Winter and early spring crops

[b54red]

Below are some pics I took the other day showing what is left of my winter and early spring crops. This is my Brussels sprouts with the hoop pipes still up that were used to protect them during the coldest days and nights this winter. Off to the left at the top of the photo are some of my ridiculously large spinach and cilantro plants in the next bed but they are about done.
Brussells Sprouts 3-11-14.jpg

This next one shows my carrots with some rutabagas in the back of the bed. We have eaten about half of them. To the left you can see some of my nest onions which have done great with the cold weather this year.
carrots and rutabegas 3-11-14.jpg

This bed has only been planted a couple of weeks and it has a mix of spring plants of broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and lettuce.
brocolli, cauliflower, cabbage and lettuce 3-11-14.jpg

This is my Bermuda onions with some spinach and lettuce in the middle.
onions 3-11-14.jpg

I am trying to get the other beds cleaned out and ready for tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers and okra.

Bill

[Pappi]

Looking great, can't wait to start eating some fresh vegetables again. Ran out of beets and carrots months ago and planting time can't come soon enough.

Pappi

[Vespertino]

I wish I had the room in my backyard for some lovely vegetable rows like that. What a good lookin' garden!

[Worth1]

Have the temp swings caused any of the onions to bolt.
I love the onion rows.
I love it all.

Worth

[b54red]

Thanks everyone. This has been a tough winter with the wild temperature swings I have had to cover my winter crops more than any year since I started gardening and even with the good hoop covers I lost a lot to freezing. This was the best winter ever for some things like spinach and rutabagas; but the worst for lettuce.

Worth it never stayed warm enough long enough for onions to bolt. All of my winter lettuce, my cilantro and some of my spinach have all started going to seed. I thought during that worst cold spell that I had lost my nest onions but after a week of looking like they would die from freezing they perked back up and did better than ever. None of my onions were ever covered but I didn't set out the Bermuda onions until after the worst of the cold. The worse they had to survive in the ground was around 24 or so and it didn't bother them.

Bill

[whistech]

Beautiful garden!

[shelleybean]

Thanks for sharing. Looks great!

[taboule]

Bill, looks great, all of it.

I'll be setting up hoops for the first time this year and have a question if I may. Yours look compact and efficient, nice tight bend. What is the width at the base, and length of the PVC pipe?

Thanks
Charles

[b54red]

Originally Posted by taboule

Bill, looks great, all of it.

I'll be setting up hoops for the first time this year and have a question if I may. Yours look compact and efficient, nice tight bend. What is the width at the base, and length of the PVC pipe?

Thanks
Charles

Charles I get my PVC pipes at Lowes but I'm sure they are available at any building supply store. They are the gray PVC conduit which comes in 10 ft lengths. I cut off the female coupling that is on each end which takes off about 4 inches. They are sturdier and less brittle than the plain white PVC and more resistant to the elements.

I have 4 ft wide beds and just push them down into the soil just inside the boards on one side then bend it over and push in the other side the same way. I usually space them about 5 to 6 ft apart which gives the hoop plenty of stability and it is fairly tall which allows for more air and better insulation from the cold inside. I then use 10ft polyethylene in 4 mil. thickness. I attach one side to the side of the boards with quite a few staples and I make sure to fold the plastic 3 or 4 times where it is to be stapled to make the staples hold better. I always do this on the side from which prevailing winds blow from so when it is time to cover I can pull the plastic over the hoops without having to fight the wind so much. When covering for the cold I pull the plastic over the hoops and first staple in the center and keep pulling it tight stapling at ever hoop and once in between them. You don't want to use more staples than necessary because when you need to uncover because of a warm spell it is much easier to pull the plastic loose with fewer staples. I always triple fold the plastic anywhere a staple is going in. During moderately cold days I will just open the ends and roll the plastic back over the first hoop at the end and fold it up and clamp it to the hoop with a spring clamp or two. This allows air flow while still keeping it fairly warm inside; but if it gets too hot I have to unfasten the lightly stapled side and flip the plastic back off the hoops. I then kind of fold it under until it is fairly tight against the side of the bed. If you just leave it wadded between the rows it can fill with rainwater making it a real chore to cover up again during the next cold spell.

Bill

[greenthumbomaha]

Too beautiful for words!!! You are so fortunate to have such a long gardening season. My mouth as watering and we have to wait until fall for planting those crops here. Love your variety and your set up. Would love to see more pics when the warm weather crops go in.

- Lisa

[BucksCountyGirl]

Absolutely lovely...congrats on the great spring crops!

[taboule]

Bill,
Many thanks for the detailed explanation. Have a wonderful season.

[Delerium]

Man those long raised beds are great! What is the variety of the cabbage your growing Bill? Those look great! My cabbages are taking so long to form heads. Hopefully the temps don't get to hot to soon.

How is your tomato grafting coming along this year?

[b54red]

Originally Posted by Delerium

Man those long raised beds are great! What is the variety of the cabbage your growing Bill? Those look great! My cabbages are taking so long to form heads. Hopefully the temps don't get to hot to soon.

How is your tomato grafting coming along this year?

The cabbage varieties are Golden Acre and Greyhound. I like GA better because it makes faster and isn't so huge.

My grafting so far is much better than last year. I try to do my grafting on either cooler days or on rainy days as they appear to have less failures then. I am having much better luck when maintaining a temperature in the sixties even though most experts on grafting recommend higher temps. I have also had far less failures due to things like damping off and other moisture related problems since I started potting my new grafts into Optisorb before they go in the healing chamber. The only problem I see with Optisorb as the potting up medium is that it does not do a good job of supporting the roots so sometimes the seedlings tip over or lay down. It is beginning to look like I am going to be discarding a pile of seedlings because my success rate is way beyond what I even hoped for.

I have found that by pulling the rootstock seedling out of the egg carton cell and shaking off most of the UltraSorb on the roots and then just cutting off a scion I can easily lay their stems on top of each other and make my cut on both at the same time. This assures matching up the stem sizes and the angles so they always fit when joined. I sometimes lay them side by side with the stems pressed together at a point where they are nearly identical in size and cutting through them both at the same time. I then take my finger and dig out a hole for the rootstock and set it in the wet Optisorb and only then use my silicon clip and join the scion to it. I just found it much easier to work with just the short rootstock section when potting it up and I don't have to be as careful. I adjust the depth that I plant it according to how far up the rootstock I had to make the cut in order to match stem sizes. I like to leave as much stem from the graft union to the soil line as possible to prevent rooting from the scion occurring once they are set out in the garden. After all the whole purpose of grafting for me is keeping the heirloom scion from being infected by my fusarium wilt problems.

Bill