Gardening In The Far North- Zone 4b

[bp fick]

With heat slated for week's end, I decided to go ahead and do some transplanting today. Under a grey sky, I set out 100 more cabbage and 60 more cauliflower. Finished up around 3 pm. By 4 pm, a misty rain began to fall and continued for over an hour. Tomorrow is supposed to be grey, with a high around 66F. Perfect. Those transplants should set and be just fine.

Sometimes, things just go right.

I direct sow cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower seed in the nursery garden in early June and by the end of June, it's ready for transplant out in the fields. Dang cabbage germinated at an insane rate this year. I'm about done, so I'll likely just feed these 200 plants to the chickens. :laughing::laughing:

 

[Marveltone]

From a person who lives and tries to garden in Zone 3a, I covet your long, warm growing season!

Great looking garden you have. :thumbsup:

Joe

 

[jimmyj]

Great lookin garden. The carrots look amazing!

We have an awful time with weeds in our garden, how do you keep your so clean?

 

[bp fick]

Great lookin garden. The carrots look amazing!

We have an awful time with weeds in our garden, how do you keep your so clean?

Thanks so much for your kind words.

Clean? A lot of work!!! :laughing::laughing::laughing:

Seriously, Two things. First, the best time to hoe is before there are any weeds. Words of wisdom I learned a long time ago and often still have to force myself to go out and practice. But it must be done. Hoe before weeds appear. Seriously. Keep hoeing and keep cultivating.

We apply tons of compost, which we make, and apply extraordinary amounts of calcium based quarry lime, both of which help keep the soil loose and breathing. Gypsum, hydrated, high magnesium, dolomite, slack, or burnt limes are not recommended.

The itty bitty stuff like carrots and onions must simply be weeded by hand. Down on your hands and knees, "finger picking". It's a pain, but gotta be done. Thankfully, they are small patches in the nursery garden. We don't raise either for sale, just 100 onions and similar amount of carrots for ourselves.

Second, we practice organic soil structure gardening which, if done right, and contrary to false assumptions, is far less weedy than chemical gardening. We also work hard at "importing" no weeds. We are hopefully creating a "closed loop" sustainable system here. The chickens are an invaluable link in that loop. I'm still studying and still learning.

 

[AKfish]

BP, It looks great!!! I am jealous, we can hardly grow anything unprotected like that because of the wind as well the frosts. I just put up a 20x50 hightunnel and it has upped our production immensely makes our 10x30 seem tiny. That would be nice just to till the ground and just put stuff in.
Rick

Beautiful garden! Thanks for the pics!

My potatoes are just now peeking thru the ground! And it would be a complete waste of those corn plants to put 'em outside in the soil up here..

Just starting the rafters on our 35'x60' high tunnel. Hope to have it done around the 4th of July or so.

We're just a ways north of tungulara @ just over the 60 degrees north latitude mark. Luckily, we do have the benefit of the temperature moderating effects of the ocean that gives us a few weeks of added growing time.

AKfish

 

[bp fick]

Beautiful garden! Thanks for the pics!

Just starting the rafters on our 35'x60' high tunnel. Hope to have it done around the 4th of July or so.

AKfish

Hey AKfish,
You're gonna post some pics, right?

BTW, that corn you see is 68 day corn. I don't even know if it will make it this year. It is 54F for a high temperature today, windy and grey.

 

[AKfish]

Yep... I'll shoot a few today while we're hanging some more "steel"!

AKfish

 

[bp fick]

Got a pm about squash. This year, I tried something new, to me. I started the winter squash (2 kinds of Italian-orange hubbard type and my tried and true buttercup, indoors in cell trays. Transplanted around May 20 into the field into what is called "close hill" method. Each hill has 3/4 plants and the hills are only 3' apart. I put in 40' of plants using this method.

I had laid down a strip of chicken litter and tilled it in just 30 days prior to transplanting.

The plants have 3" green globes all over them. Dozens of squash have set and the plants continue to blossom profusely. Extremely pleased so far.

First photo on June 11 and the second taken on July 11.