We have had a lot of fun watching gardens grow over winter. One of the biggest questions is how do we know if our carrots are ready. If you have one of the Rainbow Carrot or Babette Carrot Mixes, you can harvest them once they look finger-sized. Below is our harvest of a Rainbow Carrot. We grow several species of carrots and we usually check and pull several sample carrots before we use a garden fork to pull out our whole crop. Our harvest time is usually mid to late April. Soak carrots in an ice-bath for 10 minutes to increase their storage life. Place dried carrots in a ziploc bag and enjoy!
Posted 2 years, 1 month ago at 8:33 PM. Add a comment
Join us at REI , Wednesday, March 31st for a free clinic from 7:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m
Join Bohemian Bounty Professional Gardeners, James & Jennifer Buratti, to learn the basics of Organic Gardening in Central Texas. The class will cover various aspects of basic edible gardening, including: What to plant When, Where and How; Gardening Techniques (in-ground, raised beds, container); Soil Preparation; Composting; Garden Design and Construction; Cooking from the Garden; and Other Resources. Bring your friends and find out how great it is to eat the fruits (and vegetables) of your labor!
Sometimes, clients request a garden as a gift for someone they love – and this garden was one of those special Christmas gifts. The gift goes to a sweet daughter and her family living in Creedmoor, TX.
A portion of the family’s backyard was an open field with mostly bunch grasses and full sun. The soil was mostly clay, but with some organic matter and worms and was a great base for plant roots to expand into. For this garden, we cleared a 24 by 28 foot section of the field, incorporated Garden-ville’s Rose Soil to the bed areas, tilled the clay and new soil together, built and installed cedar raised bed boxes, topped them off with more Rose Soil, added cottonseed meal and Medina Granular fertilizer, mulched the pathways with Garden-ville double-shredded cedar, and finally planted seeds and transplants with the family.
It was a great day of work and we had a wonderful time building and planting this garden with an enthusiastic, close family. The daughter kept telling us it was the best gift ever! Way to go mom! Stay tuned to see how this garden changes through Spring and Summer!
Posted 2 years, 2 months ago at 10:52 PM. 1 comment
The Bohemians are in full swing for Spring – new and current clients are emailing and calling in preparation and we are still accepting clients. At the end of last year, new clients made Christmas wishes for gardens in 2010. Our first client to get their Christmas wish had an existing garden space that needed refurbishing.
This northwest Austin garden had great soil that was just waiting for dry weather to break ground.
We had 2 glorious days of sun in mid February to begin our work. The original space was wonderful and plentiful. The garden needed set pathways to make the space more usable and soil amendments to add nutrients for the Spring.
When anyone plans out a garden it is good to designate pathways from garden beds to preserve the health of your garden soil. Avoid stepping on your garden soil. Keep your garden beds between 3 and 4 feet wide. It is also a good idea to add natural slow release fertilizer (Medina Granular was used here) and a boost of Nitrogen from a low cost, natural cottonseed meal. We like using newspaper as a natural, biodegradable weed barrier and then cedar mulch over it. Walking and kneeling on mulch is more comfortable than stone but it needs to be refreshed as it degrades. Adding natural material onto the soil keeps the surface permeable for not only rainfall but living creatures like earthworms.
Posted 2 years, 2 months ago at 3:59 PM. Add a comment
