Overview: Watermelons are Annuals (only one life cycle). They typically take 80-90 days from seed to full maturity. You’ll get 1-3 fruit per plant
Seed Starting: The best time to start the seeds would be late spring to summer for planting, the soil must reach 70º Fahrenheit before growth can start. Watermelons needs 3-5 feet between growing plants
Growing Advice: Unless living in a warm/ tropical climate, watermelons will need lots of attention and care. plastic bags, green houses, kiddie pools, etc are all commonly used to warm up that soil to start the seeds. When the melons mature to the point of weighing down to the ground, put straw underneath to prevent molding.
Harvesting: home grown melons are often much smaller than bought or farm grown, so keep this in mind when it comes time to harvest.
Recipe for Watermelon Salad
cut up watermelon and red onion into a fine mince.
Rinse onions in ice water to remove bite
Add feta cheese crumbles, basil, and top with balsamic glaze of choice.
Overview: Potatoes are a meal staple all over the world. The starchy vegetable is one of the most versatile, there are hundreds of ways to prepare and enjoy them.
9 potatoes after being dug up
Seed Starting: Started from seed potatoes from either pieces or whole small potatoes. One potato seed can yield as many as 10 potatoes. Potatoes need full sun and loose soil.
Growing Advice: cut up seed potatoes and let them dry out, this helps prevent rot. The bigger the plot or pot the better, more room can mean more potatoes under the right circumstances.
Harvesting: the potatoes will sprout a plant with vines and flowers, when these vines start to die that’s when the potatoes are at their most mature and are ready to be dug up.
Recipe
Preheat oven to 400°F.
Wash potatoes and slice into ⅛” thin slices. Slice onion as thin as possible.
Layer potatoes and onions in little stacks. Place stacks upright in a greased casserole 2.5qt to 3qt dish.
Melt butter & flour in a saucepan and cook 2-3 minutes. Add seasonings and milk. Whisk over medium heat until thick and bubbly. Remove from heat and stir in cheeses until melted.
Spoon cheese sauce over potatoes. Cover with foil (sprayed with cooking spray) and bake 60 minutes.
Remove foil and bake an additional 20-30 minutes or until lightly browned and potatoes are cooked. Cool 15 minutes before serving.
Overview: Dill is a light-tasting herb, useful in many dishes: fish, chicken soup, potato salad, dips, pickles. It’s easy to grow, helpful to pollinators, and excellent as a companion plant.
Seed Starting: Plant seeds ¼ inch deep, spaced about 8 to 10 inches apart, after danger of spring frost (Source: University of Minnesota Extension). Direct sow, as dill does not like to be transplanted. This plant will readily reseed, offering easy harvests year after year.
Flowering dill
Growing Advice: Dill will reach 2 to 4 feet tall and be 1 to 2 feet wide. It has feathery foliage and sends up several yellow flowers, reminiscent of Queen Anne’s lace. Dill, Queen Anne’s lace, carrots, and others are all in the umbelliferae family [Source: Farming While Black].
Pollinators love dill. It is a host plant for black swallowtail butterflies!
Harvesting: Harvest the feathery leaves to use fresh in many dishes. Dill also leaves dry and store nicely for future use. Let the big yellow flowers go to seed to have “volunteer” dill plants next year. Or save the seeds to make dill pickles.
Overview: Lettuce is an easy-to-grow garden staple that prefers cooler temperatures.
Seed Starting: Lettuce can be direct-sown into gardens or containers. Several hours of sun and some shade (particularly in the afternoon) will be welcome. Cover seeds with fine soil no more than a quarter inch deep. Some folks even scatter lettuce seeds on the soil surface and gently tap or rake them in. Give newly-planted seeds a good watering.
Salad mixes include a variety of flavors, colors, and textures
Depending on the variety, lettuce can be spaced 6-12 inches apart. If using a salad mix, consider scattering seeds closer than that and harvesting leaves here and there to thin plants out.
Because lettuce tolerates and even prefers cooler temperatures, it can have two crops. Plant the first about 2 to 4 weeks before the last spring frost and the second in early August in New England. Lettuce can also be started in small pots and transplanted at these times.
Growing Advice: Lettuce does not like to dry out. Give it frequent waterings. Lettuce may be munched by hungry slugs and other opportunistic critters. Keep an eye on the growing lettuce and visit the “Managing Pests” section of this blog as needed.
Harvesting: Pick whole heads of lettuce or harvest leaves here and there to keep the main plant growing. Lettuce will “bolt” (grow tall and send up seeds) when the temperatures soar. At this time, lettuce can become bitter. However, harvesting leaves in the cool of the morning and soaking for a few minutes in ice water can reduce the bitterness. Store cleaned lettuce in the fridge in plastic bags or repurposed containers to preserve freshness.
Salad Recipes by Lisa
After washing lettuce a few times to remove dirt and critters, rip up the leaves into bite-sized pieces.
Experiment with seasonal pairings:
Lettuce with watermelon chunks, feta, pistachios and balsamic vinegar is divine.
Consider trying raspberries, gorgonzola, walnuts, and a dressing of your choice as well.
On a hot summer night, salad with grilled chicken and any available garden veggies hits the spot.
Overview: Garlic is one of the most versatile and popular spices in the world. Strong in flavor, smell, and health benefits, garlic can be added to many dishes as a main or supporting flavor.
Recently-harvested garlic
Seed Starting: Garlic is grown from cloves. It takes 8-9 months for cloves to become new garlic heads. Garlic is one of the few foods planted in the fall in New England. It is harvested in late spring/early summer.
Growing Advice: Plant each clove tip up and 3 to 5 inches deep. It helps to insulate garlic over winter with a layer of mulch (shredded leaves, straw, etc.). . You can plant garlic from sprouted garlic, just add it to soil. Although garlic only has one life cycle after picked, simply replant a clove or two from each harvested head, to restart the process.
Harvesting: Harvest your garlic when the lower leaves of your plant turn brown. Don’t rinse dirt from garlic with water: shake it off to preserve the papery protection.
Recipe for Garlic Confit
Remove garlic cloves from head and peel
Put in ceramic or any oven safe container.
Separate cloves and cover completely with olive oil.
Add any additional herbs to your liking (rosemary, basil, peppercorns, lemon, etc.) and bake in the oven at 300 Fahrenheit for 30 minutes, or until golden brown.
Use as a spread, add to butter, or any of your recipes there are hundreds of uses!
Save the oil and now you have garlic infused olive oil!
Since you cooked the garlic and the oil make sure to refrigerate for keeping!
Overview: Carrots come in a variety of colors, are easy-to-grow, and store nicely after harvest.
Seed Starting: Carrots prefer rich, sandy soil and a sunny location. They can also grow well in containers. Regular varieties prefer a soil depth of 10-12 inches. Short varieties, like “Scarlet Nantes,” “Chantenay,” or the unusually round “Parisian,” are perfect for more shallow gardens.
Three orange carrots from the Merrimack Garden
Sow carrot seeds directly into soil, ¼ inch deep, in rows about a foot apart (source: Farmer’s Almanac). Thin carrots to about 3 inches apart once they’ve sprouted. Clip off little seedlings to be thinned (perhaps using nail scissors) because pulling them up might also disrupt the carrots you want to keep growing. Almost all seed starting advice says to keep seeds moist after planting, but it really is true with carrots.
Growing Advice: Carrots can even be grown twice a year in New England! Plant a spring crop (starting a few weeks before the last frost date) and a fall crop in late summer.
Harvesting: Carrots often show their “shoulders” to give a preview of how wide they are. Harvest early for “baby” carrots or wait for a bigger carrot. Carrots take 60-80 (or more) days until harvest. Try to be patient.
Carrots store well (with their tops snipped off), in a sealed bag in the fridge. Consider using the tops to make pesto!
Recipe for Carrot Cake
Try this Southern Living carrot cake recipe that Chrissy Teigen loves. Dr. Perks made it near the start of the pandemic and agrees its delicious.
Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 large eggs
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup buttermilk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups grated carrot
1 (8-ounce) can crushed pineapple, drained
1 (3 1/2-ounce) can flaked coconut
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
Baking Steps:
Step 1 Line 3 (9-inch) round cakepans with wax paper; lightly grease and flour wax paper. Set pans aside.
Step 2 Stir together first 4 ingredients.
Step 3 Beat eggs and next 4 ingredients at medium speed with an electric mixer until smooth. Add flour mixture, beating at low speed until blended. Fold in carrot and next 3 ingredients. Pour batter into prepared cakepans.
Step 4 Bake at 350° for 25 to 30 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Drizzle Buttermilk Glaze evenly over layers; cool in pans on wire racks 15 minutes. Remove from pans, and cool completely on wire racks. Spread Cream Cheese Frosting between layers and on top and sides of cake.
Overview: Kale is a cold-tolerant, versatile green, useful in salads, soups, “chips,” and as a steamed side dish. Kale can have two crops in New England: one planting before the last spring frost and one planting at the tail end of summer, with a harvest lasting into fall.
Red Kale and Blue Curled Scotch Kale grow well in the Merrimack Garden
Seed Starting Advice: Kale can be started indoors under grow lights or on a sunny windowsill about 8-10 weeks before the last frost (end of March is good). Or, direct seed it in late April. Same goes for mid-to-late August–either direct seed or start in pots. Choose seed starting soil or a potting mix and plant seeds about ¼ inch deep.
Growing Advice: Space seedlings about 12-16 inches apart. Slugs may attack young seedlings. If starting seeds in pots, it helps to wait until they’re about 2-4 inches tall before transplanting. Collars made of toilet paper rolls or paper cups may also protect young seedlings. (photo needed) Common pests include the cabbage worm. Pick off worms (which often color match to the kale) or consider an organic spray of Bt (which will kill other types of caterpillars such as monarchs) or Neem oil.
Harvesting: Pick just a few leaves off a plant as needed and watch the plant continue to produce for months. Baby kale is excellent for salads. Some cooks will even massage the leaves to soften them. Kale that is older, more leathery, and even ruffled will be great for kale chips. (Flatter kales tend to stick to the baking sheet.)
Recipe for Kale Chips (from Lisa)
Wash the leaves and rip into bite-sized pieces.
Dry them well. If you have time, let the leaves sit in a bowl in the fridge for hours of even a few days.
When ready to cook, preheat the oven to 300.
Use a tablespoon of olive oil and two dashes of soy sauce for about 3 cups of kale leaves. Rub the oil and soy sauce into the kale leaves, spreading the mixture well.
Next, place kale leaves in a single layer on a baking sheet.
Bake for about 12 minutes.
Leaves should be crispy but not be too dried out. It also works well to check at about 10 minutes, remove already-crispy leaves, and let the rest bake for 2 minutes or so longer.
If you prepare your soil well, follow the plant spacing guides, and water as needed, you’re already off to a good gardening start. This post offers advice on how to tackle the next big problem for gardeners: pests.
One of the main reasons vegetables gardens or flowers are unsuccessful is that pests have successfully feasted on them. This post is divided into fencing for the bigger animals and other methods to curb the insects.
First, the good stuff: embrace spiders, snakes, birds, toads, bees, and many other bugs in your garden. You can all work in harmony together.
Good Fences Make Good Gardeners
Even if you don’t “see” pests around, there’s a good chance they’re in your yard or visiting your deck. Deer, rabbits, raccoons, skunks, chipmunks, voles, woodchucks, and others can steal a harvest or hurt plants.
If you start a large garden, consider adding poultry wire or other fencing to the perimeter. Sinking the fencing a few feet into the ground will also help. For a few hundred dollars and a bit of labor, you can have some peace of mind.
If you choose not to fence, check your plants daily (especially when they’re young) and react quickly to noticeable damage. It is possible to spray deterrents (like “Liquid Fence” that will keep some animals away. However, these sprays often smell bad (not great for patios/decks with seating) and need to be reapplied after rain.
Barriers, Sprays, and Hand-Picking: Battling Insects and Fungus
Insects can be hard to see and tricky to identify. Google lens might tell you what you have: spider mites, vine borers, cabbage worms, tomato hornworms, etc.
For larger, slower insects (e.g., caterpillars, beetles), picking them off and dropping them into a bucket of soapy water can do the trick. This can be time-consuming, but it’s quite effective and doesn’t harm the broader ecosystem.
Neem oil is a good general-purpose organic spray that can take care of aphids, mites, and some other insects.
Bt or Bacillus thuringiensis kills caterpillars by paralyzing their digestive systems. It is organic and is considered (by most) to be harmless to humans. This spray will kill cabbage worms–but it will also kill monarch caterpillars and those other “beautiful” butterfly larva. It’s best to use any spray pest control sparingly and in targeted areas.
Floating row cover keeps young plants safe.
Row covers are another organic method for keeping pests separate from plants. Dr. Perks is currently trying this method to prevent squash vine borers (aka clearwing moths) from eating her squash plants.
Additional Tips and Tricks
Crop Rotation: Planting different types or families of vegetables in different spots year to year can help prevent pest damage. Pests (like squash vine borers) overwinter in the soil. Moving a pest’s buffet to a different garden bed or space the following year may slow the pest down.
A dangerous fungus (verticillium wilt) will also build up in the soil and harm plants like tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, and eggplant. Verticillium wilt causes yellow foliage, wilting, and even death. If you had fantastic tomatoes one year and pitiful tomatoes the next, verticillium may be why. Rotate these crops to different beds annually.
Companion Planting: Companion planting refers to planting two or more types of plants near one another for at least one plant’s benefit. For example, the Merrimack Garden has onions planted near kale and broccoli. Onions are said to give broccoli better flavor. We also have basil planted near tomatoes to repel tomato hornworms.
Gardening is a lot of trial and error. Pay attention to your plants, do your best to meet their needs, and if that doesn’t work…try again next year!
We’re excited that you took home some seeds from Merrimack College’s Seed Library! This volunteer-run Seed Library works in concert with the Merrimack Garden (located at 27 Rock Ridge Rd.). Feel free to pop by the garden any time. We have a host of annual vegetables and perennial plantings.
The Merrimack Garden welcome sign highlights the 2021 offerings
One perfect Merrimack Garden strawberry
Our Seed Library will be open from the end of February through December in the McQuade Library basement. Beginning in the spring of 2023, we are offering over 30 different kinds of seeds! Into the summer and fall, we will have a rotating offering of seeds that suit the time of year.
If kept cool and dry, the seeds you take home should last for at least a year. Once you get growing, please tag @Merrimack_Garden on Instagram or email Lisa Perks (perksl@merrimack.edu) if you have any photos to share!
The Merrimack Seed Library on its birthday
This first post gives some general advice for starting and maintaining a garden. Click the links below for your type of seed to learn more specific growing advice. If you have more questions, feel free to do what some of the best gardeners do: Google it.
Seed Starting
Many seeds can be planted directly in the ground. Others may need to be started indoors (under grow lights or on a sunny windowsill) during the colder New England months to get a jump on the growing season. Check out the seed-specific blog posts linked below:
Getting to Know Your Merrimack Library Seeds (more links to follow)
Plants can be grown in many ways: raised beds, straight in the ground, in pots or containers.
The first main step is to find a site that gets a good amount of sun. Six to eight hours a day is ideal. Be creative: this may mean you grow plants on a deck, rooftop, front yard, driveway, etc.
Consider whether you want to build raised beds or an in-ground garden. To build a raised bed (which means you raise up the soil level), you can use lumber, logs, bricks, rocks, a kit, or something else. Just avoid using treated wood that could leach chemicals into the garden. Alternately, do an in-ground garden (with no border holding up the soil) and simply mound up the soil.
The Merrimack Garden includes a growing army of wooden raised beds.
Many towns offer free compost (usually from yard waste or leaf pick up). Or purchase compost, loam mix, or topsoil (in bags or a large delivery) to build up a bed.
Container gardening can be done in pots, five gallon buckets, grow bags, reusable grocery bags–even a repurposed kiddie pool! Just make sure whatever container you have has good drainage.
One additional thing to remember is that the container garden growing medium should be light and fluffy. Regular soil is too heavy for containers and doesn’t drain well. Find a bagged container potting mix or make your own with one part compost, one part vermiculite or perlite, and one part coco coir (a more sustainable alternative to peat moss).
Watering
If starting seeds indoors or in tiny pots before putting them in the garden, water the young seedlings daily. Container gardens also dry out quickly. Giving container gardens a soaking (at the base of the plant, not at the foliage) once every day or two is generally wise.
If you’ve recently put baby plants outside into the garden (or you’ve planted seeds directly in there), give them a good daily watering about every day or two for about two weeks. Once they’re established (maybe 2ish weeks in their new spot) they can go longer between waterings–a soak every 3 days or so in the absence of rain.
Growing up, I dreamed of being a nurse. I was (& still am) inspired by their ability to make a difference in people’s lives everyday. As you can see, that career path was not in the cards for me. So, how could I make my “dream” a reality in the communication field? I have realized that I have the ability to make the world a better place through effective communication. It doesn’t seem like much but effectively communicating healthcare literacy, cultural competency and language barriers can build a patient provider relationship. According to Haran Ratna, author of The Importance of Effective Communication in Healthcare Practice, “Without it [communication], the quality of healthcare would be impaired.” Ethical communication in healthcare aids transparency and supports the patients’ goals to care.
The global pandemic has brought prominence to health communications and has led healthcare organizations to rapidly expand. We have seen improvements in clinical services, manufacturing prescription drugs, medical equipment, and telehealth.These outcomes make healthcare providers more accessible, approachable, and can create stronger relationships with their patients.
Like any other industry, it is important for healthcare to continue to keep up with the latest trends. The overall use of technology within healthcare is great but it’s also important to build positive relationships with patients through social engagement specifically through social media (SM) platforms. SM has become a new dimension of healthcare allowing the public, patients and healthcare professionals to become actively involved in their communities.
@Massgeneral engages their followers (42.6k) through uplifting and informative content. Posting photos of nurses, helpful hints, and hospital news allow for their audience to find comfort in making connections to the organization on a more personal level. Understanding healthcare is not easy for the average person. MGH has created a podcast to their profile providing a space that is informative and educational.
@Danafarber is a little more reserved with their Instagram profile compared to MGH. Dana-Farber focuses deeply on emotional support, providing their followers (27.4k) with quotes from survivors, friends and family members that have felt appreciated and respected through their journeys. This type of approach allows for an inclusive online support system.
@Bostonchildrenshas a high level of community interaction. Content consists of photos of patients that are light hearted and community oriented. It is pretty evident that no one wants to see images of sick children- BCH provides their patients and followers (59.1k) hope and commitment to service through involvement. I admire that their posts are cheerful rather than providing hard facts or statistics.
I am the first person to argue that SM has negative effects on society but utilizing platforms like Instagram for the greater good reminds me how important it is to be able to communicate to people in all different ways. Is SM going to cure cancer? No, probably not. However, making small connections on social networks help open new opportunities for providers and their patients. With the right intentions of social media platforms through medical communications, we can continue to see impactful change within the future of our healthcare system.
