Mini Update

Hi MKG friends!

Long time, no blogging! Sorry for the hiatus from the Internet, but don’t fret – much garden prep, greenhouse care, and planting has been happening in the past few weeks! Hopefully Rowan will be on here soon with a more detailed update, but today we planted the Swiss Chard! We started those seeds back in February, and they’ve been in the greenhouse ever since.

Remember these?

They’ve grown up quite a bit! Hello, adolescent (?) Swiss Chard!

Mhmm, they are so good looking. Planting these babies was pretty simple. The hardest part was done by Rowan, which was tilling the rows.

Planting Swiss Chard:

1) Spread compost on the rows.

2) Till it up to mix the compost with the soil that’s already there.

3) Dig holes about one trough apart (~1 foot) for each of the plants.

4) Put compost in the holes and mix it up with the rest of the dirt.

5) Put the baby plant in the hole, making sure to loosen up the dirt around the roots.

6) Stabilize the plant by putting dirt around its base.

7) Sprinkle with a little more compost.

8) Surround with hay (to maintain moisture until you can water the plants again) and water. Done!

Rowan doing her thing – till it girl!

Until next time!

The Rise of the Swiss Chard, and other garden updates

Hello there friends!  Although we’ve taken a little bit of a break from the blog, things are still happening in the garden and the greenhouse.  In fact, we’ve been quite busy recently!  The weather here has been very up and down, and we’re having a very chilly spring so far- it even snowed yesterday and today.  This weekend looks sunny and warmer though, so I hope that spring really will come to stay.

Within the past few weeks, there have been big changes (for gardeners at least, not in terms of size) in the the garden and in the greenhouse.  I’ve included a picture timeline of these changes below.

In the garden:

First, rewind to February 25.  The broccoli and cabbage has died off from the frost and snow, and our garden looks much more brown than green.

Next, week of March 3rd.  The curly-leaf kale is hanging in there and we tackle pulling up the broccoli and cabbage.  We got about a foot of snow this week, but our garden fared alright.

Week of March 10.  A little warmer this week, so the garden begins to turn a little greener.

And then this past week!  We had two big workdays last Friday and Saturday- more on those in an upcoming post.  We’re gearing up for spring.

In the greenhouse:

Baby kale

The kale and borage sprouted first and has definitely been the fastest growing- we’re going to re-pot them this week.  We also have a couple of chamomile, fennel, and brussel sprout shoots, but no Swiss Chard, basil, or leeks.  We experimented with the type of potting container and used plastic containers for most of our seeds (the type shown on the right), but we also used a tough cardboard type material for the Swiss Chard, leeks, and basil.  We’ve found that this type dries out way too fast, so I’d definitely recommend the plastic kind for the future.

The Greenhouse Status on March 8

This past week though, the Swiss chard sprouted!  I thought they just weren’t going to sprout and was planning on trying again in the greenhouse or direct seeding them later on, but no, they proved me wrong.  I’m so happy that they did too!

There’s one of the little Swiss chards peeking out from behind label!

That’s our news up through this past week- more to come on the workdays last Friday and Saturday soon!

Greenhouse Day I

Hey readers!

This is Becca here, member of the MKG team and guest-posting for the lovely Rowan. I’m sure Rowan will fill you in with more details soon, but I took some pictures in the greenhouse that I thought I’d share on here. 

The MKG greenhouse, home to many exotic plants

and exotic creatures (aka “yella boy”).

Swiss Chard seeds, ready to go!

Along with the swiss chard, we also planted some chamomile, borage (an edible flower), leeks, Red Russian kale, and Dinosaur kale. We’ll be back at the greenhouse tomorrow, so more updates to come!

Planning

 

Hello friends!

I know it’s been a couple of weeks since I last blogged, but the gardener within me is still active!  The MKG team and I have been planning, that’s all.  Planning for another exciting and fruitful (veggie-ful?) season.  We’ve ordered (and been delivered!) seeds and laid out a diagram for where we’re going to plant our spring crops and the big summer players such as tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants.  Seeds are one of the most exciting and mind-boggling parts of gardening for me.  Imagine, a little brown seed holds the potential to grow and produce so much!  It’s wild!  Yet this happens all the time.  I think it’s important that everyone remembers this because it helps us appreciate the wonder and beauty of our food.

This season, besides the usual varieties of kale, Swiss Chard, greens mixes, snap peas, carrots, beets, etc., we’re also experimenting with some new crops.  We’re going to try growing asparagus!  Asparagus is a perennial plant, so we’ve chosen a permanent location back on the side of Quadrant C for it.  We’re also trying out brussel sprouts and spring onions.  I know that not all experiments are successful, but it’s fun to dream and take risks while gardening.  Talk about living life on the edge!

Coming Soon!

Speaking of things that are exciting, next week we’re going to start planting in the greenhouse.  On the list for things to plant, we have kale, Swiss Chard, basil, chamomile, leeks, and possibly other plants too (I just can’t remember off the top of my head what they are).

I just got sidetracked for a bit looking at pictures of our garden last year in spring. Ah, our garden is a special place.

Our Garden Last Year in May

Vampires Beware

I went to the garden last weekend to check up on things and see what’s still growing.  I was surprised at how much is still alive!  The broccoli, for example, is still hanging in there and tastes great.  It has remained uncovered this entire season, and although it hasn’t been too cold this winter so far, I’m still impressed that it’s still alive.

The picture is a little out of focus, but here’s an example of our the broccoli heads look.

The wind had blown off our Frost Guard row covers again, so I fixed those.  In a way, it was nice that the covers were off because then I could easily check and see how everything usually underneath them was doing.

Our dino kale under the Frost Guard

This news about the row covers though isn’t my most exciting news though.  In fact, I have two bits of exciting news!

1. Our garlic has sprouted and looks great!  We tried a little bit of an experiment with the garlic.  When  we planted it, we peeled half of the bulbs and we didn’t peel the other half of the bulbs.  It turns out that peeling them doesn’t make any difference from how they grow or how soon they sprout.  I couldn’t tell any difference.
2. Quadrant 4 is all plowed up!  One of the Biology professors at UVa is doing an experiment with tracking sunflowers’ phototrophic movement throughout the course of a day.  The sunflowers are first going to be planted in Quad 4, so now we can see all of that rich red clay soil.  I am especially excited about the sunflowers because bees love those flowers!  Good news for my bees!

This weekend, our MKG team is going to get together to pick and order seed varieties for this next season!  This is always a fun time, full of possibilities.

New Year, New Changes, and Purple Cabbage

Happy New Year, everyone!  This year ushers in lots of changes for the garden and I.  At the end of December, Michelle started a new chapter of her life and will be going to culinary school in Ireland.  I will miss her a lot, but I am so excited for her as she begins this new adventure.

Next semester, I’ll be taking over some of the managerial roles for our garden.  I’m quite excited and looking forward to it!  We’ll also have a better formed leadership team, which I am so very excited to work with.  We plan on meeting up the first or second week of school to pick and order seeds for the new season, but in the meantime I’ll layout an initial plant placement guide.  What’s that?  I’m sensing a spreadsheet or two will be in the works soon (spreadsheets hold a very special place in my heart).

A view down on our garden- notice the white Frost Guard row covers!

 

I last visited the garden a couple of weeks ago.  Now that it’s colder, our plants aren’t growing too much and there isn’t a whole lot of work to do in the garden.  Therefore, when I go to the garden, it’s for more of a visit than to work hard.  This is a nice reminder for me that while gardening can be a time to get dirty and dig up soil, it can also be a time for observation , reflection, and simply being.  For me, my December visits were a welcome break from the end-of-semester hustle and Finals.  And so I came to appreciate morning dew and purple cabbage even more.

Giving Thanks (Who says that’s only done on Thanksgiving?)

Hello everyone!  I hope you all had a fabulous Thanksgiving.  I sure did, especially since my meal featured broccoli from this garden!  November has been a month of ups and downs, weather wise, but our garden is still holding its ground (haha) with its greens growth.  Last week the temperatures were all the up to the 60s and today its hovering in the mid-40s, go figure.  Such is Virginia weather!  Luckily, our Frost Guard row covers are doing a great job shield our greens from frost and night-time chills.

The Garden this Morning

Happy Pumpkins

While late November is a wonderful time to reflect and give thanks for all that we have and enjoy, I’d like to say that I’m thankful for our garden all throughout the year (even when it’s cold and my hands are stiff).  I went out to the garden this morning to pick some kale and broccoli- I realized that I didn’t have much green in the fridge and was shocked, plus I just wanted to check on how things were doing and walk around the garden.  Coming out to the garden is such a treat and joy for me.  It’s more than an escape from the stress of schoolwork; it reminds me of the beauty of plants and the sky, and of how amazing and incredible the way that vegetables grow is.  I am also very thankful for all of the help we’ve received from students and the workers at Morven who have helped keeping our garden growing, in both the figurative and literal sense.  Ou garden wouldn’t be the same and nearly what it is today without you guys!

Cracked Irrigation Spigot

In other gardening news, two of our drip irrigation spigots have cracked.  Water froze in them over the weekend and the PVC piping cracked, which caused a mini pond to form around them.  The main line has been turned off to our garden, so they are no longer leaking, but we will need to fix them before springtime.  Other than that, the garden is looking good!

Here are some more pictures from the past month:

Our shed is clean! Thanks to the folks from APO, the co-ed service frat at UVA, we now can find things in our shed.

Tilling in a Row for Winter

A Workday with GDO (Global Development Organization)

An Early Morning

**I know my writing may sound odd and poetic today, I had a full cup of coffee earlier.