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 everyone else is harvesting from gardens in so many different regions.   Check it out and join in!                    

Greens are still the only real items available for harvest in the early spring garden.   The variety available though is starting to pick up.   I picked a couple of fresh salads (mix of swiss chard, kale, spinach, and napa cabbage leaves) this week and also harvested some chives as well.   The greens were enough to weigh in at a ½ pound but the chives did not weigh enough to round to a ¼ pound and so they are (once again) not in the tally for this week.                    

Harvest totals for the week of April 11th through April 17th (rounded to the nearest ¼ pound).

• Lettuce & Greens 0.50 lbs

Total For Week 0.50 lbs

Total Year To Date 12.50 lbs                  

Eggs harvested this week – 34                         

Hardening Off The Tomatoes           

The weather continues to be much cooler than normal, but Sunday was a halfway nice day with periods of sunshine through the morning and early afternoon.   I took advantage of it and did some more bed prep and planting.   The back garden area has three 4’X24’ foot beds.   The beds are on a sloped area and are terraced to adjust for that.   The top two beds on the slope had a heavy layer of compost put on them last fall, but the bottommost bed has had overwintered crops in it and has not had any compost added to it as a result.   I am fresh out of finished compost so I purchased two 3 cubic foot bales of compost on Saturday and stacked them near the lowest bed so they will be handy when I finally get to prepping that bed.   On Sunday, I used the broadfork and aerated the top and middle beds.   I wanted to plant up half of the middle bed right then, so I went on and used the hoe to cultivate the top several inches and then raked the bed smooth.   Here is the middle bed all prepared and ready to be planted.         

On the left in the picture above, you can see the other bed that has been aerated but not cultivated or raked.   I will wait to do those tasks until right before I am ready to actually plant it.   On the right in the picture above, is the lowest bed that has the overwintered spinach and green onions.   This is destined to be the main tomato bed for 2011 and will need to be planted up in about week.   Until then I am leaving it alone so I can squeeze out as much spinach harvests as I can from the overwintered spinach before I have to pull them all out.   You might notice in the top right portion of the picture that I have all the tomato starts out enjoying some morning sunshine.            

These plants are in the final phase of the hardening off process and are starting to spend a few hours each day outside before being put back into the unheated greenhouse.   The amount of time they spend outside will be gradually increased until they are spending the entirety of the day exposed to the elements.   I cart them back and forth from the greenhouse, which is a bit of a pain but necessary.   Luckily the duration that I have to do that for is not that long.   Behind the tomato plants in three large black containers are my artichoke starts.   I have not grown artichokes before so this is something new for me.   These starts have been outside in the cold for many weeks now; hopefully they have gotten their required “cold period’ that induces the first year plants to produce buds.             

The slanted trellis system was set up in the first 8 feet of the middle bed and in the strip in front of it I planted the sugar snap peas (Cascadia).   Underneath the trellis support, I planted turnips (Purple Top White Globe).   Next to this, I then planted a 4’X4’ section with (mostly) carrots (Mokum) but also included in that spot are some onion sets that I wanted to use up.   I am planting them too late to properly bulb up but they should provide some good green onions for fresh eating.   Here’s the bed after I got it set up and half planted.               

Notice in the picture above that the tomatoes have magically disappeared from the top right portion of the picture!   It was mid to late afternoon and some clouds were coming in and giving threat of wind and rain.   I did not want to take a chance with the tomatoes as they are just starting to harden off so I stopped long enough in my planting work to cart them all back to the greenhouse for the day.   It never did rain or get all that windy but I would rather be safe than sorry.                     

Were you doing bed prep or planting this weekend as well?                 

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener