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. . . )

In the Greenhouse, April First

Just an update: what's going on in the greenhouse.

Tomatoes, Last Year & This Year

Well, this was my goal this winter. 2021 tomatoes on the vine before 2020 tomatoes were done. 

These are the last (so far) blossoms on the 2020 tomato plant in the greenhouse. There are maybe a dozen flowers across the plant. 

This is a yellow cherry tomato.

And these are the very first blossoms on the first tomato plant of 2021. 

In all fairness, I don't know what kind of tomato this is; it's a weed that sprouted among the earliest hot peppers from very early this year. 

 

(Well, it might be a Brandywine.)

Midwinter, Early March

I admit. I'm really looking forward to Spring.

A guy down at the greenhouse shop said that he was was starting his brassicas mid-January to put out into his garden mid-February.

I thought I would try that. 

Well, the brassicas did survive, but barely. I'm not impressed. I forgot how much the bugs (and apparently birds) like brassicas.

So I thought maybe carrot starts would do better in the garden this winter and then other things.

 

And the bugs aren't overly fond of carrots.

I started these indoors, same time: mid-January. Transplanting them outdoors a few at a time since mid-February.

They seem to be thriving. Nice!

 

On the other hand, I've been harvesting last year's carrots all winter long. Pretty yummy.

And now, second week in March, the rhubarb is beginning to come up. Nice.

New Growth on Old Plants

I'm surprised this winter by how much new growth is popping out on the peppers and fuchsias from last year. 

 

I was expecting them to die. These are reportedly annuals. They're clearly not dead. 

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.

February Tomatoes

I'm still getting cherry tomatoes from a 2020 plant. They're pretty good especially for fresh tomatoes in February. 

My goal is to have tomatoes from a 2021 plant before the 2020 plant is done. 

 

This is my leading candidate. I don't know what variety this is, since it's a weed; I suspect that it's a cherry tomato of some sort. 

The End of January

 Mid-January, I ran into a fellow who explained that he was going to start his brassicas mid-January, and put them out into his garden mid-February under protective cover. 

That sounded like a good idea, so I joined him. All the brassicas I could think of, and a fair bit of lettuce as well. Some of it is pretty small. Some of the starts How are a couple of inches. 

Clearly not ready to go out quite yet.

This is going to be interesting. If I'm not careful, I might actually learn something new!

Last weekend, I let one seedling bad to get a little dry, and all of my Scotch Bonnets got dried out in wimpy. So I watered them, of course. 

Then I plant a bunch more. By that time all the wimpy ones had turned around, We're going to have a good harvest.

This weekend, I realized I had no red habanero peppers. So I harvested one of the last ripe red Habaneros, took the seeds out of it, and planted them. 

I've got a dozen red Habaneros coming, if it all goes well.

I also picked up some poblano pepper seeds this weekend and planted a dozen poblano peppers. (Poblanos are called ancho peppers when they're dried.)

I've been looking for something that is not as spicy as some of the peppers, something that I can cook with, that I can grill with. This looks like it might be that answer.

Winter Mulch

Neighborhood cut down a tree, and was chipping up the branches. I decided it was the right time to mulch the garden.

Last year's mulch had mostly composted except the top inch. 

The front two beds needed more depth. I scraped off the top inch of chips, added an inch of fresh compost and another inch of well-mulched chips before adding a couple of inches of fresh chips on top.

All other beds got a topping of fresh chips over their existing chips; between 1" and 3" depending on the bed. 

It's going to be interesting to see how seeds and plants do in this environment.

Peppers Update

Middle of January. Hot peppers are doing pretty well. Ghost is very successful. Lemon drop is very successful. Have a few Scotch bonnets a few Jamaican scorpions. Got a fair number of miscellaneous Chiles for sharing; should not be quite so hot. Average size, between 1 inch and 3 inches.

Also pruned back last year's potted peppers.