Yardlong Beans from Seed to plate

Growing the Beans

This year (and last year) I planted Yardlong Beans.  These are basically your normal green beans, but they grow to be 18-24 inches long (or so).  Last year I planted them with the express purpose of saving seeds.  I only had a few seeds, and it worked out great.  We had hundreds of seeds left over and this year planted those seeds.

In the planting I planted 1 row about 7 feet long, and I just put several beans in the small canal in the dirt and covered them up.  I then put up some $10 metal posts from lowes on either side, and used some twine to make a little fence for them to grow up.  It works pretty well, except they like to climb up poles rather than working up the fence, so they spin around things instead of moving up the fence.  But it's ok, a little training and they've done really well.

That's about 7' wide, notice they like to climb up the hoophouse
posts rather than growing up the fence.  Next year i'll use all posts

I also noticed that in my other garden plot a few seeds must have gotten dropped in because about 10 or 15 plants started growing, about 3ft across or so.  I had a few eletrical conduit posts (I used in my greenhouse post earlier to hold down the plastic), so I just stuck them in the ground about 2 feet apart in the middle of the beans, and the beans have done extremely well climbing up the 2 posts as a group.  The posts are 10 feet tall, and today a few of the plants have almost reached the top.

Notice they're within a foot or 2 from the top,
that's at least 8 feet up (1 or 2 feet in the ground).
These seem like the easiest way to grow these,
and 5 or 10 on a poll doesn't seem hurt them.

About 1 or 2 weeks ago they started growing flowers.  They grow flowers in groups of 2 pointing away from eachother making a little V.  These flowers then turn into small green sticks that continue to grow for a few days until they're 20 inches long or so.  They turn lighter green when they're ready, and turn brown and dried out when they're ready to have their seeds saved.

These are the flowers, the beans just start
growing out of these after a few days.

Today's Harvest 7/19/2014

Today we didn't have a vegetable for dinner (the kids were so disappointed) so I decided to go pick whatever beans were ready.  I got out there and was pretty surprised to find 41 beans ready to pick.  Now if these were normal green beans then 41 beans wouldn't be any big deal, but these are yardlong beans.  I weighed them (after removing the top and bottom) and they came out to 15.84 ounces.  So basically 1 pound of beans for dinner.  Not too shabby :)

While picking I only picked the larger beans, so we'll see how many i get and how often, but for only 11 ft x 1ft (1 row) these things make for a great harvest.  If anyone in the St Louis area is interested in any seeds for next year I should have plenty :).

Ignore the socks :), but these are the beans.
That's a yardstick next to them to show how long they get. 

Here's the end so it's easier to see the numbers, notice
they're all about the 20 - 24 inch mark
(though the tops aren't perfectly lined up).

Update - Today's Harvest 7/22/2014

Today we did another harvest.  18.02oz (1lb 2.02oz).  There are a few that are a little over age wize, they're yellow, must have missed them last time.  And there are plenty of small ones still out there.  But this is today's harvest.  Not bad, last harvest was 3 days ago so it seems like so far there is 1 lb every 3rd day.  I'll keep updating as we go.

Update - Today's Harvest 7/24/2014

Today we did another harvest.  9.5 oz

Update - Seeds, Garlic, and mint tea

Well, it's been an eventful summer here on my little garden.  The Zucchini I tried I put out too early and it got bitten, and hasn't done well at all.  I'm ready to pull it out when the next flower just drops off.

I ate my first 12in long bean, which was probably a bit early even for it, these things are supposed to get really long.

I picked out all my garlic, let me see if I have a picture somewhere:

I can't stress how helpful these greenhouse posts have been.  They're perfect for hanging the garlic to dry, and also nice for reaching the middle of my raised beds without stepping on the dirt.  Very very awesome.  Notice the garlic bulbs are a little sad, but still it's the first year i've ever tried it, and I put them in late.  Hopefully this years will be better :).

I got out several multiplier onions, all ranging from about ping pong ball to a small baseball size.  Looking forward to putting the ones that last the winter back in in the spring.  A few that came from seed have grown, a couple that look pretty nice, i'll try and grow them all next year to see if any of them are promising.

The lettuce has finally gone to seed, and i've gotten about 200 black seeded simpson seeds so far from 1 plant, we'll see how many i get total, it's not slowing down.  I also got about 100 romaine lettuce seeds, we'll see if they mix at all.  I'm going to plant them pretty soon when I get the zucchini out.

I planted some new kale seeds in the front where there's a lot of shade, we'll see how they do in the summer.  I was planning on planting another plant or so every week to see when the best time to plant kale is in my yard, I'm hoping to get as much kale as possible :).  I'll keep this updated with pictures and all that in it's very own post as things progress

I got some more basil and cilantro planted out in the front yard.  The mint in the front yard is growing well, and one of them isn't, it's odd.  But today I picked some mint, about 5 or 6 sprigs, and boiled them in a few cups of water to have my first herbal tea from the mint.  It's pretty good stuff, with just a little honey.

I'll keep everyone updated with images and all that, but it's been a while since my last post.

Garlic Scapes :) and Garlic flowers

My Martin's Heirloom Garlic bulbils have been growing really well, and pretty much all of them have scapes (well, they did until I cut them all off and attempted to make garlic scape pesto).

I've been reading up how to get garlic to go to seed (not a normal process, normally they go to bulbils or whatever it's called).  I decided to take a few pictures of the process.

One of the things that I've found is that scapes are smaller than i thought, they're a little bigger than a spagetti noodle, but not much.  The heads at the end are about the size of an eraser when I pulled off the outer protecting and began pulling the bulbils out 1 by 1.  It's a hard process, especially with the mosquitoes, and often ends up in a few of the flower heads falling off.  But in the end the bulbils are plucked out and the flowers are left so that they can grow and become seeds.  I'm hopeful that they'll get better and better about going to flower so that i won't have to pull the bulbils out as much.

Anyway, here are the pictures:

Here you can see the scapes on all the garlic.  Note that
because they're bulbils i've been able to place them very very close together.

This is what it looks like before I start pulling
off the bulbils.  I have to cut through the outer
protective layer, and then pluck off the bulbils
one by one.

See how small those little flower buds are?  it's difficult to remove the
bulbils without pinching out the flowers as well.

This is the finished product.  There might be 1 or 2 bulbils deep in
there, hopefully some of the flowers still go to seed.

All in all it takes me about 5 minutes or so a garlic scape.  I've done about 9 of these, and I left on 4 or 5 to grow to bulbils and the rest I cut off to make pesto out of.  It's been a fun little project.

Pictures from the garden, early 2013 - radishes, onions,blueberries, and beets (going to seed)

Hey, I just wanted to get together a bunch of the photos i've been taking here and there in the mornings as I wander round the garden.

Newly planted blueberry bush from lowes (it's now got some
blueberries on it, though i'm not sure if i should pick them off or not, i'll have to look)

My other new blueberry bush

This is a new method i'm trying (lots of work, but it's fun).  The cardboard holds the cups steady, and they're inside a normal black planter box.  These cups have been growing really really well for me.  At some point i'll show you the tomato plants downstairs. These are green peppers, sage, and daisies.

Radishes always do great :).  You can see some of the red bulbs
if you zoom into the picture.  I'm going to leave as many as I can,
6 or 8, to go to seed so i can get radish sprouts.  Sorry about the shadow :) it's early morning

The spinach is starting to come up.  Will have to
thin them a little when I find out which ones are the strongest

I'm happy with the shallots, they're doing well.

This shallot only has 1 onion, but it's the largest stalk by far.
It's even got a little scape growing on it (that's what it's called
for garlic :) not sure what it's called for onions)

these 3 beets are getting ready to start the year

Notice this picture a week or so after the one before,
it's growing well.  These are beets in their 2nd year going to seed.

This is what the early stages of a beet flower looks like.  The beets
are full of these little flower heads getting ready to burst.  Should
get plenty of seeds out of these 3 beets.

Growing Green onions in a cup

A few weeks ago my wife bought some green onions from the store.  We cut off the green tops and usually throw away the bottoms with the short roots.  I read somewhere that you can simply put those in water and they'll grow another set of greens no problem.  So I decided to try it out.  That was about a month a go or less.  We've since harvested another full set of green tops, and today we're getting ready to cut them off again because they're so high.

Here's a picture of how they look today, they're about 1 ft tall again, any one can do this, it's super easy.  We just used the green onions we get from the store.  I'll take another picture when we get ready to cut them once again so you can see the timing.

Could be easier.  Here's harvest number 2. 12-22-2012

12-22-2012 right after the harvest, this is how much we cut back each time

Planting Egyptian Walking Onions

I can here my friends saying, but Joe you don't live in Egypt, why would you want onions that walk there? :) Cause they're cool that's why.

What is an egyptian walking onion?
It's basically an onion that grows tall, and then grows bulbils (see my posts on garlic, bulbils are nearly seeds, but not :)) on it's scape (that's a garlic term, hopefully it's right for these too).  These bulbils get pretty large, the size of small marbles is what the pictures make them look like.  As these bulbils start to grow, right on the top of the other onion, they get so heavy that the onion falls over allowing the bulbils to get roots.  So they travel by growing tall, falling over, and growing their own bulbils, and on and on.

What are they good for?
EWOs are extremely hardy, they'll often grow in the dead of winter, frozen ground, pushing up through the snow even.  They make a slightly strong green onion basically.  As they get big enough, you can pick the bulbs which sometimes become as big as a shallot.  Also the bulbils can be used like pearl onions in soups and what not.  So why have them?  Because the provide lots of hardy onions that continue to grow without your attention, rain or shine, snow or heat.

This post will be where I keep my log.  I started the small bulbils (i was surprised at how small they were, we'll how :)) indoors, and I'll keep a log here of their growth, with pictures.

I bought them on ebay, of course, and they arrived on 12-05-12 and were promptly planted :)

Log:
12-05-2012: Planted 54 walking onions
12-09-2012 (day 4): First tiny sprout
12-10-2012 (day 5): #2
12-11-2012 (day 6): #3
12-14-2012 (day 9): #4, 5 and 6

Pictures:

Taken 12-14-2012
This is #2 (and you can almost see #4 below it)

Planting Multiplier or Potato Onions INDOORS

First, here's a link that people should read if they don't know what potato onions are.  It's a bit long, but it explains how the particular breed i'm trying to make came from.  This is Kelly Winterton's onions that he's been putting together.

Here's a google doc that Kelly is keeping up to date

On 12-03-2012 I planted 36 Multiplier Onion seeds, in a small seeding tray, and many of them are starting to show signs of life.

This is the post i'm using to keep track of the entire growth.  I'll show all pictures here and a log from day to day of what has done what.

Pictures (i'll keep these up to date, hopefully at least weekly)

Right now they look like normal onions :) just wait a couple of years.

Log (i'll keep this up to date):

12-03-2012: Planted 36
12-09-2012 (6 days): First sprout (this one since isn't doing so hot, too bad), later that night, #2 and 3 came
12-11-2012 (8 days): #4, 5 and 6
12-12-2012 (9 days): #7
12-13-2012 (9 days): #8, 9, and 10
12-14-2012 (10 days): #11

Planting Martin's garlic bulbils

I've gone slightly crazy since i first started learning about garlic.  I've found a variety called Martin's Heirloom Garlic, and it seems pretty exciting.  The bulbs are some of the largest ones, and the bulbils themselves are the largest i've seen.

How do bulbils work?
A bulbil is kind of like a seed for garlic.  It's not true seed, I might talk about true seeds later as I try to get garlic to grow some, it's a cumbersome process but will allow me to "breed" my own personal garlic type.  But bulbils are exact copies of the parent, so they will grow to be the same basic garlic bulb.  The only difference between cloves and bulbils is that bulbils can take 3 years to grow properly.  Well this is year one :).  Martin's are said to only require 2 years to grow, so that's exciting.

Here's a picture of some of the bulbils I got in the mail today (planting tomorrow)

They're like large corn kernels.  Very nice, i'm excited to see how they do, and I'll keep you guys up to date.

Why would you want to grow from bulbils?
If bulbils take 2 or 3  years to grow, and cloves only take 1 year, why would you want to do bulbils?  From most hard neck garlic you get anywhere from 4 to sometimes as many as 12 cloves.  On the other hand, if you let them go to "seed" and grow bulbils, you can get the same 4 to 12 cloves (though depending on the type they'll be smaller) and you also can get 15, 30, or sometimes as much as 100 bulbils.  Honestly though, to me the main reason to do bulbils is because they're way way cheaper to start :), and that's a great way to start into something you're not yet sure you'll be good at.

I'll add another picture when I get them planted, and hopefully a few throughout the season as they grow, and definitely pictures at the end of the season to show what the harvest is like :).


UPDATE Saturday Dec 1, 2012

I got them planted, they took up almost 4ft x 4ft.  I planted several bulbils inside under my grow lights, these will take the place of any that may die in the ground this year.  If all of them make it :) then i guess i'll take room from somewhere else :).

Here's some pictures of the finished product.

This is where my peas were last year, we'll be planting them in the rows this year that my wife is planning on working in.  Note the "tool" that i'm using here.  It's a dowel that I have measured out nicely to help with planting plants that need 8in, 2in, or 16in spacing.  It also happens to be the right size to fit martin's bulbils in.  I found it much easier to poke all the holes at once rather than one at a time.

I'll take more pictures as the garlic grows.

New pictures :).  These are the ones I planted in doors.  Here's the data:

11-30-12: Planted 36 Martin's Garlic indoors

12-10-12 (10 days): First martin sprouted

12-12-12 (12 days): 2nd and 3rd sprouted

12-14-12 (14 days): 4th and 5th sprouted.

Here are pictures as of 12-14-12:

A little blurry, these are #2 on the
left, and #1 on the right.

About 2 or so inches tall

They're doing pretty good so far, we'll see how it goes.

Learning about / and Planting Garlic and Shallots

Well this year hasn't really gone as planned.  Turns out i'm about as lazy as I thought i'd be :).  However, I've learned quite a bit about gardening.  First and foremost saving seeds, if you're lazy, is actually very easy :).  For the most part all I have to do is not do anything, until the seed pods turn all brown and die.  It's very easy.  I've saved Coriander (cilantro), Basil, and Peas, all of which were easy and fun to do (and my kids loved helping).

So the season is over right?  Well, not exactly.  It's time to plant your shallots and garlic.  Garlic planting is one of those that you plant early in the winter, as close to the last frost as possible, though this date varies depending on where you look, next year I'll let you know if Nov. 10th was the right date next summer :).  Garlic will get roots before it freezes too much, and the deeper freeze will tell the clove that it's time to multiply.  This will make for a better head next year.  Shallots, which are in the same basic family as onions and garlic, work very much the same way.

My Crop this Year
So i planted out about 50 or 60 garlic plants in a 4ft x 4ft area in my garden, which should be replaced by a fall crop next summer.  I also ordered some hard neck garlic (doesn't store as well, but is supposed to taste better) from ebay, we'll see how it works out.  Ideally with garlic, after your first year you shouldn't need to buy seed again unless you get a soil disease or something.  So possibly I'll be able to give garlic seeds to anyone in the area next year if they're interested.  I'll be planting the garlic, and the shallots I just bought on ebay, as soon as they arrive.

Seeding Garlic
Although for the most part garlic is planted by growing cloves, there's another way to do it which is very much like letting the plants go to seed.  The garlic will create a large pod which will contain several small garlic cloves, called bulbils.  These bulbils have the added benefit of not having soil born diseases, so saving some of these each year increases your chances of never losing your crop entirely.  But what's the drawback?  Bulbils take 2-3 years to grow :).  The 1st year they'll grow into 1 or 2 cloves, then several small cloves, and then finally they'll be full grown.

So why grow bulbils at all?  There's really not a reason not to.  If you leave 1 in 5 of your garlic to go to seed, you can still eat the left over bulb, though some people say that they can be smaller than normal.  You can also eat the bulbils as small garlic cloves if you really want to.  They really are just small cloves, and will likely taste the same.  So growing bulbils is a way to further your crop, so why not :).

Evidently Shallots aren't as nice, and unless you get the right variety they don't grow bulbils or seed at all.  So for now, shallots will be from "cloves" each year.  Though they multiply so they should keep for years to come.  And since they're so expensive at the store :) it's worth the investment.


UPDATE 12-8-2012
Rather than adding a new post, i figured i'd just update this one throughout the year with how things are going, though I imagine when I get pictures that'll change :).

I just bought 3oz of Music Garlic cloves off ebay, got them today, and planted out.  Turned out being 30 cloves, so i have 5 rows of 6, they're 8 inches apart.  I'm really looking forward to these, i've read many posts that say this taste the best and are great for roasting and spreading on bread.

Saving Seeds - and why you might want to

What is it?
Saving seeds is nothing more than saving seeds from your plants so that you don't have to buy more next year.  It's easier than you might think, especially for some of the plants.  In general all it requires is letting the plant go to seed (it's normal process), and then harvesting the seeds at the right time.  Very simple, but of course there are a few caveats.

Why would I want to?
Well, if saving a few bucks doesn't seem like reason enough :), the reason i'm planning on it is to create a plant that is more tuned to my personal garden.  When you save seeds you pick the ones that did the best, or lasted the longest, or tasted the best, etc.  Doing so, means that their children should have those improvements as well, and then saving their best children, and so on, means that you're fine tuning a plant that is perfect for you.  It's basically small evolution, survival of the plant that you think is the fittest.  For some plants, it's easy to do, so why not :).

How do I save seeds?
This section will have to be split up by plant, and i'll add pictures and videos as they're taken/found.  I find that pictures and videos really tell the story.  However, like other sites have done, I'm planning on splitting the plants into difficulty levels.  There will likely be some copying from other sites, i'll try and link whenever I do, but a lot of what i'm coming up with comes from having learned from the sites and just writing down what i remember.  The basic organization is taken from http://www.seedsave.org/issi/issi_904.html.  And I give them tons of credit, because they go over much everything that you'll need.  So why do my own?  1 - to simplify what's on that site, and 2 - to add my own pictures and experience to the picture.

The plants are split up into 3 main groups.  1- Beginner, 2 - Experienced, and 3 - Expert

Beginner are basically those plants that you can harvest the seed without any real planning.  You grow the plant, and either just harvest the seeds (in the case of tomatoes), or do a basic step (like leaving the fruit on the vine, in the case of peas, beans, and peppers).  These seeds are simply easy to harvest.

Experienced is mostly just those plants where you have to worry about cross pollination.  Meaning if you're growing 2 different types of cucumbers, you can't really save the seeds, because the children will be a "mut" of the 2 types, and will be unpredictable.

Expert is, for the most part, those seeds that are biennial, requiring 2 years to get the seeds, and sometimes special procedures to keep the plant alive over the winter.  These also require you to be mindful of cross polination, so, for example, you wouldn't want to save cabbage seeds the same time you're saving brussels sprouts, because they are in the same species.

IN ALL CASES YOU SHOULD SAVE SEEDS FROM 6 OR MORE PLANTS IF YOU HOPE TO SAVE SEEDS "FOREVER"


How do I store seeds?
This section really should go after the saving seeds for each plant, but I figured I'd put it here as a reference for saving the seeds from below.  Seeds germinate by being in a nice toasty place with good moisture (in general).  Which means, that in order to store the seeds you need to do the opposite.  You want a nice, cool, dark, dry place to store them.  There are 2 perfect places in every household, though if you save a lot of seeds it may not be practicel.  It is?  The fridge and freezer.  Storing them in the freezer will make them good for many years, the fridge as well (though technically not as many years).  This is the optimal place, but not always doable.  Just remember that the colder it is, the better chances it has of leaving good seeds when you go to plant it.  So a basement would work better than a garage (unless it's winter, in which case maybe the garage is better).

Saving Seeds - The individual plants




Beginner:
Beans and Peas
Leave the beans and peas on the vine/bush until they grow brown and the outside is brittle.  Then, simply pull the seeds out.

Lettuce
Most people don't like when their lettuce "bolts" meaning it gets really tall and flowers.  However, this is basically the plant just going to seed.  To save the seeds, wait til the plant flowers, and then the flowers close up and get a white cotton end looking.  Then, either pull up the whole plant, and harvest the seeds, or cut off the groups of flowers that are ready and let the rest finish.

To get the seeds, take the little flower pods, and rub them in your fingers, and 6+ seeds will come out.  Kinda messy :), and a little tedious, but you get tons of seeds.

Note - the trickiest part here is that you want the lettuce that bolts latest (at least usually that's what people want), or the one that is ready to eat the earliest, which is also usually the plants you want to still be eating :).  Maybe you can grab the 2nd to last :).

Pepper 
Leave them on the vine a little until they're fully ripe.  Usually that means they turn red (even green peppers), once they are, open them up and save the seeds.  The seeds have to fully dry out, just leave them on a plate with some dry paper towels or you can make a small screen which is better but more work.  Let them dry out for a week or so somewhere out of the sun.

Tomato 
There are several ways to do tomatoes, some easy, some with better results.  In all cases you gather them when the tomato is at it's best.  Which, to me makes tomato saving the easiest.  When the plant is at it's juiciest, and best flavor, is when you want to pick it anyway.  And that's when the seeds are ready.  The cheater way :) that doesn't get as good of results (not sure the specifics here), is to simply wash them off as best you can, and dry them like pepper seeds.

The more advanced way, which has better results, is to put them in a jar, with all the pulp and everything (everything that's left over when you slice up the tomato for your sandwich) the pulp goo and the seeds, with plastic wrap on the top (with a hole or 2 in it so air can get in/out).  Leave that for 3 or 4 days til it molds really well :) yum.  then, wash them off.  Put them all "under" water, and the ones that don't float are good to be dried.  Then just dry them like normal, and they're ready to go.  Just make sure they are completely dry.  This method removes more of the goo, and makes the seed better at germinating in the following years when the seed is used.


Experienced:
Here's a group of links to seedsave.org for each of the experienced plants:  Or view my shortened version below.  These links are useful for experienced, because they go into what plants are the same species as what.  Very useful with squash and muskmelons.
Corn, Cucumber, Muskmelon, Radish, Spinach, Squash/Pumpkin. 


Corn
Other than worrying about other corn plants around, which if you're worried about genetically modified plants is a real worry, corn is easy.  Simply leave a cob on 6 or more plants, until they get completely dry.  Then pull off the cobs, pull out the kernels, and save them.  Corn is really really bad at cross pollinating.  If you live within a few miles of GMO (genetically modified) plants, then chances are that you aren't going to be able to save them without getting those modifications in yours.  Sorry.


Cucumber
This is a lot like peppers.  You do need to be sure that there is only your 1 type of cucumber around, within a few hundred feet at least, but other than that you simply leave a cucumber on the wine per plant until it gets all yellow.  Then save the seeds from that cucumber by cutting itup (using a knife all the way through the plant will likely cut up some of the seeds, which isn't ahuge problem, but it means you have to pick those out, which can be annoying), and then just wash the seeds and let them dry.

Muskmelon - I don't grow these :) you'll have to look it up.  The link above splits these into all the species, which is really excellent.  

Radish
These are basically the same as peas, if you can believe that.  But that's actually something really awesome about radishes, that I just learned.  Radishes when they "bolt", kinda like lettuce, grow splindly little vine things that have tons of seed pods on them.  These pods, when they are green, are actually supposed to be very tasty, basically a pea pod with a slight radish flavor to it.  When the pods are allowed to grow brown, then you can simply harvest the seeds like peas.  Though the seeds are tiny.

note - because we're supposed to save seeds from 6 or more plants, this makes a perfect compromise.  Because that means you save like 10 or 20 pods per plant, and eat the rest as green pods. Meaning very little waste.  I'm actually tempted to grow a few radishes this year specifically for pods, simply to see what the yield is like, and how good they really are.

Another note - radish, as well as most other plants that bolt, get really tall, and take up much more room when you let them go to seed.  You should give them a good sq ft per plant, which will require a little planning depending on how/where you plant them.  I'm only planning on 2 sq ft, so this might prove to be a little of a challenge.  I'll see how it works to let 4 go to seed in the same sq ft :).  And let you know.

Spinach
Spinach works just like lettuce, the only thing to worry about here is that there is only 1 type of spinach because they cross pollinate.  I'm not sure what the site means per sey, but it also says that you should have 1 male plant per ever 2 female plants.  Not sure how to tell the difference if there is one.  I'm assuming that just means leave groups of 3, and give them at least 8" of space.

Squash/Pumpkin
View the link above to find out which plants mix with which.  Evidently acorn squash and zucchini mix :( so I won't be able to save seeds from them this year.  Other than that these are saved a lot like cucumbers.  They need to be allowed to fully ripen, depends on the plant, and then cut open and washed and allowed to dry.

Expert:
I left the links here too to determine species that cross-pollinate.

Beet/Swiss Chard, Cabbage Family, Carrot, Escarole/Frissee, Onion,Radicchio/Endive, Turnip/Chinese Cabbage

I'm not going to list each of these out til i've actually tried them.  There are youtube videos for most, and some, like carrots, are actually quite easy to do.  However they grow to be extremely tall, which can make them difficult (being that usually they're not placed in the garden with height in mind).  However they can be moved.  

For the most part these are simply bienniels which means that they need to be left in the ground.  However, some, like cabbage, are better to dig up, and store in a root celler or garage over the winter so they don't freeze.  The next year the plant will go to seed, and you can collect them like any other.

One thing to note is the cabbage family.  It includes broccoli, brussels sprout, cauliflower, cabbage and kale.  So you may have to worry about what to grow what year.  


Most all of these you save your fall plantings, since it needs to go through a given number of hours below 40 degrees.

Basic Succession Planting - Attempt 1

For those interested, here is my Crazy Spreadsheet :) where you can see how I got to the numbers below.

If you're interested I think you can download a copy from there, and just put in your own seeds, and own data.

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How to get a basic set of "free" plantings

Step 1 - Find out when things need to be planted
I've been collecting data and building a cool spreadsheet specifically for my neighborhood (well, specifically for my zone).  While doing so I found specific dates where things are supposed to be planted.  You can also do this based off the first frost date, but Missouri's extension of the Department of Agriculture did that for me :).

Step 2 - Find out when things can be harvested
On the back of the packet, gives me days til harvest.  Using this and the planting date gives me the "harvest" day, or the date where I can pull it out of the ground (give or take).  Note - This isn't a guaranteed date or anything, you may have to leave them in and plant later or just harvest young plants to plant.  Only thing lost though would be the seeds (assuming you compost the plants :)) if you pick them too early to eat.

Step 3 - Put them together
Find the latest date that things get planted.  For example, for me tomatoes are planted 5/10 (tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, peppers and squash).  That's the last thing that I plant (other than my fall crops), and so 5/10 is the date I'm looking for.  I use this date to find anything that will be harvested before that date.  Which included things like radishes, spinach, and lettuce.  So i can get a free crop of any of those plants, by using the space that will be used by the other.  If you look in my lists below I'll give you an example.  I then look for the first thing to be harvested, which is of course radishes, and get all the plants that need to be planted after that day (see the list below if this is confusing).  I have 2 groups, one things that are harvested early, and one list where things are planted late.

Example: Corn is planted on 4/25, and radishes and mustard greens are harvested on or before 4/24.  So i can fill that 4ft x 4ft section with radishes and mustard greens.  Rather than just leave the space to waste.  I would probably also plant some blacked seeded simpson and just either way a little to plant the corn, or harvest it a little early.  Or just plant the corn with the lettuce still growing, since lettuce like shade anyway.  Tomatos are planted on 5/10, so I can plant anything in my top list (i'll probably do the bok choy) and they'll be out of the ground in time for the tomatoes to go in.

Here are my lists:

Plant Type Date to Harvest

radish cherry belle  4/6
radish icicle, short top  4/12
spinach mustard tendergreen  4/24
lettuce black seeded simpson  4/29  
extra dwarf bok choy bok choy  5/4
spinach bloomsdale  5/7
beet detroit dark red 5/13 (included just because hopefuly i can get a crop in, and i like beets more than most of the others :), they're easy to can if I get too many all at once)


Plant Type Date to Plant


garden bean top crop  4/15
peppermint/spearmint  4/15
corn golden bantam  4/25
bean - string blue lake (bush)  5/1
cucumber ashley  5/5
zucchini black black beauty  5/10
eggplant black beauty  5/10
tomato rutgers  5/10
green pepper california wonder 5/10
tomato super boy hybrid 785  5/10
squash waltham butternut  5/10
squash table queen  5/10
tomato beefsteak?  5/10

So my plans are to get a few extra things of spinach, and bok choy,  and mustard greens, and probably learn how to freeze the greens.  But most of the space, for the tomatoes, squash, green peppers etc, will go to beets.  So may will hopefully prove to be a large canning month :).

This is my first year, and hopefully i'll get this more fine tuned.  Things for me to look into.  I keep most plants in my soil blocks before I plant them, and this time probably bumps back their harvest date.  This means that in theory several other plants can be planted and harvested in time.  So hopefully next year I'll get a better variety of extra plants.

My 2012 Garden Plan in detail

Basic Layout
I've gotten a complete layout of what to plant, using growveg.com's ipad app.  It's not the most impressive thing ever, but after 30 minutes of frustration I got it done :).

That's the layout.  It might be slightly difficult to read, but it shows everything.  Notice the layout itself. I chose this layout so that I could:

• Have 2 feet of walking space around each grow bed
• Only have 2 feet of reaching distance for any plant in the entire garden (which is why the boarder is 2ft)
• Also, around the borders will be fences (otherwise i'd have made them 4ft too  :))

Plants I've chosen

It's a pretty large list, once you get started it's hard not to just plant everything you have a seed for, and i've done close to that :).  So here's the list:

• ROW 1
• Beefsteak Tomatos - 8 sq ft, with the trellis.  These are indeterminate, meaning they need to grow up something.  A determinate tomato (or a bush tomato) will be nice for next year when using crop rotation.
• Carrots - Carrots love Tomatos, using companion planting, i put a row next to the tomatos these will probably also be in with the tomatos as they're supposed to help them.
• Green Onions - I found an interesting trick with green onions.  You can plant green onions from the store, after cutting off the green, and they just grow more green every 2 weeks.  You can get like 4 or 5 cuttings.  Worth a try while the seeds grow.  Also, carrots and onions go well together because onions scare off carrot flies.
• Broccoli - 18 sq ft, broccoli need more room, this should be enough for 6 or so plants.  Hope to see how the seeding works on these
• Beets - Beet greens are great for eating, and i'll probably end up canning several of the beets themselves, and hopefully juicing several of them.
• Acorn Squash - I would need 2 plants, but I also planted zucchini which is in the same family (which means i can't save the seeds from either one)
• Cucumbers - will setup a small trellis on the side of the grow bed.
• Oregano - Good for the plants around, scares off the bad bugs
• Radishes - 2 sqft only because i have them, who knows how we'll eat that many :).  i do hope to save seeds from at least 4 or 5 of these plants though
• Spinach - these should be nice and sweet
• Peas - need to plant those soon, early march, will setup some string for them to hang onto.
• ROW 2
• Rutger Tomatos (roma size) - 8 sq ft, with the trellis
• Green Peppers
• Carrots - see above
• Onions - see above, though these ones will be allowed to grow to be bigger 2" bulbs.  You can do 2" or 4", but 2" makes for more yield (evidently), and smaller onions are better since who uses a full onion :).
• Extra Dwarf Bok Choy - These i'm just growing because of how cool they are :).  They grow to be about 2 - 3 inches tall, and they're just tiny bok choy plants.  Will be great in stir fry, or just as a steamed vege.  This is the cabbage family plant I hope to get seeds from this year (only 1 cabbage family should be seeded a year)
• Brussel Sprouts - I'm interested to see how these do.  I probably won't plant them a lot, but maybe if they do well
• Kale - I heard from a friend that these are an awesome edition to a meal, they add almost a meaty texture to a dish and this last year they grew all through the winter (though with our winter this year even tomatos might have lived that long :)).
• onions and carrots - mostly carrots, I'd like to get enough to juice some.  I do want to learn how to do the biointensive companion planting, which I might discuss when I go to actually plant these.  
• Swish Chard - Another green which hopefully i'll be able to juice, and find other ways to cook.  Mainly just checking to see what all grows well, as I hope to eventually get a year round crop of greens for salads
• Tom Thumb Head Lettuce - Just got these free from the place that sold me the Bok Choy, and these are smaller heads of lettuce, which sounds really cool :).  They're about baseball size, and from the ratings they're perfect for a 1 person salad, which my wife does a lot :).  I will definitely be collecting seeds from these
• ROW 3
• Corn - 16 sq ft, on the north side so that they don't shade the other plants.  I hope to see how these do in a square foot garden.  I'm not expecting much, but if they do well, then I will probably continue to plant them.
• Parsley - Does well with corn, and is good for the garden in general for bugs.  I really look forward to being able to pick fresh parsley for spagetti sauce.
• Cilantro - Not that well known of a fact but coriander and cilantro are the same plant.  Generally Coriander is considered to be the seed in America, but really most places call the entire plant coriander (cilantro is spanish).  I hope to be growing a lot of these to seed :).
• Bush Beans, I have 2 sets of these in this row because they work well with a few different things.  These will be great fresh, and canned.  They need to be picked early and often so they produce full amount.  I also hope to inoculate 1 set but not the other.  It's not a great test, but hopefully it will show if inoculating legumes makes much of a difference.  It's supposed to make the plant better for composting (helps the plant pull more nitrogen from the air, which is what plants like to eat), and make more yield.
• Lettuce - 2 types, 1 a headed lettuce, and 1 a leaf lettuce (pick leaves as you go).  Will be interesting to see which one is better for how we use it.
• radishes - i know i know, but I have 2 different types, have to try them both out.
• stevia - evidently these are hard to germinate, we'll see how the soil blockers do.  Should be nice in a an herbal tea to sweeten it up.
• eggplant - my wife loves egg plant, and we'd really like to learn how to cook it.  These are just the normal Black Beauty ones, if we find good ways to eat it, then we'll probably try out more types.  Easy to save the seeds too which is a plus.
• zucchini - I almost got away with not growing these :).  But they're a classic part of a garden, and my wife likes to cook them into zucchini bread, so I gave in.
• mustard - should make for some really good greens, and it'll be interesting to learn how to get the seeds from them.
• butternut squash - I love this stuff :).

Strawberry Beds

I have the strawberries all around the whole thing.  Seemed like the best use of the 2ft space :).  This will allow them to branch out and fill the whole space.  I do plan on adding a few onions to the beds to keep out pests.  I also added some Basil, Garlic, Marigold, and Mint which do excellent jobs of not only blocking out lots of pests, but also making really excellent food :).  The mint and basil are also going to be planted throughout the garden to help.  Here and there.  For example, the green peppers and tomatos love basil, so there will be a plant next to them.

Things to think about in the Future

With the layout I have the plants are close to those things that they work well with, and I tried to make them far away from those things they aren't.  However, it gets even more tricky next year and the next.  I will want to rotate the crops so that the same type of crop isn't in the same place.  I'll need 4 different rotations (should be fun) which should keep down diseases and pests (bugs will lay their eggs near the plants they like, and when the plants aren't there next year they don't do as well). 

Another thing to think about is when things need to be planted, and what to do with the land before and  after.  I hope to plant most of the spring plants again in the same places in the fall after adding more compost.  This will hopefully give me 2 full sets of crops, which will be nice.  Succession planting, another thing I'd like to learn more about in the future.

Future Blog Posts

• Saving Seeds - I'll make a different post for every plant I save.  I should have plenty of video and pictures of the process (hopefuly).
• Planting - I'll show u the garden before and after, and how the biointensive layout works
• Composting - I found a cheap place to buy great compost near by, but I also want to compost any left overs each year.  This is where I differ from normal biointensive gardening, but doing so allows me to grow more veges :).
• More Soil Blocking - I'll have pictures of starting the seeds in the 3/4" blocks
• And More ...