SFG Garden - Fayetteville, GA 2015

Well, seeing posts from yolos has inspired me to show you all some of my gardening endeavors this year.  Now, my garden is no where near as neat and organized as yolos' work, but I do have a want to become better at that.  It really is possible to have a garden during winter, even if weather falls to the teens.


From my daughter's box:  Yugoslavian Red and Black Seeded Simpson Lettuces



A very large pot full of MM:  Rosemary and Thyme




Gourmet Blend Micro-greens



Farmer's Blend Micro-greens



Bloomsdale Spinach (Thanks Atlanta Marie for the trade!)




Several varieties of kale, chives and carrot seedlings



I goofed with this fennel.  I uncovered it during the day when weather had been in the teens over night... I was I afraid it would get too hot under tarp insulation....  However, the bulb itself is still firm and new leaf growth as already begun:


Butter lettuce in the dead of winter?


One of my garlic boxes:



All of these plants were only covered when weather fell below 20 degrees.  Other than that, they were left to weather the elements on their own.

Thanks for looking!

Looking good Windmere.  I am amazed that your lettuce is doing so well.  I tried to plant some lettuce in the fall, 16 squares, and not a single plant sprouted.  Oh well, I will try again.

yolos wrote:Looking good Windmere.  I am amazed that your lettuce is doing so well.  I tried to plant some lettuce in the fall, 16 squares, and not a single plant sprouted.  Oh well, I will try again.

Thank you yolos.  I did not have even close to 100% germination.  I ended up transplanting what did germinate to four per square in a different part of the garden.  In a sense, some areas were incubators for plants that ended up moving elsewhere after they had a good root system.  Otherwise, the spacing of my lettuce would  have been erratic (except with the micro-greens... I just sprinkled those seeds with wild abandon).

That lone Black Seeded Simpson came up all by itself in a regular non-MM section of the garden.  I have no idea how that happened.  It got moved to where you see it now.

Wow, Windmere...  Looks great!

I didn't even try with the winter garden this year.  But you've given me encouragement...  Thank you!

I want to make sure I understand correctly.  Did you say that you only cover your lettuce when the temp goes below 20*F.  I thought for sure it would die if it froze.

My spinach was stared back in the fall I haven't covered it and it still looks great. My peas on the other hand were covered and kicked it during our last freeze. I live in Newnan, Georgia.

Yea, same here.  My uncovered peas gave up with the last freeze and my uncovered spinach is doing good.

yolos wrote:I want to make sure I understand correctly.  Did you say that you only cover your lettuce when the temp goes below 20*F.  I thought for sure it would die if it froze.

Yep yolos, that wasn't a typo.  All my lettuce is cold weather, (except that butter lettuce, not sure what happened there).  With what's in EarthBoxes, I wonder if they have insulating properties.  However, lettuces are also in 4x4 boxes...  I dunno.  That Yugoslavian variety grew well last year (I only discovered its heartiness when I forgot to cover it last year).  I'm having identical results this year.

I'm going to have to get some of those lettuce seeds. Do you happen to remember where you got them?

mschaef wrote:I'm going to have to get some of those lettuce seeds. Do you happen to remember where you got them?

Mschaef they came from Seedsavers Exchange:

http://www.seedsavers.org/onlinestore/lettuce/Lettuce-Yugoslavian-Red.html

I have some seeds that I harvested after I let a couple heads bolt over the summer.  I'd be happy to send you some.  The only thing is, I cannot vouch for their viability because I've never actually harvested lettuce seeds before.  If that is ok with you, PM me and I'll get some off to you in the mail.

Keep in mind that they are exclusively a cool weather variety.  They immediately bolt and turn bitter when it starts to warm up.

Windmere, your pictures are beatiful.

Well, I've been ill for a while, but I'm back with a vengeance.  I've got most of my MM supplies (see my list of stuff in another post if you're interested).

During summer 2014, my family had an enormous paper crafting project.  We have a lot of supplies left, so my daughter and I put them to good use!  Here's a sample of our handiwork:



My mother-in-law thinks they look like lollypops and we all agree.

I finally determined my tomato varieties this year and they are all planted:

Mountain Magic
Mountain Gold
Floridade
Tigerella
Kumato
Supersweet 100
Lizzano
Tiger Blush
Honeydrop
Honeybunch
Sungold

That makes for 11 this year (same amount of varieties as last year I think).  I don't need to tell you that it was really tough narrowing down the contenders.  So here goes...

THERE you are!  Been wondering...  You okay?

I agree - they look like lollipops... or cupcake frosting!

Hi Marie!  Yeah, ain't those little signs cute?  You gotta make gardening fun, not so much a chore.  I'm ok.  I'm just so out of shape now from inactivity.  I just finished weeding, composting and planting our color spot around our mailbox and I'm pooped.  It was a baby step toward getting ready for spring and summer.

Hi Windmere, glad you are feeling better and out in the garden again.  You haven't missed much.  I just looked at the temps/weather that we had for the last 14 days.  11 days of rain or clouds and two sunny days. 

Those labels are so cute.  You and/or your daughter is very artistic.

I started my tomatoes on 2/8.  I have a few that I could transplant right now but I am waiting for warmer weather.  I cut back to 6 varieties this year.  You and I are not growing any of the same varieties.  I am trying the Mountain Merit this year to see if it is more resistant to Early Blight.

Windmere wrote:Hi Marie!  Yeah, ain't those little signs cute?  You gotta make gardening fun, not so much a chore.  I'm ok.  I'm just so out of shape now from inactivity.  I just finished weeding, composting and planting our color spot around our mailbox and I'm pooped.  It was a baby step toward getting ready for spring and summer.

Take it easy, Windmere and baby steps to building up your strength.  Having fun is part of enjoying what we do.

Thank you for your good advice Kelejan.  My wife echos your sentiments.  Yes, baby steps.  Over time I'm sure I'll be good as new.

Well, here's my latest update.  I'm gradually regaining some of my strength.  I end up working outside one day and then I spend the entire next day recovering.  I've made a dent on the weeding and I've weed whacked some of the overgrowth around some beds.

Here's some of my baby tomatoes... I thought my two Mountain Gold seeds were duds, but they were actually very late bloomers.




I posted this on another thread, but I'm gonna post here too.  Our family is very excited about our first ranunculus bloom.  We fear losing them to tonight's freeze though... hopefully tarping and grouping in a protected corner will save them.




I also planted some daffodils for my wife.  However, her least favorite flower color is yellow.  Since I bought an inexpensive blend from Aldi, I was hoping for a good mix of colors other than yellow.

Here is the single solitary flower that was not yellow among a multitude of solid golden blossoms (I find this funny in a twisted sort of way):



My kale is going bananas:




We are eagerly anticipating these year's garlic.  The stalks on some are HUGE!



This is will be the third year for these asparagus crowns.  I planted them as an experiment last fall (paid $1 for six per package when Lowes had a crazy off season sale on them... shout out to Landarch and frugal gardening).  They suddenly just started popping up.  I'm thinking I'm going to leave them alone and harvest next year.   We've already tasted two... and they are sweet as sugar!



That's all for now.  Thank you for looking!

Everything looks like it is healthy and growing nicely.  My Winterbor Kale is bolting already but yours sure looks like it is aggressively growing.  Looks like we may both get some fair sized garlic this year.

PS - if you need any tomato transplants, I will have some extras.  But it looks like you also have plenty.

PSS - glad to hear you are recovering your strength.

Thanks yolos.  I am hoping for an even better (than last year) crop of garlic.  

Every year I have planted way more tomatoes than I need as "insurance" against dud seeds and bad weather.  The extras always find homes (a lot easier to unload than kittens).  I don't think I could manage any more than I have, but thank you for offering.  I make the same offer to you.

Looks great, Windmere!  Again, I really like that pink color.  And the daffy is pretty too...!

What kind of garlic is that?

AtlantaMarie wrote:Looks great, Windmere!  Again, I really like that pink color.  And the daffy is pretty too...!

What kind of garlic is that?

It's Early Italian.  I got it from Southern Exposure.  It was available for a blip of time from them.  At first there was some confusion about whether it really is Early Italian, but Southern Exposure confirmed it later.

Um, so the short answer is:  Early Italian ... lol

Windmere, Thank you for sharing.

Early Italian...  Okay, thanks.  How does it taste?  Is it one of the milder ones or more robust?

Looks like it gets quite large.

AtlantaMarie wrote:Early Italian...  Okay, thanks.  How does it taste?  Is it one of the milder ones or more robust?

Looks like it gets quite large.

I find it to be milder in flavor, but not wimpy by any means.  It seems to be "creamier" if that makes sense.  The creamy quality especially manifests when it is roasted.  The color of the bulb is a cream/gray color with some red highlights.  Compared to some of the hardnecks that are frequently imported from China, the flavor is much milder and perhaps better in Italian dishes (duh, hence the name...  I'm losing it... ha ha). 

The stalks in my photo come from the box with the largest of all cloves.  I ended up with almost two orders worth and I separated out the largest cloves for one box, the next largest for another box and then left overs were planted in regular GA clay/5 compost mix.  I read that the larger the clove is, the larger the bulb will be.  I have found this to be true.

My first year growing this variety, I bought from Amazon and I only had a few large cloves.  The majority of my harvested bulbs were on the small side.  The Southern Exposure cloves were much larger.  I'm hoping for a bumper crop!