Late June 2012 Garden Overview

Not much has changed.  If you look closely you’ll see that the cucumbers are just starting to grow, the squashes and melons are sprawling across the lawn, the cabbages and carrots are ready to be picked and processed, the garlic is gone, and the sweet potatoes are leafing out nicely.  The strawberries are alive and sending out runners, and I still need to get out there and plant a bunch of fall green beans for my wife.

Biggest Cabbage, Currently

My lens cap is in that picture.

This cabbage was direct-seeded outside around last Halloween.  It survived through our mild winter under the hoops, and I worked around it while I was planting other things in this bed this year.

As you can see, the head is about 5 inches wide and almost ready to harvest.  I believe this is a “January King” variety.

Also, here is one of MANY little unhelpful critters I pulled off of this cabbage:

I hope you can excuse the dirty hands and fingernails.  I was gardening. 🙂

View from the bottom of the garden

This is my urban back yard, as viewed from the back fence looking towards the house.  See if you can spot:

• Two sparse beds of strawberries trying to re-establish themselves
• The curly water hose that I used to wet the fast compost pile
• My cold frame, which has seemed unnecessary this year as we stopped getting freezing temps 6 weeks early
• The row of peas that will grow up the barn-red tree house trellis
• My messy back porch that I will tackle as soon as I get the garage cleaned up this weekend.

The yard slopes down to the south, with a creek beyond my back fence.  Most of the garden is between 4 and 8 feet below the level of the house, so I would have great water pressure if I set up rain barrels. They’re just so expensive!  I need to make DIY rain barrels!

Fall Garden Finally Planted – 2011

I finally got the little seedlings planted out in my fall / winter hoop house garden bed. Of course we are still far behind on the rain schedule, so I have been watering these little tiny plants at least once a day.  Hopefully these will take root and grow well, allowing us to have spinach, lettuce, kale and more right up through Christmas.

Greenhouse Update (Ooh Baby It’s Cold Outside) – Late November 2010

Temperatures were forecast (at one point) to be in the teens overnight this week. They have since been revised upwards a bit, but I got my greenhouse heater in place. In this case I am using a string of 100 red, green and white incandescent christmas tree lights. The lights should add a few degrees of warmth inside the dome. Everything seems to be growing pretty well in there, but it was too dark for pictures without a tripod. I took this one with an 8 second exposure zoomed in from my picnic table on the patio.

Inside the little hoop house – November 2010

Things are growing very well in the little hoop house I built over a 4 x 8 foot garden bed.  Here’ s a peek inside.

Unfortunately my arch-nemesii the moles have found there way up under and inside here.  There will be blood.

Cold Frame / Hoop House / Winter Garden – 2010

The things I seeded in the winter garden bed are coming up nicely. I thinned the radishes and it’s time to thin the turnips. I’m pretty excited about seeing new life this late in the season!

I caught this pair of mourning doves hanging out there one morning, probably finding a few of my seeds.

Hoop house for fall and winter

This year we’re going to try a different approach to the greenhouse idea.

I added a PVC hoop house to this 4 x 8 foot bed last weekend.  Well, everything except the plastic cover…it’s too soon for that.

I bought 6 pieces of half-inch PVC pipe and 2 pieces of the size that was big enough to let half-inch pipe slip inside itself…I think they are 1 inch.

I cut and drove sections the bigger pipes into the ground as holders for the hoops. The flimsy half-inch pipe was easy to bend over and insert into the pipes in the ground. I screwed up a top ridge pole and then ran a screw through each leg into the frame of the bed.

I added a bunch of rich black compost and then seeded some fall/winter crops.  I’m going to try carrots, turnips, beets, radishes, kale, lettuce, spinach and maybe a couple other things.

God bless cordless drills. I hate running drop cords.

I hurt my left hand somehow while using the 8 pound sledge hammer to drive the pipes into the ground. I didn’t even notice anything until hours later, but now my left thumb is almost useless. It’s strange to drive to work, go to make a left turn, and remember that I have to use my right hand to do it.

Oh, the flowers got transplanted into pots up by the house. S. helped me quite a bit with the work, but I didn’t end up with any pictures of him this time.