This spring, Ben and I performed a modest garden expansion – increasing our total growing space by about 100 square feet. Clearing land is hard! And there aren’t even any trees! But fern hummocks are incredibly … one with the earth. Even more so when they’re frozen in the middle. With the old Montgomery Ward rototiller and a lot of hand work we cleared the western portion of the upper garden space. While Ben was gone one day I turned it into a circular-plot, with four corners and keyhole paths.
Looking east:
Earlier this year we had signed up for a high tunnel through a NRCS program (check out the website here). So as we went into this growing season I had a lot of thoughts running through my head of potential CSA plans for the future (CSA = Community Supported Agriculture. my favorite one, from college, can be checked out here). Since then we’ve been approved for participation in the 3 year high tunnel program, ordered one, and sometime in the next month we’ll be setting up a 30’ x 72’ structure to the south east of our current garden. Yeehaw! I have some ideas floating around for growing culinary herbs & cut flowers next year – I’ll keep updating and at some point maybe have a separate site! Any names for this new small farm?!
But back to this year and our garden. The only major failure was the cauliflower. The purples all bolted, but were really tasty eaten more like broccoli. I started the artichokes too late and they are doing their first-year perennial thing now. Which means no artichoke will form until next year, if they make it that long. I’m going to mulch ‘em up good and see if any are able to overwinter. I may bring a couple in and under the house to see if they survive that. Next year artichokes will be started early (February) and will be put in the high tunnel. Mmm….I love artichokes.
Other yummy things grown: swiss chard, beets, buttercrunch lettuce, mizuna, carrots, snap peas, chamomile, nasturtiums, cabbage, brussels sprouts (a near-failure), cabbage, broccoli, garlic (hm…should have been planted in the fall – also going to see if they overwinter), onions, leeks (a very wee harvest), potatoes (red, purple, yukon gold, and shepody), strawberries, mint, parsely, sage, thyme, dill, mustard greens, lavender, cilantro, and chives. Inside we had 8 tomato plants, rosemary, and chili peppers! Oh – and heaps of basil. Basil loves our house, it’s fantastic!
Some photos from the year:
Three beds (including the snap peas and their trellis) and the compost
The brassicas – cauliflowers, brussels sprouts, cabbages, and broccolis. With a few marigolds in a terribly weak effort to stave off the root maggots! (we used row cover for the first month or so of their lives)
Potatoes, leeks, onions, garlics, brassicas. Further up = raspberry canes, cistern, tools, chair.
Livingston daisies … so pretty!
Columbines
Daisies & nasturtiums
Onions and leeks, before and after. The onion harvest was pretty substantial – I braided them all into bunches and they should last us at least 2 months I think. The leek harvest was wee … you’re seein’ it all in that there picture. They all went to potato leek soup – very yummy.
The beet harvest was similarly wee. We had 2 varieties – chioggia and another kind. They were sooo beautiful! I pickled them, despite only making a total of 6 half-pint jars. Again – super tasty!
Mom came and helped harvest!
We dug 2 boxes of potatoes, harvested the rest of the buttercrunch lettuce for caeser salads, a couple of carrots to munch on, and a head of cabbage for mom to take home for soup.
I’ve dried a bunch of chamomile and mint for tea this winter.
And a beautiful bouquet that Katie & Blaine brought by on their last night in Homer. They grew a smattering of lovely flowers, including this one bright sunflower! We’ll miss them heaps down here, but I’m looking forward to a Fairbanks visit in the coming spring.
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