Just Watching our Babies Grow

First Garden Salad of 2011

Happy Valentine's Day!  To celebrate, we gathered our first fruits of 2011 from the garden.  Here is our first 0 mile diet salad of the year with: Kale, Radiccio (leaves), sorrel, leeks, chives, wasabi (leaves), and fresh thyme.

Getting Back to the Garden

Plants are starting to grow outside and indoors :)  The wasabi plants (right above) look like they are off to a good start.   The chives are hoping to make an appearance soon as well (left in picture above).

Can you believe that Jason has already started the seedling trays!   Holy Crapole! The winter sleep was not long enough to recooperate from the dirt 24/7 (on the hands, on the clothing, tracked in the house), from the extra chores and hours added to each day and from the sore muscles and calluses.  But as the saying goes, the early bird catches the worm, and in this case, the early bird gets to start enjoying fresh garden veggies a heck of a lot sooner.  

I'd have to look back on my posts, but I think it was about this time of year that we started the seedlings and planting outside last year.  Still, I think its a bit to wet and ugly to be outside in the mud, but Jason thinks otherwise.  He has already rotatilled a row and planted the broad beans and fava beans and is eyeing a place to put the potatoes in next.  I'm expecting another cold snap for this year so I'm not yet convinced that everything planted (outside) at this point is going to survive.  But what do I know...you can't predict the weather, and you sure can't predict mother nature :)    

So far, Jason has started seedling trays for:  basil, thyme, lavendar, leeks, onions, artichokes, lettuce and asian greens: midwater gai lan, green perl gai lan, jade spring yu choi sum, toi choi pac choi and ching chiang pac choi.   I didn't know there was so many varieties of choi!  One thing I do remember about these plants from last year, is that they are extremely susceptible to those nasty 'flea beetles' (tiny black bugs :(   So you want to take proper care - when you are ready to plant them in the ground, cover them with garden cloth.

All the seedlings are bathing under very bright lights.  One so bright that in fact my hair dryer on the same electrical wiring popped the fuse.  Guess I'll have to find another place to dry my hair until the seedling season is over.  I wonder what the neighbors are thinking with the bright light coming out from the basement and one from the garage....'grow-op'?  Well, they wouldn't be far off...but in our favor, a legal one:)

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 I love to experiment. I am learning that food gardening is nearly a year round activity here on the West Coast.  I've read that onions and leeks are day sensitive plants. Growing leaves from winter solstice to summer solstice, and then growing the bulb of a cooking onion from summer solstice to winter solstice. For every leaf, one layer of flesh in the bulb. Therefore the longer the growing season before June 21st, the more leaves, and then the larger the cooking onion. I planted my onion seed and leek seed on Jan 26th in trays with plain potting soil, and they sprouted about 5 days later. There is not enough sun for a month or two, so grow lights it is. Downstairs (warm) I use banks of CFL bulbs in old washroom fixtures (4 x 20Watt bulbs per fixture, 4 or 6 fixtures) plugged into a power bar with a built in timer for half of it's plugs. I also started some Chinese greens that I purchased from West Coast Seeds. About week later they too sprouted. After about another week I moved them out to the garage where I have my new 1000W metal halide bulb (more efficient than fluorescent bulbs when you get up to that much power usage). The garage is cooler and helps keep the little plants from growing too quickly and getting tall, thin and weak. While I too think it's still too early, I transplanted 3 little sprouts into the greenhouse today, beside the Swiss chard that has been starting to sprout for about 2 weeks now. I was planning on experimenting with a couple of each variety but the soil just felt too cold, compared to the seedling's soil from the comparably warm garage - that light keeps the garage about 2 to 3 degrees warmer than the outdoors. 

I want a soil heating cable. That would definitely help expand the growing season a few more weeks.  I love to try things that my training (school, books, internet research) and my common sense (soil too cold to the touch, no one else plants this early) tell me not too. This is because I want to verify that I'm right, you're right, and that surprises occasionally happen and everyone gets to learn.

The Garden Sleeps

   The garden takes its long winter's nap.  Well, not the Kale - it perseveres right through :)    (December snowfall).