Rain, Slugs, and Darkness

While winter in a garden in a mild maritime climate poses its own challenges, it's still true -- the worst day in the garden is better than the best day in the office. Even when its too dark to mow the lawn the instant I get home, I can still pull a few weeds from the raised beds, tossing them onto the compost pile. And there's always the traditional winter work: caring for tools, mulching tender things that need a winter blanket, and planning the next year.

Planning the next year this year should mean moving some of my half-barrels to make room for more of them. (Or, if I could find one the right size, for a greenhouse.) The barrels I moved on a Saturday a few months ago were quite heavy (full of well-watered soil and plants!) so I only got the four of them shifted on the same day that I installed and planted the brick-lined flowerbed. While I don't relish doing more of that same work in less clement weather, the end result should be more productive.



I plan on following a 4-season crop rotation this year -- spring crops make room for winter crops, which stay in the ground until those barrels are planted with summer crops, which get pulled with just enough time left to start on some green manure. Then those barrels are planted for spring again. Grouping my barrels into three chains, each with its own watering zone, should be just the right foundation for keeping the plan in place. For Christmas a few years back my parents got us a "words in stone" kit -- basically some quick-setting concrete, rectangular molds, and big typeset letters to press into soft concrete. I'm thinking of making signs for "Spring", "Summer",  and "Winter", and then moving those signs around the garden.

Winter time is also when I spend more time nurturing my other (indoor) hobbies, so I might not get around to posting here for a while. So in the mean time, check out what's blooming in November:

 And what there is to eat:

lovely November

Every year I have big plans for how I'll put my little garden to bed, and what I need to seed in for winter crops, and every year the weather surprises me: it stays warm late, or it rains for a month, and my plans don't quite work out. This year I still have peppers up, and I did manage to seed in some bok choi on time, so I think I won't miss having fresh collards in January. (who am I fooling -- yes, I will.)

Spicy Thai pepper, plant bought at Clackamas Community College's Hort Dept. Mother's Day sale

Bok Choi, this winter's fresh vegetable of choice. (he, he -  plus a small fennel volunteer.)

I honored Veterans Day by raking the leaves from the tree that grows on the property that I get to own. Take that, King George!

The right to have a back yard and grow my own veggies and flowers is one of those rights that is basic: so simple and so very necessary for an American degree of familial independence. Well, and for having a pile of leaves you can jump in.

Size of the compost pile on 11/11/10

The leaves do their part, of course. These were incorporated into a compost pile with all the branches and lawn clippings I had been storing up this summer, and 20 pounds of ammonium sulfate to supplement the nitrogen content. As a hobbyist, if my body can hold up to raking my entire back yard and re-building the compost pile, that's a victory. Having sunlight and patience to do that while mowing the lawn with the gas mower (to pick up the clippings) so there's enough fresh N in the compost pile - - - that's professional degree dedication right there. So I'll buy my locally produced bag of 21-0-0 and see if it works. I'm hoping it'll cook down to about half its size by January so I can turn it again on MLK day.

So, how do I contain my compost? There are 5 pallets in there, wired together to form an E (if you were looking from the top.) Each side of the E can hold more than 3'x3'x3', which I've read is the minimum size for a compost pile to build decent heat. I built up each side by alternating a layer of leaves with a layer of my reserve stuff (much of which was already dark and slimy),  and sprinkling a scant shovel full of 21-0-0 between each layer. While I didn't measure the depth of the layers, the leaf layers were always one 30 gal. garbage bin each, and the reserve materials would cover the entire square evenly, such that I couldn't see any leaves from my eye level. Then, once both sides were built up to the top of the bin (thankfully I had no more reserve left), each side got a double scoop of 21-0-0 and I covered everything over with more leaves. The idea is, this will keep things cooking and at the current water level for several weeks. If I were a pro, I'd get a big thermometer and take the temperature of the core in another couple days, and decide whether to cover the whole thing with a black tarp.

But you know, compost happens.

late, cold summer

The joy of finding all those lovely seedlings at the plant sale was almost completely mitigated by the cold of June ("June-uary" was on the lips of every gardener). The summer seemed 2 months late. While the warmpth did persist into October, the hours of sunlight still diminished right on time. I got about 4 tomatoes this year from my purchased plants (and about that many from the yellow pear volunteers that poked through the soil the week after I planted foot-tall purchased plants.) I've resigned myself to the fact that reliable tomatoes in this valley come from cold frames and greenhouses, and so far I have neither. So that's my winter project this year. In addition to figuring out how to actually blog on occasion.)

Yesterday I planted a few tiny bulbs ("Mountain Lillies", the box said) into a flower bed I built this summer. I'm hoping the more blatant bribe will bring pollinators over to my veggies. This spring I'm planning on doing something horrible to my tulip bulbs -- this yard's fanciest tulips were planted around a small bay laurel stripling several years ago. Full bloom is the only time I'll be able to find and dig them, to transplant them to a more suitable showcase location. But in the end, I believe they'll be grateful. Much like the two bigger dahlias I intend to move this Thursday (after setting up a crock pot of hot cocoa, if it's raining and miserable.) And, a bit at a time, I'll bring that mini orchard into fruitful order. I've already warned my office mates that when the high pressure system comes through in January I'm taking a day off for fruit tree pruning.

Fall is best enjoyed in the context of the fruits of the previous summer, so this one's not going to be the best fall I've ever had. Perhaps I should think of it as a pre-spring.

victory at the plant sale

Hooray, I got cucumbers, heirloom tomatoes, and a couple pepper varieties (I'm not sure how hot they'll be), and the tomatoes and basil my neighbor wanted. As usual, my college's Hort club plant sale was well attended -- the line went 3/4 around the building before they opened up the sale at noon. No wonder the basils I found last year (a couple hours after opening) seemed beaten up. The crowd is slightly jostling and very mission-focused. I got some folks to point out the next vegetable I was looking for, but many didn't even hear the question.

Now, last year I definitely brought flowers to my supervisor and one female co-worker for Mother's Day. I didn't do that this year, because I discovered that my supervisor is allergic to what I have blooming right now. So, did I give her irises last year that she was allergic to, or were my roses that far ahead of things last year that I brought in roses? I never did get around to pruning them this winter (the most recent addition is probably grateful since I also didn't scrounge out the anemones that try to give it stiff competition for sunlight.) So here's a check-in on what's in bloom right now: a few roses are in bud, and the single-flowered climber has had blooms; the irises are taking their turns blooming; plenty of columbine (both white and pink; need to cut the pink flowers more aggressively this year to let the double white flowers seed in), and lots of bluebells (blue, white, and purple.) Also several volunteer lunaria that I'll pull before they can set seed. The fruit trees are done flowering; the raspberries and kiwis are in the same tight-bud stage.

In indoor news, my little betta fish and his peace lily are doing well. The betta sometimes fixates on the colorful caps of the dry-erase markers scattered across my desk; it's fun to guess which one has his attention and make it move, to see if he reacts. The peace lily prefers a life that includes me changing about 1/4 of the vase's water every week or so. And the betta gets a kick out of exploring the new relationship between roots and the spires of his castle to see if he can swim over the top this time, so that's a practice I'll definitely cultivate for them. It cheers me that he uses his castle as such: he hides out in the swim-through chamber when I'm pouring in replacement water, which puts more movement in the water than his fancy fins care to sustain.

Hooray for sporadic rain in the Willamette Valley in April! The rest of the veggie garden's seeds are in (until July or so), and the ground is prepped for the few plants I'll be getting this Friday (it is so awesome, working for a college that has a Horticulture club! Heirloom tomatoes, here I come!)

I'm already developing hopes for the fall -- primarily, that half barrels go on sale decently again (they didn't around here last October) and I can finally complete the square footage I want for these veggies. Having some room to experiment next year without sacrificing space for the stand-bys would be really nice. Three barrels for zucchini and three barrels for tomatoes should be sufficient for our grilling and storage needs this year. I'm so certain I'll meet the goal of not buying salad greens after the first lettuce harvest that I'm setting a zucchini goal, too: no buying zucchini this summer, plus 6 cups of shredded into the freezer for breads during the winter.

I'm trying a new-to-me pumpkin this year, 'winter luxury'. It's billed as the most amazing pumpkin for pie you'll ever find, so I have high hopes. The gourd itself looks pretty unassuming, so I'll be sure to get some jack-o-lantern pumpkins in there, too. (the neighborhood children do have expectations, after all.)

This is not the year for me to branch out to the near-by community garden, though I did consider it. A proper corn/pumpkin/beans patch is somewhere in my future, and it's not at this house. (my soil and my sun are in two different locations.) But if I can get the front yard productive and headed in the right direction (and divested of about 7/8 of the bluebells) that'll make room in the orchard for a proper asparagus patch: an item sorely lacking so far among my perennial foodstuffs.

This lack has brought me to the point of harvesting some fennel shoots to see what they taste like, but not quite all the way to cooking them up. I figure I have only a month or so left to try that this year without hacking down a fennel plant and making it start over. Which might not be a bad plan, in and of itself. My fennel succeed raucously both in the front and in the back yard.

Roses are in bud, irises are in bloom and bluebells are beginning to taper off. What a great time!

not much growth

So, I'm seeing something in the garden, and it's time to figure out how to do it better. I might not be able to put it in place until next year, but I should try some things now.

For about 3 weeks now, my lettuce plants are still just the dicotyledons they started out as -- the nourishment they can get from the seed itself. The seeds I sowed a week or two after the first planting have caught up.
I need to make cold frames for my half barrels. It'll probably end up being a square cover on a round barrel, but there's not much else for it.

The cloches I see in the store are made of glass: I don't trust the neighbor cats and small dogs enough to use them. So a fiberglass something, or a proper window from the remodeling surplus/scrounge warehouse, would be the best start. Something that covers the whole barrel, can be vented, and stored safely during the summer.

Hail, rain, and a little lightning is slowing the development of my first little seedlings, but at least they made it through the storms unbruised. I'm looking forward to this weekend when there should be enough sun to mow the lawn and pull more dandelions -- if the weather is good enough, I'll tackle the front "orchard", weeding and mulching.

I have a pear tree, an apple tree, and a pie cherry tree in the front yard, where the best sun and the least security (from neighborhood dogs) is. The patch of not-lawn was the grave of the grounded out stump of black locust, a tree we removed when it gracefully dropped a limb toward our house on the hottest day in recorded history. It was either till and re-do a lawn or take advantage of the soil as it was. Lots of flowers and herbs have also found their way here, my least formal bed, and squirrels keep assisting me in the planting of filberts: I'm going to take their requests more seriously this year, and allow some of the better-placed volunteers to stay on. This year will also see the addition of more strawberries around the border, and I'll do a better job harvesting calendula and preparing it for tea. Maybe the peonies, planted recently in honor of hubby's gradma's garden, will give us a proper show this summer. (ooh, that reminds me -- I still need a cutting of my gradma's Michaelmas daisy.)

The front yard also serves as my pumpkin patch (to the delight of young neighbors), and this year will see the addition of a swath of sunflowers somewhere in the front. This year's pumpkin, Winter Luxury, is part of my plan to devise a proper pasta sauce made from pumpkin. I hear Sage is the right herb to accompany pumpkin when it isn't a pie, and gruyere cheese, and I think roasted filberts will make a showing (in anticipation of my own harvest in a few years.) There should probably be something more, right? Maybe some ground chicken when I'm not in the mood for a vegetarian sauce. . . I guess I'll also toss in whatever is fresh in the garden if I make it during the summer. Like zucchini or something.

pretty Saturday; blustery Sunday

The weather this weekend was quite reversed from what would have been convenient, but part of the point of living in the real world is that things aren't convenient, and we get to make do. Planted another barrel with radishes and lettuce, and thinned out the radish seedlings from 2 weeks ago. I tossed those thinnings into a barrel I haven't planted yet. While it was unceremonious, a few of them might take root and give me something to nibble on before I turn the whole thing under to plant tomatoes there in another 6 weeks or so.

I discovered the wonders of Power Point as a garden record tool. Because I have half-barrels, I set up one slide with the appropriate number of circles in approximately the same arrangement as my garden. I set it up with what was left in the garden at the end of winter (too much dead stuff, not enough green manure). Then I copied the whole slide over to the next slide, and wrote in the changes I made in the first week I worked out there. Each week or two when I get out to the veggie garden I'll be able to copy the slide and record my changes. I even put together a color coding system to track germination, growth, harvesting, and fallow periods. This will be pretty fun.

Spring 2010: Willamette Valley, Oregon State, USA

This year is the year to record. My goal for my humble residential garden is that I will need to buy no vegetables (at the store or farmer's market) for salads this summer while eating salad for lunch or for dinner (me and my husband) at least 3 times a week.
The garden itself has been around for a little while now, but it's time for something more definitive, more shared, and more . . . yeah, just more.

I start with some finished compost left over through the winter and a very green (though inoculated) start on the next one. My big-leaf maple put out more seedlings than I care to count, or the winter was just incredibly mild so they *all* survived. I figured out how to prune my 7-yr old kiwi vines about 1/3 of the way through the project this February, so we'll see what it does to the yield. I'm hoping the yield will be more concentrated, since the vines have yet to produce something that ripens (yes, even in a brown bag with a banana.)

In the 17 half barrels, 5 or so have collards or leeks that thrived through the winter (there's even some fresh parsley out there still) and three are now planted with cold weather seeds: peas along a triangular tomato cage, with lettuce in the outside arches of the barrel; one barrel divided into 3 sections for carrots, radishes, and radicchio, and one barrel (planted more recently) divided in half between broccoli and mustard greens. I'm partial to Red Sails lettuce (when I use lettuce at all; I'm more of a spinach gal) because so far it's done well in my slightly crowded conditions. It has yet to get buggy on me.