The Good and the Bad

Sweet potatoes in the rain

We did get rain which is good, but they were predicting 1-2" and maybe more. I was so hopeful. But like other high predictions we have ended up with just over half an inch of rain. We needed so much more. I looked this morning and in the last month we have had 1.4" of rain. Our lowest month typically has 3.5". September is one of our wettest months at 4.5" on average. I can only hope that this rain was a shift from the pattern of summer thundershowers to the fall longer rains. We often get tropical storms coming up the coast and hitting us in the fall. We could use that. Right now the trees are starting to lose leaves from lack of rain. New England is known for its beautiful vibrant colors in the fall, but when the leaves curl up and turn brown, fall is not so pretty. The farmers have suffered too this summer. Though the apple and peach harvest was large, the lack of rain seriously hurt the corn crop.

When I went out after the rain, I saw this - holes in the Agribon. These are made by the squirrels thinking that the cloth will hold them up. It won't. The fabric is too fragile. So I took some time and repaired the damage. Then I went under the cover and sadly found that the root maggot fly had gotten in. I killed the ones I could find. They tend to like walking on the ground and are easy to squish. But only if I can find them. I'm sure there were plenty that I couldn't.

The good news is that the bok choy seedlings are up.

They came up well. I did a bit of thinning. Now I just have to cross my fingers that the root maggots won't be too bad. I did put out a couple of homemade traps for them. They are just some small white plastic containers with soapy water in them. Yellow would be better, but white does catch them.

Other good news is that my Brussels sprouts are really growing well. After two sprayings of soap the aphids seem to be gone. I've got some nice spiders in there helping out too. The tallest in there is about 4.5' tall. It is just huge. I only made the cover to go to about 4', so it is straining to get out.

If you look carefully you can see the stem is starting to curve. It wants to keep growing up, but there is no room. At some point it is going to lift up that row cover. I really want to take it off, but the butterflies are still around. I don't have swarms of them anymore, but on a sunny day I regularly see them in the garden.

Garden in the Rain

We so needed this rain. I should have watered on Friday, but I didn't. I only spot watered things like the lettuce and newly seeded plants. It hasn't been too hot and I was hoping to wait for the rain to come. Summer is hard because sometimes the predicted rain never comes.

Corn

This time they were right. So far we have had 1.4" of rain so everything is very happy.

The peas will have to wait to be picked. But they sure do look pretty with all the rain drops.

Prairie Splendor coneflower

The front perennial garden is in its first year and I'm getting a glimpse of some of its first flowers in the rain.

The gaillardia that I grew from seed is slowly getting longer petals. Not all of them are as spectacular as the one above. I like the color gradations on it. Another has opened that is more subdued - at least comparatively. I didn't expect these to be quite so vivid orange. The name Arizona Apricot seemed to me to imply a more subdued apricot orange. I would name this Arizona Sunburst. Sadly the kniphofia Red Hot Popsicle which I expected to be vibrant, is just a burnt orange red. It is always interesting picking plants from a catalog and not from real life.

Images That Make Me Happy

My Brussels sprouts are growing well this year. Will I get them for the first time ever?

Butternut squash

Spinach bed before picking in the morning

Parsley in the early morning sunlight

Ditto for peas

Sage and chives in full bloom

Chard that was picked just five days ago

The rose is starting to bloom over the mint pots. It helps hide the gas meters and the shut off switch for the solar power. Thyme is in bloom by the path, with sage and rosemary to the right.

The little path in my new perennial bed. Gooseberries on the right. Blueberries and basil on the left. And the daisies are almost ready to bloom. Once again I've put a Garnet sweet potato in my pot by the front steps. It is pretty enough to be an ornamental sweet potato, but I get tubers from it in the fall.

Six lettuces from Fedco's summer mix. Except for one they look like just what I grew in the spring. I swear the upper left is Red Sails and two of them are Deer Tongue. And maybe the middle bottom is Paris Island.

Strawberries ripening

And a view of most of the garden, with radishes being rinsed off in the path.

Everything is just so green. I love springtime. Our unusually hot weather has made things jump in growth. When I picked the Bloomsdale Long Standing spinach this morning, there was three pounds from the one bed. And I was looking at the chard and kale bed thinking they needed picking again too. Even the spinach I picked from two days ago is almost at that stage again. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed, so I dumped some spinach on my townhouse mates. I kept enough to fill up my mini loaf pan to freeze what I had, but no more than that. My townhouse mates really appreciate the extra greens and it lets me off the hook when I feel like there is just too much.

The greens won't last forever though. OK the chard will last, but the spinach is starting to bolt. I'm not surprised with all the heat we have had. Even with perfect spinach weather it is the time for it. Not all of it is bolting yet, but some of the spinach that I picked this morning had blooms coming up. I picked all the leaves off of those. I left a decent amount on the others so as not to stress them too much. I've been keeping them well watered (every four days during the heat spell) so they are happy.

Our weather is going to break big time on Sunday. Wet cooler weather is moving in. We really need it. I just hope the forecasted rain materializes.

This and That

It has been so hot this week. Mostly I have stayed indoors where it is cooler. Tomorrow the heat starts to break which will mean I can get in the garden more often. Because frankly, though I love gardening, I'd rather let the weeds grow then go outside and weed them right now. I still get out for a good long walk every day. Today I even went to the park for tai chi. And I do get out early in the morning to do what ever work really needs doing in the garden. Which isn't all that much right now.

I've gotten my broccoli staked. I don't always need to stake, but once they have started to head up they get pretty top heavy. A big windstorm at the wrong time could take them down. So I'd rather stake. And still no sign of the seeds that I sowed four days ago to replace the dead plant. Hopefully they will germinate once it gets a bit cooler.

I soaked some cucumber and zucchini seed overnight and planted them this morning. I should have done this at the beginning of our heat, not toward the end. But I still think they will come up fine. And I check on my indoor lettuce seedlings every day. They are all growing well. I'll plant one batch out as soon as the cooler weather hits.

On one of my walks I picked some cattails. I've heard you can make baskets from them. Yup not too hard. Then of course it dried. It didn't actually fall apart, but the spaces between them are too large for some of my strawberries. I think I need to let some dry and then make a basket.

Rain

Before yesterday the last time it had really rained was April 21st - almost a month ago. Not that we got a lot. We could use about 2" now to really soak the soil. Don't get me wrong. I'm really happy we got that quarter of an inch, but I noticed that even the weeds along the bike path were starting to wilt. And there is no more rain in the forecast. Nature really needs a good soaking right now. We aren't in any trouble or anything. The rivers are still running high from all the snow we got earlier in the year. But May is typically wet around here. I've been wondering if I should water my apple trees. The ones in the rock wall bed get plenty of water as they are on a soaker hose because the strawberries are there. Strawberries really need regular water thus the hose. But trees are more resilient. And their roots go down deeper. But the apples just set a lot of fruit and I'm thinking if I want to eat it and not have it drop, maybe the hose should come out.

Since it was raining I did some housework and got some buns made. Mine are gluten free. I used to love to make bread, but now that I can't eat any at all from the store (because they contain gluten or potato starch) it seems a bit more of a chore. I still need to make my mock rye. Maybe today. What I really ought to do is make two loaves and freeze a lot. But my mock rye is sandwich bread and I only have one pullman loaf pan. Hmm should I invest in another?

I did get a little gardening done. I saw that the long range forecast is for a warming trend. Usually I'd start rooting my slips about a week from June 1st, my planting date. But since it is getting warmer and not colder I figured a few days early would be nice. Their spot is already empty as it had the overwintered spinach there earlier.

In addition I killed yet another cutworm. The day before I got four. I go out every morning for this chore. Half my carrots are missing already. I know there is at least one cutworm left. I couldn't find him as he didn't drag his leaf down into his lair. He just chopped the leaf off and ate it on the surface. Every time I squish a cutworm I wish I had chickens to feed them to. I'm sure they would appreciate the cutworms more than I do.

I've also noticed that only two of the asparagus crowns are still alive - sort of. I planted ten two years ago. Last year half of them didn't come up. This year half of the remaining didn't come up. The two left are very weak and they aren't long for this world. Asparagus hates it here. So mine is destined to come from the store from now on. Does anyone remember Kate and Garden Bloggers' Death Day? That was a hilarious meme. I would have had so much great death material for this month if the meme was still around. But on the good side I have a 4'x 4' area that needs to be filled - the other half bed that died last year is filled with Brussels sprouts and spring onions. The empty area has volunteer dill all over it. I'm thinking of thinning it out on one side of the bed and sowing some cilantro on the other side. Last year I didn't have nearly enough green coriander. But I have space to fix that this year.

Feels Like Summer

Beds 1 to 3

We have had a long stretch of warm weather here and it is forecast to go on for about another week. Yesterday it got up to 89F which is about 20F above the average for this time of year. I'm hoping today we don't get quite as high as yesterday. 70Fs would be really nice. In addition we haven't been getting our usual rain. We have had maybe an eighth of an inch in two weeks. So I found the sprinkler and watered the garden. Even with that, the poor Asian greens looked a bit wilty in the afternoon heat.

Beds 3 to 8

Since it has been so warm recently the soil has gotten hot. Usually I don't sow corn until mid May as germination in cold soil is iffy. Well the soil is not cold at all. So I soaked some seed overnight and planted it yesterday afternoon. I only planted one bed - Bed 3W. I have two open right now and five total will get planted once the other crops have been picked (spinach and baby Asian greens). I figure the next one will get planted in a week or two. I want the last set of corn to be planted in mid June. My mom is visiting in August and loves corn. I think that last planting will be ready when she is here. I've got my fingers crossed.

I always do a two sisters planting with corn. The other is squash. I put the seed in a container to sprout indoors and once it does I'll plant it outside. This patch will get some Upper Ground Sweet Potato Squash. It gives large squash that looks a bit like a pumpkin. I'm hoping I like it. Like all squash I plant it is a C. moschata so it is resistant to the vine borer. Supposedly the vines are pretty aggressive. I'll see if I can keep it in bounds and see if it plays nicely enough under the corn with the butternut that will be planted at the other end when I plant up Bed 3E. Waltham butternuts do very well here. Squashes for me have to be able to grow under the corn and thrive, or they aren't worth it. They have to produce before it gets too cold. Our season isn't all that warm or long compared to the south or farther inland. They have to store well. They have to taste good. And the yield can't be low. I've got my fingers crossed with the two squashes that I'm trialing this year.

Circle garden

I noticed that the cilantro isn't coming up much this year. Usually it just volunteers for me. It didn't set enough seed last year I think. So I was out and sowing some in the flower bed near the driveway. I use a lot of cilantro over the year and a decent amount of coriander. So I need to get some plants up and going. It is late for it though. I doubt I'll get much of a leaf harvest especially if the weather stays hot. But even if I only get seed that would be something.

In addition I put in the second succession of peas. I'm just growing them for pea sprouts or I would have put them in ages ago. My first sowing is growing really slowly this year. The row cover next to it is really blocking the light. Except in the morning and late afternoon the light has to get through two layers of it to get to the peas. The peas aren't in a row cover, just behind it. Next year I ought to put them at the other end of the bed so they will grow better.

Last Frost

I haven't had a good frost photo in my garden in over a year so that photo is from years ago. This year's weather has been a bit extreme. The winter didn't get all that cold. The low was -3.2F (-20C). That is a pretty typical low here. But the average temperatures were very low this year. I haven't done the calculations for February, but it was probably between 5-10F below normal. And our snowfall totals made the national news. One of the storms was bad enough to be declared a national emergency and get federal funding.

Entry to the garden in February

This was the latest year ever for the garden to thaw out. I didn't test it day to day, but I still had ice in certain spots on April 17th. Though as you can tell from my last post, not all of the garden was frozen at that point or the plants wouldn't be doing so well.

My normal last frost date is in April sometime. For the last years it was the following.

• 18 April 2014
• 22 April 2013
• 7 April 2012
• 9 April 2011

I'm guessing we have had our last frost already. The long range forecast is for a warming trend and last night we didn't get into the 30s at all. Can you guess which day was our last frost day?

Well if you guessed April 5th you would be right. It has been the earliest last frost I've had yet at this house. I have had some 33F temperatures after that. The latest was the night before last. Sometimes you get a frost at that temperature, but here usually not. The land here is pretty flat all around so colder air doesn't usually flow into the garden. It sure is strange having had frozen soil almost two weeks past my last frost date.

I have a friend who doesn't believe that average weather really ever exists here. We are either in the grips of warm fronts or cold fronts, so either above normal or below. There is something to be said for that point of view. Once the warm front hit in April our temperatures were above normal for quite some time. It made springtime gardening a pleasure. Some years I'm out in my heavy jacket shivering while I plant my spinach. Not this year. On Wednesday our warm weather will come back. I'm looking forward to it.

Digging Out

Yesterday was such a gorgeous day. I put my plants on the back step for some sunshine and noticed that the garden has been melting out pretty well.

The circle garden right outside that door was half melted out. It does still have a foot of snow on some of the spinach plants, but only because that is where I shoveled all the snow off the path to the compost. But where it is melted out I see green leaves that look pretty happy. Snow is such a great insulator. It might have been cold, but the snow kept my plants alive.

One part that wasn't melting out very quickly was where the snow was shoveled near the fence. The fence shades the ground during the heat of the afternoon, so it takes longer than the first part of the bed. So I decided to shovel it out to make the process go faster. I had shoveled a bit last week, but did the rest of it yesterday.

The after photo shows that I couldn't get it all off as the bottom was ice frozen to solid soil. But I got the worst of the top part off. It ought to melt out a lot faster now. Supposedly it is supposed to get into the 60s on Friday. I hope it does.

Ice dams have been a real problem this year, but I never thought I'd see one in the garden. The end of each path has a big ice dam. So I'm getting huge puddles in my paths. I tried to chop out some of the ice, but it is really solid. Hopefully in the next few days it will melt out a bit on its own.

You can see by the snow cover which parts get the most sun in the garden. That far corner is much more shaded than the rest of the garden. Still I wanted to get Bed 7 shoveled out a bit. I'm thinking of doing some early spinach in there. It needs to get out before the end of May so I need to get it in early enough to produce. I shoveled the paths surrounding it and the top bits that would come off. Like the other beds I shoveled, the top most layer of ice is pretty stuck on top.

The snow got shoveled out near the foundation of the house and onto the path. That part is warm and it was almost all melted by evening.

I also shoveled some back onto the driveway. There really isn't a lot of space to put the snow, but it was enough for now. I've got two of my spinach beds, the broccoli bed, and the cabbage bed shoveled out. I'll be looking at my garden plan and see if I need to shovel out any other area. I probably need to work on the onion bed and the Chinese cabbage bed. Then hope for lots of sun to warm the soil. Hmm I wonder if I have some black plastic somewhere in the basement. That would speed things up a bit.

The First Day of Spring

Yes I know officially spring came a week and a half ago, but really the first day of spring is when the crocuses bloom. Only the yellow ones are out right now, but some purple ones are in bud.

The witch hazel is blooming too, but I always find their flowers hard to see. That could also be because of its location which in the far corner of the yard. Behind my townhouse mates' car and the giant but shrinking snowbank made by the plows this winter.

Sadly not all was happy with the witch hazel. Since it was partly buried by that giant snow pile, many of its branches are broken. I also found my blueberry bushes in that corner almost non existent. Most of the branches were broken off. They are still alive, but barely. So I did some pruning today. I also pruned the apple tree in the backyard which had some branches pulled down by the snow. Those low branches are now gone. My currents had a lot of broken bits as they are by the driveway and get a lot of snow shoveled onto them. So the winter wasn't kind.

But its spring, right? So it will all grow back. Well not those lower apple tree branches, but I always thought they were too low to the ground anyway. I should have taken them off years ago.

Sunshine

We are supposed to have a warm up so I've started bringing the plants outside for some real sunshine today. I really want them to have bright sun for a bit. Leaves that don't get enough light can have nitrate build up. Usually it is an issue for greenhouse growing in northern areas. I figure the fluorescent lights aren't any better than that, though I haven't done the research to be sure. So I'm going to let the plants get a couple weeks of real sun before starting to eat them.

I would have put them outside earlier, but it has been really cold here. About 10F below normal, even if it has been sunny. Yesterday only got to freezing and one day last week didn't even get that warm. Brrr. In addition it has been very windy. I even went out and tossed some snow on my rosemary plant. It is by the foundation of the house to keep it warmer, but the snow melts off of there very early. And the bitter winds weren't doing it any good.

Beds 1 and 2 are starting to melt out a little.

In Beds 3-8 it is just the path melting out. But it is a start. The Farmer's Almanac says April and especially May will be warmer than normal. I hope they are right and our weather changes because the snow needs to melt. Kathy was putting her pea planting dates from previous years on her blog, so I looked mine up.

• 2014 April 5th (but only half the bed as the other half was still frozen)
• 2013 March 27th
• 2012 February 22nd
• 2011 April 2nd
• 2010 March 19th
• 2009 March 26th

So last year was actually one of the later years that melted out. And it had only melted out half of the bed by then. I have to keep telling myself I have time. But it is hard when you get such cold weather so late in March. We will get into the 50s this week, but another day of 30s is predicted for later. And there is even more snow in the forecast for Monday, but that is a long way off. Maybe it will change to rain or miss us entirely. I can hope.

Planning and Reorganizing

I tend to grow things in the same groups and in the same position each year. Some years I change things around. I was intending to do what I had last year, but I really can't eat legumes anymore, so I decided to change it up a bit. Before the beans were running down the middle of the bed. But I found the beans blocked the water and the lettuce didn't grow well. Also why would I want to grow a lot of beans when I can't eat them. I didn't want to totally get rid of them. My townhouse mates like beans. So I decided to just grow them along the end of the bed. The ends are never the best spots in a bed. The soil is not deep as the foundation for the brick path goes in about a foot. But I think be beans will do OK there.

Instead of beans, I expanded my chard bed. Chard is a mainstay of my winter frozen greens. It produces a lot in a small space. I'm adding 6 sqft this year. So I'll be able to freeze a lot more and maybe I won't run out at the end of February. In addition I'm expanding my spinach. I have space in the late planted two sisters beds. I think I can get a good crop of spinach in the spring to freeze before the squash and corn need to be planted at the beginning of June. I hope so at any rate. We are having close to record lows right now and we didn't even get above freezing yesterday. And more snow is in the forecast for Friday. At least it isn't much snow. But if the bed does melt out in time I ought to be able to get a good crop of spinach out of it. I'm going to try. I need the extra greens for winter.

The next change was my peas. I usually run them along the whole back of a 16' bed. The bed has spring carrots and herbs in it. So I've expanded the carrots as I can always use more of them. Instead I'll grow peas in two small spots at the ends of the beds and see if I like pea shoots. I think I can eat those. I'm pretty sure it is only the seed of the legumes that I can't eat. In addition I'm not growing fava beans and that was a whole bed in the spring. So I've expanded the kohlrabi and Chinese cabbage plantings (GR stands for Green Rocket, a variety of Michihili cabbage).

And in the bed that used to have Chinese cabbage and kohlrabi, I've expanded the European cabbages and added in some kale. The kale is another mainstay storage crop. I freeze it for winter. I've never grown it in the spring like this. I've always overwintered kale, but I'll see how it does and if it can get large large enough fast enough before the carrots need to replace it.

You can see that I don't do this on the computer. I have the garden grid on the computer that I just print out each year. Then I add what I want. At the top is the crop I want to grow. If there are successions I add an arrow before the second crop. Along the sides are things like RC. RC stands for row cover. I have three that are tall and fairly strong. They usually go over the brassicas. Net is my netting that is fragile, but cheap. I like it best really as I can see through it and the rain and wind gets through better. Also it is prettier. The heavy one is white and stick out like a sore thumb. But it won't rip and let the butterflies in like the netting can if I'm not careful. I also write down things like when I put biochar on the bed. Or double dug it. Or if it had some pernicious disease.

And as you can see my handwriting is really terrible, isn't it? Sometimes I can't even tell what I wrote. Though I think you can make out the numbers on there. that is how many good transplants I need. Not how many I'll grow. But the good ones that get into the garden. I always have a few that struggle so I always want extras.

Once I have a plan I print out the seeding schedule. It tells me what to plant, how much to plant, when to plant, and when to transplant. It has empty slots for how many I actually planted and when I did it. And when they go out to the garden. Often that last one doesn't get recorded on it. I tend to forget after they have moved outside to harden off.

I actually have two seeding schedules. One is for indoor started plants and one (the little one behind) is for the direct seeded plants. I'll be behind on my peas, carrots, spinach, radishes, and turnips. They are supposed to be planted on the first day of spring. Tomorrow. But that is not going to happen. But I'm still good. I did an experiment one year with peas. I found that peas planted on the first day the soil could be worked and peas planted three weeks later only have a harvest date one week apart. As long as spring arrives in the next few weeks and the cold weather pattern shifts I should be OK. A little behind, but not horribly.