Monday, November 22, 2010

Settling in For the Winter

Remember the hoophouse I built over one of my garden boxes last spring? Well, I've set it back up and hopefully will be able to grow some awesome veggies through the winter.  Currently I have kale, mixed lettuce greens, arugula, and chard growing. I planted spinach, but it surprisingly didn't do well. Spinach has always seemed a sure fire success. Hmmmm??










































I'm going to look at my local nurseries to see if I can locate some other veggie seedlings to plant for the winter.  To supplement my family's needs for winter veggies, I'm going to join a CSA. Does anybody in Seattle have any feedback on the local CSA's?

The 2010 summer season was tough on harvestable edibles, but the learning curve was great.  I've learned that the local deer really rely on my garden as a food source and I will be putting up some fencing and fishing line this winter.  I also figured out that I need to sow more seeds earlier in the season to encourage a better harvest of everything. Additionally,  I'll be  and looking into some organic methods to curtail the fungus I think is lurking on the fruit trees and in one of the veg beds. My neighbor loaned me her soaker hose for the potato patch and that made a real difference on the time I had to spend watering that 30' bed and also helped to conserved a lot of water. I see more irrigation being engineered into my gardens.  Many new things to implement for before next spring arrives!

2 comments:

  1. Kathy you should check out Cascadian Edibles. They have a seedling CSA. They also sell seedlings at the UW Farmers market so you can pick up just what you need. Your hoop house is beautiful! And with the weather prediction you may need to leave it up through summer as well...Enjoy that lettuce - it sure looks tasty! And thanks for sharing with Simple Lives Thursday.

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  2. Wonderful to see your excitement about winter food growing. We have a hoop house way across the state from yours (in northeastern Washington near the Canadian border). I think this is my 4th winter growing salad greens for year-round eating. This year I planted some carrots and beets about the first of September. The carrots did well, giving us young, tender sweet "munchers" for the digging, but the beets needed to go in earlier (they're very tiny, but I'm hoping they'll continue growing starting late February). I also planted peas a little too late, and then we were hit with very cold zero degree weather a couple weeks ago. It's always a fascinating journey, and I'm continuing to learn how best to utilize this wonderful space.

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