The Veggies Are Coming! The Veggies Are Coming!

Although the temperatures have dropped again, it was a bright, sunshiny weekend, and I was able to get outside a bit.  Still battling the last dregs of the respiratory garbage, but doing MUCH better.  So while I can't work as LONG as I want before I wear out, at least I CAN  do something.

The garden has been under cover to protect the seedlings from the cold.  Most of the past week has been cold and grey and generally unpleasant, so in celebration of the sunshine, I took the cover off for most of yesterday and let the garden soak up the warmth and sun.

I already have my bean/tomato tower in place.  I'm thinking about wrapping the bottom of it in bubble wrap so I can at least get some tomato plants in the ground.  I'm thinking I'll do cherry tomatoes on two sides, and beans on the other two.

One thing I did discover is that I did one job TOO well -- The cucumber plants I had plastic bottle cloches over were NOT happy.  From the look of them, I suspect they got a bit too warm, so I took the cloches off, and we'll see if they recover.  If not, well, cucumber seeds sprout quickly, so all is good.

My daughter Brigitte is currently a Rotary Youth Exchange student in Debrecen, Hungary, and apparently they don't have a lot of veggies available.  I'm not sure if that is "it isn't in season" thing (which would be typical of most of Eastern Europe), or if it is a general statement on their cuisine.  So the next pictures are for my veggie-starved girl.

This is a kale seedling.  It is starting to develop second leaves.

This is Red Romaine lettuce.  I'm not always a fan of the dark red lettuces, despite their wonderful nutritional value.  To me they taste bitter.  But.....when mixed with other things, it's OK, and it's good for us.

This is some of the lettuce I planted last time -- this is Tennis Ball Buttercrunch.  It makes small, loose-leaf head of yummy buttercrunch lettuce.  I also planted baby romaine, but forgot to take a picture of that.  

The lettuce is interspersed with carrots, but I'm not sure they have sprouted yet.

And the winter sowing jugs are doing great! These are all flowers.

I'm also starting to prep the side 4 X 4 bed, which will be all peppers, and such.  I'm going to use cloches, etc., so I can put them out soon, and I'll intersperse root crops that will be harvested before the peppers start producing.  Radishes and carrots, and maybe beets.

First Day of Spring --Planting Day!

The last few weeks have been hectic and frustrating.  I managed to get the respiratory garbage that has been going around, to the point that I've spent the last 10 days or so on antibiotics and steroids.  Not my favorite thing to do, as the steroids make me jittery, and also make me crave salty foods.  Fortunately this past week has been Spring Break, and I have taken full advantage of that to sleep, relax, and (I hope) get healthy.

Monday was gorgeous -- in the 70s, but I had absolutely no inclination to do ANYTHING except sit on the couch. Today, it's in the 50s and overcast, but otherwise was a great day to work outside.  So I took the dogs out and hooked them up to the leads so they could run around, and to work I went.

I was out there yesterday to check on things, and guess what!  I have sprouts!  It's the kale I planted back in early February.  No sign of the red romane or the onions yet -- I may have to replant those.

See those tiny dots of green?  Just two little seed leaves.  But they sprouted!

Buoyed by those little bits of green, I got to work with some planting.  I've been reading up on what I intended to plant in the vegetable gardening book I found while cleaning out bookshelves.  According to that book, when planting cruciforms like cauliflower, cabbage and broccoli, one should use a cabbage collar to deter cabbage fly, etc.   The book recommended using carpet padding or something of the like.  Well, I have some left over heavy polar fleece, so I'm going to try that.  I may put a double layer -- I'm going to see how what I put down holds up in the next week or so.  It certainly adds a bit of color.

Inside each square of polar fleece is a cauliflower plant that has been hardening off in the cold frame for the last 10 days.  Along the edge, with plastic bottle cloches, are cucumber plants -- Brown Russians in the picture above.  The lemon cucumbers are in the two squares to the right of the ones in the picture above.  Once it is warm enough to take the cloches off, I'll start training the cucumbers up on the trellis.

I also planted two of each variety of broccoli I started --Waltham and Romanesco.  I have 2-4 more starts of each of them still in the cold frame.  I need to adjust my garden plan now that I've actually planted a few more things, and see what I have to work with.  I may put the rest of the broccoli in the raised bed where the peppers will eventually go, as the peppers won't be ready to plant for a while.

I started some winter buttercrunch lettuce indoors -- I haven't transplanted lettuce seedlings before -- I usually just seed directly.  But I hoped to get a head start on some lettuce, and this is a cold weather variety, so.....we'll see how it goes!

As you can also see, I've been moving the hoops around.  Still not sure how that will evolve.

After I planted everything, I covered it with the garden fabric to give it a bit of protection as the nights are still a bit chilly.

Winter Sowing Jugs Update:

I am thrilled to report the first evidence of seeds sprouting in my winter sowing jugs!  A few seedlings have begun to pop in a couple of the jugs:

There are a myriad of other signs a spring all over the yard -- daylilies are beginning to send up fans, and the daffodils have poked up their leaves.  A few of the tulip leaves have a emerged, as well, and the Autumn Joy sedum has emerged from its winter hibernation.  That means I have a lot of winter dead to get trimming!

Spring Is Coming!

It is FINALLY warming up enough that gardening and yard work is not far behind.  The snow has melted, and the rain storm we had Monday washed away the cold weather.  It also revealed all the dog .... remains...that I need to clean up once the ground dries out a bit.  Right now, it feels like I'm walking on a sponge every time I walk in the yard.

I was able to seed the ditch which runs along the County Blacktop.  The county road crew came in November, and dredged out our ditch.  Too late in the season to seed it then.  I decided to seed it in white Dutch clover rather than grass because the sides of it are now a bit steep for mowing regularly.  I also seeded some areas of the side yard that see a lot of foot traffic and the clover will hold up better to that.

I also moved a batch of seedlings out to the cold frame.  I put out the cucumbers, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and some winter buttercrunch lettuce to harden them off.

I'm hoping to be able to plant them in the raised bed next Monday or Tuesday.

Still inside are bell peppers, hot peppers, some flowers, and tomatoes.

I brought in a tray of various flower seeds that had been  chilling out in the cold frame.  They are now sitting on the warming tray so I'm hoping they will sprout soon. I'm also hoping that by next week I'll start to see some signs that the seeds I sowed in jugs in January are sprouting. I have galliarda, several different kinds of sunflowers, African daisies, columbine, flax, and I don't know what all else.  :-)

I hope I'll more to report next week.  It's Spring Break, and the weather is supposed to be gorgeous!

Spring has sprung......inside, that is.

The tulips I forced are starting to bloom!

March Came In Like a Lion.....

.....is it really possible that Spring Break is only two weeks away?!?!  It seemed much farther away than that as we moved 7 inches of snow off our driveway, and piled it on the remains of the 5 inches that fell last week, and still hadn't melted.

The garden is still buried, just under even more snow.  I had worried that we weren't having a wet enough winter, but I suspect we will go into spring with plenty of moisture.

My winter sowing jugs are buried, too, but I suspect they enjoy that lovely blanket of snow providing a thermal layer.  I can't wait till I see some evidence the seeds are sprouting.  

So.....time for more indoor stuff!  I repotted many of the seedlings I started inside, and thought I'd put away the germinator.  The one down side of my germinator is that it is designed to hold a big tray of seedlings -- 50+ seedlings.  But since things don't germinate at the same rate, I always ended up having to shift stuff around.....and it just seemed inefficient.  I discovered what I think is a better way by repurposing something which had been sitting around the house for years, unused.

For Lent this year, the small group ministry coordinator arranged a project called 40 Bags in 40 Days. Not a new concept, so if you Google it, you'll find lots of similar projects and suggestions all over the interweb.  In a nutshell, the goal is to declutter one's life by doing one thing each day of Lent (with Sundays off).  Each day, the goal is to get one bag of stuff out of one's living space.  That can include trash, recycling, things to donate, things to sell --- anything.  We gave a Facebook page for the group, and we post pictures and updates every day of how we're doing.

During one of my purging and tidying efforts in the kitchen I found clear plastic cups, and aluminum foil loaf pans with clear plastic lids.  HMMMM....the plastic cups were PERFECT to put the cucumber seedlings in -- nice and deep for both a good root system, and to add soil on the top to keep them from having spindly stems.

The loaf pans were the perfect replacement for the tray in the germinator-- each loaf pan holds 8 of the larger seed starting pellet things which expand when you add hot water.  The lid makes a perfect mini-green house, and 8 is about the right number of seedlings I need of most varieties.  Once one pan is ready to move from the germinator to just being under the grow light, I can start something else if I want.

While I was doing all that, I rearranged my seed starting station, and moved things around so I can fit two trays under the grow light. I potted seedlings, and after a couple days for transplant shock, the cauliflower and broccoli look MUCH happier with their larger root space.

I also found a fantastic book on vegetable gardening on the bookshelf that I didn't even know I had!  I've been thumbing through it, and will look at it in more depth as I'm revising the planting schedule.

Speaking of, I gave up even looking at my original planting schedule.  LOL -- I oh, so, optimistically really thought I'd have stuff in the ground by now!  I'm just hoping that by Spring Break in two weeks, the weather will be hospitable enough that I can at least plant out the cauliflower, broccoli, and some spring lettuce.  I also hope the seeds that I already planted actually sprout!  Once I DO get something in the ground, I'll adjust the schedule.  I guess I better dig out my industrial strength eraser, and/or the White-Out!

I can tell I'm ready for some green and growing things outside -- one of my "bags" for Lent that I'm working on getting out of the house is a bag of odds and ends of yarn, and I'm knitting hats with it.  Right now everything I'm drawn to is in shades of green!  This is the Northern Lights hat from the original Homespun Handknits book.  The original color ways was in the shades of the Northern Lights (which you might have already guessed from the name), but I like it better in shades/tones of one colorway.  I'm really liking how this one is turning out: