beanstalk, Author at Seed St. Louis

The Wonderful World of Overwintering Brassicas

Posted on May 3, 2021 by beanstalk

By: Dean Gunderson

When you have a garden in St. Louis you have plenty of produce in the summer and fall and usually well into winter through things like squash, sweet potatoes, cold hardy greens, and by ripening green tomatoes inside. With some pretty low tech season extension like low tunnels it’s also easy to overwinter cold hardy greens like collard, kale, spinach, and turnip greens in order to have fresh produce all the way until those bolt, usually in March. Unless you are doing indoor or greenhouse gardening though there is usually a gap from March (after the greens bolt) until well into May where there isn’t much of anything you can harvest from the garden other than maybe some early planted greens or green onions.

Before widespread food distribution networks this period was called the ‘hungry gap.’ Knowing that people want and/or need good fresh produce from their garden all year and not just part of the year we have experimented with different crops over the last couple years to try and find ways to help fill this ‘hungry gap’ in St. Louis gardens. Europe’s climate has a similar ‘hungry gap’ in their growing season and the people of western Europe have spent many centuries trying to fill that ‘hungry gap.’ Those crops for the most part have not been grown here because our winters are more extreme than the parts of Europe where those crops were developed so they couldn’t overwinter here. However, given the heat island effect of growing in a city, our increasingly warm winters, and the accessibility of cheap and effective coverings like row cover and low tunnel plastic that can keep the plants a bit warmer we thought these crops were worth a try.

OUR FIRST WINTER BRASSICA – SPROUTING BROCCOLI

shows the large leafy sprouting broccoli plants under a low tunnel — Sprouting broccoli plants in Mid-January

A few years ago we tried growing our first winter brassica, sprouting broccoli, in order to fill the ‘hungry gap’ and it was a big success. We planted it in the fall at the same time we planted our fall broccoli, cabbage, kale, and collards, covered them with a single layer of row cover, and by mid-March there were small broccoli heads forming on the plants, before we had even planted our spring planted broccoli.

shows the mature sprouting broccoli florets ready for harvest — Sprouting broccoli florets on March 25th

Although sprouting broccoli produces smaller heads than newer broccoli cultivars they are a nice hearty addition to that early spring garden. They also produce many side shoots and you can keep harvesting from them for several weeks.

After growing sprouting broccoli successfully for several years we decided to investigate if there were other “winter brassicas” that we could trial in order to see if they could successfully survive our winters. We were able to get seed for 3 varieties of winter cabbage and 4 varieties of winter cauliflower and decided to do a variety trial. Although this is the first year we have grown them and we will need to grow them for several more years to verify our results, our initial trial was very successful. We will go through what varieties we tried, how we grew them, the results, and what we would recommend if you want to grow them yourself.

WINTER CABBAGE

When we were looking at winter cabbage varieties we wanted to find the most cold hardy variety of green cabbage, red cabbage, and savoy cabbage. The three varieties we tried are listed below.

Winter King: a standard looking green cabbage

January King: a beautiful purplish green cabbage

Omskirk: a savoyed green cabbage

Winter cabbage is different from sprouting broccoli and winter cauliflower, it’s really just a more cold tolerant cabbage. So like any other fall vegetables they need to be planted early enough to be full grown by the second half of November at the latest. If they are mature by then, due to their cold tolerance they can just hang out in the garden all winter and you can harvest them whenever you need cabbage.

All three of the cabbage varieties survived our winter just fine. They were unprotected for all of the winter except for the week long period in February when temperatures were unusually low. For that week we covered the cabbage with a layer of low tunnel plastic and a layer of row cover. We did this because we wanted to make sure at least some would survive so we would know which was the most cold hardy. Low and behold they all survived with virtually no damage beyond a leaf or two with a little freeze damage on the edge of the leaves, despite the fact that there were several days in a row where the temperature never got above 5 degrees. This would suggest that we didn’t need to cover them as much as we did, or possibly at all over the winter.

It’s important to note at this point that we planted our winter cabbage too late. We didn’t get the seedlings in the ground until mid-September so they did not have heads on them by the time winter started. Since cabbage will bolt by the time spring comes we did not actually get any fully formed cabbage heads. However, the cabbage plants did start forming heads before they bolted, they just didn’t fully mature before they bolted and there were noticeable differences in how they grew that are interesting to note to inform further grow trials.

‘Winter King’ was probably the least successful variety. They were slower growing than the others and several of them started trying to form multiple heads in late winter instead of just one. They also were definitely the smallest plants and heads by the time they bolted and several of the individual plants didn’t make it to spring.

‘January King’ was by far the prettiest cabbage I’ve ever seen and did quite a bit better than ‘Winter King.’ All of the ‘January King’ plants survived the winter. They also started forming heads, which got pretty large, before they bolted.

‘Omskirk’ seemed to be the best of the three varieties. They all survived and had really no leaf damage over the winter. They also started forming heads in the fall and then they kept growing in the spring. Due to this they were the largest plants and had the largest heads of all three of the varieties.

WINTER CAULIFLOWER

Winter cauliflower was definitely the big success story of our trials in the winter of 2020-2021. We were able to get seeds for four varieties. The varieties are listed below.

Prestige

Corella

Chester

Fredor

Like the winter cabbage the winter cauliflower were planted in mid-September and left uncovered until the cold snap in February when they were covered in the same way. ‘Prestige’ didn’t survive the winter but the other three varieties survived. They each had some frost damage on the leaves but recovered just fine. So like the cabbage it seems possible that they didn’t need as much coverings as we provided them during the cold in February.

shows several mature cauliflower heads — Mature ‘Corella’ and ‘Fredor’ Cauliflower

‘Corella’, ‘Chester’, and ‘Fredor’ all produced well. ‘Corella’ and ‘Fredor’ both started producing around April 15 and we harvested the last head off of those varieties on April 27th. April 27th was also the first day we harvested heads off of ‘Chester.’

shows a chester cauliflower head — A ‘Chester’ cauliflower head

‘Chester’ produced the most ideal looking cauliflower heads of the three varieties but the weather was much more erratic when the heads of ‘Corella’ and ‘Fredor’ were forming so it’s unclear if the difference was due to varietal differences or weather differences. We will have to grow them again to know that. However, we can say that all three varieties produced heads that were very flavorful and tender.

HOW TO INTEGRATE WINTER BRASSICAS IN YOUR GARDEN

We will continue to experiment with these interesting varieties but if you want to try them yourself in order to be able to harvest more than greens from your garden in the winter and early spring below is what we would recommend.

The most important thing is to make sure you get them planted early enough. Seedlings for the winter cabbage should be planted in the first half of August to assure they have enough time to mature before winter. Sprouting broccoli and winter cauliflower should be planted as seedling between the beginning of August and the third week of September to make sure they are established before winter sets in.

We also recommend to be prepared to cover them. As we discussed above covering isn’t necessary unless the temperature become very cold but what exact temperature they need protection from is unclear. Until we have a more clear picture of how hardy these plants are we recommend covering if the temperatures are predicted to get down into the mid teens or lower, although again, as discussed above, that might not be necessary.

shows a small 1" diameter cauliflower head forming — A newly emerging cauliflower head on April 7th

If you are wanting to increase the food produced in your garden throughout the winter and early spring we recommend growing a combination of winter cabbage, sprouting broccoli, and winter cauliflower. You should be able to harvest the winter cabbage as needed all winter until about Mid-March when it starts to bolt. Conveniently, it was around this same time on March 15th that we got our first harvest of sprouting broccoli this year. The sprouting broccoli continued to produce until April 7th, when we harvested the last ones and ripped out the rest of the bolted plants. It was on this same day that we saw our first cauliflower heads forming and then a week later on April 15th we harvested our first cauliflower from the ‘Corella’ and ‘Fredor’ varieties. Then on April 27th we harvest the last of the ‘Corella’ and ‘Fredor’ heads and the first of the Chester cauliflower heads.

So if you plant winter cabbage, sprouting broccoli, and ‘Corella’ and/or ‘Fredor’ cauliflower, and ‘Chester’ cauliflower you could potentially be harvesting nice hearty brassicas fresh from your garden from early December all the way through early May!

So we will grow these varieties this winter, along with a few more winter cauliflower varieties we were able to get seed for this spring, and continue to trial them going into the future. We will also of course continue to share our findings with all of you. If you grow them we would also love to hear your results to add information to our trials.

2020 Variety Trial Results

Posted on February 19, 2021 by beanstalk

In 2020 we did two different variety trials at our Demonstration Garden. A variety trial is simply growing two or more varieties of the same crop in the same place to see how well they do in comparison to each other. We did a variety trial for sweet potatoes to see if there are varieties that will grow just as well or hopefully better than the sweet potato we have been growing for a long time, ‘Beauregard’. We also did a variety trial of heat tolerant fast maturing cauliflower in an attempt to find a cauliflower variety that was viable in St. Louis. We were lucky enough to get promising results from both trials so if you are interested in growing sweet potatoes or cauliflower this year check out what we found.

SWEET POTATOES

If you have ever grown sweet potatoes in St. Louis what you have almost certainly grown is the classic orange variety called ‘Beauregard’. Most other varieties are better adapted to more southern locations with longer growing seasons. We have been growing ‘Beauregard’ for many years and have always had good results. They tend to be reliable producers and high yielders but we wanted to see if there were other sweet potatoes that would do well. In particular we wanted to see if there were sweet potatoes that were colors other than orange that would grow well here and produce comparable yields to ‘Beauregard’.

Although orange is the classic color that most people associate with sweet potatoes and an increasing number of people are aware of purple sweet potatoes which are popular in parts of Japan, sweet potatoes come in a whole rainbow of colors. In addition to orange and purple there are also white, yellow, pink, and red colored sweet potatoes. For this variety trial we searched out sweet potatoes that were as many different colors as could be found while also having days to maturity equivalent to ‘Beauregard’.

In total we identified and planted 8 varieties of sweet potatoes in 2020 which are profiled below.

‘All Purple’: purple skin and flesh
‘Carolina Ruby’: red skin and orange flesh
‘Red Japanese’: red-purple skin and white flesh
‘O’Henry’: yellow-cream skin and white flesh
‘Hayman’: cream skin and yellow flesh
‘White Yam’: brown-yellow skin and white flesh
‘Bonita’: light pink skin and light yellow flesh
‘Beauregard’: orange skin and orange flesh

Shows the pile of harvested O'Henry sweet potatoes — The harvested ‘O’Henry’ sweet potatoes

Although they were all listed as having comparable days to maturity and they were all planted in the same large raised bed, and watered and weeded the same amount there were definite differences in yield and quality of the sweet potatoes produced. The variety ‘All Purple’ was the biggest disappointment. It produced two decent sized sweet potatoes and a bunch of finger sized potatoes and that was it. The varieties ‘Bonita’ and ‘White Yam’ produced ok but noticeably less than ‘Beauregard’. The varieties ‘O’Henry’ and ‘Red Japanese’ did about as well as ‘Beauregard’. The real stand outs in our trials however, were the white variety ‘Hayman’ and the red skin and orange fleshed ‘Carolina Ruby’. These two varieties yielded quite a bit more than even ‘Beauregard’ did in our trials.

Image showing the harvested piles of Haymon and carolina ruby sweet potatoes and the volunteers who harvested them — ‘Carolina Ruby’ in the foreground and ‘Hayman’ in the background being harvested by two our long term volunteers

‘Carolina Ruby’ had a taste and texture similar to the standard ‘Beauregard’ sweet potato so would be a good one to try if you want to branch out but still love the classic sweet potato taste. ‘Hayman’ as well as all the other white sweet potatoes though were quite different. White sweet potatoes have a more neutral flavor and texture and are more akin to a potato. They are more adaptable in recipes and more easily used as a staple food. They are very popular in many areas of Africa due to this. For 2021 we will be growing ‘Hayman’ and ‘Carolina Ruby’ again to verify the results from 2020 in addition to a few other varieties to continue our experiments.

CAULIFLOWER

If you have ever tried to grow cauliflower in St. Louis you know that it’s a very hit or miss crop in our climate. If you are lucky to grow it in a year that we have an unusually long spring you might get great cauliflower, but more often than not cauliflower doesn’t have enough time to grow and produce a head before it gets too hot. So usually they will produce bitter tough spicy bolted heads which are a big disappointment after waiting all spring for some delicious cauliflower. We have tried cauliflower many times and this has almost always been the case, but who doesn’t love cauliflower? So in 2020 we researched and sought out as many varieties as we could find that were supposed to be heat tolerant and also had the shortest days to maturity. We hoped this would mean they would be likely to mature before the heat of summer but even if it got hot while they were still forming a head that they would be able to pull through that heat without bolting for a while.

Ultimately we were able to identify and find seed for 6 varieties that met our criteria. Those varieties are listed below.

‘Multi-Head’: conventional cauliflower with one main head and smaller heads around it
‘White Corona’: standard cauliflower
‘White Express’: standard cauliflower
‘Minuteman’: standard cauliflower
‘Fioretta 60’: loose headed cauliflower with white buds and green stems
‘Song TJS-65’: loose headed cauliflower with white buds and green stems

Image showing the trial bed with all the cauliflower bolted except two varieties — This picture was taken May 18th showing those that bolted and the variety that didn’t

Cauliflower likes consistent mild temperatures so 2020 was a great year to trial these varieties for heat tolerance and bolt resistance. There was a hard freeze on March 7th and by March 27th it was 80 degrees and then hit 90 degrees on April 8th and then we had another freeze 10 days later on the 18th. Despite their supposed fast maturity and heat tolerance, by the end of May 4 of the 6 varieties had bolted before producing any edible cauliflower. At that point in time we had had 1 day of temperatures in the 90’s and 11 days of temperatures in the 80’s.

Image showing the harvested heads of Song TJS-65 cauliflower on a cutting board — The loose heads of Song TJS-65 harvested on June 10th

On June 10th we harvested ‘Song TJS-65’ cauliflower at which point the plant had endured 17 days of temperatures in the 80’s and 7 days of temperatures in the 90’s. The cauliflower was delicious but it was definitely unique and not what most people expect from cauliflower. It was almost like a whole different vegetable so would be a great addition to the garden but might not satisfy your desire for cauliflower.

Picture showing the first head of 'Minuteman' ready for harvest with a hand for scale. The head is about 5" in diameter — The first head of ‘Minuteman’ ready for harvest on June 18th

The cauliflower that lasted the longest was ‘Minuteman’. It produced a classic cauliflower head that most would expect when growing cauliflower. We harvested the first head of June 18th at which point the plants had endured 24 days of temperatures in the 80’s and 9 days of temperatures in the 90’s. We then left a few heads of ‘Minuteman’ cauliflower growing to see how long they would stay good and by the beginning of July they started to get a little spicy and a little bitter. At this point the cauliflower plants had endured 29 days of temperatures in the 80’s and 16 day in the 90’s! It’s also significant to mention that ‘Minuteman’ produced good tasting heads through all that heat without us tying the leaves over the head, they were fully exposed to the sun. ‘Minuteman’ blew away all other cauliflower and it will definitely be a variety we grow again.

If you have done any trials of cauliflower, sweet potatoes, or really any other vegetable in St. Louis or a similar climate and had a variety that really impressed you let us know! We area always looking for new varieties.

Growing Water Chestnuts in St. Louis

Posted on February 5, 2021 by beanstalk

by: Dean Gunderson

If you want to try something new and different this year and still get a fair amount of food than water chestnuts are worth a try.

There are actually two different, unrelated crops that are commonly known as water chestnuts; Eleocharis dulcis and Trapa natans. Trapa natans is a floating aquatic plant that can grow in water up to 15 feet deep whose seeds are eaten whereas Eleocharis dulcis is an aquatic plant that likes to grow in shallow standing water of around 4” deep whose tuber like corms are eaten. It is Eleocharis dulcis that we did a grow trial of at the demonstration garden in 2020 and from here on out that is the species we will be referring to when we say water chestnut.

shows a tadpole swimming in one of our water chestnut "ponds" — Side benefit of growing water chestnuts is building habitat. We had quite a few tadpoles living in our water chestnut “ponds.”

Although water chestnut is a perennial in hardiness zone 9 and higher where winters only go down into the 20’s at their lowest, in St. Louis it’s grown as an annual. To get a good harvest when growing it as an annual it needs about a 7 month growing season. It’s an aquatic plant that likes to be grown in standing water. Different aquatic plants prefer different water depths but it is generally accepted that about 4” of standing water is optimal for water chestnut. Also like pretty much all crops they do best when they have full sun.

HOW TO GROW WATER CHESTNUTS

FINDING PLANTS AND STARTING SEEDLING

The first thing you need to do to grow water chestnuts is to find water chestnuts to plant. Water chestnut plants are grown by planting fresh water chestnuts, similarly to how garlic or potatoes are grown. The tricky part is that although water chestnuts can be found in just about any grocery store in a can, they are much harder to find fresh, which is what you need. Your best bet is to look at an international grocery store or to find some for sale from a grower online.

Small water chestnut ready for planting — A small water chestnut ready for planting

The water chestnuts can be quite small for planting, in fact the ones we got were very small as you can see in the picture. Once we have the water chestnut starts we planted them into individual pots in potting mix and put all of the pots into a tray to hold water. Then we put them under our grow lights just like all of our other seedlings. When they are little they need plenty of water but don’t need to be in standing water so we just watered them until water came out of the bottom of the pots and stated going into the tray beneath them.

At this point you just treat them like your warm season vegetable seedlings, keeping them inside with plenty of light and water until the temperatures warm up.

GETTING A PLANTING AREA READY FOR THEM

Based on our trials this year any container that can hold water and that you can put in full sun will work. The kiddie pools worked well for us and they are cheap and easy to get. They also give you a pretty large growing area for how much soil you need and for the cost of the container.

Once you have a container picked out you need to fill it with soil. The kiddie pools we had we put 5-6” of soil in the kiddie pool. A good garden mix is best. Since it’s essentially a pot the plants only have the nutrients that are in the soil you put in there, there roots can’t wander so you don’t want to put just topsoil. Nice rich soil is best. We added some potting mix to ours because we had it and it worked but all the perlite (the little white beads that look like Styrofoam) floated to the top.

PLANTING AND GROWING THE WATER CHESTNUTS

Once your container is prepped it’s time to plant. They are warm season plants so it is best to wait to plant them outside at the same time you would plant your tomatoes, beans, and squash. They spread quite a bit over the growing season so you also don’t need many plants. We only planted 6 little water chestnut plants in each kiddie pool and they were full by the end of the year as you can see in the pictures below.

Left picture shows water chestnuts soon after planting when the kiddie pool looks sparse. Right image shows the kiddie pool totally full in September — Left: water chestnut containers on July 22nd. Right: water chestnut containers on August 21st

Once they are planted just water the container until a minimum of one inch of water is standing on top of the entire surface. Then the rest of the growing season all you need to do is add more water anytime there isn’t standing water on the surface. If you keep them watered enough so there is always standing water there will be virtually no weeds and you won’t need to weed the container.

HARVEST

show a hole dug in the side of the pool full of water — A hole dug in the side of the water chestnut container allowing you to bale the water out for harvest

In the fall you will start noticing the tips of the green tops will start turning straw colored and drying out. Over several weeks they will continue to turn from green to straw colored moving from the top down. This is normal and a good sign. It means that as winter is coming the plant is recognizing it and putting the energy that’s in the green tops that are inedible down into the water chestnuts below ground that you want to eat. Once the tops couple of inches are straw colored you no longer need to keep it flooded.

Once the tops are mostly straw colored, or if a cold period down into the mid to low 20’s or lower is coming it’s time to harvest.

The first step is to drain off the water. The easiest way to do this is to dig a hole in the container all the way down to the bottom on the side big enough for you to reach down to the bottom with a cup or other thing that will hold water. You can see an example in the picture below. Then fill up the cup with the water and dump it out. Continue to do this until the water is all drained from the container.

Then all you need to do is work up the soil with a trowel or your hands. Since the soil is so wet it’s generally easy to just work through the soil with your hands and pull out the water chestnuts as you find them.

series of images showing how the water chestnuts grow on the ends of roots and showing them in someones hand for scale — Water chestnuts grow on the ends of roots. The soil is usually soft enough that pulling the whole plant out will yield many of the water chestnuts.

STORAGE

showing a bowl of muddy water chestnuts in a metal bowl ready to be stored — These freshly harvested water chestnuts are ready to be put in a plastic bag in the fridge

As with most root crops it’s best to not wash the water chestnuts. After harvesting they are generally caked in mud and this is actually good. It will help keep them wet and protected from drying out. Store them in a loosely closed plastic bag in your refrigerator, ideally in the crisper drawer. As of this writing we have had them stored this way for over two months and they are still nice and crisp.

PREPARATION

The only preparation needed is to wash them and peel them. I found the best way to wash them is to take a handful and rub them all together in your hand vigorously under running water and the dirt comes off very quickly. Then peel them with a knife or vegetable peeler.

After that use them however you like. They are edible raw but are also great in all sorts of dishes to add a nice fresh crunch to almost any meal.

OUR 2020 TESTS TO DETERMINE THE BEST STRATEGIES TO GROW

Since not everyone has full sun and because setting up a growing area that will hold standing water might not be easy for everyone we grew our water chestnuts in 4 different beds with different situations to see what was most important to get a good yield of large water chestnuts. The size of the water chestnuts is particularly important because they have to be peeled so even if you get a high yield if they are the size of a large bean it’s not very feasible to peel them vs. ones that are the size of a large walnut are much easier to peel. We used four different beds to compare the impact of soil depth, sun, and water level on yield and the size of water chestnuts. The four beds were as follows

Bed 1: Full sun 8” deep kiddie pool with several inches of standing water all year
Bed 2: Full sun 8” deep kiddie pool with a hole in it that was watered heavily but not flooded
Bed 3: Partial sun 8” deep kiddie pool with several inches of standing water all year
Bed 4: Full sun 24” deep rice bed with a hole in it that was watered heavily but not flooded

Bed 1 is what is generally recommended by others. Bed 2 is to see if the water chestnuts could be grown in heavily watered but not flooded conditions similarly to how some rice varieties can be grown with minimal yield impacts. Bed 3 was to see how much impact level of sun has on yield and water chestnut size. Bed 4 was to see if a deeper bed would result in higher yields by comparing it to Bed 2 as a simulation of growing it in ground.

TEST RESULTS

side by side images showing how much more vigorously the plants in Bed 1 grew than in Bed 2 — Bed 1 on the right, Bed 2 on the left on August 21st. Although they both filled the bed by the end of November it was obvious when this picture was taken that the plants in bed 1 were much happier

What we found from the tests were that the most vital factor to both yield and size of water chestnuts is sun. Bed 3 had by far the lowest yield and smallest size water chestnuts. Most of the water chestnuts in bed 4 were two small to feasibly peel. Water level was the next most important with Bed 2 and Bed 4 yielding more than bed 4 but about half the yield as bed 1 per square foot. The size of the water chestnuts in the unflooded beds were nice and big still. Soil depth seemed to have little to no effect on yield or size of water chestnut. The size of the water chestnuts in Bed 2 and Bed 4 were almost identical and the yields were also very similar. The only real difference that was noticed was that the water chestnuts in Bed 4 were more spread out whereas those in Bed 2 were almost all growing right on the bottom of the kiddie pool so harvest was much faster in Bed 2.

shows a size comparison of water chestnuts from a flooded bed and an unflooded bed. those fro the unflooded bed are about half the size — Left: water chestnuts from unflooded Bed 2. Right: water chestnuts from flooded Bed 1

What all of this seems to suggest is that shallow pots like kiddie pools will work fine as long as you grow them in full sun and to maximize yields you really want a container that will allow standing water.

2021 TEST RESULTS

After our success in 2020 we grew water chestnuts again in 2021. We confirmed our results from last year harvesting a pound per square foot in the containers that were in full sun and flooded and slightly less in those that were heavily watered but in containers that had a slow leak. We also confirmed that those that were in full sun produced large water chestnuts. In fact this year the chestnuts were on average much larger than last year now that we know what we are doing, making them much easier to peel.

In total we harvested a little over 29 pounds of large water chestnuts from 1 raised bed lined with plastic and 2 kiddie pools.

After seeing that the water chestnuts grew fine in the kiddie pool that was watered heavily, but had a leak so did not have standing water, we decided the next step would be to see if they could grow in a normal raised bed that was watered heavily. Unfortunately they did not survive, let alone produce a harvestable yield.

We also tested to see if the container size affected the yield or water chestnut size and received promising results. Whereas last year we planted in large kiddie pools about 5′ in diameter, this year we planted in both a 5′ diameter one from last year and a 3′ diameter one to see if the smaller size would have a negative impact on the yields. What we found was although the water chestnuts were slightly smaller than in the larger kiddie pool they were still large enough to peel and the total yield was comparable per square foot.

So our results from last year stand that full sun is critical for large water chestnuts and yield and that the more water they get the higher the yield. We also confirmed last years results that depth of container doesn’t seem vital, with the kiddie pools yielding equivalent to the raised bed per square foot. Finally, we found this year that container size, at least down to a 3′ diameter kiddie pool (7 square feet), doesn’t seem to negatively impact harvestable yield.

Low Tunnels

Posted on September 11, 2020 by beanstalk

by: Dean Gunderson

One of the most adaptable items in the gardens is a good set of wire or pvc hoops to create low tunnels. Depending on what fabric goes over your low tunnel hoops it can protect crops from early or late frosts, overwinter cold hardy crops, shade crops to keep them cooler in summer and fall, minimize pests, or minimize disease.

So what is a low tunnel? Low tunnels, also called quick hoops, are like a small greenhouse that covers a raised bed or rows of in ground plantings that you can’t walk into, unlike a greenhouse or high tunnel. The structure of the low tunnel that holds the fabric up is usually made of wire or pvc pipes and are bent into an arch shape and just pushed into the ground at the edges of the raised bed or on the edges of the in ground rows of plants. These hoops hold the fabric material up above the plants so the fabric isn’t just laying on the leaves of the plants. The fabric it pulled taught and secured to the ground to hold it in place.

How to Build a Low Tunnel

The first step of building a low tunnel is putting the hoops in. You can use any material that can be made into an arch but the most popular is a heavy wire, which you can bend into a hoop or can be purchased prebent, like these. Another readily accessible material that can easily be bent into an arch is a thin pvc pipe. You just push the ends of the hoops into the ground at least 4”-6”. You should place one hoop on each end of the raised bed or planting row and then another hoop every 3-4’ between those end hoops.

Wire hoops ready to be covered with low tunnel plastic

Then cut your cover fabric of choice 4’ longer than the bed or row you are trying to cover and drape it over the hoops (different fabric options and the uses for each type will be discussed later).

Draping the low tunnel plastic over the wire hoops

Low tunnel plastic in place and ready to be secured — The low tunnel plastic is in place and ready to be secured with sod staples or bricks

Then secure the ends of the fabric to the ground. This can be done in several ways. The cheapest and simplest is just to put rocks or bricks all along the ends of the fabric to weight it down to the ground. You can also secure the fabric with sod staples, like these. Just bundle up the ends of your fabric and push the staple through the bundled edge and all the way down into the soil. Space these staples every 9”-12” along the sides that don’t need to be opened regularly. Knowing if it needs to be opened regularly brings us to management considerations.

showing pushing the sod staple through bundled up plastic to secure it — This is how you bundle up the fabric on the end and apply the sod staple

Showing that you want to push the staple all the way into the soil — Make sure you push the staple all the way through the plastic and down into the soil to hold the plastic down tight.

One of the most important things to remember is that you need to access the plants under the low tunnel. So you can put the sod staples all the way around the low tunnel but it might be easier to do sod staples on both short sides and one long side but use rocks on the other long side so it’s easier to open and close that size so you have easy access to your plants. Another thing to remember is that if you are covering the plants to protect from frost for season extension in spring and/or fall remember that our weather can swing wildly in St. Louis in those seasons so having the cover on when it’s cold is important but if then there is a day that is a little warmer, even if it’s not hot, but it’s sunny the plants can actually overheat just like a car sitting in the sun. So especially those times of years you might need to vent your low tunnel. This would mean opening up an end of the tunnel during the morning and then closing it again in the evening if it will be cold that night.

The Fabric Options

There are several different options of material to cover the low tunnel with and, which material to use depends on what the goals are. Below are 4 different cover options for a low tunnel. Each section describes the material, what it can be used for, and how to manage a low tunnel for that use.

Insect Netting: This mesh material is great for covering crops if you are trying to keep pests away from your crops, especially in the summer. It is airy enough that it doesn’t cast shade and also doesn’t retain heat. It is also airy enough that rain will go through it so you don’t need to open the low tunnel to vent heat or to water your plants with insect netting. This can be especially helpful to set up and put over brassica crops to keep out cabbage worms and cabbage loopers and to put over squash to keep out squash vine borers. It can really be used over any plant to keep out pests and the diseases those pests might be carrying. The main thing to keep in mind with using insect netting is that a net that keeps out pest insects will also keep out pollinators. So if you need pollinators in order for your crop to produce, like with squash, you will need to remove the netting once the plant starts flowering or you will need to hand pollinate. An important note about insect netting is that it is best to cover your plants as soon as you plant them. If you wait there is the possibility that the insects will already have laid eggs in the soil or on the plant and then if you put the barrier over you are trapping the pest in with your plant.
Low Tunnel Plastic: This plastic is simply sheet plastic that can be put over low tunnel hoops for season extension and/or overwintering. This type of plastic is perfect for putting on in early spring to warm up the soil faster in order to plant sooner or putting on in late fall to keep the soil warm longer in order to continue harvesting later in the year. If put up in late fall over cold hardy crops it can help to overwinter those crops so they can be harvested all winter long. Clear plastic will heat up more than white plastic but both are used. Plastic is the material that will heat up the most so is the best option if you are tying to overwinter crops. Since plastic doesn’t allow air flow it will definitely need to be vented on sunny days to prevent overheating especially in the spring and fall if used for season extension. There are also types of low tunnel plastic that have either slits or holes punched in it to prevent overheating, like this low tunnel plastic. These types don’t need to be vented manually. Plastic also doesn’t allow rain to go through it so you will periodically need to open it up to water the plants.
Shade Cloth: This material looks like a loose weave mesh and is usually made of a colored plastic material, oftentimes black. It is designed to cast shade on the crops underneath it. Shade is particularly helpful in late spring-early summer when trying to keep your spring crops cool so they are less liable to bolt and will keep producing as it starts getting hot. It can also be put on in late summer in order to keep your fall crops cool as the seeds germinate and start growing in the hot sun of summer. As this is just to cast shade it doesn’t need to go all the way to the ground and leaving some gaps at the bottom helps increase airflow. As it is a loose mesh rain will go through to water the crops.
Row Cover: This is maybe the most adaptable cover for a low tunnel. It can be used for all 3 of the things the above fabrics can be used for but generally not as good as the fabric that is specially for those 3 things. It is a spun fabric that looks similar to the type of fabric that dryer sheets are made of. It traps heat and therefore is often used for season extension. For protecting from early or late frosts it is generally easier to used than plastic because is less liable to overheat but it is not as good for overwintering because it doesn’t trap as much heat and allows more airflow increasing cold winds. It is also nicer than plastic in regards to watering because it allows rain to get through which plastic doesn’t. Row cover also casts shade but only about 15% whereas most shade cloth for vegetables is 30%-40% shade so if doubled or tripled up it could serve as this purpose a little better. However, as it does trap heat unless you can allow a lot of airflow it can actually be counterproductive if you are casting shade to try and keep things cool. It is also good as an insect barrier. In this regard it does just as good of a job as insect netting with all of the same considerations discussed above when it comes to insect netting. The main problem with using row cover to keep insects out is that as mentioned it also retains heat so can cause overheating when trying to cover squash, brassicas, or any other crop in the middle of summer, when there are so many pests.

Another thing to consider when it comes to selecting and using your low tunnel fabric is that you don’t necessarily have to just do one layer or even just one type of fabric. As mentioned you could double or triple up row cover to make it cast more shade. It is also common to do multiple layers of row cover in order to increase how much insulation it provides to protect crops from lower temperatures. A similar thing can be done with plastic. Doing two layers of plastic will protect the crops they cover from lower temperatures than a single layer of plastic. This works because the air between the two layers of plastic acts like an insulation layer. If you are trying to protect your brassicas from cabbage worms and loopers and also want to cast some shade to help them through the heat of summer you could put on a layer of insect netting and then a layer of shade cloth on top.

All in all the next time you have an issue in the garden don’t overlook how useful a low tunnel can be and maybe consider using one to increase your yields and lower your work load.

Demonstration Garden Update August 19, 2020

Posted on August 19, 2020 by beanstalk

by: Dean Gunderson

This has been an interesting year in the demonstration garden for sure. We miss all the people we usually get to see on Saturdays so wanted to give everyone an update on some successes and failures so far this year. Our biggest challenge was for several months we didn’t have any of our wonderful volunteers to help us and we were struggling. Thankfully we are now able to have some volunteer help and it has been incredibly beneficial in getting the garden growing beautifully. Our other challenges are things that I’m sure many of you have been dealing with in your own gardens. The frequent heavy rains have led to a lot of our tomatoes splitting and our brassicas have been inundated by cabbage worms, cabbage loopers, and harlequin beetles. We also have a seemingly endless number of rabbits that have forced us to put fencing up around nearly every bed to prevent them from eating absolutely everything. These issues have forced us to be more vigilant about getting our fencing up, picking off harlequin bugs, cabbage worms, and cabbage loopers, and using DE and BT when necessary to control those pests.

An image of one of a caterpillar eating a collard leaf and the damage they cause. — One of the several types of caterpillars that like to eat brassicas such as collards and cabbage.

Despite these challenges we have been able to grow some really delicious produce that is being donated to a local food pantry in East St. Louis every week. We have also done experiments that have already yielded interesting results and have several more in process that are progressing nicely.

Cauliflower is a vegetable that is one of the hardest vegetables to grow in St. Louis’ climate for most gardeners we know. So this spring we did a cauliflower trial in an attempt to find one that would be easy to grow in St. Louis. We selected varieties that were stated to be heat tolerant and fast maturing. They were all disappointing……except one. The variety named ‘Minuteman’ produced a small, but decent sized, head of cauliflower. We harvested the heads in late June, at which point they had endured 12 days of 90F degree or higher temperatures and yet the heads were still tender and delicious. So we are doing a larger planting of ‘Minuteman’ this fall to see how well it does as a fall-planted variety here.

A picture of our 'Minuteman' cauliflower head with a hand next to it for scale. It's about 4-5" in diameter — Our first head of ‘Minuteman’ cauliflower from our trial

In addition to the cauliflower trial, we are also growing several different types of white-fleshed and purple-fleshed sweet potatoes. We selected varieties that are claimed to mature in a similar number of days to the ever popular orange-fleshed ‘Beauregard’ sweet potato that we have always grown to see how they compare and if they would be good varieties to start growing regularly. So far they are all growing well so stay tuned for the update this fall when we harvest and do the comparison.

A few years ago we started on the adventure of making a “paddy” and growing flooded rice and it has been very successful (you can read all about it on our blog if you are interested). So this year we decided to go bigger and try other aquatic edible crops. We are growing water chestnuts in two flooded old plastic kiddie pools. We are also growing wapato (aka duck potato) in an old tank we used to use to wash lettuce. Water chestnuts and wapato both create nice crunchy edible tubers. We are also growing 4 different types water lotus. We are growing one tank with the native water lotus and three domesticated varieties of the Asian water lotus. Water lotus create large crunchy tubers similar in flavor and texture to a water chestnut but also create really interesting leaves and gorgeous flowers during the growing season that give way to seed pods with edible seeds.

A pictures showing water lotus, rice, and water chestnuts growing — Water lotus blooming with our rice paddy in the background with rice on the left and water chestnuts on the right.

Gateway Greening’s Growing Gardeners Contest

Posted on July 7, 2020 by beanstalk

For the month of July, we want to challenge youth gardeners to engineer an original solution to a problem in the garden. Send in your pictures or videos and a written description and we will choose a winner at the end of the month. The contest is open to students entering grades 2-5 and students entering grades 6-8. Winners will be featured on Gateway Greening’s social media pages and receive a Gateway Greening stuffed gardener bear or a Gateway Greening t-shirt! See below for contest details.

Grades 2-5

July: Engineering in the Garden

Plants need space in order to be happy and healthy, but you do not need a big yard or a garden bed to grow a plant! Many people use small containers to grow vegetables and herbs on their porch or in their windowsill.

Scientists use the word engineering to describe the process of creating a solution to a problem. For the month of July, we want to see what creative ways you can find to grow plants in a small space. Find a container to repurpose as a planter or build your own! Then fill it with soil and drop a few seeds of your choice in it. Be sure to give it lots of water and sunshine. Send in your pictures or videos of your new planter with a written description of how you created it, and we will choose a winner at the end of the month.

Rules

Who: Open to students entering grades 2-5

What: Engineer a solution to gardening in a small space by creating a planter or repurposing something you already have as a planter. Submit photos or videos of your new planter and a written paragraph explaining how you created it. Include your full name, contact information, school, and the grade you will be entering in fall 2020 in your email.

When: Entries must be submitted via email by July 31st. The winner will be contacted by August 7th.

Where: Submit entries to [email protected] with the subject line “July Youth Contest 2-5”

Winner will be determined based on creativity and resourcefulness. Upon receiving permission from your guardian to share your name and photos, winners will be featured on Gateway Greening’s social media account and receive their choice of either a Gateway Greening stuffed gardener bear or a Gateway Greening t-shirt.

Happy engineering!

For inspiration, see some of the containers Gateway Greening has turned into planters at our Demonstration Garden!

Grades 6-8

July: Engineering in the Garden

Watching the plants in your garden grow from tiny sprouts to towering fruit-bearing plants sure is fun! But even the strongest plants have competition from predators. Pests like beetles and caterpillars love to munch the leaves of plants, while birds, rabbits, and squirrels will sometimes eat the seeds, fruits, or other parts of the plant. This pesky problem leaves gardeners in need of solutions.

Scientists use the word engineering to describe the process of creating a solution to a problem. For the month of July, we want to challenge youth gardeners to engineer an original solution to a pest problem in the garden. Send in your pictures or videos and a written description and we will choose a winner at the end of the month.

Rules

Who: Open to students entering grades 6-8

What: Engineer a solution to a pest problem in the garden. Submit photos or videos of your solution and a written paragraph explaining your solution. Include your full name, contact information, school, and the grade you will be entering in fall 2020 in your email.

When: Entries must be submitted via email by July 31st. The winner will be contacted by August 7th.

Where: Submit entries to [email protected] with the subject line “July Youth Contest 6-8”

Winner will be determined based on creativity and resourcefulness. Upon receiving permission from your guardian to share your name and photos, winners will be featured on Gateway Greening’s social media account and receive a Gateway Greening stuffed gardener bear or a Gateway Greening t-shirt.

Happy engineering!

For inspiration, see some of the ways Gateway Greening keeps pests out of garden beds using fencing and onions along the perimeter of the beds.

The Ever Controversial Japanese Beetle Trap

Posted on June 29, 2020 by beanstalk

by: Dean Gunderson

To trap or not to trap, that is the ever present question when it comes to Japanese beetles. The shiny green Japanese beetle was introduced to the northeastern United States from East Asia in the early 1900’s and has made its slow march south and west ever since. It has been in the St. Louis region for quite some time now and most gardeners have had at least one run in with this pernicious pest. Although it doesn’t feed on many vegetable crops it likes quite a few fruit trees and shrubs. These voracious eaters can defoliate whole plants if allowed. The way they eat leaves is pretty characteristic as when they feed on leaves they will eat everything except the veins of the leaves leaving a skeletonized leaf behind.

characteristic Japanese beetle leaf damage — Characteristic Japanese beetle leaf damage on a hazelnut bush

The hardest thing about Japanese beetles isn’t identifying them or figuring out what damage they do, it’s how to get rid of them! Since they are an invasive species they have very few predators so their populations can get quite large and controlling them is left to the gardener or orchardist.

But what is the best way to control the population? You could, of course, use synthetic insecticides or organic broad spectrum insecticides such as spinosad or pyrethum. However, using these as the main control would require multiple applications over several months and this option will have a negative impact on insects other than Japanese beetles including beneficial insects and pollinators.

The main tactic recommended by those who want to avoid using insecticide sprays is to knock the Japanese beetles off the leaves of the plant into a container of soapy water below where they will drown. Although this tactic works on small garden plants and for a small infestation, it’s not a feasible option if they are eating your apple or cherry tree since you can’t reach the top, where they usually start feeding on a tree. It’s also not very feasible if you have a major infestation. I can personally attest to a time when I had it on some hazelnut bushes and after knocking off the beetles into a bucket of soapy water 5 times in 1 day there were just as many at the end of the day on the bush as there were at the beginning.

There are other options for control that are less work and non toxic to beneficial insects like milky spore, a natural soil dwelling bacteria that can kill a significant amount of the Japanese beetle grubs in the soil before they emerge to eat your plants. This bacteria can be very effective at controlling Japanese beetles long term but can also have some problems. First it’s a long term tactic. If you have Japanese beetles feeding on your plants right now milky spore isn’t going to do anything to stop that. Also, it doesn’t control those flying in from neighboring properties as Japanese beetles can fly several hundred yards (1). This means for those in urban and suburban areas milky spore will only have limited success unless you get neighbors to join in. Those with large properties would typically have better success with milky spore but then there is the issue of cost. Although milky spore can remain effective for 10-20 years once applied, it can cost as much as $35 for enough to treat 2,500 square feet. So for a large property it can get costly.

The ultimate control is if there could be an insect that naturally feeds on the Japanese beetle. In fact, two predatory insects that feed on Japanese beetles have been found and introduced to the United States for just such a use; Tiphia vernalis and Istocheta aldrichi. Tiphia vernalis has been found to parasitize up to 58% of Japanese beetle grubs killing them before they emerge. Istocheta aldrichi has been found to parasitize up to 20% of adult Japanese beetles killing them before they could lay eggs. So together they could theoretically reduce the Japanese beetle population by almost 70% (2,3). Alas, although these have been introduced and established in the United States neither have made it to the St. Louis region yet and you can not purchase them yourself. So for now we will just have to hope they make it here one day.

So then again the question is what option is there if you don’t want to use insecticides, have a large infestation, and milky spore isn’t feasible for you? The answer to that question is the much maligned Japanese beetle trap.

No, not those little flimsy ones with the small bag that they sell at most hardware stores in the summer. I’m talking about a big mass trap. Many say never use the traps because they attract more to your yard then they catch. This is true if the trap is too small (as most of those bag traps are) or are not used correctly, but if used properly studies have found they can reduce the numbers to the point that they are not an issue. One study even found a 97% reduction in Japanese beetle feeding on the plants they were trying to protect (4,5).

Japanese beetle trap attached to a 5 gallon bucket lid for mass trapping

The disconnect between these studies that find them to be effective and many people’s personal experience saying they are not effective seems to be trap size and placement. The problem is that many put the traps by the plant they are trying to protect. Then because they only have one or two traps and the trap has a small bag, it will fill up in a day or sometimes even a couple hours. What this means is that you are putting something that attracts Japanese beetles right next to the thing they are already attracted to and like to eat. So if they are flying toward the trap and run into the plant first they are going to eat that plant. Many will still be caught in the trap when you place it by the plant you are trying to protect. But, as soon as the trap is full they will fly on over and eat your plant you so kindly lured them to. So unless these traps are being emptied often so that they are never full, than they are certainly bringing more to the area than they capture.

The University of Missouri and Lincoln University have found two things that are key to making the traps effective. What they say is that you must make sure you have a large container to trap the beetles in. The second important step is to not put it by the plants but instead, around the perimeter of the area you are trying to protect. You also want to make sure that the traps are spaced no further than 200 feet apart so that you have a continuous perimeter of the lure scent to attract the beetles. By placing them in a perimeter around your property it means that Japanese beetles emerging from the soil are attracted to the edge of your property instead of towards the plants you are trying to protect. Also, those flying in from neighboring properties are intercepted and trapped before they get to your plants. If you have a relatively small property, such as a regular city lot, with the 200 foot spacing you may only need one or two traps. You would place the traps on either end of your property and or the place farthest from the things you are trying to protect. Having a large container to hold the beetles that fall in the trap helps deal with the issue of them filling up too fast and makes it more feasible to empty the containers as needed. Or if you use a really big container you might only need to empty it at the end of the Japanese beetle season.

Large trashcan mass trap. These generally only need to be emptied at the end of the Japanese beetle season.

When they need to be emptied there are a few tips to keep in mind. When you empty the container it is best to dump it into a container of soapy water to drown any that are still alive. It is also best to empty the traps before 9:00 am or after 6:00 pm because they fly during the day. Before or after those times they rarely fly, which makes it much easier to empty the traps. Once the Japanese beetles are all dead you can then decide what to do with all that organic matter. They can be put in your compost bin or just pour them on the ground at the base of your fruit trees. If you then put wood chips or other organic matter over them they will compost nicely and the bugs that were eating your fruit trees are now fertilizing your fruit trees. It is important to know though, that because they are very high in nitrogen that they smell pretty strongly once they are dead. So if you find the smell to be a problem, covering them with wood chips or throwing them away might be your best option.

Lincoln University made instructions on how to make a mass trap like the trap described here. You can find the instructions to make your own here. These instructions show attaching the trap to a large outdoor trash can but you can use any lidded container. We have had success with lidded 3 and 5 gallon buckets. These smaller containers are much easier to empty, move around, and store when not in use but need to be emptied more frequently. Our adapted instructions using a smaller container can be found here. If you would like to make your own, you can buy the tops to the traps at our store online for pickup. We also sell the dual lures which are the most effective lures for trapping Japanese beetles and are rarely sold in stores. These are great if you want to make your own traps and in future years you will be able to reuse the trap you made and just have to buy the lures.

It is also important to note that for best results the traps should be put out as soon as you first notice the first Japanese beetle. Although the traps are really good at intercepting Japanese beetles it’s harder to entice them off of something they are already feeding on. So if you have plants that are heavily infested with Japanese beetles the best option is to place your traps and then either remove the Japanese beetles by hand or by knocking them into soapy water or by using an organic insecticide like spinosad. If you have to use the insecticide, as long as the traps are already placed you should only have to use it once.

Action Steps

Posted on June 25, 2020 by beanstalk

As Gateway Greening works to address equity and justice, we commit to the following action steps.

Statement From Gateway Greening

Posted on June 15, 2020 by beanstalk

Gateway Greening continues to be deeply saddened by the effects of police brutality in our communities, both locally and nationally. We have been taking this time to reflect on our organization’s role in the Black Lives Matter movement. We pledge to continue to use our social media as a space for these conversations and to do our part to keep the movement alive until change happens. We are following the leadership provided by Forward Through Ferguson during this time, and encourage all to see the resources and goals they have laid out.

Police brutality is a symptom of systemic racism in this country, as is access to education, healthcare, and food. Within our mission, we aim to educate and empower people to strengthen their communities through gardening and urban agriculture. Part of this mission includes fighting the systemic inequalities that keep communities from accessing fresh food, culturally important food, and making autonomous food choices. Now, more than ever, people need resources to help them grow food for themselves and others. During the height of the growing season, we believe we would be doing a disservice to the communities we serve by not providing the resources we have promised to deliver. At the same time, we cannot resume gardening content posts without acknowledging the shift, and without delivering the promise that we will continue to share anti-racist material.

We also want to address the questions about our action steps moving forward. This movement has been impactful on our organization, and has come during a time when we are going through internal changes. In order to make sure our action steps are as carefully thought out and as impactful as possible, we have been taking time to reflect, organize, and question what these steps will look like for Gateway Greening. This has and will continue to take time, but by putting in the work now, we will create lasting progress in our services and the communities we serve. We will be releasing our action steps soon, and appreciate everyone’s patience.

Thank you to the organizations in St. Louis who have been working hard to lift voices of color and bring attention to the Black Lives Matter movement. Thank you to Forward Through Ferguson for providing clear action steps. Thank you to the individuals who have shared their stories and hardships during these times. Together we can enact change and carry the movement forward.

Virtual Earth Day

Posted on April 1, 2020 by beanstalk