Rain, Rain, Rain

Whoohoo! Rain! Today is our third day of rain. For the most part it was a nice gentle rain. We have over 2.5 inches which is great but it is about to stop. I'm sure the plants are really happy for the water. The temperatures on the other hand dropped 40F (22C) in two days. On Saturday we had a high of 91F (33C). Yesterday it was 51F (11C). The sweet potatoes aren't too happy, but I think they will recover when the weather gets better.

The last couple of days has brought in something else. A small but hungry groundhog. At first he was just eating the weeds in the grass. I was good with that. But he has taken a liking to some of the new plants in the perennial bed. Namely the rudbeckia and gaillardia. So I've covered them with some bird netting. It isn't the prettiest for a spot near my front door, but I need them to get established before the wildlife munches on them. These plants were transplanted out as little seedlings just over a month ago. And just so you know, my vegetable garden is well fortified. It has a good three foot fence and in most spots it has hardware cloth that goes down a foot. Groundhogs around here are nothing new.

With all the rain, getting out to the garden and getting things done has been a challenge. I harvested and preserved greens both Sunday and Monday. I picked during breaks in the rain. One of the beds I picked was supposed to get corn and squash planted yesterday. I hadn't even gotten the bed totally cleared. I picked the spinach, but hadn't pulled and composted the plants yet.

So in one nice break I got out to clear that bed out. It is the uppermost bed. Though as you can see it still has greens in it. Those are self seeded Deer Tongue lettuce. I'll probably have to pick them before planting (rescheduled for tomorrow), but I may be able to leave some in to grow full size. The corn and squash don't need all the space immediately. But as you can see from the beds on the left I plant my corn in a grid and if the lettuce plants are in the wrong spot they will need to go.

While I was cleaning up I got under the Asian greens row cover (lower most bed) and cleaned up the waste from the bok choy and tatsoi I picked the other day. It just got left there because the rain had started again. That bed will be sown in corn and squash too. But I'll wait another week for that one.

Morning Routine

Mizuna ready for picking

I'm starting to set into a routine with my greens now that so many are ready for picking. These greens are what I'm freezing for the winter - mizuna, spinach, kale, and soon to be chard. I pick them as soon as I get up in he morning. I only pick one bed, which so far ends up being a bit over a pound and a half. It has been cold in the morning recently. I keep forgetting to wear my coat so my hands get a bit numb with the moisture on the leaves. I bring them in. Photograph and weight them. Clean and blanch them. At this point I love standing over the stove as it makes me so much warmer. As soon as they are blanched and in their ice bath, I bring up yesterdays greens from the freezer to package up. I save some of today's greens for the evening meal and fill my now empty mini silicon loaf molds with greens and freeze them. I toss the wash and ice bath water onto the raspberries - though tomorrow it might be the strawberries. And let the hot water cool on the stove to heat the house a bit as it cools down. Then I make breakfast. It is a very calming and happy routine.

Mizuna after picking

I cut the leaves from one side one time, and the other the next

In other years I've done larger bouts of preserving of greens. This way is easier on me. I don't spend so long over the stove and the chore is done before breakfast so doesn't take up my day. This routine will only last for another couple of weeks as then the spinach and mizuna will get ripped out. Then I'll be left with just chard and kale. It will be hotter. I'll want to do larger batches if I can to avoid heating the house up so often. But my current routine is nice while it lasts.

Two sisters bed starting to be planted

And as to yesterday's garden chores, I planted up another batch of corn seed that I soaked for a day before planting. You can just see a corner of the one I planted a week and a half ago. It is up. The squash I planted on the end of that bed came up, but one damped off, so I'm chitting some more seed. The squash for this new bed will be butternut. I've got the seed soaking in a paper towel. As soon as it starts to send out roots, I'll plant them. I might need to put a cutworm collar around the seeds as I found two cutworms when I prepped the bed.

Kohlrabi starting to form

I also got under the row cover to the bed with the kohlrabi, Michihili cabbage, and some turnips. The bed needed weeding. I lost one kohlrabi to something. Since it was big and wilted and died I'm guessing root maggots. But the rest look great, so I'll have a lot of kohlrabi this year.

Birds and Flowers

Yesterday I noticed a flock of sparrows in my garden. They were on the netting row covers, hopping around. I was afraid they would break the netting as it is so fragile but they didn't. One however did get under one of my row covers. He is in the above photo in the upper left. Just a blur as he was desperate to get out. I went out and lifted the cover. I fully expected there to be a hole where he got in, but no. The only place I could imagine was at one corner there was a bit of fabric that wasn't tacked down well enough. But he would have had to crawl under a thick bunch to get under. Needless to say I tacked it down better after I let the poor bird out.

I haven't been out much over the last handful of days as I've had family in, but before they came I got a few plants in so I wouldn't have to keep them alive during that interval. I put in the last succession of baby Asian greens. I put in my zinnias in four spots - the wall garden, the new perennial bed, the front door flower pot, and the edge of the vegetable garden. And I put in four Brussels sprouts. I hope they grow. I really need to make them a row cover which I hope to get to today. Right now I just have them under some scraps. Now all I have left are twelve soil blocks. Two groups of six. A succession of lettuces and my basil. I should probably get those in soon too as the weather is going to be so nice over the next week.

I didn't get a lot of chance to go out and see what is happening in the yard. But we are in the middle of a long warm spell. So the blooms have been bursting out. The peach blossoms aren't particularly big or showy, but they are a pretty pink. I have two peach trees. Redhaven was planted in 2011 and has given us so many peaches already. It is just covered in flowers as you can see above. The other is Stark Elberta Queen and it was planted last year. It is still a pretty small tree even for a dwarf, but it is blossoming too. If it sets any fruit I'll pick them off. I need this tree to get bigger first. Maybe next year I'll let it set. It is supposed to be a later peach than Red Haven as I want to extend the peach season.

Also in the front yard the strawberries are in bloom. As you can see some of the flowers are losing petals already. Usually I get the first berries in mid to late May. Last year the first harvest was May 31st - very late. I think the earliest has been the 19th. I'm hoping our warm spell right now will give us the earliest yet. Can you tell I'm impatient for my first strawberry?

Also in the rock wall garden are some newly planted fruit and some that were planted in 2013. So this is their third year. For dwarf trees sometimes that means fruit, but I've espaliered these trees and they grow more slowly when you have to cut them back to force branches in certain spots. So there are no blossoms. Though the pear tree is looking very healthy.

The currant and gooseberry blooms aren't really much to look at as the blooms are green, but they sure are floriferous. I'm always shocked by how many blooms a currant puts out on a small little plant. I suppose the berries aren't big, but still.

The Ginger Gold apple is just covered in blooms. I'll have a huge thinning chore this year. Last year it didn't do much, but the year before it did. It isn't supposed to be a biennial bearer and I did thin the fruit in 2013. I'm hoping it doesn't keep being biennial. The best I can do is thin and hope, unless anyone has other suggestions.

Our other apple tree in the back yard is Honey Crisp. It was planted the same year as the Ginger Gold. The Ginger Gold is 7' tall. The Honey Crisp is 4'. But at least it is blooming well this year. So I'll let the fruit set and just assume I'll have a tiny tree there. At least it will be easy to net to keep the squirrels out. I think I'll need help netting the Ginger Gold this year. Without netting I wouldn't get any peaches or any apples at all. The squirrels would eat them all - though the groundhogs sometimes get the low lying fruit.

I guess the only flowers that I haven't talked about are the blueberries. They too are in bloom right now. There are still a lot of buds that haven't opened too. I'm thinking about netting these this year. I always net my strawberries so I can get something but the blueberries have been unprotected. I often don't get more than one or two ripe ones. Interestingly enough I never net the currants or gooseberries and the squirrels don't eat those. But the blueberries they love.

Compost

I have two small black bins. One for composting the kitchen scraps and one for holding finished compost. The later was almost empty. In addition I have four pallet bins. Two hold leaves that I collect in the fall and two are for my working compost. I don't keep any of these bins very active. Worms probably do as much of the breakdown as anything else. It is hard sifting compost with the number of worms that proliferate over the summer. Even now when things are cold there are a lot of worms working.

Most of the garden got compost last fall, all except the overwintered kale and spinach beds. I'll need that compost in June when I turn the spinach bed into melons. In addition the kitchen scrap bin gets pretty smelly as it melts out from the winter. Even though it is covered it gets very wet and goes a bit anaerobic. Which means as soon as possible after it thaws I need to turn it. When I turn it in the fall I tend to get nice compost out of the bottom, but things don't break down as much over the winter when it is frozen.

The third pallet bin (left to right) was empty. I started by turning over the second pallet bin into it. When I had a good foot at the bottom, I put a couple of buckets of the kitchen compost on it. Then more of the garden waste from bin two. I repeated that until the kitchen bin was done. I spread the chore over two days. Now it is finished.

Well almost finished. The kitchen bin is finished, but I had to quit turning bin two as I hit ice. The rest of that is frozen. Now that the covering insulation of all the compost is gone I'm sure it will thaw quickly. I'll do bits of it as it thaws out each day. At this point I'm sifting what is there for finished compost. I want to get any bits that are finished sorted out from the sticks and half decomposed material. And I was desperately trying not to kill any worms while I was doing it. I was shocked how many works resided just above the frozen block of compost.

Compost is not the only thing I've been working on in the garden. I've been busy planting a few things. Above is the marjoram. I also planted winter savory. Seeded radishes. And received and planted my Lee #8 saskatoon (also called a juneberry or serviceberry). This morning the only plants that I had outdoors were extras from other plantings.

Which is good since it was time to bring down another flat of plants. These are the last set of baby Asian greens, the Brussels sprouts, and the zinnias. I covered them because it is getting warm enough that the root maggot fly might be out and about. The basil was in that flat too, but I took those plants out and left them upstairs with the six lettuce plants. There are just twelve plants left upstairs. It almost seems like it isn't worth keeping the lights on. I will though until it warms up enough to put the plants outdoors. I don't have any south facing windows. Just southeast and southwest. The lights will be better for them.

Growth

This week has been below normal in temperatures, but it hasn't stopped the garden from popping up in growth. This is especially true of the spinach in the Circle Garden. A week ago I might have found a leaf or two to pick. Today once it warms up from its low of 34F (1C), I'll get to go out and make my first picking. I'm dancing with joy over that.

The lettuce on the other hand is just sitting there this week. It has made some progress but not enough to want to harvest anything from it. You can tell it has been cold as the Red Sails lettuce is all red. When it gets warmer it will be a lot greener.

Right next to the lettuce are my radishes. They have all popped up. I've thinned them out to about 4". That is enough space for them to grow quickly this spring. I could have left them closer, but I didn't. Impatience for my crops is winning out.

Off in the main part of the garden (going from bed 8 to bed 1), the peas have started to come up. Really I saw the first little green bits a week ago. I see more now, but they haven't really unfurled. They are being slow.

In the same bed but under cover my turnips are coming up. Around them are my Chinese cabbages that are doing well. I like to put the turnips down the middle as the cabbages take up so much space, but when they are young they don't. I'll have to get in and thin those turnips soon. I probably won't give them as much space as I did my radishes. These will mature in spurts over time.

I have spinach coming up in a lot of beds, but the best is the one by the brick path. The beds closer to it are always warmer and it isn't just the bricks. They get more sun here. I can even see little tiny true leaves starting to form. There is good germination in one of the other beds too, but one is being slow about it. The ground was still frozen 4" down in parts of that bed when they were planted. So it is taking a while to warm up. The warmer parts are sprouted but the parts closest to the fence are not. But spinach I've found doesn't rot out easily. So they will be up when the ground is warm enough.

The allium bed is doing very well. The garlic all came up. And the onions that I planted a little over a week ago are starting to break dormancy.

I think the hard winter really hurt the kale. I'm still going to get a decent harvest from the dwarf curly kale as it is so hardy.

The Winterbor kale didn't fare as well. A couple died outright. The tops of all of the plants died. But I cut the dead parts off and the rest of the stems are starting to sprout leaves. I'm not sure what the harvest will be, but I'll at least get some kale raab. But that is weeks away.

And last but not least, my best hope for early harvests - my baby Asian greens. They always do so well in the spring. Except for the few larger plants they were put in a week an a half ago. And even with our cooler temps this week, they have kept growing well.

I have other things in the garden growing too. The carrots started sprouting a couple of days ago. So they have taken two weeks to germinate. Some years it is three. The umbelliferae bed is growing slowly and the fennel has started to sprout. The broccoli and other brassicas are doing very very well under their row covers. The chard is surviving. It survives quite well at these temperatures, but it doesn't like them. It wants warmer weather. Which it will get come Wednesday. It looks like that is the turning point to better weather. At least for a short time.

Planting Celery and Brassicas

This morning was warm but rained a bit. After the rain stopped I decided it was nice enough to plant some more seedlings. The parsley, celery, and celeriac were a bit overgrown as it was. The bed at the end was partly frozen still, but the section I needed for these was thawed. Yesterday the soil on the far end of the bed by the brick path even got to 60F (15C) yesterday when it was sunny. That last foot by the fence though still doesn't see anything but very early morning sun, so that ice takes a while to melt out. But I'm not putting any transplants there. I'm going to let the fennel pop up on its own from seed heads that I tossed there last fall.

I had two extra celery plants left over and put them right next to the other ones. That area is supposed to get peas in a week or two, but I don't mind losing some space to more celery.

Next up was to decide which of the brassica flats to go in today.

I decided on the baby Asian greens. They were more tangled and I didn't need them to get worse with time. Also since they produce so quickly keeping them longer in the blocks tends to make them bolt more easily. They are the first of the brassicas to produce and I want them to get going quickly. With the weather so nice and warm it will really jump start them.

When I put the window box plants in this bed I didn't measure. It made it a pain as doing a grid lets me get the plants in without crowding better. Those window box plants didn't fit my grid well. So there is a bit of unused space in there. Maybe I should have just crammed them in tighter.

I still have 24 more little plants growing upstairs under lights. In a couple weeks they will need to go in. I'm hoping the window box plants will be at least partially harvested by then as I don't have anywhere near that space for 24 more plants. But worse comes to worse I can shove them in or just toss them. I might just pick some at the baby stage to free up room. They are already baby Asian greens as it is - small plants naturally. There isn't much to them if you don't let them size up. But I'll cross that bridge in a couple of weeks.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll get to the other flat of brassicas and the alliums. I'm not great at taking care of the poor plants that need to be watered at least once a day and sometimes twice on really sunny warm days. Sometimes I let them wilt too much. They are always happier planted.

Planting Peas

Today I got out to plant my peas. Usually I do them as a double row along the long back of the bed. But I don't need as many peas as I can't eat them. I'm just going to eat the pea shoots. So I'm planting them in two separate patches along the short end of the bed. The first patch was three short rows. I'm not sure if doing three rows 6" apart is a mistake or not. I won't know until they grow if I can get in to pick them well enough.

I put some nitrogen fixing microbes in with them as I do every year - well every year that I remember. But also this year I wanted to try out some mycorrhizal fungi. But to test I only put it on the northwest side of the bed. If the north side grows a lot better I'll have to keep doing it.

I did the same test with some lettuce. Today I planted the two bottom rows and the bottom most one (again the northwest side so I wouldn't forget) has the mychorrhizae on their roots. The other one doesn't. I have a feeling that right now the soil is too cold for the fungi to really grow, but it will be warming up in no time.

The last thing to get planted was the Asian greens. The pretty celery and parsley on the right side of the flat sadly must wait a bit longer for the ground to thaw out more. Hopefully it will be soon. But the Asian greens joined the earlier planted ones in the bed. The endomycorrhiza does not grow on any of the brassica family, so I couldn't expand my experiment.

I've got some more Asian greens and other brassicas hardening off on my back steps. So the next round is soon to join this round. Usually plantings don't come this quickly together, but the seedlings needed to stay indoors longer than normal. I tend to like brassica seedlings to grow no more than 2.5 to 3 weeks before being hardened off. But Mother Nature doesn't always cooperate with me.

Digging and Seeding

Stark sent me an email saying that my trees (plum, apple, and persimmon) were being shipped. They are supposed to arrive today. I wanted to get their planting area ready and Wednesday the rain was on and off. I picked an off time to go out. The first order of business was to take down the figs. Then remove the trellis. I left the eye screws in the fence as they might be useful in training the trees. The metal bar at the bottom however was sunk into the soil. It took some serious work to get out. Yesterday my fitbit told me that I didn't get my exercise. It lies. All told I got an hour and a half of work. And some of it heavy work. But the figs and trellis are now gone.

I also started to remove the old European plum. I got partway there. It is cut down to a stump, but today I'll have to go out and remove the stump. The trellis for this one is staying. I'm going to espalier an apple tree here. I will have to figure out how far apart I want the wires though. Currently they are 6" which is too close for an apple tree. I'm thinking four cordons 18" apart.

Thursday was yet another cold rainy day. So I decided I needed to get my indoor planting done. First up was the rooted slips of Garnet sweet potato. I had let the roots get a tad long, but I'm not going to be planting the whole plant. Come May I'll take cuttings from the plant and root those in water again.

I put them in 4" pots and put them under the lights. I'll move them to the sun later. If we ever see the sun again. I hate dreary days.

I was behind in seeding some of my plants. My schedule said April 3rd. It was almost a week late. But I got in another round of baby Asian greens, some Brussels sprouts, basil, and a mix of Zinnias. I also made some blocks for later in little tiny containers. I'm going to be sowing six lettuce plants every three weeks. I'll see if I can keep it up all summer long or not. It helps to have premade blocks to make it faster.

One of three trays

The seedlings that were sowed on March 25th are growing well except the choy sum on the right. Some didn't even germinate from the new seed this year. The older seed did better. But I'll plant what did come up. Choy sum is such a pain to grow, but I keep trying because when it works, it is so good. It is one of my favorites of the Asian greens.

I'll be hardening these plants off starting today once it warms up a bit. Our forecast is good with temperatures in the low 50Fs and into the high 60Fs for the coming week (which would bee teens for the Celsius fans).

The Second Planting

Asian greens planted

Sadly my second day of planting wasn't nearly as nice as my first. The temps were only in the low 40Fs. Brr. Plus it drizzled most of the day. But I was tired of those window boxes. I would drag them in and out. And have to water them. In the ground I can watch them grow, but they don't require much effort. Plus I need the space in front of the sliding glass door for hardening off my next set of Asian greens and lettuce.

The baby Asian greens have Bed 2E. That was one of the first ones to thaw out. So I prepped the bed and planted them in. The ones in pots were easy to plant, but the window box was harder as it was so big and heavy. After planting I put up a netting row cover. I'm not sure when the root maggots come out - maybe mid April. But I didn't want to risk it.

Lettuce, radish, and turnip bed

Next up was the west bed of the Circle Garden. I planted the really early lettuce here and under the netting cover I seeded some radishes and turnips. I'm growing a new radish this year. German Giant. I'll see if they can indeed get giant. I only seeded up half of their allotted space. The other half is for a later sowing. But I can't sow them too late as this bed needs to be empty by June 1st for my melons. Though last year I planted the melons a week late and they still produced in a timely manner, so I could probably push it if I wanted to.

Tuesday through Thursday were pretty miserable weather days here. Rain, drizzle, low 40Fs weather. But late tomorrow that trend ought to reverse. We are supposed to get some really nice 60F (15C) weather. Maybe even above average weather for a change. That would be so nice. I have plants showing up on my doorstep today and tomorrow. I need to get them in the ground. Everything is easier when the weather is nice.

Hopeful Seeding

With the cold weather we have had I'm not really sure when to start my main indoor plantings. We had been having weather about 10F degrees below normal. But things seem to be moderating. Our average temperatures for the end of March are supposed in the low 50s. If I ignore Saturday which is predicted to be in the mid 30s, we will be getting that for the next week with some higher temps and some lower temps, but about what it ought to be. So some nicer weather. My seeding plan says I start my main plantings on March 20th. I decided to start them yesterday not quite a week late. I'm still a bit worried whether it will be warm enough by mid April to plant them. But I'm hopeful.

I love soil blocks, but not everyone does. I use the 1 1/2" ones for almost everything. Today I calculated that I needed 180 blocks. That makes 2 1/2 flats of them. One flat was filled with all the baby Asian greens. Usually I don't grow so many transplants of these. I often put in some for early greens, but then I direct seed the rest as it is less work that way. This year I won't have time to direct seed as the ground won't thaw soon enough. So I'm doing this batch and I'll do another smaller batch in a couple of weeks. This batch contained choy cum, Hon Tsai Tai, mizuna, tatsoi, and bok choy.

Covered to retain moisture until they germinate

The second flat was my other brassicas - Michihili, broccoli, three types of cabbage, kale, and kohlrabi. I wanted to do three different kinds of cabbage this year to try different early cabbages. I have Early Jersey, Point One, and Golden Acre.

The last half flat has my chard, marjoram, and savory. I've never had so many flats all in there at once. Usually my onions are already outside hardening off. At the most I might have three flats going. Often just two. But with switching what I grow this year (to get rid of most legumes) and the weather issues, I needed three lights turned on. I've never ever done that before. And if things don't melt out quickly enough I might just try to do spinach inside for the first time. Usually that isn't worth it, but I really want my spinach crop. We will see.

It's a Start

Yesterday was 58F and last night it didn't get below freezing, so the melt has really started I probably have about 20" to go still though. And can you see it?

Some of the top leaves of the kale are starting to show. Whoot!

Indoors, I had some overgrown seedlings to plant up.

I potted up the Asian greens and the lettuce. The umbellifloras on the right side are growing slowly as always. That is why I start them so early. They didn't get moved. Though later this week I'll make more soil blocks and give them new neighbors.

I used the compost from Ecofest for filling the pots. I probably ought to have some sand or something else for drainage too, but I don't have any on hand, so I'll see how it goes.

I put some of them in a couple of old window boxes and the rest in 4" pots. I'll keep them in those pots until harvest. I want to see if that space is big enough to get a harvest or not. I have a feeling water will be my biggest issue. A six inch pot would probably be better, but I don't have those. I only have 4" ones. I'm not much of a container gardener, so I'm not going to go out and buy anymore.

Today was too windy and cold to put them outside, but hopefully tomorrow they will see the sun for a couple of hours.