2011 Re-hash

So, I really slacked on the blog last year, posting on Google+ exclusively.
I'll do this overview of 2011's growing season, then I'm going to attempt to pull out a few posts here this week to bring us up to date with the gardening for 2012.
And.... we're off!

First, potatoes. The potato harvest went incredibly well. We grew peanuts, yukons, and reds. All did well, although we did start late in the season and the summer was a cold one, overall, despite the weeks of high temps. All told, we brought in about 20# of potatoes, and a vast majority of those were canned up, as they were little enough to go into quarts whole. There was no noticeable difference between the barrel up front, and the mounding raised bed in the back. Both produced roughly 10# each.

This year, we'll be doing something a tad bit different, adjusting the height of the walls on the raised bed mound, as well as starting earlier. But I'll be detailing that on the 2012 posts. We'll see if that makes any difference in the yields.

The carrot yield was absolutely dismal. Not much to speak of, despite the great hopes for the location and depth of the planting bed. We spaced them in front of kohlrabi, and that might have had something to do with the yield issues. This year, we're planting them with the lettuce mixes, full sun, and in containers. I had a lot of success with this method in Washington, and I believe


that with proper attention, I'll be able to duplicate that success. Speaking of success, the kohlrabi did relatively well, given it was the first year for kohlrabi in my experience. Not too bad. Not great, but not bad.

I will say this, however: I am not a fan of kohlrabi. I attempted some kohlrabi chips, as well as just cutting/shredding in place of cabbage and I just can't do it. Not a fan, folks, not a fan. I'm wondering if I could handle it if it were Japanese-prepped/pickled. I have a recipe, I just hadn't gotten around to preparing it in such a way before I ran out of time.

The spinach, kale, and swiss chard crops weren't super winners, either. But honestly, I believe that has more to do with the fact that they pretty much got neglected, and were started late in the season. By the time fall hit, the swiss chard had hit stride and was doing well, but then, bam! It snowed. We're shaking things up this year, we really are. My goal is to have quite a harvest over the summer so that we're pulling more fresh from the garden instead of buying from the store. We'll see how well it works.

As you can see, the chard was really doing well when it came time to transfer the strawberries from their happily-growing pots into the raised beds for over-wintering. A lot of success with this process, let me tell you.

Dig a trench in a raised bed that is now free from harvest-able goods, and drop the plants directly into the space, cover lightly with hay/straw, and allow the snow to do the rest of its insulating job. This last winter [snowiest winter on record!] the snow certainly did its job well, and the strawberries were doing well when I transplanted them back to their happy home today.


 This year, though, I want to try something new: strawberry towers.




No, seriously. At one of the U-Pick farms out in the valley, we discovered this technique and are keenly interested in trying it here in the yard, given the interest in going vertical.

I'll keep updating (hopefully) this summer with our progress on the strawberry towers, and I hope that others will consider using this technique and letting me know how it goes!

Crazy Chives!

The zucchini and other small squashes did not perform as expected. We got two good-size zucs and nothing from the winter squash. Same excuses as for everything else: late start/location/cold(er) summer. This year, I'm going with a "control" scenario, just as we did last year for the potatoes. I'll keep the one zuc in it's normal location, but add a modified hoop house around it so that it retains a bit of the heat. The control will be a separate area entirely, either close to the house (excellent, hot micro climate) or put it in the green house. Haven't quite decided yet, but it's something that I need to figure out this week.

The squash and pumpkins (sugars, don't worry, tiny things!) this year are absolutely going in the green house. I'm not taking chances on some of these excellent varietals. I definitely want to see how things go. We've got enough room, what with a slight modification of the layout, and I'm excited to see what happens.

The broccoli, well..... it grew fantastically, but the heads were small and we literally missed harvest by one day. ONE DAY. Bam! Blown heads, flowering begun. It was an eye-opening experience for me, seeing them change that quickly. I have an uneducated hunch that it might be due to our long summer hours.

We planted scarlet runners last year and got some great runners, but no fruit. This year, changes, changes, changes!

2 weeks after planting

However, I'll be continuing with the sugar-snap pea placement. They did absolutely excellent last year!

The herbs did incredibly well, as evidenced by our harvest, and I'm quite pleased to say that the only herb we ran through entirely happened to be our basil. Everything was dried using the dehydrator, and came out just splendidly! Grown outdoors: mint, chives, thyme, sage, rosemary, oregano, parsley, apple and peppermint geraniums. I'm thinking there's more, I just can't think of it off the top of my head right now. Indoors (greenhouse): basil! See below.


The rhubarb did ridiculously well, but that's kind of a given up here. Rhubarb will grow like gangbusters, you just have to find the proper spot for it. Not too hot, not too cold. 

And the apple trees. Ah, the apple trees! They were just out of control this last year, producing quite a bit of fruit for as cold of a summer as we had. Surprising for me, indeed. I had no idea we could even produce apples here. Well, folks, we
can. The trick is just to keep the moose from
snacking on them in winter/spring/fall.
And, I'll be planting out the shallots (alliums love apples!) down below the apple trees this year with the idea that they'll benefit each other.

 I've heard it's true, and I'm trying my hand at companion planting this year with great hope!

Asparagus was planted, and looked absolutely wonderful over the summer. It survived the winter, and has tiny heads coming back up this year, so I'm quite excited that it survived. The blueberries, well they're still growing. They've got another few years yet before they're producing-age. Same with the low-bush cranberries.


Now, onto the greenhouse. Peppers. Peppers, peppers, peppers. Basil, out of control! Corn. Yes, corn! We ended up with 4 ears. Not too bad, really, considering the greenhouse didn't stay entirely warm at night, and only hit hot temps during the day.

And the tomatoes. Dismal harvest, even in the greenhouse. No one could figure out what the heck was happening. Well, I discovered an interesting "fact" during my reading the past two months: apparently, tomatoes and corn need to be separated by a minimum of 20 feet. We're pulling the tomatoes from the greenhouse this year, and building a modified cold-frame in the hopes that the distance + extra heat combination will do something. Seems to be a fun idea, and I can't wait to see if anything changes.




Also, cucumbers. More cucumbers than a person knows what to do with. We cannot grow more cucumbers this season because, quite frankly, there's too many jars of pickles as it is in the pantry. We'll have to eat them down and grow more when we have room again.

Fall is definitely in the air!

So, the weather is changing. It's bouncing between overcast and drizzly and sometimes downpouring, to gorgeous and sunny. Fall's HERE! ;o)

Today I've been busy... turned over one half of the compost heap, oh so beautiful in there! The worms are working overtime, I swear! Already it's gorgeous, dark, lush loveliness! Smells ridiculously wonderful. Turned over the most recent additions of veggies, straw, shredded newspaper, and found the worms were EVERYWHERE in there, even 3' off the ground. They're chewing through the newspapers et al like you've never seen before. Well, okay, like I'VE never seen before.

I'm going to try to keep it going this winter, despite the cold temps. I've been reading up on humanure composting, and I think I'm going to steal some of those ideas for the compost heap we have here.... especially keeping it hot hot hot over winter. I think if I'm careful I can keep the temps up inside. Just gotta keep an eye on it.

So excited about how this spring/summer/fall has been going!

Po-ta-toes...the beginning

So, we're growing potatoes.

We're not using tires, because of the concern of leaching. We are, instead, reusing a 55g white plastic fuel barrel that was rigorously cleaned and rinsed prior to dirt-addition. We put the barrel up front where it should receive the most amount of sunlight for the yard (we think).

We planted the barrel with I believe 7 plants. We are also removing the flowers in the barrel, to see if this makes any difference in the results.

We're also using a mounding/hilling technique in one of the raised beds in the back yard. This particular raised bed has a bit of wind protection on three sides, and we've mounded up dirt to about 1.5 feet above the surface of the raised bed, so a total of about 2.5 - 3 feet of available dirt from the surface of the yard. We planted this bed with 6 plants total. We are not removing flowers from this patch to see if this makes any difference in the results.

The top three pictures were taken around the 23rd of June, 2011. I think we'd had the plants in the ground at this point for about 2-3 weeks. In addition, I should mention that we pre-started these plants in little 6" diameter plastic pots, and covered them with black mylar until the roots were growing like gangbusters. Then we planted them as you see them in the above photos.

I will add current photos shortly.

First Post

Okay, so I'm interested in starting another blog, this one specifically regarding the growing season here in Alaska, the successes and failures. Thoughts, frustrations, ideas, etc...

Keep it growing, Alaska!