What Did You Do In The Garden?

[Branching Out]

Yesterday I washed a bunch of small seedling containers and placed them in the sunshine on the deck to dry. (It doesn't look like very many, but there are 70 containers in this photo). Now that they are mostly dirt and insect free they can be stored indoors through the winter. There are still a LOT more pots and trays to tidy, but only so many hours in the day. I also sifted some potting soil and peat moss with a 1/4" screen to remove any large chunks of wood or debris. That was kind of dusty, so it was nice to be able to do that task outside. The screened mix will be for making soil blocks, with a plan to start some lettuce, dill, and cilantro seed under lights.

 

[Phaedra]

I kept cleaning up the annuals and compost them, 20-30 minutes every day. For the plants growing in the greenhouse, most of them were pruned back for overwinter. Onions from sets were moved outdoors as the weather will be mild in the coming week.

Frankly, it's great to have a couple of months that I don't need to work hours in the garden. Time to recharge.

 

[flowerbug]

i was hoping the ground wasn't frozen, but it still was a bit today, that did not stop me from moving some dirt back to where it belonged. i really needed some exercise and about an hour's worth of shoveling and a bit of final shaping with the cultivator was just right.

 

[akroberts]

Today I got some decent weather so I planted my red and Yukon Gold potatoes in the ground with the green house over them. I also got my garlic and 3 of each red, white and yellow onions in. I'm going to try to get some more put in the green house today also.

 

[Branching Out]

Today I got some decent weather so I planted my red and Yukon Gold potatoes in the ground with the green house over them. I also got my garlic and 3 of each red, white and yellow onions in. I'm going to try to get some more put in the green house today also.

Wow-- your planting schedule is months ahead of what we can do. You get to blaze a trail for the rest of us!

 

[akroberts]

Wow-- your planting schedule is months ahead of what we can do. You get to blaze a trail for the rest of us!

I wasn't sure about when I could plant but the Farmers Almanac says starting in January and ending in August or September. I was always told don't put anything in the ground until April 15th. I still have a lot of cool weather crops to get in the garden.

 

[digitS']

My first gardens were in northern California. Before then, I had been assigned/granted various tasks in a family garden. In northern Cal, I cleared ground and set off on my own.

This was so very near the coast that I could see salt water from my front yard (Humboldt Bay ). The backyard had been a tangled mess and required cleaning out blackberry vines that continued into neighboring property over the back fence and to the west that I couldn't do anything about. Once eliminated where I could, the ground was in fairly good condition for annual vegetables.

The weather was a tough situation. Growing Season warmth accumulates to almost exactly the same numbers as here, about 800 miles to the north and 2,000 feet higher in elevation. That is a seasonal and professional rating by meteorologists using horticultural standards for growing temperatures.

The limitations had to do with that great expanse of Pacific Ocean and the cloudy conditions. A gardening example: completely outside any danger of frost, growing 1 crop of Golden Bantam sweetcorn required an entire season. In contrast to here, with a much shorter growing season, some gardeners, in some years, plant sweetcorn as often as 4 times over 6 weeks at the start of the season.

Something like broccoli grew just fine there, just a stone's throw from the Pacific. It is interesting that the meteorologists consider the entire California coast as having a Mediterranean climate and extending that classification all the way up into central Washington State. Dry Summers are apparently the most important factor and I'm inclined to agree with them. Cold Winters creates a boundary before coming to where I now live but for annual vegetables, the dry summertime weather is every bit as dominant as in the California Central Valley, especially in the northern part.

Tossing in a Mount Shasta and the Sierras and we are next door . Your plants are under a greenhouse? I am sure that they will need the warmth. You make it sound as though the greenhouse is portable. Is that so?

Steve, a neighbor

Steve

 

[akroberts]

My first gardens were in northern California. Before then, I had been assigned/granted various tasks in a family garden. In northern Cal, I cleared ground and set off on my own.

This was so very near the coast that I could see salt water from my front yard (Humboldt Bay ). The backyard had been a tangled mess and required cleaning out blackberry vines that continued into neighboring property over the back fence and to the west that I couldn't do anything about. Once eliminated where I could, the ground was in fairly good condition for annual vegetables.

The weather was a tough situation. Growing Season warmth accumulates to almost exactly the same numbers as here, about 800 miles to the north and 2,000 feet higher in elevation. That is a seasonal and professional rating by meteorologists using horticultural standards for growing temperatures.

The limitations had to do with that great expanse of Pacific Ocean and the cloudy conditions. A gardening example: completely outside any danger of frost, growing 1 crop of Golden Bantam sweetcorn required an entire season. In contrast to here, with a much shorter growing season, some gardeners, in some years, plant sweetcorn as often as 4 times over 6 weeks at the start of the season.

Something like broccoli grew just fine there, just a stone's throw from the Pacific. It is interesting that the meteorologists consider the entire California coast as having a Mediterranean climate and extending that classification all the way up into central Washington State. Dry Summers are apparently the most important factor and I'm inclined to agree with them. Cold Winters creates a boundary before coming to where I now live but for annual vegetables, the dry summertime weather is every bit as dominant as in the California Central Valley, especially in the northern part.

Tossing in a Mount Shasta and the Sierras and we are next door . Your plants are under a greenhouse? I am sure that they will need the warmth. You make it sound as though the greenhouse is portable. Is that so?

Steve, a neighbor

Steve

Yes it is if I chose to move it I can. The weather on the coast is different than the valley. We are much warmer than the coast.

 

[flowerbug]

today i emptied the squash out of the garage. most of what were left of them were not in good condition by this time and we were not going to eat them (too small, black mold, wrong type, etc.). they were taking up space and it was good to get them back to the weed pile where they can RIP and the animals can pick through them.

likely the groundhog will give them a try when they come out of hibernation so it is really not a good idea to just leave them on the pile like that but i'm not ready to start digging holes and burying things.

 

[Branching Out]

Yesterday we woke up to sunshine and no dew (which is very odd for our Pacific Northwest climate), so thanks to the dry conditions we got a lot done in the garden. The leaf buds on our Londense Privet hedge were just starting to break, so it got sheared and then it was my job to rake up the trimmings. This particular privet has very thin lateral branches that break down quickly, so a thick layer of them went as mulch around the rhubarb plant that is emerging. Then my neighbour and I weeded both hoop houses at their community garden, which went really fast. Good thing we got it done though as both the chickweed and lamium plants were massive and in full bloom. Our last task was removing weeds and leaf debris from a large bed of bearded iris. I love these showy flowers, but weeding around the exposed rhizomes is never much fun. Clearly gardening season has arrived! 🌿