Since this raised bed is 32 feet long (8 feet longer than we have been used to), we realized that we didn’t have enough tomato cages to really make good use of that space. Hence the design you see above. We are planting half of the garden with tomato cages for support and the other half using the Florida Weave (aka Stake & Weave) system. We have chosen 8 tomato varieties, and we will plant one plant of each in both halves of the garden. This will give us the chance to really see the difference in how the plants are managed in the two systems. I don’t expect to see any yield or fruit quality differences, but it might show the pros and cons of using both systems with indeterminate and determinate tomatoes.

We tried to select varieties that are 75 days or less to maturity after transplanting, although we fudged a bit on a couple of them.

‘Valley Girl’ is a early tomato producing medium sized tomatoes that is supposed to set fruit under both heat and cold stress.

‘Country Taste’is an indeterminate hybrid “heirloom type” tomato that we tried last year with little luck. It’s supposed to be a larger tomato with great flavor.

‘Bellstar’is a determinate paste tomato that is early producing with high yields.

‘Martha Washington’ is a brand new hybrid “heirloom type” that boasts wider adaptability and productivity with an heirloom flavor. A little bit later producing.

The 4 heat set varieties, ‘BHN-189,’ ‘Solar Fire,’ ‘Super Sioux,’ and ‘SunMaster’ we grew last year, but we wanted to give them a better chance this year, hopefully planting them a little earlier and closer to “regular” tomato planting time. Of course, we’re also hoping for a summer that is less crazy hot!

We relied heavily on Rosalind Creasy’s book, The Edible Mexican Garden, for inspiration in planning our Mexican Garden.

Starting from the left side, we of course had to put in several peppers. Since we had so many peppers last year, we didn’t want to go crazy. Still, we have 6 peppers, ranging from serrano to bell peppers. Then we have a few rows of a black bean that can be used as either a dry bean or a fresh shelling bean. With the amount of space allotted, we know that we won’t get tons of beans, but it should be enough to have fun growing them.

Of course, the herb most people associate with Mexican cooking is cilantro, because it is in salsa. Unfortunately, cilantro doesn’t like the heat here very much in the summer, so we are also growing culantro. Culantro is an herb that has a similar flavor to cilantro but much better heat tolerance. We’ll also have a Mexican Oregano plant.

Cantaloupe are also a native Mexican vegetable/fruit! We are reprising the ‘Tasty Bites’ melon from last year on a trellis, as well as giving a shot at growing jicama. Jicama is a tuber vegetable, but the plant is a huge vine. It needs a long growing season, so it will be fun to see if we get anything from it.

You might have noticed that we skipped the tomatoes in the Mexican Garden, in favor of 4 tomatillo plants. Supposedly tomatillos produce better if they have another tomatillo as a pollinator, so we decided to try a purple tomatillo (2 plants) and an large green tomatillo (2 plants).

The two zucchinis are a paler grey color, rather than a typical green or yellow on a summer squash. The ‘Ronde de Nice’ is actually a round zucchini.

All the way on the right side of the map, we have 2 plants of ‘Aztec Red’ Spinach. Don’t let the name fool you – this is not a spinach in the sense we normally use it. It is a native Mexican green called Huauzontle (or Huauzontli). It is in the same family as Lambs’ Quarter, a common weed, which is also edible. The young, tender leaves of the huauzontle are eaten, as well as the immature flower buds. This will be a fun one to experiment with on some recipes this summer!

Edible flowers are a fun subject, but the challenge that we ran into during the planning is that most of the really popular edible flowers are all cool season. In other words, since we won’t be able to plant them in March, we had to try something else. When we get to fall, we’ll be able to plant pansies, violas, nasturtiums, calendula, dianthus, snapdragons, etc. However, since we’re aiming for a planting date of mid-May, we had to focus on flowers that like warmer weather.

In the very center of the garden is an edible hibiscus, called Roselle. It is popular in southeast Asia and Mexico. The buds are used to make drinks, teas, jellies, and more.

Then we will have ‘Cardinal’ Basil, the same type we have in the “Beautiful Vegetables” garden.

On the edges will be a reblooming daylily, supplying us with edible buds. Then in the corners will be citrus marigolds and French marigolds. The citrus marigolds are sometimes called “signet” marigolds, and they have a definite citrusy scent and flavor, rather than your typical marigold odor.

The bad news…the contractor won’t actually be able to do ANY work in the garden until it dries out. So stop hoping for rain, please.

As you can tell, much of this garden is a departure from many of the things we typically see in a small Kansas vegetable garden, and that’s not a bad thing! (That’s what the Family of 4 garden is for.)

The centerpiece of this garden is a runner bean with attractive pink-salmon flowers, called ‘Sunset,’ lined on either side with a dwarf runner bean that has orange and white bicolor flowers.

On either end of the runner beans, we will have black sesame, which is a complete experiment, since none of us have grown it before! The catalog says it likes heat and humidity, so we’ll find out!

On the left end of the garden we are planting 2 pepper varieties that are very ornamental, while still being tasty. The right end of the garden will be dedicated to Edamame (aka soybeans eaten green). We know soybeans grow in Kansas, so it’ll be fun to watch these grow.

On the top edge, we’ll have 2 ‘Cardinal’ Basils and 2 Red Shisos. The ‘Cardinal’ Basil has a more condensed, dark purple/red flower head as opposed to spikes. Red shiso is an Asian herb often used in sushi. Then the middle will be planted to cilantro when it gets cooler in the fall.

On the bottom edge, we are going to try some red bunching onions (the tops are still green, but the stalks are red) and both a red and a green radicchio.

All in all, this will be a fun garden to see how all these different plants do for us!

One of the themed gardens we are planning for this year is New and Unique Vegetables. Of courses, this is right up my alley!

This is a smaller bed, at slightly less than 12 feet long, with our typical 4 feet wide. Because we aren’t quite sure when we’ll be able to plant, we have plans for regular May planting, with a long list of options if something goes wrong and we can’t plant until July or August. (If we get to that point, I’ll share those ideas with you. Assuming you are still reading this blog when all I have to say is along the lines of, “Gee, maybe we’ll plant something sometime maybe.”)

But we are still positive and hopeful that we will be able to plant by sometime in May to early June. Just like we’re hopeful that this coming summer won’t be so terribly hot.

Anyway, let’s talk a little bit about what’s in this garden.

There are two types of zucchini – one is yellow and the other green. The fun part about these squash is that they both are striped squash. So while the plants aren’t crazy out there, the zucchinis themselves should be interesting.

Then there are the 2 eggplant. Even I can’t avoid eggplant every year. We managed to have ZERO eggplants in the garden last year, so I guess it is okay to have a couple this year. (And in the interest of full disclosure, I did eat a quite good eggplant dish at one of the local Indian restaurants last weekend. Anything is edible with enough spices…!) One of the eggplants is a white variety that produces small, egg-sized fruit. ‘Prosperosa’ is an Italian eggplant that is not the full dark purple, and instead of being an oblong, teardrop shape is much more rounded with slight ruffling near the stem.

Two tomatoes – although technically only one is a tomato. ‘Indigo Rose’ is the new purple tomato that is a very dark purple with an orange/red interior. The skin is supposed to get darker with more exposure to sun. The second “tomato,” the Litchi Tomato is technically not a tomato at all, although it is a cousin. The plant itself looks more like an eggplant, and the fruit are the size of cherry tomatoes with caps kind of like tomatillos. It is very sweet in flavor, but the plant protects its fruit well with prickles on the caps, stems, and leaves.

We are going to continue to make good use of our cattle panel trellises throughout the garden, and on this trellis we are growing one melon and one squash. The melon, ‘Lambkin,’ is a type of melon called “Piel de Sapo” or “skin of the frog.” Sounds appetizing, right? Actually, I had one of these melons at a farmers market in Rochester, MN a couple summers ago, and it was incredibly sweet with an interesting floral flavor. I’m excited for us to grow it here! The squash we had originally selected was a tricolor acorn squash, but we are already on plan B for that one…tentatively we are going to try ‘Fairy’ Squash, which is a 2 1/2 lb. winter squash that doesn’t seem to readily fit into any of the normal winter squash categories.

So those are some of the different things we’re trying this year…are you trying anything new or unique in your garden this year?

We overwintered this radicchio from 2008, and this is what it looked like just after Valentine’s Day in 2009! Still one of my all-time favorite Demo Garden pictures.

I think all of the radishes we planted in 2009 were Easter Egg Mix Radishes. At least, all the pictures I took were of them.

2009 was the year of the cherry tomato! We had them coming out our ears. This bowl was one of the first harvests in early July.

This was the year we had a full bed of zinnias. The flowers were extremely photogenic, even if the rest of the plants weren’t particularly beautiful.

We got lots of rain in 2009, and the garden was lush and full of insects. This big grasshopper was one of my favorites, but there are lots of pictures of spiders, grasshoppers, butterflies, and other bugs in the archive.

Fall 2009 was the season of beautiful Bok Choy. And rain, as you can see. I think that was the season that our Bok Choy looked its absolute best. The weather was perfect with no insects and no bolting.

Since 2009 was the year before our raspberries succumbed to Phytophthora Root/Crow Rot, the berries were large, luscious, and still ripening in November!

Doesn’t looking back at some pictures of a really good gardening year make you a little more excited for this year?

Have a great weekend!

Application Deadline: March 9, 2012 by 5 p.m.

Send Applications to: Rebecca McMahon (rmcmahonATksuDOTedu) or 7001 W 21st St N, Wichita, KS 67205 or by fax to 316-722-1432.

Questions: Call Rebecca at 660-0142.

Awards will be announced by April 1, 2012.

Application Forms:

2012 SCEMG Community Garden Grant (PDF)

2012 SCEMG Community Garden Grant Fillable (PDF)

www.KansasCommunityGardens.org

There are two main features of the website right now that may be of interest to you.

Second, there are 6 videos about community gardening that will be beneficial to folks that are trying to get a garden started. The topics are Why Start One?, Choosing a Site, Different Types, Common Features, Typical Costs, and Sources of Funding.

First, there is an application for a community garden grant. (Yes, I put it second because I wanted you to pay attention to what I said about the videos.) The grant is funded through the Kansas Health Foundation and is being administered through K-State Research & Extension. All the application materials and information is available on the website. Priority will be given to new community gardens, and awards can be up to $5,000 per garden. Up to 20 gardens will be funded each year for 3 years. Application deadline is March 1, 2012. Awards will by announced April 1.