Learning From the Tour

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Broccoli has been my reluctant plant of the year and after attending the Homer Garden Tour I will now plant my own broccoli starts from seed earlier than the beginning of May. We finally have broccoli buds, however many other gardeners in town and on the ridge have been eating their broccoli for weeks.

On a brighter note, we definitely have the best summer squash plants that I have seen. We are now eating them every other night. Tonight I will try a sautéed zucchini with crispy chickpeas. Soon I will have to start pickling.

Another thing I learned this year is to maximize the southern exposure and heat radiating off your house. Many local gardeners have capitalized on this. Above is a picture from one gardener at 1200 feet elevation, she did a great job of establishing Clematis vines and box herbs and small vegetable gardens on and along her deck. We have not used this space in our home and are bound and determined to do this next year.

In comparison to others Homer gardeners, ours is doing quite well for the cold and wet summer that we are experiencing. We have had weeks of cold and wet weather. This has been great for pak choi, and all the brassicas, greens, and peas.

In the greenhouse, the beans have more flowers and some are six feet tall. On the other hand, the tomatoes are setting fruit, but are far from ripening, even while wrapping them in Reemay. Because it has been so cold I placed a heater in the greenhouse and set it at 60 degrees, I have never done this in the summer, but we are in extreme conditions and I am willing to experiment. The aphids are under control in the green house. This week I bought Neem oil for a bio-pesticide against the aphids. Elliot Coleman spoke this past week at UAA in Homer and he saw aphid problems with soils that have high nitrates. I am not surprised that the amended soil that we have is high in nitrates, especially with the hog manure that is in the compost from last year. Surprisingly, the basil in our cold frame no long have aphids and are doing better than those in the greenhouse. This is the cold frame with the walls-of-water jackets.

Last night I looked at my old garden journal to see what seeds I planted for the fall. In the beginning of August last year, I planted radicchio and lettuce and transplanted them in 3” containers. I am on track this year, as I have several radicchio and lettuce starts going and a few transplanted. This week I planted frisee endive, orac, broccoli raab, pak choi, and mizuna. Last year on September 10^th we harvested 1 gallon of strawberries and 2 gallons of beans and it looks like we are on track for a similar harvest.

This week, during the full moon, I planted the new cold frame bed with Nichols Asian salad mix, claytonia, mache, and giant winter spinach. In this same bed I transplanted the third planting of pak choi that was getting munched on by the slugs in the greenhouse. The greenhouse and all the raised beds received a good dose of Sluggo.

The garlic are still doing great, scapes are starting to form. During the garden tour I learned that a gardener at the same elevation as us has several scapes already formed on her garlic.

Well the sun is shinning for a brief moment today so I am off to cut the strawberry shoots that are taking over the west side of the garden. This may be the year of great strawberry production. If that is the case, then I have have 12 pounds of honey, champagne yeast, and 5 pounds of rhubarb in the wings for a strawberry rhubarb mead. Garden on!

A Small Dose of Summer

Blogs posts have been slowed lately due to salmon harvest. This week I will be posting twice.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Finally, we have had some nice warm weather and I wore shorts for three days, the weather still has been predominantly cold and wet. Meanwhile, many of you suffer a heat wave.
The weather has resulted in some of the best pac choi harvest of the season.
Many of our oriental greens love this weather. We are now seeing broccoli flowers and cabbage is forming heads. We are eating out of the garden every night. Salads with many flavored greens, tomatoes, and zucchinis abound. This past weekend we had a frittata with many greens and fresh local eggs.

Tonight we hard a wonderful grilled pac choi with red chili paste.

In town many fellow gardeners are eating strawberries and broccoli. We are a week to two weeks behind leaving up here at 1300 feet.

This week we will harvest golf ball size beets out of the hoop house. Next year, I am expanding the hoop house to 24 feet long. This appliance has proven itself this year. Every plant in there is growing at a incredible rate and they are very healthy. The carrots I planted in the hoop house are doing fine and may surpass the carrots planted outside, even though they were planted three weeks later. I have been harvesting bunching onions and onions from sets that are the size of a golf ball.

The compost is constantly cooking; occasionally I stir the compost to keep it alive. It is great to see the potatoes at the bottom of the primary composter growing better than those in the garden.

I am still planting. The third planting of pac choi, cilantro, and romaine lettuce went into the garden. Radishes were planted in the new cold frame, unfortunately the cat dug them up, remember to kitty proof new beds. The first radicchio starts are coming up, as well as basil and more cilantro.

The basil in the basil cold frame is doing exceptionally well, the walls of water have had temperatures of 120 degrees F and the soil temperature remains at 80 degrees F.

In the greenhouse the beans have started flowering, some of the plants are five feet tall. I provided more strings hung from the ceiling to provide support for the runners. The cucumbers have pinky size fruit. Again, they are least a week or two behind. I do believe this has been the coldest summer we have seen since we have gardened.

In the garden the peas are not complaining, we have flowers and I have pulled off the Reemay that protects them from the birds. They are now four to five feet tall.

The highlight are the garlic plants, they appear to be doing better than last year. Parsnips are about two inches tall in the pig garden. The beets and the carrots are thinned. I have several different plantings and it will be interesting to see how this works with it being such a limited growing season.

Undaunted Gardening

Friday, July 9, 2010

Again we are haunted by a cold wet summer, I think the last one was two years ago. I looked the other day at the historic highs and lows and found that we were below the mean high temperature for June, but above the mean low; in other words it has been colder than normal. Although, we are behind by a couple of weeks compared to last year and because we are gardening on the edge we push on. Gardening in this country is work, and like anywhere else it is about paying attention to the present while preparing for the season ahead. With that, today I purchased frost hardy seeds for the fall planting; frisee endive, spring raab, orak, and winter spinach. The rest I have in my portable bucket of seeds, which I receive a ribbing from Nicky every now and then. The bucket allows me to go back and forth, from school and home, carrying seeds that can be planted whenever there is an opening to plant. Nicky teases me when I occasionally assess what I have, one must take inventory now and then.

I have been amending this week with compost, for the heavy feeders, and grass clippings for keeping back the weeds and holding in the moisture. I cannot believe how well this works. It is something I recommend to all gardeners. Mulch also provides organics to the soil. This week I am going to use fertilizers with my top dressing. In the book Square Foot Garden, Mel Bartholomew has two recipes:

All Purpose Mix

• 1 part blood meal
• 2 parts bone meal
• 3 parts wood ashes
• 4 parts composted leaf mold

High Nitrogen Mix

• 3 parts blood meal
• 2 parts bone meal
• 3 parts wood ashes
• 4 parts leaf mold

Instead of leaf mold I am going to use my own compost and top-dress the heavy feeders: such as zucchini, broccoli, and cabbage. The next thing to consider is once the plants are large enough, plant green manures around them. I experimented with this last year using clover. It takes clover 60 days to start fixing nitrogen. Last year I had mature clovers in late August and they did not flower, eliminating seed formation. The jury is out as to whether I will give this a go this year, because of all the mulching I have been putting down. Remember gardening is one big science experiment.

Thanks to friends and fellow gardening freaks, Tarri and Marlin at Moose Run Metalsmiths, I was able to grab a bucket of chicken manure for manure tea. I ended up place the manure in a big gunnysack or tea bag and soaking it in a 45 gallon black container in the greenhouse. The tomatoes, basil, and beans received the first batch of tea. Next will be the broccoli and cabbage plants. By the way it needs to be mentioned that Tarri Thurman has some great brocolli plants, she has been harvesting for the last three weeks. Awesome. The picture above is from Tarri and Marlin's hoop house, the broccoli are on the right.

I went fishing this week and caught a couple of ten-pound halibut. I ended up throwing the carcasses in the compost. I was sure to bearing it deep avoid any bear snouts catching a whiff of the carcasses. I only do this when the compost pile is the size of a four-foot by four-foot cube. The halibut, or salmon, carcasses really give a local kick to your compost. However, you must realize that this is gardening on the edge and there may be consequences.

Today was the last planting of onion sets. We just started harvesting golf ball size plants last week. I plant onions through out the year. Most do not get any bigger than a tennis ball, but we always have onions. The sees I planted three weeks ago of bunching onions are up, these plants will be part of the late fall harvest.

I need to mention that I am covering my zucchini in the hoop house every night with Reemay row covers. I am also experimenting with covering tomatoes in the greenhouse. The reason for this is to cut down on the light for increased production. If it is not the cold, then it is too much sunlight. Crazy. By the way, the tomatoes really started to put fruit on this week.

Cucumbers are also putting out fruit. However, the Alaska Cooperative Extension says, “If too many fruits are allowed to form at any one time, a large proportion will abort because the plant may not have sufficient food reserves. If a heavy load of fruit sets, fruits will be malformed, or poorly colored. Only one fruit should be allowed to develop in a leaf axil.” For our cucumbers it is time to prune. I will be using the umbrella method as describes in the Alaska Cooperative Extension Service’s Cucumber Production in Greenhouses.

The plant of the week is cilantro. Cilantro has been a plant that we relish. We cook a lot of tortillas and like it in salads. This year the cilantro was transplanted in the hoop house, and in containers in the greenhouse, and it is very happy. I also plant four cilantro plants every two to three weeks, that way you get enough plants to plant in any open spaces and have a ready supply.

The harvesting has been great considering the cold. Tonight Nicky is cooking wild bolete mushroom spaghetti with green garlic, onions, oregano, thyme, and basil form the garden. She tossed in a few ronde and green zucchinis. Meanwhile, I made a mixed gourmet lettuce, mach, and cress salad. Garden on!

As Luck Would Have It

Well after a bit of deliberation and discussion, the new name for garden has been determined. We decided on the "Lucky Garden" and we added a French translation by calling it "Jardin Chance". Why did we decide on the change? Why did we change? Basically, we wanted something that was original and inspired collaboratively between us. The reason for the name "lucky garden" is because we feel lucky to have great southern exposure, fertile soil, and water on our property. While we struggle with our elevation and latitude, we gifted with water, soil, and aspect. The French twist comes from the expression used by many of our Homer friends that appreciate the life we have and remember not to take it for granted. "Nous auont chancons du putain"

I am attaching a picture of our garlic. I have failed to mention this in the last few posts. This year we have 80 plants growing. We are trying to figure out which varieties will perform the best. So far Purple Glazers, Siberian, and German Porcelains are growing the best.

This week I planted several three inch red cabbages. I have never planted a brassica this late. I received an email today that friend had 100 red cabbage starts. I took several to the school and planted a few in our garden and hoop house. Gardening is one big science experiment, it will be interesting to see how they make out. Garden on!