fall gardening
sastyk | July 22, 2011It is hard as heck to imagine that one of these days, I'll be longing for a hot day again, and for the fresh food that accompanies it, but it always happens. It is also hard, deep in the dog days, to realize that right now is when you have to start thinking about your fall garden. That's probably why so many of us start out beautifully, but peter out when the cold comes, running out of fresh things months before we have to.
Indeed, after a decade of working my farm, including the years when we ran a CSA, and many other years when we were gardening for ourselves, or raising perennial food and…
sastyk | July 21, 2011Just to let you know, I'm starting another class this week - this one helping people get started with fall gardening and season extension. If you are like most folks, you probably start out enthusiastic about your garden, but around the middle of the summer, you get focused on harvesting, or overwhelmed by the heat and the weeds and let the cool season garden peter out.
That's a mistake, because with very simple and cheap methods of season extension and a little attention right about now (for those as northerly as me, a bit later for folks south of me in this hemisphere), you can be…
sastyk | July 15, 2011What, you ask, has Sharon been duing, besides getting mud and manure on her? (I feel like there's been a theme to some of my recent posts, no?) I'm sure you have nothing but this on your mind - the doins a'transpirin at my house being the focus of whole tens of people (well, maybe one ten on a good day ;-). Still, I'm going to tell you.
Well, what we've mostly been doing is getting ready for the fall garden season, and getting ready for the family expansion project. As of this week, our house is open as a foster home, but of course, in our usual "doing at the last minute something we…
sastyk | October 13, 2010Last night was our official first frost, right about at our new average (official last frost date is about October 7 here, but the last 9 years have been increasingly late). I was wholly unprepared - I forgot to check, and had meant to harvest the last batch of Tulsi. Ah well. Green tomato pickles are definitely the order of the day!
We'll be eating out of our garden for a long time yet - with season extension, probably until late December or January, but frost is a marker of change, and it seems as good a time as any to evaluate this year's garden.
In general, it was a banner year for…
sastyk | July 6, 2010Garden Calendar
When the dogstar is aglow
plant petunias in the snow.
When the snow begins to melt
Wrap your hollyhocks in felt.
When the felt begins to bloom
pick the apples off your broom.
When the broom begins to wear
weed the turnips in your chair.
When the chair begins to rock
prune the snowdrops in your sock.
When the sock is full of holes
blame the whole things on moles.
When the moles inquire: "Why
pick on us?" say simply "I
will instruct you how to grow
pink petunias in the snow. - NM Bodecker
Note: Today is the first day of my month-long fall gardening class, which will help more…
sastyk | July 4, 2010Just to let you know, I'm going to be starting another class this coming week, beginning on Tuesday - this one helping people get started with fall gardening and season extension.
If you are like most folks, you probably start out enthusiastic about your garden, but around the middle of the summer, you get focused on harvesting, or overwhelmed and let the cool season garden peter out. And that's a mistake, because with very simple and cheap methods of season extension and a little attention right about now (for those as northerly as me, a bit later for folks south of me in this hemisphere…
sastyk | June 24, 2010I wrote this post in 2008, which was one of my worst gardening years ever - I made the insane mistake of setting the deadline for _A Nation of Farmers_ for June 1, which meant I spent most of the planting season in front of my computer. But I knew I wasn't the only one, and I've come to worry a lot less about it - because an awesome fall garden is worth a lot. BTW, not entirely coincidentally, I'm going to teach a 4 week online, asynchronous class on fall gardening during the month of July, beginning Tuesday, July 6. The class will help you either get started or begin to make use of fall…