New sowing of carrots

Planted 4 new rows of carrots, this time with radishes sown in each row.  Some books say this is a good row marker, because the carrots take so long to come up.

The original carrots are coming up, but they are still so small it is hard to say how well they will come up.  One thing I definitely noticed is that after the hard rain last week the ground has been "crusted".   Not sure if I should have put straw or grass clippings over the bare soil. I kinda think I should have.  

Hardening off seedlings

The main activity this past week has been hardening off all of the seedlings.  I'm trying to learn from my lesson with the broccoli, basil, and tithonia.  In fact, just today I learned that the first few days even though the plants are outside, they should NOT be put in direct sunlight.   I should start with the plants in shade the first few days.  The idea is to let them get used to the wind and the temperatures first, and then introduce them to the direct sunlight slowly.  The whole process should take 1-2 weeks.    

I have kind of been doing this, but I think by accident.  I put the seedlings out from 6 to dusk for the first few days, and there really isn't much direct sunlight left.  But this weekend I did put everything in the direct sunlight for a few hours.   I did notice that the eggplant leaves got floppy pretty quickly, but they seem to have gone back to normal when I brought them inside.  

I also reseeded the win-win pac choi, which you can see from the piture above.  It is the few spots that are slightly darker in the rightmost bed.  

At this point, all of my original broccoli is gone. The last round of seedlings looks like it is taking, and the three store bought transplants are also going nicely  

Update on the bed

I just wanted to post a few pictures of the bed, well actually, just the headboard.   I have been waiting for the temperature to raise so that I could start staining and finishing the headboard.  That time has finally come.  So far I have two coats of stain, and two coats of wipe on poly.  I have another 4-5 coats of the poly left, and then I'll be able to bring it inside finally.   

Of course, this is just the headbaord, and not even all of it. Next, I will stain and finish the top piece of trim, and the stability rail that connects the two legs.

After that, I will finally be able to cut the sideboards down to size, and the last piece of the foot board.  Nothing fancy with any of those, so this should all go pretty smoothly from here.    

Weekend update

This past weekend Emily sowed about 12 blue lake and about 6 contender bush beans, both in Bed#4.   I sowed one planter of Selma Zesta pole beans, and another one of Rattlesnake pole beans. 

We also bought a 4 pack of broccoli at Ace, as yet another backup for my own plantings.   I transplanted 3 of the 4.

 

Also at Ace, we picked up some Sweet Asylum (lots of little white flowers, stays close to the ground), and a few zinnias.  I put them all in the front bed, and tried to edge the bed like the professionals do (with the angle cut that makes a trench).  It looks pretty nice, and hopefully this will make it easier to mow without messing up the bed. 

 

 

We ate our first two asparagus last week, and there are two more coming up.

This is just to show how tall the garlic has grown already. 

 So I think i might have left the basil outside inthe sun for too long on Sunday.  I'm pretty sure this is what they meant by "sunburned", but I am not sure.  The weather was nice, but after I brought them in, I noticed a chalky color on some of the leaves.   A similar thing happend to the tithonia that as out as well. 

 

April 9th, 2013 - Sowed spinach, peas, kale. Set out more onions. Upgraded drip system in flower bed

Spent a few hours last night in the garden.

I sowed spinach in bed two. One long row closest to bed 1, and one half row, where the lettuce died. I was pretty generous with the seed, hoping that I can get some baby spinach before it bolts. We’ll see.

I scratched up some soil in between each of the “hurting” kale transplants, and sowed a few seeds here and there. It will hopefully act as my backup crop, if the transplants die.

I hoed and raked up the patch by the house, where the watermelon and spaghetti squash are going to go, and sowed all of the snap peas from Craig. I really wasn’t going to do them, but I figure it can’t hurt. I can always rip them up when the melons and squash is ready to go in. I can use the pea shoots, and I maybe I’ll get peas.

I raked up the right side of the herb garden, and planted the last of the onion sets there (and some in bed 3, where the zucchini is going to go). I left room for the basil to go in between the onion rows.

Lastly, I worked on the drip system. I added sprinklers and dippers to the flower bed, and took up most of the drip line. It seems like two sprinklers might be enough for that whole bed which is kinda cool.

I also added two sprinklers to the bed touching the house. I might need a third, but we’ll see. I also removed the drip line from this bed.

 

 

April 8th, 2013 - It was too soon!

So I have basically lost most of my Broccoli and Kale at this point, and the lettuce is long gone. It was definitely too early to plant out those transplants. The low’s got down to 29ish, and maybe a bit lower for a few nights in a row. Another thing I did that most likely made things worse, was water at night, when I got home. I wanted to keep the carrot seeds moist, so i watered every night for about 10 minutes… probably a bad idea.

It was a busy week, and it goes to show you how quickly things can go south if you stop paying attention, even for a week.

Another personal lesson in transplanting: If possible, split the risk in half and only transplant half at a time, giving yourself a week or so to learn from mistakes…

So far nothing from seed has come up. Half of the leeks look really good, half look like they might have too much dirt on them to grow straight up. I have a few containers of leek seedlings left, so in a few weeks, I might be able to re-transplant the holes that lost their leeks.

Another note — Nothing that was sown outside has come up yet. I should probably take the temperature soil now to see if it is obviously below 40 or 50 still…

March 30th, 2013 - The big spring planting!

It was a busy weekend. With the beds prepared the previous week, it was finally time to get stuff in the ground. I did mostly prep work on Friday while the seedlings were being hardened one last day, and then on Saturday, I did most of the planting.

In bed one, I transplanted 9 broccoli seedlings (5 de cicco and 4 calabrese), in 3 rows of 3. In between the rows, I sowed a mix of red and golden beets from Craig. I also sowed 4 rows of carrots. One row of each type (red, purple, baby, large), but I left space for another succession row for each of them. All the way in the back of the row, I transplanted the leeks, using the dibble method. This involves poking a hole in the ground about 6 inches deep with a dibble, which I think is the width of a broomstick. I just used a scrap piece of wood. Then I dropped a tiny leek in each hole, added a few crumbs of dirt, and then filled each hole with water. It will be pretty cool if it actually works. I guess the hope is that the roots take hold like normal in the bottom of the hole, and as the leeks gets bigger, it will grow into the hole, even pushing the hole wider over time.

In bed two, I set out two long rows of onion sets. One third of each row is spaced at 2", so that I can pull every other onion for green onions. The other two thirds of each row is spaced at 4" for optimum size. The directions said to plant it 1 inch deep and not more, so that it can bulb nicely. It did say to fertilize with a 10-20-10 fertilizer at planting, but I have not done that yet. I bought this 0-4-4 stuff that I might try for all of the root veggies. In between the onion rows, I transplanted the kale and the lettuce. 3 days later, the kale is doing fine, but the valentine leaf lettuce is hurting, and is almost entirely gone. I also planted a half row of baby boc choy.

In half of bed four, I planted the bigger boc choy about 10 inches apart in all directions, according to the packet. In the other half, I’m going to plant some blue lake bush beans within the next week

Lastly, in the front of the house, I planted two types of lettuce mixes from Craig. I have no idea if it will work, but it is worth a try. It gets some good morning sun, but then tons of afternoon shade, so I might have to break out the sluggo!

 

 

 

 

March 23rd, 2013 - Prepped Bed 1, 2, and 4

On Saturday and Sunday I turned over the beds. I had no idea how thick the rye/vetch roots would be, but it was rough to dig through them. After using the hoe for a few minutes, I quickly gave up and resorted to the shovel (so I could use my weight. I chopped with the shovel first, and then eventually turned over and broke up the clumps.

A tiller would have been nice, but it was a good workout.

I also dumped the entire compost bin into the beds. I would say I put about 20 gallons of compost (2 tubtrugs) into the newest bed, about the same into bed #2, and another 10 gallons into the first bed.

Almost everything was fully composted, except some egg shells, some avocado peels, and there was plenty of straw and roots that were not fully composted.

 

Before:

 After:

 

March 22nd, 2013 - Hardened off two trays

Last weekend (March 23rd and 24th) I hardened out the tray of Broccoli/Kale/Lettuce/Parsley and the tray of leeks. They were outside for about 2 hours on Saturday, and maybe 4 hours on Sunday. On Sunday night it snowed, so it was a good thing I took everything inside.

I decided to leave the broccoli/kale/etc tray upstairs by the window this week. I brought the leeks back downstairs under the lights.

I am definitely going to transplant this broccoli/kale/Lettuce and Parsley this weekend, but I’m not sure about the leeks. I might wait another two weeks on them.

One note — I did notice that the leaves got super soft after I had them outside. I can’t really remember what they felt like before, but I was a little worried that they spend too much time outside.

 

 

March 18th, 2013 - Fertilized some plants

Fertilized the Broccoli and the leeks with fish emulsion. Container said 2T per gallon, so I used 1T per half gallon. The veg gardeners bible said to fertilize at half strength, so hopefully this won’t mess with things.

March 17th, 2013 - Hardened off 3 of the 6 biggest cosmos

Some of cosmos were too tall for the florescent lights, so I tried to harden them off this weekend, to get them ready for transplant next week. I think it is definitely too cold still, because on the second day, by nightfall the leaves looked really droopy. I might just try to grow these inside for a while to see what happens.

March 16th, 2013 - Prepped the back left corner of the garden

I added about 10 gallons of mostly finished compost to the back left corner bed, and prepped it for the carrots and leeks. There were 1 bibb lettuce plants and one chard plant that somehow stayed alive all winter. I took them out of the bed first, turned the bed over (tried to only mess with the top 6 inches), and then added them back in a row.

I think I’ll transplant the leeks, and sow the carrots next weekend.

March 15th, 2013 - Moved the peppers and eggplants downstairs under the lights.

Read that the eggplants can take 3 weeks to germinate, so I’m a little less worried about things now. A few more peppers germinated, so I’m feeling a little better.

March 11th, 2013 - Peppers and Eggplants

I can’t remember where I started my peppers last year, but the germination rate was great. This year I kept them in the dining room at 70 degrees for about 5-6 days, but I started to get antsy that nothing was happening, so I moved them on top of the radiator in the dining room. It certainly get’s warmer, but it fluctuates when the radiator comes on and off, so I’m not sure if I’m helping or hurting.

After a few days on the radiator, two of the Carolina wonders sprouted, and one of the numex is just barely sprotuing, but the rest are not doing much of anything. After looking closely on the bakers creek pages, it says that the peppers and eggplants benifit from light when germinating, something I don’t think I knew. About 2 days ago I dug up each cell to find at least 1 or 2 seeds in the mix, and moved it to the surface of the planting mix. A few of the pepper varieties had just begun to germinate, so hopefully they are close. For good measure, I added two new seeds to each cell. I’m keeping the plastic cap on to keep everything moist, so we’ll see. I’m 90% sure I am just being way too antsy and if I just let it go for a little longer, everything would have come up on its own. But what can I say. Now I have seeds everywhere (on the surface, under the surface, etc), so unless the radiator is doing more harm than good, I should be OK.

Blogger it is

I have been blogging from within Folia for the past month, and although it is has been pretty easy, one of the things I miss is being able to put pictures in between text.  Also, I don't see an easy way to convert from Folia to a book, like last year.  So these next few posts are just going to be pasted from Folia.