Spring Has Sprung

It finally feels like spring here instead of winter. This week's predictions are for 50F for highs and 32 for lows - well for the most part. The snow isn't 100% gone, but all the parts in the sun are snow free and warming well. Yesterday I prepared two 4'x8' beds, including fertilizing the beds. The first had a high nitrogen fertilizer for my spinach. I got it all mixed in and then planted out some Space spinach seeds. I sow them in rows 6" apart (7 rows as I don't like them next to the edge). My in row spacing is about 2" or a bit less. Not all of them will sprout, and I'll eat the little baby spinach thinnings when they get big enough.

The other bed is the pea bed which got a lower nitrogen fertilizer. I didn't plant peas yet as one spot didn't thaw because a pile of snow was next to it. I moved the snow so it would melt faster and brought the frozen patch to the top. I'm hoping this afternoon it will have thawed out. With the coming warmer weather, I should be able to plant soon, hopefully today.

My onions are all hardened off and ready to plant. Their bed is next to the fence though and that section takes a bit longer to thaw than the beds closest to the path. They are still in shade and haven't seen any direct sun yet. Soon though. Everyday the sun moves closer in. Just a few feet are left. I will plant them as soon as that section thaws. I might do part of them earlier and just keep planting as more and more of it warms up.

In previous years I've put my brassicas that need hardening off underneath the row covers in the garden beds. But this year I made a little support for a row cover over my flat so I can keep my seedlings right next to the kitchen door. This will keep any butterflies or flea beetles from attacking them when they are so small. And I will look at them more often to make sure they aren't getting too dry.

I made a tiny support too. I grow the seedlings indoors in flats. But when one kind of seedling needs to be hardened off and there aren't very many, I move them to a small repurposed take out container. Here you see my very early Asian greens. Not many, but early is risky.

Oh and I almost forgot. The soil in Massachusetts will get very acidic if it isn't limed. Blueberries grow naturally here. We get a lot of acid rain. I did a soil test through our extension service in January. I dug up the samples in December, but forgot to send them in until the end of January. My pH is 6.4. When it was put in two years ago the pH was 6.9. I like to keep the garden between 7 and 6.5. So it was time to lime. Their recommendation was 2-3lbs/100sqft. Normal lime is about 1lb/cup, but I used pelleted lime and weighed it at about 2/3 of that. And since my 4'x8' foot beds are about 2/3rds of 100sqft, I figured I needed about 2 cups of lime per bed. I don't use a spreader. I have use a 2 cup measuring cup for all my garden fertilizer and lime. Sadly after doing all the outer beds except where the corn will be planted and one inner bed (the one that will have the onions), I ran out of lime. I'll have to pick some up today. Hopefully I won't forget where I put it already. It is better to lime in the fall, but spring will have to do.

Before The Rain

Our weather forecast is for rainy cool temps to move in after today. Finally normal weather. So today and yesterday I was getting ready for the deluge. Well OK the predictions say 2". I'm good with that. It is enough to wet our bone dry soil.

The first chore yesterday was to plant up the flower bed. I grew the cosmos in the back. They have been out for weeks waiting their time to get planted. In the front are Johnny-Jump-Ups that were transplanted from the places that they jumped up in and didn't belong. In the middle I sowed some zinnia. But the first thing I needed to do was run my irrigation system in this bed for the first time. It shares irrigation with the asparagus and strawberries and a few fruit trees. Basically the whole rock wall garden is on one system. The system ran perfectly the first time except for the ends. The doohickeys that are at the ends of the lines aren't holding well enough. Some water drips out. If it were the same as the emitters on the T-tape it would be fine, but it isn't. It runs out faster. The other connections didn't leak at all. I'm going to have to do something about this, but I'm not sure what. Probably a call to the company is in order.

Oh and speaking of irrigation. I looked at the strawberries. Two of them had already died from dehydration and some showed problems. Hopefully the water we are getting will perk them all up again. They are all in flower right now and setting. Hmm which makes me think I have another chore coming up soon. Protecting them from the varmits.

I didn't want to plant anything else yesterday as it got to 80F. So I waited until today. I moved some more Johnny-Jump-Ups to the back yard in front of the raspberries. These aren't them, but the ones I moved are small and not as in flower. I'm sure they will look like these soon. If only they would jump up in the right places. They do come up all over, but never ever where I want them.

Then I dealt with the baby Asian greens bed. The ones that have been in there were weeded and thinned. I found two cut worms in the mix. Hopefully there aren't more. Then I planted the ones I started indoors on the other side.

It was so dry I would dig a trench. Water. Let it drain. Put in the plants. Then water again. I don't think I watered enough to moisten the whole bed, but it was enough to keep the poor plants from dying until it starts to rain tonight.

Then I had to preform the last rites on a poor dehydrated broccoli plant. RIP

Broccoli with chard in the back

This is what he should be looking like. He was replaced with some extras I had saved. The ones that survived are twice as big as the ones that I planted today. I put two into the hole. I'll cut one down mercilessly once I'm sure one will live. I dumped my extra transplants. I was tired of looking at all the too big plants for their soil blocks. I just kept them long enough to make sure I had plants that lived.

Then it was on to the mustard patch. They had come up, but there were some bare spots, so I transplanted about five of them to fill in.

Then my miscellaneous bed got mostly planted up. It is just missing the cumin which I ought to start indoors soon. I put in a 3' foot row of: Ventura celery, Red Ventura celery, parsley, and bunching onions. It also has the beets that I sowed before. The beets are just starting to come up. By the end of the two day storm they will probably all be up.

Then it was a hunt for sweet alyssum. I saw one in my spinach garden, but not along the area where I let them run. I figured it was just too dry for them to germinate. But I had been keeping the spinach watered after I cut it. And they had popped up. I transplanted all the ones I could find and put them along the brick path. I like a wide swath of them all along. It smells so good all summer long. And the beneficials really like them.

Then I had to fertilize the perennials. I got some acid loving fertilizer for the blueberries and cranberries. And some regular for the fruit trees and other perennials. Some I fertilized and some I didn't. In general the perennials will do fine without much fertilizer since we mulch them regularly.

I didn't do anything with the above fava bed. But look at all the well spaced plants. Out of exactly 50 seeds that I planted, 49 of them came up. I only have one gap and one plant is still very small so hard to see. 98% germination. The packet said 86%. I think they like it here. I'm dreaming of favas to come.

This and That

I much prefer to bike and walk so I don't own a car, but my husband does. When he goes on business trips I used to always be sad. But now without a car, I take it as an opportunity. I made a rule that when he goes he has to leave me the car. He can't leave it at the airport. So yesterday he was gone and the car was mine. I went to Home Depot to pick up bricks for my herb garden.

Though the circle is not a perfect circle, it is pretty good. I wanted the spokes to look straight and even. So I used my handy dandy bamboo measuring stick. I didn't measure anything, but it did tell me if I was straight or at least straightish.

Here is the garden finished. As soon as those herbs fill it in it will look really pretty. And though I think it would look prettier with the thymes together and the chives together, I like them separated. They like to grow together and though their leaves are different, it is easier to make sure they don't overwhelm the other if it is very easy to tell apart.

Some days good shit happens. A friend of my townhouse mates dropped off some composted horse manure. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Two 20 gallon trash barrels full. It probably isn't as good as cow manure as I think it has more weed seeds in it, but still I was thrilled.

I hadn't had enough compost to cover the garden last fall. Two of the beds had nothing. So yesterday we covered one and a half. The other, as you can see, has its pile just sitting there waiting to be spread. I'd like to pick a lot of that cilantro before I do the spreading though. Also there are just a few overwintered carrots in there that need pulling. After that I'll spread it. She asked me if I needed anymore and I said I wouldn't mind another load. I would love to have it in my empty storage bin for adding over the summer as crops get rotated.

Today is going to be in the 60Fs so it was time to start hardening off my brassicas and chard. I put them on my kitchen stairs to harden off at the start. I have a place that gives them direct morning sun but dappled midday and afternoon sun. I'll keep them there for a couple of days, bringing them in at night. They will get moved farther out every day until they are in direct sun all day long. Then I'll plant them. My cabbages are still under lights though. They are in the other tray. I might put them in a small container and bring them and the cosmos out too.

Eggshells

I love eggs. I eat them almost everyday for breakfast, but I treasure the eggshells just as much. I keep a container by the stove and every time I crack an egg the shell gets tossed inside. My son is not too keen on on my container. Last time he left to go back to school he exclaimed how happy he would be not to have to put shells into the container. The container was mostly full. OK it was overflowing. He would try to put a shell in and it and several others would topple out onto the counter.

I like to cook my eggshells before they go out into the garden. It makes me think I won't be contaminating my garden with salmonella. It also dries them out and makes them easier to work with. But I won't heat up my oven just for eggshells and I have a tenancy to forget to put them in the oven when I'm in the middle of cooking something. So the eggshell containers would overflow.

After the umpteenth time the mountain of eggshells toppled over, I decided I had to change my ways. Now when the container is full, another glass container comes out and the shells are put in that and stuck in the cold oven. They sit there until the oven is used. This way I never forget to cook them up. This morning I was making a squash casserole and cooked my shells. BTW never cook eggshells for very long. Ten minutes seems fine. Longer can make your kitchen really stinky.

When I cooled down my eggshells I prepared to put them in their next container for storage - a double ziplock bag. I double it because the eggshells go in fairly whole and I can crush them through the plastic. Once layer means bits of eggshell on the floor, but two seem to keep them contained while crushing. Today this container was full. This only happens a couple of times a year. It was time to deal with them.

Years ago I put them in the garden or compost just roughly crushed like this, but I really hate the look of half crushed shells. They look really ugly in the soil. So I started to powder them in my food processor (warning do this will cloud your hopper, the eggshells are harder than plastic). I not only liked the aesthetics of this but found they worked better.

I use eggshells mostly to fertilize my tomatoes. I put at least a cup of powdered shells in each planting hole. Tomatoes love calcium and eggshells have a lot. It helps the tomatoes grow and helps prevent blossom end rot. In addition if I'm still having trouble with BER, I make eggshell tea. I put a cup of eggshells into a quart of water and let them steep for 2-3 days. Warning: this smells vile so keep it outside. Then I dilute it and use it to water the tomatoes. It works really well.

So now I have about six pounds of crushed eggshell for the garden next spring. You can't beat free fertilizer.

I Will Grind Your Bones To Make My...

I love eggs. I eat them every day and every day I get two egg shells. Such things should never go to waste. They are rich in calcium. I save them. They get cooked in the oven whenever the oven is being used. It isn't worth heating the oven up just for them, but I am paranoid about salmonella, so unlike some people I cook them. Then I roughly crush them and put them in a ziplock bag in my pantry until it is full. Once or twice a year I take the bag out and powder the contents in my food processor (warning doing so will cloud the bowl of your food processor). It is probably not necessary, but I think the large eggshell chunks look funny in my garden and they take forever to break down.

So what does one do with saved eggshells? Some people make their own calcium suppliments with them. I'm not quite ready to try that yet. Others swear roughly crushed eggshells kill slugs. I've tried it. My slugs laugh at such attempts to kill them and multiply.

I use it as fertilizer. Sometimes it gets sprinkled on the compost pile, but my favorite way to use them is on my tomatoes. They love them. I put the powder under them as a supplement when they get planted. If I suspect blossom end rot, I make eggshell tea to water them. Blossom end rot happens when the plant isn't taking up enough calcium. This is often the result of erratic watering, but since I can't time my rainstorms, I supplement with egg shell tea and it works.

The other day I made roast chicken. The next day of course was chicken soup to use up the carcass. As I was throwing away all those bones, I started thinking. I keep my eggshells. Why don't I keep my bones? Instead I buy bone meal for the garden. This seems kind of silly. Was there a way to grind up the bones for use. Thoughts of sledgehammers went through my mind. Though I did toss that set of bones, I started searching the web for more information.

My initial thought as I typed in my search was, "This is an awfully grisly search." I was wondering how much of my web traffic was getting monitored by some government computer somewhere and what someone would think about me wanting to know about how to grind up bones. Well it turns out it is a very common subject among pet owners that feed their cats a more natural diet. Yes they grind up chicken bones all the time with meat grinders, but raw chicken bones are easier to grind than the cooked ones. So on I went with the search.

Lots of people burn them and then put them on their garden. Not quite what I was looking for. One person uses a Vita Mixer. Another uses a pressure cooker to make his soup. It turns out when you cook chicken bones in a pressure cooker they get really soft and then break up easily. Interesting, but I don't have a pressure cooker.

Then I found my favorite site (scroll down to the article "How To Make Bone Compost"). Ah yes go back a hundred years and see how they did it then. Wood ash, bones and water together will turn bones into mush in about three months. In fact you get both your P and some K with that mixture. I'm assuming it will still be very alkaline, so great for liming my garden. If only I still used my fireplace, I'd have a steady supply of wood ash. Hmmm. I'm thinking I can get wood ash on camping trips. Or maybe I'll just go buy myself a pressure canner/cooker and make my life easy. I really would love one to can pumpkin this fall. I've been thinking of a pressure canner for some time. Then again the sledgehammer idea sounds like it might be fun.