Fast and Furious

Things are moving fast and furious here. Fall is inexplicably fast approaching or so it feels. I guess it's just that there is a lot of work to be done and time is going by fast. I have begun the lettuce and chard plants in the greenhouse planters along with seeding in the Winter Rye in one garden bed. I am a little early with the rye but I do have my reasons for this.
The primary reason is that I did not get a crop planted early enough last year and it was what I would call feeble. There were patches of it but not what I would call vigorous. This affected this years crops and resulted in failures I am not accustomed to. The second reason is that the outlook for fall is, from what I can discern, colder than normal. If I delay the planting into this weather, the Rye will not be as healthy as I need. There are two components to the Rye. The first is the top growth which will help stabilize the surface of the soil. For farmers, this is important to control soil erosion. For me, it's more about weed suppression in the spring. The second aspect is root growth and penetration. With the warmer weather I am currently planting into, the roots will be more voluminous and longer. When the Rye is cut in the spring, the roots die and leave aeration pathways for the plants roots to develop. It also softens the soils composition. I should see the results next year.

As I said earlier, I planted my seeds for lettuce in the greenhouse planters. I began by spacing the plantings according to the instructions I found on line. I made holes where the seeds were going to be planted. After this, I filled each divot with vermiculite and watered it down. Then I placed the seeds into the vermiculite and watered them in to make sure the seeds were moist. I followed this by spreading a thin coat of vermiculite over the seeded area and moistening it again. I have been doing this for many years with good success. I adapted this from a procedure I learned while using the Square Foot Method. Here is a picture after planting the first four varieties of lettuce. 

I used the same method on one of my round planters to start a chard plant. I thought that Chard needed a deeper planter but as it turns out, from research I did after starting this plant, they actually do quite well on shallower planters. So, lesson learned. Here is a picture of this plant/planter.

Later in the evening, I seeded Rye into one of my beds. I started by raking the soil to loosen the surface tension. Next, I watered the soil with a fine mist and then spread the seed as evenly as possible. I did use a little more seed than usual as I want a very dense growth this year. I then took a rake and tamped the seed into the soil so it made contact with the ground. After completing the seeding and tamping, I watered the bed down again with a fine mist just to insure the seeds were moistened. After that, I spread a layer of Peat Moss over the bed and watered it down. I followed this with a light coating of more Peat to cover the seeds that emerged when I watered the first layer down. The peat both covers the seeds from birds and keeps the moisture level even.
I will water the bed in the morning, around noon and at dusk in order to assist the germination. You don't want seed to dry out. I won't water as much once the seedlings usually appear in about 5-6 days.
Here is the picture of the finished bed.

My next projects will be to continue with the seeding in of my beds and to plant additional crops in the greenhouse. I think I will start 2 Pepper, 3 Spinach and a row of carrot plants for now. That's all the news at this time. So, until the next post, Happy Gardening everyone!

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!

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!