Progress with the winter vegetables

I was quite pleased with what I saw when I entered my greenhouse.  It seems, as you shall see, that even though the temps have been average to a little below average, the plants don't seem to mind.  First, the early planter of carrots continues to thrive.  I have been watering them on an every other day schedule which seems to be the sweet spot for them.  I started them and watered them every day.  After about 2 weeks or so, they began to show signs of slowing down and some of their leaves were actually browning out.  That was the point at which I decided to back off the water and try to gauge how often they required it.  Eventually, I figured out that every two days was where I needed to be.  Here is a picture of them at this point.

I trimmed the brown leaves off of them about a week ago and I can see that they are now beginning to show more vibrant leaves.

The later planted carrots seem to be thriving also.  I really didn't do anything different other than plant the seeds in a deeper container.  But, I believe they are growing well.  I used a technique I saw on another site.  I sowed them in a circular motion starting in the middle.  I left about an inch as I circled the pot.  I estimate that I have about 30 plants after I thinned them out. I can't wait to eat some of these as they are so much tastier than store bought.

  

The lettuce plants are a mixed bag of results.  Two of the plants seem to be producing well while the other two pots are not as hardy.  Same seeds but different results which occurs more often than gardeners would like to acknowledge. 

                                                

 As far as the newly seeded pots of lettuce, spinach and swiss chard there is hope.  Of the 19 pots I started in early January, 18 of them are now showing healthy growth.  I'll take that kind of return every day.  I believe, given these results, that I should be able to definitely grow my seedlings of early crops within the greenhouse.  That is a major advantage given they will receive direct sunlight instead of grow lights.
That's all for today.  Please feel free to check back as I will be posting more updates regarding my new garden design and greenhouse activities.  Until next time, Happy Gardening everyone!

Garden renovation update

I was able to get more work completed before the current cold weather struck. That's a good thing too as when I walked out into the backyard yesterday, the ground was hard as a rock. It had no give whatsoever. Guess old man winter has decided to settle in for a while via winter storm Jacob.
After much work, I was able to remove about 240 of the pavers that I had distributed throughout the garden. That number kind of snuck up on me as I did not realize I had that many. It's amazing how that can happen. See, I was able to procure them from two different sources over an extended period of time. Given my propensity to get carried away, it didn't really dawn on me that I had gone so overboard. And, I paid a small price for that as seen from the photo below. To say my back was none the better is an understatement.



At this point, I have unearthed the area near my shed that was covered by the pavers. This was the most time consuming and intense work I believe I will have to undertake during the renovation. Those bricks were in place for about 5 years so they were firmly entrenched in the mother earth. But, after a consistent and prolonged effort, I am glad to report, this phase is now 100% complete. After removing the pavers, I took my tiller and evened out the bed. I did notice that there were a copious amount of worms poking themselves onto the surface. That was a very encouraging sign given nothing had been planted there for many years. I purposely did not till the whole bed as there are bulbs along the white fence that I want to transplant in early Spring. I will have to till the area again once we are out of winter. Here is the finished product.



Additionally, I was able to prep the beds against the fence and in the middle of the garden. I have to say that I am impressed with the one wheel tiller as it hasn't had any trouble breaking up the surface soil. I used to use a mantis unit that would clog and needed to be cleaned repeatedly during use. It was just so frustrating. Given the soil I was prepping had ice clumps, I don't believe the Mantis would have been efficient for this scenario. Sometimes, old school just works better. And, I do think that the Mantis was kind of destructive to my soils health. There were a bunch of worms in the two beds coming to the surface and I can only imagine the Mantis would have killed many of those worms. As you can see from the photos, the beds are thoroughly dug into for the initial cut. I will have to make another pass once we warm up.


After completing these tasks, I decided to clean up one part of my beds that I had neglected to do in the fall. I had several poles, clamps and ties that I left in the beds. I pulled the poles and ties and gathered them up. I guess the grass that was growing there hid the supports as I had way more than I remembered. As shown, that area is now decluttered and ready to be worked. And, I have recovered a fair portion of the ties which I will clean with a bleach solution to kill any bacteria that may be present. 


Well, that's where I am now standing in lieu of the ground freezing up at this time. I will have a report on the status of the my greenhouse growing endeavors in the next day or so. Until then, happy gardening everyone!

Progress - Albeit slow!

Given the recent run of above normal temps in our area for the past week, I decided to dive in and begin my garden reconfiguration. It's not often the we have 60 degrees to approaching 70 anytime in January. My garden area is 19 ft. wide and about 34 ft. long including the 48 square ft. footprint of my greenhouse. The current garden was compose of 2-4ft wide paths that ran 21 ft. long before the greenhouse was erected. That means I had 168 sq. ft. plus an additional 48 sq. ft. area in a small area next to my garage. That gave me 216 sq. ft. of planting area. Here are some pictures of what it looked like before reconfiguration.

These pictures show the entrance walkway, the walkway at the bottom of the garden, the first bed, the second walkway with the second bed to it's left, the walkway at the top of the garden that leads to the greenhouse and finally, the 6X8 bed to that is to the right of the entrance walkway. The garden looks pretty unorganized and cluttered. Around October I decided that I needed to get rid of the pavers and cement bricks that I had accumulated over the years. So, I had begun to do that but then decided to stop everything until I had an actual plan in mind.
I have decided to repurpose the pavers to build a pathway in the main entrance all the way to the neighbors fence. If I have enough, I will then use them in the various walkways to cut down on mud and the need to cut grass. If I don't have enough pavers, my next option would be wood chips or some kind of mulch as I really don't want to cut grass. 
o, after analysis and investigation, I have discovered that most gardening "experts" advocate for 3ft. wide beds instead of 4. According to their studies, it allows more of the area you have to be put into production. It also makes for easier maintenance of the plants and allows you to better space the plants which increases the production. After putting this to the test, it turns out that I will have approximately 309 sq. ft. of planting space without expanding the area required and not including the 48 sq. ft. of the greenhouse. I lose about 200 sq. ft with the main entrance path and the 4 paths along the garden beds. I could reduce the main entrance width but I really want that path to carry the width of the 2 fence posts back to the neighbors fence for symmetry. I will now have 5 planting rows along with 2 in the area next to my garage. So, where I had 2, I now have will have 7. I must say I was a little shocked at this. 
On my first attempt to remove the pavers Saturday, I decided to tackle the hardest ones. Those would be the ones shown in the picture to the left below. The other two show where I stopped and the pile I created. They consisted of the pile against the shed and fence and the ones buried in the ground. Not an easy task by any means. It was a rather surprisingly back breaking job. I was able to get about 90 pavers moved so that wasn't a bad days work.

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In order to extract the pavers, I relied on 3 very old friends as seen in the picture. Some people would call them antiques though. They are a 5 tine pan head hoe, a 4 tine wooden handled spade and an old fashion ice scraper The dog in the back round is my neighbors very nosey but friendly dog. He just can't help himself.

I will have more work to report on in my next post in the very near future. So much is going on but I am determined to keep this up to date. Until next time, Happy Gardening everyone!

Challenges of winter

Having never attempted to grow plants through the winter, I just really had no idea what to expect. I did have some preconceived notions but those were just coming from what I have read in the past. At first, there was success and admittedly, a real uptick in hope. So I expanded the experiment to see if I cold replicate the nascent results of my initial foray into winter/greenhouse gardening.
Sadly, at this point, the newly planted seeds have yet to show themselves. I am not yet ready to throw in the towel as I believe there still is a good chance that they will come to fruition. I say that because, when it comes to vegetable gardening, I have developed a strong understanding that not everything works on our timetables. Additionally, the recent weather is much more wintery than when I planted the first crops. Our lows have been into the mid 20's the last few nights as has been the temperature in the greenhouse given it is unheated. I am relying on the fact that the seeds "know" what to do and are usually pretty resilient.
The established plants seem to be pretty hardy and are making progress albeit at a slower pace. I believe this is the pace they set during winter. As can be seen below, the lettuce plants seem the most vibrant as the spinach plants are just really struggling. The spinach seems to have started to grow again in the last couple of days so I will just hope they have rebounded.
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Additionally, even though the temps are lower now, the newly planted pots are continuing to dry out so I am having to water them frequently(as seen below). And, the pots that are in the northwest corner of the greenhouse seem to dry out much faster than even the ones right next to them. I can rule out a soil difference as they all had the same soil mix. It most likely has something to do with the amount of sun they receive as these pots would get a little more sun on a clear day. It's just something I have to deal with and keep an eye on. 

As spring approaches, I have been looking for ways to make the most of what areas I have. I have the greenhouse, the 226 sq. ft. of garden plots and the structure I have left unplanted. As I grow most of my own seedlings and augment with heirloom plants from a few select nurseries, I have been contemplating how I can increase my seedlings this year. And, it hit me. I have a garage that is detached and unheated. I have been tracking the current temps in it and it seems to be a little warmer than the greenhouse. No big surprise there. But, in about a month, the sun will be stronger and the garage probably will be warmer. So I have begun to clear the area on one of the south facing shelves. I put clear plastic over the two windows above the shelf to stop the wind coming through. It probably will have enough warmth to get the seedlings started so I can transfer them into the greenhouse to harden them off. It's a new project that should keep me even busier.
On a side note, I was fortunate enough to be able to visit one of my favorite seed stores in Maryland. It's called Meyer Seeds and is close to downtown Baltimore. They have been around for a very long time. When you go in the store, you take a big step back in time. The decor reminds me of pictures of stores in the 1950's. I had the pleasure to speak with a gentleman who was able to point me to an almost fail safe cucumber given it is self pollinating and who then pointed out that my problem was most likely the cucumber beetle. He gave me a fix for that to boot! He also assured me that they have stock in all seeds as I questioned him about that given reports that some seed companies were expecting some spot shortages this year. He then sold me peas and beans in bulk and advised I use an inoculant before planting the peas.
It was a great visit there and I look forward to going back there during planting season to get organic based sprays they have. It's always a treat to speak to someone else who knows your passion and problems. They rate high on my list on both.
Well, that's all I have for now. Hopefully, you are starting to get the bug to plant. It certainly wont be long now. Until next time, Happy Gardening!