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?

Parsnips and Spinach

Overwintered spinach in center,  3/23/12

      I had almost given up on growing spinach as it seems to be a critter magnet.  Particularly little teeny, tiny sap suckers that you will miss unless looking for them.  This plant in the middle of the above photo has overwintered, and is now putting on a great burst of new, clean spring growth.  Planting spinach in the fall to come back in the spring before the bugs get it, is probably the best way to grow organic spinach that I have found.  But still willing to try to get in a fresh spring crop, I started this America Spinach with the paper towel method:

America Spinach starts,  3/23/12

      The larger plants are a couple of spinach that overwintered.  The smaller ones are the starts just put in yesterday.

Parsnip starts, 3/23/12

      Thirty some years ago in Michigan was the last time that I grew parsnips successfully.  Usually they just don't bother to come up when seeded directly in the ground.  So I started these with the paper towel method and transplanted them just after germination to cell packs.  The garden pros do not suggest starting root crops to transplant, as it may deform the root.  Hopefully these little guys are not aware of that rule.

      I put the top row in a couple of days ago, and was so happy with the way they took, that I added more along the bottom.  Quite a few more were put in the bed over by the cardoon.  I am hoping for some big fat roots this fall to store over winter to add to soups or a medley of baked root crops.