February 16, 2017

Good morning, the garden continues to awaken. I am harvesting out of a number of my over wintered veggies. Sadly the cabbages didn't make. After being clobbered by the cut worms they really never recovered.. I am thinking that for next falls plantings I will start them inside. This should be a much more controlled environment, both temperature, moisture and most of all bugs. It would be nice to have fully stocked winter veggie beds. I think in the case of parsnips, since they are a larger seed I will try and germinate the seed, then sow. Parsnips do not like real warm soil to germinate in. Last fall with all the August rain the soil was perfect. I was afraid to over water and instead I under watered. Parsnips and carrots are similar in the fact that they need to stay consistently moist to germinate. It can take them 2 weeks to germinate. Each time they dry out during this time the germination goes down. With germinating the seed during this time period the duration of needing to keep moist would be dramatically reduced. If the soil is too warm to germinate it is my hope that the germinated seed will grow quite nicely. We will see. Cabbages on the other hand will germinate in warmer soils and will grow through the summer but heat makes them bitter. It is the the cool to cold of winter that give ALL the Cole crops their tastiness. My experience with cabbage is to get them to ripen as close to the solstice as possible. More than a month afterward and they start the flowering process and what were nice tight heads start to loosen up. A harvest starting the first of December and ending by the end of January would be perfect. I am thinking of starting the plants around the end of July and out plant them some time in August once the seedlings size up. Like with so many of the cool weather veggies it is trial and error to fit them into our not so perfect climate for Cole crops.

Speaking of cool weather plants the first peas are starting to bloom. Crossing my fingers that we do not get any cold zingers we should start having peas within a couple weeks? Or at least so I hope. The beets are starting to size up, lettuce seedlings are sizing up for the next lettuce succession, Tomatoes have actively started to grow even after going through an 18 degree morning(quite well tucked in I will say). And the rest of the summer veggies will be put out to harden off within the week.

As warm as the winter has been I have put some greenhouse film down to warm a bed for okra. I have lots of seeds soooo what the hay. Worst thing is I start over, or it could pay off. I like trying to push the seasons, the fabric helps with this. One time this was tried growing spinach in the summer. It was done but the effort was too great and the quality was not very good. Some things you gotta try. A soil thermometer has the soil near 55-60 degrees.

s we progress into spring and the winter veggies start to be harvested out, I am hoping that there will not be any veggie shortages for bag sales. In the advent that this happens, I will only charge for the portion of the bags I do fill. Ah yes transition time can be interesting. To me spring is more dicey than fall. The big difference is most of the winter veggies are whole plant harvested while summer veggies are individual fruits. Much easier to grow more fruit than it is to grow a whole new plant. Especially during the winter. This is why it can be a bit tricky, planning for enough harvest to last until the summer veggies come along. Then also keeping in mind that some of these winter veggies once they begin to grow in the spring will become bitter or very woody. This makes it all very interesting.

This weeks harvest chard, kale, spinach, asian greens, turnip greens, green onions, lettuce, and turnips. Please email for availability.