First Day of Daylight Savings

March 12th, 2013. I did a fair bit of work in the garden this weekend.    

I started by topping up the soil in all of the raised beds. It took a full cubic yard altogether. Lot of shoveling. 
 
I used the Garden Mix from Western Soils: 1/3 manure, 2/3 topsoil, or so. Pretty rich. 
 
The soil in the raised beds had settled a fair bit during the last couple of years. 
 
That's partly because soil settles, and partly because I filled the bottoms of the raised beds with scrap wood; an attempt at hugelkultur: a permaculture technique that involves branches and wood under the soil, decomposing, for long-term enrichment of the soil. 
 
Before I filled the bins, I removed the things growing there (well, most of them). In the process, I found a whole bunch of red onion starts. I think one of my red onion flowers last year went to seed before I got to it and this spring, I have scads of little baby red onion starts!  

I was terrifically excited to find all these free onion starts, and my favorite onions at that! So I planted all the volunteer onion starts, and some of the Walla Walla Sweet Onion starts that I'd been working on all winter in the greenhouse. We'll see how well they do.
 
After two days of shoveling and raking, I looked into what could be planted already. 

I've always waited until later for a lot of my spring gardening, but several seeds said, "Plant as early as soil can be worked." And I'd clearly been working the soil. So I planted some things.
Four rows of things here. The first was supposed to be radishes, but when I planted them, it turns out they were beet seeds. Whoops. Well, they're both red, found root crops, aren't they?
Then carrots, then more beets (on purpose this time) and finally, some actual radishes. 

I also planted a row of sugar snap peas (I soaked the seeds for a day in advance). Actually, I laid the (soaked) seeds on the soil, and added the new soil on top.
Yesterday, I had dug into the soil under that space and added both blood meal and bone meal. Hoping for good peas again. Excellent for friends and family grazing opportunities. 

Note that the first bed in the back has been growing garlic all winter. I added to it (there was some elephant garlic among the little onion starts, rescued from the other beds). 

I've also got some Swiss chard growing on the near end of this bed: it's been out and under cover for a week or more (with one out from under cover), and they seem to be doing pretty well. 

There's one Romaine lettuce under cover at the other end of the bed; been there for a week, too. 

Mid-winter, we'd discovered some red potatoes growing in a dark cupboard. I stuck those in dirt, hoping they'd survive and maybe grow. They're growing well.

First of May

Just a few photos to document the state of the growing things as of the beginning of May.

 

Greenhouse is doing pretty well. Lost a lot of pepper starts this year just from trying to do too much. Still had some successes.

Also kept about a dozen pepper plants from last summer. Nice.

 Fig tree doing well.

First tomatoes of 2021 on the left. Last tomatoes of 2020 on the right. It was my goal to cross this year's harvest over last year's like this. Fun.

I discovered these starting trays this year, end of April. Magnificent! Too late for the peppers, but just in time for pretty much everything else. Spectacularly useful. Nearly all the plants in this year's gardens will have a start in one of these trays. 

 Rhubarb is doing great. Peas are getting started.

Salad is getting a start. We caught scrub jays eating the young plants, hence the screen. Had real trouble finding actual Romaine lettuce seeds. We have Swiss Giant romaine variant, Red Romaine and the prettiest: Trout's Back Romaine.  

Asparagus starting nicely. Still needs another year or two before much harvesting.  

Garlic on the left, onions on the right (Walla Walla sweets and Red). Some Swiss Chard left over from last year for the chickens. 

Growing a lemon tree from a seed from my own lemon tree. 

Growing a kumquat from a seed. Got this one from a grocery store. 

Overview: early May in the garden.

In the Garden, April First

The first week of April was very much Spring like. T-shirt weather, lots of sunshine. I cannot help but garden.

 

Half a bed of garlic, half a bed of WallaWalla sweet onions. With some kale/chard for chickens at the end.

 

Broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi. They're doing great! 

  Lettuce and carrots, both from starts.

 Going to have loads of rhubarb.

I've discovered that the Scrub Jays really like eating the baby pea plants. So we've protected them.

Getting the tomato patch ready for tomatoes.
Exciting.
(Only six weeks to go. . . )

Mid February Update

My to do list says that February 15th is time to plant some of last month's brassica starts into the garden. I put one out there (under a dome) a couple of days ago. We'll see if it survives.

I don't think I'll be able to plant things into the garden this weekend. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The other thing on the list for this weekend was to start tomatoes and sweet peppers.This is a little early, but I want really strong starts come early May, when it's time for them to go into the garden. And I'll probably give a few away, too.

 

These are on a heating pad, under a dome, inside the greenhouse. I'm looking forward to these, too.  

Choices this year: 

Slicing Tomatoes:
• Brandywine for flavor, even though they're low producers. Indeterminate.
• Cherokee Purple, also for flavor. We'll see how they produce. Also indeterminate. 

• Delicious. I hope they live up to their name. Indeterminate heavy producers.
• Legend: Determinate. For in the greenhouse, where indeterminate gets out of control pretty quickly.

Cooking Tomatoes: 

• San Marzano. Is there any reason to try anything else? Indeterminate, heavy producers. 

Cherry Tomatoes: 

• Chocolate Cherry, because it's yummy. 

• Unlabeled red cherry tomatoes from previous years. 

(I'm planning to restrict cherry tomatoes to pots this year, particularly hanging pots.)

Sweet Peppers: 

• Poblano. I've never grown these before. Looking forward to it. 

• Big Jim. For roasting on the grille. 

• California Wonder: just your basic bell pepper. 

• Big Ol' Bell. Not sure what this is; seeds from online somewhere.

Christmas 2020 Planting

On December 23rd, I planted more.

- purchased Ghost pepper seeds. 

 

- purchased Jamaican Red Hot seeds. [A little research suggests that these are actually a red Scotch Bonnet.]

 

- purchased yellow Scotch Bonnet. [I've recently learned that these are twice as hot as habaneros. Half the heat of Ghost.]

 

- Ed Hume chili variety pack. ["Included, depending on availability, are cayenne, Hungarian wax, serrano, habenero, hot cherry, and other hot chile types."] I'm thankful for more moderate heat in the pepper mix. 

 

- also started some spinach and lettuce, and some flowers for in the greenhouse.

December 2010: the 2021 Garden Begins

First week of December, planted some peppers.

- Ghost peppers from seeds left over from dehydrating.

 

- Lemon Drop from dehydrator seeds 

 

- Purple Serrano from fresh peppers 

 

- Ghost peppers from very fresh peppers 

 

- Fresno peppers (jalapeño variety) from seeds I'd saved. 

 

- Habanero from seeds I'd saved 

Fresh Ghost pepper seeds sprouted immediately. 

 

Fresh Serrano and saved Fresno also sprouted quickly. 

The Garden in June

It's June now, and the garden is filling out nicely. It looks full, but there's not much (except salad) that's ready to eat now.

The stock tanks are amazing. Far easier to work with.

There are three avocado trees; no fruit on these yet. The olive and lemons are looking very promising!


The trellis for the peas is getting quite bushy. I'm eager for them to ripen. Kind of a neat entry into the garden.










Herb garden, part one.

That's our picnic table back in there, right behind the basil bed.

Sage on the far end, next to the blueberry bush. That blueberry is doing remarkably poorly this year. Every time it rains, the busted gutter drains a lot of the water on top of the berry; that may be a problem. That's on the honeydo list this year.

This is the second part of the herb garden. The plants in the ground are herbs.

Hanging, we have some herbs, some nasturtiums (spicy!), some tomatoes (not ripe yet), and some cucumbers.


















This is the new patio behind the garage. Making use of the small space.

I was concerned that the pomegranate tree had died. It's coming back. We put the wood on the chain link gate to keep the wind from whipping through there. I think that helped it freeze last winter.

Kiwis growing on the fence, sunflowers up against it. Tomatoes in the hanging pots, more herbs in the pots on the shelf on the fence. 

I've been experimenting with trying to add flowers around the edges. We'll see how that goes. I'll certainly need to water much of that, but it should be worth it.

Inside the greenhouse, things are calmer than earlier in the spring. All the 'maters and squashes are out. The pepper bed is doing well; I have a couple of cucumbers growing around the peppers in there, and a couple of tomatoes in the back.

I'll probably keep starting things far too long into the year. It's just so interesting! Currently, I have four mystery seeds going, and some giant asparagus things from a seed pod I found in a public garden.

Tomato Bed Arrives

10' x 3' x 2'.

March Greenhouse Status

Just journaling about the progress of stuff in the greenhouse.

Hanging pot full of alyssum.

No idea how this will turn out, but they've germinated.

They're reported to like acid soil, so I've given them some lime (in water). Might have over-done it.

One of the warm beds.

The front is impatiens flowers. The white did great. the colors are mostly a fail.

Got little bits going on: some lemon cuke, some squashes, a little bit of basil.

Observation: Most things that I started early did not benefit from the early start. Tomatoes are the exception. And Impatiens.

Lots more has not yet germinated.

In the center, sunflowers. Looking to have enough for cut flowers.

In the back: not a clue. I think it may give me a flower later. I forgot to label it.

Other, fresher, sunflower seeds have yet to germinate.

This is amazing. This is a licorice mint. It smells as much like licorice as it does mint.

I plan to harvest leaves and try to make tea.

I also plan to start several more of these.

The other hot bed.

Lots of tomatoes in front. These are mostly slicers (Legend)

In the back, some starts: licorice mint, rosemary, etc.

Oh, and the Frankenflower seeds are soaking there, on a warming mat.

This is the part under the plastic.

The tray on the right: one row of petunia seeds, one of rosemary seeds.

The tray on the left: lavender seeds, lemon pepper seeds (the really important one!), chinese lantern seeds, and some more impatiens (colors). 

You can probably tell, I'm tired of paying lots of money for annuals; going to try to get a bunch from seed here.

Embarrassing. I don't remember what these starts are. I think Swiss chard is among them.

It is completely ridiculous to have such good tomato starts this early in the year. They are almost ready to go into the garden, but 8 weeks early. That's what you get when you start the seeds in January. It's going to be interesting to see if this is good or bad in the long run.

First hanging pot full of tomatoes. Most of them are chocolate cherries. One is a mystery. We'll see what that turns into.

Going to have a pot full of nasturtiums, too. For grazing.

More tomato starts.

Yellow zucchini, more sunflowers (red ones), and some cantaloupes.

Some pepper starts, several varieties. Many of them are bell peppers, but there's a cayenne pepper there, and two yellow reapers.

Some globe amaranth was included with a seed order. Gonna try that. And some tubs ready to plant later.

One of my favorites: schizanthus (the poor man's orchid) in a hanging pot. I love these beautiful flowers.

Onions sprouting.

The super hot peppers didn't do terrifically. So I replanted them. The back is San Marzano peppers, the front is Fresno peppers.

 A variety of seedlings. Dill (on the left) is the most successful. One pattypan squash. No sign of the Anaheim peppers or the bench peppers. Last year, the bench peppers were habaneros.

Some of the more successful starts.

Some Legend (slicing) tomatoes. And some sugar peas. I'm planting some of those outside every day.

Romaine lettuce and swiss chard are doing well.

Spinach and coriander are not.

Salad. A variety of lettuces. These won't be transplanted. These will be harvested from this container. Micro-greens.

On the left: feldsalat vs corn salad.

On the right, flowers: marigolds, blackeyed susans, cardinal climbers.




We discovered some purple potatoes sprouting in a cupboard (from last year's harvest). So I planted them. Potato sack is indoors for now. It'll go out shortly.

And they're sprouting!

This is one of the more exciting photos on this page: buds on the lemon tree.

Two young avocado trees.

Hold it. This is one of the more exciting things on this page.

This is a lemon drop pepper plant that's survived through the winter, and is budding again.

I wonder if it will give me more fruit this year. That would be really cool.

Lemon drop peppers are my favorite spicy pepper to grow: hard to find anywhere, and incredibly delicious! My daughter discovered them.





This is the 4-year-old (or so) avocado tree. Strong and healthy.Turns out it needs lots of water over winter. It's putting on a lot of new growth.






And the olive tree is fruitful, too. Thirty or forty. I haven't picked them. What would I do with them?