Joseph F. Radosevich

  It's finally past the last frost (today is actually the official last frost, and we were close this morning). Weather can be up and down all spring, but I think April will finish pretty warmly. I thought I'd do a garden update. You can see red onions and Victoria Rhubarb in the picture above. Rhubarb has done really well this spring. The onions look like rows of soldiers. The larger onion in the picture is a holdover from last year. I let it go hoping that it will go to seed--onions only produce seeds in their second year. We also have radishes, carrots, and lettuce growing. I planted some warm-weather seeds in the ground over the weekend so that they have a few days to germinate such as National Pickling cucumbers, Green Light F1 cucumbers, Jade bush beans, and Blue Lake pole beans. I'm also hardening off some red lettuces, all the tomatoes and all the peppers.  I overseed the lawn every spring and fall. We just haven't had great weather in spring or fall for oversee...

 

I remember the first Honeycrisp apple I ever ate. My wife and I were newly married and somebody in our church told us about this new apple that we should try. It was the largest apple that I had ever seen and cost more than I'd ever paid for a piece of fruit. When we cut it up and I took one bite, my world changed. I tried eating apples off and on over the years. I remembered eating good apples. If I got an apple at the grocery store, though, like a Red Delicious or a Golden Delicious, it was always soft and gross. The Honeycrisp apple changed that for me. After that giant, sweet, crunchy fruit, apples were not just apples. I looked for names. All these years later, I still look for new apples and try different ones at the grocery store or the local orchard if I can find one. I can tell you about Cosmic Crisp, Mutsu, Opal, Envy, Wild Twist, Ludacrisp, Winecrisp, Evercrisp, Ashmead’s Kernel, Snapdragon, Sugarbee, Lady Alice, Ruby Lee, and Crimson Crisp. That apple changed more than ...

Mid-February is late winter around here. We can still have cold weather and snow for at least two more months, but the worst of the sustained winter weather is now behind us. We will probably have up and down weather in March and April. It was really pretty today, though. Someone asked me this morning if I was ready for gardening, so I thought I'd write about gardening topics. I finally got around to cleaning out my tomato plants from last year. I was really busy with church and family things from early November on. Since we had such a warm fall all the way until the temperature dropped like a rock Thanksgiving weekend, I never got a chance to clean that part of the garden out. It was an ugly sight every time I looked at it. I'm happy to have that cleared out now. The rest of the garden had layers of mulch with oats planted as a cover crop. It is good to be caught up now. Right now, we have taps in our maple trees for gathering syrup. We had two good days of collecting, before ...

I learned my first gardening lesson when I was around 12 or 13 years old.  My mom read a book on growing a no-work garden and sent my older brother and I out to to the back of our new 1-acre yard to start a no-work garden. Our long-time joke was that no-work garden just means have other people do it for you. We prepped the ground which was a mixture of sand and clay and planted squash, watermelon, and who-knows-what else. Then we mulched the whole garden with an extremely thick layer of straw. The garden was amazing. The plan really was ingenious because the mulch did keep weeds down and keep the soil moist. We didn't have to do much work after planting. We tried it again the next year and the garden struggled. Someone heard about our problem and said, "it's the soil. Your garden used up all the nutrients the first year. You've got to replace them." Those were my first and probably best lessons in the garden.  Protect the soil with mulch. Keep moisture in so you h...

I read a couple of blogs that show their harvest every Monday and describe conditions and varieties. I can't do a Monday post each week, but I thought I'd share 3 varieties of veggies and flowers from our garden in June.  Top left is Fiesta Time hollyhocks . They are shorter than normal varieties because they top out at 4 feet. I love it because they look like little pink fireworks from across the backyard. The lower leaves at the base are pretty ugly, so I have a some palm sedge that I hope fills that in and makes it prettier. Top right is National Pickling cucumbers . I love this variety because it produces tons of blocky cukes intended for pickles. You can eat them fresh, but we have another variety for that. We usually have to throw away some cukes every year because we get so many. We may sell these at the farmer's market near here later in the year. Last year, Emma told me to pull up the plants early because she was sick of all the cukes and had made enough pickles to...

You don't need weed cloth. You need thicker mulch. I've written on this before, but I see it all the time. It's in parks and at homes. The recommendations are all over YouTube.  Here is why you don't need weed cloth: Weeds most often grow because the seeds blow in on the wind, get stirred up to the surface by being disturbed, get carried in with the mulch, or travel on the bottoms of shoes. You can't prevent weed seeds from coming in. Weed cloth only prevents seeds that are below it from germinating. If the weeds start growing on top of it, then it cannot help them. I learned from a gardener/florist/nursery owner years ago that you need thick mulch to choke out the seeds that are below. You pick the handful of weeds that grow on the top. As the mulch breaks down, you have to replace it and smother the seeds that have moved in. *This applies mainly to flower beds, not to the base of trees. You still need a layer of mulch that is 2-3 inches thick and pulled back away ...

I love making leaf compost to use in my garden. We have amazing trees around our house, so I pile them up, shred them, pile them, and wait. If I have any extra leaves, I put them in our flower beds as mulch. I put the leaf mold (or leaf compost) around the rhubarb and in our raised beds in the spring. I decided to make a pen this year so that I could hold more and so that it doesn't just look like a messy pile on the ground. I like a tidy garden.  You can see the rhubarb and brussels sprouts in the background. There is rye in those beds but they have been slow to grow. From now on, any leaves that I pile and shred will go in my flower beds. This pile will do its work while the garden rests. If you try this, wear a mask. It makes so much dust. I am paying for not wearing a mask one day.

I was sorting tomatoes last night when we took these. I need to see what were ripe and what still needed time. This season's tomatoes: Golden Cherrywine (and some volunteers from last year's Golden Cherrywine that are not true to type because the parent is a hybrid) Green Zebra Bear Hollow Purple Abraham Lincoln Jet Star Sungold Pink Bumblebee German Pink Chocolate Cherry Benevento Amalfi Pink Rainbow Jazz Heart

Last night and today, I dehydrated hot peppers to make crushed red peppers. Then I used them to make an Italian spicy oil.  I used Quickfire F1 Prius that seen to be in the Thai pepper family. I like the heat and wanted a way to use them going forward without making hot sauce.  The Italian spicy oil is just olive oil and crushed peppers. I left the seeds in. And I left some of the peppers whole.

I was quoted in a local newspaper feature article today talking about cover crops. It's paywalled, but if you haven't visited before, you can probably read it here .  I talk mostly about why and how I plant winter rye (also called cereal rye) in my garden. Others are featured as well. Here's part of what I shared: It builds the soil from below. It protects the soil from above. Many people don't know that wind, rain, and snow breaks soil apart. Winter rye protects it. It keeps weeds down in the spring. It is allelopathic for a few weeks which means that it puts out a chemical that keeps seeds from germinating. That slows down weed seeds.  Here is a podcast from the University of Illinois Extension on cover crops if you want more information.

You don't need landscape fabric if you are putting down mulch. Put it down thickly, and that will be enough to choke out weeds. Thick like 4+ inches. I originally learned to put it down 6-8 inches. Why should you not use landscape fabric? The mulch you are putting down will turn into dirt and then weeds will grow on top of the weed cloth. You will have a mess on your hands. Mulch is not a permanent solution, and landscape fabric doesn't make it last longer. Weeds float along on the air or get pulled in with footsteps. Stone mulch doesn't fix the issue either because leaves, debris, and dirt get blown in and then break down creating a layer of dirt that weeds grow in. You can use cardboard in place of landscape fabric because it will do the same job before breaking down.  I've started hearing gardeners tales that thick mulch will choke out the bacterial life in the soil. That doesn't make any sense because that would mean that soil itself would choke out the bacteria...

What I planted today Blue Lake green beans (Gurney) Fernleaf dill (Park) Dark Opal basil seedlings (Ferry Morse) Calypso basil seedlings (Park) Profusion zinnias AAS Mix (Park) Apricot Profusion zinnias (Park) Whirlybird nasturtiums  Fordhook nasturtiums Easter lily Jet Star tomato seedling (gifted) I love planting purple things in the garden. The Dark Opal Basil looks amazing next to all the greens. We also have red lettuce that gives a nice purple contrast. It makes a really pretty picture in the garden. Two other colors I like in plants to go along with the greens are yellow-green chartreuse plants, and burnt orange plants like a certain coleus we've grown in our porch pots.

  "It is an apple like ours in Myrtle." "But you said it was magical," Benny said, biting into a golden piece. Mr. Wheeler chewed his bite and swallowed. "It is." Jack Zulu and the Waylander's Key S.D. Smith and J.C. Smith

I'm starting tomato seeds this week and wanted to describe 3 new varieties. It feels late to be starting tomato seeds, but our weather doesn't really stay warm until after May 9th when we get back from our vacation. I also don't want my tomatoes to be too big and have a hard time staying up. This year, I'm trying 3 varieties new to me that were bred by Fred Hempel. Fred died last fall. His work used to be sold under the Artisan Seeds brand, but now is carried by a new company he was in the process of starting called Bene Seeds .  Benevento is the tomato that Fred was so proud of. It is a beefsteak tomato that is ideal for gourmet restaurants because it tastes great, holds up well if it is on a gourmet burger or sandwich, and stores well. You can pick it, store in normal conditions like a kitchen or restaurant, and have it still hold its shape and taste great. He talked often about the need for hold up like commercial tomatoes but taste like heirlooms. Benevento is a hyb...

We are drowning in more information but less knowledge about the things we use, try, and buy. Whether it is Artificial intelligence-written websites, marketing, content farms, or bad writing, we have lots of words about things. That doesn't mean we know what we want or need to know.  We can help each other out to fix this.  Whatever it is that you know best, share that with others. Many people share their products, plans, courses, etc. What the rest of us need is for real people to share an actual look inside. So whatever you actually know and use, share your story and the results that come from it. I tell the stories of seed varieties, kettlebells, coffee brewing methods. I write about the books that I'm reading. Those reviews are so that people can know about these things.   I'm finishing another Dan John workout plan this week. I think about people like myself who would like to know what my results and thoughts are as an actual user. Someone thinking about doing t...

We just had our first frost, so I was cleaning up my tomato plants this weekend. We grew four varieties of Artisan Seeds tomatoes, and I wanted to let Fred Hempel, the breeder, know how the two new varieties did. When I got online, I saw a post that he had died. I'm so sad. He was the tomato breeder that I trusted above all others. He did excellent work and told the truth about his tomatoes without hype. When I ordered, Pink Cherrywine for this year, Fred included an extra package of Golden Cherrywine as a surprise. We planted those Golden Cherrywine at the local library garden club. They were incredibly productive, tasty, and stored well. I love his Sunrise and Pink Bumblebee and have grown them for several years now. They are like old friends we see and enjoy every summer. Lord-willing I live to be 80, I'll probably still be growing his OP varieties and telling my grandkids stories of the breeder who created these. Regular gardeners like me can carry on the OP varieties, bu...

I'm growing spring brussels sprouts as an experiment because they are usually grown from summer into the fall. I'm growing the variety Hestia from Gurney Seeds. Here are a few notes on growing spring brussels sprouts. The plants are huge! I can't wait to take them out because they are crowding everything around.  One advantage is that they grew large before ever showing signs of insect damage. They haven't been sprayed yet this year and are just now starting to get some insect damage. Last week (maybe 2 weeks ago) I topped the plants by plucking off the growing top to let them put all their energy into the sprouts. You are supposed to wait until the ones on the bottom of the plant are full-sized. All the energy is supposed go to the upper ones. I topped it just a little bit early, but they have grown the sprouts all along the stem. I can't wait to try them.

  Vegetable Gardening in the Midwest is probably my most used of these books right now.

 Yesterday was one of my favorite days of the year. It is the day I plant tomato seeds.  Opening that file is like seeing old friends. They have come from friends, acquaintances, breeders, and catalogs. I've carried them between states, saved some from years past, and renamed a few that got confusing. They come in all sizes (large, medium, and small) and colors (pink, purple, brown, green, yellow, orange, striped).  They will grow indoors until Memorial Day weekend.   The best day of the year.  "for me each seedling that sprouted was its own kindness, its own obedience to Christ's command to come forth from the grave." The God of the Garden , 117 Andrew Peterson