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.

Garden progress

 Garden progress

Posted on Jan 11, 2021 11:51 AM

Last Thursday was a very beautiful day for winter. The sun was out and the temps were going to be in the low 50's. As I gazed out my back room, I was immediately reminded that I had a bunch of bamboo poles that needed to be cut for the construction of my fence. Knowing I needed at least 44 six and half foot poles, I began to cut the poles with my hacksaw.
Having already sorted them, I began to cut the longer poles that I had determined would give me 2 supports each. Those gave me 28 supports. Then I turned my efforts to the bamboo that would give me 1 pole each being shorter than the other set. At that point, I combined the cut poles and was very happy that I had a total of 58 poles. And, as a bonus, after looking at the remants from the cuttings, I was able to save many more than I originally thought for plant supports. I estimate that I will get probably 15-20 total. They probably couldn't be used for heavier types of plants like tomatoes and cucumbers, but they definitely could be put into service on pepper plants and such. Below is a split picture showing the fence posts along side the plant supports.

The bamboo was free as they were being pulled out of a backyard and the person just wanted to get rid of them. I researched the use of bamboo and found out if you let them age from a green color to brown, they will become more rigid. These have aged in my backyard for about 8 months if memory serves and they are pretty rigid. I couldn't be happier with the outcome.
The cutting took about 2 hours all in all. Now the project can move to actual assembly of the fence when I purchase the fencing. I can't wait as I need to defend the plants from all of the pesky squirrels in our area.
That's all I have at this time. There is still much to do and I will be relating as much as I can. Spring is fast approaching so the pressure will start to mount. Good thing I love gardening so much. Until next time, Happy Gardening everyone!