Monday, February 3, 2025

January 2025 Garden

 Not much action this month. 

Daylight was about 9hours. However it was a pretty cloudy month with only a little bit of sun. Temperatures ranged from about -15F to about 51F. Very little snow, but it did rain. Cold frame temperatures ranged from -14 to 72F. I had row cover + plastic on cold frame cover and it is surrounded by bricks, plus another row cover on top of the plants inside.

Bok choi, spinach, beet greens, swiss chard, kale, mache, and common arugula might have been ok if it stayed around 20F. It's kind of a pain to open and close the coldframe cover every day. I hope my rosemary in the coldframe and the lavender in the east garden that I wrapped in towels survived the below zero weather. It will be interesting to see if the artichoke that I buried in leaves in the west garden survives these cold temperatures. It never produced fruit because our season was too short. I love the way the leaves on the artichokes look.







Sage, thyme, chamomile, and a sedum type perennial seem to tolerate the cold quite well in open garden. Chives are totally dead.








Ends of lettuce grow in water. Planted microgreens. Like peas and radishes best. I do not really care for sunflowers and cantelope. Sunflowers have a different aromatic flavor. Cantelope tends to be bitter. Walking onion does quite well and can harvest multiple times from it like we can from peas. Dwarf tomatoes grew very slowly in storebought potting mix that contains a lot of wood chips. I think last years 50/50 blend of city yard compost and perlite worked better. 





Thursday, April 25, 2024

September 2023 Garden

Weather: September daytime temperatures started at 70-90F and ended at 60-70F. Night time temperatures started at 60-70F then ended at 40-50F. So warm weather crops like beans, cucumbers, ground cherries, tomatoes, basil, and marigolds in open garden got frosted.

Planted 9/16/23 and most came up by 9/21/23: Mustard market mix, bok choy, giant winter spinach, arugula (astro, esmee, common ), romaine lettuce (freckles, rouge d'hiver, parris island, jericho, winter density) easter egg II radish, swiss chard, corn salad green full heart, avona.

Lot of flowers, Alyssum, basil, marigolds, poppies, tall pink sedums...








Harvest: lots of greens, cooked and froze buckets of Kale, mustard, and swiss chard. Pretty many roots. Some beans. Sunflowers pretty much done. Tried drying flower heads in garage but still too humid this month. Pretty many raspberries and tomatoes. A few tomatillos and ground cherries. Some peppers. Some cilantro. Lots of cukes. Foraged crabapples.

















Moved rhubarb from southwest corner to west patio fence. Moved black raspberries from west side of southwest corner to southside. Planted blueberries bushes in front garden next to northeast stoop.






Birds really like the sunflower heads. Saw bluejays, cardinals, woodpeckers, sparrows....




Everything is growing well. Ruby Orache grew very tall. Although cucumbers got frosted this month. Moved basil and fenugreek into patio coldframe.