Remember ~ It's Only May 8th Afterall

 

Yesterday was warm and sunny, but today has been cool and cloudy.  That fact let me slow down a little and stop feeling like I should be planting annuals.  There is no frost in the forecast but there is no reason to get ahead of ourselves.  I went ahead and planted my Dahlia tubers.  I would show you that, but it just looks like dirt.  So instead, here is day two of my unpacking mess.  As much as I look forward to Dahlias, I really do not enjoy planting day.  It's not so much the planting as it is the unpacking and reorganizing.  No matter how organized I think I am, I always misplace at least one variety which remains elusive until after I've revised my planting scheme and then reappears like magic so I have to dig up and move things around.

Most of the tubers are in good condition and there were only a few really beginning to sprout.  I did an experiment this year.  I took a spare tuber and wrapped it in plastic wrap and stuck it in a cabinet in the 65F degree basement.  That one did just as well as its counterpart in the vermiculite in the 50F workshop.  In fact, in this case, the plastic wrap tuber had a better growth eye and it was the one I chose to plant even though it had a pretty good bruise.  That's actually why I chose it as the plastic wrap experiment.  I was worried that damage would rot in the humidity of the vermiculite.  Instead it stayed dry and formed a good crust.  Because this variety is hard to find and slow to produce tubers, I am going to keep the spare and stick it in some potting mix if I have any leftover.  I planted the mother tuber three years before the plant got up enough steam to flower.  So I have sort of developed a fondness for its tenacity in the face of adversity.

Now for something that is growing.  My perennial herb bed is doing well.  Below, left to right are Parsley, Valerian and Feverfew.  The Parsley was direct sown last year and will flower this year.  The bare spot to the left of it had Parsley plants that flowered last year and was seeded with new seed a couple weeks ago.  Seedlings are starting to pop up.  Those will flower next year while the ones growing now are on their second and last year of life and will have to be replaced next year.  The Valerian was started indoors last year and is showing buds for the first time.

Valerian on the left, Feverfew on the right and an over wintered Sage.

At the other end, beyond the Parsley patch I had planted Dara or Wild Carrot.  That flowered last year and I dropped seeds into it before the plants died back which came up on their own this spring and are doing well.  I'm starting to get the hang of these biannual, self seeding herbs.

Sweet Potato Slips

 

I set out my sweet potato slips today.  In March I take a nice sized sweet potato out of storage and place it in a tray of potting mix, water it and put it on a heat mat under the germination lights with the rest of the seedlings.  When I get a nice sized slip sprout that is starting to send out its own roots, I break it off of the tuber and place it in a vase of water.  Then the vase goes back under the grow lights with the rest of the baby plants.

When my seedlings start to go outside to harden off, the vases of slips go out with them until they are in the cold frame for about a week.  Then they can be planted out.  I prefer the large, 25 gallon grow bags full of potting mix.  I have tried them in the ground and I have tried them in several sizes of plastic containers.  These large grow bags with four or five slips each give the best results.

I amend the potting mix with bone meal to support root growth.  Then I plant the slips deeply making sure to do my best to keep the roots straight and not crimped up because those are going to become your tubers.   I will top the soil off with shredded leaves and water them every day.  Every. Day.  Unless you get an inch of rain in one day.  That is the only situation where I might skip watering them but it wouldn't hurt them anyway.  I make sure each of these bags gets at least a gallon.  They are tropical water hogs.  These "Mahon Yam" vines will provide us with a good harvest and if cured correctly, they will store in the cellar for a year or more.

Ready and Waiting

 We have been stuck in a warm, rainy weather system that won't go away.  In the past week we have had about 2.5" of rain on top of 6 inches in April.  It's wet.  But... it could be snowing.  It could absolutely be snowing.  So I'm OK with it.  It is just the first week of May after all.  And, if I had a traditional in ground garden and was either waiting to till, or had tilled and was trying to work in the mud...

Cole Crops are thriving

My winter project of a wire mouse excluder has been working.  I planted sunflower seeds and put the wire cover over them, shoving it down into the soft soil and weighing it down.  If they don't come for sunflower seeds, they should leave squash seeds alone too.  I haven't even had to resort to adding dryersheets.

Little baby sunflower seedlings

Last year the mice ate all of my sunflower seeds so I am looking forward to having some this year to attract the finches.

Carrots have germinated

The cold frame is chock full of plants.  There are my seedlings, annuals from the Amish greenhouse and mail order perennials that arrived.  I am about ready to start planting things out even if I have to keep frost covers on them because I have more seedlings to move out and some of them should probably be potted up into larger pots for a few weeks which will take up even more space.

I have all of my containers moved out and filled with potting mix.  I think I will actually have enough potting mix to do what I planned with maybe a little left over for wiggle room.  I've used about 150 gallons and still have ten 3 gallon containers to fill for micro tomatoes.

I ended up having to buy Candy onion starts from the greenhouse.  Mine didn't amount to anything, but I will make adjustments and try again next year.

And Oh My Gosh! at least one of my seed potatoes has survived the constant soaking and is erupting through the soil.  I had just about given up on them.  I figured they had all rotted.

The apple trees are in full bloom.

And we are finally trying to grow grass to correct the shape of the landscape bed where we took out the Lilac bush and planted the apple tree.  

If nothing else it has been excellent grass growing weather.

In and Out

 I have been hardening off my seedlings rather than just throwing them out in the cold frame.  I'm working around the house each day so it isn't too inconvenient.  They can be out for several hours each day now and by the weekend they will be fine in the cold frame all day.

The Coleus and Marigolds are out there already.

I am warming the soil for my Dahlias.  The regular soil temperature here is 50F but under the panels I have it up to 64F.

I finally got the Caesar's Brother Siberian Iris planted.  

We decided to remove the brick border.

We got our new mulch and finished mulching.

I am enjoying some of the new to me perennials.

This is Penstemon Onyx and Pearls.  The foliage stayed "green" all winter.

This is Amsonia Storm Cloud

I've had this several years, but it is the first year it has significant blooms.  
It is Lemony Lace Elderberry

The Bartlett branch of the pear tree is blooming.

Both Northern Spy apple trees are full of buds

The later blooming daffodils are opening and there are new variations every day

And the strawberry plants are blooming.  These are first year plants.  I snipped the runners from the neighbor's plants last year.

Spring is under way.

Peas Are Up

 The peas popped up yesterday in that nice warm rain.  11 days from planting is pretty quick.  They usually take 12 to 14 days.  Today the temperature is dropping from mid-50s to low 40s.   Damp and foggy.  Bleh.  It's a good reality check.  Summer isn't here yet.  I moved the Coleus back in today because tonight the temperatures will be in the 30s.

Rain Delay

We are enjoying a quiet, peaceful, April Shower kind of day.  Just what we needed!  A break from landscape clean up.  It is such a gentle rain it makes me wish I had planted something.  But, I am in a spring planting lull.  I am beginning to move things out of the workshop and into the cold frame to harden off.   This is a good day for that.  They won't be too hot and they won't scorch in the sun.  I can just put them out there and relax.  

Yesterday I brought out the El Brighto coleus cuttings I took from my lightly frosted plants last fall. They hung out in the workshop all winter at 55F. They got pretty pale at that temp, but when I turned the heat up to 60 a few weeks ago they colored up real nice and started putting on growth. I deleted a couple over the winter that just didn’t root in well but ended up with 15 gorgeous plants. I cleaned out all of the dead leaves, spread them out into two trays to give them room, and watered them in well.

Yesterday we cut the last landscape bed edge.  We are out of old mulch and waiting for this year's truckload, but we are prepped and ready to roll.  It was a good day to dilly dally and check on the roots of the Linden trees.

We all believe we are not over mulching and creating mulch volcanoes around our trees, but it never hurts to check.  I raked the old mulch away from the trunk flares and checked for any strangling roots.  Each tree had a few that needed to be removed, but nothing too dramatic.  I just used pruners to snip these sections out where they cross the larger roots and gave each tree an apologetic foot rub.

 

A Little Spring Veggie Maintenance

 

Although the heavy snow cover prevented weeds from growing this past winter, the warm weather and sunshine has encouraged them.  I put a heavy layer of compost on my raised beds last fall and there is a fresh crop of little weeds coming up around the edges.  The best way to deal with this is to cultivate them out.  While the beds are empty it is easy.  I just rake over the surface, disturbing the roots of the weed seedlings.

I pick out the worst of the uprooted weeds and leave them to fry in the sun before I throw them out.  I go over each bed about once a week until it is planted for the season and then put on a layer of shredded leaves to block out the sun from any seeds that might still be lying in wait.

I planted some carrot seeds today.  It I grow my carrots in potting mix in containers.  I use last year's reclaimed soil and recharge it with a good amount of balanced organic fertilizer.  I finish the container with a layer of worm castings which are really good for seeds to germinate in.  The rich, loose material is easy for them to set roots into.

I water the soil well then sprinkle the carrots seeds on the surface and firm them in to get good contact with the soil.  I put one variety on each half.

Then I sprinkle a quarter inch layer of worm castings over the seeds. 

 It is a gardening trick to place a board over a row of carrot seeds to help keep them moist and dark.  I cut some round pieces of corrugated the size of the pots and held them down with a brick.  The cardboard can get wet and when I am done with it, it can go in the compost pile.  In about a week I will have to start checking under it to see if the seeds are germinating so I can remove the cover.

While we're here let's check on the lettuce and peas I planted last week.  The lettuce is up, but still no sign of the peas.

One of the pretty spring flowers is the myrtle ground cover.  This entire bed of myrtle started as a spade full from my Dad that I planted underneath the plow.  Now we no longer need to mulch this corner, but the myrtle drowned out almost all of the perennials here and I moved them out bit by bit over the years.