May 10 - Spring and Cicadas

Well it has been a hectic month since I last wrote.  We battled the onion grass that takes over the garden each spring (though it wasn’t as bad as last year, so I must be making some headway), composted and re-dug all the beds, and planted quite a few spring crops. So far in the ground we have peas, fava beans, fennel, beets, onions and shallots, celeriac, pac choi, radishes, salad turnips, lettuce and spinach. 

Spring planting in the Garden of Eatin'

The hoop house is planted with cucumbers and melons, and the first generation of cucumbers is already producing.  With all the cool wet weather we have been having, all the spring crops are pretty happy. A big difference from last year when it was already pretty steadily in the 90’s by now.

Full view of the cucumbers in the hoop house.

The summer crops are all waiting patiently to get into the ground, except for the first generation of peppers and tomatoes, which we had to re pot.  My plan was to get them out this week but then came the monsoon. In the end it was a good thing, as they are now predicting a possible frost for Monday night.  Now the plan has shifted to begin planting on Tuesday.  So next week will be big for planting, with not only peppers, eggplant, and tomatoes going out, but zucchini, cardoons and okra as well.  All of the herbs should make it in next week too.  We have added a few new herbs to the list -- I found nutmeg flavored thyme, and a ginger flavored mint, that I can’t wait to try. It will be a busy week, but well worth it when everything is in the ground and happy.

Hopefully the frost doesn’t happen, but just in case I will cover some of the more tender vegetables. The strawberries for example are all in flower, and we are pretty loaded with small green fruits, which I would hate to lose.

 I wanted to take a moment and talk about the 17 year cicadas that are emerging this year.  A lot of folks have been asking whether or not they will affect the garden.  The answer is no, though they may be so loud we can’t talk to one another. The only things they may affect are young trees and shrubs as small diameter branches are where the female likes to lay her eggs. If you are worried about some new plantings you can net your trees and shrubs to prevent the female from laying her eggs.

I saw my first nymph emerging the other day.  They come out of the ground when the soil temperature is in the 60’s, climb the nearest tree and then shed their exoskeletons. The males start their loud signature song to attract the females. The females make no song though they will gesture with their bodies and wings, and make small sounds with their wings during courtship. After this they mate, the female lays her eggs in a groove she has cut in a small branch.  The adults will all start to die off in mid-June. The egg later hatches, feeds on the fluid the tree is excreting because of the groove.  That larval stage then falls and burrows down into the ground feeding on roots. After a determined period of time (between 2 and 17 years depending on the species) the nymphs emerge and start the cycle again. What exactly is going on with them during this time underground is still a mystery to scientists.  Somehow they count the seasons, maybe through the roots of the tree, changes in nutrient levels, temperature etc. so that they all emerge together. It is thought they orchestrate these mass emergences to combat predators.  The thought being if there are so many of them, even if the birds gorge themselves, many will still get through. 

Birds are not the only ones to delight on this mass appearance; many people are already posting their favorite recipes.  You can eat them at the nymph stage, and many believe that they are a crunchy, tasty low fat protein.  They will not be making an appearance on our menu.

This year Brood II of the Magicicada periodical cicada is set to emerge.  This is a large brood, but apparently nowhere near the largest.  The reason this particular brood gets so much hype is its size, but also the fact that it is one of the few large broods that affects the New York metropolitan area. There are over 170 species of cicada in North America, and 2000 worldwide. Some have been reported to reach 120 decibels with their song. So, though they will not affect the vegetable garden for the most part, we need to prepare ourselves for the cacophony of sound for the next few months.

April 

So spring has finally sprung, finished and we are sliding into summer. At least for this week. Welcome to Northern Virginia. Just 2 weeks ago we had snow, and I was worried that peas were going to out too late. I dream of rain showers and days in the 60’s. Mornings when I still need my jacket, but can feel the warmth of the sun on my back. My spring crops share my dream. This is the difficulty with climate change. Our seasons will become more erratic, highs will go really high and lows really low.  If farming wasn't already a gamble, it surely will become one in the next few decades. I spent today running around and irrigating my poor peas. They finally started to come up yesterday, and they have had to face an 85 degree sun. I tried to plant my onions as well.  I got two beds finished before it got too hot. Luckily we will be moving into more seasonable weather in the next week, so if I can nurture everyone through is heat we should come out well.

In the last few weeks I have planted lettuce, Pac choi, radishes and Japanese turnips undercover. Outside, I seeded shelling and snow peas, fava beans, spinach and all of the potatoes. The potato towers went in well, and I can’t wait to see how they turn out. I’m prepping the beds as needed; I applied about two inches of compost to each bed, and tilled it under. The only plants up so far are the peas.

In the greenhouse I have a lot of veggies. Parsley, celeriac, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, fennel, beets, etc. the first generation of tomatoes went in two weeks ago, with the next going in this week. I like to do at least two plantings of tomatoes, about three weeks apart.  This spreads out the peak, so that we don’t get overloaded.  Also this week I am ordering my irrigation and supplies for the season.  I started planting onions today, and I’m prepping beds for fennel, beets and carrots. I took the winter straw off of the strawberries, though they will have to be covered if we get frost. 

More soon...

March 25th

Well, projects have been moving along relatively smoothly.  

The raised beds are just about finished. I dug them out, put in the boards, and laid down landscape fabric to try to keep the weeds at bay.  After that I added a few inches of gravel to keep the roots from matting on the fabric. Last of all I added the topsoil mix in.  I still have to put in the irrigation and then they will be ready to go.  I have a variety of cucumber that will produce fruit as low as 50 degrees (typically cukes want it around 70) so those will go in mid-April, with the rest going in a few weeks later.

The potato towers have also come a long way.  I have built 20 of them to go down into the main garden. Inside I will plant red thumb, rose fin apple and Swedish peanut potatoes. These are all different types of fingerlings. Fingerlings work best for the towers because they produce tubers over a longer period of time as opposed to an early season variety like Yukon which only produces fruit once. Now that the boxes are done I have to work out the irrigation.

Other than that I’m doing a lot of greenhouse work. Eggplants and peppers went in this week.  We are doing several interesting varieties of each. For eggplant we have one called chu chu - an Indian baby eggplant that is said to produce copious amounts of bite size teardrop shaped fruits. We are also putting in a long Japanese type. These are nice because the skin is thin and therefore more edible and the flesh is non-bitter. For peppers we have the aji dulce, a sweet habanero, coming back.  These were used to make an amazing peach jam last year. You get the smoky flavor without any of the heat.  Shishito peppers are also coming back.  We have another small light green pepper to go with them called oriental wonder.  And last but not least, a cubanelle pepper also renowned for its smoky flavor.

I’ve included some pictures of the construction of both the raised beds and the towers, if anyone is interested in doing something similar.  Coming up in the next few weeks, we have the first of the spring planting.  I’ll keep you posted.

Beginning the raised beds

Getting ready for planting

Back to work

Vacation was amazing, though as always, way too short. I spent some great time with my family and friends in the cold north. One night was minus 18 degrees, way too cold for my thin Virginia blood.

After a few weeks in New England, I flew to Hong Kong for three days and then on to Thailand for two weeks. My time in Hong Kong was mostly spent visiting old haunts from my childhood, and eating. The food there is amazing, an eclectic mix from all over Asia.

I spent a few days in Bangkok, and then took off for the south of Thailand.

I spent my time island hopping, snorkeling and sea kayaking in the Similan Islands. The Similans are a string of islands all belonging to one national park in the Andaman Sea.

Now it is time to get back to work. The seeds are all starting to come in and I’m ready to get going in the greenhouse.  I look forward to this season, and we are adding some new and exciting crops, such as tiny bite sized eggplant, a cherry tomato that tastes like fruit, and gigante Italian beans. I’ll keep you all posted on spring activities.

The first plants are scheduled to go into the ground in just a couple of weeks.  Happy gardening! Spring is right around the corner.

Good bye until 2013

So the season is finally finishing up. Most of the vegetables have been harvested, though there are still a few things out there. The last few weeks have been spent cleaning the garden and removing plant material, doing inventory for seeds and supplies and organizing everything so that it is ready to go for spring.

The garden shed prepared for winter

I have also spent quite a bit of time in the office. I finalized the harvest list for the season and there were a few interesting numbers for the year.  

For example: 

• A total of 6000 pounds of produce were harvested this season
• Over 1200 boxes of micro greens were grown and taken to the kitchen for garnishes
• I pulled in 800 pounds of tomatoes and over 400 quarts of cherry tomatoes
• More than 200 quarts of baby shishito peppers were grown an devoured

Romanesco

Overall, it was a very successful season. We are currently holding our “end of the season” meetings to decide what to grow next year. The seed catalogs have started coming in and I love to flip through them in the evenings.  There are a few “new to me” vegetables that I would like to try including (but certainly not limited to) cubanelle peppers, blush cherry tomatoes, rose fin apple potatoes, and cardoons. I have to admit that shopping for seeds and fantasizing about the coming season is one of my favorite things to do.

Last radishes of the year

The last of the harvest will come in this week. On the list we have carrots, beets, romanesco, radishes, turnips, rutabaga, lettuce, spinach, pac choi, kale, collards, mustard greens, kohlrabi and radicchio.

In my free time I have been planning my upcoming vacation. I leave in a few days to visit family for the holidays.  I’m headed to the arctic north for 2 weeks in Maine and Vermont, and then I’m travelling to the tropics for a little over 2 weeks. The plan is to spend a few days in Hong Kong on an extended layover. My major plans while I am there are to eat -- I love the food there as well as the culture.  After that I am headed to the Similan Islands. They are located off the west coast of the lower peninsula of Thailand and I can’t wait. The islands are part of a national park where there are lemurs, jungles and some of the best diving and snorkeling in the world.  I’ll make sure to take lots of pictures and post them when I get back. 

Have a great winter.

A nest of baby praying mantis that will help keep the green house healthy.

November 12

The temperatures have gotten really cold, in fact last week we have even had a night under 25˚.  Most of my plants don’t survive. Thank goodness for remay (synthetic fleece which covers the plants and protects them from low temperatures) which keeps all of the plants snug down in the garden. I still have a lot of produce out there and I would like to keep harvesting until Christmas so everything is under cover except for spinach. Spinach can handle really low temperatures without burning or dying, although if the temperatures are low it isn't really growing either. We made it through hurricane Sandy relatively unscathed. I lost the last of the peppers, however with major frosts coming within 2 days of the storm, it wasn’t really that much earlier.

The last few weeks have been mostly cleanup, seeding micro greens and harvesting, with just a little planting. The only plants going in right now are pac choi and spinach, and the last planting is next week.  The pac choi gets planted in the boxes behind the greenhouse so that they can be covered with both remay and plastic, but the spinach is going out in the field. It may not be harvested until the spring, but we will be happy to have it when things begin to warm up again.

Drying verbena

The other fun project I have been working on is drying some of our harvest. I’m currently drying lemon verbena in the greenhouse so that we can make our own tea. Next week the lemon verbena should be done drying, but I still haven’t decided how I am going to separate the leaves and stems. 

The flageolet beans that I laid out a few weeks ago were dry yesterday, and so I spent the morning cleaning them.  I used an old world method for cleaning rice that I learned in India.  

I put the dry pods into a sack and stomped on it until all the pods were broken, and then cut a small hole for the loose beans on the bottom of the bag. 

What’s left is a mix of beans and a few broken pods. 

In India we would wait for a windy day to clean them but I just hooked up a fan in front of the greenhouse.  

I then pour the beans from one bucket to another in front of the fan.  The beans fall through and the chaff blows out leaving beautiful clean beans in much less time than it would take to break apart and clean by hand.

Cleaned beans ready for the kitchen

Next week is more clean up and organizing for the winter months so that everything is easily accessible in the spring. I also need to plant and mulch the garlic for next year, but I’m waiting for the soil to dry out a little.

On the harvest list we have radishes, turnips, carrots, beets, spinach, pac choi, kohlrabi, radicchio, cauliflower, micro greens and herbs.

It's already the end of October...  Can you believe it?

It has been so long since I have written, but it has been a busy fall.  The weather has been so obliging and the fall vegetables are rolling in. Nice warm and sunny days, and cool nights make all those plants really happy.  We had one major frost and I was able to cover my sensitive plants so we are still holding on to a lot of the summer vegetables with beans, peppers and eggplant still on the harvest list.  Unfortunately, all that looks to be coming to an end with hurricane Sandy on the horizon and the forecasted freezing temperatures for several nights in a row will kill off the last of the summer veg.  It has to happen sometime and we still have enough fall produce in the ground to keep the kitchen well stocked.  

Neon pink Scarlet Queen turnips on their way to the kitchen.  

I am still planting and will continue to do so for another month, maybe longer if it warms up again. Today I planted spinach, mustard greens and some winter density romaine lettuce.  For now, the plants are out and exposed but over the next few weeks I will begin to cover (once the temperatures are in the 20s at night) with agricultural fleece and eventually with plastic as well.

The last month has been a lot of clean up, pulling out all the tomato, and bean plants, laying straw over the beds for winter, pulling stakes and removing trellising twine. Most of the material has gone into the compost pile, except for the tomato plants.  Tomatoes carry a lot of diseases and fungus, so I feel it is better to remove all of the material from the garden, and then put it on a brush pile to be burned.  It is a precautionary measure as most of those problems die off in the winter, but if the temperatures are not cold enough (as happened this year) the fungal spores may survive and rear their ugly heads the following season wreaking havoc on the garden.

Flagrano beans drying in the greenhouse

This past week, in addition to planting and harvesting, I have pulled the last of the flagrano beans and put them in the green house for drying.  In a few weeks I’ll separate the beans from the pods and we will have dry beans for the winter months. Over the next few days I’ll harvest the last of the eggplant, beans and peppers, and put the plants in the compost pile. I’m cutting back the lemon verbena for drying (so that we can make tea), and then digging up the root balls to keep in the greenhouse for the winter.  Same goes for the lemon grass, and after harvesting I’ll save the crowns to replant in the spring. 

The next few weeks will consist of more cleanup, a little planting, and lots of harvesting.  In addition I will begin to reflect on the season.  I find it is best to sit down while everything is still fresh in my mind, and write out a list of notes; things I will do differently, crops that were successes or failures and why.  All of this is in preparation to meet with the kitchen, so we can decide what we want for next year.  I’ll let you all know how those meetings progress in the coming months.

Raised beds of Pac Choi

This week on the harvest list we have the last of the lima and French beans, eggplant, and peppers, as well as broccoli, cauliflower, turnips, radishes, spinach, kale, lettuce, pac choi, salsify, scorzonera, carrots, beets, and herbs.