Wednesday, March 21, 2012

I'm Baaack

So yes I'm back home. I didn't wait long on Sunday to take a look at the garden. In fact it was the first thing I did. I didn't even go in the house and put away the luggage. The spinach called to me. The overwintered spinach looks fabulous.

And lo and behold my early sowed spinach all came up.

And I'm totally shocked that my peas came up. Almost every one of them. Just a few didn't show. It wasn't that it was so cold out. The ground did freeze on them, but really they were planted on Feb 24th. No one plants peas that early here. I thought all those early sown spinach and peas would be goners when winter really hit. But it never did. Usually I'm digging my garden for the first time around St Patrick's Day.

On Monday I got the rest of the spinach bed fertilized and sowed. I don't really turn over my soil on a regular basis so I just forked it a bit without turning any layers over. I wanted to get some air into the depths. Then I added a row cover to keep out the leaf miners. With the overwintered spinach I don't bother. But this year I think I'll have problems with them in that bed. The insects are coming out a month early. Hopefully I'll get a good harvest there before the miners hit.

I also seeded a lot of soil blocks. Since the soil is so dang warm outside I decided to accelerate the schedule, if I had been home I probably would have done it even more. I seeded everything that was on the March list. Some of them are a week early, but with the soil so warm I'm not too worried.

Sadly Monday night I came down with Montezuma's revenge. I had been lulled on the ship and in Costa Rica to complacency. At the Panamanian airport I got a sandwich at Quiznos (most of the food places were American chains). Sadly I didn't tell them to keep the lettuce off. Monday morning I had a small stomach ache, but it hit hard on Monday night. Tuesday I was pretty out of it. Mostly I sat reading blogs (too out of it to comment though) and writing. I wanted to be in the garden, but standing up made me dizzy. I finally made myself go out and plant the peas and carrots at 1pm.

The weather was beautiful. It was in the high 70s. It felt nice sitting in the dirt. It didn't feel nice standing up. I was tired so I decided I didn't need to strain my soil so I could put it over the little carrot seed. Instead I put on some vermiculite. As you can see I made a bit of a mess with it, but mostly it followed the rows and was so quick.

Here you can see the burlap on the carrots. The snap peas are the foot wide strip in the back. About 3/4 of the front 8' section was seeded before and are coming up. So I seeded the last quarter and seeded about a third of the farther 8' section of bed with snow peas.

I still have many things to do that I was hoping to get done today. I want to plant my onions. I want to seed some radishes. And interestingly enough some self seeded lettuce overwintered and I want to transplant it out of the paths and into the beds. There is a lot of other things that need doing. I never pruned my fruit trees. I'll have to do that soon. The buds are swelling already. I know I'm late.

Some of my Asian greens came up that I seeded right before I left. I want to over seed where there aren't enough. There is a little bit of raking to do. Oh and lots of weeding. All those winter weeds have got to go. I ought to pull out half of my cilantro bed and stir the soil. The seed remaining will germinate. I should check under the old sweet alyssum and if it is germinating already I ought to uncover it. So much work.

13 comments:

  1. We just had spinach from the hoop houses last night. It was so good. My newly planted spinach is up also, and looks healthy. I am trying to be brave enough to plant something else. But what if we get more snow....

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    1. As long as you have extra seed why not? That is what I did with my peas and this year was rewarded (last year I had to replant my beans because of a late cold snap - you just never know). Transplants are another matter though. They can't be replaced as easily. I'll be safer with them and ready to cover them.

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  2. Oh, my! I planted a bit earlier than usual, now I wish I'd planted even earlier! I haven't any seeds sprouted in the garden yet, only the transplants are growing. I should say just sitting there, not showing any growth. I do think I saw a radish breaking the surface yesterday, so maybe there is hope.

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    1. When I planted my peas, I really thought I was being silly. I figured March would bring massively freezing weather to make up for the rest of the winter. But I got lucky. Now it is actually pea planting time and whoohoo I already have them. It will be interesting to see how early some things like corn can be planted. I'll probably push the season and replant if necessary. I have lots of seed I think.

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  3. I'm having a hard time adjusting my seed planting schedule due to the unusual warm weather. I'm tempted to plant a short row of bush beans and see what happens. The soil is warm enough, but it's still March, and I can't recall ever planting beans that early.

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    1. I know just how you feel. I was out planting my onions and the soil was the temperature for beans and tomatoes. It is hot. I'm not about to plant beans yet, but I might well plant them early this year. Everything seems to be about 3 weeks early.

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  4. I haven't sown one darn seed yet. Bit that's really because I'm in the process of having planter boxes built in the garden and all the existing soil has to be moved out of the way. And then back again. And the work is progressing at a measured pace... Anyway, I didn't want to have a bunch of healthy seedlings with no place to plant them. And it's just as well since we had a blast of arctic air hit us which produced a lot of hail, any babies in the garden would have been pulverized or frost bitten.

    I hope you make peace with Montezuma soon, that's the worst kind of travel souvenir

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    1. Hopefully your garden will be back up and running soon. I hated the year I only had part of a garden.

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  5. I'm presuming the burlap protects the carrot seeds? I need to employ something similar as whenever I sow carrots there seems to something digging them up and its starting to drive me mad...

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    1. The burlap helps keep the seeds in place and keeps them moister. So it helps them germinate. As soon as they start to germinate I'll remove it. One year I left it on too long and the little seedlings all died of damping off. After that I'll have to protect them with some bird netting as the cats will dig in the bed otherwise.

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  6. For being sick you sure have gotten a lot of work done! I like the burlap idea. We'll have to try that when we plant our carrots. I love seeing your spinach coming up. Ours looks just like that! I know you're a great spinach grower, so that means if we keep pace this season maybe we'll have success too. Any recommendations for helping them grow strong and healthy from here to harvest?

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    1. I fertilize it before putting seeding. I don't do anything else to them except cover them to keep out the leaf miners. I so hate leaf miners. Sometimes they get in even with the cover, but the damage usually isn't too bad then.

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  7. I sure hope you are over Montezuma's Revenge, but I sure am impressed with how much you did despite not feeling well!

    I have lots of really early direct seeded items up too. We are not having the same warm spring you are - but it has been mild enough that things are moving along.

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