A Year's Difference

Last February we put a contract on the house we now own. On February 15th we did the home inspection and I took this photo of the back garden.
This February is drastically different. I anticipate my start to the garden will be delayed this year while waiting for the snow to melt. Here's what it looked like today.
Since the forecast calls for sun and above freezing temperatures this week I decided to go out and shovel off the cold frame. I found it was easier to crawl over the surface of the snow than sink into the very deep paths of at least 30 inches.
When I found the coldframe there was 12-15 inches on top of it.
I slowly shoveled it off. I got to the last window and realized I hadn't gotten the edge.
Here's where I made my mistake. Instead of scraping across the window I went straight down on where I thought the edge of the wood was. Ooops! I broke the glass.So I covered it with some plastic and come spring we'll have to replace it with plexiglass or something.
Here is how things look on the inside of the cold frame. Green but frozen. And smelling like a fish tank. When things begin to thaw out I'll have to clean out the dead plants and see what will rebound. Here's how the garden looks now.

Snow Flurries

Yesterday I saw a few snow flurries as I went to work and they persisted into the afternoon. However I was still surprised to find a dusting sticking on parts of the garden this morning. Here is some on the bok choy and then the cold frame. It seemed to slide right off the kale and brussels sprouts.
It is interesting how they stuck to the rows more than the paths.I'm wondering when the ground freezes. I need to harvest carrots and beets before that happens but would rather store them in the garden as long as I can. Winter isn't too far away.

Hoop House & Winter Greens

I wasn't content with just my little cold frame in such a big garden for winter crops. The cold frame is full and I had more seeds I wanted to try to get to grow in the winter or sprout in early spring. In the cold frame I have, mache, mizuna, kolhrabi, lettuce, claytonia, beets, carrots, walking onions, spinach & arugula.

I had tatsoi outside the cold frame but it has been mostly eaten by slugs.

So I'm trying out the mini-hoop house idea. We went the cheap route, and bough 1/2" pvc pipe. It came in 10' lengths and was cut in half to be 5 feet. We got a long piece of threaded rod that fits inside and my wonderful husband cut it into 1' pieces.

Those 1' pieces went in the ground about 1 1/2 feet apart. We weren't exact. Then the pvc pipe went over top.
I already had some row cover which is currently being held down with the few stakes I could find and some rocks. We may use some clear plastic left over from a painting project to cover it more when snow comes. (Notice the forest of kale behind. We're not lacking for hardy greens)
Here's what went inside.

Transplanted Seedlings:
Bok Choy
Broccoli
Red Kale

Red Cabbage & Dandelion Green (not pictured)

Seeds:
Mizuna, Tatsoi, Purple Mustard, Chinese green onions, Chinese Cabbage, Sugarloaf Chicory, Spinach, Mache

This is all an experiment. I know it's too late for seriously starting seeds in my area, but maybe some things will sprout and over-winter and we'll get an early spring crop. If some things are successful, then maybe we can expand (and plan better) next year.

Fall Garden Clean Up

The garden has changed quite a bit in the last two weeks. Here's what it looked like on September 14th.
Two weeks later on the 29th, I had taken down the cucumbers, harvested and weeded the potato row, pulled the last of the winter squash, and brought down the tomatillos. I seeded winter rye in all those places, except where the tomatillos were.

Only a few days later on October 2nd, the tomatoes came down, the hoop house went up, the pumpkins went out, the cold frame windows went on.A few details.
Around September 20th, I dug up four pepper plants and put them in pots.
From Left to right: Habanero, Hungarian Wax, Purple Bell, Cayenne. I sprayed them daily with a soapy water solution. This past week we got some rain and then a bigger storm was forecasted with cold temps to follow. I brought them in on Wednesday because I didn't want them water logged when they came in the house. They are sunning themselves in the front windows and so far are doing ok. I'm continuing to spray hping that I don't have aphids with them. I'm hoping to overwinter them.

Tomatoes
Here's what the tomato support looked like after 5" of rain. It was worse, the metal props had fallen away and it was leaning even more. I propped it back up so that I could at least cut down the tomatoes.

Here's the after photo from the other side. I haven't weeded it yet, nor seeded it. The bed to the right is where the winter squash were and has been seeded with winter rye.

Here's how the winter rye looks in the potato bed, seeded a week before.

I also planted garlic in the former pumpkin bed. I ordered 6 heads of Red Russian and 3 heads of Music. All total it was 60 some cloves planted. It took up half of the bed.


So in all the garden is looking a lot more like fall. Many peppers and eggplant remain in the garden and that's the only thing I'm covering to protect from frost. We had a light frost in the back field again on Saturday night. Each time, it creeps closer to the garden. I'm sure it will get the last of the beans soon.

Mid-May Garden Update

It has been a while since I wrote a whole garden update. My garden is laid out with 11 beds 3' wide and about 25' long. I have one 6 food bed (Bed 12) at the northern end which is for perennial vegetables (and unplanned surprises). So far I've dug 6 and 1/2 of those 11 beds so I'm more than half way done!

For convenience I'm number the beds, Bed 1 is the southern most, bed 12 the northernmost because that's the way they appear from the house.

Bed 1 is for lettuce, carrots & beets. I have the cold frame which has been giving us plenty of lettuce, arugula, and tatsoi.

My kale is temporarily in Bed 1 until it's final spot is dug. I have some Red Russian Kale that over wintered from the previous owners and is currently going to seed. I'm expanding my seed collection.
Baby lettuce is just too cute.I've recently seeded red leaf lettuce, carrots, red and yellow beets, bright lights chard, and cilantro and sesame seeds in this bed as well. It's getting close to full.

Bed 2 is my onion bed. 2/3 is planted with my 300 or so onions. 80 are white, the rest are yellow. The last 1/3 has a row of All Blue potatoes which just sprouted. There is room for something else once the potatoes are hilled up.

Bed 3 is only half dug. It will be for summer and winter squash which are not yet in the garden.

Beds 4-6 are yet to be touched. They are for fall brasscias, peppers, sweet potatoes, tomatillos and other warm weather crops, and more squash. They are all the green weeds in the middle of the picture that I still have to conquer.

Bed 7 is dug and planted with 10 pounds of yukon gold potatoes. They are just beginning to sprout.

Bed 8 is my other brassica bed. It has the two row covers. I had to buy brussels sprout (12) and broccoli seedlings (6) because I left mine in the closed cold frame last week and they dried out and fried. This week, I also planted bok choy and chinese mustard greens my sister sent, along with dill and broccoli rabe. I also transplanted volunteer chamomile between the Brussels Sprouts.
Bed 10 is my tomato bed. It is dug and has 4 red walls of water with two early Chelsea Cherry and two Green Zebra tomatoes. They have buds developing. We are approaching our last frost date and I'm hoping to have my husband help me build a frame this weekend for training the tomatoes and we'll get the rest of my 50 some tomatoes in the ground next week. Here are some of the tomatoes taking in some sun this week to prepare for the move out.
Bed 11 is my beans and pea bed. You can see the posts along the whole bed and the chicken wire strung between them. At the far right side, I have Sugar Snap peas and Coral shell peas, along with some radishes. They are beginning to grab on to the chicken wire to climb.
Bed 12 has an assortment. I have 5 Heritage Raspberry plants, 2 small rhubarb, 1 sorrel, 14 volunteer garlic which I transplanted, and 7 Irish cobbler potatoes which were a gift along with the All Blues. I also have some volunteer strawberry plants which I transplanted there. There is a 6' by 8' section which I am reserving for a future asparagus patch.

So that's the garden currently. I have squash, cucumbers, eggplant, tomatillos, peppers, tomatoes, melons and flowers under the lamps waiting to get transplanted out once it is safe. And I have 4 and a half more beds to dig to be able to plant them out. I think I'll have to follow other bloggers leads and update in sections from now on.

Monday Harvests 5/17/10

On 5/13 we harvested 2.25 oz of arugula and 2.25 oz of sorrel became a pesto with pecans and garlic. We also had 4.25 oz of oak leaf lettuce, tatsoi, and baby kale greens. Last night I picked 3 oz. of tatsoi to go into a curry.
Total for the week 9.5 oz. With these harvests from the cold frame and other lettuce on the way I think I'm done buying lettuce at the store until the fall. Hooray!

You can see what other gardeners have harvested at Daphne's Dandelions.

Harvest Monday 5/10/10

This week we enjoyed our first garden fresh salad. It was wonderful to taste the different flavors of the oak leaf lettuce, tatsoi, arugula, and baby kale. We picked 3.5 oz.
I'm looking forward to many more fresh salads to come. We bought some bagged arugula at the store a week ago for a potluck meal and I think that's the last salad we'll be buying until fall. I hope I can keep up with succession planting the lettuces and greens.

This week I also got a tour of my own garden from the seller of our house. I'd offered to let her divide some of the perennials to take to their new home. It turned out to be a great deal for me because she let me know what all is coming up in the perennial and herb beds. She also mentioned one area in the back that had been her garlic patch. We noticed garlic sprouting that she had missed harvesting. It looked as though she had missed two heads because there were a cluster of sprouts together. So I got out my trowel and dug them up to spread them out. In the process I missed the roots on a few and harvested about 7 green garlic stalks.
About 14 others were separated and planted better spaced out in the vegetable garden. I may have home grown garlic after all this year!

Cold Frame Update

Today the temperatures were above freezing so I went out to check on the cold frame and gather some greens for a dinner salad. It was different to see through the glass and not have ice on both sides. Almost everything had rebounded from the cold except, surprisingly, the italian chicory dandelion. I was under the impression that this was rather hardy but it was still limp. The carrot greens had browned a bit, but I've harvested the larger ones and those still in the ground are an experiment to see if they will survive colder temperatures.

Here's how things looked inside today. You can compare them to how things looked a little over a week ago on Dec 5th or way back in September.
The sorrel is doing fine taking up the middle of the first window, but I don't know what to do with it. We made a sorrel soup, but that was just so-so. Any suggestions? I harvested the largest kohlrabi in the back. Hopefully the others will size up. The mizuna at the bottom right is doing great. I took this photo after harvesting the larger chard leaves and arugula from the middle. The dark red leaves are beet greens. I don't think I'll get any beets, but we'll eat the leaves. There is some new tatsoi in the middle as well. Kale is in the back. I didn't pick any today.
More kale in the back, limp carrots and italian chicory in the middle with small mache under and small claytonia on the bottom left. Both claytonia and mache are supposed to be very hardy but I planted them late in shady spots and they haven't amounted to much yet. Maybe they will continue to grow as the winter marches on.

Next to the cold frame under the snow was some tatsoi. I dug it out to harvest two heads. Then I covered it back up with snow so that it will be protected from the harsh cold that's predicted for the rest of the week.
And here was one of tonight's salads with all home-grown ingredients. It certainly is a pleasure in December. More on the harvest next week.