our maine home – zone 5b
I cleaned up the hoophouse today in anticipation of very cold temperatures tonight. Harvested some escarole and carrots. A white mold had eaten the tops of many carrots – maybe it cam in with the hay mulch? The roots seemed fine though. I’ll make a carrot soup and some escarole and beans.
I’ve been frustrated by spotty germination in the hoophouse. Some things are growing lushly – escarole, spinach, kale, carrots. But others are just not where I’d want them to be at this time of year.
So I planted more seeds today, including in the vacant spaces left by the tomatillo harvest. Mostly spinach, but also some winter lettuce and ice-bred arugula. We’ll see what happens.
Also added some goat manure and watered. A very light snow – maybe sleet – ticked on the cover of the hoophouse while I was working.
New decorative items, gifts from a friend in Connecticut who is downsizing. A wind chime that looks like peacock feather eyes, made of glass, hanging on the right middle brace. And a decorative hanging pot just visible at the top of the photo.
I just loved this lettuce and it makes a beautiful subject for garden photos.
This gardening season I hope to post more often and focus on individual crops. We have had a big breakthrough this past year with one of our favorite crops: spinach. It seems we are finally getting a handle on what it takes to supply (almost) our year-round craving for spinach.
August 23, 2019: planted two rows of leaf spinach in hoophouse, Red Kitten and Space. We ate these all winter, sparingly, and the plants are just starting to give out. I pulled up all the Red Kitten yesterday and will probably pull up the Space shortly. Next August: double (or triple?) the amount of leaf spinach.
September 12, 2019: planted 5 rows of winter spinach in hoophouse. September 19, planted two more rows after hot peppers were harvested. Varieties: mostly Olympia, some Winter Bloomsdale. These grew slightly, then stopped. They really took off in March though, providing an abundance of huge delicious leaves. Next time: plant 7 or more rows again, maybe earlier depending on space available.
Eventually these will bolt, I’m surprised they haven’t yet. (The lone Winter Bloomsdale in the back bed, upper left in photo, has bolted.) Today I scratched 5 rows between them and planted basil seeds for summer. The plantings can intermingle for awhile.
Note: I tried the same planting outdoors in a row in the main garden. Planted October 18, 2019, and applied a heavy layer of hay mulch. I got nothing. Not sure what happened, maybe planted too late or maybe not enough protection outside. In any case, the hoophouse planting was sufficient. I won’t bother trying to overwinter spinach outdoors as long as I have a hoophouse or greenhouse.
March 12, 2020: planted all the remaining Space seeds in the hoophouse. We had to remove some dead plants from the winter so there was space for the Space! This gave us some nice fresh looking leaf spinach during the spring months and still looks good. One row in the back of the back bed was stunted and didn’t produce. Maybe it got too cold?
March 26, 2020: planted a short row of Red Kitten outdoors next to the peas. This early planting has done well and is ready to start eating. Next time: plant more in late March.
April 14, 2020: planted a square of Red Kitten under the corner trellis. The idea is that it will be shaded here during the heat of summer by the climbing vines of cucumbers and green beans. Maybe I’ll plant more soon because flea beetle have attacked the rabe and arugula I planted under here.
So I have satisfied our desire for spinach all winter and spring! We have eaten pounds of it this week! So pleased.
Now I just need to keep it going through summer and fall. I still have plenty of seeds for Red Kitten, Winter Bloomsdale, and Olympia. Need to buy more Space, which has been really a good performer.
And we are no longer buying those plastic tubs of spinach leaves from the grocery store!
We will soon transition the hoophouse to its summer purpose — hothouse crops like peppers, basil, eggplants. Maybe a tomato, tomatillo, ground cherry.
It’s time to acknowledge that the hoophouse has been great this past winter for overwintering greens.
It’s work, but not a lot of work. We rarely watered the raised beds. We covered them with frost-protection cloth at night and removed it in the morning. We installed dowels in channels sewn at the edge of the cloth strips to make it easier to lift and drape the covers. We’ll have to decide how to enrich the soil in the beds before this coming August (when the hothouse crops will still be in there!).
Best overwintering varieties: claytonia, escarole, kale, winter lettuce, spinach, salanova lettuce, chard
Hesitating for various reasons: tatsoi, carrots, scallions, minutina
More short-lived, consider succession planting: mache, arugula
Give it a try: cilantro
Not pictured: Mizuna, which grew okay in the fall but died out in mid-winter and had to be removed. I don’t think I’d grow it again as it took space away from better performers.
A nice warm day, perfect for working in the garden. I planted seeds under the corner trellis, where we grow the next succession of greens after the hoophouse gets too hot. Arugula, spinach, escarole, Salanova lettuce, spring raab and Russian red kale.
I also adjusted the row cover so it would be more secure over the row of broccoli. The seedlings look ok, maybe a little worse for wear after being buried in snow and attacked by strong winds.
Sam refreshed two paths with wood chips, readying the root crops row for planting. And we managed to replace the zippers on the front wall of the hoophouse. The zipper tapes, presumably cotton, had deteriorated and were ripped apart by wind and our zipping. This was a monumental chore, and not finished yet. The wall is laying in a bundle on the living room floor waiting to be reinstalled.
Snow was predicted earlier, but the forecast changed. And indeed we are getting rain, rain, and more rain and strong winds. A real snow melter.
I thought it would be pleasant enough sheltered in the hoophouse but the temperature was somewhere in the 30’s and my hands became numb almost immediately.
Nevertheless I planted some arugula, Salanova lettuce, and tatsoi in some of the empty rows in the hoophouse. Sam watered them in with the hose. Now we are warming up inside.
Chickens have started laying again, sporadically.
We did some work on the raised beds in the hoophouse today. Some were pretty much gone by and had to be cut back severely (arugula, mizuna). Others needed a trim, removal of dead tips and rotting base leaves. We got a bag of fresh greens for our trouble. Then tucked everybody back under their row covers. Supposed to drop into the teens tonight. The chickens got a bundle of clippings.
The temperatures have dipped into the teens for several nights recently but the greens in the hoophouse remain healthy and lush. I opened the row covers this afternoon in the sun to give them some extra light and air. While picking some greens, I found a soft green caterpillar munching away and a few grasshoppers, live and well.
