With summer finally in full effect the garden is finally going strong. I’m still hoping that my tomatoes get ripe in time. Regardless, I am making progress year over year, and that is really my only goal. This is the first year that my own tomato starts have really grown massively huge.
You can see they are starting to grow over the tops of my cages. Most of them have fairly large fruit on them and we have at least another month of good temps.. so there is hope they will ripen. I have stakes in the ground to put my hoop frames back over them if it calls for that later in the season.
The zucchini squash I got from a neighbor is doing really well. I harvested my first zuc this weekend. You can see it in the top middle of the photo.
The potatoes are still growing like mad. The cabbages are finally starting to develop nice big heads. The winter squash on the left is going well. All of the open spaces are actually filled with sprouts already, for my winter veggies. Mostly Kale, Chard, Broccoli and Cauliflower.
So what happens when you don’t go to your community garden plot for three weeks? Godzilla squash. Yes, this is a One Ball squash, and as you can see by the 8″ chef’s knife beside it.. it is massive. It still tastes fairly sweet, so I’m going to try to make a soup out of it and see what happens. I hope it works, because I have 5 of these things.
It has been a long while since I posted any updates on the garden thanks mostly to a really busy work schedule for the last few months followed by a much needed week of vacation away from all things technical (except for taking videos on my iphone) in Alaska. I’ve tried to stay up on my garden, but it isn’t growing all that well this year. At least, it hasn’t until the last week or so. Hopefully the warm weather and sunshine isn’t too little too late for me.
I’m also using some new blogging software. I was using Windows Live Writer but for some reason the new version won’t let me upload images anymore. I fiddled with it for some time with no real success and since it doesn’t give me any error messages I can work with (or that even show up on searches) I’m changing software. My posts will take a slightly different format, but that’s about all that should change.
I’m doing a few experiments this year. This plot is where one of my raised beds was at last year. It is too close to the fence to really get all that much sun, but last year I didn’t use that much fertilizer either. Since I created my own this year I’m trying a few things in what is left of this bed just to see if it will make much difference. So far, not very much.
My garlic is getting ready to harvest before too long. This shot is from July 7th and shows everything getting nice and lush and some of them just starting to turn brown.
Here is the same garlic patch on July 11th.. just a few days later. As you can see a lot of the smaller Chet’s Italian garlic has gone mostly brown and started to fall over. I’m not sure if that is an official sign of being ready to harvest but I pulled a few and checked and they all look right to me. After harvesting most of the Chet’s Italian a few of them had started to split, so I think my timing is right on.
I harvested 43 heads of Chet’s Italian.
I have probably 50 more heads still growing, including all of my Music garlic, none of which is ready yet.
My green and red cabbages have started to form heads.That’s fun. Not sure I’ll grow cabbages again next year. They take up sooo much room.
The potatoes are continuing to grow like mad. I’ve hilled them up to their max amount I think. A couple of them are starting to bloom, which means they are producing taters down in the soil.. according to my reading anyway.
This photo shows my two primary tomato beds. The foreground shows my trials with red mulch. The bed above was started under the hoop house until the early part of July. They are both starting to do well. Growing pretty rapidly. The cherries have all bloomed and hopefully I have fruit soon.
Way back in 2005 the Organic Trade Association put together a little video talking about the need for a rebellion against the empirical food crop addiction to chemicals and the frankenfood they produce. This battle of good vs evil led to one of the best videos I’ve seen all week. The video is 5 years old now so many of you might have seen it already, as I had, but I had forgotten about it and love both the message and the delivery. So without further delay I give you, Cuke Skywalker and Obiwan Canolli in Grocery Store Wars.
This post is dedicated to my Number One Blog Fan, MrsDoItAll. Happy Birthday Mom!!
It was a gorgeous weekend in Seattle and we took full advantage of it. My beautiful wife and I spent Friday night out on the deck, cleaning off the winter dust and dirt and getting it ready for summer. I fired up the grill and we got the deck beer fridge stocked and ready to go. After that some neighbors invited us over for some cards and wine. How I do love summer and it’s not even here yet!
We hung this little red birdhouse this weekend as well. It was one of the small little projects that I had finished earlier and just hadn’t put out in the garden yet. My wife did an awesome job painting it, including the sweet “A+M” in a heart on the side.
In garden related news, things are finally starting to really grow now. My peas are all blooming out. I planted some Canoe peas that I had left over from last year, and I planted a lot of them. Supposedly they grow fairly large with nice big pods.. last year they got about 2 feet tall and stopped, each (healthy looking) vine only producing a pod or two of 4-6 peas each.
Looks like this year won’t be any different with this variety. Aw well, we aren’t much into peas anyway. I’ll try a different variety next year or maybe in the fall and see how it goes.
My forest of garlic is going very well. The Music on the right are very thick stemmed and lush. The ‘Chet’s Italian’ on the left are supposed to be a much smaller, but tastier garlic that was discovered growing wild here in the Pacific Northwest. It was propagated from a single head found in an abandoned lot.
My cabbages are growing well also. Here are my green and red cabbages.
These are the first radishes I have ever grown. I’m mostly growing these just to be growing something right now, and to give away.. I don’t really like radishes that much, although I plan to eat a few (these included).
The lettuce and spinach bed from the coldframes are still going strong. Beautiful tight heads of butter lettuce with my two winter varieties of spinach. We had a spinach salad for lunch today fresh from the garden. A few more months until the cucumbers and tomatoes come from the garden.. not soon enough!
My 5 varieties of tomatoes all got moved to the coldframe this weekend. We are supposed to have a nice long warm period with lows in the low 50s here and overcast and rainy so it’s a great time to move these little guys outside. Here we have (in no particular order): Binto Cherry, Zebra Cherry, Super Marzano, San Marzano Gigante 3, and Chianti Rose.
I also did a little clean-up work on the garden itself this weekend. I broke out my lawn edger and put a nice edge on the garden space. It really cleans up the look of the garden and helps it feel more like a feature of the overall yard, rather than just something stuck in the yard.
It’s been a while since I posted last. Life is unusually busy, mostly due to the new job. I’ve left the ranks of the Galactic Empires Stormtroopers to become a freelance mercenary. At least, that is how it feels being a consultant. Swoop in, fix some problems, swoop out. My latest swoop took me to Paris, France for a week. It was quite the adventure.
It was nice to come home to my own garden, not to mention my wife and home. Things are growing nicely.
This was one of my dinners in Paris, dining on the Seine river.
Just another commute to work with the Eiffel Tower in the skyline.
The Westin hotel we stayed in had a beautiful courtyard cafe and being Paris they allowed you to smoke. They also sold about 12 different cuban cigars. I definitely did not partake of a gorgeous Montecristo #4.
What better to drink with said stogie than a beautiful armagnac from the family vineyards of local french family.
Too bad I didn’t buy this until days later.. but I will be recreating this scene properly on any given Saturday evening on my deck in the warmer months to come.
Now, to the garden pictures. This is one of the heads of lettuce I started in the cold frame back in late January. It’s one of the few that still remain.. we’ve eaten most of them already!
This patch of greens has kept us supplied most of this spring. We don’t eat a lot of salads and greens in the spring.. not nearly as much as in the hotter summer weather at least, so this patch is big enough for now. It’s certainly providing a lot for this time of the year.
This is one of my baby radishes. I’ve eaten a few of the thinnings, little radishes the size of a pea. They are thinned enough to grow now so in a couple of weeks I hope to harvest my first ever self grown radish.
This is one of my many pea patches. Growing along nicely.
The sign says lettuce, but it sure looks like spinach to me. I guess I’ll have to let it grow up and see what it turns out to be. Generally the reason for having labels is so you don’t have to guess..
The cauliflower and broccoli are plugging along too.
The cabbages don’t want to be left behind.
Check out my rutabagas. I left a few to over winter to see if they’d produce any seed. I don’t really like rutabagas, so I don’t really plan to save the seed.. I just wanted to see what would happen. They are enormous.. at least 5 FEET tall.
The garlic in the foreground is doing very well.. I’m ready to start harvesting! I’ll try to be patient though.
These little guys are my Easter Egg Radishes, a gift from my friend Cyberegg. They are going to be all shades of pinks and purples. Hopefully.
This… this is my weed patch. This is the flower bed I made last year, but never got around to planting. I put a batch of peas in the ground several weeks ago, mainly just to see if they’d grow by themselves in un-amended soil. As you can (maybe) see, they are growing. Hopefully I will get some flowers into this bed this year.
My thyme has started to show its lovely green and white face. I am somewhat surprised that my perennial herbs have all returned. Sage, thyme and oregano are all growing.
This is the oregano i just mentioned.
Release the mini Kraken! Just kidding, this is one of my hostas, the first to return from the deep.
This shrub was with the house when we bought it. I’m sure its a common plant, but I’m not all that into flowers and shrubs so I have no idea what it is, other than pretty.
For the last couple of years, and even so far this year, the babies (seedlings) have taken over my office for the early part of the growing season. I have run out of room in my office and after buying a new grow light with no place for it, it was time to build the nursery. Using some scrap 2x4s I had laying around I put together a little seed starter rack that sits out in the garage. The garage is actually a better place for it since it gets cooler at night and will help the seedlings grow harder and adjust to the outside easier.
This is it. I have 2 – 2 bulb lamps right now, with room to add one more row below. After that if I still need more room I will switch out the 2 bulb lamps with 6 bulb lamps, and be able to grow at least 432 seedlings at a given time. I think that should be enough.. for now!!
This is the second harvest of the year. Some more spinach and green onions and some sage. This all went into a lovely omelet my lovely wife made for me.
This is one of my favorite parts of the growing season. Planting tiny little seeds that turn into tiny little plants, which hopefully turn into not-at-all-tiny plants down the road. I have a good selection of cold crops that just sprouted and are growing well under my grow light. The new grow light I mentioned in another post hasn’t been set up yet, but will be soon.
No pictures yet, but I picked up 6 strawberry starts this weekend. They are hanging out in the coldframe for week to make sure they are hardened off before getting planted this coming weekend.
These are my oldest kids, heh. Two types of onions. There are two 4″ cells in the photo, but they are in single file so you can’t see the pot behind the other one. They are Guardsman onions and Shimamoto Japanese onions.
These are Thompson’s broccoli and Cheddar Hybrid cauliflower. The cauliflower will be a fun orange color when it’s finished. Sadly, they won’t taste like cheddar.
I really have no idea what these are. These are ANS #47, as seen on the plant tag, which means they are Red Acre Cabbage. ANS stands for Aaron’s Number System. I’m planting 54 different varieties this year, most with at least 3 plantings, some less (like corn) and some a lot more (like greens). Each start or planting (cold frame or direct) has a small metal plate with a number on it which is it’s primary key in my database. Putting “47″ on a tag is a lot easier than “Red Acre Cabbage – Planting 1 – Started Indoors 03/18 – Moved to Coldframe 3/30 – Transplanted 4/05″ on a tag!
These little guys are super fun. They are red cabbage, but what I didn’t know was the red cabbages are all red even from birth. They should add a cool color to the garden for the first part of the year.
These are the newest babies. Just barely starting to sprout. These are my second round of scallions, but a different variety than the first. These, along with the red cabbage seeds were gifts from my buddy Cyberegg.
In the words of Ice-Cube: Today I didn’t even have to use my A.K., I gotta say, today was a good day. A good day indeed. It was mid 60s and sunny here today and in the sun it felt much warmer.
I hit up the community garden plot with cbro this morning around 11. We got the plot sectioned off into beds and worked in some coffee grounds and organic fertilizer so that it can all start to break down so when we do plant a few weeks from now there will be available nutrients. We did plant a few beds of peas, just to see what will happen. I bet they all do well.
Back home I worked on my garden for a while too. I was surprised that my compost pile did so well over the winter.. I got two full wheelbarrows full of the most beautiful compost that I spread over my new garden beds. I built a sifter a month or so ago when I made my potting soil, so I sifted my compost as well. I also worked in some COF (complete organic fertilizer).
Now I’m sitting on my deck smoking my pipe and writing up this blog post. And I didn’t even have to use my A.K. It was a good day.
Yeah that’s right. Be jealous. Dearest coldframes, how I love thee… er.. thees.. thous.. I love you both.
Today I did the first thinning harvest of the winter spinach and lettuce in the coldframes. We made a gorgeous salad for lunch with these.
And yes, that is a frisbee.
Here are the new beds at the community garden.
This is my weeping cherry in the front yard. It is blooming out beautifully.
Last year was the year of trying the Intensive Gardening method. Double dug raised beds.. brought in quality soil to fill them.. heavy (organic) fertilizer and very intensive irrigation. It worked.. somewhat. It was good for hobby gardening. There was definitely no money made by the end of the year.
This year I’m going back to the ‘old school’ methods. Spreading out and using the land that I have. I have just under half an acre, so there really is no reason for me to do intensive gardening.
Here is what my garden looked like last year. Well.. this was a few days ago, nothing growing but the garlic, but it shows the raised beds I used last year.
And this is the beginnings of my new garden! This awesome guy on craigslist that rents out his tractor by the day. I asked him if he just did work himself for small projects like mine, and sure enough he agreed. He came over one morning and in about half an hour had sod transformed into the beginnings of a new garden bed. Some of the best money I’ve ever spent, that’s for sure!
Here is the final product after I’ve made a few paths for myself to get around in. I blocked it off into roughly 6′x4′ blocks.
Same thing from another angle. The plot in the foreground will be my landing/staging area. It will be either mulched or graveled. Maybe I’ll put a nice little garden chair there or something. A gardener needs to just sit and relax every now and then!
Here is some of our locally produced waste seed meal. Since this is Seattle, that would be Coffee grounds. I stopped by my local Starbucks and picked up a bag one day, and another bag a few days later.
You can see there is some espresso grounds in the mix as well. I’m going to have some highly caffeinated worms!
My blueberry bush was right in the middle of where the new garden went in, so I trimmed it back and moved it to a different spot on the other side of the house. This isn’t the right time of year to make cuttings to propagate (as root grow takes place in fall and winter) but I decided to give it a shot.. why not. If it fails I’ve lost nothing, and if it works, I have 6-8 free blueberry bushes!
