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This weekend was eventful in the newbie gardener household. Friday night we partied with some neighbors, and before the party got out of hand I met a new almost neighbor that shares a lot of hobbies with me. She has a big garden, and she has chickens! I’m looking forward to getting to go meet her chickens and see her garden.

Saturday night we had a cheapie date night at Borders. I read through Steve Solomon’s newish book, Gardening When It Counts. It is all about how to garden super cheap. How to build the most efficient garden when the bottom line matters. This is important for me because I expect gardening to have a positive ROI. This isn’t a hobby for hobby’s sake.

Steve has recanted some of of his previous positions. For one, his new thought is that intensive raised bed gardening is too expensive. Mostly in terms of recurring water cost, but for me, also in terms of initial creation costs. His approach now is low mounded beds. He says that a 3” bed has all of the benefits of much deeper raised beds. 3” is easily attained without any sort of hardware, just pile up the dirt into beds. Once you have the beds, plant in much wider spacings. Steve did extensive investigation of root development patterns on just about every common vegetable. Based on this, he created optimal spacings. This is much wider than we do with intensive planting, but requires almost no artificial irrigation. He recommends 5-20 gallons of water –per year- for the Pacific Northwest for the larger plants, like tomatoes and pumpkins, given in 5 gallon waterings once a month or so.

On Sunday I pulled the last of the carrots and flashy oak and paris white lettuces. I added about a half inch of compost over that area and spaded it in and raked it into a fine seed bed. I planted four greens, all winter hardy crops that will be growing under the cold frames.

	Here is the book, Gardening When It Counts by Steve Solomon. Great book. I highly recommend it.
	This is the winter bed. Nice and clean. The junk in the foreground is all of the uncomposted organic material. It will be outside of the cold frame so it should compost over the winter. In the far side of the bed you can see the volunteer tomato, still going strong.   Planted, in order from left to right: Spinach:  Regal Spinach: Winter Giant Lettuce: Arctic King Lettuce: North Pole
	I also made up a batch of Mountain White Bread from the Bread Bible book. It is a good generic white bread, good for slicing and sandwiches. Turned out really nicely. It has a few tablespoons of honey so it has a nice mellow sweetness to it and a dense crumb.

I may be a 6’5 210lb motorcycle ridin man, but I love me some lolcats. I’m not gonna lie. We have a boy and a girl cat and they are hilarious. Other people’s cats with funny captions are hilarious. Cats have little to do with gardening.. but, the ‘Cheezburger network’ (the people that run lolcats) have a new(ish) blog up called ThereIFixedIt.com, and it is –awesome-. It is a tribute to the worst (best?) kludges from around the world. The site mostly pokes fun at the crazy things people do to get around a problem.. but this one is just.. just.. brilliant!

Back on July 13th I posted about a volunteer tomato plant that was apparently from a commercial seed in my compost from a tomato I bought in the super market. I said back then that I didn’t have much hope in it maturing much less producing anything in time before frost. Well check this out.

	It might be difficult to tell in the photo, but the plant is actually pretty tall. The flashy oak butter lettuce on the left, and the paris white romaine lettuce on the right are both pretty mature. I need to eat more salads.
	Look at that little guy. Who knows what variety it is, and who knows if it has even the slightest chance to ripen before frost. I certainly don’t know.. but I’m pulling for the little guy. Apologies for the blurriness of the shot. The iphone isn’t exactly a high end camera.
	Here is the spot I ripped the rutabagas out of on Sunday. By the fence is the tomato plant I’m experimenting with this year. It is an Oregon Spring, planted the same time as my others in my other bed. This bed doesn’t get as much sun as the other bed, so it was an experiment to see how an early variety of tomato would do. Answer: not very well. It does have a few tiny little tomatoes on it, but the other plants in the main garden have all pretty much finished up already. The light green at the end is another butter lettuce.. can’t recall the variety off hand. It’s a winter variety. The darker green in the middle is the Fizz Kale.

I went to the “Seattle Area Gardeners Bloggers MeetUp To Talk (SAGBUTT) on Saturday. I’ve been following many of the Seattle area bloggers to see what works well here and what I should avoid. Getting to meet many of them on Saturday was a lot of fun. We met at Molly’s place. The Weed Whackin’ Wenches did a great post about it so I won’t try to replicate it here.

I haven’t been out in my garden too much lately. We are currently tracking the shade patterns in the yard for the location of next years garden. It has to move.. where it is now isn’t ideal. We think we found a good spot, but are tracking the shade at each hour of the day to make sure it gets all day sun. With all of the really giant trees around the neighborhood, they cast long shadows at random times.

I did get out to the garden a little on Sunday. I pulled out all of the rutabagas. Not really because they are ready, but because I’m tired of rutabagas! We don’t really like them all that much to begin with, and I won’t be planting them again next year. The main reason though is they were shading out my kale and butter lettuce, two crops we do like.

This was the haul. Pretty massive. Out of all of that greenery we have probably 1 lb total of rutabaga roots. We like the greens in our stir frys so I gave them a quick blanching and put them into individual serving sized freezer bags and into the freezer they went. It made 5, 2-serving bags. So even in our failures to grow what we set out to grow, we learn… and sometimes we get to eat the greens.

Well, at least hardware-wise. I’m most certainly still enjoying our Seattle summer. Enjoying it immensely. As I write I am smoking an Indian Tabac Maduro and enjoying a fruit and spirits beverage. What I mean by ‘winter ready’ is that my coldframes are finished.

Last weekend my friend Chris came over and helped me with the first round of construction. This weekend I was flying solo and got them finished up. I made two, both 8’x3’ and 12” at the front and 20” at the back in height. I think I’m borderline on the height.. being at the taller end, but my greens are all pretty large, so I think it will work out.

As with most of my garden projects, the driving factor is cost. My cost for the two beds were just for the 2x2s and for the plastic sheeting. It took a total of 24 2x2s and 1 roll of 3’x50’ plastic sheeting. All total the cost was around $65, or $32 each. I might not make that back this year in veggies, but I should in a couple of years.

	We start off with the building the main portion of the frame. The frame is basically just a box with the back side taller than the front side. This makes the top slope to the front, to shed rain and light snow. We have: (4) 2x2s at the standard 8 feet length. (4) 2x2s at 3’ (2) 2x2s at 12” (2) 2x2s at 20” We’ll assembled them next.
	Take (2) of the 8’s and space them 3’ apart and take (2) of the 3’s and make a rectangle. Screw them together with the 3’s spanning the outsides of the 8’s.. so the overall dimensions stay at 3’.. not 3’ 3”
	Now take your (2) 12” and attach them both to the same side, and your (2) 20” and attach to the other side. (So in the photos, i had both sides the same length, and I had planned to add a slope to my lid.. this turned out to be a bad idea, so I went back and changed my design to have the slope be part of the frame. That’s why in this photo, and the next one, the box is square, not slopped. The photos after these two show the new, and correct, design.)
	Next we build the same box again that we built earlier.. (2) 8’ lengths connected to (2) 3’ lengths. Then attach this box to the top of the one you built in the last step, so you end up with this box.
	Once we get our skeleton built, it’s time to put on the skin. The sheet plastic I bought is 3’ wide and 50’ long. Which turned out to be exactly what I needed, and that was just dumb luck (on the length I mean). Apply the plastic to all four sides of the frame. Don’t plastic the top or bottom, obviously. I used my industrial stapler to secure the plastic. One thought I had is that if the wind really picks up (unlikely here) the plastic might rip out of the staples. You could take a 1×2 ‘furring strip’ and screw down over the plastic, sandwiching the plastic to the 2x2s, in addition to the staples. . I don’t think I’ll need to do this though.
	I just realized that I didn’t take any photos of the lid construction. Enjoy the fine artwork I created to recreate it. The lid is constructed exactly like the frame with the addition of two middle supports. (2) 8’s connected to (2) 3’s on the ends. The two middle supports are 33” long each, and secured on the inside of the frames, always keeping the overall size to 3’. Once you get the lid built, secure the plastic over the top of the lid. You want the wood to be under the plastic so rain runs off, without hitting the wood. You can see this in the pictures coming next.
	Once we get the separate pieces assembled, it’s time to put it all together. You can go to the store and buy hinges for this, but why not get creative? You need something flexible enough to bend when you lift the lid, but firm enough to hold the lid in place.
	I had a length of reinforced PVC hose (used for food disposals) laying around and made a trial run and it worked great! I cut them to 3′” lengths and screwed it into both the lid and the frame. Works like a charm.
	Since the lid and the frame are exactly the same size, there isn’t an easy way to lift the lid. I had some left over PVC elbows and pipe from my earlier project, In-ground Irrigation. They made for a nice little handle. I drilled a hole through the PVC on either side and secured it with a screw on either end. Solid and looks great.
	The final step is to add a way to hold the lip open for those hotter than normal days at the beginning and end of the coldframe season. Nothing really creative here. I put a bolt through the frame at the bottom so the wooden slat could swivel. On the lid I put a lag bolt, with a large head, and then cut a few notches into the slat to slip over the lag bolt.
	And here it is, all finished! This is one of two I’ll be using this winter. We’ll see how it works. I have high expectations.

My bok choy is definitely done. I am surprised it grew as much as it did considering it is a cool weather crop and it’s now the end of July. I harvested the last bit of it this evening. The remaining two lettuces in that same area are still growing. They all survived Day 1 of the 90s. 3 more days to go.

	The empty spot on the left is where the bok choy was. The flashy oak butter lettuce and the paris white are both growing. I thinned out the paris white after taking the photo to give them ro0m to develop larger heads.
	To the left of the lettuces are the carrots, still growing away. The white flowers are the volunteer cilantro that came up in the carrots from last year that have started to bolt.
	On the right side of the lettuces are the rutabagas and the winter greens. That sounds funny being it’s mid 90s right now. See my previous posts for the varieties.
	On the other side of the house is the one bed that is still going strong. This has the san marzano and roma tomatoes as well as the summer one ball squash and the winter spaghetti squash.. and my onions up front there.
	Here is my biggest squash. I put a little plastic piece under it because it was sitting on the ground and i didn’t want it to rot. It’s about 3 inches across.
	The same variety but on a different plant. I noticed that two of my little squashes had been apparently chopped off right at the squash level and just left on the ground. No idea what’s going on. I’ll have to ask around and see if I can find out what’s up.
	The winter spaghetti squash are a vine type of plant so they were running all over my other squash and up through my tomatoes. I was walking through the garden the other day and my lovely wife asked why they weren’t on a trellis. Ding! Great idea babe! Now they are. I made this little trellis out of an old door jam and some remesh.. nothing like recycling!  I have another section that I can add on if it needs more vertical room, and it looks like it might.
	You can see it already has fruit starting to set. The squash are small ‘one serving’ size fruits, so I’m hoping I won’t need to do anything special for them on the trellis. I might have to break out the old trick of hanging them in a pair of lady’s hose, tied to the trellis for support.
	If you remember all of my basil and pepper plants sitting on my flower bed out on the front of my house from one of last week’s posts.. this is where they ended up. My flower bed doesn’t get sun all day, but there is a good section of my backyard that does get sun all day long. This little tree is one of those spots. I don’t really have any pretty containers, and I didn’t want to add my precious compost and soil to the ground and ‘lose’ it, so I used what I had. The pink container was filled with dirt and rocks when we bought the house.. no idea why, but I cleaned it out and now, along with a sanitized cat litter bucket, is a great little temporary planter for my basil and bell peppers. I don’t think the peppers have enough time to mature.. with only 60 days left til Frost.. but, we’ll see. The basil is doing great and should have plenty of time to mature though, and it’s delish!

I seem to have developed a habit of touring the garden as soon as I get home from work everyday. It is a great way to relax and lower the stress levels. I was going about my leisurely tour when I suddenly received a shock! My horribly undergrown and nearly abandoned jalapeno pepper plants had blooms on them! What’s more, they actually had a few baby peppers as well. I was totally shocked. So shocked I forgot to take pictures, but I will take care of that later.

I was about ready to add peppers to my ‘do not grow’ list for next year. At least not in the garden anyway. The front of the house gets all day sun and up against the house gets really warm. I might throw a few into a black pot there next year. I think I planted these out too early. Steve Soloman says peppers will stunt growth if nights get below 55 degrees. I might have to resort to clouching my peppers year round next year.

So after recovering from my near pepper induced heart attack, imagine my surprise when I discovered that my other black sheep vegetable, my runner beans, suddenly had 5 inch bean pods on the vines. What is going on in my garden? Did the vegetable fairy just hop ‘round to my garden and tell everyone to get crackin’? If so, i need to figure out how to bribe her to come back more often. I’ve heard that fairies like honey and pizza.. crazy fairies.

	Here is the bean pod. You can see another one behind and to the right of the main pod. I might get half of one serving before the season is over. Not exactly worth it.
	Here’s a shot of my earliest tomatoes all starting to ripen. I picked 4 of them.
	Here is my harvest for the day. I am always in a state of thinning on my greens, and this is the flashy oak butter lettuce. I also thinned my second planting of carrots. Aren’t they just so cute!? Flashy Oak butter lettuce: 8.5 oz Carrots: 1/2 oz Tomatoes: 2.5 oz My new kitchen toy is a ceramic paring knife. It’s supposed to hold an edge for nearly forever. I’m putting it through its paces and so far it’s holding it’s own.

I wroke previously about my automated watering system.The problem with it was it was all run by water hose, so every time you needed to mow the grass, you had to unhook, move, mow, put back and reconnect. Not exactly automated.

This weekend I fixed that. I ran in-ground irrigation pipes and hose hookups to each of my garden areas. I was too busy working to take a lot of pictures, but I did take a few.

	This is the ‘before’ picture, where we left off with the earlier project. The green gadget is an electric water valve used in sprinkler systems, followed by a brass splitter with each outlet going to a water house the runs to my two different gardening areas. The white box and cables are the automation controllers that turn it all on and off by computer control.
	Here is some of the pipe in the ground. I had to hand dig all of the trenches, about 175 feet worth, so I went 8 inches deep. I’m probably not up to code, but oh well. I have valve drains at the lowest point in the system so that I can drain the water each fall. I shouldn’t have to worry much about freezing and bursting the PVC. Oddly enough, after I took this photo I decided that this design didn’t work. The left Tee drops down hill and the right Tee goes uphill.. so naturally all the water would just flow out of the left Tee. I went back and ran two separate runs from the faucet. Now I have two long Ls instead of one Tee.  Since this made the lowest point for the right L, this is where its drain valve is.
	Here is the final product up by the house. I’m using my same automated sprinkler valve to turn the system on and off, but now instead of connecting to a hose, it connects to two in-ground pipes. I had to offset the pipes away from the faucet due to a concrete support for my deck being in the way, so for now I have a little water hose connecting the faucet to the pipes. I’m going to cut a hose down so that its an exact fit, about 3 feet long. It is fine as it is now, since its all tucked under the deck and out of the way, but it would just look nicer if it was the right length.
	This bed didn’t have any automated watering before I finished this project. My automated system turned on the water to the hose over here, but I just had a regular hose and a fan nozzle. I’d come out and water every so often, but now I don’t have to. At the very far end of the bed you can see the new nozzle that is at the end of my new pipes. I have one of my T-Tape hoses connected to it, but I have the hose upside down so that instead of soaking it sprays a fine stream into the air. This gives me a lot more coverage but doesn’t provide as much water down deeper. That is ideal for this bed because I only grow greens here. I have a lot of them so having a wide area soaked a little shallower should be just fine. This was a lot of work, but it looks pretty good now that it’s all finished. Much better than having hoses run all over the yard.

I’m back from a 5 day trip to Walla Walla wine country. What a beautiful and relaxing 5 days it was too. We saw a lot of beautiful countryside, and tasted a lot of great wine. I was curious to see how the garden would fair on its own for nearly a week. We had just gotten two days of solid rain so I didn’t have to worry about it drying out or anything. The only problem I found when I returned home was two of my indeterminate tomato plants had grown tall enough to fall over, since I hadn’t caged them yet. I put one of my little wooden trellis on each of them for the time being and they’re both doing fine.

	You can see the tomatoes to the top right. They are the San Marzanos. They, along with the Romas in this same bed, all have baby fruit now. The little romas are cute, even as babies they look like romas. The squashes grew the most I think. They are all exploding. There is a summer squash and a winter squash in this bed. I’ll have to thin them out pretty soon I think, but we’ll see. The onions in the foreground are all doing great, as are the carrots and rutabagas planted along the sides.
	When we left the canoe peas had just started to bloom and now look.. tons of little peas! These will grow to nearly a foot long and be filled with shelling peas. Can’t wait to taste a few of these in a few weeks.
	The paper lanterns (as I like to call the tomatillos) are all doing well. There are a bunch of the little guys already. I’m so excited they produced, or should I say, one of them produced. This plant is loaded down, and the other one right beside it is totally empty. Full of blooms even now, but not a single fruit. I’m not giving up hope, and in any event, it was necessary to pollinate this one, so it did part of its job even if it doesn’t produce fruit. Maybe I’ll get lucky and it will set fruit after the other one and I’ll get a naturally staggered harvest.
	All of my early tomatoes have fruit now. Some larger than others, but even the smaller ones closer to the fence (that get less sun) have set some fruit.
	Here is a photo from the trip. It is one of my favorite photos. The road leads into Pepperbridge and Northstart wineries and is lined with grapes on either side.