Janice Foss

Although I'm not a garden beginner, this is sort of a beginner type of question.

How to set up a daily schedule for harvesting from the garden and immediately using the produce for the most nutritional benefit?


After 14 years in this location, I'm really getting my garden infrastructure finalized and getting much more organized about starting plants, growing food, succession plantings, etc. Now I'm going to be producing even more vegetables and fruit. In the past, always behind, I'd do a huge harvest, a huge processing into cooking and freezing and pickling, and it took a lot of time and a lot of work to process each batch, and sometimes some of it would have to go into the compost because I just couldn't manage to do it before the produce faded. I've been re-reading some of the Colemans' books, but couldn't find ideas on this topic. I do have some great timesavers of cooking produce, storing immediately in mason jars which seal, and it keeps fresh in the fridge. Same for the denser parts of a salad mix, only cold.

For instance today, I have time for harvest, but not time for food prep. But I really need to harvest, so I'll stash it in the fridge, losing nutrients. The reality is that I don't have time to do more than minimal prep 3x/day. I do have time to prepare from scratch 2x/week, so I make a lot each time and eat pre-made from scratch food all week.

The weather is getting warm now, so I'll have a morning routine of watering and surveying the garden. Time to add the next steps.

How do you do it?

I wonder if tree collards/kale would work if planted deep in a hugel? I have a different climate, but we have been having drought for the last number of years, and they are robustly perennial and self-propagating here. They love our minimal frosts and freezes. In a former hugel, I let them grow wildly, so they were fairly thick in the bed. When I refreshed the hugel bed periodically, I would cover over any straggling branches with organic material/soil/compost/woodchips and the branches would simply become part of the structure of the bed and produce more roots. Truly em-bedded! They don't like drought, but have survived, even when I re-did the bed and they were roughly heeled in and neglected in a temporary location--even the few that looked dead mostly revived. If you cut them back to little stubs, they look like never coming back, but in a few months they're going strong. The leaves are smaller than if one planted them far apart, but still respectable  for a conventional garden plant. Also, growing them closer (and shorter) like this, they form their own little colony and conserve their community moisture. I mostly have purple tree collards, and when the frost hits them they turn more purple and get sweeter. The worst problem I have with them is not harvesting soon enough (like months after they were ready) and the leave verrrry gradually degrade from salad/stir-fry grade to soup grade to good-for-mulch/compost.

I wonder if there could be a way to use this concept to keep my greenhouse warmer in cold weather? Plenty of damp soil in containers and buckets.

I would love more clarity on the toxicity question involving fresh elderberry juice WITH SEEDS REMOVED--by crushing berries GENTLY then straining with a fine sieve. (I actually crush in a coarse sieve, then run it through a fine strainer to catch and remove the seeds.)

One article I read said they use fresh elderberry juice to make herbal remedies then dose it in small quantities. I have made and used elderberry elixir with no ill effects. I tincture raw berries in brandy or cognac (tastier and sweeter than vodka!--unless you love vodka) then doing several rounds of adding berries and/or juice til I have an elixir with lots of color and taste--no additional sweetening needed. There is just enough alcohol (which is still a lot) to keep the elixir from fermenting inappropriately. I take doses from a spoon to a swig, although someone I gifted elixir to (with a higher alcohol tolerance) drank more at a time.

I did some more internet research, and this is the first time I've seen articles about elderberry juice itself being a concern. Always before, articles just mentioned seeds, stems, and leaves as the issue. Why the change?

I realize cooking is the safest option. There is cooking for 15-20 minutes, which destroys a lot of the antioxidants but renders the seeds edible, then there's cooking the juice for 10 minutes,  which supposedly reduces the antioxidants by 10%, then there's pasteurizing, which is bringing it to 160 degrees F for 15 seconds, more to prevent bacterial contamination.

But what about
(a) raw Juice used immediately when fresh, and
(b) elixirs made either with fresh juice or fresh berries later strained out?

This year, I have a lovely bunch of home-grown California native black elderberries, and I made a small amount of raw juice by crushing the raw berries gently in a strainer. Tastes great and sweet just plain. I would love to do this with more of my elderberries. I already have a bunch of the elixir from last year, and I would like to use some without alcohol or vinegar. I feel like the fresh , raw juice has more healing qualities, but I also don't want to harm myself or anyone else.

Further clarity would be much appreciated!!

I saw this thread and wanted to add my mostly successful experience of getting rid of Bermuda grass (BG). Some years ago, I had a small area completely overgrown with BG. On the internet there were only sad stories. Finally, I came across one snippet in a cover crop review on groworganic.com (Peaceful Valley Farm Supply), in which someone mentioned success using red cowpeas. I was stoked! I hired a strong guy to pick-axe, etc., the area with the BG. Then I spent several days painstakingly sorting through all that and removing all the BG I could. I mixed red cowpeas with a cover crop mix that had annual rye and sowed it VERY THICKLY across the whole area. From time to time for several years I would go through and pull any isolated BG snippets that were starting. I alternated cool weather cover crops and tomatoes with a woodchip pathway in summers. I finally transitioned to a permanent planting of California natives with a woodchip pathway. The woodchips were also helpful in keeping the BG sun-starved and weak.

There are a couple of edges where a few BG strands still survive--where the roots are below a concrete slab. I planted Lippia (Phyla nodiflora) a spreading low California native groundcover near one such area, and after few years, the BG has disappeared from that spot.

It was really a successful strategy, starting from the first year of the red cowpeas treatment. It's been maybe 5 or 6 years, and there's only a couple of those concrete edge spots still minimally active. I patrol the area every year, but it's been awhile since I've seen any BG anywhere except those edge spots. In writing this post, I realized I should plant Lippia near the other infested edge spots and see if that will smother it.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts on beans for green beans and beans for seed.

It sounds like:

Best Practice--set some plants aside  just for seed
2nd best-- let them make seeds first to get better seed, then use for green beans
and
Get more green beans this way but maybe not first quality seed -- pick grren beans then save seeds
or
the Hey if it works, go for it method.

I really appreciate hearing the diversity of ideas and what works for everyone, and am always in awe of the generosity of folks with a lot of experience on this forum.

I'm not a beginning gardener but I am a beginner with pole beans. How do you know when in the growing year to switch from picking pole beans green to letting them form seeds for saving?  I imagine a lot of people do this, but I can't find anything anywhere that addresses this.  And my understanding is that once you stop picking them all the time, they will stop producing very many new beans.  I guess the same question goes for a bush beans. I've grown them for years, but haven't saved seeds on purpose before. I know some people grow plants just for seeds, but in my small garden I typically harvest them for a while and then let them form seeds.

Yes, these are outside on a  set of plastic shelves.

I didn't get them planted until January when it was already beginning to warm up. (Farmer's almanac says last frost on January 20.)  Compared to other climate zones, we have very mild winter weather, but even in cold climates, winter sowers can leave the containers out in the snow.  I've seen posts and blogs about that.  Usually, people use plastic jugs so plants have room to grow taller, but given our mild climate I figured these would work. You leave the lid on ( with holes punched) so it keeps moisture and warmth in.  I believe the method was originally developed by Trudi Greissle Davidoff.  Her website is wintersown.org.

I have been fascinated by winter sowing for years, but this is the first year I  got my feet wet with some tomato seeds. We buy nuts at the farmers market in these plastic containers that are not tall, but otherwise make a wonderful little greenhouse.  

As far as I am concerned, spring in my area of California arrives in January,  compared to where I grew up in Northwest Kansas--
(CLIMATE RANT:) back when it was hot in the summers and cold in the winters and  Low humidity  in every season unless there was active precipitation. Now it can be 20° F one day and 60° the next day in the middle of the winter time.  Due to climate change and I'm told,  everyone planting corn ( which they used to say we couldn't grow in our area ), it's much more humid than it used to be.  So spring in January in California is amazing to me.

Anyway, I have had some volunteer tomatoes that start early and do really well. So I figured I would winter sow tomatoes in those short containers (with holes drilled)  and by the time they come up, it wiould be warm enough they could survive.

And so it is. I have had several varieties come up and do fine without the lids on. It's very interesting to me which ones come up first:  Sierra seeds Indian moon, Zanitza, persimmon, yellow pear ( not surprising as it  volunteers all over the place ),  purple bumblebee, and blue fruit. You'd think that Sasha's Altai and possibly Matt'swild cherry would've raised their flags,  but not yet.

This is so exciting to me. I Ihave also been reading about Joseph Lofthouse's  plant shenanigans, William Schlegel's thread on direct sowing, John Indaburgh on  succession planting with tomatoes,  and a bunch of amazing other Permies contributors, and there are much more possibilities then  I ever realized.  I can't wait to  start all kinds of things  outdoors in various ways!

I appreciate each of your responses.  Sometimes it helps to just acknowledge the hard stuff even if there isn't an immediate solution.

Hugo,  I can relate to your community experience. The farming community where I grew up has gotten more politically extreme since I  lived there, and not in a way that seems good to me. And yet most people are really good people in other ways. Very kind and caring. So when I'm visiting there, I  listen and look for things I can agree with,  try not to overreact to mean statements  and plant conversational seeds without expecting much result..  People there are often skeptical towards me but I just try to be cheerful towards everyone  and try to be a balanced example,  and appreciate them for their good qualities.   It seems to calm the hostility, and certainly makes me happier with myself.  But it is stressful to constantly not feel socially safe.

Flora,   Your reminder to not constantly focus on the crisis is so important. I really like your idea to focus on long-term plans. That would help us keep our minds in the bigger picture, the larger sense of ourselves and our general community.  I'm going to do that.

Lou,  I appreciate your good dose of common sense. That temp thingy is a good idea too. I hadn't heard of that. Thanks for mentioning it.