Cowichan Valley Garden Club

Mar 16th February 2019

• Cold weather has hampered completing preparation of garden.
• Onion seedlings are about 3 inches tall in their pots, started in the house and now out in the sunroom.  Three kinds Stuttgarter, Wethersfield Red and Walla Walla. One more variety just planted.
• Also Chinese Pink Celery is up in pots.
• Just planting seeds for tomatoes, tomatillos, eggplants, cabbage, a few lettuce for head start, broccoli, cauliflower and peppers.  In house on heating mats.
• Want to get enough of the beds with amendments added to plant new greens especially Chinese greens and the sweet peas maybe next week.  
• Adding leaf mulch composted organic manure and my own compost..  Also the mixture of minerals called Complete Organic Fertilizer from Steve Solomon’s book “Gardening When It Counts”.
• Garlic is up nicely and some Chinese greens have overwintered and starting to grow.
• Will be cleaning out the strawberry bed shortly.

Oct 10th October 2018

Vegetable Gardening in October

• The last of the large peppers in the greenhouse will be removed this week and stored in the basement to ripen, should take a couple of weeks.
• Currently we are picking the end of the second crop of figs on our Desert King tree, fall raspberries, the final scarlet runner beans, an odd cucumber and zucchini.  The tomatillos are just finishing as well. Tomatoes under cover are OK, but the bigger ones have been picked and are in the basement to ripen slowly.
• I have Austrian Winter Peas planted which is an all winter cover crop.  They are seeded very close together and provide a mat of pea sprouts for salads.  The chicory plants are still going strong, like giant lettuce heads. Good, but a bitter.  Parsnips have planted themselves again and a crop is coming up. I will use these while small as salad greens as those coming up now will go to seed in the spring.  
• Will start mulching the beets and carrots so they won’t freeze.
• Kohlrabi that didn’t fill out very well over the summer have filled out well now since it is cooler.
• Raspberries have old plants cleaned out and the giant stalks are tied down to the top wire.  Currently producing but slowly.
• Time to get ready to plant your garlic, we will do so in the next couple of weeks.  Plant them 5 inches apart with about an inch or so of soil on top. Then mulch with leaves.
• Walla walla starts and seedlings from seed planted in October are looking good so there is hope for a good early crop.
• Transplanted some Witches tongue lettuce that had been seeded earlier and is about 2 inches tall.  It will come along a ways and will be really good early in the spring.
• The broccoli planted from starts in September is growing strongly.  Not sure if the fall broccoli will produce heads as haven’t tried it before.  However the sprouting broccoli for the spring is tall and looks good.
• Still harvesting the later crop of cabbage.  One of the cabbage stalks that I harvested a head off earlier has five small heads on it now.  Cabbage is amazing.
• Hope to get seaweed again this fall and get it on all the beds, will spread between fall crop plants as well on open spaces.  Then put leaves on top. At least that is the plan.

Sep 30th September 2018

• Planting fall greens such as Mizuna, Lettuce, Radish, Pac Choi, Winter Peas, Mustard, Spinach
• Squash did not produce for me this year.
• Picking tomatoes, tomatillos, cucumbers, ground cherries, fall raspberries, plums, grapes, eggplants, peppers and  second crop figs
• Making sauerkraut from the cabbage, second crop of cabbage planted in July is ready for making Kimchi (I hope, not tried it before)
• Thinning July carrot and beet crops
• Drying off onions and garlic for storage
• Saving seeds from tomatoes, peppers and tomatillos
• Saving seed from lettuce,   sweet peas, beets and parsnip, some is dry and being cleaned and stored.
• Freezing and dehydrating crop, canning if necessary
• Finally putting seed packages away
• Starting to clean out areas and fill the compost bin
• Making copious notes in my garden book about what to grow and not next year, things to change and wish list.

May 9th May 2018

Linda’s Garden Chat – May 9, 2018

• The greens, cabbages, onions etc. planted last month are coming along fine and I am weeding as the new soil does have weeds.
• Onions are going strong too and the leeks planted late are up
• So I have sent a soil sample to be tested for peace of mind
• The peppers, tomatoes and eggplant starts are all doing well and the tomatoes particularly are very tall so I will start to plant the tomatoes out in about a week and the others in the greenhouse a week or so later as they are a little smaller.
• I will start squash, cucumbers and pumpkins in about a week as it is not long before they are ready to put out.  I have found they do better starting them from seed in the house.
• The beans will be planted about mid-month.
• More carrots, beets and Kohlrabi will go in again about mid-month.  The first sowings are coming up nicely.
• Zinnia seedlings are doing well and some of these will be moved to the flower beds in the front yard and the rest will stay in the veg garden for color.

Apr 15th April 2018

Garden Chat – April 11, 2018

Hoping for a weather change, it is very wet and cold.

• Planted outdoors Chinese greens, lettuce, radish, kale, chicory, endive
• Started regular cabbage and Napa cabbage are waiting in the greenhouse in flats; these were started indoors
• Currently plant sitting my new starts – tomatoes, eggplants, peppers and tomatillos
• Ground cherries did not come up and haven’t retried them
• All beds except the greenhouse and one bed with last year’s greens have been amened with seaweed, COF, and compost
• All but one bed has had three or so inches of new organic peat loam & composted organic steer manure soil added for planting.  No digging.
• Had 10 yards of organic soil delivered from Cinnabar Farms.  Very pleased with it.
• Newly build beds of roofing tin, 4 x 9 x 2 ½ feet have been filled and amended  plus two furnace ducts modified for beds for greens.
• Will plant some of the carrots, beets and kohlrabi next week in the sunshine!!

Mar 15th March 2018

Garden Talk, Wednesday March 14. 2018

• Cold weather has hampered completing preparation of garden beds but that is now well underway
• Onion seedlings are about 3 inches tall in their pots, started in the house and now out in the sunroom.  Three kinds Ailsa Craig, Stuttgarter and Walla Walla. Hope to be able to save seed frm one kind this year.
• Found out the hard way that onion seed is only viable for one year.  Only the walla walla came up the first plant as that was new seed. Others had to be replanted with new seed.
• Get a seed viability chart and quit showing Scottish tendencies
• Just planted seeds for tomatoes, tomatillos, eggplants, cabbage and peppers.  In house on heating mats.
• Eating lots of greens from the garden and greenhouse.
• Dug last of parsnips and saved five in a patch for this year’s seed.  New patch is up about 3 inches high.
• Deciding which of my over wintered kale to let seed and which to eat.
• Merv building two new raised beds for onions out of metal roofing.  Trying to avoid the white mold that is attacking our alliums so will put in the cloth to keep it out and also the fig tree roots.  Then find new soil for it.
• Want to get enough of the beds with amendments added to plant new greens especially Chinese greens and the sweet peas.  
• Adding seaweed, leaf mulch, compost and what rabbit manure I have which will not be enough.  Also the mixture of minerals called Complete Organic Fertilizer from Steve Solomon’s book “Gardening When It Counts”            .

Please pick up Black Cherry Seeds, Scarlet Emperor Bean Seeds, and Snapdragon seeds IF YOU ARE GOING TO START THEM.