Short post again tonight. Duty calls as a parent. I spent the evening at our co-op preschool dealing with preschool business, then following it up with some great parent instruction on siblings and defiance. Great topics. Anyway, one of my sons' instructors is an avid gardener and despite her experience, always comes to me with questions. I feel a bit odd advising her on gardening, but she asks and I answer. It's fun to talk gardening after talking parenting. Hehe, my two favorite things, or at least my only two hobbies.
Well, tonight after the meeting we were chatting about gardening. I let her know it was fine to effectively winter sow under hoop covers (she built hers like mine after touring my garden). I don't see why it wouldn't work just like a take-out container, hehe.
Then I mentioned it was time to start cole crops, greens and tomatoes indoors if you're starting from seed and want to transplant your own seedlings. Apparently she does not have a good window to even give it a go, so I went and offered to start some tomatoes for her. After rattling off the varieties I am growing, she said she would like a random sampling of 10 tomato seedlings. Boy, that's a ton compared to my measly 6. Well, at least I'll get good mileage out of my light setup. I've got the room and I should be able to make the light work for varying height tomato plants.
Speaking of my tomato plants, tonight when I got home, all three of the rest of the tomatoes had sprouted, so I took them upstairs after the meeting. Then I grabbed 2 Rubbermaid leftover or sandwich containers that were past their prime and put three cups in each. That way, when I watered the seedlings heavily like EG does, the water leached out into the container, to be wicked back up tomorrow or the next day. Oh, and I used DoubleD's water bottle method. It's the same one I use to refill the cats dishes, hehe. As Alton Brown says, multitaskers...
Lastly, I found that the coffee filters were drying out so I respritzed them. I checked but no sprouting yet. I hope I didn't mess it up by letting them get too dry. Ah well, if there are no sprouts by this weekend, I'll do the soil blocks anyway and sow directly into the blocks instead of placing the germinated seeds. Makes little difference in the long run (a week earlier or so).
Enjoy your garden!
Showing posts with label Winter Sowing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Winter Sowing. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
January 6, 2009
Well, I've been holding out on you since the weekend when I took these pictures, but EG convinced me not to pain you with one loooong post and then nothing for the rest of the week. So, today is the day for my garden tour.
But before I do that, a reader suggested rather than starting my seeds under a light system, that I try out wintersown.org and winter sow instead. I actually fully intend on winter sowing this year. I love Trudi's site and am a big fan of Verna over in Eastern Washington who is one of Trudi's chosen few, if any such exist. But for some things I want to give them a head start before Mother Nature would. Tomatoes are one of them. If I waited until they sprouted on their own, I would miss out on a month or two of prime growing for my plants. So I'm going to do both methods, along with direct sowing. They all have their benefits and I want to experiment with everything I can.
Now for the garden tour, but don't jump to the end for the secret I've been teasing you with for days.
Starting with my tiny bed, here are what's left of my cauliflower plants.
Not looking good are they? If I needed the space to plant, I'd rip them out, but I think I'll just plant some more someplace else. Why not, seed's cheap.
Of course, the freezing temps killed my cole crop, but my green onions?
Still looking pretty good. They'll come out when I have new onions to take their place, which should be early spring. Until then, we'll keep grazing. And next year, less onions. hehe
Next is my spinach bed.
I know it looks bad, but there may very well be something salvagable out of there. We shall see.
And behind the spinach, my peas...
Not much hope for those guys huh? Well, I think beans are going there next year so I've got time to see what happens, though I'd be shocked if these came back.
Now to my bed #1. My son loves carrots, so I was hopeful.
Ewww... yuck. Drat. Ok, how about my lettuce?
Again, like the spinach, I may very well be able to salvage something from that, and I could be wrong, but is that new growth coming out of some of them? Maybe. Again, no reason to rip them out yet.
And the best plants that survived fairly unscathed through that mess? Yep, my succession lettuce.
So, the moral to this story is to harvest sooner, more often, and completly if ever we get long-term freezing temps again. But wait, let's go back to the carrots for a second. Scroll up and try to spot any of the candy-sweet carrots that I was soooo hoping to share with my eldest. You know, let him truly realize just how important it is to grow your own food. Scroll up, I'll wait...
Couldn't find them? Well neither could I. What's more, when I opened up the back of bed #1 to pull from my original patch, this is what I found...
And this...
Those, my friends, are clearly paw prints from the masked bandits of fresh produce everywhere. My winter garden was raided by raccoons. Silly me, I stopped putting down Shake Away in the fall thinking they wouldn't bother my garden in the winter. Oh, how wrong I was. Double drat! I was so looking forward to sharing my root crops with my family. And to add insult to injury, look what I found in my radish patch.
Guess they didn't like the spicy raddish. Grrrr. Thankfully my son was fine with not having any more carrots. Though he did say we should feed the raccoons something sweeter than his carrots so they wouldn't want his carrots. Ah, the mind of a child, how cute!
So, the moral to the story, in additon to harvesting better, is to continue to use my means to deter the coons year round. /sigh
Well, if I can ever find time to get home at a decent hour I plan on heading out to check on pricing out the pieces for my light system.
Enjoy your garden!
But before I do that, a reader suggested rather than starting my seeds under a light system, that I try out wintersown.org and winter sow instead. I actually fully intend on winter sowing this year. I love Trudi's site and am a big fan of Verna over in Eastern Washington who is one of Trudi's chosen few, if any such exist. But for some things I want to give them a head start before Mother Nature would. Tomatoes are one of them. If I waited until they sprouted on their own, I would miss out on a month or two of prime growing for my plants. So I'm going to do both methods, along with direct sowing. They all have their benefits and I want to experiment with everything I can.
Now for the garden tour, but don't jump to the end for the secret I've been teasing you with for days.
Starting with my tiny bed, here are what's left of my cauliflower plants.
Not looking good are they? If I needed the space to plant, I'd rip them out, but I think I'll just plant some more someplace else. Why not, seed's cheap.
Of course, the freezing temps killed my cole crop, but my green onions?
Still looking pretty good. They'll come out when I have new onions to take their place, which should be early spring. Until then, we'll keep grazing. And next year, less onions. hehe
Next is my spinach bed.
I know it looks bad, but there may very well be something salvagable out of there. We shall see.
And behind the spinach, my peas...
Not much hope for those guys huh? Well, I think beans are going there next year so I've got time to see what happens, though I'd be shocked if these came back.
Now to my bed #1. My son loves carrots, so I was hopeful.
Ewww... yuck. Drat. Ok, how about my lettuce?
Again, like the spinach, I may very well be able to salvage something from that, and I could be wrong, but is that new growth coming out of some of them? Maybe. Again, no reason to rip them out yet.
And the best plants that survived fairly unscathed through that mess? Yep, my succession lettuce.
So, the moral to this story is to harvest sooner, more often, and completly if ever we get long-term freezing temps again. But wait, let's go back to the carrots for a second. Scroll up and try to spot any of the candy-sweet carrots that I was soooo hoping to share with my eldest. You know, let him truly realize just how important it is to grow your own food. Scroll up, I'll wait...
Couldn't find them? Well neither could I. What's more, when I opened up the back of bed #1 to pull from my original patch, this is what I found...
And this...
Those, my friends, are clearly paw prints from the masked bandits of fresh produce everywhere. My winter garden was raided by raccoons. Silly me, I stopped putting down Shake Away in the fall thinking they wouldn't bother my garden in the winter. Oh, how wrong I was. Double drat! I was so looking forward to sharing my root crops with my family. And to add insult to injury, look what I found in my radish patch.
Guess they didn't like the spicy raddish. Grrrr. Thankfully my son was fine with not having any more carrots. Though he did say we should feed the raccoons something sweeter than his carrots so they wouldn't want his carrots. Ah, the mind of a child, how cute!
So, the moral to the story, in additon to harvesting better, is to continue to use my means to deter the coons year round. /sigh
Well, if I can ever find time to get home at a decent hour I plan on heading out to check on pricing out the pieces for my light system.
Enjoy your garden!
Saturday, July 26, 2008
July 26, 2008
Well, looks like my problem wasn't just my router. I'm not even sure if it WAS my router. It's sitting right next to me daring me to plug it back in. $50 lighter in the wallet and I've got a fancy wireless one (that's all they sell, so what if I don't have anything wireless) and an hour on the phone with two nice folks from India (they always like to ask how the weather is here, and what time it is, hehe), only to find out my modem is toast. Hehe a half hour call with a nice young lady five miles away from me confirmed it. So this morning after sleeping in (I didn't get to bed until really really late last night) I went and got a new modem. Another call to get it activated and poof, I had internet again. I don't have the heart to plug back in my old router to see if it works. It shouldn't logically because it went out before the modem did, but you never know.
Anyway, I was watching the kids today as my wife was at a baby shower (non couples this time) and my kids didn't want to go outside (cloudy and muggy). So no gardening happened today. All I got done was watering. Though I did eat a snap pea that for some reason is surviving where the rest of his bretheren is brown and completely dead. I still need to remove the brown pods, shuck them and let them dry in a cool spot. My first foray into seed saving. We'll see how it works.
Speaking of seed saving, I've got to get out into the garden and rip out my first lettuce plantings. They're 3 feet tall and going to seed. I don't want to save my lettuce seeds, but I do want to see if I can salvage some of the lettuce off the trees, hehe. Tomorrow is a salad for lunch if it kills us.
I also need to plant some seeds and figure out where to plant them. Got to work this out. I really want to take the plunge into winter gardening in addition to winter sowing, hehe. Unfortunately I've got a ton of green onions that need to be harvested and used and my cucumbers are just taking off, so I can't plant cauliflower back to front in that bed. So no clue what to do with the back of that bed. For that matter, my pole beans haven't even started to produce yet and so they're staying for a while. And I've got carrots in the back. I think more carrots are going up front with the radishes since they're root crops and low. Lettuce will be next followed by taller plants. Planning is so critical in raised bed gardening. I've got to take more into consideration next year. I say next year but if Steve Solomon is right, there is no next year since I'll be planting greens and cool weather crops year round. hehe
Tomorrow is also picture day. My cell was out of power from using it to go on the internet while both our computers were down, so no pics were taken today. You'll just have to take my word today that my potato plants have rebounded from being bent over en mass by racoons. It's odd that i've got flowers galore on the russet bin and nada in the way of flowers in the Yukon Gold bin. Here's to hoping that that's common, hehe I'm sure it is.
Hope you've been enjoying your garden! Tis the season to harvest harvest harvest, and plan for fall plantings. Have fun!
Anyway, I was watching the kids today as my wife was at a baby shower (non couples this time) and my kids didn't want to go outside (cloudy and muggy). So no gardening happened today. All I got done was watering. Though I did eat a snap pea that for some reason is surviving where the rest of his bretheren is brown and completely dead. I still need to remove the brown pods, shuck them and let them dry in a cool spot. My first foray into seed saving. We'll see how it works.
Speaking of seed saving, I've got to get out into the garden and rip out my first lettuce plantings. They're 3 feet tall and going to seed. I don't want to save my lettuce seeds, but I do want to see if I can salvage some of the lettuce off the trees, hehe. Tomorrow is a salad for lunch if it kills us.
I also need to plant some seeds and figure out where to plant them. Got to work this out. I really want to take the plunge into winter gardening in addition to winter sowing, hehe. Unfortunately I've got a ton of green onions that need to be harvested and used and my cucumbers are just taking off, so I can't plant cauliflower back to front in that bed. So no clue what to do with the back of that bed. For that matter, my pole beans haven't even started to produce yet and so they're staying for a while. And I've got carrots in the back. I think more carrots are going up front with the radishes since they're root crops and low. Lettuce will be next followed by taller plants. Planning is so critical in raised bed gardening. I've got to take more into consideration next year. I say next year but if Steve Solomon is right, there is no next year since I'll be planting greens and cool weather crops year round. hehe
Tomorrow is also picture day. My cell was out of power from using it to go on the internet while both our computers were down, so no pics were taken today. You'll just have to take my word today that my potato plants have rebounded from being bent over en mass by racoons. It's odd that i've got flowers galore on the russet bin and nada in the way of flowers in the Yukon Gold bin. Here's to hoping that that's common, hehe I'm sure it is.
Hope you've been enjoying your garden! Tis the season to harvest harvest harvest, and plan for fall plantings. Have fun!
Thursday, July 24, 2008
July 24, 2008
Short post tonight, as I'm having computer issues. Seems Judy's problems are wearing off on me. Maybe it was something in the seeds... naw, can't be that, they're growing so well. The marigolds are nearly blossoming and the cantaloupes sprouted in a few days. Very cool, Thanks Judy!
Naw, my computer problems are centered in my router. Seems they never last more than two years. I guess it makes sense, they're always on and transmitting. Funny though, the modem hasn't gone out ever (knock on wood) and it's always on too. Netgear seems to breed too much obsolesence into their products. And they're oh so recyclable. So this time when I rushed out to the computer store right at closing and grabbed whatever they had on the shelf (a wireless version of what broke, great), I bought the two year warranty. The don't last two years. In fact, the one I bought doesn't seem to work well already. The internet is snail like when I'm hooked up to it. Grrr, I hate being computer ignorant these days. But who has time to keep up when Moore's Law is going warp speed ahead. Maybe I need to go into that secret place and drop my connection and reconnect. Rebooting the computer, modem and router isn't working. So to post this I'm hooked up directly to the modem and my wife's watching TV. Grrr.
Anyway, today I got excited to garden when I got home and I worked on my compost. I had been throwing a ton of bolted and trimmed plants on top and I hadn't fluffed and layered it in a while.
So I fluffed it and broke up the clumps and moved it to the side, then threw the stalks in, and a bag of coffee grounds, wetted it down and added more compost on top. It took me three times repeating that to get to this...
I know, it doesn't look that different, but it is, hehe it's moist throughout and has layers of goodness decomposing. Unfortunately I totally forgot to gather the inside compost materials which has a great amount of tissues and paper products that could have helped. I'm hoping that the stalks are browns to offset the green grounds. Who knows. I'll check the temp tomorrow and if it's not hot I'll dig a hole and dump my house compost. Easy.
Then while giving the kids just a bit more play time out back, I checked out the blueberry bushes, and low and behold, the big cluster is already ripening!
The middle left is almost a true blueberry now! And you can't see it but they're HUGE! I've got to keep an eye on them to make sure the birds don't beat me to it (or coons, but I think they're sufficiently deterred). But even more cool than the blueberries turning is the growth I've gotten this year. Look at the new growth!
I can only hope the root system is spreading out tons. I also hope the deep watering I've done has resulted in semi-deep roots because I want to use the sides and center this fall to plant garlic. We'll see.
Oh yeah, for dinner we decided to be healthy for a change and we had chicken and rice. With it I cooked up (only slightly) some broccoli and cauliflower for me and carrots for my wife and kids... ALL FROM MY GARDEN! YAY!!!!!
I must say, the broccoli wasn't what I'm used to. It was ok, but didn't have that broccoli taste. It was a bit too muted. It didn't appeal to me. I'll eat the rest of that head and the one I've got developing, but the two incredibily leggy ones that haven't started a head and likely couldn't support one are going to be pulled. I'd rather plant more cauliflower. The cauliflower on the other hand was INCREDIBLE! I just couldn't get enough of it. Only I was eating it, but I had placed two tiny floretts on my kids plates for them to try. They wouldn't of course, but I really wanted them to, I just know they'll love it. Anyway, during the process of trying to get them to eat it, my wife had a piece. WHOOOT I got one convert out of it. She actually asked if we could plant more next year. She was ever so excited when i told her I could plant some now for fall and winter harvest. Hehe.
Speaking of fall and winter harvesting, I'm really getting excited about it now that my garden is emptying out. So after talking at length with my brother I opened up my garden plan and wiped it to start over for fall. First I put back in what's staying for the mean-time... that is, my warm weather crops. Then I added more carrots and a row of succession greens. Radishes went in the front as they're the lowest besides carrots of any of my veggies (root crops, go figure). I'm thinking that I'll cover three beds (all but the corn bed, which I'll compost my bean stalks in to fix the nitrogen). The small bed is half full of onions and cucumbers so I'll plant the entire bed of cauliflower in succession. Not the perfect system as the front is empty and the back is full for now, so the cauliflower will shade the seedlings until they grow big enough to hold their own. At least I hope they do. I can also put cauliflower in the back row of bed 1 where the pole beans are. I am planning on using my first 2x2 trellis with my hoop cover and grow fall snap peas.
As you can see, I'm really getting the fall planting bug. I'm excited to grow salads year round, even though I'm not eating them often enough. Gotta find some great tasting greens. Hope to find some mustard greens that I like to add variety. Also varrying my salads could help. /shrug
Anyway, I had already published this when I remembered I'd taken a few more pics that were still on my camera. When I was watering my corn I found a stalk that had split out at the bottom and is looking strong from both stalks. Is that a mutant or how you get more than one ear per stalk?
Oh, and I'm excited to say that I also got a silk from the slow corn! Not bad.
And finally, how I missed it, I have no idea, but my scant few bush bean plants are producing!!!
Beans! They're pencil thin but they'll grow I'm sure! Now I just hope that the seeds I planted come up and produce.
Enjoy your garden!
Naw, my computer problems are centered in my router. Seems they never last more than two years. I guess it makes sense, they're always on and transmitting. Funny though, the modem hasn't gone out ever (knock on wood) and it's always on too. Netgear seems to breed too much obsolesence into their products. And they're oh so recyclable. So this time when I rushed out to the computer store right at closing and grabbed whatever they had on the shelf (a wireless version of what broke, great), I bought the two year warranty. The don't last two years. In fact, the one I bought doesn't seem to work well already. The internet is snail like when I'm hooked up to it. Grrr, I hate being computer ignorant these days. But who has time to keep up when Moore's Law is going warp speed ahead. Maybe I need to go into that secret place and drop my connection and reconnect. Rebooting the computer, modem and router isn't working. So to post this I'm hooked up directly to the modem and my wife's watching TV. Grrr.
Anyway, today I got excited to garden when I got home and I worked on my compost. I had been throwing a ton of bolted and trimmed plants on top and I hadn't fluffed and layered it in a while.
So I fluffed it and broke up the clumps and moved it to the side, then threw the stalks in, and a bag of coffee grounds, wetted it down and added more compost on top. It took me three times repeating that to get to this...
I know, it doesn't look that different, but it is, hehe it's moist throughout and has layers of goodness decomposing. Unfortunately I totally forgot to gather the inside compost materials which has a great amount of tissues and paper products that could have helped. I'm hoping that the stalks are browns to offset the green grounds. Who knows. I'll check the temp tomorrow and if it's not hot I'll dig a hole and dump my house compost. Easy.
Then while giving the kids just a bit more play time out back, I checked out the blueberry bushes, and low and behold, the big cluster is already ripening!
The middle left is almost a true blueberry now! And you can't see it but they're HUGE! I've got to keep an eye on them to make sure the birds don't beat me to it (or coons, but I think they're sufficiently deterred). But even more cool than the blueberries turning is the growth I've gotten this year. Look at the new growth!
I can only hope the root system is spreading out tons. I also hope the deep watering I've done has resulted in semi-deep roots because I want to use the sides and center this fall to plant garlic. We'll see.
Oh yeah, for dinner we decided to be healthy for a change and we had chicken and rice. With it I cooked up (only slightly) some broccoli and cauliflower for me and carrots for my wife and kids... ALL FROM MY GARDEN! YAY!!!!!
I must say, the broccoli wasn't what I'm used to. It was ok, but didn't have that broccoli taste. It was a bit too muted. It didn't appeal to me. I'll eat the rest of that head and the one I've got developing, but the two incredibily leggy ones that haven't started a head and likely couldn't support one are going to be pulled. I'd rather plant more cauliflower. The cauliflower on the other hand was INCREDIBLE! I just couldn't get enough of it. Only I was eating it, but I had placed two tiny floretts on my kids plates for them to try. They wouldn't of course, but I really wanted them to, I just know they'll love it. Anyway, during the process of trying to get them to eat it, my wife had a piece. WHOOOT I got one convert out of it. She actually asked if we could plant more next year. She was ever so excited when i told her I could plant some now for fall and winter harvest. Hehe.
Speaking of fall and winter harvesting, I'm really getting excited about it now that my garden is emptying out. So after talking at length with my brother I opened up my garden plan and wiped it to start over for fall. First I put back in what's staying for the mean-time... that is, my warm weather crops. Then I added more carrots and a row of succession greens. Radishes went in the front as they're the lowest besides carrots of any of my veggies (root crops, go figure). I'm thinking that I'll cover three beds (all but the corn bed, which I'll compost my bean stalks in to fix the nitrogen). The small bed is half full of onions and cucumbers so I'll plant the entire bed of cauliflower in succession. Not the perfect system as the front is empty and the back is full for now, so the cauliflower will shade the seedlings until they grow big enough to hold their own. At least I hope they do. I can also put cauliflower in the back row of bed 1 where the pole beans are. I am planning on using my first 2x2 trellis with my hoop cover and grow fall snap peas.
As you can see, I'm really getting the fall planting bug. I'm excited to grow salads year round, even though I'm not eating them often enough. Gotta find some great tasting greens. Hope to find some mustard greens that I like to add variety. Also varrying my salads could help. /shrug
Anyway, I had already published this when I remembered I'd taken a few more pics that were still on my camera. When I was watering my corn I found a stalk that had split out at the bottom and is looking strong from both stalks. Is that a mutant or how you get more than one ear per stalk?
Oh, and I'm excited to say that I also got a silk from the slow corn! Not bad.
And finally, how I missed it, I have no idea, but my scant few bush bean plants are producing!!!
Beans! They're pencil thin but they'll grow I'm sure! Now I just hope that the seeds I planted come up and produce.
Enjoy your garden!
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
July 23, 2008
Summer is a busy time, both at work and home. So much to do and so little time, especially for posting to my blog. But that doesnt' mean that gardening isn't getting done or in my mind often. Hehe I can tell it's a busy time for readers as well as my readership's dropped off tremendously over the last few months. At first I thought I was getting boring. You know, like the high school dating scene where after a few months you knew everything there was to know about them and had nothing more to talk about so you broke up, hehe yeah like that, without the coffee at Denny's at midnight (or Starbucks now-a-days, hehe). But then I realized folks are just busy. I "get" busy.
Anyway, for my post tonight. First off, I'm not big on harvesting anything but salad makings it seems. I have let my mother harvest most of my other veggies. Like today, she cleaned out my garden. My cauliflower that had started to bolt all got removed. Seems it doesn't matter if the heads are bigger than baseballs or not, when it's time for them to bolt it's time. Gotta remember that for next year's succession planting. That said, I will definitely plant more during the fall, which should go into the ground soon. In fact I'm late per the Territorial Seed planting guide. Oops. So I'll give it a shot anyway. This weekend I plant cauliflower for fall and winter harvest.
It'll be easy to do since my first and second beds are getting pretty empty without broccoli and cauliflower taking up space. Especially after I remove the bolting lettuce in bed #1. Sorry no pics today, I was busy with the kids and forgot. However, I'm really getting excited about planting my fall and winter gardens.
Speaking of kids, Logan harvested a bunch of carrots because he wanted to eat them. I think between the two of us we ate four carrots tonight, hehe. Boy were they tasty!
Well, on the way home from work I stopped by True Value and picked up some predator urine. It's great, that little store has 3 different brands of the stuff, so I can cycle through them time and time again and hopefully keep the raccoons away. So this time I got some from Shake Away. Hope it works because I didn't use much. Instead of laying down a perimeter, I spot treated where I thought it was likely they'd try to get in. Kinda like what an animal marking its territory would do, hehe. I laid it heavy around my potato bins and the new SWC.
Finally my wife got me a ton of coffee grounds today. She hit the mother load. She knows now to ask whenever she gets coffee. Today they said, sure, how much do you want. She said as much as they had and I got 4 full bags. I've got 8 now to use this weekend. Gees, it's only Wednesday and I'm already working up my to-do list, hehe. Fun!
Enjoy your garden!
Anyway, for my post tonight. First off, I'm not big on harvesting anything but salad makings it seems. I have let my mother harvest most of my other veggies. Like today, she cleaned out my garden. My cauliflower that had started to bolt all got removed. Seems it doesn't matter if the heads are bigger than baseballs or not, when it's time for them to bolt it's time. Gotta remember that for next year's succession planting. That said, I will definitely plant more during the fall, which should go into the ground soon. In fact I'm late per the Territorial Seed planting guide. Oops. So I'll give it a shot anyway. This weekend I plant cauliflower for fall and winter harvest.
It'll be easy to do since my first and second beds are getting pretty empty without broccoli and cauliflower taking up space. Especially after I remove the bolting lettuce in bed #1. Sorry no pics today, I was busy with the kids and forgot. However, I'm really getting excited about planting my fall and winter gardens.
Speaking of kids, Logan harvested a bunch of carrots because he wanted to eat them. I think between the two of us we ate four carrots tonight, hehe. Boy were they tasty!
Well, on the way home from work I stopped by True Value and picked up some predator urine. It's great, that little store has 3 different brands of the stuff, so I can cycle through them time and time again and hopefully keep the raccoons away. So this time I got some from Shake Away. Hope it works because I didn't use much. Instead of laying down a perimeter, I spot treated where I thought it was likely they'd try to get in. Kinda like what an animal marking its territory would do, hehe. I laid it heavy around my potato bins and the new SWC.
Finally my wife got me a ton of coffee grounds today. She hit the mother load. She knows now to ask whenever she gets coffee. Today they said, sure, how much do you want. She said as much as they had and I got 4 full bags. I've got 8 now to use this weekend. Gees, it's only Wednesday and I'm already working up my to-do list, hehe. Fun!
Enjoy your garden!
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
July 22, 2008
Well, I let my fingers do the walking and found what appears to be a competing brand of predator urine to deter my raccoons. Unfortunatley they were closed when I called but answered the phone anyway. I love shopping locally. It's at my local True Value hardware store just down the street where I found that great cedar bench. I may just stop by on the way home from work and pick both up. We'll see.
Anyway, I read on the bus this morning about winter gardening in the Pacific NW. Apparently on coast of the Puget Sound, we can garden year round here under hoop covers (Steve Solomon calls them plastic cloches). He suggests a great schedule to have salad greens year round. If I plant lettuce, spinach, and maybe mustard greens in September, I'll harvest in December and January. Succession plantings in October will harvest in February and March. The trick then is when the first (September) plants are done in late January, you plant again for harvest in April and May, right as my first spring greens are coming up. Considering I still have greens right now in the heat of the summer (some are just starting to bolt), that means we can have salad greens all year round here! Very cool!
On the way home I decided that I should fertilize the final two rows of corn to complete the succession planting. While I did it I was surprised to find the start of corn (since yesterday) on several of my first plantings. Look at the best of them...
Now it seems I've got to look up what to do with them? I haven't seen many bees around lately so I guess it means I need to hand polinate them. I wonder if Judy's around since she did that with hers and they turned out. Grrr. I wish I had more experience, hehe. It's exciting though. I had to get my whole family out there to show them our corn starting to grow!
Also, I just had to snap a pic of my flowering cukes. I've got tons of flowers on all my plants, but this pic shows the greatest concentration right at the base of my trellis. Pretty cool!
I sure hope we get a ton of cukes. As I've said my wife wants to pickle them and if we don't get many I'll eat them all plain or in salads, hehe. Do I have to polinate these or what? Can I shake the trellis like I do the tomato cages? /shrug
Finally, I have been looking online at Territorial Seed to find some mustard greens to grow this fall, winter and next spring and summer. I want something to give my salads some kick, the Italiansheir lettuce isn't doing it. But I don't want too hot or too mustardy taste which would clash with the rest of my salad. I've got an IM into my garden muse Jen who graciously posted here today. She let me try some of her mustard greens and I liked them. Maybe she can help me pick a variety from Territorial. I hate so many choices when I'm so picky, hehe. Worst case I can call the order line. They're extremely helpful there, but they don't know me like Jen does. Well that's it for tonight. Time to hit the sack.
Enjoy your garden!
Anyway, I read on the bus this morning about winter gardening in the Pacific NW. Apparently on coast of the Puget Sound, we can garden year round here under hoop covers (Steve Solomon calls them plastic cloches). He suggests a great schedule to have salad greens year round. If I plant lettuce, spinach, and maybe mustard greens in September, I'll harvest in December and January. Succession plantings in October will harvest in February and March. The trick then is when the first (September) plants are done in late January, you plant again for harvest in April and May, right as my first spring greens are coming up. Considering I still have greens right now in the heat of the summer (some are just starting to bolt), that means we can have salad greens all year round here! Very cool!
On the way home I decided that I should fertilize the final two rows of corn to complete the succession planting. While I did it I was surprised to find the start of corn (since yesterday) on several of my first plantings. Look at the best of them...
Now it seems I've got to look up what to do with them? I haven't seen many bees around lately so I guess it means I need to hand polinate them. I wonder if Judy's around since she did that with hers and they turned out. Grrr. I wish I had more experience, hehe. It's exciting though. I had to get my whole family out there to show them our corn starting to grow!
Also, I just had to snap a pic of my flowering cukes. I've got tons of flowers on all my plants, but this pic shows the greatest concentration right at the base of my trellis. Pretty cool!
I sure hope we get a ton of cukes. As I've said my wife wants to pickle them and if we don't get many I'll eat them all plain or in salads, hehe. Do I have to polinate these or what? Can I shake the trellis like I do the tomato cages? /shrug
Finally, I have been looking online at Territorial Seed to find some mustard greens to grow this fall, winter and next spring and summer. I want something to give my salads some kick, the Italiansheir lettuce isn't doing it. But I don't want too hot or too mustardy taste which would clash with the rest of my salad. I've got an IM into my garden muse Jen who graciously posted here today. She let me try some of her mustard greens and I liked them. Maybe she can help me pick a variety from Territorial. I hate so many choices when I'm so picky, hehe. Worst case I can call the order line. They're extremely helpful there, but they don't know me like Jen does. Well that's it for tonight. Time to hit the sack.
Enjoy your garden!
Friday, June 27, 2008
June 27, 2008
Ahhh, I hate to say this in fear my wife may read this and get mad. But she's out of town this weekend and my in-laws graciously agreed to take the boys for the weekend (they don't get to see them often enough). So that means I have the house to myself.
Sure I miss my family tremendously, especially working as many hours as I have lately, I hardly see them as it is. That said, working so many hours has put the garden, the house and countless projects on hold. So tonight, after a leisurely evening in the heat of the day, I went out and got tons of garden projects done. Hehe it's now going on 10 and this is what I did...
- I planted my pole beans, filling all the empty holes with the best germinated seeds. Those that didn't germinate inside are garbage. Hehe I considered throwing them in the compost pile, but I don't want stuff growing in it. I also planted two of the basil sprigs that I put in water two weeks ago. They had grown little white roots. I hope they do well at 2 per SF. I put them in closest open square to the tomato plants, one foot farther away than the marigolds are (in a different bed). Tomorrow I'll try to remember to take a picture. Let's hope they survive and don't get crowded out by my broccoli or crowd out my bush beans. Boy do I have a lot to learn about spacing.
- I watered the plants and noted that my best cuke is growing decent leaves finally (the one that I unintentionally winter-sowed).
- I cut the final two 2x6 doug fir boards and installed them to the tipity top of my potato bins.
- I added 3 bags of Mel's Mix to the bins, filling completely the Yukon Gold bin. Unfortunately I want to give the Butte bin a bit more growing to get some of the plants above the wood line before I cover to the top. This time I went very slow, almost totally by hand. I highly recommend hand filling to keep from completely burrying plants. It was especially important with this bin. As you can see, it's a jungle in there!
Lastly I watered it in. I'm not quite sure how much water to give it. It drains very well, so that's a plus. It's kind of expensive to use Mel's Mix in a bin that you can't use the next year (for potatoes anyway), but at least I don't have to worry too much about overwatering since there's no bottom.
As the sun was going down, I checked the temp on my compost bin. Unfortunately it wasn't 140, the highest I found was 135. Not sure, it shouldn't have pettered out already. It's a little dry but I'd put away the hose already so I'll wet it down a bit tomorrow after I fluff it again. Maybe that's a sign it's almost done. Odd since last weekend I added those rhodie chips. Hmmm, something new I guess.
Tomorrow's supposed to be boiliing hot. I hope to get out early and do work in the yard before it gets into the 80s (that's hot for us with our constant humidity).
All in all, not bad for a day that I worked 10 hours, hehe.
Enjoy your garden!
Sure I miss my family tremendously, especially working as many hours as I have lately, I hardly see them as it is. That said, working so many hours has put the garden, the house and countless projects on hold. So tonight, after a leisurely evening in the heat of the day, I went out and got tons of garden projects done. Hehe it's now going on 10 and this is what I did...
- I planted my pole beans, filling all the empty holes with the best germinated seeds. Those that didn't germinate inside are garbage. Hehe I considered throwing them in the compost pile, but I don't want stuff growing in it. I also planted two of the basil sprigs that I put in water two weeks ago. They had grown little white roots. I hope they do well at 2 per SF. I put them in closest open square to the tomato plants, one foot farther away than the marigolds are (in a different bed). Tomorrow I'll try to remember to take a picture. Let's hope they survive and don't get crowded out by my broccoli or crowd out my bush beans. Boy do I have a lot to learn about spacing.
- I watered the plants and noted that my best cuke is growing decent leaves finally (the one that I unintentionally winter-sowed).
- I cut the final two 2x6 doug fir boards and installed them to the tipity top of my potato bins.
- I added 3 bags of Mel's Mix to the bins, filling completely the Yukon Gold bin. Unfortunately I want to give the Butte bin a bit more growing to get some of the plants above the wood line before I cover to the top. This time I went very slow, almost totally by hand. I highly recommend hand filling to keep from completely burrying plants. It was especially important with this bin. As you can see, it's a jungle in there!
Lastly I watered it in. I'm not quite sure how much water to give it. It drains very well, so that's a plus. It's kind of expensive to use Mel's Mix in a bin that you can't use the next year (for potatoes anyway), but at least I don't have to worry too much about overwatering since there's no bottom.
As the sun was going down, I checked the temp on my compost bin. Unfortunately it wasn't 140, the highest I found was 135. Not sure, it shouldn't have pettered out already. It's a little dry but I'd put away the hose already so I'll wet it down a bit tomorrow after I fluff it again. Maybe that's a sign it's almost done. Odd since last weekend I added those rhodie chips. Hmmm, something new I guess.
Tomorrow's supposed to be boiliing hot. I hope to get out early and do work in the yard before it gets into the 80s (that's hot for us with our constant humidity).
All in all, not bad for a day that I worked 10 hours, hehe.
Enjoy your garden!
Sunday, March 30, 2008
March 30, 2008
Well, it's 36 degrees and lightly snowing outside at NOON! I ran outside and checked on my hoop cover. Still leaning a bit but no change from yesterday. I may make a trip to the hardware store to see if I can't figure out how to make the hoop covers easier and more "permanent" for winter gardening.
Other than that, I just can't see planting anything more right now when I just want to stay inside and keep warm. I don't even want to go to the dump to get rid of that broken coldframe. Today will be a day to play with the kids, maybe search the internet for interesting ways to grow my veggies via Winter Sowing, and also to create a better seal on my hoop cover. Oh, and maybe even try to finish my taxes. Joy oh joy.
Well, I went through the WS FAQ again. After I got through all the talk of *flowers* I found a great post on veggies that you can WS. The ones I hope to attempt rather than using an extensive light system are:
Onions
Beans
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Carrots
Peas
Spinach
Lettuce
It says I could do corn and tomatoes, but I am still worried about doing tomatoes from seed and I think I'll just start corn inside in peat pucks for the early plantings and then direct sow for the later ones when the soil temp's higher. As for tomatoes, I did actually read the FAQ for growing tomatoes from seed... Judy'd be proud of me... she's converting me one day at a time. hehe
That said, I may even be able to keep most of these very plants alive and producing throughout the winter under my hoop house (at least the ones that can tolerate partial sun, since we have a solid cloud cover most fall/winter). /shrugOh, I forgot to mention, I saw a possum in my front yard last night when I went out to check on the snow conditions. It looked like it wanted to go into my garden area but didn't. Of course it was cold and I didn't stick around, but it was encouraging about the deterrent I put down.
That said, my wife told me while I was making dinner tonight that she saw some cats in our yard. I went out back to shoo them away and found what looked like a family of feral cats back there. So much for the predator urine working on cats (not sure it was supposed to, but it should). And the kittens (young cats) were so cute. Grrr, I'm such a softie when it comes to cats. *He says as he's posting this message with a droolie cat on his lap* hehe.
Did you check out Judy's blog for today? She posted a pic from Google Earth showing her property. OMG can you say DROOOL! It's 2 acres with well over an acre of southern facing open space. Not that I'm advocating traditional row gardening, but WOW, she could become Judy the GardenGirl (if Patti would allow the rights to be used). She could even change it from Urban Sustainable Living to Rural Sustainable Living. Doesn't have quite the ring, or give the same impression as GardenGirl's, but she could definitely feed her family and many others utilizing the techniques in Patti's videos.
Note if you don't know what or whom I'm referring to, there are links on the right to both Judy's blog and site and GardenGirlTV's site. Both are well worth as much time as you can devote to them.
Hope your weekend was more productive in your garden than mine was in mine... Have a good week!
Other than that, I just can't see planting anything more right now when I just want to stay inside and keep warm. I don't even want to go to the dump to get rid of that broken coldframe. Today will be a day to play with the kids, maybe search the internet for interesting ways to grow my veggies via Winter Sowing, and also to create a better seal on my hoop cover. Oh, and maybe even try to finish my taxes. Joy oh joy.
Well, I went through the WS FAQ again. After I got through all the talk of *flowers* I found a great post on veggies that you can WS. The ones I hope to attempt rather than using an extensive light system are:
Onions
Beans
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Carrots
Peas
Spinach
Lettuce
It says I could do corn and tomatoes, but I am still worried about doing tomatoes from seed and I think I'll just start corn inside in peat pucks for the early plantings and then direct sow for the later ones when the soil temp's higher. As for tomatoes, I did actually read the FAQ for growing tomatoes from seed... Judy'd be proud of me... she's converting me one day at a time. hehe
That said, I may even be able to keep most of these very plants alive and producing throughout the winter under my hoop house (at least the ones that can tolerate partial sun, since we have a solid cloud cover most fall/winter). /shrugOh, I forgot to mention, I saw a possum in my front yard last night when I went out to check on the snow conditions. It looked like it wanted to go into my garden area but didn't. Of course it was cold and I didn't stick around, but it was encouraging about the deterrent I put down.
That said, my wife told me while I was making dinner tonight that she saw some cats in our yard. I went out back to shoo them away and found what looked like a family of feral cats back there. So much for the predator urine working on cats (not sure it was supposed to, but it should). And the kittens (young cats) were so cute. Grrr, I'm such a softie when it comes to cats. *He says as he's posting this message with a droolie cat on his lap* hehe.
Did you check out Judy's blog for today? She posted a pic from Google Earth showing her property. OMG can you say DROOOL! It's 2 acres with well over an acre of southern facing open space. Not that I'm advocating traditional row gardening, but WOW, she could become Judy the GardenGirl (if Patti would allow the rights to be used). She could even change it from Urban Sustainable Living to Rural Sustainable Living. Doesn't have quite the ring, or give the same impression as GardenGirl's, but she could definitely feed her family and many others utilizing the techniques in Patti's videos.
Note if you don't know what or whom I'm referring to, there are links on the right to both Judy's blog and site and GardenGirlTV's site. Both are well worth as much time as you can devote to them.
Hope your weekend was more productive in your garden than mine was in mine... Have a good week!
Friday, March 28, 2008
March 28, 2008
I'm going to keep this really short as it's actually one hour into the 29th.
Quick update: We got slushy snow all day here with about a half inch of slush accumulation on my hoop cover. It is leaning pretty bad and heavily laiden with chunky water, but it's holding up well enough that I'll wait til tomorrow to fix it.
I've decided I'll go get 5 inch sections of 3/4 inch pipe and attach them to the inside of my beds at appropriate intervals. That way I can use them like flag pole stands and place my 1/2 inch hoop pipes inside them for much better stability.
As for making a better seal with the plastic (not so important to keep frost off, but it will be for the mini-green house aspect this coming fall/winter), Judy suggested something interesting that I'll have to be more awake to understand. More on that at Ft2Garden.com or tomorrow when I'm lucid.
Tomorrow is also the day when I install the Y to my faucet in the backard and attach the temporary hose to the underside of my house against the slab. Then when I reach the garden area, I'll lock it off and coil it up for use to water until we've got the deck started. Then I'll put a PVC solution in place that'll be permanent. I just hope my dad who's helping doesn't decide to come over early...
Lastly, while I was out tonight, I came across a great container for Winter Sowing. It's a clear salad green container from the grocery store. It's about a foot, by 5 inches by 7 inches deep. It should hold 3+ inches of soil no problem.
Well, I'm feeling that I'm missing something, but I can't think of it, so tomorrow's another day (or later today). Night Night!
Quick update: We got slushy snow all day here with about a half inch of slush accumulation on my hoop cover. It is leaning pretty bad and heavily laiden with chunky water, but it's holding up well enough that I'll wait til tomorrow to fix it.
I've decided I'll go get 5 inch sections of 3/4 inch pipe and attach them to the inside of my beds at appropriate intervals. That way I can use them like flag pole stands and place my 1/2 inch hoop pipes inside them for much better stability.
As for making a better seal with the plastic (not so important to keep frost off, but it will be for the mini-green house aspect this coming fall/winter), Judy suggested something interesting that I'll have to be more awake to understand. More on that at Ft2Garden.com or tomorrow when I'm lucid.
Tomorrow is also the day when I install the Y to my faucet in the backard and attach the temporary hose to the underside of my house against the slab. Then when I reach the garden area, I'll lock it off and coil it up for use to water until we've got the deck started. Then I'll put a PVC solution in place that'll be permanent. I just hope my dad who's helping doesn't decide to come over early...
Lastly, while I was out tonight, I came across a great container for Winter Sowing. It's a clear salad green container from the grocery store. It's about a foot, by 5 inches by 7 inches deep. It should hold 3+ inches of soil no problem.
Well, I'm feeling that I'm missing something, but I can't think of it, so tomorrow's another day (or later today). Night Night!
Thursday, March 6, 2008
March 6, 2008
What a day, what a day! Today I found out that my uncle passed away last night. I was named for him so he was my favorite uncle despite me having much more in common with my other uncle. He will be missed.
I must say I'm really impressed with the Winter Sowing forum on gardenweb. They are just as friendly and helpful as I've found Ft2Garden.com and the Fruit and Orchard forum at gardenweb. They are MUCH more friendly sounding than the Growing Under Lights forum. Anyway, Alberta suggested a while ago that I go there after reading about my woes with my seedlings. Though I didn't do winter sowing this year, I will definitely look to Andreab and Verna (both Washington WSers) for assistance.
Andreab suggested now wasn't too late to start this year, but I replied that since we're now officially within 4 weeks from LSF here in Seattle, I'm planting in my garden this weekend! Yay! I can't wait. The weather even looks to want to cooperate. The rain keeps getting pushed out to the end of the 5 day forecast.
Ooh, speaking of rain, we had a shower today on the commute home and the sun was going down. You know what that means. RAINBOW! Well, I think for the first time ever I saw the whole rainbow. I tried to take a picture of it but it wouldn't all fit in my camera frame. So I took two pictures. I raced home to try to get a picture with the rainbow framing my garden to post here, but in a span of 5 minutes the sun went down to a point where the rainbow was gone. Grrr.
If you haven't been checking out Judy's blog, she's gone insane... You gotta see her distribution of 40, yes 40! tomato plants. I'm hoping for two in my yard and she's keeping 20 plus for herself! She's going to grow 200 pounds of tomatoes. More power to her I say.
I must say I'm really impressed with the Winter Sowing forum on gardenweb. They are just as friendly and helpful as I've found Ft2Garden.com and the Fruit and Orchard forum at gardenweb. They are MUCH more friendly sounding than the Growing Under Lights forum. Anyway, Alberta suggested a while ago that I go there after reading about my woes with my seedlings. Though I didn't do winter sowing this year, I will definitely look to Andreab and Verna (both Washington WSers) for assistance.
Andreab suggested now wasn't too late to start this year, but I replied that since we're now officially within 4 weeks from LSF here in Seattle, I'm planting in my garden this weekend! Yay! I can't wait. The weather even looks to want to cooperate. The rain keeps getting pushed out to the end of the 5 day forecast.
Ooh, speaking of rain, we had a shower today on the commute home and the sun was going down. You know what that means. RAINBOW! Well, I think for the first time ever I saw the whole rainbow. I tried to take a picture of it but it wouldn't all fit in my camera frame. So I took two pictures. I raced home to try to get a picture with the rainbow framing my garden to post here, but in a span of 5 minutes the sun went down to a point where the rainbow was gone. Grrr.
If you haven't been checking out Judy's blog, she's gone insane... You gotta see her distribution of 40, yes 40! tomato plants. I'm hoping for two in my yard and she's keeping 20 plus for herself! She's going to grow 200 pounds of tomatoes. More power to her I say.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
February 15, 2008
I don't normally write posts before work, but I just checked the weather report for Sunday and Monday. Though it could change at a moment's notice, the prediction is for partly cloudy and highs in the mid 50s. Excellent news! I'll have a lot more help (the non grouchy kind) if the weather holds. There's even good weather expected for my son's party! We're good all around. Now to take the seedlings out for their walk. Have a good day all!
Boy did Seattle weather scare me today. I had forgotten that today was a 60% chance of rain. On the way home we were hit by a fair amount, and it has lasted most of the night. First thing I did when I got home as check the weather and it is still supposed to hold for tomorrow and the next day. Sunday's the day if weather holds. Saturday's completely booked up until the evening.
On a garden note, the more I look into Winter Sowing (thanks to Alberta), the more I want to give it a try. Although I could still do it this year, I'm really close to getting dirt and starting many of my veggies in a few weeks anyway, so what's the point?
I just rechecked my math (never was my strongest suit despite the 4 on the calculus AP test in high school), you use it or lose it. I need 13 bags of vermiculite and 7 bales of peat moss, which should come to $300 even with tax. Add $60 to that for the compost and we're talking $360 for "dirt" which is a far cry from the $750 I initially thought.
Well early to bed so I can get up and go get vermiculite and peat moss, then make it back to take my youngest to music class, then go get plates and balloons for my eldest's B-Day party, then go to the play time and party, then go to dinner with the inlaws before they head out to NY for a week. Finally, get the plywood for running the wheelbarrow over the gravel before I crash and wake up to dirt.
Busy weekend, but fun! Hope yours is spent enjoying the weather and maybe even working on your garden.
Boy did Seattle weather scare me today. I had forgotten that today was a 60% chance of rain. On the way home we were hit by a fair amount, and it has lasted most of the night. First thing I did when I got home as check the weather and it is still supposed to hold for tomorrow and the next day. Sunday's the day if weather holds. Saturday's completely booked up until the evening.
On a garden note, the more I look into Winter Sowing (thanks to Alberta), the more I want to give it a try. Although I could still do it this year, I'm really close to getting dirt and starting many of my veggies in a few weeks anyway, so what's the point?
I just rechecked my math (never was my strongest suit despite the 4 on the calculus AP test in high school), you use it or lose it. I need 13 bags of vermiculite and 7 bales of peat moss, which should come to $300 even with tax. Add $60 to that for the compost and we're talking $360 for "dirt" which is a far cry from the $750 I initially thought.
Well early to bed so I can get up and go get vermiculite and peat moss, then make it back to take my youngest to music class, then go get plates and balloons for my eldest's B-Day party, then go to the play time and party, then go to dinner with the inlaws before they head out to NY for a week. Finally, get the plywood for running the wheelbarrow over the gravel before I crash and wake up to dirt.
Busy weekend, but fun! Hope yours is spent enjoying the weather and maybe even working on your garden.
February 14, 2008
HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY ALL!
With kids we decided not to pester our families to watch them while we went out to eat on a Thursday, so my Valentine suggested I bring home salads from our favorite downtown restaurant instead. It was almost as pricey as going out to eat, but they gave us more salad than one human should digest, and boy was it tasty. I love a good Italian Chop Chop and Palominos makes a great one. Anyway, today was a MUCH better garden day for me. Lots to tell. I'll compose while I have my desert smoothie.
First off, work was work, but at lunchtime I checked my email and found I had two non-spam emails. Bonus! The first was from a GardenWeb contributor, Alberta. I've been impressed by her comments on threads and experience in the garden for quite some time. Much to my pleasant surprise, she emailed me directly with thoughts on my garden woes. She suggested an alternative to lights for me. Apparently Winter Sowing is a good solution. She suggested I head to the GW forum on it and check out Vera's posts. She's in Washington also and has had great success at it.
I actually have been there and it is essentially planting seeds in potting soil in various recycled milk jugs and other transparent/transluscent containers. Then you put them outside in the winter sun and keep them watered. That's the gist anyway. I didn't try it because I figured it wouldn't work here with our lousy sun and frosty mornings. Now I'll have to check it out and see what Vera's up to. THANK YOU Alberta! I will definitely do that. Oh and I will let Judy know your troubles with the site. I have cable so it's not too slow for me.
Not that it's winter sowing, but a post I read last night said some guy in Minnesota has been putting his seedlings outside during the day to get them acclamated and hardend off or whatever to make them stouter. So I took the kiddies out for a walk today. Before work I put them out on a board resting between two beds. They seemed no worse off when I got home after dark and brought them in for the evening. I expect frost tonight or I'd leave them outside unless it rained. Too much water can be a bad thing. So I'm experimenting with these broccoli, cauliflower, onions and lettuce. They're either going to live or not, no matter what I do.
I also read Judy's comment and some of it is directly relating to my next comment, but that's good to know about peat moss. I recall it isn't as stringy as it could be, but I expect it works well once it's decompressed. I can understand how hard it is to do so, but that's what I'll end up getting. It can't be any worse than decompressing the newspaper blow-in insulation and my dad did 40 bags of the stuff in a day. I appreciate the comments and will take them to heart for sure.
Ok, so last night I calculated that I need fifteen 3.5 c. ft. bags of vermiculite to equal 2 c. yards. We check with Sky and find that they only have 5 bags, at $28 each. Thus the reason for my post on Ft2Garden's boards last night. I calculated with the peat, compost and vermiculite totaling 6 c. yards, it would cost me $750 for my dirt. OUCH! So after my wife told me Sky only had 5 (one third what I needed), I panicked.
During my lunchtime (I work through lunch), I called The Plant Farm at Smokey Point, way up north in Arlington. It's an hour north but I was desparate. They sold me my blueberry bushes so I like them. Well, they had only small bags of vermiculite, but instead of coming up blank on alternative sources (like Sky), they suggested their supplier in Snohomish. Snohomish is about 30 minutes away from us, so closer. Anyway, I called Steuber Distributing and asked if they had vermiculite in bulk, or at least large bags. They only carry it in 4 c. ft. bags, but I only need 13 of them. I asked how many they had and they said about 200! Then I asked their cost. Get this Judy, $14.50 each. WHOOOOOOT! That just cut the cost of my vermiculte in half!
Then I asked if they carried peat moss. Sky had half-bales for $17. Steuber has FULL-bales for $12.50! I couldn't believe my ears. Even getting my Cedar Grove compost from Sky (they're close and it's reasonable if you don't consider they get their product for free... all our yard waste goes there), the price of my "dirt" is now about $325 vs. $750. I'm so excited! After bugging my brother at work, we are set to head out bright and early Saturday morning to be there when they open to get 13 bags of vermiculite and 7 bales of peat moss. Boy do I hope it all fits in my brother's truck... I don't have time Saturday to make two trips (it's my eldest's 4th birthday).
So this weekend is time for dirt. Saturday is getting the vermiculite and peat moss, along with my son's party for his friends. Sunday is getting compost and mixing it all on a HUGE tarp, then moving it 20 feet or so to the beds. I'll pick up a sheet of plywood and rip it to 1 foot widths so the wheelbarrow can move over the gravel (still kicking myself in hindsight for getting pea gravel insted of crushed rock). Oh, and I'll definitely take pictures and share the experience.
All in all it was a very very good garden day. Thanks to my gardening friends out there and the nice folks at The Plant Farm who put me on to their supplier in Snohomish. If they are for real, I'll definitely add them to the vermiculite sources for Washington. I can't wait for the weekend!
With kids we decided not to pester our families to watch them while we went out to eat on a Thursday, so my Valentine suggested I bring home salads from our favorite downtown restaurant instead. It was almost as pricey as going out to eat, but they gave us more salad than one human should digest, and boy was it tasty. I love a good Italian Chop Chop and Palominos makes a great one. Anyway, today was a MUCH better garden day for me. Lots to tell. I'll compose while I have my desert smoothie.
First off, work was work, but at lunchtime I checked my email and found I had two non-spam emails. Bonus! The first was from a GardenWeb contributor, Alberta. I've been impressed by her comments on threads and experience in the garden for quite some time. Much to my pleasant surprise, she emailed me directly with thoughts on my garden woes. She suggested an alternative to lights for me. Apparently Winter Sowing is a good solution. She suggested I head to the GW forum on it and check out Vera's posts. She's in Washington also and has had great success at it.
I actually have been there and it is essentially planting seeds in potting soil in various recycled milk jugs and other transparent/transluscent containers. Then you put them outside in the winter sun and keep them watered. That's the gist anyway. I didn't try it because I figured it wouldn't work here with our lousy sun and frosty mornings. Now I'll have to check it out and see what Vera's up to. THANK YOU Alberta! I will definitely do that. Oh and I will let Judy know your troubles with the site. I have cable so it's not too slow for me.
Not that it's winter sowing, but a post I read last night said some guy in Minnesota has been putting his seedlings outside during the day to get them acclamated and hardend off or whatever to make them stouter. So I took the kiddies out for a walk today. Before work I put them out on a board resting between two beds. They seemed no worse off when I got home after dark and brought them in for the evening. I expect frost tonight or I'd leave them outside unless it rained. Too much water can be a bad thing. So I'm experimenting with these broccoli, cauliflower, onions and lettuce. They're either going to live or not, no matter what I do.
I also read Judy's comment and some of it is directly relating to my next comment, but that's good to know about peat moss. I recall it isn't as stringy as it could be, but I expect it works well once it's decompressed. I can understand how hard it is to do so, but that's what I'll end up getting. It can't be any worse than decompressing the newspaper blow-in insulation and my dad did 40 bags of the stuff in a day. I appreciate the comments and will take them to heart for sure.
Ok, so last night I calculated that I need fifteen 3.5 c. ft. bags of vermiculite to equal 2 c. yards. We check with Sky and find that they only have 5 bags, at $28 each. Thus the reason for my post on Ft2Garden's boards last night. I calculated with the peat, compost and vermiculite totaling 6 c. yards, it would cost me $750 for my dirt. OUCH! So after my wife told me Sky only had 5 (one third what I needed), I panicked.
During my lunchtime (I work through lunch), I called The Plant Farm at Smokey Point, way up north in Arlington. It's an hour north but I was desparate. They sold me my blueberry bushes so I like them. Well, they had only small bags of vermiculite, but instead of coming up blank on alternative sources (like Sky), they suggested their supplier in Snohomish. Snohomish is about 30 minutes away from us, so closer. Anyway, I called Steuber Distributing and asked if they had vermiculite in bulk, or at least large bags. They only carry it in 4 c. ft. bags, but I only need 13 of them. I asked how many they had and they said about 200! Then I asked their cost. Get this Judy, $14.50 each. WHOOOOOOT! That just cut the cost of my vermiculte in half!
Then I asked if they carried peat moss. Sky had half-bales for $17. Steuber has FULL-bales for $12.50! I couldn't believe my ears. Even getting my Cedar Grove compost from Sky (they're close and it's reasonable if you don't consider they get their product for free... all our yard waste goes there), the price of my "dirt" is now about $325 vs. $750. I'm so excited! After bugging my brother at work, we are set to head out bright and early Saturday morning to be there when they open to get 13 bags of vermiculite and 7 bales of peat moss. Boy do I hope it all fits in my brother's truck... I don't have time Saturday to make two trips (it's my eldest's 4th birthday).
So this weekend is time for dirt. Saturday is getting the vermiculite and peat moss, along with my son's party for his friends. Sunday is getting compost and mixing it all on a HUGE tarp, then moving it 20 feet or so to the beds. I'll pick up a sheet of plywood and rip it to 1 foot widths so the wheelbarrow can move over the gravel (still kicking myself in hindsight for getting pea gravel insted of crushed rock). Oh, and I'll definitely take pictures and share the experience.
All in all it was a very very good garden day. Thanks to my gardening friends out there and the nice folks at The Plant Farm who put me on to their supplier in Snohomish. If they are for real, I'll definitely add them to the vermiculite sources for Washington. I can't wait for the weekend!
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