Friday, December 23, 2016

Garden Update - December 23, 2016

The garden is in winter mode now that it's been hit with a couple of blasts of below freezing temperatures.


Bed #1 is definitely ready to be cleaned out and planted with the winter cover crop of mostly mustard.

Beyond in Bed #2 you can see the protection that I set up over the Aji pepper plants.


As you can see the protection was effective. The Aji Amarillo Grande plant is alive and well and the remaining peppers are in excellent shape. Much to my amazement they are continuing to ripen. The Baby Aji Amarillo plants are on the left, pepperless but still alive and well. And there's one Mareko Fana plant hiding in the rear on the right - it's still alive too.

Aji Amarillo Grande
Elsewhere in Bed #2 I've got early sown Robin Hood Fava beans. I wasn't so sure how they were going to do after a couple of nights of freezing temperatures.

Frozen Robin Hood Fava Plant
The plants didn't look very happy in a frozen state.

Revived Robin Hood Fava Plant
But one week later they look totally unfazed by the freeze and they are even starting to bloom.

Fava Blossoms
I won't bother to show the frost nipped tomato plants, most of you know what a sorry sight that is.

Over in Bed #3 I've got some spinach and broccoli seedlings started under water bottle cloches.


Oh boy, do they look cold in their icy bottles. Brrr...


But both the broccoli and spinach sailed through the cold and are growing. I may be harvesting some spinach in a few weeks.

Spinach seedling

Batavia Broccoli Seedling

There's new seedlings hiding in water bottles in Bed # 4 also.

Kolibri Kohlrabi

Palla Rossa Radicchio

Mizunarubasoi
There's a few brassicas that should be sweeter for the freezer treatment.


Brussels Sprouts



Tronchuda Beira Cabbage


Dazzling Blue Kale
Chard Cage
The chard came through the freeze ok as well, but I did put a double layer of frost cloth over the cage.  I hope the cold put a dent in the aphid population...

That's the latest from my winter garden.

An early Merry Christmas to all of you who celebrate.

Whoa! I just noticed that this is my 800th published post!

6 comments:

  1. 800! Wow! That's dedication. Is that amount of frost unusual or normal for you? The pix of the brassica above the B-sprouts is gorgeous. I like sprouts. I just made a marinated salad of them for tomorrow (traditional Christmas Eve dinner with family): sprouts, small tomatoes and mushrooms with Asian sesame dressing.

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    1. That kind of frost is normal once or twice every winter. The brassica above the brussels sprouts is the top of the brussels sprouts plants. Tonight I've got a bunch of sprouts roasting in a cast iron pan in a hot oven with pancetta, I'itoi onions, and pine nuts. Yum!

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  2. You're right Jane , that is a lot of dedication. I am quiet inspired by your gardening, Michelle, and your use of your produce.
    If you switch over to snapchat, or whatever works better for you, I hope you'll consider keeping this blog alive... I do use searches of your blog to get insight into growing new (to me) vegetables. Thx for the blog and happy new year

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  3. Your garden doesn't look very wintery by our standards, There's still lots going on.

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  4. Yay for the pepper plants! And those brassicas are pretty with the frosty leaves, and I bet they will be all the sweeter for it. I love those bottle cloches, and it's a different kind of 'bottle garden' for sure. I hope you have an enjoyable holiday season!

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  5. Keep those peppers going all winter. I had the old VTR-95 jalapeno plants going for three years before they pooped out this year. Just doing a winter cover crop of Klondike Mustard this year, hoping to knock down root knot nematodes in our raised beds. 800 posts is amazing. I admire your dedication and enjoy reading your posts. Happy holidays and a peaceful new year!

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