kalegrower

The Man is on call + too windy to kayak + warm and overcast = perfect day to garden. I put on some lipstick (“Maple” by Laura Mercier), my oldest yoga pants, diamond earrings, an old MEC fleece jacket and my big rubber boots and headed outside.

Today’s big task was spreading manure. I focused mostly on the planter boxes and the raspberries. I added two or three 40-lb bags of manure to three of the planters and added just one bag to the second planter (with the winter arugula). I dug under the manure in the planter boxes and covered them up again until it gets warmer. Each row of raspberries got one bag of manure. The raspberry posts were installed and wired last month, and last week my gardening son and I tied up the canes. I am looking forward to a big raspberry year.

The Man has been focused on cutting back all the hemlocks and rhodos near the house to discourage rodents. He is also doing some kind of “lawn filler” project, to raise the lawn in in a high traffic area that has become kind of bald and dry. So far, it is an improvement….

Most of the winter crops are finished – or never really grew in the first place. The kale is coming back to life so I left that in until it is time to plant the potatoes, and the garlic is starting to come up. The kale, garlic, parsley and chives received heaping servings of the compost that my gardening son sifted a few weeks ago.

The first of the bulbs have come up and we have at least four different kinds of snowdrops growing in different areas. Although they are beautiful and are coming up in big patches all through the yard, I didn’t try to photograph any of them because it is overcast and my plant photos generally suck. In the last few weeks we’ve spent a lot of time raking away leaves and weeding different areas of the garden in preparation for spring.

Although I planted broad beans (Windsor) three weeks ago, they haven’t started to come up yet which makes me think that I planted them too soon.

Next: early spring planting: Arugula, Spinach, Radishes, Pac Choi and Kale!

Small cyclamens coming up through all the larch needles.

Finally got out in the yard after many days spent staring out the window. The arborist came and removed the dead plum, the dead maple, pruned the apple tree and removed the big round bush that was in the way.

At the same time, the handyman installed 14 poles for the raspberries. Many of the canes were damaged, so I am not expecting a huge yield this year.

I started to cut away all the rotten dead stuff, rake away leaves, pull up crab grass and cut out the invasive holly and ivy. I was trying to follow my new approach of just focusing on one small area at a time, but ended up getting distracted and working in several areas at once.

The larch seems to have dropped all of it’s needles – I don’t remember quite so many last year (or perhaps they have just accumulated from that last several years?) and I ended up raking up several inches of needles, cones and branches away from the cyclamens, which are just starting to bloom (see above).

I also started to groom the ferns. These ferns are Jurassic, about two meters across and have a bunch of dead fronds and leaves on the bottom. When I started to pull away the dead fronds, I realized that underneath were layers and layers of dead dry stuff.  I removed most of it, and was glad not to find any decaying rodents or other unpleasant surprises. Looks much cleaner now, however I still have several more ferns to deal with.

Earlier this week Dr. Mooks came over with her collection of seeds and we planned our gardens, based on our success and failures from last year. There were several things that were phenomenally successful for her, such as “sweet slice” cucumbers, which didn’t grow well for me. Inspired, I am going to try them again, and have ordered more seeds.

I still have lots of seeds left over from last year including beets, beans, radishes, parsnips, lettuce and arugula. I have lots of “space” spinach seeds, but am going to also try “tyee” based on her recommendation.

This year I am going to grow annuals in the bed at the front, and for some reason am feeling passionate about sweet peas.

Here is what I ordered:

Brussel sprouts from the garden

Last night there was a  hail/snow storm and so the entire garden is covered with a layer of icy pellets. This morning I was BBMing (blackberry messaging) with a friend in Ontario who asked me “how do you garden in the snow?”.  Inspired by his question, this is how I have spent my afternoon:

(1) Cutting back dead plants and grasses, especially fall bloomers like crocasimia and chrysanthemums.

(2) Pulling up weeds, yarrow, crabgrass, invasive species such as ivy,  morning glory and holly.

(3) Raking up the piles of leaves from beds, corners of the steps. Many of the bulbs are starting to come up – so I am doing this gently.

(4) Confirming that the dead trees and shrubs are still dead.

(5) Making mental lists of things I need to do like: call the tree guy to remove the dead trees and shrubs.

(6) Turning the food compost. It isn’t decaying fast, but is still warm and full of worms. The garden compost seems to be decaying rapidly – or maybe it is just becoming more compact. Also, I was not happy to find a full garbage can of putrefying leaves, moss and rain water.

(7) Pruning the lavenders and hedges, as well as the yellow broom that is taking over the front (okay, I did that last week).

(8) Gathering all the dead branches that have fallen over the winter, and cutting them up.

(9) Cutting budding branches of forsythia to bloom inside.

(10) Harvesting greens from the garden. Today I picked arugula, cilantro, a few leaves of kale and a lot of swiss chard. Probably just enough for four people to have a warm salad with prosciutto and pine nuts. Last week I harvested a big bowl of brussel sprouts, also consumed with prosciutto.

There are certain things that don’t belong in the garden compost including branches, hedge trimmings, anything coniferous and weeds. Okay, so weeds usually do end up in the back yard compost. At this time of year we have such huge quantities of hedge trimmings and branches that we have holding bins for storage and as soon as the garbage guy picks up our yard waste, we refill the bin.

Last year, I did all my hedge trimming during the sunny days of September and left it all in an enormous pile. Lesson learned: very bad idea! All those leaves and branches get mouldy and start to rot, and the pile gets full of dirt and slugs. This year I am cutting down the front hedges gradually, only enough to fill the bin every two weeks.

Earlier this year, my friend sent me a link to a blog post about “tres hermanas” or three sisters – a traditional companion planting method for corn, beans and squash.  The concept is that the corn and squash are nourished by the nitrogen fixing capabilities of the beans, the beans climb up the corn and the squash spreads and keeps the soil moist and the weeds out.

When I tried it, the beans germinated and grew much faster than the corn, so that the little vine arms were reaching into the air with nothing to grab on to. I bought some poles and built a bean tee-pee. Germination for the corn and squash was low, but the beans have been incredibly productive- a pound or two of beans a day.

Today I went through my seeds and picked out all of those that are suitable for winter planting:

I have just one empty bed right now so I uncovered and watered it. The soil had completely dried out, so when I watered it, most of the water pooled at the top and didn’t flow through the lower layers, so I did lots of digging and soaking until it was saturated.

Anyway, I planted one square of each of the seeds shown above. Some of them were supposed to be planted in July (kale) but we will see what comes up and survives until Christmas.

Despite being warm and sunny, fall has crept in.

Overall, it has been a great year in the garden, despite the fact that a lot of things got dried out and died as a result.  Three trees – all floral ones in the back need to be removed.

The garden is still going with lettuce and beans producing daily.  I have lots of tomatoes but none have started to ripen yet. No pumpkins or cucumbers yet (both are still flowering) which means I probably planted them too late.

The beets aren’t going to last until winter which is fine. I will probably harvest all three parsnips soon.

The garden has really reached it’s peak – we’ve been harvesting kale, chard, lettuce, beans, potatoes and garlic. I am starting to make a list of what worked great this year and what didn’t (onions, carrots, parsnips, cucumbers). And I am looking forward to the next things to mature (squash, leeks and tomatoes).

The last month has finally been warm enough for things to really GROW. I have drained several of the big water barrels – each time I water the garden it takes about half to three-quarters of a barrel.

Yesterday afternoon though…there was the first feel of fall. I don’t know if anyone else could feel it except me. Just a subtle cooling. An end of summer feeling….