If my flights went well, I should be home from my trip by now. But I scheduled this one before I went just in case I didn't make it. Obviously I have no harvest since I haven't been home for two weeks, but I did do a couple of things to get the garden ready for spring before I left.
If you remember my MIL gave me some birthday money and I spent some of it on irrigation. I now have all of it in but the T-tape in the back and side yards. I finished the rock wall garden by the driveway. But in the back and side yards I only have the mainline hose down right now.
You can barely see the pipe running along the bricks near the kale
This back and side yard irrigation will only hit the circle garden outside my kitchen door (but not the actual circle in the middle with the herbs) and the strip along the foundation where my cilantro and sunflower will grow. Oh and some flowers. I'm hoping the sweet alyssum will reseed itself, but if not I'll buy or seed something very short there. I'm hoping it will be bee heaven.
I also seeded some of the early spring Asian greens. This bed will have, from inner circle to outer circle, tatsoi, green stemmed baby bok choy, white stemmed baby bok choy, choy sum, and Fun Jen in the corners. I only did half the bed. I'll do the other bed when it warms up more. It was supposed to get into the 60s when I was gone. I hope it did. I hope they came up. I'll find out later today when I wake up. Oh and did you notice how I followed the circle in planting. I don't know why I did that since I'll never have the cover off to look at it except to harvest and weed. But I couldn't help following the curve.
After they were seeded, I tamped them in and watered. Then I covered with my new row covers. I'm thinking these covers won't keep out the flee beetles. I'm OK with that. I can keep the population down with my white containers filled with soapy water. It doesn't get them all, but does seem to keep the population in check. But it does look like it will keep out the root maggots and the cabbage butterflies. I was putting it up in the wind and I'm happy to say the wind goes through this more than it does for Agribon. So one good thing. It will keep things from damping off as much. It seems like it would let the water in a lot better too. I'll find out as time progresses.
Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.
Nothing to harvest here yet but we are getting things ready for planting :0)
ReplyDeleteI've seen quite a few cabbage butterflies here already, and I haven't even planted my cabbage family seedlings. Everything is earlier this year, even the bugs!
ReplyDeleteThe row covers look good! I hope you had a good break.
ReplyDeleteI'm harvesting the last of the tomatoes and getting ready for winter crops.
I hope you had a lovely break. Your beautifully curved rows look great, at least it will be asthetically pleasing whislt weeding.
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ReplyDeleteI got seeds planted. That was my main contribution to the garden this week. I love the curved garden beds. They should be pretty when the plants grow up.
ReplyDeleteWelcome home, your beds are looking good. No harvest from the garden, but from the trees, yes!
ReplyDeleteHope your trip was great and that you made it home timely. Your curved bed is so beautiful, I would have planted to the curve too. All your investments in irrigation and row covers are getting put in service and should provide some real dividends to you for the thoughtful gift from your MIL.
ReplyDeleteHope you're home safely and resting up! The beds look great! you're much more organized than I am in prepping your beds. I love how you followed the curve! Even if you won't get to see it often, it's still there and is still pretty ;-)
ReplyDeleteI woul dhave followed the curve as well, it looks great. I love the row covers, I wish my DH would understand that while it isn't pretty it is SO practical! LOL. Oh well. I fight the good fight. :-D
ReplyDeleteI haven't heard about the soapy water - flea beetle thing. Do you think you could explain it to me? I hate seeing all those little holes on my lovely greens!
ReplyDeleteFlee beetles are attracted to the color yellow. They often sell yellow sticky traps for them. I figured I could make my own yellow traps so I first used my white plastic containers with yellow paper in the bottom to make the water yellow (with soap because they can't escape from soapy water, but they can from straight water). So it was a homemade yellow trap. I found that the white color is almost as good however. Not quite. Yellow is better, but since my containers are white I've since stuck to those. In addition if you use them outside the row cover, bees can get attracted to the yellow. But they don't drown themselves in the white containers.
DeleteHope you have arrived home safely and are getting lots of sleep! I hadn't head of using containers of soapy water for flea beetles either. Do you just set trays of it around the plants?
ReplyDeleteYup I just put white containers around with soapy water in them. Yellow is better, but white works and lots of plastic containers are white. Other colors won't work.
Deletethanks, some of the year we have flea beetles; I could probably use the bottoms of bleach bottles rinse and cut down.
DeleteHope you had a wonderful trip! Every time we are away, we are always so excited to see what's changed in the garden upon our return.
ReplyDeleteWow things are coming along. We are still a few weeks away from being able to plant much outside. We get a lot of snow and rain this time of year so our ground stays pretty wet until mid April. In fact we had two inches of snow last night!!
ReplyDeleteThat net like cover is just what I've been wanting (But I already purchased the other and opened it) Thanks for sharing the link - I can't wait to try it when the other one falls apart in the wind we have here. We don't have fleas here in Utah so it would be perfect. We have a terrible time with cabbage loopers because they love the alfalfa fields we live in the middle of. Any tips for slugs?
ReplyDeleteSlugs are hard. You either have to hand pick or use some kind of insecticide. I've tried diatomaceous earth with marginal results, but Sluggo works (iron phospate). It is one of the few insecticides I'll use in the garden, mainly because slugs are such a destructive and pervasive pest.
Deletethey say that ducks are great for slugs
DeleteInterestinf row covers, glad that it does not get that cold here!
ReplyDeleteHope you're getting some rest from your trip before the gardening season heats up.
ReplyDeleteCould you give me some advice on using floating row cover?
ReplyDeleteIn my community garden,I have big problem with flee beetles.
I noticed that my greens become bitter (I don't mind some insect holes, though).
So this year, I've just ordered Agribon to try out.
Any advice to the first user?
Greens usually become bitter when stressed. This can happen for so many reasons. The most common is heat stress. Most greens (but not all) like to grow in the cool weather. So make sure you grow them at the appropriate time for your climate. I don't know where you live. In the northern US we can grow them in the spring and fall (mostly). In the far south, winter is probably a better season. If you have cool summers you can probably grow them in the summer too, but even in Boston the weather isn't cool enough to grow lettuce easily in the worst of summer. Though things like shade cloth (which I don't use) and lots of water can help.
DeleteIf you use a row cover, make sure to put it on right after sowing or transplanting. If you leave it even for a day, the pests could already be under it. I have problems with flee beetles on brassicas. So I never grow them in the same location twice. If you do the larvae can be in the soil over the winter and your row cover will just provide a nice protected spot for them to breed. Make sure the cover is tacked down well all along the edge. I do this with rebar and then the ends reinforced with rocks over that (or the wind might blow it up as rebar is not quite heavy enough). I have lots of 4' and 2' lengths. I've found rocks aren't always good enough by themselves. The pests have a way of finding the gaps. Agribon will hold in the moisture (so more disease issues if you are in a wet climate). Also it doesn't let the rain in well. So you might have to hand water under the row cover if it is dry. If you live in a very windy spot make sure you have supports for your row covers (though the protection from the wind will help your plants grow). Otherwise it will bash the plants too much and hurt them. If your area doesn't get much wind, I think it doesn't matter as much. Personally I love row covers for my brassicas and chenopodias for pest protection. And the row covers really make the crops grow faster. One year I tested spring planted spinach with and without a row cover. The one with the row cover was harvestable about a week before the one in the open. Plus germination was better.
WOW, Thanks for the great advice
DeleteI live in North east Ohio, so we do get pretty hot during summer here. We do have pretty strong winds at times, especially during spring. Didn't know all the ups and downs of using floating row cover (they sounded so easy to maintain, 'floating' ^^).
thank you!
I like the look of the new row covers! Thanks for the info!
ReplyDeleteWelcome back! I've been lurking on your blog for probably about 6 months - I love how you've designed your beds.
ReplyDeleteIrrigation is something we've talked about but never got around to doing. I'm curious to see how you like yours.
Hope your trip went well. I am always amaze how everything is so organize in your garden.
ReplyDeleteI'm liking the idea that these covers are more durable, and can be used for many seasons to come!
ReplyDeleteWelcome back. Hope you had a relaxing vacation. Very nice rows, and those row covers are so practical. My southern California garden is ahead of New England, and I harvested over 9 lbs last week, mostly citrus.
ReplyDeleteI loved how your circle of veges (I think it was lettuce) last year looked. Can't wait to see pictures of this years.
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