Category: Gardening

Autumn Wrap-up and Winter Projects

Autumn is coming to a close. We had an great growing season this year — I covered the lettuce beds with fabric tents three or four nights in November because temps would be near freezing. We had a few nights where our small pond froze on the surface, but tomorrow night will be the first sustained sub-freezing temperature. I got a bit of a late start to outdoor gardening because we rebuilt the garden beds in a sunnier location, but I still managed a 200 day growing season. Adding another six weeks for the seeds started indoors, I had plants growing for 244 days — about 2/3 of the year! Moving the beds to a sunnier location greatly increased productivity, and the compost in the garden area has turned into a large pile of dirt. We’ve been adding new stuff to the north side of the pile, and I’ve been moving everything south as I turn the pile. It is impressive how much the pile of grass and leaves shrinks down as it decomposes. In early autumn, I put about 16 cubic feet of compost into the garden beds to make a lettuce and kale bed. Yesterday, I amended another fifteen cubic feet of the lettuce bed. Anya and I used two cucumber A-frame trellises and a few of the tomato trellises to create a structure and covered the lettuce bed with greenhouse plastic. Hopefully we’ll be able to continue growing lettuce throughout the winter. I also plan on planting the broccoli, brussle sprouts, and cabbage under the cover next April.

I was worried the chicks we got in August would be too small when the temps dropped, but they are fifteen weeks old today. They love being outside and fluff up really big when it gets cold. Both the coop and chicken tractor have a wide roost so they can keep their toes under their warm feathers.

In the next few weeks, we’ll build some nesting boxes and get the coop finalized. I also want to finish making packets for the seeds we harvested this year and file them into my seed storage boxes. In the next week or two, I will be making a lot of candied almonds — vanilla cinnamon candied almonds, maple roasted salted almonds, and some plain candied almonds — for us and to give away to neighbors.

This winter, I want to finish the crochet blanket I am making for our family room. It should be a thick, warm blanket that we can all snuggle under. I want to finish Anya’s new Peppermint Swirl dress. I also want to make her micro-corduroy dress/tunic/shirt to replace the one she outgrew this past year. Both will be worn in the spring/summer, but sewing is a cold/snowy day activity for me.

Chicken Fodder

I wanted to grow a little treat for our chickens to eat as winter sets in and green leafy things become scarce. I took about half a cup of wheat, a quarter cup of barley, and a quarter cup of oats and mixed the seeds together. I covered the seeds with water and soaked them for about 20 hours. I then spread the seeds in a 8″x8″ aluminium tray that has holes poked into the bottom. This sits into its plastic lid to keep from dripping water everywhere. Twice a day, I run water into the tray and let it drip out. No soil used — the roots and seeds form a fairly solid mass as the seeds sprout. One week later, I have lots of bright green shoots. Hopefully they think it’s a tasty treat!

2020 Hop Harvest

The 2020 hop harvest is in. The centennial produced a handful of hops that I’ll use in a barbecue sauce. We got about 44 ounces of cascade — much of which will be used in the 2020 fresh hop beer. The new baby plants we got this year got to set their roots, and hopefully we’ll see some cones next year. I cannot wait to try some Medusa!

2020 Garden Update – Late July

It’s almost time to plant the broccoli, brussle sprouts, and kale! We’ve gotten a few harvests from the bush beans (and I planted more seeds a few weeks ago), and the wall of pole beans is covered in flowers. Anya and I have been snacking on pea leaf microgreens (and macrogreens!) — and rabbits apparently love pea plants above any other plant. The little bed of microgreens seems to have saved the rest of my garden from nibbles. The corn is almost as tall as I am, and the cucumber plants are covering the A-frame. Tiny peppers are starting to form on the plans

And I’ve got dozens of green tomatoes

It looks like moving the garden to a sunnier spot has been a huge improvement in production.

Next year,I want to adjust the planting schedule:

March: Start the peppers, tomatoes, watermelon, pumpkins, squash, and cantaloupe indoors. Plant snow peas outdoors.

Late April: Start the corn indoors.

Mid/late May: Plant the plants that have been growing since March. Sprinkle carrot seeds around the tomato plants — that worked quite well as I’ve never had carrots grow before. Plant the bush and pole beans outdoors.

June: Plant the corn outside. Start the broccoli, kale, cabbage, brussel sprouts, and cauliflower indoors.

July: Plant second round of bush beans outdoors.

August: Plant broccoli, kale, cabbage, brussel sprouts, and cauliflower

First Harvest – 2020

There are green tomatoes ripening, the beans are growing on the bush beans … and we’ve got cucumbers! I knew there were flowers with little proto-cucumbers growing. Anya and I were grilling dinner tonight, and I noticed a large diameter end of a cucumber nestled in the center of the plant. Pushed aside a few leaves and wow, that’s a large cucumber. I held Anya’s hand so she could lean over into the center of the plant and she found four more! There are still a lot of flowers and cucumbers starting too.