Grow City Garden Education: Grow City July Garden Tour: Interlude Presentation #2

Grow City Garden Tour: Interlude Presentation #2

July 9, 2021

(With an update on July 15, 2021)

Another “Interlude” in the parade of Workshop Presentation blog posts. This time we take a break to stroll about the Grow City garden to learn what is going on there (in July 2021) and why we are doing what we do in the garden.

A video tour was done in May 2021 and is available for viewing on the Grow City Teaching Garden Facebook Page, as well as the Facebook Page for the Knox County Public Library (and probably other locations). For a number of reasons, it was difficult to get videos done in June and July, so I am substituting with this “photo essay” tour. We hope to get back to video tours again before long.

This is a tour of the garden, bed-by-bed, on July 9. But, I am providing a little bit of update from July 15. Things are growing and rapidly developing and changing!

On July 9, I did a lot of “cleaning up” - some harvesting, some removal of finished plants, etc. There are before-and-after photos for most beds.

Here we go …

The Perennial Herb Bed

We installed this bed earlier this year, using a cinder block border with the holes upward. This enables us to also fill the holes with soil and plant in them! The main part of the bed is full of only perennial herbs that will eventually fill the space (Chocolate Mint, English Thyme, Munstead Lavender, French Tarragon, Greek Oregano, and a “mystery herb” (can't find a label and don't remember what it is!). In the holes we have planted both perennial (Peppermint, Polish Chamomile) and annual herbs (Borage, Marjoram, Calendula).

The beautiful blossoms of Borage. This plant has a fresh cucumber flavor. You can use the leaves or the flowers, raw.

The blossoms of Zloty Lan Chamomile, a variety from Poland. It's often the flowers that are used from this plant, usually to make a tea that soothes the tummy and the nerves.

Bed #1 (a.k.a. Teen Garden Bed) – Framed Raised Bed

(Note: during COVID, the Teens were not meeting at the library. We incorporated plans for this bed into plans for the overall garden. We hope to have the Teens planning, planting, caring for, and harvesting from their own garden bed in the near future, when they can gather again.)

In the “before” photo, above, we can see that this bed has carrot plants, some garlic (turned partly brown), lettuce (flowering and going to seed), spinach (in seed), radishes (going to seed), a volunteer sunflower plant, and a clump of ever-bearing strawberry in a corner.

Here we see the garlic plants, at the right stage for harvest. We had earlier cut off the flowering stems when they were in bud, but left one to flower so that people could see how garlic flowers.

I dug up the bulbs. These are Wise Colossus, developed by Terry Wise in nearby Washington, Indiana. They are huge!! They also have tiny, hard bulblets attached at the bottom. These can be planted as garlic “seed”, though they will take two years instead of one to reach mature bulb stage.

This harvest will be brought inside to a cool place to cure/dry for awhile. Roots and stems will be trimmed later and the bulbs will be stored in net bags, out of the light. You can leave all or part of the stems on and tie them up for hanging, too. We will later select which cloves we want to re-plant and will plant them in the fall, for harvest next summer. We can use the rest of the cloves/bulbs fresh or cooked, and will have some tutorials on using garlic.

We will be harvesting some garlic from a couple of other beds, too.

A flowering stalk of spinach, now gone to seed. The seed is ready to harvest when it's dry and brown.

Radish plants with blossoms on stalks, and also with seed pods. The pods are not dry enough to harvest yet, but …

… here is what one looks like opened up. You can see the little round seeds. They look like mustard seeds and, indeed, radish is in the mustard family (Brassicaceae).

This is looking down on the flowering stalks of Buttercrunch lettuce. Any little white tufts you see are ones that have gone to seed. Like dandelions, each seed is attached to a bit of fluff that causes the seed to be carried away, very effectively, by wind. In fact, we had many volunteer lettuce plants this year in the spaces around the beds from seed that blew from last year's lettuces.

The ever-bearing Strawberry plant cluster. There are a couple of tiny strawberries evident here. There was a better harvest earlier, but the plant tends to take a hiatus during hot weather. It will perk up again later on and produce into the winter. The leaves, meanwhile, have been providing food for various animals, including Leaf-Cutter Bees, who created the perfectly curved cuttings off the edge.

Learn about Leaf-Cutter Bees here:

https://www.planetbee.org/planet-bee-blog//native-bee-series-leafcutting-bees

Bed #2 – Framed Raised Bed with Trellis

Before cleaning, we can see primarily kale plants (three kinds), including the dried stalks of seed pods. The plants have also sprouted new leaves, which can be harvested and used raw or cooked.

Some are even blooming again! Radish and kale are both in the Brassicaceae family. All members of this family have 4-petaled flowers.

Here is a seed pod opened (they open in half long-ways) showing a couple of the seeds of purple kale. There were more – they roll out of the pod easily. We have saved some for re-planting and sharing.

And because the seeds roll out of the pods so easily, and because we couldn't get to them before the pods opened, we have a number of kale seedlings from dropped seed. From the light magenta veins, I can tell these are Red Russian kale.

I cut all of the seeded stalks off, keeping some for saving seed later. I cut all of the kale plants off at ground level, saving some leaves and putting the rest of the plants in the compost bin. Roots develop intricate relationships with the soil and soil organisms. Rather than pulling a plant out of the soil, I cut it off at soil level and allow the root system to disintegrate, helping to enrich the soil.

By the way, seed of these kales were originally planted in this bed in spring of 2020, and they kept producing. It was time for a change, though. A cover crop will be planted in this bed soon.

Rainbow Swiss chard was also started from seed in this bed in spring of 2020. This year it sent out long flowering stalks that turned to seed, as seen here. Swiss chard is related to spinach. When the seed turns brown we'll cut the stalk for seed-saving, then cut the rest of the plant off at soil level and put it in the compost. You can see how clean this bed is, otherwise, since I removed the kale. You can also see that there is something on the trellis.

Here is the beginning of Lemon squash plants growing on the trellis. See future Grow City Garden Tour videos or photo essays to see, hopefully, the tender, lemon-yellow, roundish squash that these produce.

Wise Colossus garlic was also growing in this bed – just a couple of plants – so I pulled those to cure with the others.

Bed #3 – Framed Raised Bed with Trellis

Lime basil (foreground) and Thai Holy basil (back) were planted in this bed as companions to tomatoes and peppers. Here they are seen with flowering stalks.

Here are flowers of the Lime basil, and a couple of flower buds. Some further up the stalk are going to seed. Basil is in the mint family (Lamiaceae), and all flowers in the family have the same structure. You can see the “lip” petal at the bottom of each flower, with stamens extending out along it. When an insect lands on the lip to enter the flower, looking for nectar, pollen attaches to its body. Unbeknownst to the insect, it carries this pollen to the next blossom, often causing pollination.

But, we mainly want more leaves with basil plants. We need to snip off the flowering stalks so that the plant will put its efforts into the leaves.

Here they are with flowering stalks all nipped off. They will grow more of them, though, and you have to decide if you want to keep snipping them off or let some go ahead to grow and bloom. You might decide to let some plants go to seed so you can harvest seed.

Here is a Chocolate Bell pepper plant with a blossom about to open, flower buds, and even some very tiny peppers starting to develop.

The next tasks to tackle in this bed – unruly tomato vines and pea vines that are finished. You can see some dry pea pods.

Here is a dry pea pod opened, revealing the dry seeds. They are more than ready for saving to plant next spring. This is a type of edible pod pea, so they were best picked for eating before any peas swelled inside, while the pod was still tender.

I snipped off all the plants at soil level, removed them from the trellis, and put them in the compost bin. As they disintegrate, the legume roots left in the ground will release nitrogen into the soil that can be used by the next crop planted, so it's good go follow a legume with something that is a heavier feeder and benefits from more nitrogen.

The tomato plants needed attention. We are not sure of the variety on the left, but we know it is not a cherry type. It needs to be pruned and re-tied. I will not prune the Cherry tomato plant on the right (they do fine being more “wild”), but it will need to be re-tied. Plus, there are some Cherry tomatoes ready to harvest!

The first tomato growing on the non-Cherry tomato plant. It has an imperfection, but we'll see how the others turn out.

Blossoms on the same plant, and a dusting of pollen on my fingers. Tomatoes and peppers are in the Solanaceae family – the stamens of the flower are fused into this cone-shaped structure.

Fruits on the Cherry tomato plant:

The Cherry tomato plant re-tied.

Bed #3 all spruced up, with flowering stalks trimmed from the basil plants, tomato plants pruned and re-tied, and the old pea vines gone.

This is one of the volunteer Sunflower plants in the garden. We planted them on purpose in 2019, but never have had to plant them on purpose since. In fact, we have to dig up a bunch or we end up with a “sunflower forest” that casts a great deal of shade. We leave some, though – for beauty and grandeur, for birds and pollinators, for seed-saving, and for those volunteers that will pop up the next year.

Bed#4

This bed was a Three Sisters garden (corn, beans, and squash) in 2019. We then planted cover crop, and since then we have been adding layers of organic material to keep building it up and enriching the soil. Last year it had peas, radishes, carrots, tomatoes, and peppers.

Here it is on July 9, 2021, before cleaning. Let's take a look-through to see what's going on …

We inter-planted onions between the cabbage plants as companions. You can see them developing bulbs here.

Here are Michili Chinese cabbage plants, but they've sent up their flowering stalks and are blooming. These plants wanted to do nothing but bolt (send up the stalks) and refused to form heads, possibly due to an early hot phase that signaled them to do so. Instead of letting them go to seed and saving seed, these plants will be removed (cut off at soil level) and put in the compost bin.

Another type of cabbage plant, which may yet form heads. We will leave these in the garden to see if they show promise. There has been a bit of nibbling on the outer leaves, but nothing that will affect the health of the plant.

We planted borage along one edge of this bed, but also had some volunteer borage pop up in the middle. We are leaving these in – they won't be competing with anything here, are great for pollinators, are good companions and useful herbs, and are so pretty.

Here's another volunteer, right outside this bed – carrot. This came up from last year. Most people don't often see carrots in bloom. You might notice a distinct resemblance to the wild Queen Anne's Lace (Daucus carota). In fact, QAL is also called Wild Carrot. It's a tough root, whitish, and not as sweet, but can be used to flavor stews and soups. Also, QAL has a single deep purple bloom in the center of the head full of tiny white blooms, which this domestic Carrot does not. We are leaving these here for pollinators, but also because we could decide to save seed. Carrots are biennials, producing flowers and seed during their second year. If you would like to save seed from any biennial, you need to plan to dedicate space in your garden to these plants for two years.

The whole "umbel" of carrot is comprised of a number of flower clusters, which are comprised of many tiny individual flowers. This is typical of plants in the family Apiaceae. Soldier beetles are frequenting these heads of carrot flowers (some mating). They are not a problem in the garden.

Chicago Pickling cucumber seeds were planted along this trellis at one end of Bed #4. Now they are young plants developing tendrils to grab onto the trellis wire. No blooms here yet. Next to them, at either end, are Bouquet dill plants. Dill is a great companion for cucumbers in the garden and also, of course, in the making of dill pickles.

Little Morris Heading collard seedlings accompany the dill along the sides of the bed. This is a favorite southern green. Morris Heading is a type of "cabbage collard".

Here is the whole bed again, after cleaning. But, really, the only things to do here were to remove the Chinese cabbage plants and make sure the cucumber vines were making their way up the trellis.

Bed #5 – The Lasagna Bed

This is the one that started out as a “lasagna-layering” bed during a workshop in November 2019, when we made layers of various kinds of organic materials that organisms would break down into soil, and would eventually mix with the existing soil below. The bed was much deeper, and over time worked down, as all the compost organisms did their work. In 2020 it was a fabulous bed with huge cabbages, onions, beets, and squash. We added more organic material over the winter.

Here is the whole bed before cleaning. During late spring we built this tepee and planted Purple Podded Pole beans near each pole. You can see that the bean plants are up. They are also accompanied, on the left, by a cluster of nasturtium flowers. A row of marigolds divides this half from the far end, in which is visible Bull's Blood beet and lots of seed stalks of radishes. We'll find out what's under all of that. There are also the nearby volunteer sunflowers.

Nasturtiums, a great companion plant

The whole bed, seen from the other end … what a mess!! I decided to not save Easter Egg radish seeds from these, but to pull them out (because of the bulbous radish roots, this was easier than cutting them off). The plants went into the compost bin. Removing these revealed carrot plants, lettuces, and a row of okra seedlings that would now get some space, sun, and air to get growing better. There were also some nasturtium plants along the edge, and a replanted volunteer tomato plant in the corner. The Bull's Blood beets were easier to see and work with.

There were also several Wise Colossus garlic bulbs to pull out and cure with the rest.

The cleaned-up Bed #5, seen from the bean tepee end.

The Bee-and-Butterfly Native Plants Plot

This bed was installed on May 30 of 2020 by the Knox County Invasive Species Management Area. It contains: Butterflyweed (orange milkweed), Little Bluestem grass, Field Thistle, Golden Alexanders, Wild Bergamot, and Tall Ironweed.

Syrphid Fly on Butterflyweed blossoms

Wild Bergamot in bloom – great for bees, butterflies, clear-wing moths, and others.

Golden Alexanders going to seed. Their lime-colored leaves and airy heads of yellow flowers are beautiful in any garden. This plant blooms early and for a long time, providing for pollinators before many other plants bloom.

The Compost Area

Here is one wire bin stuffed with new material from all of today's cleaning. It can eventually be turned over into the wire bin to the left so that materials (and all the micro-organisms) get re-mixed and reactivated. We started out with a lovely wooden compost bin, but the big April 8, 2020 storm damaged it. We hope to put it back together sometime and start using it again.

Very healthy volunteer plants grow from compost bins, and around them. There's one of the ubiquitous sunflower plants. But, there are also what appear to be pumpkin vines. Let's go look …

That's it for the July 9 tour!!

Oh, but wait … here comes a July 15 update!! At this time of year, things can change so drastically in a short time, in the garden.

July 15, 2021

Grow City Garden Tour Update

Let's see what happened after six days …

I didn't show this spot to you on July 9 but, you know, we learn by experience, and trial-and-error. This is the Flower Cutting Garden Bed. We had solarized it with black plastic earlier, and that appeared to have been successful, with no weeds or grass at all. So, Laura put in a variety of garden seeds, plus these Cockscomb plants that I had started from seed indoors. But, eventually the crab-grass showed up, anyway. Thanks to lots of rain, it really flourished. The plants that were put in are doing fine, and there are some plants that came up from seed, but it's going to take a lot of work to clean out the crab-grass.

We are now talking about building this up as a raised bed so that there is more depth, hopefully making it harder for the crab-grass to show up. That will be a fall-and-winter project.

Zinnia - grown from seed collected from the Grow City Teaching Garden

Cockscomb - started from seed that a friend collected in her yard

The Perennial Herb Garden

The plants are filling out this new garden bed quite nicely (compare this to the July 9 photo of the same). But, we still aren't sure what that plant is in the upper right corner. We don't recall planting it, and there is no label.

Is it a plant to save, or a weed to pull? We are waiting for it to bloom, and hopefully the mystery will be solved.

Zloty Lan Chamomile

Sweet Marjoram in bloom and going to seed

Borage blooms

Bed #3

More ripe Cherry tomatoes, and another green tomato on the other plant, looking better than the first one:

Bed #4

Dill blossoming, cucumber plants climbing higher, and ...

... a cucumber blossom!

A fly and a bee on volunteer carrot blooms

Bed #5

Purple Podded Pole beans climbing higher

Nasturtium bloom

Marigold blooms with a honeybee

Bull's Blood beets flourishing

Okra plant growing more, now that is has more space

Rows of Bull's Blood beets and okra.

The Bee-and-Butterfly Native Plants Plot

On July 15, this area was a-buzz with insect activity! In fact, the whole garden was. There were lots of big Green June beetles darting around everywhere, but there were many other kinds of insects, too.

Golden Alexanders with larger seeds than before.

The Butterflyweed is still blooming, but also developing seed pods

Wild Bergamot is now going to seed – six days ago it was in full bloom

Tall Ironweed is suddenly in bloom!

And, it was buzzing with activity. Look at these photos to see Bumblebees arriving, and then get a closer look at them. Notice the huge yellow pollen bags on their back legs! These bumbles have been very busy.

The volunteer sunflowers were very busy places, too …

Compost Area

The volunteer tomato plant is much larger, and has blossoms

Much is going on with the volunteer pumpkin …

It is definitely much more orange than six days ago, and perhaps a little larger.

But, uh oh, I found those dreaded Squash Bug eggs on some leaves!! And some Squash Bug nymphs that had recently hatched!!! I dispatched with as many as I could find, but it's very difficult to keep up with them.

And, I found these insects mating on one of the pumpkin leaves. I have not identified them yet, but they appear to be part of the True Bug group (Hemiptera). I will investigate further.