Enjoying the last of the season

Some people may feel that the first frost is the last of the season.  If you have planned well and researched even a little bit about your region and crops that will continue to grow past frost, the first frost will bring a whole new season of crops your way.  There are so many cold weather crops that actually improve after they are exposed to some cold weather.  Kale, cabbage, and other cole crops will often take on a sweeter edge as they adapt to the cold weather after frost.  I still have several things in the garden and we have had at least half a dozen frosty mornings on our garden.  
The leeks are still standing tall as are the parsnips.  I have also put in a few carrots and salsify which are durable root crops.  The celery root is just starting to take on the best flavor for flavoring stocks.  I even found a stray potato when cleaning out the debris from the potato patch.  Many people will dig this as a late season crop for long season varieties.
I just cut  some of the cardoon yesterday.  I cannot give you full details on the best ways to use this plant, but there are plenty of references with a quick search.  I am parboiling a bit of it to mash with some califlower (also cut after several frost) to try the infamous fake mashed potatoes recipe I have seen on line.
I harvested many of my winter squash just prior to the frost, but they have stayed on the porch to harden their skins before winter storage.  I am cooking up a Turk's Turban for supper.  I also have two large spaghetti squash in the oven to prepare ahead of tomorrow's supper.
Apples are still coming in to many of the orchards.  We have not had a terribly cold night into the low 20's so the fruit is still wonderful.  Apple cider is starting to flow heavily from the orchard extras at this time of year.  My favorite are the apple cider donuts that are a guilty pleasure.  Apples store well, so they can be enjoyed fresh for months to come.
There is a patch of dinosaur kale that I have been harvesting for use this summer.  I have been using little bits with the cold weather and will do a final harvest before a total freeze.  Kale is a crop that develops more sugar in the plant which acts like anti-freeze making it more and more cold tolerant as time goes on.  There is a bed of ornamental kale (which is also edible) at the entrance to our nursery which has gotten very colorful with the cold weather.  It wasn't even on people's radar two month's ago even though it has been growing in that bed since June.  Sort days and cold temperatures have literally turned this green ghost into a violet glowing beauty accented by it's pure white sister that has caused passer-bys to take notice.  It will be beautiful well into our Wisconsin December weather.
One of my favorite foods that is improved by cold is one that I don't even eat.  Many ornamental crab apple varieties hold their fruit into winter.  The fruit ferments on the tree with the freezing and thawing.  Birds love to partake of this fermented fruit causing flocks to go absolutely gaga.  Watch for this on your cold weather walks through your own neighborhood.
So don't worry about the arrival of cold weather.  Embrace it!

Fitting in the spring tasks, a photo tour

My basement greenhouse is full with overflow to the kitchen window and south facing upstairs window.  I have many transplants to fit soon, so I have to come up with a plan for all the large pots occupying space here.

I have been cleaning out the gardens so I start with a clear base to start this spring.  This is my herb garden with several perennial herbs and reseeding herbs.  I added additional cilantro seed in a larger plot than normal for an early spring harvest.

My potted stock from my grafting class is coming along.  It has been super exciting to see that the grafts are taking and sprouting.  I am keeping my fingers crossed for great success.  I do have the small greenhouse set up this year.  It is a low tech design, but with my husband home during the day he can vent the front for me!

Tomatoes, peppers, and many flowers are close to getting true leaves which means I have lots of transplanting ahead.  I have cabbages and baby pak choi rooting for transplant into the garden.  I think I will have to toss them to the wolves in the outdoor greenhouse soon to make space.

Potted fruiting bushes are a direction I have started to move in last spring.  I have honey berries which have overwintered and are sprouting.  I will be able to take these with me if we have to make a move.  I can't say the same for the peach tree, apple, or kiwi.

I got small variety blueberries from Jung's this spring.  I potted them up to straight peat moss yesterday.  It is my plan to keep them as potted stock so they can go wherever I need them.

Two out of three raised beds are planted.  I have carrots germinating under the cloth (it helps to keep the bed moist) as well as lettuce seeds.  I also have several varieties of kale this year, half a bed of storing onions, a row of bunching onions and radishes.  Some radicchio overwintered, my new crop I am growing as a fall crop this year.  The garlic is also up 6 " already.  Peas were also put in last week but no sprouts as of this morning. 

A very garden weekend

I think we have finally turned the corner with the weather in Milwaukee.  We had snow flurries in the air on Friday night, which we pretended didn't exist as we were driving home in it.  Saturday morning dawned beautifully and the day was sunny and warmer.  It was an especially beautiful morning as I had been looking forward to a woody plants grafting class.  I won't go into great detail about the whole process as it has so many fine points.  I enjoyed the instructor, Michael Yanny very much.  I have heard him speak at other events, so I knew that it would be a quality class.  It also came very highly praised by other friends who did it last spring.  We got individualized instruction with just four people in each session.  He checked our technique and work to guide us through.  Time will tell how successfully we joined two plants together.  I will be purchasing The Grafter's Handbook by R.J. Garner.  We all went home with six pots that we grafted ourselves.  I was partial to the antique apple varieties we had to choose from.  I also did a lilac, amur cork tree, and witch hazel.

 Plants have started popping after a spring rain (Wednesday/Thursday) and a bit of following sun.  I can see the rhubarb poking through.  The dwarf iris are now blooming along side the snow drops.  I covered over a few things in the vegetable garden with straw in November.  I pulled that off on Saturday afternoon and can see some Swiss chard, kale, radicchio, and I think the late planted baby cabbage plants made it as well.  

 

     

It was the official first day of line-dried clothes day today.  I have been putting out sheets and light weight t-shirts most of the winter, but today was an all out, fill up the lines wash day.  Everything dried on the lines without laying them around on chair backs, so that is what makes it the official first day.  I watched birds coming and going the past couple days which we haven't seen since last fall.  Turkey vultures circled the neighborhood while I stood watch over the grill. It was just such a fine day to be outdoors.

I didn't spend as much time outside as I would have liked today.  Between loads of laundry, I was busy making more cutting of coleus, geraniums, and ibosa vine.  I cleaned out some of the old stock plants to make way for more seeding.  The coleus from the last cutting was well rooted and was put into cell packs for spring planting.  I saved a few stock plants in larger pots, back up for failed cuttings and possible starters in the garden.  I seeded my Tidal Wave Petunias and Purple Tower Petunias as they have 8-10 week start time.  I also put in some Red Acre cabbage and Bonsai Pak Choi for early planting out later.  I already have the Brisk Green Pak Choi and the Baby cabbage ready to go.  I set the plants out with my onion seedlings for a few hours today for hardening off.  There is only two weeks until Easter which is my goal for planting them all.  Welcome back, Spring!

My Cold Weather Crops

 All the tomatoes have ripened and are not going to wait for us to eat them all fresh.  Tonight, they became spaghetti sauce with one lone tomato on the window sill as a tribute to all the tomatoes that have gone before.

I am still holding on to my lettuce and cilantro.  The late crop of radishes that I put in have a couple sets of leaves, but I doubt that the gamble I took will pay off in late radishes.  I have a double cover on the bed of row and frost cover.  The rain has been getting through, the sunlight is too low to really push any growth at this time of year.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

The two varieties of kale that I grew for eating are powering through this time of year.  Kale thrives in the cold weather and the flavor improves.  I have to get out and get some of this on our plates soon.

There is still some Swiss chard and radicchio hanging in there.  I haven't prepared as much of the chard as I have in years past (not one of John's favorites).  The radicchio is a new plant for me.  My coworkers enjoyed the first crop preparing it in different ways.  They shared how well it worked in their cooking.  I think this will be on our plates soon.

 Parsnips are just starting the process which makes them best in cold weather.  The starches start to turn to sugars making the plant fused with anti-freeze qualities.  It also makes them very tasty.  I used a couple in some beef pasties a few weeks ago.  They are only getting sweeter as they get colder.

The Alpine strawberries are still trying to put on some fruit.  It is taking so long for them to turn red.  Sunlight is waning and so it the ripening power.  They are still a delight whenever I find one on the plants.  I think the squirrels have been beating me to the picking, though.

 On the other side of cold weather plants are the ornamentals.  The sedum in the background is a lovely back-drop to the Sunrise flowering kale.  The sweet alysum fills in with a bed of snowy white flowers.  Right behind this bed are the stars of the garden right now.

As everything else has died back, the 4-pack of flowering kale I purchase this spring is just glowing!  While walking back from voting on Tuesday, I was astounded at how vibrant these are even from the distance.  It is no wonder I have had so many people stop and ask what they are.  They are like the neon signs of my fall garden.  I apologize to those wondering what variety it is since I did not have a tag with them.  Next year...more flowering kale.  They really do look best when in full sun.

My pot of Sunset flowering kale is also looking pretty good.  The plants brightened up after moving them into brighter light.  I will tuck a few evergreen boughs into the soil to fill it out and take it into the Christmas season like I did last year.  Maybe some lights as well.

Garden Walk-thru March 27

Blood root (top)





Hen and chicks with candy tuft iberis
(left)






Chives (below)

 Garlic (right)













Herb garden (below)

White hyacyths (left)



















Red Russian kale-overwintered plants (below)

Primrose (left)













Rhubarb (below)

scilla foreground with vinca background (left)














Lilacs in March??????

Seeds have arrived!!!!

I am so excited!  When I got home from work tonight a large envelope was sitting on the kitchen cupboard for me with my Pinetree Gardens seed order. https://www.superseeds.com/home.php

For several years Pinetree has been my main catalog for orders because they have done such a good job of getting me what I want with only a couple substitutions to date.  I like the smaller quantity of seeds with a smaller price and shipping rates are very competitive.  

This year I am excited about starting several things.  I bought some wave petunia seeds.  The silver wave is in the upper right corner of this picture.  One plant covers a lot of ground by fall.  The blue wave is not as aggressive in growth but it is full and smells wonderful even on a sunny day when most plants shut down.  I also have Dolce Flambe which we grew in the city greenhouses when I worked out there.  I really liked them and would like to try my hand with them again.

I have several varieties of tomatoes again this year.  I am going to try growing my sungolds from saved seed.  I hope I don't regret the gamble, but I do want to become a seed saver and I have to start sometime.  Romas and Celebrities will be the mainstays as they are reliable producers in my garden.  I have not had much luck with heirlooms but I may find one at the garden center to try again in my new growing site.

Whirlybird nasturtiums are a must.  They look great and I love to munch them for a peppery treat.  I am also going to try growing agastache from seed this year.  I bought a single plant and it seemed like I needed more.  I have conflicting sources as to whether or not they will be hardy in zone 5.  The flowers kept up all summer long and the foliage smells like licorice when you stroke your hand across it.  It will go into the herb garden rather than a pot this year to see what happens.  I bought Zowie Yellow zinnias again.  They are a great plant and start easily from seed.  Asters are also wonderful and those will be direct sown into the garden.  Mammoth stock is another flower I have grown in the past and am going to go with it again.  The smell is great and the flowers on this variety look nice in a mixed bed.  I am also going to start my own Butterfly Mix impatiens and Accent White impatiens because I did not get my first color choice from the garden center last year.  These will have to be started indoors so I am going to have to make space for them under the lights.
My onion seeds have arrived just in time to get them going.  I am going with Alisa Craig again this year.  I remember them having produced well, I just don't remember if I had good storage with them.  I prefer to start onions from seed as they are better than sets.  They put more energy into the bulb and are less likely to flower.  I also do bunching onions from seed for salads and Mexican dishes.  Both are sown early, the Alisa Craig indoors and the bunching will be sown outdoors when I transplant the Alisa Craig onions in April.

I ordered flowering kale again this year.  I bought two varieties of the stemmed rose head that I grew last year.  I am going to have both sunrise and sunset to grace my fall garden.  With the mild winter we had I also carried this pot into my Christmas decorations with the addition of some evergreens and lights.  What a pretty and unusual porch decoration.  I am trying Dwarf Blue Scotch in the vegetable garden as my eating kale variety this year.

I have two varieties of pole beans (flat podded Italian Romas and Purple Tri Violetta on right).  Two bush varieties are both slender podded, Slenderette and Maxibel (French).  It does seem like a lot of beans but they fit the space well.  I also use about half the seeds one year and carry over seeds to the next with very little germination loss.  I also am going to put in soy beans for fresh eating again.  I need to have something to eat with a cold beer after work.  
I am going to get sweet peas in the ground early again this year.  I have two from Pinetree and another on the way from Select Seeds.  The flowers have been chosen for their scent and for their vining habit.  I grow them on a trellis behind other flowering plants.  Last year I had them on the same trellis with cucumbers.  They like cold weather, so after the cucumber vines were done, I pulled them off and the sweet peas went into a beautiful fall bloom.  Experimenting with the unexpected can sometimes result in wonderful discoveries.
I am going to wrap this up as I want to do a little research on growing microgreens.  I have two packages in my sweating, little palm that are begging for some water and light.  I look forward to letting you know how this new adventure goes.

The Garden is Officially Closed for the Season

My kitchen sinks have washed the last of my garden produce tonight.  I went out in the fading light and cut the last of the Swiss chard and kale.  Both of these are cold loving crops, but the plummeting temperatures and snow in the forecast will not be kind to these crops.  I pulled out the salad spinner one more time to clean up these two leafy crops before tucking them in the refrigerator.

The Red Russian Kale became a part of supper with just a quick toss of olive oil and salt.  I put this in a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes until it was crispy like potato chips.  A little bit of flake salt and you have good eats.

I forgot to clip off the stems but they made a nice little handle for picking up the kale to eat.  If you make this yourself you will easily tell what is too tough to eat.

I like to make Swiss chard by lightly sauteing coarsely chopped leaves with bacon fat.  I reserve bacon fat from frying in a small 2 cup crock that I keep in the refrigerator for this use.  Just a tablespoon of bacon fat with a healthier oil is enough to add flavor to the whole dish.  I find it ironic that I grow Swiss chard after the first summer's garden of endless Swiss chard when I was 13.  I swore then I would never eat it again.  Mom never cooked it with bacon, though.  Her method was cooking it to mushy consistency.  Thank you, Food Network, for making me see it in a different light.