Amazing Winter continues to grow

Having been here, in Seattle for about 2,5 years now I am still amazed at things that I learn every day. I would never have thought that I would have a veggie garden in winter. Thanks to Seattle Tilth who taught me how to have a winter garden in this amazing maritime weather of Seattle. Winter garden means in fact that you start sowing and planting between end of July till end of October/beginning of November for your fall, winter and early spring crop. 

I sowed carrots, onions, spinach, fava beans, snow peas, mustard greens, lettuce, kale, broccoli, radishes and purple sprouting broccoli, garlic and shallots. We started to eat the radishes and spinach already. Take a look!

  Closest to you, in the corner is the fava beans. We still have arugula which decorates our salads.

Under the left covered area are the snow peas. I can't wait to have carrots by spring/summer. This is so much fun!!! 

Winter Garden!

Yes, you read the title correct. For the first time in my life I will have a winter garden. AMAZIIINNGGGG.
You may wonder how can that happen. Well the answer is very easy: Thanks to maritime climate that we get here in Seattle!!!!
Wohooooo. I am so excited. This time I am going a step forward and starting the veggies all from scratch.

So yesterday MLF helped to extend the garden.
He was awesome as always. He put the extension and sure enough his analytic brain worked things like a charm in a very short time.

When he was done, it was my turn to sheet mulch the area before we could put the soil. I put wet cardboard and newspaper so that the grass won't grow into the veggie bed but just break down and be organic material for the yard. Thanks again for all this info to Seattle Tilth. I am so inspired and excited to have a winter garden. 

Bed is ready for the soil that is being dumped in the background

   

Is there anything like life without pests in a garden?

Hah! In your dreams may be!!!! It was a dream of mine too. I have been taking care of the plants like babies and making sure they were healthy. I was thinking that the soil was so healthy, and we were trying our best to nurture those lovely veggies.
Aaaaand one day I saw slimy disgusting creatures on my lettuce. Yuuuccckkkk!!!!! was what I screamed and of course MLF was out thinking I am in trouble in some way. Well I wasn't but the garden was.
So I wore my gloves and MLF didn't even bother and we started to pick up those slimy, disgusting creatures. How have they been gotten in there? The next weekend the side of the bed was surrounded by copper shield. Yes, yees I know, they were in there already but that would stop more coming in. After that every single day at dawn and dusk I was out picking out those disgusting creatures and smashing them.

As I was thinking woow this was great OK no more slugs on the leaves and in the bed. Great job. The next week I started to see wholes on the broccoli yet there were no slugs. This was even worse : Cabbage Worm. That white butterfly with purple dots on each wing had laid its eggs . So many of them Ughh. You can see below. removing the eggs under the leaves and removing the green larva (caterpillar) helped controlling. Yet, I think I am lucky to have only these two pests this year. Hopefully with more protection, there won't be any next year.

The Eggs of Cabbage Worm under the broccoli leaf

The Larva (caterpillar)


This is the stage that damages the leaves. You can see dark green, black droplets on the leaves too.

Summer has arrived and about to leave

They say summer has come and about to leave. However, I haven't seen it here. I have been thinking that it is still Spring, end of Spring until we started to have peppers and tomatoes already. Well the garden has done great. Tomatoes have lost control and trying to reach the sky. We started to get peppers and I can't tell you the amount of lettuce, and squash we had. Broccoli has already gone and last weekend I pulled out the lettuce as well.  We had great leeks too.

Having said all the above and looking at the dates. You can sure tell I have been lazy and haven't updated much here. I am guilty! On the other hand, I didn't forget to get pics each time we had new crop. The newest harvets was the eggplant and lemon cucumber. You can take a look at them all yourself:

First Harvest of the Season

Woow. We had our first harvest of the season today. With the weather cooperating and being in the conditions that lettuce like, we harvested our first leaves and made a salad. It was amazing, delicious and of course so much fun. We had to add   some leaves  of baby spinach that we picked up from our farmers' market on Sunday, but the majority of it was our own lettuce variety and we enjoyed every bit of it. Hope you friends out there can visit us this summer and taste some of our veggies as well. In fact it was a historical day for MLF. Usually, when there is salad for dinner, I am the one who gets the most and he eats by BT's force. However, tonight was not the case. After having a generous portion, he joined me to get some more. In the end, he got it all and didn't leave any for me. When we sat back, he said "Sorry, I didn't leave any for you, did you REALLY want some more?" Well what do you say, no I didn't want some more, I can always make more in a week or so.  It made me very happy that he was eating greens without any outside force :) :) :)

Our first harvest. It doesn't look much but it made a lot of salad.

The Bed after harvesting some lettuce

Two Weeks Old

It has been two weeks since all the veggies found their homes in the bed. It is amazing how much they grew.
I was gone for a whole week and when I got back I couldn't believe how much the lettuce has grown. The eggplants and tomatoes have gotten taller and I have a Thai pepper plant that has it's first bud on it :) MLF will be very happy once those hot peppers start to come out.

The only loss I have is the shallots. Most of them didn't make so I am going to sow from seed and see how it goes. Most likely, the weather was too cold for them after living in the greenhouse. The other onions, and leeks however, made just fine. (Knock on wood :)) I am glad the tomatoes and the eggplant didn't have the same problem even though I was worried about them.

Look at these, they look bigger in person.

First .... Then ...

Everything is ready. So exciting :)

First all the plants find their homes in the grid!

Then they are all planted. Onions and leeks!!!! The most difficult to plant. So little, so many, not enough space.

Finally, every one of them are tucked in. Ready to grow

And here is MLF's corner. He planted the strawberries and the edible flowers in the bed on the parking strip

 Noow we will be taking care of these seedlings. Can't wait to start harvesting. 

I already started thinking of the winter garden.