Memorial Day Weekend ~ Status Report

 Its funny, my garden is "in" and full of potential.  I feel on top of things.  And yet very little is visible.

Bed #1 invisible cole crops

Bed #2 Ranunculus plants, spare strawberry plants and space for cukes.

Bed #3 ready for summer squash

Bed #4 ready for cantaloupes

Bed #5 one row of bush beans planted on the left and too tiny to see

Bed # 6 soil warming for pole beans

Bed #7 Peas and Lettuce

Bed #8 Peas and Lettuce and container Carrots

Bed #9 Sweet corn too tiny to see

Bed #10 ready for cucumbers

Bed #11 Sweet Corn seeded

Bed #12 ready for Cucumbers

You can see my three trays of cucumbers, summer squash and cantaloupes above.  Some years I have a devil of a time getting these to germinate.  Not this year.  I barely know how to react to this unprecedented degree of success.  Now I just have to keep them from damping off before they get transplanted.  The inch and a half of rain the other day already killed a small percentage but those have been reseeded.

Bed #1:  Cole Crops growing (set out 4/15)

Bed #2: Replacement Strawberries growing and room for extra Cukes

Bed #3: Ready for Summer Squash transplants(seeded in pots 5/22)

Bed #4: Ready for Cantaloupe transplants (seeded in pots 5/22)

Bed #5: One row of bush beans planted 5/20

Bed #6: Soil warming for Pole Beans

Bed #7: Peas planted with Lettuce (3/15 and 4/1)

Bed #8: Peas planted with Lettuce (4/15 and 4/29)

Bed #9: Sweet Corn planted 5/20

Bed #10: Ready for Slicing and Pickling Cucumbers (seeded in pots 5/22)

Bed #11: Sweet Corn planted 5/29

Bed #12: Ready for Bush Cucumbers (seeded in pots 5/22)

Random corners: Sweet Potatoes growing (5/23 and 5/26)

Containers: Tomatoes growing

Peppers growing (5/20)

Carrots growing (3/15 reseeded as necessary)

Two varieties of Potatoes growing (5/7)

Sweet Potatoes growing (5/23 and 5/26)

I have four varieties of tomatoes potted up here and one pot of peppers

Sweet Potato Slips (baskets to keep mulch away)

Potatoes doing well

Quite well in fact

Since I ended up with so many nice sweet potato slips from my first attempt at sprouting them, I just kept planting.  Anywhere I had some deep, workable soil I poked one in.  We have two rabbits who feed on clover in the lawn so I put baskets over these slips until they are big enough to outgrow bunny munching, then I will spray them. 

Also on this bank are a spare Instant Karma elderberry bush that will move to one of two places, and some weed potatoes from last year that I am leaving to grow.  Besides the potatoes there are also some stray horseradish roots from the clump to the right.  I'll leave them until I dig the potatoes and if they are large enough to use that will be a bonus.

Instant Karma on the left and weed potatoes to its right

See how pitiful the strawberry plants look?

 The only thing I can think of with the strawberries is that they did not like being mulched in with leaves.  They are producing berries, but when they are done I will pull the plants, turn the leaves in and prepare the bed for the new transplants which are growing very well.

Spray Paint was on sale so the cages got a facelift.

Elsewhere in the landscape things are growing by leaps and bounds but there isn't a lot of color yet.  The daylilies are starting to show buds and I am working on adding Marigolds to blank spaces

Its a great year for Peonies.  The Itoh that had one bloom last year (its third year) has over a dozen buds.  The Sorbet that did so nicely last year with an unprecedented 20+ blooms probably has 50 or more buds this year.  I've given up counting and now am just worrying about supporting the stems.

The Petticoats Peach Geums that I mail ordered a few years ago to plant along the deck are looking doing fantastic and covered in blooms.  This is nice early show for late spring and much needed color in a sea of green.

Geum

I put a row of Marigolds along the front which are tiny now but will grow fast.

The Dahlias I am planting instead of Geraniums this year are putting on good growth already. 
Both the Marigolds and Dahlias will require constant vigilance to protect them from slugs.

I hope everyone has a good holiday weekend and that your gardens do well this year.  It won't be a perfect year but I am expecting some new fun things to do well for me.

What a Difference A Day Makes

On one of the Facebook gardening pages, a person posted that she had gotten everything planted but she had a lot of anxiety over whether or not anything would even sprout.  Was that a newbie gardener thing?  No - that is an every year gardener thing.  Because every year no matter how careful you are, something will fail.  We spend all this time making plans, imagining lush plants, abundant flowers and bountiful harvests.  We put a lot of work into planting everything.

And then we wait.

This week was the point when my garden turned the corner.  Yes, things are going to grow.  There are some frustrations but they can be replaced with things that are exceeding expectations.  Its going to be OK.

 

 The potatoes are sprouting.

The broccoli and cauliflowers are thriving.

The pepper plants survived transplanting.  

The mail order spice bushes are going to break dormancy after all. (whew!)

The pear tree will need some serious thinning.

This Sorbet peony is chest high and has more than thirty buds on it.

My Marigolds from seed are looking great.  It was really tough at the nursery this week to pass up ten inch high flowering Marigolds.  I had to remind myself that if I were to plant a ten inch high Marigold in May I would pinch it back anyway.  Which put things into perspective.  These will be set out next week.

I finished buying all of my annuals and put together the five planters on the entrance side of our house.  I had to make changes as I went along.  I found enough ivy, but not enough euphorbia.  I decided to try some Prince Tut papyrus which meant I had to rearrange the geraniums.  The caladium bulbs I bought have shown no signs of life at. all. so I planted that planter to match the deck planters.  The dahlias I bought to put in the landscape where I usually have geraniums are just now sprouting so I've decided to use Marigolds in the most visible flower bed and plant the dahlias somewhere else.  Its not always easy to put the annual plan into action because you have to roll with the punches.

Of course not everything is great.  I am still going around taking stock in what did not survive the winter: half a dozen grasses (mostly new plantings from last fall), at least two butterfly bushes, my favorite heuchera...  These things happen.  Some I will replace and others I will not.

My strawberries are looking a little peaked compared to last year.  They've finally started to bloom but I am not happy with the variety and this is the third year for them.  They have not sent out enough runners to replace themselves so I am going back to Honeoyes.  I ordered two dozen from Stark Bros. half price and stuck them in where the tulips were.  I'll move them to the berry bed come August.  It is fascinating what a change 24 hours and half an inch of rain can effect on bareroot strawberry plants.

Little green leaves appear overnight

Today I planted the first bed of sweet corn and the first row of bush beans.  This coming week I will be planting the pole beans and tomatoes and seeding cucumbers, summer squash and cantaloupes.

Patience and Self Control

I will not plant cucumbers before June.  I will not plant cucumbers before June.  I will not plant cucumbers before June.  I will not plant cucumbers before June.  I will not plant cucumbers before June.  I will not plant cucumbers before June.  I will not plant.....

Maybe I'll plant the beans...

One of my general rules is to wait until June before planting cucumbers, summer squash and beans.  That way the soil is warm and dry, night temps are high enough, and I don't have to deal with the wild fluctuations of May.  And most importantly the cucumber beetles hatch and there is nothing out there to eat.   The past week has had daytime temps in the eighties and night time temps in the sixties and it is getting harder and harder to wait. Yesterday I was sitting near the garden and the table next to me looked like it had been sprinkled with black pepper.  It was flea beetles!  I haven't planted anything that they will want to eat this year but it was a good reminder.  There are pests out there ready to devour my garden.  

Peas and Lettuce

Broccoli, Cauliflower and Cabbages
And some annuals seeking refuge from the blistering sun

Three plantings of Carrots

To distract myself from planting seeds, I worked on my sweet potato slips.  The past few years I have grown Mahon Yam from Johnny's Seeds.  It is a variety exclusive to them and it has been excellent.  Last year's harvest wasn't the greatest as far as quantity.  The grower had trouble producing slips due to weather and they came late and dilapidated.  I experimented with my soil mixture because by the time they arrived I was out of potting mix and I was cheap - and the end result was a very small harvest.  

But I still have a few in storage including some from my 2020 crop (!).  If you cure them properly the storage life is Amazing.  Usually 25 slips are $24.99.  That's expensive enough but this year they were priced at $37.00  I don't think so!  Not for my success rate.  And since I was still on the fence about it when I placed my main order, I would have had to pay the minimum shipping on top of that.  But I still had those tubers so,,,,

I decided to try growing my own slips.

I have two tubers sprouting and I am starting with just the one... since I am new to this.  I snapped off the slips, preserving as many roots as possible, and put them in a jar of water to continue rooting.  I put them back in the cold frame so they are in sun and won't need to be hardened off.  We'll see how this works.  They already look a hundred times better than any slips I ever got in the mail.

I am slowly starting on my annuals.  Celosia in the fire pit planter...

The Charming Beauty tulips are blooming.  These are suppose to deepen in color as they age.  Right now they are a very pale lemon which I'm not crazy about but...

Each bulb is producing two, three and even four blooms each!

Dahlia Day

The dahlias were sorted and planted today.  Its a lot of work and the thing is - after you get done sorting and cleaning

Dahlia tubers laid out per plan

and dividing and planting, and sifting your vermiculite and putting everything away ....

The sorting area

You cover it up and it looks like you didn't do a darned thing.

and under they go

The weather has been Junelike in the 80s and sunny.  I got the potatoes into their bags on Saturday May 7th.  The panels are on the first corn bed to warm the soil before seeding. I'm half tempted to harden off tomato plants but the cold frame is out of real estate.

Sweet Corn Bed

The peas, lettuce and carrots have been growing nicely but require daily watering to keep them growing.  I reseeded the second row of lettuce because it was at that critical point of germination right when we got that last eight inches of snow which either shut it down or froze whatever came up and it was a bit sparse.

 I have been putting the shade cloth back on the cauliflower broccoli cabbage bed every afternoon because we went from day after day of overcast skies to full intense sun and I don't want to sunburn the larger leaves.  I got my full summer tan in the first three sunny days.  Yesterday after four hours of morning sun and three applications of spf 50 sunscreen I gave up and put a long sleeved sunshirt on because I wasn't burnt but I was red as a beet.  It's HOT out.

And there is no shade to be found anywhere.

First and second planting of peas and lettuce
Carrots in foreground and potato grow bags in background

The tulips are looking spectacular.  The second and third varieties are opening but these big doubles look like red hot peonies.  They just glow.

Gudoshnik Tulips

Smaller are Parrot King tulips and Charming Beauty ready to bloom

The lawn is finally beginning to dry out so we can actually walk across it.  The backyard finally got fully mowed and then the ruts rolled out.  This corner is sometimes standing in water.

I have begun making the greenhouse rounds buying odds and ends for annual planters and herbs and such.  I've had a few things arrive in the mail.  Its about time to get busy planting out but things still have to be protected.  This year it is not from snow and cold but from sun and heat instead.

The Chilly Pear Tree has bloomed on three of the four grafted varieties and I am hoping for a good fruit set.  The new apple tree is breaking dormancy but it doesn't look like it has any blossoms on it so we will hope the pollinators find the wild apple trees in the woods.