December 2015

November 2015

October 2015

September 2015

August 2015

July 2015

June 2015

May 2015

April 2015

Peas and lettuce planted April 1st. Finally!  Planted the peas, spinach, and lettuce in bed 12 on April 1st!

 The lavender I planted in a milk jug as an experiment at the January garden class, and then  stuck out in my front yard in the snow for three months, has sprouted.  Not sure what the purpose was of planting so early.  I suspect i would have the same results if I'd planted 2 weeks ago.

Tomatoes planted March 20 are doing well in the greeenhouse April 11.

 As is the cabbage planted indoors March 2.

 And the tomatoes and basil planted March 2

 Onions went in on April 12--spent my birthday in the garden!

And the garlic is up that was planted last October.  Filled the rest of the garlic bed with onions too.

4/12:  First asparagus poking up!

 Created trellis for peas with t-posts, willow sticks and nylon netting from Burpee.

 Raspberries coming up!  I always worry after I cut them down so drastically in the spring.

 Tons of weeds coming up too...I think this is mostly pepper grass.  Got to pull it before it seeds.

4/12: The perennial herbs are all up:  chives, sorrel, lovage, tarragon, oregano.

 April 19:  Lots of  asparagus ready to pick.  Weeded asparagus bed.

 4/26: Onions are up!  (Garlic in background)

 April 27:  Herbs looking good!

 Rhubarb too!

 April 27:  Dug potato bed and planted the potatoes.

March 2015--first seeds planted, first sprouts up

Planted cabbage yesterday.  Planted early in order for cabbage heads to be ready for SAGE pig roast in August.  So good to have my fingers back in the dirt!  Also planted some parsley since it's a slow starter and some basil for a big pot in the greenhouse this spring just because I can't wait!  

2 days later cabbage has sprouted!

I must admit that somehow I once again stopped blogging at this point until July when I finally downloaded all the photos from the spring and began writing again.  So here goes--5 months of catching up on this blog:

On March 9, I visited the garden--which was snow covered!  

However, on March 13, the snow had melted, and it was a beautiful day to work in the garden.

 Raspberry canes before I cut them down.

 Raspberry patch after I cut fall raspberry canes down--didn't cut the one small clump of summer raspberries.

 Doesn't look very impressive, but I could see garlic sprouts coming up!  Spring surely on the way!

On March 16, I burned the old asparagus stalks.

 And also found several of the perennial herbs poking up---such as these chives.

After 4 inches of snow on March 23, better weather returned and on March 30 the asparagus poked up!

 and the weeds too!

Also moved all the seedling trays which I had planted March 20 into the greenhouse which I had put up March 25.

On March 31, I prepared bed 12 for the peas and lettuce, got out the tools, and pulled off all the old calendula stalks all along the east side of the veggie beds.

Garden Plan 2015

Redivided the beds, making each a little smaller (3 1/2 feet in width) in order to fit 12 beds in the garden,necessary for a 4 year rotation of 3 beds each of 4 categories of plants.  Each year each category of plants moves down to the the next quarter of the garden, not returning to the same soil for 4 years.  I'm hoping that this is a natural and wonderful way to control soil-borne pests.  Since the onions and garlic get harvested so early, sometimes an autumn planting of lettuce, spinach, broccoli, and radishes in the onion and garlic beds deviates from the plan a bit.  So fr I've not had trouble with pests on those 4 plants so I'm hopeful it will be okay.  If not, we'll have to come up with plan B!
Crop Rotation Plant Categories:
1. Beans, Peas, Lettuce, Carrots, Cabbage, Broccoli, Radish, Spinach
2. Tomatoes, potatoes, peppers
3. Cucumber, squash (zucchini, summer squash, winter squash, pumpkins)
4. Onions, Garlic, Celery, Chard, Beets, Corn

Plans for 2015 include

1. Strawberry Bed: after harvest, dig up 1/2, lift landscape fabric, add manure, lay down new landscape fabric, replant strawberries grown from spring runners.

2. Blueberry bed---lift landscape fabric, add manure, new landscape fabric, plant strawberries.

(probably give up on blueberries)

. 3. Allow raspberries to continue to invade and take over grape bed (probably give up on grapes)

(The strawberries and raspberries have been so great.  Seems a waste to use the garden for grapes and blueberries which never really produce!)

4.  Still considering 1 more apple tree and/or plum tree for southmost fruit bed.

New path through mint bed separating it from veggie bed 1.

5.  Helping to supply produce for the SAGE pig roast in August!!

November --last harvest and putting the garden to bed for the winter

 These are the sweet potatoes I grew in a big huge flower pot.  Some are monstrously big!

The common sage up by the SAGE barn grew beautifully.  

 The garden is ready for winter.  The garlic for next summer got planted in October and is marked off by the strings with white flags in the front of this photo.

The beans needed to dry on trays for a few weeks to be sure they were dry all the way through before being put in storage jars.   Lots of black turtle beans (easy to shell), Vermont cranberry beans (easy to shell), and tons of white beans from the bush beans that I let dry out (really tough to shell).  It was a good lesson.   The beans bred as shell beans are much easier to shell than the thicker skinned bean pods that are bred to eat fresh.  All in all, a great harvest of about 8 pounds.

October Harvest

 Cleared the bean patch today and harvested so many bean pods!  Decided to leave them on the plants and just cut or pull up the entire plants.  Then spread them out on a ladder laid horizontally between two garbage dumpsters in my garage to dry out.  Even moved the whole operation a few inches at a time out the door on a sunny day to assure they were dry.  Finally stripped off all the pods and laid on trays all over my breezeway for further drying.  Rich helped my shell the beans.  I estimated that all together it took about 10 hours to get about eight pounds of beans out of the pods.  I have a new appreciation for Thoreau who tried to live on beans and potatoes he grew at Walden Pond.

First heavy frost on October 19--but not wind, so I easily covered the veggies with frost blankets from Breda--just enough protection to keep the morning frost from settling on the garden.   (Oct 18-19 was the women's overnight campout on Indian hill---we froze, but the garden survived!) 

The pineapple sage on the east side of the SAGE barn has done really well.  Seems to love it there!   (Tried to keep it going until the Nov. 21 SAGE farm-to-table dinner, but we finally cut and dried some of it for tea just before the rewst of it froze.

The veggies on the other hand, we went all out trying to protect.   In late October and early November, Amy, Kathleen and I built a tent of frost blankets and plastic sheeting, with sawhorses under it strung with light bulbs.  It worked to protect the lettuce, broccoli, and parsley.  We also covered the chard, carrots, and some herbs with rubbermaid containers and plastic.  It worked!  We had a couple of nights of temps in the low 20's, then uncovered it for a few warmer days, then covered it again when the temperature dropped, then uncovered for a day, and picked evrything just before a disastrously cold night.  We put everything in the big rubbermaid containers in the walk-in cooler at the lodge and almost everything lasted 10 days for the SAGE dinner Nov. 21.   A do-it-yourself freeze-protection success--except the red leaf lettuce which looked too funky after 10 days to serve..but we had plenty of green!  

September abundance!

 Red Cabbage finally headed up----- from seeds Laura gave me--thanks Laura!

 My two favorite tea herbs: lemon verbena (rear) and stevia (foreground) for a hint of sweetness.

 The raspberry bushes have gotten huge!  And are producing so many berries!

 Several cantaloupes from one hill.  (but not really good tasting...might give up on these!)

 A few really big watermelons...ok, but not as good as the ones from the store or farmstand.  There must be tricks to growing melons which I haven't learned yet!

Chamomile....flowers are great for tea.