December Distractions
Posting will be continue to be sparse for a little while.
Bouts with a wicked stomach virus during the lead up to our daughter’s wedding has moved most garden activity and related posts to the back burner.
I assure you that the winter garden is growing just fine without much attention from me; the season has been relatively mild, so much so that I haven’t really needed the hoop house yet.
I’ll get back with it in a week or two…..
Leek Geek
I pulled a single leek today to see how the “new” leek scheme for 2012 worked. I really wanted to maximize the usable yield so I decided to put up with the early hassles of this method. (And it was a hassle for sure.)
As a refresher, here is the short version of the scheme:
- Start seeds in vermiculite
- Transplant (deeply) to soil mix
- Transplant (deeply again) to garden bed
- Hill up later to increase blanched portion
- Harvest all winter anytime after first freeze
I started the seeds in mid March then transplanted them (step 2) on April 10:
In June, I transplanted them to the beds (step 3) as deeply as I could. The squirrel-guarded transplants on June 3:
Sometime in August I added the second level to the bed and hilled (step 4). I hilled again with shredded leaf compost in September and by Oct 7 they were getting some growth on:
By Nov 10 they were fattening up as I had hoped:
Now that we’ve had some lows in the 20s I couldn’t resist pulling a sample specimen from a corner of one bed ( by chance it turned out to be the one next to the tape in the Nov 10 pic above).
Wow.
1 1/2″ thick and sweet blanched portion runs approximately 9″ up from the roots. (yes I measured it.)
Dec 2 
The Leek Geek says:
This IS the way to grow leeks in Georgia.
Nov 25
The first “hard” freeze of the fall occurred this morning @ 24 degrees.
I took a minute to survey the garden in a “hardiness verification” survey. (The bright morning sun came in at an angle that washed out the pictures somewhat- sorry.)
Not hardy (nor expected to be) were the last remnants of Basil – amazing how fast it withers:
No surprise as the rutabaga and “baby arugula” patch shrugged it off :
The parsley goes somewhat limp but always perks up later in the day as things warm up:
Dill was resilient:
The biggest surprise was the extent to which the fava beans were damaged. I had expected these to be able to take anything down to 20 or so, but it sure looks like they are hurting…
The leaves and flowers seemed fine but several of the stems crimped and collapsed. Later in the day, they looked a little better but were still mostly buckled. I guess I’ll know just how hardy these are (or aren’t) soon enough.
(I wrote this on the 25th, Sunday evening, then forgot to submit it. Duh.)
Autumn
(I drafted this post back on the 8th but forgot about it. oops. Here it is; I guess it is still autumn eh?)
Autumn- I like it, the time when you realize that the Georgia heat and humidity has finally subsided for the year.
While I had the zoom lens on the Nikon I snapped a few more pictures of nothing in particular just because the garden had that good scraggly Autumn feel to it… Maybe it shows in these?
Thai Basil seed heads drying on the arbor
Panning back a bit, the wily kitteh is staring at nothing in particular under the shelter of the bell
Bat house against yellow Hackberry leaves
The volunteer luffah (loofa? lufa?) gourd harvest ready to finish drying in a shed somewhere:
Caption This
If you like……
Around and stuff
What kale looks like if it spent the summer trying to escape from under massive basil bushes
One of the last of the massive basil bushes, still providing for bees
Fava bean flowers
Rutabagas beginning to fatten up
Carmelia
Veery Beeeg broccoleee
Hoopsup
Last weekend I got the hoops in place with the connecting pvc “spines” running the length of the structure for stability.
I decided to try a better venting scheme this year with exterior wooden slats running a couple of feet above the ground down both sides. When done, I hope to have an easy system rigged to roll one or both sides up to the wood, maybe on pvc “rollers”.
Home Depot had cheap but straight cedar boards that were the right size:
As before, we’ll know how good the ultimate design is by next spring. In the meantime I need to actually finish designing it.
Uhhhh…….
mrs cohutt: “Arrgh…. what’s that thumping in the dryer!?!” as she walks through the kitchen to the laundry room
cohutt: “whatever”, to himself, rolling eyes… (Discreetly verifies his cell phone is in his pocket.)
mrs cohutt: ” (indistinguishable muttering) ”
cohutt: “What dear?”
mrs cohutt: “(surprised burst of laughter from the laundry room)”
cohutt: “What’s so damn funny?”
mrs cohutt: “only in our house is this possible……”
cohutt, dumbfounded: “(sound of eyes blinking)”
Yes, one partially dismembered but well laundered head of garlic was the cause of the mysterious thumping in our dryer. At this point, I have no clue what else to say.
Better
That is, “better” than previous efforts….
Better broccoli
Better cabbage
Better leeks
Drip irrigation with non-chlorinated well water is probably the reason…..
Behind cohutt's fence 