Spring Greens

Some of the baby lettuce coming up under the cold frame.   It's looking pretty happy about the [slightly] warmer weather. 

Me, too. 

Cold Frame Greens

I love my cold frames.    We have several and 2 are still going strong, full of greens.    This is the cold frame I made by putting an old glass door over the end of the sweet potato bed.   It took all of 3 minutes.

Then I planted radishes and arugula.    I heart arugula.  

 It's all very happy in there.

I put a big piece of plastic over it and tucked it in with bricks to keep the wind from blowing it off. 

Starting the middle of February, it'll be light enough to start planting our spring greens.   I'm kind of excited for buttercrunch lettuce and radishes. 

12 Month Gardening

We've been busy with the bees and the gardens here lately.   We've moved the hives closer to the house to a place at the end of the existing gardens where we will be putting in a berry patch.    It's so nice to have the bees closer!   Expect more details on that later this week.

What I want to talk about first is 12 month gardening.   

We grow food in our gardens for 12 months of the year.   When I posted last winter about veggies that like cold weather, one of my lovely readers cross posted it on Reddit.   I got lots of pageviews [Thank you!!] and some very interesting comments posted on reddit.  

A few people thought my list was ridiculous.   They assumed that I go out in January in the snow and plant my lettuce and radishes then.    There is a deep misunderstanding of how 12 month gardening works.  

Winter gardening is not going out in the dead of winter with your hoe and a packet of seeds and  then carving a row out of the frozen ground, then planting the seeds and expecting them to grow like they do in May.

No.   Definitely not.  

Winter gardening begins in early fall - September, here.   We prep the beds and get them planted and then cover them for the winter in hoop houses and cold frames.  This way we can harvest through the entire winter and then plant again as soon as our latitude gets enough sunshine in the spring.

It's as easy as you want it to be.   Put some straw mulch in there if you want to prevent weeds and water if it gets too warm. 

Here are some things to think about now for your winter garden:

1.  Good soil:  Fertilize with manure or something else before you plant things.   This is especially necessary if you've grown a crop in that bed already this year, as I do. 

2.  Choose appropriate winter veggies:   Don't plant corn, squash and tomatoes.   Do plant greens, radishes, fennel, carrots and other cold weather loving veg.

3.  Prepare appropriate covers:  I use a two layer system - a cold frame or hoop house on the outside with row covers or extra plastic on the inside.   It's like you being in a winter coat in a car in the sunshine.  Even when it's really cold out, you are going to be much warmer than the outside temp.   And that's warm enough for the right kind of vegetables.  

If you can get your hands on some double walled greenhouse 'glass' [it's really acrylic] or some recycled double paned windows, they'll work too.  

And remember - cold frames don't have to be very big and they can tuck up nicely on the south side of your house.   That's just enough to plant a short row of radishes and some greens.

4.  Plant early enough so that you're still getting enough light for things to grow.  Once they get so big, they'll be fine all winter in the ground.   This is where the idea for root cellars came from.   I can plant until early October.  

5.  Watering:  In cold weather, the plants aren't respiring as heavily as when it's hot, so you don't have to water unless it's really warm in there.   If it's warm enough for you to be outside working comfortably, then check the cold frame and if it's dry, sprinkle it. 

6.  Weeds:  They'll grow too, so we use a thick layer of straw between rows.  Newspapers or cardboard work just as well.

We will likely be replacing our current hoop house structure [made with pvc] with a structure made with a 16' cattle panel.   The old one was fine....until we got loads of snow and it collapsed.   The new one should be a little more collapse proof.   I'll keep you updated.

Lettuce

This is the lettuce coming up in the hoop house.  I planted it in November.  It lived under it's blanket, inside the hoop house all winter long.  And it was COLD, baby.  [got down to at least -25 here]

Now that the days are longer, it'll grow faster.    Once it gets warm, it'll take right off.

Early Planting: Plants that love cold weather.

There are two big things that winter gardens need to grow well - warmth and light.   I thought you might be interested to know how to deal with those things in order to get a 12 month garden.  We'll talk about temperature today and  light tomorrow.

Some plants just don't like the cold and you'll never get them to go through the winter, even if you can keep the temps above freezing in your greenhouse or hoop house.  Basil is a good example.   It spots and pouts if the temp gets down near 40 degrees.    Not to worry!  There are plenty of plants that love cold weather.

Good cold/cool weather plants are:

• lettuce
• arugula
• spinach
• maiche
• endive
• claytonia
• carrots
• radishes
• scallions
• sorrel
• watercress
• leeks
• chard
• beets
• turnip
• mustard
• pak choi

For specific varieties,  check out Eliot Coleman's The Winter Harvest Handbook: Year Round Vegetable Production Using Deep Organic Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses [also in the book list on my sidebar.]    The book is fantastic and he's trialed many varieties.

Plants that must have very warm soil to be happy are:

• squash
• melons
• eggplant
• sweet potatoes
• basil
• red long beans

In other words, don't plan on keeping these happy in a hoop house over the winter.    I don't even plant them until well after the last frost date, in very warm soil.   In the fall, these things are the first to keel over and die when it gets close to frost.

By planting things during the right season, you can double or triple the production of your garden.   Plant carrots and lettuce under cover now, then harvest it in early May, when you can pop some melons and basil in that same bed.   Then when you harvest the melons and basil, you can plant a winter garden and have radishes, carrots and arugula all winter long.

Winter Veg

After we cleaned out our dead hives [see yesterday's post], Eric reminded me that we hadn't checked out the cold frame or hoop house to see how those vegetables had weathered the weather. 

At last, some good news!   Some lettuce, little radishes and little carrots had done just fine.  A lot of the greens had some frost damage, but we expect them to bounce back pretty well.

In the cold frame I found my two little spinach starts doing just fine.   So, if I can get this stuff to grow, which I haven't been able to do in the past, at least we know it's cold hardy!   I will likely let these go to seed and save it for next year to try again. 

More Cold Frame Goodies

I planted a row of fennel in September in the small coldframe.   It is growing and looks quite happy.     We're planning another fennel gratin for Christmas dinner.   

A much faster growing winter veg is the radishes.   I got HUGE ones this fall - bigger than eggs.   Some are bigger than duck eggs.   They're a handful.   Cool weather radishes are less spicy than ones grown in the summer garden.   We've been enjoying radish sandwiches made with leftover natural yeast pancakes.   Mmmmm.

Cold Frame Greens Update

I planted greens in the cold frame in September, then left them alone until October - except to keep the cats out.   We covered it when we started getting regular frosts and I just opened it up to check on things last week.

Look!!   Greens!!   Big enough to eat!!

That's a lovely bed of arugula in this pic.  


And our bib lettuce is looking great, too.   Both types of greens do well in cool temps under cover.   The arugula stays nice and mild and the lettuce is very crisp.   

I also planted spinach [again] but apparently it doesn't like my sandy soil.   [I use a lot of sand to amend our solid clay.]   I got two whole plants out of the 4 little rows I planted.   I'm giving up spinach for a while and focusing on what does grow. 

Cold Frames and Hoop Houses

This is a pic of radishes that I was growing in my zone 4 garden in December.

December.   

They were delicious. 

I grew them in a cold frame.

If you haven't done it already, it's time to set up and plant those cold frames and hoop houses.

 Here's how I do my cold frames.   It's not rocket science.   Straw bales and an old tempered glass door on top.   I toss some clear plastic over the whole thing to tuck it in when it gets way cold and stays that way. 

Radishes and fennel in December!   Mmmmm.  Greens all winter long!

If you have the space and actually want to stand up in your cold frame, then try a hoop house.  Here is how we built ours.  Follow the links in the posts for more information and theory about how they work.  [The trick is to blanket things inside, too.]

We're doing just hoop houses this year.  Greens, carrots, onions, radishes, fennel and a few potatoes. 

Mini Greenhouse Veggie Starters

My genius friend Sharon told me about these a couple of years ago.    They're milk jugs.    You use them as mini greenhouses to start seeds in.   I use them for my peppers, tomatoes and eggplants.  

Start things early [in February, here] and they can stay all snug in the jugs until it's safe to plant them out in May.   In the meantime they can get big in these.

And they're double protected from goofy March weather because I keep these mini greenhouses inside the cold frames and hoop house where it's not going to freeze.

Genius, right?    I love them!



This is what you do.

Save your milk jugs.   Then cut them like this.  Cut all the way around but don't cut them under the handle.   This gives them a lid that stays on, but that you can bend open if you need to.

I cut them with scissors - just stab the scissors in right there under the handle and cut, cut, cut.

Then I poke holes in the bottoms using a skewer.  Or a screwdriver.   Or Lily's pocket knife because she always has it with her and my pocketknife is always in my purse.   Except for that one time that I took it out before I went on an airplane because I didn't want to be arrested for potential terrorism or have it confiscated because it's a cool little pocketknife. 

Poke lots of holes.  Maybe 8-10.

Usually I forget to poke the holes in the jugs until I have a couple of these full.   I hate that.   That's why I'm reminding you to poke your holes before you put the dirt in.

So don't forget.  

Then I fill the bottoms with this stuff.  From right to left:   chicken dirt, sand, potting soil. 

I love chicken dirt.   You can read about it here and here.

In this order, I put in 2 scoops of chicken dirt, 4 scoops of sand and 4-6 scoops of potting soil.

Or you can use plain old dirt.   It works too.

Then I plant my seeds and put labels in the jugs.

Don't forget the labels.   If you grow 6 varieties of peppers, you'll want to know which one is which.   Or not.   It might be fun to plant a big row and see what's what later. 

I spray everything down really well with a spray bottle full of water and I bend the lids back over to close them up so they stay nice and snug and then I tuck them in the cold frame or hoop house. 

Check them occasionally to make sure they don't dry out too much.    Seeds do not like dry.   Keep them moist.

This will give you a nice head start on veggie production for the season.   That's important when you have a kid whose only vegetable is tomatoes.   

Hoop House

This is my new hoop house.     We've been using cold frames for years - and I love them because I can grow greens all winter long.

All. Winter. Long.

But there's one big problem with the cold frames and that's that they're too short to get into easily.   Especially when they're all bundled up in the cold.    It's a serious pain to uncover them and get in and harvest quickly.    And then bundle it all up again.

So I've been thinking about doing something taller, that I can walk into.   Taller would let me double cover things - the big outside cover plus inside row covers to keep things warm even when it gets to 20 below zero, which happens out here occasionally.

Taller, but still cheap.     And fast to build.

Eliot Coleman had some great ideas for hoop houses.   See this post for my review of his Winter Harvest book.   He makes his with electrical conduit and they grow things in Maine, all winter long.

Dude.  If he can, we can.

So Eric started thinking and planning and scrounging and shopping.    This is what he collected.

• 14 - 10' lengths of 3/4 inch pvc electrical conduit  [$27 total]
• pvc cement [$3]
• uv stabilized zip ties [$4]
• plumbing strap [$1.50 for 10 feet]
• screws [$4.50 for a 1 lb box.   You won't need anywhere near that many.]
• 6mil plastic sheeting [$72 total for 100 ft of 20' wide sheeting.   We figure it'll cover three houses]

We had most of this stuff around here already, so all he had to bring home was the pvc and the plastic sheeting.     We figure it cost around $50 per 8x10 hoop house if you buy everything new.   The hoops will last for years and the plastic will, too, if you roll it up neatly and store it between seasons.  If it lasts just three years, then that's less than $18 per year for a really nice cold frame that will extend your harvest at least two months every year and if you plan well will allow you have fresh vegetables 12 months of the year. 

This is how we built it:

We joined two sections of  pvc so they'd be 20 feet long and we glued them together.  We made 6 of those 20' lengths.  Then we took them over to the existing 8x10 garden bed and bent them so we could shove the ends into the dirt.   The 6 hoops span the 8' length of the bed.   

Eric took one of the remaining 10' pieces of pvc and attached it across the tops of the hoops.  He drilled holes through the pipes and used the zip ties to connect the 10' piece to the tops of the hoops.   The last piece of pvc was cut in half and then he attached those as triangles on one side of the house to further stabilize it.    You can see it sort of in this pic to top right.   There's another triangle out of the pic on the bottom right, pointing down to the front corner of the bed.

Once it was all stabilized, we covered it with the plastic.   The 20' width of the plastic just fits over the hoops with enough to lay on the ground on both sides so that we could 'attach' it with cinder blocks.  There were 4-6 inches left on the ground on either side. 

More rural recycling.    These cinder blocks show up out of old chimneys and shed foundations and stuff and they're too good to throw away, so we toss them in our masonry piles [one pile for bricks with holes, one pile for bricks without holes, one pile for broken bricks, one pile for old limestone, and one pile for old cinder blocks and square concrete.]   We use these cinder blocks for steps and seats and weights.    We actually stripped our whole pile to use as weights on the plastic. We put every block we had on the sides and ends to weight the plastic down so it wouldn't blow off.

Inelegant, but it works.

I cut the plastic on the ends long so it would come all the way down from the top and lay on the ground a bit to be weighted so the plastic wouldn't blow off.  

I folded it across the back end like this.  It keeps the sides tight.

I did the same to the front.

And that evening the wind started to blow.  Hard.   And all night long I wondered if our hoop house plastic would end up in Indianapolis.   We got up in the morning and it was just fine.   Then the wind blew harder.   And harder.   And by the time we got home from our school co-ops that afternoon, one little section of plastic in the front had blown free.   I dropped another weight on it and that did the trick.

So I can definitely say that these babies are sturdy as long as you weight them down very very well.

I planted peas, greens, radishes, carrots, lettuce and fennel inside.    They should be leaping out of the ground.   If we get a serious cold snap, I'll drop a row cover over things to keep them warmer.

I'll keep you posted on how these work.

Book Review: Winter Harvest

We have a cold frame that allows us to grow a 12 month garden.   It's a miracle.   See the search bar on the right sidebar?  --->   Do a search for cold frame and you can see what we've been doing with them for the past few years.

Because I want to increase our winter harvest, I picked up a couple of extra books to read up this winter.    I found a real gem!

The Winter Harvest Handbook: Year Round Vegetable Production Using Deep Organic Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses by Eliot Coleman  [photo from Amazon].

Did you read the part in the subtitle about unheated greenhouses?

Un. Heated. Greenhouses.

Since our electric bill almost doubled due to federal regulations [we live in a coal state], we're all over the unheated thing.   Which is why you're seeing a lot of posts about wood burning stoves, cold frames and unheated greenhouses.

The author, Eliot Coleman, operates a 12 month organic vegetable garden/farm in Maine.    They use a lot of horse poop and careful cultivation to keep the weeds down and they use low tech greenhouses to keep things going all winter long.

The trick is double covering the vegetables all winter, knowing what the sun is doing at your latitude, and knowing which vegetables to sow when.

The book describes in detail how to cover your beds and how to build inexpensive structures to do the job.    He describes in detail how to compost and what to use.    He describes in detail how to figure out what the winter sun is doing in your area  and how to use that to your advantage to figure out both fall planting/winter harvesting and early spring planting schedules.   

What I loved best is the whole discussion of when to plant things.   I had used my cold frames to grow things in the winter.    The problem is that there isn't enough sun for things to grow during Dec and Jan, and so things I planted in December [after the first harvest] weren't growing.    He explains that what you have to do is plant early so you can harvest all winter.    You're not growing things in deep winter, you're holding them stable for harvest all winter.   Which means I have to re-think how I plant in the fall and that I can plant a lot earlier than I thought in the spring - as long as things are under cover.   

I do know that the radishes we're eating this month are a whole different creature from the same radishes grown with the same seed planted in April.  And those carrots that tasted like trees in August - will taste a lot better in December.   Next year's winter garden will be a lot better.

If you are at all interested in 12 month gardening and harvesting, read this book.  

January Radishes

I pulled these up out of the cold frame a couple of days ago.   There are still a bunch more waiting to be harvested.     I planted the seeds in October.

Pretty.

Winter Cold Frame

This is the inside of one of the cold frames on Christmas day.    To the front of the pic are a couple of rows of radishes.  

You'll notice that I didn't plant them too close together this year, so they actually had room to grow nice radishes.    Yay, Robin!    

In the center is a row of cilantro and in the back of the pic are a couple of rows of arugula.    All doing very nicely.   


Here's a view of one of those gorgeous radishes that had enough room to grow this year because I was smart enough [finally!] to only plant the seeds every 2 inches.  

Pretty!

What you don't see is the row of fennel that I pulled up and made into a fennel gratin for Christmas dinner.   Mmmmm.

Cold Frame Updates

The cold frames are doing great!  It's hard to get excited about cold frames at first.  They're slow.   For ages, it just looks like more dirt, only covered.   In May, things leap out of the ground.   In November, things creep out of the ground.   That's OK - I'm slower in November, too. 

In cold frame 1,  I have fennel, radishes, cilantro and arugula.  I can't believe how well the fennel is doing.   I should have radishes by Christmas.  I was careful this year not to crowd the seeds.    Last year I had loads of radish greens, but they were too crowded to form radishes.   Thinning the rows when it's 24 degrees outside is not my idea of a good time, so this year I was careful to space the seeds appropriately.   I hope. 

In cold frame 2, which I planted a couple of weeks later, I have a lot of salad greens, plus more radishes and maybe some leeks.   [I planted the leeks directly from seed and I've been reading that they prefer to be sown and babied, then transplanted.   We'll see.]

Cold Frame

Last month I did a lot of garden clean up and started the cold frames.   It is one of the great ironies of life out here that we are desperate for organic matter to break up our clay so that we can actually grow vegetables, but that very organic matter is host to all sorts of bad bugs that destroy our vegetables.

Like squash bugs.   I hate those.  

They overwinter in the same straw that we use all summer to mulch with.    That mulch that we need so desperately to improve our soil.  

Just another example of how Life Isn't Fair.  

Luckily, we knew that already.   I mean if life were fair, would we have had to endure bell-bottoms?   Twice??  

I don't think so.

So, as the only way to cut down on the squash bugs is to burn up the garden debris at the end of the season, that's what I do.    I pile all the old vines and plants into the center and burn them.

It's never as easy as I think it will be.   This year, it rained.   The center stayed wet.   The vines weren't completely dry.  It wouldn't burn.  

So, we spread stuff out and let it dry some more, then threw some logs on the thing so it would get good and hot, which totally worked because once I got that lit, it stayed hot for two days.  

Two.  Days.  And burned everything to a nice fine ash, which I shoveled out in prep for the second cold frame.   After digging things around and mixing up the soil, we're good to go. 

I do surround the cold frame with straw bales.  They get wet, and as they decompose, they generate enough heat to keep greens growing all winter, even when it gets down below zero.   We're in zone 4 here and I highly recommend this way of winter gardening.  

In the first bed, I planted arugula, radishes [and I remembered to plant them far enough apart that they'll actually grow radishes], cilantro and fennel.    Turns out fennel loves cool.   It really took off at the end of the season and I just transplanted in the cold frame for the winter.   We'll eat it in a few weeks and then I'll plant some more.   Mmmm.   I transplanted some parsley to the edges and  I also planted a few rows of Egyptian walking onions to the side of the cold frame and some kale in front.   The onions are cluster onions and they'll grow all winter.   The kale much prefers being outside the cold frame to being in it.   If it gets scary cold, then they're close enough for me to cover everything in plastic  for a few days of extra protection.  

In the second bed, I planted leeks, and some Siamese Dragon greens that I got from Baker Creek.   It's hardier lettuce and greens with nice kick - mustard, etc.   Also, more arugula.   Can't have enough arugula! 

Visitor in the Cold Frame

We have two cold frames.

Last year a mysterious hole appeared right under a parsley plant in one of my cold frames.

It killed the parsley.   Which really made me mad.

So I dropped a brick in the hole.

But the hole came back.

So I shoved a big blue lake stone in the hole.

And the hole stayed gone for a while.

And then it came back.   You can see the brick and the blue stone that I used last year.

I think I'm going to give up this year and just let it co-exist.   I'll plant the parsley away from it.

I know you're wondering what made it and you're probably not going to believe me when I tell you.

So I"ll let you guess.

Let me know when you give up. 

Give up?

It's a crayfish hole.   We call them crawdads here.   It kind of hurts my brain to call them crayfish.  

We get these holes and muddy mounds all over the place.

All.  Over. The. Place.

Like in my coldframe, which is up on the hill, away from the creek and probably 20-30 feet higher in elevation.

Kinda makes me wonder if they have too much spare time on their hands.

Coldframes

Right around the time the first frost hits, I start setting up my coldframes.   Last year I had such great success that I decided to do two this year. 

Yay!  Two!

The first coldframe, I put in the same place I did last year.    Right around where the arugula self seeded.   We like arugula and we eat a lot of it.    It loves being in the cold frame.  I planted more arugula, radishes and parsley in this one.  

I laid the straw bales down on their broadest sides for this frame.   Two in the back, one on each end.   If I get my act in gear, I'll put a couple more [or parts of one] in the front to insulate that side well.  I have an old glass door that goes on top.  I'll tuck clear plastic all around when it gets and stays cold.   Last year I didn't do the extra straw in front but we still had greens all winter long. 

This is the new coldframe.    I will be growing kale in this one and kale gets taller than arugula and radishes, so I put the bales on their sides so they'd be a little taller.   I've got taller kale in the back, shorter kale in the middle and in the front left, I scattered some salad mix.   In the front right I scattered a stir fry mix I got from Baker Creek. I can't wait to find out what's in it.  

Everything's coming up nicely except the parsley which is slow.    So far, the only trouble I had is with the cat, who wants to use the coldframes as a litter box.   I covered both frames with deer net - like I do for the strawberries [you can see the strawberries behind coldframe #1].    The net seems to be keeping him out just fine. 

So, tell me.   What would you grow in a coldframe?

Garden Clean-up

It's time to clean up the veg garden beds and set the cold frame.   

I've been doing a lot of reading about garden pests this year since we've had so blasted many pests this year and it seems that a lot of these guys overwinter in garden debris.    Usually we either leave things until Spring or toss them all to the chickens.   Either way, the bugs are staying. 

We have to burn them.    All that straw that I used to mulch with [and it was great mulch!] doesn't get to stay and be turned over.   It has to be pulled up and burned.   Maybe this will give us an edge over the bugs next year.  

Fingers crossed! 

Here are the beds prepped for burning.   You can tell I filled the beds up with sand.   We need the sand to offset the clay.    We're the clay capital of the world.   Really.   When clay gets old enough, it's called limestone.

Anyway.  We burned the piles and it was a pain because the stuff underneath was just damp enough not to burn all the way.   I let it dry for another 2 days and then burned again.  Same problem.    

The good news is that we didn't have to worry about the fire spreading much.  

The bad news was that I kept seeing those blasted cucumber beetles flying up and out of the pile.  

At the end of the second burn, we combined all the leftovers from the three squash beds into one pile.   I let it dry a few more days, then one last burn.   I've got to get rid of those bugs!

Onion Seeds

I'm working on saving a few seeds this year.   Not an easy task here where the weather gets so humid. 

I can't tell you how many times I've 'dried' seeds, only to find them growing mold 3 months later.    Clearly, I'm not doing something right.   

The remedy is to practice, practice, practice.     This year I'm saving onion seeds.

I planted onions from sets in the Spring, and I got a lot of great onions.   One of them sent up a gorgeous flower and I enjoyed looking at it so much that I didn't cut it.    Later, I realized that I could let it go to seed and then save the seeds.  

Here's a close up of that gorgeous flower in July.

How perfect is that?!   

Now, it's matured and set seed.    I left it in the garden until it turned brown and the seed pods started opening on their own.   The seed is good and mature now, ready to start out on its own.

So, I cut it down and shook the seeds into a bowl.    In a week, I'll put them in an envelope, clip it closed and label it with variety and date. 

I've heard rumors that you can put seed in the freezer to keep it good and dry.    Does that really work?   It won't kill the seeds?   Please comment if you have some experience with freezing seeds!

I"ll likely plant these onion seeds in the cold frame this fall to let them grow all winter.  I hope that they're mature enough to use as sets in March or April.