PNW: December 2014

What's new, gardening crew?

Anybody gifting anyone with any garden gifts this year?

I know what I'd like: a powerful pain killer injected right into several of my joints. One I could drink wouldn't be bad either. I just spent five hours splitting logs non-stop, and my body feels atrocious. We do have our good-sized wood shed almost completely full of both new and old wood, though, so that's good. I hope that's the last I've seen of that chore for a long time. The one small mercy was that I was doing it in cool fall weather rather than in the summer.

Anybody still gardening? Tomorrow I check my kale. It has gotten to freezing temps here once or twice, and I'm looking forward to my first taste of frost-sweetened kale. Everyone says that's when it's at its best, and I've never had it that way.

Sounds like you need a log splitter.  Not a machine, but a teenage boy for hire!

What the first freeze of the year didn't kill in my garden, this newest one has.  There's nothing left to eat now but the carrots and beets being 'stored' where they grew.  I've got some lettuce and chard growing indoors under lights.  


This picture was taken at high noon, facing south.  Even on the rare day with no clouds, this is all the sun I get.  I get no direct sun for about 3 months.


(The downspout on the corner of the house really is plumb.  That's some serious lens distortion!    )


This is the most sun my greenhouse gets in winter, when it occasionally peeks between trees.  There's just no use trying to use it in winter.



This side of the garden stays in the shade too.



My broccoli, cauliflower, and celery aren't very happy with temps in the teens!

awww our back garden cole crops look just like yours Boffer!...except....that ours have been chewed on by opossums & critters and there is not much for us humans to consume....the girls are still happy to eat them though....and its a bonus to them if they find a slug or critter on the greens!

Our Kale out front in our BTE area however is doing much better then the ones in the back garden, seems like the larger animals haven't found them just yet.....&...there seems to be little slug damage as well......they do  look awful at night all wilted from the cold & freeze, but come afternoon when the sun hits them a bit they seem to perk up.....the sad part is...we didnt plant as much as we should have....next year though...I will remember you cant plant to much cole crops!

I think we still have a couple of carrots left & some green onions and leeks....they look sad in the cold as well...but will also perk up a bit.....they taste great still!

Celery looks really bad....I almost pulled it but remembered that it had looked the same way a couple of years ago when we let the celery over winter and all we did is cut back the bad part and left them in the ground and they did recover for a spring crop and we were able to collect seeds from them as they did bolt in the spring and make flowers.....

parsley is holding its own

Marc hope your joints feel better soon!!

happy gardening
rose

Oh, Boffer, how cold everything looks in your photos.  Reminds me of December 4 last year when we got a hard freeze. It looks doubly bad with with powdery mildew.


FG, I'm sorry for your freeze, also.

OMG!

What a difference from the same spot you photo'd last month.  Can you still use those in your smoothies?

CC

I hadn't thought about it. It's going to take forever to use up what I have frozen. The flavor is too strong for my tastes, so I only use a little bit at a time.

I think I'll leave them and see if they do anything come spring.

Thanks Rose!

Boffer, they do look in a funk. I just visited the garden I have my kale in, and realized how many plants I never pulled. I pulled some up, but left some others. The kale are doing great. Some swiss chard seedlings I recently planted(too late) are still around and look very healthy, but their growth has all but stopped. Unfortunately, there are snails about that are eating a lot of my purple sprouting broccoli. I caught one and smashed it between two bricks. So satisfying ...

I picked dinosaur kale, a broad-leafed green kale I forget the name of, and two kinds of purple kale, one with very curly leaves and one with very thin leaves. I haven't tasted all of them yet, but will make a salad of some of them tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing whether the brief drop to chilling temperatures we had once or twice will have brought them to some sort of flavor peak.

I forgot to harvest all my chard, so it's gone too. Most of the plants should come back in spring though. Thanks for the reminder that I forgot to check on my kale.

bbbbbbrrrrrrrrr!

boffer, my garden is a bit like yours as I  am above you on the map in British Columbia.  For three months I do not get any sun due to the hillside north of me.
I look forward to when the first bit of sun will hit my garden now that I have taken down some trees where the sunshine should shine first. I am going to use covers so that I can get a better start next season.
If I lived the other side of the Columbia River that is where all the sunshine is.  Naturally that was the first place used as farms and orchards when the first settlers came. I do have one consolation, that my place is just right from April to September while they get baking hot.

That does sound nice, and makes for a good long season.

Marc,  Is this December at your house?  

LOL! Hey, how did you get in my house to take that picture!!!

  Heh, heh.  I have my ways.

Marc Iverson wrote:
Anybody gifting anyone with any garden gifts this year?
.

DH doing his Christmas shopping:

Marc Iverson wrote:...Anybody gifting anyone with any garden gifts this year?...

I'm giving a complete turnkey SFG gardening set-up.  The only thing missing is a garden hose.


Barrels are full of MM; buckets hold 5 way compost.





This will be the 6^th set-up that I've given.  Three are still being used, though the gardeners haven't expanded.  I reclaimed two boxes and MM that were abandoned.

Oh, Boffer, I think I'm going to cry! What a neat gift. Thanks for showing all the accessories.

Wow, now that's a great homemade-gift! Pretty far from the ordinary!

What a wonderful gift.  Of the three that are still going, what success did the recipients have?

The last couple of years I have given worm castings and some finished compost and will do so this year.  In fact, I am just going to harvest one of my Wiggler Hiltons.

Two got off to a good start the first year, but forgot to amend with the compost before planting the second year. Years 3 and 4 were successful. Good thing I have enough compost to share, though! They're not interested in that part.

The other got off to a bad start from the gitgo by placing the box in a shady area. Pesky details!

Power's out, but it's not too cold or wet...yet?

How's everyone else doing?

Stormy stormy stormy yesterday! Today some hard rains, but they stopped.

Honestly I loved it. So soothing I could listen to the rains 24/7. Then again, I keep my window open even in freezing weather, so others might not be so charmed. To me, the sound is nectar from heaven, though.

And it's not like we don't need plenty of water in this part of the PNW, which has been facing some bad droughts recently. I hope some of it was deposited up high as snow, but strangely, this year, I haven't been hearing a thing about the snowfall, unlike last year at this time.

My kale are still growing, slowly. Slugs and snails are having a party on my cole crops and chard. :*(

http://www.burpee.com/vegetables/tomatoes/saladette/tomato-cloudy-day-hybrid-prod022614.html?catId=cat1040008&source=banner&omn2pd=bz


The name caught my eye and I thought of the PNW.   

Kay

Keep spreading the word: the sun never shines here!

Burpee's description is certainly appealing, but  I've given up on cool season tomatoes.  Bleh!

walshevak wrote:http://www.burpee.com/vegetables/tomatoes/saladette/tomato-cloudy-day-hybrid-prod022614.html?catId=cat1040008&source=banner&omn2pd=bz


The name caught my eye and I thought of the PNW.   

Kay

Looks real interesting, especially the resistance to late blight, but wow pricey!