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.

Dirt Cheap

 Every year I save as much of my potting mix as I can in my Dirt Locker and Rubbermaid Totes.  Each year I lose a little through attrition either due to having to top up whiskey barrel planters or planting perennials in the dry creek bed or through giving away plants.  Sometimes when you dump a planter, the roots of the annual plants are so vigorous that there isn't much point in trying to retrieve any soil at all. So each year I end up buying a bag or two of fresh potting mix.  I keep a list of all of my planters and how many gallons it takes to fill them.  I make note of how much I have been able to save from last year.  The difference between those numbers is how much I have to buy.

This week our regional farm store Runnings has a great deal on Miracle Gro potting mix.  Generally I stay away from Miracle Gro products, but I can't beat their Moisture Control potting mix.  I've tried several other brands as well as mixing my own and nothing really compares.  I usually buy the 50 quart (1.67 cu. ft.) bags from Home Depot.  Back in the day they were $14.99  a bag.  Now it is $17.97.  Lowes and Tractor Supply sell the full 2 cu. ft. bags for 19.99  You can go nuts comparing prices.

Two bags for $20!  That's practically buy one get one!

Cheap Dirt!

As soon as we saw that flyer we headed out Saturday morning (and we never go to town on a Saturday).  I bought 6 bags.  They were out in the rain which made them twice as heavy and as unwieldy as wrestling a greased pig.  6 bags was a pretty full load for an SUV.  But the more we thought about it....  We went back today and got 4 more to stockpile for next year.

The Waiting Game

 This is the time of year when there is a lot to do, and everything to plant, but you must wait.  We have had some very good weather, but we still have occasional cold nights and so many vegetables and annuals need consistent warm nights to take hold and thrive.  Tomatoes, peppers, dahlias etc should not be transplanted until soil is warm and nights are consistently 55F.

But lettuce and cole crops love this sort of weather.  We have warm sunny days and cool nights in the high 40s or low 50s.  We've had a touch of frost on the roofs, but is is still warm in the corners.  I have begun to pick some outer lettuce leaves for sandwiches and soon the little heads can be cut for salads.

The Cabbage, Broccoli and Cauliflower transplants are doing very well.  Its time to get some fertilizer in there for them.

Peas and Lettuce doing well.

Like I said before, I got terrific germination on the lettuce.  This will need to be trimmed as cut and come again baby greens to keep it from getting too crowded.

Scarlet Nantes Carrots.
First seeding on the left, and newly seeded on the right,

Strawberries blooming very well.

Its time to prepare the Sweet Corn Bed.  I watered it well and weeded.  Raked over the surface to disturb the roots of the tinier weeds, and then placed the Polycarbonate panels over it to cook the weeds and warm the soil.

After this bed is ready, the panels will move to the Bean bed, then Cantaloupe and so on and so forth until each crop is planted.  I had the panels on the Dahlia bed below all week.  When I removed the panels first thing yesterday morning, before the sun had even burned through the clouds, the soil temp was 79F.  I raked over the top to break the winter crust and sprinkled Urea for Nitrogen.  I will water that in a couple of times this week.  This Wednesday night is still supposed to get down into the 30s but after that I will be ready to set out Dahlia tubers.

The perennial beds are all weeded and fertilized.  I have most of my annuals for container planting but am also holding off on those.  This week I will be getting frost covers out and direct seeding the empty raised beds with Cosmos, Zinnias, Dill and Parsley.  The frost covers will protect the seedlings as they germinate.  I have Tomato and Pepper transplants growing out in the cold frame but no hurry to pot up.  In another week I will be thinking of seeding Cuccumbers and Cantaloupes in pots.

Assessing the Raised Bed Soil

Now is the rainy season.  I have things I want to do outdoors, but I have to wait for drier days to do them.  Its pretty puddly out there.  The compost and soil is saturated.   All I can do today is make a To Do list.

I have turned my compost pile a few times.  Its done working and is ready to be sifted and used but I am trying to get it thawed out and fluffed a bit so it will dry enough to be sifted.  Once this compost is used on the beds, I will dump the tube full of our winter kitchen waste so I can get that working again and use it later in the summer.

 

One of my compost tubes is full of shredded leaves.  I will use the ones from the top to mulch containers, then probably mix a portion of it into the newer compost pile.

The raised beds need a little tidying up before planting.  This would be the time to test soil if I wanted to, but this year I am going to add a balanced organic fertilizer and top dress with compost.  I don't have any beds I am concerned about.  The bed above is clean and ready to plant and I will first be planting some butterhead lettuce under cover, then after the lettuce bolts I will plant the whole bed with a cover crop of buckwheat.  The birds have been sorting through the leaf mulch looking for insects.

These two beds (above and below) have old buckwheat stems from last fall.  I just chop and dropped it and since it was late in the season, the stems did not break down.  But they provided protection for the soil all winter.  Now I will lift the stems with a pitch fork and toss them into the new compost pile.

The beds below are covered with shredded cornstalks.  This is also slow to break down but I want to leave it where it is to suppress any weeds that may want to come up thru.  If I rake it it will make a mess, so I will just top dress with well sifted compost and plant my zinnia and cosmos seeds in that layer.

The strawberry plants are putting on growth and need their old leaves removed.

In fact, there are leaves to clean up in all of the corners.

Daffodils and Daylillies

We haven't set up the cold frame yet, but I have a couple of winter sowing projects already going.

The Sterlite tub contains a 1020 tray of lettuce mix and the milk jugs have Sahara Rudbeckia and Snapdragons.

The Snapdragons are up.  I see five teeny tiny plants

Indoors I have some early seedlings under lights

In the seed tray, bottom to top: Celosia, Coleus, Peppers,
tiny Mesclun mix and leftover butterhead.
In the cell pack: transplanted Tom Thumb mini Butterhead lettuce

The peppers are just getting their first true leaves and I will transplant those with the Celosia under a second light and when the lettuce gets set out I will have room to transplant the Coleus and start some tomatoes.

I'm ready for a warm, dry day to get going and in the next week or two I will be direct sowing peas, lettuce and carrots.

Warm Soil

When making planting schedules, too many gardeners look at the last frost date or the daytime temperatures for the coming week.  What we really need to be looking at is the soil temperatures and the night time temperatures.  I've done a lot of extra soil warming this year and I'm seeing the difference right away.

Cucumber and Squash plants under a row cover

I typically seed my cucurbits in pots where I can keep an eye on them instead of putting them directly in the ground where they are at the mercy of rains and clay based soil sealing over them and pushing them too deep.  This year I added a square of row cover just to keep busy birds off of them.  The warmer microclimate created by the little "greenhouse" made an immediate, noticeable difference in speed and percentages of germination.

This year I am going to try covering the cantaloupe vines with a heavy frost cover.  It will be open on the ends to let in pollinators and the vines will be able to push under the sides.  I have not put a thermometer in there, but any day if you put your hand under there, the air temperature is noticeably warmer.  That will help a lot considering that our forecasted temperatures right now are only in the low 70s during the day.  The seedlings are just forming their first true leaves now,

Two of the three varieties of summer squash had already put out their first leaves and were transplanted yesterday.  I put a basket over them to protect them from birds and give them a little transition from the row cover to direct sun,  I am also going to try caging them again this year because I liked how it worked out last year.

My pole beans were planted a few days ago and germinated right away.  Below is the bed warming with the polycarbonate panels.  I have never bothered to warm the soil for beans, but when I moved the panels off of the bed to plant the second bed sweet corn it was just easier to put them on the bean bed rather than lug them back into storage.  Once again, laziness scores an accidental success.

Pole Bean Bed warming

Even the older seed germinated right away.  Which is better than I can say for the Jade bush beans I planted a week earlier in the next bed without warming the soil.  I am still waiting on those to germinate.  There are half a dozen plants up but that is a very small percentage of what was planted.  From here on out, I will always warm the bed for beans.  Right now the panels are on the cucumber bed warming it for transplants.

Old Monte Gusto seed (packaged for 2020) germinating very well.

This is my first lesson learned from the 2022 growing season:  Soil Temperature is even more important than you thought it was.  Yes, having raised beds gives you warmer, drier soil than an in ground garden but even that can be boosted a bit.
 

Sorbet Peony in full bloom

Preparing for Seeds

 It is still winter and the anticipation of spring is both exciting and ominous.  All of these plans we make actually have to be carried out.  And you can't make greenhouse style plans if you have no greenhouse.  I have to make sure that I am prepared to start things when they need to be started in the conditions they need to survive.  Otherwise the seed purchases and summer dreams will be all for naught.

This starts with a calendar and some facts.  Seeds don't all want the same thing.  For starters, some need light to germinate and others need dark to germinate.  It helps me to make a chart.  Nasturtium are the only thing I am starting that require darkness.  Those will be started in the basement.  They also require either soaking or scarification (breaking the shell).  Everything else can be started in the cold frame.

Did you notice in my chart that these seeds require 75 degree soil?  That won't be accomplished in the cold frame the first week of April without a heat mat.  I have two tray size heat mats that I have used for years in my basement set up for tomatoes and other veggies.  I plan to order a large heat mat (20" x 48") that will fit four trays at a time.  My old ones are not adjustable and they typically keep the soil five to ten degrees warmer than ambient temperature which works well for the basement.  This one has a temperature sensor which can be set at 75 and it will regulate itself to maintain the desired temperature.

Another thing I need to have is enough seed starting mix.  I usually use potting mix in the cold frame.  There are two caveats with that.  #1, reused potting mix is no longer sterile and you can get damping off problems.  #2, potting mix is a little coarse for seedlings and it helps to run it through a sifter to remove larger elements.  You can sift your potting mix and sterilize it with boiling water or some time in the oven.  Working with soil in April can be a bit of a hassle.  This year I am just going to buy a couple bags of seed starter.  You know, its the little luxuries in life that make us happy.

This year I am going to grow some Ranunculus.  This is sort of exciting.  I've seen them on the internet and they are beautiful.  To be successful, it is recommended that you soak the corms and set them in potting soil for ten to fourteen days to pre-sprout them before you plant them out.  I am going to use regular (non-draining) plant trays to do this.  This will begin March first.  I will need to make sure I have unfrozen soil to use.  We are supposed to get a 45 degree day coming up.  I will probably still need some warm water to thaw the iceberg, but it will be a good day to go out to the dirt locker and work on that project.

Something else that can benefit from pre-sprouting is Dahlia tubers.  Again, you fill a tray with soil and place the tubers in the soil and put them in the sun.  This is sort of like chitting potatoes.  You want to wake them up without risking planting them out in the ground too early.  If they are in trays you can move them to the warmest, sunniest spot and bring them in at night.  I have these bus tubs (for restaurant use) that will be the right size.  Again, I'm going to need soil but the Dahlia sprouting won't begin until May 1st so hopefully things will be more thawed out by then!

Speaking of soil.  I need more.  Every year I buy about a dozen large 50 quart bags .  The first priority for new soil is my container tomatoes.  They always get new soil because I want it to be free of disease and high in nutrients.  In the fall I save all of my good potting mix for the next year.  I have the 73 gallon dirt locker and I also have four heavy 18 gallon Rubbermaid totes.  Anything leftover that doesn't fit into this storage is either dumped in the raised beds or into the compost pile.  This starts me out with 145 gallons of potting mix.  Its still not enough.  I will need another dozen bags or so to fill my expectations.  

And this list only includes my set plans.  It won't cover me deciding to plant up leftover marigolds in small decorative pots to place here and there in bare spots.  It won't cover any perennials I want to dig into the creek beds because those each require fiber pots of soil.  I will be able to stretch the potting mix quite a bit by adding about 25% of my finished compost to each container.  Suddenly 145 gallons of saved potting mix doesn't seem like a lot.  But a simple decision like not planting sweet potatoes can change the scenery quite a bit. These are the things I need to know and take into consideration.  If I DO end up buying fourteen bags of new potting mix to plant everything my heart desires I will be faced with a storage problem in the fall.  Its a system of checks and balances.  I make my plans and consider the consequences.

Parting Shot:  Some spare Strawberry Blonde Marigolds spontaneously using up some of that valuable potting mix.

Amending Raised Bed Soil

 This is the time of year when I do some work on my raised beds.  No matter what soil you start with, beds will need to be amended because of the intensive nutrient requirements year after year.  If you have an open, old fashioned, in the ground garden you can add virtually unlimited quantities of compost, leaves or aged manure and till it into the soil.  

If you have an enclosed bed there is a limit to the amount of material you can add before the material and water will begin to spill out.  Over time you will lose soil volume through compaction and removal of old plants but this is a slow process. For this reason I start with more nutrient dense additives such as slow release fertilizers, blood meal, bone meal etc.

I am also a firm believer in not turning my soil as you would if you were tilling in large amounts of compost.  I'm not a strict "lasagna" gardener where you layer new material on top of old and never disturb the soil, but I avoid mixing up the layers of microorganisms and destroying earthworm tunnels.  One of the advantages of raised beds is that you do not walk on and compact the soil, but this does not mean the soil does not compact over time.  You do not want your water running off to one side of the bed.  You want it to percolate right down through.  So your soil structure still needs to be loose enough to do that.  And root systems and earth worm tunnels just aren't enough.

The answer to compacted soil is a fork of some kind.  I've done this with a four tine digging fork, but the broad fork is much much quicker.  I go though the bed, driving the fork in about six inches deep and pulling it back to crack the soil base.  How deep I go depends on how compacted I'm finding the soil.  This doesn't have to be done every year.  Every two or three years should be enough.

You end up with a bed full of holes which are perfect for integrating soil amendments into the soil.

  I mix up a batch of whatever materials I think this bed needs based on its most recent performance and the crop that is going into it next.  In this case I am adding worm castings and Garden-tone.  I am planting butter beans in this bed.  I know everyone always says that beans and peas like poor soil.  Well, tolerating poor soil is not the same as preferring poor soil.  I've had great results in the past planting bush beans into worm castings and a balanced fertilizer.  The only crop I have never fertilized is peas.

Using a scoop I spread the mixture over the bed and level everything with a bow rake.  If there is room in the bed, I finish off with a layer of my own compost.  And the bed is ready to plant.