Tag: spinach

Categories
Vegetables Winter

First official sowing of 2013

Timing

Although I have been working in the garden for several weeks now and throwing seeds into the soil randomly to see what would grow, my first official seed sowing was this weekend on February 16, 2013. This is about 4.5 weeks earlier than last year, and the purpose is just to experiment with the micro-climate on my patio.

Soil

Over the winter I have been watching some interesting YouTube gardening videos and have picked up some tips especially for container gardening. This year I am focusing on building my soil and amending the existing Sea Soil in my containers with the following:

  • Fresh Sea Soil compost (to add organic matter and maintain soil structure)
  • Vermiculite (a natural lightweight mineral substance to maintain moisture)
  • Worm castings (for nutrients and hopefully beneficial microbes)
  • Rock dust (to add/replace trace minerals beyond the usual N-P-K in fertilizers)
  • Dolomite lime (a few tablespoons, much of the soil has been in the containers for years and has never been limed, so is likely quite acidic)
  • Dry ‘organic’ fertilizer (a few tablespoons, just because I have it and to replace some N-P-K)
  • Crushed egg shells (run through the Magic Bullet, in theory it should add calcium to the soil, but I’m not sure it it is in a form that is available to the plants – the granular texture will also help with drainage)

Seeds

I sowed two containers of Oregon Sugar Pod, with both seeds that I had from last year and new seeds I purchased.  As I did last year, I planted in a hanging basket and a 12″ pot, and used innoculant to promote the nitrogen fixing ability of these legumes. I decided not to use the Little Marvel seeds… at least not yet, as I had to re-sow a couple of times last year, so obviously they do not hold up to the cold, damp winter weather as well as Oregon Sugar Pod. I also moved the 12″ pot closer to the house so it is warmer and slightly covered — because perhaps the location of the container last year slowed germination.

 

I also sowed some spinach, as it is a cool weather crop which tends to bolt when the days get too long and hot warm. I have sowed a 12″ pot (that used to contain my poor old woody lavender) with Tyee, which is supposed to be a good year-round variety for us on the west coast. It apparently germinates in temperatures as low as 5°C, so I thought I’d give it a try in mid-February.

I also planted some Toy Choy, or baby bok choy. They grew quite well last year but we only got one real harvest from them as my second sowing bolted really quickly. So I thought starting a month sooner may help us get another harvest in. You may have to zoom in to see the seeds, but I sowed 3 rows in my long container. I also plopped in some scallion starts in the middle… which I’m unsure if they will make it this early in the year!

 

Aside from that, I am still slowly harvesting rainbow lacinato kale, gai lan, and beet tops every now and then, though next winter I will grow more so that I actually have more than a couple of leaves to eat at a time!

   

Categories
Spring Vegetables Winter

Random seed sowing

Well, my green thumb is itching to get planting, so I randomly planted one of my long containers today with Swiss Chard, beets, and spinach in hopes of starting a cool-weather-tolerant container of leafy greens that will be ready in the next couple of months. We’ll see how this goes!

UPDATE: I also just checked the Environment Canada long range probability forecasts and it looks like we are likely to have a 70%-80% chance of below normal temperatures this spring. Looks like it will be cool weather veggies for a while.

Categories
Autumn Vegetables

Fall/winter vegetables coming along

I may have mentioned that I am trying winter gardening this year.

I have already harvested my radishes, which matured very quickly with our warm September. These were planted on September 10th and harvested the second weekend of October. We had an unseasonably warm and dry September this year, though I’m not complaining!

These Kestrel beets were also planted on September 10th and have been growing under a light weight row cover cloth to keep out pests. This progress picture was taken on November 2nd, and while I have added a layer of SeaSoil as mulch and moved the pot close to the building to keep them as warm as possible, it may still be a month before they are ready.  These beets are growing in 18″ of soil.

This is my first time growing kale. This is a Rainbow Lacinato kale, which is a cross between Redbor and Lacinato. This was also planted on September 10th and update photo taken on November 2nd, but I am a little disappointed in its growth. I know that through the fall growth will slow, but I will admit that since kale is a cold weather veggie I expected it to be huge by now! There is definitely new growth, and perhaps because this plant is growing where the Swiss chard lived in the summer time the soil may be a bit depleted. I can’t remember if I had added a bit of fertilizer prior to seeding, but regardless it may be too cold for the the fertilizer to break down and make the nutrients available. I just did a feeding of (stinky) liquid fish emulsion fertilizer. I have also topped it up with some new SeaSoil and dug in some glacial rock dust to amend the soil, so hopefully this all helps. My other Rainbow Lacinato which is growing in the pot that held the peas this summer seems to be doing a touch better. I’m guessing it is because the peas helped to fix nitrogen in the soil, especially since I used the inoculant.

This is also my first attempt at gai lan, an Asian vegetable that is like sprouting broccoli or rapini. I didn’t really know how big these plants get (this is why it wound up in the hanging basket) so I’m not sure how well it will do. I don’t expect to harvest anything until closer to February, but it seems to be doing well. Again, it could be due to the fact that it is in another planter which held peas and therefore there is good nitrogen content in the soil. Next year I may have to plant more of these if we actually want a meal of gai lan.

One vegetable that did not do well when I started it from seed in September was my new batch of Swiss chard. The plants I had throughout the summer had started to bolt, so I popped some seeds into one of my 6″ deep planters, but alas they are still a whole one centimeter tall.

You will also see that there are a few scallions popping up in some of the photos. I put out the roots from scallions we bought from the grocery store just to see if they would sprout again. Lo and behold even in the cold snap we had during October they sprouted up like it was nothing! I have started some more seeds indoors, and actually I even started some outdoors just to see what happens. The worst that can happen is, well, nothing! I’ll update in the future on how these little seeds do: Tyee spinach, Rouge d’Hiver lettuce, and Little Gem lettuce. The seeds I’ve got started indoors include Rouge d’Hiver, Little Gem, and Cimmaron lettuce, as well as Apache scallions.

Categories
Spring Vegetables

Patiently waiting for spring

I have my meagre winter containers planted and still have no word as to whether we have been assigned a community garden plot, so in all my spare time I’ve planned out the patio garden for next year. It’s not the snazziest picture, but it makes sense to me!

The garlic and kale were planted this fall. The kale will be ready in the new year and the garlic next July. The radishes, spinach, and chard will be grown in the long planters that sit on the concrete surround. The pot with the carrots currently holds beets (which I am hoping to harvest near Christmas time. I will have to transfer the soil into some of the long pots, as according to rotation gardening I shouldn’t plant root veggies in the same place consecutively. The hanging basket which will hold peas again in 2013 currently holds my gai lan plant, which I’m beginning to doubt if the container is large enough, but we’ll see! I’m also planning on interspersing scallions amongst some of the planters in order to deter pests. We’ll also see how that works.

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