Making the transition

So here are the beds, nicely planted up with lettuce, peas, bok choi, swiss chard and broccoli.  Carrots, radishes, and a second crop of lettuce were also seeded Sunday.  This week looks to be in the 70s and only down to 50 or so at night.  Last week's frost did catch 3 of the broccoli without their cloches, and they are looking pretty sad.  If it is frost damage, hopefully they will come back.

Busy weekend

While I had no big stretches of work, it was a really busy weekend for the garden!  I got all of the lettuce, bok choi, and swiss chard transplanted out.  The cloches are all off the broccoli and the peas decided to really take off.  Direct seeding for carrots, more lettuce, and radishes is also done.  And the biggest amount of time (in two chunks):  All of the tomatoes are transplanted from the 72-cell starters to 3.5" pots.  That took a lot of compost!

I also managed to put together a tray of assorted seedlings for my friend Michelle at work who, at the urging of her daughter, is starting a garden this year!  Best of luck, Michelle!

First seedlings in the garden - Mixed results

Over the last week, I've begun planting out the first of the seedlings, with some mixed results.  So far, four broccoli plants are out in some homemade milk bottle cloches, and they are doing great!  Saturday, I put out 4 bok choi and 8 lettuce plants as tests, and the bok choi are doing really well, but the lettuce were all shredded by the 40mph wind we had with the storm Saturday night.  The temperature forecast for this week seems favorable for another test round.  I may also try to get some more direct seeded, as well as some carrots seeded out this week, if I can manage to find 15 minutes one evening.

Also, the snow peas I seeded on April 3rd are finally making an appearance!  I might have to add one horizontal run of twine between the soil and the bottom of the trellis to help them bridge the gap.  After the soil in the beds settling, the distance is almost 1.5' and I'm not sure they can make it that far on their own.

Jungle explosion!

Glad to see most of the seedlings doing so well, but I'm getting a little nervous that some are just getting so big so fast!  I've ordered some larger pots to start moving stuff to, now I just hope those come in soon.  At the bottom of the first and second photos, you can see that the ground cherries are finally starting to progress.

The lettuce is out of control!

Garlic update

Cattle panel trellis installed

 Ah!  Finally a productive (albeit chilly) day!  All the posts and the trellis panels are installed, and the raised beds are filled.  Took longer than I had hoped, but there is still time to get some cleaning done around the house to square it away for Kari and the kids during my trip to Nashville next week.  I hope to get the peas planted on Saturday, and maybe the broccoli too.  If I do, those will get cloches.

For now, I'm just happy to see the garden really take shape.  Perhaps when I get back, I can get the fence up and make sure I have enough to enclose the whole area with walking space around it.

Mixed veggie bed with tomato area behind

Mixed veggie bed with squash and garlic behind

Rohan's bed - Now THAT'S cute!

Slow week

Broccoli

While spring officially arrived last Sunday, someone forgot to tell Mother Nature!  It hasn't gotten much above 40 all week, and lows at night are still in the low to mid twenties. :(  So I haven't braved putting anything out, and, until today, I didn't even get to finish Rohan's bed.  We had around an inch of snow again on Wednesday, and more expected this coming week.  In fact, the forecast for the next week is much the same as the last, around 15 degrees below normal.

Leeks

 

If it weren't for the seedlings making their own progress, there would be none at all for this week.  As it is, the broccoli are getting ginormous, and I bought some 3" peat pots to stick them in tomorrow since I have no idea when I'll actually get them in the ground.  I'm not crazy about peat pots, and haven't had much luck with them before, but it's all I could find today.  Hopefully the plants survive the potting up and transplanting again once the weather turns.

Tomatoes

The leeks are also getting large, but they are sloooow growing.  In these shots, you can also see the tomatoes are making good progress, as well as the lettuce, bok choi, and swiss chard.  All of the herbs except for the dill seem to be real slow growers as well.

Lettuce

Bok Choi and Swiss Chard

Compost arrives

Bell Nurseries just delivered the compost I ordered last week, but it looks like it's going to be sitting in the driveway until the weekend.  While it was 75 degrees on Friday, today it's snowing!  Welcome to New England...

I was able to get Rohan's bed started before the rain started.  If it had started off as snow, I would have just pushed through and finished it, but the rain was really heavy to start, and was just turning the ground to mud.  Oh well, looks like it's going to unseasonably cold all week, and not good to transplant anything out anyway.  Looks like more snow/mix on Wednesday and Thursday.

Cattle Panels are home!

New cattle panels and posts

Kari and I made the trek up to Tractor Supply in Farmington today and brought home the new cattle panels for the garden (thanks Dad for the use of the truck!)  We cut them down to 8' lengths to fit in the truck, and make them a little easier to work with.  They will be used as trellises for a bunch of plants in the garden, and are essentially wire fencing that is much thicker (therefore sturdier) than what you can get as fencing, and also has much larger openings (6"x8".)

Raised beds!

New raised beds

Houston, we have raised beds!  I finally had some luck and had great weather on my day off, and took advantage of it to get the raised beds built (well, two of them anyway...)  I bought the supplies back in November, but never got around to getting them built before the ground froze.  Two out of three isn't bad, for my first time.  All that leaves is Rohan's bed, which hopefully will get completed this weekend.  Monday the compost I ordered should arrive, and the beds can get filled and ready for planting!  But boy, am I sore!

10:00 -Future site of raised beds

Lumber yard

High-tech factory

The initial lower frame for the first bed

First bed with corner posts and stakes

2:00 - One down, two to go!

The second bed is framed and staked

5:00 - Two down!

More seedlings started

This past weekend, I was able to get another, larger batch of seedlings started.  We're about six weeks out from the estimated last frost here, and it was time to start many more veggies!

Here is the indoor growing area in full swing.  The three new trays include herbs, tomatoes, bok choi, swiss chard, and lettuces.  The bok choi, chard, and lettuces should be ready to transplant out to the garden in about three weeks, and the rest will wait until after the last frost.  The broccoli should also be ready soon.  There is also one tiny ground cherry that germinated today!  It's too small to catch a picture of yet, and it took a full three weeks to get started!

I was able to make it over to Tractor Supply at lunch today, and I'm excited to report that they have lots of cattle panels in stock!  Hopefully I'll be able to pick some up this weekend, and will tell you more about them then.

Garlic

Garlic Bed

With the snow gone, I've finally gotten a look at the garlic lurking in the garden!  I'm so excited, this is my first time growing garlic.  Nearly all of the bulbs I planted seem to have made it through the winter unscathed.  They are a little hard to make out under all the straw and leaf mulch, but it helps keep them protected from freeze/thaw cycles during the winter.  Everything in this bed came from local farmers markets, and is a mix of German Red and German Extra Hardy, with a handful of shallots thrown in to see how they do.

Yumm!

I planted this around Columbus day, and it involved separating the bulbs into individual cloves, then picking the largest cloves to plant and cooking the rest!  I've read that the larger the clove, the larger the bulb the following year.  Since the planting, I've heard that it's a good idea to soak them in a water/baking soda solution to ensure that it kills any lurking diseases, guess I will try that next year.

I'll be watching this garlic experiment closely, but if it works out as well as I hope, this may just be the easiest thing I grow all year!

Bye Bye, Snow!

What a difference a couple of weeks makes!  All the snow is gone from the yard (most of the melt took place over two large storms in three days that dropped up to 6" of rain.)  You can finally see the shell of the garden now, in the back corner of the yard.  I'll be extending that with some new raised beds Friday, weather permitting.

I may also have found a place to get a hold of some cattle panels!  Going to stop by at lunch tomorrow and I'll update once I know more.

A few more expenses

A few things purchased for the garden this week including:

5 Mar 11
Vinny's
$6.99 - Espoma potting mix
$13.99 - Slug bait

8 Mar 11
Comstock Ferre
$20.50 - Seeds

2010 Harvest Recap

One of my inspirations for this blog is Daphne's Dandelions, and one of the features that I love about her blog is her running tally of her harvest in pounds.  So last year, I kept track on the kitchen calendar each time I harvested some veggies from the garden.  Below is the total for last year, and I'll be tracking it as we go along this year.

2010 Garden Total:
Tomatos:  80.34 lbs.
Cucumbers:  4.34 lbs.
Green Beans:  1.55 lbs.
Summer Squash:  0.52 lbs.
Lettuce, Basil:  Forgot to weigh :(

Hopefully I can get some cool widget like her to list it in!

Broccoli Leaves

The broccoli have grown quite a bit in the past ten days, but I'm a little concerned at the curling of the leaves.  I don't know if this is normal, and I haven't been able to find mention of it while scouring the Net.  Most references to curling leaves that I've found point to over watering, so I'm trying to cut back on it now.  Though tonight, the soil appears bone dry and the tray is very light, so I think I'll be watering them tonight.  I'm going to try adding some liquid seaweed for nutrients too, as they appear to be at the stage where they need it.  Maybe I will try some Miracle Grow for one application, just to make sure they have everything they need.

First seedling progress

It's day 9 of the first batch of seedlings, and as you can see, the broccoli is off and running! It came up in only a few days, and in some of the trays on the right and in the extreme foreground, the first leeks are making an appearance.

At the far end, the cabbages are just starting to stir. There is no progress on the ground cherries at all yet, but I've read about them being slow to germinate.

In less than two weeks, it should be time for the second batch of seedlings to get started. That round will include tomatoes, herbs, and lettuces.

A long, slow melt

So much snow this year! Will it ever be gone? North Haven is coming in somewhere over 85" for the season, and almost all of it was in about five weeks!

This is a shot of the garden this morning, and while the melt is definitely making progress, there is still a good 8" of solid ice/compacted snow sitting out in the yard. But in the back corner of the yard, near the leaf bins, you can just see the first tiny patch of garden soil! Hopefully I will soon be able to check and see how the garlic that went in during October has weathered the winter.

New lights and first seeds are started

I managed to get the shelves cleared off and the new lights installed on Monday. The first seeds are also started, consisting of broccoli, cabbage, ground cherries, and leeks. This is my first attempt at leeks and ground cherries, but I did try broccoli and ground cherries last year as a fall crop. The seeds did great inside, but were all devoured by something the night I put them in the garden. :(

I'm really looking forward to the ground cherries as a quick snack food, and might try some jams or pies if there is a bumper crop. I always like having stuff around the garden that can be picked and eaten right there! Yum!

As for the cabbage and broccoli, most of what I read points to planting up to 12 weeks before the first frost inside, and transplanting out 4 weeks before. But I have seen material saying as short as 8 weeks before for inside starts. Since I got a bit of a late start, I'm actually around 9-10 weeks out, so I'm sort of splitting the difference. Oh well, we'll see what happens!

2011 Growing Season Is Approaching!

I had so much fun with the garden last year, and learned so much from reading some other blogs, that I decided to keep a record of 2011 here!

When I look out at the 12" of solid ice that is covering the garden (the remains of 84.8" of snow this winter!!!) it's hard to believe that the start of the growing season is almost here. I've had to make a few outlays already:

11 Feb 11
Comstock Ferre
$26.00 - Seeds

20 Feb 11
Lowes
$3.47 - Jiffy potting mix
$2.87 - Planting labels
$8.97 - Seed Trays

Vinny's
$7.41 - Espoma potting mix

Home Depot
$19.48 - 2x 4' shoplights
$14.97 - 10pack bulbs
$1.99 - Planting labels
$1.19 - Seeds
$0.98 - Eye hooks

Hopefully, tomorrow I will get the lights set up, and some of the early seeds going.