Small Victories

Today Trista and I went out to the garden, the first time we had since last week. In fact, on Thursday of last week, September 16, I picked some lettuce to take to the beach, and that was it. The last picking before that was on Monday of that week. The weather has been difficult, which goes with the rest of the season. It was muggy and wet, and around 70 degrees. This week it will continue to be wet and even foggy, and in the 60s for highs, and 40s for low. As you know from your own experience, not much growth can be expected with weather like that.


We were pleasantly surprised to find our first zucchini (pictured above on a pile of our beans), and another small one beside it. Usually by this time we are heartily tired of that vegetable, but we count it as a small victory for this difficult season. Trista began lifting the cucumber vines, and we noticed many tiny "beginner" cukes, and a few that were pickling size. Another small victory.


Our purple-striped wax beans had a decent crop, and we noticed a few blooms still on them. So, victory number three. We're on a roll!

Next we noticed our tomatoes. Hooray! Our pet tomato, the purple calabash, had a beauty ready to pick. The Federle tomato finally gave us some partially ripe ones. The Italian Heirloom and Jaune Flamme also gave up some partially ripe tomatoes.


Next, on to the green snap beans. Yay! we have enough for each of us for dinner tonight. A tiny victory indeed.

Winter squash were surveyed, and found, well, small. For this year, that will have to count for a victory.
Two more small victories - sunflowers and grapes. The grapes are miniscule but ripening nicely, just enough for eating fresh. This is the first year, so we are okay with that. The sunflowers are blooming and pretty, but small. Enough for a bouquet, but probably no seeds, or very few anyway.
While harvesting, we talked about our expectations at the beginning of this season, and compared the harvest to last year. On both counts we came up short. At nearly 500 pounds of tomatoes on half as many plants last year, we don't think we'll get anywhere close this year. in 2009, beans were plentiful and corn grew well so we were able to freeze a lot. Cucumbers also gave us enough to make about 40 pints last year of pickles and 5 quarts of relish. The picture of the tiny pile of veggies below was our harvest for today....


This year we can count 12 pints of pickles on the shelf, and about 1 1/2 gallons of frozen wax beans. Tomatoes and green beans have only produced enough to have for fresh so far, but we should get enough to can some tomatoes, and freeze some beans.

The peppers, brussels sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower are - as Trista says - a big pile of nothing. We'll be able to harvest beets, carrots, basil, and dry beans , though, so still some victory there. Also, potatoes produced less than expected, but we are not disappointed - it is our first effort, and we'll do better next time even if the weather conditions are as bad.

Trista had some news to share about her suburban garden, which fared a bit better. She does have Halloween pumpkins ready to be carved in time for that holiday. She had lots of rhubarb, and was able to put about half a gallon of chopped rhubarb in her freezer. Strawberries produced all season, enough to keep Adam happy finding and eating them. She also harvested some unexpected and delicious huckleberries. Trista also had some apples from her young apple tree, and combined them with a couple of apples from the farmer's market for an apple crisp.

The sweet potatoes didn't even put out a vine, and may join the above-mentioned "big pile of nothing" vegetables. We haven't dug them up to see yet, but you'll be the first to know. Her "mystery" volunteer squash may turn out to be a white pumpkin. It is round and very white, so we shall see. It is, at least, providing some entertainment, something the rest of our efforts is sorely lacking.

All the time during our disappointing harvest, we have been discussing what we might do to be successful next year. To be sure, we may not have the same difficult weather, but then again, we might. We decided to plan for the worst and hope for the best. So, we're looking for short-season tomatoes, investigating ways to make all of those "big pile of nothing" crops do better, and figuring out ways to increase the warmth of our soil for all of our crops. One idea I saw was to dig a deep trench or bed, lay in some fresh manure and cover it with soil, then plant seeds. The fresh manure will warm the soil and the seeds, so they will germinate and grow better, then as the manure decomposes, the plant's roots will have grown enough to tap into the rich nutrients it provides at that stage. It sounds good anyway, so if we can figure out how to get some fresh manure we just might do it. We are looking for other ideas too. Do you have any for us? We're listening!

Rural Garden, Suburban Garden

Rural Garden Report:

Our dill isn't coming up, even though we planted it about three weeks ago. There are a lot of little plants there, but I think they are weeds. The cold and wet period between the time we planted it and now is a reminder that Pacific Northwest weather has its own challenges. Although we don't have freezing past the middle of April, the rain, rain, rain hampers seedling growth. It's warming up and drying out, so we will try again. It shows us that no matter what a seed packet says ("plant 1 week after last frost"), we have to pay attention to local conditions. We will buy another packet of dill seeds and try again.

I (Serena) have been hardening off the tomato and pepper seedlings that have fully developed true leaves. I put them out on the deck in an area that gets a couple of hours of sun a day, and then the rest of the day it is partial sun. I think I can more them to a sunnier spot now that they have had time outdoors with some direct sun. The soil in the garden is not yet warm enough for us to plant them, however, by my reckoning. I don't have a thermometer yet.

Since some of our seedlings didn't develop, I decided to plant a few more. There were two pepper types that didn't germinate well, so I thought with longer and warmer days, they might do better now. Well, we did get some more, but I have learned that Ancho peppers do have to have a lot of warmth. I ended up putting the little pots into a plastic bag in my sunny south kitchen window. They liked that, and most of them germinated. I did even better with the Tolli's Italian Red Pepper. Meanwhile, the seedlings that we planted a while back in the garden like the cabbage pictured above are doing very well!

I also started some flower seedlings: bloodflower, spider flower, columbines, and blanket flower, and snapdragons. They are all coming up, even the native columbine seeds I got from Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Since they are native to this area and came to Jefferson from Lewis and Clark, I am excited about this, as I hope to reintroduce them to our woodlands.

We want to move the young chickens outdoors this weekend, and also would like to fence the area next to the garden and orchard so that the older chickens can work on that spot. Those chickens spend a lot of time over by the garden where they used to dig worms, and are looking at it rather wistfully. I think they miss both the worms and the greens. It will be good to get them into a larger area that isn't so picked over.

We got the rest of our new trees fenced, so they are protected from deer now. The deer managed to get at one more tree before we finished the project, but fortunately the tree still has plenty of leaves.

Trista and Adam came today, and it is beautiful! The sky is blue, and the temperature is in the 70s. Trista brought along some organic potatoes she had bought at the supermarket, but since they are sprouting we have decided to plant them. We should have plenty of potatoes now!

Adam discovered rhubarb today! He brought the first stalk to his mother, and when she ate it, he decided he ought to get another for her. After picking that, he brought it to her, but not without tasting it first. He is pretty adventurous, and likes most everything, so we are not surprised.

Suburban Garden Report:


In my (Trista's) backyard the plants in our new raised beds made out of concrete cinder blocks are doing very well for the most part. Most of the plants I have planted in these are ones that I had elsewhere but they weren't getting enough sun where they were. In the bed where I have 2 rhubarb plants and some strawberry plants one of the rhubarb plants is really starting to thrive while the other is rather lackluster. It is probably still shocked from the move earlier this spring.


On the other side of the planter my everbearing strawberry plants are thriving! This is their third year and they have many strawberries forming on them as well as many more blooms. Before they were in large pots but I think having more soil and sunlight has done wonders for them.


In another area my six blueberry plants are slowly getting healthier. One of the plants is considerably larger than the rest and actually has a few berries starting to form on it. The other plants are just getting up to speed so they won't produce any berries this year.

The third planter just contains our one "sharecropper" pumpkin plant and some soil covered in black plastic awaiting the peanuts and sweet potatoes that I plant to plant there later on in the summer when the soil has warmed up considerably.

I have also tried to plant some flower seeds in outdoor pots. I have had varied success with this due to the cold and wet weather that was mentioned above, as well as the squirrels who dig up the ground for their hidden nuts or places to put them! After almost giving up I noticed last weekend that many of my nasturtiums have finally come up. Some pots have many seedlings while others have none or one! I will fill in with other seeds or small starts later on. I also planted my front yard planter with blanketflower and marigold seeds so hopefully those will come up soon with the warmer weather.

See you again next week!

Potatoes and . . .

A week of interesting happenings ended with us finally being able to prepare the garden for potatoes and get them planted. The beginning of the week was really last Friday evening, after we posted our first blog post. We had planted three new fruit trees first thing that morning - a Green Gage plum, and two apples - Macintosh and Granny Smith. When putting the chickens in the chicken house, we decided to take a walk to see the rest of the orchard, and it was a good thing we did. A deer had decided to lunch on the Granny! We quickly surrounded each new tree with some fencing, so at least they are okay, but we don't have the fencing completely secure yet. More on that later.


We had a colder than average week, but at least it didn't freeze. We like to check NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency) for weather information, and discovered that they had other information for gardeners. One we really appreciated was their recommendations for fertilizer to protect our environment all the way from here to coral reefs. Chicken poop is at the top of their list! Humus is right behind! That seemed so funny, yet so nice, to know how our little chicken/egg/poop producers can help to save the planet.

In order to diversify, we planted four kinds of potatoes. If we're planning to eat all this good stuff, after all, who wants to eat the same old thing all the time? Monocultures are for industrial farmers, and we want to stay away from that as far as we can get. We hand-dug the bed because the soil is still pretty damp. Trista's son Adam even had fun getting in on the act with his little trowel! There was a nice breeze, so while we had lunch the soil had a chance to dry out a little, and we could get on with planting. We checked the recommendations from our local university, which suggested planting them 4 to 6 inches deep and about 1 foot apart in the row, with three feet between rows. Okay, we're all set.

All Blue potatoes went in first. We chose them because they aren't just pretty, they are supposed to have a higher vitamin and mineral content. We might as well be healthy along with all this diversity, right? Next we planted All Red. I think we might have a patriotic theme going here. The remaining potatoes we planted are the familiar Yukon Golds and last in was German Butterball.

We are harvesting rhubarb and chives right now. Permanent plantings are sure nice this time of year. The rhubarb will go into a pie, and the chives are going to have a starring role in some of Trista's lovely bread. Recipes will be coming soon!