26 April 2011

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.

24 April 2011

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!








18 April 2011

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.

12 April 2011

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!