Saturday, May 11, 2013
first pac choi harvest
Today, I harvested my first crop of pac choi ever. I had eight plants, which were all about 6-8" tall. I am very happy with these. They grew quickly and hardly have any blemishes at all. I was so happy with them that I planted about a half dozen more today. I can't wait until we cook them this week.
Thursday, May 9, 2013
in full swing
My labors for this year's gardening season began back in January. Months of sowing seeds on a finely orchestrated schedule, keeping them watered and fertilized, and fending off the curious fingers of my daughter have finally paid off. My GY2013 garden is finally complete! All of my plants for the summer harvest are now outside and row covers no longer seem necessary to maintain survival. Now I mostly just have to weed, water, and find room in the fridge for my veggies.
This year, I added three additional 8' x 4' x 10" raised beds to the main garden area. Like the previous beds, I filled these with a combination of grass clippings and yard waste followed by a healthy layer of LeafGro compost from the Maryland Environmental Service. We have had really heavy rains over the past few days, so they have already sunk a few inches in height as these materials have compacted. I'm not so worried about that because I will likely add more organic matter to these beds over the course of the season. These will probably be the last beds that I place in this part of my property. Any farther to the west and I will be encroaching on my neighbor's yard and I have nothing but trees and a steep hill in the northern direction.
My garlic plants are maybe 18-20" tall at this point. They haven't really stared forming bulbs yet, but they are already starting to look a little yellow in the tips. I think they may need some extra fertilization to perk them up. I don't want them to start falling over prematurely before their bulb size has maxed out.
As mentioned in a previous post, I ripped out my failed strawberry bed this year. Since this is a small and strangely shaped bed (I forget my original design logic), I decided to exile the fennel to this one. Fennel is allelopathic, so I usually just grow it in pots or planters. Unfortunately, I never got bulbs of any significant size. Hopefully, now that they have a proper bed, I will gain a larger harvest.
My spinach plants are doing really well this year. So far, there are no bugs and the leaves are a decent size. My first row looks like it may bolt soon, but I have two subsequent plantings already growing so that should buy me some time to start more seedlings indoors. This bed is also currently home to some pac choi, bunching onion seedlings, and my tomato plants. I recognize that this seems over-planted at the moment, but this is an experiment in high efficiency succession planting. I expect once the tomatoes are tall enough to shade out everything else that all of the pac choi and spinach would have been long dead anyway. The onions (and basil found just above this bed) are good companion plants for the tomatoes, so I won't be too upset if their yield is lower since the tomatoes are what I really care about. By August, this whole bed is just going to be a ginormous mass of plum tomatoes. (I hope!)
The swiss chard is now producing full-sized leaves and so I will have to start harvesting these pretty regularly now. The first round of radishes were ready this week, but I realize now that I am still planting mine too close together. Most of my radishes are not spherical, but long and tapered like stubby carrots. In any event, I will probably pull up the entire first row this week so that I can sow another strip and keep the harvest going. The turnips and rutabagas in this bed are just now starting to swell up. Finally, my carrots are just starting to emerge. Unfortunately, it seems like the carrots are really far behind schedule and I don't think that I will be able to put in multiple plantings as I had hoped.
In the new raised beds, I have planted peppers, summer squash and zucchini, cantaloupe (under the trellis), and bush beans. I was a little worried that this week's downpours would wash them away, but they seem pretty happy.
My slicing cucumbers and jelly melons (African horned cucumber) are now growing under the trellis with some dill seedlings sown between them. In this bed, I also have two plantings of salad greens, basil, parsley, and a third planting of spinach. I expect that we will have salad in about 1-2 weeks. Sadly, my purple basil is in sorry shape. It just seems burnt and shriveled for some reason. I'm hoping that I just planted it outside too early and that with the change to warmer weather it will also start to perk up.
The peas are now about 14" tall and their tendrils are seeking out the the twine of the trellis. The kohlrabi has begun to swell at the base and start looking like the vegetable it will eventually be. Unfortunately, my broccoli is still looking miniscule. I just don't know what happened to these plants. They went out at the same time as the kohlrabi and peas, but they just never took off.
This year, I added three additional 8' x 4' x 10" raised beds to the main garden area. Like the previous beds, I filled these with a combination of grass clippings and yard waste followed by a healthy layer of LeafGro compost from the Maryland Environmental Service. We have had really heavy rains over the past few days, so they have already sunk a few inches in height as these materials have compacted. I'm not so worried about that because I will likely add more organic matter to these beds over the course of the season. These will probably be the last beds that I place in this part of my property. Any farther to the west and I will be encroaching on my neighbor's yard and I have nothing but trees and a steep hill in the northern direction.
 |
| Dogstreet Farm: now with 11 raised beds! |
My garlic plants are maybe 18-20" tall at this point. They haven't really stared forming bulbs yet, but they are already starting to look a little yellow in the tips. I think they may need some extra fertilization to perk them up. I don't want them to start falling over prematurely before their bulb size has maxed out.
 |
| one of my two garlic beds |
As mentioned in a previous post, I ripped out my failed strawberry bed this year. Since this is a small and strangely shaped bed (I forget my original design logic), I decided to exile the fennel to this one. Fennel is allelopathic, so I usually just grow it in pots or planters. Unfortunately, I never got bulbs of any significant size. Hopefully, now that they have a proper bed, I will gain a larger harvest.
 |
| fennel |
My spinach plants are doing really well this year. So far, there are no bugs and the leaves are a decent size. My first row looks like it may bolt soon, but I have two subsequent plantings already growing so that should buy me some time to start more seedlings indoors. This bed is also currently home to some pac choi, bunching onion seedlings, and my tomato plants. I recognize that this seems over-planted at the moment, but this is an experiment in high efficiency succession planting. I expect once the tomatoes are tall enough to shade out everything else that all of the pac choi and spinach would have been long dead anyway. The onions (and basil found just above this bed) are good companion plants for the tomatoes, so I won't be too upset if their yield is lower since the tomatoes are what I really care about. By August, this whole bed is just going to be a ginormous mass of plum tomatoes. (I hope!)
 |
| pac choi, spinach, tomatoes, and bunching onions |
The swiss chard is now producing full-sized leaves and so I will have to start harvesting these pretty regularly now. The first round of radishes were ready this week, but I realize now that I am still planting mine too close together. Most of my radishes are not spherical, but long and tapered like stubby carrots. In any event, I will probably pull up the entire first row this week so that I can sow another strip and keep the harvest going. The turnips and rutabagas in this bed are just now starting to swell up. Finally, my carrots are just starting to emerge. Unfortunately, it seems like the carrots are really far behind schedule and I don't think that I will be able to put in multiple plantings as I had hoped.
 |
| swish chard (front), carrots (middle), root crops (rear) |
In the new raised beds, I have planted peppers, summer squash and zucchini, cantaloupe (under the trellis), and bush beans. I was a little worried that this week's downpours would wash them away, but they seem pretty happy.
 |
| our newest additions to Dogstreet Farm |
My slicing cucumbers and jelly melons (African horned cucumber) are now growing under the trellis with some dill seedlings sown between them. In this bed, I also have two plantings of salad greens, basil, parsley, and a third planting of spinach. I expect that we will have salad in about 1-2 weeks. Sadly, my purple basil is in sorry shape. It just seems burnt and shriveled for some reason. I'm hoping that I just planted it outside too early and that with the change to warmer weather it will also start to perk up.
 |
| basil (left front), parsley and spinach (right front), salad (middle), cucumber and jelly melon (rear) |
The peas are now about 14" tall and their tendrils are seeking out the the twine of the trellis. The kohlrabi has begun to swell at the base and start looking like the vegetable it will eventually be. Unfortunately, my broccoli is still looking miniscule. I just don't know what happened to these plants. They went out at the same time as the kohlrabi and peas, but they just never took off.
 |
| peas (under trellis), broccoli (front), kohlrabi (rear) |
Monday, April 29, 2013
harvest Monday
We have had some steady rain this past weekend, and the vegetables are looking especially happy about that. I was able to double the size of my spinach harvest this week, as the leaves are now past the "baby" stage and starting to get some good size to them.
I was also happy to discover that my swiss chard was also ready for its first harvest. My daughter manged to eat several leaves before we were able to get back indoors. I tried one myself and it was surprisingly salty, but really tasty. We'll have to try some swiss chard salad in the near future instead of cooking it.
I was also happy to discover that my swiss chard was also ready for its first harvest. My daughter manged to eat several leaves before we were able to get back indoors. I tried one myself and it was surprisingly salty, but really tasty. We'll have to try some swiss chard salad in the near future instead of cooking it.
Monday, April 22, 2013
first harvest
I'm happy to report that I made my first intentional harvest of the season - spinach. This year's crop is looking great. So far, the leaves are just baby spinach size, but they taste great.
(Note: I wrote "intentional" because several asparagus have been prematurely harvested by my little girl who likes to grab the "sticks" in the garden. They tasted pretty good too, although maybe a little small.)
Monday, April 15, 2013
mid-April update
I know that I was planning to update the blog more frequently, but that has not happened. Oh well. Here is an overly long update.
All of the garden beds have been prepped for GY2013, which was not a trivial task. I have to deal with a lot of adventitious roots from that alianthus tree stand in the rear of my property. To try to stave off their attack, I removed all the dirt from the beds, hand sifted the soil, sealed the bottom with landscape cloth, and then put the soil back. Ugh. Not fun. Hopefully, it will be worth the effort. I still haven't even begun planning the three new beds that I plan to install out here. Maybe next week.
The garlic is doing fabulous. It looks like almost all of the cloves have made it through the winter. There are something like 200-300 plants in the two beds.
The peas just popped up this week. This year, I am trying to make a trellis out of some alianthus stems. I still need to weave the webbing, but the supports are up now. This is mostly for fun. I already have A-frame trellises that I have used for peas in previous years.
Here we have my sad, sad spinach. I put these little guys outside way too early and they nearly died. They are gradually perking back up and they now have new green leaves.
The kohlrabi hasn't grown much since I planted them in the bed, but they're thriving.
These basil were just transplanted outside this past weekend. Typically, I wait until May but I need to free up room under my grow lights and it has been quite mild for the past week.
Due to my poor memory and being too lazy to count my garden beds before making plans, I have to grow my cauliflower in pots. So far, they look better than everything else.
The front yard is a minor disaster. I tore out all of the old fencing and dug up the remaining sod to expand the garden somewhat. Some day, I plan to finish the edging around the garden and to lay down some crushed stone to make a path. For now, I just have a dangerous combination of rebar and string to mark the boundaries.
The onion sets that I bought at Walmart are doing great. I am impressed.
The onions that I have grown from seed are not doing so hot. Either I need to change my approach to growing onion from seed, or I need to just buy set onions from now on.
All of the garden beds have been prepped for GY2013, which was not a trivial task. I have to deal with a lot of adventitious roots from that alianthus tree stand in the rear of my property. To try to stave off their attack, I removed all the dirt from the beds, hand sifted the soil, sealed the bottom with landscape cloth, and then put the soil back. Ugh. Not fun. Hopefully, it will be worth the effort. I still haven't even begun planning the three new beds that I plan to install out here. Maybe next week.
The garlic is doing fabulous. It looks like almost all of the cloves have made it through the winter. There are something like 200-300 plants in the two beds.
The peas just popped up this week. This year, I am trying to make a trellis out of some alianthus stems. I still need to weave the webbing, but the supports are up now. This is mostly for fun. I already have A-frame trellises that I have used for peas in previous years.
It may be hard to see in this picture, but these are my root crops and swiss chard. Here, I am planting carrots, radishes, turnips, and rutabaga. I am keeping these under row cover until they get a little bigger.
Here we have my sad, sad spinach. I put these little guys outside way too early and they nearly died. They are gradually perking back up and they now have new green leaves.
The kohlrabi hasn't grown much since I planted them in the bed, but they're thriving.
In this bed, I have my spinach (middle) and pac choi (sides). Later in the season, I will plant my tomatoes here.
These basil were just transplanted outside this past weekend. Typically, I wait until May but I need to free up room under my grow lights and it has been quite mild for the past week.
Due to my poor memory and being too lazy to count my garden beds before making plans, I have to grow my cauliflower in pots. So far, they look better than everything else.
I was pleased to discover that my asparagus is now sprouting up. Yay! I was really worried that the crowns were going to die since I just transplanted all of them.
The front yard is a minor disaster. I tore out all of the old fencing and dug up the remaining sod to expand the garden somewhat. Some day, I plan to finish the edging around the garden and to lay down some crushed stone to make a path. For now, I just have a dangerous combination of rebar and string to mark the boundaries.
The onion sets that I bought at Walmart are doing great. I am impressed.
The onions that I have grown from seed are not doing so hot. Either I need to change my approach to growing onion from seed, or I need to just buy set onions from now on.
Saturday, March 2, 2013
seed starting update #2
There has been steady growth of all of my seedlings since my last post. I am quickly running out of space under my existing shop lights and I will have to buy more soon to accommodate all of the plants. I am hoping to be able to start cleaning up the garden beds soon, but it's still so very cold outside.
The onions are stable. I say "stable" because the pots have/had a significant blanket of fungus above the coir growing medium. I freaked out a little bit and decided to transplant a few hundred of the red onion seedlings into normal garden soil. This took several painstaking hours. Although I haven't noticed any fungus since the transplant, I just can't bring myself to go through all that again with a few hundred more onions. Besides, it doesn't appear that the two groups of onions are growing any differently with or without the fungus.
In the tray shown below, I have kohlrabi, spinach, broccoli, oregano, chamomile, sage, and basil. They have been under two shoplights tented at a 45 degree angle since germination, so they are nice and stocky with great white roots. You can see that they are little yellow, but I think this is mostly because they need to be potted up. For the moment, I am just trying to supplement them with a littler fertilizer. Typically, the yellow will go a away in a few days after I feed them.
This next tray encompasses seeds sown over the past two weeks or so. Here, I have peppers, swiss chard, eggplant, parsley, and cauliflower. I ran out of my toilet paper roll pots, so I had to buy some Jiffy pots. I don't like these because they don't hydrate as quickly as the toilet paper pots. However, one can only use so much toilet paper in a month. From now on, we are going to save up all of our rolls so that I will have plenty for next season.
Finally, here is my first sowing of spinach. I am now hardening these plants off for a few hours each day. My goal is to set them outside in the next week or so under a cold frame. If I'm lucky, then I might be able to start harvesting spinach by mid April.
The onions are stable. I say "stable" because the pots have/had a significant blanket of fungus above the coir growing medium. I freaked out a little bit and decided to transplant a few hundred of the red onion seedlings into normal garden soil. This took several painstaking hours. Although I haven't noticed any fungus since the transplant, I just can't bring myself to go through all that again with a few hundred more onions. Besides, it doesn't appear that the two groups of onions are growing any differently with or without the fungus.
 |
| yellow onions (with fungus) |
 |
| red onions (sans fungus) |
In the tray shown below, I have kohlrabi, spinach, broccoli, oregano, chamomile, sage, and basil. They have been under two shoplights tented at a 45 degree angle since germination, so they are nice and stocky with great white roots. You can see that they are little yellow, but I think this is mostly because they need to be potted up. For the moment, I am just trying to supplement them with a littler fertilizer. Typically, the yellow will go a away in a few days after I feed them.
This next tray encompasses seeds sown over the past two weeks or so. Here, I have peppers, swiss chard, eggplant, parsley, and cauliflower. I ran out of my toilet paper roll pots, so I had to buy some Jiffy pots. I don't like these because they don't hydrate as quickly as the toilet paper pots. However, one can only use so much toilet paper in a month. From now on, we are going to save up all of our rolls so that I will have plenty for next season.
Finally, here is my first sowing of spinach. I am now hardening these plants off for a few hours each day. My goal is to set them outside in the next week or so under a cold frame. If I'm lucky, then I might be able to start harvesting spinach by mid April.
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