The 2010 garden

The 2010 garden is taking shape. This cold weather experience has given me the energy to adapt and change. My papers have a plot that shows the borders of fences and woodpiles. The center is blank. No rows or crops yet. OK, I put in the small greenhouse in the upper left corner. Next to that in the upper right corner is a dotted rectangle [maybe a high hoophouse] about twice as big as the greenhouse [about 15x20]. Down the page from the greenhouse is a row of 8 cold-frame boxes. Then beneath the 'maybe' hoophouse draw 2 more rows of cold frames. That would be 24 cold frame boxes. The rhubarb bed is in the way, so take 2 boxes out of the center row. Now there are 20 Coldframe boxes that are the Kitchen Garden. In '09 I had 11 frames. Some were perennial herbs, others flowers, garlic, leeks, and vegetables. The big summer garden is farther down the page --for another day of planning.

So here are spots for about 6 coldframes that I can plan with night covers to start a March garden of frost-loving plants. My wood-shop got finished this summer so I can saw and assemble the pieces inside. This could work. The studio is slightly heated so I could germinate some seeds inside at maybe 50 degrees. I will keep thinking......

Merry Christmas!

December carrots!!

Ok, I'm bad. There were two rows of carrots that were planted late and weeded over. I got one row out in November and I thought that was pretty good. With this late season, I got some out when the ground wasn't too frozen. They were good. Last week after the ground had frozen hard, I put bags of leaves on this last row. I thought maybe some insulation would help. So this week I went out with a bucket and started digging and chipping. Most of the ground was soft and the carrots came out easily. On the outside edge I had to chip out chunks of dirt with the carrots. So I got a bucket of dirt and carrots. I put the bucket in the bathtub and filled it with cold water. Today I cleaned them. They were crisp and sweet.

So I will think about this. How about a winter garden? Planting hardy plants like Kale, spinach, beets, carrots and turnips in a section of the garden, could be a good idea here. So I can do that. I will even get to eat some foods that I haven't had for years.

The snow is serious here. My homemade hoop house got a big snowdrift. The more it collapsed, the more snow piled on top of it. Is shoveling snow a garden activity?