April 24, 2010 Herbs, Flowers, and More

I took this picture yesterday and thought it was a good shot of Spring!

Here's the new flower bed, it turned out great!  Stacey got some good looking flowers at Distinctive Gardens.  And as good as it looks now, in a few weeks when everything is established and growing it's going to look even more amazing.

I put in a full flat of Marigolds today and placed them between what will be tomatoes.  It added some much needed color to the garden.  This will force me when it comes to Market time to stick to the plan and only plant seven tomatoes.

The herbs are in!  During a trip to Distinctive Gardens today they had all the herbs out and I couldn't wait another week. They looked so good that I got weak and bought everything I saw.  So we have (starting with the upper left) Oregano, Basil, Basil again, Thyme, St Johns Wort, Dill, Cilantro, Majoroum, and Sage in the middle. 

The cucumbers are now in the ground.  I debated a little about putting them in with what I hope is the last cold night forecasted for Tuesday.  I thought that I'd chance it as they were starting to get pretty large in the peat pots.   I hope they hold up to the 40-43 degree night.

Here's a long shot of the garden (except for the flower bed at the end).  It now has some nice color to it.  Next week is the Grower's Market to fill the rest in!

The lettuce looks like it has finally taken.  Although last year at this time they were much larger.  I guess that since the first round didn't survive they got a head start last season. All three varieties now look VERY different.  Although it's not in this picture , the carrots are making slow progress.  This year I'm definitely going to get some production from them. 

The peas are growing strong.  Most of them are climbing the trellis on their own, but a few still need some help grabbing hold.

The shallots have exploded with tons of new growth. I planted ten but only eight have sprouted.  Judging by the way the first eight have grown, I'm not holding out much hope for the last two.The garlic in the foreground is also doing well.  Only one of the three bulbs seems to have been a dud.

The spinach is looking fantastic!  In only a few days they have grown significantly.  I will need to thin a few of them out in the next day or two.  The radishes are getting there too. I accidentally pulled one thinking it was a weed and the radish root was there - what a great color they have!

April 19, 2010 Preparing for the Market

The West Chester Grower's Market is under two weeks away from opening so it's time to get the rest of the garden in shape.  I don't know how this happened but there seems to be TONS of rocks in the garden.  The soil has never been ideal (it's far from bad), but I don't remember there being this many stones last year.  I think I would have noticed and removed them if so.  Regardless of how they got there I spent some time today removing hundreds of small stones and weeds from the whole plot today. I will give it another once over when I purchase my plants to fill the garden but I thought it was a good idea to do as much work as possible now.

It's been kind of cold here at nights the last week or so.  Even though the last frost date was April 17th, there has been several nights in the upper 30's and lower 40's.  I started my cucumbers last week in peat pots with the intention of getting them into the ground this week, but it looks like the weather isn't going to change much so I'm playing it safe and waiting until it's warmer to get them in.

Not much has changed in the garden from last week.  Everything is growing slowly.  The spinach all have true leaves, the radishes are starting to grow secondary leaves, the lettuce is poking up slowly, and the peas are starting to climb the trellis. It still looks like a big patch of dirt with a sprinkle of green.  I can't wait for the market to open to really get things going!

Aptil 10, 2010 Quick Progress Report

The Carpenter Bees are back this week.  I know that they can do some serious damage to blah blah blah...  I don't care, they're fun to watch!  There are about a dozen of them buzzing around and doing some crazy maneuvers.  There a great sign that the warm weather is here to stay!   So here's a quick round up of how things are going:

The peas are growing pretty quickly thanks to the nice weather.  All of the plants came up but one, which is pretty good.  Most of them are 4-5 inches now and the smallest is just an inch above the surface.  They're even starting to climb the trellis!

Radishes are popping out.  They're not exactly in a neat little row but who cares, they are a welcome touch of green in the patch of dirt where I planted my seeds.
 

Not much doing with the lettuce thus far.  There is something small and growing there but it's too soon to tell if it's actually lettuce!

What I thought were weeds are indeed spinach! A quick Google search confirmed that this is what they look like at this stage.  I thought it was grass with the long and skinny first leaves, but if you look closely at the picture the first rounded bits of delicious are starting to pop out!

I'm guessing that this is the shallots sprouting.  They've only been in the ground a week and they're already coming along.  I'm very pleased!

These are the green onions that I put in last week.  I purchased them to be part of dinner, I saved the bottom piece with the root and simply stuck it in the ground.  I got the brilliantly simple idea from some page I found with Stumble Upon (Greatest tool for the web btw) but I didn't bookmark it to give the person credit. 

New this week to the garden, well actually to two strawberry pots on the porch are, well,  strawberries!  I've never seen strawberries sold this way so I had to give them a try,  They were selling them in bunches of 25 with a pretty decent root system already to go.  I'm looking forward to seeing how they do!

What is this you might ask?  It's a pretty substantial Goldings Hop rhizome.  I'm super excited about this (Thanks to Mark Prior for the donation) as I've been thinking about how to first find, and then plant some hops for my home brewing since last year.  I'm not sure how much this one massive rhizome is going to yield, but Goldings whole leaf hops sell for about $5 an ounce. And it would be real cool to brew a "Backyard Harvest Ale" this fall!  I'm hoping that this baby gets me at least an ounce or two for one good hoppy ale...  I planted it an a 2x2x2 foot pot and plan on running the vines along the metal mesh of the porch for easy harvesting.  It's just crazy enough to work!! Here's a great article about growing hops if anyone is interested: Growing Hops in Containers

April 3, 2010 Sowing More Seeds

Spring is in full bloom.  Across the street is what was once the manor house to the barn we live in, and the field above the stone wall that runs along the road is full of daffodils and other bulbs bursting with color!  The trees are all white and pink with blossoms, and the days of 3 feet of snow everywhere are starting to feel like like a distant memory (nightmare).

 

I spent some time today adding another six feet to the garden plot.  I've ceding this space to Stacey to plant some flowers here to make the garden look a little nicer.  It'll look great in a month or so when the flowers start going in. It'll be nice to have some color to look at from the porch!

Check out the before and after pics.  It looks much cleaner now with the ratty grass pulled up.  There was a bunch of mint and catnip growing wild there so I left a little bit of each. I've dug out the boarder and set the old fence posts into the ground rather than just laying there.  I got about half way done but I plan on finishing up this small project week.

I also gave up on the lettuce I had transplanted.  For three days after I planted it we had an inane amount of rain and colder nights that destroyed them.  The peas seem to have fared much better, but there was nothing left of the lettuce. So now I have (from left to right in the picture) Yugo Red Lettuce, Deer Tongue Lettuce, Slow Bolt Lettuce, Red Dragon Carrots, Scallions, Radishes, Spinach, Shallots, and Garlic.  I found the shallots and garlic at a newly discovered garden store down the street.  It's literally 3 minutes away and I had never been there.  Really nice stuff and helpful staff for good prices, I recommend this place if you're in the area: Distinctive Gardens

It's apparently time to start plugging in the electric fence.  Before I did any of the digging I noticed a fresh set of deer tracks running right down the middle of the garden.  It's like they're taunting me!