today's garden work

It seems I should be finishing up with my garden for the season, but I'm hurrying to get my winter crops set. This is what I did in the garden today.

- Clean out tomato debris from my winter bed (this bed has hardware cloth dug in 8 inches around the base to deter voles and also has brackets to support the PVC hoops)

- Spread compost and manure on winter bed (3 bags Black Earth compost and 2 bags composted manure) and dig it in (I dig it in only turning a shovelful here and there, trying to both distribute the amendments and preserve some of the soil structure)

- Plant seedlings in the winter bed, including chard, broccoli, bok choi, lettuce, and spinach - leaving room to seed more spinach

- Mulch the winter bed seedlings with salt marsh hay (I have no water at the garden, so I hope they take root OK)

- Put in place low metal hoops and tall PVC hoops for my double layer winter tunnel

- Clear out my watermelon bed for planting a few cloves of extra giant garlic given to me by a friend (most of my garlic - 70 cloves - was planted several weeks ago in my community garden plot)

- Amend the garlic bed with compost and manure, dig it in, and then plant the garlic (I need to mulch this bed later)

- Cover my lettuce bed with row cover since it might go below 30 tonight

I'm glad my new pup Charley and big sister Suzie are so good. They ran and played nearby while I worked. The leaves and cool weather are great fun for them.

cold!!

37* F outside this morning. A light snow is falling but not accumulating. I wish I had covered my winter bed last night, but did not. So this morning I went down to the garden and pulled the plastic cover over the hoops. I also covered my fall lettuce bed with Agribon light weight row cover. It was a painful task. I was reminded the hard way that I need to wear mittens at that temperature. (Especially if I am taking pictures.) My hands were so cold. They stung for 5 minutes after I went back into the house. Ouch!!

But now the covers are on. We're going to have chilly temperatures for the next couple of days and then it will warm back up. Its been such a balmy fall so fall that it is an abrupt cool down for us. The winter garb isn't a habit yet. By next month, today's temperatures will seem warm as our average December low is 28*.

I am covering my beds when it falls below about 40*F. I have found that the greens I am growing are fine with about 25* to 30*F, so I'm not too concerned with keeping the covers on yet.

My neighbors have been keeping all of their beds covered for a couple weeks now. They have watermelons and peppers growing still. Maybe I'll try that next year.

I've been asking gardeners about their experience with hoops and different coverings. My neighbors found that the PVC hoops are not strong enough and collapse under the snow load we get here. I have also heard that PVC has a chemical that degrades greenhouse plastic covers. My neighbors switched this year to galvanized metal that they bent into shape. These are more expensive than PVC. I'll see how my PVC works. I'm glad I only tried one bed for my first (experimental) year with winter hoops. The row cover I am using is actually a very light weight insect barrier (Agribon AG-15). Not really going to provide much warmth, but I figure better than nothing. Its 10 feet wide, so it easily covers my bed while lying flat. I could buy some winter weight row cover (10x50ft AG-19), but I plan to harvest all the lettuce outside of my plastic tunnel soon.

I noticed that the standard 10 ft wide Agribon product wouldn't be wide enough cover 10 ft long PVC hoops. It looks like the 100x13ft extra heavy weight AG-70 would be a good choice if I wanted to use cloth instead of plastic. At $124 for 100ft, the Agribon product is a bit less expensive than the greenhouse plastic film I have, which is $152 per 100 ft.

I'd love to hear comments on products that other gardeners are using!

hoops ready for covering

My winter bed is ready to be covered. The weather has been beautiful so far this month. Perfect for growing a bed full of greens. Today, we are expecting more warm sunny weather, but Thursday, temperatures are going down. I'll get out the plastic and cover the bed today.

Not sure if I should put the gnomes in the winter tunnel. They've worked so hard all summer - may be ready for a rest from gardening.

planning garden chores

Buy galvanized metal wire at hardware store for hoops
Find my row cover (in the basement I think)
Find my clover seed
Buy 10 lbs winter rye seed at the hardware store (they sell by the lb)

Home Garden
Clear out cucumber and melon vines from cold frame.
Replace torn cold frame plastic
Attach cold frame covers
Transplant fall seedlings into cold frame
Plant cover crop in beds (under tomato and pepper plants)

Community Plot
Clear out old plants
Plant cover crop
Garlic: Locate new bed, transplant volunteers, figure out how many saved bulbs to plant
Transplant rhubarb to make room for new compost bin
Set up hoops for row covers over fall/winter greens

My Parents' Garden
Transplant fall seedlings
Set up hoops and row covers over fall/winter greens (they may frost Sat night)
Clear out all old plants
Plant winter rye

I doubt I will get all this done, but I have a plan.

dahlia tubers dug

Since Daphne said it was as late as I could wait, I went out today and dug the dahlia tubers. They look good - big fat roots. They are now in a bag hanging on the hook in the basement where they always spend the winter.

garden beds tucked in for winter

Skippy and I walked through the community gardens today. Lots of very neatly tucked in garden beds. Many have salt marsh hay. Some plastic, some a layer of manure, some a good growth of cover crop. We're ready.

Someone recently left a note that Mahoney's has a good supply of salt marsh hay.

mulching with hay

I'd like to cover all my beds for the winter - to protect the soil microbes.

So I went to my plot today to spread the last of my hay. Two garlic plots are already mulched. And another bed is already covered with popcorn stalks.

Uncovered beds I noticed were the new asparagus bed, planted this spring. And my perennial bed with rhubarb, rose, thyme and oregano. I spread the last of the hay on these.

If I get a chance to buy more hay, I will. It would be good to cover a couple more beds.

I'm covering next year's heavy feeder beds with a layer of fresh horse manure, compost and winter rye. Three are done and one is still waiting for this. The perennials and the light feeder beds aren't getting these amendments. They're the ones to mulch with hay.

spreading compost and other winter preparations

A beautiful warm fall day for garden work. We were out cleaning up the yard and gardens - getting ready for winter. My main project was COMPOST.

My old wood compost bins have finally composted themselves. After 10 or 15 years. Two homemade untreated fir bins. I pulled off all the old decayed wood, then carted the compost to my garden beds. My 2010 plan says there will be tomatoes, eggplants, potatoes and peppers in these home beds next year, which need a nice rich soil. A couple of the beds were cleared out earlier and already have a layer of spread compost with cover crops growing well. Now the rest of the beds have piles of compost. I'll buy winter rye seed tomorrow (my local hardware store sells it by the pound). Then these beds will be set for winter.

I also have a nice compost barrel this year (new this spring). I'm still getting the hang of how to use this. I piled in some yard waste (old hydrangea blossoms) and gave it some good spins. I'm planning to move this next spring. For now, its near the kitchen door, but next year I'll put it by the garden beds in the sun to help heat it up. I'm also looking for a good buy on a shredder to generate fine brown material to mix with my kitchen scraps.

The other task-of-the-day was putting away pots. Often I leave them out all winter and find them cracked come spring. I'm so ambitious this year. I emptied most of the pots and stacked them in a sheltered spot. I emptied a pretty pink rose from one pot and stuck this in the ground in a sheltered location. Same with my lavender. I removed it from its pot and planted it next to the rose. This is lavender planted from seeds on Feb 21. Its grown nicely and I'm looking forward to some good sized plants next year.

winterizing the vegetable garden

I was looking at The 2009 Farmers' Almanac and see they are predicting a "numbingly cold and snowy" winter for the Northeast US. OMG! I hope they're wrong. I'm never ready for winter. I keep hoping we'll skip it somehow. Nevertheless, my garden is winterized now.

"How do you winterize you vegetable garden?" I see this question around a lot so here's what I did. (Do you do the same?)

To winterize, I removed all debris and summer plants. I pulled all the squashes and tomatoes and tomato poles and beans, etc. These went into the compost pile and I raked the ground. Since the soil in my community plot is very acidic (low pH - 5.5 last time I send out a sample) I added lime.

I planted a cover crop in the bare areas without fall crops (a mix from Johnny's Selected Seeds called green manure mix, includes field peas, vetch, clover and winter rye). I'll turn this under in the spring. Peas and vetch add nitrogen to the soil, others add organic matter and prevent runoff. I lightly raked in the cover seeds and lime.

Finally I added a good layer of grass clippings or salt marsh hay around my growing fall crops. This should keep the weeds down in this area, retain moisture, and help protect from the very cold weather that will (unfortunately) be here soon. I hope to pick greens into December. Last year my kale was good down to 10 degrees F.

winterizing the garden

It was pretty chilly this morning. I guess winter will come again after all ....

Skippy and I did a few chores to continue to winterize the garden. "We" planted spring bulbs, turned over the bird bath, watered the dry fall greens, and "our" main job - mulch. I collected freshly cut grass from the fields and started mulching my beds.

Mulching with grass trimmings: I feel good tonight knowing my plants are tucked in with a nice covering of mulch. The fields nearby were recently mowed, so I collected cuttings and mulched my recently planted garlic bed. This bed also has carrots, broccoli and red lettuce. The grass trimmings probably have a lot of weed seeds. I'll see how bothersome this is in the spring. For now, its an easy and cheap solution for mulching. I've heard that our local hardware store has a new shipment of salt marsh hay. Tomorrow I'll buy a few bales of this, but at $10 a bale and knowing that mowing hay is not so good for the salt marsh, I'm wondering if grass trimmings aren't the better mulch.

Planting bulbs: I planted 5 small botanical tulip bulbs (Violacea black base) and 2 daffodils bulbs. I remember thinking how nice the spring flowers looked in other plots last year. Just a few go a long way.

The quotes above are because Skippy didn't help AT ALL today - HE wanted to PLAY. Skippy dug a BIG hole and ran all over the garden. I think the crisp fall air must feel GOOD to a puppy! That's OK, we went for a nice long walk in the fields together.

winter cover crop

For a cover crop this year I am trying Johnny's winter green manure mix. It sounds like most of the nitrogen fixing components are cold sensitive and will winter kill (field peas and clover), while others (winter rye) are cold hardy. If the fall is mild, I'll get a good growth of the first group. If it gets cold soon, I'll just have the rye. I think vetch is a more cold hardy and also builds nitrogen. I'll keep and eye on these and see how they do.

I planted this same mix in my squash bed a few weeks ago and its sprouted nicely. But I ran out of seed and had to order more. I guess I spread seed thicker than recommended. I planted this entire 1 pound package on my new space (about 320 sq ft), while it was supposed to cover 1000 sq feet. I just spread it manually and hate the thought of not having enough.

I'll have to pick up some winter rye seed at my local True Value. Its pretty cheap seed. I'll use this for other spaces that I don't clear out until frost.

Here's a really good site with information on cover crops for the home garden (Oregon St Univ Extension).

topic: soil

winter cover crop

Ouch - my first mention of the word "winter"....

My cover crop is sprouting. Little bits of green between the wood chips and the garden tools. I pulled my beans and squashes, limed and planted cover seeds last week. I have a mix called "Fall Green Manure Mix" from Johnny's Selected Seeds. As Johnny's writes: "A mix of winter rye, field peas, ryegrass, crimson clover and hairy vetch. The peas, clover and ryegrass will winter kill to provide organic matter and soil cover. The hairy vetch and winter rye will regrow in the spring to provide nutrients for crops to utilize."

Most of my garden areas still have crops growing. I won't clear them until frost. In these areas I'll plant only the hardy winter rye.

topic: soil

garden cleanup

Yesterday morning, before the storm, Skippy and I finished up the fall garden cleanup. All of the summer vegetable plants are now removed, the garden has been raked and I planted a big bag of winter rye seed. I also put in the first of my garlic. I planted two rows, and have several more to plant later - maybe today.

Hurricane Noel, who came up the coast near us as a Nor'easter, gave us some rain and a bit of wind all afternoon yesterday, but didn't cause us any problems. I was sort of hoping a few branches might blow down from the big tree that shades my garden - but no such luck.

soil sample and winter rye

I mailed out a soil sample from my vegetable garden today for pH, nutrient, heavy metal and organic matter testing. I'm really interested to see how far off the nutrients are. Too much phoshate and low pH, I'm guessing. I also have a photo here of my winter rye sprouts. They're coming up fast.

topic: soil test

tucked in for a frost

I found some gardening fabric in my garage from some previous project, so I went ahead and covered all of my plants last night. I pulled apart some thin wire edging fences and used them as hoops. Scattered frost was predicted for the Boston area, but as it turned out, my garden did not frost. The lowest I saw on my thermometer (7 am) was 37 degrees F.