The Modern Victory Garden

I often have the experience of people wanting to know the address of this website and blog and invariably the request comes when it is inconvenient to try and write it down on a piece of scrap paper (which is likely to get lost anyways) or a pen and paper are not available at all and then it is up the individual asking to then memorize and retain the information.    It seems that a business card with the web address on it would be a useful thing to have for just such circumstances.    Recently, Suzy at Chiot’s Run posted about Moo Mini Cards and I instantly knew this was just the solution for this problem and a nice way to display some of the more interesting photos from the site at the same time.                                           

They are a great size for carrying around and feature up to 100 different cropped images from photos you upload.   I chose to put the Modern Victory Garden website address, my name, and general location on the back of the cards.   I have already had an opportunity to hand a few of these out and think they will be very useful to have on hand.                              

The garden is in soggy wet winter mode right now.                     

The garden crops that are currently available for harvest include: carrots, parsnips, kale, swiss chard (greenhouse), lettuce (greenhouse), brussel sprouts (almost done though), cabbage (January King and a little bit of Beira Tronchuda is left).   I have had some critter getting into one of the carrot beds, pulling up roots and gnawing on some of them.   Not sure what kind of creature specifically is doing this, but I wish he/she would be less wasteful and just eat what they pull up rather than leaving it partially gnawed on!   I have an abundance of carrots in the ground in several different plantings, so I am not feeling any compulsion to try and put a stop to it.                     

Coming along behind the current harvestable crops, are some secondary plantings that will not be ready until February or March at the soonest. In the greenhouse, I have mache (corn salad) that I planted in two of the three half barrels. Mache is a slow plant to germinate and grow, but is well worth the effort.   It is hard to see in the following photo but I am getting a good coverage of mini mache sprouts in the two containers.

In the shop, under the grow lights and on the heat mat, I have some kale, Chinese cabbage, and lettuce seedlings that have emerged.    I planted these up last weekend.                                               

The lettuce is not giving me very good germination (both varieties).   I think the seed may be losing some viability due to age.   Probably time to toss the lettuce seed and replenish with fresh seed stock.                           

I am hoping to get started on my shop project over the coming holiday weekend.   I am designing a simple planting spacer tool that will help me to quickly plant larger sections of garden beds - but still utilize proper spacing when direct seeding.   It’s just an idea rattling around in my head right now. I want to do a prototype of the idea and work out the kinks before moving on to creating the final planting tool.                     

What are you working on or doing in the garden right now?