Friday, May 15, 2009

May 15, 2009

Short post tonight.  We celebrated my father-in-law's 60th birthday today.  It was fun, but that meant I didn't get out into the garden to do anything tonight.  That said, there are a few things I wanted to mention tonight.

First is that although my potato bin traffic has dropped off quite a bit, I just reached 30,000 hits yesterday!  Very cool!  That's the size of the city where I live, hehe.  That and I am proud to say that 1,400 comments have been left on my blog, not including the nearly 3,000 spam comments I've gotten.  Bad news travels fast I guess, hehe.

Other than that, I haven't heard from my family as to our schedule this weekend, but I have some garden chores to do if i get time. 

First off, I have to dig up all my potatoes in bed #4.  Seems I planted them way too shallow.  After emailing KitsapFG, I figured out I need 6-10 inches of dirt over the seed potato. I've got 3 at most.  And while I have about 3 inches of bed space that I could add dirt to the top, I don't have that kind of dirt.  So I really hope they haven't taken root yet.  Not sure if distrubing rooted potates is more like cucumbers or tomatoes.  My guess is tomatoes since they're both nightshades.  Either way, I've got 15 inches or so that I can dig down if necessary, though I don't have the space to trench like KitsapFG does.  I'd have to remove the string grids and my wife would kill me. She spent a ton of time stringing it, hehe.

Other than that, I'd like to water, which won't take much time, but it hasn't rained in about 3 days so everything is probably wanting water.  That and I want to mix up some fish emulsion to fill the reservoirs of the tomato SWCs to give them a boost, especially the Bloody Butcher, that is still lethargic.

Finally, if I have about a half hour I'd like to aerate the compost bin.  I don't have much to add besides a bit of kitchen compost that is mostly paper products. I've been more diligent about saving paper products since I stated mowing and have tons of greens to balance out.  Hehe, that reminds me that I haven't checked the temperature of the bin once this season, but I know it's heating up by the steam a week or two after I build it.  Of course one week is optimal I think for true hot composting, which is my goal.

What are you planning for your garden this weekend?  The weather's supposed to be sunny and nice this whole weekend here in the Seattle area.  How about your area?

Enjoy your garden!

5 comments:

  1. Here in Michigan we sure haven't needed to water. Wet in Mich-dry in Seattle? What's up with that? I visited the Northwest once and really loved it, esp. the wild coastal beaches. We had mostly dry weather while I was there. Good luck with the potatoes.

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  2. I think digging the potoes down further will work just fine. They have not been in long enough to get entrenched yet.

    I have company this weekend, so my gardening time will be limited. On my short to do list is; mixing/aerating the compost piles, watering the tomato bed (soaker hoses), watering the seed beds that have yet to emerge since it is going to get warm for the next few days, and pull a few weeds that are showing up in the onion patch.

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  3. hmmm...I planted mine about 2 weeks ago and still haven't seen any sprouting -- maybe mine are too shallow also. was it just a lack of sprouting that clued you in? do you think adding a few inches of compost on top solve the issue?

    I can't be more than a handful of miles from you, by the way -- enjoy the sun today!!

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  4. I finally gave in to boy's corn wishes and put them in the old pea container. We'll see how they do. We pulled some pitiful carrots. Yours seem to grow so well! I'm envious.

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  5. Its rainy & cold here this weekend but I have gardening to do anyway. Filled the new beds today, planting tomorrow including the potato bin & Monday is a holiday so maybe I can do nothing!

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