November 13, 2016 - There's a Shift

Daylight Saving Time ended. 

So, it's pretty dark in the morning and the evening so there isn't a lot happening out in the garden. This is not a surprise as I had already anticipated this happening. It just means that we are now shifting attention to things that we have been neglecting until now. Inside projects which really means getting ready for the holiday season to arrive. 

However, there is one outdoor project that needed to be done (or a couple). The low tunnel has been flapping all over the place since we first got it set up. Today was the one day that we didn't have a lot going on and a little time to get out there and secure the hoops and get the cover reattached, in a what I can only hope, is a better way.

Everything at this point is an experiment and the plants seem to be fairly happy...

purple broccoli in the front and the flower sprouts in the back

Chinese Cabbage & Pac Choi are hanging in there

The low tunnel should look good for about 5 minutes...hahaha. The wind can whip around the back side of the shop, so we'll see how long this stays looking nice and secure.

We are hopeful that this experiment will turn out well and at some point we'll be harvesting something more than just the kale - which we have a TON of.

The remainder of the items that I started for fall is in one of Mary's boxes and we had to kind of slap something together to protect the plants from the four-legged critters that came around and topped of every single romaine lettuce in the garden. They also included the spinach. Fortunately those are growing back and now that we have this not so great looking cover on them, they might actually thrive just a little more.

We'll see happens. I'm pretty sure that we'll need to come up with another set-up, but this hopefully will deter the deer from walking across the plants and leaving their prints behind.

Since the lettuce was taken all the way down I decided to start some more last week. When I first got them ready I didn't have a lot of confidence that they would actually germinate - it hasn't been terribly warm. I was wrong, after a few days I spied several of the seeds had sprouted - SUCCESS!! Then after a couple more days this is what the seedlings look like.

Amazing! Once these are good to go I'll be planting them in the hoop house where we will have a better chance of getting some decent greens.

Ashes from the fireplace, mushroom compost and blood meal have been added.

I'm pretty sure that the hoop house crops will do well. It might be our ticket to some fresh greens outside of the regular spring/summer season. 

Next week will be quite busy and I will have almost no time to do anything in the garden other than look at the plants in passing. The week of Thanksgiving will be my time to get out there and pay attention to the plants. 

I'm amazed at how quickly fall is passing us by, soon it will be winter and then shortly after it will be time to start planning the veggies that we plan to grow and the next big project that we want to accomplish. 

November 4, 2016

(Didn't finish this up yesterday - posting on Saturday the 5th.)

It's time to Fall Back! So hard to believe that the year has gone by so quickly!

My Top 5 this week will be the experiments that I tried out...

SEEDS OR PLANTS

Most of the veggies that we had in the garden were from seed.  However, I wanted to try out one thing that I have been able to grow well from seed in the past - pumpkins, specifically PIE pumpkins. There is a nice nursery in our area so I dropped by one afternoon and browsed some of the plants. I went away with some flowers and a couple of Pie Pumpkin plants. It took a while to get those in the garden, but I don't think that it would have mattered as they just didn't do that well. Granted it was a little on the later side when I finally got them in, but still. Pumpkins have always been the one thing that has done well. Even without trying. So I don't know what happened because the other plants seemed to be doing pretty well.

From the two plants I got 3 good sized pumpkins - but only one of them was orange when harvested. There was another orange one that was a little on the small side, so I might get enough to do a couple of pies with those. There are still two on the vine, but I don't think they will turn orange at this point. I have left them on the vine to see what happens. They are still VERY green, but nicely formed. That's the nice thing about pie pumpkins, the shapes are generally uniform.

So, what have I learned? I do MUCH better growing pumpkins from seed!

The other vegetable that I had to buy plants of would be the Shishito peppers. Those were at Freddy's of all places. Shishito peppers seems to be a newer variety. Anyway, I had already taken one trip through all of the veggie plants and didn't see them, but on my second trip through I found them!

As I mentioned last week, there were still quite a few peppers on them still and the plants were still quite hardy. I do believe that will be ending soon. They will go down because of frost or me pulling them up. I'll most likely be pulling them up!

FALL/WINTER CROPS

Something else that I have not done before - crops outside of the typical spring/summer season. Since I haven't been out to look at the plants all week - except to unfurl the row cover material on the low tunnel. At that time everything looked pretty good and I can only assume that the plants are still happy.

I think I'll have enough time to get the second cover over the back side of the frame before dinner tonight - which should have been done a few days ago, but oh well. As soon as I can get out of my work clothes I'm going to muck around in the yard.

COVER CROP

I've only planned and tried to do a cover crop one time. That was when we lived in our last house and I thought it couldn't hurt to try. Somehow it seemed to not really work. I'm not sure. So we will try again. I better see what I need to do to make that happen. It might be too late. I DO have the seeds that I plan to spread...RED CLOVER.

First...research!

HOOP HOUSE TOMATOES

Oh yeah! There were a total of 7 plants in the Hoop House and for a while I thought that we wouldn't have any tomatoes...I was so, so wrong -

The first day in the ground

From about 3 weeks ago

The plants exploded after a month or so and just kept going. This weekend I'll need to get out there to see what is happening and see if the green tomatoes are still okay so I can try another experiment - Fried Green Tomatoes!

PRESERVING

Up until this year I didn't have any thoughts of trying to pickle or process any of the veggies that we grew.  This year I decided to do the following...

Refrigerator Pickled Green Tomatoes!

Tomato Sauce :)

Sauerkraut

Being able to process some of the food that we grew was pretty fun! These worked out pretty well so I think next year I'll see about actually canning stuff. Like the whole get the big pan and sterilize everything like crazy and do that water bath thing. Sure, why no?! I don't have anything else to do in my day, why not add something that I have NEVER done!

Seriously though with the addition of the freezer that was FREE I think that next year we'll experiment with succession planting. Growing to preserve for the off season, oh yeah, I like that idea!

Overall, this gardening season has been successful and I learned a lot. I am giving myself a little time to learn more about growing food in the hopes that in the not so distant future I might be able to do this as a part-time job of sorts. My goal is to leave my regular 40-hour per week job within 5 years and pursue my dream of a part-time market gardener. I have to take to risk if I want to do something different with my life. So far, God hasn't shut the door on this dream...rather the door is being eased open with each passing season.