ACL Letter #19 - February Garden Update

"A Worm! Look Mom!"

February Gardening Update

After the freezing temperatures in December killed the majority of our over-winter crops, it's a relief to still have a few things to harvest and watch grow. Unfortunately, our cabbage isn't doing well. I blame the lack of sun, but truthfully, that area of the garden has never produced well. I plan to add extra compost to the soil in that area to see if it helps future crops. Our Brussel sprouts are doing alright, with some plants producing nice big sprouts and others not so much. Similar to other brassicas, fertile soil is key for Brussel sprouts, and their poor performance indicates that our soil could use some extra nutrients. Come spring, I plan to add more compost and other fertilizers to improve soil quality.

Onions and garlic are looking promising and will stick around until harvest in the summer. I recently scraped away soil from around the base of the onions, as advised by the gentleman at the feed and seed store. Apparently, this helps encourage bulbing out. Our green onions are still small and frustrating, but we'll see how they do over time.

If you're planting right now, radishes, peas, parsley, and potatoes are good choices. Morgan  opted to plant only potatoes and parsley. Now is also the time to start seeding tomatoes, peppers, basil, and eggplants indoors, but we haven't gotten around to it yet. We're a bit behind schedule, but the thought of fresh summer tomatoes is enough motivation to get it done as soon as possible.

I love my local feed and seed store. Their seeds are affordable and they usually have a good enough selection for what I want. 

This is about half of the seeds we got in our $1 packet. Plenty!

Wheeler loves helping in the garden. The older kids do too, but lose interest a little quicker.

We found a lot of worms in the garden. The kids loved it and so did I. A healthy population of earthworms in your soil means your soil is healthy. 

We will make sauerkraut with the two heads of cabbage we harvested. Both heads were small and the only ones that were harvestable out of 8 plants or so. 

We have a few Brussel sprouts still brusslin. Because there will only be enough for one meal of sprouts from our garden, they will certainly be savored.

I went to the farm recently to check on the trees in the orchard and the sheep were close by. The two lambs in the foreground of this picture are but days old.  

Although not the best snapshot, the intent was to capture the small green notch on the stem. I used my fingernail to scrape off the bark, revealing the cambium - the vital part of the plant responsible for transporting nutrients up and down the trunk or branch. If the exposed area is green, it indicates that the nicked portion is alive. If it's brown, I will gradually scratch further down the plant until I reach the base of the trunk. If it is entirely brown, then typically the plant has died. However, occasionally life may still linger beneath the soil, and in spring, a sprout may arise. This activity is only required during winter on deciduous plants - those that lose their leaves in winter - as throughout the rest of the year, if they are alive, they will have foliage.

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