Eight months of gardening. Four months to think about next year's garden.

Frost hit on October 30th this year, which is pretty much dead average for our area. Luckily, I had enough advance notice to harvest the last tomatoes and dahlias of the season before the killing cold. I loved the bounty of San Marzano tomatoes that ripened on schedule this summer and fall, but it saddened me to see so many green fruit turned to mush. Next year, I will have to grow an earlier variety, or start my plants under lights.

Anyway, the past two weeks have been consumed with post-frost garden tasks. Digging, curing, cleaning, dividing, and packing dahlia tubers took a full week. The tomatoes had to be pulled out, along with the support twine. Another couple of days were spent raking leaves and piling them into the west flowerbed to be used as mulch. Now I'm down to the final stretch: amending the vegetable beds and mulching them in preparation for spring.

With almost everything else tucked in for the season, I want to get this stage over and done with, but I'm having a heck of a time deciding what to do about amending the beds. I've been reading Steve Solomon's Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades for the past couple of months, and have somewhat been of a mind to try out Solomon's compost mix (although I've heard he's changed the recipe since publication). The problem is, I can't see mixing up 200 pounds of the stuff, and even with a hefty discount at the farm supply store, it would still cost a pretty penny to make the attempt. I'm thinking that a few bags of soil conditioner and a bale of straw to cover will have to do it.

The more time passes, the more I understand some of the criticisms I've read about Solomon's book-- not only is it written with the small farm in mind (200 pounds of fertilizer!), but his goal is to grow the most nutritious vegetables possible by growing them in the best soil possible, pocketbook be damned. In this case, I think I'll go with the more moderate advice of nutritionist Marion Nestle-- more nutritious vegetables are a good thing, but the nutritional value of a vegetable is always going to more limited by its breeding than the soil in which it grows.

I guess I'll have plenty of time to contemplate the whole nature-vs.nurture dilemma now that our northwest winter rains have started. Methinks it's time to set in with a good gardening book and a sheaf of seed catalogs and start planning for the season to come.

---
Cross-posted to Vox.

August in the garden

san marzano tomatoes

What I like about the garden, I think, is that it encourages me to be actively present with all of my senses. At any other point in the day, my head is either in the past or the future-- I'm busy worrying about some mistake I made two days ago, or planning what to make for dinner after work. But when I'm in the garden, I'm aware of the chirping of birds in the cherry tree overhead, the feel of the breeze, the scent of cedar mulch, the quality of the light, and the dirt under my fingernails, to the exclusion of everything else.


the last pattypan of the season

Autumn, in particular, is magic for a vegetable garden. Something about the diminished sunlight makes my awareness of things more piquant. Maybe it's the realization that summer's apex has come and gone, and that every remaining moment before frost needs to be cherished. I mean, sure, I can spend my winter browsing seed catalogs, but it's not the same thing as standing in the warmth in my flip-flops under ten-foot sunflowers as yellow petals flutter to rest on the strawberries. Know what I mean?


compare to last year at this time

Anyway-- the garden's doing as well as can be expected at this time of the year. The cucumbers and squash, deprived of the long days of sunlight that they need, are starting to yellow and fall prey to powdery mildew. This past week, I cut back some of the sad-looking foliage to help the last squash ripen better.

In the herb patch, the parsley's starting to bolt. This should probably make me sad, but the flowerheads are tall and lacy and beautiful, so I really don't mind. I loved growing parsley this year-- it was so convenient to have it on hand. It's definitely going in again next year.


De Morges Braun romaine lettuce... much prettier in person

Some lettuce planted mid-summer is starting to take off, including a couple of heads of De Morges Braun, an heirloom romaine type. I fell in love with this variety in Territorial Seeds' catalog-- the photo doesn't do it justice. The leaves have a gorgeous coppery burgundy shimmer to them-- it's my favorite thing in the garden at the moment.

I'm beginning to think that I may have planted fall crops too late, after all. There's some loose-leaf lettuce, bok choy, and arugula coming up (along with chard and beets from an earlier planting), but everything else is suffering from low germination rates, including the carrots, radishes, mache, radicchio, and buttercrunch lettuce. I probably haven't been watering well enough. Maybe things will start popping up later in the month, in time to be cloched for frost-- I'm keeping my fingers crossed.


compare to the way they looked on July 27

And here's that promised update on the free tomatoes: they're putting out some nice green growth and developing baby fruit. I hope there's still time for them to ripen, but either way, at least they look happier!

Now it's back to the garden with me... I have a new bed to dig ;-)

Onward to autumn!

lemon cucumber

We haven't even hit our hottest month yet, and already it's time to start thinking about fall crops. Many of them need to be planted three months before average first frost, and in my area, that's today (on the nose!)

But I'm not ready for fall! I'm still dealing with summer crops! There's a pile of pattypan squash on my counter waiting to be cubed and frozen. The beans and lemon cucumbers are coming into their prime. The tomatoes are starting to take on an orange tinge. In short, there's still so much to look forward to from the existing plants that I let myself slide into denial and neglected to come up with a fall-crop plan ahead of schedule.

So I reserved a few hours today to set myself straight, and used part of that time to stop by a local community garden in hopes of gathering inspiration. Happily, it looks like I'm not too far behind the local curve... there was hardly a fall crop to be found among the squash, sunflower, and dahlia-filled plots. Heartened, I came home, dove into the garden, pulled out the yellowing snow peas and scraggly nasturtiums, and planted a row each of radishes, beets, swiss chard, arugula, mache, and lettuce.

Woohoo! Crisis averted! I still have a few seeds to buy and plant (savoy cabbage, leeks, radicchio), but for now, I'm just proud of myself for getting started on time for once. Maybe all that flaxseed bread we've been eating lately is actually doing some good :-o

Can these tomatoes be saved?

they're scrawny and rootbound, but they're mine

Boss: The tomato plants out front are free. We got reimbursed for them.

Us: But it's practically August. It's too late to plant tomatoes.

Boss: That's why they're free.

Us: (pulling out cell phones) Hey, it's me... you want any tomatoes?

I told myself I wouldn't be growing any more tomatoes this year. I even gave homegrown seedlings away back in April. But the lure of free plants was just too strong, so a Beefsteak and Early Girl ended up taking up residence in a patch of dust in the backyard this evening. We'll see what a little compost and more root space can do for these undernourished underdogs... probably not much, but at least they have a fighting chance.

Elsewhere on the tomato front, the San Marzanos have hit five feet:



Last year's plants overwhelmed their tiny girly wire cages and flopped over mid-July, so this year, I adopted a more disciplined approach to staking. The Florida Weave system is all the rage on the tomato forums, and so far, it's working really well with very little time invested in maintenance. Every few days, I tuck a few branches into the pre-tied twine... and that's it! The vines are well-supported, and the tomatoes are easy to find and reach.

What's most important: it beats trying to wrestle a six-foot tomato vine off the ground every day, hands down!

"Easy to grow"

Every packet of green bean seeds I've seen has been labeled "easy to grow," but let me tell you... I fought darn hard for the scant number of plants that are out there. I've never planted beans before, so maybe it was my experience level that was to blame. Maybe I planted too early. Maybe I should have planted on the sunny side or the berm. Maybe they just didn't get enough water. But... long story short, I had to replant these beans FIVE TIMES, and I still have a bald spot in the row.

On the bright side, the plants look productive-- I can hardly believe such a tiny little plant is capable of bearing so many pods! The variety I planted was 'Delinel,' a French bush bean. It has delicate little pink flowers and only grows 24 inches high. Every day, I pass a neighbor's garden, where he is growing seven-foot high pole beans covered with large yellow-and-white flowers. It's hard to believe that both plants are working toward a similar end product.

In other news, over at Flickr, you can see photos of the latest dahlia to bloom in the flowerbed and a couple of my cutest co-workers.

Sequim Lavender Festival, 2006

Yesterday, we visited the Lavender Festival in Sequim, WA. Sequim calls itself the "Lavender Capital of North America"; situated in a valley at the foot of the Olympic mountains, it is sheltered from our Northwest rains and boasts a climate comparable to that of Provence. The festival features a giant street fair, quilt show, and tours of some of the local lavender farms.

I'm a sucker for festivals, but a flower festival? I had to go! Last year, I mentioned Lavender Hills Farm, which holds a wonderful annual festival virtually in our backyard. While Lavender Hills is well on-par with the farms on tour in Sequim, the Sequim festival is about twenty times larger and a hundred times more populous, and all of that extra space is cram-packed with activity and variety-- even the husband admitted he had a good time. Besides the usual lavender-product suspects, we were introduced to lavender dog bandanas, lavender salad dressing, and lavender margaritas. Even those die-hard grumps who weren't having a good time to begin with lightened up a couple of margaritas down the road!

For more information, see the Lavender Festival website, or check out my brand-spankin'-new Flickr photo gallery for more of my own photos of the event.

Four Flowers and a Tomato

Zinnia 'Whirligig' has some freaky coloration going on... this one's the weirdest.


Calendula (pot marigold) smells wonderful, and the petals are soft and luminous. Due to my own neglect, this is the first time they've lived to flower out of three seasons of planting seed. (They're super-easy to grow... but I am super-forgetful about watering).


I love nasturtiums. They tend to get blackfly (black aphids), but vigorous spraying with water seems to keep the bugs under control. The flowers are spicy and pretty in salads.


A borage plant I put in last year reseeded like crazy... there must be forty plants coming up now. But the flowers are beautiful and have a mild cucumber flavor (although some people are allergic), so I'm letting them do as they will.


One San Marzano tomato, coming up!

Sorticulture 2006

Sorticulture is our county's largest garden festival, and in a region as garden-obsessed as Western Washington, that's kinda saying something! We had a nice stroll through the nursery booths, taking in roses, dahlias, and native perennials, then spent a little time listening to a live jazz band while surrounded by fabulously designed planters like the one in the photo above.

It was hard not to come home with new finds, but interesting just to see the people who turned out. And not just people:


puppies and owners meet

I didn't take many pictures, but if you want to see more, take a look at this blog, which features fabulous photos of last year's festival.

I grew a carrot!

This is my first year growing carrots. I was so pleased with this one-- the first I've pulled up-- that I decided to plant another variety for fall harvest: the bizarrely-colored Purple Haze. The outer part is purple and the inner core is orange-- perfect for Halloween, or so I'm hoping!

Crab spider

This crab spider set up camp in the chives a couple of weeks ago... aren't those pink stripes wild?

Wattle Fencing

I finished the brick edging and wattle fencing on the west bed last week, so now it's on to the fun part... putting in more plants :-) The bed already contained a lavatera, peony, several hollyhocks, and a lot of reseeded borage. So far, I've added dahlias, black-eyed susan, shasta daisy, lavender, pineapple sage, and a bunch of annuals started from seed including salvia, calendula, cosmos, and zinnias.

Garden auricula

A few years ago, I read an article in the now-defunct Victoria Magazine about auricula primroses. They're an object of devotion among collectors in England; the trend has caught on to a lesser extent in the US, where growing conditions for true Primula auricula are less ideal. Martha Stewart reportedly keeps potted auriculas indoors, as did collectors in the 18th and 19th centuries. In those days, rare specimens were so prized that special decorative backdrops were painted especially for the plants so as to show them off to their best advantage.

The auricula in my garden isn't quite so delicate or precious, but I adore it all the same. It's actually a hybrid between P. auricula and P. hirsuta; the result of such a cross is referred to as a "garden auricula." Garden auriculas adapt well to Pacific Northwest conditions; I have mine in an outdoor planter kept in a sheltered spot.

I don't consider myself much of a plant collector, but now that the dahlias have wedged their way in, who knows... I'm sure I could find room for more auriculas!

Flowerballs

salad with tarragon, chervil, oregano, chive and thyme flowers, and fresh radishes

The husband has recently acquired a taste for what he calls "flowerballs," which are actually chive blossoms from the herb garden. They were only supposed to be a garnish the first time I served them; I never expected F to actually like them, but they've caught his fancy and we've been eating them every other day. F chomps the florets down whole, but I prefer to break them up into individual flowers. Either way, they have a mild flavor and add nice color and texture to dinner salads.

Luckily, the onion chives are keeping up with demand and pumping out plenty of these purple puffs at the moment. Another herb flower that we're enjoying is thyme, which has small pink flowers and a pleasantly sweet, herbal taste; I'm looking forward to nasturtium, borage, calendula, and sage flowers later in the year. I have to admit-- eating flowers really appeals to my girly side!

Anniversary Post!

Today is the first anniversary of this blog, which makes it a natural time for a comparison post: how is the garden shaping up this year, as opposed to last?

1) More mature plants. I started all of my seeds 45 days earlier this year (and planted earlier), which means that the plants in the garden are sturdier and more mature. Have a look here for an example: at this time last year, the zucchini was tiny and fragile, and the snow peas were about two inches high. Compare to the photo above: the zucchini is flourishing and the snow peas are over a foot high and climbing! I can't take all the credit for this year's improvements-- our weather has been much warmer this year. But it goes to show that a little bit of preparation makes for a nice head start in the garden.

2) A better tomato strategy. This year's home-sown San Marzano tomato plants are about the same size as last year's nursery-grown Early Girl. This isn't a bad thing-- last year's home-sown tomatoes were 4 inches high at this time of year, and these plants are already acclimated to their spots. All the same, I think I'll wait a bit longer to plant out the tomatoes and jalapenos next year; they like heat, and the greenhouse would probably have been a more ideal environment for them until the end of May.

3) Everything's mulched. This year's warmer weather is nice for the summer crops, but it does raise watering concerns. Mulch helps the beds retain water-- a big concern for my garden because of the mounded beds (which have more surface area for water to evaporate). Last year, I didn't mulch until June; this year, I already have a layer of grass clippings over almost every bed.

4) Established herbs. The herbs were a mid-season addition to the garden last year; this year, the onion chives and thyme are already flowering. On the annual/biennial front, Italian parsley is a newcomer to the garden, and it seems to be doing really well. Wish I could say the same for the basil, which is doing the same thing as last year (ie turning yellow-green and maintaining stunted growth).

5) Early-season crops. I've already harvested mature arugula, lettuce, and radishes from the garden, all before anything went out last year! Next year, I'm planning on even more spring crops, including broccoli and chard.

6) OMG, I planted flowers. Last year, the focus was on vegetables-- even the marigolds from hell were only installed as a pest-prevention measure. This year, I've branched out into cut flowers from seed: zinnias, shasta daisies, calendula, black-eyed susan, purple coneflower, cosmos, bells of ireland, sunflowers, and thunbergia. And of course, there are more dahlias! I'm going for an overall country garden look in the west bed-- it's an ex-per-i-ment. We'll see how it goes!

That about sums it up! It's nice to see that I've actually been making measurable progress. I can't wait for the lessons the garden will teach me in the coming year.

By the way: I'm using this post to test Hello; I've been posting pictures through Photobucket up until now but thought I'd give this a try. So far, it's been hella confusing! I know some of you in Bloggerland are already using it-- any tips? 

Window Boxes

Husband put them up this week-- I have to show them off! Aren't they purdy? They're full of surplus arugula at the moment, but I have dreams of herbs, cascading foliage, and lush flowers.

In other news: lately, I've been feeling really inspired by inmykitchengarden.com, a fabulous kitchen garden blog featuring daily posts, so I'm going to try to post more often. We'll see how it goes, but the garden's really starting to take off, now-- so there should be no shortage of subject matter!

First Radishes

french breakfast radishes at 68 days

Spring

The garden is progressing quietly; around the house, daffodils and tulips are in bloom, as are the cherry trees. As I type, I'm taking a break from putting up grapevine wattle edging in the west yard, which is where the flower seedlings germinating on my windowsill are destined to end up. Some bells of ireland and cosmos seeds that have been languishing in a drawer will also be direct-sown in that bed as soon as I'm done weeding and trampling it.


arugula and rhubarb

Our first crops of the year, rhubarb and arugula, are bountiful at the moment. Pretty soon, radishes and winter-sown buttercrunch lettuce will be ready to eat. Four rows of mesclun that were planted in March are starting to form baby leaves-- they look delicious!


lettuce

What's planted: french breakfast radishes, early jalapenos, arugula, genovese basil, italian parsley, onion chives, thyme and lemon thyme, sage, rosemary, lemon cucumbers, autumn beauty sunflowers, mesclun, oregon sugar pod peas, nantes carrots, and san marzano tomatoes.

What needs to be planted: more arugula, dahlias, zinnias, nasturtiums.

Last week, we visited a community garden in Everett, which was a great opportunity to see what other people have growing at this time of year. There were a lot of onions and cole crops, along with beets and swiss chard. Next year, I'd like to try leeks, beets, and swiss chard... but where am I going to find the space?

Devising a master plan

It's still pretty bleak out there.

It's getting close to seed-starting time, so I've been going back into the garden to see what I've got and to figure out how to maximize productivity over the coming season. One of the nice things about having a vegetable garden is that unlike a landscape garden, you can reinvent it from scratch every year at very little cost. If you don't like something you planted last year, you just plant something else. Right now, the garden is down to just a few herb and strawberry plants, leaving the rest of the beds a blank canvas just waiting for spring.

This year, I have two specific goals:

1) to generate a constant supply of salad greens throughout the year, and
2) to plant specific crudite vegetables for the annual Halloween party.

The first goal comes from a profound desire to eat some kind of salad other than iceburg with ranch. Oh, for a butterhead lettuce salad tossed with parsley and chervil and dill, and a light vinaigrette, and little toasts on the side spread with chevre... *weeps* My manifesto for this summer will be: tasty salads or starvation! I will refuse to eat any iceburg lettuce after May 15th.

I know that the second goal is quite a few months off, but I'm already planning for it. I'm so sick of seeing pictures of these beautiful, fancy, fresh organic baby vegetable platters and then going to the store and finding out that the baby vegetables cost three times as much as normal vegetables. Thanks, but no thanks... at those prices, I'll just grow them myself!

The biggest obstacle is going to be space... as usual, I want to grow far more than I can fit into my tiny plot. I have the end of April to figure it out, though, and I'm determined to make it work out somehow. So away from the keyboard and back to the planning notebook I go!