Tag Archives: kale

Time to start thinking “fall”

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fall crop kale 091513It sure is hard to believe summer is almost over. Seems it just got here. In zone 6, it’s time to think about your fall garden. If you’ve had a fun summer and want to put your gardens away for the year that’s great. But you’d be missing out on the best season of all-fall and even winter for those wanting to do just a little more work. Right now is the time to direct seed certain crops that will be ready in late fall-things like kale, carrots, beets, etc. If you’re lucking enough to be in a place where they have brussel sprout plants-now’s the time to put those in. In another few weeks it will be time to plant your entire fall/winter garden. There is little work. And the crops for winter are the absolute best! I have my first fall/winter garden class on August 16th. We’ll spend a minimum amount of time on the SFG system since participants will usually have their favorite gardening methods. For those who want to learn the SFG way-this will cover it. It’s abbreviated because we don’t spend time on things that you can’t do at this time of year-like vertical gardening. But you’ll leave with the basics. Then we are putting together a variety of low tunnels. These enable you to grow all fall and deep into the winter if that’s your goal. I’ll be bending your electrical conduit right here so you leave all set to go. If you’re garden space is big enough you can go right through winter. We’ll talk about protection methods, and then I will be discussing the crops that do best in our zone. I’ll spend additional time on the “dandy dozen” for winter. Also available for purchase will be a small sampling of seed packs at $4 each. Some may be things you’ve never known about but they will have you looking forward to each fall and/or winter season. If you’re local, please let me know if you’d be interested in attending. I’ll have another class in late August.[ois skin=”below post”]

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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April 14th square foot garden

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sfg 041413It’s hard to believe that this was all planted in the coldest part of the year. In just a few short weeks this will all be emptied out and an entirely brand new set of crops will take their place. I’ve really enjoyed-and so has our family-eating some different tasting(and sounding)greens that I’ve never grown before. This upcoming fall, I’ll be able to share specific information about 15 different cold weather crops that I’ve had experience with. Many of these are items that many might not have tasted much less grown, but are easy to plant. Done right, you should be able to harvest right through the winter in zones 3-6 with just a little extra effort. I don’t mind doing the extra work because the quality and taste of the food is so superior compared to store bought during these months. I’ll be able to share how each of these crops fit into the 1, 4, 9, and 16 spacings. This square foot gardening stuff-it sure is a lot of fun-and a whole lot less work.[ois skin=”below post”]

Under the tunnel

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heat in high tunnelThe recorded windchill temperatures at night have been in single digits all week. I haven’t been able to see anything that’s come up yet but I’ve been able to take a quick peek under the plastic to observe what the picture shows if you look hard enough-heat coming up from the ground. The sun has come out occasionally but I haven’t put a thermometer under the plastic to know how warm it’s gotten. Past experience has shown it to be 30+ degrees warmer then the outside air. I planted another square today of lettuce and radishes which means there should be eight squares growing soon-hopefully. I’ve got all cold crops planted under the tunnel so we’ll see if this little experiment works. The towel under the tunnel(previous post picture)has been used to cover the squares that have been planted so far. It’s just meant to provide another layer of protection-especially in this kind of weather.[ois skin=”below post”]