The spinach responded to the wonderful 80+ degree early-May weather by bolting immediately. Four plants. Zero harvest. The lettuces, cilantro, parsley, and dill are now cowering under the deck, away from the heat of the mid-day sun.
It’s now time to prioritize harvesting whatever hasn’t already mutinied.
The first salad. Only the romaine was home-grown, but it’s still good to have something to show for the work.
After the break, blossoms from around the back yard, most of which came with the house.
The Seattle Tilth May Edible Plant Sale was yesterday (and today). That brought a lot of new inhabitants for the earthboxes.
To step back for a moment, I laid out potential locations for the EarthBoxes on Friday. The two boxes in the foreground have casters, the left box has leftover stuff from two years ago and needs to be emptied and restocked. It’s 18 spots, of which 12 would get used:
And the 12 winners. On the far right are the basil, tomotoes, tomatillos, lemongrass, epazote and probably something else I’m not thinking of right now. They still need to come inside at night. The empty hole on the left is the future home of the basil:
Closeup 1. The boxes with casters. These include most of the lettuces, the flat leaf parsley, dill ,and “calypso” cilantro — all the stuff that will bolt when it gets too hot. Eventually these will be moved somewhere a little shadier:
Closeup 2. On the left are the Marketmore 76 cucumbers. On the right are a cocozelle zucchini and a golden bush scallop (patty-pan) zucchini:
Closeup 3. Left box is parsley, scallions (or chives, going to have to check the label), spinach, and romaine. Most of this box will get replanted when it gets hot. The right box is brussels sprouts, bok choi, and an “extra” lemon cucumber from the plant sale:
The lettuces in particular are really growing. Far left is the loose leaf lettuce. 2nd to the left (same box) is the romaine. I think the big romaine leaves will be ready for harvesting by as early as this weekend.
Also: Spinach in the center box, foreground. Center box background is parsley, chives, and more romaine. Right box is brussels sprouts (L) and bok choy (R).
April 30, a closeup of the bok choi. It’s only one plant, though it looks like a few:
It’s amazing to me that it’s only one plant. I’m guessing that harvest will start this weekend too.
I’ve been doing some reading, and it sounds like the lettuces will need to be moved into partial shade whenever it starts warming up. That should delay the bolting that the lettuce will do at some point. (Which makes the leaves bitter.) Good thing they happened to mostly wind up in one of the boxes with casters.
This weekend is the Seattle Tilth vegetable, herb, and flower sale. That’ll be a long day.
Twelve days later and the Earthboxes have arrived. That seems to be about par for the course as far as these guys go and delivery time. (5-7 days to ship, 5 days for shipping.)
Dog toys in the foreground for size reference. I’m reminded of my dad always sticking a ruler next to stuff he’d photograph.
Of course, that means 24 cubic feet of potting soil to fill them up. 10 of the big bags of the stuff.
It’s taller than it looks. I had to make two trips and fill up the back of the car each time.
Right now I’m leaning towards:
3 boxes of tomatoes (6 plants)
2 boxes of assorted peppers (12 plants)
1 box of zucchini (2 plants)
1 box of cucumbers (4 plants)
1 box of lettuces (8 plants. Hopefully something that can be continually harvested all summer.)
4 boxes of herbs (24 total plants. At least 6 basil, 4 parsley, 4 chives.. maybe some beans along the back of the boxes.)
I’ve got the Mother Earth News Almanac off of the bookshelf. (12th printing, March 1977. I paid $1.15 for it used, many years ago.) Maybe I can mix in some companion planting somehow..
The herb garden that came with the back yard has proven to be in a far from ideal location. We’ve had good success with Earthboxes in the past, so yesterday I ordered 10 more direct from the company, to go with the two that we already have. With shipping these came out to $31 each. (Retail on the Earthboxes with casters is about $54 — foregoing the casters and buying direct saves around $20 per unit.)
The inventor.
The nice thing about the Earthboxes is that they’re basically self-watering. There’s a reservior at the bottom of the box, and the water is drawn up to the plants by capillary action. Basil seems to love it, though I’ve killed it every time I’ve tried it any other way.
The plan is to “terraform” a very sunny slope near the house and group the Earthboxes on the former slope. (It’s steep enough that it’s kind of a hassle to mow anyway, so… two birds with one stone!) I’m leaning towards leaving the slope terraced, rather than leveling the whole thing out, which leads to the next point…
I also plan to construct or purchase some sort of a low-slung greenhouse/ tall cold frame to (hopefully) extend the growing season and increase yield, though a terraced slope is going to mean either constructing a custom greenhouse or figuring out some other funky solution. Once I have the greenhouse I can start throwing more money at cool techie stuff like this.
FlatbreadGarden 