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Gardening

The magic of sowing seeds

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By Himanee Gupta-Carlson

Himanee Gupta-Carlson plants rhubarb crowns at Squash Villa Farm, photo by Jim Gupta-Carlson

Winter was hard. Just as I thought I could start to socialize again, new variants of the Coronavirus surfaced, pushing me back into isolation. I found myself feeling haggard from too much work at home, sitting at the computer trying to manage my teaching work and other responsibilities as a college professor alongside running our farm.

I longed to rip open a bag of organic potting soil, fill a tray of 72 seedling cells, and start planting arugula. But my husband Jim and I have been moving our farm, and with me left responsible for much of the packing, decluttering, and cleanup of our old locale, there was little time or space to make such a dream come true.

Seedlings at Owl Wood Farm, photo provided

Last weekend, though, was Easter and its promise of renewal. I celebrated with Jim at the new farm. We sunk our hands into the soil and began planting rhubarb crowns that had arrived two days earlier. I checked out the seedlings Jim had started under grow lights and marked times in my calendar for when I could help transplant those starts into the ground.

Last year, many of us fought back pandemic fear by creating what were dubbed “COVID gardens.” Gardeners planted radishes, turnips, arugula, lettuce, carrots, and peas. They obtained seedlings from such places as the Saratoga Farmers’ Market, along with tips on how to transplant, water, and fertilize.

This year, we can tackle combat pandemic fatigue with gardening again.

Greenhouse blooms at Burger’s Marketgarden, photo provided

Seeds for most spring crops – think peas, radishes, turnips, carrots, beets, lettuce, and kale – are widely available. Seedlings for summer crops, along with such vegetables as broccoli, will be available soon at the Saratoga Farmers’ Market at the Wilton Mall on Saturdays and, starting in May, at High Rock Park on Wednesdays.

Many gardeners – from novices to experts – came to my market stall last year with stories about their successes – the spicy tang of a radish pulled straight from the ground, the sweetness of a tomato just off the vine – and their failures – the seeds that did not germinate, the rabbits who made the lettuce bed their salad bar. Their celebrations and their laments show how planting seeds is about more than growing food. It’s also about magic: the healing power of letting our hands touch dirt, the wondrous transformation of a germinating seed to sprout, plant, and fruit.

It’s time to get planting. Let’s do it together.

This week’s recipe: Cornbread

Food security can begin right on your patio

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By Himanee Gupta-Carlson

Photo by Pattie Garrett

May means garden season, and this year, amid predictions of food shortages, growing your own food might be a vital source of sustenance.

“I always feel a few pots of easy vegetables or a small garden should be a part of life for any family,” says Sandy Arnold of Pleasant Valley Farm. “It’s so easy.”

Yet, many claim they can’t grow food, citing past failures as evidence.

We at the Saratoga Farmers’ Market want you to try again.

Burger Farm and Balet Flowers & Design are selling vegetable, fruit, and herb seedlings to help you start. Others such as Gomez Veggie Ville make it even easier with pre-planted culinary herb mixes in a pot.

Culinary herb pots at Gomez Veggie Ville, photo by Pattie Garrett

Here are some suggestions of my own:
● If you love peas, snag a bag of seeds and plant them now, up against a wire fence or trellis. They’ll start producing pods around July and will flourish for about three weeks. Plant more peas in three-week intervals through mid-July to ensure an ongoing supply.
● Hardy root vegetables such as radishes, carrots, turnips, and beets also are easy to start by seed, though sometimes seedlings are available. Radishes and turnips grow fast and will be harvestable in four to six weeks. Beets and carrots take longer. Plant these vegetables several times, as well.
● Plant lettuce seedlings from Burger or Balet and start harvesting the outer leaves in about two weeks. Keep harvesting like this or wait for the plants to grow larger and then cut all the leaves at the base. They’ll grow back, but you also can keep planting lettuce from seed to ensure a steady crop.
● Burger and Balet also have kale, Swiss chard, pac choi, and other leafy greens seedlings. Plant and harvest the leaves when they are eight inches long. These “cut and come again” plants, produce through late fall.
● You also can get broccoli, cabbage, and brussels sprouts seedlings now. Consider a second planting of broccoli and cabbage in late June.
● After June 1, start planting summer seedlings. These include tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, squashes, melons, and basil. They’ll begin producing fruit in several weeks and will continue until the fall frosts arrive.

Transplants at Burger’s Market Garden, photo by Pattie Garrett

This week’s recipe: Farmers’ Market Green Salad

 

Spring Festival Celebrates Farming In Your Own Backyard

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By Himanee Gupta-Carlson

Mark your calendars for April 27. The Saratoga Farmers’ Market is closing out its final indoor market with its fourth annual Spring Festival. The 9 a.m.-1 p.m. event takes place at the Lincoln Baths Building in the Saratoga Spa State Park, and features four free workshops, face paintings, complimentary beverages, and more.

The annual festival comes just one week after the market’s Easter celebration this Saturday. Like the Easter celebration, the festival’s focus is on spring and farming.

However, the festival will offer more than the products of our farms. It will help you learn what goes into growing, raising, and making some of them, and offer you some useful tips for giving these crafts a try yourself. It is aimed at helping everyone: market regulars, newcomers to the Saratoga area and weekend visitors.

So, have you yearned to keep bees? Would you like to savor the joy of gathering up fresh eggs straight from your coop? Do you need a refresher on growing flowers, fruits or vegetables? Would you like to start your own kombucha brew? If yes – or even maybe – check the workshops out. Attend all four and receive a free Saratoga Farmers’ Market canvas tote.

The schedule includes:
9 a.m. Beekeeping with Rick Green, owner of Ballston Lake Apiaries and a longtime area beekeeper.
10 a.m. Backyard Poultry Basics for Beginners with Andrea Love Smith, a Cornell Cooperative Extension Services educator.
11 a.m. Gardening for Beginners with Lori Bishop, a master gardener with Cornell Cooperative Extension Services.
Noon. Fermentation with Diane Whitten, a food and nutrition educator with Cornell Cooperative Extension Services.

Beekeeping workshop hosted by Rick Green of Ballston Lake Apiaries
Backyard Poultry Basics for Beginners workshop hosted by Andrea Love Smith
Beginner Gardener workshop hosted by Lori Bishop

 

One of the best things about these workshops is their emphasis on basics. The facilitators can answer questions and offer tips to everyone, regardless of whether they’re newcomers to farming or veterans.

The market also will feature its usual lineup of live music, and of course, its array of farm produce, meats, eggs, cheeses, and artisanal goods. A face painter also will be on hand for children.

Growing Sweet Potatoes – From Scratch

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By Himanee Gupta-Carlson

 

Sweet potatoes from Pleasant Valley Farm, photo courtesy of Pattie Garrett

Late last winter, I wanted to try growing sweet potatoes from my own slips. I asked Paul Arnold, of Pleasant Valley Farm, for advice.

Arnold, a year-round produce vendor at the Saratoga Farmers’ Market, donates a bin of these tasty, nutrient dense tubers each week to the Franklin Community Center food pantry. He pulled out a few and handed them to me.

“Cut these in half and put them in water or very wet soil,” he said. “Then transplant the sprouts when it’s warm enough for them to survive.”

I followed Arnold’s advice but started too late. By the time the sweet potatoes began to sprout slips – small roots trailing in water from the base of the tuber and purple-green leaves at the top – it was late July. Our gardens were full and so was my schedule. The slips never made it into the ground.

This year, I have a plan: I will start my slips next week, and transplant them in mid-June.

Sweet potatoes, unlike “regular” potatoes, are the root of a vine. The vine roots itself into the soil and produces a root, each time it touches the soil. Slips are the start of that process.

Although sweet potatoes require time, sunshine, and warmth to prosper, they are becoming an increasingly popular crop.

One sweet potato, cut in half lengthwise (producing two halves each with a round base) will sprout slips. These roots, once planted in deep trenches or raised rows of soil, will each yield several sweet potatoes.

To grow slips, do as Arnold suggests: Gather a few sweet potatoes, and cut them in half. Place the halves in damp potting soil or water, with half the tuber submerged. Use toothpicks to keep the sweet potatoes upright in water-filled jars.

Like plant cuttings, the sweet potatoes over six to eight weeks will first produce roots and then leafy stems. When the stems are about six inches tall, twist them gently off the tuber, and place them in fresh water for about a week until a new root forms. After all frost danger has passed, transplant them into the soil.

The Saratoga Farmers’ Market is 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturdays through April at the Lincoln Baths Building in the Spa State Park. Our outdoor season begins Wednesday, May 2 at High Rock Park. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram; and contact friends@saratogafarmersmarket.org for volunteer opportunities.

Planning Spring Plantings

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By Himanee Gupta-Carlson

 

Ten days ago, as temperatures hit the 60s, I looked at the fresh-cut tree I had gotten at the Saratoga Farmers’ Market in December. It still smelled fresh but was drying out. Time to take it down and to think about filling its space with seed trays for the spring.

Farmers who bring the earliest spring herbs and vegetables to market often start seeds under grow lights, on heating mats, and in greenhouses. They rely on such innovations as high tunnels to prolong the garden season. Backyard gardens usually remain a mass of frozen soil until April.

Still, now is a good time to plan a spring garden, order seeds, and gather supplies.

Local gardening expert Sadie Ross recommends starting seedlings in starter pots or seedling trays and covering them with some kind of clear plastic to simulate a greenhouse. She often uses clear plastic deli tray covers. She recommends filling the starter pots with potting soil, dropping seeds on top and covering them with about 1/8 of an inch of soil. These pots should be watered lightly once a day with a spray bottle until the seeds germinate and sprout two true leaves.

How does one know when to plant certain seeds?

Many experts recommend creating a growing calendar with the last frost date as a pivot point. Charts listing when to start seeds indoors and when to transplant seedlings or direct sow outdoors are widely available on seed company and gardening websites. Nearly all are based on that frost date.

After taking down my tree, I created a growing calendar, based on our area’s last frost date of May 20. Working with charts on the Hudson Valley Seed Company’s website, I found out that while I can start celery and celeriac this weekend, and parsley, onions, and chives next weekend, I should hold off on starting my favorite greens and root vegetables until mid-April, as they’re best transplanted in mid-May.

“There isn’t much that one can start indoors this early,” says Ross. “Wait a few more weeks.”

Patience can pay off. As I’ve learned from years past, poor conditions will kill your plants. But when the time is right, they’ll thrive.

Visit the Saratoga Farmers’ Market 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturdays at the Lincoln Baths Building in Saratoga Spa State Park; follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram; and contact friends@saratogafarmersmarket.org for volunteer opportunities.

Protecting Your Garden Harvest as the Seasons Change

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By Himanee Gupta-Carlson

 

Frost damage, photo courtesy of Pattie Garrett

If you’re a backyard vegetable grower, you might plan your garden around the last and first frost dates. The last frost date – usually May 20 – signifies the date that it starts to become safe to transplant such tender seedlings as tomatoes, squashes, and peppers outdoors. The first frost date – September 20 historically for Saratoga – typically means the end of the life cycle for these plants.

But what if the temperatures get chilly sooner? What becomes of those green tomatoes, still rock-hard eggplants, still growing squashes?

Answers from Saratoga Farmers’ Market vendors who might have provided you with the seedlings that started your gardens last spring vary as widely as the weather. But the general rule is to be watchful but not worried.

“If it looks like the night time temperatures are going to drop into the low 40s, you might want to cover those kinds of plants,” says Chris Dumar, of Balet Flowers & Design. “You also might want to water well, especially if you think you might get a frost.”

Covers for plants can range from row covers or sheets of plastic or even five-gallon pails. The key is to make sure the plants are covered but that the material still gives them some room to breathe.

Dumar also recommends spraying plants hit by frost with water early in the morning before the sun hits the plants. The water moistens the leaves, which can prevent them from being burnt by the sun.

While a plant hit by a frost is unlikely to continue producing its fruit, the fruit itself often is still fine to pick. Many farmers recommend picking tomatoes if they’re still green but look as if they’re starting to ripen well in advance of frost warnings. Unripe vegetables such as tomatoes, summer squash, eggplants, peppers and winter squash can be picked even after a light frost. These fruits will continue to ripen after a harvest on a kitchen counter, shelf, or sunny window.

And first frosts do sweeten some vegetables, particularly leafy greens, and brussels sprouts, creating a new season of eating.

The Saratoga Farmers’ Market is at High Rock Park through October, 3-6 p.m. Wednesdays and 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturdays. We move indoors to the Lincoln Baths Building in the Saratoga Spa State Park on November 4. Follow our updates on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.