Out with the Old

The last couple weeks I've been focused on preparing for spring planting.  Lots of little seedlings are decorating my kitchen and spare bedroom, and I've been out at the plot every decent day we've had.  I'm working from a schedule this year; I put it together over the winter to help make sure that when beds are empty, something is ready to put in them, and when something needs to go in the ground there is a place for it.  I'm anticipating strawberry and blackberry plants will arrive this week or next week, plus next weekend I plan to plant my peas and potatoes, so I've been working hard to clear all the space where they will go in. 

Late-winter carrot harvest

One of the unexpected tasks I had to deal with last week was picking all of these leftover carrots (a little over 5 lbs).  If you don't pick them before spring they will start to form a central flower stalk, and the root (supposedly) gets kind of woody.  So far, they've been a hit - very sweet and tender, except at the very tops where the frost made them kind of crumbly.

I don't think I over-planted carrots last fall, rather I under-harvested them, buying numerous bags of baby carrots from the grocery store over the winter.  It's harder to get into the garden during the winter because the park gate stays locked December-March, and it takes a lot of time to coax two little ones across the wind-swept soccer field.  Maybe next winter I'll grow my carrot patch at home so they'll be more convenient.

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!

Check out this video from www.whitehouse.gov. (Hope it works - this is my first video post.)

Looks like I am not the only one putting in more garden space this year. For those of you not familiar with the White House Kitchen Garden, it is a fabulous project of the first lady's which I hope is making it classy to grow edibles again. I think one of the reasons we have such poor diets in our society is that it has become so low-class to grow your own food; edible gardens have to be hidden in the backyard, must cost more than the money you save from them, and must be treated as a quirky hobby rather than a cheap, convenient means of feeding your family healthy food. Many thanks to Michelle Obama for increasing the social acceptability of a once-standard practice!

Some of you may remember some reports last year about dangerous lead levels in the soil of the white house garden. (You might have heard it from me...sigh.) Turns out this was a bit of a tempest in a teakettle.