A Quick Peek at the Fall Starts

Tonight I took a couple of photos of the fall starts that I'll be transplanting into the garden at some point in early to mid September.  I want to let the temperatures at least get into the lower 90's versus 100 degrees to give the seedlings a fighting chance.  Here are a couple of trays of tomatoes of various varieties that I planted from seed in early August:

I like to plant a number of different varieties.  Here's what we are planting this fall:  Black Krim, Pink Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, Big Rainbow, Campari, Creole, and Chadwick Cherry.  In the past several years, I've actually had a better fall crop of tomatoes that in the spring.  I attribute that to less bug and disease pressure.  It's also due to the fact that it is more comfortable to garden in the cooler temperatures!

These are horrible photos, I know, but I took them at night.  They are a lot of cole crops that I seeded that are just coming up: Broccoli, Cauliflower, Brussels Sprouts, Cauliflower, Romanesco, and Cabbage.

They are long and leggy.  The problem is, it is so hot outside, if I put the trays in the direct sun, the seedlings will be dead within the hour.  Putting them in indirect sun helps, but makes them very leggy.  Hopefully, we'll get some cooler weather in the next couple or three weeks that could give us a break.

Photos of the Season

Just a short post tonight.  I love fall.  It was still 80 degrees this afternoon as I sat on the back patio shelling pecans.  I'm going to shell all the big ones we picked from the neighbor's trees and will bring all the small pecans from our tree to the feed store for cracking.  Then I'll shell those.  As the sun was lowering toward the horizon, I heard the unmistakable honking of geese and looked overhead.  There was a solitary line of geese flying west to east.  You can see them flying directly into the palm tree in the center of the photo below where the lowest green fronds are.

Pecan leaves are always the last to bud out in the spring.  Their leaves have held on until this week and now we're seeing a nice change of color as they turn yellow and fall to the ground.  The pecans have already fallen and we've already picked all we're gonna get.  That's a good thing as it is hard to find them once they are buried underneath a thick blanket of pecan leaves.  I usually mow the leaves into a pile and bring them to the compost pile in the back of the garden where they'll me amended into the soil.

We harvested the first of the fall broccoli.  It's either been unseasonably warm this fall (it has) or I planted the cole crops a little earlier (I did), because all of our fall crops have a head start over last year's crop.  You just never know.  When it stays warm you have a rough time with pests.  Army worms ate all the leaves off of my three rows of beets.  They are starting to come back now.  Hopefully, they'll make it.  I have a few carrots that can start being pulled, too.

Finally, I want to show you the neatest idea.  My sister-in-law came in from New Orleans for Thanksgiving and brought a creative centerpiece.  We put it on the island where we served all the feast buffet style.  She found a colorful pumpkin/gourd, cut out the top and inside and then placed herbs still in the pots into the empty pumpkin.  She used lemon balm, thyme, and rosemary, but of course you could use whatever plants you wish.  Then she got some Spanish moss and wove that around the herbs and top to hide the pots.

Isn't that the coolest idea?  We kept it in the kitchen until earlier this week when the pumpkin softened.  I took it out and composted it in the garden, but we'll have to remember this idea.  It makes a festive little gift to bring over to a friend or neighbor during the holidays.

Shading Out

I want to show you something in the garden that made me think about the term "shading out" that we would use on the farm.  First, take a look at the cole crop patch below.  From left to right (two different varieties of cabbage, cauliflower, two varieties of broccoli, and then kohlrabi, kale and bok choy.

They are growing nicely and are healthy.  It is late afternoon and the sun was shining in my face.  I walked around to the west side of the garden to take the following photo.  As you can see, the rows have about grown together so that it is almost hard to differentiate one row from another.  It almost looks like one big swath of green, verdant growth.

That's what reminded me of the term "shading out."  About 45 years ago, give or take we were growing soybeans on the Cottongin Road in Oberlin.  We weren't using a drill to plant at that time.  Instead, we were row cropping.  This required getting in the field with a cultivator to turn the ground over between the rows to stay ahead of weed growth.  You had to REALLY pay close attention or you'd run over the soybeans.  This had to be done until the soybeans "shaded out."

When the young soybean plants grew tall enough that you couldn't see the dirt between the rows, you were very happy!  You didn't have to cultivate anymore because the soybean plants had grown together.  The shade prevented any sunlight from getting to any weeds under the canopy of soybeans and this prohibited any weeds to grow and compete for nutrition.

As I looked at the winter crops in the garden, it made me happy.  Although I don't use a cultivator in my garden, it brought back some nice memories.  We've almost shaded out!

If the cows just over the fence could get in the garden, they would certainly "cultivate" my crop with the quickness!

Fall Garden (Part 2)

Earlier this week we looked at the 'Salad Rows' in the garden.  Let's look in at the rest.  In this photo below, in the top right corner, you can barely make out the potatoes in bucket experiment we're working on.  The rest of the photo makes up a bunch of the cole crops along with some others.

Starting left to right:  The first two rows are cabbage (brunswick and Jersey wakefield varieties).  The next row is cauliflower (amazing and purple varieties).  The next row is Romanesco broccoli.  The next row is 'regular' broccoli.  The next row has baby bok choy, kohlrabi, and kale.

Here are some sugar snap peas that are beginning to trellis on a hog panel I have fastened to some t-posts.

Here is a big section of sweet potatoes that I haven't harvested yet.  To the right where you can see the dirt, that's where I have harvested some of the sweet potatoes to make room for planting three rows of carrots.

Below is a row of some French breakfast radishes.  These grow really fast.

Here is one row of Cosmic purple carrots I have planted that are coming up.  I have three additional rows of carrots (Atomic Red, Danvers half long, Uzbek Golden varieties).

I have a couple of rows of snap beans that are really producing, both Contender Green Beans and Italian Roma II beans which you see below.

Every couple days I pick a large bucket of beans.  We eat them with new potatoes and butter and they are delicious.  We'll begin blanching a bunch to freeze.

One thing I didn't show you is the beets and rainbow swiss chard.  We had poor germination on the Bull's Blood beets.  We had to get some Detroit Dark Red beets to fill in the holes in the row.  Probably this weekend I'll be planting turnips, spinach and mustard greens.

It Almost Felt Like Fall...

Saturday morning was an absolutely gorgeous day.  It was my first Saturday off in over a month and boy, was I ready!  Tricia and I boiled some water and made a great cup of coffee in the french press and planned our day.  I had a number of things competing for top priority, but we decided to get out in the garden first thing out of the gate.

We had a little planting to do.  The Russian Red Kale I had planted from saved seed did not germinate.  I tossed the seed and Tricia picked up a package of Siberian Kale at our local feed store.  Siberia reminds me of two things - cold weather and gulags.  We had neither of those things at Our Maker's Acres Family Farm on Saturday.  The weather was very pleasant with a hint of coolness in the air that we hadn't experienced in many long months.

About a week ago, I cut back some vines from the sweet potato plants to give me enough room to plant a couple rows.  When we harvest the sweet potatoes in a week or two, I'll have about a 15 foot by 15 foot square within which to plant carrots, lettuce, and mustard greens.  But I can get so busy thinking about all I want to do that I distracted from doing the task at hand.

For now, let's plant some kale.  Kale seeds look exactly like broccoli, cauliflower, mustard, turnip and cabbage seeds.  That's because they are all cole crops.  I stretched out a string and used a rock rake to move back the wood chips that cover the soil.  The newly exposed earth was moist and dark with plenty of organic matter in it from composted leaves, hay, and decomposing wood chips.  I used my hoe to work up the soil to receive the seeds.

Earthworms squirmed in the turned earth.  I grabbed a handful of the soil and held it in my hands.  It has a certain scent to it that is appealing.  It has just the right amount of moisture in it which will be perfect for germination.

I worked in some composted chicken litter from the hen house.  Then, I made two slight trenches side by side and sprinkled the seeds in each.  Tricia worked to cover the seeds in the seed bed.

And just like that, we were done.  The sweet potato vine jungle will be home to the carrot, lettuce and mustard green rows in a week or two.

In 5 to 8 days, little kale sprouts will burst from the dark brown soil.  Planting the fall crops is always fun.  It is exciting also to know that fall is on its way.  On Tuesdays we'll have lows in the 50's and highs in the 80's!  How nice!

The Garden Fence Is (Almost) Complete

So a beautiful (and non-rainy) Saturday for a change gave me a perfect opportunity to finish up a project that had been lingering on my to-do list - putting up a new garden fence.  As previously discussed, the old homemade picket fence had rotted, leaving gaping holes that our cats skittered through the gaps and used our garden as their personal latrine. 

With a crowbar I removed the old panels of picket fence and replaced with 'store-bought' ones.  It was a lot easier than making them from scratch like the first fence. 

The only tricky part was the very last panel.  I had to use precise measurements and my amateur carpenter skills to fashion a gate out of the last panel.  The fit had to be seamless, and it had to line up, open to the inside and latch perfectly.  Believe it or not, it all came together in the end.

And here is the finished product.  Or almost finished.  As it stands now, the cats can still get in the garden as the slats are wide enough to let them through.  My plan is to staple chicken wire on the inside of the picket fence.  This will keep the fecal felines out, hopefully.

We've got to protect what's behind that new fence.  Our cole crops are just starting to come in now.  We've got some nice cauliflower that is ripening now!

Along with some broccoli!

I picked a big colander full of beautiful broccoli on Sunday...

I also picked an enormous head of cauliflower.

Tricia roasted some broccoli with garlic tonight in the oven.  I can't even begin to tell you how good that is!  We asked her to cook more tomorrow night.  At this rate, we may not have any left over to blanch and freeze for later.  Nothing quite like fresh broccoli and cauliflower!

Insurance - Sometimes A Gardener Needs It

Back on August 6th I planted our cole crops.  Several varieties of cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and brussels sprouts were carefully planted in seed pots filled with seed starting mix.  Over the next month or so I've babied them, dutifully watering them and then two weeks ago, Russ and it planted them in the garden.

And then the rain started falling which has not let up.  In conjunction with the rain a plague of bugs like you've never seen descended upon us and the already sickly plants due to the rains were ravaged by bugs and/or worms.

Not looking good

These are a little taller than the first, but you can see the holes where the bugs and/or worms are snacking on the tender young cabbage leaves.

After a real big rain today, I walked in the garden and tried to locate the plants.  I found a few, but many had succumbed to the rain and soggy ground and bug pressure. 

Over the years I've used the practices of composting, hugelkultur, and adding topsoil and it has built up the level of the soil.  You can see how much higher the garden is than the land just to the west of the garden.  The land slopes from east to west.  Even though the garden area is higher than the surrounding areas, the soil is still saturated.  When the sun comes out, it scalds the plants and makes them sick and die.

I love to plant seeds and watch the 'dead' seed germinate and grow.  I never get tired of watching this miracle in action.  I especially like to eat the fresh vegetables that come from those tiny seeds.  I like to also plant open pollinated seeds and save the seeds that those plants eventually produce.  This year, with the many cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and brussel sprout seedlings I planted now either dead or sickly, I don't know how many plants will actually survive.  So, I had to purchase a little "insurance."  I drove down to the local hardware store on my lunch break and bought some plants to take the place of the ones that are dead or ailing.

I will take care of them here on the back patio while the saturated soil dries out a little.

Then once the soil dries, I'll plant them in the garden.  Sometimes things don't always go as planned.  Weather, bugs, crop failure...  All things that just happen despite the best of intentions and best laid plans.  C'est la vie!  We keep moving forward.  Good weather is right around the corner.

Cole Crop Planting in the Middle of Summer

Looking ahead!  In gardening, planning and preparation are key.  If you are planting from seed, some things, like broccoli, take 100 - 150 days to mature.  You've always got to be thinking weeks or months ahead.  Right now, the garden is pretty slow except for the okra.  It is amazing how fast okra blooms produce pods.  I'm also watching the sweet potato vines consume the garden.

I got out my LSU AgCenter Vegetable Planting Guide and discovered that if I want to be harvesting delicious cole crops this fall/winter, then I'd better get on the ball and plant some seeds.  There is nothing wrong with waiting until much later and going to the feed store and purchasing plants that are 6 to 8 inches tall and transplanting them into your garden.  In fact, sometimes when I have germination problems, I do that very thing.  There is just something authentic and pure about putting a dead seed in the ground and watching it grow.

I filled seed pots with seed starting mix and pulled all of my seeds out of the freezer.  First, I planted some broccoli.  I'm going with Waltham broccoli, which is a traditional broccoli.  I'm also planting a Romanesco Italia broccoli.  It is light green and has a very interesting feature.  It has numerous spiral heads that have a 'nutty' flavor.

As far as cauliflower is concerned, I planted three varieties.  First, Erfurter, a traditional while big-headed cauliflower.  Next, a Green Macerata cauliflower, which, as the name suggests, is green.  Finally, a Purple of Sicily cauliflower that has a big purple head.  I also planted a flat of brussels sprouts even though we haven't had success with them for the past several years as the little heads burst open instead of making the "little cabbages."

As far as cabbage is concerned, I planted three varieties.  One is a variety simply labeled "Cabbage," that I bought at the feed store years ago.  The next is Early Jersey Wakefield cabbage and then finally, Brunswick cabbage.

I simulated a rainfall on the flats of freshly planted seed and put them up on a table on the patio.  With our warm weather, these ought to sprout quickly if I keep the soil moist.

I'll have to remember each evening and morning to give them a good soaking.  I would also be wise to keep a sharp eye out for the cats as I don't want them to jump up on the table and wreak havoc on my seed starts. 

Sowing a cold weather crop in the peak months of summer requires patience - a virtue I haven't got much of!

Seed Starts for the Fall Garden

Last year I got the fall garden off to a late start.  This year, while still a little late, I'm earlier than last year so that is a plus.  The eight different varieties of heirloom tomatoes were all planted by seed on July 27th.  We've taken good care of them and even brought them on vacation with us.  Here are the seedlings enjoying the balcony overlooking the beach in Gulf Shores, Alabama.

And here are some of them a few weeks later.  Since the photo above, I've re-potted them in coffee cups and they've grown by leaps and bounds.  I was going to transplant them into the ground this weekend, but in listening to weather reports, they are predicting > 20 inches of rainfall for our area due to Tropical Storm Harvey.  I don't think it is a good idea to put the tomatoes in the ground yet.

• In checking my vegetable planting guide, I noticed it was time to get my cole crops planted.  I filled some seed pots with seed started mix and planted several different types of cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, and brussels sprouts.  I'll let them grow out for a bit on the back patio and then transplant them into larger containers before putting them in the ground.

It doesn't take long in these tropical conditions for the seeds in the moistened medium to sprout.

I leave them under the patio as I don't want them to dry out and die in the summer sun.  I have to move them day by day as they get long and leggy reaching for the sun.

Over the next month, we'll really kick things into gear getting the fall garden worked up and in shape. One change is this: we won't be planting a fall crop of potatoes as our spring crop was such a bumper crop, we still have a large inventory of potatoes put away.  We'll be harvesting sweet potatoes in the next month or so, and if the vines are any indication of the success of the crop beneath the soil, we'll have a nice inventory of sweet potatoes as well.  We'll keep posting on the fall garden progress.

Putting the Fall Garden In

It is hard to imagine as I looked at the thermometer on our car showing an outside temperature of 105 degrees in the church parking lot on Sunday, but it is indeed time to start getting the Fall garden planted.  This weekend I made a good start by weeding the areas that I want to plant and then sprinkling some organic fertilizer over the top.

Then, trying something new this year that I learned from Herrick Kimball's Deliberate Agrarian Blog, I'm planting on 30" rows this year.  I think they'll give the plants more room to grow than the 18" - 20" rows that I normally pull up.  As I look at the seed spacing recommendations, the wider rows will give me the ability to plant two furrows on top of each row, giving me a side by side spacing that makes better use of the space I have in the garden.

Using baling twine that I salvaged off of the round hay bales, I measured and marked off the 30" row width and shoveled out the dirt between the rows, allowing the width of the shovel for the walkway between rows.  I may widen the walkway in further years to the two shovel-row width that Mr. Kimball suggests, depending on how this works.  I used a hoe to lightly work the soil and then used a flat rock rake to smooth out and shape the row.  I was pleased with the way the new rows turned out.

One bed ready

It was hot and humid, though, and I completely soaked two shirts before noon just working up the two rows you see below.  I grabbed a stake that I used to stake up some pepper plants a few years ago.  Amazingly, it hasn't rotted yet.  It is the perfect tool to make small trenches in the top of the row measuring exactly 12" apart. Perfectly priced, too!  You can see those indentations in the row on the left below:

The Second Bed is ready with trenches for seed planting

The first plants that I need to get planted before it is too late include some of the cole crops:

• Broccoli
• Brussels Sprouts
• Cabbage
• Cauliflower

I plant several different types of each of the above.  For example, I like to plant 'regular' broccoli' and Romanesco broccoli, 'regular cauliflower,' green cauliflower and purple cauliflower.  For starters, I wanted to first plant some bok choy.  Bok Choy is a chinese cabbage that is delicious stir fried.

Chinese Cabbage (Bok Choy)

Because they are in the same family, you must be careful with your record-keeping and labeling your rows as all of the seeds look exactly the same:

Bok Choy Seeds

The seeding instructions are pretty much the same and require the seeds to be planted at a seed depth of 1/8 inch and 12 - 18 inches apart, but I plant them only 4 inches apart to ensure that germination is good.  Once the plants are thriving, I'll thin them out.  I can never bring myself to destroy a perfectly good plant, so I always dig the ones out that I need to thin and move to another location to grow.

I'll continue to plant other fall crops as the days go by, including beets, kale, Swiss chard, turnips, radishes, lettuces, mustard greens, sweet peas, parsley, cilantro, and spinach.  Last night we had a terrific storm that blew through, depositing 2 inches of rain on the garden.  That should have all the seeds swollen and sprouting soon. Unfortunately, it knocked out our power last night for a few hours and I wasn't able to post the blog post on Breaking Clarabelle until the next morning.  

Who knows?  With a local economy hurting due to oil & gas prices and a wildly fluctuating stock market, perhaps seeds and a garden full of fresh vegetables is the smartest investment in my portfolio!  We're optimistic about things.  Cooler weather, lower humidity, and a thriving Fall Garden (hopefully) are on the way...

Putting in the Fall/Winter Garden

Last week we got a little rain.  Not a bunch, but every little bit helps.  I had been waiting on rain to put some moisture in the soil for planting the Fall/Winter garden.  Every afternoon when I get off work and drive home until darkness falls and I can't see anything anymore, I've been planting.  I'm trying something a little new this year and we'll see how it goes.

I'm going no-till, sort of, meaning I'm no longer tilling up the entire garden into a nice seed bed.  I've been reading about tilling and how it messes up the soil structure and kills earthworms.  Also learning that turning over the soil and exposing it to sunlight kills beneficial bacteria.  I've labored to keep the soil covered with leaves, hay, and compost in order to thwart weed pressure and conserve soil moisture throughout the growing season.  Here is a shot of a portion of the garden that I'm in the process of planting now.

Rows ready for planting

You can see that I've not disturbed the rows from the Spring garden.  After the Spring Garden was planted and the plants sprouted, I mulched the row heavily with hay.  Once the Spring garden was harvested, I left hay over it and it has done a good job as I haven't had to weed very much prior to planting.

Hay covered row

As I pull back some of the hay and inspect the soil, you immediately spot a couple of things.  First the soil has retained moisture and secondly, it is not compacted.  I can actually dig into it with my bare hands.

Soil moisture despite very dry summer

The first thing we'll get in the ground is all of our Cole crops, including Brussels Sprouts, Cauliflower, Cabbage, Broccoli, Kale, Mustard and Radishes.  All of the seeds within this family of plants look the same. They can all be traced back to a wild cabbage in the Mediterranean/Asia area.

Cauliflower Seeds

Next we'll plant some beets.  I like to label the rows so I know what is coming up.  I'll take a plastic container, a pair of scissors, and a Sharpie and make my own labels and place it at the end of the row.  We like beets.  They are good pickled, roasted in the oven, or cooked on the stove top in some broth.  The beet greens (in the case of Bull's Blood beets the greens are red) are delicious raw and best eaten right out in the garden.

Benjamin was my helper yesterday afternoon late as we raced the sun to get things done.  He remarked that beet seeds are strange and don't look like most other seeds.   He's right.

Beet Seeds

Here's a closer look.  They have point on them and look sort of like the cereal, Grape Nuts.

When I said we were no-till, sort of, let me explain.  I do take a hoe and lightly work up the ground just deep enough for planting - two inches.  Also I only work up the area on the row just where I'm planting.  In the case of the Cole crops I worked up one little area in the center of each row.  In the case of beets, I'm making a double row of them, so I worked up the top of the row, took a stick and drug it down the row to make a furrow and dropped the seeds in the furrow.  Then I made another furrow four inches over and did the same thing. You can see the seeds below.  You'll notice that I have three seeds very close together.  That was not intentional.  We were rushing to plant while we still had daylight and inadvertently dropped a few.

Sowing

Once the Fall/Winter Crops have all sprouted, I'll pull hay tightly around all the seedlings and will fill the area between the rows with leaves, hay, and compost to build more organic matter in the soil and attract more earthworms.  You can see by the picture that we lost our race with the sun!

Completed row of beet seeds

We not only lost our race with the sun, but was lost our race with the mosquitoes as well!  It is time to go inside.  Good night.