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.  

Read All About It
This fantastic article will appear in tomorrow's Washington Post food section.  Martha Miller does a great job of describing what we do here.  Hope you enjoy reading it!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/the-farm-at-the-table/2012/10/08/4299e138-0373-11e2-8102-ebee9c66e190_story.html

It's hard to believe it's October...

The garden shed decorated for fall

So we have been having incredible weather. Cool crisp mornings with bright sunshine all day, perfect for fall crops. There still hasn't been much rain, but I’ve been running the irrigation and all is doing well. 

Last week the kids from both the culinary and the horticulture class from Rappahanock County High School came and paid us a visit.  There were 35 kids total and we toured the property as well as the kitchen, and then they helped us to get a few projects finished.  We mulched our little nature trail, and pulled all of the cherry tomato plants out of the garden.  Many hands definitely make light work and we got further on the path in half an hour than we would have all day with our own small crew, so they were a big help, and hopefully they learned something as well.  Blue was really in his element, getting love from all the kids.  He’s a glutton for attention. 

Working with the students of Rappahannock High School (and Blue)

Other than that the week consisted of a little planting with spinach, lettuce, kohlrabi, pac choi and swiss chard going in, and a little seeding with radishes and turnips. Lots of weeding got done, and things are looking great in the garden. Having the wall of cherry tomatoes gone makes the whole space look so different, everything opened up and seemed to get a lot bigger. 

The stink bugs are leaving the garden and heading for the indoors, good news for the veggies and bad news for the shed, as they are wiggling themselves into every nook and cranny for the winter. Other than them the bug troubles seem to be over for the season, which is great, there were a lot of battles this year.  Now I can only hope for a nice cold winter so that we don’t have a lot of these same problems next year. A few good long freezes would do wonders to take out a little of the populations, not to mention killing off the late blight that got the tomatoes.

Not too much on the agenda for this week, mostly clean up projects, like removing drip tape and cleaning shallots, some greenhouse work, and of course harvesting.  On the list for this week, we have pac choi, romaine lettuce, beautiful carrots, beets, salsify, scorzonera, flageolet beans, haricovert beans, lima beans, peppers, eggplant, heirloom tomatoes and herbs.  

Harvested pac choi ready for the kitchen

Look for an article on restaurants with their own farms and gardens next Wednesday in the Washington Post.