Eat Close To Home

As of today (Nov. 19), the kale is bigger, and the green beans (in the cold frame) are blooming. The total pea harvest has been 7 pea pods…but wow, is it cool to see blooms in November! There’s also some Purple Peacock Broccoli and Happy Rich greens (like rapini) sprouting between the leeks and the cold frame – we’ll see how long that makes it.

The goal with the kale is to keep us in greens through January, and to protect the stalks so they can re-sprout early in the spring. We’ll see how that goes!

I’m going to be trying to grow sweet potatoes this year. I’ve ordered five varieties from two sources. I’ll keep you updated on how they go!

• Beauregard from Johnny’s Selected Seeds.  “One of the most popular sweet potato varieties. Dark red-orange skin with moist, sweet, orange flesh. Quick maturing and well adapted to difficult growing conditions. High percentage of usable roots. Excellent choice for cool season areas.” (Planted late May? Early June?)
• Centennial from Sand Hill Preservation Center. “Early. Semi-bush, normal leaf, copper skin, pale orange flesh, long, skinny roots, adapted for heavier soils, above average yield.”
• Ginseng Red from Sand Hill Preservation Center. “(Heirloom Variety) Early. Large, semi-bush, ivy leaf, pink skin, light orange flesh. Can produce one super large root. “
• Red Ivy Leaf from Sand Hill Preservation Center. “Early. Semi-bush, green colored ivy leaf, deep pink skin, light orange flesh, average yield.”
• Ringley’s Puerto Rico from Sand Hill Preservation Center. “(Heirloom Variety) Early. Average vines, ivy leaf type with pale, off-cream to tan colored skin, apricot flesh, average yields.” (Planted these June 18-20)

Sand Hill specializes in heirloom sweet potatoes. I ordered the “Northern Special” – a random selection of short-season varieties. I forget if I ordered 25 or 50…I think 50. Hmmm…might have to move some squash…especially since the peas are still going gangbusters in the greenhouse. I’m planting some in there and some outside under black plastic mulch to compare how they do.

Sorry it’s been so long between updates. I was feeling pretty crummy for a couple weeks – dental implant and the stress of having to finish a bunch of things I didn’t want to do, not being able to do the things I want to do, and generally feeling overwhelmed. And tired and sick on top of it. (My doc suspects food allergies. *sigh*) I’m feeling much better these last few days, though, and in lieu of a birthday party this year, I had a weekend totally free to do whatever I wanted to do. See below!

Inside the greenhouse, the peas and Purple Peacock broccoli are well and truly up (planted Feb. 24, I think), as is the Winter Density lettuce (planted in late January).  There’s also some evidence of onions and garbanzo beans. Of the things I planted in January, only the lettuce and garlic are doing well; the kale, kohlrabi, and mixed greens didn’t do much. The greens suffered as much from me accidentally burying them when I raked off the mulch as the cold, I think.

I spent much of today attaching a gutter to the greenhouse and getting rainbarrels set up under it. I was not as impressed with the construction of the gutter assembly as I was with the rest of the greenhouse. At least they sent an extra bracket; I broke one trying to figure out how to lever it into place. I also spent waaaaaay too much time moving cinder blocks around. However, I’m satisfied with the arrangement now (I still have to move out the extra blocks on the left in the picture below). I know I’m being fussy about the look of the greenhouse, but that’s part of the joy I take in gardening. The greenhouse is the first thing I see each morning out my bedroom window, and I want it to looks neat and tidy, at the very least. And I got everything in place so if we get rain tonight, I’ll be able to capture two barrels’ worth.

Average temps in the greenhouse are quite balmy. The soil ranges between 45 and 55; the air ranges from 30 to 75. Outside air temps have been 25-30 overnight and up to 50 during the day. I’ve been leaving all the vents and one door wide open to prevent overheating. However, I’m going to try propping the door open halfway to try to keep the soil in the 55-65 range, so long as I can keep the air temp under 85. I also have another vent to install, which should help with that. If that doesn’t work, I’ll just keep the door open. I’d rather have the temps a little lower and more like spring than wavering between winter and summer on a daily basis.

I also managed to clean inside the house some today, and to finish up a few lingering house projects that have been nagging at me. What a huge relief. I’m starting to feel like my time is my own again – which might mean more blog posts!

So yesterday was my birthday, and I got a seasonally-unexpected birthday treat: I got to turn compost piles and see that many of my seeds are sprouting!

Yes. I’m a freak. Well, about the compost. Actually, I have a compost conundrum. I’ve been using 4′ tall welded wire fencing to make bins – pop ‘em open, move ‘em, fork stuff over…but 4′ tall is quite a lift for a 5′ 6″ gardener. And this time, the bins had sagged toward each other and it was really hard to get the wire out. I’m dithering between trimming the fencing down to about 3′, or going without a bin at all. That will probably get messy, though. Ah well; one of the bins was still frozen solid in the middle, so I can worry about that later.

The greenhouse was very exciting. Soil temps have gotten up to a steady 50 degrees (55+ during the day) and stuff is starting to sprout in earnest. The Winter Density lettuce that I planted in Feb. has true leaves and I should probably transplant them a little further apart – I didn’t manage to spread the seeds very evenly. The Purple Peacock broccoli is also coming up well, and this was planted…um, March 1, maybe? It’s really cooooooool – some of the sprouts are vivid purple, and some are almost white. I am probably most excited about this particular crop. Well…maybe until I plant my “wild kale mix.” *grin* I am all about the brassicas…

I’ve got the vents and the door propped wide open to try to keep the temp from going over 80. It was  a near thing yesterday; I need to get that extra vent installed soon, I think. It’ll go at the bottom and help create a cross-draft. Of course, with the door already open, it might be hard to do much more cross-ventilation. We’ll see, I guess. I’m concerned that an 8′x12′ greenhouse might be too small, not just for how much I want to plant, but for thermal mass reasons. I’d certainly never buy one any smaller. It just heats up way too fast.

I will freely admit up front that I am absolutely insane. Don’t try this at home…

[EDIT: ok, one thing you should try at home is planting your beds by plant families. It makes it much easier to rotate your crops that way. See the Kitchen Garden details for an example.]

First, an overview. Scroll down for details.

Kitchen Garden

This kitchen garden is raised beds, mostly 4′x8′, and is just a few steps out the back door from the kitchen. It is my original garden and will have the salad crops that need the most attention and will be harvested the most often. Starting with bed 1 in the upper left:

• Legumes = pole (Fortex) and bush green beans (Contender).
• Brassicas = Winterbor and Purple Peacock kale (which is halfway to broccoli)
• Tomatoes = Amish paste and San Marzano (probably)
• Alliums = onions, garlic, and shallots
• Peas = Sugar Sprint (from my saved seed); Beans = some kind of green beans
• The brassicas with the yellow and pink dots are rutabagas and turnips.
• Curcurbits = pickling cucumbers
• Root veg = carrots and beets (I forget the varieties); chard = Rhubarb chard
• Strawberries = Honeyoye (sp? I’m not crazy about these)
• Herbs = cumin, corriander, fennel

These beds rotate in numerical order, by plant family. So, this year, bed 1 is legumes. Next year, bed 2 will be legumes. If you look, you’ll see it’s four years until any bed hosts the same plant family. This helps control pests, and in the case of legumes, it helps feed the soil.

The bed below is a bit bigger and further out than the kitchen garden. Its job is to raise food to go to into storage – freezer, root cellar, or the local food bank. Each bed is 4′x20′. (I find 4′ wide is what I can reach across if I have access from both sides. Any bigger and I have to walk on the beds.) Stuff here needs much less tending and each crop only needs to be harvested once or twice a season. I’m going to experiment with ollas (porous clay pots) to water the squash.

Below is the biggest garden (10′x70′) and the furthest from the house. It’ll need hoeing and maybe water but not much else tending. If I go nuts, this is the bed that will get neglected first. It’s basically a Three Sisters garden (much more spread out than last year). The corn will be Nothstine Dent, a Michigan heirloom corn.

This is the greenhouse in the spring (8′x12′)

And finally…this is the greenhouse in the summer: