Category: Planning

Overwintering Dahlias

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A beauty from the communal bed, dinner plate dahlia Cafe au Lait

About a week ago (on November 7) after our first light frost had killed the dahlia leaves, I dug up the tubers, both from the communal flower bed and my own plot including my back porch container dwarf varieties. I roughly cleaned them and let them dry in card board boxes in my back hallway. This morning, I transferred the boxes to a cool dark spot in the basement. I plan to check on them once a month or so and mist them if necessary to prevent them from shriveling up to much. Fingers crossed they will survive.

Ready for storage

Fall Clean-up and Planting Garlic

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Today, I finished cleaning up my plot (weeding, spreading compost and salt marsh hay), and I sowed my garlic for next year – 6 rows total, 15 cloves of hardneck garlic, and 20 cloves of softneck garlic.

New garlic patch
Plot at the end of today. Still growing: kale, Swiss chard, leeks, fall greens, komatsuna, a few carrots, calendula.

Ginger

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This year, I experimented with growing ginger in a container. I started in February with a piece of store-bought organic ginger that I misted with water for about a month to encourage formation of growth buds. Then, on March 12, I planted it in a pot, very shallow, with the roots exposed.

Ginger today just before the harvest
March 12

I let it grow indoors for a couple of months until temperatures were warm enough to bring the container outside.

May 14 (ginger in center in the back)
October 17
October 17

Today, I harvested the ginger. The pot I used had a smallish diameter, and I did not get as much ginger as I had hoped. The new ginger is so juicy and fragrant! I am very excited to use it. Next year, I will grow ginger again, but in a wide shallow planter.

Harvest (notice the strong fibrous roots)
A piece of ginger with old growth on the left and new growth on the right

I saved a small piece with several growth buds (and two stems) and replanted it in the same container. I plan to overwinter it in my back hallway.

Overwintering ginger

More Fall Sowing

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Fall greens, November 2022

Today, I sowed one row each mache (seeds were from 2020, so my hopes of germination are extremely low), komatsuna (also known as Japanese mustard spinach) and French Breakfast radishes in the plot. I had sowed some radishes yesterday in containers on the back porch. The winter lettuce (Landis) I had sown about two weeks ago unfortunately never germinated. I have two rows of fall greens coming up (lettuces, chards, kale, arugula, mustard greens, Chinese cabbage, spinach, endive), plus two rows of beets (one Golden, one Chioggia) and a (spotty) row of early carrots. My plan is to have the mache and komatsuna overwinter under a row cover. And perhaps the fall greens as well. We shall see.

First Tomatoes

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I harvested my first tomatoes! Stupice, a small-fruited tasty early Czech variety. As in previous years, I staggered my tomatoes and planted early, mid-season and late tomatoes, hoping to ensure a steady tomato harvest from July through November. This year, I planted 8 varieties (11 plants total). Early varieties: Stupice, Ailsa Craig (2 plants) ; Mid-season varieties: Brimmer, Striped German (2), Black Prince; Late varieties: Green Zebra, De Wiese Streaked (a shipping mistake, I had ordered Dr. Wyche’s Yellow, one of my favorite tomatoes), Ananas Noire (2). The tomato seeds were from Sand Hill Preservation Center (Stupice, Ailsa Craig, Brimmer, Black Prince, De Wiese Streaked), Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds (Green Zebra, Ananas Noire) and Johnnys (Striped German).

Garlic Braid

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I cleaned and braided my softneck garlic this afternoon. With only 13 heads, this is the smallest braid ever. But those heads are big. But then, I still have four heads from last year’s harvest. The braid will hang in my pantry for storage. I will consume my hardnecks first, plus four or five smaller (and “injured”) softnecks that did not make it into the braid. I also saved the two largest heads separately as seed garlic to go in the ground in late October/early November. The hardneck garlic is still just hanging in the back hallway. I want to give it a bit more time for curing before I clean it and put it away as it has been very hot and humid these past few weeks.

Sowing, Staking and First Harvests

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This morning, I sowed more flowers in my flower patch (Zinnias Queen Lime Blush and Queen Lime Red, and Cosmos Rubinato and Sensation mix) plus nasturtium (all over the plot) as well as a row of Golden beets. I also staked all my eleven tomato plants. I noticed that one (Black Prince) had a broken stem. It looked like it was cut in half. I will replace it with a new Black Prince seedling that I still have on my back porch. Luckily I had started two seedlings for each variety, and all germinated. A few days ago, I harvested a few of my overwintered leeks (which I roasted for dinner last night together with carrots, Brussels sprouts and potatoes and served with a bright Chimichurri) and some rhubarb (which I turned into a strawberry rhubarb compote and enjoyed over vanilla ice cream). I need to harvest the remaining leeks soon to prevent them from flowering.

Nicely sized overwintered leeks