December 1, 2012

 We finished planting the last of the garden beds today! Last weekend we went to Lowe's and purchased some additional cabbage plants. If they were going to make it, they had to go into the bed today!! With all of the preparation for the freezes that we had last week, last weekend was too busy to do any planting! Besides, I certainly didn't want to have newly planted cabbage plants in the ground immediately before 2 nights of freezing temperatures.

Last weekend we purchased another roll of frost blanket fabric, which we cut up and I sewed together to create tents for our citrus trees. Frames constructed of pvc provided the needed support. We also removed the hot banana pepper plant since there was no way we could cover it and the broccoli in the second bed. Using bent tomato cages, old bed sheets and clothes pins, we managed to cover the beds without the pvc hoops. Two nights of below freezing temperatures, but everything survived. The broccoli in the second bed has some burn marks on some of the leaves, but nothing serious.

 Before planting in a bed, we always add a mixture of compost, along with time release fertilizer. In the first shot, you can see that part of the strings have been removed. The soil in the lower left corner, which still contains radish and beet plants, is lighter than the rest of the bed. We didn't disturb those 2 squares, but side dressed them after getting the strings back into place.

Here you can see Dean putting the strings back across the bed. When he built these beds for me, we experimented with different ways to mark of the squares. After contending with a very exuberant black lab puppy bounding through our garden beds to play with the dowel rods we had used, I took Dean up on his suggestion of using roofing nails and string.

 When we supplement a bed with compost, we like to add several bags. It's more difficult to do with the strings in place, so we simply unattach them from one side, toss them onto the ground on the other side, and add our compost, which we mix in using either a small tiller or a shovel. Adding the compost a square at a time may work for some, but it's faster and easier to do it our way when you have 4' x 16' beds!

Since the string has some flexibility, it's a simple matter to stretch the string back across the bed, then wrap the loop back around the screw. Dean used flat-head roofing nails and only left it high enough for the string to go around it, so it's even comfortable enough for me to sit on the edge of the beds without it hurting, which I do often.

As you can see, this planting of cabbage takes up just over 1/2 of the 4' x 16' bed. Here I am creating a depression in the soil where each of the cabbage plants will go. This will help water to be directed to the roots of the plants. We plant them 24 inches apart. Last spring, when planting the first cabbage plants, we spaced them every 12 inches and regretted it. I felt like the cabbages were fighting for space, so I gave these plenty of room to grow!

I like using a bulb planter when planting my transplants. It takes out just the right amount of soil and can easily be done with one hand.

You can see in this photo how root-bound these cabbage plants were getting

 Here you see my 2 assistants- Belle, my son's black lab that I mentioned earlier, and Sheila, my father-in-law's puppy who isn't quite a year old. Bell is waiting for me to quit messing in that black stuff and throw the ball, already!!

Sheila isn't helping, she just thinks she is supposed to be the center of attention AT ALL TIMES!!! :-) Once she saw that I wasn't going to stop messing with this other stuff, she was off to play with Belle. Those 2 are really good company for each other and we've spent many evenings sitting in Mimi & Papa's back yard watching them play.

These are the three broccoli plants in the first bed, closest to the house. The one on the top left has the largest head of broccoli, with the smallest head on the plant in the center. The plant below is on the very end and has the medium-sized head, about as large as you palm.

 As you can see, these broccoli plants are also planted every 24 inches, and believe me, they take it! Maybe if we needed more room for other stuff I'd consider growing them every foot, but since we have the space, I'd rather have larger broccoli heads.

These are the three cabbage plants in the same bed. Interesting enough, when Leah was taking these pictures, she didn't even take a picture of the largest cabbage plant. It is on the right edge of the photo, just out of the range of the camera.

 One thing we've definitely noticed this year is the abundance of yellow jackets visiting our garden. They have discovered that cabbage leaves make great water fountains!!

Our Swiss Chard is finally starting to grow! I picked one piece today and took it in to Bugsy and she loved it. In the empty squares on the left side of this photo, I replanted some romaine lettuce today. I had planted it at the end of September, but it was too hot for it to even sprout, so we decided to try it again.

 I experimented this year with Arugula, which wasn't much of a success. Dean and I just really didn't care for the peppery green, so it was replaced today with another planting of spinach, at Dean's request. Last year we planted 4 squares with spinach and had a bumper crop, so we're hoping for the same this winter.

After experimenting with Rainbow carrots last year, we decided to stick with Scarlet Nantenes, which had a great color and very sweet flavor. Dean really enjoyed carrying them to work in his lunchbox. All in all, we have 8 squares of them in this garden.






At this point, every square in all 3 beds is either planted, or under a plant (in the case of the squares under all of those broccoli and cabbage plants!). Since we have two 4' x 16' beds and one 4' x 12' bed, that would be 176 squares of winter garden, all planted. Our next goal is to get the other 2 beds equipped with the hoops and frost blankets, along with the pvc clips.

Dean's trees are doing well- we picked one Meyer Lemon yesterday, but we think we're going to wait a while on all of the others. We were checking his Fruit Cocktail tree out yesterday and found several more fruits had set than he originally thought, so he'll be busy babying that tree all winter!