Good night garden

Today we pretty much put the garden to bed.  We had already laid down tarps to help kill the weeds/grass about a month ago.  Then a few weeks ago Pat tilled up the ground where we had laid the tarps (the tarps didn't really kill the grass, but it kind of knocked it back some.  Would have worked better in the springtime. 

This weekend we spread a mixture of winter and annual rye to act as a cover crop in the tilled area.  We tried to use Earthway seeders, but the seed was just too fine and it created "flour" instead.  So Pat used the broadcast seeder and I lightly raked it in. 

This past summer's garlic--today's seed source

Then we planted garlic.  We set aside part of the tilled earth for the garlic patch.  We had a lot of seed garlic saved from this summer's crop.  We set aside the biggest, best heads to plant for next season.  This was the 2nd year we had set aside seed garlic.  We didn't have quite enough, so we supplemented with store-bought garlic.  Altogether we planted approx. 180 cloves of our saved seed, and 60 of the store bought.  We'll compare them next year to see if there is any difference.  To plant the garlic, Pat turned the soil with a shovel, then we levelled it off and raked it smooth.  Next, Pat made a furrow with a hoe and I sprinkled in some bone meal.   We read that calcium is good for garlic so we added that supplement.  We planted the garlic 8" apart, then covered the furrow up with about 4" of soil.  Finally, we piled straw on top to make a thick mulch.  You almost can't mulch garlic too much. 

We have some seed garlic left over, and a lot in the basement still.  So we're going to try to freeze the cloves and see how it does.  We ended up loosing some of our garlic over the winter to rot, so hopefully that does not happen this year. 

There are still some peppers growing and the tomatoes are dead yet.  We left them for Dad to pick what he wants.  But pretty much that is it...the garden is ready for its long winter nap.

Gardening and flame weeding

This was our first real farm weekend. I got to help with the flame weeder--really cool! You just point this massive blow-torch at the plants and they melt. You don't want to hold it on so long that you make them crispy, or start a fire, but you just pass slowly over the whole bed, killing weeds and seeds close to the surface. Then you can turn the vegetative material back into the soil. I did the flame weeding on part of the garden then we got them turned into beds.

We (well, Pat mostly, I was tending to dogs most of the time) turned four beds in the garden and mixed in compost and elemental sulfur. The pH test showed it was about 7.4-7.5. Good, but a little high for cabbages and peas especially. After researching some alternatives, we decided to look for zinc sulfate or iron sulfate at the store. They only had alumnimum sulfate, which the online research said would build up in the soil to toxic levels and warned to stay away from that. We went with elemental sulfur instead, which was the only other choice at the store. The elemental sulfur will break down slower in the soil, so most of it won't be available for the plants this year but it will be the future. So we dusted that on the beds and turned it in with the compost.

Pat planted by seed peas, carrots, radishes, and lettuce and cabbage plants. We put row cover over the lettuce and cabbage bed, and placed electrical wire bent into U shapes over the plants to protect them from the weight of the row cover. The row cover is held in place by rebar (found in the field, put there 30 years ago by my dad! Re-use!) and some old bricks. We used row cover for the first time last year and it did great. Really kept the bugs down and allowed the plants to grow to a robust size before we had to take it off for pollination.

I mostly played with the pooches to keep them occupied, tired, and so they wouldn't take themselves off somewhere. They had a ball! So did we :)

Lovely weather for March

60's, 70's in March?  This weekend, it was.  Just beautiful.  Got some much needed fresh air and vitamin D.  Planted some ferns, caladiums and bleeding hearts up behind the house in the shade garden...Played with the pooches in the yard...Pat planted some more vegetables--some seeds we saved from last year--tomatoes, cucumbers, melons, etc.  Everything gets doused with water mixed with fish emulsion this year.  Works great--like crack for plants!  My herbs are still pushing their way up.  I've got basil up and a few chamomile and maybe some lavendar.  I need to move one chamomile into a bigger pot or else it will get leggy.  Right now, just enjoying the weather and some relaxation... :)

Herbs for 2010

I went through my herb seed packages and through my notes from last year to figure out what herbs I needed to get for this season. Last year was my first year growing herbs, other than some basil and oregano, which are absolutely essential.

I had most of our little four 4x4' squares filled with herbs--one entire 4x4 of basil and another of lettuces, another with oregano, thyme, parsely and dill, and the fourth with borage, hyssop, lavender, and lemon balm. I also had lavender, dill, hyssop and chamomile down at the farm.

I had visions of myself gathering fragrant herbs into a woven basket and drying them under the summer sun. Storing them in beautiful containers with perfect labels, all visible on shelves. Or else a rack of pungent, dried herbs all bound by the feet and hung up overhead, just waiting to be clipped off and used in soups, stews and brews. I envisioned experimenting with poultices, tinctures, vinegars, teas and syrups. A regular witch-doctor is what I had in mind. I planned on trying recipes for upset stomach, headache, sore throat and make notes of what worked and what didn't.

In reality, the herbs grow slowly, then come on fast and furious--just the same time as everything else in the garden came on. We spent all our weekends at the farm, so the herbs at home had to be gathered during the weekdays--in between work, laundry, dinner, walking dogs etc. I learned quickly what I needed to salvage and what I should let go. Borage did not store well. The books I read don't recommend drying it. It is basically for fresh use or for vinegars. Also it is not very useful. Apparently it is good for milk flow (not too helpful to me) but other than that, it may be good for spicing wines. Not too handy. Also it becomes weedy if you do not cut it before it sets seeds. I will have borage out back for many years to come whether I want to or not. Borage took over my bed so forcefully, it crowded out the lemon balm, hyssop and lavender that was there.

Basil is a keeper. I planted Genovese basil from Johnny's last year and it was magnificent. Gorgeous color, delicious taste and it just kept on coming. It was all I could do to keep up with it. In the end, some did get wasted, and I didn't dry it like I should have. I made a ton of pesto though. Love it! I will keep the same 4x4 plan too. Also a keeper--Italian flat-leaf parsely. Big, robust plants with big leaves. Dries great, survives frosts and even was good up to November--with the stems frozen!

I am doing dill again this year. I am trying a dwarf variety called Fern Leaf Dill which is supposed to come on slower and last longer. Last year it was all ready at once and it got wasted before I coudl dry it all. We didn't even get to use it in potato salad as much as we had planned. My chamomile at the farm did super! What is nice about it is it takes NO tender loving care. The worse the soil, the better it likes it. It produced almost too much really. I cut those tiny little flower heads till I thought I would go cross-eyed. And dried, and dried, adn dried. But this winter as I enjoy a cup of tea before bed about every night, I am glad. I still have seed left from last year, but I think it will reseed itself anyway. Another one that could become invasive if you let it I think.

The lavender at the farm survived too. I may need to transplant it someplace safer. My thyme over-wintered, so I don't need to buy any seed for that either. Pat put some in the little cold-frame and it is nice and green. I have some outside the cold frame which has survived too. I am trying some new ones this year--Thai basil, Topas St. John's wort, and the Fern Leaf Dill. Along with that I'm getting more Genovese basil, Italian Dark Green Parsley, and Greek Oregano. We're getting all our seeds from Fedco. (Well, most of them.) Someday I would like to be a real herbalist, as in my vision, but for now I'll try to pare it down to things I can actually use and store. And I'll try to be better about cutting and drying it. I'll let you know how it goes!

Seed list

We are thinking ahead to spring and to what we are going to plant. We came up with a game plan: Spring--Early (March-April) 50' double row snow peas, 50' double row snap peas, 25' carrots, 10' radish, 10'spring onion, 20' red cabbage, 10' Nappa cabbage, 40' Pac choi, 40 kohlrabi, 100' potato (dark red Norland); Spring Late (May-June) 20' Brussels sprouts, 25' parsnip, 25' endive, 10' fennel, 50' onion, 100' potato (kennebek), 25' Leek, 25' sweet potato; Mid (June) 60' bean (snap), 30x100 corn, 3 plants summer squash, 3 plants zucchini, 3 plants patty pan, 10 plants pepper, 10 plants eggplant, 35 tomato plants, 10 cantaloupe, 10 hill watermelon, 25' cucumber, 25' carrot. Late (July, Aug, Sept) 15 Hill winter squash 20 broccoli 20 cauliflower 25' rutabega 25' turnip 25' carrot 40' beet 25' kale 20 plants cabbage 60' shell beans pumpkin We haven't ordered anything yet, most of the stuff we already have. But we were going to give Fedco a try this year. Last year we ordered most of our seeds from Johnny's or Seed Savers, which both were very good (I tended to like Johnny's a little better). We got a plethera of catalogs this year, so Pat did a lot of comparison shopping, and decided that, price-wise, Fedco was the best bargain. Fedco seems like a very small company, kind of the underdog. I normally root for the underdog. So we are going to try them out this year and see how it goes.