"Wouldn't you like to be a pepper, too?"

I took some more time off yesterday afternoon to get some more plants in the ground, hoping for rain tonight.  All of our eggplants (Pingtung Long), hot peppers (Jalmundo, Conquistador, Purple Cayenne, and Sweet Banana), and bell peppers (King Arthur, King of the North, Orange Bell, and Golden California Wonder) are now planted in the gardens.  I also put in a row of black-eyed peas and arugula.  It appears, though, that I accidentally grabbed an extra package of last year's generic arugula instead of the wild arugula I bought for this year.  Oh, bother.

It's been dry for a week now, so we've been diligently watering our fresh-planted seedlings, until they can put down some real roots.  Our potted basils are starting to sprout, as is the kale and chard I have in the greenhouse.

Nicole and I went to a community hosta sale after work yesterday and picked up several new hosta, including "Wolverine," "Battle Star," "First Frost," "Fire Island," and "Andrew."  Then, to kill time before my rehearsal, I stopped by Teske's and picked up a French Tarragon plant and some more Alyssum seeds for around the garage garden.

Happy Mother's Day!

This Mother's Day weekend, as has become tradition in the Manasco household, we hit up several area plant sales and subjugated the children to forced slave labor in the flower beds. It was a surprisingly chilly day (we actually moved several of our tender plants into the garage Friday and Saturday nights), so we donned some warm apparel and set off in search of unique plants at bargain prices. We went to the Port Byron library, the Silvis greenhouse, Our Lady of Guadalupe, the RI County Fairgrounds, Black Hawk Park, and the RI Botanical Center. We procured:

• Several huge potted grasses for the front yard
• A couple of coleus for Anna's bed
• Three sweet potato vines for the retaining wall
• Two dwarf blue kale for the retaining wall
• Three short cosmos for the vegetable garden
• A couple of tall cosmos for the raised beds

Our last stop of the day was at True Value in Moline, where they were having their annual Mother's Day bedding plant sale. We got four full flats of annuals -- lots of impatiens, vincas, marigolds, and some random flowers for hanging baskets.

Anna and Alex were of huge help: they planted almost 100 vinca and impatiens around the back patio garden. We also planted our new grasses and about 20 caladium around the front of the house and got the (slicing) cucumbers in the ground, along with the zucchini, butternut squash, and pumpkins.  Oh, and on Sunday, we attended an Arts Festival in Davenport, where Nicole picked out a couple of cute copper animal garden ornaments.

Then on Monday, I took the day off of work and spent the entire day preparing for or working in the garden. It was glorious. First thing, I went into town and purchased a couple of straw bales and some final seeds, then planted some kale and chard in the greenhouse, waiting for the weather to warm up. Around lunchtime, I got outside and planted thyme along our back patio walkway, some alyssum around the cherry bushes, and put in all of our tomato plants in the vegetable garden. I also turned over the area for the black beans and peppers, although I didn't quite have enough time to finish them. This week looks to be pretty busy, and then things get wet again for a while, but the next time we have some time and its not raining, I'd like to finish the peppers, black beans, green beans, and plant the last of our herbs (dill, basil, and savory). We are also going to need to get some pea sticks set up, along with another trellis for the black-eyed peas.

Weird, wild weather

Remember last week, how I said that spring had maybe arrived?  Yeah, I totally jinxed it.  It was spitting snow again on my way to work this morning -- a freeze is expected tonight.  All this week, it has been raining torrentially, causing flooding in many local rivers, and even a levee to burst down in London Mills.

Between the cold and the wet, we've been doing our best to harden off our tomatoes, but it's been very difficult.  We keep them in the garage, and they stress because there's not enough light.  We put them out on the patio, and they stress because they're cold and drowned.  I'm keeping an eye on the weather, but if things don't improve this week, we are going to have to bring them up and put them in the three-season room.  We also need to pot our peppers -- they've been left in the seedling tray for far too long, and are starting to yellow and drop leaves.  They need nutrients!

Also, if the rain stops long enough to dry out the ground at all, I'd like to get the peas in the ground as quickly as possible -- it's late for those, too, but the weather hasn't exactly been cooperating for us.

Welcome to spring in northern Illinois!

"I'm dreaming of a White Palm Sunday..."

If we look at the larger picture, we're still more than three weeks from our average last frost date in this area, and it's hardly unusual to have a late dusting of snow.  But yesterday, it snowed all day long.  There were some area schools that had a delayed start time today.  Last year at this time, the trees were all in bloom and we were actually planting some things outside.

Our seedlings, however, are doing splendedly.  The tomatoes are especially tall (perhaps even a little leggy), and I took some time yesterday to thin eveything out -- no more than one plant per cell.  It always bothers me, throwing away perfectly good plants, but I know it's for the best.  It bothers me most when some cells have two or three plants, and other cells are empty.  Ugh!  We had that with some of our bell peppers, but we should still have plenty to plant.

Looking ahead, we are going to have to get at least the tomatoes planted in larger pots to allow them more space to grow.  The timing of this is going to be tricky.  I usually do the potting at the same time as we start hardening off outside.  With it still very cold (and snowing) outside, I'm wondering when the hardening off period will be.  There's not enough room under the grow lights in the greenhouse for all the potted plants, so if we have to pot before setting out, we'll have to get a little creative.

"Spring is here, a-suh-pah-ring is here... life is skittles, and life is beer..."

Yesterday was officially the first day of spring.  Overnight, the low was around 12 degrees, with a wind chill near zero!  There is snow in the forecast for Palm Sunday!  Absolutely crazy.  We were putting some seeds for hardy plants in the ground by this time last year.

Nicole took a couple of wonderful shots of our baby seedlings in the greenhouse the other night.  You can see tiny little true leaves forming on the tomatoes.  Exciting!

Unfortunately, we lost a few of our eggplants.  The way our greenhouse is set up, the bottom rack is near a floor register, and it's been so cold, our heat dried out the trays down on that rack much faster than we anticipated.  It's all watered now, and we should still have enough plants to put in the garden, but I'm glad I started some extras.

This weekend will be our last free one for a while.  I know we've got some projects we'd like to finish off, but I also want to make sure we at least get started on planning and building a new trellis for the north side of our new raised beds, and maybe one to replace the old, worn-out, chicken-wire one we have had on the north side of our old legacy garden for the past three years.  That's a pretty ambitious schedule for a "free" weekend.  Wish us luck!

The Greenhouse Effect

Our seedlings are coming along nicely in the greenhouse.  All of our tomatoes are up, along with the rue and thyme.  Our bell peppers (which got a bit of a head start over the rest of the plantings) are looking great, and even some of our eggplants and hot peppers have popped up, although those take a little longer to germinate.

The tomatoes are looking just a little bit leggy, so we're going to turn off the heat mat on that tray.  Otherwise, we are just keeping them well-watered and lit up about 16 hours a day and let them do their thing.  It's snowing again outside today, but it's like a little plant sauna under the plastic dome.  Grow, babies, grow!

Also, yesterday afternoon, we were looking out of the upstairs window at the snow-covered yard, and Nicole spotted some crocus pushing up grassy leaves out by the grill.  Snow or not, spring is on its way!

Think spring!

OK, so yes, it was snowing yesterday, but we still did some planting.   For the start of the 2013 gardening season, we started a number of seeds in our indoor greenhouse.  Actually, I'm cheating a little bit... I planted four varieties of bell peppers last weekend, but then forgot about them and didn't get the greenhouse set up.  Whoops.  Anyway, now, safely in the greenhouse on top of warming pads, we have the following seeds planted and ready to go:

• Bell Peppers (King Arthur, King of the North, Golden California Wonder, Orange)
• Sweet Peppers (Banana, NuMex Conquistador)
• Hot Peppers (Cayenne Purple, Jalmundo, Trinidad Scorpion)
• Eggplant (Pingtung Long)
• Cherry Tomatoes (Sweet Million)
• Plum Tomatoes (Opalka, Polish Linguisa)
• Herbs (Rue, Thyme)

Also, despite my week-long neglect, it appears I didn't hurt our bell peppers too much.  Several have popped up through the surface and are leafing out nicely.

So, I'm excited to get going this year.  We're still enjoying the fruits of our labors from last fall (we had friends over for games and Mexican last night, with refried beans made from our dried pintos!), but it'll be nice to have fresh-from-the-garden produce again.

Butterflies love onions

I was able to take a half day off work today; Cole was supposed to, but got caught up in meetings, so she only left about an hour early.  But, we still have a chance to work in the yard and garden this afternoon.  It's HOT out -- my phone says 82, but with the humidity, it feels way hotter.  The tomatoes and peppers are all in their individual pots and are perking up nicely.  I think most of them are going to make it.  I've got one that I know is dead, and two that I brought back inside the greenhouse for intensive care, but the rest look pretty terrific.

In terms of landscaping, I know Cole wants to work on applying cocoa mulch to the front beds.  We are still enjoying lots of purple colors in the side bed (the butterflies LOVE the flowering onions, see photo on right),  and our daisies are still happy and blooming.  The final blue columbine is also blooming in the side garden now.  In back, the lilies-of-the-valley are done, but the columbine and ajuga are still pretty, and it looks like one of the day lilies is going to pop pretty soon.

I put in some pea sticks between our rows of peas today (see photo on left).  We got a bush-variety of pea this year, and somewhere I read that if you plant them in two tightly-packed rows with brush between them, they will latch on and grow together.  This makes it both easier to pick and is better on the plants themselves, as it improves airflow.

Our beans are now starting to make a real entrance.  The edamame are very definitely popping through the surface now, and while the pinto beans are a little more sporadic, they are also coming up.  I actually do not see any black-eyed peas yet, or yin yang beans, and Cole is still waiting for her scarlet runner beans and sweet peas.  It may still be a trifle early for those -- we'll just keep a watch out for them.

There's a series of thunderstorms heading through tonight, so more rain, and the forecast looks like highs in the 80s for the foreseeable future.  I think our days of worrying about frost are over for the season.

We didn't get as much done as I'd wanted, but it was still a pleasant afternoon.  Yay for vacation days!

"A little fall of rain, can hardly hurt me now..."

I'm getting a little bit tired of blogging about the rain.  But, here we are, being soaked again today.  I took a look this morning at our tomatoes and peppers outside, and they are a little bedraggled, but seem to be surviving ok.  I did not get out to the garden proper to look at the stuff in the ground, but I'm assuming it hasn't been hurt by these days of deluge.  On the plus side, it's supposed to get up into the mid-80s today (near 90 later this week!), so that should help our garden grow.

Tonight, Nicole has a church obligation, but both children are free, so I'm going to pick them up and come straight home.  My goal is to work on potting herbs tonight (cilantro, chamomile, basil, basil, and more basil!), and possibly starting some marigold seedlings in the greenhouse.

"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.

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.

Elbow room, I mean, err... root room?

This year, we've decided to attempt to grow as many things from seed as possible in the vegetable garden. We set up our greenhouses indoors, and rigged grow lights and everything. Many of our seedlings (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, basil) are quickly outgrowing their little peat pellets, and needed to be repotted into some larger living areas. So, I gathered up some of the plastic pots that we've been gathering from previous plant purchases over the last several years, and potted away. It's still a little bit too chilly to begin hardening them off, but at least they have more room to grow now.

The exception to this is the basil. Note to self: next year, only plant about four weeks before last frost date. This year, we planted them at eight weeks out, and they're gargantuan now... they actually got some sun scald from growing up too close to our grow lights. So, I planted several of them together in our larger herb pots and sat them out to begin hardening off. I had a few left over, and those went into the garden. Again, it's probably too early to do that, but they're too big to be indoors anymore, and if they die, enh, we'll plant more.

"I'm strong to the finish..."

Last fall, we attempted to get a second crop of spinach, bok choy, and peas. Unfortunately, I wasn't paying attention to the calendar, and time slipped away from us, so we put it in very late, and it didn't really produce for us. However, in the garden this spring is a very distinct line of spinach plants, where I attempted to grow them last fall! Too funny. We'll have some REALLY early spinach this year -- I'm just about ready to sow my normal early crops, and this should be ready for harvest well before my spring-planted veggies are remotely ready.

Yesterday, I moved our one marigold that had sprouted from the nursery to the lighted greenhouse. It looks like we also may have one garlic chive shoot coming up, and possibly one of our celery (finally).

The harbingers of spring

Busy planting day today. I started all four varieties of tomatoes (Polish Linguisa, Opalka, San Marzano, and Supersweet 100s), tomatillos, eggplant, marigolds, and chives (common and garlic). I also put in some more rose-colored forget-me-nots, to even out our numbers with the blue ones.

I'm getting just a tad nervous about some of our peppers. The ones that have come up are doing well, but the germination rate has not been particularly good, except for the banana peppers. Three of five Bhut Jolokias and Pinatas have come up, which is also OK, but we've only gotten one each of the Mirasol, Chiltepin, Yellow Bell, and Lilac Bells. So today, I also planted an extra yellow and lilac bell, just in case the others don't come up.

At this point, the banana peppers look fantastic, as do all three types of basil (although one of my "purple basil" was really a plain old basil in the wrong package -- so I planted a replacement today). These should be moved to larger containers as soon as possible, which is something we're just not set up for in our current greenhouse. At this point, I'm thinking about experimenting with plastic cups later on for the peppers, and maybe moving the basils to actual herb pots, but they're fine for now.

In happier news, we've got some very pretty gold crocus blooming in the flower garden yesterday and today (see photo above). Hooray! The harbingers of spring have arrived!

3/10 Update

Today, I thinned out all the basils to just one seedling per peat disc. I think they were planted much too early... next year, we can try planting them later and seeing how they do.

In other news:

About half of the banana peppers are up now (one of them got mildew around the base -- damping off? -- so I threw it out). The Forget-Me-Nots (both blue and rose) are both mostly up. We have one Bhut Jolokia up, one Pinata up, and one Mirasol just poking through the surface. These have all been moved from the seeding nursery to one of our uber-lighted trays, and all appear to be doing well, although a few of the blue Forget-Me-Nots may be getting a tad bit leggy.

I think this coming week, I want to start our tomatoes and eggplants. That'll be at seven weeks out, which I think is about perfect.

And it was good

Yesterday, our new grow lights came in, and we set them up in the greenhouse for our seedlings. Unfortunately, they were so heavy, it caused the greenhouse to start slowly leaning to the side (the leaning greenhouse of Pisa?), so this morning, we did a major swap-around and hooked them up in last year's smaller, but sturdier, greenhouse. Cole says that building a nice, big, sturdy greenhouse with stable racks and places to hang grow lights might be a really good winter project for me for next winter.

Anyway, the seedlings should be happier now. Our two new T5 high output, ultra intensity Lightblaster 3000 units contain four fluorescent 6500K bulbs each. I think they can probably now see our house from space.

In growing news, the purple basil has been up for a couple days. Today, it was joined by the sweet basil, and the bare beginnings of new sprouting in the Thai basil and rose forget-me-nots.