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| We are growing about 5 kinds of broccoli, some heirlooms, some hybrid, even some broccoli raab. Here we are inter-planting broccoli with spinach. The spinach will soon be harvested and leave plenty of room for the broccoli to grow tall. |
This is an interesting time of year. The weather is hot one day, freezing the next. Oh, and the wind! But the little transplants and seedlings having taken a beating for some time, are finally growing. Growing fast. After staring at greens sitting there doing little over the winter I now notice a difference every day. The plants have outgrown the aphids, mostly survived the wind, and with some help from me, have survived the frosts.
Today is June 1 and we just had a frost the morning of May 29. Last year (our first gardening year here in Bishop) we very nearly lost all our unprotected peppers and tomatoes to a June frost. So I know that we aren't out of the frozen boreal woods yet.
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| We love our Quickhoop low tunnels! |
Thank goodness for my Quickhoops and my extra sheets of Agribon row cover. Amazing what a difference it makes.
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| Onions don't care about the wind, cold, or heat! |
We are working hard to get prepared for our sales season. The Bishop Farmer's Market is set to open on June 17th, a Friday night. We are also planning to move the Market downtown, and close off a portion of Academy Street to cars. This should give people something fun to do after work, or before a movie. This is nearly, but not completely, a done deal. So check the
newspaper,
Blogging Bishop,
Radio, and other means of local communication. We plan to provide produce to
Sierra Bounty this year, and are very excited to be a part of a CSA model. Thanks Sara!
I'm really happy with our experimental winter growing over the last few months. We are still harvesting lots of greens and onions planted back in October. We will do the same, even more, in 2011.
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| Overwintered lettuce, planted in November 2010. Yes, it can be done here in Bishop! |
We are just a bit behind schedule with our solanaceae (peppers and tomatoes). We had this little mouse issue (well, lots of little mice) in our greenhouse - they kept digging in the flats and eating the seeds and came back to finish off whatever seedlings came up. We finally plugged all the holes and out plants are catching up fast.
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| California Wonder open pollinated peppers nearly ready to plant out |
I am also growing out some native plants, mostly grasses, iris, asters, aspens, and other hydrophytes for the stream. We had enough extra aspens to sell a few at the choo-choo swap meet.
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| Snickers is happy that it is spring. |
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| These peppers and tomatillos are leggy and need to be re-potted and hardened off. But I can almost taste the Salsa Verde now! |
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| Eggplant seedlings under light and heat in the greenhouse. |
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| Sorrell is sooo gooood. And I haven't had any since we moved out of our last house. |
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| My 2011 experiment is to raise a huge mess of celery. I have amended the soil to the max (see the leaves), plus this is the wettest, richest soil in the yard. I call this part of the garden "celery swamp". Did you know that celery is a wetland plant? |
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| The bean towers. We grow two types of French filet beans. |
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| Early beets are nearly ready. That's miner's lettuce, a California native plant on the right. There are good stands of miner's lettuce in the Alabama Hills, on the north sides of big boulders! We have been eating miner's lettuce for months - it is very cold hardy. |
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| Starting to look like a garden again. |
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| Quickhoops in the yard. This is a clever, low tech way to make the most of our sunshine even when it is cold! |
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| Our little greenhouse. How wonderful it is - we even have electricity for heating mats and lights! |
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| Onions, Rhubarb, Horseradish, and Arugula, oh my! |
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| No time for this! |
Anyway, after some time of having a mostly bare (or tented) garden, I think there is enough green to show off a little. We are in full swing, and hope to see you soon at the Farmer's Market! And Happy Spring!
posted by Brad
