kitchen gardening

one sign of old age is being obsessed over how expensive everything has become. i'm that way about locally grown produce. stir frying up fresh broccoli raab with ginger, scallions, chicken thighs...mmm. but wait. those little bundles of raab are $6/per and i'd want 2-3 for dinner. maybe i'll skip the raab and throw in some frozen peas instead. so i've got plenty of space for a garden (though the county might dispute this). i'm trying to grow my favorite veggies these days. the trick is having good stuff year round.

assorted frozen habanero's and serrano's grown in my greenhouse

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i remodeled the old pig house and added a 8'x8' glassed in section. the building is insulated and the glass is double paned. the floor is covered in black plastic to soak up as much heat from the sun as possible. two 55 gallon water tanks heat up during the day and let just enough heat off over night to keep out the chill. why all of this bother. san juan is just to cool for most summer crops like tomatoes, melon, chili's, etc

greenhouse summer 2011

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greenhouse 2.2012

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arugula raised bed 2.2012

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the greenhouse salad did ok all winter. with outdoor arugula growing all winter we managed to have awesome salads 2-3/week. cabbage, broccoli, and jerusalem artichoke did well all winter too.
so this is my 2nd season of kitchen gardening and i'm excited to not regret mount baker snowboarding saturdays (and missing farmers market).

starts popping up in february

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