Fall crop preparations

My wife and I took a trip to the local Michaels to get a painting readjusted. Afterwards we went to the nearby T J Maxx for some shopping. Then we decided to go to the Goodwill superstore. We found a chair that my wife will be refurbishing. She is very talented doing that. We then decided to stop in to the Restore store to just look around. She found an older style table lamp that was in pretty good shape and given the price, it was worth a gamble. It had some imperfections which she was sure she could repair. As I was walking around, I noticed an accordion style bundle of what looked like the foldout car sun protectors you see in the summer. I opened it up and it was 12 attached folded boards with silver on one side and a blue foam on the other.
So a worker came by and I asked how much they were selling it for and he said 50 cents. Sold!

I have been trying to figure out a system where I could block the sun in the summer. The temps in the greenhouse would reach 115-130 degrees on sunny days. I knew it had to lightweight and easily installed and removed. The panels seemed the right fit to the problem. So yesterday afternoon, I went to work on getting the boards cut to size. With an assist from my wife as she found command strips of Velcro, I began adhering the Velcro to the boards and windows. After about an hour or so, I had the 4 panels in place as seen below. The test will be how much effect this will have. Time will tell. I have more boards to use if it needs a little tweaking.

Now that I may have hopefully altered the temps in the greenhouse, which I will need to monitor, I am going to begin assembling and seeding in the containers. I wasn't going to start them until near the end of August as the containers would require a lot of watering to keep them moist enough to grow in the hot greenhouse. I will post on that as soon as I have begun. Until next time, Happy Gardening Everyone!

Regenerative organic certifications?

Just read about this method for farmers to take organic to a new level.  While 90% of this involves farms, there is a section on soil (aka Dirt!!) health which is of interest to me.  And it should be to you too.  Seems the fine folks at The Rodale Institute in Kutztown, PA have taken sustainable and organic certification to a new level.  I know that this certainly doesn't apply to my backyard gardens, but I always try to keep a finger on the pulse of what this group is researching.  R. I. Rodale was a pioneer back in the 40's for organic practices.  Talk about cutting edge and being way before your time. Check out their site - it is chock full of information that even a small gardener like myself can use.  I intend on watching what happens with this new certification and how their soil section can benefit my growing practices. 
Until next time, happy organic gardening everyone!

Whipsaw!!

The weather here is whipsawing quite dramatically due to an earlier polar vortex and many fast moving lows.  Just yesterday (Saturday the 17th) , we had what initially looked like a benign cold front coming through overnight with some frozen precipitation.  Well, it actually was a little more widespread than anticipated and which covered the area with ice on all surfaces.  In fact, we had a very tragic accident on I-95 in the downtown Baltimore region. There was a tanker truck that flipped over a barrier and exploded into flames and then there was a corresponding 67 vehicle pileup.  2 people were killed and over a dozen were injured.  I was just grateful I didn't need to drive yesterday. Our weather today started out much warmer as it was 55 at noon.  So, I took advantage of the weather and went out to check on my plants that I am attempting to grow through the winter.  After uncovering them, I was quite pleased with their progress.  As can be seen, most of the plants are healthy and seemed to have survived yesterdays low temps.

Long term though, I have my doubts about the lettuce but everything else looks healthy enough.  Of course, the goal is not to produce plants in the winter but rather, to produce early mature plants in the Spring.  Again, it's an experiment to see how well what I have set up will work.  We haven't hit the really cold winter weather yet so I am still not making any predictions.  

As I was watering these plants and taking pictures, the horizon suddenly turned an ominous dark grey.  So, I hurried up and covered the plants back up again as I began to feel a light rain hitting me along with a distinguishable drop in temperature with strong winds starting to whip the trees in the neighborhood.  To give you an idea of what happened, here's a picture of a lighted tree we have in our front yard.  I have 3-7 lb stones trying to hold this upright but our winds have been very tenacious to say the least.  

I will have to go out and realign the tree again.  I probably have put it back up 5 times this year. Crazy weather to say the least.  

We have a saying in Maryland that if you don'l like the weather, wait an hour.  We are prone to wide variations in the types of climate activities in this region due to the effects of the Appalacian Mountains just west of Baltimore.  There have been countless times when a system comes out of the west and dissipates completely or weakens considerably before moving into our region.  It can be a double edged sword as it sometimes results in periods of little rain and periods of little snow.  We need the snow to kill bacteria and harmful insects that otherwise will survive the winter.

That's about all the activity there is in the garden at this time.  The experiment is proceeding and the winter rye is still hanging in there at this time.  I hope everyone is having a great Christmas season

Until next time, Happy Gardening!

  

A lot has been happening.....

Even though I have not posted for awhile, all due to a very busy few months, I have been quite active in both getting the garden set for winter and experimenting with winter gardening.  I hope that everything settles down to a point where I can post more often.

Most people shut their gardens down after the typical season is over and stop all activity after removing all the dead plants.  There is nothing wrong with that.  That was what I typically did every year.  But after seeing a plateau in both the quality and quantity of production in my gardens, I did research on how to improve the soil.  I soon realized the value of using cover crops in my garden beds.  I have written about this in previous posts but I certainly believe it bears another mention.

Cover crops can be a whole array of plants that you grow in your beds that will add structure and nutrients to your garden.  They can be planted any time of the year but I do it at the end of the planting cycle.  I have settled into a pattern of growing winter rye every year.  Winter Rye grows well into early winter and remains quite vibrant throughout.  I was a little delayed in getting it started this year but it has done pretty well given it's late start.  As can be seen in the picture below, it is filling in pretty well.  If I had been able to start it earlier, the growth would have been much more robust.  A reminder that in gardening, it's about the timing.

This will suffice though as it will continue to grow over the winter season.  It will prevent soil erosion, give me a green manure that I can cut in the Spring and the roots will supply structure and nutrients over the next growing season.  

While the rest of the garden is on auto pilot, I decided to experiment with growing cold weather crops in a structure.  It has it's challenges for sure.  In the mid-atlantic area, we get some pretty cold temps and snow during the December through February period.  So, I have decided to utilize the structure as seen below.  

By itself, it will not offer enough protection for the whole season.  While I am not an expert, I am going to use a multiple layer approach to see if it will work.  I have no illusions that I will get robust crops on my first attempt.  As I said earlier, this is an experiment.  But, any crop I do get, will be a bonus.  

So, here is a chronological look at where I am at this point in time.

I planted the crops about 3 weeks ago and they have grown as seen in this above photo I took Saturday.  I have various lettuces in the first set of rows with spinach in the middle set and in the far row I have onions, carrots and La Rosa lettuce.  

Temps have been dropping steadily lately and we are under a frost warning tonight.  So, this morning, I went out and added layers to move my effective zone up probably 2-3 levels.  From my guess, this is now probably at a zone 9-10 area.  That supposedly will get me to lower Georgia or northern Florida zones.  

I first put a layer of vegetable spun fiber over the crops inside the structure.  I put in sticks and then pinned the fabric down on the ends so it would be taut.  The fabric does not touch the plants that way. Then, I took some UV heavy duty plastic and put it over the structure itself as seen below. 

This should allow the air inside to warm up during the day and slowly cool off during the night. Again, no assurances this will work but I think it gives me a fairly decent chance. 

I am also doing the last of composting that can be achieved.  I cut my front lawn for what I hope is the last time.  In doing so, I cut it very low which produced a pretty large amount of clippings.  I collect the last cuttings of the season as I believe they do not decompose fully and thus can cause various issues in the Spring.  So, here is the final collection.

Given they were very wet when I cut them, I am going to let them sit out overnight to dry.  This insures that there will not be any ammonia smell due to their fresh state.  Once dried, I will use them in each of the three composters I have.  This will add bulk and allow me to add leaves to get one last burst before the real cold weather hits.
Another facet of the year end gardening around here is rounding up of leaves that are currently falling.  As seen below, I get a pretty good supply from my tree.  I do have to augment it by picking up my neighbors leaves.  I've even been known to stop on my way to or from work and pick up a few bags.  It always has amazed me that people don't use this free source of nutrients in place of the artificially produce fertilizers that they do use.  I really have no issue with grabbing the bags regardless of what people may think.  I can't seriously remember the last time I bought any soil for my garden.  It makes sense to me both monetarily and environmentally.

Well, that sums up the activities in the garden at my house.  Hopefully you are enjoying the last of the season and are doing your necessary prep work for a great start to your garden season next year. Until next time, Happy Gardening everyone! 

Fall composting?

Most people think that at this time of the year, composting would be drawing to a close.  Nothing could be further from the truth actually.  I am currently loading my 3 composters with all the materials that I can find.  I still have many bags of leaves that I collected both last fall and this spring that I need to use.  I am collecting as many table scraps that I can find and am combining that with the leaves and cardboard to get a last pile into play before the weather turns colder.
This is a perfect time of year to actually begin to compost as the wealth of items are outstanding.  I use newspapers, cardboard, fresh cut grass, kitchen scraps, tea and coffee grounds and of course, my bags of leaves.  Also, this is the time of year that if you have a garden, you can put your clean spent plants into the composter.  You have to be vigilant to not put any plant waste that died from a disease or fungus.  You would only be adding that to your garden next year.  You can always look online to find more extensive lists of materials you can use.
The point is, now is the time to either begin to compost or get your last loads in before the snow and cold weather begins.  It is a fact that if the pile is big enough, it will continue to breakdown over the winter.  It will just happen on a smaller scale and at a much slower rate.  But, it still happens.
Naturally, those of us who live in the warmer climes of the south can compost year round.
I cant emphasize enough as to the importance that composting plays in the scheme of gardening.  It is the black gold of soil as it renews the ground and recycles the natural resources we have at our disposal.
If you have never composted, you can check out my guest post that I did for Brennan Young at The-Urban-Farmer.com. that will explain the details of composting in much better detail.  I hope you like it!

Sunday in the garden.

Like any gardener, I spent a fair portion of my morning in the garden.  Yesterday was absolutely hot and humid.  I tried to endure the heat but when I checked the weather on my phone and it was 90 degrees with a feel like 98.  Now, I like to garden, but it just seemed pretty illogical to continue to fight the elements.  So I stopped even trying to get stuff done in the garden.  And for me, that's a very hard task to do.  I don't like missing a day in the garden, especially a weekend day. 
So, I just resolved to get up early today and knock some things out. 
First priority was to pick some veggies.  I watered the veggies last night so they would be firm.  That's something I have always done and it seems to work very well.  I picked Peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers.  All favorites of my family.  As you can see, there was a good amount of fruit available. 

The one large cucumber was the result of the vine travelling into the pepper plot unseen.  I did not see that one until this morning so it matured to a larger size than I normally pick them at.  I will eat it but when they get to that size, they begin to become overrun with larger seeds inside.  The quality is diminished for sure.  But like I said, I will eat it nonetheless.  After all, it's a cucumber. 

The big tomato on the bottom second from the left is a Cherokee Purple.  That's an heirloom which can grow tomatoes up to about a pound or better.  And the taste is almost as good as my favorite heirloom - Brandywine.

My wife made me a cucumber/tomato mixed salad for dinner tonight.  I can say this, there is absolutely nothing as great tasting than fresh garden tomatoes and cucumbers with my favorite dressing.  No store bought - even local sourced tomatoes and cucumbers - can even come close.

On another note, as I mentioned in my last post, I have decided to renovate my garden to give it more structure and better production.  Well, that process has now begun.  As seen below, I have removed the first set of bricks at the back of my one bed.  I measured the area to make sure I wasn't reducing my beds and when all was measured, turns out the area will be a bit larger.  Seems I will have an extra 4 square feet per bed.  All good news. 

 So, there you have a day in the life of my garden.  Hope you enjoyed your day as much as I did.  Until next time, Happy Gardening everyone.       



Garden growth

So far, I am pretty pleased the state of my gardens' progress.  The tomatoes are coming along fine even though they were delayed in being transplanted due to our wet Spring weather.  Here is a picture of them at this time.                                                                                                                        

   

               
They are full of little tomatoes so at this time, I have to be sure to continue to supply them with periodic nutrients and water.  I plan on giving the garden a dose of compost tea this weekend to start them on their way to maturity.
Here is my first watermelon of the year on the left and a volunteer tomato that decided behind my garage was a great place to reside on the right.  I just put a pole by it to see what I am getting.  I love surprises!

And finally, my cascading crop of cucumbers after a month.  They have taken over the trellis!

 

                                                                 

Like I said, all in all, not bad progress for this time of the year.  Well, I hope everyone is having a great year so far too!  Remember to be vigilant as there are a lot of distractions this time of the year.  Until next time, Happy gardening everyone.