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.