The Modern Victory Garden

I realized the other day that I have not been posting very many pictures of the almost daily harvests.   I think this is a function of the fact that we are in the greens season and I only harvest what we plan to eat that day.   So the photos become rather repetitive, basically my white plastic colander full of lettuce, spinach, kale, or cabbage leaves and periodically a green onion or two as well.   When the summer season crops start producing, then the harvests start getting more varied, more sizeable, and (let’s face it) more interesting to look at.   So my apologies for the lack of harvest pictures lately.   Hopefully we will be moving out of the greens only season soon, not only because it will provide more interesting things to look at and share with all of you, but because our dinner menu gets more interesting too!   Until then, we will continue eating a lot of greens and I will try to share a picture of them occasionally.            

Getting on to other harvests besides greens has been a bit of a challenge this year due to our prolonged cool and rainy conditions.   As if to add an exclamation point to this observation, I harvested lettuces tonight in pouring rain.  I worked as fast as I could to cut what I needed, but was soaked through before I could dash back into the house.   The heavy rains are causing many plants (onions, peas, potatoes) to lie over and the garden looks totally soaked and water weary at the moment.   The greens though love this weather.   Here’s the lettuce patch that I am currently harvesting from along with Merlot lettuce that is growing in a container on the deck.                  

I have been harvesting from this patch a lot, and yet it continues to keep filling back in and producing more.   You can also see the celery in the back and to the left.   It too is enjoying the constant and steady supply of moisture and cooler conditions.   Tonight I cut over a half pound of lettuces to make a large green salad to go with steaks and homemade macaroni and cheese for dinner.    

The good news is that the weather forecast is calling for sunny and warmer conditions to make an appearance this coming weekend, and the longer term forecast indicates we may get to keep the more normal temperatures around for a while.   All I can say… is bring it on!                                      

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener

I had hoped to get the shingles installed on the chicken coop roof Sunday, but the weather was raining off and on, which made it a poor choice of a day to try and do a roofing job - no matter how small!   The plastic sheeting has done a good job keeping the roof sheathing and coop dry, so it can wait until this coming long weekend for me to do that last step.   What I did get done on Sunday was the final harvest of the big spring spinach patch.   A few of the plants were starting to bolt, so it was time to cut the lot of it and blanche and freeze it.   Here’s the patch before and after I did the harvest.                                           

This is the big plastic laundry tub/basket that I half filled with the harvested spinach leaves.   There was over four pounds of spinach from this cutting.       

I did a post last year about how I process spinach for freezing so I won’t go over all that again, but you can take a look at that older blog entry HERE.                    

The weather has returned to cool and damp and seems to be stuck in that cycle.   The warm weather crops are kind of stalled out for the most part as a result.   I have been keeping the tomato beds covered under a tunnel of clear plastic and it seems to have helped as the plants are getting more husky (despite the chill) and several varieties are blooming at the moment.   The greenhouse plants are doing very well too.   However, the cool weather crops are thriving in this overcast and cool/wet spring.   The current main lettuce patch is a patchwork of good eating.   This is Super Gourmet Blend lettuce, which is my favorite mix.                                 

The other lettuce champion is the container planting of Merlot lettuces (seeds from Dan). These have turned out to be a superior cut and come again lettuce – buttery sweet taste, brilliant color that dresses up the salad bowl, and I have cut this down hard at least three times now and look at the lovely new growth it is sporting!                                            

The peas have stretched well above the top horizontal trellis support.   It is next to impossible to see in the next photo, but the plants have the first pea flower buds starting to open.                                        

The other crops doing brilliantly in this prolonged wet, overcast, and cool weather are the broccoli, kale, and cabbages.   KitsapHeidi posted a question about growing cabbages in the discussion forum – so I thought I would post a picture or two of the Savoy Ace cabbages, which may answer some of her questions. The plants have lovely large exterior whorl leaves and are just now starting to grow more inwards in the interior - shaping up to what will eventually be the formation of a head.                         

Looking forward to the coming three-day weekend.   The weather is supposed to be a tad nicer, which is good since I have some minor chores to attend to in the garden, and a chicken coop roof to shingle!

It has been down right cold here for the past several days.   Night time lows were right at 35 degrees for two nights in a row, which has not killed anything outright but has all the less hardy items a bit stressed.   It is supposed to warm up (relatively speaking) tomorrow and I hope that everything recovers quickly and resumes growing.   The tomatoes in the greenhouse have been completely unfazed by the cold though.   In fact the super early Siletz tomatoes continue to put on more blossoms.       

One thing that has been totally unaffected by the cold snap is the weeds in the walkways of the garden.   I absolutely must do the first weed whacking of the walkways this coming weekend.   I am in jeopardy of having small children and large cats getting lost in the tall grass along the edge of the beds!   Those of you who have followed my blog for a while will know that I really dislike this chore.   In fact, I  had good intentions of doing something different with the walkway areas this year but recognizing I have already spent quite enough money with the addition of a chicken coop this spring, I am going to have to wait.   So it will be yet another year of doing the monthly weed trimming work.   While I heartily dislike doing this task, I do love how the garden looks immediately afterwards which motivates me to get to it.   I also need to clean the top panes of the greenhouse.   The caked on pollen needs to go so the sunlight can reach the plants inside more effectively.    I am too short to do this job without standing precariously on a step ladder - so this is not my favorite job either.                                                  

The other thing that must be attended to this weekend is planting out the pumpkins, zucchini, and cucumbers.   They are way over due for transplanting but I have been holding back because the weather has been too chilly.               

While the majority of the squash family plants are growing and ready to plant out, I am giving up on growing Early Butternut squash this year.   I definitely am in possession of a package of bad seeds.   After two completely failed attempts to start the Early Butternut seeds in the seed trays of sterilized starting mix, the third attempt was made to germinate the seeds in a damp paper towel in a warm spot.   Absolutely no luck – not a single seed sprouted.   I think it is safe to declare that the package of seeds was a complete dud.   They were bought from a seed company that I don’t generally use and am unlikely to use ever again.   So, I am changing my plans a bit as a result.   I am going to plant the Small Sugar pumpkins in with the corn and pinto beans for the three sister’s plantings and just skip planting winter squash all together this year. Looking at the bright side, this gives me more room in the garden for bush green beans and dried beans.             

This week has felt like a lot of minor set backs what with the weather; confirmation that I had a totally bad package of Early Butternut seed; and weeds in the walkways that demand that I do my least favorite garden chore.  I need the sun to come out and make things right with the world - or at least in my garden!

The weather is not very promising for the coming three-day weekend.   Forecast is calling for heavy rain and breezy conditions on Saturday and only mildly better weather on Sunday and Monday.   Fall has definitely arrived in the maritime Pacific Northwest.   Today was actually quite nice though and I took advantage of that this evening to do a few minor tasks in the garden.   Since the forecast is calling for some significant rain, I thought it would be wise to bring the flats of Walla Walla seedlings into the protection of the greenhouse - so they do not drown from too much water pooling in their base tray.   I also removed all of the branches and leaves from the lower half of the brussel sprout plants tonight and put them in the compost pile.   Removing the leaves and stems channels the energy of the plants into the development of the sprouts and provides the sprouts more room to grow larger.                                                 

This morning I picked a big bowl of strawberries.   I am pleased with the quality of the fall crop this year.   Last year, they ended up mostly going to the slugs and/or quickly rotting.   This year however, most of the fruit is ripening up nicely with only minor amounts of losses to slugs and rot.              

If the weather breaks at all this weekend, I need to do the first of the two big potato lifts.   If it is really wet out, I am going to have to postpone it.   However, the mid and early season potatoes are definitely ready to come out of the ground and given my commitments for the following weekend, I really need to do it this weekend if at all possible.                         

The largest head of the Late Flat Dutch cabbage needs to be harvested this weekend as well.                                                    

I also need to pick a bunch of jalapeño peppers that are getting quite large.   If there is enough of them, I hope to be able to do a few pints of sliced pickled jalapeño peppers.   Finally, I need to harvest the largest pumpkin, which has been ripe for a while now.                          

Since the weather is promising to be so gloomy all weekend, I figure it will be a good time to cook the pumpkin and use some of it immediately for a pumpkin pie and then freeze the rest of the puree in packages of 2 cups each - just the right amount for pie making.                      

Here's my garden "to do" list for this long weekend:

• Remove the remaining Siletz and Stupice tomato plants, which have also succumbed to the blight  (Done 9/5/09)
• Plant the big over wintering spinach patch where the tomatoes used to reside (Done 9/5/09)
• Harvest the big ripe pumpkin and process it for pie making - freezing what is not used immediately (Done 9/5/09)
• Harvest the large head of green cabbage and use it in various recipes over the next several days (Done 9/7/09)
• Lift, cure/dry, and store the Caribe, Yukon Gold, and Red Cloud potatoes - setting aside seed stock for next year as well (Done 9/7/09)
• Harvest the largest of the jalapeño peppers and pickle them (Done 9/6/09)
• If there is enough pickling cukes, I may do a batch of dill pickles as well. I am skeptical that I have enough though, as the cool down in the weather has slowed down production quite a lot (Not Enough)
• Spray the cole crops with Bt on Monday after the worst of the rain events is behind us for a while  (Ran Out of Time and Energy!)

Hopefully, I will get at least a few of these items attended to in the next three days along with a big Costco shopping and some other more mundane household chores.   What are your plans for the weekend?

I am somewhat amazed by the continued heavy production I am getting from the sugar snap peas (Cascadia).   It is almost the middle of August and we had a long stretch of quite warm and very dry weather during most of June and July - and yet the sugar snap peas are producing heavily at the moment and are also flowering profusely!   When I went to the garden tonight to harvest items for the evening meal prep, I ended up with over a pound of sugar snap peas, along with lots of Stupice tomatoes (boy is that plant a prolific producer!) and some yellow zucchini.    

Peas love this region and grow really well here.   Which highlights a key concept related to getting maximum output from your food production garden.    

Focus largely on growing crops that are well suited to your climate. 

My climate is maritime pacific northwest.   The temperatures rarely get extreme (either hot or cold) and it is generally moist most of the year.   This is a "great" growing climate for  peas, spinach, lettuce, cabbages, kale, kohlrabi, broccoli, and brussel sprouts.   It's a "pretty good" growing climate for potatoes, carrots, beets, zucchini, parsnips, onions, strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries.   It is generally a "poor" climate for cucumbers, winter squash, pumpkins, peppers, tomatoes, corn, eggplant, and most beans.      When most people think of a vegetable garden they immediately envision all of those warm weather crops that are in my last list of items.   I love them too and definitely grow them, but despite that my garden has more than 60% of available bed space devoted to crops that are in the first two categories - either a "great" item for this climate or "pretty good".   I am far more likely to have failures with the crops that are challenging to grow in this cool maritime environment, while the ones that suit this climate are almost fool proof to grow.   Those sugar snap peas are a classic example of that.   When I was living and gardeming in the hot and sunny central portion of Washington state, my list was almost completely reversed.   There it was very difficult to grow broccoli, spinach, and peas - but tomatoes, peppers, and melons, were harvested by the laundry basket full, and on an almost daily basis throughout the long summer.                

While I can work extra hard  to grow those warm weather crops here (and I do!), the truth is that I am better served to devote more of my garden space and energy to crops that are naturally more suited to this environment.    It's for that reason that you see such large plantings of spinach, carrots, parsnips, potatoes, broccoli, and cabbages in my garden.    They are my baseline food production items that have a high probability of coming through for us and keeping us fed.  The warm weather crops like the beans,corn, tomatoes, peppers, squash, and cucumbers are my indulgence in pushing the garden envelope.   I love those crops and don't want to be without them so I am willing to invest time and energy in their cultivation.   However, I make sure that a greater majority of the garden is committed to crops that are more ideally suited to this climate.               

What about your garden?   Are you growing mostly items that flourish where you live - or mostly pushing the gardening envelope with your choices on what to grow?     

Tonight I was on my own to pick the bush green bean patch.   Lately, my daughter has been helping me with the picking chores but tonight she had another commitment.   I picked them much faster working alone (since I was not chatting the whole time!) but it sure was a lot less fun without her company.   The mid-week harvest of beans weighed in at 5 and 1/2 lbs total.                                 

The weather has gone from unbearably hot to almost chilly in just a few short days.   I actually closed up the green house last night because the nighttime temps were forecasted to dip down to the low 50's.   I have Mini Bell peppers and Early Jalapeño peppers growing in the greenhouse.   The fruits are really growing and some of the Mini Bell peppers are starting to ripen, so night time lows below 58 is not good news.    In fact, the Early Jalapeño peppers are just really beginning to form.                                 

Hopefully the weather will soon equalize out to a moderate but warmer level.   Despite the chillier weather, the tomatoes are giving me some nice clusters of ripe tomatoes and the pace is picking up a bit in the number and frequency of tomatoes that are ripening.   Still only harvesting one or two at a time for the moment, but it looks like that is about to start changing - particularly if the weather warms up a bit.                                        

The largest of the pumpkins has gotten very big and is starting to change color already!                                       

Seeing a pumpkin starting to turn orange, combined with the dramatic cool down we have experienced in the past two days, definitely is hinting that fall is not far off.   It really heightens my sense of urgency to get the summer crops in and preserved as much as possible.   Luckily, it appears a lot of the late comer crops are making good progress.   The pickling cucumbers may eventually give me a reasonable sized harvest - judging by the amount of flowers and immature fruit on the vines.   In addition, I noticed this evening that the first runner beans are starting to form!   These are Sunset runner beans.                        

I also have the second wave of strawberries coming on my ever bearers (Ozark Beauty).                                                 

So, it appears that things are continuing to progress on a reasonable time table but I must confess that I will feel much calmer once I am up to my elbows in tomatoes in the kitchen!    Hopefully that will be fairly soon.

It's sweltering hot here this evening.   Cooler outside in the garden than inside the house.   After I got home from work this evening, I quickly fixed dinner and then headed out to the relative cool of the garden to pick the green beans.    My daughter joined me and together we worked for about an hour and  a half harvesting.     When we wrapped up at about 8:30 pm we had picked just a little over 7 lbs of green beans!                        

Had a nice summer evening visit with my daughter as we worked.  Caught up on a lot of things and shared a laugh or two as well.    That is one of the enjoyable things about harvesting and preserving - she always jumps in and helps and we manage to have a good time together while working.        

I need to prep all these beans and get them into the freezer.   Not sure if I am up to getting all that done this evening, but I will get a start on it. before retiring for the night.        

Have you been doing some mid week harvests or preserving? 

This morning after our Sunday breakfast was completed, I hurried out to the garden to get the green beans picked before it became unmercifully hot outside.   This is the first harvest of green beans for this season and it provided just over one pound of beans.               

We will be enjoying these for dinner tonight along with some chicken cooked on the grill and potato salad made from potatoes and onions I harvested today too.   This is over three pounds of Caribe potatoes taken from just one plant.             

I also harvested some sugar snap peas.   Since we have so much already for dinner, I just rinsed the snap peas off and set them out for snacking on raw.   The sugar snap peas provide a nice steady supply of produce for fresh eating needs - so long as I keep them well watered and grow them in a partially shaded area.  

While we are still enjoying some of the cooler season crops (like sugar snap peas), the garden is definitely shifting into the main summer season crops.   I have several large tomatoes ripening on the vine and have already harvested the first ripe tomato of the season.   The zucchini has been providing regularly for many weeks now.   Interestingly enough, the green zucchini have temporarily stopped producing while the gold zucchini is still producing abundantly.   This actually happened last year too and with these same two varieties.   We had gold zucchini for dinner last night along with savory white beans w/ carrot slices and diced onions and baked dill salmon.

Slow to arrive but coming along are the cucumbers and the peppers.          

 The onion patches (both the sweet and storage) have laid down and are beginning the final bulb development stage.                    

After these have dried down a bit more, I will pull them and let them start curing.                                   

The buckwheat green manure / cover crop that I planted several weeks ago is now up and doing a good job of suppressing weeds - developing lots of vegetative matter for later incorporation into the soil.                   

Behind the buckwheat is the Ruby Ball cabbages that are heading up nicely.   Even better heads have formed on the Primero cabbages.             

There are three of them this size and three smaller ones.   This one is pretty much ready to harvest any time now.                                 

It is VERY hot here today and I was grateful to get the green bean picking done fairly early because even with the reasonably early start - I was getting quite done in by the heat.   My cat Sid sat in the shade of the beans and squash plants and gave me friendly encouragement and company while I picked.   I noticed as I wrapped up the harvesting that he had disappeared - but I soon found where he had gone to!   He likes to sit under the Adirondack chair on the front porch where he can watch the world go by in relatively cool shade.   Smart cat!          

I hope you are enjoying a summer day in the garden.

We are continuing to enjoy some warm and dry weather and the forecast calls for it to stay around for a while.   This is good news for the tomatoes, green beans, and pepper plants.   The biggest challenge is to keep up with the watering so that these plants keep thriving and progressing to a state of providing harvestable produce.   While I was busy watering the green beans, peppers, and tomatoes today, I took some pictures of the tomatoes to share with you.   The plants are tantalizingly loaded with lots of green fruits.   I am trying to be patient, but I am really ready for the tomato season to get underway.                                   

The Stupice tomato has already provided the first ripe tomato and has another small ripe one available for me to pick.   More importantly, it has large clusters of tomatoes that are showing indications they will soon be ripening.                       

It is pretty amazing how many fruits this one Stupice plant has on it, and lots of blooms too  . It appears it will be a generous producer throughout the summer.                              

The Legend tomatoes have some really big fruits, which are also showing signs of wanting to start to ripen.                               

 The Siletz plants are not as big as the Legend but they are more plentiful.                                 

And the Celebrity, while a later maturing tomato, is working hard to rapidly catch up to the Siletz and Legend plants.                             

I did not get around to taking a picture of the sauce tomatoes, but they are plentiful now too.                                 

Hopefully soon I will being seeing red in the garden!

Yesterday's hot muggy weather ended rather abruptly last night with thunder and lightening.   The storm brought cool and overcast weather today, but very little by way of rain.   So after I wrapped up some needed grocery shopping, I spent just a little time this afternoon finishing up the watering that I largely completed yesterday.           

While I was watering, I noticed a little bird that was flitting in and out of the celery and swiss chard plantings.   It appears he was eating insects off of the plants, so this little fellow is quite welcome to hang out in my garden.    

The swiss chard plants are just about ready for another hard harvest. They are in the older vertical grow bed with a "Sunset" runner beans growing up the vertical support structure behind them.            

I really like "Bright Lights" swiss chard because not only is it quite pretty to look at with the magenta, red, yellow, and orange stalks - but it is also very good tasting.                                    

The celery is mature enough now to use for fresh eating and also can be harvested anytime for freezing too. I may tackle slicing up and freezing some celery next weekend.   This year's crop is not quite as nice as last year's, but it is still respectable looking.                         

The corn patch is getting some size on it and the "Bodacious" corn plants are starting to tassel already.                                  

Along with tassels, they are also starting to form the beginnings of ears of corn too.                             

Earlier today I harvested some strawberries for our Sunday brunch and some onion, parsley, and basil to make Italian Bean Salad - preparing it early so that it would have sufficient time to marinate/chill in the refrigerator.   This afternoon I harvested some carrots to also go with the dinner meal.       

The Sunday dinner menu is crisp roasted split chicken breasts (free range local chicken - seasoned with garlic and a little salt), Italian Bean Salad, and steamed carrot slices with a little butter/salt.                  

I hope you had a good weekend and enjoyed some time in your food production garden.