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rainbowgardener
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RainbowGardener's 2020 garden!

I didn't keep up my 2019 thread. So I thought instead of adding this there, I would start the new thread. The plants that are started now are for 2020.

So Christmas Day temperature was mid 60's and I was out weeding in my garden:
dec broccoli.jpg
garlic and broccoli, off the picture to the right is some baby onion sprouts
Dec cabbage.jpg
cabbage and parsley, with chickweed
Dec lettuce.jpg
lettuce and chickweed

It stayed hot and dry here well in to October and then we went to California. So I didn't get seeds planted for "fall" crop until late Oct. Then soon after the seeds had sprouted, we got some hard freezes. I was sure they were killed, so I just gave up on it and paid no attention. A week or so ago, I was walking the garden and discovered these. They were about over taken with weeds, so I weeded around them. The pictures are from then. Since then we have had sun and rain and mild temps and they have grown a lot.

Chickweed is the commonest weed on our property in cool weather. It is great because the chickens love it. It is good for them, but also for us -- very nutritious, lots of medicinal values, good in salads. So all my salads now have handfuls of chickweed thrown in.

Soon as holidays are over I will plant lots more seed, indoors and out!

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rainbowgardener
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Out again on New Year's Eve day. Re-weeded around the cabbages - in one week a lot of the chickweed had come back around them. This time they were big enough that I mulched all around them. That should slow down the chickweed a little. Cleared the edge row behind the cabbages and planted a row of swiss chard.

All those cold weather plant seed packets say "plant as soon as the ground can be worked." Here there is never a time when the ground can not be worked. We do get a fair number of days in Dec and Jan with night time lows in the mid to high 20's. We even very occasionally get nights down in to the high teens. But it never lasts long enough to freeze the ground. The temperature dips down like that and then bounces right back up. The soil out there right now is beautiful - so soft I can just push my fingers in all the way up to the palm, rich and crumbly and with earthworms. So I am planting.

Gave the chickens a bunch of the pulled chickweed and put a bunch in the compost pile. For use in salads it is best picked fresh, so I didn't save any for us. Anyway, it seems like we have an infinite and continually renewed supply of the stuff!

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applestar
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If you want to try making fermented green juice, you might be able to use chickweed, though chickweed is a bit juicier than yomogi/mugwort. I’ll go look up the ratio to raw or brown sugar if you are interested.

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rainbowgardener
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I should take a couple more pictures. It is starting to look like a garden already.

Chard and spinach seeds are planted now.



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