Garden Notes - April 2, 2014

 

 I have a cold frame!!  And it came just in time, too!

A shingle was blown off of our roof this past week, so a friend of ours, Russ, came over to fix it.  Russ is also an avid gardener and grows his veggies from seed.  Actually, he is far more experienced than I am, and I can learn a thing or two from him.

I was at the WMMGA Garden Symposium when Russ came over, and Michael showed Russ all the plants I have growing in the basement.  So, when I got home, I asked Russ for his professional opinion about my plants and he said, "They look good,except your lettuce is getting big. You should put them in a cold frame."

Well, I've been wanting a cold frame and just haven't gotten around to getting one.  Lo and behold, Russ had one to give me!  Twenty bucks!!  And he delivered it on Monday morning, two days later!

The weather is finally warming up a bit.  There were about a dozen robins on my front lawn on Monday, and I see the garlic coming out of the ground. I started bringing my lettuce, kale, spinach and cabbage plants outside on April 1st - yesterday.  Today was about 60 degrees outside, and I put the plants in the cold frame until about 7:00 tonight. Tomorrow I'll leave them out even longer.

I planted my tomato seeds on March 31st and I also got about a dozen-plus dahlia tubers started.  Everything is looking good, except I did lose 2 ageratum plants to "damping off".  My fault.  I watered the soil heavily when I transplanted them.  I was also a little nervous about a cabbage plant because it was flopping over and the stem looked like it was getting thin. However, the leaves look healthy.  I think some of the plants are just getting "leggy".  The lettuce is definitely "leggy".

As for seeds, I'm still waiting on the cleome.  The seeds take anywhere from 14 to 21 days to germinate.  I'm on day 14.  The lavender is also taking a long time, and the spinach didn't do too well.  I only got 2 spinach seedlings from the seed I planted.  I accidentally mixed the spinach seedlings with the pepper seedlings and couldn't figure out why one "pepper" plant had such long rabbit ears! (picture 6)

Time is flying!  I still need to get out and prune my apple trees and other fruit trees, as well as two blueberry bushes.  All the other blueberry bushes are still too young/small.  I also need to get my asparagus crowns in the ground.

Garden Notes - May 6, 2013

The days are getting longer and warmer, and it's looking really beautiful outside:

I have been working hard with my seedlings, preparing garden beds, and even putting up a fence to protect my lettuce and spinach from rabbits:

 Well, the lettuce and spinach is barely visible, but it still needs protecting!

Also, I've been enjoying all the daffodils, forsythia and bleeding hearts in my house:

Everything's Growing!

I have been so busy these days, but I spend as much time in my garden as I can.  My two biggest regrets are that I have not had the time to prune my fruit trees, or blueberry bushes, and I still haven't done anything about protecting them.  I have been spending what little free time I have starting seeds, pruning, cleaning up the yard and amending the soil.  Here are some pictures of what's going on around here:

My thyme seedlings have developed their first set of true leaves, so I thinned them out by using tiny scissors to cut out any extras, and then I transplanted them into newspaper pots that I made:

How tiny these plants are!  I can't wait to smell these leaves this summer!  Hey!  I just noticed that the "cup" has "for His Kingdom" printed on it, upside down! The other has the words "Christian" and "philosophy" on it.  It's thyme for His Kingdom!

I planted 2 kinds of cucumbers, 2 kinds of marigolds, some zinnias and bachelor's buttons on the 17th - the cucumbers began to sprout after 1 day; everything else is sprouting today (19th):





 

I hung up a new light in my basement, since I was running out of room with my other 2 lights.  I calculated that I have about 250 little plants growing down there! So, I needed another light.  I learned in my WMMGA class that you don't have to buy special, expensive lights.  I bought a shop light for $20 and 2 T5 fluorescent bulbs.  I couldn't insert the bulbs at first, and ended up going back to Home Depot where a saleswoman showed me how. I then bought 4-foot chains to hang the lamp from the ceiling, so I can adjust it as the plants grow.  The chains that the light came with were only a few inches long:

 





Outdoors, things are popping up all over the place!  All the daffodil bulbs that Jamie planted are coming up:

 

 



Sadly, Jamie and I are going to have this tree taken down in November.  The kids grew up swinging from its branches.

Also, I see signs of peonies, bleeding hearts, chives, foxglove, forsythia and apple blossoms, plus tiny blue flowers that I don't know the name of:

And of course, the weeds are here:

 

 

Well, I guess these are "winter annuals"!  James asked, "Mom, what are all these tiny white flowers?"  I said, "Weeds". "What are weeds?"  "Plants that are growing where you don't want them to grow."  James felt sorry for the weeds.

 

A few weeks ago, the end of March, I planted lettuce, spinach and green onions in with the garlic:

 

 

 

The garlic is taking off:

 

 

 

And of course, there's Shadow.  He thinks it's his garden.  The neighbor's dog, Abby, thinks it's her garden, too.  I had to chase her out the other day, because she was rolling around in the manure I put down.  Sheesh! I have a hard enough time with the deer and the rabbits, never mind a dachshund!

 

Speaking of pests, notice how there are no fences in any of these pictures.  I had a "fence guy" come out this week to look at the yard.  Still don't know how we're going to fence it all in.



Garlic, Lettuce, Green Onions and Spinach

I noticed last week that my garlic is growing.  I planted the little cloves in October (? - I'll have to check on this) and was so pleased to see their little green tops poking through the soil.

I remember reading in Joy of Gardening that it's good to grow green onions, lettuce, spinach and even carrots with the garlic.  I'm not planning on growing carrots this year, but I did sow lettuce, spinach, and green onion seeds in the garlic bed on Saturday, the last day of March.  All the books/seed packets say that the seeds should be sown directly as soon as the soil can be worked.  It seems like it should be so easy, but again, this is a first for me:  I read the back of each seed packet and tried to carry out the instructions.  We'll see how well things turn out!  I planted the onions in only half the bed - trying to avoid the garlic, and I planted 4 "bands" of lettuce, so that I can do some "succession planting".  Finally, I planted spinach in the other half of the bed.

After I planted the seeds, I realized that we haven't opened our pump, so I didn't have a convenient way to water the seeds.  Then, I couldn't find a watering can, and I couldn't find enough hose to reach the bed from the outside faucet.  Thankfully, it rained yesterday, and we're expecting more rain this week. 



I like this picture because all the garlic tops are visible.  That's my shadow.

Here's my other Shadow... in the shadows!