Spring Planting

Today I managed to finish up the majority of my planting, later for some things but because of moving didn’t really have any other choice.  On my way home I stopped by the community garden to plant beets, and various lettuces.   When I got home I planted 4 different kinds of carrots as well as all my peppers and tomatoes.  The peppers and tomatoes needed to be hardened off better but they should survive.

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.

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.

All Peppers Planted

All of the peppers have been planted.  Tonight I brought up the box I made and after covering the inside with landscaping fabric I filled it with a 50/50 mix of topsoil and decomposed horse manure.  I have read everywhere that in pots and boxes you are supposed to use potting soil but because all of my boxes are quite large I just use regular garden soil with a little extra manure.  In it I planted 4 medusa peppers.  They should receive sun from noon to dusk. 

With the remaining 6 King of the North and 3 medusa plants I took a quick trip to the filed to plant them. It was time to get everything in the ground and just let nature take its course. Next year I will be starting my seeds much later. While at the field more bok choy, kale and lettuce was planted.

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.

Peppers/Field Planting

This morning I planted the peppers in my bottom bed. I was originally going to do 6 plants of each variety but because the Cal wonder did surprisingly well and the Hungarian not as much I made a small adjustment. I ended up planting 2 Calwonder, 4 Hungarian banana and 6 each of purple, chocolate, jimmy, king of the north and Alma paprika. They are all sturdy plants and have started to branch out, a side effect of pinching off the blossoms I think. There are a few plants that look a little yellow but I think some natural light and the ability to spread their roots should help.

After the peppers were planted at home, I headed over to the field to finally plant it. Last night with the help of my uncle and cousin we spread a few yards of sandy soil and compost on top of the one end of the garden. This is where the potatoes were going to be planted.

The garden is laid out with 6’ sections and then a 2’ path between each one. The potatoes are spaced 3 feet apart.

I started by planting the beans in 2 rows 1’ apart at the south end of the field. In the outside row I put my remaining green beans around 15 seeds, and then in the rest of the row I planted 50 seeds of Vermont cranberry bush beans. In the second row I planted my remaining yellow beans also 15 seeds and then the rest of the row was planted with tongue of fire beans around 60 seeds.

The next large 2 sections each have 6 large hills of watermelon. I planted 3 hills each of sugar baby, small shining light, golden midget and Siberian. At the next point in the garden I shortened up my sections lengthwise so that I could put a section the other way to plant corn. The corn runs along the North West side of the garden closes to the bush so that it doesn’t shade out other plants.

The next section is planted with a hill of cantaloupe, and 4 hills of straight eight cucumbers. Nothing has been planted in the middle section yet, but it will be getting some peppers as well as lettuce and other greens. The next section and a half has 7 hills of various pumpkins, and gourds. Following that I have another section and a half of tomatoes. I used all of my leftover tomato plants from home as well as some my aunt had.

This is where the potatoes start. In total there are 6 rows. The first 2 rows have a mixture, then there is a row of red Pontiac, Yukon gold, red chieftain with a few Russian blacks on the end, and the outside row is all banana fingerling. At the end of these rows I have large hills, one is planted with Atlantic giant pumpkins seeds and the other has sweet Siberian watermelon. The corn that was planted at the back was planted in 4 short rows to create a block to help ensure pollination. I have Bloody butcher around 24 seeds and then Seneca Blue Bear Dance roughly 40 seeds planted.

There is room for some pole beans I just need to finish cutting some suitable poles and then set them up. Looking to do this in the next couple weeks and at the same time the lettuce, peppers and anything else will be planted.

The garlic and asparagus are doing very well. The asparagus is all up and starting to increase in size. It could really use some rain, and should get some in the next couple days. The garlic is tall but I am not sure what the bulbs are going to be like. I tried to dig one up and the soil was very hard. I think I may end up with some huge plants and tiny bulbs. If the potatoes are successful where they have been planted this year, I will put garlic there this fall.

 

New seeds

This weekend while at the farmers market I was able to get some more seeds at the community garden booth.  They had a bunch of extras and were giving them away for free which was awesome, especially since I am not allowed to buy any more seeds for this year’s garden. I picked up a new variety of lettuce, a packet of strawberry spinach and then some flower seeds.   I also entered the giant pumpkin contest, they had a number of Atlantic giant plants there, basically get a plant grow it and then on October 15^th bring it with you for judging.  Hoping to go over to the field tomorrow and plant it in the manure pile.  I also plant on planting my other gourd and pumpkin seeds.  Hoping the rich soil helps them take off and grow some enormous pumpkins.

This weekend I haven't done too much in the garden.  Today I did prep another long box to plant the new seeds I got at the market; I planted red oak lettuce and the strawberry spinach.  I also filled up 8 pots with dirt that I am going to try and grow some Danvers half long carrots in.  They are not huge pots so an interpreter carrot would be too long and not grow properly.

Potatoes have been cut and are ready to be planted, on the outside row of the bottom garden.  These are the river john blue potatoes that I am going to be planting with straw.  This time I am just going to plant them in a furrow and just covered with straw.  I would have planted them already but would like a camera so I can document 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

More Rain...

Finally a day I am home with lots of time to garden and it rains, again!  Because it is raining I am finally going to finish up my herb box.  When I am done it will probably become my potato/pepper/carrot box instead.  I really don’t use herbs that much and I can always grow more than enough in pots…..

The box was made using all repurposed wood, 2x4’s were used for the frame, and ¾ inch strapping was used for the outside walls and bottom, 2 ½ nails and wood screws were used to fasten the frame with 1 ½ nails used in the nail gun.  I am also going to use some 5/8 inch plywood to separate the box into a couple sections. 

This is a picture of the frame.  It is 5’x 4’x 16”. I started by building the 2 long outside pieces. I built them just like a ladder and nailed them all together, they are spaced on 16” centers.  Then I added the 6 crossers to connect the 2 sides together. Because it is more difficult to be as accurate while toe nailing I screwed these to the sides.

 

This is after I have added the outer layer of strapping.  I used the nail gun to tag these onto the sides and ends of the box. It still needs a bottom and a divider in the middle, some point this week I will tear apart a couple more skids to make that happen. It also needs dirt which I will get this week after the bottom is put in place.

The rest of the garden is looking good, beans are just poking up, and all of the peas are up, lettuce and spinach looking great, the kale has really taken off and I should be able to harvest some of it soon.  My asparagus looks great, I am harvesting on a regular basis from the top bed, but I am not cutting any of the stuff I transplanted or anything that is too small.

Today I also planted the rest of the cucumbers, 2 more banana pepper plants, the zucchini both dark green and golden and another row of purple dragon carrots.  That completely filled up my top garden bed; nothing else is going to be planted there unless some of my plants happen to die.  In front of the house in the small flower bed I planted some blue Russian potatoes.  This is because of my inpatients with not being able to plant them in the field.  Flowers are nice to look at, but I can eat the potatoes!

These are the pictures of the garden beds not that they are actually green.

You can see the potaoes in the front , on hte left half carrots just coming up, and on the right shallots and you can't see them really but the garlic.

This is the raised flowerbed, no vegetables in it  but wanted to put up a picture of what it looks like green.  As you can see on the left the lila is blooming and that it hasn't been fully weeded yet.

Long Weekend

It has been a while since I managed to get a post up but it has just been very busy.  So weekend plans changed slightly so I decided that even though my plants hadn’t been fully hardened off to plant them anyways.  On Friday night I set up 2 of the 4 trellis and the following morning set up another.  There is still one more to go up for the pole beans. 

On Saturday morning I planted another tomato plant (Yellow Pear), the Bok Choy, Cucumbers (Lemon, Straight Eight), some of my pepper plants (Sweet Banana), and some bush and climbing beans (Yellow and Green Wonder Wax, and Improved Tendergreen).   I also planted some asparagus in pots outside to start crowns this year for fall planting in a permanent site.

Well I have been out in the garden and almost everything is looking good, the peppers tomato plants and bok choy transplanted very well.  The cucumbers on the other hand not so much, they are still alive but are probably not going to do very much, not that I expected them too but hoped they might live.  All of the lettuce, musclun mix and spinach that I planted all sprouted, as well as the green onions and the second planting of peas.  I am still waiting for some of the garlic to sprout in the bottom bed but it is now getting much more shade than it was a couple weeks ago so might take a little longer.  The garlic in the top bed the bulbils, have all sprouted.  Also my potatoes are up!  I only have 7 plants in my garden here but am glad they have sprouted.  

These pictures are from May 15th, i just havn't had a chance to get them up.  The one below is of the peas first coming up.

This one above is of the garlic bulbils sprouting up.

About half of the planting is done so far, I have planted my entire garden except for 1 row that was going to be peppers, but I might turn it into carrots or potatoes, gong to hold off a little bit while I decide. There is still the field garden to plant but I am waiting until it has been finished being worked up.  It has been plowed but still needs to be disked and harrowed.  It has been very wet and it is a heavier clay based soil so it might still be a couple more weeks.  Pumpkins, Squash, Carrots, Potatoes, Onions, Watermelon and probably extra Cucumbers and Tomatoes will be planted there.  I am an impatient person so because I can’t do anything to speed it up (damn weather),   I am thinking more about container gardening to increase my garden output. I do currently have 4 large pots and a long wooden box with lettuce, spinach, musclun mix and green onions in them but will probably add more.

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.