The Plan

Luffa Mush

Published October 25th, 2008 in fruit, goings on, images | 1 Comment »

This turned out to not be the time or method for luffa gourd harvest. The young luffa apparently was not ready for peeling. The fibers inside could not hold themselves together at this stage and simply became mush as I attempted to “milk” the gourd. It did peel rather easily and that was encouraging. I harvested a similarly sized gourd at the same time and will let this one sit and potentially dry on its own, turning it occasionally to avoid rot. The rest of the luffa remain on the vine until the frost kills the entire vine – every bit of ripening helps.

Pergola Power

Published October 19th, 2008 in goings on, images | 2 Comments »

I can’t say I have ever thought of myself as a pergola type person. Such an extravagance and for a smattering of shade. But that was before we moved to the farm and found little solace from the penetrating rays of the sun. Trees, mighty and fruit varieties, have been planted and are growing steadily. Yep, still growing. It’s going to take a long while before they offer any relief. A giant pergola provides the solution.Â

Pretty cool, yes? The pergola was designed and constructed by Billy Dreesman of Heritage Timber Frame. We helped by preparing the gravel filled holes for the posts and assisted in raising the bents. The structure was assembled in about four hours. It’s solid white oak and will likely weather to a rustic gray color if we don’t stain or finish it with something. We had planned on securing some large tree limbs and branches across the top for a more natural component, but now we are not so sure. It might disrupt the otherwise clean lines.Â

What we do know is that it looks awesome and smells good too. Next year it will be covered with hops and other vigorous vines. When does Spring arrive?

Artichoke Experiment

Published October 11th, 2008 in flowers, fruit, goings on, images | 1 Comment »

When we receive seed catalogs in the Fall and Winter month, it feels like no seed ought go unplanted. It also feels like we have a duty to explore new vegetables and flowers that we’ve never grown before. Toss in a bit of a challenge and we can’t really help ourselves. That’s how we wound up ordering and planting two varieties of artichoke.Â

The challenge of growing artichokes in this climate is their biennial nature. Under normal circumstances, artichokes like to endure a cold period before setting chokes. So you need to set them outside early in the season so they are tricked into thinking they survived the cold. But you can’t let the little plants freeze and you can’t let them bake in a cold frame. We did the latter. It was a beautiful day and we went to work without raising the lid of the cold frame. Almost all of the artichoke we started from seed died that day. The few that survived, we planted. And a couple, as you can see, set chokes. Delighted as we were, we are not sure when to harvest. But I’m pretty sure this one is past it’s prime.

PVC Hoop House

Published October 6th, 2008 in goings on, images | No Comments »

Anne has a colleague who inspired us to build a hoop house. Our growing season in Iowa isn’t the shortest, but it could certainly stand to be a little longer. And if we do this correctly we can have more fresh greens and vegetables for more of the year. It can extend the growing season a month or more in each direction.Â

The plans are not original, but were followed very closely from westsidegardener.com’s instructions. Very helpful. The length and width worked out nearly perfect for our garden space. All that is left to do is the plastic cover, and a door of some kind. This will be an interesting gardening adventure as neither Anne nor I have ever done solar gardening before. Please send all your advice to the comments sections!