It seems to me that while the EarthBoxes are great for most of the plants that we want to grow, they’re less than ideal for tasks like succession planting herbs, lettuces, and anything else that might normally be “broadcast”.
So we picked up four resin whiskey barrels at a big box store last week. Last night, peas that had been started indoors got their first full evening outside. After “sunset” the wind blew and it rained like crazy. I figured I’d go outside this morning and see pea plants that had been mashed flat by the elements.
Yesterday late-morning it was sunny and mild:
Ultimato stakes with garden twine.
And after a hard night…
*drumroll*
As it turns out, there’s no reason for an “after” picture. The peas look the same, only wet.
The Super Sugar Snap Peas are listed as having a 58 day maturity. But: “Days to maturity are calculated from the date of direct seeding. Note: In areas with mild winters such as the maritime Northwest, where peas can be planted in February, add 35-40 days.”
Given that we started them indoors on February 5th — I’m guessing April sometime? (I was thinking very early April, now I’m not so sure.)
In retrospect, the EarthBoxes would have worked well for peas. I think next attempt at peas will need to use the EarthBoxes in order to save the big containers for lettuces/ spinach/ mache/ etc.
Whatever, I was just pleased we had something left this morning..
Stir fry ingredients ready to go. Bunch onions from the backyard and King of the North peppers from the freezer:
That’s about 1/4 pound of cleaned onions.
Here are the same bunch onions in July. Tiny!
What’s remarkable is that yesterday the neighborhood looked like this:
Cold oak.
There’s still snow on the ground today. I’d never have guessed it was possible to harvest during snow season, but there it is.
In retrospect, the onions could use more elbow room this fall. I took the “bunch” in “bunch onions” too literally. I’m guessing the right answer is to wait until the basil is done for the year and spread out the onion through the entire box.
A couple of spreadsheets with seed germination times and temperatures, days to maturity, and the minimum temperature that the adult plants will tolerate.
The spreadsheets only contain the plants that:
1. Do well in the Pacific Northwest. That’s where we are.
2. Do well in containers. That’s how we’re gardening.
and
3. Represent plants we’ll potentially eat.
I’ll likely add more plants at a later date, either because I overlooked the plant on the first pass, or because somebody else asks for the info. As it was, I made more manageable spreadsheets (and saved work) by not including most of the root vegetables, as well as the veggies that we’re unlikely to consume.
Much of the information is from the Territorial Seed website. The balance was drawn from various online, reasonably reputable sources (other seed houses, edu sites, etc.)
SeattleAuthor brought over Mâche seeds the other day, so it seemed like a good time to make a hoop house to keep the rain off of the seedlings. The hoop house was intended for the front yard, so it had to look decent. I was also targeting the minimum cost that would still allow for a “sound” end result. The finished cost was about $4.
Bill of Materials
~8 feet of 1/2″ pvc (black, flexible). Cut into two 4′ pieces. (Of a 100′ roll @ $16. An 8′ length should be comparable in price.)
5′ x 5′ of 4 mil clear plastic sheeting (Of a larger roll. It won’t last forever anyway.)
4 pvc clamps (sold as a bag of 5 for ~$1.60, similar to these)
7/16″ dowel x 4′, cut into 2 @ 10″ and 2 @ 14″. (The EarthBox is shallower on the watering tube side.)
2 clothespins
Assembly
1. Cut the dowel into four pieces. Cut two ~4′ sections of pvc pipe.
2. Insert the dowels into each corner of the EarthBox. Slide the pvc lengths over the dowels.
3. Cover with the plastic sheet and clamp. Pin the extra plastic on the ends with a clothespin. The clothespins can also be used to hold the plastic doors on the ends open.
Done!
—–
The postmortem and assorted thoughts:
I think that there must be a better answer for the clamps, though I didn’t want to spend ~$1 each for good spring clamps. I want something that can easily be moved around, so something like spring clamps would be desirable. Still working on the right answer.
The cost could have been lower — My first thought was to build a wooden frame and attach the pvc to it using clamps. That’s the “normal” way to do it. But then I thought, hey, I can just push the pvc into the soil in each corner of the EarthBox. *Then* I did some looking around online — it appears that toxins from the pvc could potentially (likely?) release into the soil. How to deal with that?
I chose to do something similar to the buried rebar — I purchased some 3/8″ dowels, cut them to 1′ length, and buried the dowels in the corners of the box. I then slid the pvc over the dowels, leaving the pvc above the soil. In retrospect that was a no-brainer, but I was so fixated on the wooden frame/external support idea that it never occurred to me use the area within the EarthBox to anchor the pvc tubing.
I think it’s interesting that if you were to stick wagon wheels on the sides of the hoop house would look a lot like a covered wagon.
That may mean that it was the right way to do it — form follows function, and both the EarthBox and covered wagon have a similar functions.
Or it’s just a coincidence.
———–
I learned something new. The french “a” thingy is alt and numpad 0226.
Yesterday was “Ready The EarthBoxes For Planting Day”. The EarthBox holding the lemongrass needed to be dumped upside down into a wheelbarrow because the roots had grown down through the base aeration screen and into the reservoir. The plant had to be cut off of the screen to get it out of the box:
Upside down in the wheelbarrow.
If you look closely, the roots have perfectly formed to the molded shapes on the bottom of the container. The circle (bottom right) is the fill tube, which was almost completely blocked. That explains why it *seemed* to be blocked in late summer:
Lemongrass isn’t supposed to winter over, but I think that it might have lived, at least so far. It’s been transplanted into a planter box along the back fence.
The lesson: Super invasive root systems won’t work well in the EarthBox, or more accurately — the lemongrass went gangbusters, but the box isn’t designed for *that*.
My ideal gardening book would have a title similar to: Four-Season Urban Container Gardening In The Pacific Northwest, Seattle Edition.
That book doesn’t seem to exist, and for good reason. It’d sell about four copies. Digging around the internet gives a hodge-podge of information, but nothing concise and organized.
I was looking through the book options at the local nursery and came across Food Grown Right, In Your Backyard. It’s written by the co-founders of the Seattle Urban Farm Company, published in 2012. The book has an emphasis on small-scale organic urban gardening. It includes sections on designing the garden space, general gardening knowledge, detailed profiles of popular vegetables and herbs, and (my favorite) tables indicating the appropriate schedule for starting seeds indoors, transplanting, or direct seeding outside. (I loves me some tables and charts, y’know.) It doesn’t talk much about winter gardening, but other than that it’s an excellent all-around resource.
Amazon link here. To date it has received 5 stars out of 5 stars for all 35 Amazon customer reviews.
In a related note, I think I’ll be checking this out in 2014 — Bastille Cafe & Bar has a 4,500 square foot rooftop garden installed and maintained by one of the authors. Bastille offers tours on Mondays, April through September. The cost is $10, which includes a cocktail.
Now if I just need to figure out the best way to succession-plant an EarthBox.. I’ve got some ideas, but searching “succession planting” on the EB forums doesn’t turn up much. Time for a new thread..
It’s been in the 20’s basically every other night over the last ten days or so. Yesterday we had snow. Life goes on in the plant house:
New growth in December. [L-R – Pac Choi, Parsley, Cilantro, Spinanch]. The new leaves look happier than the leaves that were on the plants at the time of transplanting.For comparison, November 2:
(L-R) Pak Choi, Parsley, Cilantro, Spinach
The bunch onions didn’t seem to mind the snow too much:
A few thoughts about the plant house:
1. Mid-late October is too late to move the cool weather plants into the plant house. Closer to the truth would have be sometime in August, or starting the plants from seeds even earlier. I’m still in the process of figuring out what the “correct” dates will need to be, accounting for the fact that it’s cooler here than in Seattle, though we’re still very near Puget Sound.
2. During the winter months there’s not enough sun to drive the current plant house location. Tucked up against the west side of the Real House, the plant house *might* get about a 1.5 hours of sunlight on a good day. It’s situated in a location that’s among the hottest during June and July. I’ve been surpised at just how far down the horizon the sun rotates during the winter. A permanent greenhouse installation would likely either need to go in the front yard, or the center of the back yard, or somewhere nearer the south end of the west side of the Real House.
In a related aside, I’m now seeing why ancient peoples would build structures to accurately track the stars, and by extension the seasons and the position of the sun. If your life actually depended upon forecasting the upcoming weather you’d do everything you could to try to be accurate about it. As for me, thank you NOAA weather service.
3. The 4′ x 4′ dimension of the plant house is small enough that the pac choi are tending to lay up against the walls. It seems everything touching the walls is perpetually too wet and too cold and generally rotting away. Two EarthBoxes is probably closer to the correct amount in a 4′ x 4′ space.
4. If the goal is winter greens, it might be that the right answer is some form of protected [raised bed/ whiskey barrel/ cold frame] in the front yard. It may be that the EarthBoxes could be adapted by removing the plastic cover… maybe.
I think a four-season harvest is possible, it’s just a matter of figuring out the location, technique, and the appropriate greens.
The tomatoes and tomatillos drew most of the attention whenever people would check out the garden, so it makes sense to me to save them for the last recap.
Tomatillos — 14.6 pounds. The bees looooved these. There was one strong plant and one weaker plant. The weaker plant needed additional support by the time it was a couple of feet tall, and by September 5 it was completely done. The overall yield was still very good, and we’ll have roasted tomatillo salsa into next year. Rick Bayless’ Roasted Tomatillo Salsa Recipe is here.
Tomatoes — The total yield was 91 pounds, out of 3 boxes. The indeterminate varieties got well over eight feet tall and flopped over the top of the cages. The Sun Golds in particular were crazy vigorous.
Here’s the May 18 summary of the types of tomato and tomatillo plants:
The varieties — back to front, starting with the leftmost box. Descriptions from the Seattle Tilth plant sale:
Two Mexican Strain tomatillos. 65 day maturity.
Glacier. 56 day determinate. Grows to 2-1/2 feet high by 3-1/2 feet wide. “Great for containers”.
Siletz. 70-75 day determinate. “One of the most reliable slicing tomatoes you can grow.”
Stupice. 60 day indeterminate. Red, 2″ fruit on 6′ vines.
Sungold. 65 day indeterminate. Apricot-orange 1-1/4″ cherry-tomato fruit on grape like trusses.
Brandywine. 85 day indeterminate. Fruits up 1 pound and 7″ in diameter. (The Brandywines are near the house to try to get some reflected sun off of the house.)
Roma. 75 day determinate.
And the results:
Glacier — 13.9 pounds. The Glaciers were early, consistent, and tasty… excellent all the way around. A definite keeper for 2014.
Siletz — 12.9 pounds. The Siletz were the most compact of all of the varieties. They were a nice halfway point — not as big and slow maturing as the Brandywines, but they still had some good size and taste. It felt like we got *way* more Glaciers than Siletz, but the numbers don’t back that up at all. These might benefit from being planted with something else equally compact. Most likely a keeper for 2014.
Stupice — 9.4 pounds. The Stupice suffered a little bit from being in the “back center” of the stack of tomatoes. That, and the Sun Golds went nuts. These were probably the most unremarkable of all of the tomatoes, that is, they weren’t especially big or tasty or prolific… they were “fine”. That means that they may get another try in 2014.
Sun Gold — 19.2 pounds. Craaaaazy prolific orange-colored cherry tomato. As sweet as candy. Winner.
Brandywine — 10.1 pounds. Slow to mature. The Brandywine had the longest theoretical maturity, which is what actually came to pass. These all split into craggy “rustic” fruits. I’d be fine with passing on these next year in favor of an early variety.
Roma — 26.o pounds. The biggest output by weight, the Romas were very late. Ultimately the tail end had to be rescued off of the vines before they were completely ripe. If we do these again they’re going to need a sunnier spot — they were sort of behind and under the Sun Golds *and* crowded by the Brandywines.
We intentionally mixed earlier and later varieties of tomatoes, and it worked out about as expected. The early ones did great, and the later plants had to race to ripen before calling it a year. Given that this summer was supposed to have been especially nice, we might have seen the best case scenario for the really long maturity types. Overall though, the tomatoes were relatively cramped, so it could go better next year just by giving them the appropriate amount of space.
All in all, 230 pounds of herbs and vegetables out of 12 EarthBoxes, and the yield should have been greater than that. We’ll get ’em next year.
I’m saving the tomatillos and tomatoes for the last 2013 recap. As a group, the following plants could have done better had they been planted earlier. With the exception of the basil, most everything else likes cool weather. The end of April/early May was too late to get started. It never occurred to me that some vegetables and herbs wouldn’t dig themselves some nice, hot, sun…
Basil – 6.3 pounds. As mentioned in a previous post, basil is the reason that two EarthBoxes became twelve. We’d had great success with no effort on a fresh herb that we love. The QFC price in September was .66 oz for $2.79. That’s $4.22 per ounce – 6.3 pounds would cost $425. If you’re thinking about doing EarthBoxes, do basil. Just make sure it gets lots of sun, remember to water, and prune it when it wants to flower. That’s it.
Bok Choi — 0.7 pounds. A cool weather vegetable that was started too late in the spring (April 20), then got buried under the brussels sprouts, then went to seed when it got warmish. What we thought was one plant was actually multiple plants, so they wound up cramping each other as well. Total user error start to finish. We’ll try again in 2014.
Brussels Sprouts — 1.0 pounds and counting. What we thought was one plant was really four. (again) These weren’t planted until April 20. (again) In retrospect, the correct way to do them is to start earlier and make sure to cover them with tulle to protect against cabbage moths. The sprouts were super slow to mature, and the final yield won’t be very much, but they’re a favorite at dinner around here, so they’ll get another shot in 2014. As a flat guess, the maximum yield could be about 1-2 pounds per plant — six plants per box would equal maybe 10 pounds total(?) Twelve pounds of brussels sprouts would be a *lot*.
Cilantro — 0.8 pounds. Planted on May 5, which was way too late, and it bolted before producing a whole bunch. There is now some cilantro in the plant house. I don’t know that it’s loving the cool weather, but it’s not bolting either, so we’ll see. The parsley is definitely the happier plant house resident right now.
Dill — N/A. Planted with the cilantro and parsley in the spring, it bolted before we got a whole lot out of it. On the other hand, it did make for one delicious salmon dinner. Needs another shot in 2014.
Spinach — zero pounds. Planted too late (April 20), it bolted instantly when we had two or three warm days in early May. There’s now spinach growing (slowly) in the plant house.
Bibb Lettuce — 2.0 pounds. Planted on April 20. Too late. Harvested using the cut and come again technique, two pounds is more than it sounds like, and we got some nice salads out of these plants. Still, this is another plant that might have had a dramatically better yield if it had been handled correctly. The slugs didn’t help out either.
Romaine Lettuce — 2.3 pounds. Same story as the Bibb. I’d like to think we could get 7-10 pounds of lettuce out of one box next spring. I think the “right answer” is succession planting three or four boxes in the early spring, then replacing the lettuce with summer vegetables as it warms up.
Bok choi.
Parsley — 0.3 pounds. That number doesn’t look right, but maybe it is. Planted too late…yadda. yadda. yadda. There’s currently some in the plant house that’s looking pretty happy. In theory it’ll last through until the spring. Fresh herbs in December and January would be nice.
Scallion, Bunch Onion — ~2 pounds and counting. They’re still out there. It was scallions in the spring, and now bunch onions in the fall and winter– nice placeholders.
Lemongrass and Shiso — N/A. The lemongrass is doing well. It needs to be divided and replanted, assuming that it survives the winter. The shiso was a cool idea in theory, but in reality we couldn’t use the huge bush that it evolved into. The lemongrass and shiso also squished the hot pepper plants. The lemongrass may just get a standard pot next year.
There was a whole lot of living and learning going on this year. Hopefully the 2014 yields will be dramatically better with more experienced humans.
![New growth in December. [L-R - Pac Choi, Parsley, Cilantro, Spinanch]. The new leaves look happier than the leaves that were on the plants at the time of transplanting.](https://flatbreadgarden.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/31be0-122113-plant-house-e1387665861495.jpg)
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