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.

October 29, 2016

Yesterday was a busy, busy day and I didn't get a chance to work on this post...so here we go!

FALL GARDEN

Finally got the fall crops into their new space outside of the Hoop House. This happened one week ago and everything looks good - except for my Chinese Cabbage. I need to figure out what sort of bug is eating the leaves on that one.

Experimenting with a low tunnel

Lettuce, Spinach, Chard, Bunching Onions, Beets and Purple Broccoli!

We finished up planting the rest of the crops in one of Mary's boxes so I have a couple of places to pay attention to. It will get harder when DST ends. It will be dark when I leave for work and when I come home. I will be going into weekend gardening mode I guess. The good thing is that I will the week of Thanksgiving off so I will have all sorts of time to play around in the mini gardens.

DAHLIA LIFTING

This year was the second year for the dahlias so I decided that getting them out of the ground would be a good thing. We'll store them and then early next spring we'll divide them and get them ready to plant again. Next season they will be planted in another part of the back yard to add some interest to the view. We don't get to enjoy them nearly as much when they are in the garden, so the back yard will be perfect. 

Getting them dug up seemed to go quickly - so quick that I didn't have a chance to do a plant myself. That was a little sad because I like to dig them up too! Oh well, there will always be next time.

These tubers represent two different plants. The one on the right is clearly a mutant! It might have had 4 or 5 stalks coming out of it with each one just filled with big beautiful blooms. 

We'll turn this part of the garden into raised beds for next season. It will kind of match what I started on the other end of the garden. Then this will be mainly vegetables. There is still a lot of grass that can be turned back into garden space and it may be what will happen next season. 

MORE HARVEST

The weather has been very mild, mostly wet, but there hasn't been a frost yet. Yesterday, I was able to get a harvest of the Shishito Peppers. I thought for sure that those were done a couple of months ago when the weather was so warm and the buds all died off. I put water on them now and then, but then things changed when the rain started up again. Imagine that...a little rain and these plants found new life! 

Today I looked from a different angle and there are still peppers to be picked! If we don't harvest the rest that are on the plant, I might let them go red and then save the seeds for next year. I already did some of them, but I already don't remember where I put those seeds. 

Before I pulled up the cucumber plants I spied a couple of good sized cucumbers that were very ready to be picked. They were delicious!

CHICKENS

Just this afternoon it occurred to me that we could buy young laying hens instead of getting chicks to raise up. While cruising through Craigslist I found a listing for a place in Woodland, WA just north of us that have a variety of pullets which will produce eggs sooner than if we were to get the chicks from the farm in Tangent, OR to raise up.

My plan is to still get the chicks (Cornish Cross) to raise for meat at the Tangent farm, but the layers might be coming from Woodland. We'll just have to decide on what sort of coop to build and get some poultry fence to define their space and we'll be good to go! We'll have eggs before we know it.

My first choice is the Australorp, but they are a little spendy so I think I'll go with a Rhode Island Red for now and then add the Australorp at a later time. Both are said to be good layers and when they start to get too old for egg laying they will be make a good broiler chicken in the freezer.

ALL IN ONE

The last tray of seeds that we started for the fall crops got a little confused. Some how one of the blocks got 3 different seeds. One of two things will happen - survival of the fittest or a new plant...

Behold the Broc-On-Chard or a Purple Broccoli, Onion and Swiss Chard. Since this is a year of experiments - why not put it in the garden right? 

WHAT THE...??

I have not mastered taking photos with my phone...

October 21, 2016

Seriously - not a lot happened this week. Besides the sweet FREEZER that was a freebie from down the street nothing else has been notable. The week has been a little challenging and man, I'm tired today!

The Top 5 of the Week

THE GARDEN

Last weekend the weather forecast called for high winds and rain for most of Saturday. It was windy and it was rainy, but not nearly as much as the storm was supposedly going to be. Girls Breakfast Club finally happened and on our way to drop off our friend I mentioned to Mary that I would be spending some time in the garden pulling up stuff that need to be piled onto the compost. Once I put that out there Mary decided that she would come over despite what the weather report was.

All of my ground cherry plants, beans and outside tomatoes were pulled up and composted. I took the two sugar pumpkins that were orange and put them in the hoop house to cure out a little. Transplanted the second round of purple broccoli and then called it a day. It was nasty out and it was getting unpleasant.

THE PROJECT

Later in the afternoon I went ahead and processed the 5 pounds of roma tomatoes and made sauce - my first time making fresh sauce from my own tomatoes from my own garden! I can't believe that I didn't try doing this before. I froze a couple of cups in a freezer bag and then made pucks with the rest by putting them into a muffin tin. Evidently they were hard to remove from the pan...I think silicone will be the way to go next time

THE HARVEST

Sunday afternoon I picked another pound of hoop house tomatoes. I'm hoping that there will be a few more so I can make some more sauce for the freezer. These are some good looking tomatoes!

For the longest time I didn't think that the tomatoes would actually pollinate - so we set up an oscillating fan. I think that might have been the early problem...maybe not. Maybe I was just impatient. Either way, the fan was a good decision to see that the plants would be pollinated and to keep the temperature down a little. 

There are more tomatoes that appear to be ripening - especially the crazy Mortgage Lifters. We went from having 3 or 4 to already picking that many and a couple more that turned red. AND there are more on the two plants. We'll see if they ripen. If not - there may be fried green tomatoes on our menu in the near future. There is always something new to try.

THE FLOWERS

Way back when, I grew lots of flowers. It was something that I REALLY liked. A LOT. 

Dahlia Garden from around 1998

The garden at one time was a lot of flowers and some veggies. One year I had all of the dahlias and grew a lot of favorites - zinnias, bachelor buttons, cosmos, sunflowers and whatever else caught my eye while shopping for seeds. 

At one time I thought that I might make something out of flowers as a business. I still like the idea of that, but along with veggies and some sort of subscription thing...BUT that is another story for another time.

This year is the 2nd year for my new round of dahlias that I ordered at the Swan Island Dahlia show Labor Day 2014 for the following season. 

At that time I chose a collection that would be good for bouquets. The first season only 7 of the 10 tubers came up. After receiving the replacements this past spring we got them into the ground and two of them came up. I'm guessing that the one that didn't come up just doesn't want to be in my garden so I'll just let that one go.

The dahlias will be cut down and then the tubers dug up and stored for next season. This is one of my favorite things to do - get more from a little. The only problem that I see for next year is where we will put them next year. There will be quite a few to plant.

THE MOTHER EARTH NEWS FAIR 2017

I got the dates for the Mother Earth News fair for next year. Next year the fair will be the weekend of August 6 & 7 at the Linn County Event Center in Albany. 

It would be nice to take in more than a couple of presentations for the day. So we'll have to hope and pray for a cooler day. This year the temperature was hovering around 100 degrees and man it was hot. We'll see - the fair will be in the Willamette Valley and I'm not so sure that it will be much cooler in August than June. Meh, what do I know? I just love looking at all things farming.

That's all for now!