March 27, 2010 First Planting

Although it was about 20 degrees cooler today that last weekend, it still ended up being a perfect day to get out into the garden and start my planting.  I had started some lettuce, scallions, and more recently some peas in peat pots.  Everything was more then ready to get into the soil.

The first thing I had to do was get the soil in shape.  Last week when I tilled the area around the trellis with a shovel, it brought up a lot of very clay soil.  It was noticeably tanner in color than the rest of the plot.   Stacey had the great idea of taking the old potted herbs and flowers that we had dumped over the end of the deck, and them shake out reuse all that good soil.  Between the big pile root balls and some left over dirt in some additional pots from last year I had more then enough rich soil to add without having to make a trip to a hardware store.  I ended up with almost two inches for the entire area around the 12 foot trellis where I needed to plant today.  I spent about an hour with a hoe and a rake working it into the top few inches of soil.  Take a look at the before and after pics, what a difference!

The first plants I put in today were the peas.  Although I have read in various books and websites that it isn't a good idea to transplant peas, I had no problems last year. The peas sprouted very quickly in the peat pots. In a matter of days the seeds were bursting through the soil and the roots were pushing out of the bottom.  I carefully ripped the peat pots from the seedlings before planting them to make sure the roots don't have to struggle too much.  I spaced them pretty close together fitting a double row of 30 in about 4 feet - roughly 3 inches apart.

The second thing I planted today was the lettuce. I have four plants of three varieties of lettuce started: Yugo Red, Amish Deer Tongue, and a Slow Bolt variety. I spaced them far enough apart to put another row in three weeks or so from now.  Despite being three very different looking varieties lettuces, I was amazed how difficult it was to tell them apart at this early stage.  If I had not labeled the plants it would have been nothing more than a guess as to what went where. I'm sure that will change in the next week or two.

Next to the lettuce is a space reserved for the Red Dragon Carrots which I will hopefully plant next weekend, but just a foot over from that empty plot is where the scallions went. The scallions went in very easily. I simply pulled the peat pots apart and laid them out in a single row trough of ten plants. The roots and plants are so small that the one I attempted to remove from the peat pot crumbled apart.  I was able to gently place it in with the rest, but I decided after that to just leave the rest in the peat pots.

Beside the scallions I also sowed two rows of spinach seeds.  After loosening and leveling the soil in the area, I took a stick and dug out a narrow trough about an inch or two deep.  The spinach seeds are pretty small but large enough to handle.  I threw about 20 between the two rows knowing that I'll have to thin out some of them.  I'm hoping to have about 5 or 6 of the best plants per row.

This season is starting pretty smoothly so far!

March 21, 2010 Soil Testing

On a whim yesterday I purchased a soil test kit at Ace just to get an idea what I was working with.  Everything grew pretty mightily last year but I was curious to see if there is anything I should be amending the soil with to improve the P-K-N balance as well as the pH to make this year even more successful. So I ended up buying a Rapitest brand Soil Test Kit for $17.

The kit was pretty easy to use and yielded fast results.  For the pH meausrement you add a small amount of soil, some water, and then the contents of a capsule.  The P-K-N tests took a little longer as you have to first mix the soil with a water at a ratio of 1:5. You then let it settle out and sample the 'clear' water along with one of the capsules.  I do have one major complaint with the kit.  The chemicals that you add to the water or soil come inside these little capsules that you are expected to seperate and add to the small side of the container.  That was much easier said than done.  It was easier to cut the capsule open with a sharp knife over a piece of paper and add it from the paper.

With the exception of the Phosphorus on Sample 1, all the results were pretty consistent.  I'm doing just fine with the Potassium, but could use a little boost on the Nitrogen and Phosphorus side.  I bungled the pH samples by throwing out the dirt that I needed in a premature attempt at cleaning up.  I did manage to take take a pH reading of Sample 1, but the rest will have to wait.

Sample 1: Around the Tomatoes

pH 6.0-6.5

Sample 1: Around the Tomatoes

N1-N2 Adequate

K2 -K3: Sufficient

P4 +: Surplus (Human Error?)

 Sample 2: Around the Peppers

N1-N2: Deficient

K2-K3: Sufficient

P0-P1: Deficient

Sample 3: Around the Lettuce

N1-N2: Adequate

K2-K3:  Sufficient

P0-P1:  Deficient

Sample 4: Around the Zucchini

N0-N1: Deficient

K3-K4: Surplus

P0-P1: Deficient

March 20, 2010 First Day of Spring!

First day of Spring and this weekend couldn't be finer. Sunny and in the 70's, all that snow is starting to feel like distant memory!

The lettuce and the scallions are almost ready to get into the ground.  I just want to make sure the soil doesn't need any last minute adjustments!  I even had a lady bug pose in this shot, I hope they stick around during the summer!

I soaked the peas for a few hours and then sowed them in peat pots.  I read that peas don't really transfer very well, but I had no problem last year using the same method.  I'm shooting for about 30 pea plants, which is about 10 more than I originally planned for.  I'm going to test out the inter-planting of the peas and beans along part of the plot.  The idea is to plant the peas now, and then the bean next to them in the coming weeks.  By the time the peas are waning, the beans should be flourishing.  There should be enough of each planted separately that if this goes doesn't work that there won't be much of a loss.

Since I won't be able to till the whole garden today I decided to target the area that I am going to plant first.  I dug up the area around the trellis about a foot or so down and mixed up the dirt pretty good.  This was the area that last year didn't get roto-tilled, and it shows.  The soil here was especially clayey and was compacted but after some time began to look a little better.  If I wasn't just renting or knew that I'd be working this spot for four or five years I would get a load of compost delivered and really make this soil great. But it seems to be a pretty large expense with that uncertainty.   

I've decided to test the soil this year.  I chose four spots: 1. Around the tomatoes, 2. At the Peppers, 3. Around the lettuce/beans, and 4 near the Zucchini.  The test kit I purchased for about $17 has a separate test for pH, Nitrogen, Potassium, and Phosphorus.  I'm curious to see how it come up (I'll post the results some point soon).

The trellis is now in good shape with the extra fence post in place.  It' much more stable and really wasn't a lot of work to fix.  I was expecting it to be a pain to line up properly and get it all attached.  It's all set now for the peas!

March 10, 2010 WSJ Article

About a month ago Anne Marie Chaker from the WSJ contacted me about a story she was working on detailing mistakes made by enthusiastic first time gardens. I guess my enthusiasm and misfortunes documented in this blog were horrific enough to pique her interest.  :)   Well the story finally made it to the paper, here's an excerpt:

 "David Sekkes in West Chester, Pa., was thrilled last year to have his own plot for a vegetable garden at his cottage on 15 acres of farmland after years of growing herbs on his apartment patio. But the 29-year-old Mr. Sekkes, pronounced SEA-kiss, got carried away at the farmer's market shopping for plants and bought more than he originally intended. He planted them a little too close together to fit them in. The peppers shaded each other out and didn't fruit well. A powdery mildew developed on the leaves of the zucchini plants, likely caused by lack of air circulation. Four hot-pepper plants turned out to be way more than he needed. Then, Mr. Sekkes went away for a long weekend near the end of the summer. He came home to a mess. "It was sad having to throw away all those tomatoes," he says. This year, he plans on growing fewer zucchinis and pole beans—and spacing them farther apart—but also dabbling in new varieties of tomatoes."

Link to the Full Article

Pretty cool.... with any luck maybe next year's story will feature the successful tomato bounty from my garden! Who knows?

Thanks Anne Marie!

March 7, 2010 Clean Up Day

What a beautiful (almost) Spring day!  Sunny and in the mid-50's, just how I like it in March.

After being out of the garden for some time now I was a bit fearful of what I would find today. Man, what a mess! I had a huge amount of work with the clean up today.  There were broken posts, stumps of old plants, and weeds galore to all take care of today. Somehow the weeds can grow under several feet of snow, who knew? So I weeded most of the garden and removed all the old pepper and sunflower stumps that I should have taken care of in the Fall.  There were also several root clumps to rake up, and when it was all done I hauled all the debris into the trees. Progress...

As I suspected, the trellis is going to need a little repairing.  The wooden center post has cracked with the weight of the snow.  It was only there to provide a little stability (I had an extra post), but now I think I need to replace it with a steel fence post to make sure the whole structure is sound.  All those beans and cucumbers are going to hopefully put some weight on it!

The old smaller wooden trellis used for the peas last year has now been completely dug out.  The only wooden posts left were supports for the tomatoes last year.  I plan on leaving them for now as they seem to be in decent shape.  However I think that I'm going to get some cages to help support the lower branches of the tomatoes.  It kind of worked last year without them, but I think that it would have been better in retrospect to have had cages too.

After I weeded and raked a bit, I covered the area where the lettuce, spinach, and peas are going to be planted with plastic.  My hope is that with the next week or so foretasted to be sunny and in the 50's the sheet will help warm up the dirt so I can start tilling sooner.  I don't know if it's worth covering the whole plot with plastic, but since I had this big piece left over from last year I'd give it a shot.

I still have lots of work to do if I'm going to meet my 3 week deadline - I haven't even begun to tackle the annex or the stone wall yet! 

March 6, 2010 It's the First Warm Day So I'm Sowing Some Seeds

I received my seeds from the Seed Saver's Exchange today in the mail!  They came pretty quickly and were perfectly timed to arrive on the first warm day of the year.  Even though there are remnants of the snow everywhere, it truly felt like Spring is almost here. So Stacey and I took a trip to Ace to get a bag of dirt and some peat pots to start the first sowing. We also purchased three dishpans from the dollar store (I think that's what they're suppose to be used for at least) that are just the right size for the peat pots. 

Not wanting to jump the gun too much I only sowed a dozen lettuces (4 of each kind) and 8 scallions.  I did a little reading and it seems that these can all be started now in anticipation of them getting into the ground in two or three weeks. So that officially sets my deadline to get the garden cleaned up and tip top by March 27th, and I think since we get an extra hour of daylight starting next week it's a realistic goal.  I'm going to spend some of tomorrow taking stock of what needs to be done.  The snow is now completely gone from the garden so I can finally get a good look - and from the porch it looks like a real mess!