Winter Garden

With our recent decision to sell our cottage in Tucson and stay home this winter, I've decided to try to plant some winter vegetables. It's a bit late, but I thought I'd try anyway, just in case we have a delayed winter.

I sowed mesclun mix lettuce, Red Kitten and Matador spinach, mache, and more bok choi and kohlrabi.

More Salad Greens

I've planted another bed of salad fixings for over the winter.  From the right side there's Red Sails and Garnet Oakleaf lettuce and arugula; Red Kitten and Bloomsdale spinach; Evergreen bunching onions; purslane; and a double row of mache.  I'm not sure if all those things will do well, but it's worth a try.

Raspberries on the Move

Yesterday we moved some raspberries from the front yard into a bed in the back garden.  We plan to put a tallish hedge in front along the fence to block out the neighbor across the street's house, which is an eyesore. 

I moved one Meeker, one Willamette, and five of the nameless fall-bearing plants that Barb Crothers gave me.  We put up wooden posts to hold the wire through screw eyes.  We also put posts in the asparagus bed, to hold up some sort of fence, maybe lattice, to hold the ferny fronds in. 

I added four small bags of compost and some all purpose fertilizer to the raspberry bed before I planted them. 

The garden is nearly cleaned out, except for a few leeks, a few cabbages, and some greens and carrots. 

Today is foggy, but yesterday was beautiful.  It was sunny and in the low 60s.  We even had lunch on the deck!

More Winter Stuff

Today I sowed a row of Pac Choi and four rows of mache in the bed where the dry beans had been.  I also sowed some more carrots, romaine lettuce, chard and kale.  The squirrels have been very busy burying nuts in every open spot of soil, so I covered both beds with some bird netting.  Hopefully, it will discourage the squirrels from digging in the nice soft soil.

The brassicas are looking really good.  I've caught a couple of white butterflies inside the netting, so I'll have to watch for caterpillars.

Mache

After several years of trying, I've finally achieved a successful mache crop.  And we love it!  Mache, or corn salad, is a small leafy plant that has a mild flavor and is wonderful in salads.  It's extremely cold tolerant.  My September 20 planting has survived single-digit temperatures with no protection.

I'll need to plant a lot, because it's harvested by cutting off the whole plant.  But it's definitely a great replacement for winter lettuce, which always gets brown and mushy, no matter what I do.

It's a little early, but I decided to plant my 'Cascadia' snap peas now.  I planted a short row along a trellis.  I saved some seeds last year from one plant that kept blooming long after the others had given up in the warm weather.  I've planted six of those seeds on the end closest to the house.  It will be interesting to see if they last longer.

And lastly, my rhubarb is starting to sprout!  It seems early.

State of the Garden

We had a (partly) sunny day, so I went out to see what things looked like and do a little more cleanup.

I pulled the remaining broccoli, kale and chard plants.  They were mostly mush, with little chance of recovery.  I left the spinach and some mache and lettuce that's under a cover.

The carrots that I left in the ground had totally frozen on top, but are surprisingly good in the ground.   I pulled some and left the rest for now.  They do better in the ground than out. By the way, the 'Merida' carrots I planted to overwinter came up but never amounted to anything.

I dug up all the remaining parsnips.  The ones from the first planting are huge, much too big to use.  But the second planting are a more reasonable size.  Again, the tops were totally dead, but the roots were fine.

I did a little weeding, mostly among the blueberries, and the garden looks pretty respectable.

My two little citrus trees look pretty bad.  The lemon is almost completely leafless.

The mandarin looks a little better. 

Both of these were protected with plastic down into the 20s, then in the garage below that. The catalog says they're hardy to the mid-20s.  We'll just have to wait to see if they come back.

Aftermath

The snow has finally gone so I went out to survey the damage.  Many things are done.  The mizuna, chard, and lettuce that were uncovered did not survive, but the kale looks o.k.

 It looks like the spinach may be o.k, but not the tatsoi.

I think the winter broccoli will make it, as well as the parsnips, although the tops look bad.

The biggest surprise is the bed I covered.  I had expected the mache to survive, but the leaf lettuce looks pretty good, too.

Out With the Beans, In With the Greens

I pulled out the remnants of the pole beans.  I managed to find two meals worth.  As you can tell by the sky, I finished just in time to beat the thunderstorm.

Next (after the storm had passed through) I sowed three rows of mizuna in that bed and three rows of mache in the melon bed.

That should be the end of fall planting.

UPDATE:  The timing of the mache planting was excellent.  We had salads with it right through January.  Next year I need to plant more, because they're pretty puny.

Doing Some Cleanup

Today was overcast but no rain, so I did a few chores outdoors.  I straightened out the raspberries in the front yard and moved a couple of stragglers to fill out the row.  I still need to put compost on them.  Amazingly enough, they are still producing.

Then I removed all the tomato plants and turned the straw under.  There are still some chard plants at one end, and I sowed some mache and arugula there.

I also pulled out the aubergines.  I found lots of lady bugs on them, including this foursome.

I picked the leaf and set it on the ground under the apple tree.

Except for a little loss of privacy, which we'll remedy soon, I'm really happy we decided to remove the larger of the two fir trees.    We now have a nice new view.  We couldn't see the beautiful gingko tree before.

 

Last week, when we walked at Minto Brown park, I found this big-leaf maple leaf.