Spring Work Out

It feels so good to be outside in the sunshine and I'm already feeling my muscles growing too!

My easiest compost ever bin last summer

Remember my post about the easiest compost ever?  I swear by this method!  Everything from fern fronds & grass clippings to egg shells & cilantro stems make it into my compost bin and magically with no mixing or moving, I get a tube full of black gold each spring! 

Now that my tube of compost is ready for use, I just pulled off the wire frame to harvest my black gold. Theres always a layer at the top that is only partially decomposed, but that's ok.  This layer along with all the worms inside of it is removed and placed in the bottom of the empty wire bin where it will jumpstart this years compost.  All the enzymes and microbes that aide in decomposition are already in that partially done layer.

I'm thrilled that I wound up with a lot of ready to use compost!  It was about 8 wheel barrows full of 100% free organic soil amendment! And with no backbreaking work or constant turning.  I just stack it in, water it when it's dry and let mother nature do her thing.  You just can't beat that! Composting is the epitome of the old saying "waste not, want not".

Beautiful black and rich.  Last years waste will

feed the plants that will feed us this year!

If you've been following my spring garden frenzy, then you know that I've run out of room in my garden beds for planting anything else.  Soon Ben will be building me some more recycled beds and bringing home a few yards of 4 way organic soil to fill them, but the sun is shining and I just can't wait.  So I took a look around the yard to see what I might repurpose for planting in some odd shaped areas of my garden where buiding beds would be difficult.

First I found the top half of an old plastic compost bin.  The bottom section had split open and was not really good for anything (that's why I'm not using plastic for my bins).  It seemed like a great candidate for a garden container.  I drug it down to the garden and found a spot for it, next to my ugly but useful recycled laundry bin planter.  I filled it with compost, leveled it out and planted another type of carrots inside.  It might not be pretty now, but it will be gorgeous when those carrots come up!

 

You never know what might make a good garden bed. 
This container lived it's first life as a compost bin,
now it will get a second life as a carrot planter!

I still had loads of compost, so I took the wire mesh tubes from last years failed potato tower experiment and carefully cut them in 1/2 to form 6 good sized containers.  These would fit perfect in the sloped corner of my garden.

 

This wire tube tower for potatoes was too tall last year.

 

That's more like it!  Now these shorter tubes I can work with. 

Each tube became 2 - 18" tall planters.  These are perfect for this spot because I can mold the shape a little bit before filling them.  Then I found some old plastic woven bird seed bags I've been saving for a project and cut those down to line the bottom of each of these new planters.  I cut drainage slashes in the lining and got to work filling each plant tube with compost.

8  loads full!  I highly recommend a 2

wheeled barrow like mine for ease of use.

Eight trips to the back yard with my wheelbarrow and I had created a whole new planting area from recycled and repurposed items I already had!  I love recycling in the garden!  

The mesh planters are full and ready
for seeding.  And now a wasted space in my
garden is going to be a productive.  Yay! 

I decided to go ahead and try potatoes in these again now that they are a bit smaller.  I have several different types of spuds that have sprouted in my cupboards that should work. I placed 3 little papita starts in each tube.  I don't know if they'll all grow, but at least some of them should.  I know potatoes grow in compost bins all the time.

Red, white & russet potatoes from the kitchen get

replanted here  along with an onion and some garlic

centers that need planting.

Oh I almost forgot, each day when the sun is out I'm opening up my boat/greenhouse to get some direct sun on the soil and the plants.  I've also placed my jugs of water strategically throughout to absorb the heat of the sun durring the day.  In the evening I'll recover the boat and those recycled containers of water will radiate the warmth back into the greenhouse. 

Those empty jugs from our ceasars and screwdrivers

become passive heaters in the greenhouse

I bumped into my neighbor Leslie as I was out enjoying the sun. She's also been hard at work cutting back her fern fronds and generously offered them to me for my garden mulch. Thank you Leslie! I think I may have enough fronds to fully line the non-growing areas of the garden now! It sure makes the garden area look nice too. A few hours of work in the sunshine and what a payoff!  I love it! 

Joe's Gardens comes to my garden

On a recent trip to town for provisions, we decided to drop in at Joe's Gardens in Bellingham and see what was growing on.  Joe's is a longtime local nursery and produce grower here in Whatcom County.  They've been growing wonderful produce and plant starts in Happy Valley for over 70 years!  We've always had great luck with plant starts that we purchase from Joe's in years past and I highly recommend buying your plants there if you live in this area.

Normally not open until sometime in March, we were thrilled to see the doors open and a few racks of starts ready for purchase, along with a rack full of new seeds from Ed Hume.  Another Northwest favorite!  The staff was busy working in the greenhouses, but one gentleman took time out from his work to come talk garden with us. 

We raved about the weather and the early spring and he advised us that Saturday would be their first planting day.  According to their testing of the soil temps, we were advised that plantings of beets, carrots and radishes were good for direct seeding now, just be sure to plant in the top 1/4" of the soil where its being warmed by the sun.  Great news since I'd already done some of my planting.

We went through the few racks of plants and chose a number of new starts that would be nice additions to this years veggie patch.  The peas they had started were so beautiful!  Even though I've already planted some peas in my organic garden, I just couldn't resist these lovely 2" starts.  I purchased both sugar snap peas and oregon pea pods.  Along with that impulse buy, we chose garlic chives, globe artichokes, leeks, walla walla sweet onions, leeks, and italian parsley.  I also grabbed seed packets for parisian market carrots and easter egg radishes.

A box of starts from Joe's Gardens.

A sure sign of spring in Whatcom County!

With good weather in the 5 day forcast and sunny days, I once again set aside my recycled bag project, threw on a hat and boots and got to work in the garden.  With only 1 bed left unplanted it was going to be tough to find spots for these wonderful new starts, but I was up for the challenge.

I started off by pulling back the plastic cover from the boat garden to allow some direct sun on the plants I've got going in there. I have limited space in my garden, so I try to practice space saving methods I learned from the Square Foot Garden.  I found a nice hole in the strawberry planting and popped in 1 of the 2 artichokes and placed the second start in the center of the boat amongst some fennel and lemon balm already growing there.  Then I planted about 30 radish seeds in another area of the boat between some garlic, found another spot for the garlic chives and parsley, and squeezed in a row of parisian carrots next to my previously planted lettuce.  I think I've can find room enough for one or 2 future salad plantings in here too!

This old boat has served us well for growing produce.

Next I popped the leeks into a large pot.  I'm going to let them develop a bit more and come back and transplant them a bit later.  That left me with 2 containers of peas and 1 of walla wallas. 

What a great day! Echo the Eco dog found a nice sunny

spot to bask up some warmth.

I still had 1 unplanted bed in the garden.  I had planned to let this bed rest for another week, but with these new starts I bumped that idea.  Hopefully my recent addition from the worm bin is fully composted!  I made a nice row down the center and added the oregon pea pod starts.  They look fabulous.  Along one side I planted a row of the walla wallas.  This bed is going to make for some great eating this year! 

How nice do these peas look?!?

Now what to do with the other peas?  Oh my, I'm really running out of space in here!  Ok, so I checked on the bed where I'd planted my fall planting of strawberry starts.  If I moved a few of these berry plants, I thought I could fit a row of peas down the backside of this bed.  Easy enough.  I transplanted about 12 berry plants into spaces deeper in the bed and added a row of sugar snap peas down the back even with the garlic and celery already growing in here, there was enough room!  Yay! 

The fern fronds as mulch around my garden beds.

With the veggies planted and the sun still shining, I grabbed the wheelbarrow and went back to cutting on my ferns.  Don't worry though, the daylight hours are still short, so I'll be getting some recycled bags done this evening.

Oh and by the way, don't forget to enter to win your own FatBottomBag in the Pay It Forward Giveaway.  I'll be choosing 1 winner on Thursday, so there's still time to share how you are making the world a little bit better.  I'm so impressed with the entries so far!  It's wonderful to hear how each one is making a difference in the world and community.  It's going to be really difficult to choose just one!

Stormy days

Brr!  Stormy and cold, but this view is always beautiful!

A storm can be a gorgeous thing.  I mean yeah, it's a pain when the power goes out and tree limbs form an obstacle course on these narrow island roads, but mother nature can slow down your normal pace and "force" you to have a beautiful day!

After we got the fire burning in the woodstove and made sure the generator was ready for action, we jumped in the car to take a tour and see if there was any damage around the island.  We lucked out at our home, no trees down, no big limbs down, just dancing trees on the hillside.  So pretty!

Not all of our neighbors were so lucky.  Down the road a piece, a car was completely covered by a large cedar tree.  The car took some serious damage.  Thankfully no one was hurt!  Hopefully their insurance will take care of the costs.   

We did the bloop, noting all the new downed trees and such. Then driving home we got stuck in an island traffic jam!  Less than a mile from home we saw a line of about 6 stopped cars.  That's odd!  As we pulled up to the end of the jam, we could see a line down across the roadway and a concerned neighbor was flagging all traffic in both directions to stop.  The worry was this line could be live still.  Yikes!  

We turned the car around and headed down to the Beach Store Cafe.  They've got a generator!  So we sat down and watched the Whatcom Chief being beaten up by high winds and very large waves.  After a nice meal we made a stop in at the Islander to check if anyone had reported what was going on with that line down in our neighborhood.

Turns out it was a communication line and not power, so we were clear to head home. We pulled up and I looked over into the garden.  I had been concerned that all these gusts would blow the cover off of my green house, but no.  She held through 90 mile gusts!  

A peek into the greenhouse and everything is

doing fine! Looks like we will be having fresh 

organic garden lettuce for Thanksgiving

We stoked the fire, started the genny and broke out the dominoes!  All in all it turns out we had a great night.  It's funny how a little change like the cable/power going out can turn into such a lovely evening spent together.

Dem Bones!  I got whooped at the game, 
but we had so much fun playing.  
No TV, no computer, just good company 
and a little background music!.  

Still time to plant your strawberries!

Today I went to check on my secret garden.  My dear friend down the road allows me a few beds in his organic garden to plant as I please.  This year I just took 1 bed for corn.  I planted late, so the corn never fully developed, but according to my motto "nothing to waste", I cut the corn stalks to use for harvest decorations. I cleaned up the corn bed to ready it for my spring planting.  Maybe pumpkins will go in there next year or ???? 

Ben posing with my "miniature" corn

This corn got planted too late to produce

But it sure looks nice as a harvest decoration near my new greenhouse!

After that I turned my attention to my friends strawberry bed.  He has a lot of everbearing berries in there and asked me to thin it out a bit.  The great thing about gardening and friendships is that there's always so much to be shared.  Where there is bounty in 1 garden, there is often need in another, and that was the case with us.

 I thinned out some of his beautiful strawberry plants from his bed, being careful not to over thin or leave any "bald" spots.  Each little berry plant that I pulled out was placed gently in my bucket to be transplanted in my home garden.

What a beautiful and abundant berry patch in the "secret" garden

The grey clouds held on to their rain long enough for me to get home and start my new strawberry bed.  I grabbed my bucket of strawberry starts and got right to work.

It's good to have friends who garden.  These are free starts for my own

strawberry patch.  If  I had purchased these it would have cost a pretty penny.

I chose an empty bed in my garden that receives plenty of sunlight.  Earlier this year this bed had purple cherokee tomatoes.  When planting in my garden from year to year, I try to rotate crops.  This rotation of crops helps to curb transfer of diseases from one season to the next.

This little bed is in direct sunlight most of the summer, a good choice for

everbearing strawberries

Fall is the perfect time to start a new strawberry bed.  When planted at this time of year, the plants have 2 seasons to develop good healthy root systems before the plant puts its energy into fruit. 

One thing to be aware of when you plant your strawberries is the crown.  These plants grow from a base and all new leaves and berries grow out of the crown.  When you transplant your starts be very careful about the depth.  You will want to bury all of the roots, but NOT the crown.  Be sure that the crown of leaves is at or slightly above ground level.  If you do cover the crowns, you will risk the entire plant which can rot below the soil surface.

By next fall I'll be thinning my own strawberry patch and be able

to share some starts with other friends

With a little bit of work and the satisfaction of assisting a friend, I came away with a brand new full bed of strawberries.  These everbearings will set fruit throughout the spring and summer next year.  Even now, some of these little plants still have berries and flowers!

Greenhouse: Extending my growing season!

The leaves are falling to the ground and there is a new chilly crispness to the air.  Even still I'm thinking of my garden. 

A sure sign that cold weather is coming soon

I've been nursing along a couple of volunteer yellow pear tomato plants that sprouted up in my boat garden this year.  About 2 weeks ago I harvested the first of the juicy little salad tomatoes from the plants and they were delicious.  Because of our short season, these plants haven't yet hit their peak of tomato production.  I placed several jugs of water around them.  The idea is that the water will absorb the heat of the day and help insulate these plants in the colder hours of darkness. 

Here's the tomato plants with the reused jugs of water

Hoping to extend my growing season a little longer, I asked Ben to help me by enclosing the boat garden with a greenhouse.  This is a quick, cheap and easy project that we finished in a few hours.

First we took a trip into town for materials.  Whenever possible I try to use recycled materials in my garden, but this project required a few purchases.  I think we spent about $25 on the following materials:

                 *1/2 inch PVC pipe, several 8 foot lengths

                 *1/2 inch rebar stakes

                 *Heavy clear plastic

Checking the flexibility of the pipe

Now Ben is, by trade, a carpenter, so this project was a piece of cake for him.  I helped when I could, but for the most part, I tried to stay out of the way.

The first thing he did was to pound in the rebar stakes on either side of the garden.  Then he placed the pvc pipe onto the rebar on one side and then bent the pipe over and placed it over the rebar stake on the opposite side. 

Forming the support hoops for the greenhouse

Repeating this process, he formed 3 hoops over the garden bed.

Rebar stakes help secure the hoops in the ground

Next he added a support "beam" down the center.  Using a small drill bit, he drilled through the pipes where they over lapped and wired the support to the center of the hoops.

This hoop house is starting to take shape!

Now that this was fully supported, it was time to add the thick plastic sheeting.  We got ours in the paint department of the hardware store. 

Attaching the plastic to the frame with wire

Here's where things got tricky.  I explained to Ben that whatever method he used to hold the plastic down would have to be removable so that I could pull the plastic back in order to tend to the plants inside.  He figured out a way to wire the plastic sheeting on to the supports so that I could still open the sides.

He finished up at the last light of the day and just before the rain began.

The capsule is complete!

Some men bite their tongues when working with their

wives.  Ben's solution, Duct Tape!!!

While all of that was going on, I did some more fall clean up out in the veggie beds.  I cleared out the remaining tomato plants from my raised beds and turned the soil.  I think we have enough plastic left to enclose these for the winter too.  If that works out I'll keep planting salad greens in these 2 beds. 

2 more beds ready for winter

I've had some strawberry pots going for about 2 years now.  I've noticed that they really don't do as well in the pots as they do in the ground, so I took this time to transplant them over my previously planted garlic.  This is just a temporary spot for them to winter over.  In the spring, I will be moving all of my strawberries into their own permanent bed.

A short term solution for my berries

I love my little organic garden!  There's always something to be done out here, but I enjoy the work and it's a great hobby for Ben and I to share.

 Now with my little greenhouse, I should be able to get an extra month to 6 weeks of growing time at both ends of the season!  That could add up to 3 extra months of food production!!!  I'll be sure to keep you all posted to what kind of trials and successes we have with our new enclosed growing area.