The Modern Victory Garden

Whether I am ready or not for it to happen, fall is about to arrive.   Today was a beautiful summer day, temperatures climbed to the low 80’s and the sky was clear and bright.   But I am not so easily fooled, as I know that the progression to fall is already well underway and today’s brief respite from what has been a remarkably cool summer was just a last teasing kiss goodbye from that elusive lady - summer.   The days are rapidly shortening and our regional forecast is calling for an extended period of cool, showery, and overcast conditions – starting tomorrow.   While we certainly will get periods of sunny weather in the weeks to come, it is highly unlikely that temps will climb above low 70’s again until next spring.   At some point the persistent and cold fall rains will arrive and when they do, it will quickly finish off the heat loving crops such as tomatoes, peppers, and beans.   Knowing this, the race is now on to try and salvage as much of the summer harvest items as possible.   

The peppers are well fruited and healthy and I expect the peppers that are formed already will finish ripening without any intervention on my part.   What I cannot expect, is that the current flowers will go on to set fruit at this point in the season.   If it were a warm late summer/early fall season then that would be a possibility, but totally out of the question this year.             

If the heavy rains do not show up for a while, then the dried bean crops (Pinto and Dark Red Kidney) stand a very good chance of ultimately maturing and drying down – as they are a little more tolerant of cooler conditions but not so tolerant of overly wet conditions.   The bean pods are thick and well developed already so the odds look pretty good that they will make it to the finish line successfully.                        

The corn has been struggling all summer and while there are some ears maturing that we will soon enjoy for fresh eating, there is not nearly enough in the patch to provide corn for the freezer.   We have done without in many other years so I do not find this unduly concerning – just a little disappointing. 

The cucumber patch is poised to give a last big flush of cucumbers soon and I should be able to get enough to process a batch of our favorite dill pickle relish.   We have been enjoying lots of refrigerator dills lately too.   Considering how cool this summer has been, the cucumber patch has been performing admirably.   Go cukes!               

So that leaves the tomatoes. We have been getting intermittent small amounts of ripe and semi ripe tomatoes from the Siletz plants for several weeks now.    

They have provided some fresh eating fare but nothing has been coming along in sufficient amounts to even think about doing any preserving.   The likelihood of any of the tomatoes ripening is decreasing dramatically with the big chill moving in so I need to take more aggressive steps to bring in as much as possible while the small window of opportunity is still open.   First step is to start bringing in any fruit that has broken any color or appears to be on the verge of doing so.   In the warmth of the house they will move on to ripening.   Tonight I picked all the Siletz tomatoes that met those criteria.                    

I will keep doing this over the coming days to try and pull in everything possible so it can potentially ripen.                

The other action I need to take is to start buttoning up the greenhouse at night and reopen it during the day.   I have five Celebrity tomatoes in the greenhouse that are healthy and bearing good-sized fruit.   They need warmer temps at night to finish ripening so closing up the greenhouse will help hold in the heat at night and push that envelope a little further.   I cannot leave it closed during the day though because ventilation is a huge problem particularly when the greenhouse is full of lush vegetation and condensation that builds up from the cool night time conditions.   So my morning and evening routine will have to be modified to add this extra little step for a while.                    

I am confident I will squeeze out some reasonable tomato harvests yet, but it will take some effort on my part.   This cool summer has certainly put a dent on this year’s garden season, but there are some positives that came from it too.   The peas (shell and sugar snap) , lettuce, broccoli, spinach, and potatoes flourished.   I have not dug into the parsnip patch yet, but I think it will prove to be a good one this year too.   And the crops I have recently planted are rushing along nicely to maturity.   Just look at this broccoli and swiss chard plants I transplanted approximately four weeks ago on July 18th.         

Those are happy plants.   So not everything in the garden is sad to bid goodbye to summer.   I would have preferred to have her be with us longer and with more intensity this year, but I am content to work the hand that was dealt me this year as hard as possible and just keep moving forward.    Farewell summer.   I look forward to your return again next year.                   

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener

Tomorrow I will be flying to Pennsylvania to spend some vacation time with my daughter.  I will be returning home afterwards alone, as she will be staying on with a friend until it is time to move into the dorms and begin her first year of college life at Lehigh University.   In order to avoid thinking about this too much, I have kept myself incredibly busy over the past several days getting things taken care of ahead of time as much as possible.    

I was off from work today to do some required shopping and errands and to get the garden in good order so my husband (who is staying behind to take care of the homestead and animals) won’t have to worry about it.   Throughout the afternoon and this evening, I have managed to get the entire garden and the container plantings thoroughly watered. That is quite an undertaking to water the entire garden in less than one day.  It is supposed to be reasonably warm all weekend and on into next week – so I wanted to be sure all of the plants were set to grow unchecked in my absence.   The other chore I got completed was the planting out of the kale and chinese cabbage transplants.   I tucked the chinese cabbages in and around the basil plants that are growing in the longest vertical grow bed.   This bed gets partial shade so hopefully the cabbages will grow well and not bolt from heat.   The kale was planted up in the retaining wall bed in the spot where the garlic had been growing previously.  

I have not shown you the tomatoes in the greenhouse for a while.   These are Celebrity tomatoes and they are growing quite well.                               

I lopped off the top most part of these plants last weekend because they were pushing up against the ceiling of the greenhouse.   At this point in the summer season, I don’t want these plants to continue vining, instead I want them to concentrate all energy to setting and ripening fruit.   Which is what they are doing.                      

Out in the main garden area there are two varieties of tomatoes that are racing ahead of all the others – Market Miracle and Siletz.   Daphne of Daphne’s Dandelions gave the Market Miracle seeds to me and I had some high expectations based on her glowing reports of this tomato.   It looks like those hopes were well placed as they are forming nice clusters of really good-looking fruits!                                      

The really heavy and early producers are the Siletz tomatoes.   I started these ultra early, coddled them through late winter, kept them in the greenhouse until the weather really settled down, and they are growing in big black pots which adds additional heat around their root systems.    All of that extra effort is proving worth it as the plants are loaded with fruit …                          

…. and today I picked the first ripe tomato from the Siletz plants.                  

I sliced it up and ate it still warm from the vine.   It was so good!   There are more coming along right behind this one and I am so ready for the tomato season to get underway.                                                   

I am not taking a laptop with me on my travels, so I will not be posting a “Harvest Monday” recap this week.   I will however be back mid week and will post an update on how the garden fared in my absence.   The zucchini is pumping out the fruits right now so I expect to have some monsters waiting for me when I arrive home.   I may have to break down and make some chocolate zucchini cake to use it up.   Have a great weekend, and I will catch up with all your comments when I get back.              

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener

Originally posted (May 30, 2010) with only Parts 1 & 2 due to connection problems to You Tube.  Problem resolved itself and this blog post was updated (May 31, 2010) to include Parts 3, 4, & 5.  

Spring Garden Tour Part 1                                   

Spring Garden Tour Part 2 

 

Spring Garden Tour Part 3                                       

Spring Garden Tour Part 4                           

Spring Garden Tour part 5 (Final)                        

My primary task this weekend was to transplant the tomatoes and (if possible) repot many of the remaining tomato plants into bigger containers.   I used up all the potting soil mix I had on hand before I could complete transplanting all the container tomatoes in the greenhouse and as a consequence I was also not able to do any repotting as well.   I will need to purchase some potting soil before I can complete those two items.   Hopefully later this week I can pick some up on the way home from work.      

Saturday morning was spent doing errands and grocery shopping, but when I got home in the afternoon I spent some time in the greenhouse doing a little rearranging to make room for the large tomato planters.   I harvested the last of the late winter container grown kale and pac choi and removed all of the mache as it was going to seed.   I then removed about 1/3rd of the soil from the three half barrel containers and recycled it into the garden beds.   I added a comparable amount of sifted finished compost and then mixed and aerated it into the rest of the soil using a pitchfork.   I then brought in two very large and two medium/large black plastic containers and filled them up with the potting soil mix I had on hand.   In the two smaller containers I planted up two of the five super early Siletz tomatoes.   These plants are super stocky and healthy looking!   I noticed that there are some flower buds formed on one of them already.   The remaining three Siletz plants will have to wait to be planted up until I purchase some potting soil.

I then planted up five Celebrity tomatoes in the three half barrel containers and the two large black containers.   The Celebrity plants are also quite big and sturdy but are small in comparison to the huge Siletz tomatoes.         

That was all I could get done on Saturday due to the late start.   The weather was glorious on Sunday (got up over 70 degrees), which made it a perfect day to do the big tomato planting for 2010.   In the first bed I planted all the indeterminate varieties; two Fantastics; two Cherokee Purples; four Market Miracles; and four Early Girls.   I did an alternated planting this year so that more light and air circulation would get in to the plants.   The 24 foot long bed had 6 plants down each side as a result.                                         

Because I am planting the tomatoes less densely this year, I had to use a half of another bed to plant the rest of the tomato patch.   I put all six Oroma paste tomatoes (determinate) into this bed.                                                   

You may have observed that the full bed of indeterminate varieties have both a cage and a ladder support for each plant.   I find this double support system works really well for all but the tallest plants.   For those, I add another cage on top later in the season.   The determinate plants are only supported by one cage.   Each tomato plant had 1 cup of organic all-purpose fertilizer, 2 tablespoons of Epsom Salts (magnesium sulfate), 1 tablespoon of finely crushed eggshells, and 4 plain aspirin tablets mixed into the soil at the bottom of the transplanting hole.   The plants were set much deeper than they were in their containers so that roots will form along the lower stem area.   I used a large watering can filled with rainwater from the rain barrels to water them in immediately after setting them into the soil.

I had to select the best specimens of each variety to go into the bed.   It was a hard decision to make in many cases because I had several of each variety to choose from.   The remaining plants will be kept on standby for the next several weeks so that if I lose any from transplant shock, I have a replacement standing ready.   After I am sure that the planted up tomatoes are growing and thriving, the remainder of the tomatoes will be delivered to my sister and my staff at work.

Two of the tomato varieties I am growing this year were grown from seed provided by fellow bloggers.   The Market Miracle tomatoes provided by Daphne from Daphne’s Dandelions is one that I have been really excited to grow.   They are relatively quick maturing and come highly praised by Daphne.   The seedlings grew well from the seed she supplied and were quite good sized by the time I planted them out today.                       

Another seed I received this year was Cherokee Purple from Dan at the Urban Veggie Garden Blog.   These plants have also grown well (so far!) and I am excited to trial these in my garden this year too.                           

While the last average frost for my area is now behind me, the temps at night are still quite cool and the usual abundance of spring showers makes things too wet to keep tomato plants happy and healthy.    My plants were well hardened off prior to planting out but soon after the tomatoes were planted, I put a plastic cover over the entire bed to keep the bed warm and to protect the plants from the deluge of wet and cool spring rains.               

On cloudy but warmish days, I open the ends of the grow tunnel up to allow cross ventilation – closing it back up at night.   On really fair and warm days, I pull the cover entirely off for the day and put it back on in the evening.   On cold or rainy days, the cover stays on and closed.    It requires paying attention to the weather forecast and making a decision each morning as to what should be done – but I have had little problem with that.   Keeping the tomatoes protected until the summer dry season really arrives is critical to getting a crop in the rainy and cool coastal Pacific Northwest.            

Hopefully I will have a chance to pick up some potting soil this week and finish the container plantings and repotting of the remaining tomato plants.   I also have some celery and lettuces that need to be planted soon.   I ran out of energy and time today so they will have to wait until next weekend in all likelihood.

This evening after I got home from the office, I popped out to the greenhouse to move the tomato seedlings back into the shop and house and to harvest some chinese cabbage, a little lettuce, and quite a bit of mache.   It looks like the spring greens season has finally arrived!                                    

Since it is St. Patrick’s Day, it only seems fitting to harvest “greens”.    These went into a mixed green salad that was served with grilled steaks, and baked potatoes (Yukon Gold potatoes from storage).                                  

The spinach patch seems to have put on some real growth over the past few days as well.   The volume of available greens will continue to amp up as we move forward into the official start of spring.   However, the first harvest of spring greens each year is particularly appreciated because after a winter of mostly overwintered root crops and preserved items - fresh greens are like manna from heaven.                                                            

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener

The small additional grow light and heat mat that I ordered arrived on Friday.   I assembled it and got it set up in the shop – placing it up on top of the small over flow light set up I already had.   With this all in place, I was ready to get the peppers and basil started.                                

There were several chores to take care of in the outdoor garden area too, which was a good thing because the weather was beautiful today and it was nice to have an excuse to be outside!   I removed the plastic sheeting from the onions and the spinach bed.   Both are hardy crops and the longer-term forecast is not calling for any more really cold conditions.   I also completely reseeded the pea patch this afternoon.   The birds had gotten to the sprouting seeds when I pulled the plastic cover off to stop the rainwater puddling damage from continuing to the support trellis.    As soon as I reseeded the bed, I recovered it with Remay.   Hopefully that will keep the birds out of the bed and away from my sprouting seeds.                 

The rhubarb is just about ready for the first harvest of the year.                   

The final project for the day was to spend time repotting some of the tomato seedlings.   They are four weeks old now and ready for more root room and fresh soil.   I got about 1/3rd of them done before calling it a day.   I have quite a few tomatoes yet to pot up in larger containers.   The plan is to keep working on this over the next several days to get it wrapped up.   The repotted tomatoes went under the lights for now, but the larger ones will soon be taken out to the greenhouse and will do the daily journey into the shop at night and back out to the greenhouse in the day.   The greenhouse is getting good sun exposure now and is warming up nicely in the daytime.                  

Here’s a few of the repotted tomatoes enjoying an evening of artificial lighting and the warmth of a heat mat to help them recuperate from the transplanting.

I tried to take pictures of the bed of spinach today but the newly emerged seedlings are still so small that they are very hard to see in a photo.   I will have to wait until the bed is further along before sharing pictures of it with you.    

The spring garden season is really underway now. The trays of seedlings are occupying every available space under the grow lights and are starting to move into the greenhouse to make room for more.   As I pot up the tomatoes into larger containers, more and more of them will have to shift to the greenhouse too, as they take up much more room with the larger pots. 

How is your seed starting going?

March is a trying month in the gardening year.   The beginnings of the season are underway but the dangers of pushing too close to the “season extending edge” is high.   Even worse, the temptation to do so is fed by the dearth of fresh harvests offered up from a winter weary garden.   After a long dark season of living largely off of preserved and stored items and winter garden harvests composed largely of root crops - the lure of fresh spring greens is strong.                           

I use season extending tricks on both ends of the growing season, early spring and late fall, but I am most aggressive with the spring season.   An old gardening friend of mine (who had tremendous experience to back up his advice) once told me that if I did not lose at least a few plants in the spring and fall that I was not pushing the season extending process nearly hard enough.   This year I feel like I am living close to the season extending edge - but so far have not pushed beyond it.    The question then is…am I really pushing the season extension to the real limits?         

Last weekend, I posted about prepping the garden for a forecasted cold snap (a typical March occurrence).   The forecasts turned out to be quite accurate and the next day we had temperatures drop almost 20 degrees below the highs and lows we had been experiencing for the preceding many weeks.    Much of the garden was already protected but I covered up the freshly planted onions, kale, cabbages, and pac choi.   The Merlot lettuce (seeds from Dan at the Urban Veggie Garden Blog) were also transplanted last weekend, but placed in a container that is currently residing in the unheated greenhouse.   Tonight after work, I did a quick inspection of everything to see how all of the plantings were doing.   I am pleased to report that everything is looking quite sturdy and unaffected by the colder conditions.   The spinach patch has newly emerged seedlings and they are growing and getting substantial enough that they are now clearly visible growing in the garden bed.   The kale, cabbages, and pac choi are clearly recovered from the transplanting and are looking sturdier than the day I set them out and the onion seedlings are similarly looking just fine.   The Merlot lettuces looked a little limp immediately after I transplanted them on Sunday, but they looked quite perky this evening despite the decided chill.           

The super early tomatoes (Siletz) have graduated to the unheated greenhouse during the day and are enjoying a daily trip into the house at night for protection.   The daytime temps the past three days have been quite chill but they seem to be thriving on this regimen despite that.   They continue to put on new growth and are starting to harden up from the constant handling and exposure to colder conditions.   Here’s a picture of them this evening sitting on top of our wood stove (no worries – there is no fire in the stove tonight!).   Sorry the pictures tonight are not as clear as usual but evening indoor shots without a flash tend to be a little more “fuzzy” and lower quality.               

There is always a runt or two in every crop of tomatoes and peppers each year.   I call them my Charlie Brown plants because like the pathetic little Christmas tree in the Peanuts Christmas special – all they really seem to need is just a little extra TLC to live up to their potential.   The littlest super early tomato (on the right in the picture) is one of those little characters.   He is lagging behind his brothers but not failing – just not thriving like they are.   All the plants have been exposed to the same conditions, same care, but you can see that there is quite a difference between them in growth.   It’s really a mystery why this regularly occurs.   I suppose it is just a product of that plant’s genetic inheritance?      

I have yet to lose anything this year as a result of pushing the season extension too far.   I shouldn’t really admit that though, because as soon as I do I know something will go sufficiently wrong to prove me quite premature in my declaration!   Gardens and children have a keen ability for keeping us humble on a regular basis.

How are you doing in managing through the usual March madness?

This coming weekend is a fairly big one in my seed-starting schedule.   Mid February is when I start my spring crops of broccoli and swiss chard, and the main crops of celery and tomatoes.   The tomatoes are the biggest part of that mix because I am not only starting seedlings for my own garden, but for my sister’s garden as well.   Over the past several year’s it has become a bit of a tradition that I also gift my staff at work with free tomato (and later pepper) starts.   That tradition started because (at a minimum) I start at least twice as many plants as I actually want to go into the garden.   I substantially over plant (particularly tomatoes) because there are so many opportunities for seedling death along the journey from seed to productive plant – poor germination, seedling diseases, repotting shock, and death from problems once the seedlings actually go into the garden proper.   Not to mention the occasional mishap death such as the time I accidentally tripped while carrying a large tray of beautiful seedlings – flipping them over so they landed upside down and crushed the entire lot of them.   It happens.   Some years you lose a lot along the way, other years hardly any.   So I mitigate my risk by planting at least twice as much as I need and then once I am sure all my needs (and my sister’s) have been taken care, I give the rest of the seedlings away to my staff, co-workers and several friends.   This annual spring plant give away has become so popular that I plant even more than the doubled amount, just to be sure I will not disappoint by not having any extras.         

For 2010 I need 36 tomato plants (composed of several varieties) to cover my sister’s needs and my own.   I will be planting a total of 144 plants (or 2 full trays of twelve 6-packs) to provide for our actual needs, loss protection, and the big plant give away.   In addition, I will also be starting 24 broccoli, 24 celery (2 varieties), and 24 swiss chard plants – basically doubling the amount of each that I actually need.   Combined, I will have three full trays of 72 planting cells each.   In preparation for this weekend, I set the trays out and filled them with the empty plastic starter cells.    

I have enough plastic starter cells for this current wave of seed starting, but am getting very low on them.   I reuse them over and over again, but occasionally they just get so worn out or damaged that I have to discard them.   Apparently, there has been enough attrition that I am getting down to a somewhat low supply of them.   I may have to stop by the local nursery center soon and pick up a few to shore up my inventory again.   As for larger sized pots used later for repotting, I have quite a big stash of those due to the generosity of several people who know I use them and bring me their extras - which I then rinse out and reuse (many times!).

Lots of seeds to get started this weekend, but there are also lots of seedlings that are in the shop from the first couple of waves of seed starting.   The kale and Chinese cabbages that I started in mid December will be moved out to the green house this coming weekend where they will permanently take up residence.   The Merlot lettuce that I planted last Saturday from seeds sent to me by Dan at the Urban Veggie Garden Blog – are showing some really good emergence.   As of this evening (Wednesday), all the cells have at least one plant emerging.   

The super early tomato crop (Siletz) planted on January 22nd is coming along nicely.   They are forming their first true leaves.                       

The onions (Walla Walla and Candy) that were planted on January 17th worried me a little because initially the germination was not strong in two out of the four containers.   They seem to have gotten with the program though and all four trays now have a good stand of onion seedlings in them.

The lettuces (Super Gourmet Blend) and pac choi (Ching Chiang) that were planted at the same time as the onions are also coming along well.                      

Not pictured but also doing well – are the kale (Improved Dwarf Siberian) and cabbages (Tronchuda and Savoy Ace) that I started on January 30th. 

Things get a lot busier from here on out.   The shop growlight set up will be full up with seed trays, the greenhouse will start absorbing the overflow as I shuffle older plants out of the way to make room for the next wave of seed starting, and the garden bed prep tasks will ramp up in preparation for the first early crop plantings.                            

For those of you starting your own seedlings this year, how are things progressing for you?

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.

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!