Garden Update, Extending the Harvest and *oh deer* a new garden friend

Today I harvested 2 Scarlett Runner beans, about 10#s of Patty Pan squash, 10 or so fat, sunny colored Lemon Cucumbers, a handful of Cherry tomatoes, and a bunch of misc. herbs. My 3 volunteer Swiss Chard plants need a trim too.

The seeds that I planted a couple of weeks ago (Kale, Swiss Chard, Parsley, Cilantro, strange lettuce blends etc) are all up and going nuts.
It's still in the 80s here most days so the fall garden is as happy as a lark.

My plan is to get the artichokes, onions, garlic, leeks, carrots, beets etc etc all in tomorrow. I'm probably nuts, but what the heck.

Next year I resolve to weigh my harvest, but with the success of the potatoes and summer squash so far this year we have to be near 50#. We also have a ton of unharvested red potatoes still in the ground. Also some Artichokes coming on. A loaded Cayenne pepper, some more summer squash, more cucumbers, and all those lusciously loaded tomato plants. Add to that all the winter plants and we are sitting pretty right about now.

I love how each day is a learning experience with mental notes made (ie space tomatoes further apart) for next year on so many things that I will barely be able to remember all of them!

Next up will also be a tunnel for the tomatoes...it will break my heart if the rain destroys those beauties.

How's your 4 season garden coming along?

PS I forgot the *deer* part - we have a new guest who is eating the tips of my tomatoes and deleafing my beans. She's been by a few other times, but now she is starting to take bigger bites. GRR!!

Food Not Lawns (part 2) & Fall Veggies (part 2)

Today something interesting happened - I went to the local garden shop to pick up some light organic soil blend for seed starting and the gentleman who was checking us out asked what we were planting. I told him how my 17 year old son and I had reclaimed some no man's land on the side of the driveway by building a raised rock bed. I also told him how we were tearing out our front flower beds to plant a winter veggie garden instead.

He stopped checking and looked at me sadly. I was very puzzled. He then said, "It's a sad, sad world that we live in that people are forced to do drastic things like this."

I said, "Oh it's good fun and I can't wait to eat from it!"

He was kind of a bummer on my day. I guess in a way he's right, but you know the old saying about Lemons and Lemonade? That's what I am doing. Besides who needs all these thirsty flowers and grasses? I'd rather use the water on something that is good to eat.

I planted Swiss Chard and Parsley in a mixed planting in our new driveway bed.

My 17 yr old son removed all the overgrown perennials that I had grown from seed in a bed by the road (never ever plant Shasta Daisies unless you REALLY want to have them in abundance). He also dug a bunch of sod which is now lying around my garden thinking about composting for me.

Tomorrow I will add some composted horse poo/sawdust to the newly dug bed (I have only 10 or 12 wheelbarrows full left)...and then plant my Kale and lettuce blends.

I am also doing my winter flower pots with Kale, Swiss Chard, and Arugula. It should be fun.

I'm really digging this 4 Season Gardening.

More tomorrow...

Fall Garden #1

I’ve been thinking about my fall garden since oh, February or something! My friend Melinda over at One Green Generation had a great post today that inspired me to write this little post a few weeks ahead of schedule.

Here in the mild Pacific Northwest (zone 8+) we have rain and wind to contend with rather than freezing temps for the most part. Once in awhile it freezes hard here, and sometimes it snows, but mostly it just rains and rains and rains.

What I’d like to do is just cover my entire garden before the end of September! I’ve been daydreaming about building a huge hoop house over the whole thing. I am sure it could be done, but I am not sure I want to spend that much money – and I am doubly not sure I want to go all out on my first real try at extending my garden through winter.

In the past I have stapled plastic sheeting to our fence and draped it over a couple of boards to cover my tomatoes and peppers. It worked great until December when a huge windstorm hit. Everything was torn to shreds including the plants! They were ripening happily under the plastic roof up until that point. Granted no new fruit formed and the ripening process was slow, but it was a start! I think as I get more serious about extending our harvests that speeding up the ripening process will come to the forefront.

I have read about creative ways to heat your greenhouse – everything from housing a certain amount of rabbits per X amount of square feet, to laying black plastic on the floors and placing dark colored items (stone, painted milk jugs full of water etc) all around the inside where they can radiate the heat that they collected all day. The book “Four Season Harvest” that I mentioned in an earlier blog post has a great graph explaining the interior versus exterior temperatures in a greenhouse environment. It doesn’t take much to grow Swiss Chard, Kale and the like under plastic according to the book.

In the past, in zone 8 Oregon, I have successfully grown Kale, Swiss Chard, Broccolini (Broccoli Rabe) and Carrots in a single raised bed with no cover. It was incessantly rained on and frosted over a couple of times and still everything grew like mad. It not too much time we had a HUGE crop on our hands. The Rabe was amazing. The only drawbacks were the huge amount of slugs that ate everything in sight.

These crops were direct seeded into a sandy loam, composted chicken manure and wood product organic blend from our local wood products place. The owner called it magic dirt when I bought it. He was right. I did a side by side test of two pots of sky blue Lobelia – one in potting soil and one in the magic dirt. The magic dirt Lobelia was bigger, brighter in color, and had more blooms than the potting soil Lobelia. I wish now that I had taken pictures to show you, but it will be easy to recreate next year.

Back to the crops –

We direct seeded them in this raised bed (8” x 6’ x 24’) in mid September. We watered sometimes and forgot to water sometimes, but Mother Nature helped us out by watering for us too. We got busy, and stopped looking at the bed altogether for about 3 months. When suddenly one day I noticed the contents of the bed were getting tall – and I thought hmm the weeds have taken over. So I moseyed on down there and to my surprise there were very few weeds and TONS of veggies! I pulled a couple of carrots up, and they were tiny but so so orange. I wiped it off and gingerly took a bite…the flavor was crispy sweet and amazing. Needless to say, I walked back to the house with my hands full of baby carrots! We ate from that unloved winter bed until Spring and the slugs had their way with it the next year. Imagine what would have happened had I given it a little care?

Later I priced organic Carrots, Kale, Swiss Chard and the Rabe. ALL of it was 3$ - 4$ a pound/ bunch. We got at least 100 misc pounds/ bunches from that bed. Which if you are a finance whiz means my return on investment was HUGE!!! Now if only my 401K could do so well hehe.

My challenge to you is, if I can get these results being lazy – why can’t you?

Four Season Harvest by Eliot Coleman

If you are interested in extending the harvest season of your garden, I highly recommend reading the book 'Four Season Harvest' by Eliot Coleman. It's really well written and very engaging. He and his wife traveled to France and the books talks a lot about how the French extend their growing seasons. He applies their knowledge to his American garden and voila!! He has food, fresh from his garden 365 days a year.
Here is what I am doing to extend our harvest...
~Installing a mini hoop to cover my 6 tomato plants. A simple cover in Oregon can extend the harvest until December if all goes well. Our tomatoes need protection from rain and wind more than frost for the most part.
~Creating a raised bed with horse poo as the bottom layer of soil (warmth as it decomposes) to grow Broccolini, Kale, Carrots and Swiss Chard in.
~Planting pots with Mesculen salad blend, Swiss Chard, Arugula etc. Where some people might put a pot of Pansies by their front door, I'm going to have a pot of Bright Lights Swiss Chard. I'm all for edible landscaping.
~Locating a permanent spot for garlic and planting a ton. We will not have fresh garlic until next spring but the wait will be worth it!
~Starting Artichoke seeds, planting them out in the garden, waiting a year to see if we get Artichokes.
I plan on starting the Arugula and Mesculen pots at staggered times so my harvests will continue.