Remaining Seeds Started

Today I started the last 3 trays of seeds.  I started 30 tomatoes plants, 5 cells of green onions, 6 cells of kale and 12 cells of broccoli.  I am growing all of the tomatoes I grew last year Bloody Butcher, Slava , Black plum, Yellow plum, Cabernet, and new this year some Sweetie cherry tomatoes.

This gives me a total of 6 tray of seeds under 3 lights.

The seeds I previously started are doing pretty well, almost all of the peppers are up except the yellow Hungarian I have had issues with them in the past but they are very disappointing this year. I don't think I will be trying to grow them next year right now out of 21 seeds I have one that has come up.

Barnyard Planting

On the way home today my lovely assistant and I stopped at the barnyard to finish my planting.  We planted kale, parsnips, beets and lettuce.  It all went pretty smooth except for catching 3 escapee chickens.

After getting home I filled up the pond, I did have some trouble with my large pump, so going to have to take a look at it again to see if I can fix it.  Also cut more asparagus and pulled a bunch of rhubarb.  The boxes I prepped yesterday were planted with carrots (atomic red, purple haze, deep purple and Nantes).  Next weekend I will plant the tomatoes, peas and peppers.  Pretty late for peas but just haven't had a chance yet.

Sprouts

Well that didn’t take very long.  The broccoli, bok choy and kale have all sprouted and started to grow.  I also moved some dirt away from the peas and you can see that they are starting to crack open and should be up tomorrow.  I am impressed with how well they are doing and excited to try out the sprouts.  The peppers should be up in a few more days, they usually take a week to come up.

Seeding

Last year I seeded about 3 weeks earlier than I am this year.  My peppers were big and had to have flowers picked off them every couple days and the tomatoes went a little crazy and outgrew the space I had for them.  That is why I am just starting to seed now.  On the top shelf I planted a half tray of peppers, chocolate, and king of the north, jimmy Nardello and sweet banana.  Space is going to be a little more limited this year so I don’t have as much room for everything. A half tray of medusa (because I have tons of seeds that I collected) and the other half of the tray is bok choy and kale. The middle shelf has a tray of tomatoes (Isis, black, yellow cherry tomatoes, alpine, black Ethiopian and polish linguisa tomatoes), and the other tray is half black prince tomatoes and half green onions.  Finally on the bottom shelf I have a full tray of leeks, and in the other tray I have a row of peas, kale and broccoli. My plan is to use that last tray mentioned as sprouts. They are all extra seeds I have leftover that do not have a place in my garden, so figured I might as well try it out.

New Gardening Year

The weather is finally warming up and time for me to start thinking about gardening again.  Last weekend I bought a few seeds for new things I am going to try, but for the most part I have enough left over from last year that I didn’t need to buy very much.

While walking around the garden I noticed that the garlic is starting to just poke through the straw in a couple places.  This is very exciting as garlic has become perhaps my special favorite to grow.  There was also the leftover evidence from the rabbits that ate all of my winter kale.  The good part is that there is some fresh manure for my plants, the bad is that there are rabbits wandering the neighborhood.  This is the first time I have had problems with rabbits and am hoping that the farm cat that wanders over frequently will keep them away, if not I will have to trap it and quite possible eat it.  I have always wondered what rabbit tastes like. If not just let it go elsewhere.

Asparagus Transplanted

 This afternoon I took advantage of the good weather today to transplant the asparagus crowns into the top bed.  I spent some time Friday weeding it so that everything would be ready to go.  I still had some kale and bok choy in the bed and instead of just cutting it all, I transplanted the kale to the bottom bed so that I can continue to use it fresh. It was looking a little wilted after I moved it, but the soil is pretty wet and it is supposed to rain later.

For the asparagus, I dug up the top area and made a path down the center of the bed, separating the asparagus I already planted there and the new stuff I'm going to be planting.  The path is to create the raised bed I want, and to have a defined area to walk, as opposed to walking in amongst the asparagus.  The asparagus was planted in 2 rows about 2 feet between the rows and a foot or so between plants.  I also planted a few plants among the existing plants to fill in a few bare spots, as well as the extra area I added last year that had the garlic. 

Fall Lettuce

The garden has been winding down but all of the vegetables I planted for the fall are in their prime right now.  The lettuce looks great, peas are blooming and I even managed to find a pod on the plant and the bok choy is doing well.

 

The Red Russian kale in the bottom of the middle bed is doing really well.  But the red Russian and scotch kale in the top bed by the asparagus are doing well but significantly worse than the other.  I'm not sure if it’s because it gets less sunlight or if the soil is inferior to the lower end of the bed.  It is lighter but should have just as many nutrients in it.  When I put the asparagus in there at the end of October, I will add a little more manure to make sure it’s up to par.

 

Finally Home

Finally back from vacation and before I even went into the house I had to check out the garden.  The peas are all fully mature; a number of them were taken off as shell peas because they were so big.  The tomatoes are significantly bigger and have flowers started on them.  Peppers looking a little wilted but not too bad.  They all have peppers started and with a little water should perk right up. 

The garlic is ready to pick now.  At least the bottom 3-4 leaves are dead on the plants.  The scapes are fully erect some even starting to have the umbels break open.  They will be harvested in the next week as time allows.

The broccoli, kale and lettuce are all looking rough.  The weeds are taking oven and because of the sandy soil they need water bad.  The carrots are also hurting for water, I weeded then before I left but because they are in raised boxes, they don’t even have the option of trying to pull water up from below.

I did manage to give everything a quick weed and lots of water, so hopefully tomorrow the plants will be looking a little perkier.

Progress

On the way home from work I stopped at the barnyard garden to get a little work done. Using a bunch of the cardboard that I brought from work I mulched the paths with it and then covered them in the dead grass that was pulled out in the spring. I also laid out and started to make the hills for the 3 sisters plantings.  Not sure how I feel about the 3 sisters but we will see.  I am going to plant some of my pole beans there in hopes of being able to save the seeds and find out if I like the varieties. 

After coming home, the red veined dock that was purchased on the weekend was potted up and placed in the pond.  I also planted some watercress in a pot that was placed in the pond.  The bottoms of both pots are only and inch in the water, but the soil is absolutely saturated.  I did just use regular topsoil and probably should have used a sandier mix for drainage. I guess we will see how it works out and in future years change it.

In my own garden I noticed that the garlic is starting to put out scapes!  This is exciting news because based on what the scapes due on the one variety I should be able to tell what varietal family it belongs too.  I will also be letting some scapes mature to see what the bulbils look like.  

The lettuce, kale and bok choy that were planted a couple weeks ago have been coming up for about a week now.  Lots of sprouts and pleased with its performance so far.  A couple of the lettuce varieties aren’t up yet so we will have to see if I need to reseed or if the seeds weren’t viable anymore.

Transplanting

Today the first of my transplants went in.  They were some red Russian kale and broccoli that I started inside before I left on vacation.  Consequently they are very leggy and I am not very hopeful about their survival but I figured I might as well plant them anyways.

The asparagus is still doing great, it is now producing about a lb a week, and I am still waiting for a couple plants to come up.  The asparagus beetles are out though and seem to be enjoying my plants.

I also finished building my trellis for the tomatoes.  The holes were all drilled and the sided all ripped down to size.  It is going to be 6 feet tall, 3 feet wide at the bottom and 2 feet wide at the top, for a little extra support.  The sides are ¾” square pcs that I ripped out wider boards from a skid.  It is going to be 11’ long with a support on both ends and the middle.  It is only going to work for 1 row and on the other 2 rows I am going to use 3’ wooded stakes as well as a few tomato cages that I have.

First asparagus

Today is the first day back from vacation.  It was awesome and if I thought I could get limes to grow here I would try.  Obviously the first thing I did when getting home was check out my garden.  When I left there were a few asparagus spears starting to poke through the soil and today 2 of them were ready to cut.  Both on the smaller side but they are 4^th year crowns and had a difficult first 2 years.

I also checked my mammoth melting snow peas.  They all sprouted while I was gone but were just through, so it doesn’t look like they have been up long.  As well it appears if all of them germinated.

Another thing that sprouted was some broccoli, kale, bok choy that I planted on April 14^th but never documented.  I wanted to see if they would come up so just sprinkled a few seeds where they will be going this year.  It appears that they all have started to come up and the experiment was a success. 

As some things were sprouting others were put into the ground.  All 5 boxes were planted with carrots and parsnips.  There will be 8 kinds of carrots and then the hollow crown parsnip that I grew last year.  The carrots were planted on 6” rows and the parsnips on 8” rows.  It is tight spacing but the soil is richer than normal and has no compaction.   The carrots worked well with this spacing last year so thought I would try it out again.  I will also be watering them to make sure that the boxes don’t dry out.

More Seeds

Although I wasn’t originally planning on it, I just started some kale in the basement.  The original plan was to just direct seed outside in a few weeks but decided I might as well start some now to get a jump on it.  I seeded 18 cells with Red Russian Kale.  The dwarf curled scotch can remain a direct seeded crop mainly because I don’t have anywhere to put the seeds indoors.

The broccoli has started to come up!  When I went down to water I noticed that 2 seeds have sprouted so far.  This is another plant that I wasn’t even going to grow….but I figured why not.  It will be another plant that I can decide it is worth growing, or something that is taking up unnecessary space.

Feels Like Fall

I know it’s not fall yet, but this last week it sure has felt like it.  Nothing has changed in the garden too much, I am still picking cheery tomatoes every few days and there are lots of beans that need to be picked as well.  The same goes for the zucchini and cucumbers; they have hit their second wind and still producing well.  The plants are dying off a bit but I expect them to last a couple more weeks and then they are being pulled out anyways.  This past week a few red peppers have been picked and a number of them are starting to turn from yellow to orange to red. 

The root vegetables have been doing well, the carrots at the bottom are being picked regularly although some of them have been eaten by small little worms.  I think its carrot fly but at least they only infected some and not all.  I hope they have not gotten into the parsnips but I will have to wait and see.

 The potatoes at both my place and the field have done very well; the ones at the field due to the clay soil are all a nice mini size.  The ones at my place are starting to break through the soil in places and the plants are starting to die off.  The potatoes in the bottom garden did get hit pretty hard my potatoes bugs but by the time they showed up the plants had already flowered and had midsized formed tubers so I didn’t bother to powder them or anything.  I will be looking to harvest some of the potatoes on a regular basis for the next month for eating and then the remainder in mid-October when the plants die down.

The leeks look good and im just trying to think of what I can use them in.  The kale and bok choy that were planted a few weeks ago are looking ok.  They do have some bug damage but nothing too major. 

The garlic that is still in the garden is coming out of the ground this weekend.  About ¾ of the plants have at least 1 dead leaf and while they are all still very green I don’t want to leave them in the ground any longer especially since I want to replant them in October. 

The cover crop experiment has been a success!  The buckwheat is around a foot high and starting to flower.  I might give it another week and cut it down before it all goes to seed.  I am debating on planting some more in the top bed where the peas were.  That area is also getting more soil and a dressing of manure so I am not sure if it will even be worth planting any.

Garden Update

Everything in the garden has been going pretty well except for one row of carrots and the beans that are beside them.  Earlier in the year I was finding beans that had the bottoms broken off of them but I didn’t think much about it.  The other day when I was in the garden I noticed that the row of carrots beside them were looking wilted, they were wilted because some pilled buggers ate the top on the carrots that were above ground!    They only touched the carrots themselves and not the carrot greens. 

After looking at them it appears to have been some little rodent, I'm guessing either mice or voles.  I have seen some around, but there are a number of cats that roam from the nearby farms that will homefully keep what ever population there is of them low.  The good thing is they only touched that one row of carrots, and it was the row that was sort of underneath the beans.  That is something that will be a big focus next year, proper spacing.  The carrots are on the left.

Other than that little mishap I have been harvesting carrots, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and zucchini on a daily basis.  The carrots that were grown in the root box beside the she have done terrifically.  They are all perfectly straight and well formed.  The picture below is contanier carrots.

The carrots in the actually garden that were planted earlier are also looking good.  They are significantly larger, but have been in the ground longer.  They are not as straight and the germination rate was lower that the box. The picture below is garden carrots.

My peppers are still looking great! I have let a few ripen to red before eating them and they are definitely sweeter than the yellow ones.  The plants are still blooming and are definitely very prolific producers.

The cherry tomatoes and yellow pear are doing ok.  I am having a problem with some of them splitting as they ripen, but think that that might just be because of the heavy rain we had in the last week.  I have finally been able to pick a few Cherokee purple.  They all have heavy splitting at the stems but are big tomatoes.  I cut into one today and was not disappointed.  It was incredibly juicy, and went very well on the large sandwich I was having.  They plant itself isn’t huge like prior tomato plants and has significantly less foliage, the tomatoes are easy to see but after what's on the vine is picked it doesn’t look like it will continue producing.  I will have to eat some more before I decide if it is a variety I would want to plant again.

Today I also planted some bok choy and kale for the fall. The kale should do well, but I'm not sure how the bok choy will do.  The spring planting was hit pretty hard by the bugs but hopefully these will do better.

I also planted my first cover crop!  The buckwheat I bought in the spring was planted in the bottom bed where the garlic was before.  I barely used any of the seed I had so I will be looking to plant more of it this fall.

Kale

Big harvest today!!!

I finally managed to harvest most of the kale.  I harvested everything that I was not going to be able to eat and froze it.  I just blanched it for 2 min, ice water 2 min and then into the freezer in zip lock bags.

I didn’t realize kale would get quite that big, and seeing as I don’t eat it on a daily basis I have also been giving some of it away to a co-worker who eats it.

That is all of the shallots in the middle and potoatoes on the right and bottom

I also harvested all of my shallots, some garlic and a couple potatoes plants.  The shallots looked pretty good although they were a little small.  The garlic was also pretty small, it was spring planted garlic and in a shadier spot.  All future garlic will be planted in full fun in the fall around mid-September.  The potatoes had one hill with nothing but disease and the other had only 3-4 potatoes.  These were the blue ones (maybe Macintosh) I planted.  Also from the bottom bed that does get significantly more shade.

You can see the potatoe scab on the potatoes aspecially the one on the left.

Beans

The first beans were picked last night!  I probably should have gotten them a couple days previously but there weren’t any that were overly large.   I have been very busy lately and have been neglecting the blog a little.  There are a bunch of pictures that need to go up that I just haven't gotten around to yet….

The garden is doing very well though, the peas need to be picked every other day and I have been freezing them because og the mass quantities, there are a bunch of zucchini that will be ready at the end of this week as well as more beans.

The spinach has not enjoyed the heat wave and it needs to be pulled, I will try to salvage what I can but its time is past.  The strawberry spinich that was planted never germinated.  It is something I will try again next year though with the remaining seeds.  I also really need to get the kale out of the garden  and freeze it.  I might try this coming Saturday morning to make sure it is not dried out when I do pick it.

Weeding

It has been a while since I was out in the garden but last night went out to do a little weeding and see how everything was looking.  The top bed wasn’t bad for weeds because it was just recently planted but the bottom and middle bed were just full of them.

I was able to hoe around the garlic and shallots but needed to hand weed most of the carrots and parsnips.  They are only planted a foot apart so they are pretty close.  Depending on how they perform through out the season will have to rethink my spacing.  The carrots look like they had about a 70% germination rate and the parsnips about the same maybe a little better.  It is a shady area with just average soil, no manure was worked in, and so I am satisfied with it.  I did have trouble with weeding the parsnips because I don’t actually know what they look like.  I still weeded them though (there was a consistent straight line of plants that looked similar in appearance to carrots) I deduced that these where the parsnips and if I’m wrong I guess I will find out when I go to harvest them.

The middle bed is looking great.  I cut some kale this morning for a co-worker and then more tonight.  Going to try and make smoky kale chips, basically kale little smoked paprika, olive oil, pinch on salt and them bake in the oven. Leeks are getting bigger and the onions are enormous.  All of those onions where planted in the fall and in the spring they weren’t looking that good, but the snow had just left the ground.  Now they look terrific and all happen to be going to seed.  Depending on how they do I might start to plant them in the fall along with the garlic. 

The bok choy, spinach and lettuce are also looking good.  The spinach and lettuce in the containers are easily doing 2-3 times better than the stuff planted in the actual garden.  Greens are now destined for the contaniers.

The bok choy actually looks like I thought it should now.  It is larger than the baby stuff in the grocery stores but not as big as the mature stuff.  It is starting to bolt and go to seed though, I think the 4-5 days last week of +25C weather caused it.  It is almost around the size I was planning to eat it at so should ready anytime.

Of all the weeds I pulled the most prevalent was grass and the second was tomato plants. Where I had the tomato plants last year there was oodles of them, and even in places where I didn’t have them previously planted and just added some compost there was still tons of them.

Also forgot to mention that the potatoes I planted 5 days ago have sprouted.

I did take a bunch of pictures yesterday, but the camera left with the family and will not be back for a couple days

Spring Planting Continued

Today I finished some more spring planting.  In the corner bed I planted spinach (Bloomsdale Long Standing), loose leaf lettuce (Mixed Red Leaves), Head Lettuce (Great Lakes), Leeks (Large Musselburg), and half of my Kale (Dwarf Curled Scotch) plants.  I am going to hold off for 3-4 days before I plant the other half of them just so I can see what the nights do to them, but I’m pretty sure they will be alright. However when I took the leeks out of the cells the dirt pretty much fell off the roots.  I hope that it doesn’t affect them too much but whatever happens happens.

In a couple leftover containers from the trees that were planted on Canada day, I planted some more spinach (Tree Hybrid) and Mesclun Mixture mild. Also in a small wooden box from work, I planted more red lettuce and Great Lakes lettuce.

Over top of the carrot and parsnip rows I laid out a piece of landscaping fabric.  This was something I read about in the Tiny Farm Blog archive.  It is supposed to help them germinate quicker and it keeps the soil moist so that they don’t have to break through the crusty soil.  I have never had a problem with my carrots germinating in the past, but figured why not give it a try. 

With pretty much all of the early spring vegetables planted, now I’m just hoping for no major frosts.  I also finished of the construction of the top bed today and amending the soil inside it.  I will have a separate post for the construction of it.

This is a picture of the rhubarb that I transplanted yesterday.