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Thursday, May 16, 2013 - Melons Finally Going In
Yesterday's transplanting was a miserable experience because of all the black flies present. I tried using some spray insect repellent, which only worked for about five minutes.
Perma-Nest Trays Now Available from Greenhouse Megastore I received a welcome email this week from David George, CEO of the Greenhouse Megastore. I'd written the Megastore last winter to suggest they carry the heavy duty Perma-Nest type flats. Mr. George didn't promise anything more than looking into carrying the trays at that time, but sent an email Monday morning informing me they now carry the basic 11" x 22" Perma-Nest tray. Perma-Nest trays are sturdy enough that one can completely fill them with moist soil mix without them twisting, bending, or breaking, making moving flats a much easier process. Because the trays have no holes, I sometimes add a slotted 1020 tray in them to provide a bit of drainage for whatever I have in them. Of course, that adds a little cost to the trays.
This and That Our peppers that had gotten off to such a great start after transplanting have almost all died! One pepper fell prey to puppy damage. When I replaced that plant, I also pulled the cutworm collars from the other plants and added cages around them to support the plants' growth. But in the next few days, I noticed that all the peppers other than the one replacement died. I can tell that it wasn't cutworms, but don't know if I harmed the plants pulling the cutworm collars, or...if the dogs got into pee wars around the newly added cages, or if there's something else going on. With two new and one other relatively new dog this year, we're having problems with the dogs playing with potted transplants on the porch and digging in the garden. I even caught our oldest dog rolling in the mulch in our main raised bed this morning. Fortunately, he was rolling around in the aisle between the lettuce and dead peppers. I have enough pepper plants left to replace the failed plants, but I won't have all of our favorite varieties. And I still need to figure out what killed the plants!
Once I get the radishes out of the way, I can begin thinning and weeding the carrots before mulching them. Since it may rain yet today, I may have ideal conditions for pulling the radishes tomorrow without hurting the carrots. (Note that our carrot row is at the side of a raised bed that can be worked without stepping into the bed, a big plus in wet weather.) Overplanting, thinning, and mulching always seem like a lot of trouble in the spring. But the carrots we grow, harvest, and often store well into the winter are usually of far better quality than what is available at our local grocery! As I came in with the camera today, I had to stop and grab a shot of one of the blossoms on our Amish Snap peas. Saturday, May 11, 2013 - Not Much Going On
We're pretty much at a dead stop on gardening due to wet soil conditions. Yesterday, it was about as wet as I've seen it in the nineteen years we've lived here. After some overnight showers that brought our May precipitation total to 3.55", the sun came out this afternoon and dried things out a bit. But as the afternoon wore on, showers returned.
The row of nasturtiums I direct seeded 10 days ago are now coming up. There are some good sized breaks in the 80' row that I'll need to reseed, but with what is up so far, they should make a nice border row along the edge of our alfalfa cover crop. I fall planted a couple of trees in December, 2010, that I got from the Arbor Day Foundation. I was a bit worried that the freebie red maple included with my order wasn't going to make it this spring. The top growth all showed severe winter damage, but the tree has put out a bunch of shoots just above its base. We had this happen with a pin oak we planted when we first moved here. It died to the ground, but came back up the next year and has become a gorgeous tree. So we're going to give the red maple another year or so and see what happens with it. The paid tree in the Arbor Day order was a semi-dwarf Stayman Winesap. I was really sorta glad to see that it didn't bloom this spring, as I would have had to pick all the blooms off of it. It's still too small to support the weight of apples, and I'd rather it put it's energy into healthy growth. Note that our last "semi-dwarf" Stayman Winesap grew right through its dwarfing grafts into a very productive standard apple tree before we lost it to fire blight a few years ago.
We lost a grand old maple tree on the west side of our house several years ago to repeated lightning strikes. I first tried to replace it with an oak tree I picked up at Lowes. When that tree died, I transplanted an oak seedling that had emerged in our garden, but it didn't make it either. Last spring, I moved a native Silver Maple from our front flowerbed to the general area where the oaks had failed. It put on so much growth last year, it almost worried me. But the tree has leafed out well this spring and should provide good shade for the house and whomever lives here...in about twenty years.
With our warm, moist weather of late, the black fly have returned, making outdoor work a good deal less pleasurable. I seem to remember that we didn't have black fly here when we first moved in, but around ten years ago they began to become a problem. But we've sure got'um now.
Other than rooting a few sweet potato slips and picking asparagus for supper, I didn't do any gardening today. As soon as the morning dew dried, I was out mowing grass under threatening skies. I managed to get our front and back yards mowed and raked, but got rained out from doing any more. It rained for an hour and then the sun came out and dried things out a bit, but certainly not enough to resume mowing. I did a quick posting at around 6:30 P.M using the photo at top left as our banner as it began to rain once again. This time around, it was a gullywasher! When it let up a bit at round 8:30 P.M., there was just enough light for me to catch a photo of all the standing water in and around our garden. While the water will drain fairly quickly from our raised beds, it will take some time for the yard to dry out. I was still mowing through a bit of standing water here and there earlier today. With this rain and more predicted for tomorrow, it's not going to be much fun mowing the remaining yard and field. And of course, any serious gardening other than working from the edges of the raised beds will have to wait until the ground dries out a bit. A Sad Part of Country Living
Jackson appears to have been neutered already, so he probably has had his shots, too. We've treated him with Frontline for ticks and fleas and also gave him a dose of heartworm medicine. He's in good health, although quite thin. Annie and I have tried without success to find Jackson's owner. We finally decided this evening that she would post a photo of Jackson on her electronic bulletin board at work to see if anyone wants him. If not, he will have to go to an area shelter. We simply can't keep him, as we had just adopted another stray, Daisy, before Jackson showed up. Training one puppy at a time is about the best we can do. If you live in the general area (Terre Haute, IN is the nearest big city.) and are interested in a big, lovable puppy, . Wednesday, May 8, 2013 - Planting Sweet Peppers
Since the area to be planted hadn't been worked for a while, I had to scuffle hoe The soil in the center of our main raised garden bed is a fairly heavy loam from the addition of lots of compost, composted manure, peat moss, and whatever else I could find to help break up the heavy clay. The garden bed was originally a sloping and somewhat erosion prone area that we terraced on two sides a number of years ago to stop the erosion. Later, I went ahead and enclosed the other two sides of the 16' x 24' bed, making a rather large raised bed that may not have been one of my best decisions. But it does allow one to build up quality soil over the years. I dug holes about eight inches deep with a standard garden trowel for the plants, adding and working in a bit of lime and 12-12-12 fertilizer around the outside of the hole and deep into the hole. While I watered the holes with our usual dilute starter fertilizer Since cutworms seem to love our peppers as much as we do, I employed cut off used paper coffee cups as cutworm collars. The pepper plants are really pretty well hardened off and possibly could go without the collars, but we really had a bad experience one year when I didn't use them. The collars will come off in a week or so, and I'll add cages around the peppers at that time. Red peppers planted included Ace, two of them, and Red Knight, both excellent producers for us in the past. For yellow/gold peppers, I planted Mecate and Sunray. I also put in one Sweet Chocolate pepper, something we've not tried until now. Of course, all of the varieties can be harvested and used green for green bell peppers. We're not done planting peppers as yet, as I have our old favorite, Earliest Red Sweet, to transplant into the East Garden and some Alma and Feher Ozone paprika peppers that will go in various remote spots around the property for isolation and seed production.
While working in our main garden bed today, I couldn't help but notice that we're very close to picking our first home grown lettuce of the year with some baby spinach not far behind. BT Time One other timely item I should mention is that we've started spraying our brassicas (and evergreens) with Thuricide It appears we may get a significant break in our rainy weather towards the end of the week and well into next week. If the forecast is accurate, things might just dry out enough for us to till and plant sweet corn next week! If not, we should still be able to transplant melons and squash, and also get our potatoes planted. We're into another rainy period. I've collected and dumped and inch and a half of rain from our weather gauge so far this month with nearby weather stations reporting about the same amount. It appears that off and on showers will continue today and tomorrow before we get a couple of clear days on Tuesday and Wednesday. After that, there's more rain in the forecast. The broccoli and cauliflower I transplanted into our East Garden plot on Friday appear to be doing well in the wet weather, but it's a little tough to tell. One can only observe from the edge of the plot, as the ground is so wet it would swallow up ones shoe or boot if stepped on. The grass clipping mulch around the brassicas seems to be helping to hold the gently sloping soil in place. The shot above may give some idea of just how wet things are here now. The brownish cast over the East Garden is from the burndown sprays of Roundup I applied, hoping to be able to get into the patch and transplant melons without another round of rototilling. Other than getting the row of brassicas in, that strategy may have backfired, as seedling weeds will cover the plot when it begins to dry out.
Our plan for the future is to rotate the area used for vegetables in the East Garden counterclockwise each year. The new ground opened up each year will have been in ground cover for two years, and the part retired each year will have been in production for only two years before being rested. I grumble in print here about the soil quality of the East Garden, but it has shown some minor improvement over the last few years. Turndown crops of buckwheat and cover crops of alfalfa, later turned under, along with grass clipping mulch residue turned in have improved the organic matter content of the soil and lessened the plow pan under the soil somewhat. It just takes time. Snapdragons
We like to use snapdragons along our trellises in the Senior Garden. The snaps benefit from the support of the trellis with the high winds we often have here. They seem to coexist fairly well with peas and even better with vining cucumbers. And as light fall frosts kill off other crops and flowers, the snapdragons continue to bloom right up until we get a really hard frost or freeze, giving us some welcome color right up to the end of the growing season. So having seeded four pots of snapdragons in mid-April, I began teasing apart the leaves, stems, and roots today, moving them to small fourpacks. It's a tedious job I'd been avoiding, made harder by my letting it go so long. The snaps were leggy and had to be moved carefully into the fourpacks and firmed in.
But on a cool, rainy day, moving the snaps turned out to be a pretty good and somewhat enjoyable activity. I ended up filling 72 cells with snapdragons, far more than we'll need in the garden unless I figure out a good place for a flowerbed exclusively devoted to snapdragons.
This morning, I took our jar of slips with water roots and dipped each one in powdered rooting compound I'll continue cutting slips as our sweet potato plant produces them until I'm sure I have enough to fill a row in our East Garden with healthy, new sweet potato plants. I'd rather have too many than not enough.
I had quite a variety of brassicas ready for transplanting, but went mainly with broccoli and cauliflower today. On paper, I had room for twenty plants, but ended up only getting in a total of eighteen plants. Premium Crop, Goliath, and Belstar broccoli, Amazing and Fremont cauliflower, and a couple of Churchill brussels sprouts plants filled the 30' row. I did squeeze in a geranium as a row marker at the end of the row, but geraniums really haven't done well for us in the East Garden. A bit later in the day I put in a few vincas and petunias along the edge of our narrow raised bed before mulching in the flowers, tomato plants and peas with grass clipping mulch. At this time of year, there are always more jobs to be done than I have time or energy to complete. But it certainly is nice to see stuff growing in the garden once again.
We're starting the month of May with the ground still too wet for tilling, but possibly dry enough to walk over for transplanting. Having written yesterday that my gardening would "probably be limited to picking (and eating) asparagus and possibly mowing and raking grass clippings," I later realized I had a few chores that could be done from the edges of our garden beds and plots.
One possible advantage of putting tomato cages at either end of the trellis is that I was able to wire them to the T-posts supporting the trellis. We've had lots of trouble over the years with the high winds we frequently experience blowing over top heavy tomato cages. The transplanting was pretty straightforward. I dug a hole with my trowel, added just a touch of lime to help fend off blossom end rot and also a bit of 12-12-12 fertilizer and worked them into the hole as deeply as possible. I watered the hole with very dilute starter fertilizer
Planting that long a row of nasturtiums is a fairly expensive proposition. I'd been building up my supply of nasturtium seed for a couple of years with this kind of planting in mind. I used an off-the-rack packet of Alaska I ended the task by running our mower down the row (with the blades off). You can see the tread tracks in the photo at left. I was trying to firm the soil around the seeds for better seed/soil contact and germination. By the time I got done with the nasties, I was pooped. Any plans for mowing were put off a day. I was thrilled this morning to be able to lift my arms without pain after all the hoeing yesterday! BTW: I didn't add any fertilizer to the row of nasturtiums. Years ago, I made the mistake of planting nasturtiums among our melons and rows of green beans. The plot of ground was fairly good soil, but I also sprinkled a little fertilizer in the row. The nasties totally took over the area, leaving us only a few melons and beans. As the late Jim Crockett used to say, "Treat nasties nasty."
I had wondered earlier this season about how well our thick asparagus spears would cook up. I checked a couple of Garden Web postings (1, 2) on the subject and also ran across one funny, but almost off color forum thread of guys talking about their thick spears. The consistent answer, borne out by our experience with tender, tasty, thick asparagus spears, is to count your blessings if your asparagus comes up thick. It's a healthy sign for the roots, and makes for very good eating. As I wearily drug myself inside from my gardening fun and games yesterday, I had to stop and spend a few minutes admiring and photographing our Granny Smith apple tree. This is a tree that survived a fire blight infection that killed our standard Stayman Winesap apple tree a few years ago. It's in glorious full bloom now. While our replacement, semi-dwarf Stayman Winesap isn't old enough to bloom yet, a nearby volunteer apple tree should provide sufficient cross pollination for both trees. The Granny Smith produces great, full-sized apples, while the volunteer puts on small red apples that taste like Red Delicious, but with a bit of spice to them.
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