Linda Gilkeson UPDATE

Tonight is a night of updates, as was today.
After I post these gardening tips, I've got some really inspiring photos to share with you all.
This is how we GROW FOOD IN CANADA!!!!

A Reminder: This is not my knowledge, though I am learning along with you. These notes are the genius of Linda Gilkeson, and I seriously recommend checking out her books or trying to take a workshop or class with her..

Fall planting: Well, the seeding season is about over, but you can still sow corn salad and winter lettuce right now. You can also transplant starts of kale, chard, spinach, lettuce and other greens if you can find them for sale.  This last burst of warm days will really help plants develop bigger leaves, but the days are short, so take advantage of it while we have it. To maximize the growth rate: thin plantings, keep beds weeded and make sure plants have enough irrigation water as it is supposed to get pretty warm for the rest of this week.

I have seen some awfully small Brussels sprout plants in gardens lately, too small to produce a crop. Plants should be a couple of feet tall at this point, with at least the beginnings of sprouts showing at the base of each leaf (earlier plantings might have more developed sprouts on them by now). You can still pick leaves from small plants and use them like collards or kale greens over the winter, but I'm afraid they won't be likely to produce sprouts.

Cover crops: I have had several of questions about cover crops lately so here is my take on these for home gardens...


Cover crops, such as fall rye, crimson clover, buckwheat and others are grown to be turned under after a period of growth. When they are digested by soil microorganisms they build organic matter and nutrient levels in the soil. Because they are sown thickly, they also help to some extent to outcompete weeds. There is no question that cover crops are an essential part of an organic agriculture cropping system---but do you need them in a garden?


For a home vegetable gardener, however, cover crops do have some drawbacks: They take up valuable growing space, which could be full of food crops for the upcoming winter (if you have empty spaces in your garden right now, vow to have those spaces filled next year!). Also, grasses (e.g,. fall rye) particularly, can attract the adult wireworm beetles to lay eggs. And the final consideration for me is that cover crops must be dug under before the plants get too mature, while the leaves are still lush and green. When I had an organic farm it was my business to make sure I disked in my cover crops at the right time, but all too often cover crops in home gardens get left too late (hey, we are all busy people). Before you know it, the best time to dig them in has passed and you end up with a stalky, bulky mess that is a very hard to deal with.

Since the point of cover cropping is to add organic matter, I figure I accomplish the same thing by collecting a few extra bags of leaves and mulching the soil with a nice thick layer. Leaves are free, they smother weeds all season, they don't attract wireworms and, best of all, there is nothing to dig in next spring (you know I always go for the labour-saving option!)

Update on Linda's gardening courses:

Backyard Bounty: Grow the Most Food in the Smallest Space (with the Least Work) Nov. 5-6. Salt Spring, Harbour House Hotel There are just 6 spaces left for this class, which starts Saturday, Nov. 5th, 10:00-3:00 pm, and continues Sunday Nov. 6th, 9:00-1:00 pm. Cost $145, includes a catered lunch on Saturday. To register, contact me directly:  gilkeson@telus.net  or             250-537-2503      .  To read more about it and to see other Salt Spring Arts Council studio workshops being presented on the island see:  http://www.ssartscouncil.com/media/documents/SSAC_AIC_Workshops_Fall_11_2.pdf

Year-Round Harvest sponsored by the Salt Spring Island Garden Club is now taking registrations. The class runs once a month, 7-9:30 pm on a Thursday evening for 10 sessions, from January through October on Salt Spring. For the complete schedule and to register, contact Susan Dann at susandann@shaw.ca

Year-Round Harvest for the Urban Gardener at the Horticulture Centre of the Pacific. This one will run on Sunday afternoons (1:00-5:00 pm) once a month, for 10 sessions, January to October. For the complete schedule and to register, contact HCP:  info@hcp.ca   Phone:             250-479-6162      .

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For info on my books [including my new best seller, Backyard Bounty], or to check my 2011 and 2012 schedule for talks and presentations in your area see: www.lindagilkeson.ca

You can read all of my previous messages on the Salt Spring Energy Strategy website: www.saltspringenergystrategy.org

Squash Pollination! Hurrah!

Now that everyone has planted their fall carrots and other roots (right?)..... you might want to plant more Swiss chard in the next week or two to make sure you have enough for winter harvests. I sow leaf beet in July, which is a hardier, finer stemmed version of chard, to supplement the bed of chard planted in May. Early July is also a good time to plant kohlrabi, radicchio and various other endives for late summer through winter harvest.

Squash pollination can be a issue this time of year, especially when the activity of bees that pollinate the flowers is curtailed by cool weather.

A common problem is that newly developing squash seems to grow a little bit, but then growth stops and the small fruit falls off or rots. This happens because the flowers were not fertilized.

To make sure you have a crop, you may have to pollinate flowers by hand, at least in the early part of the season. This is particularly important right now for winter squash because the flowers have to be fertilized in the next couple of weeks so that the developing fruit has enough time to mature fully. This contrasts with summer squash, which can continue to set new fruit into early fall because they are picked while immature. 

Squash pollination can get a bit complicated so hold onto your hat:

First, you need to know that squash (and pumpkins, melons, etc.) have both female and male flowers. Female flowers have a miniature squash on the stem right below the flower. Male flowers just have a straight stem. They also clearly have pollen, which looks like yellow dust, on the centre structure. To pollinate, pick a male flower, peel back the petals and dab some of the pollen from the centre of the male flower onto the centre structure of any female flowers that are open. Flowers open in the morning so that's the best time to do the pollinating.

Early in the season, there may only be one sex of flowers present on a plant. Open pollinated varieties usually produce male flowers for several weeks before they start to produce female flowers. This gives the plant time to grow big enough to support a good crop. Some hybrid squash produce only female flowers at first. I have learned to resist the temptation to pollinate those first blossoms if the plant is small as it stunts future production. If you grow two or three plants of a few different varieties of squash you have pretty good odds of having both sexes of flowers present at the same time.

A complicating factor is that there are different species of squash. The pollen from one species cannot fertilize flowers from a different species. Three groups of species are commonly grown in this region:

Cucurbita pepo group includes all acorns, crooknecks, scallops or patty pans, zucchinis, vegetable marrows, spaghetti squash, many pumpkins and Delicata;

Cucurbita maxima group includes banana squash, buttercups, hubbards, turbans

Cucurbita moschata group includes butternuts and tromboncino

As long as you stay within the group when moving pollen around, the flowers will be successfully fertilized. If you don’t know what species you have, just stick to transferring pollen from male flowers to female flowers within the same plant.

Seed catalogues are getting much better at showing the species in the variety descriptions so it isn't hard to find this information. I make a note of what I can cross with what in my squash patch in case there is a shortage of male flowers. For example, this year I have butternuts, which can only be pollinated by butternuts and I also have 3 varieties of pepo group squash so they can all be cross pollinated as needed.

 Don't worry about what the fruit will be like from crosses--the mixed genes only show up in the next generation, which you would see only if you grew out the seeds from the fruit.

One way out of the pollination problem for zucchini lovers is to grow a parthenocarpic cultivar. These set fruit without needing to be fertilized. This year I am growing one called 'Partenon' from William Dam Seeds (http://www.damseeds.ca/productcart/pc/home.asp) and sure enough, had very early fruit from a plant when there was only female flowers present. If you only have room for one squash plant, this is your best bet!

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For info on my books [including my new best seller (I love saying that!), Backyard Bounty] or to check my 2011 schedule for talks and presentations in your area see: www.lindagilkeson.ca

post #69

This is Post #69 for me, so I thought I'd post something about hot dirtiness....
working in the garden!!!


Here are some more excellent notes from Linda Gilkeson...


Fruit Flower Pollination:  With the continuously cold weather this spring set to be alleviated this week with the forecast of sunshine, more fruit trees and bushes will burst into bloom. But the way the spring has been, you may have noticed there are still few bees out. Even though native species, such as bumblebees and mason/orchard bees, will work in cooler conditions than honey-bees, no bees work in cold and rainy weather. So this year you might want to help out the pollination effort yourself. For this you will need a small, clean, dry brush (the cheapest watercolour brush is fine) to move pollen between flowers. This is most feasible on dwarf fruit trees or on branches that are easy to reach. When I have hand pollinated trees in past years there have been noticeably more fruit on the parts of trees I could reach to pollinate.

To make this effort worthwhile you do have to know whether your fruit trees are self-fertile or whether they need cross-pollination from a different variety.

·         For fruit varieties that are self-fertile (many plums, most peaches, some sweet cherries, all sour cherries ), you only need to move pollen within each flower and between flowers in the same tree. Just take the brush and dap gently in the centre of each flower.

·         For fruit varieties that must be cross-pollinated (all apples, all pears, a few plums and some sweet cherries) you will need to move pollen from the flowers of one variety to flowers of another variety (and vice versa). If there are lots of flowers on the trees, you can pick off clusters of flowers and take them to the tree to be pollinated. Dab back and forth between the flower cluster in your hand and the flowers on the tree.

If you look closely at the flowers, you will see the structures (anthers) that carry the pollen are sticking out a bit around the centre of the flower. There is only a short period of time when pollen seems to be present, even though the flower is open longer. There isn't very much pollen even at prime time so it won't look like much is on the brush when you gently brush it over the anthers.  If nothing else, this exercise will give you a first-hand appreciation of the immense value of bees!


More about peas: A couple of people asked me this week if it is too late to plant peas--and yet others are wondering if it is still too cold to seed them outdoors. So just to set everyone's mind at rest: you can start peas any time all spring. I sow batches about a  month apart up until the end of June. The late June peas usually produce until October. As it is still pretty cold for germination I started my second planting of peas indoors in vermiculite last week, but if the warmer weather this weekend pans out, the soil should finally warm up enough to sow directly. For late peas, it is a good idea to grow varieties listed as resistant to pea enation virus (AKA enation mosaic virus). This virus is spread by aphids in mid-summer and causes distorted pods, mottled leaves and stunted growth. I haven't seen it in spring sown peas, but I have seen it on Salt Spring in August, so for later plantings I grow enation resistant varieties, such as: snap peas 'Cascadia', 'Sugar Ann', 'Sugar Lace';  shelling peas 'Aladdin'; snow peas 'Oregon Giant'.

Bragging Corner: My new book, Backyard Bounty, is at #2 on the BC Best Sellers list this week--thanks to all of you that bought a copy!

For info on my books or to check my 2011 schedule for talks and presentations in your area see: www.lindagilkeson.ca

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You can read all of my previous messages on the Salt Spring Energy Strategy website:  www.saltspringenergystrategy.org

Garden Guru: Linda Gilkeson!

I get these wonderful emails from Linda Gilkeson . Here is one of them. This is who I glean a lot of my more in-depth knowledge of gardening on the West Coast from....Learn! This stuff can apply to just about anywhere in Canada, probably parts of Northern America (tee hee).

Ah, tomatoes....

Varieties: As one of the coldest springs we have had on the coast continues to keep on giving us cool weather, you might want to revise some of your tomato plans. For example, by adding a few plants of parthenocarpic varieties, such as 'Oregon Spring' and 'Siletz', to your tomato patch.  These can produce fruit even though night temperatures fall to 7 degrees C because the flowers can set fruit without fertilization. The early fruit is seedless, but later, when the weather warms they produce normally fertilized fruit. Both varieties produce a medium-sized red tomato with good flavour.  If you are planning to grow some of the large, potato leaved vine tomatoes, such as the Brandywines, or other long-season indeterminate tomatoes such as beefsteak varieties, Moneymaker, Black Krim and others, I would consider them experimental this year unless you have them in a greenhouse (or we get lucky with a lot of warm weather starting pretty darn soon). To hedge your bets, grow a few of the earliest, short season varieties so you can get at least some ripe fruit. Many (though not all) of the small-fruited varieties ripen early, such as Tumbler and various cherry tomatoes. Cold-tolerant beefsteak tomatoes that sound worth trying are Gregori's Altai or  Sasha's Altai/Sasha's Pride and there are others with promising earliness and cold-tolerance characteristics. It is too late to start your own plants from seeds, but not too late to make some smart choices among the variety of tomatoes that nurseries have for sale. Do a little research first in online seed catalogues for descriptions of varieties so you know what to look for when you get to the shop or farmer's market.

Late Blight Alert: The other thing this cool, damp weather might bring is an early outbreak of late blight. Last year some people lost all of their tomatoes in August, just as they were ripening. There are no truly blight resistant varieties so the most certain way to avoid infection is to ensure that your tomato leaves stay dry all season--no rain, no condensation from inside a plastic tunnel, no irrigation water on the leaves. Tomatoes in pots, lined up along a deck or patio, just far enough back to be under the overhang of the roof fare much better than plants sprawling on the ground out in the garden subject to dew and rainfall.  So, anything you can do to keep the foliage dry will delay infection, including spacing plants out and staking and pruning them so there is good air circulation to dry leaves quickly. For plants under greenhouses or plastic tunnels, ensure the maximum ventilation (e.g., roll up the sides of the tunnel as well as leaving open ends). You don't want condensation to form inside to drip on the leaves. Note: Some people have heard that removing all the leaves of the plants will prevent late blight. Unfortunately, the infective agent (called a water mould) spreads so quickly that by the time you see infected leaves, the plants collapse within a few days. The organism can still get into the stems so that all leaf removal accomplishes is to stop plants from growing since they can no longer photosynthesize.  Fruit on leafless plants continues to ripen because once tomatoes have turned from dark green to lime green, they will continue to ripen.

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Last chance to sign up for my last Organic Gardening Course of the season (otherwise known as 'How to Grow the Most Food in the Smallest Space with the Least Work!') Saturday May 14, 2011. 9:30 PM - 4:30 PM.  UBC Botanical Garden Reception Centre, 6804 SW Marine Drive. $55 public, $50 garden members (includes students). There are still spaces left. More about the class and how to register:  http://www.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/2011/courses/organic-gardening

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For info on my books or to check my 2011 schedule for talks and presentations in your area see: www.lindagilkeson.ca

You can read all of my previous messages on the Salt Spring Energy Strategy website:  www.saltspringenergystrategy.org