Sown and growing

 The weather here has turned backed to normal. It is seasonably cool here now. We got a bit complacent last week as we hit the 70's for three days straight. But, that hasn't stopped the clock either. There is much to do as I say and time keeps on ticking. I hear it loud and clear.

I line with that, I have been seeding in the various Spring vegetables that I need this year. I especially like to grow my own plants to allow me to have varieties of plants that I want. Choice is a wonderful thing in most cases. One other point is that seedlings from the various stores are amazingly expensive as I have seen tomato plants at about $4.00 each. You could spend a small fortune if you have a garden of any size and not get best tasting veggies.
So, here is one set of what I call my "mix". It is made up of Parsley, Cabbage, Broccoli and Onions. They are about 2 weeks old as of today.

Then I have another planter of spinach which is also about 2 weeks old too.

I have also planted Tomatoes, Cucumbers and Peppers in another planter. Since this was done about 3 days ago, there aren't any seedling yet. I have them on a heat mat and covered with a plastic dome. I did see one cucumber seedling poking through so it should be anytime now for the rest of the plants to pop up - or not. I plant more seeds than I need plants because there are failures in every seeding.

Right now, this is about all I can do until the soils outside warm up a bit. And, if the forecasts are to be believed, it may get even colder towards the end of this month. The seasons are changing as we go through what I have heard of as a solar minimum sun cycle. Whatever is happening, our weather has been different in many ways so one has to adapt to them.
I did get out yesterday to stake out my onion beds which should be planted very shortly. I have structures to cover the area so that probably will be what I do. Here is how I staked the area. I will plant the onion sets I have at 9 per square foot. If that ends up in overcrowding, I will pull some of the onions to allow more space. But, if I get 9 per square foot, that will result in 288 onions. This is my first year with onions and I bought a pound of yellow onions. I may not have 288 but I will plant as many as I can/need. I am also considering planting one block and see where that takes me. I have some decisions to make so that will be a moment of planting situation.

The planting season is getting underway pretty quickly. There is a lot to do and I have been getting steadily busier as each week passes. There may be a few time lapses in my writing but rest assured, I will write. So, until the next opportunity, Happy Gardening Everyone!

Spring planting is about to begin!!!!

 Well, if you need proof that Spring is about to burst forward, I will be happy to oblige. I emailed three of the companies with whom I do most of my business. I inquired regarding the availability of onion and potato starts. Two of the three responded within an hour or so. Both had onion starts and one had potatoes while the other was expecting them this coming week. The third company never responded.

Given that it is getting real close for plantings, I decided to check the progress of my various composters to get a gauge of where I stand when I distribute the soil over my beds. All looks good as can be seen in the pictures here.

I took my rototiller and ran over the beds to cut down the rye. Once I completed that, I waited two days and ran the tiller through the beds again to cut the remaining live rye further. Now fun will begin. I will mix the various bags of manure and manure/compost mixes I have accumulated in with the leaf mold and compost I have processed over winter. One point to mention here is that I will sift my leafmold and compost to remove the big pieces. I will take those big pieces and put them in one of my composters to allow them to continue to decay. My plants in the greenhouse are doing very well despite the warm temps we have been having. I am keeping the vent window open which seems to help with the temps both in the day and overnight.
I went out today to water the plants given all the unusually warmer temps. Seems I will be needing to cut some lettuce and spinach soon. Here is one of my planters of lettuce that shows one batch of lettuce.

I have many other pots of spinach and lettuce which I need to cut also. There will be many more salads to come in the near future.
During this past week, I set to the task of getting the bamboo poles in for my fence. After two days, I was able to get the poles completed. I will have to now get the fencing bought and installed. Here is a snap of what the garden now looks like.

So, progress is being made on many fronts. I have seedlings growing in the basement, plants continuing to grow in the greenhouse and many "to do" items on my list. One by one, I will hopefully get these finished. There definitely won't be any lack of work to complete nor blogs to write.
So, until next time, Happy Gardening Everyone.

Spring prepping has begun....

After a cold beginning, the temps rose quite rapidly yesterday once the sun rose into the beautiful blue sky. That's been a rare occurence around here lately. And, wanting to take advantage of this event, I decided to go out and get a head start on the many things I need to do. It will be time to start planting soon enough and one cannot waste a day like this.

So, my first decision was to move my veritical support poles to accomodate the cucumbers and tomatoes. I will once again employ the spring loaded string system I used last year. I had to move the poles about a foot in order to get them centrally located so I can plant a row of cukes and maters alternately down the row. This will allow me to use the rest of the bed for other plants. Haven't quite decided but I am thinking in terms of cooler weather crops. Maybe even carrots. I am hoping this will create a wall of green. I think it would look beautiful. Here are a couple pics of the supports.

The holes were 2 feet deep as they will need to carry a lot of weight. I can only hope it will work as envisioned.
After setting the poles in place, I decided to begin the process of cutting down the winter rye down so it can begin to break down into the soil. I used a grass trimmer to do this as I only wanted to cut the rye halfway down. It didn't take long and wow, the scent of freshly cut grass permeated the whole garden and beyond. I can probably say I was the first to cut grass in my community. My neighbors might say something different. It was a really nice scent that furthered my desire for spring to pop.
Here is a before and after comparison.


Again, I did not want to cut it down to the soil as that would result in both bleaching and a runoff (during rains) of the nutrients out of the soil. I want to feed it a little at a time. I will probably turn the rye totally under towards the third week of March. There are many ways to use rye as some gardeners/farmers cut the rye and use it as composting materials. Others let it decompose where it lays. Farmers, from what I can tell, cut the rye and leave the cuttings in place and allow the roots to breakdown in the ground. I use a spade or fork to just dig them up but not move them. I just lift up a little to allow air in to dry the roots. It seems to work so I will probably do that this year.
After doing these tasks, I cleaned up the garden area as winter has taken its' usual toll. I worked in the greenhouse for a bit to just get it ready for the seedlings which will need to be transferred to it in the coming weeks. I did check on my water container since it rained buckets over the weekend clear into Monday morning. Seems it was heavier than I thought.

This is about 250 gallons of water. I can't remember having this good of a supply so early in the year. Considering that on February 26th, I had maybe, 90 gallons, this storm gave me about 150-160 gallons. That's a ton of water. I use the water mostly for the garden. But, I have been known to bucket water to clean our cars. It's chemical free so it has to be better than water from the faucet. The only issue is if it gets horribly warm, algae growths occur. I use a shock for pools which burns off in 1-3 days after application. I use the faucet when that occurs.
Well, that's about all I have at this time. Still much to do and I will be reporting on the seedlings that are growing in my basement in a subsequent post. I hope you are all getting back into the rythm of Spring. I think we all need it after everything that has happened. Nothing like working with plants and dirt to connect you to the earth. So, until next time, Happy Gardening everyone!

Growing right along....

 On the 23rd, I started a new set of Spring seedlings of Cabbage and Broccoli. I planted 4 each of Earliana, All Seasons and Early Jersey Wakefield cabbages and 4 each of Green Goliath, Major Hybrid and De Cicco Broccoli in my Hacknixs' seed starting tray. I started them with moistened seed starting mix and made sure not to plant the seed too deep. I then covered each seed set with more seed starting mix and then lightly sprayed the tray with a fine mist. I did turn on the heat mat but unplugged it each night so as not to overheat the medium. I continued to lightly mist the cells each morning while turning on the heat mat.

I went down this past Saturda to mist the tray and discovered that the Major Hybrid Broccoli and Earliana Cabbage had seedlings poking up from all four of their respective cells. At this point, I have to assume that the other plants are also growing which means I will immediately stop using the heat mat. I will also begin to water the tray from below to prevent any mold buildup on the surface and to assure that the plants have a steady supply of water. I will now lower the lights I have to as low as I can get them to the tray to prevent leggyness in the plants. Here are pictures of the tray and the first up plants.


Cabbage Seedlings

Broccoli Seedlings
I did notice after I took these pictures that there are other vegetables that are just starting to come up which I could not get a very good picture of unfortunately. But, they will come in the next couple of days I am sure. My goal is to get them out into the greenhouse before too long. Plants just seem to do so much better in there.
I also went out to the greenhouse Monday between the downpours we were having to check how things were going. And, they are going very well from the looks of it. Here are a couple of pictures for your perusual.

These are the lettuce and spinach plants I have been growing since late November and have taken several cuttings from so far.

And here is a rack of spinach, lettuce and a pot of carrots on the bottom shelf. I have another rack with more plants that are also getting ready for harvesting.
My next thing to do is to seed in probably 20 plants of spinach and an equal mix of lettuce and chard plants. I plan on using my vertical hydroponic system this year so as not to have to take up room in the garden plots. Some of the lettuce and chard seedlings I get from this next planting will be used in that
That's all I have for now. I am hoping for a nice, dry week to allow the garden plots to dry out. It feels like it has been a wet February and my ground kind of bears that out.  We can only hope that this month in my region will begin to hit a stride. I saw a forecast that was indicating a snow storm of some kind on the 7th so we shall see what transpires. Guess we'll take it one day at a time for now.
Please check back for the next updates on the progress of the garden and seedlings. Until next time, Happy Gardening Everyone!