Winding Down and Ramping Up

      For many things in the garden, the five plus inches of rain from Hurricane Sandy was the final straw.  Some tomato plants that were hanging in late in the season have wilted from too much water.  The sweet potato tops that survived the frost have now collapsed.  I pulled the zucchini plants shown in the following picture because the fruits have just stopped growing. 

Pulled the zucchini,  November 2nd,  2012

      The squash needed to come out to be able to refurbish that bed for getting the cold frames back in action.  In the back yard garden, I cleaned up a frame that had also had squash plants, to plant some starts that have been waiting in six packs.

      This frame has Four Seasons Lettuce, volunteer Frisee, Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce, and a few shallot starts that might give me some bulbs in the spring to divide and regrow.  That big empty space in the front beckons to be a seed bed for some new cold weather crops to sprout for later transplanting.  Even as the summer garden needs to be pulled, the winter garden activity is just beginning.

Back Yard Cold Frames

      Most of my pictures and stories about cold frames have been about the frames at Bellevue Park.  Most of the cold frame activity is there, because there is full sun to warm the frames.  My big pin oak near the back yard garden creates a lot of shade even after the leaves have fallen.  Yet it is convenient and fun to have something going in the back yard, so I still have these two frames.

Cold Frames, 11/7/11

Various lettuce plants

      This frame above is one of my first attempts at cold frames.  It was constructed with the salvaged cedar lumber from our old privacy fence.  I still have some pieces from the newer fence that will make another frame.  The three fine leafed plants in a row near the top are frisee, actually a mild flavored chicory that tastes and acts like a lettuce.  The frilly darker green lettuce at the bottom is Tango lettuce, a very delicious and cold hardy variety.  One plant survived on its own outside a cold frame last year.  So it is quite happy living the winter inside a frame.

Made from Trax lumber

      Pictured above is a new frame that my son-in-law Rob helped me build.  It is made from the recycled plastic stuff called Trax.  I thought it would be great because it would not rot.  Yet it is heavy, bends too easily, and screws pull out easily.  As I was putting it together in the driveway, I had it standing up.  But not for long, as it started bending and pulling out screws.  Had to take the ultra heavy thing apart, and move it piece by piece to the back yard.  I was going to put a slider door on top, but that would be too heavy and would probably pull out the screws.  So it is covered with three pieces of single pane glass.  I will pass on any future attempt on using Trax for cold frames.
      At the top of this frame is pak choi, as it can grow pretty tall.  There is a nice red lettuce, scavenged from the compost pile at the park.  On both sides of the red lettuce, are small heads to be of Winter Marvel Bibb lettuce.  They will be so pretty when they have formed.  At the bottom of the picture is tatsoi, a chinese green that forms a rosette that stays close to the ground.  In the bottom right corner is minutina, a very cold tolerant green.  I tortured the plants over the summer by never having taken them from the cell packs where I had started them from seed.  But they survived a summer of neglect, so I thought it only fair that they finally get a spot of their own in the good earth.

Travelin Gardener

      My daughter Barb and her husband Rob are both so busy with little things like life, jobs, and three children, that they have not had time for important things like planting the cold frame.  Actually cold frames, three nice ones.  I can't let an asset like that go to waste, so yesterday the truck and I took a little trip south of the canal to wrestle weeds up close and personal.

      The frame in front became my target, as it had nothing of value growing in it.  The second frame is full of rambling cherry tomato plants that are still productive.  The third frame is full of cherry tomato plants, though I did not see much fruit.  The first and third frames were closed all summer, yet the plants survived in that heat.  Can't figure that one out.  Though the heat probably prevented the tomatoes in the third frame from setting fruit.

Frame prior to weed removal

Bed weeded and compost added

Pop Pop brought along his starter veggies

 

 

Ah, much improved, 10/26/11

      Well, that is a nice start.  One down, to more to grow.  The top row has Beedy's Kale, and thick stemmed chinese mustard.  The second row has pink stemmed kale, and some more chinese mustard.  The second to bottom row is various lettuce plants, and the bottom row is frisee and Tango lettuce, as both of those will stay short.  Now if only I had a Pop Pop to help with my gardens.

Volunteer Veggies

      This fall, like many, came too quickly, with many summer projects left undone.  Not surprisingly, planting seed for the fall garden was one of those projects gone awry.  To make it worse, none of the nurseries or box stores around here are carrying fall veggie starts.  In little more than an hour, I will drive down to Willey's Farmstore to see what they have.  But this morning I was over to the park garden to look for volunteers in my plot and in the three compost piles.
      The pickings were fairly slim.  Black Seeded Simpson lettuce that I got from Lou Gallo early this year was great fresh, then went to seed.  Some of the babies are just poking through the mulch.

Black Seeded Simpson starts, 9/7/11

      I saw Lou this morning over at the park.  He has a fat 20 foot row of Simpson coming up right now.  He offered me to thin out some.  Solves that problem.  Thank you Lou.  I forgot to take a photo of the nice little Frisee plants coming up at the park.  They look like I had put them in, as they are already in a bed, no transplanting required!  There is a nice batch of what looks to be Rainbow Lacinto Kale coming up.  It could also be Red Russian Kale, but no problem as either is great.

Kale, either Red Russian or Rainbow Lacinto

      Next it was on to a walk around the park compost piles to see if anything of interest was growing for transplant to my garden.  Whoopee, spotted at the top of one pile was a sole sprout of the red stemmed Malabar Spinach!  I had tried unsuccessfully to grow malabar from seed this spring, having planted 18 seeds to have only one sprout.  That one did not make it to size either. 

Malabar Spinach find, 9/7/11

      Malabar Spinach likes hot weather, as in the nineties.  It will not get that here in September, but it will grow to where I can get lots of cuttings.  I have at times successfully rooted them over the winter, to have plants to put in the ground in June.  I will try harder this winter to succeed with it, as it is difficult to even find the seed.
      Having scaled the compost pile to dig out the Malabar, I was rewarded with a bonus!

Red lettuce, 9/7/11

      A handful of red lettuce seedlings!  Oh how sweet it is.  I would not have even seen them at the top of the pile if it had not been for the malabar scavenge.  The lettuce was transplanted to cell packs to grow some better roots before going into their fall spots.  A total count of 11 nice little seedlings.  I love it when a plan comes together.  So between Lou's generous offer and my red lettuce find, I may not buy lettuce later this morning.  More to spend on broccoli and cabbage.

Making more

      When I start seeds, I usually try to put in four to five seeds per cell with small seeds like lettuce, and maybe only two seeds for peppers or tomatoes.  That way at least something comes up.  Often times I will plant the multiple seedlings as is, and let mother nature decide who will win.  After all, weeds certainly do not grow without fierce competition.

Rhodos Endive Frisee, 4/1/11

 

       The Frisee shown above, planted on 2/11/11, have grown on nicely on the porch.  They could probably go outside now and be OK, but I thought I would multiply my blessings by separating them.  Most cells have multiple plants growing.  Also the Frisee makes such pretty heads, that individual plants are much more attractive in the garden.  So the plants were gently teased apart and then replanted. 

Frisee repotted, 4/1/11

      A fast and easy way to go from 12 Frisee cells to 36!  So Barb and Em, are you watching?  And wishing and hoping?

Fedco Ice Bred Arugula, 4/1/11

     The arugula also had multiple seedlings.  These separated out to a final 33 cells from 12, again a nice increase.  The repotted seedlings therefore have about three times as much soil to spread out in as they did before their expansion.  In a week, they can probably go outside.