M&F FARMette Fall/Winter 2014-2015 Growing for Food – Not for Fun The ‘plan’ is in action, mostly… I’ve got the fall portion of the gardens planted in the Big Vegge, and started on the winter portion of Food & Roses. There are a few things I’m doing differently this season. 1. No veggie starts! Everything is getting direct sown with my un-patented toilet paper planting method. Except for the herbs - Hat Tip to Firefly Farm for providing the starts! 2. I’m not stressin’ about freezes. I’ve planted one bed for FALL and one for WINTER. 3. For the first time ever (no, really, ever!) I’m planting for success – rather than failure. 4. Only planting half of two beds. All 3000 sq. ft. kicked my ass and I lost a full third of my output because I couldn’t maintain all that space. So - BIG VEGGE - (16x25) The FAR side has been seeded with winter rye grass as a cover crop. The compost bin & tomato cages live back there too. Although… the Cayenne Peppers are STILL producing – (the sweet bells have struggled all season – but are still at it – sorta), so I’m going to leave them to do their thing. I’ve got enough crushed red pepper flakes to last a year or two already. Even made some of the vinegar with whole hot peppers, like what ya get for your greens at real country restaurants. Anything else that comes along is just extra. WANT SOME? Heck, I might even get a couple of those frost covers just for shrubs – if I come across them for cheap. Then I’ll cover them and see how long they can keep themselves alive. But the NEAR side is finally planted for fall. 5 kinds of lettuce – with Cherry Belle Radish planted in between (30’) Sugar Anne Peas – along the fence (6’) hat tip to J. McDonald. Green Arrow Peas – FARMette saved seeds (6’) and Grow Gainesville Fresh (18’) Hedging my bets – I’m not stupid. Broccoli Raab, Purple Top Turnips, Kohlrabi (8’ each) 3 kinds of Carrots (20’) Beets - I just can’t seem to give up trying! (5’) And just a few of the Diakon Radish – I intend for this garden to be finished before the first or second frost – I’m not going to cover any of it – it lives or dies by the weather. Everything is germinating nicely. Although…. I had to replant some of the lettuce on accounta some of the new hens made it over the fence and did what hens do… ARGH Wing clipping in the Chicken House that very night! Then there is FOOD n ROSES – (29x15) I wasn’t planning on growing in the Food n Roses bed for this season but Grow Gainesville had so many cultivars that I wanted to have for the freezer that I decided I could maybe handle half of it. Winter growing is much, much easier than any other season. It took me 5 or 6 years to figure this out (pretty garden boot – kicking saggy ass) The “Never Say Die” garlic is in – 5 Elephant and about 30 ordinary store bought White. I’ve got the rest of the cloves in my apron pocket - to stick in the ground as I go about the gardens. It’s like a surprise when they come up and I don’t even remember planting them if they don’t. As for my dreams of a permanent garlic bed? Wellllll…. I do love MyMike and appreciate his help – but this is the SECOND time he’s weeded the Mugwort out of the garlic bed and proudly brought me the garlic cloves I’d intentionally left in the ground. Along with 2 jam packed 5 gallon buckets of Mugwort for the chickens… sigh… There were big plant labels in there too! I’m thinking I need an electric fence around the new garlic bed! I truly believe it’s a passive aggressive manifestation of his dislike for garlic in his food. I picked up a new (to me) heritage spinach cultivar (at Garden Gate Nursery) called Monstreueux de Viroflay. Not only is it bigger (up to 24” across with 10” leaves), it’s ‘supposed’ to do very well here. Then when I looked it up – welllll yeaaahhhhh – check out the reviews from Baker Creek (Rare Seeds): rareseeds/monstrueux-de-viroflay-spinach/ The Grow Gainesville Spinach selections – Space (from last year) did so well in a container that I’m planting three containers this season. The other Long Standing Bloomsdale is the go to spinach cultivar for just about everywhere and I’m going to give it some limited real estate – later in the year – November maybe? Which brings me to – planning for Winter in the FnR garden. I have frost cloth (from last winter) already cut to size – but only plan to use it for the most extreme hard freeze conditions. The entire POINT of winter crops is that they not only survive the cold but actually improve with a frost. It’s the KILLING frosts (at least 2 hours of air temps below 26 degrees) that concern me. All that unnecessary panic last year really got under my skin, ya know? So, I’m sitting here on the back deck looking at it. The FAR section is prepped (tilled, manured, & visqueen covered) ready to cut through and plant. Yet there are STILL decisions to be made. The NEAR section still needs to be pulled and over seeded with winter rye grass. Which is what I should be doing rather than writing this. The production tomatoes are going in there next THINGS TO CONSIDER BEFORE PLANTING DEPARTMENT: Height of plants – distance between them – how many CAN I plant? How many SHOULD I plant? Length of time to first harvest – come again crops – how much for fresh eating - what can’t be preserved? What can be preserved? I’ve got a pressure canner now so I can have winter greens all year long. Without having to take up valuable freezer space. I also consider my neighbors who really like some things I’m kinda ambivalent about. Then, there are things, like Kale, that can go on producing long past when I want to put in something else in that location. So I’ve got to consider how much room to leave. Rather than just yankin’ it up. Those Permaculture people really got to me! There is now a bed called Wendi’s Space, which is a small (8x8) permanent Permaculture bed. Come to find out, most of the stuff I already had in there were already PERMACULTURE plantings… go figure. Planted a Strawberry Guave – thanks to EPP and the notoriously spreading Holy Basil. I was going to add Malibar Spinach, until I tried it. Eweeee. Some Lambs Quarters still to be added. But meanwhile - have at it ya’ll. I moved Melissa’s Flower Garden to a more visible location. It was STUPID to put it where I couldn’t see the damn thing. It’s planted over our septic field. Here’s hoping it not only does well for this year but perpetuates itself. Just about anything can happen to alter ‘the plan’. Things like life, and weather, and illness, and MyMike’s j.o.b., and whatever. That’s where the Growing for Food gets precarious, and the Growing for Fun part gets interesting.
Posted on: Thu, 09 Oct 2014 12:58:03 +0000
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