My Winter Garden pt.1

I'm getting ready to start my winter garden! I think I like winter gardening better than summer gardening. Because I hate being hot and sweaty in the heat in the middle of the summer. Yuck. And I hate pulling weeds. Yuck x 2

I have had a few people ask about my winter garden boxes so I thought I might as well blog about them.

The book I use as my reference is called the Winter Harvest Handbook. It is by Eliot Coleman. He has a farmers market/Garden and Maine. For those who Garden, I think main is zone 4. I live in Ohio which is zone 6. I figure if he can get things to grow up there in Maine in the winter, I should be able to get things to grow here in Ohio in the winter!

Up there, they grow a diverse selection of produce in the winter that does not require a lot of electricity and heat, therefore not a lot of money to run. He has a lot more acreage, obviously, and therefore has room to have really awesome mobile cold houses and a super nifty setup of rotating covered garden boxes. I have found that best just to stick with two or three garden boxes and I only grow spinach, carrots, and maybe radishes & beets.

Kale.

Kale is pretty good for a winter garden box. But honestly no one of my house eats it. Except for that one time when we had a pet iguana. The Iguana loved kale!

This year we moved the garden boxes from the left side of the back porch over to the right side of the back porch, next to the  TARDIS. This is because my husband plans on extending the porch on the left side sometime this fall, winter, spring.

Monday we dug the dirt out of the garden boxes and move the garden boxes, then hold the dirt. Today I purchased some goodies to add to the dirt.

The first thing to note here is that I have one purple and one lime colored gardening glove. I used to have a pair that was purple and a pair that was lime. Thankfully I lost the proper glove of each so that I still have a pair.

( adding gardening gloves to my Christmas / birthday list)

I purchased sand and Perlite. Because carrots like loamy soil.  Which I guess just is a fancy word for "has good drainage". 

Loam

Does it rhyme with foam? Because although I have seen it written many times in many places, I do not think I've actually heard it said aloud. I guess it might rhyme with the word doom. 

I also got a small bag of worm castings to add a bit of fertilizer.

Sprinkled a little bit of each into the garden boxes.

* note: garden boxes probably are not required. I just find them to be a little bit easier. I have done carrots and radishes without garden boxes. But with tramping through the snow and lifting off the cover, I just find the garden boxes to work better.

I put on my purple gardening glove and then I grabbed my hand held dirt mixer thingy. Then I put on my lime green color to gardening glove. And then I mixed all of the good nutritional goodies into last year's dirt.

After they were all mixed thoroughly, I made three rows and a smaller box and planted the carrot seeds! 

They won't need to be covered with the hoops and plastic until November. So I have some time to make their hooped covers.

... stay tuned for the planting of... Something else later this week

January 1 Merry Christmas!

I am sitting at the kitchen table with a homemade chai latte and plate of cookies. I need to get all the cookies and Swedish Fish eaten by Monday, so I can get back to logging calories and nutrients.

We celebrated Christmas with my parents and brothers family yesterday. We did the same last year (different reason,though)
I think I like having Christmas spaced out like that. It's less overwhelming.
I had made sock puppets for my 2 yr old nephew. Whenever I watch him, we always wear socks on our hands and make them talk, so I thought he'd like some sock puppets.

And for his mom... A box with easy lid for storage of the puppets on his toy shelf.
In addition to hot glueing the embellishments, I tacked them in place with needle and thread. It seemed for "Toddler Friendly" that way.
Here is a quite visual guide:

I spent News Years Day (morning) charting out my revolving garden. Those parts of the garden I plant to rotate crops for a more year round harvest. I have 5 garden areas for this,  my 3 boxes to the left of the back porch, a box on the right side of the back porch, and a section in the ground I will rotate winter carrots and summer bell peppers. I have sowing dates for all 10 crops, along with dates to prep the soil between plantings. I put all pf the dates into my smartphone calendar with a reminder set for a few days before. 

I felt Quite Accomplished. Too bad I can't devote this much effort to cleaning the kitchen.

HEALTH NOTE: on the first day of the year, I took my vitamins, drank my 2L of water, and met my Fitbit goal! 

my 21 yr old son found an app for my smart phone called HABITRPG. I earn gold by meeting daily goals and tasks (that I list) and can go on quests and buy new armor and swords with my earned coins!

Duck, Duck, Square!

It looks like a duck. This makes me smile. So, I keep the garden area as-is after we move to this house.  Here is my vision for the main garden 2015. (I think the original owners may have had a small tree in the middle of the circle part )

This duck head garden is off the right side of the back porch. The back porch is approx 12'x24'.  The duckbill (carrots and radishes) extends across 1/3 of the porche front edge. I grew some basil off the front edge of the porch last year. Last year I had potato bags off the left side. I now have garden boxes on the left side. I have 2 (Orange), but plan for 2 more (green). I will be increasing th size of th basil garden and moving my potato bags to the left front edge.

On viewing the area today, there may not be room for a Leek Box. And I may put the beans off the side of the blacktop. We have a square of blacktop; the original owners had it as a basketball court. We use it to set off smoke bombs and other science demonstrations. I have other options for the leek box. ... We also have an area that is approximately 35'x10'. It is home to the asparagus and compost pile. I keep trying to get squash back there. I get a few small unimpressive squash, I think the soil is poor.

Easy Gardening

I usualy don't on Sundays, but I had to today. Go in to work, that is. I work 20 hours a week at a local Healthfood store.

I did my nails all fancy today. (I have kinda bad nails, so I keep them covered to help keep them from splitting and ripping)


My spinach box has been open, as the temperature has been 40-55 the past few days. I planted carrots Dec 26 and left that area exposed to the milder temperatures. My smart phone informed me the temperature was dropping to 27 overnight. (I had to ask it first; it may be smart, but doesn't volunteer information)

So, I did quick, easy gardening today. I paid my 18 year old to cut and place covers for the carrots and put the covers on the salad box.

CARROTS (Nelson) :  I had small hoops in place already, my son added gardeners quilt and garden plastic sheeting.

  TWO BOXES with stepping stones off the side of the porch have spinach and Purple kale.    SALAD BOX: by the back door. It has lettuce and beets. I think. I forget. It all looks the same right now to me.

  

YES, I did!

Yes, I did pick spinach from my winter garden today!! Fresh picked spinach for BLTs!

Yes, I did plant carrots seeds in my back yard today on December 26 in Ohio! I hope my Winter Harvest book is right! The author plants carrots the last week of December at his commercial farm in Maine!
He then covers them in plastic. I will do that on Moday. We actually are in a warm pocket this weekend. It has been  in the high 40s to 50s the last two days.

The variety recommended for December planting is Nelson Carrots.

I received more year round gardening books! I got Winter Harvest (by Eliot Coleman) last week. Yesterday I got Four Season Harvest (by Eliot Coleman). Also a little handbook on cold frames.

Combine these with the book of herb growing from my brother earlier this year and I should have a wonderfully productive and yummy garden soon!

Mid December

Sunday Dec 21. 36 degrees F.

We have just returned from visiting family for a week. I check my winter garden boxes. Yay! The plants are still alive! 2 of my boxes are not doing much. But the Spinach Box seems to be thriving!

My son gave me a book. The Winter Harvest Handbook, by Eliot Coleman. I started my winter garden in November, without utilizing winter garden information. I now know my mistakes with the kale and lettuce box. (Should have started them the nd of August). The Gardner who writes this book plants carrots the end of December. So I prepared a small trial carrot bed today.

 I dug up an area of garden just off the porch (so I won't have to walk far to check it during these cold months). 

Then I filled a wheel barrow with peat moss, dead leaves, and some dirt from the bottom of my compost pile.

 (yes, I am standing in the compost pile. the top layer of compost is frozen solid)

 I mix the moss, leaves, and compost; then add it in the bottom of the dug out area. Cover with the dirt I just dug, smooth and mark with stones.)

 According the Winter Harvest book, they prepare their soil 3 weeks in advance with green manure (which has no animal feces. it is just oats plants and pea plants). They turn this under the existing soil about a foot, replace the top soil, let rest a few weeks, then plant their seeds. I do not have green manure or 3 weeks. 

hopefully, the moss. leaves. compost mixture will do this time. I covered the prepared soil with tarp. not sure it will do anything, but it seemed like a good idea. Planned Planting Date is Dec 31.

KIA[6]

Me, Ki, and the Cat. It's a small family these days with 3 of our members away on a trip.

Ki and I are having Adventures. This little blog is about Day #6. Monday.

I like this little pace to our days we have going.
He made his breakfast, I made mine- whenver we wake up. He does his morning chores. I wash some dishes.

We read or play on the computer a bit, talk about lunch plans, go for a bike ride, do a little cleaning. I hung my laundry. WOWSERS, opur laundry and groceries are almost non-exsitent compared to when there are all 5 of here!

We do our own lunches, too. We clean up from lunch then I was on the phone making toomany phone calls while Ki went out back to make a fire in the wheelbarrow again.

He used this fire to warm the PVC pipe he was working with:

A little later he made a yummy treat for us. He toasted some almonds and then melted some chocolate with sea salt for a yummy bark snack:

I was on the phone more, read my book I styarted a long time ago and had to back track a few chapters, then Ki and I cleaned our bathrooms. It was his idea. Yesterday he said "We should clean our bathrooms on Monday." So we did.

After that we read in his Science book. We were reading about muscle types. Skeletal Muscles, Smooth Muscles, and Cardiac Muscles. I read from the book; "Cardiac Muscles is only found in one place in humans. Time Lords have Cardiac Muscles in 2 locations."

I Ad-Lib when I read to them. And, yes, I still use silly voices when reading to my high school age boys.  The section kept talking about our SUPERSTRUCTURE and I always said it like a super-hero with a deep voice speaking in a tunnel....

Ki helped me pick flowers to put in my vase then he got started making dinner. I ws going to make dinner myself, but I had told him my plan for dinner and he thought it ws fun, so he got to work on getting things ready. I was getting hungry I guess. So we both did our part to create tonight's dinner:

Compartment Cuisine -->

Ki arranged them around our centerpiece and asked what game I wanted to play. I chose Fluxx.

 Ki has his cake decorating class tonight. I'll post a picture in tomorrow's blog.

(to read about previous days: click the following links:

Day 1 and Day 2 and Day 3 and Day 4 and Day 5)

How To Tuesday: make a seed starter greenhouse

I begin with a story. A Dialogue between a hungry 17 yr old boy and his mother.
SON: "Mom, do you know where the small pan is??"MOM: Eating Chocolate Covered Almonds while Watching Netflix -(thinks to self. "oh, no. I totally forgot about that!)
MOM: :"ummm. In the back yard."SON: "WHAT?? Why is it out THERE??"MOM:" I took it out to clean it. It was super dirty."SON: "So, is it clean?"MOM: "no."SON: "ARG!"
I had it out back my the compost pile squirting the moldy spaghetti sauce out with the hose- but got distracted.
NOW for my HOW TO mini-Instructional. (and, don't worry, it won;t be how to clean dishes. That'd be like the Blind leading the Blind. THIS How To is for a mini-greenhouse to start your seeds.
Well, not an actual house.
and it is not actually GREEN.
But you get to use a knife and a soldering iron.
and tape.
And before I begin I must apologize for the quality of the pictures. I used Connor's video camera- that takes stills, but not that well. I was too lazy to find my good camera:
So, choose your seeds. For my first project I went with Bell Pepper Seeds.
Then get some 2 Liter bottles, knife, scissors, packing tape, soldering knife, and dirt.
take the lid off of your bottles and rinse them. (my just had Club Soda, so I didn't bother rinsing them)Then pinch the side a bit and make a small cut:
Then Use scissors in the cut, and cut around the entire circumference of the bottle:
I just follow the label. And I advise leaving labels on to protect the roots from the sunlight..
I like to cut a few slits in the lid. I find this helps them fit on better:

Then I use a soldering iron to put the holes in the bottom. WAY EASIER then when you had to poke them with your safety scissors in 4th grade.


Next add the dirt:
I like to start with some type of gravel for drainage. I had some clay spheres I got at a Hydroponics Store- so I used them:

Just a handful to cover the bottom.
Then I took a mixture of: Compost/Garden Soil & Potting Soil & Sphagnum Moss. I filled the containers to about 2 inches below the top of the label.

Added my seeds, watered with added fertilizer, put the lids on, and then the packing tape around the seam.





I misplaced the lids, do I added more tape to cover the opening.

I bought some apples at Costco. They came in this plastic bubble container:
I thought I'd try using it as a seed starter. I filled with the dirt mixture.poked holes, through the dirt with my scissors- because I forgot to to make holes first.

then added the seeds.
and watered and snapped the lid closed.


I hope it works.


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