Three-Day Gardening Extravaganza

February 24, 2012 at 7:21 am (Eleanor, goings-on, Other, Vancouver) (gardening, hugel bed, hugelkultur, The Winter Harvest Handbook)

Apart from a five-minute hail storm that caught me out yesterday, the Vancouver weather has just graced me with three consecutive days in the garden.  Days one and two were transplant-and-cover days.  I’m using bent heavy-gauge wires to support a layer of landscaping fabric that should protect the young plants.

In The Winter Harvest Handbook, Eliot Coleman writes that keeping winter crops covered with cold frames or row covers boosts their micro-climate by one USDA zone (two, if you grow them covered in a greenhouse).  Besides keeping crops warmer, cold frames protect them from drying winds and direct sun that can thaw frosted leaves too quickly and cause cell-wall damage.

On day one of the extravaganza, I transplanted young mixed lettuces, spinach, and some onions (to maybe deter a few of the buggies).  On day two (yesterday), I transplanted lots of leeks and a kind of romaine lettuce called Cimmaron.  I spaced them closely to quickly provide cover for the soil, as well as edible thinnings over a period of time.

On the left--interplanted cimmaron and leeks; on the right--spinach and mixed lettuces under cover.

Today, day three of my garden extravaganza, I finally got around to shoveling the last of the truckload of soil we had dumped in the driveway last spring.  It went on the hugel bed!

There wasn't enough soil to cover the whole bed; I'll have to grab a few bags.

The soil layer is only superficial for now, but I’m really pleased with how the bed is coming along.  I went ahead and sowed a cover crop of clover, which, if it gets covered with more soil later, will just decompose and add nitrogen to the soil.  I also have a tray of lupins started under lights in the basement to plant on the hugel bed.  (Lupins are said to fix nitrogen the way members of the legume family do.)

As I was shoveling soil onto the hugel bed, an older gentleman from the neighborhood stopped in the lane to appreciate my garden.  He was European and had such a thick accent that I barely understood him, but he seemed immediately to understand what I was doing.  He recommended adding manure, which I really ought to do throughout the garden…  One more thing for the spring garden to-do list!