Winter Garden 2013

I am late posting photos of my winter garden plantings that took place a couple of weeks ago.  Of course had I taken the pics then there wouldn't be anything in the pictures but soil!  It doesn't look like much right now but when the little guys grow up the plot will be covered in goodies for us to eat all winter.

We are still using the area along the driveway this year and probably next year, since we used the adobe bricks from the raised beds for the labyrinth; I don't have that space to use right now.  This area gets a lot of sun and I can easily work the ground from both sides.  We used one of the tomato cages for the peas and green beans; I think this will work out pretty well and I can always add a tall fence around the cage to give the peas more room to spread and hold onto if need be.  I still have another section (past the kale) to dig up and amend the soil with compost, then I will plant more of the same things but a few weeks later. This way I am not harvesting all at once. Sucession planting!

Snow Peas and Green Beans on the cage, Easter Egg Radishes, French Breakfast Radishes and Round Black Spanish Radish.

Snow Pea shoots, in the back area there are onion seedlings.  I used the seed heads and just sprinkled them along  the parimeter of the row.  I will probably need to separate some of them as they get larger.

In this area we have a french Carrot called Parisienne  from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds that is short variety.  I also planted Cilantro, Parsley and Dill somewhere in the space. LOL

Same area, with Gourmet Baby Greens, Mesclum Sassy Salad Mix, and Arugula.

Lacinato Kale

Chioggia Beets, these are the red and white stripe beets and Gourmet Blend Beets, this mix has golden, orange, dark red and stripe beets.  I will do intermitant planting of all of the beets, onion sets and radishes, watching for areas that I missed and seeds that did not germinate. 

Last seasons Swiss Chard looking sad, but it will now do much better with the cooler nights. Also a section of onion sets in the foreground.  I planted many of these a month or so ago and then more on this day.

Bright Lights Swiss Chard and More of the Red Chard.

Mesclun and Salad Bowl Blend

Pencil Pod Yellow Beans, a bush variety.

A Girl’s Garden

Robert Frost (from Mountain Interval, 1920)

A neighbor of mine in the village

    Likes to tell how one spring

When she was a girl on the farm, she did

    A childlike thing.

One day she asked her father

    To give her a garden plot

To plant and tend and reap herself,

    And he said, “Why not?”

In casting about for a corner

    He thought of an idle bit

Of walled-off ground where a shop had stood,

    And he said, “Just it.”

And he said, “That ought to make you

    An ideal one-girl farm,

And give you a chance to put some strength

    On your slim-jim arm.”

It was not enough of a garden,

    Her father said, to plough;

So she had to work it all by hand,

    But she don’t mind now.

She wheeled the dung in the wheelbarrow

    Along a stretch of road;

But she always ran away and left

    Her not-nice load.

And hid from anyone passing.

    And then she begged the seed.

She says she thinks she planted one

    Of all things but weed.

A hill each of potatoes,

    Radishes, lettuce, peas,

Tomatoes, beets, beans, pumpkins, corn,

    And even fruit trees

 And yes, she has long mistrusted

    That a cider apple tree

In bearing there to-day is hers,

    Or at least may be.

Her crop was a miscellany

    When all was said and done,

A little bit of everything,

    A great deal of none.

Now when she sees in the village

    How village things go,

Just when it seems to come in right,

    She says, “I know!

It’s as when I was a farmer——”

    Oh, never by way of advice!

And she never sins by telling the tale

    To the same person twice.