Rain

After a week of beautiful weather we are now getting some rain.  It is good for the garden and I don’t have anything to do in it anyways so really a win, win.  I did go out to take a look and saw that all of my lettuce and spinach is just poking through the soil.  There is also some more asparagus to cut, but I am going to hold off until tomorrow so that I can also harvest some stuff growing wild and have enough for dinner.

If the rain continues on tommorrow which it is supposed to I am possibility going to continue work on my Herb Box.  I started it in early spring and then abandoned it when I was able to work outside.  The box is going to be a 5’x 4’x 16” wooden box.  The frame is going to be made of leftover 2’x 4’ that was sitting around the property in the blacksmith shop.  The sides and bottom of the box are going to be made of 3/4” boards from leftover skids.  I happen to have a practically unlimited supply of used skids at work, so although I had to break them apart and pull out the nails, it is nice to be able to reuse old materials.  

First Spring Harvest!

So today I finally made it home at a decent time, and was able to do a little on the garden.  I planted 4 kinds of Potatoes (Banana Fingerlings, Black Macintosh, River John Blue and Blue Russian.  I only planted a couple hill of each, because next week after the portion of my uncles field has been tilled up I’m going to be planting the rest of them there, as well as about 20lb of Red potatoes (think they are red chieftains).  I am already a little unhappy about the Russian Blue because they were much more expensive then all the others but were the first blue potatoes I found, damn my impatience.

In my basement growing room I also planted some Zucchini (Dark Green, Gold Rush), Cucumbers (Straight Eight, Lemon), I also planted some Watermelon (Sugar Baby) and Cantaloupe (Delicious 51).  The melon seeds are from 2 years ago and my little cousin wanted me to try and grow some.  Last time I tried we had that cold wet summer and they didn’t do very well at all, I think the biggest one was the size of a baseball.

Today was also the first time I have been able to harvest my own asparagus from my garden!  I only had 3 spears that were tall enough to cut today but hope to get more in the next couple days.  There is also some growing wild in the ditches by my house, I also plan on cutting it too.

Also in the garden I noticed my garlic starting to sprout.  This garlic I planted approximately 2 weeks ago from bulbils.  This is a terrific website that explains all about garlic and garlic bulbils Garlic Farm.  They look like little pine needles poking through.  I will try to put up a picture tomorrow if it isn’t raining too hard to get one.  I will put up a more in depth post on garlic and the varieties I am growing when I have more time.

This all actually happened yesterday but due to the blogger being down I was unable to post.

Quick Post

This post is just to say that after checking out the garden this afternoon the kale and leeks looked just fine, with no ill affects from the night.  The weather forecast also doesn’t show frost in the next week, so I figure there is no point on waiting 3 days to plant the remaining plants and might as well do it now.  So today I planted the remaining plants in the garden and also planted some Green Onions (Southport White Globe) in a pot.  I watered them, but the soil was already wetter than I thought and the top inch instantly turned to mud.  It should hopefully dry out in the next few 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.

Sunshine - Planting

Today we finally had a nice sunny day out after all of that rain this last week, so I took advantage of that by starting to plant the early spring vegetables.

In my bottom garden I planted Parsnips (Hollow Crown Improved), Carrots (Purple Haze, Danvers Half-Long and Purple Dragon), Purple Gourmet Shallots and Garlic.  It is just regular white garlic although I do have a couple of other varieties that I started about a week ago but I will leave that discussion for its own post.

In the top bed I planted the first sowing of Peas (Mammoth Melting Sugar and Oregon Sugar Pod II). They will be trellised so I can maximize my space.

Also in the top bed I transplanted the rhubarb that I dug up yesterday as well as the plant I already had.  There are 4 plants and they are situated in a 10x4 foot row, 2’ apart to give them room to expand.  I could have given them more room but felt that this would be sufficient for now and wanted to save that room for other vegetables.

This year I am growing a wide variety of vegetables and vegetable varieties in my garden, so that I can find out what does well and what I prefer(varieties).  So while I will not have mass quantities of anything I should hopefully have a nice selection of everything.

Spring Shoots

With spring in full swing all kinds of things are emerging from there winter slumber.  These pictures are from last Saturday that I just haven't had time to post yet. 

This picture is of my lilac bush just starting to bud.  Although there are two of them only thirty feet apart because of the difference in sun they get only one of the two has any buds.

This is a picture of the peony just breaking through.  I need to get some cages for them this weekend, something that is always left too late in prior years.

The hosta’s just starting, few days slower than the others.

This is the sedum, I can already tell I should have separated it in the fall, but I will separate it this fall if not sooner, so I can use some at the cottage.

The asparagus I transplanted, I probably should have buried it a little deeper than I did, but plan on top dressing with manure and didn’t want it to end up too deep.

Green onions that I left in the garden overwinter.  They look and taste great.  New ones are being planted in the next few days.

The rhubarb before being moved, it will be moved tomorrow to the new garden bed.  It will be in significantly better soil and will get the benefit of full sun. 

I would also like to recognize and thank my sister for taking these pictures.

Pre Planting

First I would like to welcome my 1st follower Meaghan!!


The garden is coming along it just needs to start to warm up a bit so I can plant some stuff.  I hope to plant the peas, garlic, shallots, green onions, might plant some carrots, parsnips and then near the end of the week/weekend plant the lettuce, spinach and I have some kale i started indoors. It still needs a little more hardening off.  there are also some leeks that I haven't started to harden off yet  and will try for the week end on those as well. 

On top of that on Thursday( if its nice out) I'm planning on digging up some rhubarb at a couple locations to add to the new garden extension I have been working on.


These are some old pictures from April 16, 2011 that Itook in anticipation of creating this blog

On the right half of the picture you can see the small raised bed that I had there the last couple years.  It is going to be extended from 6' x 9' to 10' x 33'.  I am using shale and low quality limestone on make the outer wall and reused cinder blocks for the back wall.

This is the front of the blacksmith shop and the flower bed I made 3 years ago.  It contains 3 kinds of hosta's, day lily's, seedum, black eyed Susan's and on either end there is a lilac bush.  On the far left of the picture is the small garden bed that will contain most of the greens and some tomatoes.

This is the bottom garden area, in past years i have planted pumpkin and gourd plants and just let them go wild out onto the lawn.  They did not do well last year, so I decided to dig up that portion of the lawn and plant something different to mix it up. On the right you can see the compost bin I added.  Compost has been in that location since before I was born but decided to try to build the bin to keep it in a more consolidated area.