5 Gallon Bucket Growing

May 18, 2022 Sarah

With our cold and wet spring (and seriously…we had a wind storm last night into this morning that was winter like) I have been looking for options for peppers and some tomatoes to be able to grow protected, and to hopefully increase the crop production numbers. Bell peppers do grow here on Whidbey Island, Wa, but they run small and are typically thin walled if grown outside. They try, but let’s be brutal….it’s not warm enough with the constant winds. The winds at night chill the plants, even in the hottest days of July and August.

While I got plenty last year, you can see how small they were. And last year was a hot summer. Picking them, this was the common size.

I want more hand sized ones! This one was in an interior row so it stayed warmer.

Last week on a rare sunny (but still cool) day, with my brother’s help I pulled out all the tomatoes and pepper plants out of the greenhouse.

Did number counts and got them staked up (tomatoes are like a forest, where they all stand happy till you start moving them, then they flop).

I pulled out most of the peppers (though I sold a few to customers I like….) and got working on prepping a new home for them, for the season. Once all done, everyone got back into the sauna to warm back up. They prefer the greenhouse.

The peppers have been in the greenhouse from day 1. They were in 1 gallon pots the past month plus, and already starting to put on flowers.

I do not heat our greenhouse (it sits in one of the fields) and we don’t use grow lights. We prefer growing resilient plants that can handle the local land. Dense, stout and green.

You can use most any container to grow in, as long as it is 5 gallons or bigger. Use 5 gallon buckets, cat litter buckets, or even ones from restaurants and bakeries. As long as it didn’t hold car oil or chemicals, it is usually fine. Use a drill and the largest drill bit you have on hand to punch 5 to 6 holes in the bottom. Fill with well aged compost (we mix ours with coconut noir – similar to peat moss – to control water). Plant up and walk away.

We put our buckets about half way under the benches in the greenhouse, leaving a walk way.

Now we let them do their thing and grow in the warmth of the greenhouse.

And hidden is the first tiny bell pepper.

I am hoping this latest experiment goes well this season.

~Sarah

Gardening · Homesteading

Whidbey Island Gardening: The Cool Spring

April 30, 2022 Sarah

It’s been a cool spring this year. And a wet one, depending on which end of Whidbey Island you live on. We live outside of Freeland, in the Olympic Rainshadow, so we get far less than say Oak Harbor in the far north, or Langley, farther south (it gets quite a bit more as it isn’t in the shadow).

I have been asked multiple times this week “Am I too late to start a garden?”.

No. You are not too late. Even in a normal year this is just the start of the season for planting outside. Take one cool spring, and we are about 2 weeks late. I’m behind in some ways on my land, but I am not worried. Because when I look at the weather predictions…we have time.

Depressing? Pretty much.

And it’s the same for the 3rd and 4th of May as well! In the 50’s daytime, some days in the low 50’s and then in the lower 40’s at night. The ground is still quite chilly.

You have time. Get your plans together, work when it’s not raining. But breathe. The sun will return. It won’t be long.

~Sarah

Gardening · Homesteading

Spring Settles In On The Homestead

April 11, 2022 Sarah

Kirk and I took a vacation for 11 days in Mexico and got home a week ago. I jumped right into back on the homestead the morning after we got back. We had so much to plant, seed and weed. It was spring break for the boys, so it worked out well to put in 6 days of work. My brother watched the homestead for us, and kept everything alive. Thankfully it was mostly cool PNW weather, so no 120° days in the greenhouse to contend with.

Plant starts in March, before we left on vacation.

Romaine lettuce starts, which I was testing where in the greenhouse they’d grow strongest – and I found the exact shelf they should be on.

Came home to strong starts waiting for me.

Golden Raspberry starts.

First up though was potting up over 100 tomato and pepper starts as quick as I could, from 4″ pots to 1 gallon size. Now they will sit in the greenhouse until end of April, then will be hardened off for planting around Mother’s Day weekend.

Tiny pepper starts a friend dropped off, that I potted up. I am running an experiment on these, to see how much cold they can take. I really believe in testing the limits of where you grow.

I cleared the first bed of over wintered plants that had seen better days. Fed those to the chickens.

A Kale tree that was going to flower? An afternoon delight.

Cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower read to go in.

Lettuce starts in the ground.

Potted up Clancy Potato starts – they grow from actual seed, from the flowers. While I was prepping a row in one of the beds, I found some leftover potatoes from last year’s crop. Oops!

This bed is basically planted. Now…we wait for spring to get warmer, and everything surges. It is mostly onions, garlic, leeks and brassicas.

Pretty, weeded bed rows.

The work carries on….spring is here. It’s planting time!

~Sarah

Gardening · Homesteading · Prepping

The Emergency Garden

March 23, 2022 Sarah

It’s the end of March, and the news is filled with doom and gloom every day. Maybe you have never grown food before, and suddenly feel the need to do it. Or you have, but not recently.

Gardening can help control anxiety from news of inflation and food shortages by giving you something beneficial to do, get exercise and receive fresh air/sun.

The Emergency Garden is a simple thing: To get food growing as quickly as possible, that will give you nutrients and calories. Without deep planning. You can do longterm planning while the emergency garden is starting to grow. It’s two fold. Build for now, and build for the future. Gain skills and grow confidence that you can take more on. As the emergency garden flourishes, you can be working behind the scenes, building more space and learning to grow trickier seeds, but having food to eat while you do it.

To Start:

Figure out where you can start growing. If you have a yard, raised beds made quickly work fastest. If you only have a deck, pots will work. Ask before buying if anyone has things they don’t need – be it cinderblocks for beds, or used pots. Often people have things they want gone, and gone for free. In the emergency garden, we don’t have time to till land to make in ground beds. Save that for part 2.

Go buy potting/garden soil and compost immediately. This is where you need to spend money – your soil will determine your success. A mix of garden soil, potting soil and compost will provide a nice base in raised beds. For pots use potting soil to avoid heavy soil. If you can afford organic, choose that.

Buy organic fertilizer to have on hand. You don’t have time to wait for your compost pile to cook down. That is for part 2. While the first vegetables grow, start a compost pile if you don’t have one already.

Buy seeds Immediately. This is no time for the fancy seeds. You want easy to grow, short grow season seeds. Preferably F1 hybrids, that are designed for where you live. In the PNW, Ed Hume seeds are the best choice for this. Read the packet of seeds carefully and look at each variety and compare how many days it takes to grow. Always choose the shortest.

Growing heirloom/heritage/open pollinated seeds you can save seed from, that is for part 2. Buy both types, grow the fastest first, then plant the heirlooms.

As with shorter grow times, consider size as well. Grow smaller carrots, beets, pickling cucumbers over slicing cucumbers. Bush peas and beans over pole ones. Look for dwarf varieties.

Normally I would say “grow the rainbow” when it comes to colors, but in the emergency garden, stick to lighter colors, they will take less time on average. Green peas versus deep purple ones. White, yellow or red versus blue-purple tomatoes. Orange carrots versus those gorgeous dark as night ones in the seed catalog. Stick with small potatoes such as white, red, or Yukon Gold, instead of Russet baking potatoes.

Also see: Building a Garden Quickly.

What To Grow:

Lettuces (Many lettuce types can be cut multiple times, and let regrown, before the heat zaps them till early fall crops)
Greens (Arugula, kale, spinach, bok choy, swiss chard, mustard greens)
Peas (grow bush style for quickest) (can eat pea shoots, then the peas)
Beets (both the greens and the bulbs are edible)
Radishes
Evergreen Onions (Scallions, Green Onions, Spring Onions) (They can be cut and regrown multiple times)
Carrots (grow smaller varieties and avoid the deeply colored ones as they take longer) (Carrot greens are edible and make a great pesto)
Garlic (can be planted in early spring for a late summer harvest, it will be smaller but delicious none the less, grow hard neck for garlic scapes)
Mushrooms
Herbs (Grow in pots, they can be snipped as needed and air dried in summer) (Parsley, Basil, Chamomile, Mint, Oregano, Rosemary, Sage, Thyme and such)
Potatoes (Can be grown in buckets, pots and be harvested as new potatoes or let grow all season. Can plant multiple crops a year)
Turnips (Not a sexy root, but they last a long time and are great in soup or mashed up like potatoes, greens are edible)
Summer Squash (grow it up a trellis, or hog panels, to save space)
Tomato (grow smaller, bush tomato plants that produce smaller fruit)
Beans (bush green beans)

Wondering how much to grow per person? See here for that post.

Right Now Starts Are In Stores and more are showing up in the coming weeks:

Cabbage
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Brussels Sprouts
Lettuces
Kale
Spinach
Peas
Onions
Tomatoes (usually in April)

Bring home the starts, plant the onions, spinach, and peas. The greens and brassicas, pot them up into 4″ pots and let grow a bit more before planting. Tomatoes should be potted up and protected in at least an unheated greenhouse or pop up shelter/or sunny window until at least May 1st. I plant tomatoes in ground around Mother’s Day weekend.

Buying starts can cost a little more, but give you a head start while you get seeds going. It also builds confidence as they grow.

And to that….may your garden grow and bless you!

~Sarah

Gardening · Homeschooling

March Crops To Plant

March 17, 2022 Sarah

As the month of March clips by fast, much of the country is approaching Spring this coming week, Sunday, March 20th this year. The daytime temperatures are warming up for those of us in the Pacific Northwest in the valleys and on the islands in the Salish Sea, we are a month to the last frost date (April 15th) which means it is go time for many items to be seeded for their first seeding outside.

These are crops that like it chillier, especially the greens, they tend to wilt or bolt to seed when it gets over 70° extended. The crisp and juicy greens, the tender spring peas, and such.

A tip? For peas, plant bush peas for a quicker crop. And this is also a good frame for all crops, grow smaller carrots for a quicker harvest. Read the expected dates on the back of the seed packet, choose the variety with the lowest days required.

What To Go Plant:

Beets (seeds)
Bok Choy (seeds or starts)
Broccoli (starts are being sold now)
Cabbage (starts are being sold now)
Carrots (seeds)
Lettuce (seed or starts)
Onions (the starts sold at nurseries)
Peas (seeds)
Potatoes
Radishes (seeds)
Spinach (seeds)

~Sarah