Whoa Nelly on the Big K

For you non-scientists out there, that K stands for kalium- Latin that is, for potassium and I’ve plenty of it!

In the PNW, soils from British Columbia to the south end of the Willamette Valley are heavy on potash (alkaline) and deficient on calcium (Ca, for the closest chemists). That means, of course, I have to add it, and add I shall.

Amend at a rate of about 50lbs to 1000 square feet of garden. Good. It’s cheap stuff. Ours, purchased through Azure Standard of Dufer, Oregon, was six and some change, for a 50lb. bag. Oops, now! Don’t overdo it! More is too much and you could do damage to the tilth (healthy dirt).

Soil west of the Cascade Mountains, range from coarse loam to clay. Ours here in the Hedgerow falls smack dab in the middle at fine silt.

Though only a few feet under the surface lies clay (fine, flat particles, fitting tightly together), the fraction of clay particulate in the topsoil for balanced loam, is quite probably wanting. Did I say balanced loam? That would be redundant, silly me!

Loam is soil that is balanced. Just about equal parts sand, silt and clay (clay being the slighted fraction) and loam is what we’re aiming at.

Our garden is blooming with math and science. It’s a new classroom (without the ‘class’ or the ‘room’) everyday we’re in it! We hope yours is too.

Early Season Planting Begins

Ducks have proven to be a critical part of the garden. Allow me to encourage you to add some to yours.

They eat slugs; many, many slugs. They waddle to and fro destroying very little. Watch out for your flower bulbs (they eat them) and your lettuces (they trample them) but all around the laughter that fills the yard is quite pleasant. When the pond gets crowded, ducks are yummy with rice pilaf and spinach salad and the down makes a lofty pillow (how resourceful!).

Ducks also devour pea seeds and sprouts. The floating row cover renders useless to the nature of the wriggling duckbill; functional for ranging chickens, F.Y.I., but futile under the influence of Quackers. Because of the pricey lesson last year, this winter the peas go to the front where the ducks are unable to roam. We instead will have to chance it with crows, weasels, voles and cottontails.

When the native Indian Plum (oemleria cerasifomis)begins to show its leaves, it is time to begin the pea crop. We planted today and will plant in two weeks, twice over, to ensure a longer harvest. Varieties this early season include ‘Sugar Star’ (snap) and ‘Oregon Sugar Pod II’ (snow). As the weather warms we'll use warmer tolerant varieties.

English peas classify as legumes- a nitrogen fixer into the soil. The deep taproot pulls nutrients up from the hidden layers of the terra firma and deposits them for shallower rooted plants. Peas will get the first crack at this bed and the season shall finish out with summer and winter squash.

Fall nursing included tilled green and horse manure to replace weakened nutrients last garden season.

In the garden we are at the mercy of the weather systems. In terms of expectations, a casual wave of the hand with “we shall see…” is our best outlook! However, let's anticipate, somewhere around Easter, our first picking.

Companion Planting

Recall if you please, the Guinness Girls in the Three Sisters garden, summer last. The Guinness Girls are currently stacking split fir in the woodshed but here stands the 3 Sisters now.

Note the beans (‘Kentucky Wonder’) wrapping around the stalks of corn (‘Sugar Dots’) whilst the pumpkin (‘Howden’, ‘Big Max’) keeps the ground from drying out (from the angle of the above photo, I can assure you, this soil is loamy and moist). This planting strategy requires little water. Beans help to anchor corn and increases soil nitrogen which corn eagerly devours. Though corn is delicious and we eagerly await for September harvesting, it has very little nutrition for the amount of nutrients it robs from the soil. Companion planting in season and mulching, regenerating soil off season, in the corn bed, is crucial. Corn proved also, to be an excellent transplanted vegetable.

The PNW has been quite cool this summer. Marine air flow off the Pacific coast keeps most mornings misty and overcast. Anytime between 10 and 2 the sun shows himself and warms up considerably. This is lovely enough for personal comfort but keeps the potential heat from accumulating each day along with needed length of direct sunlight necessary for ripening some produce.

Many plants are a fortnight or so behind schedule however, our consistent Indian Summers ( and a floating row cover) should finish off tomatoes tolerably well, and bring pumpkins to rich, smooth orange globes.

Try, next spring, alternating rows of bush beans with strawberries. Both plants will thrive and throw off better yield.

Planting for Another Season

The Pacific Northwest certainly has it's failings: Weather here is hard to predict.

It is best to learn the way of the old farmer who smells the rain and snow, who feels the high pressure of clear skies, knows from which direction of the wind, the weather is to come. But on the larger, seasonal scale, La Niña or El Niño are dynamic.

Spring and fall are perhaps the most consistent of PNW seasons- the injurious crime of unpredictability we cast our judgment upon, are the solstices. Our summer and winter bear consequence of global weather patterns. We know not from year to year if the summer will be long and hot or late and cool- winter mild and wet, or deeply chilled.

Though we’re not safe from weather extremes, we are indeed a mild region and can garden around the calendar. When one season fails to bring forth much fruit, no worries, another crop is ready for planting.

From mid-July for several weeks we plant for the early fall through the late winter harvest. No self sustaining here- what comes out of the garden in the winter is sparse but we enjoy a harvest with a few new lessons learned and more winter-hardy varieties discovered.

Fall Peas are in the ground and happily sprouted. ‘Alaska’ and ‘Oregon Sugar Pod II’ (snow). This crop should harvest mid October and then only four months and we plant again.

Discovery: ducks like pea seeds- staple down well, burlap or Reemay. For most practical purposes, ducks in the garden is genius. Trample, perhaps, but their destruction is nothing to a renegade chicken, scratching and digging. Ducks eat the slugs and bugs and leave organic material behind.

Beet ‘Early Wonder’ and turnips ‘Purple Top White Globe’ have sprouted and next week, another crop for staggered harvest along with rutabagas and greenhouse seedlings such as brassics and alliums.

Last autumns harvest of potatoes left us sprouted ‘Red Pontiac’ and ‘Yukon Gold’ from a burlap sack. We threw them in the ground and they should provide several weeks of new potatoes this fall.

Some Work Out; Some Work In.

A Rough Morning. Doesn’t sound very pretty, does it? It started out just fine.

Abby and I woke up to Follow the Fleet, with Ginger Rogers & Fred Astaire, and we loved it! So far so good.

But somewhere after feeding the chickens I just felt like crying.

Mama was out repairing the lawn. As you know, we have dogs and they can be rough on a lawn that was already struggling when we bought the place. Anyway, Mama was out spreading Tegro on the lawn.
Here is one of the culprits and he's sulking about it.

I believe Tegro is a mixture of dirt, manure, and a little bit of sand. I sprinkled some Tegro on a few lilies’ I’m growing, and then I did start crying. After being hugged, I was sent in to do up some breakfast.

Mama gave instructions for sausage gravy and hashbrown potatoes. While the gravy was cooking, I emptied out the dishwasher and set the table with fresh periwinkles and hyacinth.
In the microwave to save time, I baked some potatoes. When they were cooked and I went to cut them for the hashbrowns, that didn’t work out so good (they turned out to be smashed potatoes instead!).
Abby called Mama in from her work and the three of us sat to a yummy brunch and I was cheered up.


Rough Morning? I mean Good Morning!

“Daddy, Look! A Sign of Spring!”...

Said Abigail years ago, pointing out crocus leaves jutting up though the icy earthen bed.

Big Daddy, being the breadwinner and all around outstanding provider, hunter-gatherer, door-knocker- downer, bad-guy-thwarter, omelet-slinger and so forth, does not have the hours with the girls as I do(pretty busy guy, eh?), so he is often surprised by their funny little quips and assessments of their surroundings when in their company.

Originally coined by Anne and myself, Mike had never heard our observations noted as “a sign of spring” and he found himself taken by the darling ‘Abi-dale’ and her remark; innocent, fresh, pure, completely aware of her world.

Now the girls participate in the “signs” at a new level. They are learning to propagate, store, divide, plant, and design, for future winter walks that bring about “signs” and the pleasure of anticipating the hope of the spring to come.

TOP: Crocus from Gran's garden CENTRE: white hyacinth BASE: Indian Plum in bloom

One Garden Down, One Garden Up...(and a tip on tulips)

Early December brought record lows to the PNW. Our usual cold snap comes late January early February, so this mild winter has flora and fauna a bit befuddled. The garden is bursting with buds not typically exposed this early, or in any case, to such an advanced degree.
The wintery decorations we typically keep up until March seem erroneous. The usual Epiphany season activities, while including some garden clean up, consist mostly of closet cleaning, baseboard dusting, seed catalogue ordering, puzzling (of beautiful spring scenes of course)at solaced tea times, quiet and restful before the full swing of spring is cheerfully unavoidable. We gladly observe the days lengthening and the perennials awakening. So what are girls to do when it's fifty and mild with 'spring-like' conditions? Head on out.

In the garden yesterday, I harvested our last crop of winter brassics- Brussels sprouts. These stalks look a little worse for wear; however, they weathered some less-than-mild conditions late fall. This is variety ‘Jade cross “E”’. These darling little morsels cleaned up nicely, took a good steaming, sautéed in garlic and butter then tossed with parmesan. Mmm.
*****
The tulips are further along this year than projected. It set me to thinking about the work ahead of me this summer. Tulip propagation and maintenance is scheduled for this year. Unlike naturalizing daffodils, when a tulip creates offsets, if not dug-up and separated, the parent bulb suffocates by the crowding of the new bulblets. The underground nursery maid exhausted by its little charges, gives out. No more blooms, weak leaves, maybe. Here’s what ya do:
Sometime in June after the plant has yellowed, unearth the bulb and remove the bulblets. Set them in a lightweight medium in full sun, where there is little chance of dousing with a sprinkler system or the garden hose (here’s the dry, airy rest). Replant them by September’s end for their required cold hours.
Here’s the trick:
A deeply planted bulblet grows fat and large over the course of 3-4 years, to produce the bloom-bearing bulb. If planted deeply (up to 12in), the bulb should be good undisturbed while forming into a mature bulb. A shallower planting (6-8in or less) for an already mature bulb, creates more bulblets for more aggressive propagation, future blooms for the dinner table!

An Early Spring Tease

What a day! The sun was beaming up to 55 degrees, slight breeze blowing, sparrows warbling.
Our “I-thought-it-was-spring-so-I-shaved-the-goats” weather has come a good month early!

Here in the great Pacific Northwest, somewhere around late February, we see a break in the forecast and experience spring-like conditions. We tear the cover off the pool, bring out the tee shirts, and make iced tea. Heck, the thermometer might hit 66, let’s have a barbeque!

And all for naught, of course, for we have weeks yet of hard, ever-changing, eventful weather.
But not usually in January.

The girls walked the garden, assessed it’s condition, talked of planting peas and mowing the grass.
Wait, no.
It’s too soon.

Peas in the ground now, could rot; mowing could damage the fine blades of fescue. We shall leave it at appraisal and garden planning for now. Rake up from the windstorm and turn the compost. Gather muck from the paddock and work it into the raised beds.

I will facilitate the postponement with the Western Garden Book and seed catalogs with tea and Christmas chocolate. And ask Lanny about the goats; I have none.

Waiting, resting, enjoying really, in the Winter Sojourn.

Last of the Summer Harvest

Sunday couldn’t have been lovelier.
Low clouds and chilly.
Perfect for action in the garden.

Align the eroded shape of the raised beds with spade and fork. Freshen the the paths and perimeters. To the compost with the browned sunflower stalks that trellised the cucumber vines and the remains of the summer squash. Harvest the red cabbage (for that touch of German in us) and clean up around the winter roots that are yet to feed us. Plant garlic, pull carrots, and pick spinach. A new crop of sweet pea buds are setting to bloom; a nosegay for Thanksgiving, possibly. Brussel sprouts are coming on. Slowly, slowly, the winter romaine leisurely continues to mature.
How satisfying it is to come in exhausted, to warm by the stove; extricate mud and moisture, rest and reflect and dine on the Last of the Summer Harvest.

A Tomatoe Update

My tomatoes have been growing quite large lately and have been harvesting well. In my first post, as you may remember, I told you about planting tomato varieties Stupice, Chocolate Cherry, Korlick, and Super Marzano.
So far, the Stupice are about the size of a ping pong ball and are very sweet. Those were planted upside-down in a hanging pot at our pool patio.
The Korlick are savory and the size of a small cherry. I planted them on a small metal trellis out in the kitchen garden. Daddy loves Korlick as it is a addition to his lunch-box.
Chocolate Cherry is the typical size of a cherry tomatoe and one of the choicest tomatoes to eat by itself. It, along with Stupice, is very sweet.
Mama added Super Marzano in our beef stew one rainy day last week and they made a rich, thick broth. Yum.

The Guinness Girls Meet the Three Sisters- Twice.

Here are the girls in the garden finishing, or rather replanting, after a naughty bantam escaped to scratch it to ruin, the Three Sisters companion garden.

The Three Sisters was developed and used by the Wampanoag, though the Iroquois seem to have developed the legend of ‘Three Sisters’. It was the Wampanoag gardens that enabled the early settlers of Jamestown to survive and thrive in the New World. Squanto was a Wampanoag who taught the newcomers to plant maize in little hills and fertilize each mound with an alewife, a species of fish (we opted not to plant our seed with such a mesmerizing animal enticement). With this efficient and intensive gardening style, each family could sustain their needs on about one acre of land. Many of the tribes of the Northeast, including the Iroquois, used the Wampanoag garden design. Planted without plowing or tilling, the traditional Wampanoag garden includes corn, beans, squash, and sunflowers.The corn and beans are planted in mounds, with squash planted between the mounds.
First, the raised corn and bean mounds must be constructed. These small mounds are laid out in rows with 4 feet between the centers of the mounds. Each mound is about 4 inches high, with a wide base (about 18 inches in diameter) that narrows to a flattened top (about 10 inches across. Plant four corn seeds about 6 inches apart and 3 inches deep in the top of each mound. Plant four beans seeds halfway down the slopes on the sides of each mound.



See the giant dryer sheet behind the girls? it's a row covering for up to 10◦ frost protection, allows the sun and water through, keeps out the birds and some air-borne dieseses. DeWitt is the name and can be aquired at

http://www.mcconkeyco.com/page.aspx?nid=27

So we planted twice, clipped some wings, and hope there’s no need for a charm.

Kitchen Garden Tomatoes

This year's kitchen garden begins with four varieties of tomatoes. I planted Chocolate Cherry, Super Marzano, Korlick, and Stupice. We got the plants from Auntie Stephie.
My aunt, Stephie took over growing and selling tomato plants after Great Gramps died two summers ago. Like Gramps before, she supplies our tomato plants every year. I like to pick them fresh off the vine and sprinkle them with salt and eat them. My mama teases me that she will leave a shaker in the garden under a cloche for me.

Both Stupice and Korlick are early growing tomatoes with smallish fruit. Stupice is cold tolerant.
Super Marzano is a Roma type fruit growing 5in long. Rich in pectin it's great for sauces and pastes. It tastes so good. Best grown on trellises because it's a climber!
Chocolate Cherry is a new variety for us and we're looking forward to eating it.