Kitchen Garden / Raised Bed Garden. Progress Report. 3.6.14

Chinese Chives, rejuvenation project

Garlic Inchelium Red and others

Cilantro, Yellow Potato Onion, and some iris starts

 Haven't done much, due to illness.  It only takes a small effort to do some things in the yard and garden.

Garlic Chives.  These are the ones I dug out of half-barrel bed in Vancouver and planted in raised bed at Battleground.  I've added a row cover to the bed, although it's off today to let in rain.  Probably due to warming effect of row cover, they are more vigorous than other rows of Chinese chives that I established last year.  Here they have more room, and a real local soil/compost mix instead of potting soil.  I hope they will rejuvenate and provide significantly more vegetable.

Garlic bed.  The Inchelium Red looks like corn.  It's big and vigorous.  The German Porcelain is doing pretty well too.  A few plants did not make it through the winter but most are sturdy and healthy appearing.  The row of unknown is a rescue variety.  The starts were smaller and later, so not a fair comparison.

The overwintering cilantro is growing nicely.  I didn't know until now that cilantro could be fall planted.  Good lesson to learn.  The Yellow Potato Onion is less vigorous this year.  I don't know why.  It seems to be growing now, including bulbs that did not germinate before winter started.

Egyptian Walking Onions

 The Egyptian Walking Onions are growing nicely.  Whatever was eating them seems to be leaving them alone now.  We should  have fresh scallions from these in 2 or 3 weeks.  We could now, if we will settle for small ones.  As apparent in the photo, on the left I replanted bulbs that I kept from full grown plants.  On the right are small topsets.  The bulbs have much larger, sturdier plants.  This difference should mean an extended window for harvesting scallions.

Raining - several inches in past few days.  Having prepared raised beds during the winter, no digging is needed to start some seeds.  I planted a row of cilantro, a row of spinach, and a row of Cincinnati Market Radish, a long carrot-like variety.   The spinach and radishes may need protection from animals.  Cilantro does not need protection.

Seeds Planted 3.6.14,  Radishes, Spinach, Cilantro

Not shown, the low tunnel bed has nice onion starts, about 2 inches tall.  The radishes, turnips, and mesclun are nice little rows, with big cotyledons but no adult leaves yet.  I don't know if the cover is protecting from animals - mice/voles - but so far so good.  Rabbits and deer can't get in, I think.

Peas haven't come up yet.  I will plant some in containers.

Overall I am very pleased.  Even though I don't know what I am doing sometimes, some useful and fun vegetables made it through a winter with historic freezes, and are growing earlier than the soil can be worked for Spring gardening.

Kitchen Garden. Garlic and Onions.

Multiplier Onions

Kitchen Garden

Over the past month, I put together 2 more raised beds.  That brings it to 10 of the 112 planned. For the final 2, I have all winter to complete them.

Last weekend, I planted the Multiplier onions.  The first 4 rows are Egyptian Walking Onions.  Then 7 rows of Yellow Potato Onions.  Enough for scallions and cooking or slicing onions.

During the past week, I finished filling the 10th bed.  Same mole-hill / compost mix, 50/50.  Today I planted the completed bed with garlic.  12 rows, 8 rose of Inchelium Red and 4 rows of random varieties.  The Inchelium Red is all I need.

The photo is from last weekend, before completing the filling of bed #10.

In the background, a cleaned-up bed for Ning's cabbages.

Raised Beds. Renovated One and Added a New One. Multiplier Onions.

Kitchen garden, from the west

 I cleaned up one raised bed.  There were some plant starts I no longer wanted.  I saved the row of Egyptian Walking Onions to clean up, divide, and replant.  I planted some at the same time last year with good result.  The cleaned up bed will be Ning's Chinese Cabbage bed.

Egyptian Walking Onions, before planting

Egyptian Walking Onions, cleaned and arranged

 After carefully digging out the onion bulbs here is what remains.  It's enough for about 50 starts.

Egyptian Walking Onions Large plants in place, now for the sets.

I cleaned them up, cut off the tops, split apart the topsets, and planted into rows.  They are about 4 inches apart.  We'll pull out every-other-one for scallions, leaving them a reasonable 8 inches apart.

Now they are planted and watered in.

This raised bed is another "molehill gardening" bed.  All of the added topsoil originates as mole hills.  I go around the yard with the wheelbarrow and a shovel, removing the mole hills.  I keep them in a pile and when constructing a new bed, that is the source of topsoil.  I mix with about 30% compost.  The compost is "yard waste" compost from H&H recycling.  I'm suspicious, some of that yard waste is really demolition waste - they grind up old wooden waste - but I think that's OK.

The molehills are finely ground, light, no clods, no stones, no plant matter.  Since they originate fairly deep, using them brings minerals back to the surface level.  They are very easy to remove and haul to the garden.   I'm not worried about the lawn sinking - stomping down the molehills would not help with that anyway.  

Kitchen Garden. Scallions

Fantastic! The first vegetable from the raised beds at Battleground. These were Egyptian Walking Onions, planted Sept 27th.  Not only did they survive the winter, they flourished.

Gardening for the next era.

This is a concept, I am making up as I go along.  I expect it to evolve.

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Each gardener has a local climate.  Also local soil, local minerals, local water, local plant diseases and insects.  By growing what grows best locally, the gardener pioneers for himself, and also for future gardeners.  Big companies can't/won't do that.  They grow what looks and does the best in big, regionally centralized commercial nurseries.  Plants that look best in the big box stores and garden centers.   Those may be shipped hundreds of miles.  For farmers, a genetic "bottleneck", is created, eliminating diversity by marketing genetically engineered crops that require commercial chemicals to grow.  

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Generations of gardeners and farmers in the past saved their seeds.  They created countless varieties of plants and great genetic diversity, and local adaptation.  Genetic diversity created opportunity and flexibility for changed conditions.  Now, with a much smaller number of hybrids (which don't grow true from saved seeds), and genetically engineered plants, that are not legal for gardeners to reproduce, we are increasingly dependent on plants that are not designed for diversity, not locally adapted, not amenable for the individual gardener to develop, probably more susceptible to disease, insects, climate challenges.  The effect is complete dependency on the marketer and chemical company, and at the same time, more risky plants with less future potential, and more dependency on chemical products for the garden.

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This is not to demonize hybrids.  Many of them are great.  But there is a lot to be said for saving seeds, starting your own plants from ones that do well for you, and sharing them with others.  It's usually easy.  It's very rewarding to see plants that I grew from seeds, that I collected from plants that I grew from seed, that I collected....

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Then there's trees.  Most nursery-grown trees are grown as cloned grafts from a small number of varieties.  Even forest trees are made via clones of the fast producing varieties.  That makes them more susceptible to disease and climate challenges.  By growing trees from seeds, you provide future generations with more genetic diversity.   You create a buffer against clonal degradation, and propagate varieties that prosper locally.  You grow a tree that is most likely to thrive in your own community.  That tree may impart disease or insect resistance not present in a clone.  In addition, cloned plants, especially grafts, carry viral disease from one generation to the next, but seeds do not proliferate the viral infections.  Virally weakened plants are less vigorous and less productive.  

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Figs and roses are good examples.  Grafted roses do not live as long, and virally infected roses are more susceptible to weather challenges.  Most figs carry fig mosaic virus, which is thought to make them less productive.  

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Many trees are easy to grow from seeds.  A young person will live to see the tree mature.  An older person will know that they have given something valuable to future generations.  As a boy, I grew maples, ginkgos, honey locusts, maples, and oaks from seeds.  Even though I don't live in the region where these were started, the last time that I visited, some of those trees were amazing, huge trees.  Shows how old I am.  My grandfather grew peaches from seeds.  More recently, I've grown ginkgos, peaches, cherries, and plums from seeds. 

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 The 15 year old ginkgo in my back yard is now about 20 feet tall.  That seed came from a tree, grown from seed from my elderly boyhood neighbor, Herman Deege.  He taught me about how gingkos were around in the time of dinosaurs.  Most commercially grown gingko trees are a handful of clones, all male to avoid growing female trees that make stinky, messy fruits.  However, ginkgos are also a food crop.  Americans have not caught onto that yet.  Similar thoughts apply to other tree species - ginkgos happen to be a favorite of mine.

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I'm planning to use more open pollinated, locally adapted varieties as time passes.  If I see a seed from a tree that is prospering, I might grow it.  I'll continue saving seeds from garden vegetables, and some fruits, that do well for me here.  I don't think I have to spend decades developing varieties.  Much of that has been done.  I just have to be conscious about my choices, and conscious about saving seeds when the opportunity presents.

Garlic, Shallots, Potato Onions. Progress Report.

Potato onions are almost all up, and 6 to 8 inches tall. The earlier ones are ahead of the later ones, by a few inches. Only one of the earlier ones has not sprouted. Several of the later ones have not sprouted. Egyptian Walking Onions are a little smaller but virtually all of them have also sprouted and grown to about 4 to 6 inches tall. The bed is a little weedy. I've been pulling weed seedlings. More of that effort is needed.

Inchelium garlic. I think it's at about 50% sprouted now. Keeping track of the growth will help me plan timing for next year. About half of the later-planted Inchelium garlic has also sprouted. Not clear the earlier planting is advantageous.

The german porcelain garlic. Growth is excellent. Next question will be, is faster growth more, or less, susceptible to the freezes to come.

The Holland Shallots are about 50% sprouted. The Safeway shallots are 0% = none have sprouted yet. I guess that's an effect of germination inhibitor, used for produce.. I wonder what germination inhibitors might do to the people who eat treated produce.

Raised Bed #2. More fall planting

Finished the second raised bed. Similar to the first. Moving soil and mixing in compost, is hard work. Like the first raised bed, much of the topsoil is finely ground mole hills. There are a lot of them. They are easily dug, and need to be shaved off for mowing purposes.

Filled, mixed, smoothed over, ready to plant. Like the first raised bed, I added about 1/4 to 1/3 compost, made at a local recycling center from yard waste. It's black and crumbly. This is the "experimental garden". It contains: 3 rows of German Porcelain Garlic. This is a new variety to me. The sign stated, German Porcelain Garlic has fewer, larger cloves - good, I don't like peeling the tiny middle cloves, and this variety doesn't have them; strong punguent flavor - good. So it's worth a try. 1 row of Safeway Red Shallots. Because that's where I bought them. 2 rows of "rescue Garlic" - NoID from my back yard, small cloves, some are bulbs that did not clove. I want to see if they produce well, once in good soil and treated well. They could be almost any variety - over the years, I've grown grocery store garlic, Inchelium Red, German Red, and NoID garlics. 1 row of Holland Red Shallots. I found them at a local nursery. I read grocery shallots might be treated with a growth inhibitor and not grow. So I'm trying both. 2 rows of Yellow Potato Onions - mainly the small bulbs, a few larger ones. I found them while sorting through garden tools. 1 row of Inchelium Red garlic. Wanted to add a few more. My favorite. 1 row of Ixia for fun and as a test. They may not make it through the winter here. 1 row with one Allium gigantium bulb, multiple Egyptian Walking Onion bulbs - these will split into several scallions, faster than the small sets grow, and divisions from an old clump of garlic chives, to see if they are regenerated in the new setting.

Laid out in rows, ready to plant.

Planted, labeled, covered with a light layer of compost, watered, and ready for fall. Note: Egyptian Walking Onion starts in the first raised bed are about 1 inch tall now. Growing fast. The rescued garlic chives are also generating firm, green, new growth, about 1 inch long. Garlic and Yellow Potato Onions are not yet visible. It's very early. It's been in the 70s anbd 80s, without rain. So I watered them today.

Kitchen Garden

We have been eating lots of cilantro. This was sown by crushing old flower heads from last year's cilantro, letting the seeds scatter on the mulch. The flower heads were saved by leaving them in the garden shed over the winter, unprotected. The cilantro is flavorful and tender. This method fits into the "cheap+lazy" gardening philosophy. I putter around far too much to be considered lazy, but "virtually no effort" takes up too much room in the labels.

The strawberries hold a lot of promise. The most blooms, ever.

The Inchelium garlic looks like corn plants. No scapes yet.

Several of the tomatoes have flower buds, even though they are only about 9 inches to a foot tall. I've started pinching out the lower branches, to maintain a cordon shape. One grouping had pale leaves - uncelar why, but this area did not get as much chicken compost. I added fish emulsion and added some epson salts for good measure (Mg and sulfur) and the leaves ARE greener today.

I hate to say it, but I planted some 'orphan' tomato plants in an area that is frequented by the cat for her litter box. These ARE larger and greener than the others. I guess this is OK - they are fruits, so the food part is not near the cat's 'products'.

We've been eating lots of scallions, both of the 'potato onion' type (my favorite) and the "Egyptian walking onion' type. And some of the 'I don't know what they are' type, that just happened to be left in the ground from previous years. These are perfect for the "cheap+lazy" gardener, since each onion produces sets for next year, at the top of the plant. These can be planted in the fall for early scallions, at zero cost and little effort. If you ignore them, they'll fall over and plant themselves, which is esentially zero effort for the gardener.

Today I planted another set of Ning's beans. In addition, I planted bush zucchinis. Something ate the prior seedlings. I planted new cucumber seeds, for the same reason.