The Kitchen Garden Company

Outside, the weather has been alternately, bitterly cold and rainy. The other night we had a violent gale which left us without much sleep. Between worrying about the power going out and having to find somewhere to move the baby chickens in to where it was warmer (it was about 36 outside) and whether the polytunnel would survive the night I don’t think I slept a wink. Fortunately the storm swung away from us and we we didn’t get the full brunt, but gusts were still up to 65mph. The power never went out, or I think we might have lost chickens. However, the polytunnel did sustain some damage. I spent an hour the yesterday moring repairing two broken ribs so they wouldn’t fly apart and tear the covering. I managed a sucessful repair, even in my sleep deprived state. As the weather warmed into the upper 40’s I was feeling much better about our two pet projects–veggie starts and chicks.

With all the wind and cold there hasn’t been as much activity in the polytunnel as I’d hoped. The tunnel usually manages to keep a 10 degree average temperature difference from outside temperatures, and the soil is much warmer than elsewhere in the gardens, but without much sun it hasn’t gotten above 50 for a week or so. The wind also sucks the temperature right out.

Meanwhile, in where it is warmer we have sprouts in all the trays we started. It’s looking like we’ll have to re-start some of the plants because they got leggy as if it were too warm on the heat mat. The cucumbers rotted at the base after they grew to a few inches tall. Our mistake for leaving them too damp I think.

If the weather continues being unseasonably cold, for out here, we might have additional trouble. We always plant peas around St. Patrick’s Day. The weather has been so foul I haven’t been able to get in to work the soil. This weekend is predicted to be sunny however, and perhaps we can get out and prep a bed or two.

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Despite freezing temperatures this weekend, we didn’t let that keep us from preparing for a great gardening season. Although the seeds came some weeks ago, we finally just now found time to sort through them and get some started.

After dividing them into groups based on when and where we were going to plant them we got the ones requiring a long growing season started indoors in trays on a heat mat. Unfortunately we should have started some of the seeds–like the peppers–weeks ago.

Some of the remaining seeds will have to wait until the garden is warm enough to plant next month. However, several herbs and lettuces went straight into the ground in the polytunnel and should be ready for a fantastic Easter salad.

You can find more pictures here.

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Our Kitchen Garden seeds are ordered and on their way.

We order from two catalogs each year to get a selection, and we’ve never had a problem with the seeds. We also like both of the company’s because the seeds they sell work very well in our Maritime Pacific Northwest Climate.

The companies are Territorial Seed Company and Nichols Garden Nursery.

We’ve taken a risk and ordered seeds for three vegetables we have never been able to grow here before–peppers, eggplant and melons. We are hoping the hoop house/poly tunnel will help us out here, in addition to giving us a larger and better crop of tomatoes. We also purchased Brussels Sprout seeds. All of us around here love them, so it seems a waste not to grow our own and hopefully turn others on to the great taste of fresh sprouts. We also like the verticality of them, given the tiny size of our garden patch this year.

The kitchen garden is both about seasonality and maximizing space. There is no reason not to be able to grow decent vegetables in any reasonably sized space–certainly enough for a family of 4 and neighbors.  We tend to splash out a bit more because many of the vegetables and herbs we grow make their way onto the plates of our customers or as barter items for things we can’t grow or produce. This year will not only be about experimentation with the poly-tunnel, but also adding more value to what we do produce by further processing the items.

We’ll keep you informed.

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