Last Winter's Work

From October 2006 through March 2007, we made of number of important changes.

1. John Jeavons' book, How to Grow More Vegetables, absolutely rocked our gardening world. Following his advice, we've replaced our six 30' rows with twelve beds, each to be double-dug and heavily composted. "Double-digging" means removing the first twelve inches of top-soil, and then turning over the next twelve inches (yes, you're digging 24 inches down, if possible) while also working in a healthy serving of compost. The first time through, this is slow and challenging work, especially if, in your rampant enthusiaism, your beds end up nearly twice as long as Jeavons recommends (5 X 10 vs. 5 X 4). So, thus far we've only double-dug five of our twelve beds. I'll be digging the remainning seven beds this month.

2. For six weeks in October and November we raked and composted fallen leaves. Some we spread out on fallow garden beds; most were soaked and bagged with a shovel of composted manure. We've been adding them to our compost bin and digging them into our beds.

3. From old, abandoned wooden pallets we built a three-bin composting storage area. This keeps our composting material together nicely, while also allowing movement of air and water. The three bin structure makes it easy to turn the compost every 90 days; we use a fork and shovel to transfer the compost from one bin to another, and then begin a new pile in the first bin. Our composting ratio? An approximation of Jeavons' teachings: two inches of kitchen scraps; an inch of manure and/or top soil; an inch of hay straw; two inches of leaves. Repeat. We've been watering the compost piles about once a week to keep them moist, and like our garden giving the bins and piles loving attention; after all, this is the magical healing stuff that will greatly fortify our beds!!!

4. For the first time, we experimented with a Winter garden. Some things worked well, others less so. Our results thus far?

Garlic : )
Lettuce : )
Parsnips : (
Broccoli : (
Mustard Greens : )
Collards : )

5. Lastly, we've begun to build some of our own things, with absolutely no carpentry skill or training whatsoever, from discarded and scrap wood. Sound like a prescription for disaster? Well, it's turned out better than that, mostly. We began with an outdoor garden table - shellacked with dark green floor sealant to protect it from the rain (so it actually looks pretty good). Then a "hot house" or "cold frame" (I've heard it described both ways) for keeping plants warm in the Winter. Then an "A Frame" or three-tiered shelving unit with hanging grow-lights, for starting seeds and nurturing seedlings indoors. Then a rustic garden fence and arbor. So far, we're 3 for 4. The table, cold-frame and A-Frame are highly functional, and thus by our standards a success. The rustic-fence-and-arbor thing kicked my ass. It was so bad that I took it down after an entire afternoon's work. I've decided that some instruction may be necessary.

After Building Tomato Cages, Let-Us-Eat!

This morning's low: 58F
Afternoon high: 66F
Tonight's projected low: 57F
Cloudy nearly all day, with one heavy downpour about 1:00pm, and a south wind ~ 5 mph
Humidity: 88%

1. I Assembled six tomato cages (each 28" in diameter and ~ 5' in height) from one roll of welded-wire 5' X 30' (purchased at Walmart for ~$35). M wants to sink each cage 1 foot down into the garden beds, and then I'm thinking we'll also stake them down with plastic store-bought stakes and rope. Last year, we used store-bought tomato cages and did not stake them down. This worked okay until June thunderstorms blew them over, which seriously diminished our overall tomato harvest, and basically was a real bummer. We want these cages to stand up strong all Spring/Summer/Fall. We'll put tomato plants, cages and stakes in the ground together on or shorly after April 15th.

2. Just before sunset, M and I went out to the garden, took several photos of our progress thus far, and cut lettice for tonight's dinner. We learned our lesson with the potatoes, and are eating up and relishing our fresh, organic garden lettice each day in large, delicious lunch and dinner salads! I've also been giving the plants we cut lots of attention and fresh water and worm tea two or three times a week. Mirculously, they have grown back 100% or more. We've broadcast a new round of seeds to a well-shaded bed of peat moss in the hopes of harvesting lettice throughout the Spring and Summer months. This bed gets morning sun, but is shaded for the remainder of the day, and we're hoping that, even with the hot Summer days ahead, the shade will keep the young lettuce plants cool enough to thrive.

More Seeds Started

Early this morning I started Viroflay spinach, May Queen lettuce, dill, lime genovese and thai basil. I also started purple sprouting broccoli and arrowhead cabbage. Some of these should have probably been started earlier. All tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and friends have been transplanted to larger containers with some worm compost.

The A-frame grow light contraption is finally upstairs and boy, is it big! Pictures coming soon.

We are still eating daily salads from our bed of baby greens (Rocky Top mix from Baker's Creek).

Learning from Mistakes

Last fall, K and I planted a bed of garlic. We also planted salad greens, radishes and beets from seed. We bought a few plants -- broccoli, mustard, and collards and stuck them in. We knew that, except for the garlic, we were planting too late, but we felt like mucking around in the dirt, so we thought we'd give it a try. I pretty much ignored everything all winter. I weeded the garlic bed a couple times. K religiously watered all the plants with worm tea all winter.

The beets and radishes sprouted, but never, ever developed into anything worth even talking about. The salad mix came up, but then seemed to just kind of hold its breath all winter. The collards, broccoli and mustard did nothing all winter. They neither grew nor died. Until we started having some warm February days. By the end of February, we had a lush 3 X 4 ft bed of baby salad greens (and reds) and strong, healthy looking collards and mustard. The broccoli budded in early March -- nothing spectacular, but we had omelets with broccoli one night.

Now, every day, I walk out to the garden and cut a salad. But, you know what? It's hard. Something in my nature makes me want to conserve, to be careful with this bed of greens. Last summer's garden produced a moderate amount of potatoes: Peruvian purple fingerlings and Yukon Golds. We ate sparingly all late summer and fall. However, we don't have a root cellar here. We had no way of storing those potatoes for winter, yet we tried. The result was a big mess in the potato bin. We missed out on the glory of our summer potatoes. We should have been reveling in those potatoes all summer and fall.

I read once that in France, when asparagus begins to be in season, they have festivals celebrating it and eat very little besides asparagus at every meal. I'm trying to celebrate my salad with that spirit.

Transplanting update:

Tomatoes, artichokes and tomatillos have been transplanted into larger pots with a mixture of coir, worm compost and potting soil. K has finished the A frame growing light contraption, but has yet to bring it up from the basement.

I ordered Yukon Gold potatoes and a red potato from Seeds of Change. Also, I ordered sweet potato slips from Henry Field (Bush Porto Rico) and That's Delicious corn. Usually I grow mostly heirlooms, but I thought a super sweet corn would be fun.

Starting Seeds in the Kitchen

Tonight I started some seeds in the kitchen. Eggplant, tomato, tomatillo, sweet and hot peppers, artichokes and some purple cauliflower.

I have two shop lights (about $8 each) hanging from the bottom of one of my kitchen cabinets. These lights are on for 16 hours a day. K is building an A-frame structure that will have 2 or 3 levels of shop lights to accommodate larger plants. I'll post a picture of it when he finishes it. I'm using seed starting trays with expandable peat pellets. These are expensive, and peat is non-renewable, but these trays are super convenient.

I'm starting seeds a bit earlier than usual because I want to have bigger, stronger plants than I did last year. Also I think I'll put some out early and use a wall o' water or two.

We are in USDA zone 7b. Our average last frost date is in mid April.

I've never tried to grow artichokes before. And I've never successfully grown eggplant.