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.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Friday, March 13, 2009
2009 News
I feel bad for not really finishing up last year's season. I meant to keep up on and finish my summer veggie reviews, keep track of the fall/winter crops I planted in late summer, and do an end of the season "what I learned" kind of summation. Oh well! It's a new year, and things have changed!
The blog has a new name: Our Ferndale Garden, as we'll be moving to Ferndale in the next few months. That will probably change soon too, maybe to "Our Ferndale Farm", or "Mini-farming in Ferndale". That's right - we bought a house on 4.82 acres in rural Ferndale Washington! Ferndale is a small town about 10 miles north of Bellingham, where we currently live. It is close to the city but feels quite apart.
A good sized piece of land was a very important consideration in our home search. This property is very good, about 2/3 pasture and 1/3 wooded, with full southern exposure and a gentle southern slope. The soil is good, well-drained silt loam, about as good as one can find in Whatcom County, which is known for heavy clay soils. The land is classified as "Prime farmland" and zoned for farming and agricultural use. At this point is a blank slate, and we can't wait to get started!
Here's the house from the outside.
A little clearing in the woods.
From the back side, looking over the future vegetable garden!
The blog has a new name: Our Ferndale Garden, as we'll be moving to Ferndale in the next few months. That will probably change soon too, maybe to "Our Ferndale Farm", or "Mini-farming in Ferndale". That's right - we bought a house on 4.82 acres in rural Ferndale Washington! Ferndale is a small town about 10 miles north of Bellingham, where we currently live. It is close to the city but feels quite apart.
A good sized piece of land was a very important consideration in our home search. This property is very good, about 2/3 pasture and 1/3 wooded, with full southern exposure and a gentle southern slope. The soil is good, well-drained silt loam, about as good as one can find in Whatcom County, which is known for heavy clay soils. The land is classified as "Prime farmland" and zoned for farming and agricultural use. At this point is a blank slate, and we can't wait to get started!
Here's the house from the outside.
A little clearing in the woods.
From the back side, looking over the future vegetable garden!
From the furthest corner of the field towards the house - the "pasture", for now...
There's the quick tour. The blog this year will be different - still following the progress of the vegetable garden, but now including 15 fruit trees, blueberries, raspberries, and other things that come with the new house. Plus whatever else happens as we settle in this summer and get to work!
Monday, December 22, 2008
Tomato review!
Since I yanked the tomato plants this week, I'll give a rundown of how they did this year.
Overall, it was a less then ideal year for tomatoes: cold and gray early in the season, cold and gray through a lot of the summer, and finally warmer and sunny when it was almost too late. Seattle tilth actually canceled their annual tomato taste-off usually held in September cause nobody had tomatoes!
Cold early summer and lots of gray days limited the amount of fruit set dramatically, and I really only got one good flush out of each plant, if that.
All the tomatoes were planted out in mid-may. About 50 days later the first ripe tomatoes were ready. They produced slowly for a month until they really started rolling in (as many as we could eat) from late August to early September.
Stupice tomatoes (8/30) were the first ready, the strongest producer, and the most vigorous grower, just like they were last year. A nice, not too sweet and not too juicy slicing tomato. I'll be growing this again next year.
I tried some grape tomatoes this year, these are called Cabernet (8/30). These took longer to ripen up than the stupice, and were easiest to pick from the back of the truss as they ripened. They were slightly meatier than cherry tomatoes and lean towards acid rather than sweet.
Early Girl II (9/10) is larger than stupice, with more juice and more tomato acid. It wasn't as vigorous as others, and despite it's name, ripened later than others. These were my "nicest looking" tomatoes, if that counts for anything.
Marzano tomatoes (9/16) are a big, fat, Roma-type italian sauce variety. These were slow to mature, these were the first ready to pick, and many ahd to be picked unripened a the end of season. They are very meaty and have a mild flavor.
Overall, it was a less then ideal year for tomatoes: cold and gray early in the season, cold and gray through a lot of the summer, and finally warmer and sunny when it was almost too late. Seattle tilth actually canceled their annual tomato taste-off usually held in September cause nobody had tomatoes!
Cold early summer and lots of gray days limited the amount of fruit set dramatically, and I really only got one good flush out of each plant, if that.
All the tomatoes were planted out in mid-may. About 50 days later the first ripe tomatoes were ready. They produced slowly for a month until they really started rolling in (as many as we could eat) from late August to early September.
Stupice tomatoes (8/30) were the first ready, the strongest producer, and the most vigorous grower, just like they were last year. A nice, not too sweet and not too juicy slicing tomato. I'll be growing this again next year.
I tried some grape tomatoes this year, these are called Cabernet (8/30). These took longer to ripen up than the stupice, and were easiest to pick from the back of the truss as they ripened. They were slightly meatier than cherry tomatoes and lean towards acid rather than sweet.
Early Girl II (9/10) is larger than stupice, with more juice and more tomato acid. It wasn't as vigorous as others, and despite it's name, ripened later than others. These were my "nicest looking" tomatoes, if that counts for anything.
Marzano tomatoes (9/16) are a big, fat, Roma-type italian sauce variety. These were slow to mature, these were the first ready to pick, and many ahd to be picked unripened a the end of season. They are very meaty and have a mild flavor.
Monday, October 13, 2008
First frost
Bellingham's average first frost the the 1st of October. It held off for a few weeks but we got our first frost last night. It wasn't a hard freeze, but it did kill everything that is considered tender or a hot weather veggie.
The last of the basil was killed off. Despite our chillier than normal summer, it did great this year.
Dahlia foliage and blooms were killed off as well. The plants were then cut off about 6" from the ground, which will promote the growth of new "eyes", which will be next years' growth. After two weeks, they'll be dug up, cured for a few days, and stored through the winter to be planted out next spring.
I took out the last of the tomatoes, amended with some compost, and sowed crimson clover.
The hardier vegetables took the frost with no problem. I hope we have enough remaining days of decent weather and enough light to push them to maturity before real winter sets in.
Chinese cabbage, leeks, and carrots.
Kohlrabi and a few broccoli plants.
The last of the basil was killed off. Despite our chillier than normal summer, it did great this year.
Dahlia foliage and blooms were killed off as well. The plants were then cut off about 6" from the ground, which will promote the growth of new "eyes", which will be next years' growth. After two weeks, they'll be dug up, cured for a few days, and stored through the winter to be planted out next spring.
I took out the last of the tomatoes, amended with some compost, and sowed crimson clover.The hardier vegetables took the frost with no problem. I hope we have enough remaining days of decent weather and enough light to push them to maturity before real winter sets in.
Chinese cabbage, leeks, and carrots.
Kohlrabi and a few broccoli plants.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Dahlias
Had good dahlias this year. I started a lot of annual dahlias from seed this year. Those first:
I also planted a bunch of dahlia corms, some I saved from last year and some we got from a friend.
These are much bigger than the annual dahlias - 3 or 4 feet tall and bigger blooms.
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