My new mini "greenhouse." I used the instructions in this video.

This is my seed starting contraption. Yes, it's a mess. The three lights and fan are on a timer. A few weeks ago this was completely full of seedlings, but most of them have been moved to the greenhouse or planted.

Tomatoes, marigolds, and cosmos in the greenhouse.

Kale, carrots, spinach, turnips, and broccoli.

Some yummy looking lettuce. Amish Deer Tongue and Forellenschluss varieties.

I never got around to thinning the strawberry bed. Hopefully they'll still be ok.

Cabbage, onions, radishes, chamomile, and broccoli. I should probably thin the radishes again.

Garlic and shallots. Wish I'd ordered a lot more garlic!

The squash bed (with no squash yet) and peas. The Amish Snaps are doing ok, the Sugar Snap sprout rate was abysmal.

We are in the process of putting up a deer fence.

I thought this was pretty with all the mist.

I also put some lettuce on the porch.

Thinking Spring (no, really)

I started some onion and parsley seeds in my basement today! My seed starting set up this year is hopefully going to work much better than last years. I bought two 4 foot long shop lights and bulbs at Home Depot and hung them from the ceiling with some twine. I already had a large wood table down there, I just had to clear all the boxes of stuff off it. I've placed the newly seeded trays on top of the freezer for extra warmth since I don't want to spend money on a heat mat. Photos to come.

Learning experience so far this year: don't ever order from Burpee again. Park Seed has all the same products and then some, for less money and cheaper shipping.

seeds

So the garden is buried under two feet of snow and ice, and I've just ordered seeds for 2011. Here's what I got:

From Baker Creek:
 Echinacea Purpurea Coneflower
Autumn Beauty - Sunflower
Persian Red Love-in-a-Mist
Borage
Sunset Flower Milkweed
Old Spice Mix Sweet Pea
Catmint-Grandview
Scarlet Runner Bean
Ball's Improved Orange - Calendula
Stevia   
Birdhouse Gourd
Musquee De Provence Pumpkin
Roma Tomato
Brandywine Tomato
Early Scarlet Globe Radish
Strawberry Popcorn
Bleu of Solaise Leek
Yellow of Parma Onion

From Burpee
Zinnia, Queen Red Lime
Tomato, Sun Gold Hybrid
Rudbeckia Hirta Moroccan Sun Mix
Verbena, Bonariensis
Monarda, Bergamo
Butterfly Bush, Butterfly Hybrid Mix
Tomato, Early Girl Hybrid
Shallots, Dutch Yellow:

In addition to all this, I also bought some seeds at the store where I work, and I have tons of leftover from last year. I wonder where it's all going to fit in the garden? Lots of flowers this year for my new butterfly/flower garden.

winter

Already busy planning out next year's garden and looking through the new seed catalogs! And it was only last week that I finally pulled the last of the carrots and leeks out... Sadly I did not have much time to put the garden to bed in November because I was too busy with other things. Some beds still need to be mulched, and I have yet to finish putting together the compost pile. Fun stuff to do when it's 25 degrees out.

Season's end

I don't feel like writing much, so here's a bunch of pictures! (they say a picture is worth 1000 words, after all)

Fall already?

Temperatures have gotten cooler, it might be almost time to cut down all the basil and harvest the rest of those tomatoes! It's too bad, the garden is looking its best right as it's nearly over.

Looking much better since I tidied up! I've planted peas around those big teepee things. They have not sprouted yet. I also planted some lettuce, kale, and brussel sprouts in that bed, but I'm not expecting too much from them at this point.

Everything's all filled out and looking beautiful!

This bed is doing great, since I've been sprinkling it with deer repellent regularly.

And speaking of carrots... I pulled these up to use in a roast recently. Unfortunately you don't get a good size reference, but the middle carrot was huge! They were all very tasty too. :)

All cleaned up and ready to be baked.

First new bed finished since what, June? It was just too hot all summer to do much digging. I've added compost and lime to this bed, and will soon be planting it with a cover crop.

Two compost piles. The right one is finished, and the left one is being added to slowly. When the leaves start to drop, I'll add plenty of chopped leaves (since I only have a rake and a tiny mower, that's going to be a lot of work). At that time I'll also make a trip to the stable to get horse manure, a trip to the beach to get seaweed, and a trip to Starbucks for used coffee grounds. I'm going to need a lot of compost next summer.

Harvesting

I haven't updated in a month, mostly because I spent almost half of August in Los Angeles, visiting my good friend Al! I had a good vacation there, going to the beach, riding roller coasters, and climbing some serious mountains. Meanwhile, I left the garden in the hands of my Mom, with a to-do list for her to do every day (she was thrilled). So the garden survived my absence, but it's amazing how much things can grow and change in two weeks. I have a lot of work to do out there!

















Here is my dog, Max, posing with all the pumpkins I harvested today. All of these are from a single volunteer plant that got attacked by everything: powdery mildew, squash bugs, and squash vine borers. Despite all that, it still grew five beautiful, big, heavy pumpkins! I credit that to several things: an early start (it sprouted in early May or late April), healthy, deeply dug, compost rich soil, and the fact that no squash has ever grown in that spot before. I hope these pumpkins last for a long time.

Sunflower heads. Drying and removing the seeds from these was a pain in the neck! Not too sure it was worth the trouble. Next year I will probably not grow an entire bed of these again, but instead just a couple in a flower bed for ornaments. It was fun to watch goldfinches eat the seeds, though.

Here's how the garden looked at the end of August. That is a lot of corn! You can't even see the tomato jungle from this angle. Since taking this I have removed and composted the sunflower stalks, pulled up the pumpkin vines, and mowed the lawn.

So much corn!

Here is the difference between un-pollinated and pollinated corn. Unfortunately, every single ear has been attacked by corn borers. That's usually not a big deal, because you can just cut off the topmost section of the ear and eat the rest. But sometimes they slice through the silks before the ear gets pollinated, resulting in this.

Nasturtiums, basil, sweet potatoes, marigolds, lima beans, carrots, chard, and beets, with pumpkin vines in the background. I think marigolds are the most successful thing I've grown this year! The sweet potatoes have lots of beautiful flowers that are only open for a few hours a day.

My strawberry patch is STILL sending out runners! I have to cut them out of the path every week. I'm thinking of devoting a second bed to them, because they're already so crowded in this one.

The tomato jungle! Clearly, pvc pipes are a horrible support, lol! I will have to devise something more intelligent next year (I'm thinking stakes).

I thought this was beautiful.

Everything here is from the garden except for the apple, which I put in the bowl to help those tomatoes ripen.

Siamese twin!

My fall seedlings, which have largely been a disappointment so far. Critters have been chewing on them almost as soon as they sprouted. =(  I've already had to pinch off multitudes of caterpillars and spray with Bacillus Thuricide. Then, something ate the lettuce seedlings right down to the soil. So I put them in this cage, thinking it was probably a squirrel, but today something ate even more of them! So whatever it is, it's small enough to fit through the bars. I've wrapped the whole cage in small deer netting, hopefully that'll keep things out. I really wish I could start these indoors, but I need a couple big florescent shop lights to do that. I'll have to start some new seedlings, but I'm afraid it might be too late for that already.

All but one of the butternut squash, and all of the acorn squash I've harvested this summer. Not tons, but it's something. :)