Greenhouse update

Well, after a few sunny days, it became apparent that having the sun block on just one side did reduce the temps in the greenhouse. It kept it from going over 100 but, just barely. The temps were still consistently hitting the upper 80's to low 90's. That is a big improvement but still wasn't enough. So, I cut another 4 pieces for the other side. I proceeded to cut them Monday so about 25% of the upper windows were blocked and after a few days, the temps moderated to the upper 80's on a 93 degree sunny day. Here is an inside view of what the greenhouse looks like now. Once the temps drop a bit, this should allow for a better result with the plants. It is supposed to be mostly in the mid 80's for the next week so that will definitely help.

I have been getting the various planters set up for seeding in the fall crops as seen below. The two larger planters in the foreground were given to me by my in-laws as they no longer had any interest is using them. They are Garden patch grow boxes that they purchased a few years ago. They are quite ingenious as they operate with a water reservoir underneath where the plants grow. The soil you use wicks the moisture up to the plant roots. This prevents all the problems of wet plants and the myriad issues this causes. This is the first year I have attempted anything with them so it is yet another experiment.

Here are a few detailed pictures which show the units parts. The first is the bottom reservoir. It has two channels which you fill with the mix. This allows the soil to absorb and wet the ground slowly from the bottom from both ends as can be seen here.

Once you load the two chambers, you then proceed to fill the upper chamber with the medium to the top. I had to overcome two issues with these. The first is that I did not have the overlay planting guide that comes with the unit and secondly, I did not have the fertilizer tubes that you normally lay into the soil. My in-laws did not see the need to keep the guide and naturally, the fertilizer tubes dissolve in a planting cycle. I looked up the planting guide which gave me an approximate feeling for where and how spaced apart my plants should be. As far as the fertilizer tubes, I had my own fertilizers that are for the specific types of veggies I will be growing. With that in mind, I decided to forego buying the tubes at $9.00 plus shipping each. I have a pretty good feel for what the plants will need and when given my experience with them.

After I finished loading those two units, I then filled the two narrow planters with my mix. The bigger units will be used for lettuce and spinach initially. The smaller units will be for planting carrots. All of these will be staggered so we won't be overrun with a ton of the various harvests all at one time. I also have plans to plant chard and onions in a few other planters. I will look for other plants that I can grow that we eat. I'm thinking of growing Peppers in my basement over the winter as I have read it can be done with a few modifications. Just another experiment. 

My mix for all of these is an adaptation of what I have used in the past years plus a few amendments that I think need to be included. I started with 2 parts of a lightweight potting mix I have used previously. I added 1 part of a garden soil mix to the potting mix which had nutrients the potting mix didn't. Then I proceeded to add 1 part of vermiculite(vegetable variety) for water retention and creating spaces in the soil for root growth. And finally, I added 1 part spaghmum peat moss to soften the soil for easy root penetration.

I filled all the units with the same mixture so I could control the need for water. Fertilizer will be mixed in to the planters based upon the needs of the specific plants being grown in them. I will need to get the plants started along with seeding in the Winter Rye in each of my beds. There is a lot to do. I do have several tomato plants that have begun putting on tomatoes - much to my surprise. They have just really taken off in the last 3 weeks so there is, after their poor starts - hope. 

Well, that's all for now. As the weather outlook looks very favorable over the next week, I hope to be able to get a good chunk of the planters and beds seeded. I will update my progress in the next few days. So, until next time - Happy gardening everyone!

Fall crop preparations

My wife and I took a trip to the local Michaels to get a painting readjusted. Afterwards we went to the nearby T J Maxx for some shopping. Then we decided to go to the Goodwill superstore. We found a chair that my wife will be refurbishing. She is very talented doing that. We then decided to stop in to the Restore store to just look around. She found an older style table lamp that was in pretty good shape and given the price, it was worth a gamble. It had some imperfections which she was sure she could repair. As I was walking around, I noticed an accordion style bundle of what looked like the foldout car sun protectors you see in the summer. I opened it up and it was 12 attached folded boards with silver on one side and a blue foam on the other.
So a worker came by and I asked how much they were selling it for and he said 50 cents. Sold!

I have been trying to figure out a system where I could block the sun in the summer. The temps in the greenhouse would reach 115-130 degrees on sunny days. I knew it had to lightweight and easily installed and removed. The panels seemed the right fit to the problem. So yesterday afternoon, I went to work on getting the boards cut to size. With an assist from my wife as she found command strips of Velcro, I began adhering the Velcro to the boards and windows. After about an hour or so, I had the 4 panels in place as seen below. The test will be how much effect this will have. Time will tell. I have more boards to use if it needs a little tweaking.

Now that I may have hopefully altered the temps in the greenhouse, which I will need to monitor, I am going to begin assembling and seeding in the containers. I wasn't going to start them until near the end of August as the containers would require a lot of watering to keep them moist enough to grow in the hot greenhouse. I will post on that as soon as I have begun. Until next time, Happy Gardening Everyone!

Been a while

It has been a while since I last posted. Much has been going on in the garden and a lot more has been happening outside the garden. My wife and I decided that we needed to tear down the Patio Enclosure we inherited with the house when we bought it many years ago. It served its purpose all these years. We have many fond memories of our sons' birthday parties, our many family Christmas open houses, the many Christmas' we spent in there as our son grew up. One memory that is very present is when we bought him a huge Lego Starwars set for Christmas. The thing must have had a million pieces.

He and I sat down on the floor and began the task at hand. And, as I sat there watching him connect the pieces (with little help from me), I marveled at how he systematically and logically assembled that behemoth of a starship. It was the first time I can remember being in awe of him. 

But, all good things come to an end. Lately, when we were in the back room, you could feel the floor giving in and shaking a bit. It was time for it to go before we procrastinated too long. So we have been on a journey of getting contractor bids, and deciding how and what we wanted this new room to look like.

Trust me, it was a process that soaked up bunches of time with conversations with the contractor, deciding on the contractor and the myriad decisions attendant to creating a new living space. It's going to be worth it as the old room certainly outlived it purpose.
So, I have been away from the blog but have been busy with getting the garden roaring into summer. It's been quite a balancing act these last few weeks. I was out one morning at around 4:30 with my work light and head lamp transplanting my tomatoes. Had to be done and couldn't be delayed much longer. I know it seems a bit extreme but you can get a ton done at that hour of the day. The birds kept me company once the sun started to rise and I think I chased off a few pesky squirrels.
I will endeavor to try to post during our construction phase which starts in a little while. Here's hoping it all goes without a snag. But, lets be realistic here, there will be issues. We will persevere. Until the next time, 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.

;;
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!

Greenhouse update.

I am both happy and relieved to report that the greenhouse is now complete.  It took most of Saturday to erect the structure.  Thankfully the weather was almost ideal as it wasn't too warm.  It is still summer afterall in this part of the world.  It would not have been completed without the very able and determined efforts of my friend Mark, my wife, son and daughter in law.  It was challenging to say the least.
The biggest challenge came from the fact that the greenhouse had sat for almost 2 years before it was built.  It was stored in what I considered a relatively safe area but was somewhat exposed to the weather.  When opened, the instructions were unusable.  We printed the instructions from online but they were for the newer model and the numbers did not quite match up.  My wife and son were able to piece the door and vent parts together through what I would call dogged determination and methodology.  I would not have been so successful.  Lesson learned here not to procrastinate.
After siting the 4"X6" wood supports and laying down a run of marble stones in the troughs we dug, we then cut the wood to their proper sizes and leveled them on the stone.  We then attached the wood pieces to each other by using L brackets and 3 inch wood screws.  Once that was completed, we began the construction of the greenhouse.
As can be seen from the picture below, the process was to build the 4 walls separately.

This is the one of the wall sections which was comprised of about 10 pieces.  Once all 4 walls were built, we transported them to the site and attached them to each other.  Then the middle support was attached along with the three supports on each side which act as the channels for the "glass" inserts.
We then finished the greenhouse by inserting the vent into the section for it and attached the sliding door to entrance wall.  I then screwed 3" wood screws though the base of the greenhouse into the wood base framing.
Here is a picture of the finished product.

The greenhouse is 8 ft long and 6 foot wide.  It actually feels pretty spacey inside right now.  I am sure that will change once I load in selves and such.  The sunlight is diffused by the panels.  Both the space and the diffusion of light are better seen in the picture below. 

On Sunday, I began transferring the various shelving units I have into the greenhouse.  As can be seen below, there appears to be enough room for what I have planned. 

I hope to be able to try to grow the traditional root crops inside it.  I will then have a real feel for how far into the winter I can grow plants.  It will definitely help me with growing my own plant varieties and timing plant maturity in the spring and throughout the summer.  

That's all I have at this time.  My next step is to get as much of the garden plots reset before it is too cold.  I will keep you posted on that and the many goings on in the garden.  If you should have any questions, please drop me a line.  Thanks for visiting!

Where the garden's are today (Part 2)

As I have commented before, I have two gardens other than my own where I am assisting the homeowners with their endeavors.  The one I am going to speak about today is a garden that a coworker and his wife have.  There have been a few attempts to garden by them but, like most of us, they lead very busy lives.
So, my coworker built fences to keep his five dogs out of the beds.  Once that was done, we tilled the area where they had previous gardens and another area where no gardening was ever attempted.  I kept their expectations low on the new area givne the state of the ground.  I told them we would appoach that area as a developmental area this year.  Here is a picture of the area where they had a garden for a couple of years.

And here is the new gardening area.

                                             

In the exsisting area, we planted tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers.  I used the fence (which I cannot take any credit for) as supports for the cukes as seen below.  They will find the fence and then begin to climb it.  That should make for a nice green wall for the garden.

.Here are two pictures of the garden bed as it looked on this past Thursday.

I'll take more pictures when I go over this week to put down fish emulsion fertilizer on all the plants. The plants are beginning to react to the hot weather we have been having and seem to be growing at a pretty good pace.  
What we ran into with the new area is a lot of rocks and general debris that was buried.  Seems there was a garage in this area and the owners grandfather would either leave some stuff on the ground or buried it in place.  Rocks abound but that is part of the territory when opening up new plots.  Still not really sure what is under the surface but the overall soil health is poor at best.  I was planting a watermelon plant and ran into a string of red bricks.  So far, we have found about 10 but I know there are many more in this area given it lines up with the area of the garage.  I'll eventuall pull more of them as they are in great shape and very old.  Can't find this quality of brick anymore.
I've planted 4 paste tomatoes and a set of beans all of which are growing.  I also planted watermelon and a squash plant.  But, it seems, a rabbit had them for a quick snack.  Along with these, I planted canteloupes along the fence to again use the fence as supports as seen below.  This is a little older picture than the others.  I'll be updating these in the next week or so.

It's been quite interesting to take a yard that has never been gardened and see the work involved all over again.  After a few years, the garden can kind of fall into a yearly routine.  Part of the issue is that I am also maintaining my garden, this one and another garden along with working a full time job. I can see the potential of doing this type of stuff full time but realize it will have to wait until I retire. In the meantime, I have enough to keep me busy.
What is rewarding to me is to speak to these people and realize that they are interested in growing their own vegetables the organic way like I do.  It's extemely rewarding to pick a quart bag of buttercrunch lettuce, a fresh cucumber and a skad of beans like I did this morning and know exactly what was used to grow them besides the tremendous freshness component.  And they are looking to me and my expertise to guide them to this type of experience.  I just don't understand how one would not have a garden but then again, that's just me. The other gardener I am working with is a long time gardener who had begun to give up on gardening this year given his age.  I have spoken with him and helped him get his garden started this year. Now we are discussing what we we are going to do at the end of the season to make the soil better and the no-till approach that I have recently adopted.  He didn't want to give up the gardening, he just wanted to give up the work involved.  Organic, after all, is actually less work than the old style row gardening practices of the past.
Well, that's all for now.  I need to kick back and relax the rest of this day.  It's a beautiful, hot afternoon to just breathe.  Until next time, Happy Gardening everyone!      

Where the gardens are today(Part1)

I have been fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to assist two other gardeners in my area with setting up new garden areas for them.  I say fortunate because it is a compliment of sorts to have people ask you for advice let alone trust you to plan and implement their gardens.  It has been quite busy time maintaining my garden while working with these folks on their gardens all the while holding down a job too.  But it is very rewarding too.
My gardens' activity has been pretty hectic to date.  I expanded the garden area and made several decisions to make the garden more productive with food we enjoy eating and also to allow for foods that can be put up in the fall.
Last year I planted 4 paste tomatoes thinking I'd get enough from them to put up a few jars worth in the fall.  Just to try it out.  It was, to say the least, a huge disappointment.  I have spoken to several gardeners who all related that their tomatoes were off last year.  So this year, I bought 20 paste plants thinking an area of 81 sq. ft would be enough.  Not quite as it turned out.  Given last years crop issues, I did some research and found out that I have actually been crowding my tomatoes.  Seems the ideal spacing is 2 ft. between plants in a row and 3ft. between each row of caged plants.  So, I spaced mine so that I could get 15 plants in the isolated area where they wouldn't be impacted by any other plants issues.  Here's a picture of the plot so far.

The large boards on either end of the rows are set up so that I can tie them up in what is called the Florida weave method.  I have never used it before but decided it lookd easier (in the long run that is) than staking and/or caging the plants.  I do not like the cages that are sold everywhere as they are much too low height wise to handle plants that can grow to 6-8 ft. tall.  I never really understood why they were always manufactured to such small heights.  May have to do with the thin wire they use to construct them.  

The Florida weave method entails running a string alternately around the plants at 10 - 12 inches from the soil line and then every 10-12 inches upwards to give them the support they need.  Here is a picture of my first attempt at it.

You start at one end and weave the string on opposite sides of the plants as you go down the row and then loop back and weave the string to the other side of each plant.  This kind of cradles the plant as can be seen in the picture. When they get to 2 ft height, I will then do the weave at that height.  This will continue until they reach full height.  I am by no means an expert so this will be an experiment. We have had some windy weather and the plants seem to have had no issues yet.  

On another tomato note, I have 10 plants of various hybrid and heirloom plants in the ground that all seem to be doing very well too.  After researching why I had so few tomatoes last year, I learned thateither the hybrid tomatoes or heirlooms seem to do well each year but one always outperforms the other type.  As I had predominately heirlooms last year, that may have been the source of my issue. So, this year, I have it almost split down the middle.        

The two plants in the bowls are for my father in law for Father's day.  He used to have a garden but has given it up for various reasons.  I will put a cage around them for additional support.  I will use a mix of the cages I have and poles for support once they overgrow the cages.   All he has to do is water them at this point.

Speaking of experiments.  Last fall I grew out lettuce and carrots in a covered mini greenhouse.  The carrots are still growing and I have replanted the lettuce to see if I could continue to grow using the structure.  Here is where it is at as of now. 

I have two rows of leaf lettuce that are growing quite well.  I continue to water the plants and need to pull some of the carrots to see if progress is being made or we are at a standstill.  But, to have leaf lettuce this far into the season is a bonus.  

I planted a row of Buttercrunch lettuce about a month ago and covered it under woven vegetable fabric.  As can be seen below, it also is doing very well given the lateness of the season.

There are 7 heads of the lettuce in the row and they seem to all be growing very strong.  We're going to be having some nice salads soon enough.  

I also have a bed of 16 Bell Pepper plants that are doing ok given our decidely cooler weather we have been experiencing.  They are all healthy as can be seen in the picture below.  I love peppers but I really do think I over grew yet again this year.  I will probably end up giving some (alot actually) if they come in like last year.  We shall see how that turns out.  

I've also planted 6 cucumber plants.  I have them trellised on my DIY structures.  A local garden center closed about 2 years ago and I bought their onion set displays.  Here is how they ended up looking in place after I painted them and added screening.

They are really sturdy, wind resistant and somewhat compact.  When I bought them, my wife was skeptical as was I.  But, the cucumbers are starting to grow to a point where they are climbiming unto the screening.  I will see how they fare as they climb.
In the backround of the same picture are three interconnected wire "ladders" that I have converted to yet more cucumber trellises.  These were repurposed from being protective coverings for plate glass windows that were being delivered to the company where I work.  I wired them together and then attached them to rebar I pounded into the ground. they held up 5 cucumber plants - cucumbers and all through some windy storms.  These were being thrown out so I asked for them and was told if I can get them in my car - they were mine.  And they were.
With the weather turning much warmer in the next week, the various plants should begin to become more robust.  I will have to naturally watch them as the higher temps can cause issues.  You may leave in the morning and come home to plants wilting right before your eyes.  Don't stress!  This is natural as the plants wilt to preserve moisture to survive.  Just give them a good drink of water and watch them rebound.  It doesn't appear to cause any long term damage.  But if this happens repeatedly, that's mother nature telling you that you need to step up your watering game.
So, there you have the latest, greatest from my backyard.  In part 2, I will recap what has been happening in one of the gardens that I am assisting the people into becoming full on gardeners.  I will give all the details in the next week or earlier.  Until next time, Happy Gardening everyone!!!!   

It's getting there

Sunday was a fairly nice day all-in-all.  The weather was improved over Saturdays' chilly day that had a consistent wind which was not all that inviting.  So, I decided to take advantage of the sunnier and warmer afternoon Sunday and begin to get things moving.  First order of business was to cut the winter rye down that I had planted in the late fall.
The rye really took off over the last month so that proved to be a great bonus.  As can be seen, it was quite high thanks to the weather.

So, I proceeded to cut the various beds down in order to stunt their growth.  The idea here is to begin the process of getting the decomposition process started and not to cut the rye down all in one time. But rather, to do it in stages so as not to relase all the nutrients at one time.

 I stopped the process here in order to take a picture to show what I mean by cutting the rye down.  I purposely left about an inch or a little more uncut.  One point here also is that I cut the grass using hand held scissor trimmers.  This results in less of the grass being thrown everywhere and getting more of the rye to stay in the beds.  And, I get my share of exercise in the early Spring sun.  A string trimmer just launches the grass all over and a good portion usually lands outside the beds.
Once it is cut, it should look like the following:

 Once the cutting is completed, you should water the grass to speed up the breakdown of the material.  I will follow up with a mid week watering.  You don't have to soak the beds but rather, you should be watering just enough to moisten the cut grasses only.

Once that was completed for all three beds, I took a little rest and then decided to check the winter salad garden I have had.  I knew I needed to water it given the warmer temps we have been having. So, here is what I uncovered.

Everything looked better than anticipated.  My plans are to cut the lettuces and the spinach plants in the first two rows and then pull them out.  I need to make room for Broccoli and Cabbage at this point which will need covering for the next month or so.
After watering them and covering them back up, I decided to look in my shed to locate the plastic along with the tube supports to build temporary shelters for early start lettuce and spinach plants.  I usually plant these crops in my hydroponic systems but I have another use for that system this year.  And, given the other two gardens I have at my disposal - a total of about 5 K square feet - I have ample room to grow whatever I want in those.  I also have a small plot in the community garden I assist with in which I can plant about 32 more sq. feet of plants.  This year will be very challenging for me to fill all this space.  A nice issue to have but it can be overwhelming.  One thing is for sure, I will be very busy this year.
I pulled out various items and found my 5 plastic mini greenhouses that will allow me to cover up seedlings or plant seeds directly in the ground while not being concerned about freezes that can occur. That will be more than enough for my purposes.  The mini greenhouses are shown below.

                                                                                                                                                  

They have vents and are high enough to allow for substantial growth of the plants in them.  I will probably use them to begin early season plants from seed.
I also have supports and the plastic to cover them that I can use to cover about 32 square feet of space.  I will have to set them up and then decide, given all the new found space I have, what plants I will grow.  My main goal this year is to have a balanced crop of which we can put up some for over the winter.
The season is upon us and there is much to do.  Hopefully, I can get it all done,  Until next time, Happy Gardening everyone!

Oh beautiful day!

As the day began

We had one of the most delightful days in a very long time today.  The forecasters were dead on this time.  I planned on getting a very early start to the day given the forecast and what I really needed to get accomplished.
I actually look forward to beating the sun up because it is a very special time of the day to me.  The world is quiet for a while and you can just take in all of God's beauty.  It affords me time to breathe and just exist.  Even the birds aren't quite up yet.  And in the area where we live, that is saying alot as we have a very big population of loud birds.  Sometimes I can imagine me as a farmer and being out in the fields and just taking in the day before getting on to the business of farming.  You know, looking down from a hill over the rolling fields below just as morning is approaching.  It has to be one of the best offices with a view in the world.
So,  I was up at 5:15 and raring to go.  I put on my headlamp as it was dark outside and began the day.  I had a pile of limbs that needed to be cut up and bagged along with other yardwaste.  I sometimes have to wonder what my neighbors think when they see me up that early.  Then again, they may not even be up.  So here was my view at 5:30AM

I said it was dark didn't I?  I began clearing the pile and cutting up the pile when it occurred to me that most of the limbs were rather substantial.  Then it hit me - why not?

Permaculture anyone?

I decided to practice a little permaculture gardening.  Never heard of it?  Well, it is quite complex but one of the parts of it is to use what your land produces.  In this case, I decided to attempt to employ the various branches of the tree in my yard as plant supports in my garden.  I tried it last year with my Peppers and it worked very well for me.  So, I trimmed the various large branches down and bagged the waste products and the little limbs for disposal this week.  When I started, I thought I might get maybe 10 or so limbs for Pepper supports.  Here are the culled limbs.

After about an hour or so, I had all my limbs trimmed and ready for use in the garden.  And the bounty from nature was far more than I anticipated.  Here are the Pepper supports.  All 15 of them!

And here are the Tomato supports.

There are 11 of them.

Frugality?

Now, my experience is that these will last for about 2 or 3 years.  But then again, who cares?  I looked at tomato cages and supports and they can cost anywhere from $4 to $9 each.  Even at $3 a piece, that is a savings of $78.00 all totaled not counting taxes.  That seems significant to me.  I have been and continue to be frugal if nothing else when it comes to my garden.  Maybe I am a throwback given my experiences but it all adds up.  And readily free materials are available if you look for them and use your imagination.  I will go into this further in a subsequent post.

Sprucing up!

I've decided this year to tighten up the look of my gardens.  I noticed that the fence posts that I use were pretty well worn from the many years of service so I bought some spray paint to bring them back to life.  I think the results speak for themselves.  Before:

and after:

A small but I think significant improvement.  I'm going to paint the rest of them next chance I get.  \

Winter garden progress  

During the day, I checked in on the progress of the winter garden I kept going all through the winter. I wasn't expecting the lettuce to be doing okay as the temps were high and this garden was covered with three layers of protection.  So, I uncovered them in the 80 degree heat we had today and this is what I found.

Quite an early salad garden!  Not at all what I expected but I will take it.  I removed the extra layer of the thick greenhouse plastic to insure that it wouldn't get too hot in the greenhouse this week.  Of course, I will have to keep an eye on the weather to make sure it doesn't get too cold.  At this point, it looks like it will be normal without any drastic low temps.

Shared garden?

I have a freind who with his wife wants a garden this year.  They are really busy so I volunteered to help them this year with the garden.  When he told me he'd have 400 square feet of garden I kind of thought he was over shooting it.  He contacted me to come over to look at the space today.   Here are the spaces.

This is one plot.  Here's the other.

And here's the rest of the above space.

He wasn't kidding.  This is probably a little bigger than 400 sq ft.  It's what I call - big fun.  The nice thing about this is that it runs east to west and there are no trees to shade the sun.  The bulk of the space will be in full sun.  Should work for most plants but it defintely won't work too well for lettuce and such.  

Next?

Lots for sure.  Just seems that you run out of time regardless of how early you get up.  I have yet to ramp up with the community garden I have been helping out with and I am behind in growing my plants.  Having a full time job and doing serious gardening is sometimes overwhelming.  I mean, I put in 10 hours in on my garden and yard today and it feels like I did not get enough done.  Where did all this work come from?  But, you know what, I got to spend 10 hours on things I needed to and in my garden.  Not a bad day actually. 

And you?

Hopefully you are ramping up your garden activities just about now.  There is certainly alot to do this time of the year regardless of where and what zone you live in.  I hope you are getting your hands dirty and the soil tilled.  And, until next time, happy gardening everyone!