Moving On With Better Weather

 I finally got the tomatoes and peppers planted out.  They don't look so bad now that they are in the ground... a little pale. I am modifying the Florida Weave method that I employed last year.  On my first attempt I quickly found that only end posts was not enough to support the wall I was creating and I felt that using a single line was too constricting to the tender plants.   So I this year I have a double row of posts which will open up the strings a bit.  Instead of weaving I will run two straight lines, one on each side and crisscross if necessary.   The tomatoes are down the middle, and the bell peppers along the east side at their feet.  Peppers like cool roots, dappled shade and they like to touch each other.  So the east side of a tall row of tomatoes is a great place for them.  They share the same nutrient and water requirements as the tomatoes. I'll put a row of Marigolds or Nasturtium on the other side.   I have mulched them in with shredded leaves to retain cool moisture and keep down weeds.

I use my shredded Maple leaves from last fall and mix in compost in a one to two ratio, compost to leaves.  This weighs down the leaves a bit so they don't blow all over, and aids in breaking them down.

While we are in this corner of the garden, just look at this Sage plant that over wintered.  I did no trimming and the old stems put out new leaves to replace the bedraggled leaves from last year.

Below is the bed of Dwarf tomatoes.  These plants will be about hip high and very full.  They have different support requirements than the indeterminate tomato plants.  Now begins three weeks of tweaking these Titan Cages to get them to look plumb and level.  It's a losing battle.

Once they are full of tomato plant it won't be as noticeable.

Below are my micro tomato plants that weathered the cold spell against the south wall of the garden shed under a frost cloth.  See how the plant in the tan pot is exhibiting cold stress and the one in the black pot is not?  I think this is the difference in the amount of warmth that the black pots absorbed and held.  The pale ones should be just fine now and I expect them to bounce back.

The sweet corn that was seeded May 20th is beginning to sprout.  These littles guys are the humble beginnings of a veritable corn field. 

Speaking of sprouts, the Dahlias grew almost visibly today.  There are both green foliaged and dark foliaged varieties.  The grid is there to discourage critters from rootin' around and disturbing the tubers.  Even a deer strolling through could step in the wrong spot and ruin a plant at this stage.

I planted four of the El Brighto Coleus that I saved from last year in this planter.

Free plants....

Earlybird Blue and White Columbine

Back on Track

 We have endured five days of rain totaling 2.75", and temperatures in the high forties to low fifties with a cold north wind.  It was dismal but my annuals and vegetables were all properly protected, and a few may be a little pale and shivery but they all survived.  May weather came back today with sun and a high around 60F.  Still cool, but fine for the plants as the garden area is about ten degrees warmer.  I moved all of the plants back to the stage where they had been in their hardening off, planted a few root bound vegetables and got the garden back to normal.  I checked on the sweet corn that I seeded last Tuesday on our last nice day.  It did not rot.  It started to sprout.  I moved the toasty warm row cover off of my collection of potted perennials and onto the corn bed to give it a boost.  This row cover adds about another 10 degrees of heat on top of the garden's ambient temperature.  Its amazing.  The corn should pop up in the next day or two.

In the mean time I am warming the soil in the next corn bed with poly carbonate panels.  I will sow this tomorrow or Tuesday, separating the two crops by two weeks between maturity day and planting dates.  Then the panels will go to the next bed to be planted.  I will likely transplant my tomatoes and peppers tomorrow.  I wanted to give them one day of adjustment after their ordeal before I forced another change on them.

Have you ever wondered how long a whiskey barrel planter lasts?  About 12-15 years.  Then the bottom rots out and collapses.  I had found suitably large planters to replace the two near the firepit.  These are resin and 24 inches across at the top.  Only two inches smaller than the diameter of the barrels.  I moved the potting mix out of the top and filled the new planter.  I remembered that I had filled either one or both of the barrels half full with a combination of screened top soil and rotted horse manure before I added the potting mix.  When I got down to that level I found that it was pretty nice stuff.  There were a few rocks and some roots and wood chips in it, but I shoveled it out to use as compost.  It has processed down to about the consistency of worm castings.  I had Heuchera in these the past three years.  When you are choosing plants for a permanent container, you need something with a growing zone at least one zone colder than your average.  This is because the roots will be above grade and will not receive as much protection. All of the Huechera were zone 4 and we are a zone 6a., but over the two winters I have lost more than half of the plants.  I am relocating what is left to the landscape and have chosen a large, robust Hosta variety with a hardiness zone three and a half zones colder.  That oughta do it.

One of the planters disintegrated when we tried to move it.  The one above was in much better shape and has some life left in it.  We stored it away out of the elements because we have one more planter that will probably need to be replaced in a year or two.

Now I have a pretty good assortment of compost materials to choose from as I amend my beds this year.  There is the kitchen and garden scraps pile which needs to be sifted, a pile of mulch muck from the bottom of the mulch bunker that I am going to use to hill up around my potato plants and the whiskey barrel compost that I will mix with my shredded leaves to keep them from blowing away when I mulch the vegetable beds in the garden.  Here are a few lovely spots in the garden today.

Lemony Lace Elderberry, a Daylily and red Onyx and Pearls Penstemon in the background

Woods Hyacinths

Weigelia Shrub

The End of May

 I decided to hold off on planting anything else.  I started prepping on Saturday for this morning's frost that never came.  It was 38F this morning, but wet enough that there was barely a hint of frost on the rooftops.  Today was an absolutely perfect May day: warm and sunny and dry.  I caught up on garden chores and planted Sweet Corn.  

two rows of Solstice SH2 70 day sweet corn

The peas and lettuce are happy with the weather. 

and so are the cole crops

Everything got backed up a step.  Heat loving plants either a frost cover or returned to the cold frame.  Things got moved out of the cold frame back under lights to make room and get carried out to the driveway for the day when it is warm enough. 

Celosia planter full of volunteer seedlings

Container micro tomatoes and ornamental peppers

Memorial Day weekend has sort of snuck up on us, but I am going to ignore it from a gardening point of view and wring  one more week out of May.

Should I or Shouldn't I?

 I really was planning on setting out my indeterminant tomato plants today but I am still on the fence about it.  They really aren't happy in their pots.  The soil is obviously not to their liking as evidenced by the yellowing lower leaves and they would do well to go out in the raised bed.  But the forecast has come in for next week, and it will be highs of mid-50s and lows in the low 40s.  The garden is warmer than that because of all of the surrounding gravel, but I would still want to cover the plants with frost cloth to create a greenhouse effect and I'm thinking they could do without the additional shock of transplanting with cold nights coming.

The indeterminant tomatoes have been a bit of a battle this spring.  I blame it on the Pro-Mix potting mix I used to bump them from seed starter to regular growing conditions.  It was the same brand I usually use, but it came out of the bags unusually moist and it held too much moisture even when in the open air.  The tray below was extremely unhappy.  I transplanted them when they had their first leaves and they completely stalled and even began to die off because their roots were rotting so I went ahead and moved them out of their cells into 4" pots and I used some old reclaimed potting mix and added Tomato-Tone.  It took about a week for them to take hold and I lost a few more in the process, but around the time they were able to take full sun all day, they decided to live and grow and are looking pretty good at this point.  This is because I can get their soil dried out each day before I water them again.  It was really touch and go for awhile.  I am going to have to try a different brand next year.  My micro and dwarf tomatoes are on a different schedule and did not seem to have a problem with the soil.  They are already acclimated to the garden and are sheltered under a frost cloth to moderate the temperatures.

I finally got around to putting shredded leaves in the cole crop bed.  Everything is growing well.

I have been setting out annuals just to get them out of their nursery cells.  I am waiting for the Daffodil foliage to die back a bit in the corners of this bed but I started planting some of them around the pear tree.  The plan is white Marigolds and blue Ageratum in the same pattern I did two years ago. 

It's always aggravating to come out in the morning and see that a racoon or skunk has lifted the Marigolds.  This is with both granular and spray on repellant.  It must have happened just at dawn because the plants hadn't even wilted yet.  Why is it always the Marigolds?  I have some spares, but this can't be happening every night.

The Coleus I propagated over the winter are doing well.

I have a very specific color scheme for these two Dahlia beds.  The closer one has the red, white and pink shaded Dahlias and is edged with white Marigolds alternating with hot pink Celosia.  The farther bed has the copper, orange, bronze shades of Dahlias and is edged with yellow Marigolds and hot shades of Celosia.  You can see that I pinned wire cloches over the more expensive Dahlia tubers to keep them from being dug up.  One thing I do with the Dahlia beds is I prepare the soil with urea for fertilizer instead of a mixture of bone meal and blood meal.  This is less attractive to coons and skunks, and while they may want to investigate the fresh soil, at least they are not looking for the source of blood and bone smells.

It is almost time to begin braiding and moving Daffodils.  Below is a situation I created two years ago and am finally ready to deal with.  The Daffodils were there first and I planted the Heuchera in summer when the Daffodils were not visible.  The Heuchera must be protected over winter so the Daffodil bulbs need to come outta there.  When they begin to yellow I will dig them and relocate them..

In the mean time, this is how I deal with unruly Daffodil foliage.  If I need to plant something nearby, the foliage gets braided so it can go on soaking up energy for next year.

Hurry Scurry

 The weather seems a couple of weeks ahead of itself this year and there are moderate temperatures in the forecast so I am trying to get all of my raised beds prepped for planting and annuals either planted up or moved out of their nursery cells into larger pots so they are not as difficult to keep alive.  The raised bed prep involves aerating the soil with a broad fork and raking any new weeds out.  I should be planting both my sweet corn and in ground tomatoes this weekend.  There is always a lot of set up with bringing plant supports and T-posts etc out of storage and distributing them where needed.

Storm Cloud Amsonia

I have been juggling grow thru grids around.  In some cases, as above, they are needed for stem support on tall plants.  In other places then are useful for blocking snoopy deer noses.  Sometimes just putting them over a low growing plant is enough to deter a taste test.  Other times they are needed in addition to repellent spray.  Besides all of the spring set up and planting, there are the usual chores: water, weed, fertilize, protect.  It is a busy time of year.  The busiest.

This morning when I was making my rounds I came across this Giant Silk Moth.  I've never seen one before.  It was even larger (wider) than a Luna Moth.  It was probably dying, as the adults do not eat, they just mate and die within a week.  I moved it from the driveway to the edge of the lawn.  If I collected things like this it would have been a perfect specimen.  It was beautiful.

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.