In Spring, Take All The Harvests You Can Get

Here's my first Harvest Monday of 2014!

No, those aren't chives. They're the "waste" from the last trimming of my onion and leek seedlings before I hardened them off and transplanted them outside. They taste like scallion greens. They sat in the fridge for a few days until I figured out what to do with them. Tonight, after dinner, it came to me.

They brightened up a chickpea quinoa salad with kalamata olives and lemon garlic dressing. This will be served on top of a bed of greens and topped with goat cheese for lunches this week.

Other than a few cuttings of herbs I've been growing indoors, one chili pepper plant that made it through the winter (in a pot, inside), and the "micro basil" I thinned out a few weeks ago, this is the first taste of fresh homegrown food we've had in the new house. It's surely the first to be photographed! Next week there's a chance we'll be eating spinach from the garden.

Check out Harvest Monday at Daphne's Dandelions to see what other gardeners are harvesting this week.

Spring Garden Update & Lessons Learned

Lessons I've learned so far in 2014, the first year starting seeds and gardening in our new house:

• I need to pay more attention to my seedlings. In the last house, I went down to the basement almost every day for one reason or another, so it was natural to check on them. In this house, the basement is strictly storage so I have to intentionally go down there. I haven't done it enough, and my seedlings have gone dry too often.
• Aaron has a genius idea to solve this problem that includes creating a reservoir that keeps a constant level of bottom water in the seed trays. We'll see if this comes to fruition in 2015.
• I need to water our raised beds more often. One of the benefits of raised beds is increased drainage. The beds at this house are twice as high as the beds at our last house, and it seems like they dry out twice as fast (but they give me more soft, loamy dirt to grow root vegetables in). My ultimate plan is to have a drip irrigation system installed, and water multiple times per day on a timer. Since that includes installing over 100 feet of underground, outdoor plumbing, it's not on the list for this year.
• Adding mulch after direct seeding does more harm than good. While trying to combat the previously mentioned watering problem, I covered newly seeded peas and radishes with straw. It seems to me that they've been very slow to come up. This could be due to a variety of factors, but I think I'll stick with mulching after plants are established from now on.
• I need to digitize my seed-starting calendar. I diligently mapped out my seed-starting calendar, but left it in the basement (see lesson #1). I also packed every week's seed starting activities on weekends. While I didn't miss any major dates, I could have had a less stressful winter/spring if I had done just a little bit of work each day, and had electronic reminders pop up on my phone so I wouldn't forget. Dear internet, is there an app for that?
• Next year, I'm going to try sowing onion seeds in cells. I always sow them by broadcasting in a container and just grow a clump of onions. I bet they'd develop a lot more before transplanting if they weren't so crowded.
• I definitely need to cover my beds (either with mulch or a cover crop) over the winter. The beds that were covered with thick layers of landscaping straw were almost weed free this spring. The other beds looked like small weed forests. If it weren't for the help of my husband and parents, I'd still be weeding those beds. I'm not sure if I"ll just mulch everything next year, or try planting something like rye that should keep the weeds out (and enrich the soil).
• While I'm excited that I'm going to recoup a majority of my seed starting costs by starting seeds for friends, I need to plan that better as well. I should either close orders earlier so I have more time to get a handle on what will be started, or just have a first-come, first-serve plant sale in the spring. If anyone reading this would have a preference for buying seeds from friends, let me know!

That's all the lessons that come to mind at the moment...plenty for it just being the first weekend in May.

Here's what I accomplished this weekend:

• Transplanted 200 onions (8-8'foot rows)
• Transplanted 25 onions to be harvested as scallions
• Transplanted 75 leeks (3-8's rows)
• Transplanted 4 broccoli plants
• Transplanted 2 cauliflower plants
• Transplanted 5 celery plants
• Transplanted some "miracle chives" - they survived the winter in a dark garage!
• Seeded 120 carrots (8-5' rows)
• Seeded approximately 100 peas (2-8' rows)
• Seeded 48 radishes
• Started seeds for cucumbers, squash, zinnias, and corn
• Up-potted some broccoli, cauliflower, and lettuce I'm holding for friends

I still have a lot more seeding on my list, which I'm hoping to accomplish throughout the week.

I'm very happy with the soil quality in the raised beds—it's full of wriggly worms! I used a garden blend topsoil mix that had a lot of compost in it, and it seems to be full of life. The garlic (the only thing really growing right now) is kicking butt!

Seed Starting Update: Alliums, Brassicas & Herbs

Today was the third seed-starting day of the 2014 gardening season. I have now filled an entire shelf on my grow rack.

I planted the onions and leeks on February 16, and they received their first haircut last weekend. They're looking great.

Last weekend, I started broccoli, cauliflower, celery, eggplant, head lettuce, and chives. The celery, eggplant, and chives haven't germinated yet. I put the eggplant seeds on a heat mat today to help with germination. The broccoli & cauliflower are looking great, but the lettuce was easiest to photograph.

Today I seeded herbs, including basil, cilantro, dill, fennel, mint, oregano, parsley, sage, and thyme. Some of the plants don't really need to be started early (cilantro for sure), but I'm looking forward to having an early crop and then seeding successive crops in the garden.

Speaking of the garden, the snow is gone! I haven't walked out there yet, but the weeds that I didn't get to last fall are definitely waiting for me. One bed is planted with garlic and covered in a loose layer of hay. I hope to see some green shoots poking up there soon.

Yesterday I got my first delivery of cuttings for the edible hedge—a dozen red currant plants. Given that we have snow in the forecast tomorrow, and we haven't yet staked out the border, they'll be hanging out in the garage for a week. I'm confident we can stake the border next weekend and get the currant plants in on Sunday. The rest should arrive in mid April.

This is going to be quite the transformational year for the back yard. In addition to the hedge planting, we'll be adding an arbor with a gate, finally having a full season of vegetables, and we'll be adding a patio outside the dining room. It should give us some excellent outdoor living space to enjoy a Wisconsin summer.

Next week, it's time to start peppers!!

Onion Harvest

I may have jumped the gun a little. I've noticed my onions flopping over for the last week or so, and today when I went out in the garden I realized they had all flopped (well, all but one). Since I had some time (and time is precious these days), I pulled them all except for the lone red onion still standing tall, which I think is going for the Gross Farms size record. I know it seems early to pull onions, but everything is early this year. And...they flopped!

Anyway, after I pulled them I googled "curing onions" just to make sure I was proceeding correctly, and I realized I should have maybe waited another week or two to pull them. Oh well. Even with their small size, I think this might be enough onions to get us through the year. We don't eat them raw; only in cooked dishes.

The yellow onions are Yellow of Parma and Spanish Sweet. My markers are long gone, so they're intermixed, but both are supposed to be good for storage. The red is Redwing, another storage onion. We're not big red onion eaters but I've seen some intriguing recipes with red onions so I figured I'd give it a try.

I sorted the yellow onions by size, which I think can be labeled small, sort of small, and really tiny. The red onions sized up much nicer. It should be noted that I planted these using the square foot method recommendations (16 per square foot) and I don't think I'll be doing that again. They could have used some more room to spread out.

It turns out our garden cart is a pretty great place to cure veggies. The garlic cured better here than in the basement next to the dehumidifier, so I'll give the onions a try on it as well.

The garden is starting to empty of summer crops much earlier than normal. I need to get to work this weekend and plant a bunch of fall/winter crops. I hope they'll make it to harvest, as I'm also wishing for a nice, cold winter so all these stupid bugs freeze to death.

First Sprouts

I saw my first onion sprouts this morning. I thought I might have been hallucinating yesterday. When I checked the seed tray, I swore I smelled onions. Now that they have sprouted, I definitely do. Crazy!

The first to sprout was Sweet Spanish (3 days).

Starting Onions, Leeks & Chives

The 2012 Gross Farms garden has officially started. Last year my onions starts were pretty sad. I meticulously put 1-2 seeds in each cell, over watered, failed to fertilize, and started them too late.

Hopefully this year will be different. According to the University of Wisconsin Extension planting calendar, onions should be started indoors on February 15, so I'm only a few days early. I planted each variety in one 4-inch pot instead of messing around with individual cells. Basically I followed the method in this video.

Here's what went into the pots:

• One 2012 package of yellow sweet spanish onion (Pinetree Garden Seeds)
• One 2012 package of red wing onion (Pinetree Garden Seeds)
• Remainder of 2011 package of yellow of parma onion (Seed Savers Exchange)
• Remainder of 2011 package of blue solaise leek (Seed Savers Exchange)
• Remainder of 2010 package of Chinese garlic chives (Botanical Interests)

There's nothing very picturesque to photograph, but hopefully I'll have good news when they start to germinate.

This almost feels like a false start, since after this planting I wait four weeks until I start my next round of seeds.