Garden...Round Two

Okay, so the big garden was a total disaster this year, for various sundry reasons too depressing to mention (mostly those horrid little *(&#*&% stinkbugs), but there's always Round Two....the Winter Greenhouse.

Two weeks ago, I planted several flats of romaine lettuce, a small spinach pot, and a large tub of Early Snowball cauliflower.

They've all come up (not a stinkbug in sight).... and are growing like weeds, so to speak.

Well, except for the spinach. It's looking kindof weak and puny. Might have to plant some more. We'll see.

Shortly after the planting, the nights turned a bit cool, so more than a few of the garden plants were moved in to the greenhouse.

Fiddlefern, valerian, dark-red plants my daughter picks out every year, bloody dock, and comfrey, with some geraniums thrown in - they won't survive the winter, but they get a few more months of summer this way.

Two aquariums full of water plants (they are *so* easy to winter over) to save having to buy more next year for the fountains (they are *so* expensive). In front of the water babies are the three pots of Scottish heather (it will actually go through a second blooming during the winter).

Those are coleus hiding under the gauze -they are sensitive to...well, apparently, just about everything. Too much sun, too much shade, too much heat, too much cold.....picky plants.

I ended up sending several home with my mom to vacation in her sunny windows. These in the greenhouse will be trimmed when it gets cooler so we can put cuttings in water and start new plants for next spring.

Seems like there's just as much gardening to do now as there was during the summer.

Cranking Up the Greenhouse

Remember this from last week?

A little tossing, a little junking, a little chopping, and I ended up with this:

Everything in it's place, and a place for everything. More or less.


So this afternoon it was time to start planting (and this really should have been done in early September, but whatever).


Today's goal: get flats of lettuce and spinach planted, and a pot of cauliflower.

The first flat of lettuce sits in the left foreground - it's just a plastic container, lined with plastic since it already has huge holes in sides and base (remember the three R's: reuse, recycle, reduce).

I've been known to get used cat litter pans at yard sales and scrub them out with a salt solution, then scalding hot water, add drainage holes and plant in them. Works great -but the sanitizing is an step you must never forget (no matter how clean the owner got it before they threw it in the sale).

Those big round pots were used last winter, but I think this year they'll sit to one side, and be used up by the house next summer in the Swing Garden. I'm looking for more efficient space usage this winter.

My lettuce of choice: Romaine. I never bother with iceberg lettuce. Unless you have a perfect soil/mineral mixture, it almost always turns out bitter, and it's nutritional value is next- to-nothing. But romaine is one of the healthiest foods you can eat -packed with Vitamin K,A,C and so much more.

It's one of those rare good for you foods that actually taste great too.

So I plant LOTS of romaine. Today alone three flats are done. If I want enough lettuce for all winter, plus some for friends, the planting needs to be done in succession. Next week, I'll plant 3 more. When I pick, I try to pick from one bed, and replant it as I pick. This keeps us in fresh lettuce most of the winter.

Come late January, there will probably be a cold snap lasting a couple weeks. I have an idea this year to put the lettuce flats inside a second baby greenhouse inside the large one. Hopefully that will help it pull through till it warms up again.

This is the planted flat, just before watering. Below in the closeup, you can just pick out the long thin lettuce seeds, sprinkled thinly over the surface. The thinner you sprinkle, the less thinning you'll need to do after they sprout.

These tubs will be filled with fresh water when we get closer to a frost, so that the main waterline can be cut off and drained for winter. Water can be dipped out as needed, while the tubs act as a heat collector during the daytime, releasing that heat during the night to help keep the plants warm.

More lettuce -right next to my giant bag of MiracleGro -I always use it, sometimes mixing it with top soil if I need to stretch it. No, they didn't give me a free bag for saying that (but if they want to, I'll take it).

Next tub up is prepared for cauliflower. Cauliflower is incredibly easy to grow, and while the homegrown heads are sometimes smaller (mine are anyway), they have a nutty flavor the store-bought ones don't. One year, I was fortunate to get to plants for caulibroc, a hybrid of cauliflower and broccoli. If you are ever able to find it, try it - think broccoli florets,with little heads of miniature cauliflower.

Cauliflower tub, filled partway with top soil, maybe 3 cups of peat moss mixed in, topped with the balance in MiracleGro. The cauliflower seeds are lightly mixed on top.

And finally spinach. It would probably grow better outside (it's a cold weather crop), but I have to completely clean out my garden this year so it's being relegated to pots in the greenhouse. I'm trying an experiment using these containers we've gotten with deli chickens - it seems they would make perfect miniature greenhouses to start plants in.

Spinach, being hardy, has volunteered to be the guinea pig.

Mix of peat moss, MiracleGro, with a couple drainage holes in bottom. Seeds sprinkled on top.

Top popped on after watering. Should form the perfect environment for germinating seeds.

Here's the timetable according to the seed packets:

Little Gem Romaine Lettuce: 7-10 days to germination, thin at 8 inches, harvest in 45 days (approx Thanksgiving Day)

Early Snowball A Cauliflower: 8-10 days to germination, 55 days to harvest (approx Dec 1-3)

Teton Hybrid Spinach: 8-10 days to germination, 45-50 days to harvest (approx Thanksgiving to Dec 5)

Looks like we'll be eating our own harvest for Thanksgiving Dinner!

A Rainy Misty Day in Virginia

And the perfect day for a greenhouse update. Remember a couple weeks ago when we planted tomato seedlings, covering them with plastic and setting them in water trays?

They're up! These are all Better Boy's, the big round red ones that are perfect for slicing up for burgers, or freezing, or just eating off the vine. By the middle of May, they will be ready to set out.

Lettuce is a little over 8", and in sad need of thinning and transplanting. Thinning is something I always have a hard time doing - the little plants are so green and enthusiastic, I hate to kill any of them. I've already transplanted part of this crop, and will probably move more this weekend.

Over the last few weeks I've been unable to refrain from picking up a few seedlings -mostly green peppers, bok choy, broccoli and Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes. The bok choy and broccoli can be set out this weekend but the green peppers and tomatoes need to wait. BTW -green peppers love heat - make sure you give yours lots of mulch. I've also used black plastic around mine -it seems they can't get enough heat, as long as their roots are kept damp.

The former potato bed still has potatoes coming up - the plant on the left is horseradish, while the smaller plants on the right are new potatoes. By practicing companion planting, in this case putting horseradish with potatoes, the possibility of insect damage can be avoided. While others in our area were inundated with Japanese beetles on their potatoes a couple summers ago, my plants stayed almost beetle-free - thanks to having horseradish plants sprinkled in among the potatoes. Horseradish is a perennial that reaches 2-3 feet in height, and easily spreads (everywhere a piece of root is left, a new plant will come up). The root can be grated and made into sauce. I enjoy the plant - it's a beautiful green, large and leafy, and needs no special care or watering.

And of course, the blueberries are leafing out, and flowering. Berries should start appearing during May-June. This is a good time to start collecting old CD's at yard sales for decorating the berry bushes and lettuce beds. By using these, I've eliminated the need for protective netting or wire fencing against bunnies and birds. The dangling CD's reflect light back and simulate movement to both birds and four-footed snackers. This is one of the new plants we added in February. The older five year plants are almost 5 feet tall, and loaded with buds.

Maybe this is the year we'll need a bucket to hold all the berries!