March 28th, 2012

In the main garden
Garlic, Brussels Sprouts, Asparagus, Snow peas, Snap peas, Spinach, Marigolds, Onions, Bush Beans, Radishes, Kale 

In the herb garden
Rosemary, Thyme, Sage, Parsley, Oregano, Mint, Onions

Growing indoors

Collard greens, Spinach, Bib Lettuce, Parsley, Poblano Peppers, Anaheim Peppers, Basil, Aster, Celosia, Tithonia

This week 

• Asparagus - The first asparagus spears have grown to about 18 inches.   There are about 15 spears in all, and it is really hard not to eat them.   Bobe convinced me that we should definitely wait another year before eating any of them.
• Peas - Some of them are now about 6 inches tall.  A lot came up, but it is still a little spotty. On the 26th we sowed another batch.  Maybe about 20-30 more of each.  Still in a pretty tight space, so we will see if this experiment works!
   
• Onions - The onion sets in both the vegetable garden and the herb garden broke the surface.  Some popped up in 3-4 days.   By now, I would estimate that about half of the onions have broken the surface, some reaching 6 inches high.

• Note:  Not sure if I wrote about this already, but last year we tried three types of onions from seed.  About 40 came up, but over time we ended up with about 6 onions, none of them bigger than a pearl onion.  I gave up on trying that again, but I saw a bag of onion sets at ACE for $1.99, and I couldn't resist.  I actually had not really known what onion sets were until I saw the bag. I thought onion sets were the same as bunching onions (perennial onions), but obviously I was wrong.   Onion sets look like mini dried out onions that are between a dime and a quarter in size.  One interesting thing I read, was that the smaller sets grow into bigger onions.  The ones that are closer to a quarter in size, were pulled too late, and will flower earlier, so they are best used as green onions.  Pretty cool, and definitely not intuitive.  

• Bush Beans - We sowed about 15 contender beans into the middle of the middle bed.  Probably should have dropped in 2 beans in each spot, but I figured we would try with just one and see how many come up.  Rather than dig a hole, we just pushed the beans down about 1 inch.  If I notice that some are a week behind the others, I'll just reseed the ones that failed, which will hopefully give us a nice staggered picking.  The plan is also to reseed in about a month as well.
• Radishes - Finally got the radishes in the garden, in between the garlic stalks.   They are supposed to mature in 30 days, which is really quick, so that should be fun and interesting.  Any ideas on what to do with white icicle radishes aside from salad?   Bobe said that she used to eat salted buttered radishes as a snack. That sounds pretty good.
• Kale  - Emily convinced me to use the other half of the future sweet potato bed for kale, so that is what went in this weekend.   Same as the spinach. Just sprinkled the kale all over, and added a little soil on top.  Much different than the way we did it last year, in a single row, spaced about a foot apart.
• Drip System  - After installing the first half of the drip system, I realized that because we are planting in wide rows, we actually needed way more mini sprayers/sprinklers than drippers.  The drippers are good for putting at the base of plants like tomatoes, peppers, etc, but for wide rows of greens, peas, beans, onions, etc, the mini-sprayers work great.    I also installed the drip system all the way around the front of the house, so now the whole thing is automated.  We'll have to water the grass, but aside from that, I don't think we will have to water anything garden related or any of the shrubs/bushes/flowers.     

Garden Plan - March 26th, 2012

First signs of activity

Peas, Spinach, and Asparagus have broken the surface

	All three types of peas came up!  Sowed outdoors: March 11th  First broke surface: March 19th  Germination time: 8 days
	About 10-15 spinach seedlings have come up. I only placed about 6 of the seedlings that germinated on the paper towel inside in this bed, so it looks like the original planting did not need any help. Sowed outdoors: March 11th  First broke surface: March 19th  Germination time: 8 days
	Two  asparagus spears have come up, and they are thicker than I thought they would be.   I am pretty sure this is the asparagus from Ohio, but it is right in the middle of the two plantings, so I am not really sure. Planted: June 2011  Broke surface: March 22nd

March 18th, 2012

Currently in the garden
Vegetables: Garlic, Brussels Sprouts, Asparagus, Snow peas, Snap peas, Spinach, Marigolds, Onions

Herbs: Rosemary, Thyme, Sage, Parsley, Oregano, Mint

Growing indoors

Collard greens, Spinach, Bib Lettuce, Parsley, Poblano Peppers, Anaheim Peppers, Basil, Aster, Celosia, Tithonia

This week 

• Onions - Planted onion sets into the bottom half of the left bed, in three double rows.  I plan to plant lettuce in between the onion rows, and when it is time to transplant the peppers, I will take up as many onions as I need to, to make space.   That is the plan anyway.  
• Drip Irrigation System - Installed the drip irrigation system. Pretty amazing.  It is on a timer so at this point, all of the watering is automated.  Right now, I have it set for 1 hour every morning, but I will most likely have to change that.  Maybe have it go for longer, but every other day.  TBD!   

Here is a panorama of the yard:

March 11th, 2012

Currently in the garden

Vegetables: Garlic, Brussels Sprouts, Asparagus, Snow peas, Snap peas, Spinach, Marigolds

Herbs: Rosemary, Thyme, Sage, Parsley, Oregano, Mint

Growing indoors

Collard greens, Spinach, Bib Lettuce, Parsley, Poblano Peppers, Anaheim Peppers, Basil, Aster, Celosia, Tithonia

This week

• Peas - Directly sowed Snow and Snap peas at the bottom of the middle bed
• Spinach - Directly sowed spinach seeds into top of third bed. I also have spinach germinating inside, but I wanted to try both to see which works better. 
• Marigolds - Directly sowed marigold seeds at the bottom of each bed, and to the right of the right bed.  Bobe and Zade always had Marigolds bordering their garden, and I have learned that Marigolds are a really good bug deterrent.

March 4th, 2012

Currently in the garden
Vegetables: Garlic, Brussels Sprouts, Asparagus

Herbs: Rosemary, Thyme, Sage, Parsley, Oregano, Mint

Growing indoors

Collard greens, Spinach, Bib Lettuce, Parsley, Poblano Peppers, Anaheim Peppers, Basil, Aster, Celosia, Tithonia

This week

• Extended the paths all of the way back to the asparagus bed. 
• Transferred the soil that was in back section of the paths to the third bed.
• Added top soil and hummus/manure mix to both of the new beds, mostly the newest bed to continue to raise it higher.  
• Placed paper on top of the paths, and straw on top of the paper.  This is to keep the weeds down, and to make it easier to outline path vs bed.  

I really thought about making wood based raised beds, but it would have required so much more new soil, I decided against it.

2012 Garden

The 2012 garden got a big upgrade this year.

1) We planted garlic in the fall, which "should" give us a nice big heads of garlic.
2) In October, we dug a second bed -- The middle row in the picture.
3) In February, we dug a third bed -- The right row in the picture.

February 19th, 2012

The idea behind rows like this is that you want to make the paths permanent, so that you never have to step into the bed, which compacts the soil, making it a lot harder for the vegetables to spread out their roots and find more nutrients.

First, I created a path in between the left (original) bed and the fence.   It was really nice growing the peas and pole beans along the fence, but once everything grew in, it was really hard to walk around on that side without crushing things or breaking things.  Additionally, I was compacting and wasting all of that good soil.

Rather than permentnly wasting the good soil, I dug it up to the clay (about a foot deep), and used that dirt to raise the middle bed.   I also emptied our composter (about 8 months worth) and used that on the top of the bed.   I read that by building the bed in the fall, and especially adding the compost, you are making the bed a place the worms want to be.   The worms gravitate towards the bed, and spend all winter working on the soil.

By February when I dug the third bed, I could see a huge difference in the middle bed.   It was much softer, darker soil, and there were tons of worms everywhere.

The third bed was a mid winter idea, spawned from the possibility of trying to grow sweet potatoes.  The sweet potato slips will come in May, so until then, we are going to try and plant spinach in that bed.

2011 Garden

In 2011, we got to start nice and early, and we had the garden just the way we wanted it by April 22nd, as you can see from the picture below:

We decided to make the bed by the kitchen door the permanent herb garden moving forward, allowing us to reserve the limited garden space for vegetables only. 

This year we started most everything from seed.  Most of the seeds were purchased from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, and some were purchased from Ace Hardware.  

Speaking of Ace, we also got some asparagus crowns and decided to make  the strip along the shed the permanent asparagus garden.   It obviously does not get FULL sun, but full sun is hard to come by in our back yard.  Later in the summer, we went to visit Bobe and Zade's house in Canton, OH and I brought back some asparagus from their garden that Bobe said has been going strong for over 30 years.  I dug up two big bucket sized sections, and just extended the asparagus row all the way to the end of the shed.   

Amazingly, this next picture is only about 5 weeks later:

Planted from seed:
Green and red lettuce mix
Asian greens stir fry mix
Kale
Swiss Chard
Brussels Sprouts
Leeks
Onions
Cucumbers

Transplants from Home Depot:
Jalapeno
Tomatoes  

This year, I planted the tomatoes in containers, built a cage around the tomatoes, and used chicken wire to keep the squirrels out.

Unfortunately, I bought the wrong sized chicken wire, and the squirrels were able to slip right
through.  I didn't realize this until I actually caught a squirrel red handed 

2010 Garden

The previous owner rented the house out for the last two years, and some shrubs were planted along the fence and along the shed.  Once we dug up the shrubs, we realized that someone, at some point, definitely had a garden along the fence.  The soil was soft and rich, compared to the clay soil that was everywhere else.

June 6th, 2010, a week after closing on the house, but before we even moved in

Here is what we planted (from home depot), and some quick notes: 

Herbs
Basil, Cilantro, Parsley, Dill, Chives, Sage 

Veggies
Jalapeno and Serrano Peppers - Both did really well

Bell Peppers  - Not great.  Only a few peppers and the walls were super thin.

Tomatoes - Grew like crazy, but out of the dozens of tomatoes, all but maybe 4 or 5 were eaten by squirrels.  They eat them the second the start to get red.  They take a few bites and then leave the rest. 

Cucumber - Transplant eaten within a weak

Summer Squash - Plant did really well, but all of the squash were eaten when they were no bigger than a baby carrot.   Eventually, the plant got some disease also (powdery mildew or something like that

Hello World! Welcome to our garden in Washington DC (Takoma)

We moved into our house July of 2010, and this will be our third year of gardening.  The garden, as well as our gardening experience, has expanded each year, and we have both really enjoyed it.  Both of our parents, as well as my grandparents (Bobe and Zade) have been our gardening inspiration, and we aim to follow in their footsteps.

I have been using Google Docs, and Google calendar to keep track of all of my gardening notes, and I have been using Picasa to share the pictures with friends and family (mostly family).  I actually am surprised it took me this long to think about using a blog to accomplish both of those goals at the same time.    

This past winter I spent a lot of time reading some of Zade's gardening books that are 20+ years old ,and comparing the information with the books that Ben and Emily got me last year.  The information in my professional career changes on a monthly basis.   It has been really fun studying material that mostly has remained the same for decades, if not centuries.   

I also spent a lot of time reading articles online, and learning about the crops we intend to grow this year.  Just like with everything else on the internet, I am still always amazed at how much information is online.   It would be a great "side effect" if by documenting my mistakes, lessons, and successes, I could eventually pay it forward.  That would be pretty cool.