Peas, Garlic, And The Summer Garden Layout

by A.J. Coltrane

The summer garden layout from the 2nd-story deck:

Top left row (L-R): Basil, peppers, peppers, peppers, determinate tomatoes, indeterminate tomatoes.

Center row (L-R): Marigold whiskey barrel, trellised cucumbers, indeterminate tomatoes, indeterminate tomatoes x2

Bottom row (Trellises (L-R)), Tomatatillos. The far right box has Lemon Cucumbers and Tromboncino.

From the “front”:

To make room for everything the garlic had to be harvested:

I think overall the cloves were slightly smaller this year. It may be that they need more space, but it wasn’t a bad harvest.

Finally, the Super Sugar Snap peas that didn’t get eaten as they were harvested:

I count ten. I’m guessing we ate about half of them before the photo. It’s a good start.

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Plant list here.

Visit Dave at Ourhappyacres, host of Harvest Monday.

Sometimes Things Don’t Go The Way You Thought They Would — The 2016 Plant List

by A.J. Coltrane

On May 7 we showed up early for the May Tilth Edible Plant Sale. Unfortunately they actually held the sale on April 30(!)

Every year the sale had been on the first Saturday in May. Not this year.

Improvisation time. We had twelve EarthBoxes to fill, and time to go to two nurseries–

The Tomatoes:

The Big Idea	What Happened
Black Krim	Black Krim
Sun Gold	Sun Gold
Oregon Spring	Oregon Spring
Taxi	Taxi
Roma	Roma
Yellow Pear	Yellow Pear
Paul Robeson	Paul Robeson
Cherokee Purple	Cherokee Purple
	Tigerella
	Valencia

Not bad. We had hoped for a small, short-season melon called “Minnesota Midget”. Neither of the nurseries we hit had a melon like that, so we chose to cut bait and grow an “extra” box of tomatoes instead. It all breaks out to two Cherry Tomatoes (Sun Gold and Yellow Pear), three “Purple” Tomatoes (Paul Robeson, Black Krim, and Cherokee Purple), two “early” tomatoes (Oregon Spring and yellow Taxis), one Sauce tomato (Roma), the striped Tigerella, and a pink/red Valencia.

Ten tomatoes = five boxes. That left seven boxes to go.

The Peppers:

#	The Big Idea	What Happened
1	Anaheim College 64	Anaheim
2	Early Jalapeno	Jalapeno
3	Hungarian Hot Wax	Anaheim
4	Numex Highlander	Anaheim
5	King of the North	Orange Bell
6	King of the North	Red Bell
7	King of the North	Melrose
8	King of the North	Red Beauty
9	King of the North	Baron
10	King of the North	Ace
11	Iko Iko	Orange Sun
12	Iko Iko	Serrano
13	Carmen	Carmen
14	Carmen	Carmen
15	Carmen	Serrano
16	Carmen	Serrano
17	Gypsy	Gypsy
18	Jimmy Nardello	Gypsy

Well, sorta. I was happy that we got Serrano, and the King of the North was replaced with other assorted bell peppers… I’m fine with the way the peppers shook out. Three boxes of peppers makes for a total of eight boxes filled.

The Cucumbers:

#	The Big Idea	What Happened
1	Marketmore 64	Marketmore
2	Marketmore 64	Marketmore
3	Marketmore 64	Marketmore
4	Marketmore 64	Marketmore

Which Marketmore did we get specifically? Who knows. Hopefully “in the ballpark” is close enough. I feel ok with it, and we’re down to three boxes to go.

The Tomatillos:

This year Tilth didn’t offer either of the types that we’ve grown in the past — “Mexican Strain” or “De Mipa”. We selected “Verde” as the replacement. It turned out that the first nursery that we hit had “Verde”, so…

#	The Big Idea	What Happened
1	“Verde”	“Verde”
2	“Verde”	“Verde”

Ding! We’re down to two boxes to go.

One box with basil plants will be a gimme. We’ll buy starts in the next 10-14 days. We’re going to try basil from seed this year too. We’re covered regardless. One box to go, and it’s intended to have Tromboncino Zucchini…..

And today a nice woman at the nursery helped me find one of the two Tromboncino plants for the last box. It was labeled with the alternate “Rampincante” name. With any luck they’ll have the last plant back in stock on Tuesday.

The Salad Table And Peas – May 2, 2016

by A.J. Coltrane

The temperature was in the 80’s today. The peas responded by busting out:

I thought they were getting close to flowering.

Though I didn’t get a picture of it, the “rogue pea” is blooming too.

The salad table continues its slow progress:

Some of the arugula has already bolted. The dill is having issues germinating, as is most everything else — I’m thinking that the setup needs some fresher, looser soil. The surface seems relatively compact and it wouldn’t surprise me if the seedlings are having trouble wedging their way free. The right answer may be to mix in a combination of potting soil and compost. Maybe. Either that or it just hasn’t been warm enough yet for most of the seeds to sprout.

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March 9 Update here.

Visit Dave at Ourhappyacres, host of Harvest Monday.

The Winter Garden In April

by A.J. Coltrane

The backyard garden hasn’t yet fully transitioned to “summer”. Maybe next week. The whiskey barrels have some energetic flower starts — Territorial Seed’s Bee Mix, Bug Mix, and Nasturtiums (Jewel Mix).

As of March 2nd, these containers only had gravel in the bottom. They’re in the coldest, shadiest part of the yard that will eventually see good sun as the season progresses:

(Front to back — a container of Bee Mix, a container of Bug Mix, a container of 1/2 Bee Mix and 1/2 Bug Mix, a container of Nasturtiums. We’re now planted Marigolds – “Brocade Mix” in the spots that haven’t germinated.)

Next, a close-up picture of the Nasturtiums. We planted about nine seeds. Seven of those germinated. It looks like seven plants is going to be plenty:

The raspberry plant (with a blooming rhododendron behind it):

The raspberry plant needs some pruning. I’m holding off until I’m dead certain nothing is going to grow out of the older stems.

As far as everything else: The mache and chard bolted at the first sign of warm weather. I’m hoping we can harvest mache seed at some point — they’re blooming now. The carrots continue to size up, and it looks like we should be able to harvest those in the next 30 days.

The garlic will need to be harvested in the next 30 days to make room for the summer vegetables as well:

The actual work on the backyard garden starts soon.

Container Garden Update — April 17, 2016

by A.J. Coltrane

This weekend it was time to harvest the rest of the bunch onions that were planted last fall. It turned out to be just over four pounds:

We separated the onions into whites, stems, and greens and ran them through the slicing disk of the food processor. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a huge time savings. The boy cat had to check it out:

I think the processor actually did a better job than the photo implies. The bigger pieces mostly wound up on top.

All in all, it turned into about fifty bags at one-half cup per bag.

The salad table is finally moving forward. Direct seeding is slow in the spring. It seems the better idea would be to start the seedlings inside and transplant. The “tall” stuff towards the right side is arugula:

The peas were planted on February 8. They’ve now getting grabby with the netting:

Sometime in February a critter came through and dug in the pots. Look what has popped up on the other side of the walkway:

Can’t stop ’em.

The Salad Table And Peas On March 9, 2016

by A.J. Coltrane

An update of the salad table and peas, one month later. It’s raining hard today.

Here are the peas, which were planted on February 8. Last weekend we put up the stakes and netting:

I may try running some twine from the pots to the netting to help the peas figure it out. The netting is to the south of the pots though, so hopefully the peas will just sort of lean that way.

The very small arugula:

The front of the salad table (the peas and netting are about two feet to my left):

That’s a big pile of miner’s lettuce. It’s proving to be a weed — I may need to put a board or something down widthwise across the table to keep it from completely taking over.

One nice thing about gardening in the winter and spring — no need to be worried about watering.

The Winter Garden In March

by A.J. Coltrane

The winter (backyard) garden… I’m going to call it a success. Not a smashing success though. There’s definitely a theme to what worked and what didn’t.

The garlic is doing well. It still has another couple of months to size up before it needs to make way for the summer vegetables:

Mache (left) and Dragon Radishes (right). Bunch Onions were interplanted in most of the containers because slugs are supposed to dislike alliums:

Mache again. It grew bigger with less competition:

The carrots are still small (and they may be too crowded):

The last four EarthBoxes to be planted. An assortment of Mache, Chard, Arugula, and Spinach. Squirrels were digging in them so bird netting was draped over everything… I see Mache and a little Chard:

I think if I’m really going to “winter garden” I need to start seeds no later than sometime in August. (Which is the same thing I said in the November post.) As it is, the backyard gets zero sun all winter. Not much growth happened until the last couple of weeks.

In summary: The Mache did well. All of the alliums did well. The carrots and radishes did ok. Maybe other stuff with do better with a bigger head start..

The newly acquired “whiskey barrels” are pictured below. Purchased at a big box store, they were somewhat smaller than our existing barrels. I’ve gotten as far as drilling drainage holes and filling the bottom with gravel. They will house “Bee & Beneficial Bug” flowers this summer. And Nasturtiums:

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For reference, here’s the backyard on November 8.

Too Many Seeds, Probably

by A.J. Coltrane

As usual, I may have gotten a little too enthusiastic about shopping for seeds. The new batch from Territorial Seed:

Basil-Sweet	2016
Bee Feed Flower Mix	2016
Bright Lights Swiss Chard	2016
Conservor Shallots	2016
Coriander-Confetti	2016
Dill-Dukat	2016
Flower Mix-Beneficial Bug	2016
French Breakfast Radish	2016
Garden Cress	2016
Giant Musselburgh Leek	2016
Giants Of Colmar Carrots	2016
Miners Lettuce	2016
Nasturtium-Jewel Mix	2016
New Zealand Spinach	2016
Red Baron Onion	2016
Roodnerf Brussels Sprouts	2016
Roquette Salad Arugula	2016

It’s a mix of things that have worked well in the past and some new things I’m eager to try out-

Basil plants seem to reach a point in age where the leaves just don’t taste as good. I’d like to try “succession planting” basil this year to see if we can harvest nothing but optimum leaves.
We purchased four more, somewhat smaller “whiskey barrels” over the weekend. This summer they’re going to house a combination of Bright Lights Chard, Bee Feed Flower Mix, Beneficial Bug Mix, Nasturtiums (which are edible as well as attractive), and a hodge-podge of whatever else might fit.
The Garden Cress, Arugula, Miner’s Lettuce, Confetti Coriander (cilantro, this variety is supposed to be slow to bolt), Dill-Dukat (ditto), and New Zealand Spinach (which likes hot weather) will go into the salad table with the existing Miner’s Lettuce. The Garden Cress and New Zealand Spinach are new. I have high hopes for the New Zealand Spinach in particular. We’ll see how the Garden Cress does, it may want more consistent water than will be provided.

Of course, we still have little bits of packages to use up. I have them rubber banded together in groups, this first group is “Salad Table” (the “year” is the year the seed was packed for.)

Dill–Dukat	2014
Coriander-Confetti	2014
Romaine Jericho	2014
Romaine Little Gem	2014
Romaine Winter Density	2014
Roquette Salad Arugula	2014
Spinach-Savoy	2014

And a “Spring 2016?” group of packages:

Radicchio	2014
Parsley	2014
French Breakfast Radish	2014
Cherry Bell Radish	2014
Flower-Brocade Mix	2014

“Fall 2015”:

Romaine Winter Density	2015
Super Sugar Snap Peas	2015
Roquette Salad Arugula	2015
Coriander – Santo	2015
Dill – Fernleaf	2015

Finally, “Winter Backyard 2015”:

Five Color Chard	2016
Mache	2015
Dragon Radish	2014
Mache	2014
Conservor Shallots	2015
Red Baron Onion	2015
Conservor Shallots	2014
Napa Hybrid Carrot	2014

The “Winter Backyard 2015” group is currently growing in the whiskey barrels and EarthBoxes, as well as around 50ish heads of garlic. The mild spring means that the growth rate of the overwintering survivors is really starting pick up.

The transition from winter things to summer things may be “interesting”.

Salad Table Update — February 8, 2016

by A.J. Coltrane

It feels like an early spring around here. The salad table will need to be planted soon:

The top shelf has some scrawny romaine. There’s also some spindly spinach. The big masses of happy green stuff are Miner’s Lettuce. We like the taste and it appears to be indestructible. I’ll be interested to see if it tries to completely take over the salad table.

In the other containers, the mache and radishes are really starting to take off, after pouting all winter. The carrots still have a ways to go.

Finally… Peas!

Well, soon. Planted today.

Salad Table Update — November 15, 2015

by A.J. Coltrane

No frost yet, though though the forecast yesterday called for ‘up to 3″ of rain’. It doesn’t often dump that much rain here. The salad table took it in stride. The excellent drainage is a big bonus — the front lawn is totally squishy. We harvested a big bowl of greens today:

Which didn’t really make much of a dent in the contents of the salad table. The romaine lettuces and spinach are doing “ok”, the dill and cilantro are starting to look tired:

A few of the Miner’s lettuce leaves don’t look so good. Does anyone recognize this as a sign of something specific? I’m assuming it’s most likely bugs:

If I’d have known it was this easy to have fresh greens during the winter I would have done a salad table years ago..

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Visit Dave at Ourhappyacres, host of Harvest Monday.