chive seeds germinate before touching the damp earth
Tagged: Plants
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Back on Quadra
a vegetable garden in the centre of a vacant lot, viewed from above, East Hastings Street
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 y’all!”. I’m not going to write anything like that, and while I have been busy, I’m not going to list the minutiae with which I’ve been filling my days. I mostly just went to Vancouver and walked around the city. I’m back on Quadra now, and will now resume posting my minutiae.
The Start of Chanterelle Season
today's harvest of chanterelles, about to become soup
Tagged: Fungi
Chard Undersown With Crimson Clover
chard, photographed today, sown in late june, under-sown with crimson clover in early august
Tagged: Cover Crops, Plants
Second Farm Workshop
not related at all to our second workshop, this is a photograph of a cricket on a knife
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 classes in Vancouver and on Vancouver Island as well.
Tagged: Workshops
Unknown Fungi
found growing on a decaying conifer log
Tagged: Fungi
Winter Crops
the latest section of field to be brought into cultivation, started in June 2011
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…
Tagged: Plants
Winter Pea Cover Crop
austrian winter peas
Tagged: Plants
Cosmos sulphureus and Cosmos bipinnatus
two species of cosmos brighten the gloom of a rainy September afternoon
Tagged: Plants
Ryan and Lolo
The Author and His Nephew
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 idiot”. I think the way they reflect the sunlight in a sort of rainbow pattern makes me look futuristic and sophisticated. This post isn’t really about horticulture, it is raining out and I didn’t get any good plant pictures today.
Vancouver in Early October
'Rouge D'Hiver' lettuce and 'Tyee' spinach
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.
Fordhook Giant Chard
chard in a bed of assorted winter vegetables
Tagged: Plants
Part of the Garden, Viewed from Above
the oldest section of garden, photographed form atop a ladder
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.
Tagged: Plants
Fall and Winter Spinach
spinach, radicchio, and lettuce
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 that late-summer sowings of spinach quickly produce very healthy plants, much less likely to bolt before harvest. Pictured at right is a bed sown on August 4th, with two rows of ‘Tyee’ spinach and one mixed row of ‘Rouge D’Hiver’ lettuce and ‘Rouge de Verone’ raddichio. The lettuce and raddichio won’t be ready to harvest until late fall or winter, after I’ve erected a cloche over the bed, but the spinach is in it’s prime right now. I sowed a different bed to the same variety of spinach on the 20th of August, and I expect that sowing to produce a harvest in late autumn and early winter.
Tagged: Plants
Cortes Island Lobster Mushroom
Lobster Mushroom
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.
Tagged: Fungi
Phacelia and Clover as a Winter-Killed Summer-Planted Cover Crop
crimson clover and phacelia, planted late July
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 while that still may be the case, I suspect they may not be an ideal combination, as I’d rather the phacelia not bloom so quickly. Next summer I may try pairing this clover with something slower to establish itself, and planting the phacelia a few weeks later, perhaps paired with something with a similar rate of development.
Tagged: Plants
The Official Start of Mushroom Hunting Season
Laetiporus
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.
Tagged: Fungi
Autumn Workshop
Tagged: Workshops
Before the Fourth Picking of Ripe Tomatoes
immediately before picking
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.
Tagged: Plants
Roger’s Pears
a bosc pear espalier
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”).
Tagged: Fruit Trees, Plants
Winter Vegetables
winter vegetables emerge
Tagged: Plants
New Tomato Canning Record
part of the day's work
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.
Tagged: Food Preservation
Fast Bok Choy, 36 Days
36 days old, ready to harvest
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 to report that, 36 days later, none of the plants have bolted and they are ready to harvest. I will post the results of an August 17th sowing when the time is right. I am hoping this later planting will overwinter under a cloche.
Tagged: Plants
Hot Compost Shrinkage
a freshly-assembled hot compost pile
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 that the volume decrease can be used to great advantage, as two heaping piles can, over time, be amalgamated into one bin to free up space during the final stages of decay. The two photographs that accompany this post are of a recently-assembled pile. It was assembled one week ago, and is currently has a core temperature of roughly 70 degrees celsius. The first photo was taken immediately after the pile was assembled, and the second was shot one week later.
the same pile, one week later
Tagged: compost
Corn, 69 Days Old, Will it Ripen?
corn flower
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 an earlier variety, earlier in June, to assure success.
69 days after sowing
Tagged: Plants
Crimson Clover as a Living (and Dying) Mulch
sprouting winter broccoli with newly-sprouted crimson clover
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 that the clover will be killed off by cold weather in December or January, after which it will decay in-situ, providing the broccoli and collard plants with a slow-release nitrogen for healthy winter and spring harvests.
clover germinated under broccoli
Tagged: Cover Crops, Plants
Carrots for Winter
carrots for winter
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, and slightly uncomfortable. Pictured at right is a triple row of winter carrots, planted in June for an October harvest. The 50-feett long by 3-feet wide row contains approximately 450 carrots.
Tagged: Plants
Phacelia tanacetifolia
Phacelia flowers unfurl
Tagged: Plants
Nigella for Interplanting
Nigella grows beside (and above) black kale
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 best (March, here on the coast), and I suspect that properly-timed autumn sowings may yield even better results the following year.
Tagged: Plants
Yellow Beans
a lone teepee of Italian pole beans
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, but I suspect this is genetic, rather than nutritional, as nothing growing nearby is showing any signs of nutritional chlorosis.
Tagged: Plants
Buckwheat Grows Quickly
On July 24th I posted this picture of a recently-sown bed of buckwheat:
buckwheat, several days old
This is what it looks like today, eleven days later:
eleven days later
Tagged: Cover Crops, Plants
Corn, 53 Days Old
a block of corn
Tagged: Plants
Stung
bee-stung arm, 30 hours after stinging
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 of free naturopathic medicine. Today, part of my right arm is swollen and incredibly itchy. I guess the list of medicinal benefits attributed to bee venom doesn’t include “is an effective cure for bee sting-related itchiness and swelling”.
A thought regarding bees and venom: Bees die after stinging, so for them, isn’t stinging the arm of the gardener who is chopping down their food supply similar to a human who stabs a buffet employee then jumps in front of a moving bus after learning that the restaurant will be closing in five minutes? A bit of an overreaction, really. Bees are mysterious and wonderful creatures.
Young Beets
delicious beets
Pictured at right is a triple row of beets, two rows of ‘Cylindra’ and one row of ‘Early Wonder’. June plantings of beets are always very satisfying, as they tend to grow very quickly and healthily in the long days of summer. The beets in the photo were sown the first week of June. I also planted two rows of ‘Lutz Winterkeeper’ on the 30th of june – Those I hope to lift in late October and store over the winter in a clamp. That topic will be covered in a later post. I love everything about beets, including the excretory colour changes they induce, which were actually the reason I got interested in them in the first place, as a very young lad.
Tagged: Plants
Pea Storage
Jessica shells the day's harvest of peas
We planted many peas this spring, and are now reaping the rewards. They currently make up a surprisingly large part of my diet, for which I am completely thankful. We have started shelling, blanching, and freezing them. It takes Jessica and I roughly two hours to shell a five gallon bucket of them. “Can’t you just buy frozen peas at the store?”, you may ask. We could, but if we did that, what would we do with all of our free time?
Tagged: Peas