It’s only 31 °F this morning but that’s not keeping me out of the garden. As far as I’m concerned, it’s Spring. It seems I’m not the only one either. I found this little friend squirming around the radish seedlings that I planted last weekend.

Everything in my spring garden is coming up nicely— lettuce, carrots, cabbage, spinach, radish. Even the garlic, which I thought I’d lose to the winter weather, is beginning to green up and add a few inches to the leaves.

Despite the crushing snow, I think those hoop houses worked out nicely.

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Mid-February means it’s chittin’ time!

In a few short weeks, it will be time to plant potatoes and I’m giving my spuds a head start by chitting them.

By doing so, the potatoes will be able to produce buds before they’re planted, which should give me a heavier and earlier crop.

Chitting is a pretty simple process. Simply lay out the seed potatoes in a cool, light spot and let them sprout. If more than one set of eyes begins to sprout, pare them back to a single sprout.

The entire process takes about 4 - 6 weeks (yes Anitra, those potatoes are going to be in the window over the sink until March), at which point I’ll carefully transplant them into one of my raised beds in the back yard with a little bone meal.

...and there they will sit, for about 110 days (July) until harvest.

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I was interested in extending the growing season a little further into the winter, so I built a few mini-hoop houses in the garden this weekend to cover my remaining crops.

To build the hoop houses, I bought 24” rebar stakes, a 100 foot roll of 3/4” polyethylene water pipe, and a 100 foot roll of 1 mil plastic sheeting—all for under $100.00.

I drove three rebar stakes into the ground, evenly spaced on each side of my 8’ beds, leaving about 1 foot sticking out of the ground. I then cut three 96” lengths of pipe, fitting each end over the rebar. To finish the hoop house, I pulled the sheeting over the hoops, loosely securing it with a few errant clay pots I have sitting about the garden.

I’m hoping to extend my growing season by a month or two into the winter as well as give me a head start on my greens and potatoes in the early spring. We’ll see how it goes but the thought of garden fresh cabbage, spinach, radish, carrots, and two varieties of lettuce in February sounds pretty tasty to me.

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August marks the end of our summer garden. Only a few plants remain including watermelon, pumpkins, and tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes. Time to bring out the canning supplies and make some sauce.

Plum tomatoes from our six plants had completely taken over our refrigerator and as the only person in the house that eats them fresh, I couldn’t seem to make a dent in their numbers.

I pulled out a fantastic recipe we’d used several years before from Biba Caggiano’s Modern Italian Cooking. It’s modified slightly to include some fresh garlic from our garden and a few other minor additions.

Three hours and a steamy kitchen later, we have sauce. Ten pints of “Teagan and Ayn’s Totally Tomato Sauce” to be exact. All natural, fresh from the garden, and one full pound of tomatoes per jar.

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Peak tomato season has arrived, along with the annual realization that I put in too many plants again. I’m the only one in the house that eats them.

Along with the tomatoes, we’ve harvested about 1lb of pinto beans, more jalapenos than I can count, and the corn should come in next week. I think a hearty Mexican dinner, with fresh food from my yard, is in my future.

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The salad greens and carrots are in full force, the garlic is swelling, and all of my summer veggies are filling in the remaining empty spaces in the garden.

At this time last year, I was in the hospital—too weak to walk, frightened, and very, very sick. While I took comfort in having my family near me during my 2 week stay, it was frightening to know that a team of infectious disease specialists were making little progress towards understanding what they were dealing with. I didn’t know why I was there or when I could go back to the peace of my own home.

Instead of watching the corn emerge, listening to the cardinals sing, and enjoying the blooms of my irises, I was stuck in a hospital room with views like this of my family:

During my stay, Anitra would bring photos of the garden to me and while they gave me something to look forward to, it wasn’t the same as being there.

I spent this morning fertilizing my garlic with kelp for the last time this year. Bulbing will begin soon so I don’t want to provide the plants with any extra nitrogen for green growth. Before the rain set in this afternoon, I managed to get all the beds weeded and plant watermelon, beans, and sunflowers.

This year, I’m especially thankful for the opportunity to see it all come to life in person.

Photos from today: corn, garlic, dill, spinach, lettuce & carrots

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April showers bring busy days in the garden.

Yesterday morning found me in the garden, in the rain, sowing a small plot of 70+ pinto beans. I also took time to harvest a few radishes which were sweet and crisp!

This coming weekend is my biggest weekend of spring though. For 2 days, I’ll be digging, weeding, and planting. Most of my summer vegetables will go in, including corn, tomatoes, squash, zucchini, and several varieties of bush beans.

I also have 2 more 4x8 beds to prepare and plant, thanks to the generosity of my neighbor. She recently offered use of her backyard (which is bigger and sunnier than mine) for expanded garden space in exchange for a few peppers later in the year and some brush clearing. Not a bad deal!

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Early April brings a flurry of activity to my garden.

My cool-loving, darling crops (lettuce, cauliflower, radish, carrots, spinach, and cilantro), planted weeks ago, are up and thriving but beginning to crowd one another.

That’s brings about my most hated day in the garden—thinning day.

It’s not that I mind the work. It’s a very focused, relaxing activity for me. What I don’t enjoy is plucking healthy seedlings that I’ve nursed for weeks.

Sometimes I find myself rationalizing a decision to not thin.

“Who cares if those are too close. I don’t mind eating twisted and warped carrots.”

In the end though, the weaker one always gets plucked.

To thin, you have to focus on the future. You have to ask, “what is this carrot’s potential?” and “how can I help it get there?”

And so a few weaker plants are sacrificed for the stronger ones. Both go on to serve me—some as food, the others recycled into compost (but only after nibbling a leaf or two for a taste of what’s to come).

Other activities yesterday included:

• Checking on the spears of asparagus poking up
• Preparing Bed #3 where my corn will go in later this month
• Planting 2 small rows of beets
• Weeding the garlic
• Trimming the clover around the raised beds
• Turning the compost pile
• Weeding the spinach
• Fixing the wire on the trellis for our cucumbers
• Transplanting more Italian flat-leaf parsley
• and even more weeding around the lettuce, carrots, and lettuce

All of that was topped off with a rest in the hammock, which made the day about as good as it gets.

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Half-way there.

I pulled a radish seedling this morning. It was planted on Mar 20th—twelve days ago. All these years of gardening and I’m still amazed by a seed’s exponential growth.

The tap root is well formed and the colour is developing nicely.

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I was in the garden this morning around 0 dark 30—coffee, camera, and garden notebook in hand.

As Scott Pharr referenced yesterday, the warming weather gets me excited about being out there to watch it grow.

Yesterday morning, I thinned a few plants from the garlic bed, giving the extras to a co-worker. Today, the ones I disturbed looked a little rough so I gave them a nitrogen boost in the form of a 12-6-6 liquid feed. I’ve never transplanted garlic before and read this morning that it sometimes doesn’t take well to moving. Lesson leaned. Next time, I’ll chop the stalks and add it to a salad. Hopefully the transplants I gave will survive.

Both the merlot and succrine leaf lettuce is up and growing well. I did spot our rabbit friend this morning though and I suspect I’ll have to find a way to deter him from visiting in the coming weeks.

The radish is also doing well, with the second set of true leaves now forming on most plants.

Looks like we’ve got some cool, damp days coming our way. Perfect.

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Cool and wet. Just what the plants need.

This past Sunday, I transplanted 10 cauliflower plants for Anitra into bed #6.

Several of them were looking a little shabby after the 30° weather the other morning. I checked on them this morning though and they’ve all perked up. I guess they just needed some cool weather and a little time to get settled.

I’ll give them a little nitrogen boost in a couple of weeks. ~58 days to harvest. Can’t wait to taste it.

The rest of the cool crops are loving the weather too—spinach, radish, carrots, and several varieties of lettuce.

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Dusk isn’t the best time to prune blackberry bushes.

I’m graced with a small, unruly patch of blackberry in the rear corner of the yard. For several years, I could count on harvesting 1 or 2 pints of sweet fruit, though I’d leave most for the birds.

Over the years, I’ve never bothered to prune it out of both laziness and the fact that rabbits and birds have taken up residence there. As the canes grew, some of them reaching 10-15 high and entwining themselves into a nearby willow oak, the fruit production dwindled.

Last night, after planting a few rows of carrots and lettuce, I decided to tackle the canes.

My goal was to remove the long, spindly canes, thin the patch back to one cane every 6”, and then tip the remaining canes to about 4’ while they were still dormant.

Things don’t always work out as planned though.

1. My pruning shears are in desperate need of sharpening.
2. Dusk is not the best time to prune thorn laden blackberry canes.
3. Evil thorns make me angry and bloody, despite the heavy work gloves.

The result was a hack job of epic proportions.

The bush is still salvageable (I think) but I’ll need to put some time in over the weekend in good daylight to thin the center of the patch.

And if I find myself without blackberries this July, so be it—I can always head up to The Virginia Berry Farm.

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Nothing like a little early morning gardening to start the day off right.

I started my day at 4:30AM planting radishes. With the soil temperature in my raised beds at 57° and rising, I decided it was time to plant.

36 plants went in this morning and my plan is to do the same for the next 3-4 weeks. Assuming we don’t get any hard freezes in the next few weeks, I should be able to start harvesting on or around 4-Mar.

Tonight, I hope to seed the rest of the bed with several carrot and lettuce varieties that should be ready in the second weeks of April.

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Teagan and I built three new raised beds at the end of January and I’ve been looking forward to getting an early crop of Cherry Belle radishes going.

It’s no surprise that despite the warm weather today, the soil temps are still very low - 35°. That’s way too low for seed germination—even radishes, which love the cooler temps. Temps in the raised beds are bit warmer, sitting just under 50°.

After a long nap on the trampoline with Anitra, I covered two of the beds with black plastic sheeting. I’m hoping that with the warmer weather predicted for Richmond over the next few days, I’ll be able to warm the soil up by 5° - 7° and get a small, early crop going.

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Last weekend, my sister and brother-in-law stopped by Willow Lawn to pick up a compost bin for me.

The Richmond Clean City Commision held a one day event to help Richmonders start composting by selling the EarthMachine for $35—$60 off the retail price.

Made of recycled materials, the 80 gallon capacity EarthMachine snapped together in less than 5 minutes. Although I’ve had two small piles going for some time now, the new bin makes the area nice and tidy. As an added bonus, my dog Porter won’t be getting into the pile any more.

Now I just need a couple of rain barrels and I’ll be all set.

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Green beans, baby carrots, new potatoes. All fresh from the garden.

I’m celebrating Father’s Day with my girls a little early. They bought me 55 lbs. of lump hardwood charcoal from Wicked Good and couldn’t hide it—so I’m tossing some of Tom Leonard’s steaks on the grill tonight. I’ll serve it up with a bottle of 2000 Chateau La Louviere and the veggies that we planted in the spring.

Nothing beats a dinner served fresh from the garden.

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Anitra and I spent 1/2 hour in the garden today harvesting about 10lbs. of garlic. We pulled it earlier than in previous years but it was definitely ready. In fact, some of the larger heads were just starting to split, so we could have pulled them last week.

They’re tied up and drying now and I’ve selected 6 heads for our fall planting. It shouldn’t be long before we’re enjoying roasted garlic spread over some crusty French bread.

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Despite calls to the contrary by some, I couldn’t get enough of the rain this weekend.

The cool, wet weather is doing wonders for the buttercrunch and the two other leaf lettuce varieties I planted this year. The potatoes are finally up along with first signs of the beans, sunflowers, beets, and carrots—although it looks like Mr. Rabbit may have had a midnight snack on some of the beet sprouts.

And of course, the asparagus beds are in full force now - with more and more purple spears coming up each morning. Those crowns were the best gardening investments I’ve ever made.

In another week or so, I’ll get some tomatoes and squash going. It’s going to be a bountiful summer in our back yard and we’re not the only ones.

John’s peas are looking great and Foodie has as an eclectic a mix as I do.

What are you growing this year?

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Cool and damp this morning. Perfect for weeding the bed of garlic. I also got some lettuce, chard, and spinach planted before the rain started.

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Weeding the garden is always easier with a pair of helping hands—and all the more so when those hands are only 1 foot off the ground. This afternoon, Ayn helped me weed the bed of garlic we planted last October. She dug right in, pulling up only the weeds.

All 60 plants look great and have us wishing for warmer days ahead (and homemade pasta sauce).

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Waiting on the mulch king.

I’m sitting in the truck this morning, waiting in a line of about 20 trucks at The Mulch King at the corner of Cox and Short Pump. I got here 4 minutes after they opened and I’m told that it’s going to be about an hour wait while they “make more chocolate chip mulch”. I’m here to pick up a small load of mushroom compost but because I’m so far back in line, they can’t squeeze me around the line of contractors waiting for their mulch.

Apparently chocolate chip mulch is all the rage these days. It’s a double shredded hardwood mulch that’s infused with organic compounds that turn the mulch a deep, rich chocolate colour that lasts for over a year.

You can see the colour difference in the photo below. Regular mulch is on the left, chocolate chip is on the right.

Fascinating, huh?

If you’re looking for top quality mulch and compost at a reasonable price (from nice people), stop by Mulch King.

Mulch King,LLC
2715 Pump Road
Richmond, Virginia 23233

804-270-2037
804-648-BARK

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