Maybe Spring is Coming

      What a long, cold, often gray, and snowy winter.  Tomorrow is forecast to be 66 degrees, though there are rumors of more snow on Wednesday.  Still, I had to get my hands in the dirt today.

      I broke down last week and bought some bedding plants at Alexander's Garden Center in Newark.  The six packs were pricey at $3.49 each, but the plants looked very healthy and there was a good selection. Above are packs of mixed lettuce, arugula and pak choi.  Instant garden.

      This is the third year that I have had cold frames over the winter.  The first two winters I was able to pick salad greens all through the winter. The frames were jammed with veggies by March.  But this winter the temps at night got down to 3 degrees, and that led to a total wipe out.  Just that one clump of weeds survived, as did several spindly shoots of garlic.  Brutal.

      Ah, now doesn't that look better?  I think I will be able to pick some greens in a couple of weeks.  Not planted today but bought at Alexanders were a six pack of artichokes and a six pack of water cress.  Both fun plants that are not seen very often at garden centers.
      Let the new garden season begin.  Even the dirt under my fingernails feels good.

Garlic Update

Garlic cloves planted December 14th, 2012

      These smallest of my garlic cloves were broadcast in an empty cold frame on December 14th, about five weeks ago.  They were just on the surface, then covered with an inch or two of well aged leaf mold.  An inch of good garden dirt would have been a good alternative.  The following shot shows their progress to this morning:

Sprouted garlic, January 18th, 2012

      The much larger cloves that were planted directly in the garden, are just now beginning to sprout, and do not have the darker green color of the cold frame garlic sprouts:

Some yellowish sprouts just breaking the soil

      The cold frame seems to be really helping to get the undersized cloves started.
     

Merry Christmas

      Merry Christmas morning!  And Happy Holidays too!  The little snow event last night was certainly a bonus to ushering in the holiday cheer.
      Pop Pop's job for the Christmas eats was to provide the greens for not only one salad, but two.  A salad at lunch to tide us over, then one for the bigger feast at Christmas dinner.  I went to the park yesterday for the harvest, hoping that the voles had not decided to have their Christmas dinner before I had mine.  Luckily for me, all was fine.  Nothing was stirring, not even a mouse.  Well certainly not the four mice and one vole that I got in my five traps.  Five for five!  An early Christmas present.  A bad hair day for the rodents.

Cold frames to harvest,  Christmas Eve day,  2012

Nice oak leaf lettuce and some Tango lettuce

Red lettuce from recent transplant, just now ready

      Ah, arugula.  What better way to fire up the taste for a Christmas salad.  And the beautiful Four Seasons cos lettuce over on the left.  The upside down flower pots in several of the pictures cover mouse/vole traps.  I read that the voles want some protection before they will stop to eat.  With the five for five record this morning, I would say the method works.

      This thick stemmed Chinese mustard popped up as a volunteer in one of the garden beds.  It has a nice zingy flavor without being really hot.  Again, another way to liven up a salad.

Tatsoi and thick stemmed mustard in a cold frame

Two beautiful tatsoi heads

      Hope everyone has a great holiday season!  And remember to eat yours greens along with the turkey, ham, smoked salmon, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, pumpkin pie, and cheesecake and ........

Gardens are for Giving, Maybe also for Receiving

      My daughter Barb is so busy with her house, three kids, her husband, a job, and a study load for a Masters Degree, that she has no time for gardening.  Did I mention two big dogs and a cockatiel also live there?  Yet last year they put in cold frames and loved the extended harvest.  I have been hoping to get down to her house to plant some veggies in her frames, and it happened that my wife was down there and could help me transplant.  The voles have been chomping plants to the ground in my frames, so in self defense, I thought I would move some of the crop to a location where it might survive.

Transplants from Pop,  December 3rd,  2012

      This year has been a bust for volunteer veggies due to the drought in mid summer preventing a lot of self seeding.  And of course I procrastinated and did not plant all of the fall garden stuff that I wanted to get started.  But some of the arugula and red lettuce that I had started were on the short side of the cold frame where they would touch the glass.  And therefore freeze to the glass when the weather gets colder.  So I figured if I should dig those out, I could give Barb a very good start.  The picture above shows stuff I dug out of my two gardens: dill, thick stem chinese mustard, black seeded simpson lettuce, chives, garlic plants, and escarole.  And lots of Barb's beloved arugula.
      Barb and Rob had raked a bunch of leaves into the cold frame beds, so it was an easy job to rake them back out to have a nicely prepared bed to receive the transplants.

Thank you Barb and Rob

In they went

And a second frame

      Mission accomplished.  Grow well my little veggies.

      Today, in early December, the temperature hit a wonderful 63 degrees.  So I had to go back to the park to putz around and clean things up.  Bob King was there today.  Bob had some plots at the park nearly thirty years ago when they first started up the community gardens.  He was standing next to a plot that had lettuce, spinach and beets. 

About to be plowed,  December 3rd,  2012

           I asked him what he was up to.  

           "Cleanin up", he says.  Said he was coming back tomorrow to plow everything under for the winter.

           " Bob, you can't do that.  Would you mind if I dug some of this stuff up for my cold frames".
           "George, have all you want.  I am just going to till it in in the morning".

      I grabbed my shovel, borrowed a wheel barrow, and started loading transplants onto my truck.

      Red oak leaf lettuce on the left, spinach in the middle, and cos lettuce on the right.  I went back over to Bob and asked him why he was tilling under the spinach.  I told him the spinach should survive the winter, though the lettuce would turn to mush with a hard freeze.  So I won the spinach a reprieve.  He will till around it to see what happens in the spring.  I hope that spinach prospers.
      So in the morning I gave Barb a bunch of transplants from my garden.  But by the afternoon, I had been rewarded aplenty, with loads more than I started with.  Barb, you want some more goodies?

Park Garden Update, 4/1/2012

      The first of April is here, and already my garden at the park is full to overflowing.  It will be a challenge to be able to find room for the warm weather veggies.  Though in another month, a lot of the cold weather veggies will have had their day, and be ready to be pulled.

Cold frames open, 4/1/2012

Arugula frame

Assorted lettuce and tatsoi

      This cold frame has various lettuce plants that need a good picking.  The cell packs at the bottom have most likely been cut down by slugs.  The pack at the top with the single leaf was a five pack of purchased kohlrabi starts.  I was going to put them in the ground today, but the voles left just this one leaf out of the two packs of five that I had.  The voles are becoming public enemy number one.  The packs along the top are leeks, obviously not a favorite of the voles.  Maybe this garden should be all onions, garlic, and leeks.

Garlic on left, collards, transplanted garlic

Parsnips

Cardoon and garlic starts

Blooming cole volunteer, spinach, Beedy's kale, and Chinese mustard

Harvestable Egyptian walking onions

Fava bean row

Overwintered artichoke

Overwintered arugula and tons of potential garlic

Overwintered red russian kale and leeks

Overwintered Tango lettuce

Still waiting for the podded peas to sprout

What is He Thinking?

Bellevue Cold Frames,  3/26/2012

      You might think that these cold frames plus the two in the backyard would be enough to keep me busy and satisfied.  And yet,

More glass, 3/26/2012

      I just couldn't resist.  A neighbor three doors down is having new windows installed.  How could I let these go to waste?  I drove around with these framed storm windows in my truck for over a week before I finally decided that the exterior frames were not needed.  Luckily for me, the window man was still around, so those empty frames went back on his truck.  This pile is just from the family room, there were a bunch we had already removed from the upstairs.  If you twisted my arm really hard, you could probably sweet talk your way to some free glass.
      The thing that excites me is that for every two pieces of glass, there is one matching screen section.  I am hoping that I can have some cold frames still covered in the summer with a combo of glass and screen that would keep out cabbage moths and harlequin beetles.

Something New Growing at the Park

      This will be the start of my fourth year of gardening at the park gardens.  It was in my second year that I started to make some basic lean to cold frames.  Bob King has had plots at the park since the gardens were started thirty years ago.  This will be his first year to do this:

      He borrowed a couple of pieces of glass from me, and I saw this new addition to one of his plots today.  The seed packets at the top left corner indicate that he has started this frame as a way to get early seed germination.  And another garden in the opposite direction:

      Eileen had this raised bed in a different spot in her garden, surrounding her asparagus bed.  I suggested that the asparagus really didn't care if it was in a raised bed or not, and that she could have a very quick cold frame by moving the box and adding a top.  Voila, another cold frame gardener.
      So this spring new cold frames will be sprouting in gardens at the park.  Move over Johnnie Appleseed, here comes Georgie Cold Frame.  It was Charles Caleb Colton who said:  "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery".  And right he is.

Flats to the Cold Frames

      With all of the sprouts coming along from the recent paper towel seed starting, I have quickly run out of room for flats on the porch.  This morning I was forced to start moving some flats out to cold frames to free up some porch room for newer flats.  In the Trex cold frame out back, the pak choi had not fared so well, whereas the tatsoi did wonderfully.

      I pulled all of the pak choi from the top right corner, and weeded some of the dead leaves of the minutina in the bottom right corner.  A flat of Walla Walla onion starts and chinese cabbage starts was put into the frame.  Should have enough room to get a second flat in there, as well as maybe planting a couple of lettuce.

      A couple of years ago I moved a large fish tank (5 feet long) out of the basement by myself.  All sorts of physics involved.  Used ladders, ramps, and a lot of blood, sweat, and tears.  Pushed and pulled it up the basement stairs.  Got it up onto a wheeled butcher block table, through the garage, and out to the driveway.  When trying to shift from the driveway to the grass, my good luck physics ran out.  I had one end, and the other rested on the wheeled table.  The wheeled table then decided to roll out from under the tank, and in slow motion, I watched the far end of the tank fall to the driveway.  Was thankful not to be hurt, embarrassed to be so dumb, and amazed that only a piece of about 1/3 of the bottom broke out.  The tank has since been waiting for a new duty out in the garden.  That new duty started this morning.   

     

      All of the plants above went in the tank with the exception of the onions that went previously into the cold frame.  These little lettuce and cabbage starts should do fine in the tank.  And now I can pot up some more seedlings to go out to my new found room on the porch.

Park Garden Update, 2/15/2012

  
 Feb 15th:    Day length:   10 hrs, 42 min   -   That's 31 minutes longer than 2/1
                Sunrise:         6:55 AM
                Sunset:          5:37 PM
                High Temp:    49 degrees F      Low Temp:    28 degrees F
  
      I was driving into the park today just to have a quick visit to the garden.  Then I thought, yesterday was Valentine's Day, February 14th.  Wow, that would make today the 15th, a day to update photos.  Luckily I had the camera in my pocket and did not have to go back home to get it.

      This particular cold frame is still looking pretty good.  The little packs at the bottom are leek starts from my recent paper towel germination experiment.  The starts should harden off nicely in the cold frame.

      This is the frame used for the blog winter header picture that shows at the top of the page.  The little plastic container also contains leek starts.  It probably gets too much moisture with the lid closed.  Good experiment.

Arugula,  2/15/2012

      This is a shot of the cold frame that contains the 500 bulblets of garlic.  They are starting to sprout, but I am a little disappointed because my expectations were huge.  Thought there would have been more growth in a cold frame.

Unprotected collards and garlic,  2/15/2012

Various unprotected greens,  2/15/2012

Volunteer overwintered greens,  2/15/2012

Closed for the night,  2/15/2012