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Tagged: Plants
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Author Archives: Ryan Nassichuk
The First Frost of Autumn 2
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Tagged: Plants
Turnip Parenthood 6
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Tagged: Family Memories, Parenting, Plants
Fall and Winter Vegetables 0
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Tagged: Plants
Hairy Vetch as a Winter Cover Crop 0
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Tagged: Cover Crops, Plants
Winter Radicchio Report 0
The Rouge de Verone radicchio I direct-seeded on the 3rd of August hasn’t formed heads yet, which is a minor disappointment. The spinach and romaine lettuce I planted in the same bed grew beautifully, and have now all been harvested, and now I’m left with a bed of immature radicchio. My plan had been to [...]
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Tagged: Plants
winter peas as a leguminous cover crop 0
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Tagged: Cover Crops, Plants
Autumn-Sown Fava Update 0
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Tagged: Plants
Brownish-Gold Gold 1
Here is part two in my four hundred part series entitled “things we put in our truck”. Today I approached a young man raking leaves in his yard, and offered to do the raking for him, in exchange for my getting to haul the leaves back to the farm. He probably thought I was a [...]
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Things We Put In Our Truck
New Truck 5
We bought a truck for one thousand dollars from a very motivated seller in Campbell River yesterday evening. He had more need for an envelope full of cash than a vehicle after his fourth DUI charge, so we took it off his hands, along with five spare tires, a spare radiator, and a bunch of [...]
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Tagged: Peak Oil Peak Everything
Mache/Corn Salad as a Cover Crop 0
In early September, I broadcast-seeded some mache/corn salad/Valerianella locusta into a small section at the end of one of the main beds. This section had been growing lentils, which we cut down and harvested in late August. Currently, about two months later, it doesn’t look like the corn salad is doing much to suppress the [...]
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Tagged: Plants
Truck Wanted 0
We borrowed our friend’s truck this morning to transport some leaves and seaweed to our field, and we were having great success until one of the spark plugs decided to violently eject itself out of the place where spark plugs are supposed to be (I have some fairly large gaps in my understanding of automotive [...]
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Tagged: Peak Oil Peak Everything
Beets for Winter and Early Spring 3
Pictured at right are some of the ‘Lutz Winterkeeper’ beets we harvested today. They were sown on the first of July. The roots in the photograph are the grade-A specimens, which we have now packed in sand for winter and early spring use. Smaller, less-perfect specimens are being eaten now, rather than stored, as they [...]
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Tagged: Plants
Oats for Beauty 2
My limited experiences with oats as a late-summer-planted cover crop have led me to conclude that they (usually) don’t survive the winter, an attribute that makes them a desirable part of no-till and reduced-tillage crop management systems. They are also much more beautiful than the more commonly grown fall rye, with a more graceful, taller [...]
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Tagged: Cover Crops, Plants
‘Ching Chiang’ Bok Choi 0
The bok choi pictured at right has started to form flower buds, which is somewhat disappointing. I had hoped it would wait until spring to begin it’s reproductive cycle, as we plan on constructing a low polytunnel over it’s bed for winter protection. It is ‘Ching Chiang’ from West Coast Seeds, flanked by ‘Tyee’ Spinach. [...]
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Tagged: Plants
Italian Dandelion Flower Buds 2
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Tagged: Plants
Autumn Broad Beans 0
For years I’ve been hearing about how well fall sowings of broad beans work in our coastal climate. For years I haven’t gotten around to trying this out. This year is different, as I’ve reached a new level of seriousness with regards to broad beans. About two weeks ago I sowed a 100-square-foot trial bed [...]
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Tagged: Plants
The Results of a Late July Sowing of Turnips 0
In late July I sowed some ‘Purple Top White Globe’ turnips for our turnip-loving friend Bruce. If I were in charge of naming this type of turnip, and it may be worth noting that I do one day intend to be in the sort of person who feels eligible to name turnip and other vegetable [...]
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Tagged: Plants
Autumn and Winter Vegetables 0
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Tagged: Plants
Shaggy Manes Burst Through a Gravel Road 0
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Tagged: Fungi
Taricha granulosa? 0
Jessica found this adorable newt while working in a perennial border this afternoon. It seemed to be asleep, and slowly woke up as we looked at it and took it’s picture. It may or may not be Taricha granulosa, the rough-skinned newt.
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Tagged: Wildlife
Red Buckwheat Seeds 0
It has been my experience that buckwheat occasionally forms bright red seeds. While the overwhelming majority of buckwheat plants produce seeds that start whitish, and ripen to a brownish hue, on in a great many plants tend to produce seeds that are not white at all. They are easy to spot.
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Tagged: Plants
Eager Chive Seedlings 0
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Tagged: Plants
Back on Quadra 0
It is all too common for bloggers to stop blogging for a while, then put up a post that says something along the lines of “I’ve been SO busy lately, with my parachute lessons, and my chimp adoption interviews, and my toenail transplant, and I haven’t had time to update my blog at all. Sorry [...]
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Dill Seed 1
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The Start of Chanterelle Season 5
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Tagged: Fungi
Chard Undersown With Crimson Clover 0
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Tagged: Cover Crops, Plants
Second Farm Workshop 0
We held our second workshop at the farm this morning, and by all accounts it was a success. We had twenty-one students, seven more than the first workshop, held in May. Over the course of 2012 we are planning to hold nine workshops here at the farm, and I hope to soon start teaching gardening [...]
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Tagged: Workshops
Unknown Fungi 3
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Tagged: Fungi
Winter Crops 0
Pictured at right is the section of field we brought into cultivation in early June. Aside from corn, this section is occupied by cool weather crops for fall, winter, and early spring harvests. A partial list of the vegetables in the photograph: Sprouting broccoli, carrots, collards, chard, spinach, bok choi, raddichio, lettuce, mache, dandelion…
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Tagged: Plants
Winter Pea Cover Crop 0
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Tagged: Plants
Cosmos sulphureus and Cosmos bipinnatus 0
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Tagged: Plants
Ryan and Lolo 3
My sister and nephew visited the farm the other week, which was fun. Pictured at right is Loic getting to know his uncle Ryan. He looks really happy in the picture, which is nice. Jessica can’t stand the sunglasses I am wearing in the photo – She says they make me look like a “big [...]
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Vancouver in Early October 0
I’ll be visiting Vancouver between September 30th and October 4th. If anyone reading this in the Vancouver area is in need of my horticultural consultation services, I can be reached at nassichuk [at] gmail [dot] com.
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Fordhook Giant Chard 0
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Tagged: Plants
Part of the Garden, Viewed from Above 0
The garden is partway through it’s autumn march into cover crops and mulch. Pictured at right is the first section we developed, back in early April. Most of the summer crops have been harvested, replaced by rye, buckwheat, winter peas, and oats.
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Tagged: Plants
Fall and Winter Spinach 4
Over the years I’ve grown more and more impressed with fall and winter spinach, and less so with spring and summer spinach. While I have grown good crops of spring-planted spinach before, I’ve often felt rushed to harvest it before it begins bolting, it’s unpalatable response to the increasing daylength of summer’s approach. I find [...]
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Tagged: Plants
Cortes Island Lobster Mushroom 1
I found this lobster mushroom on Cortes Island. We went spearfishing as well, though I don’t have any photos of that, you’ll have to take my word for it that it was amazing.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: Fungi
Phacelia and Clover as a Winter-Killed Summer-Planted Cover Crop 3
In late July I pulled up a spent crop of peas and planted the bed to a mixture of crimson clover (Trifolium incarnatum) and phacelia (Phacelia tanacetifolia). The phacelia has already formed flower buds, and I expect it will begin blooming within the next week. My hope is that both these species are winterkilled, and [...]
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Tagged: Plants
Perhaps the Corn Will Ripen After All 0
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Tagged: Plants
The Official Start of Mushroom Hunting Season 5
Jessica found the beautiful creature in the photograph. I feel that it’s dramatic appearance marks the start of the 2011 mushroom season for us. I’m 99% certain it is Laetiporus sulphureus. I hope to be 100% sure soon, after spending some time with my fungi identification mentors on Cortes Island.
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Tagged: Fungi
Autumn Workshop 2
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Tagged: Workshops
Before the Fourth Picking of Ripe Tomatoes 1
Our ‘Latah’ tomatoes have undergone four major pickings so far this year, and are still producing very healthy quantities of ripe fruits. Pictured at right is a healthy plant about to have all of it’s ripe fruits harvested.
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Tagged: Plants
Roger’s Pears 1
This photo is of one of my grandfather’s espalier’d pear trees. His pruning technique is flawless, and the results speak for themselves. If you are reading this, great job, Roger (of course I know you aren’t reading this, because you think the internet is “a bunch of bullshit”).
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Tagged: Fruit Trees, Plants
Winter Vegetables 0
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Tagged: Plants
New Tomato Canning Record 2
Jessica and I canned 65 quarts of diced tomatoes today. I am currently experiencing a canning-related altered state of consciousness: The world has taken on a pinkish hue, I smell like ketchup, and I am little bit dizzy. We broke all our previous canning records. Time for bed.
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Tagged: Food Preservation
Fast Bok Choy, 36 Days 0
I’ve had mixed results with midsummer sowings of bok choy – My experience as been that many varieties bolt far too soon to be of much use, while others produce variable crops over variable timespans. On the 20th of July I sowed an experimental patch of ‘Ching Chiang’ Shanghai-style bok choy, and am very pleased [...]
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Tagged: Plants
Hot Compost Shrinkage 2
My estimate is that the thermophilic (hot) compost piles I assemble decrase in volume by approximately 60 percent from the moment they are first assembled and wet down to the moment they have decayed enough to use in gardens. I generally turn hot piles once or twice over the course of their lives, and find [...]
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Tagged: compost
Corn, 69 Days Old, Will it Ripen? 0
The corn I planted in early June has just started to form male flowers. At this point, it is hard to know if we’ll have a harvest or not this year. It doesn’t really matter to me if we don’t, because the corn is beautiful and I like watching it grow. Next year I’ll plant [...]
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Tagged: Plants
Crimson Clover as a Living (and Dying) Mulch 0
I undersowed our june-planted sprouting broccoli and collard plantings with crimson clover one week ago. I broadcast clover the seed, then gently scratched it in and patted it down. After keeping the beds moist for four days, it began to spout, and today things are starting to green up under the brassicas. My hope is [...]
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Tagged: Cover Crops, Plants
Flax 0
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Tagged: Plants
Carrots for Winter 2
I never used to plant much in rows, generally favouring more finely-engineered grid patters for the smaller gardens of my past. Now that I have more space, and am using hoes and weed knives for weed control, I’m finding myself using string lines and rows more often. It makes me feel very conservative and old-fashioned, [...]
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Tagged: Plants
Phacelia tanacetifolia 0
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Tagged: Plants
Nigella for Interplanting 0
Nigella damascena, also dramatically referred to as’Love in a Mist’, has become one my favourite annual flowers for interplanting with vegetables. It’s delicate structure lends itself well to growing up through neighbouring plants without casting too much shade, and both it’s flowers and seedpods are strikingly beautiful. I’ve found that early sowings tend to work [...]
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Tagged: Plants
Pea Sheller? 0
Unrelated to the photograph at right, if anyone feels like making one of these, I’d like to borrow it for a couple of months next summer. Please paint it blue (to match my eyes).
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Tagged: Plants
Yellow Beans 0
We didn’t grow very many beans this year, which has been an interesting experience, as in previous gardens we’ve always planted far too many. Pictured at right is a teepee of an ‘Italian’ pole bean I whose seeds I picked up at the inaugural North Vancouver Seedy Saturday in March. The foliage is somewhat yellow, [...]
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Tagged: Plants
Buckwheat Grows Quickly 0
On July 24th I posted this picture of a recently-sown bed of buckwheat: This is what it looks like today, eleven days later:
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Tagged: Cover Crops, Plants
Corn, 53 Days Old 0
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Tagged: Plants
Stung 4
Yesterday, while chopping up some blooming borage plants for use as mulch, I was stung by two bees in the space of about thirty seconds. I’d recently heard that bee venom is healthy for some reason or other, so I counted myself lucky, and didn’t remove the stingers. I figured I’d take a full dose [...]
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Nigella 0
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Tagged: Plants