Quarterly overview

Here we are the first full month of winter. Sadly, we've had very little rain. It's sunny and 76 degrees outside. That smashes 60 year heat records.

Clean up:
The last of the cherry tomato plants were pulled out of their planters on December 20th, along with most of the pepper plants. Although they still bore fruit, nights of near freezing temperatures had killed the plants.

The last pepper plant came out of the half whisky barrel today. It was covered in small green anaheims.

Constant weeding of the wood sorrel is keeping it to a dull roar in the areas planted with broccoli and fennel. Everywhere else it's going like gangbusters. It would be great to hit it with the weedburner and then dig under the ashes.

Planting:
New plantings of parsnips, turnips and radishes were sown directly in planters outside on January 12. Successive plantings of broccoli and fennel were started on January 9th. Still to be planted are garlic, onions, lettuce, kale and chard.

Growing:
The fennel is still limping along. The broccoli still looks great. The biggest plants appear to be on the verge of sending of flower stalks. Very little of the interspersed dill seems to have germinated. New seeds were added in the first week of January, but no new growth is apparent. Peas in the pea barrel are small but healthy looking. The onion seeds all germinated and a thin, green chivey line stands erect in a shallow planter. Many of these will get used like scallions.

The pale purple icelandic poppy has emerged from underneath the white carnation in its flower pot. The carnation is sending up some small white blooms.

Looking ahead:
Towards the end of February, Scarlet runnner beans will be heavily sown over the long strip to fix nitrogen and choke out weeds. Also to be planted are freesia and perhaps some gladiolus bulbs.

January planting

Where once there were cherry tomatoes... I put parsnips in one big gray planter and turnips in the other. Radish seeds went into a long, shallow box. The other long, shallow box has onions planted last month. A skinny line of green has erupted like single chives all in a row. Since these are meant to be bulbing onions, quite a few will get plucked and used like chives or scallions to give the others room to grow.

Indian Summer continues

The unseasonably warm weather has held for the past week. Tomatoes are continuing to ripen on the vines, as are red peppers. The basil which was heavily pruned has put out lots of new growth. I may get another batch of pesto out of this.

The broccoli plants are now just about a month old and are looking good. Several nights ago I added Dill seeds to the troughs between the plants. No sign of seedlings yet. The soil has been warm and I've done a good job of keeping the soil moist.

The fennel, also a month old, is not developing as quickly as I thought it might. One of the plants got munched by slugs, although not enough to destroy the plant. Sometimes I wish I could rent a chicken.

Onions

Onion seeds went into planting troughs today. I think I may germinate some in coffee filters as a test group. I found a packet of seeds called Candy. They're supposed to be a short season onion, which is in keeping with the higher water content, sweeter onion types. I'm dubious of the packet which promises maturity in 80 days. Everything else said 100+. I'll know when the tops fall down.

Late fall planting

It's been unseasonably warm the past couple of days. I took the opportunity to work in the sun and get the seedlings into the ground.

12 bulbing fennel plants went in where the green beans had been this summer. It's a nice rich soil mix there.

18 broccoli seedlings went in to the north of the remaining basil. They'll get good sun there, and will have enough space to develop. I'm thinking I'd like to plant a fair number of garlic and onions, but where to put them?

TheRoommate wants to put in bulbs, but I'm not sure how to square that with the available sunlight and all of that. Ranunculus are my favorite, but I don't know of the corms are squirrel fodder.

dwindling harvests

Cut down most of the basil today. Will make pesto later.

The cherry tomatoes have cascaded out of their giant pots, to twin on the ground. I pinched off every new sprout that I could find. I want the last tomatoes to ripen and then be done with the things. Next year, no more than one or two plants. More of the bigger fruits would be fine.

I did get a couple more pints of cherry tomatoes. What I'll do with them is anyone's guess. I also got about 7 more red chile peppers.

First rain

We've had 18 hours of rain and no real signs of abatement. The ants are going crazy swarming out of their flooded nests. No better time to get the hose and the boric acid.

Meanwhile, many of those little broccoli seeds that I planted about a week ago have sprouted!