Spring/Summer Garden: Plans, Goals, Hopes, Dreams, etc..

This is just the obligatory video laying out my plans for the spring/summer gardening season. Here’s where I sourced most of my seeds.

Tomato, Rio Grande: Eden Bros.
Tomato, Cherokee Purple: Gaia’s Blessing
Tomato, Virginia Sweets: Sandia Seeds
Tomato, Patio: Botanical Interests

Eggplant, Orient Express: Johnny’s Seeds

Pepper, California Wonder (Bell): Burpee
Pepper, Anaheim Chili: Sandia Seeds
Pepper, Real Deal Hybrid: Burpee
Pepper, Serrano: Botanical Interests
Pepper, Cayenne: Botanical Interests

Cucumber, Boston Pickling: Instant Latch
Cucumber, Armenian: Burpee
Cucumber, Bush Champion: Burpee

Winter Squash, Black Futsu: Johnny’s

Beans, Asparagus (yardlong): Johnny’s

Lettuce, Heatwave Blend: Burpee

Hard as it is to believe in the midst of a long run of wet gray cold winter weather the Spring Garden season is right around the corner here in the Sacramento Valley as I record this voice over I’ve already started all of our pepper varieties under grow lights and

We’ll have all of our Tomatoes seated by the end of the week this year my primary Garden goal is to boost yields over last summer hopefully outdoing the almost 500 lbs of produce we grew in that season now I might live in Northern California but I’m a rural New Englander by Blood

So joyless productivity and irritable practicality are just baked into my DNA there’s simply no room for novelty in my garden while I am trying a few experimental new varieties this year most of my garden space will be devoted to paste tomatoes for the purpose of canning and preserving as much homemade

Tomato products as possible that stuff goes so fast it’s not quite February and we’re out of sauce and down to our last two jars of salsa we you’ve been having to buy this stuff from the grocery store again and that’s simply unacceptable so to help organize my

Brain for the coming season I’ve divided our overall Garden into three separate sections first up is what I’m calling the pantry Garden this is the primary backyard garden space I featured in my videos dozens of times already this space is going to be designated mostly for the growth of crops we’re going to

Can freeze or dry for long-term storage this section is all about production all right so real quick here’s everything that’s going in our pantry Garden for the uh spring summer 2024 season uh most of the space uh is actually going to be devoted to these Rio Grand determinate

Sauce tomatoes uh these were our big sauce and paste tomato success in 2023 um not only are they incredible producers for a determinate plant uh we got about 8 pounds per plant out of these last year uh they were very Blossom and rot resistant um uh by

Contrast our San marzanos uh which you know they did on average maybe a pound or two more per plant um but we lost about a quarter of all fruits to uh Blossom and rotten those um also I can plant about two Rio grands in the space I can plant one indeterminate San

Marzano um so overall even though I’m doing a plant that maybe gives a little less per plant I can do way more plants so as a garden uh I’m going to get more hopefully going to get way more sauce tomatoes to to can and preserve um additionally what I love about the Rio

Grand I really I can’t stop seeing the Praises of this variety um the the tomatoes have a very long shelf life uh San Marzano start to wrinkle up in maybe a week um after ripeness maybe a little less uh these will keep for like 2 to 3

Weeks fully ripe so if life gets in the way as it often does and I have to put off a canning or preserving project um I I I know that the uh the tomato are going to keep a little longer and kind of wait for me to get around to

It all right for slicing tomatoes we are of course uh doing about six plants of these uh Cherokee purples our tried and true slicer uh these are proving to be very heat and dry tolerant um we got quite a bit out of our like handful of

Plants last year I think I did five um and uh you know we we grew more of these than we could actually eat uh the other thing that I’m excited about this I decided to try one new variety of slicing tomato uh this summer this is the Virginia sweets uh I got this

Through of course Sandy seed and I just did a little research on get uh on adding another slicing variety that’s uh heat and drought tolerant and this came up um and um you know it looks like a pretty tomato so hopefully these produce for us and they uh you know something a

Little different to add to the mix uh one thing that uh from the tomatoes that everyone’s going to notice is missing cherry tomatoes uh I after a lot of thought I’ve opted not to do any large Bush indeterminate cherry tomatoes this year the reason being is I’m going to have my work cut

Out for me already keeping on top of all of the uh the canning and preserving of the uh the Rio Grand tomatoes and I have to I have to cut something somewhere and uh keeping up with both the pruning and the harvesting of indeterminate cherry tomatoes it gets to be lot and honestly

We we can never use all of the cherry tomatoes uh that we produce um from those uh I can dry some of them but I still have bags of dried tomatoes left from the last season um so I’m not going to do any large indeterminate cherry

Tomatoes but I do have we will get our cherry tomato fix covered elsewhere I’ll put it that way all right cucumbers so for the pickling variety I’m going to stick with these Boston pickling cucumbers and I apologize a lot of these seeds are really pack seed packets are really beat

Up had these going a couple of Seasons now uh but these did well for us last year so I’m going to do a few of these um also the tried and true Armenian cucumber which are a great super hot weather alternative to most other uh cucumber varieties I’m doing a reduced

Number of both of these uh again uh we still have like a fridge full of dill pickles left over from last season uh so I I don’t know how much more I can accommodate of those um and the uh you know we we didn’t quite use every Armenian cucumber that we grew uh

Luckily the chickens loved them too so I’m I’m cutting down um on the number of cucumbers and I’m devoting much of that space to um our yard long SL asparagus beans you can see I have some uh that came from recovered um you know recovered seeds from a crop years past

And I bought a few more from uh from Johnny’s um they have them labeled as python but the uh the Latin name it it’s just a a yardlong asparagus Bean uh the reason that I do asparagus beans instead of a more standard green bean is of course like everything else heat uh most

Green bean varieties true green beans will they don’t like it once sustained temperatures are in the ’90s OR better and God knows we get enough ’90s and better from like May to November um and they’re uh prolific producers in the heat uh they don’t seem to require quite as much water as regular

Green bean varieties in the past when I grow them in a good spot I put them in a terrible spot last year and they didn’t do well but when they uh are put in a nice Sunny Spot uh you know each plant will yield just a ton of these awesome

Uh 12 to 15 inch long uh bean pods and you can cook them up the same way as green beans they taste similar not exactly the same uh but they’re still excellent and I highly recommend Them all right on to my winter squash selection for this year um the new one that I’m doing is called black futu um I’m going to put a picture up here hopefully it doesn’t uh get me a copyright strike I mean it’s technically a uh free marketing so I don’t think

Anybody’s going to make too much of a fuss all right so here’s the black futu it’s a Masada Variety in the same family as it’s basically a but kind of butternut squash is what it is uh the plants are supposed to be very high yield I know that mashada varieties do

Very well in hot dry conditions so I wanted to give these a try just to do something uh a little new and fun on the on the winter squash Front and the other thing that I’m going to do is my uh hubard squash hybrid that popped up in a volunteer manner last year and I rolled with it I’m fairly certain these squash are a cross between um the sweet meat uh hubard variety I was growing in

2022 um along with a golden nugget squash which is a small uh Bush variety which I’m also quite fond of but I really like the way these looked and they tasted great too so I saved some seeds and I’m going to give them another try in

2024 next of course I’m going to do plenty of uh bell peppers between the uh the patio kitchen garden and the pantry Garden I have room for maybe a dozen Plus of these so a little more actually than I did last year we use these way

More than we expected uh so I’m going to try for more this year and of course I say this uh it’s kind of counting my chickens before they hatch um when we’re dealing with you know living things of any sort things can really fail there’s unfortunately so many things that can

Come along and just really ruin your plans as a gardener so I’m trying to stay positive well also you know um hoping for the best expecting the worst kind of is is my approach to gardening um trying eggplant again historically we’ve really struggled with eggplant for

Some reason I’m not sure why um often we have just very stunted eggplant fruits or nothing actually you know produces fruit at all so I researched uh a specific um heat loving variety this is called Orient Express so I’m going to do you know just a limited trial uh number

Of those this year see if I can get it to work um and uh you know if it’s successful do a little bit more next year we love eggplant but we’ve just always sucked at growing it for some reason finally um first time in a few years oops dropped there going to try

Some sweet corn just in pots and small containers around the yard small variety my experience with sweet corn is that even in an urban uh setting uh like we’re in or an exurban you know outskirts of a major city um I’m fairly sure that the raccoons will get it the

Night before I decide to harvest it um living rural uh either the deer or the raccoons will get it some Critter is going to raid your corn right before it’s ready for your own consumption that’s just how it goes two things not pictured that I um also either have

Already going in my pantry Garden or will have going sweet potatoes I got about 35 lbs of sweet potato last year I want to up that a little bit U that’s a staple in our house we eat a lot of sweet potato um same thing with standard

Potatoes I’m actually on my second round of Yukon Gold potatoes out there right now the first uh round the round I planted in October were kind of lackluster before the frost killed everything got some out of that but uh about January 1st I planted a second round of chitted potatoes that I’m

Hoping to coax through until May or June to get a decent Harvest out of that as well all right next up for New Garden zones is a kitchen Garden we’re going to set up in large containers here in our back patio here we’re going to grow a variety of

The veggies that we most commonly use when throwing a meal together here’s what I have planned for our patio kitchen Garden that we’re going to set up in containers um really a minimal load out here just things that you would want to grab maybe for a quick

Salad or other meal that you’re making uh right on the back patio I’m going to try this lettuce I’ve had some success with this um lettuce blend in the past burpees has it uh ized as the Heatwave blend um I’ve managed to get this through sort of Heatwave you know in May

And June um I’ve been able to get it through until uh there’s just no lettuce blend in the world that’s going to put up with 90 plus 100 plus degree temperatures for days at a time but this should get us some you know nice fresh early seasoned

Salads been wanting to try this uh Bush variety Bush Champion here uh cucumber plant um we don’t really need cucumbers between the Armenian CES and the pickling CES that’s going to meet all of our needs but I’m just really curious about this variety and plus you know it’s slightly different texture and

Flavor profile some things maybe you just don’t want that bumpy green texture of the Armenian cucumber for this is primarily where we’re going to get our cherry tomato fix uh this uh Botanical interests uh patio variety tomato is has proven to be uh great actually uh very prolific for a very

Compact terminant plant um going to do maybe one of these one or two of these and I’ve also ordered a second variety of um a red uh Bush variety uh cherry tomato to do on the patio just to you know spice it up a bit get a little more

Variation in there probably also going to do a uh bell pepper plant or two on the patio um if for nothing else than just to get more you know more space for Bell Peppers uh they were uh we were really loving those last summer having those freshen available so that’s really

It for the patio um except for and I’ll go over this at the end herbs and flowers are going to be snuck into extra space wherever I can find them so I’m sure that there is going to be some herbs and uh decorative flowers worked into the patio Garden

Plan moving on here’s where we’re going to install what we’re calling a salsa Garden so we’ve been wanting to do something with this front yard space for a few years now but kept back buring development um in lie of backyard projects uh so now that uh we’re

Completely out of room in the backyard uh this is the year where we’re actually going to do something with this space all right and here is what’s going to go into the front yard salsa Garden that I’m excited to set uh set up uh first up is some nice slightly spicy Anaheim

Chilies never grown these before I got this as a when I ordered in those Virginia sweets tomatoes they included these free and I thought you know why not give them a try um I don’t always want something that’s going to you know incapacitate me for hours uh when it

Comes to uh spicy peppers honestly I am not a heavyweight when it comes to spicy food soranos these uh Pro to be our big hot pepper staple last year they did great and they were one of the few Peppers we grew that actually had heat

For some reason two years in a row I’ve really struggled with our hot peppers not being hot uh for instance our Thai chilies which should you know put me on my butt for several hours didn’t taste like much of anything not sure what’s going on or why

That is uh but hopefully doing a new Garden in a new location and sticking to the ones that I knew were hot last year uh will will help likewise our cayen uh cayenne peppers did great last year uh still have a bunch of uh powdered Cayenne that we use regularly in cooking stuff’s

Great to have around going to do a handful of Habaneros I’ve had limited success with habanero in the past so I’m going to do maybe three maybe four plants at the most of these and these Real Deal hybrids I saw these and it was an Impulse buy because

They looked neat um so here’s what these look like these are touted as having the flavor profile of a habanero and the uh the hotness level the Scoville level of Tabasco also from the from the picture it looks like they’re about as you big as a bell pepper so if they work they’ll

Be really Interesting so there you have it that’s my hot pepper Garden all right and here are all of the herbs and flowers that I’m going to sprinkle in wherever there might be a little bit of extra space especially basil uh can’t ever have enough basil we

Do a ton of it cook with a ton of it um Dill uh is another thing that we use an awful lot of especially you know we do a lot of pickling uh fan of fresh homemade pickles uh cilantro I can’t stand the stuff but my wife loves it so we’re

Going to do a little bit out in the uh the new salsa Garden just have to really make sure to label the salsa jars well so I don’t end up eating one with uh that’s been contaminated by cilantro um and what else do we have here I’ve got a wide selection of

Sunflowers marigolds uh plant those the marol are actually they um will repel pests to a degree uh the sunflowers just really like sunflowers uh and they do attract a lot of pollinators so those are great to have around um and that is really it for my garden plan I have

Another couple of videos uh planned coming up on how I start my seeds so I hope uh some of you will come back for that uh thanks for watching and stay tuned