[1vertical]

Pinnah that has to be the living end of your garden now....it is plumb Winter!

Beautiful greenry....Nice   

[pinnah]

Whooee vert1, Winter did come, and quickly.  I just managed to get some garlic in
I am way behind, but hey I actually made a starter this morning!

Yesterday I got a seed catalog in the mail.  good grief....but I guess bama and centralcal are planting right now?


I have a couple monster kohlrabi....anybody try to make kohlrabi kimchi? 

[redbeerman]

Whooee vert1, Winter did come, and quickly.  I just managed to get some garlic in
I am way behind, but hey I actually made a starter this morning!

Yesterday I got a seed catalog in the mail.  good grief....but I guess bama and centralcal are planting right now?


I have a couple monster kohlrabi....anybody try to make kohlrabi kimchi?

No but I do slice it and pickle it.  Three ways, dill, spicy dill and sweet/hot.  It holds up to pickling quite well and is yummy as well.

[1vertical]

Pinnah, It would be nice to be  planting garden #2 right about now.  At least some
cool weather crops. But that ain't likely at these northern latitudes.

[pinnah]

meh, I am usually a little spent on the garden by this time....you are just dreaming of warmer weather.

Wow the redbeerman has to be the king of putting his garden up...pickled kohlrabi!!  Nice!
I am going to try and learn how to get some saur-kraut and kimchi going this winter.

 Crazy warm here today. I better pack in some compost before "winter" hits.

Cheers all.

[bluesman]

It's always sad to see the frost hit the garden, but that just means a new beginning is coming next spring.  My garden did fairly well this year, including the hops.  Pickled and canned about 3 dozen jars of assorted tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers.  Even made some fresh habanero pepper sauce.  Great stuff! Brewed an awesome Harvest ale with my Magnum and fresh Cascade wet hops this fall.  Used dried home grown Magnum for bittering. Since I'll be busy brewing 500 gallons at a pop at my brewery starting next April, I hope I can coax my wife into planting a few garden veggies next year.

Happy Holidays folks! 

[pinnah]

Another year in the Garden?
What are you folks dreaming about growing this year?



I am going to try and get a bunch of beets to store for winter.
I really like the yellow ones and the Cylindra reds...but I usually only plant enough for summer consumption.
Does anyone store beets through the winter?

And pickling cukes....want to make my own gherkins this year.  Yum.

I noticed yesterday that the garlic is sprouting. 
Also have some spinach and lettuces up in the hot box.

[AmandaK]

Last year was my first year of gardening. I learned a lot last year, namely don't plant what you don't eat! Seems like a simple concept, but it was lost on me when we went to the nursery. Preeeeeety plaaaants... 

This year, I'm starting a few things from seeds (just got the little guys started last night) and the rest I'll buy from the local nursery. Looks like we're in for:
-Garlic (planted last year)
-Leeks (started)
-Red bell peppers (started)
-Mini bell peppers (started)
-Poblanos (started)
-Romas
-Spinach
-Mixed lettuce
-Carrots
-Butternut squash
-Cantaloupe
-Peas
-Pole beans
-Onions
-Shallots
-Sweet potatoes
-Various hot peppers
-Various herbs

I gotta work on the garden expansion soon. Going from 3 raised beds with 80SF of space to 6 raised beds with 184SF of space. Much excite! I also now have a pressure canner, so I can put up the things I don't consume immediately. I'm really looking forward to the growing season. 

[pete b]

Another year in the Garden?
What are you folks dreaming about growing this year?



I am going to try and get a bunch of beets to store for winter.
I really like the yellow ones and the Cylindra reds...but I usually only plant enough for summer consumption.
Does anyone store beets through the winter?

And pickling cukes....want to make my own gherkins this year.  Yum.

I noticed yesterday that the garlic is sprouting. 
Also have some spinach and lettuces up in the hot box.

Another long winter here. Sometimes spinach, lettuce, peas etc. go in the week of St. Pat's day. This year there's still 3-4 ft snow in the garden. We plant 175-200 garlic cloves every fall so that we have enough for the year plus seed, I can't wait until that's up: that's the beginning of spring to me.
We do store beets for the winter. This year I plan on doing a better job growing beets and carrots. I built a root cellar in one corner of my cellar. I have a wood stove in the cellar so I needed to make a separate area. Its essentially a small insulated room with a dryer hose going outside to bring in cold air. Its about 45 degrees most of the winter. Garlic onions and shallots are stored in open paper bags as they like it cool and dry, potatoes, beets, carrots, and parsnips go in 5 gal buckets with lid to keep in the humidity. I have also used sand and peat moss but find I like the plain buckets. I like that the root vegetables stay alive.

Hard to believe this:

Will become this:

And this:

[pete b]

Last year was my first year of gardening. I learned a lot last year, namely don't plant what you don't eat! Seems like a simple concept, but it was lost on me when we went to the nursery. Preeeeeety plaaaants... 

This year, I'm starting a few things from seeds (just got the little guys started last night) and the rest I'll buy from the local nursery. Looks like we're in for:
-Garlic (planted last year)
-Leeks (started)
-Red bell peppers (started)
-Mini bell peppers (started)
-Poblanos (started)
-Romas
-Spinach
-Mixed lettuce
-Carrots
-Butternut squash
-Cantaloupe
-Peas
-Pole beans
-Onions
-Shallots
-Sweet potatoes
-Various hot peppers
-Various herbs

I gotta work on the garden expansion soon. Going from 3 raised beds with 80SF of space to 6 raised beds with 184SF of space. Much excite! I also now have a pressure canner, so I can put up the things I don't consume immediately. I'm really looking forward to the growing season. 

Good choices on what to start from seed. We can's help ourselves and are ever expanding. Our main garden is pushing 4,000 sq feet plus a separate 400 sq ft, 1,000+ sq ft of barley, plus a bigger and bigger orchard. Plus perennial herb garden, annual herb garden, plus hops yard. Someone really needs to stop me.

[AmandaK]

Good choices on what to start from seed. We can's help ourselves and are ever expanding. Our main garden is pushing 4,000 sq feet plus a separate 400 sq ft, 1,000+ sq ft of barley, plus a bigger and bigger orchard. Plus perennial herb garden, annual herb garden, plus hops yard. Someone really needs to stop me.

Dang, pete! I also forgot about the mini-orchard. We have 4 apple trees coming in a few weeks. Honeycrisp, Jonathan, Dabinett, & Kingston Black. Pretty excited about those.

So what do you keep in your perennial herb garden? I've had trouble keeping things alive over the winter and I'm much farther south than you. I tried to keep rosemary and thyme on the deck over winter, but that didn't last too far into December. 

When are you planting your carrots? I feel like I didn't get enough growing time in with mine last year. I just ended up eating tiny carrots - I was too impatient!

[pete b]

Good choices on what to start from seed. We can's help ourselves and are ever expanding. Our main garden is pushing 4,000 sq feet plus a separate 400 sq ft, 1,000+ sq ft of barley, plus a bigger and bigger orchard. Plus perennial herb garden, annual herb garden, plus hops yard. Someone really needs to stop me.

Dang, pete! I also forgot about the mini-orchard. We have 4 apple trees coming in a few weeks. Honeycrisp, Jonathan, Dabinett, & Kingston Black. Pretty excited about those.

So what do you keep in your perennial herb garden? I've had trouble keeping things alive over the winter and I'm much farther south than you. I tried to keep rosemary and thyme on the deck over winter, but that didn't last too far into December. 

When are you planting your carrots? I feel like I didn't get enough growing time in with mine last year. I just ended up eating tiny carrots - I was too impatient!

The perennial garden has things like mints, chives, lemon balm, and sage. It also has medicinals like yarrow and Echinacea and some bee balm as well as a little ornamental plum tree, cool rocks, and a big stone head of shiva. Its an overgrown riot of blossoms, bees, and butterflies. We also have thyme and oregano survive the winter somewhere else.  Rosemary doesn't make it, we've tried brining it in but to no avail. I think you need to get the right kind of thyme.
We start carrots as soon as the ground is workable which will probably be early april here. We sow seeds 2 or 3 times over a few weeks to make sure. The trick with carrots is getting them ahead of the weeds. Last year we got a big roll of burlap and after sowing covered the rows and kept it damp. This kept them uniformly moist, kept down weeds, and protected from frost. Once they come up remove the burlap and you have a weed free row to start. We actually found you need to seed lightly with this method because germination is close to 100%. From there weed and thin, weed and thin. Eat the babies as you thin. Nantes is an easy and fairly uniform variety.

[AmandaK]

The major advantage of raised beds is the "no weeding" part. Looks like I'll be putting in carrots in the next week or so based in your schedule.

[AmandaK]

Garlic shoots!!!

[pete b]

Yay!! Give them lots of nitrogen until you harvest the scapes. Blood meal is great.