The Last Winter Carrots

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By Hand in Hand Parenting February 14, 2009

Starts hardening off

This morning some of the starts that have been growing under lights in the garage are having a field trip out into the partially cloudy day. We still have at least five days until the last date of expected frost, so I’m going to give them a few hours a day up to all day over the next week or so as they get ready for possible planting on the 28th.

We have beets, two different kinds of tomato plants, three types of onions, Swiss chard, spinach, bush beans, cabbage, cucumbers and some flower starts pictured here.

Last night *something* went through the carrot patch and perfectly munched the Winter carrots, leaving the separated tops undisturbed on the soil. At least our raiders left us everything we need to make nice compost to grow more carrots!

The Last of the Winter Carrots

I got out a digging fork and gently dug around to find the last of the remaining carrots that have wintered over. Next year I will do lots more of them. These were delicious and very welcome in stews and soups. There are a few small patches of carrots coming up and there are three or four varieties ready for the Dirt to Dinner kids to arrive on the 28th. My favorite way to plant them is using carrot tape, which I have just found out how to make oursevles, so I’ll be adding that to the project list.

Here’s what we ended up with when it was time to make lunch:

Romeos Ready to Cook

We have two different varieties of potatoes started and will be able to plant them in bags or various containers for the kids to experiment with. I can’t wait to see how they do. We should be able to start eating new potatoes about half way through our program.

Potatoes Growing Eyes

Eye See You

Dirt to Dinner Reading List

The Great Raised Bed Debate

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By Hand in Hand Parenting February 5, 2009

I was clearly naive about the number of options for raised beds there were to consider. Long gone are the days when my mother tossed a couple of railroad ties against the hillside and called it a garden. And the cost has changed too!

These gorgeous beds from Naturalyards would have cost well over a

Naturalyards Cedar

$1000 to hold the Dirt to Dinner growing plots for each of the kids. Not quite what we had budgeted for! But if money were no object, these would be the beds for me. They are beautiful, easy to assemble, available in lots of size choices and look like they would last a generation.

Link-A-Bord

I also like the idea of Link-a-Bord bins that would have snapped together. They are made of all recycled materials. They are light and easy to construct. They come with two different depths, both a little shallower than I like for vegetable gardening, but reasonably priced. They still have the nice, neat look that any realtors scanning the neighborhood would approve of.

There were also quite an array of sizes and shapes to choose from. Want a good geometry exercise for the kids? How many square feet of space do you get with this?

Traingle Raised Beds

It’s an equilateral triangle with 7’ sides. Then it has another equilateral triangle on top so you can have that section be twice the planning depth of the large triangle ends, so now you really need to look at the cubic feet,…

When the calculator cooled off, it didn’t make sense to go with the funky shapes, much as I wanted to.

Paver Raised Beds

Lee Valley had some great kits where you use 16” pavers and their hardware to build beds. These things probably would have survived the next Big One, but somehow concrete and kids and all those nuts and bolts didn’t work for me for this project. Though I love Lee Valley and the excuse to get some fun tools would have been worth it.

I was hoping to get back to the more natural “wild” look of at least the Natruayards design, if not something onto the other side of that when I came across a post on a gardening chat site that referred to the 600 year-old technology of raised bed design used in English gardens. That’s when I found mastergardenproducts.com.

Historic Willow Raised Beds

Modern Willow Raised Beds

Oh yeah. That’s as granola-y as they come. It’s perfect. Sadly, it’s nearly impossible to find enough Willow that size to make similar boxes today, but the ones we’ll be using in the Dirt to Dinner garden will look something like the modern ones before we seal them with linseed oil, line them and fill them with our garden planting mix.

I’m a little worried that the sticks will need some kind of covering on the top to keep from sticking us, but I’m sure we’ll figure something out. And we may even weave some of our own versions to see how they compare.

Garden in a Jar

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By Hand in Hand Parenting January 30, 2009

Sprouting Jar

When kids put a seed in the ground, what comes up looks nothing like the seed they started with. So, to get a bug’s eye view of the sprouting process that usually happens under ground, and to help in the identification of what is going to come up in their garden beds, it’s fun to make a sprouting jar when you are planting your garden bed with seeds.

Take any clear glass or plastic container and line it with a fairly sturdy layer of absorbant paper, like a good paper towel. Pour an inch or so of water into the jar and let it soak up the paper towel, wetting the towel to the sides of the jar. Adjust as needed to see that the paper makes good contact with the side of the jar.

As you choose seeds to plant in your seed bed, save one seed of each variety you plant for the sprouting jar. Using a flat plant label or a popsicle stick, slide the seed down into the jar between the glass and the wet paper towel.

Sprouting Seeds

Then mark on the outside of the container what you’ve added. I wrote right on the outside of the jar with a permanent marker. At this point it’s also a good idea to tape down the top edge of the paper towel so you don’t accidentally move the seeds away from their labels.

Set the jar in a warm spot where you won’t forget about it and make sure to add water every day so that the paper towel, and the seeds, stay moist.

Day 2

In just 24 hours we already had our first sprout, a radish!
jar-day-2_01-30-09_0151

Day 3

Here’s how the radish is looking. And you can also see that the cucumber next door has begun to sprout as well.

Radish Day 3

And here is the very beginning of a pea sprout.

Pea Sprout Tip

2/6/2009

Sprouts are here!

Cucumber Sprout

Radish Sprout

Pea and Bean Sprouts

Corn Sprout

A View of the Garden

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By Hand in Hand Parenting January 28, 2009

http://voicethread. com/share/ 323777

If you want to take a quick look around the garden to see what has wintered over and what is already starting to poke it’s head up in the Dirt to Dinner garden, the Voicethread link above will give you a chance.

Cabbage and Califlower

One of the students interested in the class has already watched the video twenty times! I can’t wait to get that enthusiasm into the garden.

Monday the folks from Getting Going Growing will be visiting to see if they can share garden planning tips with us. I’m sure we have a lot to learn and am really looking forward to their visit.

From Dirt to Dinner

Learning in the Garden