Wordless Wednesday: Planting Garlic

Before we had our first frost at the beginning of the month I managed to get all my garlic planted. After separating the cloves and sorting the intact ones from the ones with broken skins, I got outside in between rain showers. This year some is grown by me, some by the Sharing Farm, and some by Westcoast Seeds.

Last year I grew enough in one raised bed to hopefully last until late spring. This year I increased the amount I planted, hoping it will take me through until the next backyard harvest.

For a full description of how I plant garlic, click here.

Extending the Harvest with Covered Hoops

Last year I began experimenting with extending the growing season and harvesting fresh food through autumn. In fact, I was able to harvest backyard veggies for the last time on December 1st! After that we had an unseasonal cold snap and early snow (I live in the moderate pacific northwest where we are increasingly finishing winter with little to no snow). Luckily some of my cold resistant veggies bounced back enough by late winter that I could start harvesting them again in February and March.

But one of my faults as a backyard gardener is that I often forget to harvest the veggies before they bolt (go to seed) in the summer or freeze in the winter. I'm always disappointed that I didn't pick something when I thought of it instead of waiting just that one more day or week. Hardy plants like kale did well with limited frosts and bounced back quickly, but my turnips, carrots, and cabbage were turned to mush in the freezing temps and never rebounded.

Through the summer, after doing more reading about fall and winter gardening, and weighing the pros and cons of cold frames versus covered hoops (an excellent discussion here), I decided to try covered hoops this year. Sometimes plastic covered hoops made with flexible tubing are called low tunnels, and the taller variety are called poly tunnels. I guess mine are a hybrid (not low but not tall enough to walk in).

My wonderful neighbour (really, he's amazing) and built my covered hoops once I'd cleaned up the fall garden and mulched everything for warmth and moisture retention. Unfortunately we'd already had a frost, so there has been some damage to the lettuce and Asian greens, which I'd hoped to avoid.

With the sides down for full protection.

With the sides up for moisture in warmer temperatures.

So how well do the covered hoops work to protect my plants?


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Kitchen Scraps Garden Part Two: Carrot Seeds

Most kitchen gardeners grow carrots, and I am no exception. My daughters love eating them, and generally I find them easy to grow. While seeds are not overly expensive, I find I go through a great deal of them each year because of having to sow so many then thinning the seedlings to allow for adequate growth.

I have been experimenting with growing food from kitchen scraps, and I saw a post somewhere about planting the tops of carrots to produce seeds. As a novice gardener I am beginning to delve into seed saving, which has so many benefits. This seemed like a perfect fit.

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Sunflower Feast

I love sunflowers "just because."

They are bright and they make me happy. They have faces that smile as they look down on me.

But I also love sunflowers for all the critters they attract to my garden. I have had much joy taking photos of ladybugs, flies, bees, ants, sunflowers and beetles climbing over my sunflowers.

Lately my backyard garden has been looking all kinds of shaggy because we are in transition to the cooler months of the year. The sunflowers are drooping. The once bright yellow petals are turning brown and falling off.

But this brings a different kind of happiness. For one, the plants coming to the end of their cycle and producing seeds is it's own kind of gorgeousness. One of my favourite hashtags on Instagram is #lovelydeadcrap. The feed is filled with amazing photographs of decaying plants, which is often overlooked as a source of beauty.

For another, the seeds the plants produce are a source of food for critters like squirrels and birds.

This morning the sunflower stalks moved and swayed but not from the breeze. There are a dozen little birds feasting on the sunflower seeds that are exposed. We don't see as many little birds as we used to, so this is a welcome sight.

We have seen chickadees, finches and sparrows swooping in and dashing away. We don't need a bird feeder because we have nature's bird feeder. It makes me happy that I decided against pulling up most of the sunflowers to make room for my fall garden.

Image source

Gardening brings such joy year round.

If you are on Instagram, I'm crustyroll35. Let's connect!

Autumn Garden

Tomorrow will be the first day of autumn and I am looking forward to the official end of summer. I feel alive during the summer and I revel in all the outdoor activities we can easily do during the hot months, but like many people, autumn may be my favourite season. This year I have more reasons to say good bye to the summer than in previous years.

The leaves have begun to show their first blush of autumn. On the eve of what should have been the first day of school we spent time at my old alma mater, Simon Fraser University, and enjoyed the beautiful leaves. 

We are fortunate here in the pacific northwest because we can often have an extended summer in September and a long autumn with cool, crisp mornings and warm afternoons well into October. We make up for it in November with the famous Vancouver rain. 

While the intense growing season of the summer has all but ended, I like to extend the backyard harvests with colder season growing. In fact, last year I harvested various Asian greens and kale on December 1st. 

Bok choy, kale, sui choy, turnips, cabbage, marigolds and sunflowers.

I began planning and organizing my fall garden back in late July and early August when I started seeds in a mini shelf greenhouse unit in my backyard. I had to finally say goodbye to the summer and yank up some plants to make room for the new ones, which was hard. 

Beans and tomatoes in the mini greenhouse in the spring.

At the moment my garden beds are looking a little shaggy as I wait for the remaining sunflowers and cucumbers (which as still producing).

Things are looking a little sad with the squash gone and droopy sunflowers.

Growing in Two Raised Beds:

four varieties of kale 

bok choy

sui choy (Chinese cabbage)

leafy lettuce

spinach

turnips

chard

cauliflower and cabbage (for the spring)

garlic (to be planted in October)

parsnips (very hard to germinate; out of two dozen seeds I have three seedlings so far. I don't have high hopes that they will survive)

* This is my first year not growing Brussels sprouts. In the past I have harvested some for Thanksgiving dinner and the rest for Christmas dinner, and now I am regretting not growing them.

Lettuce, spinach, chard, bok choy, sui choy, parsnips, cauliflower

I have plans to build hoops and cover two of my beds with plastic when we have regular frost. I was able to harvest through mid fall frosts last year because we had a warm season and the frosts were intermittent. However, once winter hit we had to wait until late January before the kale was defrosted and edible again. I am hoping to have kale through to the spring with covered beds, as well as cauliflower next spring. 

Wordless Wednesday: Sunflower Love

There are so many great reasons to grow sunflowers, but to be honest, I grow them because they make me happy.

Summer Bounty

It's been a busy gardening summer, so busy that I haven't really blogged about my garden at all. On top of weeding, cleaning and reseeding, I water every day, which alone takes 30-40 minutes. It is a labour of love, and the time spent in my garden is my personal therapy session.

There is nothing more satisfying than walking out my back door and picking my food, and nothing compares to the taste of fresh, homegrown food. Recently I had a greek salad for dinner at a restaurant and it tasted bland compared to what I could make at home.

Every summer I am reminded about the true cost of our food. I am much less prone to wasting food when I have grown it with my own hands because I understand the effort that went into growing it. When I walk around farmers markets and groceries stores I'm astounded at how reasonable the food actually is, even though people complain about the high cost of fresh, healthy food.

I have four raised beds and multiple containers around the beds. Here is a selection of photos of my summer harvest:

For a family birthday party: greens (kale, chard, lettuce, beet, arugula),
cucumbers, carrots, dragon's tongue beans, tomatoes, peppers.

I tried something new this year: potatoes in grow bags. It was successful,
but next year I will go back to the garden beds to get a higher yield.

Asian greens, so good! I am currently starting new greens (sui choy and
bok choy) for my fall garden.

This mini harvest turned into pesto.

It has been a pretty good year for tomatoes, despite a rough start. The hot
summer has provided the perfect conditions for them. Now to pick them
before the squirrels eat them all! 

I like growing heirloom varieties too, like these yellow pear tomatoes.

The pride and joy of my garden: garlic! It was a bumper crop this year.

Speaking of bumper crop, my cucumbers have been amazing!

I'm trying four different varieties of hot peppers this year: jalapeño, habenero
yellow and red.

My beautiful yellow peppers, so sweet with a little kick.

My beets did very well too. There were a few gargantuan sized ones, but
these ones are so pretty when sliced.

It was my first year growing spaghetti squash and I have enjoyed it. This
is my first squashed harvested, and it was delicious.

My first successful year with onions, and the difference was buying the bulbs.
I have learned a lot this season, such as not planting onions with garlic.

Perhaps the hot, dry season wasn't as good for my zucchinis, which
did not produce as many as previous years.

Another first for me: edamame (soy beans), and I will definitely be growing
these again. 

Finally, the harvest today. I gave much of this to my neighbour who
has helped me so much by building my raised beds and fixing
my fence. He's so awesome.

My Garden This Season:

basil, thyme, cilantro, sage

arugula, salad bowl lettuce, mustard

chard

four varieties of kale

three varieties of beets

zucchini

spaghetti squash

two varieties of potatoes

yellow onions

four varieties of carrots

multiple varieties of sunflowers

cucumbers

multiple varieties of heirloom tomatoes

edamame

green beans and dragon's tongue beans

four types of hot peppers

radishes

bok choy 

celery

horseradish

hard neck and soft neck garlic

snap peas

blueberries

raspberries

strawberries

Freezing the Harvest

This is the time of year when the earth's bounty is overflowing. The harvest is in full swing and there is abundant fresh, local and often organically grown vegetables and fruit. Those of us who have kitchen gardens are faced with buckets full of tomatoes, beans, zucchinis, greens and herbs. I am trying to bake as much zucchini bread as I can, but it is nice to have homegrown, or locally grown food in the winter months when most of our produce comes from far away.

Climate Crusader has written of easy food preserving methods, and I would like to share my favourite way to preserve the summer bounty for the long, wet, cold winter. 

I enjoy eating my easy refrigerator pickles and beets, but I have yet to delve properly into the world of canning (it's on my "to learn" list every year). This would be my best bet for saving the majority of my harvest, but every year the complications of life seem to get between me and my canning dreams. 

Freezing the Harvest

My preferred method of food preservation, by default, is freezing my food. This past spring we used up the last of my frozen zucchini just as I was preparing to put the new zucchini plants into my garden bed. I have learned that it is possible to freeze many vegetables and berries, it just takes a little preparation and time to do it properly.

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