January 30, 2012

The garden in January

The Farmer’s Almanac prediction for South Carolina’s 2011-2012 winter has been spot-on forecasting a “very mild, very wet” season - we're loving it!

Winter parsley

Rosemary in January bloom

I wouldn’t say we’ve been busy gardening over the past three months, but we have been making plans.  We enjoyed a near continuous harvest of carrots, greens, cabbage, and brussels sprouts from our winter garden.  This mild weather has encouraged us outdoors to make some structural improvements.  When it's not raining, winter in our Zone 7 climate is the perfect time to build planting beds, lay mulch, and prune fruit trees. 

Crocuses

Frozen pumpkins

It’s also a good time to test garden soil for pH and other nutrients.  Acidity or alkalinity of the soil determines what can grow, and whether it will thrive or starve.  Soil that leans too far either way will inhibit plants from taking up the nutrients they need.  Last year we just threw our plants in and hoped they did well (they did, but…).  This year we will begin a more scientific approach.  A simple soil test kit showed our soil four inches deep is a 7.5 on the pH scale, neutral to slightly alkaline.  Most garden plants grow best in the 6.0 to 7.0 range, slightly acidic.  We need to lower the pH about one point.  We will broadcast iron sulfate at the recommended rate and till it under to do this.  Many gardeners lime their soil, raising the pH value if soil is acidic; oak trees are notorious for acidifying soil since their brown leaves and acorns leach tannic acid.  Our neighborhood was planted with maples and conifers, birch and dogwood, so there is no acid effect on our soil.  The only way to know what to add is to test.  We are aiming for a 6.5 value which probably will not happen this year, but this is a start. 

Our soil is between neutral 7.0 and alkaline 8.0

Our soil is also deficient in some micronutrients, especially calcium, which is crucial for fruit set in tomato and pepper plants, and for strong broccoli.  A broadcasting of calcium nitrate will amend this deficiency while boosting soil fertility where these plants will grow; raspberries also seem to love it.  Crushed and composted egg shells would do the same, but that would take a lot of eggs, and it’s going to be another year or more before we get into raising hens.  Blueberries feed on the ammonium form of nitrogen, and since they like acidic soil, we added ammonium sulfate to help keep them happy.  Finally, as fruit trees prepare for blossom and fruit set, we will broadcast an all-around general fruit tree fertilizer at the root zone.

Last post for 2011

Ground frost has greeted us every morning this past week.  For the moment we're enjoying our Fall beets, swiss chard, mixed greens, and carrots.  But the first hard freeze will blacken all but the most hardy greens.  Amazingly, brussels sprouts are ahead of schedule - there are several that we could pick even now.  Cabbage heads are the size of many grocery-store grown varieties.  It's time to take a break now that garlic is planted; the garden will remain essentially untouched until next February when we prepare the Spring garden for spinach. We've come full circle, and thank you so much for sharing this garden year with us!

February 21

May 9

June 13

July 11

August 8

September 12

October 3

November 7

Brussels sprouts forming in each stem node

The mornings are getting frosty now; at our location, first frost came on October 21 – in some places we saw freezing fog hovering over low areas.  But the 30^th was our first official freeze at 30 degrees F, signaling the end of the growing season for any tender vegetation.  What a difference seven days has made for the annual foliage show!  We are near peak with good autumn weather in the forecast, so those red, orange, and golden streamers should hold on for a while yet even as the most stubborn green oaks turn and join the show.

Our cold-weather crops seem to be unaffected and are increasing in size; cabbage will tolerate a normal frost but will not last when temperatures dip into the 20’s F.  Brussels sprouts are on schedule for a Christmas first harvest.  We have a good stand of red clover which we are using as a cover crop for next year’s corn.

A good stand of red clover will make a great green manure
crop for corn next growing season.

This is last chance to plant garlic in the South, and we confess this turn of the year has kept us so busy with autumn activities that we’ve put it off a little longer than usual.  We will be making that a priority this week.  We saved several of the largest garlic heads from last year and will split them into individual cloves to plant as seed.  Garlic purchased from the store works just as well as seed garlic – in fact that was one of our garden experiments that has turned into a staple for us; we’re now growing the 5^th generation of garlic from that original grocery store variety.  Garlic likes rich, loose soil, so we will haul out the tiller and incorporate a lot of milled sphagnum peat moss and some organic fertilizer in the row before we plant. We keep this loosely mulched with fall leaves after it sprouts.

Our Fall/Winter garden; the open space is saved for spinach and peas next Spring.

Our compost bin is more stuffed than a Thanksgiving turkey, and aside from those winter “regulars” we can dust off our hands from another gardening season.  It’s time to tuck next year’s garden in for the winter, and we’re already covering it with a layer of cardboard and fallen leaves through which we will plant next year.  It looks like we will have one more update in November to finish for the year 2011.

October 17, 2011

Mixed greens and beets thrive in these autumn days.

Fair weather made for a beautiful weekend at the Pumpkin Festival on October 8.  Cloudy skies moved in for much of the past week, however, dropping a slow, soaking rain that was just perfect for sprouting the red clover seed scattered the week before.  While we want that section to turn green, we do not want all the weed seedlings coming up with our fall/winter/spring garden; a quick run-over with the tiller set at shallow depth on a sunny day did most of them in.  Among our lettuce, beets, and other cool weather crops some selective hand weeding cleared the area.

'Northern Lights' swiss chard

It looks like we will be enjoying a nice crop of ‘Northern Lights’ swiss chard by first frost.  Chard is a variety of beet that does not grow an edible root but that makes an exceptionally large top:  leaves are often cooked like spinach, and stalks steamed like asparagus.  Chard is grown where conditions do not favor spinach.  We have enough spinach from last April in the freezer to last until March, so we’re just trying something different.

Cabbage plants have grown large and are making heads; brussels sprouts are adding height—sprouts are now the size of small peas in the nook of each leaf stem.

Cabbage heads are starting to form.

October is time to plant spring bulbs; last year we added hyacinth, muscari, crocus, and more than 200 daffodils to naturalize around the property.  This year we bought 100 Darwin hybrid tulips for the bed around our mailbox.  A past home owner installed weed barrier and filled the area with decorative stone.  All of that had to come out, and we excavated an 8-inch pit, which was no easy task:  if we ever do this again we will invest in a pick-axe!  Good soil mixed with milled sphagnum peat moss and bone meal was returned, and the bulbs topped with loose topsoil and pine bark mulch.  Tulips need several weeks of freezing temperatures to bloom, but our location at 934 ft. elevation is always cooler than town; we’ve already seen rooftop frost.

Our world is taking on a golden hue as deciduous trees move from early to mid-season color.  Pretty soon we’ll be getting out the leaf rake!