Mid-March Garden

I took some photos a few weeks ago, showing what's going on in my garden (and in my kitchen). Of course this was the year that I really got on the early seeding in indoor flats and just as a few things needed to be hardened off, the snow, sleet, hail and horizontal rains came (and stayed for a week). We seem to be back to rain now, so I'm starting to harden off some oriental greens, lettuce and peas to go into the garden (most under plastic or cloches for a bit yet) by the weekend. Wish me luck! Gardening is always a bit trial and error, but they're only seeds. They can be restarted.



My stalwart rhubarb bed that seems to hang in there every year despite having to deal with the shade and roots from a nearby "hedge" of cedar. I gave them a good mulch of alder leaves this winter and have fed them a few times with manure.



Greenhouse harvest! These radishes were planted last fall and just put on a nice growth spurt. Very tasty; not too woody.



Greens in the greenhouse: arugula and tenderheart (an oriental green, I believe). I have some other small lettuces starting to grow well in the greenhouse as well as mizuna in the garden.



This was the first winter for my little lemon tree. It seemed to survive just fine, despite the cold snaps and the greenhouse being blown apart a few times. I harvest 3 lemons from the tree (which is how many blooms there were on the plant when I bought it). It needs a good fertilize and perhaps a larger pot, but I'm eager to see what it will get up to this year.



I am a firm believer that the biggest challenge we have here is not so much the lack of sun, but the abundance of rain. I usually try to cover beds I'm about to plant with plastic (or glass) for a week or so beforehand. Then, once the seeds or seedlings are in, I also keep the beds covered until I think they are well-established. After that, I keep a close eye on the beds and when excessive rain or wind is on the way, I cover them up for a bit. I also have a small portable cold frame (about 3'x4') that I move around and an old window that I use to cover newly seeded sections of the beds.



Of course the kale is hanging on. This is Lacinato. I'm using most of the kale in juices and green smoothies at the moment as there will be new greens soon! Other plants in the outdoor garden include fava beans and garlic (both planted in the fall and looking well), a few stalwart beets and mizuna.





This year I have done a lot of seeding indoors. It helps that only two of us are at home at the moment, so most of the kitchen table, the sunny window seat and a table downstairs (with my first grow lights) are taken over by seedlings. Here's what I've put in:

leeks, sui choi, artichoke, fennel, broccoli (two varieties), lettuce (two varieties), collards, cauliflower (two varieties), several varieties of flowers (calendula, lupine, cosmos, sweet peas, etc.) I also sprouted peas and fava beans in moist paper towels. This worked very well and all of the sprouted seeds are now in peat pots and I'm hardening off the peas already, with some going in the garden this weekend. (The first batch were planted a few weeks ago in my cold frame.)

Outside, under glass, I have seeded: arugula, corn salad, kale, collard, radishes, carrots (a bit early; but they're only seeds!) and oriental greens (Gai Lan).

Coping with the Cool Spring

The rain, the rain. Please make it stop. Tomorrow. It's supposed to be sunny tomorrow.

I'm going to pass on some excellent words of wisdom from Linda Gilkeson's newsletter. (I hope she forgives me, but it's such great advice. You should all run over to your computer and buy one of her books. I have the winter garden book and it is an excellent resource. And sign up for her newsletter, too while you're at it.) Here is some great advice for coping with the very cool spring we've been having. (Note that she's not on the wet coast, so consider that when she's talking about things like tomatoes, melons, cukes, peppers. Sorry, gang, but with rare exception, they're only going to make it out here in a greenhouse or cold frame. Please, prove me wrong if you can explain otherwise! I know some people do grow tomatoes on their decks.)

Cool Spring: As often happens a warm winter hasn't led to a warm spring. In fact, there has been some pretty cold weather this month that will have those who have already put out their tomatoes, beans, corn, squash and other heat-loving crops worrying. Root diseases are the biggest problem in wet, cool weather and if infected, the plants usually die.

If you have plants under cloches or floating row covers they will fare better in this weather. My favourite cloche for individual plants is a gallon milk jug with the bottom cut out. Set it over the plant and push a stick through the handle of the jug to keep it in place. Put the lid or a flat stone on the mouth of the jug at night to keep the heat in and take it off during the day to allow ventilation. For seedlings in beds use floating row covers to warm up the crop (also useful to keep birds from pulling up small seedlings).

If you haven't set out the most delicate plants (cucumbers, melons, peppers, sweet basil), I would wait until next weekend when it sounds like temperatures will be higher. I just gave my seedlings a good dose of fish fertilizer to see them through a few more days in their pots. If you planted beans earlier this month, it might be a good idea to sprout more beans in vermiculite indoors to fill in gaps in the rows. The new seedlings will quickly catch up to earlier sown plants that have been struggling outdoors in cool weather.

Tomorrow, I'll put up her advice on winter gardens. Yup, you read that right.

A Little Help from Plastic and Glass

As a planting guide, I tend to follow this planting chart from West Coast Seeds. I was adding a few weeks to the chart to compensate for the cooler temperatures out here but this year I've decided to try sticking closer to the chart, with some help from plastic and glass. We don't have the same warm temperatures as Vancouver and area, but I think that the extreme levels of rain we get can actually do more to inhibit the early spring growth. Seeds just get too wet and the soil super-saturated. So, in combination with trying to raise my soil levels even higher, I've started seeds in my little greenhouse and under plastic tunnels. This is how it's going:



This is a snazzy little cold frame/greenhouse my parents gave me as a birthday gift years ago. We built a garden box the exact size so when it is getting too warm for whatever is inside, we can just lift it off. Right now, I have fava beans, peas and spinach seeded in the greenhouse. On sunny days, I open it up so it doesn't get too warm, but this does help to keep it a little warmer (and dryer) at night. Once things have sprouted, I'll move the frame as these are crops that don't mind some cool weather.



I also rigged up these little tunnels. Before I planted I also added a few inches of soil to these beds as it is a pretty wet area of my yard (the entire neighbourhood drains into our yard — it really aspires to be a swamp and probably was one once). I built the cloche using wire frames (from Lee Valley I believe), old poly we had left over from some painting work, and clothespins. Underneath went fava and peas. This is how it's going:



Again, once the weather warms up a titch and dries out, I'll remove the cover.

As I was trolling the Internet looking for web sites and blogs that specifically talked about gardening in the particular conditions of the wet coast (I didn't find much; thus this blog!), I did find the site Heavy Petal and her post on a square foot garden she just put in. I was curious how planting some of these seeds out here would work in comparison to Vancouver, so I set up a similar garden with one change:



I added an old window I had kicking around, again as much to limit how wet the soil gets as to warm up the temperature slightly. I've seeded spinach, radishes, corn salad, arugula, and a few others that have slipped my mind. I'll let you know how it goes!