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Post-Storm Hoop House Greens!

Post-Storm Hoop House Greens!

We’ve had about ten days of snow and temperatures, sometime daytime as well as nightime, in the single digits. We’ve had over two feet of new snow, which is good, because it insulated my one experimental hoop house where I planted cold-hardy greens. There’s one row each of chard, laccinato kale, bok choi, and arugula, plus I started komatsuna seedlings in mid-October (they’re tiny). I also transplanted a row of scallions between each row of greens, since they’re the one thing I buy most often during the winter.

Here’s what the hoop house looked like before I dug up the edge of the plastic on the far side to take the photo above. I really did not expect anything to be green in there. It was zero or below for three or four days straight. In my past experience, even the most cold-hardy greens succumb at that point. So it was a delightful surprise to find things still looking green and alive in there when I peeled back the cover.

We’ll have to see whether they survive. Everything is green, but the soil is frozen, and so are the bok choi. I cut a few bok choi this morning, as well as some arugula and chard leaves, and managed to pull a couple of scallions. I still don’t know if this is going to work over the course of the whole winter, but so far, things are green, if not necessarily available. The experiment continues ….

Snow!

Snow!

Winter has arrived with a bang here in southern Montana. That’s my patio furniture which is suddenly buried.

The storm came in yesterday, but the real snow seems to have fallen overnight. I shoveled yesterday, and it was a only a couple of inches of powdery fluff; this morning, nearly a foot, and a little heavier (but I think that’s because the ground was still warm).

I don’t dare peek in the hoop house, because it’s supposed to go down below zero tonight, and I’m hoping the snow will insulate. We’ll see if anything survives. It’s slated to run a degree or two either side of zero tonight, and to be even colder tomorrow night. The experiment gets an early test.

Time to make soup.

Fruits of One’s Labor …

Fruits of One’s Labor …

Funny, this summer, while the garden was in progress, I found myself uninspired, and not actually eating that much from it. Perhaps its because the season was so strange — once my early success with spring greens under hoops burned out (because it got hot, and the plants burned up), I wound up in this long odd period when there wasn’t much out there a person could eat right now, most of it was things like carrots and beets and tomatoes and peppers and beans that took a long long time this summer to ripen.

However, I did put in some time as the season went on putting things up. The beets, for example. I harvested beets three or four times this summer, roasted them off, peeled them and froze them on cookie sheets in the freezer. Then I just popped them into ziploc bags (like the tomatoes in this photo — I just stuck them in a bag and froze them). So now, I can pull a few out, and have beets ready to throw in a salad or in some pasta. The tomatoes too — I’ve been thawing them in by the pyrex dish load, and throwing them in a burrito or using them when I sautee chard. They’re a little watery sometimes, but still so much better than a grocery store tomato. And then there are the pickled peppers. I love those pickled peppers and I’ve been eating them on everything.

For instance, breakfast lately has been burritos made with beans I cooked and froze in pint jars, cheese, chard (one of the few things still growing well in the garden), pickled peppers, previously-frozen tomatoes, and onion. The only things I have to buy in that meal are the tortillas and the cheese. Why this makes me as ridiculously happy as it does, is something of a mystery. I’m working again, so it’s not even like the money I save is that significant. I think it’s just the plain old pleasure of doing something oneself.

What I love about this part of the year, after the garden is over, and after the work of putting things up, is the pleasure inherent in that old phrase, “the fruits of one’s labor.” I’m eating the fruits of my labor — which means that I can find a wide variety of yummy things to eat for days on end without having to go to the grocery store. And that makes me very happy, especially when it’s cold and  blustery and snowy outside.

Pepper Pa-Looza

Pepper Pa-Looza

I’ve been just the tiniest bit obsessed with peppers this year. I grew a bunch of different varieties — Hungarian Wax, Cayenne, Aci Sivri (a Turkish pepper), hot Italian cherry peppers, Spanish pequillo — and for once, I got a decent crop. I also bought a few bags of hot peppers from the local farmer’s market (as well as several bags of roasted New Mexico green peppers from another vendor). I made salsa out of the roasted green peppers, and I pickled just about everything else. For the pickled peppers I used Michael Symon’s Pickled Pepper recipe (via Michael Ruhlman). This is going to be my go-to recipe, maybe forever — I love these peppers. A little vinegar-y, a little garlicky, with coriander and peppercorns. I’ve been eating them on everything and only hope they’ll last all winter.

The cayenne and aci sivri (a nice sweet-hot Turkish pepper) I strung into ristras. The problem was that they were almost all green, and after hanging up for a day or two, they weren’t really ripening. So I took them down and put them in a cooler with a couple of apples and a couple of potatoes. The apples and potatoes give off ethelyne gas, which helps with the ripening. This is what they looked like after about four days — the ripening is noticeable — and the smell emanating from the cooler is marvelous.

It was a long hard slog this year growing peppers, and most of the season, they had to be under plastic in the hoop house, but I’ve got perhaps a year’s worth of delicious, home-grown peppers. And as we all know, using my own home-grown stuff makes me weirdly happy.

In the Garden and Kitchen

In the Garden and Kitchen

No Knead Bread
Fall must be upon us since I’m back to making no-knead bread. I bake once or twice a week during the winter — seems goofy to spend four bucks on a loaf of bread when I can make it myself, but in the summer I can’t bear to heat up the house any more than I need to. So this new loaf of bread felt like the beginning of cooler weather and more cooking. My sourdough starter is getting it’s mojo back, and this loaf came out so pretty that even though I’ve posted a zillion no-knead bread pictures on this blog, I thought I’d pester you all with one more.


I’ve also been playing with hoop houses this year. The one on the left has peppers inside. Because we had such a weird summer, cold through the end of June, and no real heat until late July, but then this other odd stretch where we have yet to see a real frost, they’ve pretty much been under plastic all summer. In the hot part of the season I either opened the plastic or took it off altogether, but mostly, they’ve been covered. Which I don’t love the aesthetics of, but since I’ve finally got peppers beginning to turn red, I guess it was worth it.


The other hoop house, the one on the left, I’m thinking of as my “winter garden.” I got rereading Eliot Coleman’s Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long and decided to see how far I can extend the season this year. Usually by this time of year, I’m bored with the garden and ready for everything to just die already so I can get some writing done, but I don’t know — maybe it was that the dino kale was still so small, or that the scallions had just started looking great, or that the chard was finally tall and crisp and beautiful. I wasn’t ready to let it go. So I dug up one bed, and transplanted kale, chard, lots of scallions, some arugula, and the green Chinese cabbages. I also planted a row of komatsuna, which I fell in love with this spring, but I’m not sure we have enough daylight for it to sprout.

Then I got real with the hoop houses and put some brackets in to hold the hoops. Last spring, I just stuck them in the ground, which worked okay, but they got sort of hunched and sad looking. By bracketing them they get enough stability that I’m hoping they’ll survive some snow. Plus, they look nice now. Crisp. Upright. Official.

So now I’m looking forward to seeing if I can get some fresh greens for part of the winter. I put the plastic up last night on the winter garden because it was supposed to go down to 28, but I don’t think it did. I think they like the extra warmth though, and the humidity. When I pulled the plastic back this morning to take a photo, everything was looking pretty upright and perky. We’ll see.

Cold Frames, Tomatoes, Peppers

Cold Frames, Tomatoes, Peppers

It’s all about season extension up here in Montana, and these cold frames are one of my primary means of making the most of what I’ve got. I build them a little more than five years ago (Nina was pregnant with the twins, who are five now) and they work really well for a couple of reasons.

One is that they’re just outside the back door. This early in the season, I put flats out during the day, but bring them in at night. It’s just too cold, and I don’t want to risk losing the seedlings and having to start over. As it gets warmer, I’ll leave things out overnight, and I’ve been known to light a Virgin of Guadalupe candle out there to keep the temps above freezing. The other key to these cold frames is the double-wall plastic. I can’t remember where I bought it, just google greenhouse plastic, but because it breaks up the UV rays, it keeps the seedlings from burning up.

I need to get to work and start some other seedlings — flowers, broccoli, tomatillos, but I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. Maybe this week. Outside, I have tons of Chinese cabbages and veggies under one hoop house, and broccoli rabe, arugula, spinach, and komatsuna, my new favorite vegetable, under the other. Those are all doing stupendously and I’ve been joyfully eating my own greens for two weeks now. In the exposed garden I’ve planted peas, and onions — I need to get some turnips and beets and chard and carrots in, but the weather was wonky this weekend. Intermittently cold.

It’s funny, the first couple of years I was really driven by my veggie garden, and now I”m a lot more relaxed. I like it. I LOVE eating my own vegetables (I’m convinced part of the reason I was so sick this winter was that I wasn’t eating my own veggies). But I’m a lot less driven? uptight? insane? about the whole thing these days. Things will get planted. Things will get eaten. Another year, another revolution around the sun.

Hoop House!

Hoop House!

This is what I found when I opened the hoop house to water this morning — real greens! Greens I can eat! I am beyond thrilled with how well these have worked out this year. The binder clips have kept the plastic from blowing off, even in the worst winds Livingston has to offer (winds that cause them to close the interstate and run all the semi-trailers through town). The plastic has kept it warm in there through a couple of weeks of freezing nights. And I’m sure the fact that we’ve had three or four 70-degree days hasn’t hurt.

But after a couple of months of fighting off low-grade colds and then strep, I’m beyond thrilled to be eating my own greens again. I can’t think of anything that will restore your health faster than your own dark green veggies, some sunshine, backyard eggs, and nice long walks through town in the early evening with the dog.

I can’t wait to see how the hoop houses work for the peppers. They don’t like cool nights, which is what we almost always have. I wish they were prettier, but I’ll settle for effective.

Garden Update

Garden Update

So far, the hoop house is working really well. I’ve got seedlings coming up of broccoli rabe, komatsuna, spinach, and endive. The other hoop house also has sprouts, so far, it’s the Chinese cabbage (2 kinds) that are sprouting the best.

I also have some overwintered leeks that are starting to green up again, as well as parsley, chives, chervil, garlic chives and the indomitable lovage coming back up in the herb bed.

And this morning, the first of the daffodils bloomed, on the back side of the house, where it’s warmest. So I guess spring is on its way after all …

Seedlings!

Seedlings!

The tomato and pepper seeds I planted last week are starting to sprout down there under the lights, and the hoop houses are really working too — I’ve got spinach, Komatsuna, broccoli rabe, pak choi, arugula, and endive all coming up. I also have a lot of weeds. I think my not-entirely-composted chicken poop/straw is going to be a tiny bit problematic, but at this point, when I”m having to thin seedlings anyhow, it’s not that much more work to whack out the weed seedlings.

Mostly though I’m just thrilled and relieved that spring is coming. The sun has come back, and although nothing is really budding out yet (except my allergies), you can just feel the earth turning on its axis. There will be more snow, and as tempting as it is to get started early, one must remember that our last frost historically doesn’t occur until May 17.

But things are sprouting! And in a couple of weeks I’ll have fresh greens. I can’t wait. I am beyond tired of eating store produce.

How to Start Seeds

How to Start Seeds

Kristi mentioned in the comments that she’s had bad luck starting seeds, and since it’s that time of year again, I thought I’d share my seed starting process. Because I’ve got a basement, I have plenty of space to start my own seeds.

My seed starting bench is an old steel garage shelf, above which I strung a cheap florescent fixture with grow lights. This one has enough space for four trays, which is usually about as much as I want to start at one time. Since the light is on an adjustable chain, I can hang it up high when I’m planting, or doing stuff, but then I can lower it way down so it’s right over the seedlings when they come up. They like the light close, that way they don’t get too leggy.

I also swear by my seed starter mats. These plug in, and provide just enough heat to warm the soil to 75 or 80 degrees, which is what tomatoes and peppers and most other warm-weather crops that you need to start indoors really need. They hardly use any electricity, and I’ve had almost 100% germination every year I’ve used them.

Once they’ve gotten a start, I move the trays to the set of garage shelving that you can see in the background of this shot. I looked at a number of kits online, but they were all too expensive, so I just suspended florescent fixtures with chains and s-hooks to the underside of each shelf, and filled them with grow-light bulbs. It didn’t cost me much since I had the shelves — I think the lights were about ten bucks each, and the bulbs were a little pricey — four or five bucks apiece and you need two per fixture. I also invested in a bunch of seed trays, some clear plastic lids, and an array of starter packs, all of which have lasted me for seven or eight years now.

Once everything was in place, I found that the garage setup became not only functional but also surprisingly efficient for my gardening needs. With the shelves organized and the lights set up, I had a good system going for starting seeds and growing them until they were strong enough to be moved outdoors. The garage, which I’d initially just used for storage, turned into a mini greenhouse of sorts. The florescent fixtures, despite being simple and inexpensive, made a noticeable difference in helping the plants thrive during the early stages.

To further improve the setup, I decided to invest in rubber garage flooring. The cushioned surface helped with comfort and safety when I spent long hours working in the garage. It also provided better traction, especially during the wet months, preventing me from slipping when the floor got damp. The rubber flooring was durable, easy to clean, and complemented the overall aesthetic of my DIY gardening space. It was a small investment, but one that definitely made my gardening work in the garage much more enjoyable and practical.

I like starting my own seeds for several reasons. For one thing, I don’t have to worry about picking up any weird fungi or wilts from starts (last summer’s tomato blight on the East Coast started with Home Depot plants I believe). But mostly, I just find the whole thing kind of miraculous. This afternoon I was downstairs with 8 tomato varieties and (gulp) 32 different kinds of peppers. Trays filled with soil, a chopstick for a tool, two seeds to a cell, and in a week or so, there will be tiny little plants coming up. If you’re a person that has trouble sometimes believing that things can be okay, the annual ritual of planting seeds in your chilly basement, and watching them sprout, and nursing them along until they become actual plants, well, its enough to keep a girl’s sense of optimism alive.