garden plots in the snow

On this last day of the year, Skippy, Steve and I walked though our community garden plots and the adjacent fields and woods. We got about 7 inches of snow yesterday - our first real snow of the season. Everything was beautiful. Bright blankets of white, song sparrows and chickadees out and about, and lots of dogs and their people out enjoying it all.

tiny little sweet potato sprouts!

About a month ago, I selected a couple sweet potatoes and put them in little bowls of water, hoping to get them to sprout. I put them on the floor by the heater, but since they got in the way there, I moved them to my plant shelf. Today I checked on them - sadly, no sprouts yet. :-(

Then later, as I was selecting a sweet potato for dinner from my basket in the kitchen, I found that one of these had tiny little sprouts! Yippee!!! I put this tuber in a bowl with water. Finally, I have a sprouting sweet!

I am guessing that this one sprouted because it was stored in the warm kitchen, quite near the oven. Maybe the room with the plant shelf is too cold for sprouting sweets? In any case, it is exciting to have one sprouting. As I learned last season, one sweet potato makes a lot of slips, and one slip makes a lot of sweets.

garden christmas gifts - given and received

This year I gave, and received, a number of gifts made from homegrown garden produce or items to use in the garden.

Dried herbs: This year I dried lots of my garden thyme, rosemary, sage, hot red chilis, and coriander seeds. I packed these in little jars (from Crate and Barrel) and used ribbon to tie on labels.

Hand-decorated dried gourds: My brother-in-law found a fantastic source for the most creative decorated gourds I have seen. I love the tall snowman gourd that is now on my mantle! I'll add more photos and the source later.

Planting basket: My sister gave me a Smart Pot. Its a 10 gallon container made of a porous aeration fabric. (www.smartpots.com) I can't wait to try it.

And, I received a stack of wonderful books!

my on-line planting calendar is fixed now

Stan and Jan reminded me that my On-line Planting Calendar link was broken. So I have just now fixed it. It is exciting that it is time to start thinking about planting!!!

If you haven't tried this calendar before, its a piece of code I wrote that lets you calculate when to plants all sorts of vegetable seeds based on your last frost date.

Here's the link: Calendar link.

The link is also near the top of my sidebar.

Bo checks out the White House tree:

\http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lce5gWKgMXI
I like this video!

today's harvest

Baby bok coy - one of my favorites! I wore a head lantern to go out and find my cold frame in the 5 pm winter darkness this evening. The greens in the frame are looking really nice.

Our dinner tonight was bok choy stir-fried with garlic, sauteed garden sweet potatoes and kielbasa. It was a yummy winter meal. We are waiting for 4-6 inches of snow to fall on us tomorrow.

seed sorting

I've been reading piles of seed catalogs this week. They keep arriving in the mail. I circle and make wish lists. If I ordered everything that's caught my eye, I'd go broke and have closets filled with seeds. Plus I'm sure I already have many of these seeds. So today I'm sorting my old seeds.



My seed baskets are a jumble after a busy year. I'm piling the same types of seeds together. Lettuces, tomatoes, squashes.... The seeds I remember not sprouting this year go in the trash along with seeds that are just way too old. I came across an endive packet from 2008, gourds from 2007. 8 years old! They might sprout, but if I haven't used them by now, obviously not one of my favorites.

I have lots of bean seeds that have fallen out of packets. Don't know why I save them. I have baggies full of mixed bean seeds. Maybe I'll plant a random bean plot and see what happens. Then again, maybe I'll be organized this year and only grow labeled varieties in separate rows so I know what they are......

After sorting my seeds, I wrapped each type of plant with a rubber band and then put them back in my seed box - alphabetically. I feel so organized now. Soon, I need to get some kind of garden plan drawn up for 2015 so I know what I have room for. THEN, finally, I can go back to my wish lists, check them against what I have, see if I have room for them, and THEN ORDER SOME fun new stuff.

christmas day

Pictures of my garden on Christmas Day. Happy Holidays all! I hate to show it, but here's what the voles have done to my tunnel. I was told that castor oil is the solution to voles in winter tunnels. I see several web sites that explain how to use it. Next year I will have a beautiful tunnel!

snowy fruit tree clearing

This is the area where I will plant some fruit trees in the spring. It was under a foot of snow last week when I took these pictures. After the rain we got the past couple days, only a few inches of snow left now.

I should have room here for about 5 dwarf or semi dwarf trees. I want to measure the area soon and mark out where the trees will go. I am thinking of getting 3 apples (maybe dwarf Liberty, Honeycrisp and Esopus Spitzenburg from Fedco), a peach and maybe a pie cherry tree. (I will eventually move my two espaliered pear trees from my community plot to the fence of my vegetable garden.)

I love reading the Fedco catalog section of fruit trees. So much information!

sweet potato sprouts

My sweet potatoes have started to make cute little sprouts! Yippee!

I remembered at the last minute to save a few of my homegrown sweet potatoes for sprouting. The last ones were the smallest - a mix of white (Hannah), oranges (Jewel and Beauregard) and reds (Garnet).

For years, I've had trouble getting sweet potatoes to sprout at our old house. I've read they need warmth, but whatever I did didn't seem to work - maybe because my old house had mostly cool spaces. A couple weeks ago, I put a plate full of small sweets in the utility room of our new house. (Our new house may not have a cool space for a root cellar, but it does have a nice warm utility room.) My guess is the utility room is 75-80*F. I add a bit of water to the sweet potato plate every few days to keep the potatoes moist. And I covered the plate partially with plastic wrap. After about 2 weeks, I'm seeing nice sprouts. I can't help but cheer!

I think I see about 10 or more sprouts on several different potatoes.

I don't know if this will be too early for starting sweet slips. Since I haven't been this successful in the past, I am not sure. But it the slips get too big, I think I can cut them back (knock on wood). It's exciting to have them going!

what is the #1 mistake that new gardeners make?

I was asked a question the other day by a blogger. "What is the #1 mistake that new gardeners make?" My answer:

Mistakes are how you learn!! The #1 mistake is not having tried gardening earlier because of worrying about making a mistake!

That said, I have found that the most important things in getting a large harvest are making sure you have (1) regular irrigation, (2) appropriate soil, and (3) at least 4 hours of midday sun. Also think about growing what you like to eat and including a variety of plants.

The most important thing in enjoying gardening is to just get into the soil and don’t worry about failure. Enjoy the feel of the soil, the sunlight, the opportunity for hard work, the beauty of the plants. See how things work out and then ask others, read, and learn about what you want to do next year.

I assume the blogger will post lots of answers from different gardens. I will see if I can get a link to share.

What do you think is the #1 mistake that new gardeners make?

crops for my community plot

Before I map out what to plant where in my new home garden, I need to decide what will go in my community plot. I'll be keeping my plot at least one more season, mostly because I planted my garlic there this fall (and also since I will stay on as the Garden Coordinator another year.)

I'm going to start a list here of crops that have done well in the plot. These are generally ones that aren't susceptible to pests that thrive in a community garden. For example, late blight has been bad for our tomatoes. Bean beetles and cucumber beetles are prolific. And flea beetles have been bad for potatoes and eggplants.

List of crops to plant in my community plot:
Sweet potatoes
Butternut squash
Pumpkins
Broccoli, cabbage, kale
Radicchio
Onions, leeks
Lettuce

19 weeks and counting

I've started the countdown to my last frost. Should be about May 10 for my new garden. 19 weeks!! All my seed starting is based on this countdown. The first seeds to plant will be onions and celeriac, which get started 11 weeks before the last frost. So I have 8 weeks to get ready. Lights, shelves, potting soil, trays, seeds. It's exciting to have a date set and a countdown going!

no eggs yet

My mom emailed me today "Any eggs yet?"

I replied "Nope."

She emailed back, "What's wrong with those chickens?"

I told her that I have been very direct in telling the hens that we expect eggs, but what else can I do? They are eating well, they have a nice coop and I do what I can for them.

I have had my three chickens for 4.5 weeks now. On Dec 26, they'll be 23 weeks old. (actually 23 to 27 weeks old.) Usually hens start laying eggs at 24 weeks of age, but they often stop laying in the winter when light is dim and snow limits their exersize. ..... I can see that the hens have grown in size since i got them. And their feahters have filled out quite a bit.

We sure are looking forward to omelets...

the winter solstice!

Its all uphill from here - more light every day and closer to the day I break ground in my new garden.

first draft of my 2014 garden plan

silly selfies

Everybody's posting selfies, so here's a few of me and some of my best friends. Not quite the PM of Denmark, but we all tried to smile our best!

long shadows over community plots

Skippy, Suzie and I walked through the community garden plots yesterday. At 3 pm the shadows were very long - the sun sets at 4:15 now. I still have some kale in the garden, but I think this bitter cold has probably made it too mushy to eat.

Only a couple days until the solstice. It will be nice to see the sun gradually rise in the sky and the shadows shorten.

waiting for snow

This is our new back yard. My garden space to be is the open area in the center. My new tractor/lawn mower is the under the green tarp with the orange cart behind.

We have a big pond that we look out on. Its 13 acres and frozen over now after a couple weeks of unusually cold December weather. Our old metal row boat is overturned on the shore, waiting (a long wait) for spring.

The first flakes are falling now at dusk (the early 4 pm dusk) as our first big snow storm of the season moves in. We have an inch of snow already on the ground. Normally that would be a lot for this area in December. But tonight its predicted that a foot of snow will fall here. Of course, on the east coast, we are the last US location for this storm to dump on. My sister in MT has sub zero temps and lots of snow already. Even TX has snow this Dec. What a year!

So we wait. Th snow shovels and snow blowers are ready. Tomorrow we will be busy.

chicken (and dog) pictures

Here they are. Skippy is sniffing Bertha. He has been very good recently and both dogs get to be around the hens unsupervised.

(I check the egg boxes a couple times a day in this cold - just in case! And, I check all other places the hens have been, just in case they have hidden an egg. Still waiting...)

We have a foot of snow on the way this weekend. What will the hens think! They'll be snowed under.

icy cold

My outdoor thermometer is registering 12*F! Ouch. I'm sitting by the fire and quite comfy. To make my chickens feel a little better, I got a ceramic heater for them and its on for the first time tonight. Its bringing the temp in their coop up to 23*F. I know they are OK are in the bitter cold temps, but I want to keep them happy so they'll lay some eggs soon! No eggs yet. The 3 girls are 22-26 weeks old now. I want eggs!

chicken cam testing

chicken update

Skippy and Suzie have gradually gotten used to the chickens. The chickens know where to go for safety - under their coop - and the dogs have learned that the chickens can move fast and fly a bit. I am very pleased that I can now l leave the chickens out to forage a while and not worry about the dogs getting them. A bigger worry is the hawks and foxes. So far, so good. I've been giving the chickens about an hour a day out of their coop.

sunrise over the pond

"Red sky in morning, sailors take warning..." This was the sunrise before our first snowstorm of the year.

chipmunks (or voles?) party in the tunnel

My plastic tunnel with winter greens has hit the end of its season. :-( Last week, chipmunks discovered it. They tunneled in and out in many places. They feasted on the greens. They ate tops off the most tender lettuce, baby romain, butterheads and oak leaf. It looks like a little weed whacker went through. They stretched up and ate baby broccoli heads. They started to eat escarole frisée heads and kale. Once I discovered the damage, I harvested almost everything I could. The baby broccoli, all the frisée, any romaine and butterhead they missed, also Asian greens that they hadn't found yet. I left the kale and will take a look at that in a couple days.

Disappointing. But I think I've been really lucky with my new garden location this year. I kind of expected more critter damage than I've had. All I've had problems with this year is cabbage worm and the nasty compost comtaminant. That said, I'm afraid that chipmunks are impossible to exclude from a garden. My usual advice to gardeners with chipmunk trouble is to keep a wide cleared border and don't plant things they like. Right now, that's pretty much anything green and tasty.

world soil day

Yesterday was world soil day! Who knew.... I celebrated by making squash bread with homegrown squash (and my sister), feeding my chickens the leftovers, and composting their poop! (OK, we had a martini too..) Yeah DIRT!

advancing cold front

We've had a nice couple days of 60*F weather. Skippy and I have enjoyed walking our usual trails in the balmy warmth. But a cold front is moving in. That's December....

cleaning the coop

Today I cleaned out my chicken coop for the first time. I've had the 3 girls since nov 20, so that's exactly 2 weeks. I have a remote thermometer in the coop and it's been registering higher humidity every day and was up to 90%, even on a dry day. So I got my flat edgeding shovel, my green garden trug, and sooped out all the poopy wood shavings. It nearly filled up my compost bin. yeah! I am going to have great compost this winter even if I have no eggs.

more 2012 crop reviews

Carrots. I didn't do a good job with carrots this year. Lots of room for improvement here next year. I've grown great carrots in the past, but for some reason, decided to experiment this year. I learned what not to do. Carrots sprout slowly and they need to stay moist. This is hard for me since I grow them at my community plot and don't have time to go water every day. So I sowed my carrots in pots and and transplanted the seedlings, like I do for nearly every other crop I grow. The results were terrible - short, badly misshapen, bi-, tri- and quadru-furcated roots. Next year, my plan is to dirext sow and use burlap the hold the moisture.

Chiles. Overall a very good year for chiles. I grew lots of NuMex Joe E Parker, poblanos,Thai hots and cayenne. Also a yellow bell that never turned yellow, but was very nice as a green bell pepper. I tried some other varieties also, but these did the best for me.

Cucumbers. It was a super cuke year! I had 6 or 8 varieties, long and short ones, white and green ones. I love to grow way too many cucumbers. Diva is still my favorite variety, but a close second is the long and crispy Sooyow Nishiki. Cucumbers do well in the very protected and slightly shady space my side yard.

Eggplant. My eggplants got shaded by my cucumbers this year. They eventually produced a nice crop, late in the season. I like the little bicolor Thai variety (Tiger) and a big purple oval one (Classic). I'll try to remember to give them more space next year.

Garlic. A bad garlic year. :-( I planted 100 cloves last fall, but at least half of it rotted in the ground. I think because I planted too late and did not mulch. We had a nearly snow free winter, and the soil in my garlic bed was like hardpan it was so dry. I havested about 40 nice big cloves. With so few, I didn't have enough to eat and plant next year. I bought some new seed garlic: The variety Music, which I am looking forward to trying. My current variety is Duganski.

Green beans.

late fall is a perfect time for new raised beds

I was walking my dogs this afternoon and noticed my neighbor has built a couple new raised garden beds. And she has a nice big delivery of dirt waiting to fill them. This made me think - why I am waiting 'til spring to build my new garden beds? This is a perfect time of year to start a new garden! Any fresh soil, manure or compost added now above tired or compact soil will help to refresh it over the winter. (Judy noted this in a recent comment.) The freshly added nutrients will work their way down over the winter while existing worms and soil microbes do their job aerating and mixing soil layers.

I have been thinking that I need to get a plan for my whole garden before I start. But an alternative is to start small with just a couple beds for now. Hmm.... A new thought.... Especially if the snow holds off for a bit longer.

december cold frame

My cold frame is full of greens. The baby bok choy is a good size for eating now, and I love the thought that it should hold at this size for months in the cold. The other plants are a bit small for harvesting. They'll grow more in March, when the sunlight increases.


There are a couple of pots of greens that I didn't have room to plant. I am reminded now that I juts left them in the center of the frame. They don't enough soil and are dying. I hate to throw out seedlings.

My cold frame is being held together with more and more duct tape as tome goes on. And the wood supports have warped a bit and so my husband stapled old towels to block the the cold air from blowing in the spaces.

I have visions of rebuilding it sometime. I'd like a brick base. But there are so many options to decide on. Plastic or glass panes? Walk in or lift up panels? Kit, custom, or homemade? Heated? Same size or bigger or smaller?

chickens love squash....

My chickens are growing, and happy. I'm checking for eggs, none yet.

Their favorite foods seem to be: cooked squash, sweet potatoes and garlic mashed potatoes! Yummy. They've done a great job with our Thanksgiving leftovers. Other favorites: honeydew melon, corn-on-the-cob, kale, lettuce, cream cheese and cottage cheese.

Today I went out to check on the girls, but unfortunately didn't have time to spend with them. They clucked with pleasure to see me. Guess they're getting the idea that I bring them good food. I've also been letting them out of their coop to forage in the yard about an hour a day. I only do this when I have time to watch them. I either leave the dogs in the house or hold them on a leash. I'm still not sure what dangers there are for the chickens out of the coop.

Suzie is very excited by the chickens and loves to get as close as she can and sniff them. They don't let her get very close. But Skippy is another story. He seemed to be uninterested for a long time, then charged. Fortunately the chickens were faster than him. They scattered and hid under the coop. So, its Skip I'm watching out for. He learned they are fast, but he may be faster next time.....

snow

We had a powder sugar coating of snow on the garden on this first day of December. It accumulated to about 1.5 inches. It stayed around a day or two, and then melted back to bare ground.

I'm reminded of my fig tree as I look at this picture. It's still sitting in the garden in a pot, unprotected. I have read that its hardy down to about 10*F. We're not close to that yet, but we'll likely get down there in a few weeks. I'm thinking that once the temps fall a bit more, I'll bring it in to my heated porch where my Meyers lemon spends the winter.