First Harvest

Our first harvest (aside from lettuce) has been peas. We loved the shelling peas last year and realized our mistake was not planting enough. So this year we planted more and will likely plant more than that next year. I love them and especially in the cold months of winter. I honestly never knew that there was much difference in a store bought frozen pea and one I grew and froze. Big difference, try it for yourself, you will see what I mean. 

 

We picked for 30 minutes or so and this was our bounty. Not too bad for a first batch. We shelled them all while listening to the television and then blanched and froze them in Foodsaver bags. They are so sweet and hard to stop eating while you shell. This year we grew Maestro, which we knew from last season was a winner.  But in the spirit of trying new things we also added Green Arrow, which we have yet to harvest.

 

Maestro promises long pods filled with plump peas (as many as eleven) with a sweet and tender taste and I must say they deliver as promised. I love them. I am anxious to try the Green Arrow variety. Peas are a great crop for any garden but they are great in raised beds as they add nitrogen to the soil and raised beds are easily depleted of their nutrients. One must rotate the crop for the next season as they leave nitrogen in their place but use up some other valuable things. 

 

The raised bed garden has been floating in a sea of wood chips as the ark we built to get out of the rain wasn't finished yet. Just kidding. It has been raining a lot here which is great when it comes in spurts so I can go mow the lawn every couple of days. But not as great when it just won't quit. I wish mother nature could spread it out a little.

 

Everything is growing well and I am excited that the beets are responding. I had to replant the chard and also added some cilantro to that bed. We love cilantro in salads and in marinade all summer long, so I plant in succession as it is quick to grow and be done. Note to self: never allow it to go to seed near the strawberries. Lesson learned.

Raised Bed Garden Update

I thought I better make my garden blog look like I have a garden instead of only a chicken house or two. Here are a few current pics of the raised bed garden.

My broccoli is so puny. The plants are beautiful and big but the florets are tiny. Does anyone know why this is? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I amended all of the beds with mass amounts of compost this year so fertility should not be an issue.

The peas are not nearly as tall this year as last year. It got hot here early and stunted their growth. There are lots of peas on though, and all they need to do now is plump up. In the right hand corner of this picture you can see a sad and weedy looking bed. There are beets growing in there, I promise. I think I weeded out some of the actual plants early on. That will teach me to wait until I am sure what they look like before I weed anything. The other bed of them is growing a little better. They aren't big yet and I don't know why but this is my first year growing beets and I will just have to wait and see.

Here is a closer picture of the lettuce bed. I thought I would get decorative with the planting this year and that may have been a bad idea. It looks kind of silly to me and now some growth is disproportionate to the others. We did have our fist salad out of the garden last night and it was very good. This is the lettuce that my daughter assured everyone that came by was the best ever grown. I am glad she likes homegrown lettuce.

And finally I have a shot of the potatoes growing in bags. These were slow to get going but they are growing great guns now. I have 3 different kinds; Red LaSoda, Yukons and Red Norlands. The Yukons were the slowest to start and I was sure they must have rotted. I added a lot more compost to each bag today and will continue to do so until the end of summer.

Last year the summer was cool and everything in the "cool weather crop" category was a major grower. I was so excited as most of it was new to me. This year the heat hit early and hard and I can see the reverse is true for my early season crops. If you don't like the weather in Idaho, I guess you just wait for the next year. They are never the same twice in a row.

Garden Helpers

This is Emma, my niece. She and her identical twin Elle, helped me in the yard and garden all day yesterday. They are three years old and so fun to be around. When they were born they weighed in at 2 lb 12 oz., and 1 lb 15 oz., but you would never know that now! They have never experienced delays or holdbacks that some children experience after such prematurity. They were true miracles and I love them dearly. I decided to show their pictures today as my daughter is 13 years old and rolls her eyes whenever the camera angles her direction. These two are easier to capture with a smile. Emma watered for a solid hour with only minimal interference from me about raising the hose higher so she didn't bore holes around new seedlings. She did a fabulous job!

 

This is Elle, and she seemed more interested in helping with chicken house construction. She got too cold watering and wanted another job. She got to help me stuff straw mulch around the already growing plants in the raised be veggie garden. She is equally helpful just with different interests. These two work tirelessly. I hope they will have a love of the dirt and gardens too! We are going to try watering less this year and I believe the key to that lies squarely with mulch. We will see.

  

And finally, a little progress on the chicken house. So far no one has turned us into the building inspector. I figure my excuse will be to remind him I still pay taxes for the last several years on the chicken house that used to be here. Can you really need a permit for a chicken coop? Surely not. I am hoping that today we can get the roof up over the chicken house. The framing is almost complete, and we had help. Yeah for progress! (And for good friends who will help you out with building projects!)

Planted In the Garden So Far

 

Well, so far I have most of my cool season crops planted. A few of this years plantings are new to me. This list is as follows:

• Swiss Chard - Mixed Color
• Swiss Chard - Fordhook Giant
• Lettuce - Butter Crunch
• Lettuce - Simpson Elite
• Lettuce - Rouge d'Hiver
• Lettuce - Red Salad Bowl
• Spinach
• Beets - Detroit Dark Red
• Peas - Maestro (shelling)
• Peas - Green Arrow (shelling)
• Strawberries (already growing)
• Onion - Lisbon, White Bunching
• Onion - Red
• Onion - Yellow
• Leeks
• Asparagus
• Brocolli
• Brussel Sprouts

I only have one of the smaller raised beds left and was waiting on another type of beet for canning to show but Park Seed has failed me once again. I may plant Sugar Snap peas in that spot. Funny how we just expanded the raised beds last year and this year I am out of space. Good thing the new Intimidating Row Garden is under construction or I wouldn't have a place to put everything else I plan to grow. 

Finally in the Garden!

I am so excited to finally get into the raised bed garden. It has seemed like the longest snow melting season in history even though this time last year we were still covered in snow. Maybe two heavier snow years in a row has worn me down. But I am over it now. I even braved the wind to go outside. Don't get the wrong idea... Idaho isn't always windy, just in the spring when you really want to go out. It will die down soon enough it just irritates me to no end. I think I even got a sunburn on my face. Whoohoo!

 

I worked 6 of my 12 beds today. We turned them and added compost to each one. I like lots of compost. It makes things grow better in my garden. In case you're wondering the metal grates over each box are cattle panel that is rigid and sits on top of each bed. This keeps the cats out. And the dogs out. I learned this after the first year without them. But it still allows the goats to eat whatever they want. Really they leave everything but the strawberries alone. Goats are browsers so they will eat anything dry and leave most things that aren't. Except strawberries, grapes, red twigged dogwood bushes, new fruit trees, roses. You get the idea.

 

 

I also planted two beds full of peas. These little trellises are planted with Green Arrow shelling peas on either side of each wooden trellis. That will be lots of peas to harvest and freeze for winter eating. I can't wait. I haven't tried Green Arrow before so hopefully they will taste great. They came highly recommended.

 

And last but certainly not least this 4 x 10 bed is another bed of shelling peas. Maestro is the name of this pea and they were the shelling pea I planted last year and loved. Great flavor and good storage in the freezer. My only problem with this pea was that I did not plant enough of them. This year I ought to have plenty. We used metal stakes to make a zigzag pattern and ran string between each one at 6 levels. I planted peas on each side of the strings so that I could harvest all the peas without having to get into the bed and smash down the dirt. Rows would have made me have to climb in. I think this is a viable alternative. We will see how it goes. This too is experimental this year.  I will keep you posted. 

The package the seeds came in said to plant as soon as I could work the earth. Today I could work the dirt so I planted. I hope they can truly handle frost (freeze) as that is destined to happen in these here parts. Like how I said "these here parts"? Makes is sound like I ought to start the post with "howdy pardner". Maybe the next post.

Peas in a Row? Aha Moment

OK, so I am sure that most people have a solid planting plan for peas. I on the other hand do not and I have actually lost sleep (not much) over how to get the best bang for my buck, so to speak. I have mentioned before that I have some issues with tidiness. Maybe that is obvious to anyone following this blog for any length of time, but I am no longer ashamed of it and use it to my advantage. My rows are usually strait, I like the beds to look organized.... that kind of thing. But I really wanted to maximize the planting of the peas because I plan to harvest and preserve as many as possible. So.... while sitting in a beginners gardening class on Tuesday night, this was brought up and it was an Aha Moment for sure. What about planting in a zigzag pattern lengthwise down the bed. This way all sides are accessible from the outside of the bed. Maybe most everyone knows this one and I am way behind but I thought it was good enough info to share. I cannot believe I have never thought of this before but you know how that goes? Sometimes it takes a lightning bolt. You would set up your stakes and string or whatever pea trellises you use, as the above diagram shows. Then you would plant along both sides of the zigzag as shown by the green lines. Viola', maximized growing space in a 4 x 10 bed. OK, so I have the 4 x 10 bed, but you get the idea. 10 years of gardening and this little tidbit never occurred to me.

Raised Beds Free of Snow

 

This is what the raised beds look like when nothing is planted in them. But the true intention here is to gloat about the fact that there is officially no snow in the immediate area. YEAH!!!! Nothing is greening up yet but when the snow actually leaves, there is cause for celebration. My beds are made out of 2x12 lumber which is not pressure treated. They will not last as long but the possibility of bad stuff leaching into the dirt and veggies was enough to be OK with rebuilding them in 5 or so years. I may even get more time than that out of them. We will have to see.

These barren pictures show the layout pretty well. The grates on top are made from cattle panel (?) with about 6 in. squares in them. I have them cut so that nothing over hangs the bed, therefore no leg injuries when you walk by. The purpose of this is to keep the pets out of them. I had tall growing plants in the ones without last year. I will add them this year. You can plant right between the squares and plants come right up through them without any problems. Very great when the cats don't use them for, well you know. We filled these beds with compost only the first year. They were very hard to keep wet enough for good growing. I added Miracle Grow Garden Soil the following year. Only 2-3 bags per bed and they held moisture perfectly. I am going to try mulching them this year. Maybe with grass clippings? I have always been hesitant but I think they need some good additives as nutrient leach from the soil of raised beds very quickly.

Raised Beds In Use

Here is the raised bed veggie garden in actual use. We had a very cool early summer and some things did very well and others, um, not so much. Tomatoes and peppers love heat and we had that unseasonably late this last year. In comparison, the cool weather crops were amazing. It was my first year growing these early vegetables. The directions always say to direct-sow as soon as the earth in workable. Do they know I live in Idaho? And do they also take into account some people garden in raised beds? That makes workable soil way earlier than in a traditional row garden. So needless to say, I was intimidated and held off on the unknown until I finally decided to jump in, sink or swim. I can't believe I waited so many years to grow this early season stuff. Peas out of the garden can't be beat. Lettuce, fresh picked, will even be consumed by a picky teenager. The beds are each outfitted with a metal grid that makes it much harder for the cats to have a good 'ole time (potty) in my vegetables. That too is something I learned after the first year. As soon as everything grows up, you can no longer see it. I did not use pressure treated lumber because I wasn't sure if treated lumber was bad for my health or not, I decided to err on the side of caution. I will need to replace these sooner than if they had been treated but we may all live longer because of it.
I actually planted a fall harvest crop of peas after the spring peas were done and that worked out nicely. Not as much to harvest and the plants weren't as big but fresh peas are fresh peas. In the far back corner you can see a tower that I grew pole beans on. I liked the texture and height it added to the garden. I like it to be easy and pretty if possible. There are always so many projects to be done that I have a hard time appreciating what does look nice and function well. I am very impatient and that doesn't always work in my favor. The list just gets longer every year, never shorter. But some good old fashioned "Dirt Therapy" is usually good for the soul. I need spring to get here.