Tag Archives: chard

TWE first spring delivery

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TWE 041514-1st deliveryI only grow for 5 customers but this is the first delivery for the 6 week spring season. What’s in there you ask? Radicchio, mizuna, claytonia, cilantro, poc-choi, carrots, swiss chard, and an artisan lettuce mix. The mix has a combination of black seeded simpson, red cross and skyphos lettuce, spinach, and tokyo bekana. The whole idea is simple: take a handful of lettuce and add any of the other salad green “mix-ins” for a different tasting salad for several nights. It’s not really cheap but my customers enjoy the freshest tasting salad greens and veggies around-especially this early. None of the local CSA’s are up and running at this time. The greatest thing? Taste-taste-taste! And no chemical/pesticide/fertilizer residues-ever.

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Fall salad

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TWE dinner salad 110213When Labor Day weekend hits the state of Utah, it marks the end of the garden season for many of us. Here we are in the first week of November and my garden looks like early spring. Salad greens pulled tonight included a cut-and-come again lettuce, spinach, chard, and mizuna. We added a just ripened tomato, black beans, fresh carrots, and a shunkyo radish, along with croutons, blackened chicken, cheese, hard-boiled eggs, and fresh ground pepper. We will be able to have a different tasting salad every night between now and the end of February. Protecting those gardens in zone 6 with plastic and row covers is the way to do it. I’ll be having a winter garden class in the first week of December. I hope to be able to show everyone in attendance how easy this is to do and become truly self-sufficient.

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In 148 square feet?

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TWE-getting it ready for winter3We’ve had 3 or 4 significant frosts already.  I’m getting ready to cover this structure with greenhouse plastic.  I’ll only then be using a weighted floating row cover to put over the crops.  As we head into winter, this is what’s growing in just 148 square feet of garden space: 20 pounds of potatoes, 108 heads of lettuce, 8 arugula plants, 320 carrots, 117 spinach plants, 36 mizuna plants, 45 claytonia plants, 4 minutina, 24 komatsuna, 27 mache, 80 radishes, 36 beets, 48 turnips, 44 Swissl chard, 9 onions, 36 chives, 16 radicchio, 63 leeks, 2 kale plants, 20 poc choi, 2 parsley plants, 1 rosemary plant, 45 tatsoi, 36 kohlrabi, and 4 plants of cilantro.  We’re ready.

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Time to look for those deals

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2 star lettuce and chard 101113Today I pulled up all of my drip irrigation lines as I haven’t watered with my automated system in a month.  I’ve been hand watering with free water from my Friskars rainbarrel.  It holds 48 gallons of water, and it fills up in about 20 minutes with any decent rainstorm.  I bought mine for $18 a year ago because it was the last one Home Depot had and also because it had a little white smudge on it.  It’s been great to have around.  I’ve used less metered water this year than any other even though I’ve grown more than I ever have.  I think it’s a good time to look for these closeout bargains at stores in your neighborhood.  Rainbarrels, seeds, trowels, and other garden equipment can usually be found for great deals this time of year.  This is what my gardens look like right now-things are up and alive and all looking good for my winter harvest.  Clockwise from upper left is open leaf radicchio(Fiero), chard, 2 Star lettuce, and Komatsuna.  I noticed today that I’m still getting 7 hours of full sun on my gardens.  It’s almost like spring but I have no pests this time of year.  The winter harvest should be great.

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Fall planting schedule-what, when, and how?

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cross view of covered garden in summerOne of the best ways I’ve seen in figuring out what to grow, when to start it, and what to plant is the crop scheduler from Johnny’s Selected Seeds. Besides having the best things on the planet(personal view), they are outstanding at support. Just plug in your average first frost date and you’ll see when you should start, what you should start, and how to do it-either with transplants or direct seeding. You can read all about it here.  You’ll see the planting calendar on the right hand side of the page.  By planting the right crops for the right season you eliminate a lot of headaches-like trying to grow tomatoes in weather that’s too cold.  Or spinach in the summer.  Cold weather and frost isn’t too far away-it’s time to start planning if you want a great fall garden and harvest.  I’ve still got plenty of lettuce(in terribly warm weather)coming on, along with chard, tomatoes, peppers,  zucchini, squashes, carrots, basil, parsely, chives, corn, and beets among other things.  All of these-with the exception of lettuce-love the warm weather.  I’ve had to do some extra work with the lettuce to keep it from tasting bitter(more on that the next post), and going to seed, but it’s easy work.  I’ve got some fall square foot garden classes to teach coming up in the next few weeks in order to help others get ready for the fall season.  I hope you can experience the success and the taste of a fresh brussel sprout pulled right off the stem-along with all the other great fall crops.

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