Winter Veges

I've told you about wintering over your carrots and chard and kale, now cabbage and bok choy and chinese cabbage also will last in the fall for awhile, but it will get eaten by slugs. I love the way a tattered cabbage looks, but if you want to eat it, you may want to keep those baby slugs away. How to do this? Especially in a rainy climate? And if you have pets and don't want to pollute the watershed, perhaps give up the idea of chemical slug bait entirely. Iron, well it is a chemical too, but not the kind that hurts the birds and fish and cats and dogs, is good to use. And it works. I have found that when it rains, you have to reapply--which means in our area, that's lots of iron. I don't know if there are long term studies about iron in the garden. You could look it up on the internet

A lovely dish in the fall is chard and lentil soup. It's warming and flavorful and great with hunks of winter bread, that hard crusty bread you have to work for. Last night I ate dinner with my daughter and son-in-law and grandbaby. We didn't have winter soup, we had meatloaf and chicken--both store made. Once I wouldn't have eaten something store boughten--all my food had to come from my garden, or something I made. Yesterday I talked to a woman who makes all her own food and grows all her own vegetables. She said her guy buys vegetables at the store--she was appalled. She grows her own and eats her kale from the garden.

There's a good book about winter gardening that can be had for a not much coin. Try it, winter gardening that is, you'll be surprised at how much you can grow, easily. Be sure to cover the carrots with leaves's if you haven't already. Four Season Harvest
Ciao! Flower

Swiss Chard

There are many varieties of Swiss Chard. Some, like Bright Lights are so colorful in the garden. They light it up all winter long--in milder climates, that is. I've grown Golden Chard and Rhubarb chard, too. And the common chard of course. (Sorry, this is kale, didn't have a picture of chard.)

One of my favorite dishes is French Lentil Soup with Chard. I took a recipe, it might have been Martha Stewart's originally, and I changed it, as I do. Here is one of my favorite dishes. Saute onions and carrots until tender, add a cup of french lentils and a can of stewed tomatoes. I like the Italian seasoned. Then add some water and simmer until the lentils are tender. Then add chopped chard or kale. Ah, this soup is so flavorful. I like to drizzle olive oil on top. You can dunk crusty bread in it and serve with a salad. Good for cold winter days. 400 Best Soups Ever

Today it looks like rain. Yesterday everything was way frosty. Now that I have a handle on this dark early thing, I think I'll be doing more garden reading.

Ciao! Flower

Cold Frame, Hot House

Well this could mean a tent you use for a wedding in the garden, and a wedding right now if you could depend on sunshine would be lovely. All the yellow and orange trees, I’m being repetitive I know, but I’m so fond of them. Yesterday I took a drive down Chuckanut Drive with my friend Peter and had a lovely dinner at The Oyster Bar. I actually had oysters, which I love and don’t eat often. On the side came a lovely potato and vegetable serving. The potatoes where mixed with hunks of parsnips, which brings me to the garden and growing parsnips. They’re big and robust and delicious in soup. They look like carrots only yellow. They have the flavor of carrot and celery mixed. Delicious in soup with leeks, parsnip leek soup, oh, sweet on a cold fall day.

As the sun went down over the water and we talked about politics, religion, and …. No we never got to the third thing folks usually argue about, we just chatted away, which seems to be easy between us. The sun going down, a fine wine, great food, and good friend, what could be better?

So my neighbor at the pea patch is putting in rows of tenting for her little lettuce plants and parsley. Which made me think I might do the same. Or at least butild a little lean-to. A little greenhouse thing. I’ve built many cold frames, a rectangle of 2x8s with a window over the top. This could actually work as well for winter as spring. I have kale up and chard growing, it could perk it enough to keep it going all winter—depending on how cold it gets. My cat is getting shaggy already, and he’s an inside cat. What the heck, he’s doing something in the kitchen—I better check.

Okay, he disappeared, which he’s good at. He hears me going and is like a shape-shifter gone from licking the butter, or getting into something on the counter. I hear him again, but guess I’ll let it rest. So, cold frames of bent stacks and plastic, or wood and windows, or even plastic tacked to a house and then draped down over the bed. There was more discussion about deer, and the prints were going through all the newly put-top-bed plots, and then there’s the cover crop: buckwheat will freeze, red clover spreads, seems like winter rye is a favorite. I may try that this year.

Okay, got the grandbaby to do, so I’m off.
Ta ta--Flower

Tool Care & Mushrooms

Fall is a good time to fix broken tools, toss out rakes that have rusted apart, fix broken handles if the metal part is worth it. If you have clippers to sharpen, do so before the next pruning job. There is nothing worse than dull tools. If you have a good sharpening in the area take the tools there. I have sharpened tools with a wet stone, although not too effectively. If you have a grinder, you can do a good job at tuning up old equipment. See Garden Tools and Equipment

Now old equipment can be toned up too. So get to the gym during the winter months. Or if you can, walk in the rain, do your Pilates, and work in the garden. My friend from Rainyside goes out every day. She says she never gets the winter blues. I think it might be a good practice to get out on warmer days, but probably not rainy days. I'm a wimp, what can I say. Getting out lets you the wonders of nature, like this Amanita Mescaria.

Anyway, get to the gym on the rainy days--and the library were there are plenty of gardening books.

All for now. Happy gardening, Flower

One Straw, One Camel

Remember that one straw that broke the camel's back, or the one little thing that pushed you over the edge. Well, I think gardens are like that. There are things that work out and there are things that don't. Some of the plants do well, and then a stressor comes along, and everything goes south.

My neighbor said she thought my spinach was doing better than any of the other gardeners's spinach--which is bolting. And she said she thought it was because it was growing in the weeds. She had a look on her face like she was telling a secret on me. Yes, my weeds are growing just fine, thank you very much. And they shade the other plants, and draw up nutrients from deep in the ground. They also do good for the plants that the deer seem to like the best, they are hidden from view.

She told me about the One-Straw Revolution theory, which keeps weeds and plants together, because that is the way it happens in nature. I'm looking into this, as I've not read about it, but why pull all the weeds and clean the dirt between the rows and then mulch, when the weeds act as mulch anyway. Well, I'm not going to argue the point as somehow I think I will lose. But weed or no weed, I've gardened this way since I was young.

If you look at the pictures you'll see that the spinach and chard is growing and so is the squash. I'm happy, that's what counts.

Ciao!

Fallow

They say it's good to let the soil go fallow. To let it rest. Everyone needs a time of rest, so why not let the soil rest? During a time of change, rest is particularly important. Americans are more driven than folks in other parts of the world--we don't get the afternoon rest, like they do. It would be interesting to find out how those folks in say, Italy, view their gardens; is the garden like a person and the Italian farmer says: it's time to rest, dear. You've worked hard enough. Perhaps here in the US, the farmers says, work harder, damn you, I'll get more out of you by adding this chemical fertilizer. More, you hear.

My plot has lain fallow for some time. And now I wonder if it will really produce a good crop. It's slow and even with peat, somewhat clumpy. I guess not rushing it will be the way to go. I'm in no hurry, although I'd like a lot of kale and chard by fall, so I can have greens over the winter. Here in Bellingham, gas is now 4.25 and it's reflected at the grocery store now. All that hauling food here and there is costing a lot of money. If my garden produces well, then I can supplement my food budget. I guess I had this same thought back in the late 70s in Yakima. Grow food and put it by. I have a great book that I used to rely on called "Putting It Buy." It taught me how to make pickles and to can peaches and cherries and pears. It taught me drying methods for fruit--of course, Yakima was overwhelmed by fruit and frequently I could pick up a box of slightly bruised, odd-sized peaches for $3.00. Makes my mouth water to think about it.

Well, perhaps my next effort in the garden is to get some good composted manure and layer it between the plants. I've done this before in other gardens and it does improve the soil. Once I added bags of pigeon manure and the corn grew 8ft tall. The neighbor came over and when he saw it said, "Man, that blows my mind."

To mind-blowing crops!

Flower