Growing a Vertical Garden

Posted on June 30, 2013 by insidethegardengate

This is the time of year when I wish our garden was just a wee bit larger. Later, of course, I’ll complain that I cannot keep up with this big garden, when the tomatoes will be grasping at my ankles as I walk by, chanting, “Pick me! Pick me now!” In August, I’ll swear that next year I’ll plant exactly three tomato plants, no more, and maybe one sweet banana pepper, period! I’ll have my summer to myself, and my kitchen countertops won’t be covered with vegetables that make a slave of me. But this isn’t August, it’s just teetering on July, and I’m still garden gung-ho, looking for creative ways to put in just a few more plants. As always, I bought more bedding plants than I have room for, and by now I have a nice little family of “volunteer” plants that sprouted in inconvenient places and which I rescued. I begged them not to die as I uprooted them, promising a lovely spot in the Veggie Cage garden…eventually. But so far all they’ve seen is a recycled plastic pot. At this point, they’re starting to glare at me when I pull out the plant trolley each morning. I simply must find more room in this garden.

The answer, of course, is to grow as many of our veggies vertically as their individual natures will allow. We already grow cucumbers on Veggie Cages, because their tendrils allow them to wrap around the spirals and haul themselves heavenward. But what about plants with a giant footprint, like zucchini and squash, which are not natural climbers?

A couple of years ago, one of our customers who gardens in Delaware, a really creative guy named Tomasso, sent us photos of his huge zucchini plants being supported and held up off the ground using Tomato Rings. Really? Zucchini in a Tomato Ring? “The important thing”, he said, “is to install the first Tomato Ring really close to the ground.” This year I decided to give it a try. I still wasn’t sure this was going to work, but he had sent some pics and it seemed to work for him. Here’s how it looked in his garden (top photo below) and in ours:

At first I wasn’t sure if I liked it. A couple of the larger leaves hung over the metal rings, creasing their stems. But as the plant has grown, the crease in the stem doesn’t seem to have any detrimental effect at all. The whole plant is standing upright, rather than sprawling all over the place, making it easy to spot weeds and giving the whole zucchini/squash bed a nice, neat look. A healthy zucchini plant is never going to be petite, but I have to say it does save several inches all the way around. I’m calling this experiment a success.

SPEAKING OF VERTICAL…

If you’re space-challenged in your garden, here’s a fun website devoted to “upward growing”. It’s called “Vertical Gardener”, with the subtitle sentiment, “No yard? No problem.” You can check it out here: http://www.vertical-gardener.com/

VEGGIE CAGE “FRESH-PICKED FACEBOOK GIVEAWAY” IS ALMOST OVER!

If you haven’t entered our last Veggie Cage/Tomato Ring Giveaway of the season, you still have time. Just Like us on Facebook to be entered. The winner will receive their choice of 9 Veggie Cages or 24 Tomato Rings. Contest closes Monday, June 1 at noon, or whenever we come in from the garden.

Garden Stakes — Which Kind is Best?

Posted on April 17, 2013 by insidethegardengate

Staking Your Plants – Which Stake is Right for You?

Customers often ask us for our advice on which type of stake to use with their Veggie Cages and Tomato Rings. The easy part is that the clamp that attaches both the Veggie Cage and the Tomato Rings are identical, so the same stakes will work for both. So here are the pros and cons of 3 types of stakes that would be my first choices. Of course, “real life” happens in gardening a whole lot more often than perfection. So tomorrow we’ll look at using what you already have in your garage.

3/4” Conduit

When we first went from wooden tomato stakes to conduit, I expected to hate it. I’ve always felt there should be a bit of romantic elegance to a garden, no matter what style garden you create. So for me, the look of wooden stakes just seemed like the only really attractive way to go. But I’ve found that when the garden is freshly prepared in the spring and all the conduit stakes are installed in the various beds, their slenderness and gray color really are not jarring on the eye at all. They do look best, however, if you keep them fairly straight up and down. Having them tilted every-which-way can make them look like drunken soldiers.

The first year we trialed the conduit, we installed them in just one bed, using ½” conduit. The next year we kicked it up a notch to the 3/4”, and we liked that better.

You can buy conduit at most home improvement stores. We bought ours at Home Depot, and they cut them for us for free. They come in 10’ lengths, so we asked them to divide the conduit into 7’ and 3’ pieces. The 7’ we use for tomatoes, and the 3’ piece is perfect for all of our peppers (we grow LOTS of peppers) and eggplants. Last year, a really creative customer used a short stake and a Tomato Ring for his zucchini. We’re going to try that this year.

PROS:

Galvanized and extremely long-lasting; doesn’t rust; virtually unbreakable; very light weight; easy to get them out of the ground at the end of the season.
Fairly unobtrusive, especially if they are installed straight and once foliage takes over visually
One divided piece does double duty, for tall and mid-size plants
Super-sturdy; you can pound them into the soil good and deep without damaging them

CONS:

A little more industrial-looking than wooden stakes
Initial cost per each is a bit more than standard wooden stakes

Wooden Stakes

Even though they aren’t top choice in terms of practicality, I still love the look of the old-fashioned, traditional wooden tomato stake. There’s something about it that says “my grandmother’s garden”, and I just happen to love the romance in that. But in talking about wooden stakes, we really need to define our terms. The kind of wooden stakes sold at a lot of lawn and garden outlets, usually 1” x 1” oak, are not a good investment. Even now I can hear that familiar “crack” as the stake you almost had in deep enough gives at the little knot on the side. Nearly all of these flimsy stakes have a knot somewhere, which is where it will – I repeat, will – eventually snap in two. (On the plus side of that, I guess you can always use the largest segment for smaller-growing plants that still need staking.) Additionally, because of the skinniness of these stakes, they tend to warp in the sun, or are already warped when you buy them, and it makes the garden look pretty untidy to have them leaning every which way. I honestly don’t recommend these at all.

If you prefer wooden stakes, the way to go is to get thee to the lumber section of your favorite home improvement store or an actual lumber yard, and have good-quality pine boards ripped into 2”x2” stakes. It’s really not that much more expensive than those use-them-once tomato stakes, and if you don’t abuse them, they should last you 2 seasons or longer, especially if you try to pick out the precut planks with as few knots as possible. Just be a little gentle with them when pulling them out of the soil in the fall.

PROS:

Gives a more organic feel in the garden
If used with a Veggie Cage or Tomato Ring, gives the best possible surface for the screw clamp to grip the stake (although the screw will grip the conduit as well)
If made from sturdy enough wood, should last at least 2 seasons and maybe longer
They’ll remind you of your grandma

CONS:

Even the sturdy ones will eventually rot at ground level or break
Necessary to be more “tender” with them when pounding them into the ground and when removing them in the fall.

Driving In Your Stakes

No matter what kind of stake or plant support you use, you’d like it to remain good and strong after a raucous summer storm, so you’ll want to make sure your stakes are far enough into the soil that they’ll handle some wind abuse. You can use a mallet and a bit of wooden board or even just a mallet for pounding in the stakes, but the idea tool is a galvanized steel post driver. You may use it mostly in the spring, but they’re handy enough to be worth owning. You can pick one up at Lowes for $25.97.

Don’t Forget Our Contest!

Our contest to win free Veggie Cages and Tomato Rings closes at midnight on Friday. So be sure to get your name in the hat. One entry per reTweet, so reTweet as many times as you like. Follow us to win!

Next Blog: Garden Stakes — Using What You Already Have

Snow Peas in the Spring Garden

Posted on April 15, 2013 by insidethegardengate

I’m fairly certain that if you were to take a poll among people who generally like vegetables, asking “What’s your favorite veggie?”, almost no one would say, “snow peas”. I’m not basing this on any kind of scientific study but simply on the response I get from customers when I mention them. People who buy Veggie Cages for the first time often ask, “What else can I grow on a Veggie Cage?” Ooh, so glad you asked! Presentation is everything, so I like to set them up for the big finish by starting my list with the more mundane veggies, the ones that you can get even in the most boring of grocery stores. “Well,” I’ll start out, carefully modulating my voice so as not to tip them off to what’s coming, “you can grow cucumbers, beans, midget varieties of cantaloupe lots of different kinds of climbing flowering vines” (some of which are edible, by the way) “peas” (Getting closer…) “and my very favorite,” (Here it comes…wait for it…) “snow peas!”

This is the point at which there is almost always the same bewildering lack of audible delight on the other end. “Hello,” I want to say, “did you hear me? I said snow peas!”

Hmmm…is it possible that some people aren’t completely sure what a snow pea is? Or have they just never experienced the wonderment of biting into one – slightly undercooked or raw, with a little bit of resistance to the teeth, and that sweet, sweet flavor that’s so good you can just stand in your garden and eat them as you pick. Whether you call them sugar snap peas or edible pod peas (which doesn’t sound nearly as exotic as “snow peas”), they are one of the easiest veggies to grow, with seemingly no attraction for garden pests and not prone to disease.

So for those of you who are open to the notion of falling head-over-heels with a vegetable that you may have never before considered your type, or for those of you who love them but have never tried growing your own, here’s a little pictorial for you on how to set up your garden for a rich man’s bounty of pricey sweet goodness (about $3.00/lb. at Walmart!) for a $.97 packet of seeds. I give you: How to Grow Snow Peas On a Veggie Cage. Ta daaa!

After you’ve prepared your bed, you’ll want to install your Veggie Cage on whatever type of stake you want to use. This is a chance to use those shorter stakes that have broken or were just short to begin with, because even the taller varieties of snow peas don’t get as tall or heavy as most tomato plants do. But they should be at least, say, 4’ to 5’ tall. Attach the clamp to the stake, push in the pointed end to keep it firmly anchored, and sow your seeds all around inside and even outside the bottom ring of the Veggie Cage.

And if you’re using a shorter stake for this, your Veggie Cage won’t extend to its full length, and you may then have 2 rings on the ground, rather than just the bottommost ring. That won’t hurt a thing. Now you’re ready to sow your peas.

Notice that I’ve sown the peas a little thickly. That’s O.K., peas don’t mind being a little bit abundant; it allows them to use not only the Veggie Cage to climb but each other. Sow your seeds all inside the bottom ring and outside as well, keeping the seeds within an inch or 2 from the outer perimeter of the bottom ring, so that the emerging pea seedlings will be able to reach the Veggie Cage and grab on.

Notice in this photo the snow peas do not reach up the entire length of the Veggie Cages. At this stage, the plants are not yet full grown and just starting to get the white flower buds that will eventually be lovely, hanging snow peas. They may or may not ever reach the full height to which I’ve pulled up my Veggie Cages. If they don’t, then I’ll know next year, if I grow the same variety, I can leave my Veggie Cages down a little lower.

So they’re off and climbing! All that’s left for you to do at this point is to keep a little watch to be sure no stem gets left behind and doesn’t climb, then get ready with a nice bowl for picking. You’re going to need one.

Tomorrow we’ll talk about the different types of garden stakes available. Which one is best for you?

FOLLOW US ON TWITTER TO WIN VEGGIE CAGES and TOMATO RINGS!

Our contest continues until the end of this week. Know someone who likes to garden? Follow us on Twitter @veggiecagellc, then re-Tweet our contest Tweet, and we’ll enter you into a drawing!

Grand Prize: 15 Veggie Cages and 30 Tomato Rings

Second Prize: 8 Veggie Cages and 15 Tomato Rings

The contest ends at midnight Friday, April 19th, so Tweet-Tweet-Tweet!

Why We Garden

Posted on April 10, 2013 by insidethegardengate

I have a memory that draws me back to our first year in this house and in this garden. We put a fence around that garden with a gate, although not the beautiful soaring gate that’s there now. On an April late morning, just sun-warmed enough to shed your jacket and hang it over a fence post, I went out to work the soil for the first time that season. As I stepped through the gate and onto the gravel path, shutting the gate behind me, I felt the most delightful sensation of “Aaahhhh” slip over me. Somehow, shutting that gate put me in an entirely different world. This was a room, my room, and it felt like I was almost invisible to anyone outside of it. As if my neighbors couldn’t see or hear me, so I could be free to talk out loud, bend in unflattering ways to turn the soil, or just stop and stare out into space, enjoying the smell of dirt.

That’s the way a garden should feel, whether it’s an old-fashioned farmhouse garden amid rolling green hills or a grouping of 5-gallon buckets of tomato plants, just yards from a beach. Wherever you dig in your hands (gloved or not) and partner with earth and seedlings to produce a lush bounty, your garden is your garden. And anyone who comes to it, who you’ve invited in to share the joys or scents or tastes of it, has been endowed with a bit of a sacred privilege Because you’re invited them; they’re your guests. They’re inside the gate.

Inside The Garden Gate is an invitation – an invitation for you to come on over, step onto the gravel path, and close the gate behind you. This is one of my favorite places on earth, my garden room, and I’d love for you to join me.

Decisions, Decisions

Since this is our inaugural blog post, I thought it would be a good idea to answer some of our most frequently-asked questions, such as, “Which should I use, Veggie Cages or Tomato Rings?” The answer is: It depends on what you’re growing. In general, the Veggie Cage is best when you need to support a plant that wants to climb and uses tendrils to do so.

Peas, beans, snow peas (my favorite!) and cucumbers are exactly the types of plant that take readily to a Veggie Cage. Not that you can’t use a Veggie Cage for tomatoes. Before the introduction of the Tomato Rings, those of us who worked the Veggie Cage test garden were ecstatic with using the new Veggie Cage for our tomato plants. In fact, they were originally designed for tomato plants. I still like them for those “tomatoes on steroids” varieties, like Brandywine.

But if you’re going to use the Veggie Cage for tomatoes, you have to follow the instructions, which aren’t at all difficult but oh-so-important. Tomato plants will often try to head out one of the rings of the Veggie Cage. It’s quite easy to just nudge that runaway branch back into the appropriate ring. But if you don’t, then when the branch develops big, fat tomatoes, all of that fruit puts its entire weight on one ring and distorts it. The Veggie Cage is designed to hold the weight evenly from the inside out.

The Tomato Ring is really just as simple as its name implies. In my opinion, it’s what I would use for tomatoes, about 3 per plant. And I would definitely recommend them for peppers. You can use one per pepper plant, and if you’re short on space, you can use one 3-ft. piece of stake with two back-to-back Tomato Rings, 1 pepper in each ring. The only pepper I’ve ever grown that used more than one Tomato Ring was last year’s tobasco peppers. They towered over our little sweet banana pepper plants. But generally one will do it. For eggplant, you’ll use 1, maybe 2 for each plant.