Sunday, November 21, 2010

a quick winter update in pictures

Warm and sunny weather this November... I don't think I've ever had such a fine winter garden. Peas, potatoes, tons of salad (especially Bronze Arrow, my current favorite), chard, broccoli (starting to head already), cauliflower, long row of sweet onions, turnips, radish, carrots, parsnips, beets, Brussels sprouts, collards...

Detroit Red beets

Snow Crown cauliflower

Sweet Treat carrots

Blue Wind broccoli

Bronze Arrow, Apollo Rocket...

Sugar Sugar Snap peas

6 comments:

Leon said...

Congrats on your bounty!

We planted Sugar Snap peas for the first time this year and they're still about 3" tall :) May be they didn't like the place ... or may be something eats them.

Cucumbers and sweet potatoes, on the other hand, are all a gardener can wish for and then some :)

I like the weather this November a lot too. We even still have enough grass for the sheep - last year we already had to start feeding hay about this time.

Michael said...

mine are about 2' tall... i find that they need a LOT of water, warm temps, lots of sun...

what kind of sheep?

Leon said...

Yeah, lack of sun would be one of my first suspects. The place is full sun during the summer but as I noticed after we planted them (duh!), with the sun being lower in Oct and Nov it was shaded probably 4 to 5 hours every day.

The sheep are Katahdins - that's a hair (no wool) meat breed.

http://ftf3000.blogspot.com/2009/07/just-pictures.html

LGJ said...

Wow, looks great!

Question - I direct-seeded parsley, carrots, chard, and several types of lettuce in September. I have yet to see any action from those rows. Was it just too warm or what? The area gets plenty of sun and gets watered along with the rest of the garden.

Michael said...

leon, very interesting blog. something i want to learn more about. and with the peas--i have decided that it's consistent moistness that matters. they do best when they NEVER dry out. lots of compost, a fair amount of sun... but i'd qualify my spot as mostly sunny. so, absolute full sun isn't necessary in my experience.

LGJ, if something hasn't germinated in 14 days, i take it for granted they won't. (there are certain seeds that take a very long time to germinate... none of the ones you listed fall into that category.) reseed now! in fact, with some of these (esp lettuce and carrots), go ahead and sow lightly, then in 2 weeks, sow another round of seeds where there's space in the row. for peas and lettuce and carrots, it's useful to have multiple sowing for several reasons, but mostly just to extend the season.

Leon said...

Michael, thanks for the kind words and the advice. Not much gets on my blog due to my extreme laziness but if you're interested in something I mention there - please do ask.

As for the peas - we probably did OK with water. We watered them daily and while the original soil is basically sand, we mixed some compost in it for moisture retention. Also, the bed is heavily mulched (layer of packaging paper + wood chips), so evaporation should be close to zero. From what you said, we probably picked a place that was too cool. The poor things are still there but they're not getting any bigger (which doesn't really matter as we probably will have around 30 tomorrow morning). We'll try again in the spring, I guess :)