Early April in the Kitchen Garden

Back on March 25th, we attended Plant Nerd Night at the Eugene Garden Club. As always, I was most excited to see what Alice Doyle from Log House Plants brought to sell. After a lot of mental comparisons and hard decision making, I came home with this "new-to-me" Kale. Kale "Fizz" is described on the Log House Plants website as "tender, finely lobed, light green leaves deepen to emerald green. Use baby greens in salads or full size leaves in steaming, stir-frying. OP."

Log House Plants had so many new and interesting kale varieties for sale that night. It was really difficult to pick only one to bring home. I was taken with this variety's lovely cut leaves and the promise of tender leaves to eat after the first frost.

After I was done planting the Kale, I took stock for the rest of the kitchen garden. The garlic has grown like gangbusters this last month. It is now taller than the hoops which use to support the remay cover.

Just like last year, the "Russian Red" garlic is attaining an immense size. Each plant stock looks like bamboo!

Next to it, the "Chesnook Red" plants look small but they are perfectly normal. Their stocks are now thicker then a finger and they too have outgrown the metal hoops.

It does look like one of the "Chesnook Red" plants had dwarfed, so I will have 14 plants to harvest this year instead of 15. I certainly don't want to save the cloves from a misshapen plant. Fortunately, all the other plants look great.

My real surprise this Spring are the potatoes. Last year I planted 4 grow bags with 2 varieties of Potatoes. Because of an incredibly busy Fall, I only ended up harvesting one of the bags. The other three bags remained outside in the kitchen garden all Winter, exposed to negative temperatures and two snow storms. So I was more than a little shocked when I noticed that the two bags containing "Nicola" potatoes started to grow a few weeks ago. And now, pictured below, the "Dark Red Norland" have just begun to sprout in the remaining bag. So I guess I will have potatoes this year after all!

Joyful Color in the Gloom

In this time of grey skies and dreary days, our red Witch hazel in the front flowerbed always stands out. Each year it is the first plant to "bloom" adding a wonderful pop of red to the otherwise brown and green world.

The Garlic in January

I last lifted off the remay hoop and checked on my garlic three weeks ago. We had just come out of our record cold spell and snowfall and some of  the garlic was still sprouting.

I am pleased to report that three weeks later all of the garlic is up and growing well. The "Chesnook Red" garlic came up first this year. This is my third year growing this variety so I now understand its unique growing habit. Per usual, the young plants are growing horizontally more than they are vertically. This will continue until April or May when they will suddenly straighten and grow straight upwards. But all 15 young plants look good.

The rest of the row is planted with 12 "Russian Red" garlic cloves. These plants were much later to push above the soil line this year than the "Chesnook Red" but they are catching up in size quickly. The final two cloves are just now pushing a green shoot through the soil but the rest of the young plants are a good 2" tall. This is my second year growing this variety that I brought back from Maine in the Fall of 2012.

Fogged In

Happy New Year. I had hoped that today would be a productive day. There is still so much to do outside. Flower beds still need to be cleaned up from last year and fields need to be mowed. But our foggy weather returned with a vengeance today and all energy and motivation for outside work disappeared like the sun. So, the first day of the New Year will be a day of rest. There is still 364 more days left to get something accomplished!

Weeding and Emerging Spring Bulbs

Finally, on this last day of the year, the fog disappeared and the sun came out. It felt so nice to be working outside in the warm 52 degree weather. I took advantage of the sunshine and spent an hour cleaning up the west end flowerbed. I worked quite a bit on the front of the bed where the narcissus and other small bulbs are planted. Many of the "Kokopelli" jonquil are up a good 2" now. I counted 37 stems with blooms on this clump last year so I am curious how it will perform this, its third year.

I am guessing - and hoping - that this little emerging group is either my "Snipe" or my "Sabrosa" daffodils. Both of my small little clumps have lost their tags and I can't remember exactly where they are each planted. I am sure however, that the emerging green tips pictured below belong to my clump of "Topolino" narcissus. They are just starting to appear, so I was glad to get the ground around them weeded and level today.

Cleaning up the Mudroom Bed

This afternoon, with the assistance of Mom, I was able to finish cleaning up the mudroom bed for the winter. We cut off all of the dead stalks and trimmed back the perennials. Certain plants, like our many salvia varieties, I will give another further haircut in the Spring. 

It was great to see how many plants have already started to form next year's new growth. We were all a little concerned that some of the plants would have suffered some damage during our extreme cold weather in early December. As you can see, poking out from their base, most of the perennials have new green leaves and shoots. The one great mystery is our "Black & Blue" salvia. It has managed to overwinter for the last two years. Will we get lucky again this year or did our -10 degree night finish it off? We will get our answer in March when it should begin sending up new growth.

Merry Christmas

Here's wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas!

The Winter Solstice

WINTER

By Tommy Makem

Winter, a sharp bitter day

the robin turns plump against the cold

the sun is weak

silver faded from gold

he is late in his coming and short in his stay

Man, beast, bird and air all purging, all cleansing,

earth already purified awaits the rite of spring

Her bridal gown a virgin snow and frosts in her hair

A snowdrop by the road today bowed gracefully

and high upon the wind up in the sparkling nothingness,

a lone bird began to sing

can gentle spring be far away?

Nine Days Later

It has been nine days since our big December 6th snowfall. But it has only been three days since the temperature finally got above the freezing mark. While the snow is now mostly gone in town, we still have quite a bit left on our property. While it has completely disappeared from the trees and shrubs, the shaded areas on the ground are still covered with a few inches of snow.

I walked down to my big garden to fill up the bird feeder. As you can see, the garden is still mostly covered in white. I am reminded of yet another reason that this is perhaps not such an ideal place to garden! I am sure the Native Americans has some saying about not planting in the last place the snow resides!

I found a nice set of these tracks. I am pretty sure that they belong to a raccoon.

During this incredible cold spell, I have been very concerned about my garlic. I planted it late and it was only in the ground maybe ten days before the temperatures dropped. The last time that I checked on it, I had 10 "Chenook Red" bulbs up and none of the "Russian Red"  bulbs up. I know that some varieties of garlic are originally from the Ukraine and garlic as a whole is very, very cold hardy. But my garlic wasn't planted very deep and it didn't have a protective cover of mulch. 

So I was very please today when I pulled back the remay tunnel and saw a bunch of healthy green shoots! I counted 15 "Chesnook Red", so all of those bulbs are now up and growing. I also counted 4 "Russian Red" garlic shoots. So, even during this bitterly cold weather, the garlic has continued to grow. I still have 8 more "Russian Red" that have yet to come up but I am not longer worried. I bet when I check again around New Year's Day, I will have 100% of the crop accounted for. Garlic is tough stuff!