The Modern Victory Garden

Deb at "At Home on Paradise Cove" posted this and I feel compelled to share this too.     This is a wonderful summation of why our Modern Victory Gardens (aka Kitchen Gardens) are so important.    It speaks to all the issues I find so important and try and discuss regularly here on this site and blog.     This is both a fun and an informative video and I encourage you to take a moment and watch it.                             

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener

Last Sunday, I made a series of five videos that collectively provide a full tour of my garden.   I have been posting these one per day all week and today (Friday) is the final short segment.                                  

   

Laura

Kitsapfreedomgardener

On Sunday, I made a series of five videos that collectively provide a full tour of my garden.   I will be posting these one per day starting Monday and wrapping it up on Friday.   It’s Thursday so we are on the fourth video today.      

   

Laura

Kitsapfreedomgardener

On Sunday, I made a series of five videos that collectively provide a full tour of my garden.   I will be posting these one per day starting Monday and wrapping it up on Friday.   Today is Wednesday so here is the third video.             

        

Laura

Kitsapfreedomgardener

On Sunday, I made a series of five videos that collectively provide a full tour of my garden.    I will be posting these one per day starting Monday and wrapping it up on Friday.   Here is the second of the videos.         

     

Laura

Kitsapfreedomgardener

On Sunday, I made a series of five videos that collectively provide a full tour of my garden.   I will be posting these one per day starting Monday and wrapping it up on Friday.   Here is the first of the videos.              

      

Laura

Kitsapfreedomgardener

Harvest Monday

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone submits links to their blog posts summarizing their harvest for the week.   It’s fun to see what people are producing from gardens in so many different regions.   Check it out and join in!                            

The garden is still producing greens almost exclusively, but this week we did introduce something new to the mix – broccoli!   The week started off with a big harvest of romaine lettuces which was cleaned, torn into chunks, spun dried, and then made into a large salad topped with some crumbled goat cheese and roasted/salted sunflower kernels that was used for Monday nights dinner and several subsequent meals.                      

 Wednesday I harvested a very full (packed down and overflowing!) colander of kale.   The kale was sautéed with diced garlic until wilted and then some vegetable stock was added to the pan along with some raisins and allowed to simmer on medium high heat until the stock was mostly evaporated, the kale tender, and the raisins plumped.   This was then tossed with cooked and drained orzo pasta, seasoned with salt to taste and topped with freshly grated parmesan.   The kale and pasta side dish accompanied baked salmon filets seasoned with dill.       

The spinach patch was showing signs it was about to bolt, so on Saturday I harvested all of the leaves and then pulled up the plants to make way for some carrots (which I planted on Sunday).   The spinach was used to make a spinach and bacon quiche and a large spinach salad topped with cranberry raisins and roasted/salted sunflower seed which was our Saturday evening meal.   There was a large amount of the spinach salad left over which will be used for lunches and other meals over the course of the next several days.     Most of the left over quiche was used for Sunday brunch the next day.    

Finally, on Sunday several medium sized heads of broccoli were harvested.   These were showing signs they were going to start flowering so I went ahead and harvested them.   The broccoli was just simply steamed until tender and served with a little butter and salt with grilled steaks and sautéed mushrooms for our Sunday dinner.                                          

Harvest totals for the week of June 6th through June 12th (rounded to the nearest ¼ pound).

• Broccoli 1.00 lbs
• Kale 1.00 lbs
• Lettuce 0.75 lbs
• Spinach 1.25 lbs

Total For Week 4.00 lbs

Total Year To Date 45.75 lbs                              

Eggs collected this week – 31                 

Video Of The Early Summer Garden

On Sunday morning I tackled weed whacking the walkways of the garden and knocking back the blackberries and other items encroaching on the edges of the garden.   It takes about 2 hours to do the entire garden including the preparation ahead of time to move things out of the way etc.   This garden tidy up needs to be done about every 6 weeks during the summer growing season to keep the walkways neat and remove hiding places for slugs and other pests.   It’s a bit of a job to do but well worth it in how nice it keeps the garden looking.   After I was done, I decided to make a short video to show where the garden is at this point in the early summer season.   I was working hard to keep the video at approximately 5 minutes in length and as a result I totally skipped the vertical grow beds; celery; tree kale; beets; carrots; artichokes; rhubarb; bush pie cherries; apples; lettuce patch; and raspberry patch.   However, I did manage to capture the main growing beds and the greenhouse.   So here it is – our modern victory garden in early summer.     

   

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener

Saturday I lifted the potatoes from the 4-foot by 32-foot bed they have been growing in.   As many of you know, I used the John Jeavon’s method of planting potatoes this year and was anxious to do the final dig and weighing to see if I improved my yield per square foot of planting area used.   Last year (using the trenching method) I got a total of 120 lbs from two beds that combined had a total square footage of 208.   This computes to a yield of 0.58 lbs per square foot.   This year (using the John Jeavon’s method of planting potatoes) I got a total of 170.25 lbs in one growing bed that had a square footage of 128.   This computes to a yield of 1.33 lbs per square foot!   I more than doubled the yield per square foot by using this planting method.   It has other benefits too, in that the bed is double dug and amended well in the spring and once planted you pretty much just leave them alone other than watering and slug removal etc. until you are ready to harvest.   Here’s a short video of the dig process and results.                           

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener

I am back from my travels and the garden survived just fine, although I had some pretty large zucchinis waiting for me when I got home!   Thought it would be a good time to post a mid summer video tour and garden update.              

    

     

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)