Snow 2008 - the remains

So we are getting closer to NS day (no snow day).

Here is what my yard looks like:


View of the veggie garden with receding glacier.


The front spiral garden popping out of the snow.

With so much snow, plants were actually growing under there. Crocus were in full bud, and there was enough insulation to keep this chinese cabbage overwintered:


2nd year chinese cabbage still alive under snow.

Parsley reliably overwinters here and will self-seed if you let it:


Luminescent in the morning sunshine: a crown of parsley

Thriving in the polytunnel thingy is self-seeded corn salad / mache:


Yum! Mache / corn salad

And finally tulips growing through gravel mulch to join the mass of bulbs full of promise if the local rodentia - bunnies and squirrels - don't behead them all.


Tulips will not be deterred by gravel mulch!

Self Seeding Salsify, a plan

What kind of plant is that?

Salsify is a root crop which some say tastes of oysters. It is seeded in the spring much the same way as parsnips and harvested after a few frosts. It can also be left to overwinter like parsnips for an early spring harvast. Like many root crops, it is a biennual (beets, turnips, onions, parsnips, carrots are also biennuals) so that it goes to seed in the next year of growth. This also means that it can be kept in a root cellar for winter use when the ground is frozen. A bonus is that if left to seed, it has a beautiful blue flower.

My crazy plan

I have heard of people allowing salsify to become semi-cultivated, in other words to establish a permanent bed for it. I have interest in doing this for parsnip as well - see overwintering parsnips post for my concerns about this method.

Optimistic Gardener Warning

I love the idea of low input gardening, allowing plants to do their thing. I find that volunteer plants are stronger, for the most part, than transplants.To this end, I have devised a plan:

1. Work in lots of organic matter into bed.
2. Plant and thin widely to allow for second year planting
3. Harvest all weak or off-type plants
4. Mix in a little compost in the spots just harvested
5. Leave enough roots to maintain genetic diversity plus some for spring harvest
6. Next year, seed again (they are biennuals)
7. Thin new seedlings to permenant spacing
8. Allow older plants to go to seed and admire flowers
9. Collect some seeds for insurance purposes and seed sharing
10. Thin any seedlings that come up
11. With second year plants, harvest for winter storage and fresh use
12. In fall, lay down organic mulch to ammend beds
13. Leave enough roots to maintain genetic diversity plus some for spring harvest
14. Repeat from step 6.
15. Seed if not enough volunteers

I hope that doesn't sound too complicated! It is not supposed to be. Keep in mind this is a garden experiment.

And now just for fun, some more unusual root crops which can be stored in a root cellar (from the 1999 version of The 4 Season Harvest. )

1. scorzonera
2. root chevril
3. hamburg parsley
4. rampion
5. skirret
   

I would love pictures of the above unusual root crops from people's own gardens!

Links:

That wasn't enough for you? Well the site plants for the future has a list of alternative root crops.

Jackpot - http://www.uga.edu/rootandtubercrops/English/photographs/

The Organic Garden seed catalogue (very nicely organized).

A good site on growing salsify http://www.veggiegardeningtips.com/salsify-oyster-plant/

And of course, wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salsify

Overwintering Parsnips

You may notice that I have a thing for overwintering and perpetual beds of vegetables. I know that normally it is only the westcoast gardeners and others in warmer climes that are all dizzy about keeping a vegetable alive so that it starts fresh and early in the spring. Maybe I'm jealous. Maybe I wish that my skin didn't feel lethaly threatened when I walked into a -30C windchill this afternoon. Maybe, but that's neither here nor there. -30C windchills are challenges just like 4 feet of accumulated snow, and percipituous killing frosts late in spring.

Back on topic - Overwintering parsnips.

Hortiphilia Fact:

You can overwinter parsnips!

Cold turns starch to sugar so spring dug parsnips are sweeter.

At least, it seems that most people can overwinter them even in zone 2/3. I read in the gardenweb forum of some really far north gardners who have self seeding beds of this divine root crop and I thought, is this possible for me? When would they flower. Would the seed grow fast enough to produce decent sized parsnips for harvest in the fall, or only in the spring. Would I be selecting for smaller parsnips? How many parsnips would I need to keep up sufficient variability in the genetic line? Will the garden plot get riddled with disease because it wasn't rotated? Questions, questions.

I think I stumbled across the answer of 6 parsnips as adequate genetic stock. I believe the source was Breed Your Own Vegetable Varities by Carol Deppe. However, I have to verify that.

Could I keep 6 parnsips aside for seeding reasons. Of course! Perhaps, an experiment is warranted... I feel an optimistic gardener warning coming on...

Parsnips in the foreground, mid-summer


Extra, extra, read all about it (or general info):

1. Plant parsnips as soon as the ground can be worked
2. Soil must be loose and without stones. A cheat way to plant is to take a crowbar and make a conical hole, fill with a mixture of peat moss and sand, or some other sifted light material.
3. Parsnip seeds germinate poorly so always use fresh seed. It also germinates slowly so many people suggest marking the row or block with radish seeds.
4. They taste better after a couple of heavy frosts as the starches are converted to sugars.
5. You can store them in the ground over winter. I've never heard of someone mulching them first but I don't think it would hurt. Harvest as long as the ground is diggable and then first thing in the spring.
6. You can store them in a root cellar as well.
7. They are really tasty roasted, or in stews. We make root veggie pie out of them!