The Modern Victory Garden

I was thinking about doing the big potato patch dig over the coming long Labor Day holiday weekend, but the weather forecast has changed my mind for me.   It looks like waiting one more week will provide much better odds of doing this job in dry conditions (which is preferable).   Instead, I am hoping to process some dilly green beans and a batch of dill pickle relish.   At this point, I have frozen all of the green beans we should need for winter use, so now I can use the last harvests from the fading bush bean patches to do some dilly green beans.   In addition, the cucumbers have a bunch of small fruit on the vine that should mature to readiness by the end of the weekend, providing enough to do a batch of dill pickle relish.             

The fall spinach patch has really taken off with the rain and cool weather we have had for the past several days.   We should be able to enjoy fresh baby spinach salads again very soon.

In case you are wondering, that’s a pumpkin vine you see growing over the top corner of that patch.   The pumpkin vines are taking over the garden once again this year.   I quit trying to corral them years ago and have learned to just relax and marvel at their vigorous growth.   Deep in the tangle of the three sisters planting areas are quite a few pumpkins that are starting to show early signs of coloring up.           

I am looking forward to laboring this coming long holiday weekend to get some canning accomplished!

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener

Since the garden is delayed from the normal time frames this year (due to the cool summer we have been having) it means that it is the first week of August and I am not into the big harvest and preserving push that typically starts in late July and keeps going well into September.   It feels quite odd really, but I can see that things are coming along and that soon I will indeed have some big harvests to make and preserve.   I guess my window of time to do all that work and get the preserving done is just going to be more abbreviated this year.   With my daughter recently moving away, I am also going to be doing this without my usual extra help.   This could get interesting!   In the meantime, the workload in the garden is actually pretty low at the moment – mainly watering, light daily harvesting, and a little weeding, and filling in planting.   That will all change when the bean patch gets serious about producing but for the moment it is kind of quiet in the garden.   I am taking advantage of this lull before the big harvest and preserving storm, and getting the last of my fall plantings attended to.                          

You may recall that I have been fussing about the asparagus patch off and on  for well on to two years now.   It just has not been performing like it should and has been a continued disappointment  . It has not been a failure mind you, just an under achiever.   Attempts at rejuvenating it have not been successful and I recently came to the conclusion that I need to just cut my losses and remove the plants and use the bed for something more productive.   So, last Sunday I took a pitchfork and removed/lifted out the large asparagus crowns/roots from the bed, amended it, and then planted it up with the fall crop of spinach.   It is covered with wire mesh panels to protect the seed bed from birds and my cat until the seeds can germinate and get firmly established.                    

I am not really sure what I will do with this bed long term.   It is a good candidate for a perennial planting area and I may end up planting more blueberries or some other fruiting crop in it.   For now though, I will use it as a regular garden bed and continue adding amendments to it to replenish the soil.

The other thing I did Sunday was to plant another succession crop of lettuces in an open 2-foot by 2-foot area of the garden bed.   The spinach and lettuce that I direct seeded joins the long list of items that I already have growing in the garden for the fall and winter.   A short time ago I planted out the fall crops of broccoli and swiss chard and they are already zooming along with growth.       

I also recently planted a big bed of kale, which has also settled right in and started growing well.                      

These crops are in addition to the multiple plantings of carrots, parsnips, turnips, and green onions that have been growing in the garden for a while now.   Together these form the basis of the fall/winter fresh eating harvests that supplement the food we put by from the summer garden.           

While things may be a bit quiet in the garden at the moment, there is lots of action happening in the chicken department. . One of our young hens has produced her first eggs for us this week!   This is about a month ahead of what I was expecting so we were pleasantly surprised.   Her first effort produced two shell less eggs, but they were immediately followed by two average sized and perfectly formed eggs – one a day for the past two days.   She has used the chicken coop nest boxes for both of the “good eggs” and seems to be getting into good production habits right from the start.   Hopefully the other girls will follow her example and similarly figure it out quickly.   My husband ate the first one today and said it was delicious and I will be enjoying the other tomorrow for breakfast.               

The harvest and preserving storm is brewing on the horizon, and I am anxious for it to arrive so I can get going with the annual process of preserving foods for later use - getting the full benefit of the summer garden before the cold fall rains arrive and put an end to the warm weather crops.   In the meantime, I will continue nursing my newly planted fall crops along and try to enjoy the short lull before getting back into the "too much to do at one time" mode.          

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener

Sunday I planted out 36 broccoli (Premium Crop) and 12 swiss chard (Bright Lights) starts.   They went into the garden section where the pea patch had previously been.   I covered the bed with some netting because we have had a rabbit visiting the edge of the garden lately and while I am not too concerned about some of the plants being nibbled on, I am concerned about baby plants getting eaten down to the nub which kills them outright.                       

This is one of several important fall crop plantings that will occur over the next several weeks.   I still have kale and chinese cabbages to transplant out as well, but I ran out of time (and open bed area) this past weekend.   I am hoping to get them attended to on Friday.   My big challenge is going to be to find another open bed area big enough (and soon enough) to plant the fall crop of spinach.   Everything is largely in use at the moment and yet, I will need to plant the spinach patch within the next two weeks if I want to have spinach in September.                                  

While I am definitely thinking about the fall crops, I am also focused on the summer garden that is really coming into it’s own at this point.   The cucumbers have tiny female flowers/fruits formed.                            

Unfortunately, the bees seem to have all largely disappeared over the past several weeks.   Those cucumbers are going to need them and my pumpkins are not getting pollinated.   I am probably going to have to resort to hand pollination soon if they don’t return.                 

I have been keeping a careful eye on the first Siletz tomato to ripen.   It is a little shop worn because this green fruit has been formed for quite a while and had to wait patiently for the weather to warm up - but it is finally getting ripe and I think it may be ready by either Thursday evening or Friday.      

The Siletz plants have lots more tomatoes formed and growing so this one should soon be followed by a more steady supply.   The bush beans and kidney beans are flowering and I think we should have green beans fairly soon.   In the meantime, we are getting a bounty of sugar snap peas and zucchini.   The spring crop of broccoli is winding down but I am still getting a good harvest of side shoots, and I have been harvesting the large leaves for my flock of chickens.   Tonight’s dinner was a stir fry with Pad Thai sauce using the current bounty from the garden and some strips of lean beef and chinese noodles.                                             

For the last two years the Gold Rush zucchini has far outperformed the green zucchini variety.   This year, I switched green zucchini varieties and planted “Partenon” which has been very prolific and for some reason the Gold Rush plants have been rather unproductive.   I suspicion it is in part due to the lack of working bees in the garden currently.   I hope this is just a temporary dip in my bee population due to weather or some other circumstance and that they will return soon.       

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener

It’s mid June and the summer garden season is not even really started for me, and yet I am thinking ahead to the coming fall and winter season.   Gardeners who want to do fall and winter gardening have to come to terms with the fact that we always have to be thinking about 2 to 3 months ahead of our current situation - putting in motion the necessary actions to make that future expectation happen.     

In the early spring, thinking ahead is easier because there are no distractions of a summer garden requiring attention and providing significant harvests, and in mid winter to early spring most of us are suffering from cabin fever and are itching to start planting something!   But thinking ahead in early summer to prepare for a fall and winter harvest is harder because life is busy in the summer, the garden prolific (even overwhelming at times), and the timing of growth to harvest is very different for late season crops because the day length and sun strength is declining rather than increasing.   That last consideration is something a lot of folks get tripped up on when planting fall and winter garden items.   They use the seed packet days to maturity as gospel and then are disappointed when the items they planted for fall/winter harvest do not make it to maturity before essentially stopping growth altogether due to the cold and short days of winter.                                        

The days to maturity on seed packets are for spring/summer season planting when day length and sun intensity is increasing.   The goal is to have your fall/winter crops completely mature before they go into the winter dormancy period or holding pattern of growth.   In addition, because the plants will not bounce back and provide cut and come again harvests (like many do in spring and summer) it is important to grow enough of each item to provide the harvests you want without the benefit of replenishment from new (or at least not very fast!) growth.   When I am planning my fall/winter crops I want them to be mature by no later than September 30th or I risk not getting a harvestable crop from them.   That applies to both fall and winter harvest items.   With that goal in mind, I work backwards from that date with “days to maturity” under optimal (spring/summer) conditions and then add almost three weeks to that number.   Yes, you read that correctly, three weeks.   The reason is that when the plant is getting into the critical final maturity stage of growth the sun strength will have become greatly diminished, the night time temperatures colder, and the fall cold and heavy rains will have started up which translates into overcast and gloomy skies which means even less sun strength and cold wet soil.   For those in more sunny and drier locations two weeks would probably be sufficient to add.                      

So, it is now mid June and 3 months from now (90 days) it will be September 15th. Typical fall and winter crops for me include carrots, parsnips, brussel sprouts, leeks, cabbages, broccoli, kale, swiss chard, lettuces, various hardy greens, and spinach.   Very long growing items (120 days or more) such as some varieties of carrots, parsnips, leeks, and brussel sprouts are actually started in late spring in order to be ready for a fall/winter harvest.   I am not growing either leeks or brussel sprouts this year but do have my patch of parsnips and several patches of carrots already planted up.   Here is a list of typical fall/winter crops that I grow with days from planting to maturity under optimal (spring/summer) and less optimal (late summer/fall) growing conditions.

• Beet (optimal - 55 to 70)  (less optimal - 70 to 90) 
• Broccoli (optimal - 90 to 110) (less optimal - 105 to 130)
• Brussel Sprouts (optimal - 90 to 150) (less optimal - 105 to 170)
• Cabbage (optimal - 65 to 120) (less optimal - 80 to 140)
• Carrot (optimal - 70 to 150) (less optimal - 95 to 170)
• Kale (optimal - 50 to 60) (less optimal - 65 to 80)
• Kohlrabi (optimal - 50 to 60) (less optimal - 65 to 80)
• Lettuce, leaf (optimal - 40 to 50) (less optimal - 55 to 70)
• Onion, green (optimal - 50 to 60) (less optimal - 65 to 80)
• Parsnips (optimal - 105 to 130) (less optimal - 120 to 150)
• Radish (optimal - 21 to 30) (less optimal - 35 to 50)
• Spinach (optimal - 40 to 50) (less optimal - 55 to 70)
• Swiss Chard (optimal - 60 to 75) (less optimal - 75 to 95)
• Turnip (optimal - 45 to 75) (less optimal - 60 to 95)

I generally choose faster maturing varieties for my fall/winter crop plantings so that I am on the lower end of the days to maturity spectrum.   As you can see from this list, to meet my target of no later than September 30th maturity items like parsnips and brussel sprouts need to be started in May for a fall/winter crop.   Other items must be started in June or early July (broccoli, carrots, cabbages, green onions, swiss chard), but some items can be planted as late as August and still provide a fall crop (lettuces, radishes, and spinach).           

Sunday I started seeds of broccoli, chinese cabbage, pac choi, swiss chard, and kale.   The pac choi, and kale are for late summer/early fall use but the chinese cabbage, broccoli and swiss chard are fall crops.                     

Soon, I will be direct sowing some green onions, carrots, more kale and other hardy greens (once space opens up in the garden), and in August I will sow the big fall crop of spinach and fall lettuces.                    

Are you thinking ahead for a fall and winter harvest?

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?