The Modern Victory Garden

I am appreciating the tree kale/collard starts more and more with each passing day.   They have easily rooted out and are already developing some rather substantial leaf growth.   This early growth looks tender and sweet and gives every indication that they are going to be very happy plants in our cool (and often damp) maritime Pacific Northwest climate.   My biggest challenge going forward with them appears to be just keeping them secure from the hungry hoard of hens that would gladly strip all the new growth off in a flash if I let them anywhere near.   For now though the plants are safe and secure in the unheated greenhouse.   When I do eventually plant these out in the garden, their protection will have to be a high priority as they definitely will be an attraction for the chickens.                

My apologies for how dark these first couple of pictures are.   They were taken tonight after I got home from work and it was getting fairly dark.   I don’t like to use flash if I can avoid it (washes out the colors too much) but probably should have in this case due to the lateness of the evening.   I have already received several requests to receive cuttings from these plants, which I hope to be able to accommodate but it will have to wait a while until after these plants are well established.                

There are several containers of greens growing in the greenhouse in addition to these tree kale/collard starts.    We had some rather nice weather days on Tuesday and Wednesday and I noticed tonight that the corn salad (mache) was responding with some good growth.   I started the corn salad seeding a bit earlier this year than I usually do and I think I need to keep doing that because the greens are definitely going into the darkest days of winter with more growth on them.            

The greenhouse and grow tunnels are critical components of ensuring sufficient winter harvests to supplement our preserved items.   I know that keeping a steady succession of “mature”, “coming along”, and “just starting out” items in the production pipeline makes all the difference in whether we have abundant fresh produce throughout the entirety of the year.   It has been my practice though to take a short break from a lot of garden tasks (such as seed starting) during the months of November and December – waiting until the end of December or first part of January before starting any mid-winter seedlings.   I intend to largely keep up that practice because it is nice to slow down the garden workload for a brief time, but this year I did go ahead and start quite a few seedlings in late October so I would not end up with my usual gap in the plant production pipeline that often then results in slim pickings come January and February.   I started several trays and flats of lettuces (two varieties), kale, cabbages (two varieties), onions, spinach, bok choy, and pac choi on October 24th and they have been growing under lights and on a heat mat in the shop since then.   As of this evening, they seem to be coming along well.   In fact, I am going to need to thin the lettuces soon, as it appears I was a bit heavy handed with at least one of the two varieties.  

It's nice to have some young plants growing when everything in the garden is essentially shutting down in response to the cold and dark days of late fall.  Got to love those future harvests - “just starting out” and entering the plant production pipeline.                 

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener