If I Can't See the Garden for All the Snow, Is the Garden Still There?

[Photo taken from my bedroom window]

Last fall, all the prognosticators predicted a hard, cold, and snowy winter.  Until 2 weeks ago, we really didn't see that happen, and I had wondered if we were going to have any appreciable snowfall at all in East Central IL.  Two storms, and about a foot of snow later, obviously the answer was "yes".

The garden is blanketed in about 5 inches of snow at the moment, as are all my winter sowing jugs.  As there isn't much to do outside, I guess I'll have to focus on what I can do inside.

First, here's my little bit of impending spring:  red tulips I forgot to plant last fall, and sat in the garage until about 4-5 weeks ago.  I planted some outside in a planter (we'll see what happens there), and I filled my big planter with the rest after I brought it inside.

My husband just looked at me and asked, "Why do we have plants in the house?  Why can't we wait until it's spring outside?"  Silly guy.  Jim has never been a big fan of plants in the house.  Granted, with two 1.5 year old mixed breed dogs who constantly patrol the perimeter by running from window to window in the great room, I CAN see his point.  Woe be it unto anyone who gets in their way if they realize there is a cat within eyeshot of their look-out perches.  Nothing like having a 30 pound and a 50 pound dog both barrelling through you to get to a better vantage point.  Since they are 1/4 rat terrier and 1/4 Rottweiler, they take the defense of their territory quite seriously.

[Kaiju and Jaeger, keeping lookout from our bed]

So....inside gardening.

Most of the seeds I started inside are doing well.  I have cauliflower, 2 kinds of broccoli, jalapeno and habanero peppers, lemon cucumbers and Brown Russian cucumbers.  The bell peppers haven't done as well sprouting.  I need to rearrange my trays under the growlight, anyway, and I don't think I need the heated germinator anymore, so I may try starting them without the heat and see how it goes.  I'm debating whether or not I need to transfer some of these things into pots.  I think I will transfer the peppers, as they won't be able to go out into the garden for at least a month, if not longer.  The cauliflower and broccoli can go out as soon as it warms up enough again to work the soil.  I've been saving plastic jugs to make cloches, and have almost enough for all the broccoli and cauliflower.

And I got the latest catalog from The Cook's Garden in the mail this week:

This is my source for Brown Russian Cucumber seeds, and Collective Farm Woman melon seeds -- the only melon variety I've really ever gotten to grow successfully around here.  Both are Ukrainian heirloom varieties -- I guess I shouldn't be surprised they are hardy!

Other than that, I'm going back through my week-by-week plan, and erasing a lot.  I was overly optimistic about when I'd be able to plant things, I think.  I'm just going to have to take it one week at a time until I can actually get some things in the ground, and then I can do more long range planning.

All of this has made me think about getting information about the Master Gardener program.  I'd love to take the class(es), but really don't have time except over the summer.    I have a number of friends  who are Master Gardeners, so I'll have to talk to them about it.

Time to do more laundry, and figure out what remaining grading I need to do today.  Happy garden dreaming to you all!

Let It Snow!

We haven't had much snow this winter, but the storm that rolled in last night dropped 5-6 inches before tapering off around noon. The garden is covered in a blanket of snow, and the birds are nestled into the white pine trees amid the sheltering needles.

The ground is frozen again, so no additional work in the raised bed this weekend.  I did do a couple more winter sowing jugs -- one with marigolds and one with blue flax.

I spent Friday and Saturday down at my parents' house.  For my dad's birthday earlier in the week, I got him an elevated raised garden on wheels.  Mom and Dad both love gardening.  Mom grew up on a small family farm, and Dad worked in a nursery/greenhouse all through high school and college.  Mom and Dad are in their late 70s, and both have bending problems.  So I think they will enjoy this.  Dad and I had a good time putting it together -- it was easy and straight-forward, but Dad is recovering from cataract surgery, and needs a new reading glasses prescription now.  So he couldn't see the heads of the screws!  We just got to laughing about it, and I told him I was his seeing-eye dog.

Since this is a "hurry up and wait" time for the garden, and I can't do much till it starts warming up, I've been pondering building a large cold frame so I can grow some things over next winter -- carrots, parsnips, winter lettuce, and the like.  I found a fantastic article about cold frame gardening online, and I'm really intrigued by the idea.  When seeds go on sale at the end of spring, I'll stock up on a couple of the recommended varieties, and maybe we can manage to have greens all winter!  I will have to contemplate where I'm going to put it.  The best choice is our south-facing back yard, which is where the raised beds are already.  I also think the easiest way to do the lights (the clear panes on top for those of you not up on the lingo), is to just get an inexpensive storm door.  It's by far the least expensive way to do it -- I can get an inexpensive storm door at Menard's for less than $60, and the lumber isn't expensive, either.  The most expensive thing will likely be an automatic venting device.  Otherwise the cold frame will overheat on warmer days.

I'll have to get help from my Dad because I have no way to make the angle cuts I need for the side slats on the frame.  I mean, I suppose I could with a hand saw.  HMMM.

I'm also looking through my plant schedule.  Once I can REALLY start planting things, I'll need to adjust the schedule accordingly, and extend it through the summer and into fall.

Garden Cover Salvage Job

Those strong winds last night came in with a cold front.  High of 19 degrees this afternoon, which means everything is frozen solid again.  But I was able to come home a bit early this afternoon, and the sun was shining, so I bundled up and went out to salvage the garden cover and change out the hoops.

Each of the tall hoops was comprised of two smaller segments with connectors.  I pulled out the segment that was the more mangled and bent from the wind, stashed the connectors in a container, and installed the remaining segment as a low hoop.  The hoops are pretty low because the bed is 4 feet across.

I suppose I could also change this up in the future, and do two hoops in sequence, each covering two feet of the bed, if I need a bit more height.  Something like this:

]   ]   ]   ]   ]

]   ]   ]   ]   ]

To make my life easier, I took the two sections of heavy garden fabric inside, and used my sewing machine to seam them together.  It was much easier to drape the fabric over the lower-height hoops (duh), and I used the binder clips again to hold them on the hoops.

I had enough fabric to go part-way up the cucumber trellis, so I should be able to protect the young cuke plants through the vulnerable period fairly easily, once I plant them [which will not be for at least another week or two, I suspect.  I also have a huge swath of lighter weight protective fabric, once I don't need the warmth of the heavier fabric.

I should also note that the cucumber trellis was solid as a rock, and didn't even budge in the high winds.  It is actually attached to the end board on the frame, and the supports are sunk over a foot into the ground.  Once the ground warms up and is wetter and looser, I may need to add some additional supports, but I'm hoping not.

I also removed all the water tube cloches, which are frozen solid again (they are MUCH easier to move when then are frozen, by the way).  Last week, in a fit of optimism and in the spirit of experimentation, I actually planted one of the cauliflower seedlings (1 small true leaf), just to see what would happen.  I hadn't really looked at the forecast for the week, but....

It APPEARS the seedling survived, and after I removed the frozen water tube cloche, I got some hot water and warmed up the soil around it enough to install a plastic bottle cloche instead.

This weekend, I'm headed down to my parents' home in Southern Illinois.  They are far enough south they are usually 2-3 weeks ahead of us in spring, and 2-3 weeks later in the fall/winter.  My dad's birthday was yesterday, and I bought him an elevated raised bed on caster wheels so they can grow some lettuce and whatever else they want.  Dad has a MASSIVE fern bed, but at 78 and with back problems, it's getting harder for him to get down on his knees to work the soil.  Dad worked all though high school and college at a greenhouse, and I know he loves gardening.  I'm hoping this makes it a bit easier for him.  I'm taking a variety of seeds with me, some low hoops, some garden fabric, and anything else I can think of.  I want to put a trellis in it too so they can have cucumbers.  I'll try to remember to take pictures.

Speaking of cucumbers, one of our favorite varieties is Brown Russian . A Ukranian heirloom variety, It has been one of the most reliable varieties for us, with a high germination rate and bumper crops.  The flavor is fantastic, and it is one of the few varieties that doesn't make me burp.  I have seeds from the 2012 growing season, and I accidentally left them in the garage over the winter.  I found the seed packet, brought it inside, and thought, what the heck!  I'll try starting some in the germinator.  Within 4 days, the seeds had germinated, producing strong and hearty seedlings.  So if like cucumbers, check out Brown Russian.  The only place I've ever seen it is on The Cook's Garden website, a place I've ordered a number of things from, and always been satisfied.

That's all for now!

The best laid plans......

So......this is what happens when there are 35 mph winds:

HMMMM....

I got to thinking about it, and realized that I don't NEED the high hoops right now.  If I'm worried about protecting young plants, I just need something lower to support the fabric (assuming it hasn't blown away before I get home).

So I will disassemble the high hoops -- a high hoop is made up of 2 low hoops -- install the low hoops, and go from there.  I am also going to sew the 2 pieces of heavy garden fabric together to make life a little easier.

More later.......

Is that a covered wagon in your backyard?

Another gorgeous day in East Central IL -- aren't we lucky it fell on a weekend?

So....I had big plans for today:

1. find a way to mark the grid in the garden
2. plant whatever I am scheduled to plant
3. set up the tall hoops and put the heavier garden fabric on it.
4. set up the cucumber frame

I started the day at our local Menard's.  For those of you who don't know what Menard's is, it's a regional everything-you-could-possibly-need-for-your-home kind of place.  One of the biggest Menard's stores on the planet is 10 minutes from my house.

I went looking primarily for two things:  figure out some way to mark the square foot grid on my garden, and see if I could find what I wanted/needed for my dad's birthday present.  Not much luck on Dad's present, so I suspect I'll be placing an order with Gardener's Supply Company this evening.  I was more successful with my grid.

If you are not familiar with the Square Foot Gardening system, I highly recommend it.  Once I learned about it, I found out that a lot of people I know have used this system for years.  If you have a minimum amount of space, and want to maximize what you can produce from it, SFG is the way to.  But the key is to have a grid demarcating all your 1 foot squares, and I have struggled to find a good yet cost-effective way to do that for the last 3 years.  

I tried paracord.  The birds attacked, and harvested strands for their nests.  I swear they even untied my knots.  I priced plastic strips, wood strips, etc., but most of what I could find that was not cost-prohibitive didn't come in 8 foot lengths.

On a mission I was, and with an open mind about ANY possibility.  I looked at the cutting line for weed wackers.  Inexpensive, but not easy to work with.  After all, I was going to have to tie it around the screws I already had in the frame of my bed, and I just didn't see that being pleasant.  

What I eventually found was clear tubing, about 1/2 inch in diameter.  Based on everything else around it on the shelves, it was obviously intended for a number of uses, all of which involved water.  It reminded me of surgical tubing.  And I found zip ties of every size.

The end result:

 

Side note here:  You probably noticed my lovely green water-filled cloche-thingys.  One of my ideas that I suspect is not going to work.  I've used these before, but always after the weather was warmer.  The daytime sun and warmth warms up the water, and then the heat radiates all night as temperatures cool, therefore keeping a warmer microclimate inside the cloche.  As I have learned already, that is NOT what happens when the temperature is still getting below freezing on a regular basis.  You get the OPPOSITE effect -- the microclimate stays colder.  So I may just lift those out and set them to the side to use later when it's more appropriate.

Once I had my grid in place, I could do a little planting.  In the squares next to my green tube things, I have planted Spanish onions, Red Romaine lettuce, and a dwarf curly variety of kale.  Each square has an onions interspersed with greens.  The top square is onions and Red Romaine, the next is onions and kale, and so on.  Onions take a lot longer to mature, so by the time they are starting to really get big, the greens will have been harvested already.  

I have this cool tool that makes evenly spaced holes for planting:

I also planted 2 squares of EZ Cut green lettuce from The Cook's Garden on the opposite end of the bed.  We'll see how it does.

I spent the rest of the time setting up my hoops and garden fabric.  I learned the hard way last year that squash and cucumber plants which don't have any protection early on get infested with beetles.  Unfortunately, one doesn't find out they are infested until after the vines stop producing and die.

Here are the hoops:

I added a length of the tubing along the top, and attached it to each hoop with zip ties just to add a bit more structure and stabilization.

Then it was time for the fabric.  I tried to just use spring clothespins to hold the fabric on the hoops, but they weren't strong enough to hold the fabric in place against the wind.  HMM.....what to do, what to do.  I scavenged the garage to see if there was anything useful, and then I had a brilliant idea -- binder clips!  I had an entire box of binder clips in my office, and they'd been sitting on a shelf for several years.  Obviously they were not needed for anything else.

There isn't much that can't be fixed with binder clips and zip ties:

Last thing for the day:  set up the cucumber trellis.  The lemon cukes can be planted in another couple weeks, so might as well get it set up.

I guess it does it look like a covered wagon...

And....we're done for the day!!

Winter planning and prep

I've played around with vegetable gardening a number of times over the years. There is NOTHING quite as lusciously delicious as home-grown lettuce.  And....the whole family quickly realized just how long ago the lettuce in the grocery store must have been harvested based on how quickly it began to rot.  Our own, harvested-this-morning lettuce would last 3 weeks in the fridge -- if it didn't get inhaled before then.

I've had a my fair-share of hits and misses.  I've learned the hard way that it is ESSENTIAL to cover up the young cucumber and squash plants to prevent beetle infestation.  I've learned that I CAN grow melons, even in East Central Illinois, but it is best to stick to heirloom varieties that can survive anything.  I've learned that it is pointless to grow corn, because the raccoons love it too much.  And that pole beans need SERIOUS support.

I decided this year that planning was my top priority.  Little bit easier to do this year, as we are down to one kid left at home, and I no longer spend 5+ hours a day in a car (long story, for another blog someday).  And....we are trying to clean up our eating -- literally, as in Clean Eating.  I eat more veg now than I have in a very long time, which is good, but....I'm limited to what I can find in the store.

I started planning for this at the end of last season when one of my favorite online retailer, Gardener's Supply Company, starting putting things on sale.  I bought tall hoops and garden fabric so I could get started earlier, and extend the growing season further into the fall.  I bought a bean tower, and pepper plant supports. Over semester break I started going through what seeds I had already, and figuring out what, if any, I needed to buy.

Now, I must admit, I have a problem.  I buy seeds.  I buy more seeds than I could POSSIBLY plant.  I don't know why, except that I should also admit that I have a sufficient yarn stash to keep my knitting needles busy for the at least the next 20 years.  So obviously this is a personal problem, as my older son would say.

I spent much of break planning what I would plant when, what needed to be started inside, scheduling things for earliest possible harvest (especially of lettuce!!!).  I made a spread sheet of what I wanted to plant, when it could be planted outdoors, time to harvest, etc.  And I made a chart of my main raised bed (4' X 8') and printed a chart for every week of the season, so I could chart what to plant when, and keept track of when to harvest.   And take notes about what I was doing, and which varieties produced well, etc.

I got lucky when I figured out my friend and fellow handbell ringer Jeri was a SERIOUS backyard gardener.  It was the beginning of January, and Jeri was talking about getting her winter sowing done.  I must admit that I initially thought she said "sewing", which seemed perfectly plausible to me, but she said "sowing."  Jeri sent me a fantastic link to an entry in Keven Lee Jacob's blog that was all about this marvel, winter sowing.  I was inspired!  That was what I could do with all the flower seeds I had accumulated, and never managed to get started/planted/etc.  So I started January 25, and did a bunch of winter sowing.  I added to it on Feb. 1, and may add some more this week if I feel inspired.

The last weekend in January was gorgeous here in East Central IL, so I prepped the big bed (4' X 8'), and added around 8 cubic feet of composted cow manure to it.  I set up my cold frame near the house, and set out all those flower seeds in various plastic jugs and containers inside my smaller 4' X 4' bed that will eventually be home to the pepper plants this year.  And then I waited.

I intend to post one blog entry a week, as I complete whatever job I had for the week in the garden. This weekend I'll be doing a little catch up, and will post again later this weekend with pictures of what I did today.   I'll leave you with a couple pictures of seedlings and such.