are about the middle of january kind of latter third of january the time of year where the gardener has mixed feelings of anticipation and do i really want to do this again i haven't really put the garden away from last year a ready to start another one  probably the only time the gardener has any doubts once the process is put back into motion it is its own reward palate stop snowing i don't know what chickens in minnesota do but these chickens can hide from the snow as long as it takes print was turning the other way and hopping back into the shelter so they don't do well with the snow they are you stra maybe a little corn salad would start sprouting this time of year especially if you get things started indoors in just a couple weeks of growing temperatures once they get a few leaves  see announcements announcements out the stations can't get in close to completing the switch over to the new system as far as uploading files and what they've got to i think they've launched the official new website at this point check it out at seattle community media dot com dot org and what this also means is  go or you can just go to archive dot org and you know do a search for the real guard and lo and behold through the magic of the digital age there are some archived shows so you can watch him any time online tell your friends  so that's a nice feature that's you know good to have work and it was hard for people to catch the show on air every time so we're getting close to having twenty four x twenty four hours access international access to the silly show more access and you really need quite honestly but nonetheless a convenient stall out there all right  usually get with the temperatures in the twenty's and teens so while the city was a mess you know the garden came through pretty good because we really were still up in those upper twenty's and lower thirty's really not a hard frost for any stuff that's out side at this january is a great time to dig into the belgian and the witless white leaf chicory and it doesn't look very white leafs right now and that's because we're not going to use this part now that's the old growth but we're going to do and use this nice person to be brute with all those nice carbohydrates stored up in there we're going to take the old growth here  twisted off the best not like that and never done it with gloves on more delicate touch grab it above the crown appear not down here what you're going to do stake all this old stuff off and they're clean they're not gritty and i've got some available so we're going to start you know sticking these things in flip the top over and bring this whole thing indoors i put a little duct tape on the holes no light gets in so is this starts to sprout a new little head of end of here you know it's blanched it's late and from the lack of light and that's what gives you that mild flavored belgian and if you want a little of little green or you know leave the holes open or you can pull this off at the last twelve hours the process good way to store you know summer's energy in a root and then pull it out for fresh greens during the winter for my favorites my roots you know these won't get grocery store size because i plant later i think when the i think the peas were in here last year or so after the piece mature pulled them out and so these don't get the end of doesn't get planted in tell oh may july or so which gives me a smaller root but broccolis interspersed in the row in between the roast you know just an experiment i tried this year because these plants go in about the same time you know to get a good start on the broccoli i started them in july and i fancy some really nice plants if i can pull these and dives out without disturbing the roots too much i think it's really good interplay and saying they grew the same rates didn't fight with each other too much so i've got two plants that are pretty mature at this point for this stage of the game so i'm going to start pulling these out and i can see some are small some are big but they all produce a little bit of green i've got to you know these are a lot smaller than in previous years but i've got to start using these up this is you know you kind of want to do this when the cold weather is happening course in belgium where the salt process started for it's known for they have very cold winters you know this would be you know killed off by hard frosts probably and by november good p patch because the vines get rather tall and you don't you know they're in my special the breeding project is in the ground for a long time and i don't want shading things you know that weighs north or south so i tend to put the tall stuff in the back this pepper bad has been covered so it's probably getting ready you know it's still fairly boice because of our climate but i can probably start working soil here but the first thing i need to do is clean up a little i can't believe i am told these out you know get all my steaks hold out together those will actually get a little bleach they're more oist more east saturated so what i've been doing is just you know keep keep trimming them off whether you eat them or not this thing will just go high draw on you and continue to produce more and more you know from these little side shoots here and then you know if you catch mana good day bill have grown use some new broccoli et and maybe it hasn't rained for a couple days and you can actually eat some of this stuff  it's really paying more attention to actually you know i'll come out here and graze every now and then but there's some you know a lot of food in there so if they can make more mustard salads get some ham hocks or something weeks in side under the lights and you could see they got a good head start the celtics which i've been raving about has given you know three or four good croppings where we trim off all the big leaves leave just the smallest leaves as come cut and come again i did do an experiment with this stuff sort of an accidental experiment i have these leaves which you don't have to watch is the nice thing because they're in this nice clean environment  four or five days and then eat a few and then forget about them and so they've been in the refrigerator at work for about three weeks now and they're just now starting to lose their crispness you know they're getting a little limp in the these this is a little another kind of lettuce i think it's either a butter crunch or roaming and this was planted shortly there shortly after the celtics here because they didn't have room you know down under the lights they just moved this know these are this is the difference between you know sixty degrees temperature and you know thirty's and forty degree temperatures as far as the development of the plant you know this gets into the degree days you know how it's not how long it's how much sun the plants mature a little more than it's going to do a lot better for you and kick it out speaking of kicking out son i've got all these plants piled up down here has been a little cold and you know they're going to get you down pretty soon here can't wait start with  is the latin for it is because the root exudes a gum which apparently smells pretty vile very betted but it's valued as a cooking element because once you cook it down it apparently has tropical so it's just been sitting on the bench here you know the typical the serve combination cotton and corey are put them on coyer and then you know i put a little paper towel circle here just so i could ones ones already potted up and then the next day i found another one i thought i'd share it with you so this one's just been removed from the nursery cup there and put in some coconut coyer just to give him a nice spot look at that nice white root sticking out from the flat seed very nice very nice and soon as you see him sprouting you want to get him out of that little container give him some oxygen s you know this has compost when you go to a pot this big with a plant this small obviously this is downright embryonic you're really going to have to watch your moisture levels and nots but we do it  which is nice sterile you know hygenic it's not exactly sterile but there's no much there's not much food there for bacteria in the such young guy to feed on kind of you know put them because you know how it seed mites to bend up that's kind of the position i'm going to put them in so the roots hadn't down but the seeds kind of pointing down too and that will kind of simulate the natural progression of th we're just going to mist this a little bit just to keep that you know the seeds already sprouted it's in by all the water it needs in order to germinate so you really don't want to sock it to it at this point you want to keep the moisture light but what we're going to do is i want that root when it reaches this bottom to have a little moisture so we're going to put it in a little dish about that this is put i issue of water about half an inch or so but that so you know so that bottom inch once the roof grows down that far will have plenty of moisture of course will drain that once it's water oh by the way it has access to a high performance chromatography unit and knows how to run it i'm kind of in the market for somebody who's got you know technology available in the garden under here and need some help with that because all the community college had a class in it but it was an eight hundred dollars lab theater so if anybody's taking that class let me know tomatoes so this is stupid which is no one prison culture early tomato one of the ones that you're supposed to be able as you know stick out in the snow and they'll still produce no verily good tasting little tomato or early in the season so what i thought  a go ahead and start one you know get it head started you know during february here will grow it and then as the sun starts warming up the greenhouse a little more will go ahead  and stick them outside to see how we as hasn't gone very well up to this point in previous years but we're going to try one more time so again the same mix a mess just sort of recycled next lots of drainage variation from row time you can email me if you want the real garden at yahoo dot com that's all one word in lower case you can also call me after the show i listen for the phone after the tuesday evening show check out that website w w w dot the real garden dot com i'll be posting a link to archive dot org to the station where you can go and get archived shows to watch at your convenience we'll see you next week