Saturday in the garden.

I know many of you are still buried under the snow storm.  Maybe a little more about my organic gardening will tide you over until you can get out and dig in your own dirt.

We've had an extremely warm winter this year.  Great for our heating bill, but not so great for the nearby winter olympics in Vancouver BC.  We're all in more or less the same weather area and the shortage of snow up north has kept us from freezing down here.  Anyhow, I've been watching the signs of spring for a few weeks now.  I held off on making any plantings because the calendar kept telling me "not yet Christi, it's just too soon."

Today I finally told that calendar to shut up!  It was a beautiful sunny day and by jove I was going to get in my garden to plant something!

With my seed stash in hand, I headed down to our little enclosed garden and threw open the gate then I got straight to work.  I pulled open the plastic cover on my boat garden and cleared out a few small weeds, cleaned the dead growth off the herbs, pulled out the brown leaves from the strawberries and planted 2 short rows of lettuce.  1 row is "salad bowl" and the second row is a mix of romaine with red and green leaf lettuce. 

The boat garden revealed - garlic, strawberries, fennel, lettuce and carrots

Next I focused my attention on an empty bed that held multi-colored carrots last year.  It is really important to rotate your garden crops to keep down on disease spread, so this year I planted 2 rows of my home grown organic onion sets and 3 intesively planted rows of peas from some seeds that my mom saved for me from her garden last year.

Now I was on a roll!  I still had 2 open beds ready for planting, so I went back through my seed stash and found a few more candidates for an early spring planting.  These beds grew my lushious tomato crops last year, so this year it would need to be something else. 

I decided 1 pea planting just won't be enough for me, especially since last years peas were devoured by our local deer (before we got the deer fence up).  I found a packet of Gray Dwarf peas in the mix.  These are really good.  You can use them as pea pods or as green peas, so I planted 1/2 of this open bed with the gray's, the other half I added 3 short rows of Olympic spinach, 3 short rows of Gormet Mix radishes and 3 plantings of Brussels sprouts.  Yummy! 

It doesn't look like much now, but in a couple

of months this intesive planting will be in full

production!

Feeling good about my progress, I decided to leave the bed unplanted for just a bit longer.  I threw the plastic cover back over the boat garden and called it a day.  Boy it sure was nice to get out there and get something new in the ground.  I'm glad I left the 1 bed empty, so that the next time I get the urge to plant I've got a whole bed ready for me!

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.

Waiting for the frost and more green tomatoes

Beautiful Mount Baker and the sisters view  from the Lummi Island ferry dock 

Looking out at the fresh snow on Mount Baker is a good reminder that the first killing frost is not long off. Of course the trick is knowing when it will hit my garden and of that I'm not certain.

My neighbors a few miles down the road have all had a hard frost.  Not me! My garden seems to have a nice warm micro-climate this year.When I woke up yesterday morning and checked the temperature it was just dipping into the 30's at 39 degrees, still a lot of wiggle room for a hard freeze. But that little nippiness made me nervous.


Last week I posted about ripening some of my green tomatoes indoors.  At that time I harvested 1 box of fully developed green tomatoes and ripened those in my kitchen.  I still have 3 or 4 from that batch that are partially ripe and the rest have found their way into salsas, salads and tomato sandwiches.


This morning I felt was the right time to finish the harvest.  I had so many beautiful green tomatoes on my 5 remaining roma plants that I couldn't justify risking the frost taking a bite out of them.  With pruners in hand, I snatched up all the ones that looked fully developed and left only a few of the small weak ones on the plants.

Can you believe the loads of tomatoes still going in October? 

These Roma won't be as sweet as sun-ripened.

They will be better than store bought!

These tiny yellow pear tomatoes should be ready for topping

my autumn lettuce salad by next week

I've placed them all in shallow boxes with newspaper covers and added a ripened apple to assist the process.  I came away with 3 boxes of them!  What a fantastic harvest!

p.s - My dahlias are still blooming! 

What am I gonna do with all these little green tomatoes?

Pickling is a great way to preserve your

green end of season tiny tomatoes

We've had torrential rains for the last few days.  October in the Pacific Northwest is the wet cold season and now that the rains have started, there's no telling when they'll end. 

I still have 3 large yellow pear tomato plants in the garden that are producing. All this heavy rain is causing them to split as they ripen.  So today I went down and filled my pockets with tiny green tomatoes for pickling.  Then I grabbed the pruners and harvested a handful of anise flowers and oregeno from my organic herb bed along with about 8 garlic cloves that didn't get planted earlier this week.

Yellow pear tomatoes are about 1/2 the size of cherry tomatoes

When fully ripened they are a bright yellow, but these green ones

will be better pickled

Organic Anise flower from the boat garden

Garden fresh organic oregeno from the herb beds

These garlics didn't make the cut for planting but they will

compliment the small tomatoes for pickles

Back in the kitchen, I washed all of my items and pulled out the canning equiptment again.  First thing was to sterilize 4 quart jars and start the water to boil in the canner. 

In a seperate pot I brought these ingredients to a boil for the brine:

     *1 1/2 Quarts of white venegar

     *1 Cup sugar

     *1/3 Cup sea salt

As the brine was heating  I placed a pinch of mustard seed, corriander, and a few black pepper corns along with a few sprigs from the fresh herbs in the bottom of each jar.

No need to measure, just add a pinch to each jar

 Next I drained the tomatoes and packed them raw into the jars and added 2 cloves of peeled garlic in each jar.

So pretty!  The tomatoes and garlic cloves are the same size

Once the brine was boiled, I removed it from the heat and poured the hot liquid over the  tomatoes and herbs.  I left 1/2" of head room in the top of each jar and then added the lids and rings.  These went into a hot water bath canner at a boil for 10 minutes. Next I pulled the jars out and set on a towel on the counter where they will cool.

Pickling tiny tomatoes is quick and easy

Once they're cool I'll remove the rings, label the jars and place in the cupboard for at least 1 month.  After brining for a month these will be delicious little pickles and would make a nice garnish for bloody mary's or compliment any relish tray.

Last chance tomatoes - fall garden clean up

I've been a mad pruner this week!  It's fall and time to clean up the garden before it gets too soggy out there.  I've got garden beds running around our house, throughout the backyard and of course my new organic vegetable garden too.  There's no shortage of work to be done. And no small amount of pruned vegetation to deal with.

I try to compost everything I can so that I can use the finished compost in the spring to fertilize my planting beds, but this year I had a lot of brush that needed to be pruned back.  This amounted to 2 full burn piles!  I'm looking forward to later this weekend having some small bon fires and getting this clean up behind me.  I might even make some smores!  mmmmmmmmm

One of my pruning burn piles

My favorite thing about vegetable gardening are my vine ripe tomatoes.  I'm monitoring the temperature each night to try to harvest them before they get bitten by frost.

My tomato plants, especially the romas,  are still full of green ones.  So far I've been extremely lucky and no frost has laid down on my yard.  Most of the gardeners that I know both here on the island and over on the mainland have already experienced their first killing frost.

Today I checked on my green tomatoes.  Those that were full size I harvested along with a section of tomato plant.  I'm going to try my grandmothers method and finish ripening them indoors. 

This green beefsteak will not have enough time to ripen on the vine

To ripen season end green tomatoes like grandma did, I cut a 4 to 6" branch connected to the green tomato, place in a single layer in a cardboard box, place one ripe apple in the same box, cover with newspaper and place in a room temperature area in the house.  I'm keeping my box atop of the refridgerator. 

Here's my yellow plum tomatoes, you can see there's still a lot of green ones!

Todays harvest

Each day, check on your tomatoes.  Use them as soon as they are ripe and toss any that turn brown or become too soft into your compost bin. 

I've pruned a lot of the foliage and the tops of my tomato plants to encourage the energy of the plant to go into developing and ripening the fruits. 

One thing I never compost is tomato plant and foliage.  The reason for this, composted tomato foliage can carry blight and the blight organism is not killed in the composting process.  Instead, to be sure not to spread disease to next years tomatoes, I am placing the foliage and stems in the burn pile.  No sense in taking a chance of spreading disease from season to season.

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