Springtime garden update

I love April in the garden. Everything is warming up and drying out from our typical March sogginess (especially bad this year, with our record rainfall). Everyone's been enjoying the sun breaks as of late, including Mini-kitty (who is now 14 years young... she's become a pro at lounging). 

The peas, seeded on President's Day weekend, are a good 6" tall and climbing. The brassicas, which were seeded just last weekend, have already popped as well.

The garlic is doing great and is well on its way to our finest ever harvest (fingers crossed).  I planted four varieties this year, all purchased from Uprising Seeds in Bellingham. All of this garlic is bred in the beautiful Methow Valley.

Garlic harvest

You may remember that I was really excited about purchasing garlic last fall and determined to actually have a respectable garlic yield.  Over the course of the last 8 months, I watched my garlic go from  tiny sprouts...

Garlic sprouts, early 2013

4 legged Pea Eater

Our peas started out quite slowly this year, and for awhile it didn't look like they were going to do much.  In late April they finally started to climb the trellis, but looked quite skinny.  

The heat and moisture combo of June this year, though, really inspired them to grow, so by late June we were in full-on pea-harvest bliss.  

Sugar-snap peas are a cherished treat in our home- we love to make stir fries, risottos, or just eat them straight out of the garden.  My loyal garden buddy has picked up this habit too, it seems.  

For a little while I thought about busting her for this, but it completely charms me, maybe because she finds so much joy in eating them.

Sprouts and Seeds

I took advantage of a sun break between wind and rain squalls to spend some time in the garden today.  I seeded brassicas - cabbage, broccoli, kale, raddicchio and broccoli raab, and prepped another bed for carrots, turnips, spinach, lettuce and arugula, which I'll seed tomorrow morning.  

I did a little weeding along bed edges, but mostly just spent some time watching the garden wake from her winter nap. 

The red kale has overwintered nicely. Actually, it overwintered looking pretty wimpy, but just this week has burst out with large, tender, juicy leaves.  I'm always impressed by this plant's ability to thrive in our climate.

Happy Pollinator Week!

Bet you didn't know that this week is National Pollinator Week.  Initiated and managed by the Pollinator Partnership, National Pollinator Week is designed to raise awareness about the growing crisis of declining pollinator populations worldwide. The Pollinator Partnership does all kinds of other great things to support and promote healthy pollinator populations.  For example, they publish regional planting guides that offer plant lists of pollinator-attracting plants, as well as tips to create healthy pollinator habitat.  

I've planted a lot of flowers over the past year, and I've been amazed at the diversity of pollinators present in our yard.  Here are some of my favorite bumble bee pollinators:  

This one is a fuzzy, little yellow bumble bee which frequents raspberry plants. Maybe she is a Bombus mixtus?   (There are many bumble bee species, but she seems to resemble other Mixtus specimens).  

A Tale of Two Swarms

Last week I took advantage of a nice sunny evening to wander over to the bees and check up on them post split.  I saw this in one of the trees:

Apologies for the image quality.  My camera is being repaired!

The Strawberry Wall

A few weeks ago, I saw an email on the Seattle farm co-op listserv about buying strawberry starts in bulk from Rain Tree Nursery, for great prices.  Before I stopped to think about space requirements, I had purchased 125 strawberry plants for $30.  A great deal, right?  But where to put all of these babies?  I love, love, love strawberries, and I can't think of many better uses of garden space than a gigantic strawberry patch.  However, 125 strawberry plans require a space of roughly 20' x 20', which is more space than want to devote just to strawberries.  Plus, the dogs have completely decimated last year's strawberry patch in their quest to rid our yard of moles and voles, and the idea of getting the plants off the ground was enticing to me.  I did a bit of research and found some cool vertical ideas for strawberries. 

First,  these amazing Plants on Walls containers, made out of some kind of beautiful magical fabric called "florafelt." While beautiful, these are quite expensive at $50/ panel (and I would need many of them). 

Some Edibles Lately

It's been awhile since I've posted any updates on the garden.  While my work has leveled off out there for this growing season, the fruits of the plants' labor are just coming into their prime.  Here are some lovelies doing their ripening thing:

Getting ready for our honeybees

I decided this year to get bees for our garden.  I love the idea of keeping thousands of happy pollinators around, and I'm also excited about the possibility of having gallons of sweet, fresh, local honey at the end of the season.  

I spent months researching different beekeeping methods and finally decided on the Warre method.  The Warre Method is a natural approach to beekeeping, grounded in philosophy that the bees possess inherent wisdom when it comes to best bee survival practices.  The Warre hive imitates a tree trunk- so it is smaller than normal Langstroth boxes, and square in shape.  The hives start out with two boxes, with boxes being added to the bottom of the bee hive as the colony grows and needs more space.  (Langstroths typically "super" additional boxes over the top of the existing boxes).  The theory is that the bees will start building comb and laying brood in the top boxes, then will work their way down as the season progresses.  As the brood hatches, the empty cells will be cleaned and used to store honey.  Harvesting honey, then, is relatively easy- you just take the top few boxes, as most of the bees will have moved down the hive as the summer progresses.  

Anyhow, here's a photo essay on our bee preparations..... 

On Pedals and Petals

Lately I've been spending a lot of time in the garden, which has led me to dream up all kinds of gardening-related topics to write about. Every spring I get overtaken by this huge urge to get out in the dirt, pull some weeds, plant some seeds, and celebrate growth in my backyard. My sense of urgency to get my hands dirty is driven by the first emergence of the sunshine, the long daylight hours and by a deep desire to get seeds planted so I can enjoy the fruits of my labor during the lazy days of summer. These past two years I've struggled with how to balance my love of gardening with my love of riding bikes... especially during the springtime, when both pursuits require a high level of commitment in terms of time and money. Anyhow, as I continue to struggle with balancing these pastimes, I'm planning to chronicle my adventures in both cycling and gardening here.

I've been thinking about the similarities between riding bikes and gardening ever since asked this question by my friend Muuqi, as a part of an interview he did awhile back for his blog, Life Cycles (great blog, check it out!). Basically, it comes down to two main themes-  observation and investment.   Both acts- riding bikes and gardening- give you an opportunity to have a more intimate interaction with your natural surroundings than say, sitting on the couch or driving in a car.  These interactions help you develop keen observation skills, which I think makes you a better citizen of the world, or at least a more interesting person.  On investment- there is immediate satisfaction, from weeding a plot of land or building a trellis, or from sweeping around a perfect corner on a mountain bike, or reaching the top of a tough climb. There are also longer term rewards.  In the garden, you pick ripe fruit,  cut fresh greens, you savor the literal fruits of your labors.  Similarly, on the bike, you harvest a sense of growing strength and speed after investing in repeated workouts on the bike. 

Fruits of last  year's labors- giant lettuces