The Modern "Victory Garden"

For the past few nights it has really been noticeably lighter out when I leave work to head home.   Similarly in the morning it has been lighter out earlier.   I even heard a songbird calling this morning as I was heading out the door.   When the birds start migrating back and getting all "twitterpated" - you know spring is just around the corner!                    

 I did a quick nighttime garden inspection this evening after dinner.   Not ideal for taking pictures (flash pictures on my camera tend to look washed out) so I don't have photos to share tonight, but I must tell you that the garlic (both elephant and regular) and onions have really taken off this week.   Unlike other parts of the country, we have been enjoying a particularly mild January and early February this year.   Nighttime temps in the 40's and the daytime temps have been in the low 50's.   The combination of really mild weather we have been experiencing and a break (at last) in the constant overcast rainy weather has apparently worked some magic on the allium bed crops.   The onions in the containers in the green house put on some serious growth this week too.   The mache in the greenhouse is also progressing - but it is a pokey grower and the new growth is not nearly as impressive as the onions and garlic.   What I could not judge well in the darkness, was whether the overwintered spinach in the grow tunnel cover was doing anything significant.   I will have to wait until tomorrow morning to check it out.   

I have some onion sets that I ordered that have not been delivered yet.   I sure wish I had them this weekend, because the conditions are ideal for getting them into the ground.   It was mostly dry today and is supposed to stay that way on through the weekend.   This bodes well for me to finally get that big bed of crimson clover cover crop turned over this weekend.   I also plan to start some Merlot lettuce on Saturday.   These are seeds I received from Dan at the Urban Veggie Garden Blog.   I am really looking forward to growing them this year.    

If I had my way I would spend all day for both days of the weekend puttering outside in the garden.   I am in real need of some fresh air, exercise, and sunshine.   Unfortunately, I do have some errands to take care of on Saturday, but luckily they are not so much as to take up the entire day.   

For the many readers of my blog who are in locations currently gripped by the icy hand of winter, please stay safe and warm and remember that it will not be all that much longer before you too will be enjoying the sound of returning songbirds and green shoots sprouting in the garden!

Daphne at Daphne's Dandelions regularly hosts a "Monday Harvest" post whereby everyone shares their harvest for the week.   Up until today, I have not participated in this weekly event (although I always enjoy reading about everyone else's harvests!) because I generally do not have pictures of everything I harvested over the course of the week and my Monday's are usually just too wickedly crazy.   However, I decided to join in this week because Daphne made a genuine plea for participation to chase away the winter blahs and put visions of tomatoes and spinach  in her head for the holidays.              

No tomatoes or spinach, but will some fresh kale and crisp cold carrots do? 

Harvested Sunday afternoon.    The ground was frozen solid for the first two or three inches of the soil and the kale has been through several freezes too.   The result is that the sugar content is quite high in both the carrots and the kale - quite yummy!                                     

I harvested brussel sprouts on Christmas Eve day as well, but unfortunately... no pictures of that harvest to share. 

My first attempts at creating and posting some videos.   I don't think I will be quitting my day job to become a film director - but I believe it gives a good overview of the garden in winter.                                                          

I often have the experience of people wanting to know the address of this website and blog and invariably the request comes when it is inconvenient to try and write it down on a piece of scrap paper (which is likely to get lost anyways) or a pen and paper are not available at all and then it is up the individual asking to then memorize and retain the information.    It seems that a business card with the web address on it would be a useful thing to have for just such circumstances.    Recently, Suzy at Chiot’s Run posted about Moo Mini Cards and I instantly knew this was just the solution for this problem and a nice way to display some of the more interesting photos from the site at the same time.                                           

They are a great size for carrying around and feature up to 100 different cropped images from photos you upload.   I chose to put the Modern Victory Garden website address, my name, and general location on the back of the cards.   I have already had an opportunity to hand a few of these out and think they will be very useful to have on hand.                              

The garden is in soggy wet winter mode right now.                     

The garden crops that are currently available for harvest include: carrots, parsnips, kale, swiss chard (greenhouse), lettuce (greenhouse), brussel sprouts (almost done though), cabbage (January King and a little bit of Beira Tronchuda is left).   I have had some critter getting into one of the carrot beds, pulling up roots and gnawing on some of them.   Not sure what kind of creature specifically is doing this, but I wish he/she would be less wasteful and just eat what they pull up rather than leaving it partially gnawed on!   I have an abundance of carrots in the ground in several different plantings, so I am not feeling any compulsion to try and put a stop to it.                     

Coming along behind the current harvestable crops, are some secondary plantings that will not be ready until February or March at the soonest. In the greenhouse, I have mache (corn salad) that I planted in two of the three half barrels. Mache is a slow plant to germinate and grow, but is well worth the effort.   It is hard to see in the following photo but I am getting a good coverage of mini mache sprouts in the two containers.

In the shop, under the grow lights and on the heat mat, I have some kale, Chinese cabbage, and lettuce seedlings that have emerged.    I planted these up last weekend.                                               

The lettuce is not giving me very good germination (both varieties).   I think the seed may be losing some viability due to age.   Probably time to toss the lettuce seed and replenish with fresh seed stock.                           

I am hoping to get started on my shop project over the coming holiday weekend.   I am designing a simple planting spacer tool that will help me to quickly plant larger sections of garden beds - but still utilize proper spacing when direct seeding.   It’s just an idea rattling around in my head right now. I want to do a prototype of the idea and work out the kinks before moving on to creating the final planting tool.                     

What are you working on or doing in the garden right now?

We have had a long string of record setting cold days this past week.   Approximately 10 days of over night lows of 18 degrees or lower and day time temperatures that did not make it up to freezing level.   The coldest temp I observed at our place was 12 degrees.   While we get these cold snaps occasionally, they usually happen in late January and early February – not in December.   I was not as proactive in response to the forecast warnings as I should have been.   I missed my opportunity to put some grow tunnel covers up over the outside beds at the outset of the cold snap.   There really are not very many crops in the outside beds that are not winter hardy and/or belowground in soil storage (carrots and parsnips).   However, by not covering the semi hardy crops I pretty much sentenced them to death by freezing.   I have been going to work and returning home at night in the dark, so it was not until Saturday morning that I was able to make a good assessment of the damage.                                         

The celery had been going for an extremely long period of time this fall, but the extreme cold (and for a period of many days) definitely finished them off.      

The lettuces are similarly (not surprisingly) completely taken down by the freeze as well.   The kale behind them looks a little ragged too but holds the promise of a potential bounce back.

The brussel sprouts have just a few more harvests of sprouts left on them.    They were pretty frozen on Saturday morning but are such hardy plants that I was not despairing of them being down for good.             

This afternoon (Sunday) the temperature actually moved up to 40 degrees and while the ground is still frozen solid, the plants had a chance to unthaw.     As I expected, the brussel sprouts lost a few of the lower leaves, but the sprouts are fine and I was able to harvest a nice amount for dinner this evening.                          

The kale plants bounced back too.

And the January King cabbages are okay as well.                              

These are a really tough cabbage plant and are excellent for over wintering as a result.    The jury is still out on the Beira Tronchuda cabbages.   Unfortunately, the three remaining Ruby Ball cabbages were ruined by the freeze and had to be removed and composted.                 

In the unheated greenhouse, I lost a few of the lettuce plants and the outer leaves on some of the swiss chard, but overall the plants seem to survive fairly well.       

Recognizing I have only a handful of greens producing plants that have survived, I decided to get the grow light going today and start a few cell packs of lettuces, kale, and Chinese cabbages.   Before doing any seed starting, I changed out the grow lights in the light fixture as they were several years old and were losing some of their intensity as a result.   I then planted up four six packs using the very last of my germinating soil mix.               

These were then covered with a plastic dome.                    

And then placed on the heat mat under the grow lights.                     

Overall, considering I did not do much of anything to protect the outside plantings, I was fortunate in that so many of them seem to have survived intact.

The first freeze arrived this week.   It didn’t just arrive in a gentle way either.   It seems with the weather in the past few years that everything occurs in an abrupt and significant manner.   The month of November is always our rainiest month in these parts, but this year it was setting records.   We had rain virtually every day through the month of November and plenty of them were deluge type soakers.   While it was soggy all through November the temperature was relatively moderate and warm for the time of year.   Then December arrived and it is like the spigot was just turned off by someone.   A stretch of dry and (mostly) sunny days has since ensued and is forecasted to continue through mid month and with the change came a sudden drop in temperatures – almost down to record lows for our area.   We have an arctic blast hitting us, which brought our nighttime temperatures into the mid 20’s .   The significant and hard freezes have taken down the vegetation on the semi hardy crops.   The tops of the parsnips are done but the roots will continue to reside safely in the ground.   The lettuce is also quite done in and I need to brave the cold today and remove them.   So far the brussel sprouts are holding up, but I should harvest the rest of the sprouts over the coming week just to be safe. Yesterday, I stepped out into the cold just long enough to dig up a nice mix of parsnips and carrots to slice and sauté in butter for dinner.   

I’ve got a few lists going at the moment.   Some are in my head and some are actually on paper.   And despite what you are probably thinking, the lists I am referring to are not related to the impending Christmas holiday!   Instead, they are about getting myself organized for the annual seed and supply ordering process.   I generally place orders for the bulk of seeds, nursery stock, and garden supplies right after Christmas.   I find it works better if I spend most of December taking an inventory of supplies, and developing / refining my garden plan for the coming year.   In addition to thinking about what to plant in the garden and what supplies might be needed, I also give some consideration to what projects should be completed prior to the growing season getting underway.   So far, here are the things I am thinking about:

• I need to replace the 4 Heritage raspberry plants that did not make it last year.   We also need to construct a proper support structure for the raspberry bed this year. 
• The broad-spectrum light tubes in the grow light fixture need to be replaced before the big seed-starting season gets underway.  The current tubes are quite a few years old and appear to be losing some intensity. I have some spares on hand but will order another set of spares to replace the ones I will use.   
• I am totally out of seed starting soil mix and need to stock up. 
• I want to add 4 more half-whiskey barrel containers to the greenhouse (have three in there now) – need to watch for a good sale on these, as they are kind of pricey.  As an alternative, I may give some serious consideration to constructing deep raised beds in the greenhouse using up the remaining timbers from last year's garden expansion project.
• After blogging this week about intercropping, I am inspired to give the 3 Sisters planting combination another try – using a half runner dried bean variety (probably pinto beans) and just a few squash plants in an attempt to keep it more manageable and produtive.
• This winter’s shop project is going to be the creation of some planting jigs to make it easier to do precise planting without excessive fussing around on my part.   I have an idea in mind and just need to go purchase a few materials and make a prototype of it.   I will blog about the shop project when it get's underway.   Last year’s idea and project was the horizontal pea trellis, which turned out to be a great success.

What’s on your lists?

I am way behind everyone else this year in getting our leaves raked up.    Things seemed to be conspiring against me to get it done timely.   First, the trees seemed to hang on to the leaves for a prolonged period of time this year, only letting go once we had a major windstorm event.   That windstorm was part of a series of storms that rolled through one after another bringing heavy and soaking rains.   The leaves were matted down and completely wet as a result.   This weekend was actually almost dry (a few sprinkles), so this afternoon I took advantage of the weather break and spent a few hours doing the annual leaf raking and composting process.   They were still very wet and hard to rake up but the top layer had dried out somewhat making the task at least possible to do.   The leaves were transported to the compost piles where I topped off the two current bins and got a good start on a third bin.                                                             

Another chore I tackled today (before getting to the leaf raking) was to remove the fall crop of broccoli.   They have provided some good harvests including a lot of side shoot production, but they had essentially quit producing and the weather forecast is calling for freezing nighttime temps next week so there really is no hope of any further harvests.                    

 Half gone.                                                         

All gone!   I need to layer some compost on to this bed next weekend.

The kale, brussel sprouts, various cabbages, swiss chard, celery, and root crops (carrots & parsnips) are doing fine in the fall/winter garden.   I have some lettuces in the outside beds as well but they are looking a little rough.    The steady cold rains have been hard on them.   The January King cabbages are particularly nice looking and are starting to form heads. These are such pretty plants with their purple and green coloring and ruffled leaves. 

The fall season is wrapping up and winter is fast upon us.   The heavy cold rains are beating down several of the semi hardy fall crops - the outside beds of lettuces and spinach for example, are all but done at this point.   I will be pulling them up and composting them soon.   Luckily, the swiss chard and lettuces in the unheated greenhouse are doing quite well.   I also noticed today that the mache (corn salad) has begun to germinate and emerge in the greenhouse as well.   There are still several more harvests left on the brussel sprouts before they too will be done for the season.   I harvested a nice bunch of them for tonight’s evening meal.                  

It was a cool but enjoyable day working in the yard and garden.   Finally got the leaves done for the year – better late than never!

Between my crazy work schedule this past week and a string of significant rain/wind storms that have pummeled our region,  I have been unable to get very much time in the garden of late.   However, today (at least for part of the day) we got a brief let up in the weather and I was able to get outside for a while and enjoy a little “garden time”.   My cat Sid joined me and immediately went to spend some quality time with his potted catnip plant.     

He loves having his own special “cat” garden!   The herbs in pots (including Sid's catnip) will move into the greenhouse when the weather starts getting down to freezing levels at night.   Right now we are hovering in the mid 30’s to low 40’s for night time temps but it will not be long before we see some colder temps.        

Amazingly enough, the raspberries are continuing to ripen.               

I picked about a half cup of them this afternoon to snack on later.   I also took a little time to remove the leaves of the western red cedars that have been dropping into my onion bed - creating a fairly thick mat over the entire bed.  Once removed, I was able to really see how the onion and garlic were doing so far.   The Walla Walla onion seedlings I planted earlier this fall seem to be holding their own but are not showing much top growth.   I hope they are busy working on building a strong root system instead.   In that same garden bed, the garlic (both elephant and regular) are sending up their initial shoots, and so are the multiplier onions.                           

In the greenhouse the onion sets I planted up are starting to emerge too.  The multiplier onions and the onion sets will both provide green onions early next year about the time the storage onions have run out.               

Did not get to spend a very long time outside today because the break in the weather was actually quite brief.   Another storm system is settling in with gusting winds and rain.   Before going inside, I harvested enough broccoli side shoots to use for the evening meal prep.   There is only my husband and myself for dinner tonight (daughter is babysitting today), so we only need a small amount.           

This afternoon I processed yet another pumpkin.   It was one of the smaller sized ones and provided 4 cups of puree.   I used 2 cups immediately to make a pumpkin pie with and froze the other 2 cups for future pie making needs.   We are not hosting the Thanksgiving dinner this year, but will instead be going to my sister and brother in-laws house in Tacoma for the meal.   My contribution will be several pumpkin pies made from our garden grown pumpkins and cranberry sauce made from some fresh northwest grown cranberries.   I have several more storage pumpkins yet to process and will be doing at least one more this week to make the Thanksgiving pies from.                              

Are items from your garden going to make it to the Thanksgiving dinner table this year?

Got a good start on the annual gutter-cleaning project today.   Managed to finish all of the shop building and the entire front side of the house.   Still have the back of the house to finish, but I ran out of energy and was getting chilled.   Hopefully I will be able to do the last stretch next weekend and have this big project completed for yet another year.   November is historically our wettest month of the year, so I really want to get this attended to as soon as possible.                                                      

We had a windstorm last week and the yard and garden areas are littered with leaves, small branches, and evergreen tree needles.   The Japanese Maple trees in the front of the house are ablaze with color and began losing their leaves with the windstorm – leaving a floor and a ceiling of brilliant red.

 The garden is thoroughly into the fall/winter mode now and looks a little disheveled and unkempt.                                       

The parsnips and carrot tops are getting beat down from a combination of heavy rains, wind, and their own weight and are laying over into the walkways.   While a bit untidy, it is perfectly normal.   The crimson clover planted in several beds is getting a good stand of vegetation developed which will feed the soil early next spring when I turned it all over with a garden spade.                                        

The fall crops are slowing down to almost a complete stop in growth now.    They will continue to grow at a snails pace during November but will be all but stopped by the winter solstice in December.   Luckily, they are pretty much at maturity at this point and do not need more growth to be harvestable.   The brussel sprouts are one of those crops that has to be far enough along by the time the growing process grinds to a halt that it is ready for harvesting.   My 2009 brussel sprout crop is looking good and we already harvested our first bunch from these plants.   

The kale crop is also doing well.   I have yet to harvest from these plants but they are ready.                             

I have been using the loose-leaf cabbage (Beira Tronchuda) in the same manner I typically use kale.                      

They are quite similar to each other in taste and texture but the Beira Tronchuda produces a greater amount of harvest per square foot of bed space.    I am going to grow some more of these early next spring.          

A slow cooking, oven roasted beef and vegetable stew is prepped and cooking in the oven and a fire is glowing in the wood stove. It's damp and chill outside this afternoon and it feels good to come inside and get out of my grubby and wet clothes.    I am worn out tired from the gutter cleaning efforts and intend to watch a movie for the rest of the afternoon - sitting next to the fire with my cat in my lap.   Lazy Sunday afternoons do not get much better than that.

Tuesday was my birthday and because it was mid week, we kept to a simple celebration of a nice dinner at home.   I harvested the first of the 2009 brussel sprouts so that we could enjoy some young sprouts sautéed in olive oil and butter along with our stuffed pork chops (bread stuffing with herbs, dried cranberries, onions, and mushrooms).   While the pork chops were wonderful, the brussel sprouts were the real highlight of the meal – tender and sweet.                  

With the full onset of fall, fresh picked garden produce for the evening meals are less frequent and an increased amount of preserved or stored items are being put into use.   I have to force myself to use preserved items and not over harvest the fall/winter crops by leaning on them too hard and too early.    I much prefer fresh produce over frozen or stored, but the fall and winter crops are essentially in a state of suspended growth (brought to maturity before the short cold days slow the growth to essentially nothing) and will not replenish once harvested.   It is important therefore, to pace the usage of the fresh produce supply so that it provides a steady supplement to the pantry and freezer items all through the coming months.   For the month of October (to date) fresh harvested produce was used in approximately 50% of our dinner meal preparations and frozen or stored items in the other half.   That’s pretty typical for us during the fall and winter months and is a good pace of consumption of both the preserved/stored items and the fall and winter crops. 

Now I am just going to have to exercise restraint and try to keep some brussel sprouts available for Thanksgiving!