Garden Share Collective - January 2015

I'll start with a quick tour of the garden on the last day of the year.

Bed #4

Bed #4 has been cleared of all the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants. Half the bed is sown with Extra Early Violet fava beans. They are enclosed in netting draped cages to protect the seedlings from the birds. The first beans have started to emerge. The other half of the bed has been sown with Kodiak mustard as a cover crop and green manure. I cut the peppers and eggplants nearly to the ground and sowed the mustard around the stumps. I hope that by the time the mustard is ready to turn in, likely some time in March, the roots of the peppers and eggplants will have rotted for the most part and added to the organic matter in the soil. The mustard is also covered up to keep the birds from feasting on the plants.

Bed #1 had a few stragglers from the fall garden, snap and snow peas on the trellis, a few Watermelon radishes, a patch of multi-colored carrots, and bolting cilantro. The area with the fabric covering the soil is where I had cut down a mustard cover crop and dug it in.

Bed #1

I had planted the far end of the bed with garlic on November 8 and most of it had sprouted by the end of December.

Garlic in Bed #1

Bed #2 is devoted to fall and winter vegetables, including chard, celeriac, celery, Romanesco broccoli, Lacinto kale...

Bed #3

Di Ciccio sprouting broccoli, Tronchuda Beira cabbage, some experimental late plantings of escarole and radicchio.

Bed #3 was just lately cleared of the Tromba D'Albenga squash and cucumbers after the first frost of the season about 10 days ago. We've had overnight temperatures dipping into the freezing range since then so I started to cover the celery plants with frost cloth to protect the stems. I've found that even though celery can survive overnight freezes it makes the stems spongy and unappetizing. The bottles of water shown below are warming up in the sunlight and then I place them amongst the celery plants before I cover them up for the night. The water should add a bit more protection from the cold temperatures.

Bed #3

The tunnels in Bed #3 are protecting more winter greens. The tunnels are for bird protection but they also provide support for an additional cover of frost cloth. This tunnel has a few struggling beets and some happy lettuces (Michelle batavian, Ruby Gem romaine, Superior iceberg, Rhapsody butterhead,  and Sweetie Baby romaine). I've started to harvest the Ruby Gem romaine on a cut-and-come-again basis.

Bed #3

The other tunnel is protecting the winter parsley, arugula, radishes, turnips, rapini, and spinach. I will have to clear out this bed by the end of January so that in February I can dig out the invading oak roots, line the bed with a root barrier, and then sow it with a cover crop in preparation for setting out tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants by June 1.

Bed #3

December seeding and planting activities -

• December 13 sowed favas directly into Bed #4.
• December 17, sowed seeds for Blue Solaise and Lungo Della Riviera leeks, Zebrune shallots, Express Red and Pixie cabbages, all in 4-inch pots.
• December 23, sowed more favas to complete the sowing along the length of Bed #4.
• Sowed Kodiak mustard in Bed #4 as a cover crop (didn't record the date).

Here's a summary of the harvests in December:

December Summary	Lb.	Kg.
Beans	0.6	0.3
Broccoli	3.0	1.4
Cabbage	1.8	0.8
Carrots	2.7	1.2
Celery	2.7	1.2
Cucumbers	1.4	0.6
Eggplant	10.0	4.5
Kale	1.8	0.8
Lettuce	0.2	0.1
Peas	2.9	1.3
Radishes	2.1	1.0
Rapini	1.5	0.7
Spinach	1.9	0.9
Turnips	0.1	0.0
Zucchini	2.8	1.2
	35.4	16.1

December	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014
Beans, dried		1.2	1.2		0.6
Beets		0.8
Broccoli		3.4	0.6	1.4	3.0
Broccoli, Romanesco	5.4
Cabbage, incl. Napa				6.2
Cabbage, Portuguese			2.1		1.8
Carrots				0.2	2.7
Celery			2.1	1.8	2.7
Celeriac	18.3	7.3
Chard			2.0
Cucumbers					1.4
Eggplant			5.1	4.1	10.0
Garlic				0.4
Kale	7.5	1.9	2.2	1.7	1.8
Lettuce		1.8	0.2		0.2
Onion			4.1
Pea, snap and snow				0.3	2.9
Peppers	0.6	3.0	7.5	29.6
Radishes					2.1
Rapini					1.5
Spinach		1.7			1.9
Tomatoes			11.0	6.0
Turnips					0.1
Zucchini				0.5	2.8
	31.8	21.1	38.1	52.1	35.5

You can see photos and details of my harvests in my weekly Harvest Monday posts.

Plans for January include -

• Plant out onions in Bed #1, which is half finished already. I received my order of mixed onion seedlings from Dixondale Farms on January 2 and planted them on January 3. The onions that I started from seed will be planted out by the end of the month.
• Finish cleaning out Bed #1 in preparation for planting shallots and leeks.
• Remove broccoli from Bed #2.
• Find new strawberry plants to go into Bed #2.
• Clear out Bed #3 as mentioned before.
• Sow seeds for spring broccoli, cauliflower, and lettuces? I may wait until February for that, depending on whether or not the plants in Bed #2 look like they are on the verge of bolting or not.
• Finalize my seed selections and order up!

The Garden Share Collective is a group of bloggers who share their vegetable patches, container gardens and the herbs they grow on their window sills. Creating a monthly community to navigate through any garden troubles and to rival in the success of a good harvest we will nurture any beginner gardener to flourish. Each month we set ourselves a few tasks to complete by the next month, this gives us a little push to getting closer to picking and harvesting. The long-term goal of the Garden Share Collective is to get more and more people gardening and growing clean food organically and sustainably.

The Collective is hosted by Lizzie on her blog Strayed from the Table, there you will find links to gardeners in Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Europe, and United States. There's lots of garden inspiration waiting for you there!