More pictures of the garden

First of all, here's my mystery plant.  I have no idea what this is.  I don't know if this is weed, or a volunteer of something worth keeping.  If anyone out there in the blogosphere knows what this is, please let me know!

AAANNNNNDDDD..... Here's the garden.  On the left are cauliflower plants and baby beet plants.  Next is kale and red romaine, interspersed with onions.  The second picture has broccoli in front and tennisball lettuce and baby carrot plants. The third picture has my Winter Marvel butter crunch and the mystery plant/weed.  The open space to the right of the Winter Marvel will be Giant Caesar lettuce -- one of my favorites.  The fouth and final picture shows my bean/tomato tower which will have pole beans on two sides and cherry tomatoes on the other two.  Behind the tower are 2 squash plants (two stils protect by cut out milk jugs), and there are baby radishes around the milk jug furthest away from you in the pictures.

Those are grass clippings around the broccoli and in the base of the tower.  Great mulch/weed barrier.

A close-up of the rasdish seedlings around the squash plant.  They'll be harvested well before the squash takes over the space.

I've been a bit frustrated with the bell peppers I've started from seed.  All germinated, but keeping the seedlings alive long enough to grow a few more pairs of leaves has not been easy for some reason.  I don't remember having this trouble in the past, but.....   Here's one of the Purple Belle pepper plants that is doing well.

Here's my new project -- a new bed for tomatoes!  18 cinder blocks loaded on to a cart, then into the car, then out of the car and around the back of the house.  I broke down one of the compost piles and partially filled the bed.  I need to get some composted cow manure, and then I'm building my tomato frame out of bamboo poles a la Kevin Lee Jacob's technique.

I'm not a big tomato fan -- there's a mild allergy which runs in the family, and I suspect that's part of it.  But my husband and my youngest like tomatoes.  I'm going to plant Pink Brandywine heirlooms, and Hungarian Heart.  I already have the cherry tomatoes on the tower, so I haven't decided what other varieties I'm going to plant  I'll have room for 8 plants.

I'm also going to put in a smaller bed for one raspberry and one blackberry plant.  I'll let you know how that goes!

Kale, Glorious Kale!

I am in the throws of Finals Week, annd have spent the last couple weeks grading, grading, grading.  I have also worked in the garden, but haven't really had the time or energy to write my post here.  But there is so much happening that I'll probably have several posts over the next week to make up.  :-)

April 26th -- look at all those cute little plants!










May 4th:  Look at that kale, and the cute little Tennis Ball lettuce next to it!  It's grown so much in the last week!

Here's a closer look at the Tennis Ball buttercrunch lettuce.

The Winter Marvel buttercrunch seedlings are also doing great, and I actually harvested  some of it today for my colleague Megan who has been missing fresh veggies.

I'm going to harvest more tomorrow because we're supposed to have serious thunderstorms this weekend, and I don't want to lose anything.












Plans for tomorrow and Friday include:

• put up the rabbit fence  -- although I suspect I have to worry more about our two dogs, who like to partake of the veggie buffet.
• finish the new bed for the tomatoes.  Assemble the poles/trellis/thingy for them.
• build the new smaller bed for the raspberry and blackberry plants.
• get the new beds topped off with compost/soil/etc.
• plant the pole beans.
• plant more lettuce.

Next week, I need to work on the daylily beds -- I have over 300 square feet of daylilies.  :-)  I'm going to use Kevin Lee Jacob's newspaper technique, substituting cardboard as I have a plentiful supply of that.  That means I'll be buying mulch, too.

Green, Green, Everywhere is Green!

It's always amazing this time of year.  Days of warmth and sunshine, and timely doses of rain, and everything seems to be growing almost in front of one's eyes.  Unfortunately that also includes the   grass, but....that's a small price to pay for all the flowers and veggies which are popping up, growing by leaps and bounds.

Garden Update:

The lemon cucumber seeds I planted to replace the plants I killed are starting to pop up.  I have Brown Russians started indoors, and I'll transfer them outside this week.

Purple Belle and Grand bell peppers

I planted the bell peppers with a little protection.  I'll get the habeneros and jalapenos planted later this week.  I'm also going to plant some radishes in and around the pepper plants. They have a fast timeline to harvest, so they'll be ready to pick before the pepper plants get too big.

Tomato Plants

I planted a couple cherry tomato plants, and started some Pink Brandywine heirloom tomatoes.  I think I'm going to build a separate support for the Brandywines, probably something like this.  The question is, where do I set it up?  I think for this year I'll use the smaller 4'X4' bed.    But in the long run, and based on what I learn this year, I think I'll be resetting my entire garden set up.  To that end, I was reading Kevin's amazing blog this morning, especially his post about his garden set-up.  I don't know if I need something that extensive, but....I'm already starting to feel I want more space, especially for more lettuce!

Kale, lettuce, onions

Cauliflower and beet sprouts

The kale and lettuce are coming along nicely, and the onions, beets, and carrots have sprouted.    I need to think out the beets in another week or so -- the baby beet leaves will make a nice addition to salads.















My winter buttercrunch is coming along nicely, too!  Not too long before I can start harvesting some of the leaves.



I think I have some volunteer marigolds coming up.  I need to let them grow some more so I can be sure that's what they are, and then I'll move them to where I want them. I also need to get the nasturtiums and zinnias going.
















Here are my summer squash.  New leaves are coming, and they seem to be happy in their plastic tubes.

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!

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:

Let It Snow!

We haven't had much snow this winter, but the storm that rolled in last night dropped 5-6 inches before tapering off around noon. The garden is covered in a blanket of snow, and the birds are nestled into the white pine trees amid the sheltering needles.

The ground is frozen again, so no additional work in the raised bed this weekend.  I did do a couple more winter sowing jugs -- one with marigolds and one with blue flax.

I spent Friday and Saturday down at my parents' house.  For my dad's birthday earlier in the week, I got him an elevated raised garden on wheels.  Mom and Dad both love gardening.  Mom grew up on a small family farm, and Dad worked in a nursery/greenhouse all through high school and college.  Mom and Dad are in their late 70s, and both have bending problems.  So I think they will enjoy this.  Dad and I had a good time putting it together -- it was easy and straight-forward, but Dad is recovering from cataract surgery, and needs a new reading glasses prescription now.  So he couldn't see the heads of the screws!  We just got to laughing about it, and I told him I was his seeing-eye dog.

Since this is a "hurry up and wait" time for the garden, and I can't do much till it starts warming up, I've been pondering building a large cold frame so I can grow some things over next winter -- carrots, parsnips, winter lettuce, and the like.  I found a fantastic article about cold frame gardening online, and I'm really intrigued by the idea.  When seeds go on sale at the end of spring, I'll stock up on a couple of the recommended varieties, and maybe we can manage to have greens all winter!  I will have to contemplate where I'm going to put it.  The best choice is our south-facing back yard, which is where the raised beds are already.  I also think the easiest way to do the lights (the clear panes on top for those of you not up on the lingo), is to just get an inexpensive storm door.  It's by far the least expensive way to do it -- I can get an inexpensive storm door at Menard's for less than $60, and the lumber isn't expensive, either.  The most expensive thing will likely be an automatic venting device.  Otherwise the cold frame will overheat on warmer days.

I'll have to get help from my Dad because I have no way to make the angle cuts I need for the side slats on the frame.  I mean, I suppose I could with a hand saw.  HMMM.

I'm also looking through my plant schedule.  Once I can REALLY start planting things, I'll need to adjust the schedule accordingly, and extend it through the summer and into fall.

Garden Cover Salvage Job

Those strong winds last night came in with a cold front.  High of 19 degrees this afternoon, which means everything is frozen solid again.  But I was able to come home a bit early this afternoon, and the sun was shining, so I bundled up and went out to salvage the garden cover and change out the hoops.

Each of the tall hoops was comprised of two smaller segments with connectors.  I pulled out the segment that was the more mangled and bent from the wind, stashed the connectors in a container, and installed the remaining segment as a low hoop.  The hoops are pretty low because the bed is 4 feet across.

I suppose I could also change this up in the future, and do two hoops in sequence, each covering two feet of the bed, if I need a bit more height.  Something like this:

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To make my life easier, I took the two sections of heavy garden fabric inside, and used my sewing machine to seam them together.  It was much easier to drape the fabric over the lower-height hoops (duh), and I used the binder clips again to hold them on the hoops.

I had enough fabric to go part-way up the cucumber trellis, so I should be able to protect the young cuke plants through the vulnerable period fairly easily, once I plant them [which will not be for at least another week or two, I suspect.  I also have a huge swath of lighter weight protective fabric, once I don't need the warmth of the heavier fabric.

I should also note that the cucumber trellis was solid as a rock, and didn't even budge in the high winds.  It is actually attached to the end board on the frame, and the supports are sunk over a foot into the ground.  Once the ground warms up and is wetter and looser, I may need to add some additional supports, but I'm hoping not.

I also removed all the water tube cloches, which are frozen solid again (they are MUCH easier to move when then are frozen, by the way).  Last week, in a fit of optimism and in the spirit of experimentation, I actually planted one of the cauliflower seedlings (1 small true leaf), just to see what would happen.  I hadn't really looked at the forecast for the week, but....

It APPEARS the seedling survived, and after I removed the frozen water tube cloche, I got some hot water and warmed up the soil around it enough to install a plastic bottle cloche instead.

This weekend, I'm headed down to my parents' home in Southern Illinois.  They are far enough south they are usually 2-3 weeks ahead of us in spring, and 2-3 weeks later in the fall/winter.  My dad's birthday was yesterday, and I bought him an elevated raised bed on caster wheels so they can grow some lettuce and whatever else they want.  Dad has a MASSIVE fern bed, but at 78 and with back problems, it's getting harder for him to get down on his knees to work the soil.  Dad worked all though high school and college at a greenhouse, and I know he loves gardening.  I'm hoping this makes it a bit easier for him.  I'm taking a variety of seeds with me, some low hoops, some garden fabric, and anything else I can think of.  I want to put a trellis in it too so they can have cucumbers.  I'll try to remember to take pictures.

Speaking of cucumbers, one of our favorite varieties is Brown Russian . A Ukranian heirloom variety, It has been one of the most reliable varieties for us, with a high germination rate and bumper crops.  The flavor is fantastic, and it is one of the few varieties that doesn't make me burp.  I have seeds from the 2012 growing season, and I accidentally left them in the garage over the winter.  I found the seed packet, brought it inside, and thought, what the heck!  I'll try starting some in the germinator.  Within 4 days, the seeds had germinated, producing strong and hearty seedlings.  So if like cucumbers, check out Brown Russian.  The only place I've ever seen it is on The Cook's Garden website, a place I've ordered a number of things from, and always been satisfied.

That's all for now!

The best laid plans......

So......this is what happens when there are 35 mph winds:

HMMMM....

I got to thinking about it, and realized that I don't NEED the high hoops right now.  If I'm worried about protecting young plants, I just need something lower to support the fabric (assuming it hasn't blown away before I get home).

So I will disassemble the high hoops -- a high hoop is made up of 2 low hoops -- install the low hoops, and go from there.  I am also going to sew the 2 pieces of heavy garden fabric together to make life a little easier.

More later.......