Posts in category: Garden

There was some spinach growing inside, and I’d been taking new plants out daily to harden off, with plans to plant them soon.  It’s a good thing I hadn’t planted the tender lettuces yet!  Tim already had a frame built to make another cold frame, so last night he finished covering it with the plastic and put it together, and now we’re set.  This one is secured a little better, and as soon as we pick up some bolts we plan to bolt it down even better, so the next time we get wind like that we should be ready for it.  Here’s a shot of the new cold frame.  Soon I should be able to get the lettuces planted, and some scallions and leeks.

Other than that, the seedlings in the house are coming along nicely.  I now have 6 varieties of peppers growing, and just started the tomato seeds as well.

As before, this plan was created on growveg.com.  It’s a lot of fun to play around with, and allows me to easily move things from one place to another while I decide what to do, with crop rotation reminders of what had been previously planted in each bed.

Here is a shot looking west, where we plan to house the ducks.  We’re thinking of putting their house and run either along the fence, on the other side of the long berry bed, or behind/between the pines and the cottonwood tree, along a fence that will border that area (in front of the small trees in a row).  We’ll remove the bed in the foreground that’s framed with railroad ties, and put a gate in the fence leading to the duck area.

Other than that, I’ve received all the seeds I ordered, and started a few more seedlings on Monday.

I thought I’d show some pictures of my garden working area. First is indoors where I have my grow lights. So far I’m only using the one light. The seedlings are on a rolling cart, and the seedlings can be raised or lowered according to how much space they need to be below the lights as they grow.

Outdoors, under the porch, I have my potting bench area, which Tim put in last summer. We found this cart (on the left) which was called a “serving cart” at the thrift store for just $35. It’s perfect. There are slots for two pans that are perfect for making my soil blocks, and at a good height for me. I can keep a lot of fertilizers and tools below. The sink and its cabinet and the counter to the right were all items also purchased at the thrift store. We did well. This area has been very handy for me.

Looking out from where the bench area is, we have plans to build a greenhouse area off to the right. We plan to put some hoops down from the porch above, out to the ground, to be covered by plastic or other greenhouse material. We might make it removable, so it can be open in the summer, or make a way to roll shade cloth down in summer. It can be quite hot there, as this faces the south.

Looking out from the upstairs window, this is the west side of our garden today. I look forward to planting and seeing green things! It’s kind of gloomy today, but this is the most snow I think we’ve had all winter–much needed moisture. Our nifty “manure makers” are hanging out back there napping, I think.

I finally finished buying/ordering my seeds! I really get myself into a tizzy trying to decide what varieties to get, particularly when it comes to tomatoes and peppers. I go back and forth from one website to another, trying to choose which one has the most varieties I want. I want to get as many organic, heirloom seeds as possible, but still get varieties I think will do well. I don’t want to pay shipping to too many places, so I want to keep it to just one, if possible. I also like to buy locally. Sheesh!

I’ve already been planning my 2011 garden! I don’t know yet how well I’ll keep up this blog, but I’ll give it a shot, and if anyone’s listening perhaps I’ll keep it up.

I’ve just harvested the last of my 2010 leek crop. Some leeks (sown 3/11 indoors) were put into a cold frame early April, these were harvested first, but the early planting out didn’t give them much advantage. The rest were planted outside 4/28 and most were harvested in December. Some of these had frozen and weren’t the best, ubut edible. Due to the semi-frozen ground, they were difficult to pull up. We used a garden fork and dig up lots of soil with them, then had to warm the dirt clods in the sun to in order to clean them up.

Other leeks started 5/16 indoors, were later planted outside. In November these were mulched well with hay and had a cold frame placed over them. They were harvested 1/30, after several warm days in the 50-60’s. The soil was not frozen and the leeks were quite healthy. It would have been better to bury them deeper in soil before adding the mulch, for more blanching and protection. Otherwise, these are a nice winter treat. I’ve had several leek-mushroom quiches and potato-leek soups. I also dried some I have not yet used.

It’s a new year and a new garden. I’ve just finished getting everything planted. We’ve added 8 large beds, which includes one along the fenceline for raspberries, blackberries, currants, and honeyberries. Other new items this year: tomatillos, ground cherries, anaheim peppers, mizuna, arugula, beets, parsnips, rhubarb, stevia, gourds (luffa), kohlrabi. I was more careful to choose varieties of corn & tomatoes that will mature at different times, for increased length of harvest. I’m also being more careful to plant a few things at a time in successive intervals for the same reason.

My peppers and tomatoes did very well in potting blocks, first the 2″ then up-potted to the 4″. Broccoli and kale did very poorly in the soil blocks and died, until I changed the block recipe to include vermiculite and ground eggshells. Those succeeded much better.

We started a few things in a cold frame, and most of those did very well. We’ve eaten our first spinach and lettuce from that batch. We plan to do much more cold frame items for fall, as long into winter as things will grow, then start some other things much earlier the following spring (late winter). I have an idea we’ll have the grow lights in the house most of the time, successively starting more and more things all the time.

I don’t know if or how often I’ll keep up this blog. I am keeping much better records of my efforts on a program Tim created for me, where I can log dates planted, transplanted, how much yield, where planted, and more than anyone (including myself) may ever want to know, but it will be there if next year I wonder what I did this year that did or didn’t work.