Busy weekend

It was a beautiful weather weekend and a busy garden weekend. I...

1. Planted a 25 foot row of potatoes. These were seed potatoes purchased from Lowes. I planted two varieties: yukon gold and red norland. This is double the quantity of potatoes I planted last year. Last year I did a 13 foot row of red norlands which yielded a 33 pound harvest. This planting is in the northern most raised bed of the sun garden. Our planned move date is 6/10, so if the potatoes follow last year's pattern, we will only enjoy a few stolen potatoes from this planting. The new owners will get the bounty. This row was heavily composted in the fall and was treated with Urea and Sulphur last week. This row grew peas last fall and potatoes last spring.
2. Planted 1/2 of a 20 foot row of beets, carrots, green onions, radishes in Sun garden raised bed #2. This row was also treated with Urea and Sulphur last week. This row grew corn and broccoli last summer. 1/2 of it was sown with white clover cover crop in the fall.
3. Planted more peas. The peas that were sown in November sprouted a couple weeks ago, but it is clear that there was serious seed loss to this planting. Maybe only one in five seeds sprouted. So I filled in empty spots in this sun garden row #3 with new pea seeds. There are two varieties planted in this row - green arrow (pod peas) and snow peas. This soil was not treated. I also planted more snow peas in the tepee garden.
4. Planted yellow onions from 1 pound of sets. These are in the final sun garden row #4. They complete the row that was sown last fall with leeks. Soil treated with compost in the fall, urea and sulpher last week.
5. Planted 6 romaine and 6 buttercrunch lettuce seedlings in the cold frame. It is clear that our impending move has made me abandon one of last season's garden goals: not purchase any nursery stock. Indoor seed starting isn't the most attractive thing for prospective home buyers to see, so that goal got tossed for the greater good. Hopefully these seedlings will allow us some late March and early April salads while we wait for the coldframe lettuce patch to mature.
6. Planted two small rows of Kale and 12 red cabbage seedlings in the chimney garden. The cabbage I interplanted with a ton of spinach seedlings.
7. I also turned and chopped the compost hoping to fire it up. Parts of the pile were plenty hot - other parts were cold and soggy. I am guessing it will be ready for spreading in a couple weeks.

The strange thing about all this work is that we will not likely enjoy more than 10 pounds of what I planted today. I am essentially gardening this year for three reasons - First - I refuse to turn this beautiful soil back to grass. Second - It looks pretty. Third - I have this hope that the new owner will enjoy both the harvest and the garden. But more than any of those reasons, I continue to garden this season because I absolutely love it. I have reached the point where gardening is one of my favorite things. The journey is the reward.

Great news - I just finished my morning garden walk and noticed three asparagus spears sticking up. We also noticed the garlic popping up yesterday when we removed the winter covering of straw.

Peas are up

March 11th and the peas just started poking through the soil in the sun garden. They were planted November 24th of last year and have spent the winter covered under over two feet of snow. In fact there is still some snow on the ground in other parts of the yard. Looking back to last year's journal this is an 8 day improvement over the first pea sprouts from last year.

I also harvested about 3 pounds of carrots. I wasn't sure how these would look after being buried in snow all winter long, but they look pretty good.

This is going to be a strange garden year as we are moving to California in mid June. We will harvest very little of what we plant this year. Our bounty will be enjoyed by the lucky new owners of this house. I still intend to plant it up full, but I don't think I'll be quite as interested in the process this year. The journal this year will likely take the form of a reference source for the new owners to know just where and when stuff was planted.

Broc harvest - Peas planted

I am experimenting with my peas. They are always a pretty frustrating veggie for me. They never sprout early enough. They never produce enough. And they don't die off early enough for a variety of follow-up plantings. One of my favorite gardening books (Crocket's Victory Garden) talks about planting peas in the winter before the ground freezes over. The benefit of a winter sowing is that the peas shoot up at the first opportunity in the spring. No need to wait for the ground to thaw and dry enough to work. So I decided to give it a shot. I also changed the way I configured the pea climbing apparatus. Typically I try to do something natural for the peas to climb - something that looks kind of rustic - some combination of branches and twine. But the branches typically fall over in a spring storm and the twine breaks, and I am left with a big mess. This time I just went ahead and buried wire mesh for support for the peas. It isn't beautiful, but hopefully will be more functional.

As far as crop rotation goes, this planting isn't perfect. These peas were planted in a raised bed which in 2009 was half planted in brussel sprouts and green beans. My crop rotation chart says that peas should follow bracias, so the sprouts make sense. But peas and green beans are the same family, so half of this planting was not ideal.

This planting was approximately 25 linear feet and approximately doubled my spring planting of peas in 2009. I planted two varieties - A snow pea from Shumway called Goliath and a traditional pod pea from Shumway called Green Arrow. Both are supposed to be 60 days to harvest.

I also harvested 1 pound of broccoli today. The shoots are small, but very, very tasty.

13 lb Mid-November Harvest

We had a beautiful weather weekend on the 14th and 15th of November, so we worked in the yard. We can still harvest a nice salad just about whenever we want. The current staples are lettuce, spinach, mustards, chinese choi, broc, radish, carrots and peas. This weekend we also harvested some quantity as we cleaned out the remaining carrots and beets from the large patio pots. We also harvested a nice 5 pound red cabbage to mix with the beets for some weekend borscht. We had two wonderful harvest surprises as well. I ran across a nice little red norland potato mixed in with the peas and I discovered a huge 3 pound zucchini (our only one this year). It was buried underneath the privite hedge beyond the garden fence. It still looks good, so I am hoping for some fried zucchini for the Steeler game today. All in all it was a 13 pound harvest. Not bad for mid-November.

The rest of our garden effort this weekend was focused on the compost cycle. We would load up the big huge blue garden bucket (1/2 a rain barrel) with leaves, spent veggies and flowers, and make a green compost deposit. Then we would fill the same bucket with the black gold for garden distribution. All in all we added about 10 huge buckets of compost to various garden plots. I just spread it on top pretty thick, and didn't even bother to till it into the soil. I am slowly moving to a no-till garden approach. I exhausted the black gold supply during this exercise. Now both compost piles are green. One is completely full. The other has 16 inches of fresh add-ins.

What a nice weekend.

Garden update

It has been a long time since I've posted to my little electronic garden notebook. Certainly there has been some garden activity in the interim - it's just that the late summer activity is all about harvest and weeding and watering - not exactly noteworthy stuff. Anyway - as garden season starts to wind down, I am going to continue the single veggie posts and start some 2010 planning notes. For today - I'll just play a little catch-up...

Harvest Weight - 412 pounds - We are still harvesting quite a variety. Yesterday we had a salad made with 11 garden veggies (chard, spinach, beet leaves, romaine, carrots, red onions, grape tomatoes, cukes, peas, green beens,brocoli). It was really tasty. The romas have been the bulk of our recent harvests, but their production is dwindling fast. Two weeks ago I harvested 17 pounds of romas, this morning only yielded 6 pounds. I am really proud of our harvest this year. By the time I put the garden scale away for the winter we will likely be near 450 pounds of home grown organic food. That is a lot. For a frame of reference my entire family of 6 weighs in at 445 pounds. So we grew and ate our weight in food this year. That is fantastic. I am sure we ate more veggies this year than we ever have in our lives. Now that I have a baseline harvest weight established, I can't wait to try to beat this target next year.

I have been canning a lot in the evenings. It has been going very well. We have a wide variety in the pantry this winter as opposed to an entire basement of spaghetti sauce last year. More on this process to come in a detailed canning post later.


Leek note: Mary Ann - my Verona garden friend who lives down by the river, gave us a bunch of leeks from her garden a couple weeks ago. They were about 4 inches tall. She told me they will be ready to harvest in spring. I am hoping that I can plant a summer crop of peppers or tomatoes in their place after their harvest. I put them in the former onion plot in the sun garden.

Asparagus note: I am trying for a small fall harvest of asparagus. I read about this strategy in a book once. This weekend (9/13) I cut the ferns on about 1/2 of our asparagus plot. I snipped them off as close to ground level as I could manage. Then I covered this section with fresh compost. The book said that I can expect a fall harvest of asparagus as these plants send shoots back up. With the cool fall weather these shoots are supposed to be super-tasty. Crossing my fingers.

Cooking note: Roasted Beets and Carrots are just about the best darn side dish ever invented. Just toss a bunch of beets and carrots in a big alum foil pack, drizzle them with olive oil and some rosemary and put them in a 400 degree oven. They will take a while to cook. when you take them out you can skin the beets easily and slice the whole pile up. The beets turn the carrots the nicest color and the tastes blend together. It is the bomb. Sarah has been talking about this side dish for days. She wants it to become a Thanksgiving staple.

Replacement, replacement planting

Remember my last post where I said I planted peas, chard, beans and spinach in the main sun garden? It must have been a dream. Nothing has come up. Well almost nothing. The swiss chard is doing well. The former onion, root, and pea beds have done next to nothing. So this morning (almost two weeks later) - I tried again planting the exact same stuff. Green arrow peas, early bird garden beans, and spinach. I also tossed a few rows of winter greens in the cold frame - kale and mustard greens. I used a spot that I had previously filled with kale seeds - again nothing. The only thing I can think about the poor germination of these late July plantings is the the weather must have just been too hot and dry for them to get going. Only 60 days left till first frost (oct 15), so not much time for planting left. This weekend will likely be it.

The harvest weight is up to 212 pounds. We had a 23 pound harvest on Monday. About half of the harvest was tomatoes and the rest was corn and beans. A big heavy storm did some major damage to our main corn planting. It knocked all the stalks over. We harvested it all and we are definately dissappointed in the result. The ears were about 1/2-3/4 sized, but despite their kid-sized ears, the kernals tasted chewy and old - not sweet at all. The variety was Goldam Bantam - recommended by Sarah's grandfather. We only yielded 8 pounds of corn - which if you exclude the unedible ear is likely more like 4 edible pounds. This same garden row planted in tomatoes, potatoes or beans would have yielded much, much more. I won't be doing corn in the main garden next year. I love the look of it, and the stalks do wonders for the compost pile, but it just takes up too much space and light for a very small - not so tasty yield. Farmers stands will get my corn business next year.

Replacement Planting

I planted three raised beds in the sun garden this morning. The spring snap pea bed was filled with compost, raked and replanted with some green arrow peas. The spring root crop bed, which never produced like we hoped, was filled with compost, raked and replanted with early bird garden green beans. The spring onion bed was filled with compost, raked and replanted with a variety of greens (spinach, lettuce, chard, radish).

90 days till first frost

It is hard to believe given the relatively cool summer we have had, but we are only 90 days away from October 20th - the date known as our average first frost date. Our first hard frost date is scheduled for October 31st. This morning I did some fall/winter seed planning and a little planting. With 90 days to go until the first frost, any of the long season veggies that I hope to harvest need to get in the ground soon. Cabbage, beets, and carrots come to mind. If these have the time to reach full size they can be harvested even after the first frost. Carrots can be harvested well into the winter - and I have heard that their taste sweetens after frost. Peas, and beans have a slightly shorter days to maturity - along with some of the chinese cabbages and kales. The shortest days to maturity veggies are the spinaches, and lettuces.

This morning I worked a couple empty spots in the chimney garden. The three spots I worked had previously held garlic, lettuce, and spring snow peas. In that order, I planted early wonder beets, spinach, and green arrow peas. I also tossed in 3 random red cabbage seeds in a little corner of the spinach bed. Before planting, I composted heavily. This section of garden doesn't get a ton of light, so I am skeptical about the beets, but I think the peas and spinach will do just fine. The beets are also suceptible to the ground hog, so there is another strike against them. But my beet crop has been so crummy this year that I just felt I needed to give it one more crack. The spinach I planted inside a fenced area, so they should do fine. The groundhog hasn't eaten my peas yet.

Our harvest weight now exceeds 120 lbs and tomatoes are being harvested daily. One of my co-workers has a father who is a big gardener. She has been bringing zukes, cukes, peppers and cabbage in to share with us. Funny but I have harvested exactly zero zukes (groundhog), 3 cukes (groundhog), zero peppers (late start from seed), zero cabbage (still kind of small - waiting till fall), so these veggies actually are quite a welcome addition. I picked our first corn, and it was a dissapointment. It was from the earliest sun garden planting (golden bantam). Either it wasn't ready yet or this is a strange variety. We used it and a bunch of other random veggies to make some veggie stock.

The work I did last week on the rain barrels seems to be holding up. Instead of securing the spigots with silicone caulk as I had done previously - this time I used that foam insulating sealant called "Great Stuff". So far so good. The barrels are all full and holding their water with no visible leaks. Some of the barrels fill much faster than others, which I can't quite figure. I guess it has more to do with the roof and downspout placement than it does with the barrels, but I does always surprise me how slowly some fill (including my double-stack).

Replacement planting

Saturday's huge potato harvest left one of my sun garden plots empty. I added about 2 inches of compost to the whole thing and forked it, turned it and replanted it. The far left section of this plot is approx 3 ft x 8ft and I am surmising that it will get slightly more sun than the rest of this raised bed because the remainder of the bed is adjacent to my corn. So in this 3ft by 8ft section I planted a combo of things - breaking this mini plot into a couple super mini plots. I planted cukes and zukes contained inside two climbing apparati made out of wire fencing. This climbing fence will double as a groundhog gaurd - that little critter destroyed my first planting of zukes and squash, so I'm not taking any chances this time around. I also planted a small row of early bird garden bush beans - approx 40 seeds. I the remaining mini plot, I split the planting between swiss chard and spinach - approx 40 seeds for each variety.

The remaining shadier portion of this raised bed (2 ft x 10 ft) was planted with peas - a traditional variety - not snap peas. Last year I planted my fall peas on August 10th. We only got one small harvest from them before the frost killed them. This planting is a month earlier than last year, so if my plan works, I should get at least a full month of harvest. Who would have known when I started the garden this year that I would get a fall planting in the potato plot?

Our big harvest yesterday also cleared out two of our earliest plantings of beets and carrots. I replaced these with some fresh compost and seeds of the same variety.

35 pound harvest

Today's harvest was unlike anything we have seen before in the Stacy garden. We pulled out 3 lbs of beats, 5 lbs of carrots, 3 lbs of green beans, 2 lbs of shallots, two pounds of salad fixings (lettuce, peas, brocoli), and 20 lbs of potatoes. Sarah and the kids had been away for the better part of the last two weeks, so we had a little backlog of harvestable stuff in the garden. We ended up preserving a lot of our harvest. We canned 5 pints of green beans, 3 pints of carrots, and two pints of beets. We also braided and dried the shallots - see photo. We had a delicious hungarian green bean and potatoe soup yesterday for dinner. I also made two big containers of vegetable stock using all the chopped off parts of the veggies - including a few stolen lower cabbage leaves. The stock had a nice reddish brown color to it and will be a fine base for some of our winter soups.

All this harvesting freed up quite a bit of garden space today. You should see some planting posts coming soon. Our harvest weight is now over 89 pounds.

Harvest post

Our daily harvests are getting much heftier and tastier. Gone are the days of early spring where lettuce, spinach and radishes were our only produce. Now we are regularly pulling broccoli, potatoes, beets, carrots, peas, lettuce, green onions, green beans, raspberries and spices from the garden. These new veggies are coming in in nice quantity and are adding significant weight to our daily harvest. Our harvest weight is now up to 50 pounds for the year. Some details:

• Broccoli: We have already harvested all of the main shoots. Many of these weighed almost a pound on their own. The side shoots are not quite what I imagined. They are about 1/3 the size of the main shoot and they don't grow as tight. They also go to flower faster. The first three broccoli that we harvested look almost completely spent at this point. I have approx 18 broccoli seedlings temporarily planted in the cold frame ready to move to the main garden in a couple weeks for a fall crop.
• Potatoes: These have been a wonderful surprise. Despite never flowering and despite heavy shade from the adjacent corn row, the potato harvest has been a big success. Each plant yields approx 8-10 potatoes and approx 1.5 pounds of harvest. The look and taste of the spuds are fantastic, and they are really fun to harvest. There is nothing like digging your hands through the beautiful soil mining for little red bombs of starch!
• Peas: Raise your hand if your pea harvest always disappoints. Excuse my spelling as I type the rest of this post one handed. My peas are falling over due to my lazy staking and much too tight planting. The pods are really really hard to find in the mess of vines and leaves. Then I never seem to get as many as I think. They taste good however, and the kids love to eat them directly from the garden, so I can't complain too much. I may however try to a variety that doesn't climb next year - as I have done with the beans.
• Beans: Speaking of beans - what a nice little crop I have going. At the end of the corn row, I planted bush beans called fin de bagnol - planted 5/9. These came from seed saver and are really, really nice looking. They get long and thin and are oh so tasty. My harvest this morning yielded about 30 beans from this very small planting. The other two bean varieties that I planted on 5/22 early bird garden, and 6/7 slenderette are not yielding yet. The early bird garden beans look wonderful. The slenderettes basically look crummy. They were hit by bugs right from the start and look just plain anemic - weird. Note: Order a ton of fin de bagnols next year. Also planted some pole beans from seeds that we had saved in prior years. I put these in the tepee area. Planted them approx 6/15. They are about 12 inches high right now and are beginning to find ways to climb the tepee. It is early yet, but I definately am liking bush beans better.
• Raspberries: We bought two red raspberry bushes from Musser and planted them about a week ago. Yesterday I picked 15 ripe and wonderful berries. They are so tasty. I hope they do well.
• Strawberries: I almost forgot - We didn't get a ton of strawberries this year- only enough for little garden snacks. But we did go strawberry picking. From our loot we made two nice strawberry rhubarb pies and preserved 8 pints and 12 1/2 pints of jam.
  

Brussel Sprouts

My favorite vegetables are in the ground. I planted 10 brussel sprouts in the sun garden and 2 in the sq foot gardens. I transplanted a couple zukes and cukes to fill in blank spots in the sq foot gardens. I also harvested a 7.5 inch carrot, 20 strawberries, and 10 peas. Two of the peas were from the first planting in the sq. foot garden. We now have two succession plantings of peas that are producing. We have had about 5 days of straight rain and it is cool, so today was a good day to plant and harvest.

Harvest weight is at 22.5 pounds after 35 harvests. The green onions are finally looking tall and strong like good green onions should.

Pea blossoms

The weather has been wonderful and we have been busy planting, expanding and harvesting.

Planting:

• Started 10 musk mellon seeds and 10 pumpkin seeds indoors
• succession planting of 5 small spinach rows in the high wall garden- between romas (more on spinach below)
• succession planting of approx 10 seed saver lettuce seedlings in low wall garden (between romas)
• transplanting of various lettuce from sq foot garden to sun garden to get away from the critter that has been feasting on them

Expanding:

• We created a large new flower border - approx 25 X 4 ft, and expanded another. These plots border our back yard walls and had previously held a smattering of bulbs and annuals at the base of the wall. We like flowers more than grass, so we expanded. We filled these new plots with various perennials that we transplanted from our other perennial gardens. We planted bamboo, hosta, rhodadendron, black eyed susan, daisy, mountain blewett, calencho, sweet woodruff, mini irises, large irises, ferns, lillies, and mums. We also bordered these plots with impatien seedlings that we started indoors. This new garden gets very little sun.
  

Harvesting:

• Spinach - We did our second large spinach harvest of the season. We now have over 2 pounds (3 one gallon freezer bags) of spinach in the freezer just waiting for our winter soups and pizzas. While I am excited about the quantity of spinach that we have harvested so far, I am concerned about the remaining crop. It might have a blight. Many of the leaves are turning a whitish color and drooping. The harvest yesterday took just about all the large leaves, so we'll know for sure in a week or two if this little blight is going to take the rest of our crop. I planted 4 new rows of spinach in a totally different garden plot this morning in an effort to keep us in some spinach even if the current crop doesn't make it. The beet leaves are suffering from a similar problem.
  
• Asparagus - still coming in at a rate of about 3-5 stalks a day. I have been roasting it in the oven with Emerril's Essense for a nice late night snack while I watch the Penguins - Yummy!
• Harvest weight is @14 lbs and 26 harvests
  

Other:

• I did something goofy to the compost piles today. I had some 4 inch black drain pipe laying around. I drilled a bunch of holes in it and buried one 4 foot section (standing tall) in the center of each pile. All I have read says that proper pile aeration is one of the keys to quick compost. Most recommend frequent turning (which I do), but I have seen the smokestack approach recommended a few times as well. The idea here is that this pipe allows the gasses to escape from the pile and introduces fresh air allowing the various bacteria to do their thing.
  
• The other photo is a mid-May update of our main sun garden.
• Note: We saw our first pea blossoms last year on 5/26. So we are 12 days earlier this year. I planted an "early bird garden" short pea this year on 2/28. Very few actually germinated, so I filled in with snow peas a couple weeks later. I also had this section covered with a mini-cold frame through the late winter. Anyway - It was a lot of work for 12 days of extra pea harvest, but I bet we'll be enjoying the fruits of that labor very soon. We have also been harvesting pea leaves for salads and spring rolls for a couple of weeks.
  

Tomatoes

I was sick all week and weekend too. But I did manage to do a little work in the yard...

1. Seeded approx 4 rows of lettuce - mesculan, romain, and buttercrunch
2. Planted 7 tomato seedlings in the sun garden - two grape, two silver fir, three early bird garden - these I am covering at night with cloches made from 1 gallon milk jugs sliced in half.
3. weeded and composted the sq foot garden #1. Added several seeds of various, wherever some were missing.
4. Seeded three rows of carrots in the sun garden (root plot)
5. Seeded three rows of corn in the lower wall garden
6. Seeded approx 1/3 sun garden plot of peas
7. Transplanted three silver fir tomato seedlings to pots - two hanging.

Seed fill in

I dropped a couple seeds in the sq foot garden cold frame tonight. The peas that I planted on the first day of March were very spotty. I planted probably 100 of them in 8 sq foot garden sections. Only about 20 sprouted. So tonight I filled in the blank spots. I did the same with spinach and green onions.

Planning note: I want to do a big spinach planting this weekend. Spinach does very well in the freezer and is typically spent by the end of June. I think at this point I have plenty of broccoli and cabbage in various places for the spring planting. I decided this morning to plant the remainder of the two raised beds that I have planned for the cabbage family in spinach. I will also sow some spinach in with the potatoes and in the chimney garden. This will probably give me somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 spinach plants. That should give us a plentiful late June harvest for freezing. As we harvest this huge planting, we can follow it up with a summer planting of corn, brussel sprouts, cabbage, and broccoli (all started indoors, and potentially kale, endive, swiss chard, etc. I like this plan.

One other possible change - given the huge pea plantings I have done so far, I may be able to plant one of the raised beds that I had planned for peas in something else (thinking non-roma tomatoes). I need to check and see how a row of tomatoes would work for my rotation plan.

Third salad

Another salad for lunch today - 2 romaine, 3 spinach and some onion tops. All three of these veggies began inside and were planted in the sq foot garden cold frame. The salad was delicious. Now that a bunch of stuff is popping up, I am more willing to harvest my meager little seedlings.

What is doing well?

1. Beets in the planter are doing excellent. The beet leaves which I have harvested twice already, are big and vibrant. If I would have taken the time to check on them this afternoon, I certainly could have had a bigger salad.
   
2. Aspargus - We counted 21 spears poking up now. The largest is about 4 inches tall. I bet we will have our first aspargus harvest next weekend. They are growing about 4 inches a week.
   
3. Spinach - all over the garden little spinach seedlings are emerging. The seedlings that are planted in the cold frames are growing quite well and are about 8 leaves per plant.
4. Peas in the sun garden - These are popping up everywhere and very thick. These peas are kicking the holy crap out of the peas that I planted in the cold frame. Those are really spotty despite the fact that I planted about 100 of them, I bet only 20 seeds have emerged yet.

After my harvest, I replaced the lettuce and spinach with 4 small seed savers lettuce seedlings. These were started on 3/9. They aren't huge, but big enough to survive I hope. I also replaced a dead geranium in sq foot garden #2 with 4 swiss chard seedlings.

Onions and Sidewalks

Today started late as it was 20 degrees at 8 am this morning. So we went to Chapons (Our favorite Pittsburgh nursery) early and worked late. At Chapons we bought some Walla Walla sweet and Red onion transplants (100 total), and some shallots. Both the shallots and the onions were super cheap at 1.99. Chapons also sells seed potatoes, but we didn't buy any. We also got some Greensand to add potasium to the soil. At noon I got to work. I began by doing some planting. In Sq. foot garden #2 I planted five more squares...

1. 15 shallots from Chapons
2. 9 spinach seeds
3. 16 green onion seeds
   
4. 5 Romaine seeds
5. 9 beet seeds

The most noteworthy planting was the beets. I removed all the soil from the square to a depth of about 18 inches. Then I loosened the bottom soil with a fork. I added back the top soil/compost mix by screening it through our wire lath screen. The beets should love this nice soft, loose home. The rhubarb and geranium are just about dead. If I wind up tossing those two, I have 4 squares left to plant in this garden.

Next I planted sugar snap peas. I planted these in the tepee garden. I worked the soil (it looks nice) and innoculated the peas. I bet I put about 100 in the ground. I put them all along the back of the tepee and along the house wall below the window. There are three rows covering about 15 linear feet total. If I am good about my climbing apparatus we may even be able to pick peas from inside the house by opening up the window.

My last planting for the day was to put 50 of the walla walla transplants in the sun garden. I have to admit I was getting a little worried about my seed onion transplants. They are so darn skinny, that I am losing confidence that they will amount to anything more than green onions for us. The 4 bucks spent on onion transplants was hopefully well-spent. Although this went against one of my garden goals (Buy no nursery stock).

When Sarah joined me outside (no kids - nap time and quiet play inside - that was nice), we removed the flagstone sidewalk leading to the barbeque. I pulled up the stones and Sarah spread new soil and sod. I also repositioned the flagstone sidewalk along the herb garden. I gave it a steeper curve and moved it out a couple of feet to give us more herb garden. This also gets my head a little farther away from the wisteria, which had become a headknocker for me. By consolidating and reusing the best flagstones, the remaining path has a much cleaner look. We will also really enjoy the extra herb space. This new and improved herb garden really looks nice.

A couple notables: I saw the first pea sprout poking through in the sun garden. That pea was planted exactly 14 days ago on 3/7. Wow that was fast. Those peas are not likely to be much behind the peas that were planted in the cold frame. But I need to remember that the ones planted in the sq. foot garden cold frame are a different variety. That may account for some of the difference.

PEAS!

That little green thing in the center of this photo is our first pea. I saw about 4 of them popping up in the square foot cold frame this morning. These were planted on 2/28. That is 19 days to sprout. Last year I planted our first peas on 3/20 and noticed the first sprout on 4/11 (22 days). So we are almost a full month earlier to first sprout. Hopefully that will translate into a full month more of tasty peas - one of our favorite garden vegetables. I also noticed beets popping up in the sq foot garden cold frame. These seeds were planted on 3/1, so 18 days for them. Radishes are popping up everywhere - including several places in our sun garden. This is the first growth in the sun garden. Now that we have peas coming up, I may do another small planting of them this weekend. I also need to establish some sort of climbing apparatus for them. The broccoli and lettuce I transplanted yesterday seems to have survived the heat (70 and sunny yesterday) and is doing fairly well. It rained last night, but not much - the rain barrels are still only about 1/3 full.

It's Alive

Yesterday we finally had some seeds sprout outside and in the cold frames. The radishes that were planted on 2/27 outside (chimney garden, no cold frame) sprouted. I saw two of them poke above the surface. I also saw one of them sprout inside the sq foot garden cold frame (planted 3/2). Inside the traditional cold frame, we have about 4 spinach sprouts poking up (planted 2/26). As you might imagine, I am very excited for these developments. That is about two weeks from seed to sprout for radishes and spinach. I took a look at last year's book just for comparison. Our fist outdoor planting last year was on 3/20 (no cold frame - peas, spinach and lettuce). It took last year's peas 22 days to poke above the surface. The lettuce and spinach came up a little sooner than that, but I didn't mark the exact day.

One of my garden goals this year was to extend the season. I think I am making strides in that area. Here are some random comparisons 2008 to 2009.

• Peas - Planted 3/20/08 vs 3/2/09

• Spinach - Planted seeds 3/20/08 vs. seedlings (cold frame) 3/1/09 these were started indoors as seeds on 1/24. Direct sowed seeds (cold frame) 2/26/09

• Radishes - Only fall crop last year vs. 2/26

• Lettuce - 3/20/08 vs seedlings (cold frame) 3/1/09 and seeds 3/1/09

• Beets - 4/11/08 vs 1/11/09 - I started beet seeds inside in January, transplanted them to a large planter in mid February, and moved them outside under the traditional cold frame on March 6th. They are absolutely thriving.

• Carrots - same as beets. The only difference is that a little critter played around with them and killed about 1/3 of the pot.

• Green Onions - 4/11/08 vs 3/7/09

• Broccoli - 4/6/08 (lowes nursery stock) vs. 3/6/09

• Cabbage, Pak Choi, onions are all new spring plantings for us. We either didn't grow these in the past of did them only as fall crops.

• Tomatoes, Peppers 4/11/08 (seed starting indoors) vs. 3/9/09 (indoors)

So basically across the board I am one month earlier on average with my plantings. If it all works that is certainly successful season extension - thanks to the cold-frames. Much of the thanks also must go to the fact that we have so many more planting areas ready to go this year. Last year we didn't have any of the soil "shovel ready" to steal a recovery funds phrase.

Another goal this year is successful succession planting to keep the harvest slow and steady. One example of my attempt at this is by looking at my various spinach plantings.

Spinach - first seeds started indoors 1/24. Seedlings planted in cold frame 3/1/09. Seeds started in cold frame 3/1/09. Seeds started in sun garden 3/7/09. Another indoor planting started 2/24. Another cold frame row of seeds started 2/26. So this is a lot of spinach planted both as seeds and seedlings, in various places at various times in small little plantings. I'll probably just get in the habit of dropping a few seeds in the ground every weekend throughout the season. As spring turns to summer, I'll make my plantings in the shade of other vegetables or intersperse them with some flower plantings on the north side of the house. My fall plantings will be back in the cold frame to gear up for a winter harvest. Spinach is a great crop to succession plant because it can grow in cold weather, doesn't take up much room, can be eaten when still small, and freezes well.

Garden Day!

I have a full load of manure, a compost pile that needs firing, and soil that needs to be worked. It is 50 degrees with a light rain falling. I got to work around 6:30 am. The rain only lasted a couple of minutes. I started in the compost pile. I had previously emptied all the finished compost out of the left pile and it was ready for more. I did my best to build alternating layers carbon (sticks and wood chips) with nitrogen (mushroom manure). Much of the pile was still frozen, so about 8 am. I took a break and moved on to other things.

The other thing I moved on to was the sun garden. We call this area the sun garden because it gets the most sun (obviously). This is year #2 for this plot. Last year we didn't really get it rolling until mid summer for tomatoes and peppers. This year the soil is much, much better, but still not wonderful. It still has a lot of rocks and some clay. The sun garden is approx 16 X 16. My garden plan has me breaking it into 10 - 30 in X 7 foot rows. Today I prepped and began planting 5 of those rows (the east 5). Based on the advice of the author of The Four Season Harvest, I didn't turn the soil this year. Instead I just spread some lime and some compost on top, and raked it in the top couple inches of soil. Then I dug out the paths and spread that soil on top of the planting rows. When I was done I had what looked like raised beds, but really could be described as sunken paths. In those paths, I spread green manure (mix of alfalfa and clover). I used rocks for the paths last year and wasn't really pleased with the results. Here is what I planted in the sun garden today...

• Row #1 - about 75 peas (snow peas - goliath - shumway). I inoculated them and planted them very, very tight. Took up about 1/3 of the row (left part - this part gets most sun). I set off the peas with a light row of radishes for marking.
• Row #2 - This is the cabbage family row. I planted 3 cabbage seeds and 3 broccoli seeds. I put them on 12 inch centers, so had lots of space in between. In between I put little lines of green onions, and spinach, which will be long gone when the cabbage and broccoli start crowding the row.
  
• Row #3 - This is the root crop row. I did two little plots of carrots ("early bird garden", nantes type - shumway freebies) and beets (early wonder - shumway). I did a really nice job with these plots. I used my deep tined fork to pull out about the top ten inches of soil in a little 20 x 10 inch mini plot. Then I loosened the remaining soil with the fork. Using my new compost screener (built by me, Quinn and Carter), I filled the plots with screened compost, soil and mushroom manure. This planting meduim was light and fine. I can just picture the carrots and beets shooting down through it with ease, making wonderful, long root crops.
  
• Row #4 - left blank - I have bush beens planned for this row.
  
• Row #5 - This is the onion row. I planted about 30 onion seedlings. Quinn helped.

In the past I would have fully planted these rows. This year, I am really trying to be patient and build a much longer harvest season, and better variety through succession planting. I intend to do smaller plantings every couple of weeks, rather than one huge planting.

After finishing up the planting, I headed back to the compost pile and finished sorting it. I was able to remove 4 wheelbarrows of compost and dump it in the left half of the sun garden, to be worked in the coming weeks. This compost was by no means finished, but I am not a compost snob. I don't mind a few eggshells and chunky sticks in my compost. I have also learned from experience that some of the best and fastest way to break down partially finished compost is to let the soil organisms in the garden take their crack at it. When I was done, the "green bin" was about 3/4 full and the "black gold" bin had about 16 inches of the good stuff. I feel really good about this compost activity today. I fully expect the layering and aerating I did today combined with the rising temps to get both piles fired back up and cooking. I would be shocked if I don't feel some heat coming off those piles tomorrow.

Sarah did some work outside today as well. She turned a small 4x4 section of grass and prepared it for flowers. Over the last two years we have removed several plots of grass in the same manner and are slowing building perennial flower gardens.

No signs of any seeds sprouting anywhere yet. I watered all seeds and seedlings with compost tea. We came in at about 5:30 - after spending over 10 hours outside on a beautiful, warm pre-spring day.