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!

Is Fall really here already?!

That just doesn't seem possible. I know summer still has a bit of a ways to go. But when I browse the web, there are all these various Youtube gardening experts bantering on about how it is time to do the various things gardeners should do to prepare for fall crops. I get that there are lead times and such that must be considered if you are going to grow into the earlier parts of winter. I never really put much effort into growing a fall crop as I did not have the time and I guess, the energy to tend to the plants. The fall crops need more attention than the summer ones. At least that has been my experience when I attempted to grow them the one or two times I did. Maybe I am wrong and just need to try again.
I helped my Father in Law set his generator in place Monday night in case the power went out. Our areas' power is prone to outages in lightning storms or high winds. Isaias sat almost directly overhead of us for about 5 hours and it put down a pretty brisk rate of rain and winds, but luckily, we had no outages. It wasn't a huge threat to us that the local media and national weather services made it out to be.  I know the coastal areas were in a much different situation but they seemed to withstand the storm pretty decently.
I worked on my greenhouses' door Monday as it was coming off in windy situations. And thankfully, given Isaias' wrath yesterday, my decision to attend to it so I wouldn't see it cartwheeling across my yard in a driving rain was well thought out. I shimmed it and then drove screws through the metal base and shims into the 4X4 wood base. Then I tightened the various nuts and bolts. Once shimmed and seemingly unable to come off the track, I ran a bead of caulk between the metal base of the greenhouse and the wood foundation. I checked on it Tuesday night and thankfully, the door was still in place and there wasn't any evidence of water seeping into the greenhouse.
I am thinking about growing a variety of lettuces', chard, carrots and the like this fall in the greenhouse. Part of what I need to get accomplished in order to do that is to make the greenhouse more weather tight. I am going to caulk the various panels in order to cut the wind seepage down and also stabilize them in case we get a strong storm. It held up pretty well last winter. But there were a couple of times when the panel just popped out in high winds. With a little elbow grease, I can hopefully lessen the likelihood of that happening this year.
I was planning on taking pictures yesterday of all the containers I have amassed this year and what my purposes are for them but, the rains were quite heavy. They persisted until later in the afternoon. So, I will postpone that to a later date this week. Our new family room and dining area is still under construction. I think we are about 2 weeks away from completion. It has been a long process with lots of decisions and a bunch of travelling here and there to buy the various accoutrements. Now that we can see it coming together, we are getting very excited.
So, I will leave it here. Please check back in a few days (barring any last minute room issues) for my post regarding the containers. As always, 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!

Taking stock

Yesterday was an absolutely gorgeous day in our region. We hit a high of 78 in our area with periodic clouds. Given we have had mostly unseasonably cooler weather recently, it was a nice surprise that felt really nice. As I walked to the garden with a mental list of what I was going to accomplish, I decided that it was actually going to be a day of minimal input on my part where I would just soak up the garden. Not sure what triggered the change of heart, but I just went with the flow.
So, I grabbed a garbage bag and walked the garden while gathering up the various limbs and other debris that has been deposited by my tree through all the storms we have had. Then I checked the various plants and watered those that needed it. I had a pile of cardboard that I have been working on periodically to shred for my composting. So, I finally finished that process under the shade of my tree. I put the cardboard into my one empty bin and covered that with a heaping of leaf mold. I watered that all down and went about the rest of my meanderings. 
Overall, at this stage of the gardening season, I came to the conclusion that my garden is coming along quite well. I am growing many new plants that I never had. New to me are peas, onions and potatoes. While I nurse them along, I have many plants that are also coming along nicely. Is it worth the effort? Absolutely.
Despite the challenges that this Spring season has presented, the garden is doing about as well as can be expected. There will be more issues I am sure. But that is part of the allure of gardening for me - overcoming the obstacles.
Speaking of issues, our weather is on a projected downward trajectory this week. We have freeze warnings being talked about for Mother's day this Sunday. And the outlook for the rest of May is for colder weather than normal with rain. So much for Spring eh?
But I will continue to dig in and garden. Sure, I'm going to have to adapt to the circumstances but don't we all. Today is a new day and there is lots to do in the garden. And that will keep me moving along. So I'd better get going as the new week is ahead and there's plenty to do. Take care everyone. Until next time, Happy Gardening everyone!

Moving forward

Posted on May 1, 2020 6:14 PM

Yesterday was quite a wet day for most of the east coast. It started out windy with strong gusts here. I could see the approaching storm to the west but it wasn't raining when I woke up around 6AM. I waited until it got lighter and poked my head out. It was rather warm and despite the winds, really not too bad of a day. I gathered myself and went to the garden and decided it was time to transplant my onion seedlings. I did notice that a crew was delivering shingles by crane to one of my backyard neighbors. Glad it wasn't me as the winds were increasing in intensity.
So, I assembled all my tools and opened the structure where I decided to plant them. As I kept an eye on the approaching storm, I dug the holes and transplanted the 11 seedlings in about 45 minutes. I watered them down, took the picture below and closed off the structure as a little rain was starting. I then closed everything up and went inside as the winds picked up a little more and it began to rain steadily. That's what I call just in time planting. Here is the result of my endeavors.

The storm hit way too hard for me to do much else the rest of the day. We had areas around us that flooded with over a foot of water or more. We received about an inch of rain overall but the winds and the high tides combined to push the local rivers over their banks. Not a pleasant experience for all those involved.
Wednesday, I assembled my fence garden pots in order to seed in more Spinach. I had 5 existing plants which I just cut back on Tuesday for salads. So, I planted in the remaining 7 units with Spinach seeds. I used a mixture of the Miracle Grow Organics soil, sifted compost from my composter, and some seed starting mix at the top to place the seed in. This was a unit a saw on sale last year at our local BJ's. It worked pretty well last year so I am hoping it will do the same or better this year.

Also on Wednesday, I planted in my recycled shoe holder. Yes, I am one of those people who saves things not knowing if I'll ever use it. I just look at the item and, if it is unusual, I more than likely will keep it. In this case, both the tubing and the shoe caddy were saved from the garbage by me. You just never know.
After I hung it on the back wall of my greenhouse, I cut holes in the bottom of each pouch and inserted tubing that I had saved for future purposes probably 3 years ago. I then filled the first container with the dirt and wetted it down to see if the water would empty into the container below. The test confirmed that indeed, the water did flow through. I then proceeded to fill another 7, each time testing to be sure of the drainage. Once that was finished, I had my wife pick out the herbs she would use. She picked the 8 she thought would be used by us. No sense in growing something you won't use. Never understood folks who did that unless a neighbor or other family member were going to use it.

I did check on my beans and cabbage plants. All seem to be coming along fine. With regards to the beans, I used some bean seeds that are probably 4 years old along with brand new beans I just recently bought locally. The older seeds are still quite viable when compared to the newer seeds. I have other seeds from 2010 that I planted early this year that gave me near 90% germination.

I attribute that to the fact that I keep my seeds in a small "dorm" refrigerator and that I keep them in photo cases. I simply pull the proper colored container for the seeds I need and leave the others in the fridge. They are in the container that signifies the season that they are planted. For instance, the yellow and green are for spring. I have the seeds that are typically planted in that season stored in those boxes. Along with this, I have an excel spreadsheet that lists the various 265 seed packets that I have and what year they are from. And, each line is color coded to match the color of the boxes. I bought this at my wife's urging as they are really made for keeping photos. Yes, there was some upfront labor involved, but I haven't bought any seed packets that I didn't know I already had anymore. And this is so much more time efficient than my previous storage system. I say its worth every bit of time I have saved.

Much to my delight, when I looked at the area where I planted my potato starts, there was one that already broke through the ground and evidence that another 6 were beginning to break through too. If that holds up, I will be very pleased by that. I say that because the potato is probably far and away the most caloric and nutritionally dense vegetable. They are rich in carbs, fiber, vitamin C, B6, potassium and manganese. When processed, they lose a fair portion of everything. So, I am cautiously excited as I had a little doubt about the potatoes I received. Apparently, looks are deceiving. Here is a look at my first ever potato plant. LOL!

That's about all I have for this Friday. Much still going on in the garden so I am hoping the weather can moderate. Until next time, Happy Gardening everyone.