Big harvest!

We just got back from 10 days out of town. I take a week or so vacation every year in summer and I'm always amazed by how much the garden seems to take off when I'm gone. Things grow slower when you see them every day. We had tons of stuff ready so this is just a big picture post, get ready...

cUcumber

Lots of yellow onions.

Cascadia snap pea from the second sowing this year.

First corn!

Scarlet runners and tri-colored bean mix.

Red pontiac potatoes.

Tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, and lettuce too! We will eat well this week!

Sowing seed in the garden

I have been working on getting more beds made each week, and sowing seed as I go.

This week I put in:
- 12' double row of snap peas (Sugar Snap)
- 4' bed of spinach (Olympia Hybrid)
- 12' triple row bulb onion (Yellow, from sets)
- 12' double row runner beans (Scarlet Emperor)
- 12' double row pole beans (Tri-color mix, Blue Lake, Yellow Pole Wax, Purple Peacock)
- 24' of 3 plant clumps 2' apart of corn (Earlivee Hybrid)

I also transplanted some things I started from seed:
- one row, 7 plants, tomatoes (in walls-o-water)
- 12' double row leeks (unknown variety grown by a friend)

Whew. Lots of seed to keep wet.

First transplantings

I was finally able to get some starts in the ground this weekend. Took some doing though. I've seen deer here a few times and there is an easily identifiable game trail running along the side of the yard past the garden, so a 6' fence deer/orchard fence was necessary. Finished that on Saturday. Saturday was also the day to begin digging my raised beds. They are 30" wide and 25' long, with a 12" (one shovel's-width) path down the middle. That was hard, tiring work and slow going, so I made it through 5 (out of an eventual 12) beds. Two gates built on Sunday finished off the fortifications. Still have to set the split cedar posts and hang the gates, but staked in place they'll keep most things out until I finish.

Makes me sweat just looking at them. Shovelfuls from the path go right on top of the bed, which get smoothed out with a hard rake. This knocks the bigger clumps into the paths and smooths out the bed top, leaving a level and fine seedbed.

Got in the snap and snow peas started 50 days ago, and pricked out my earliest lettuces started at the same time. I have 3 flats of brassicas ready to go in next weekend, and lots of direct seeding to do to get the second round of cool weather veggies started. The garden will look WAY different in about a month!

Seedling progress

Seedling are coming along quickly. All of the earliest cool weather starts have been up-potted and, after a week under lights, are now out in the cold frame hardening off. They need a week or two to acclimate to outdoor temperatures.

Brassicas, lettuce, and some seed dahlias in the coldframe.


These peas have been in these small pots for too long - they will be transplanted as soon as the soil is ready.

Seeds are up!

This winter I stored my seeds in a big glass storage jar, covered with a tight lid, with 3 or 4 desiccant packets in the bottom. It seemed to work well, as all my seeds are germinating well so far. Most vegetable seed will remain viable for 3+ years, some much longer. Others, like corn or some peas, are advertised as good for only one year. The seed company is likely assuming poor storage conditions and a minimum germination standard of less than 60 or 70% as unacceptable. Simply storing seeds in a cool and dry place, where temperatures remain fairly stable, will get you a few more years of seed life. When in doubt, I seed heavily and often, and buy more only when seed failure is evident.

Snap and snow peas came right up. There's something funky going on with the Mega Snap peas, on the right. The leaves are all crinkled. We'll see if they make it, but I'll be sowing new seed when I transplant these outside.


All the brassicas were up in 4 days; cabbage, broccoli, and kohlrabi.

Sowed tomatoes today too. This year I'm growing plants for my Mom and myself, so I have lots of pots of tomatoes. I'm trying 7 varieties this year - we really like tomatoes. All started in 2 1/4" pots (they'll be up-potted a couple times before they get to the garden).

Chocolate Cherry (heirloom cherry tomato)
Cherokee Purple (heirloom)
Sun Gold (sweet, orange cherry)
Stupice (early slicing, always does well)
Costoluto Genovese (heirloom)
Super Marzano hybrid (Italian Roma-style)
Black Krim (Russian heirloom)

First seeds

Got a start this weekend. Cooler spring weather vegetables can start to be planted out mid-april, so 4 weeks prior is a good time to get seeds going.

Started:
2 - 4" pots Mega Snap Pea
2 - 4" pots Oregon Sugar Pod snow pea
2 - 4" pots Fall Blend Broccoli
2 - 4" pots Danish Ballhead (120 days) cabbage
1 - 4" pot Derby Day (58 days) cabbage
1 - 4" pot Butterhead lettuce
1 - 4" pot The Redder the Better lettuce mix
2 - 4" pots Walla Walla sweet onion
4 - 2" pots Chives

It's a pain to drag out all the pots, flats, covers, seed mat, timers, and lights...but that "greenhouse smell", the scent of humid air and moist soil, that escapes when you peek under the plastic dome, makes it worth it after a long winter.

Fall peas!

I wasn't sure if they would have enough time to mature enough to produce anything, but looks like the snap peas sown just over 2 months ago had just enough. The first flowers showed 3 weeks ago and they have kept growing and flowering, setting fruit since.

Cascadia Snap Pea, developed by a horticultural professor in Oregon, is resistant to powdery mildew, a common fall fungus in our climate.

The crimson clover cover crop, here in the perennial herb bed, has filled in amazingly fast. We picked off these herbs (thyme, 3 kinds of sage, 2 kinds of oregano, and rosemary) all year long. Today I cut them all back pretty good and will dry all the cuttings to use through winter. Rosemary can be thrown right into the freezer without drying and used as if fresh.


Red leaf lettuce is coming along, slowly. Everything is growing much slower in the cool weather and weaker sunlight of fall. Hopefully the cabbage, broccoli, radishes and peas will be able to grow large enough for eating in late fall and through winter.

Vegetable Review

Vegetable: Snap Pea

Variety: Mega

Seed Co: Territorial PE629

Description: 3-4” long, thick-walled, stringless, edible pods on dwarf 30” non-climbing vines.

Sown: March 6

Transplanted: April 5

Germination: very good, 5 days

First Harvest: June 24

Days to maturity: Stated: 55 Actual: 100

Held in field: 2 weeks

Problems: Long to mature - this one took about 100 days from germination to harvest. When they did mature, they produced only half as heavily as the same amount of snow peas nearby. This "enation resistant" variety did not resist much - leaves were yellowing and flowers dropping a few weeks before the snow peas.

Results: The peas were sweet, very crisp and very juicy, but seemed to lack flavor. I'll be trying a different variety this fall.

June 14: Just about ready.

July 1: Enation sets in.

Vegetable Review

Vegetable: Snow Pea

Variety: Oregon Sugar Pod II

Seed Co: Territorial PE624

Description: 3-5” crisp green pods on dwarf, non-climbing 36” vines

Sown: March 6, indoors

Transplanted: April 5

Germination: very good

First Harvest: June 17

Days to maturity: Stated: 70 Actual: 90

Held in field/length of harvest: 3 weeks

Problems: Succumbed to enation (according to Steve Solomon) before 2^nd round of flowers could set pods fully

Results: Matured later due to abnormally chilly May weather which slowed growth. Produced twice as heavily as Mega snap peas. Crisp, juicy, stringless pods were great fresh or stir fried. Stronger “pea” flavor than snaps. Good eating even when peas were allowed to swell up.

Yum.

Fall crops

This is my first attempt at fall crops. From what I've read, the northwest has the perfect fall and early winter weather to accommodate a second round of most spring crops. Planting in mid-late summer, however, requires a little more thought than spring plantings. If, like me, your garden is not in your backyard and you don't want to go there every day, keeping seed moist and getting it to germinate outside is difficult. I moved my seed heating mat and covered flats out on the back porch and will be starting fall seedlings outside, then transplanting. As the days get shorter and the sun's path starts to move closer to the horizon, its' intensity diminishes and the amount of growing energy available to plants is less. This must be accounted for when planning seed starting or you could get caught by frost with immature crops. The first frost date is used to calculate when vegetables need to be finished by, unless they are frost tolerant or cold hardy veggies, or if they will grown under cover when weather gets cold. There's lots more to think about as well.

This weekend I started some seed for fall crops:

four 4" pots Cascadia Snap Pea
one 4 pack Fall Blend Broccoli
one 4 pack Early Cabbage
two 1 qt. Cucumber Bush Slicer
one 1 qt. heirloom Delicata Squash

I'll be starting lots more seed and trying to sow some outside for fall and winter harvest in the next few weeks.

Update

Weather was nice this last weekend, so I got out and did a little work at the garden plots.

Finally got my carrots in. I have a few varieties I want to try, so I'll be sowing a row or patch of each every few weeks. I am hoping I have timed it so they will have time to size up before it gets too cold (but not so much that they split open) and I can use them through the winter. Bed preparation is critical in order to allow the carrots to germinate well, grow quickly, and size up before cooler weather slows them. To facilitate rapid growth the carrot bed was deeply dug to 12", heavily amended with light, sandier soil and some well-rotted compost, and fluffed up to a loose and light texture before sowing seed.

I also sowed a thick patch of bunching onions (green onions or scallions), which I'll also use this fall and through the winter.

- Sowed 8 row feet Red Samurai Carrot (Daucus carota var. sativus)
- Sowed 4 sq feet Evergreen White Bunching Onion (scallions)

The garden is coming along nicely. I finally staked up the tomatoes. It would have been much easier to put in the bamboo stakes when I transplanted the tomatoes, but somehow I failed to think of it. Despite the cold weather, they have done quite well inside their tunnel cloche and have doubled in size since transplanting.

The tunnel has survived 40 mpg gusts and a few very windy days common to spring in Bellingham with no signs of weakening.

Stupice tomato was the first to flower and naturally has the largest developing fruit at about 1" diameter. I pinched off about half of the flowers on this truss just after they started to form fruit and will probably do the same on every plant this year. Less fruit per truss means more nutrition per tomato (less water content), larger fruit, faster ripening, and better tasting tomatoes!

Lots of peas starting to pod up. As soon as they begin to ripen, regular harvesting of mature pods will encourage a longer production time of new flowers and pods. If the pod matures and holds on the vine, the plant thinks it has done its' reproductive job and will stop producing new flowers and fruit.

Spiders are out and hatching everywhere.

So it's still spring...

Weather for this week remains cool and rainy. Highs in the upper 50's, nights in upper 40's. That means the peppers will have to wait one more week before even thinking about staying outside at night. Furthermore, cool soil temperatures will negatively affect germination percentage and speed, and general health and hardiness of any direct sown seeds that manage to germinate. It's a well known fact that seeds planted in the proper conditions up to 2 weeks after seed sown in improper conditions will easily catch up and surpass the early sowing. Cucumbers, squash, zucchini, melons, and other hot weather veggies I want to try will just have to wait a few more weeks.

Harvested two nice buttercrunch lettuce heads today, as well as some salad mix, a few leeks and radishes, and a whole rapini.

Snaps and snow peas are flowering.


Strawberries are filling out.


NW native nodding onion (Allium cernuum) ready to flower. Edible chive-like leaves.

Fresh soil at the garden plot

Emily and I, along with 6 other plot renters from the Happy Valley Community Gardens, brought in 20 yards (!) of 4-way soil/compost mix to share. We really needed it in some of our beds, which have eroded away as they sat unused for years. I think it will be most useful for lightening our heavy clay soil that has compacted to concrete-like hardpan.

With a generous addition of our new soil, I was able to prepare a spot for our snap and snow peas sown 4 weeks ago. I worked the soil about 8" deep, hoed in fertilizer and lime, and transplanted my healthy peas.

Should begin producing peas first week of June.

We had poly tunnels over some beds to dry them out faster, so today I direct seeded some greens in those beds after turning them over and incorporating new soil.

- 5 row ft Slobolt (loose-leaf lettuce) Lactuca sativa
- 5 row feet Tangy Mesclun Blend (Salad greens)
- 6 row ft Rainbow Radishes (Easter Egg II)

Broccoli and Cabbage starts have been growing strong for 2 weeks under lights. They've formed 2 true leaves, which means out into the cold frame to harden off and grow a bit more. When 3 true leaves are grown out I'll transplant them in the garden.


A few more pictures from today.

Direct sown Bloomsdale spinach seeded March 9. True leaves just emerging. Germinated and started pretty slow because March was so cold. It will pick up as April gets warmer.

Overwintered garlic (front) and leeks (behind). Carrot patch behind in the upper left. The garlic looks pretty bad...good thing I put in about 25 new bulbs a few weeks ago.

I overwintered a patch of Arugula as well. It barely survived and started growing again in February. We cut enough for a salad a few weeks ago and it immediately went into reproduction mode - sent up flower spikes and bloomed! Cool flower.

Tomorrow I'm gonna make Em come with me to the garden plot and we'll move more soil.

True Leaves!

The first sets of true leaves are emerging less than 2 weeks after sowing. From here on, the plant will begin to photosynthesize more strongly and the growth rate will really pick up. Each pot has now been thinned down to the strongest seedling. As the first leaves began to emerge, each seedling was watered with a shot of balanced 3-3-3 Dr. Earth's Organic liquid fertilizer diluted to half strength. This light feeding with be repeated about every 2 weeks, or every other watering, to encourage robust growth.

Cabbage

Broccoli/Rapini

Tomato

Sugar snap and snow peas from 3 weeks ago have been hardening off outside in my little cold frame for 5 days and are just about ready to transplant into the garden - perhaps this weekend.


This weekend will also bring more bed preparation and weeding at the garden plots. More seeds to be sown as well!

Flowers and peas

Ok. Although I am a few days behind, I did get some of my seeds sown today. Here's the method I used to sow many different seeds in 4" pots:

- fill pot to 1/2" from rim with fine, sifted soil
- compress soil slightly to restore capillary action
- place pots in sealed tray and fill bottom with water so pots wick up water until surface glistens
- empty water from tray
- sow seeds evenly across soil surface
- cover seeds with soil to a depth of 2-3x seed diameter
- spray soil gently to moisten
- cover with clear top to maintain high humidity
- place in a 70-75 degree environment until germination

When these seeds have germinated, the cover will be removed and the tray will be placed under florescent lights 12 hrs a day. When the seedlings' first few leaves have formed and they begin to get crowded in their 4" pots, they will be broken up and potted up individually into 6 packs or 4 packs to be grown on.

Today I sowed annual flowers to give them a head start and get them into flower earlier than if I waited until after last frost (May 1) to sow outside. I also started some perennial flowers that need to be started early if flowering is expected the first growing season. I also sowed my earliest spring (lowest temperature tolerance) veggies: sugar snap and snow peas.

- Sowed three 4" pots each (about 30 seeds each ) of:
Border Pansies "Satin Boudoir" (Viola x wittrockiana)
Coneflower (Echinacea Purpurea)
Collarette Dahlia (Dahlia Variabilis)
Gazania Daybreak Tiger Stripes (Gazania splendens hybrid)
Johnny Jump-up Viola (Viola tricolor)
Bee Balm (Monarda hybrida Lambada)

- Sowed four 4" pots each (30 seeds each) of:
Oregon Sugar pod II (Snow pea)
Mega (Snap pea)

Whew.