kale

Our 2022 garden: winter sowing experiment

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I was inspired by WolfSong to try something new – and help with that urge to be planting something already! Winter sowing.

Today, I finally got some seeds started.

We’ve been keeping a variety of plastic bottles and jugs for potential garden use. We’ve got mostly the blue water bottles. The distilled water we get for my husband’s CPAP used to come in the same type of jug as milk does, but suddenly all the brands seemed to switch to those blue bottles, all at once. Which was a problem, at first, because many of them no longer had handles of any kind. It made it very awkward for my husband to fill his CPAP humidifier, as the sides would collapse inwards as he poured. He ended up transferring the water to an empty jug with a handle, to keep from splashing water all over his CPAP!

People must have complained, because the next time I had to buy distilled water, the bottles had handles attached to their tops.

We have 4 different types of jugs, including two styles of juice bottles. I decided to try one of each.

I’ve been cutting plastic containers to use in the garden for some time, and it’s a real pain, so today, I took the easy route.

My wood burning kit includes a knife tip. The heated tip makes it SO much easier!

I started by cutting drainage holes in the bottoms, and air circulation holes at the tops, by inserting the knife through the plastic, then giving it a bit of a twist to widen the hole.

Then the jugs were cut most of the way around. With each jug having a different design, they each were cut at different spots.

How much was left uncut to create a hinge depended on how much of a flat area there was. Which, in the case of the blue jug, meant none at all, but that plastic was soft enough that it could still work. The juice jugs are a heavy plastic, making them the most difficult to cut, while the water jug that is the same as milk jugs is such a soft plastic, the melted plastic of the cut edges actually stuck together again in places, and they had to be recut!

I’m hoping the blue bottles work the best, because we’re going to have so many of them.

Just to be on the safe side, the hinges were reinforced with strips of duct tape. For the jugs with distinct handles, the hinge was placed just under them, while the one with indentations to create a handle had the hinge placed above, so the container wouldn’t squish into itself if grabbed by the handle.

The handle of the blue jug is at the cap, so it didn’t matter on that one. I just followed one of the lines, just above the middle.

That done, it was time to put some soil in them.

They all fit in one of the baking trays we got last year, to make it easier to carry seedlings around. Especially the ones in the red Solo cups. Those have come in very handy. I plan to get more They are very inexpensive at Costco.

I had the seedling mix potting soil recently picked up to use for this. Once the soil was in, it all got thoroughly watered.

The water almost immediately all drained into the tray.

I watered them more, drained the water out of the tray and used it to water the soil again. After doing that a few times, I used a spray bottle on the soil surface, while leaving the bottoms to sit in water.

Even then, only the surface became moist. The soil mix was still bone try below.

I spent a bit of time, working on moistening the soil before leaving it to sit while preparing the seeds.

I had already decided to try starting kohl rabi indoors, as our attempts to direct sow them outdoors last spring failed completely. It was the same with the kale. All I can think is that something ate the sprouts as soon as they emerged. It was the second year I’d tried kohl rabi, and the first year’s attempt also failed, with only a few plants surviving, only to be decimated by cabbage moths and flea beetles.

So this time, we’ll go with transplants and, if it works, we’ll be making sure to protect them from both critters and creepy crawlies!

Bahahahahahaha!!!!

Okay, I do remember, while going through our seed inventory, looking into the packet for Early White Vienna kohl rabi, seeing a few seeds, and deciding to keep them. Until today, I didn’t realize where was only five seeds left!

Once the seeds and their labels (strips of masking tape) were ready, I used a chopstick to make evenly spaced holes in the soil for the seeds.

Then I used the spray bottle to water into the holes, because it was still so dry under the top layer!

Because of the different shapes, they each fit a different number of holes in the soil for seeds. The jug with the indented sides for a handle meant it had space for only five holes, so that’s where I planted those five, lonely White Vienna Kohl rabi seeds. Being 2 years old, we may well have none at all germinate, but who knows? The white jug had room for the most seed holes, so that’s where the Russian Red kale went. The last two got the Early Purple kohl rabi seeds.

Once the seeds were in, covered, watered with a spray bottle, labels affixed, it was time to close the containers.

I used packing tape to close up the jubs. The tape is enough to hold them together while the jugs are being carried, but to also be easy to remove, later on.

At least I hope they’ll be easy to remove!

The tray was drained again, then it was time to take them outside.

There we have it. Four different jugs, sown with kale and kohl rabi.

I’m leaving the caps on, since they have air circulation holes, but if the holes turn out to be too small, I might still take them off. We shall see.

I had originally planned to leave the jugs somewhere else, but decided that first spot was not visible enough. I had to consider things like cat and deer traffic, as well as where we shovel the snow from the paths. Hopefully, this spot will be easy to monitor, and they won’t get knocked about by critters. They will also get lots of sunlight, too.

Not that you can tell in the above photos. It wasn’t even 6pm yet, but it was full dark when I set these out!

I still have kale and purple kohl rabi seeds left. I might try starting some indoors, when we start other seeds, then direct sowing the last of seeds. That would give us a chance to compare all three methods.

It should be interesting to see how these do!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden; new seedlings – plus critters

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Today, with repeated warnings for thunderstorms, and even the sound of thunder in the distance, we got only a smattering of rain this afternoon. Barely enough to get the ground a bit wet. :-( At least we’re a couple of degrees cooler than forecast. With the conditions we’ve had this year, our Rural Municipality officially declared an agricultural emergency. We had one last year, and I seem to remember there was an attempt by the province to declare one the year before, but it was rejected by the federal government. When I was growing up here, there were no such declarations. Whatever federal funding programs that are now available were brought in while we were living elsewhere, in cities.

It was during one of those times our skies were spitting a bit of moisture that I headed outside for a bit and made a point of checking the newly planted beds. Happily, we now have more seedlings appearing!

  • Swiss Chard
    “Bright lights”
  • Kohlrabi
    “Early Purple”
  • Kale
    “Russian Red”

Yes, these pictures were all taken after there was some rain. :-/

Both types of chard are showing seedlings, though I only took a photo of the one type.

It would be awesome if we FINALLY got some kohlrabi! We will be taken extra steps to try to protect these beds, since what’s growing in them are favoured by all kinds of critters. The red flakes you see on the ground around the seedlings are hot pepper flakes, which we hope will deter critters better than the sprays and granules we’ve bought.

Which leads me to why I headed outside.

I saw the woodchuck out by the old compost pile again.

Yes, I sprinkled the new mystery squash seedlings growing in there with hot pepper flakes, too.

As I came out, the woodchuck watched me for a while before finally running off and into…

*sigh*

…the old burrow we thought had finally been abandoned. We’re still running water into it, and collapsing the entrance little by little. The entrance is not being cleared, but they’re still squeezing in.

After seeing the woodchuck go in, I went and raided my kitchen cupboards again and dragged out a package of whole, dehydrated hot peppers. After giving them a rough chop, I scattered them in and around the opening.

At some point, we will be sure enough of it being empty, that we can finally fill it in. :-/

While heading back inside, I did get a chance to play with some more pleasant critters. Butterscotch’s junk pile babies!

Three of them like to come out to play with the stick, though they still won’t come close enough to touch. There’s that one tabby, hidden in the background, that just will not come closer.

I saw Rozencrantz’s babies – the other junk pile babies! – today, too, though I couldn’t get any pictures. The one that looks like Nicky the Nose is a bit braver and doesn’t run off until it’s sure if I’m coming closer. They like to play in the soil the cucamelons and gourds are planted. Which wouldn’t be a problem, except that I’ve caught them actively digging into the edge of the bed! At least they’re not digging near the plants, themselves. :-/

While we are still getting thunderstorm warnings, when I look at the hourly forecast, the warnings disappear. Instead, we will have sun and clouds for a few hours, and then it switches to “smoke”, all night. There are quite a few wildfires in the province right now, including about 5 that are listed as out of control, but none are near our area. Fire risk, of course, remains high so we are still under a total burn ban. It looks like we won’t get to test out the firepit grill my brother and his wife got for us this year at all, nor the big BBQ that they passed on to us after getting a smaller one for themselves.

Maybe we’ll get a chance to use them in the winter!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden; summer sowing

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Finally! I got the summer sowing done, in all three empty beds. :-)

Before I started on that, though, I made another attempt at trying to keep the woodchuck out of our carrot beds.

I’d read the Epsom salts are a thing they don’t like, while also being good for the garden. We didn’t have a lot left, so one of the beds was a bit sparser. We shall see if it helps, any.

Then I got to work on the first empty bed. This is the one that’s slightly wider, and that I’d already started to prep, and sized the mesh cover for.

I laid the board down as something to walk on, when we tend it later. The piece of scrap wood in the middle is a divider. In the foreground, I planted the Bright Lights Swiss Chard, and on the other side of the divider are French Breakfast radishes, with two short rows of each.

The tool you see in the middle is what I’m using as a hoe. The metal is quite thin, compared to most garden tools. If anyone knows what that is called, I’d love to know!

The second bed got three things planted in it.

Towards the middle of the bed is one long row of Fordhook Giant Swiss Chard.

You know, I hope we actually like Chard. :-D

The row on the outside has Cherry Belle radish in the foreground, and on the far side of the brick is the Russian Red kale.

In the last bed, the Early Purple Vienna kohlrabi are planted on the outside, and Champion radish is planted on this inside.

Later in the month, these beds will have spinach and lettuces planted in them. The kale is a frost hardy plant and I’ve read it tastes better after being hit with a frost. I planted the radishes sparsely, as they can get quite big when allowed to go to pod. We can start harvesting the chard in less than a month, and they should be done before first frost. By putting the taller plants that will be there for the rest of the growing season on the west side, I hope that they will help provide shade for the lettuces and spinach, and we can maybe plant them a bit earlier, as long as the soil doesn’t get too warm for germination.

We will have to monitor all our beds frequently. In the last little while, we’ve seen quite an increase in grasshoppers. Some people in the local gardening groups I’m on have had major problems with them, and they seem to be slowly making their way north.

I admit, this one was rather cute. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this sort of colour before!! I find myself wondering if this is grasshopper albinism, or a species that happens to be almost white in colour!

With the seeds sown, I worked on weeding around one of the onion beds for a while, then dragged my aching butt over to the water barrel at the furthest garden bed to fill it. The spray plastic coating we’d used to seal cracks had started to come loose on the inside, so I went to pull it off while I was filling the watering can. A huge chunk peeled off, and the barrel promptly started to leak at one of the cracks. We still have a bit of the silicon sealant left, so last night, I patched the crack. It should be cured by now, and I wanted to refill the barrel with water. That was when my daughter came out to let me know she needed to pick up a parcel in the mail and go to the grocery store in town, so I set that aside and headed in. Not before I got her to help me position the adapted wire mesh cover.

I had deliberately planted everything in shorter rows, leaving a lot of empty space at the ends of the beds, because of the length of these covers. We set the cover as far to one side as we could, and I was happy to find the row lengths worked out just right. They are completely covered, and the cross pieces at each end are beyond the ends of the rows, so no seedlings will be squished.

Then it was off to town with my daughter, with a quick stop at the post office along the way. I took advantage of the trip to pick up a few things at the grocery store and, as I was wandering down the aisles with the shopping cart, I suddenly realized I was getting the shakes and feeling dizzy. Usually I have to use the shopping cart as a walker because my knees will suddenly dislocate or a hip will give out, but this time, I was using it to not fall over. It took me a while to realize what was going on.

I’d forgotten to eat again.

*sigh*

I did have breakfast, but it was a small meal, and after I finished my last blog post, I headed straight out to work on the garden. It was well past lunch time by then. Had my daughter not come out to get me, I would have been out there for quite a while longer before noticing anything was wrong. Thankfully, I was able to grab something I could eat in the car while my daughter drove home.

Sometimes I’m an idiot, but I enjoy the work so much, I didn’t notice the time or how long it had been since I’d had anything to eat or drink.

I had been planning to go out again and do some weeding, or dig through some sheds to see what I can salvage to make another row cover, but I think that will have to wait until tomorrow.

The Re-Farmer