In My Alaska Garden: Hoop House Heaven
A demure Mignonette Alpine Strawberry peeks out at the camera
With some health challenges and the really rainy weather, I was glad this week that the hoop house is at the point in the summer where it doesn’t require too much constant care. I can leave one door open now day and night because the evening temps aren’t below 55 (even with one door open, the interior stays about 5 to 10 degrees above the outside.) It’s been a very slow process due to our chilly summer, but finally this week I’m starting to see some real plant explosion! This is good, because I need something to counterbalance the disappointing nature of my raised beds (more about that next week. (…damn cool weather…damn slugs…)
As you can see above and below, the strawberries are finally in full bloom.
Strawberries in full bloom
I bought these from Renee’s Garden Seeds and they’ve survived multiple transplantings quite beautifully. However, when the strawberries mature, I doubt they’ll survive the trip from the greenhouse to the kitchen…yum!
The most satisfying benefit to the hoop house has been the container greens. I love not having to worry about slugs It was actually hilarious after packing up my camera yesterday to see a huge, long slug crawling up the outside of the greehouse trying to get to them! (By next year, I will have all of my containers on plywood benches or metal grates stacked on cement blocks. Slugs don’t seem to like cement blocks.)
We’ve been eating quite well from our lettuce…
A very picked-through “Rocky Top” Lettuce Blend (Bakers Creek Seeds)
An equally picked-through “Asian Baby Leaf Mix” (Renee’s Garden)
We’ve even started a second batch…
Baby Lettuce – the next wave
The other joy of the hoop house has been the spices. Since I’ve lost whole batches to rot in the rainy season before in the raised beds (I’ve never been able to grow basil before), it’s really nice to have them succeed. The next photo shows several of my surviving basil from the “Basil Trio” Remee’s Garden Mix.
I have a few more pots of them, but the ones that did best were the cinnamon basil (red) and the lemon basil (red stems). For some reason the regular version tended towards mildew and I had to yank them out of the pots or tubs before they infected the others.
My other spices have been doing quite well…
Exploding Dill
Sage
Thyme
Just like with the strawberries, I get most excited about all of the flowering pre-vegetables!
Baby Cuke
Future Tomatoes
In the picture below, notice that the beans (on the left) have cute little purple flowers, but you can’t see the ones on the peas yet (I can see a couple just starting to emerge when I look at them close-up.)
Beans & Peas
Bean Flower
You may have noticed the fishing net…we brought a piece from one of Josh’s dad’s not-worth-fixing setnets to use in the hoop house. It is working quite well for the climing beans and peas. However, I may need further help with the cucumber vine, which seems to be a bit heavy and stubborn.
Finally, speaking of vines, we will visit my “melon trio” (Renee’s Garden and Baker Street seem to both be fond of packaging seeds in variety trios.)
Melons
No, they don’t look much like vines yet. This has probably been one of the biggest casualties of the cold summer. I’m hoping we can keep enough heat for the melons to develop and ripen by September. We’ll see if they make it.
We’re already gearing up around here for the post-summer activities…school registration, music camp for Morrigan, even the State Fair. I’m actually considering entering some of my garden photos in the Fair this year. What do you think?
Let me know how your gardens are faring!
Not one of your images comes through! Not even going to try IE as I already know that is futile. Notice a you tube is visible in comments. ??
Oh Linda, I’m so jealous!
I’ve not had good luck this year with most of my veggies. Between the hot temperatures and the lack of rain, everything is struggling, except my zucchini (no powdery mildew yet – fingers crossed – and the zucchinis I’ve picked so far have been delicious!). The worst problems, however, have come from uninvited dinner guests that have apparently been reading the Critter Restaurant Reviews where it seems my poor little veggie patch has received a four star rating!
The lettuce was eaten almost down to the ground, the beans that finally sprouted have had their tops munched off leaving only empty stems, the spinach and carrots have barely appeared (don’t know if they didn’t sprout or if the sprouts became part of the critter salad bar) and there is a cucumber and an orange tomato with bite marks taken right out of the sides! I’m not sure whether it was the rabbits (of which there is a bumper crop this year), or the chubby woodchuck I spotted the other day, that have been doing the damage, or if they all have a big party every night while I’m asleep. My great nieces were highly amused at the picture my sister took of the bite marks on my veggies, but I am not so thrilled to be sharing my crops with furry invaders.
All of the grape tomatoes on the plants are all still green which is rather odd, since I’ve seen several that WERE orange. Do they somehow turn back to green or have my tomato-loving chipmunks been at it again?
I’ve been busy with family visits the past two weeks so I will have to head down to the nursery tomorrow to buy some higher fencing and stronger posts so that whatever’s left in the garden has a fighting chance to make to MY stomach!
I thought I was dreaming the other night but maybe I really DID hear a little dinner bell being rung in my back yard in the middle of the night!
I don’t think you were dreaming. The difference with my yard is that the slug’s dinner bell is too tiny to hear.
I think the first picture and the one of the baby cuke are the best. How does your hoop house hold up to the wind, and how strong is the wind that you get?
We do get very strong winds. here which is why it took us awhile to figure out how to deal with it. Lots of 2x4s and plywood.
We often get 30mph winds and occassionally much stronger that break telephone poles. If I decide to do this, can I ask you for advice? BTW, how tall, wide and long is your hoop house and how did you situate it in relation to the wind?
Here is what we used:
http://westsidegardener.com/howto/hoophouse.html
I was originally going to make it smaller but at the last minute decided to do the full 21′ x 10′ size.
— Substututed 1/2″ EMT conduit for PVC
— Substituted rebar for the stakes (make sure the rebar fits inside the EMT pipe)
When we take the plastic off of it for the winter (probably the beginning of November) I’ll do a more detailed post on constructing it.. But until then, feel free to ask questions any time. Josh has even said he’d help anyone who lives here in Anchorage in person.
Thank you for that info. Unfortunately (for many reasons), I’m in the Mojave Desert. :-\
No garden in my tenement, but I do visit the greenmarket at least once a week. It’s hot here today.
have harvested 3 times the raspberries, and shared a slew of volunteers to co-workers, plum tree is overloaded and have branches propped with wood poles and my wooden ladder,,and my glorious tomato plants are now propped up with 6 ft stakes in addition to the standard wire hoops…have successfully kept the deer off of them, and the pears also !!… the bad thing is everything is ripening, for harvest in the next week or so, and I have to go to SoCal for two weeks !!! expecting a garden disaster, as wife and daughters think the deer look “cute” in the yard ! ! How little do they know, that behind the soft brown eyes, lurks a terrible demoness, hell bent on the destruction of my labors!! I’ve tried training the cats to attack the intruders, but to no avail !!! aaarrggghhhhhh!!!
Ben-go to the zoo after hours and borrow a man-eater from the big cat display. Make sure your life insurance is up to date with me as mikeyficiary(why should Bens get all the spoils?)
Not even close to chilly here! We are now in the record books for the hottest summer in over 100 years. We’d have a parade, but it is just too hot. Today is the cusp of week four with temps well over 100 degrees and no rain in the forecast for at least another week.
Gardens? Extra crispy, even with irrigation. Herbs are all finished for the year, but do have lots all nicely dehydrated and packaged for the winter.
The gooseberry bushes are doing well for their first season. Growing nicely, and relishing the heat. In two more years we will have a crop!
Have been putting up fruits and vegetables for the winter everyday. What a job, but oh so good.
Linda, your pictures are lovely. Enter away!
TCW, the first record I bought with my own money was a 78 of “The Nutcracker.” I think I was four. My parents had taken me to see the ballet the Christmas before, and I was enchanted. I even behaved! I used my own money to buy the record, and wore it out listening to it over and over, dancing away.
What ya got for gooseberries? I’ve had Pixwell for several years and they produce good. They over ran my garden and I hosed them with round-up. The berries were mostly inside and those puppies have enormouis thorns. 100 plus again today with no rain. Thundered and lightninged all night long. Hell even I can shoot blanks. Pulled onions-they are a month ahead of schedule.
It’s been well over 100 all summer here with a week of 113. No rain for us for at least a couple of months. My garden just fell over gasping.
Most excellent plus..try scoping-out the inside of your kitchen..and also the bathroom. Invest in some growlights and some of your plants can come ..inside..and be kept for months longer..after the lovely Summer starts..in the hoop. 🙂
Gorgeous! Will you get tomatoes before the end of the season?
Yes, I will. There are already some little ones forming but I couldn’t get the camera to catch them.
Beautiful bounty, there, Linda, from your hoop house. Not much edible happening in the forest gardens, but there’s a produce market just down the road apiece, so we’re good.
With all the rain we’ve had, the waterlilies in the pond are thriving…and so are the frogs. I suppose frogs could count as edibles in the garden, but they’re not that big and I’m not That Hungry. 🙂 Ginger lilies and Fire lilies (gloriosa) are just starting to bloom around the pond. Smells like heaven, and looks lovely.
We’re still collecting plenty of hen fruit each day, in soft shades of green and brown. I relish the thought that our hens have turned bugs and forest scratchings and kitchen waste into protein that we find much more palatable.
This might be a good day to finish transplanting our potted plants, too.
Just 3 weeks from today and a bunch of them will go back to school (!) with me.
*gently shoving Back-to-School thoughts out of mind*
I wish I had a song for this post, but I can’t hear the music in my mind lately.
Littlebird just got a “record player” and 6 albums last week, including Fleetwood Mac self-titled. Does that take you back? I told her when she comes to visit she can go through our vinyl. I still have the very first LP I bought with my own money…Hey, hey…it’s More of the Monkees! 1967, on the cusp of junior high. And I have an early Joan Baez album (Vanguard) that Daddy gave Mama when he was courting her and they were sparking; classical folk tunes and ballads, including “Donna, Donna” and that’s my mama’s name, you see. L’dor v’dor; generation to generation.
So what was the first music you bought with your own money? What were you listening to when you first set out on your own like my littlebird this summer? Favorite summertime music memories? Whatcha listening to lately? I’ll try any of ’em, all of ’em you put in front of me. Quyana. Toda raba. Many thanks.
It’s sunny this morning, with just “scattered afternoon thundershowers” forecast, so I’m off to catch up on the laundry and give the solar dryer a good workout. Hello clothespegs.
Wishing you all some garden/plants/outdoors/music joy today,
thatcrowwoman
Always , always , whoever does this one TCW…always always- since I first heard it 40 years ago
From Blind Willie Johnson to Hot Tuna
heard them do this live 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUseW_yJkpg
holy moley! here’s that mongo dealie again -eeks!
TCW-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXSVxhWDTW8&feature=related
(hoping this one doesn’t do that too )
Gardens , farming, feeding ourselves, body and soul, singing while we work.
And Joy Harjo’s stunning poem Perhaps The World Ends Here to share round while we clean and process our bounty, fish, fowl, green…eat together, plan together for the next gathering at the table
TCW-I’m good with the Monkees. I bought the album Deliver the Word by War over forty years ago and it is still an all time favorite. It has been recorded on cassette and I would love it on cd. Since Linda mentioned Baker Street, how about some Gerry Rafferty?
Those strawberries look lovely! And all the herbs!
And beans… how I wish we could grow beans. Please, please share pics as they continue to grow.
It sure has been a chilly summer- here too.
We continue to set records for wet and cold .Frost in July might thrill records keepers but not gardeners 🙁
Row covers HAVE helped a great deal in keeping daily greens on my table and creepy bugs out of the kales. Loving the Nero di Toscana kale I tried this year alongside old favorite White Russian kale.
Potatoes are flourishing in their cages.
Peas under cover have made flowers and are now producing while peas which usually thrive along a fence are short and sullen and in a seriously WTF? mode .
Guess it was a good summer to try some new ways of doing things!
Hoping you are feeling better Linda and that everyone’s gardens are doing well.
The lilies are starting to bloom which means life is good here even with my whining over the turnips which aren’t (yet again) making “nips” underground .