April showers bring May flowers

It's been raining quite a bit over the last several days.  Today, it was more fog and drizzle than rain, but the ground is still too sopping wet to be worked.

The good news is that we were able to walk around tonight and take a quick look at everything.  None of the beans have sprouted yet (I put them in just a little bit too early... it's still a bit cool for them), but the broccoli appears to be poking through the surface and lots of the garden flowers (cosmos, zinnia, alyssum) are up now.  Also, we're enjoying watching the volunteer marigolds come back around the edges of the veggie garden.  We'll have to transplant those and space them out better, but it's nice that they're free.

We set out the tomatoes and peppers to enjoy some 50+ degree days, especially since it is so overcast today and tomorrow -- that help them get hardened off.  We did lose one Polish Linguisa tomato, and I brought two other small ones indoors for some intensive care under the lights of the greenhouse.  Hopefully, they'll perk up and I can continue hardening them off with the rest of the seedlings soon.

Carrots love tomatoes

So, we finally get to a weekend, and are looking forward to getting out and working on the garden... and it is cold, miserable, and rainy.  Boo.  So, since the ground was quite soggy and was no good for digging, we made the most of a brief break in precipitation to repot our tomatoes and some of the larger peppers.  I took one bag of top soil and mixed it with fertilized sphagnum peat moss.  The top soil had a really clay consistency, but mixing in the moss lightened it up considerably.  It still retains too much water for my liking, but it's the best we had to work with.

The tomato plants are looking a little weak -- when I planted them, they were limp and flopping over -- but after watering, they did perk up a little bit.  I just hope their problem is not related to damping off.  The nice warm weather this week should do them a world of good.

After repotting, I still had some of the mix left, so I dumped it in on top of pre-existing dirt in one of our larger pots, and planted a "bull's-eye" of carrots.  I still want to get some more carrots in the vegetable garden, but this was a good start.  Note to self: procure some more potting soil!

We also were able to pick up cocoa mulch from Menard's really cheaply this week, so we bought a dozen or so bags of the stuff.  As we have time, we've been removing the ugly wood mulch from the front beds (moving it around back, around the trees, where it isn't so visible), and plan on putting down cocoa mulch in those front beds as we have time.

Happy Earth Day!

This was, as previously anticipated, quite a busy weekend in the garden.  Yesterday, I was able to get most of the rest of the brush and fallen limbs burned off, and worked on straightening up the top and bottom garden beds.  Nicole got the next sequential planting done in the circle bed, and thinned out some of the crazy-spreading perennial flowers in the side bed.  Anna even got in on the action, planting her own little flower bed behind the shed.

Today, after church, Nicole and Anna went to a Girl Scout activity while Alex visited with his dad, so I was able to spend several quality hours working on transplanting perennial herbs and getting early tender crops planted.  When Nicole got back, she also went to work on transplanting her rose and putting in some annual flowers.

We also were able to enjoy some of our earlier work.  We had some freshly-cut chives on our baked potatoes for supper, and really are loving the different colors and varieties of columbine this year (see some examples on the right).

All told, our list of work accomplished by the family over the last two days included:

• Thinning out bee balm and lamb's ear and taking extras into church
• Burning off the last of the brush and fallen limbs
• Cleaning up upper and lower beds
• Transplanting Disneyland rose
• Transplanting common chives
• Transplanting lovage
• Transplanting bee balm, lamb's ear, lavender hyssop, daisies and other perennial flowers into Anna's bed
• Planting sunflowers, milkweed, and wildflowers
• Planting sweet peas and scarlet runner beans
• Planting full-sized cosmos and zinnia in the circle bed
• Planting miniature cosmos and zinnia in the vegetable garden
• Planting nasturtium (and one square of alyssum) in the vegetable garden
• Planting edamame, pinto beans, yin yang beans, and black-eyed peas
• Planting slicing cucumbers
• Planting broccoli
• Planting second round of radishes and leafy greens
• ... and everything got a good watering

Whew!  I'm wiped out!  I have to go back to work in order to get a break!

Weekend plans

It's been rainy and windy for the last several days, so we haven't been outside to do much this week.  Nicole and I walked around a little bit tonight, though, and checked everything out.  All our plants are doing well, except for the broccoli (stupid squirrels dug it all back up).  This weekend, my plan is to finish cleaning up the upper and lower beds and get seeds down for all our beans, broccoli (again), carrots and parsnip, herbs, and the second round of leafy greens and radishes.  If we have time, my folks have some onion sets for us, and we should plunk those down as well.

"Now ain't that too damn bad..."

First harvest of 2012 was tonight: I clipped off a stalk of lovage to use as a straw for our tomato juice cocktail, and I chopped up some of the leaves and threw it into the soup for tonight's dinner.

It was a beautiful spring day out, so when I got home after work, I was also able to get out and work a little in the garden. The broccoli is now planted; we're going to try growing it directly from seed in two rows along the wall of the upper bed. I cleaned up the top and bottom beds a little, and weeded out the creeping charlie and clover. Next week, if the forecast looks good, I will want to get the beans and herbs planted.

The frost the past few nights has not really affected anything for us, so that's good. All our radishes, greens, and peas are now up, and our beets have also sprouted. I think I saw one tiny little shoot of garlic poking up through the surface, as well.

"Make a little greenhouse in your soul..."

Seedlings are up! In our greenhouse least one of each variety of tomato and pepper we have is now up and doing well. The tomatoes are really growing well, and the peppers have started at least poking through.

In the garden proper, we have radishes and salad greens up, and the peas are just beginning to crack the surface and show their tiny heads. By tomorrow, we should see lots.

We've had temperatures just below freezing for the past two nights, and will again tonight. It won't affect anything that we have here, but I'm very worried about the fruit trees at mom & dad's. Tonight is the last frost forecast for the foreseeable future, so later this week or this weekend, I may start planting a few of the less hardier things, and get our herbs in outdoor pots.

"Burninating the countryside..."

Busy, busy weekend, what with Easter and all. Between orchestra rehearsals, shopping for the holiday, and celebrating with family, we didn't have a whole lot of time to work outside.

Nicole did get two new roses planted (a new Disneyland rose, and a new one, called Julia Child), and moved a few other things around to make room in that back bed. I burned off the dried-out stumps from those back yard "vector" evergreen bushes and the remnants of the Christmas tree. We still have some of the trunk left, but it's coming along. Maybe another burn or two remaining. I also stapled up a net on the side of the shed to serve as a bean trellis for our pinto beans.

Elsewhere, we've really been enjoying our perennial flowers. It was worth the trouble and effort we took over the past few falls, cleaning things up and planting bulbs. Our tulips and crocus and daffodils were beautiful this year, and in our woodland bed, the lily of the valley and bluebells were breathtaking, and we even had a little Dutchman's breeches!

Inside, our tomatoes are coming up in the greenhouse. Most of the Supersweet 100s and Opalkas are up, and a few Polish Linguisas are coming up, too. No peppers yet, but those do take a bit longer.

Running late

We're running quite late this year. Between taking a family vacation over spring break, and a dining room renovation that ran a little late (plus, just being lazy about starting), we're now in April, about two weeks before average last frost date, and we still hadn't set up our greenhouse.

This changed tonight. We cleaned out one of our greenhouses, set up a tray of dirt discs, and put them on a heat mat. We've started lots of tomatoes (Opalka, Polish Linguisa, and Super Sweet 100s), bell peppers (King Arthur and Canary Bell), banana peppers (Jepeto) and hot chili peppers (Sandia and Vaquero).

I'm not sure if we're going to grow Bhut Jolokias this year. I've got seeds for them, but between our late start, always-limited room, and not really using them much last year, it may just not be worth it. Perhaps as a container plant or something.

Happy April Fool's!

Got out in the garden today and planted peas (four rows... THAT should be enough for freezing some!), and Nicole planted yellow onion sets in a ring all the way around the circle "Mother's Day" bed.