this it what my early tomatoes looked like:

Here is what they looked like inside:

It was enough to get them through last night. Hopefully tonight and the rest of the cold front will be okay too. If I would have left them out in the open, I probably wouldn't have them today for Green Thumb Sunday!

Don't forget to visit other Green Thumb Sunday participants!

Join

Next Sunday I will get to be with the man who possibly has the greatest green thumb of all - Jere Gettle of Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.

What an amazing business he and his wife Emilee have established by collecting and growing 1200 unique heirloom seed varieties. The reason I may get to meet him next Sunday is because I'm headed to Bakersville! Next Sunday and Monday, May 4th and 5th is Baker Creek's Annual Spring Planting and Heritage Festival.

Yes, Baker Creek is in Missouri and I live in Kentucky. They are 9 hours away but I can't think of a better gardening pilgrimage. Last year they had over 5000 people attend and many vendors. It will be neat to see their set up, the town they have built and the period costumes and demonstrations. The speakers at the festival should be spectacular as well. If you live anywhere near Mansfield Missouri or are willing to drive long distances like me, you should really check out this event. I would love to hear from anyone who has attended in the past and find out if anyone I know is going this year. It would be fun to meet up with a fellow garden blogger or someone who reads this blog.

I am pretty excited about going. My family and I are making a whole vacation out of it. See you in Bakersville!

Big Grow Light Stand Annex

2008-04-25T16:33:00.004-04:00

Much has been going on in the garden lately. I have planted broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, chard, peas, potatoes and my first installment of extra-early tomatoes outside. Inside has been even busier. I now have peppers, cucumbers, zucchini and over 100 tomato seedlings under the lights. The problem is that I still have 10 giant extra-early tomato plants also under the lights. Things were getting pretty crowded!

I couldn't fit everything in and I couldn't get the lower lights to go any higher. The plants were growing into and over the lights.

The only way to fix this without abandoning my extra-early tomato plan was to build a light stand annex. I rounded up another old table, some more hooks chains and shop lights and presto - a lovely annex on the other side of the room!

They are already growing up to touch the lights, but I can keep moving the lights up higher now.

Moving these plants around has reminded me that I never shared with you my creative container choices. Anything goes when I get into the larger pot size.

I won't be able to use these double pots again since I had to cut out the bottom. I have already planted some of these out in the garden and I had to completely cut away the pot to get the plant out. The sand pail is a better idea. Just remember, if you use something that wasn't originally intended to be a planter, you need to drill holes in the bottom for drainage. This sand bucket won't hold water anymore!

I have already transplanted five tomato plants in the prepared outside bed. Soon I will have pictures of them. They were Early Girl, New Girl, Orange Blossom, and two 4th of July plants. I did manage to put black plastic down over the bed to heat up the soil but I have not yet built my makeshift lean-to greenhouse to go over them. I haven't had to yet because it has been unseasonably warm this week in the mid 80's! Next week's weather will not be so tomato friendly though. It is supposed to only get to about 50 degrees with overnight lows in the 30s - yikes! That is why it is crazy to plant tomatoes outside here in April. I hope I can get my plastic up soon and it works!

In the meantime I will be potting up the inside tomatoes to even bigger containers. They are looking very happy in their cozy warm indoor environment.

Too bad I can't grow them to fruit stage inside. Sooner or later they have to brave the elements outside. I am still dreaming of ripe tomatoes here in northern zone 5 by June 1st! Wish me luck!

Garden Journal: Peas, Potatoes, Lettuce, Tomatoes

2008-04-11T21:44:00.001-04:00

I can't believe it has taken me a whole week to post this. Last Saturday, when we got home from vacation I took inventory on the garden happenings and wrote it all in my paper journal like the old days. I really do like paper records better than digital ones, but journaling on the computer allows one to post photos much easier.

So I think I will be journaling here at Garden Desk. These posts will be a bit different than my others because it will just be a list of how things are going. It may be more for me than for my readers, but you are welcome to read along. Maybe you can help me by commenting on how I could fix my problems or improve things.

So here goes, my first 2008 Garden Journal - 4/5/08:

I already wrote about the new potatoes I bought last week. I have been pretty frustrated with my peas. The germination rate is listed as 7 to 14 days but after 18 days there was still nothing. Finally, they are emerging!

In the pea beds, I transplanted the lettuce plants that I grew inside and hardened off in the cold frame.

I was delighted to find that the beds were teeming with worms! I hope that means that the soil here is healthy.

Now the beds look prettier. I hope the lettuce grows bigger quickly.

Also growing well outside are potato onions and garlic. Inside, the early tomato plants were looking great.

Uh oh - upon closer inspection maybe not. What are these tiny spots on the Orange Blossom tomatoes?

I had no idea, but a gardener is only as good as his gardening book library. I hit the books and found out that I had Septoria Leaf Spot.

I found it in my trusty Organic Gardener's Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control: A Complete Problem-Solving Guide to Keeping Your Garden and Yard Healthy Without Chemicals. It has an extremely long title, but it is also extremely helpful! It says that Septoria Leaf Spot is Fungal. The control is simply to remove and destroy infected leaves, so that is what I did. Now, a week later I'm happy to report that there are no new signs of the fungus. I will have to keep a close eye on them. Luckily it was only on three of the four Orange Blossom tomatoes and none of the others. Even if the Septoria leaf spot comes back and damages or destroys the Orange Blossom tomatoes, I have five other early varieties ready and will be raising almost 30 other varieties. I guess I could afford to lose one variety.

Vacations are hard on the garden!

2008-04-07T16:23:00.004-04:00

Here's an obvious fact: you can't work in your garden while you're on vacation. I have often realized that after returning from a Summer vacation, so this year we took an early Spring vacation. Leaving on March 30th for a week or so, I thought would be a great time for a vacation. After all, not much is going on in the garden yet. Of course I only thought that until we returned. We had a great time on vacation visiting my brother and family (I have a new baby nephew!) and even getting away for a quiet night alone with my wife, but I have soooo much to do now.

Yesterday I worked all day in the yard and garden and I journaled about it the old fashioned way - on paper. Soon I will convert that to these electronic pages to document how things are going with my peas, garlic, potato onions, lettuce, early tomatoes etc.

While on vacation I didn't entirely leave the garden behind. I found a great little old fashioned general store in the mountains of Kentucky with cheap seeds and seed potatoes. I bought more peas, beans, onion sets and 40 pounds of seed potatoes - so now I have even more to do!

I bought some Red Pontiac and Irish Cobbler potatoes. Hopefully I will get them planted this week! The weather is great now and Spring is springing - how exciting!

So this is just a quick post to let you know that I haven't abandoned Garden Desk or my garden. Quite the opposite is true. Stay tuned for more....

How to Plant Leggy Tomatoes with the Trench Method

2008-03-28T12:52:00.007-04:00

I wrote in my "how to grow healthy seedlings" post that you should be careful not to plant under the lights too early. My example was tomatoes. Kimberley from The Life of a Garden and some others have expressed concern now that their early-started tomatoes might get too big and leggy before planting time.

I didn't mean to scare anyone. If your tomato plants do get leggy, don't worry. You can always correct that at planting time by burying more of the stem.After the danger of frost in your area has passed, you should plant too-tall tomatoes very deep in the ground. This encourages adventitious roots to develop along the buried portion of the stem. Its also okay to snap off the lower branches if necessary.

If you can't get a deep enough hole, you can plant the tomato sideways in a trench and carefully bend it upright so the above ground portion is straight. Even if it isn't all the way straight, the plant will adjust itself later.

When planting this way, you can't even tell the tomato plant was too tall when you're finished. Look at how much taller the plants are in the cell pack than the one that from that same pack that was planted with the trench method.

Just be careful not to bend it so far that you snap it in two! Also, when watering it early on, remember where you buried the root ball portion on the plant.

Happy planting!

2008 vegetable garden line-up!

2008-03-27T17:17:00.001-04:00

Now that the regular season for Major League Baseball has officially begun, I guess it is time to introduce The 2008 GardenDesk Growers Baseball team!

Okay, I know a garden is not a baseball team, but just like in spring training, I have spent a lot of time figuring out which vegetable varieties will make the cut this year. In addition to which particular varieties I will plant, I had to decide which vegetables needed to be cut (I just don't have enough room on the field!). Last year my total area for the veg garden was 25'x40', all in raised beds. This year I am expanding it to 40'x48'but the outside 15' will be planted in old fashioned rows. I have painstakenly tried to fit everything in using graph paper but I still don't have enough space.

Sorry, I know you can't read the names listed on the graph paper. Just like last year, I have divided up the list into the following categories: Tomatoes, Cool Season, Main Season, Herbs, Decorations and Fruit. First I need to mention the veggies that I would like to grow but didn't make the cut.

This year's honorable mentions are: sweet potatoes, okra, leeks, beets and field pumpkins.

Now, the 2008 starting lineup

Introducing the GardenDesk Heirloom Tomatoes:

Aunt Ruby's German Green

Black Cherry

Black Krim

Brandywine

Brandywine (Glick's strain)

Caspian Pink

Delicious

Dixie Golden Giant

Egg Yolk

Furry Yellow Hog

Great White

Green Moldovan

Green Zebra

Kellogg's Breakfast

Kentucky Beefsteak

Pink Flamingo Ukranian

Principe Borghese

Prudens Purple

White Tomesol

The GardenDesk Hybrid Tomatoes:

4th of July

Burpee's Supersteak

Celebrity

Early Girl

Golden Girl

La Rossa

Lemon Boy

New Girl

Orange Blossom

Park's Whopper

Roma

Siletz

Sub Artic

Introducing the GardenDesk Cool Season Players (many are already on the field!):

Potato Onions

Garlic

Peas

Broccoli-Green Goliath

Purple Cauliflower-Violet Queen

Radish-Cherry Belle, Easter Egg

Carrot-Short-n-Sweet, , Easter Egg

Swiss Chard-Five Color Silverbeet

Spinich-Space Hybrid, Melody Hybrid, Bloomsdale Long Standing

Head Lettuce-Summertime, Tom Thumb

Leaf Lettuce- Simpson Elite, Buttercrunch, Prizeleaf, Royal Oak Leaf, Lollo Rossa, Salad Bowl, Red Salad Bowl, Black Seeded Simpson, Mesclun Sweet Salad Mix, Pinetree Lettuce Mix

Oriental Greens-Komatsuma Tendergreen

Cabbage

And now for your Main Season GardenDeskers:

Corn-Mirai 301BC

Bush Green Beans-Tender Pick, Blue Lake Bush 274

Pole Beans-Kentucky Wonder

Cucumber-Park's Whopper, Straight 8, Burpee Bush

Squash-Vegetable Spaghetti

Zucchini-Ambassador, Longo Bianco

Onion-Red, White, Yellow Spanish

Potato-Kennebec, Russet Burbank

Bell Pepper-Park's Colossal Hybrid

Give it up for the GardenDesk Herbs:

Basil

Purple Basil

Oregeno

Chives

Thyme

Mint

Nasturtium

Horseradish

Next up, the GardenDesk Decoration Dudes:

Pumpkin-Jack Be Little

Gourds-Bird House Mix, Penguin, Assorted Gourd Mix

Sunflowers

And last but not least, the fruit selections:

Watermelon-Sugar Baby

Cantalope-Ambrosia

Strawberries-Cavendish and others

Blueberries-Jersey and others

Grapes (new)

Apples-Red Delicious, Golden Delicioius

Peaches

There will also be many annual flowers planted in the vegetable garden. This is my daughter's area and she has not given me her line-up card yet. I know there will be plenty of marigolds, cosmos, zinnias and morning glories.

And there you have it ... The comprehensive list of players for GardenDesk 2008! Several players are already on the field. Many players have begun warming up inside under grow lights. More will soon join them. Stay tuned for more updates on the pending season and players! Will they all actually get in the game? Will they hit a homerun, or will some strike out? Many questions will soon be answered.

What does your 2008 "player list" consist of? What vegetables will you be growing that I have left off my list? Are you as anxious to get started as I am?

Dum dum da dum da dum .... CHARGE!

How to grow healthy seedlings under lights

2008-03-25T12:19:00.000-04:00

There were several questions asked on my last early tomato post so I thought I should expound on what has worked well for me. I have grown most of my vegetables and annuals from seed under lights for years. I have made many mistakes along the way and have developed a system that works well for me. There are a few simple tips that I have learned that might be helpful to you.

The five most often overlooked tips for growing successful seedlings:

1. Use a lot of light!

If you think your seedlings aren't getting enough light, you're right. And if you think they have enough light, they could still use more. With florescent light fixtures I am trying to mimic the bright and powerful sun, so the more the merrier. I like to have two fixtures per flat (four 40 watt bulbs). I don't use special light spectrum grow bulbs. They are an unnecessary expense. Although it is important to use new bulbs each year because the light bulbs lose some of their brightness as they age. I keep the lights on between 16 and 18 hours per day.

2. Keep the plants close to the lights!

I make sure the light fixtures are only an inch or so above the top of the plants. Remember, we are trying to give them the power of the sun, not the moon. Don't think in terms of how much light we need. I would rather err on the side of the plants touching the bulbs than too far away from them. Being too far from the bulbs causes tall spindly plants.

3. Use good growing medium!

I use the soil-less seed starting mix in the beginning and transplant up to a mixture of potting soil and peat moss. Do not use straight potting soil because it doesn't hold water well enough. You need the peat to keep the roots constantly watered.

4. Give them plenty to drink with bottom watering!

All of my containers have holes in the bottoms to allow water in (or out). Peat pots work the best for this. I put the cell packs, newspaper pots or peat pots in a plant tray that will hold water. Then I fill the tray up about half way and the porous soil medium wicks up the water to feed the roots. I water almost every day. I am convinced that this is where the most mistakes are made with growing seedlings. Constant light can dry out the soil quickly which stresses the plants. If you try to spray your plants from above, they probably don't get enough water. This is why I am struggling with using soil blocks. Since they aren't in a pot you can't bottom water them. I haven't used them for my early tomatoes. I will try again with the main season tomatoes.

Incidentally, making sure my plants are watered frequently enough is why I don't use automatic timers to turn the lights on and off. If I have to do it manually I am more able to monitor the soil moisture.

5. Get your timing right!

Make sure you know when you plan to move the plants outdoors and the growth habit of each kind of plant you are raising. Research the recommended seed-to-transplant time for each vegetable or flower. For instance, tomatoes should only be under lights for 4 to 6 weeks before transplanting and you shouldn't transplant them until all danger of frost has passed. In my area, the average last frost is May 15th. That means that I should wait to plant the seeds of my 27 main season tomato varieties until mid-April. If timed correctly, you do not need to pot-up very often. Of course for my extra-early tomatoes I transplant them two or three times and have them under lights for 8 to 10 weeks but that is unusual. For most of my flower and vegetable seeds, I try to wait as long as possible. Real-estate under grow-lights is at a premium, even for a big bench like mine. Be careful not to take up unnecessary space by planting too early.

Now, If you have never tried starting your own seeds indoors with florescent lights, I hope posts like these don't make it look too complicated. I love managing the plants under lights. For me it is great fun. It is especially rewarding because I know that I can truly raise organic vegetables. I get to control the plants' environment from start to finish. It is also fun to grow seedlings because you get a chance to get your hands dirty when it is still too cold to dig in the outdoor garden. I would recommend any gardener give seed-starting a try.

2008 Extra Early Tomato Update

2008-03-24T10:07:00.006-04:00

I often feel like I write too much about my tomato endeavors here, but I have been asked in a comment and in emails about the status of my extra-early tomato plants. If you agree that I write too many tomato posts, I apologize. Its just that there is a bit of satisfaction in trying to beat mother nature and coax something along to an early harvest. For me (and for those asking me to write this), that obsession lies with tomatoes! It is fun to get to eat a nice juicy organic garden fresh tomato a full month earlier than your neighbors. Its even more fun to have enough early tomatoes to share with you neighbors.

So that is what I am shooting for this year. Last year I only grew two early tomato plants. This year I will have a lot more - at least 12. As of now, I have about 30 plants growing under lights. Last year, I raised only Early Girl tomatoes as my early variety. This year I am trying six different varieties. Last year my goal was to have ripe tomatoes by June 24th (my birthday), and got the first ripe tomato on June 15th! This year I am hoping for May 31st!

So how am I doing? Is that goal possible? I'm really not sure. I do feel like I'm further behind than I should be. I started the first seeds on Valentine's Day and I stuck to my holiday theme by transplanting tomato seedlings yesterday on Easter.

The problem is that I wasn't able to start all the early varieties at the same time. I only started Early Girl and New Girl on February 14th. They were transplanted to peat pots on February 28th. I started Orange Blossom and 4th of July on February 17th, but didn't get them transplanted to peat pots until March 10th! The last of my early varieties are Sub Arctic and Siletz. Those seeds didn't come in until late, so they were seeded on February 28th and transplanted to peat pots yesterday, March 23rd. Here is an example of the size difference between the plants transplanted on February 28th and the ones transplanted yesterday.

Big difference. Originally I wanted to grow several different varieties to find out which one is the best early tomato. As you can see, scientifically I have failed all of the varieties except Early Girl and New Girl. They are the only ones that might still be on pace. For them, yesterday was time to transplant again. For this third step they get put into CD spindle covers that are about 7 inches deep. They need to have holes drilled in them first for drainage.

These are great containers for this purpose because they are big enough in diameter and taller than a conventional 4 inch pot. This is great for tomatoes because each time you transplant a tomato plant, you want to plant it deeper than what it was in the pot it came from. You can bury the entire stem up to the first true leaves because roots grow from the buried stem which makes the plant stronger. Here is a before-after comparison of a plant in the peat pot and then in the CD pot.

So am I far enough along to be fortunate enough to harvest before June 1st? That is two full weeks earlier than last year. Judging solely by my indoor transplanting schedule, I don't think I'm two weeks ahead of last year. Where I hope to make up ground is in the outdoor preparation.

I have two raised beds from last year that I will be planting these early tomatoes in. I have put black plastic on the soil to begin warming it. I also plan to erect a frame down the middle of the beds to be able to drape 6 mil clear plastic over. The frame that I'm talking about will look just like the wood of my pea trellis. Later, I will use the wood frame to support the plants like my tomato towers from last year.

But now I'm getting ahead of myself. Hopefully the plants will be put out by the middle of April. Our average last frost date is May 15th, so even with extra protection I will have to watch the weather.

Is this all too much trouble just to reap ripe tomatoes a month or so early? Not if you are a tomato fanatic like me!

I'll let you know more as it develops.

Time for Peas!

2008-03-19T17:07:00.001-04:00

Around here gardeners like to plan events in the garden according to Holidays. St. Patrick's Day is when they say you should plant peas, so I dutifully built my pea trellises and planted peas last Sunday (the day before St. Patty's Day).

May Dreams Gardens is just a couple hours away from me and she planted peas on Sunday too.

Maybe it's not just around here where gardeners shoot for pea planting on the Irish holiday because peas were planted in Skippy's Vegetable Garden on St. Patrick's day too.

I also noticed that VegMonkey and Sustainable Garden have their peas up and growing already. I'm sure there are other bloggers who planted peas too.

Building the pea trellises are a big deal to me because I haven't been this organized in recent years. I also bought new trellis netting that has the large squares. I used to love it and am excited to have it again. After the peas are harvested I will grow cucumbers on one trellis and pole beans on the other, using the same netting.

I was able to "weave" the wood supports through the netting and I stapled the bottom part. Here is a picture that my wife sneaked of me finishing the first trellis:

The bed behind me also received a trellis but it got dark before we could get a picture of them both.

If you don't want to spend the money on pre-made trellis netting, there is a great post on Backyard Granger about how to make your own with twine. There is another great explanation on how to make a trellis with wood and twine from last year on Compost Bin. Maybe someday I'll use twine but for now I'm content to use the ready-made trellis material.

I'm a bit proud of myself for building the trellis before I planted the peas. Usually I would go in reverse order and then "not have time" to build a trellis, leaving my peas a tangled mess with no support. So now I have built the two trellises and a coldframe. Here they are together:

I love building garden structures. Next up? Something else I didn't manage to build last year - a fence to keep the coons out of my corn!

Tomorrow is the first day of Spring! How exciting!

White Tomesol Heirloom Tomato: Excited, Upset, Exited!

2008-03-18T17:19:00.006-04:00

When I wrote last month about the heirloom tomato varieties that I plan to grow this year, the white tomatoes got the most attention. I had several emails and comments about White Tomesol in particular. I think it drew the most interest because it is really white. Many other white tomatoes are more of a pale green. I picked White Tomesol specifically because it is so white in color and I was excited to see how it grows.

Finally I got my seed order from Baker Creek and wouldn't you know, there was a note that they were out of White Tomesol! They did give me my money back AND a free pack of Furry Yellow Hog tomatoes. Has anyone ever heard of Furry Yellow Hog?

Anyway, what would I do about this? I already told everyone that I would be growing White Tomesol! After searching the net a while, I finally found another seed company in the US that had it - Amishland Heirloom Seeds. I placed the order and waited impatiently. Today, they arrived!

In addition to the White Tomesol, I bought Glick's Brandywine from them. They also included a free pack of tomato seeds - Pink Flamingo Ukranian heirloom tomatoes. Of course I have to plant them too, but this is getting ridiculous! To recap, here is the list of the heirloom tomatoes I will be attempting in 2008 (in alphabetical order so as to not indicate favoritism):

Aunt Ruby's German Cherry
Aunt Ruby's German Green
Black Cherry
Black Krim
Brandywine
Brandywine (Glick's strain)
Caspian Pink
Delicious
Dixie Golden Giant
Egg Yolk
Furry Yellow Hog
Great White
Green Moldovan
Green Zebra
Kellogg's Breakfast
Kentucky Beefsteak
Pink Flamingo Ukranian
Principe Borghese
Prudens Purple
and of course, White Tomesol!

To make my tomato growing production even more crazy, I will also be growing a number of hybrids. I love the heirlooms, but since there are pros and cons to growing them, I want to include some excellent hybrids too.
To make the list complete, here are this year's hybrid tomatoes:

4th of July
Burpee's Supersteak
Celebrity
Early Girl
Golden Girl
La Rossa
Lemon Boy
New Girl
Orange Blossom
Park's Whopper
Roma
Siletz
Sub Artic

In case you weren't counting, that's 33 different tomato varieties. Yikes! I know I should edit some out, but I could tell you a good reason for all of these. I wrote about why I grow so many different tomatoes last year when I thought 20 varieties was a lot. In a nutshell, some of these are early types, some are cherry types, some regular types, some beefsteaks, some paste types, and of course we have the many different colors to aim for.

I know, I know, call me obsessed. I wonder what my wife will say when I tell her that we are doubling the size of the vegetable garden to accommodate over 60 tomato plants.

It's an addiction, I know - but won't the White Tomesol tomatoes be cool? (the original reason for this post)

A much needed cold frame

2008-03-16T22:07:00.003-04:00

Today's high temperature was 55 degrees and tonight it will get down to 30. Exactly a week ago we got eleven inches of snow. By Thursday is was all melted and the thermometer topped 70!

Last year, the end of March was pretty hot and then we got a week of snow and ice in April! The weather here in northern Kentucky in March and April is always unpredictable. So if you want to be successful early in the garden, you need a good cold frame!

Years ago I had a good cold frame, but since I began intensive gardening again two years ago, I haven't yet managed to get another one. I wanted to make one last year but I was too busy with building the deck and with the vegetable garden re-design.

So this is the year to build some new cold frames! This weekend I gathered up the needed materials for two cold frames and got to work!

So how do you build a cold frame? My favorite cold frame design comes from one of my favorite books that I got back in 1988, called The New Victory Garden by Bob Thompson.

It has been such a long time since I built one that I didn't remember how. Thompson spells out the exact plans for how to make a great 4x4 cold frame that can easily come apart for transport or storage.

It is made with 2x8s or 2x10s. The top or "light" is simply heavy duty 4 mil or 6 mil plastic stretched over fencing. It is pretty simple to build, but it took me a lot longer to build the first one than I thought it would. Here is the finished product:

The bad news is that I didn't have enough time to build the second cold frame. The good news is that now I know exactly how to build it. For the next one, I will take pictures of each step and post step-by-step instructions on how to build this cold frame. I will also write more about how to use a cold frame to harden off plants and how to grow vegetables in a cold frame.

I know I haven't written in a while but I have been very busy preparing this years garden. I will be posting multiple times a week now. Spring is only 4 days away and the garden season is upon us! I want to share with you the pea trellises that I built and my 2008 vegetable line-up. I also want to tell you about the indoor worm bin and the outdoor vermicomposting system I'm starting this year. I need to update you on my early tomato growing efforts and plans for my Dad's memorial garden. Probably the most exciting new category I will be writing about is my new pond/waterfall water garden!

There is so much to write so I will be burning up the keys. I hope you will come back soon to discuss all of this with me.

Spring is almost here! Are you excited?

Finally Updating my Garden Blog Blogroll

2008-02-28T08:21:00.006-05:00

This is my 2nd year writing at Garden Desk. It's funny to think about this, but a year ago I remember saying to myself "I wonder if there are many other garden related blogs out there". At that time I only knew of a few! I read Veggie Gardening Tips, Compost Bin and May Dreams Gardens and that was about it. In the beginning, as I would find more blogs that I enjoyed, I would add a link to them in my sidebar. As the months went on and I began to realize that there are many many good gardening blogs, I slacked off on adding the links.

Recently I became convicted of this. I would visit a blog I haven't read before and see that they had already added Garden Desk to their blogroll. Wow! I realized that I wasn't returning the favor and I had no valid reason for this. Then I said to myself "I hope all of these great bloggers don't think that since I don't have a link to their blogs, that I don't link to them."

I have recently gone through all of my bookmarks and rss readers and compiled a true list of the garden blogs that I read. I'm sure I have missed some and I'm sure that there are still good garden blogs out there that I have yet to discover.

So to anyone reading this who owns a blog and who have linked to GardenDesk or Veggie Garden Info, I thank you. I hope that your blog now shows up on my list. If not, let me know and I will try to include it. I have cleared away space in the sidebar to accommodate a pretty long list. If it gets too long, maybe I can figure out how to make a scrollable list like Playing in the Dirt's Green Thumb Blogger list.

It amazes me that there are sooooo many gardening blogs out there, but what really amazes me is that there are so many really good ones. I love learning from other gardeners, so if you have a good blog that's not on my list, I'd love to hear from you.

Thanks, and happy garden blogging!

More Heirloom Tomato Discussion

2008-02-25T19:01:00.007-05:00

Tomatoes are fantastic! They are always worth writing about. They are always worth discussing, especially if you are discussing heirloom tomatoes.

If you have visited this site before, you know that I am overly excited about trying new heirloom tomato varieties this year.

Last year I wrote about my observations on growing heirloom tomatoes. I listed the pros and the cons as I see them. You can read it here, but the quick version is that compared to hybrids, heirloom tomatoes can be more flavorful, more interesting and have a sense of heritage or history behind them. Unfortunately for many gardeners, they also are more susceptible to disease and pests and can have lower yields.

Well it seems that Patrick from Bifurcated Carrots disagrees with me. He wrote an interesting post refuting my observations. I have to say however, that he was very polite in his disagreement. Patrick is a gentleman. He is also very knowledgeable about vegetable gardening, so if Patrick writes that you're wrong about something, then it should be carefully read and considered. If you are interested in heirloom tomatoes, you should read Patrick's post.

He brings up some interesting points. One of which that I had not thought of before is that heirloom varieties by the same name sold by different companies are not equal. He explains how a variety needs to be "grown out" to perpetuate the desirable qualities of a variety. This means that as we gardeners read about which varieties work for others and which ones don't, it never means that we can expect the same results in our garden.

It is fun to find out what varieties others like, but maybe we should be focusing more on where they got the seed that worked well for them (and where the seed came from that didn't work).

So am I right or wrong about the pros and cons of heirloom tomatoes? I would have to say yes. The point is that gardening is a great activity. Writing about it is also great. We garden bloggers should continue to report on our observations about our gardening but beware over-generalizing - about tomatoes or anything else.

Most of all though, we should continue to experiment in our gardens and document things. We should continue to read from good sites like Bifurcated Carrots, and we should continue discussing things that we are interested in. Most of all, we should continue discussing heirloom tomatoes!

Silverbeet Rainbow Swiss Chard for the Growing Challenge

2008-02-21T12:37:00.005-05:00

I keep reading about garden bloggers (and even non-gardening bloggers) taking the growing challenge from Elements in Time.

It seems like a great challenge about growing something edible from seed that you never have before. Well, I want to play!

At first I thought I would declare Violet Queen Purple Cauliflower as my newbie. Violet Queen is a variety of cauliflower that I learned about from Tiny Farm Blog. It grows bright purple heads that look like broccoli! I have never grown purple cauliflower before but I have grown both normal cauliflower and broccoli. So I thought that maybe Violet Queen is not the best entry for the Growing Challenge.

So I thought some more. What do I want to grow that I never have before? Then, as I was going through my seed stash it hit me - Five Color Silverbeet, rainbow Swiss Chard! The seeds I have are from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, but they were given to me by Kenny of Veggie Gardening Tips. I have never raised or even eaten swiss chard, which I guess is also called silverbeet. Thanks again for the seeds Kenny!

Come to think of it, Kenny also gave me some of his famous
Potato Onions, which I already planted in the garden last Fall. I have never grown Potato Onions before either.

So I guess I really have three entries to keep track of and report on this season for the Growing Challenge:

Violet Queen Purple Cauliflower

Five Color Silverbeet - Swiss Chard

Potato Onions!

I'm pretty excited about these. I'm also excited to read about everyone else's growing challenges as the season progresses. Come on Spring!

Heirloom Tomatoes for 2008

2008-02-18T07:48:00.000-05:00

For years I grew only hybrid tomatoes. Then, a few years ago, I added the Amish Heirloom Tomato Brandywine. Wow, what exceptional flavor! I was hooked. Last year I expanded my heirloom tomato trials and now I have two new heirloom tomato favorites, Black Krim and Aunt Ruby's German Green (pictured below).

Not only had I discovered two new great tasting tomato varieties, I also found out that there can be great tomatoes in colors other than red!

I also tried other new heirlooms of different colors last year; Dixie Golden Giant (yellow), Prudens Purple, Kellogg's Breakfast (orange), Caspian Pink and Kentucky Beefsteak (orange). These varieties didn't do as well and I really only got to sample them. They at least earned a second chance for this year's season. Only the Brandywine, Black Krim and Aunt Ruby's German Green were successful. We did have a terrible drought last summer and as I documented in my post "Pros and Cons of Heirloom Tomatoes", heirlooms can be tricky to succeed with.

Below are the seed company pictures of these heirloom varieties.

The only heirloom that I tried last year that will not be invited back is Homely Homer. It was a fun novelty marketing tomato, but lacked in performance and flavor. I have to cut somewhere, don’t I?

So now for this year, 2008!

I absolutely loved last year's alternative colors with the ripe green and black tomatoes. This year I want to expand the tomato color pallet. Something new and cool that I discovered from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds is white tomatoes! I don't know about you, but I have never eaten or even seen a white tomato. I have to grow some in 2008. I selected the cultivars Great White and White Tomesol. Look how white the White Tomesol is!

I really enjoyed Aunt Ruby's German Green last year so I also wanted to add more varieties that stay green when ripe. New for me this year will be Green Zebra and Green Moldovan. Green Moldovan looks neon even!

Another area that I want to expand is the heirloom Cherry Tomatoes. Last year I grew hybrids Sun Sugar and Gardener's Delight but no heirlooms. This year I will turn to Aunt Ruby again for Aunt Ruby's German Cherry. And since Black Krim was a hit, I will add a black cherry variety simply called Black Cherry.

Another odd variety that caught my eye was Egg Yolk. I don't know if it can be called a cherry tomato but it is a tomato the exact size and color of an egg yolk?! The other heirloom pictured above is Principe Borghese which I have grown before. Principe Borghese is considered the leading variety to use for sun drying.

So to recap, my complete 2008 Tomato Heirloom Team is:

Red:

Brandywine
Principe Borghese

Pink:

Caspian Pink

Purple/Black:

Prudens Purple
Black Krim
Black Cherry

Yellow:

Dixie Golden Giant
Egg Yolk

Green:

Green Zebra
Green Moldovan
Aunt Ruby's German Green
Aunt Ruby's German Cherry

Orange:

Kellogg's Breakfast
Kentucky Beefsteak

White:

Great White
White Tomesol

Wow! That is quite a list isn't it? A rainbow of delicious and interesting heirloom tomato excellence!

I'll keep you posted on how they all do throughout the 2008 season. I am really excited!

Valentine's Day reminds me of.... Tomatoes!

2008-02-14T11:21:00.008-05:00

What's red that you think of on Valentines Day? - Hearts? Roses? Not Me! Valentine's Day makes me think of Tomatoes!

Early Tomatoes to be exact.

Around here, folks use holidays as reminders of when to do things in the yard and garden. They say to set out peas and potatoes on St. Patrick's Day, set out tomatoes and peppers on Mother's Day, open your pool on Memorial Day and close that pool on Labor Day. Call me strange, but I add "start tomato seeds on Valentine's Day" to that list.

Last year, I started extra-early tomatoes with the goal of getting ripe ones by my birthday on June 24th. I actually picked the first ripe red tomato on June 15th!

This year I'm putting more work into it and setting the goal at May 31st. If I'm really lucky, I could have a ripe tomato by Memorial Day!

How do I plan to achieve this here in Northern Zone 5 where most ripe tomatoes are harvested in Late July and early August? Much like I did last year by planting early under grow lights and potting up multiple times until I transplant the monster-huge tomato plants outdoors in April. What I will add to the strategy this year involves the outdoor planting site. I will put down black plastic to warm the soil, and I will wrap the new plants with plastic cages and possibly construct a temporary hoop house over the early plants.
I will let you know all the details in these pages as we go along.

Last year, my extra-early tomato plats were the Early Girl variety. They did well but this year I will be planting 4 other extra early varieties to give Early Girl a run for the money!

The GardenDesk newcomers are: Hybrids New Girl and Orange Blossom from Johnny's Selected Seeds and Heirlooms Siletz and Sub-Artic "World's Earliest" from Baker Creek. Both of these companies are amongst my favorites. More details to come!

Getting back to Valentine's Day - before I get any angry email accusing me of not being a romantic, I want to state that I DID give my wife and daughters the real red of Valentine's Day - Roses.

Now they will lovingly let me start tomatoes tonight! Yum!

Green Thumb Super Bowl Sunday!

2008-02-03T08:06:00.000-05:00

Okay, I haven't actually been using my green thumb much lately but the NFL Super Bowl marks the beginning of the gardening season for me. I know that sounds strange but I usually spend much of Super Bowl Sunday planning the upcoming growing season. After church I will likely get out my seeds, my seed catalogs and my graph paper and get to work. By the time kickoff happens, I will have most of my 2008 garden planned out.

You may think I'm crazy, but organizing a garden is a lot like an NFL football team. To get into the spirit, here's my garden/football team's helmet:

I'll call my team the "GardenDesk Growers"!

Tomorrow marks the beginning of the off-season for the NFL. The off-season for a team is spent figuring out which players and coaches are good enough to remain and which ones need to be cut. They look to add new players to better next year's team. They also look back at the season that has just ended to figure out what worked well and what didn't. All teams but one did not achieve their goal of winning the Super Bowl. They try to learn from last season's disappointments so they can do better this season!

These are the things I have been doing in the past couple of months because my garden's off-season actually took place in December and January . I have been pouring over seed catalogs looking for new star players to draft and have decided to cut some of my under-achieving vegetable varieties. I am redesigning part of my game plan and am even planning to increase this year's playing field! I have carefully looked over the 2007 "touchdowns" as well as the "fumbles". I will be reporting more about that in the near future.

So the Super Bowl marks the beginning of The "GardenDesk Growers" 2008 pre-season! Many players will soon report to my basement to begin their season under the grow lights! Today I will be mapping out the 2008 garden and figuring out what plants will occupy what spot on the field. Of course I will also be dreaming of winning the Super Bowl of gardening in which every vegetable grows to perfection and every flower is beautiful!

If you are a gardener, chances are that you are also dreaming of a winning 2008 garden. So I know it is only February, but I must ask you that famous question:

Are you ready for some ~~Football~~ Gardening?!! I sure am!

Since this is the official beginning of my 2008 gardening season, this will also be the kick-off for my 2008 Green Thumb Sunday posts. This post is actually not a very good GTS post, but be sure to visit other Green Thumb Sunday participants!

Join

My next GTS post will be much better I hope.

For today I say, GO GIANTS! I mean GO PATRIOTS! No, I mean GO GARDENDESK GROWERS!

What is your favorite seed company?

2008-01-31T22:42:00.000-05:00

All month we have been seeing posts about the stacks of seed catalogs that appear in gardeners' mailboxes. I love reading about people's excitement for seed catalogs.

Just for the record, here is my new 2008 seed catalog collection:

I'm curious, what effect do all of these catalogs have on gardeners decisions as to where to buy their seeds? So what better way to find out then to ask some gardeners?

Do you buy your seeds from a catalog or catalogs, from the web or from your local store? If you buy from a seed company's catalog or website, which companies are your favorites and why? If you have an answer for me you can comment on this post or you can write a post of your own. If you do write a post about it, let me know and I will link to it.

Just in case I don't get many answers (or any), I’ll now let you know what my favorites are and why.

This year's top six! I have ordered from five of these in the past and this year I will order from a new one.

The company I ordered from for years is Park Seeds. I'm not sure why it was my first favorite. I guess I had success with their seeds and just kept ordering from them without trying any others.

Johnny's Selected Seeds is another favorite because they have many organic selections. I originally learned of them from Eliot Coleman.

Totally Tomatoes is a fun company because they are, well - totally tomatoes! I didn't know there were soooo many different varieties of tomatoes!

The catalog I order from the most is not even a seed catalog. Gardens Alive sells organic fertilizers and many great organic gardening supplements and supplies. I also like them because I used to work at their retail store.

Now for my all-time favorite, Pinetree Garden Seeds. Why are they my favorite? I'll admit it, - they're my favorite because I'm cheap! Pine tree has always offered the least expensive seeds, period. Most seed packets are still under a dollar! The seeds I've gotten from them have always produced very well. Their catalog is not very pretty or fancy. I actually appreciate that because they do seem to pass along the savings to their customers. I will always get the bulk of my seeds from Pine tree even while sampling other companies.

Now for the new catalog that impresses me; Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. They have many rare varieties and they are all heirloom seeds! Last year I began growing more heirloom tomatoes and I want to expand to include more heirloom vegetables this year. Not only do their selections look great, their catalog is beautiful! It is full of pictures and interesting designs. Simply paging through the catalog is a real treat.

Well there you have it. If you would like to write a comment or a post about your favorite seed catalog, yours doesn't have to be as long as mine. I tend to get carried away sometimes. Seriously, I really do want to hear about where you buy from and why. I'm sure I've been missing some great companies. I'll link to your posts in one of my future posts.

Have fun perusing through those catalogs and longing for Spring planting!

Excited about my new Soil Blocker!

2008-01-29T17:31:00.000-05:00

The time of year is fast approaching where I start hundreds of seeds indoors with my grow-light setup. Last season I wrote a post documenting all the things you need to start seeds indoors and one of the main things I listed was cell-packs or pots.

Now I realize that you don't even need them - if you have soil block makers!

I first read about soil block makers 10 years ago in my all time favorite gardening book The New Organic Grower, by Eliot Coleman. Eliot Coleman is the leading expert in effective organic vegetable production. I have implemented many of Coleman's organic techniques and alternative tools over the years in my garden but I never had a soil blocker until now.

I don't know why I waited so long. I used to spend hours packing soil into little cell packs. Now I can just create blocks of soil as the pots. Now that I see it in action I am going to buy the other sizes of block makers too. You see, the beauty of the system is that you can start a seed in a small block and then transplant it into a larger block when needed. The larger size soil blocks are made with indentations the exact size of the smaller block! I bought my soil blocker from Johnny's Selected Seeds and they have a great PDF file on their website that explains this better.

If you're not following how the blocker works, it is designed to compact the seed-starting medium into the blocks and then "press" out the blocks with a spring-loaded mechanism.

I used to think the soil blocker costs were too high but now I'm reconsidering that. The smaller sizes run around $30 each but the larger 4" size is over $100. All I have now is the medium size but I may spring for the smaller size this year too. I will probably have to pass on the larger size and use pots and make-shift containers for my larger tomato transplants like I did last year. Although I do think the complete soil block maker system is so cool that I will save up and get the larger one for Christmas and have it in production for 2009! I know, I know, we still have all of 2008 to go. I will post about the smaller boil blockers when I begin using them next month. I can hardly wait!

What would you grow in a Memorial Garden?

2008-01-24T22:41:00.000-05:00

I really don't know where to begin. I miss gardening outside. I miss Spring and Summer. I miss warm wind and cool rain. I miss beautiful flowers and tasty organic garden vegetables. Since it is Winter where I live, there isn't much I can do about all of that.

I also miss blogging. I miss Veggie Garden Info. I miss reading all the great garden blogs out there and commenting on them. I miss my blogging friends. All of those things I could still be doing. So why is it that I'm not doing them? Could it be because most of all, I miss my dad?

Since he passed away in September, I really haven't been the same. I have had a difficult time doing any of the things I used to enjoy and I have been a terrible blogger these past four months.

I think I am beginning to feel better though. While at his house last week, finishing the work of sorting through his things, a new thought came to my mind and it has gotten me excited about gardening again. The thought was simply this - Why don't I plant a Memorial Garden for my dad? He didn't want us to have a funeral for him and he is not buried in a cemetery. So maybe creating my own Memorial Garden would help me. I could have a plaque or a stone with his picture on it and a bench and some flowers. I could put it right next to the vegetable garden so I would see it often.

this is where I need your help (if anyone is reading this). What kind of flowers or plants should I grow in this memorial garden? I have no idea where to begin in planning this.

I do know that it is a good idea because since I decided to do it, I have begun thinking of other aspects of the garden now as well. I have a whole list of ideas for blog posts as well. I will write my 2008 garden goals soon and hope to begin posting regularly again!

But for now, does anyone have any ideas for my Memorial Garden? I would love to hear them!

I also want to apologize for my long absence here and at Veggie Garden Info and at your blogs as well.

Thanks for reading.

Thanksgiving Snow on the Cabbages

2007-11-23T11:33:00.000-05:00

Here in Kentucky, we got to enjoy a few Thanksgiving snow flurries. For many, it put them into the Christmas spirit and made them want to go shopping early on "Black Friday". For me, it made me want to go see how the garden is doing. While the masses were up early fighting the crowds at the stores, I was taking these pictures of the snow on our cabbages.

Now that it is getting colder, I wish I would have made the cold frames that I planned to. With the aid of cold frames, you can grow keep the garden growing practically all year long. I plan to build many coldframes this winter and be ready to use them for early spring sowing. I will let you know when those are built.

Without the cold frames, I still have broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts and carrots in the garden. Of course, my main crop is still compost.

This pile below has cooled off and is ready to be turned. It is easy to tell since the snow that fell on it didn't melt.

See how the snow didn't stick to the top of this pile:

That's because the top of this pile is made of used bedding from our Guinea Pigs and what's left of the jack-o-lanterns. Both are decaying rapidly and are still warm.

I hope to make another sizable compost pile soon. I have plenty of brown material available and since it hasn't been very cold here for very long, green grass is also still available. If I bag up some grass and mix it with leaves and dead garden plant material, I will have a really hot compost pile in which no snow will stick.

I doubt I'll get that accomplished this weekend. I plan to spend what's left of Thanksgiving weekend with my family actually being thankful for all we have but do not deserve. As for Christmas shopping, I'll do my part by staying out of the way of those frantic shoppers!

When is the best time to add compost to your garden?

2007-11-14T16:03:00.000-05:00

I don't think I've ever really thought about whether there are good or bad times of the year to add compost to the garden - until this past weekend. I have always focused on how great fresh "home-made" compost is for an organic garden and just added it whenever it became available.

This weekend I was delighted to find that I had a lot of compost ready so I began top dressing some of my garden beds. Much of my pile behind the garden had fully broken down and the batch of organic matter that I put in my new compost tumbler at the beginning of the season was completely ready!

As I happily added my new compost to the garden, I started wondering if I'd be better served to wait until Spring to add it. That way it would still be "fresh" when the tender new plants were ready to be fed. What do you think? Does it matter when you add the compost as long as you do add it? This may be a stupid question, or maybe everyone but me already knows the answer, but here are my initial thoughts:

1. If you garden in raised beds it is okay to add compost anytime, but if your garden is just a flat "field", the nutrients may be leeched away if you add it too soon.

2. If the compost is not fully decomposed you should NOT add it when you plant new young plants because many of the nutrients are "locked up" during the decomposition period and therefore will not be helping the plants.

Are these crazy thoughts? I'm really not sure where I got these ideas and began to ponder it while working in the garden. Sometimes the peace and solitude you get while in the garden can do that. I know this post is a bit unusual but help me out. Any fellow composters out there? Are there right and wrong times to add the wonderful stuff to your garden?