I finally did it: I removed the annuals that we planted in August. We all wondered how well they would do and how long they would last into winter. Turns out, I will not be planting hot season annuals at the end of summer again! While we did finally see plenty of ripe and delicious tomatoes, it simply took too long. The plants were stressed, which invited disease. My last post featured some questions about timing; I have decided that what we need to do is focus on growing crops that can take the cold during the cold season, rather than fighting it and then worrying about it when the inevitable comes. Go with the flow: that's a permaculture anthem, right?

Now what we'll research is when to seed the winter crops, and when to start the summer crops, and of course the fall and spring crops of fast growing salad mixes. I'm finding out just how slow seeds are to germinate in the short days of winter. The possibility of using a grow light has been raised. This is a viable option, but seems to go against some of our goals. I'm hoping to get the timing down so we have continuous crops; it just may mean seeding our winter crop in August or September, so the plants are big by the time the depths of winter roll in.

Currently, we have seedlings of broccoli, peas, kale, and beets, as well as basil, sage, oregano, thyme, rosemary, and chives. The cool season annuals will likely be our winter staples, along with plenty of salad greens. The herbs are perennials except for basil, so we can plant them outside and inside, except rosemary which won't take the cold outside.

I direct seeded mini onions, spinach, a lettuce mix, cilantro, mache, and more arugula this week, after spending some quality time with our pile of composted sheep manure. It's more of an igloo of manure now, as the outer foot or so of the pile did not thaw, and so I had to dig into the inner depths to find some that I could bring in. With this addition as well as the topsoil that Deano stockpiled out the west door, the soil in the raised beds seems to be improving. Texture and color are both progressing away from "construction soil" and towards "garden soil".

I am being conscious of rotating our crops, as we did seem to have a small problem with disease. I think rotation and proper watering will be crucial. This will need to be carefully monitored once we turn the irrigation back on.

Our spring seeds are arriving, so I'm trying to hurry up the winter crops. They don't listen well, though. A little sun would help! Luckily we have heat mats and floating cloth covers. We need to get them planted up, out of the 4" pots and into the beds, so we have room to germinate the new seeds on the shelves.

Unfortunately, the other two dwarf bananas are showing signs of cold damage. I cut them back, as I did the other dwarf. I'm hopeful that the banana growth cycle will prove resilient; they are rhizomes, with about an 8 month growth cycle. I think new shoots may appear soon, as it warms up. Growing all summer should give them the time they need to complete cycles. We'll see. Oddly, the large banana seems to be doing just fine, as do our other exotic perennials.

All in all, we've been pretty busy these past weeks. We are really trying to gear up for a busy summer, making sure everything's in place and ready to roll when spring returns. Hopefully, I'll be getting dirty and we'll be selling produce every week.

Beautiful and tasty edible flowers!
This was part of our very first sale, to Giovanni's, for their special New Year's Eve dinner.

The new year finds us here at Elkstone already thinking ahead to the warm and productive months of spring. We have been watching our cool season annuals grow bigger, planting them up into 4" pots, hopefully to be planted into the raised beds of the greenhouse in a few weeks. Meanwhile, we're picking the seeds for our next crop. Most of these we will start indoors, to be transplanted to the raised beds, as well as to some new gardens outside, hopefully. We also will likely be direct- sowing outdoors.

Timing in the greenhouse is emerging as an issue which we are all unfamiliar with. We are learning how long different crops produce in here and what can take the cool temps we've seen; but when to remove them to make room for the next is a question that needs to be examined.

Also, some of the perennials are showing signs of damage from the cold. I don't believe it's a cause for great alarm, but it is an issue that I'll keep in mind the next time -20 weather rolls in. We've discussed measures to help combat the chill, including covering with cloth, and even heat lamps. I will definitely be ordering some large sheets of crop cover to use in here when the next sub-zero blast blows down.

Our deciduous trees (pomegranate, figs, papayas, jujube, mango, guava, lychee) have gone into dormancy, which is good, though it was a bit alarming when leaves started to drop. One of our four bananas I had to cut back; this should be OK as bananas grow from a rhizome, which is presumably surviving well in our warm soil. I hope to see a new shoot emerging in a few weeks.

I am seeing evidence of a fungal wilt, which I have been addressing by minimizing watering; warmer temperatures should help eliminate this as well. I believe that this is a common greenhouse problem that we will see again, but I'm a worrier, and so have been drying the soil, amending it as I can, removing unhealthy plants and throwing the greenery in the trash rather than compost, and adding gypsum. The gypsum will also help improve drainage, lower the pH and equalize some of the nutrients and minerals which we have in abundance (phosphorous, potassium, magnesium, sodium, sulfur, iron, copper, and boron). I think we're lucky to have such rich soil, but in some cases, it may be too rich for some plants or seedlings.

After the last release of beneficial insects, I have not seen many pest insects.

We are in the process of choosing and ordering seeds for the spring/summer crop. I'm curious to see how this next chapter in farm life unfolds!

Elkstone has seen lots of action in the past week...our circulation fans are installed and seem to be working well. They are mounted tilted down, so standing in front of them, I can feel the warm air blowing down on me. It seems to be helping with keeping the temperature up; we had reports of -20 from around town last week, but inside the temp was around 50 in the mornings. During the few sunny days we had, the greenhouse warmed up to 70. The circulation fans are not "hard wired" yet; there are extension cords running from them. Rob O. said he will try to return and do that soon.

The climate battery is now controlled by thermostat. These fans come on for warming at a dropping temp of 55, are off when the interior is between 55 and 75, and come on again for cooling at 75 degrees and above. We can adjust these temps, but need to keep that "off" time between the two thermostats.

The west doors have been painted, and reinstalled. We still are using the blue foam board for insulation, though, as we do not have any weather stripping in there yet...when I removed the blue board to take these photos, there was ice inside again.

As for plants, I have removed most of the basil, a few more tomatoes, a few peppers, and the eggplants from the bed West of Water Tank (we need a new name for that one). It's just too chilly in here for these hot season annuals. We still have 15 tomato plants that seem to be holding on; these are mostly cherry or pears, and Stupice. There's lots of fruit, just slow to ripen, probably due to all the cloud cover we've had as well as the cold.

Our winter seedlings are starting to pop up now. So far, the sunflowers, broccoli, and thyme have sprouted. The new heat mat is helping; most seeds need around 70 degrees to germinate, and we're dropping down to about 45 at night, according to our new min/max thermometer. Other than greens, we haven't seen any of the direct-sown seeds pop up, so the seedling trays on the heat mats will be the best method of starting new crops, in winter, at least.

Our perennials are doing fine. Growth has slowed or ceased, but that's not surprising...have I mentioned that it's been really cold here?

I have ordered some beneficial insects from M & R Durango. I'd like to get a population going in the greenhouse. These bugs will arrive before we set out our winter crops, so we'll have any pests under control.

There are elk droppings in the driveway...hopefully we'll get a little more snow to cover the agri-forest shrubs soon.

Here are some good photos of the newly painted doors, the newly installed circulation fans, and our seedling heat mat warming our seeds.
One of our Passionfruit vines is really making a run for it; it's reached the top of the trellis already!

Next arugula crop is sprouting.

If November was chilly, December has been downright cold. On Friday morning, the temperature outside was 0 degrees at 8:45; inside was a cool 40. The heaters surely had kicked on, but did not seem to heat significantly. We had some icy annuals on the southside; the greens by the vent were frosty, as were some basil and peppers. Luckily, no major losses- all perennials are hanging on.
This week we removed the cucumbers from the western cuke bed. They were very productive for close to 3 months, but had become tired, pale, and spotty. The thrips had moved back in; it was time for them to go. We also removed some tomatoes that seemed to be affected by a fungus wilt. At Jeannie's suggestion, we pulled out the roots with the plants and hung them (from the strawberry trellis- coming in useful!) upside down to ripen. With lots of green fruit on the vine, we have seen a few ripen this way. Interestingly, it's the yellow Valencia variety which seems more suceptible to this wilt, which is unfortunate, being my favorite tomato. Could also be because they were in shadier locations.
I have been amending our soil with the composted sheep manure that Deano delivered. Luckily, the ground is frozen, but with little snow I can still access the pile. I reworked the western cuke bed to ready it for broccoli. I think lower growing plants are a must on the south side- we're seeing significant shading by our tomato "trees".
We placed orders this week as well. Along with some greenhouse/growing supplies, we have ordered winter seeds: beets, broccoli, herbs, more greens. I have direct-sown some peas and beans, as well as nasturtiums & California Poppy, & cilantro. I'm interested to see what the difference in germination rates will be between direct-sow, and seedling transplants.
Deano has said he will try to bring gravel for our path to the shed while the ground is frozen but uncovered by snow. It would be nice to have this in when the snow melts next spring.