THE GREENHOUSE

It's been a long time since I have posted anything to the blog...

We built a greenhouse next to the garden to extend our growing season with winter lettuce, spinach and such and to nurture seedlings before they go out into the garden.

The greenhouse is 8' x 12'.  The foundation is a 4x6 pressure treated timber frame with a geo-fabric weed proof liner filled with sand and topped with 12"x12" paver blocks.  The construction of the greenhouse is standard 2"x4" stick construction with 8' side walls (more height helps in our hot humid environment).  The covering is a corrugated plastic material (looks sort of like cardboard but milky white HDPE plastic) that lasts 15-20 years, much longer than clear film (3-4 years) and is much less expensive than polycarbonate sheets.  The door is a standard 30"x80" full size storm door.  You can see the 16" exhaust fan (yes there is electricity and water piped in) which can keep the interior temperature tolerable for growing even in the middle of our hot summer temperatures.

 There are automatic louvers at the bottom of the back wall to allow a full interior air exchange every 40 seconds (that's what keeps the interior temperature from climbing to oven like temps in the sun.

Inside there are two 6' benches on each long wall with an aisle down the middle.  Not much in the greenhouse at this time of year.  Those are sage and tarragon plants in 2 quart pots at the end of the bench.  The legs of the benches fold up so they can be stored flat against the walls in the winter when we bring in the tender plants (like rosemary bushes) grown in large pots or 5 gallon buckets.  You can see a bit of the paver block floor in this photo.  In late winter / early spring the benches are covered with 28 standard 1020 nursery flats each holding 48 seedlings for a total of 1344 seedlings for the garden.  Everything we grow - indoors or in the garden is grown organically using no industrial pesticides, herbicides or synthetic fertilizers.

Unsettled Weather

It's been way too long since my last post so here's a few words to let y'all know we're still kicking.  It was a very busy time last October harvesting and putting up all the produce from the garden and finishing getting all the wood in and ready for the winter heating season.  More and more, it seems, I hunker down and hibernate during the winter, staying up late and sleeping in in the morning, which I did a lot of, but the winter was our most mild yet so lots of little things got done over the winter.

We expanded our garden area with another plot 50 ft. x 60 ft. for planting small blocks of sweet corn and some watermelons, cantaloupes, and sweet potatoes. I'm interested to see how our new plot produces.  I tilled the patch which was mixed fescue/clover pasture, but really only scratched it up, not completely turning over the soil and grass.  Next we laid down heavy weight weed blocking biodegradable organic paper and covered the entire plot with several inches of aged hardwood mulch.  We let that set over the winter and was ready to plant in this spring.

As I said, the winter was very mild overall with a very dry January and March with way below normal rainfall or snow, sandwiching a very warm February with lots of tropical rain, severe thunderstorms and an episode of tornado warnings.  We were well prepared for all this and were well ahead of last year in having the garden prepared and ready for spring planting.  Broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and onion seedlings all went in in mid March but needed lots of irrigation to thrive through the dry weather and get well established.  Direct sown spinach, beets and peas, did not do well with the dry weather, despite lots of irrigation and had to be replanted once conditions improved.  Direct sown carrots were a 50/50 proposition.  We planted two varieties side by side in 100 ft. long rows 1 ft. apart on the same raised ridge.  Both were newly purchased seed and one variety germinated well and is growing nicely and the other variety totally failed.  Bad seed ??

Kale seedlings were planted out in early April along with lettuce seedlings and finally tomato, pepper and eggplant seedlings were planted out at the end of April.  Lately it has been raining very frequently with lots of cloudy days.  Perfect for the broccoli and it's cousins..

So here we are in mid May and the garden is in full swing.  We are harvesting broccoli and the kale is ready to start picking.  The cabbages are heading up and the cauliflower is just beginning to head up too.  The 600 onions we planted (two 100 ft rows) are very well established and many have 7 leaves already, the tomatoes have nearly tripled in size since planting, the peppers are getting established nicely and the eggplants seem to be fairing OK against the usual onslaught of flea beetles.

The peas just don't seem to be roaring along as they did last year.... I don't know what's up with that.  I'm not expecting good yields and the spinach may run out of steam and not yield much either if the weather turns hot (which it will eventually).

We are attempting to grow three varieties of sweet corn with staggered planting dates so they don't cross pollinate.  When it was time to plant the first variety on May 1st the ground was so wet I had to plant in propagation trays and now need to transplant them into the garden plot now.  The second variety was also planted in propagation trays and are now germinating.  I need to plant the third variety in the propagation trays today.

Two varieties of watermelon and a variety of cantaloupe have sprouted in biodegradable paper pots I made from the weed block paper.  They will transplant well without disturbing the roots when they develop a couple of true leaves.  I "planted" a few sweet potatoes on their sides in a 10x20 tray, half covered with soil and watered liberally for a week weeks.  We now have dozens of large healthy sprouts that are ready to be cut and put into jars of water.  When they sprout roots from the stems in a few days the slips will be ready to plant out in the garden.  There are many different methods of growing sweet potato slips, but I like the method I use the best.

Our only real set back this winter/spring was the complete and utter failure of the hard drive in my Mac laptop.  Lost almost everything.  Not good about backing up.  I have a new PC laptop now.  I used to download images from my digital camera to the laptop with the memory card from the camera plugged into the SDHC card slot on the Mac.  No card slot on the PC laptop and I can't find the mini USB patch cord for the camera anywhere.  It will turn up immediately after I buy a new patch cord, of course, but meanwhile - no pictures with the blog posts.... sorry.  Too bad really because the garden looks awesome.

Summer Garden Yield

Whew!!!  It has been a busy summer… so busy that I really haven't had the energy at the end of the day to post anything to the blog for months.  Since the last post about putting in the Spring Garden it's been go! go! go! non-stop  To say this year's garden was a much better success than our first year garden is an enormous understatement.

So …. how do you define garden success? - yield, of course.  Countless delicious meals and salads straight out of the garden all spring and summer - and all the yummy food put up in the freezer and canning jars to be enjoyed in the coming months.

Here are a few numbers to shock and amaze:
30 lb. of eggplant
640 lb. of tomatoes
125 lb. of peppers
13 lb. of broccoli
27 lb. of cabbage
42 lb. of carrots
9 lb. of spinach
27 lb. kale
70 lb. onions
32 lb. beets
382 lb. cantaloupes
52 lb. summer squash
34 lb. green beans
24 lb. peas
10 lb. swiss chard
plus absurd amounts of lettuce we didn't weigh
plus mountains of fresh basil, thyme, sage, rosemary, marjoram, oregano

We blanched and froze broccoli, kale, cabbage, peas, basil pesto, and green beans until the freezer was stuffed and we have canned 282 jars so far this season.

1/2 pints:  31 jars
pickled jalapeño slices
tomato paste
caramelized onions
sweet pepper relish
bruschetta topping

pints:  126 jars
beets
baby carrots
sauerkraut
green chile enchilada sauce
tomato sauce
ketchup
bbq sauce
dried tomatoes
diced New Mexico chiles
tomatillo salsa
peas
sweet red peppers
cayenne hot sauce

1 1/2 pints: 32 jars
tomato sauce

Quarts:  91 jars
sweet banana pepper rings
pickled beets
cut green beans
tomato sauce
whole san marzano tomatoes
diced san marzano tomatoes
whole rutger tomatoes
tomato juice
summer squash
dill pickles

The fall garden is going in right now.  We have planted broccoli and cabbage seedlings started back in late June.  We have flats of lettuce seedlings about be transplanted into the garden.  Direct sown peas are growing nicely now and we will plant fall carrots, kale and spinach this week.  Oh - and the sweet potato vines are running vigorously now and will have a crop ready for pulling around Oct 15th.

And to think - we have finished building a new fence along the west property line so next year we will expand the growing extravaganza even more by planting beds of sweet corn, watermelons, pumpkins and maybe some peanuts.

Stay tuned!

Spring Garden

Our first garden last year was a moderate success mixed with  quite a few failures.  The most important part is - we learned a lot.  A whole lot!  This year we have incorporated many of the lessons we learned.

After spreading fertilizer and the wood ashes we collected over the winter and adding compost and shredded leaves

I tilled the garden plot lightly at a shallow depth with our BCS 739 tiller.  1/4 of the garden is fallow this season and was planted last fall with a mixture of wheat we hand harvested last summer and red clover.  The area we are planting this year is 94' x 50'

The entire back part of our property slopes gently down hill.  Last year's garden was oriented according the property lines and although the rows ran essentially across the slope to prevent erosion, the rows still ran just slightly down hill from one end to the other.  This year we tweeked the orientation and skewed the entire garden so the rows run across the slope as before but the rows are level from end to end.

Last year we planted a few rows on raised ridges but most of the planting was done "on the flat".  With our soil and the pattern of rainfall the raised ridges are definitely the way to go, so this year I purchased a Hiller/Ridger attachment for the BCS tiller to make raised ridges and furrows in the entire garden.  19 rows each 94' long spaced from 24" apart to 42" apart.  Last year we did not start out with a drip irrigation system but quickly realized our adequate rainfall did not arrive steadily and uniformly, rather it arrived in sporadic heavy downpours with considerable dry spells in between.  We put in a drip system, which saved the day, then dismantled and stored everything over the winter.  This year we set up the drip system right at the beginning.  Each row is irrigated with 5/8" drip tape with integrated .25gph emitters spaced either 6" or 12" apart depending on the crop planted in that row.

Broccoli on the left and cabbage on the right on their raised ridges with straw mulch in between rows.

Tomato rows are spaced 3 feet apart.  We used the "Florida String Weave" method for supporting the plants last year which worked very well.  The plants are spaced 2 feet apart in the row with a t-post between between every 3 plants.  Baling twine is strung from post to post down one side of the posts and back up the other side to create a narrow slot for the main plant stems.  I'll post more images of this as the season progresses and the string weaving is added as the plants grow.

So far the spring has cooperated nicely for getting the garden off to a good start.  We have peas, carrots, beets, spinach, lettuce, swiss chard, kale, broccoli, cabbage, and onions all in and growing well.  We just planted the 135 tomato and tomatillo seedlings and poked in the green bean seeds.  Next we will plant the squash seeds.  The eggplant and pepper seedlings have all been potted up from 6-packs to individual 3.5" pots and will be transplanted into the garden in a couple of weeks.

Whew!  After some hard work in the garden Kenny has the right idea.  Take a siesta in the perfect country chaise lounge with the warm sun relaxing away tired muscles.

Is it Spring Yet?

There has been enough of this … it's not fun.

OK … some of it is fun

but when it's cold outside there is lots of this going on ….

Ah … but now this is happening ...

So … we are getting ready to, uh … sow

Now if only the ground would dry out enough to plant the early Spring broccoli, cabbage, onions, spinach and peas …

No doubt about it.  It's Spring!

Barn Restoration

This old barn, actually a corn crib with attached shed rows, sits down below the house near the edge of the garden plot.  It was not on the property we bought but clearly belonged to the original homestead.  The discrepancy between the traditional property lines established a long time ago (from this tree to that rock, to the edge of the creek, etc.) and the property lines established by more modern surveys based on iron pins set by agreement among the property owners in the early 1900's meant that the barn was no longer technically on the property, but nobody bothered to move the existing fences until my piece of property was carved out of a larger whole.  My neighbor and I worked out a deal and an additional 1/2 acre of land including this barn was deeded over to me.

You can see the large piles of debris we pulled out from underneath the shedrows.  Some went to to the dump, some into the burn pile and the useful timbers were stacked under the shed rows for some unnamed future projects.

We moved a couple of cubic yards of dirt to fill holes and level the floor on the North side so the lawn tractor and tiller could be stored under the roof instead of under the tarps they had been living under for the past year.

The main peak roofed building is a very sturdy slat wall corn crib that is entirely lined with 1/2" hardware cloth making it vermin and critter proof.  This has been swept out and will be the chicken coop this spring and summer.

South side view.  You can see the shedrows have collapsed on each side the corn crib which will be repaired with rafters, boards and tin roofing salvaged from the old log cabin being dismantled elsewhere on the property.

North side view.  The equipment is all under this portion of the shedrow.  All the rouge saplings and trees growing up all around the barn will be removed next, before the restoration work starts of the structure.

West side view.  Trees need to be removed.  You can see the shed row is in good shape on the North (right) end and is collapsed / gone on the South (left) end.

As the work slowly progresses I'll post more about this project.  Wish us luck!

THE GREAT WALL (of jars)

Next to the kitchen there is a laundry room <slash> pantry where we store most of our dry good groceries --  flour, bakery ingredients, canned goods, rice , beans, and so forth.  Part way through the gardening season and into the canning season we ran out of room.  In the dining area we built this wall of shelves to hold all our current and future stock of home canned produce.

Preserves, Hot Sauce, Chiles, Relish, Dill Pickles, Bread & Butter Pickles, Tomatoes, Tomato Sauce, Spaghetti Sauce, Tomatillo Salsa, Baked Beans, Summer Squash, Sun-Dried Tomatoes, Pumpkin, Green Chile Enchilda Sauce, Dried Sage, Marjoram, Oregano, Ancho Chile Powder, Dried Parsley, Dried Cilantro, Cayenne Pepper Flakes.  There is room for about 350 jars.  I don't think it will be enough next year.  We have frozen garden peas, green beans and Basil/Walnut Pesto too.