January Garden

The sleepy January garden

It has been a long time since my last post, but not because the garden is done for the year.  I've actually written dozens of posts in my mind since last November (I've even taken pictures to go in these imaginary posts!) but none of them have actually been written.  In the meantime, we've continued to harvest from the garden. 

Lettuce and carrots picked just after Christmas

I'd planned to have carrots, lettuce, broccoli, and cabbage grown to near full-size by fall's end so that I could harvest through the winter (a la Elliot Coleman) but I found the timing for this to be really tricky.  Many of my cabbage seedlings didn't survive the late-summer heat; so far we've harvested one head, with two others left in the garden that haven't really headed up yet.  My four summer plantings of carrots have paid off - I have lots of carrots still in the garden - but I've only just finished pulling the carrots I planted last May.  Four of my July-planted broccoli made it, and produced heads and sideshoots galore throughout the fall.  (I really like the Pacman hybrid variety!)  Despite some pretty major cabbage worm action, we picked enough to make four plants worthwhile.  The second round that I planted has been quite happy under my makeshift crinoline / row cover (see Salvage in the Garden) and is just starting to flower.  Only three plants from the third planting round managed to get established under the onslaught of cabbage worms in the late fall, and they will not flower before spring.  The lettuces have done marvelously, though they've suffered some frost damage and I've pulled most of what's going to be edible before spring.  Clearly this fall garden thing is more challenging than I thought.

Store-bought (left) and home-grown (right) seed garlic

I tried my first experiment with re-planting my own garlic this year, and I have to say I'm pretty glad I didn't bet the farm on it.  The half of my garlic space that I planted from store-bought bulbs looks about right for this time of year.  The other half has only a handful of shoots.  I'm not sure if the saved garlic was just past its prime, or if it was damaged when I cooked it to prevent spreading nematodes (see Slowing Down in the Fall Garden).  I was very careful to follow the directions I found online, monitoring my candy thermometer closely the entire time the garlic was soaking.  I noticed yesterday a few more leaves poking through than I've seen in past visits, but I'm wondering if maybe I should just re-plant the whole space with something else in the spring.

In November I made detailed plans and lists for a hypothetical second garden plot, but in the end I decided against getting one.  It would require me to ask one of my neighbors to go to the community center and register with the park service, then purchase the plot.  I'm sure I could compensate them with veggies, but it is unethical (no matter how many other people do it) and I have to accept that it would be really hard to take proper care of two plots without making my children miserable.  So, I suppose the new (small) bed at home (see My New Cover Crop) will have to do for this year.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Slowing Down in the Fall Garden

It's been a long time since I posted!  That garden bed I talked about in the last post is now finished, mulched, and has a bunch of little plants (sacrificial lambs) poking out of it!  More on that later, though.

(Mostly) Fall garden

Here's what the community garden plot looks like right now.  There are still three tomato plants, though they are definitely on their way out.  The watermelon vine, freed from the shade of the gazillion basil plants and the exuberant buttercup squash vine, is trying to produce three more fruits in the waning daylight.  Peppers are ripening left and right, and the bean plants are beginning to dry out.  I still have summer squash plants in the front bed, mostly just because I prefer that to bare soil - production has pretty much stopped.  I mulched the older carrots with shredded tree leaves, and am looking forward to picking them well into the winter.  The first round of lettuce (that light green strip at the very back) is already trying to go to seed, so I've been picking quite a bit of that, plus there are three more planting rounds that I expect will keep maturing throughout the winter.  There are a few heads of cabbage that I think will finish before winter, and several more (plus a lot of broccoli) that will probably not be ready until spring.  Anyone want some basil?  We still have a few plants that I just don't know what to do with.  I planted some parsley where the buttercup squash was, though I'm not really sure if it will make it through the winter, being planted so late.  I just miss having parsley in the garden so much.  (N practically clucks at me every time we have to do anything as ridiculous as buy parsley.  I really have to pay more attention to herbs next spring.)

I have mostly been cleaning up lately.  Now that there are fewer daylight hours and the days are getting cooler, I am starting to catch up with the weeds.  I decided to renew the great cardboard project - I've covered about 90% of the paths with cardboard and wood chips, which I hope will last well into next summer.  In the process I've weeded most of the beds at least a little, and removed many of the plant stems and branches that were leaning into the paths.  All in all, the garden is looking much tidier. 

I think I will probably add a path along the right side of the plot, where the park service turned over a whole plot to "community space", with a picnic table and regularly cut weeds.  Technically the path will be in the community plot, but I think it will be a relief to the gentlemen who trim the grass to have a little buffer zone between them and my garden.  They always leave the weeds right at the edge uncut (truly, I do appreciate their consideration), which means I have to either trim them or let them shed seeds on my garden beds - mulching a strip seems easier.  If I have enough time before the weather turns I'll try to build a small bed over there, too, where gardeners can plant/pick at their leisure.  Well...we'll see if that happens or not.  ;)

R and I planted a round of garlic on the first - Inchelium Red.  I had three large bulbs, which provided only enough cloves to fill about 1/3 of the space I have designated for garlic next year.  I want to fill the rest of the space with cloves I harvested this year, but I am a little concerned about them.  When the papers are removed they have what look like tiny little pimples on the surface, which the internet tells me means nematodes.  Nematodes are tiny little worms that live in the soil and feed on the roots and/or bulbs of many, many different plants.  Most likely my entire community garden plot is infested with them, but I think I will still try heat-treating the cloves before I plant them.  Supposedly soaking the cloves in warm water destroys the nematodes so that they don't infest the soil of the new garlic bed.  Assuming it isn't already infested.

Well, this post is getting long, so I think I'll sign off and write more another time.  Hope all is well with all of you and your garden clean-up (or gear-up) is going well.

Harvest Notes

Early-picked carrot from the community garden

I really didn't spend enough time in the garden in last summer this year, mostly due to the mosquitoes.  Harvests right now are pretty thin - I should have lettuce and spinach right now, but they were planted too late and didn't make it.  I did get a handful of little potatoes from some that surprised me by sprouting in my container during late summer (see Apparently I'm Incorrigible), and the carrots at the community garden are turning out really good.  A few are stubby or forked, but many are long and beautiful and N says (with surprise), "They're really good!"

8 oz potatoes
8 carrots (more to come)
a lot of parsely and cilantro



Potatoes from backyard



There's still cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli in the community garden with the rest of the carrots and next year's garlic sprouts.  Some of the cauliflower is trying to produce flowers; I think both it and the broccoli were planted later than they should have been.  The cabbage is just gorgeous, so maybe in the spring I'll have a bumper cabbage crop!

State of the Garden

Community Garden Plot

 I haven't been spending enough time at the community garden the last few weeks.  There's been plenty of work to do at home, and, er....I've been sewing.  Fortunately the weather has slowed down the weeds and the bugs and the harvest enough that I'm sort of getting away with it.

Anyway, R and A and I went out there the other day and did some pea picking and work and poking around.  I keep meaning to go ahead and set up my tomato bed for next year (more on that later...) but I am waffling now about where to put it and wether I should stick to the same bed layout as last year or narrow the paths and/or widen the beds.  I'm being seduced by the idea of planting just a little more of...everything.  Meanwhile I've been clearing away weeds and squishing bugs - cabbage worms, to be precise.  You can see the kind of damage they do in the photo on the right.  I keep hoping the damn moths will die already, but no such luck.



Two cauliflowers growing side-by-side



Cabbage patch

The broccoli and cauliflower are fighting the good fight, but the cabbage is clearly winning, just as it did in my home garden in the spring.  Is it the purple leaves?  I don't know.  The garlic is coming up, both here and at home, and the peas are producing quite a lot.  R has always been reluctant to eat sugar snap peas, but this time he spent a good hour bringing me pea pods to break open so he could eat the tiny peas inside.  After he painstakingly picked the peas out I would eat the pods (frost damaged and oh-so-great!), until finally curiosity got the best of him and he (after licking, scrunching up his face, holding it cautiously between his lips, etc) crunched through the pod whole.  And I didn't get a single speck of pea after that!

R sorting through pea pods to find the "nice, fat ones".

Long Overdue Harvest Notes

I've had a running harvest tally on my kitchen whiteboard for much too long now - several if the items on this list were last harvested some time ago.

6 handfuls green beans
1 lb, 12 oz zucchini
5 lb, 10 oz tomato
4 lb, 2 oz potato
2 bulbs garlic
1 lb, 8 oz yellow squash
3 lb, 5 oz winter squash
4 oz green pepper
many chili peppers - 1 plant is definitely enough for us
5 large basil plants (I potted one to bring in for the winter)

I picked all my basil from the garden



Beautiful spring-planted cabbage


There are several gorgeous heads of cabbage in my home garden that I'd like to try making sauerkraut with, but I've never done it before.  Anyone ever tried it?

Growing Things at Home

Me, putting out the basil seedlings.

Keeping up with both my home garden and community garden plot has been harder than I thought.  Somehow I forgot about things that really need to be done, like mowing the lawn and weeding the flowerbeds.  So here are some sort of selective shots of my home garden, and I'll ask you not to peer too closely around the edges.  As you can see, I'm getting a little large to be squatting and bending these days.  Luckily N's interest in gardening is growing with every new thing he eats from the garden, so he's been a big help.

My cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli are all doing quite well under the sheer curtain that used to cover our living room window.  (N tells me I sound pretentious when I say "brassicas", but it is a lot faster to type!)  I took the cover off last week to make sure they weren't getting too little sun, too little water, or too much heat, but I've noticed that some largish-gnat-sized bugs have been fluttering around them a lot, so I may put the cover back on.  I should point out that all of these are foods that I didn't really eat until this pregnancy, but am slobbering all over right now.  I hope I don't lose interest before they produce!

My garlic patch looks very healthy, surprisingly better than the garlic in the containers, which is a little dry around the edges.  We'll see who has the last laugh when they start developing bulbs in their respective soils, though.  There are two varieties here; the hardneck variety in the foreground was noticeably smaller when they stopped growing for the winter (Garlic Progress), but it has definitely caught up.

Overall, the garden is finally starting to look green and not too bare.  I transplanted some peppers in over the weekend, three sweet bell peppers, a chili pepper, and a "kung pao" pepper.  I decided to buy pepper seedlings this year because they take so long to get started and some creature (World's Worst...) ate my first batch.  The great thing about buying them is that you can choose a variety of plants; the bad is that it costs almost as much as if you bought seeds for all those plants and only planted one or two of each.  Almost.

I have completely abandoned the original plan for the home garden in favor of just getting things in the garden.  For example, the basil you see me transplanting above was supposed to go in after the lettuce and spinach, but frankly it was ready to be planted and I am in a hurry now that I'm so close to my due date.  So, I guess I'll put the beans in the cold frame bed once the lettuce is finished.

Brassicas in the Ground - Finally

Many seedlings awaiting transplant

The lucky ones.

Last Thursday I decided enough was enough and transplanted a bunch of cauliflower, cabbage, and broccoli seedlings into my home garden.  They had just grown into the SOHO cups I transplanted them into, roots just starting to circle around the bottom.  They look very healthy, I hope it's not too late to get a spring crop out of them.  I want to put some tulle over them this year to keep the cabbage moths off, as I've had problems with them in the past; hopefully I'll get around to that sometime this week.