Garden Notes: November 2022

Rainfall 

• 5th-6th: 0.25"
• 10th-11th: 1.8" (Nicole)
• 15th: 0.7"
• 25th: 0.05"
• 27th: 0.75"
• 30th: 2.3"
• Total: 5.85 inches

Temperature

• range of nighttime lows: 28-66°F (-2-19°C)
• range of daytime high: 44-80°F (7-26.6°C)

Weather Notes:

• It's flannel bed sheet weather!
• My garden work schedule has changed, now, to doing indoor work in the morning and outdoor work in the afternoon. 

Harvesting and eating

Even though October's frost killed off the summer garden, the cherry tomatoes and pole beans growing on the porch trellis survived. I reckon that's because they are somewhat protected by the eaves of the front porch. They extended our summer harvest for about three more weeks and were very welcome!

summer garden remnants on the front porch trellis

cherry tomatoes, fresh pole beans, and some dry for seed

Of the fall garden, we're getting daikons and greens to go with the last of those cherry tomatoes. 

November salad: cherry tomatoes, feta cheese, and greens
(kale, collards, chickweed, dandelion, turnip, and daikon)

Chopped fresh greens make a nice addition to my frozen leftovers soup.

Before our mid-November freeze I still got a few red raspberries every couple of days.

I added them to the others in the freezer. Sometime this winter I'll make raspberry jelly. After the hard freeze, I cut back the canes for better production next year.

The other thing I harvested was buckwheat.

Mostly seed, but leaves and stems too.

It grew as part of a cover crop mix Dan planted for soil building. Most of it will be for seed, but I'll see about processing some too, for groats and flour.

I'm still working on last summer's wheat.

Winnowing wheat with a box fan.

Last year we got the wheat done in July, but this year July was flooded with figs, pears, and tomatoes, so I didn't have time then. Dan got most of the threshing done, so I'm winnowing as we need flour.

Chicken winnowing clean-up crew

Of the green slicing tomatoes I picked before the frost, we ate the last one right before Thanksgiving.

There's nothing like homegrown tomatoes

Growing

Wheat patch

Garden bed with lettuce, kale, and garlic. The
cattle panel is to keep critters from digging!

Garden bed of daikons. 

African keyhole garden with various young greens.

Planting

It's really too late to plant, but I poked a bunch of fava beans into the garden swale berm and sprinkled the bare spots in the hugelkultur with turnip seeds. Likely, they'll be an early spring crop.

Parting Shot

Our blueberry bush in late autumn color.

I reckon that's it for my November 2022 garden notes. How about you? 

Garden Notes: November 2022 © Nov. 2022

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

Spring Planting & Growing: Early Edition

"All spring, I try to plant something every day "

Carla Emery, Encyclopedia of Country Living

I love that quote by Carla Emery, but I confess I haven't faithfully applied it this year. We've had a lot of rain, so some days it's too muddy to work in the garden. I managed to get my cool weather crops in, and now look forward to our last potential frost date. That date falls in the middle of our spring planting months, and so divides my planting season into early and late.

Planted so far:

• turnips
• kale
• carrots
• parsnips
• mangels
• sprouted pantry potatoes
• beets
• lettuce
• snow peas
• salsify
• pink dandelion
• cultivated burdock
• mizuna
• bloody dock

Of the root crops, only the mangels and burdock have emerged so far. You'll see them with the other spring garden photos below.

I only had a few plants survive winter; the rest succumbed to the cold.

These collard plants are several years old. I don't get huge
leaves from them anymore, but the small ones are tasty too.

One of just a few fall planted kale plants that made it.

Fall planted garlic, multiplier onions, and volunteer potato
plant (the sprouted pantry potatoes haven't emerged yet.)

More garlic

The one that concerns me is our wheat. It's yellowing.

Our fall planted wheat. Yellow from ???

There are a number of things that can cause this: nitrogen deficiency, iron deficiency, sulfur deficiency, fertilizer burn, herbicide injury, moisture stress, plus disease or insect damage. Apparently it's common enough that there are scores of articles written about it and speculating as to its cause. 

We don't use fertilizer, herbicides, or pesticides, so those are out as causes. Nutrient deficiency perhaps. Dan side dressed the rows with compost to see if it helps. Moisture stress is a possibility. Not from too little rain, but because we've had so much. At any rate, it looks like we'll still get a harvest.

It's still going to seed.

Saving for next year's seed will be the priority. We can always adjust our diet to whatever's left over if we need to.

Next are the early spring planted veggies.

Snow peas. No flowers yet!

Lettuce and volunteer dandelion; both salad favorites.

Mangels. These make great livestock feed (both leaves and roots).

Mizuna and violets (of which the flowers are edible)

Now that the swale is in and working well, I'm hoping my hoop house will be more useful in summer. Its raised beds dry out quickly in summer, so that I tend to plant there as a last resort. What I've decided to use them for is perennials, where the raised bordered beds can keep them under control.

Cultivated burdock and volunteer chickweed.

The other thing I planted this spring was the garden swale berm.

Swale berm planted with herbs and edibles.

I made a seed mix of all my old herb, flower, greens, and root crop seeds plus clover. Then I covered it with compost. Because the berm is sloped, much of the seed has washed down a bit, but hopefully enough has stayed put to help anchor the soil. It will be fun to see what grows.

Seed mix sprouting on the swale berm.

Then there are the perennials.

My few asparagus plants were taken over by
blackberries and daffodils, so I liberated them.

I actually gave up on asparagus a long time ago, because the wiregrass kept choking it out. But I have four or five plants that have hung in there over the years. We only get a few stalks at a time and enjoy them greatly, so I think it's time to invest in more.

Strawberries are thriving. My competition for those is slugs, birds, and chipmunks.

Red raspberries are leafing out.

Horseradish. Young leaves are good in a steamed greens mix.

Pear tree, garlic, & comfrey; swale berm in the background.

Pear blossoms. Pears seem to be our most reliable tree fruit.

Cherry blossoms. If I can beat the birds to them, I might get some!

Our last expected frost date is right around the corner. Then we can get to work planting our warm weather favorites. Like every other gardener on the planet, I'm looking forward to that.

How about you? How does your garden grow?

Spring Planting & Growing: Early Edition 

© April 2022 by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

The Garden at the End of June

It's hard to believe that June is almost behind us.  The fall and winter garden is finishing, and my summer garden is growing well. Challenges have been typically seasonal, with long hot stretches of no rain which means I've been focusing on mulching and watering if needed.

Winter & Early Spring Garden Remnants

Most of my multiplier onions have been harvested.

Celery flowers on the surviving celery base I rooted and planted.

My heat resistant Jericho lettuce is finally bolting, except for the little bit in the keyhole garden.

The romaine lettuce on the right is Jericho. The
others are bolting. All grown from saved seed.

Perennials

I've tried to steer clear of planting perennials in my veggie garden, but these raspberries picked this spot so I've accommodated them! 

Cattle panel raspberry trellis

I've tried for years to grow raspberries, but have had poor success. When they showed up at the end of one of my garden beds, I said 'okay!'

It hasn't been a bumper crop, but I've gotten
some to enjoy on my morning granola!

This shot was taken earlier this month, before I cut the lettuce
for salads. Also in the strawberry bed are violets and an olla.

Little pots for rooting strawberry runners.

For diligent watering, I'm rewarded with
another handful of berries here and there.

Summer Garden

Where should I start? How about tomatoes?

I've had Matt's Wild Cherry Tomatoes volunteer
everywhere. They've been the first to ripen.

My standard varieties are still green. Here they
are with Swiss chard in the foreground.

On the other side of the row is a volunteer squash. I have no idea
what kind. The only flowers so far are male, so bah humbug.

This one is another volunteer on the other side of the garden.
It's probably cushaw, which has always done well for me.

Sweet potato squash is a new variety for me. So far,
so good, except it attracts the most squash beetles.

I was able to obtain some landrace winter squash, so I planted it too.

It started off well, but one of the plants seemed to suffer during our
hot dry spell. I composted and watered it, and new leaves are greener.

I planted melon in one of the hoop house beds. First I tried
Green Nutmeg which didn't show. Then Hale's Best, which did.

In the same bed, I planted something new to me, Malabar
red-stemmed spinach. It's a vining summer type of spinach.

Sweet potato bed with olla and volunteer tomato.

Cherokee flour corn, an heirloom from Virginia, with more volunteer
cherry toms. The sweet potato squash is at the far end of the right bed.

I planted cornfield pole beans in the front porch trellis bed. The cornfield variety don't mind some shade, so they were a good choice for a spot that only gets afternoon sun.

Also in the picture are more volunteer Matt's
wild cherry toms, yarrow, 4 o'clocks, and olla.

Foraging

Lambs quarter has been beautiful and abundant this year.

It's a favorite green, and I've canned more than a dozen pints.

Landrace Experiment

I read Joseph Lofthouse's Landrace Gardening a little too late for most things, so this year, I'm just focusing on landrace cucumbers.

Two varieties of cucumber. You can also see bolting
Jericho lettuce, dried oats, and a volunteer turnip.

Step two in creating landrace vegetables (see all the steps here) is to "plant two or three varieties close together to encourage cross-pollination. Can be heirloom, open-pollinated, or F1 hybrid seed." I had seed from three varieties of cucumber that have done well for me in past years, so I planted them all in the same row: Dar, Straight Eight, and Boston Pickling. Next year, we'll see what we get.

Lots of photos! Hopefully, I didn't go over-board. How about you? How does your garden grow at the end of June?

The Garden at the End of June © June 2021

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com