Rehabilitating the Gothic Greenhouse

I have 3 Gothic greenhouses that I constructed pretty cheaply out of electrical conduit and clips.  The construction information was published in an article with Maximum Yield (October 2008) and is also available on the Bountea website.

The North greenhouse was in dire need of rehabilitation.  In 2008, a snowfall of over 4 feet got wedged in the narrow pathway next to the greenhouse.  The pressure of the snow pushed in the conduit ribs somewhat, though it continued to function fine.  At long last, I  got round to extending the greenhouse sideways (getting rid of the pathway) to incorporate a bottle wall that will add thermal mass.

I re-bent the conduit ribs and attached them to the bottle wall.  Now I am rebuilding the end walls to enclose everything.  I intend to create a 2 foot wide cold frame against the bottle wall so that my winter plants will get a little extra warmth.  More later.

Late Harvest

It has been a slow summer in the vegetable garden.  Except for a 2 week period of severe heat, it has been generally cool after a very cold spring.  The tomatoes are only just getting going; some plants do not even have flowers.  I still have no peppers, cucumbers or summer squash and the beans are just beginning to set. 

The cool weather crops are naturally doing better than usual: I just harvested the last of the peas; the fava beans are still cropping; the cabbages, turnips and carrots are sweet.  Last nigh we ate a medley of sauteed peas, tiny beans, carrots and rutabaga - yum!

Opening the Garden

The Boulder Culinary Gardener opens individual members gardens to other gardeners during the summer.  On 1st August it was our turn and after a burst of weeding and house cleaning, about 30 people made the trip up the mountain.

It rained and rained and the temperature dropped down into the 50's!  Still, the hollyhocks made a brave showing, snacks were consumed and I learned more about the amazing resilience of bindweed.

Garlic

I rather overdid planting garlic last year - a full 6' x 4' bed closely planted.  Unfortunately, we took a trip to California just when the garlic was ready for harvest.  By the time we came back, all the stems had shriveled and the cloves were bursting out of their skins.

Digging the garlic without stems is a real pain and with little skins protection, the cloves are unlikely to last into the winter.  On the positive side, the skins simply dropped off and the cloves were extremely easy to peel.  Now we have bags of garlic in the freezer, roast garlic paste in the fridge and a big jar of pickled garlic.  The trug (English garden basket) pictured is  what we have left after giving lots to friends.

The garlic bed is newly seeded with spelt and buckwheat.  By September, it will be ready for winter crops.

San Francisco Indoor Gradening Expo

On the last weekend in July San Francisco hosted the biggest hydroponics and organic gardening show in the country.  This year, Organic Bountea shared a booth with our distributor, Humboldt Wholesale.  With the support of Humboldt Wholesale, Bountea products are now carried by nearly 100 stores across the country.  

Look for stores carrying the full line of our products under STORE LOCATOR on the Bountea website. 

Big Changes

Woops - I seem to have neglected this blog for awhile!  Some of that time I was in Ireland - a bit like returning to the technological dark ages.  I was visiting my large extended family and particularly my father Mike Evans, the gardening patriarch; he will be 97 years old this month.  Grandpa Mike is slowing down and only manages to garden a couple of hours each day.  He complains that the Bountea makes everything grow so fast that he can never keep up. (see more pictures of Ireland on Rocky Mountain Living)

Part of the reasons for the trip was discussions with a Dutch distributor of compost tea systems who will be carrying Bountea products in Europe.  That will hopefully happen before the end of the year.  Every few days we get requests from Ireland, Sweden, Portugal and even Turkey for our products.  It will be satisfying to be able to provide what people want and need.

At the beginning of June, Organic Bountea moved to a bigger and better warehouse and facilities near Sebastopol in California.  It is beautiful wine country with just the kind of environment we were looking for: quiet and peaceful but close enough to main trucking routes.  We are settling in and working hard to get production back up to speed. 

As Lao Tzu possibly said: "Moving is natural, stagnation is sickness."

Sutherlands Mother's Day Plant Sale

They call it, "Punching for Posies" - 3,000 revved up gardeners lined up to get the best deals in bedding plants, perennials and veggie starts at Sutherlands Mother's Day plant sale.  To calm the competitive spirit, music and food were provided; a well-organized system of tickets and payment kept it all moderately under control.

Bountea had a strong presence, handing out samples of SuperStart and educating some of the "bedding-planters" into the wonders of organic growing and compost tea. It still surprises me that only about 1 in 20 of Boulder residents has any interest or concern for their soil.  For the vast majority, it is stick in the plant and dump on the Miracle Grow!  Still, a few of those standing in line took the time to talk with myself or Stacey.

Person by person, gardeners are slowly taking more care of their soil ecology.