February 7, 2019

Good morning,yesterday  it was nice to see the greens in the garden actually grow enough to have a reasonable harvest. After all it is still February. Looking forward there does not appear to be any deep freeze coming out way. I am glad that arctic vortex staid clear of our area.

This weekend I will start hardening off my first tomatoes to go into the garden. It is hard to believe that January is already through.  By the middle of the month the garden season will kick into full gear. Bulb onions will be transplanted, strawberry bed runners will be divided so that. I plan to expand the bed. I did get a little of a preview on size and flavor last summer. The flavor is very good and for ever bearing strawberries they are bigger  than most that I have seen.

With the recent warmer weather I expect the peas to start blooming. Most years I do not try to sow seeds during the winter months because most years those seeds get stunted and mid February sowings out perform. This year all the seeds I have sown are performing nicely. With this I have been able to fill out the greens beds. It also looks like radish's  are ready to harvest and at least in the near future there will also be some turnip greens. I have not divided the greens yet so I am not sure of quantities but I did harvest Asian greens, spinach, kohlrabi, boc choi, carrots and some chard an kale. Please place your orders and I will do my best to fill them.

January 31, 2019

Good morning, it was nice to have that few weeks to get new seedlings established. Looking at what the Midwest and the Northeast are putting up with the last few mornings of subfreezing lows even a low or two down into the teens, we are having a cakewalk. Needless to say the garden has not been growing much. After all it is January.  With luck February will be true to form where the first 2 weeks are cold and then the spring warm will begin. The first toms along with peppers and eggplants are beginning to look nice for out planting.

My experiment of over summering parsnips worked very well. I was afraid that they would get huge. I think a pound and a half was the biggest one. They do develop nice tap roots of which a few have lost a portion. Has nothing to do with rocks. But last springs sowing went well with a very nice germination rate. Well above 80%. parsnips are a long crop to harvest, in some cases over 100 days. They do not germinate in soils much above 80 degrees, or at least I have not had much success at those temps. Parsnips thrive in cold weather and it makes them sweet. This year I will give them their own bed instead of piggy backing in with the okra. It will be interesting to see if it was the okra that controlled their growth. Time will tell.

A lot of the Cole crops (brassicas) like with the parsnips develop their best flavors during the cold part of the year. this is why I like to plant them late summer to early fall. I really missed these dates due to my sprained ankle last fall. I am surprised to see the kohlrabi maturing and it also looks like a few cabbages may also make. Underneath the Brussels sprouts cover I am seeing the first vestiges of sprouts. the plants are not very tall but we will see what they do. Because I plant in the fall, I have noticed a bit of a solstice effect on the brassicas. This triggers elongation as they prepare to bloom. In some cases it makes them woody  like kohlrabi, or the heads become very loose like in cabbage. Save for broccoli I like to have all the brassicas  harvested just as thing start to warm. with my late plantings this will be interesting.

The first sowing of peas are looking good and with luck the harvest will begin by the end of February.

The harvest this week was real low amounts, please place your orders and I will do my best. One real upside the hens are starting to have their combs getting bright red, so there is an uptick in egg production. Spring is around the corner and I am soooo ready.

January 17, 2019

Good morning, It has been a couple weeks now that I clipped the guinea's wings. It has been two weeks that the greens have not been predated.  Looking forward, there is a little bit of a cool down next week. Just not seeing the warning signs of a deep freeze. Harvest quantities are reflecting this.

This week I did harvest some kohlrabi,  a nice amount of lettuce along with some spinach and a good a mount of Asian greens. It is becoming much easier to fill bags.

My first pea bed looks to be on the cusp of blooming, garlic is up about 6 inches, bulb onions are ready for transplanting  in February. Radish's and Turnips are doing nicely. 

I will be expanding my strawberry bed, it looks like they did produce an abundance of runners. It the strawberries do well there is a chance for these to be for sale.

Soon I will do some  succession sowing's of beets and carrots.

It is all starting to look very nice. Just like a plan coming together.

January 3, 2019

Boy Howdy, saying it is a bit of a cool ending of last year and a cool start for the new year is some what of an understatement. Throwing in on top of that a power outage kinda is  topping it off with frosting.

Since Christmas the weather  has not been that conducive to growing. With the Ice I have not been able to check under the fabric. Things have been well hardened off, so with a low of 21 I do not think there will be any veggies lost. Just not too much growth. Presently it is 25 up from a low of 21. Once we have sunrise it will  take awhile for things to thaw and I can see if I have anything to harvest.  

Please place your orders. With luck I will have more than parsnips, sweet potatoes and butternut squash.

I will send an email latter today if this is the case.

I hope that we get all of this out of the system before we go into February. January, most years, is Our coldest month.

December 20, 2018

Good morning, NOAA is hinting that there will be some major weather changes coming our way after Christmas with no details. I did read an exert from the Farmers Almanac that from the end of December to the middle of January there is a good chance of wintry weather. Here again no details. I do find it interesting that The Farmers Almanac makes their forecast a year in advance and is reasonably accurate. Maybe as good as professional weather forecasters. Go figure. Anymore all I really care for is notification of a weather change and to what temperature direction we will be headed. Any more it is the huge swings that catch me off guard.

It seems every year I get lulled into a sowing after the first hard freeze. I sow and then winter hits. 

The seeds germinate and emerge and then they sit, until the customary warming that happens around the middle of February. Maybe because that first freeze was on the heals of that chilling rain I decided to re seed. Because there was no real warmth in the soil, the fabric couldn't do its magic, and the garden was nailed. If the above mentioned change turns out to be towards wintry conditions we will be limping along for awhile longer. If it is to warmer weather then the greens will make a wonderful and welcome recovery.

It is nice to note that soon there will be green onions once again, I made a light harvest of lettuce, have managed to keep the guineas out of the spinach so there will be spinach soon. So everyone hurry up and wait. 

I appreciate everyone's patience. Please place your orders and I will do my best to fill them.

December 13, 2018

Good morning, This week I got my second bed of peas in. Trying a little something different. Most of the bed is germinated seed and planted. I am going to try transplanted seedlings. I am curious if transplants will result in more fully stocked beds.

While harvesting greens I do see some of the kohlrabi starting to mature.  I am noticing there are also a few cabbages that might make too. If not, there is next year.

It really is not very long before I begin to start my first nightshade seedlings. And with that so will begin the next season. I so hope that this coming year will not be quite as challenging as this past one. Time will tell.

Considering that we are moving into the cooler time of the year, the freeze shocked veggie greens are making a decent comeback. Although I see where the guineas got into the spinach bed. They did not kill any of them but they destroyed this week’s pickings. It is always something.

The harvests are increasing. Please place your orders and I will fill what I can.

December 6, 2018

Good morning, it was nice not to see any additional mortality from the first freeze. It was also nice to see some of the kale “nubs” actually survive and are growing. My other fall greens are looking nice too. Things are coming back I just need patience.

Talking with a fellow gardener and we may have figured out why there seemed to be more damage with a 17 degree low than with thee 1.5-degree low back in 2011. The big difference was, this year preceding the freeze we had an intense cooling storm. There was a week of overcast skies with close to freezing precipitation. There was no heat in the soil. I expected to see all the uncovered plants fry (the 20-degree mortality rule), but I was surprised to see destruction in covered beds both with light and heavy covers.

One of the qualities of fabric is to maintain the present temperature of the soil. It is good insulation. Because of the cool down there was not enough reserve heat to buffer the plants from the 17-degree morning. No practical amount of fabric could have changed this. The fabric does not generate heat it only conserves it. Any well-established plants under the covers did fine, leaf burn but nothing serious.

On a heads up note, tomorrow there is expected to be a weather event to arrive. Looking at the low temps, this could have freezing precipitation. I mention this because it was a couple years back that a similar event happened. My bulb onions were germinating, but not fully extended above the ground. Cool damp conditions and 90-percent of the onion seedlings died from dampening off disease. Sooo, this time I have drenched the seedling bed with an organic fungicide and covered the bed with some greenhouse film. The idea is not to have another deep cooling of this bed and have the dampening off thingy once again. Ah yes, the best laid plans of mice and men.

Oh, and bye the bye, I did harvest a parsnip that had been sown last spring. I roasted it in a crock pot along with a couple butternut squash. It was tender and very sweet. The one I harvested was nearly a pound. I did harvest some for bags. These all appear to range in ½ pound up to 1 ½ pounds. Not as big as what I imagined. I think I will repeat this this spring. The germination was nearly 90-percent.

The garden continues to heal, greens harvests are on the increase. Please place your orders and I will fill what I can and only bill for that portion I do fill.