The Modern Victory Garden

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 from so many different regions, and how they are using it.   Check it out and join in too!       

Not much fresh harvesting occurred this week other than some beets I pulled on Sunday.   We did use stored, frozen, and canned items a great deal, but the fresh harvests are somewhat limited at the moment because the kale and chard have been previously harvested pretty hard and are not bouncing back quickly during these darkest days of winter.   There are some green onions, parsnips and beets available for harvest, and coming along in the green house are some young lettuces, Napa cabbages, and dwarf pac choi that will not be too much longer of a wait before ready.   In the meantime, we are leaning heavily on our stored supplies and are very glad to have previously put by an ample supply from the prior year garden. 

Sunday afternoon I harvested both red and golden beets.   I really did not need them for the Sunday dinner preparation, but thought I would harvest them in the light of day and put them in the fridge to use early next week.                

Harvest totals for the week of January 2nd through January 8th (rounded to the nearest ¼ pound).                                                  

• Beets 0.75 lbs

Total For Week 0.75 lbs

Total Year to Date 1.75 lbs                                  

Eggs collected this week – 7                                          

SOME WINTER GARDEN PROJECTS

This winter is actually shaping up to be a “normal” winter for us (so far), which is a pleasant change from the past two winters which had significant periods of below normal temperatures.   Two good things come from this.   First, the perennial plantings and the crops being over wintered are faring well, and second, the mild daytime temperatures affords the ability to do some garden projects much earlier than a harsher winter would allow.   So long as the weather continues to hold, I intend to take full advantage of that good fortune.   Sunday was a particularly mild day with a high temperature that reached a balmy 50 degrees so I definitely spent some time in the garden and tended to a few winter projects.       

About a week ago I had given the bed of cranberry plants a good weeding and finished the job on Sunday by following up with a trimming of the longest runners that were trailing over the edge of the bed, which not only keeps the bed tidy but also encourages the plants to put energy into development of uprights (where the fruit is formed).   I sprinkled some garden sulfur around the plants because a quick test with the PH meter indicated the soil could use some acidification.   This was then followed with a sanding which helps the many long runners to root and establish a more solid mat of plants from which more uprights can eventually form.   This bed is in its third year and the plants are finally really developing a decent foundation and have some nice uprights formed, so I have some reason to hope that this may be its first year to produce berries (usually takes 3 to 4 years).                    

Another project tackled on Sunday which is not nearly as much fun as tending to a promising bed of cranberries – was the removal of dead pole bean vines from the support structures.   Is there anything more tedious than unwinding the vines of pole beans from netting?!   It really has to be a fine day and I really have to have nothing better to do to get in the proper mood to tackle that particular winter task.   I had run out of excuses however to ignore it any longer and the weather was indeed fine, so I completed it for yet another year.   The funny thing is that I will happily plant more pole beans just as soon as the soil warms sufficiently and blissfully forget the royal pain in the butt that those longed for vines will give me come next winter.   It’s a good thing our garden memories are shrouded in the springtime by a haze of green shoots and warm sunshine - or pole beans would never get planted and enjoyed for dinner!     

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener

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 from so many different regions, and how they are using it.    Check it out and join in!                    

On Tuesday evening the harvest included quite a few zucchini, some tomatoes, cucumbers, and several lovely ripe red bell peppers.   These are just one group of many that I have gotten from my Lady Bell pepper plants this year and I must say I am very impressed with this variety.   It grew well and produced abundantly despite a very cool summer in our region.  The peppers are large, sweet, and a gorgeous red when ripe.   I will definitely be growing this one again.                                 

I used the largest of the zucchini from this harvest combined with tomatoes that had ripened on the counter and some previously harvested leeks to make Stuffed Zucchini Boats.   I tweaked the recipe a bit by only using ground beef rather than a beef/pork combo and leeks instead of onions, but this was really delicious and the fresh made tomato sauce was a lovely complement to the dish.   The cucumbers were put in the fridge with the growing pile.   I am trying to accumulate enough to do a batch of dill pickle relish.   Getting close to enough but I am missing a few pounds yet.   Lots on the vine at the moment, so I am hopeful I will have finally have enough this coming week to get that done.   We use dill pickle relish a lot and typically go through 7 pints of it in a year.   The tomatoes went on the counter to finish ripening and the peppers and remaining zucchini went into the crisper in the fridge for later use.        

Wednesday evening’s harvest was a big colander of spinach.          

This was used immediately after harvest to make the evening meal of boneless/skinless chicken breast chunks in a spicy peanut sauce served in a bed of cooked spinach (also known as Swimming Rama) with cooked rice served on the side.   I cheat and use a bottled spicy Thai peanut sauce, which I doctor a bit by adding some additional creamy peanut butter to it.           

Friday night’s harvest was a bit of lettuce, some tomatoes, and one lonely little cucumber to add to the growing pile of cukes.                

The tomatoes went on the counter to finish ripening, and I used some from a previous harvest that already had ripened in combination with the lettuce to make some very yummy Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomato (BLT) sandwiches for dinner that evening.                   

It was a busy weekend around here.   On Saturday morning I worked with a group of volunteers to load several truckloads of thoroughly worm composted llama poop.   One large load of it went to the Giving Garden I volunteer at and was unloaded by all of us, another two loads went to some other volunteers for use in their home gardens, and I brought home three very large bins of it for my own garden as well.   The large containers were the only way I could haul mine home in my Honda Fit!   It was actually a lot of compost and ended up generously covering a 4’X24’ section of garden bed.   This stuff is truly gardeners gold as the worms had so thoroughly composted it that it was in fact mostly worm castings.   I was totally worn and rather smelly by the time I finished up by spreading my own compost haul in the garden.   The weather was misting rain and cool all day so I was chilled and a bit wet too.   So, after taking a hot shower I went out to the garden and harvested with a mind towards fixing a hearty dinner.   The Royal Burgundy bush beans are starting to fizzle out but are still producing enough to provide for a meal several times a week.   The pole beans are (finally) producing too.   The two together made a nice amount for a single meal.   I have yet to use them but expect they will be on the menu Monday night along with the broccoli I cut.   I also harvested some leeks, some carrots, and some more tomatoes to go on the counter to finish ripening.                  

The carrots, leeks, several tomatoes previously harvested that were now fully ripe, a large potato from storage, and a super sized elephant garlic clove were used to make a French style beef stew using one of my favorite Julia Child’s recipe that uses white wine, olive oil, beef stock and herbs to marinate the vegetables and beef and then goes on to be the base for the broth.   I changed up the recipe by using cut up chunks of well-marbled rib eye steak rather than stew beef with the additions of bacon for fat and flavor.   I also used leeks rather than sliced onions.   Otherwise, it was the standard recipe cooked low and slow in a dutch oven until the broth is thick and the meat is totally tender.   I cannot describe sufficiently what a totally satisfying meal this is for a cool evening and when you are physically tired out.   

No harvest on Sunday.   After a late start and a large brunch of fresh eggs (courtesy of our hens) served with farm style crisped potato dices (from our storage potatoes), we tackled the annual chore of doing the chimney and stove pipe “sweep” and cleaning on our woodstove.   The weather is turning and the wood for the woodstove has been stacked and covered for a while now – ready to be used whenever the temps start really dropping down.   However, each year before we can use the woodstove for heating, we have to do a chimney and stove pipe sweeping to remove all the ash, soot, and creosote build up from the prior heating season.   This is particularly important with our woodstove because it has two pretty significant "elbow" bends in the main pipe inside the living area of the house, which if not kept properly cleaned could be a source of chimney fires from build up in those spots.    For many years now, we have done this important chore ourselves and this year was no exception.   We own the correct sized stiff wire brush and fiberglass extension handles to reach down and do the "sweep".   We also have a stiff wire hand brush that we use for the handwork portion.   We have to disassemble the inside pipe to clean it, paying particular attention to the bends.   We clean the firebox of the stove too, thoroughly cleaning out the ashes and char that never got cleaned up at the end of the prior heating season.   We use our shop vacuum to clean up all the debris, soot, and fines, from the sweep process.   The last step is to reassemble the pipe (this can be a bit tricky) and then to use special glass cleaner to clean the front glass door.   All set for another season of woodstove heating.               

We got the chimney and stove pipe “sweep” done by early afternoon.   I then tackled two other tasks on my list.   The first was to do a pruning of the raspberry patch to remove the second year canes that had finished producing our summer raspberry crop.   Doing this pruning leaves the current year canes that are now very tall and getting ready to produce the late fall crop of raspberries.   This opens up the patch for next year’s new growth to emerge and allows for better air circulation.   This job took a while as the patch is very dense and care must be taken not to cut and remove the current year canes that are flowering and about to start producing the second crop of the year.   The hens joined me and did some clean up of bugs at the ground level while I worked on the cane removal.       

The final chore of the day was to rake the hen yard and do a thorough cleaning of the chicken coop.   The nights are getting longer and the hens are in the coop for an increasingly long period of time (sun down to sun up) so the litter needs refreshing just a little more often than it does during the height of summer.   All the bedding, manure, and spilled feed is removed and composted and fresh shavings are put down in the coop along with sweet smelling grass hay in the nest boxes.   The feed and water containers are also cleaned at the same time.   It takes me about an hour from start to finish to do this thorough cleaning.   I had one hen that decided about 15 minutes after I got started that she REALLY needed to lay an egg.   The poor dear kept checking on my progress every few minutes and no sooner had I put the fresh hay into the nest boxes and shut the top door… she was in one and setting!   If she could cross her legs she would have been doing that I think.   I hurried up the job recognizing she needed access to a box but still managed to get it thoroughly cleaned.                    

It started to rain when I finished up with the hen house, so I was preparing to call it a day and start fixing the evening meal when I discovered that something was plugging up the dishwasher drain requiring my husband and myself to do some home maintenance duties right away.   About an hour later we had it all working properly again but to be honest I was feeling tired and not terribly interested in harvesting something and cooking a meal.   We opted for leftovers of the stew from Saturday instead and called it a day.      

Harvest totals for the week of September 12th through September 18th (rounded to the nearest ¼ pound).

• Beans 0.50 lbs
• Broccoli 0.50 lbs
• Carrots 0.50 lbs
• Cucumbers 1.25 lbs
• Lettuce 0.00 lbs (not enough to round up to ¼ lb)
• Onions/Leeks 0.25 lbs
• Peppers 1.00 lbs
• Spinach 0.25 lbs
• Tomatoes 5.25 lbs
• Zucchini 3.00 lbs

Total For Week 12.50 lbs

Total Year To Date 309.50 lbs                   

Eggs collected this week – 29                         

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener

It was gloomy, misting rain, and rather chilly today.   The high temperature barely crawled up to 60 degrees and did not hover there long before falling back to the upper 50’s.   My cucumbers, melons, squash, and pumpkins are seriously pouting.   They really need a dry and warm spell soon or I am not going to get any harvest from them to speak of.   The rest of the garden is doing fine though despite the weather.   In fact, there are a few items that were truly bright spots in the garden on this overcast, damp, and cold Saturday afternoon.                         

The raspberry patch is a wall of vegetation at this point.   I have some chicken fencing surrounding the base of the raspberry patch to keep my hens from eating the young leaves or low hanging fruit.   The hens free range in this back area so the patch needs the protective barrier around it.   As you can see in the pictures below, the short fence has done a great job, as the raspberries are growing thick and lush.                        

There are lots of flowers and developing berries on the canes and I saw quite a few bees working them this afternoon.   Hopefully we will start enjoying some raspberries soon.              

Close by the raspberries on the other side of the garden fence are three big black pots that have my artichokes in them.   I have never tried to grow artichokes before, so this is a new adventure for me.   I grew these out from seed and then exposed them to cold conditions earlier this spring before they were finally transplanted into these pots.   I am hoping the cold treatment was sufficiently long enough and cold enough to cause them to produce buds in this their first year.   I am feeling optimistic though, based on the size of these plants at this point.                     

Another bright spot in the garden this year has been the Lady Bell peppers.   These were some of the fastest germinating and vigorous growing pepper seedlings I have ever started.   So far, I am totally impressed with this variety.   They are growing in large containers in the unheated greenhouse.   The plants have quite a few peppers on and I can easily start harvesting some of the green peppers soon.                 

The pea patch is a mass of pea blossoms right now and it is really beautiful to look at.              

Even more encouraging is that these pea blossoms are quickly moving to pod formation.                       

All of the cabbages are doing really well as would be expected given it has been a cool and damp year so far.   The Alcosa (savoy type) and Gonzales cabbages both have nice heads formed now.   I have already started harvesting and using the Alcosa and will start using the smaller headed Gonzales cabbages soon.              

The Bright Lights swiss chard is thriving in this gloomy cool weather too.   I love this variety because it is excellent tasting, a vigorous grower, and is just beautiful to look at.   I have pink, red, orange, yellow, and white stalked plants all growing together and the colors really pop on a dark, cloudy, and rainy day.                 

 I did do some work in the garden despite the misting rain today.   All the container plants were watered and I gave the artichokes a drench of kelp emulsion tea.   The peppers got that same treatment yesterday.   I also watered the pea patch and the bed of kale, cabbages, swiss chard, and broccoli.   Although it has been raining off and on for the past several days there has actually not been any significant amount and the soil is drying out below the immediate surface.   I also did some harvesting today, but I will save that for the Harvest Monday post.   As usual, I had my garden companion Sid at my side as I puttered about in the garden this afternoon.   He was standing guard over the harvest items when I took this picture.     

Sid is always a bright spot in my garden (and my life).           

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!                            

We have an abundance of harvestable crops at the moment to choose from including spinach, lettuce, pac choi, chinese cabbage, kale, swiss chard, celery, green onions, radishes, and rhubarb.   This week, I harvested spinach, lettuce, pac choi, swiss chard, celery, green onions and radishes.   The celery, green onions, and radishes were just small bits and did not make it into the harvest tally as a result.           

Harvest totals for the week of May 23rd through May 29th (rounded to the nearest ¼ pound).

• Lettuce 0.50 lbs
• Pac Choi 4.75 lbs
• Spinach 0.50 lbs
• Swiss Chard 1.50 lbs

Total For Week 7.25 lbs

Total Year To Date 32.50 lbs                

Eggs collected this week – 33                                    

Hopeful Signs

We saw the sun on Saturday and in the morning hours of Sunday.   Unfortunately it did not stay with us very long but it was much enjoyed while present.   More importantly, the sunshine seems to have heralded the arrival of the bees.   They have been noticeably absent or reduced in the past two years but Sunday morning I observed a goodly amount of them working the flowering rhododendrons and our evergreen huckleberry bushes.   I am very happy to see them and hope they continue to thrive and work my garden.   Another hopeful sign I observed on Sunday morning was that all of our evergreen huckleberry bushes are flowering profusely – giving indication that we may have a good huckleberry harvest later this year.   These bushes are in our front landscaping area of the property.   They prefer to grow in a partially shaded area and work very well planted at the edges of our property as a transition into the heavily forested areas that surround our homestead.   We have quite a few of these bushes ranging from small young plants to very large specimens.   Here’s one that is right next to our front entry drive.  

The bushes are exploding with blossoms and the bees are working them with enthusiasm.                                    

Evergreen huckleberries have smaller berries than regular huckleberries or blueberries and they tend to be a bit seedy.   They can be prolific though and if you harvest a large enough amount of them they are easily run through a berry screen on a roma strainer to produce a pulpy juice that is the foundation for some really yummy huckleberry jelly or syrup.                

The spring continues to be cooler than normal but I am seeing some hopeful signs that it may be a decent harvest year after all, despite the weather so far.  

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener

I have been working on a variety of garden related odds and ends lately, none of which individually is all that interesting or noteworthy - but I thought I would just give you a run down of what I have been up to the past week or so.     

One of my projects this year was to move the blueberries out of the large containers on the deck and into a permanent bed in the garden.   They grew well there last year but the birds were getting more of the harvest than I was willing to give up and the bushes were obviously outgrowing the pots.   I had previously emptied out the two beds I wanted to use for this purpose and before I transplanted the bushes, I added more compost, some garden sulfur, and did an aeration of the bed.   In the planting holes I added some good organic broad spectrum fertilizer and even more compost.   I then planted up the four bushes into their new home and covered them with hoops and some bird netting.        

It was time to get these planted because they are getting significant bud swell and look like they will be leafing out very soon.   I am planning to plant a few more cranberry plants at their feet to grow as a ground cover beneath them.   The cranberry starts have been ordered and will likely arrive in the next few weeks.          

I have the cross fencing project we are doing this spring as well.   I had the fencing contractor out last Friday to go over the details and provide the estimate for me.   Same folks that installed our current fencing that surrounds the entire back portion of our property.   This project is a fairly short run of 5 ft tall chain link fence with a couple of 4 ft wide walk gates for easy access, that separate the garden from the rest of the back lot area.   The cost estimate came in lower than I was planning on (which was a pleasant surprise) so the work order was approved and submitted right away and I am now just awaiting work to be scheduled.         

The seedlings are all doing well.   Last weekend, I repotted the first group of super early started tomato plants into large containers.   I was extra careful with the tender seedlings and it looks like I managed not to kill any of them in the process.   Sometimes potting up young tomato plants can result in a fair amount of losses.   I have another group that will probably be ready for their first potting up this coming weekend.   I need to move some of the more cold hardy seedlings out to the greenhouse soon to make room for them and for some additional trays of seeds yet to be started.   I think the weather is finally going to start cooperating with me soon (thankfully!).   The past two weeks we have had some snow, bitter cold, hail, heavy rains, and high winds and I have kept everything under wraps as a result.   However, the longer term forecast show a return to more normal daytime highs for this time of year and I plan to use the opportunity to move more plants out to the protection of the greenhouse.               

The current greens growing in the greenhouse are really waking up this past week.   The increased day length and sun strength is starting to have an impact.   Yesterday I harvested a nice bit of mixed greens to make salads for our dinner.   There was a bit of swiss chard, lettuce, spinach, kale, chinese cabbage, and some mache.            

I heard some songbirds this morning as I was leaving the house to go to work.   Yet, another good sign that spring is finally about to make an appearance!  

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener

Winter decided to arrive this week.   On Monday we had a storm system roll through the region that brought our first freeze and significant snowfall.   That in and of itself is not too terribly interesting or unusual for this time of year, but following immediately on the heels of the snow, were high winds, followed by a severe arctic freeze.     Record setting cold for our region in fact.   It was this one, two, three punch that made this such an interesting week.   We were fortunate and did not lose power during the storms (unlike about 40,000 other folks in our region) but we had quite a bit of debris blow down from the winds and the temps got down to 15 degrees,  which is much lower than our typical low temps for the area.   On Tuesday morning the snow had stopped and the winds were dieing down, but the cold air was just getting settled in.            

I already was scheduled to take Wednesday off from work to prepare for Thanksgiving, but I ended up not going to work on Tuesday either because the office closed for the day.   Both Tuesday and Wednesday ended up being extremely cold and blustery and were good days to just stay home and keep the wood stove burning warmly.    By Thanksgiving Day the weather started moderating and by today (Friday) we were back to our usual wet and mild winter weather.    First order of business on Friday morning was to check on the garden and see what the damage was from the multi day cold spell.    I was totally (and pleasantly) surprised to find that the only thing I lost in the freeze was the celery!   The greens in the greenhouse looked sickly during the worst of the deep freeze, but were all looking okay by Friday morning.   The swiss chard was particularly rejuvenated.                                

The corn salad (mache) lived up to its hardy reputation and looked beautiful and ready for another small harvest soon.                                   

In the garden the young over wintering spinach (growing under a grow tunnel cover) looks amazingly healthy and appears none the worse for wear.   I am glad I did not procrastinate in getting the spinach patch covered this year.   I delayed last year and lost my entire winter crop to an early surprise freeze (much like this one but not nearly as severe!).                             

The cold snap did spell the end of the extended fall harvest of raspberries we have been enjoying.   I took advantage of the improved weather today and pruned the raspberry canes – removing the dead canes and topping off the canes that were new growth this year that produced the fall harvest.   They will produce the summer harvest next year on the lower portion of the cane.      

It does not look like much right now, but thinning and pruning out the patch provides greater air circulation and sun exposure so it is prepared to take off again early next spring. In late February I will weed, scratch in a little organic fertilizer, and then mulch the raspberry patch with some compost.     

It seems we started winter this week and it did so with a rather grand entry.   The garden and plants in the greenhouse were adequately protected and composed of hardy varieties such that they weathered through it okay, with the exception of the celery of course.   It is quite dead unfortunately.    Luckily I had a good supply of sliced celery in the freezer, which was used to prepare the sage and celery stuffing for the turkey on Thanksgiving in place of a fresh harvest as originally planned.                    

So winter has arrived and I am now in my countdown mode… not for Christmas… but for the first signs of spring.                             

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener

The Thanksgiving holiday is just a few short weeks away.   For the past several years I have been challenging myself to grow more of this traditional foods feast myself and in sufficient quantities to feed the large gathering of family.   Obviously, my focus is on using vegetables and fruits from my garden but this year I also have our own fresh eggs to add to the ingredient list that comes from our backyard.   For those things that I am unwilling or unable to grow myself, I try to find a local source – such as for the turkey, dairy, and grain products.   Unfortunately, my cranberry plants did not produce berries this year due to our weird spring and summer weather but I have a local source for fresh cranberries that I can acquire so they are still on the menu.    Here is how the menu looks so far:                            

Appetizers

• Devilled eggs
• Celery stalks filled with fromage blanc
• Platter of pickled peppers, sliced pickled beets, dilly green beans, dill pickle spears, and an assortment of cheeses

Main Course

• Roast turkey
• Stuffing
• Mashed potatoes and gravy
• Steamed broccoli with a little butter/salt
• Spinach salad with dried cranberries, sliced toasted almonds, and a little crumbled goat cheese dressed with raspberry vinaigrette
• Fresh baked whole wheat dinner rolls 
• Homemade cranberry sauce

Dessert

• Pumpkin Pie
• Blueberry Pie
• Homemade vanilla ice cream (to serve with the pie!)

Ingredients that go into this menu that comes from our backyard:

• Eggs (henhouse)
• Onions (storage)
• Dill pickle relish for the deviled eggs (home canned)
• Celery (fresh harvest)
• Pickled peppers (home canned)
• Pickled beets (home canned)
• Dilly green beans (home canned)
• Dill pickle spears (home canned)
• Potatoes (storage from our bumper crop this year)
• Broccoli (fresh harvest if the fall crop is still healthy and productive then – otherwise frozen from the summer crop)
• Spinach (fresh harvest)
• Raspberries (fresh if the fall crop is still going – otherwise from the summer berry picking expedition)
• Pumpkin (garden grown)

Things that go into this meal that we harvested ourselves locally or processed after purchasing locally:

• Wheat berries (purchased from central Washington source – ground into flour just before using it to bake with)
• Blueberries (harvested locally by us at Grays Marsh Farm – frozen)

Are you the cook for a Thanksgiving dinner menu and how much of it is coming from your own garden and property?   How much of the rest is local sourced?                  

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener

Last Sunday we did our annual berry-picking trip to Graysmarsh Farm in Sequim Washington.   It’s a beautiful farm sited right on the shoreline of the Strait of Juan De Fuca which makes it extra special because as you pick berries in the many different fields you can look towards the edge of the farm and view the sea and an occasional large ship passing by.   We pick, visit, eat lots of berries, and listen to other people nearby picking and talking too, and generally just enjoy being out of doors at a great location.   It’s a fun summer outing that always ends with us bringing home buckets of berries to go into the freezer for our winter supply.   It’s also becoming a tradition to stop at a great little deli located on the way home to get some lunch and/or ice cream.   This year the temps were in the mid to upper 90’s so we made a point to get there right as they opened and worked hard to try and wrap up before the worst of the heat set in for the day.   We had two primary harvests we wanted from the day – blueberries and raspberries.   The loganberries were also on but we passed on those and used our time to focus on the two berries we really want to have stocked up in the freezer.   First stop the blueberry fields.        

The bushes were loaded with beautiful ripe berries.                    

We picked blueberries from 10 am until 12:30 pm and then headed to the raspberry fields just as the temps climbed to a sweltering level.   No photos of the raspberry fields as we were driven to get the picking done before the heat got any worse.   At 1:30 we had picked all we had set out to do and paid for our harvest ($2/lb) and headed home.   Ice cream was definitely the order of the day for our treat stop on the way home!                      

Here’s the harvest bounty we brought home - twenty-four pounds of blueberries and ten pounds of raspberries.                              

These were frozen on cookie sheets until frozen solid and then put into gallon zip lock freezer bags so that they were loose and can be easily scooped out as needed.   We got 4 full bags of raspberries and 6 full bags of blueberries.    

There is some harvest bounty happening in our modern victory garden this week as well.   The bush beans are hitting their peak production.   I picked both beds Tuesday evening and got two full colanders (five pounds) which I blanched and froze before heading off to bed that evening.           

There will be a couple of big pickings before the bush beans fizzle out, but right behind them the runner beans and pole beans are coming along and will step right in to fill the gap.   The cucumbers are giving me increasing amounts with each passing day as well, but the temps are dipping down again and I would not be surprised if they stall out for a while as a consequence.   In the meantime, we are enjoying the cukes we do get as refrigerator dill pickles – which are getting eaten almost as fast as I put them into the jar of solution.     

I hope your week is going well and that you are getting some time in your garden too.         

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener

It was drizzling rain and cool today.   Not a great day to do too much in the garden but I did water the tomato and zucchini beds by running the soaker hoses for several hours in each of them.   They are covered by red plastic mulch and so even when it rains, I still need to do the weekly irrigation.   I had some helpers in the garden this afternoon as I was moving the irrigation water around and doing a few other odds and ends chores.                

The girls were out clearing the weeds in the walkways and occasionally stealing some turnip greens and kale whenever I was not vigilantly watching them.   All in all though they are generally well behaved and are allowed into the garden when I am out and about - so long as I am there to supervise.           

The second crop of strawberries is coming on.   I have harvested about four nice sized strawberries in the past day or so but I ate them right there in the garden so they have never made into my harvest totals or a picture.   Hopefully some of these green ones coming along will make it into the harvest recaps.    

One of the things I am working on currently is rooting out strawberry runners because I want to start a new bed of strawberries next year and take out the oldest one (now three years old).   Strawberry plants produce lightly their first year, heavily their second year, and then decline in production thereafter.   It is my practice to rotate out a bed after the third year and start a new one to replace it.   This year was my “in between year” in that one bed is now two years old and the other is in it’s third year, so I did not do any rotation or patch removal in 2010.   However, next year the oldest bed needs to go and a new one needs to be planted to replace it.   By rooting out the runners from my current patches and then over wintering them in pots, I save myself the expense of buying new starts.   As the runners form in the strawberry patch, I just clip them with my garden snips and then set them into very moist potting soil in a planter.    The trick is to keep them quite wet for the first week or so until they root out.   Once rooted out well, I will give them a side dressing of fertilizer and then give them routine care.   I have about half of the plants rooted out that I will need next year, but I will just keep adding them as they send out new runners until I have enough that are rooted out and growing well.   If all goes well, I will end up with around 30 to 40 starts, which is enough to properly plant up a new 8-foot by 4-foot bed.   

The cucumbers are starting to produce.   I picked one last night and another one this afternoon.   Taking the good advice of Daphne and Thomas, I decided to try refrigerator pickles this year so that I could make better use of these early light cucumber harvests.   It will be awhile before the plants start producing amounts at any one time sufficient to do a batch of my favorite dill pickle relish, so keeping a jar of dill pickle solution in the fridge allows me to just drop in a couple at a time as they mature.   Early this morning, I mixed up a simple solution of 6 cups of water, 3 cups of white vinegar, 3 tablespoons of canning salt, 3 tablespoons of sugar, a medium sized white onion sliced thinly, 1 very large clove of elephant garlic, and several fresh heads of dill plus chopped up fresh dill weed in a gallon glass jar.   The cukes were cut into spears and added to the solution and then all of it just went into the refrigerator.   I sampled two spears this evening and have to tell you that I think I prefer these to traditionally processed dills.   Heavenly!                   

I purposely made a very large batch of solution, so I would have lots of room to add cucumbers as they came available in the coming weeks.               

The bean patches are getting their groove on now and I expect to be harvesting beans in the very near future.   This is my second year of growing Sunset Runner beans.   I saved seed from these plants last year because they really performed well in my climate and growing region.   They will grow and produce beans in areas that are partially shaded - which is quite rare for most vegetables.   Unlike regular pole and bush beans though, runner beans require bees or other pollinators to complete pollination.   They grow just like pole beans but produce a much broader, slightly fuzzy, and more meaty bean – best picked while quite young as they get tough when older.                   

Can you spot my other regular garden helper in this photo?                

The flower on these beans is quite beautiful and it is almost worth growing them just for that feature alone.                                

The Pinto beans growing in the Three Sisters planting bed are just now flowering and I have yet to find any pods forming.   They seem to be growing just fine, but are lagging behind the other beans.   However, the Three Sisters plantings in general seemed to really take off last week.   The corn is tasseled and silks are formed; the pinto beans are flowering; and the pumpkins that I have hand pollinated have set some nice looking fruits.                      

The Dark Red Kidney bean patch is further along than the Pinto beans are.   It is a very full stand of bean vegetation now, flowering nicely and forming bean pods.   If you look closely you can see a volunteer crimson clover flower and a volunteer potato plant growing in and amongst the Dark Red Kidney beans.   

The Dark Red Kidney bean pods are forming.                               

The really pretty bean patches though are the Royal Burgundy bush beans.   I have two patches of this growing and although they were planted almost two weeks apart, they seem to have caught up to each other and are at roughly the same stage of maturity.                                       

I should be harvesting some of these purple-podded beans soon.   Too bad my various garden helpers won’t be pitching in to pick beans when the time comes!                

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener

I have a quite a few good sized garden beds available to me for planting up my garden, but I invariably use a lot of container plantings to augment the traditional garden crops.   Containers allow me to plant extra plants I have that would otherwise end up on the compost pile, they allow me to use some small areas in the garden that get good sun but are not good candidates for a regular raised bed to be installed, and containers can be kept in the greenhouse until the weather really gets warm before moving outside and can be again brought inside in the fall to extend the crop’s harvest.   Lots of reasons to use containers for planting vegetables and berries even if you have a large garden area available to you.                                   

I use some containers for more permanent plantings – such as my pots of herbs.   This is some chives that I recently replanted, French thyme, and my cat’s personal pot of catnip (yes he is spoiled!).                                   

I also have several large containers on our side deck that are planted in blueberries.   These plants have really gotten big this year and are loaded with blooms and small berries.   I need to get some netting over them soon if I want to keep some of the future harvest from the birds.                             

The deck is a great spot to grow things on my property as it gets good sun exposure and would represents a colossal waste of space if it did not serve more than the one purpose of providing us a place to sit and commune with nature every once in a great while.   Right next to the blueberries is my rectangular pot of Merlot lettuces.   They don’t look very photogenic at the moment because we have been continuing to harvest from them for many weeks and I cut a bunch of it as recently as yesterday.                        

Just a bit further along where the deck wraps around to the back of the house, I have four containers of Sweet Italian peppers growing in medium/large pots.   It has not been a good year for peppers and basil because of the constant wet and cool conditions, but these container planted peppers are holding their own despite that.                                            

Tucked into a sunny corner of the garden are four containers of super early started Siletz tomatoes.   They were in the greenhouse for a very long time before I finally moved them out of doors.                                    

Inside the greenhouse I have five more containers of tomatoes growing – all of them Celebrity.   Celebrity is a robust semi determinate tomato that reliably produces a nice mid to late season tomato but needs the extra season extension of the greenhouse to ensure fruit maturity in our climate.   They always grow a huge main stem that is reminiscent of a tree trunk.              

Not exactly crops in pots, but the chinese cabbages, broccoli, swiss chard, and kale that I started about a week and a half ago are all up and growing well.   I moved them out of the greenhouse today to let them soak up some sunshine (briefly while it was here!).                                                      

Growing crops in pots is a great way to add greater variety to your harvest options and allows you to maximize available growing areas that would otherwise be underutilized.   Do you grow vegetables or fruits in pots?