Back on May 15 I posted a rant about our missing spring in the Pacific Northwest ... and it hasn't shown up yet! But with the help of some fairly inexpensive "Season Extenders", my garden isn't doing half bad, if I do say so myself : )
Just so you know that anyone can learn to do what I am doing ... I'm a newbie vegetable gardener. This is my third year "farming in the Pacific Northwest". The list of vegetables that I am growing for the first time this year includes shelling peas, garlic, cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower (I had to look up the word "brassica" last year when I saw it on a blog) ... dry beans, winter squash, pumpkins, leeks and onions are all new this year, too. What I know about season extension I've learned in the last year from reading Eliot Coleman's books and watching the videos on The Johnny's Select Seed web site.
I had my husband take some photos today so that you could get an idea of the size of my vegetables. For the record, I am 5'2" tall (and weigh more than I ought to). This is one of my cabbages ...
We're starting to pick the snow peas ... and the plants are nearly as tall as I am ...
This is my carrot and tomato bed on April 12 ...
... and here it is today ...
This is a carrot I pulled the other day just to see how they were doing ... I figure that I can start harvesting them in another two weeks ...
These are my brassicas ...
I'll be harvesting broccoli soon . And my potatoes ...
some of them are getting ready to bloom!
And my shelling peas ...
...are covered with pods that are starting to swell up with peas ...
I don't want you to think that I have some ideal garden in the Banana Belt or something ...it's been cold, cloudy and rainy here ... and my "Farm" isn't in the best possible location for growing vegetables ... we are surrounded by tall Douglas Firs ...my garden only gets direct sun from 10:00am until about 2:30pm.
This was taken at about 2:00 and you can see that the garden will be shaded soon.
I haven't spent a ton of money on my season extenders. I did spend $40 for a soil heating cable for my tomato bed ... and $200 for a pop-up greenhouse ... my now semi-permeable greenhouse!...wish I'd saved that $200 ... you get what you pay for ...
And I've figured out how to get the same effect for about $25...
this is the "Pepper Palace"...
... and my happy pepper plants ...
...and another "palace" ready to get dropped over some pots or an exposed bed...
That's 6 pieces of 10' schedule 40 PVC at about $2 apiece, some elbows and T's and a couple of dollars worth of 4 mil plastic sheeting to go over it. And here is a view of the farm showing the PVC hoops and covers that have the rest of my vegetables looking so good ...
Now I know a lot of us gardeners have been complaining about the weather; me too! And I've seen on other blogs that a lot of people are struggling with trying to get their gardens growing this year. But there is a lot to indicate that this spring may not be unique ...it may be part of a trend that is only going to get worse. So it seems to me that it's up to us to learn how to grow food with the weather we have and what technology we can learn. With the rising price of food in the grocery stores and one "contamination" scare after another (not to mention GMO's) I believe that my investment in season extenders is definitely a good one!
I have a slide show on my "
Gardening Resources" page that shows how we put together our raised hooped beds (Mike is going to add some captions, but I think the photos are pretty self explanatory). If you have any questions, please feel free to ask ...
I'm still a newbie, but I'm happy to share what I've learned so far ...
Enjoy!
Postscript:
One of the comments that I received made me want to clarify a few things. I handle the heat/cold differently depending on the weather. In February and March I kept the covers closed all the time. In April and the first part of May I started opening them for part of the day, but closed them up tight again in the early afternoon to capture the heat for the night. Now that it has warmed up a bit and we are seeing the sun occasionally I am leaving the covers off most of the time except for the tomatoes and peppers; those I leave covered but with the ends open for ventilation. I'm still leaving the covers attached, though; if we have a hail storm or really heavy rain I can run out and cover everything back up in a matter of a few minutes (which I have had to do a couple of times). It helps that I am retired and am home to manage the covers most of the time. If I were working I would look at the forecast and set the covers open, closed or closed with ends open for ventilation accordingly.
The way I close the ends makes it easy (and inexpensive) to open and close the covers quickly ; when I cut the plastic for the covers I leave about 3' on the ends that I roll up and hold closed with spring clamps (I get a whole bag of them cheap at Home Depot).
Here you can see how I use the clamps to hold the cover open on a warm day ...
I also staple a piece if scrap wood to the bottoms of the sides of the covers ...
The weight of the wood helps keep the covers closed and also makes it easy to close the covers quickly; I just grab the piece of wood and toss it over the top of the hoops.
I'm not saying this is easy ... it's a lot of work and can get pretty messy at times ...this is me, wet muddy and obviously not too happy after running out in a deluge to cover my beds ...
Still, I think being able to grow my own produce all year round, regardless of the weather is worth the effort ... and I've been able to quit going to physical therapy for my arthritis; the effort of keeping up with my garden has proved to be all the therapy I need : )
Recommended reading:
Eliot Coleman's
Both are available at most public libraries.
Recommended viewing:
My garden is located near Shelton, WA. If any of my readers is in the area and would like to look at my set up, just drop me an email; I'm here most of the time and love having visitors ...
