6-13-2011 Great start

Great start

It's been a few weeks since I have blogged and the garden is growing by leaps and bounds.  The spring weather here has been either sunny, hot, and humid or rainy, a great environment for initial growth in the garden.  Everything has more than doubled in size in the past week to 10 days. 

As you can see the tomatoes have grown tall enough for me to start weaving them through the mesh of the trellis.  The Rutgers shown here have their first blossoms, joy joy :)

And then there are the various beans I have planted, 4 different varieties in all. On the trellis there are two rows, one on either side of the trellis, of  Kentucky wonder pole beans. 

I bought some rare varieties of seeds from a company in Canada.  They have people who search the world for rare and almost extinct varieties grown in small local areas.  One is a variety of shell beans that comes from Africa, called Bantu beans, they are doing very well, making fast and steady growth.  They are planted in the back 2/3 of the row in the middle. 

On the right is two rows of blue lake bush beans (you can only see the end of the rows) planted about 6-8 inches apart.Behind that are the African beans between the pvc poles, I had to make a fast support for them because I did not know they were climbers.  Oh well, this should be fun :)

To the far left, beyond the pole is the variety from Italy.  It can be used like a green bean or a shell bean. It is not doing as well as the ones from Africa, I think maybe it is the cool nights of our spring weather. (Update) I was right, they are doing much better now that the nights are a bit warmer.   

In the packets of both the African and Italian beans there were just 15 seeds so I will only be able to have a little taste of each, I want to be able to increase the yield next year.  Must remember to plant the Italian beans later than the others.  The foreign beans share their rows with blue lake bush beans because there weren't enough of then to fill a full row.

You may be able to see see I have had some bug damage to the first leaves of my bean crop.  I am not too worried about this, it seems to have slowed and I believe, from past experience, that the bugs have about lived their life cycle and that since the plants are larger and stronger with more leaves, the bugs won't do much future damage.  I have seen many birds in the garden around the beans, mainly robins and doves having breakfast, lunch, supper and many between meal snacks as well :)  I am sure they like the worms they find there after a rain as well as the easy pickings of bugs on and around the plants.

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I also have some pumpkin seeds from Africa, there were 6 seeds in the packet, I planted 3 of them and thinned to one plant.  Next year I will have more space so will be able to have several plants if I like this variety.

Oh no!  LOL, my finger is covering up the African pumpkin plant, I will get a better pic of it in here later. 

There is also a patty pan summer squash.  I never grew a patty pan squash, never ate it either, looking forward to the treat,  I did not know it is a bush and not a vine, so it is planted in with the vines on the trellis haha.   And here is the zucchini. 

 

The second picture is a couple of weeks later, after fertilizing and lots of rain and sun too.  They shot really fast.  I love it :)

You can just see the African pumpkin on the front-right of the trellis, it is a little behind the squash but I think it is the same reason the Italian beans were a little slower.   I'm sure it will recover.

That trellis scares me LOL, I don't know if it will hold up.  There are 2 buttercup plants, 4 butternut plants, and the pumpkin.  And the pattypan is in there, it will probably help prop up it's neighbor, a buttercup lol.

I am planning to dehydrate some summer squash for winter use in soups and lasagna, and maybe re-hydrating and frying, we will see.

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Interplanting:

You may be able to see the radishes growing beside the squashes and pumpkins.  They help to repel squash bugs. The radishes will be allowed to continue to grow for that purpose.

Again, the second pic is a couple of weeks later.  See the amazing growth,  I love it.   Again lol

Bush beans and potatoes are said to repel each other's pests and from experience I know this to be true.  I have placed the bush beans next to my potatoes, which by the way are gigantic :)  The tallest row was planted on Saint Patrick's Day, the others were planted about a month later.  I just planted potatoes from the grocery store that were growing in my cupboard.  All I did to plant (Thanks to my friend Mark for the donation of the straw)As they grew, I kept covering them with a light layer of straw until they started to flower.  Now they will grow potatoes in the straw, making it easy for me to harvest.  No digging for me, which is the point of starting the garden by using newspaper and flattened cardboard boxes along with mulch materials such as grass clippings, shredded pine, and straw to kill the existing grass.  As you can see, I have confined the straw with some of my rabbit fence so that the straw will stay put and the growing potatoes will not see the sun.  The straw is from a foot to a foot and half high. 

I will continue this mulching process throughout the summer and into fall to increase the size of the garden area for next year. 

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Garden Trellises

I have some concerns about the strength of my squash trellis that is made from half inch pvc.  I think my design is flawed so I have been adding more support to it.  It seems to be too wobbly and weak to support the 8 plants I have growing around it.  I hope it doesn't break and fall, I don't want to lose any of the squash crop or the African pumpkin :(  I'm already wishing I had chosen to make bamboo teepees instead. It isn't too late to do that, I just might yet.  The pumpkin will probably be a very large, long plant so I am considering training it to grow around the base of the trellis structure.

Growing in my indoor greenhouse

I got this greenhouse through an online group where people post what they have to give away or what they are seeking.  Check out the yahoo group freecycle for a chapter near you.  I felt so very blessed when I messaged the guy who was giving it away and it was still available.  It has four tiers and four florescent light fixtures.

On the second tier shown here I had a failure.  I planted impatiens in the rectangular yogurt cups after poking holes in the bottoms,  I must have kept them too moist because there is some green stuff growing in most of them instead of the impatiens.  At least there should be enough of them to fill a couple of hanging planters.  Also on this tier are beefsteak tomatoes, garlic chives, geraniums, one gardenia, pansies and pennyroyal.  All are doing pretty well.  I think the pennyroyal will have to be planted in ground.  They haven't grown much in the past month and look too weak to me.  We will see.

The top tier has aster, marigold, coleus, zinnia, eggplant, sage and an open pollinated variety of black cherry tomatoes.......yummmmmmm :)  This tier has it's plants in last year's 4 packs or small peat pots I purchased at the local dollar store and they are doing much better than plants that were in yogurt cups.  I wanted to re-use the yogurt cups instead of sending them directly to recycling,  I think they need larger holes in them for better drainage.  I will try them again with the bigger holes.

Here are my awesome tomatoes on the bottom tier, I had to remove the third tier to make room for them :)  The varieties are brandywine which is a nice big juicy tomato, and sweetie which is a succulent cherry type, both open pollinated varieties so I can save the seed for next year.  Some of these are going into sawed off 2 litre soda bottles soon.    Looks like I will have to dig some deep holes come planting time.

 Here we have basil and sweet annie, (sweet wormwood).  These were started in the middle of winter in the indoor greenhouse and are doing so nicely.  They are now in a west window in the living room.  I put them back in the greenhouse a few days a week for light and moisture.  Yes, I made the plant pokes with the names of the plants on them.

The sweet annie gets around 5-6 feet tall, is a ferny looking plant.  I love it's scent (fresh and clean) and can't wait till I can start bringing them inside later this summer.  The dried plant keeps it's scent for months after harvesting.  All you have to do is touch it to release the scent.  Of course, I will keep one of these plants for inside and the other one will be planted outside.  I will also plant some seed in the ground.    

I had some old seeds from previous years and since I have not had a garden in 3 years I felt I should test sprout them to check their viability.  They were all packed for either the  07 or 08 planting seasons.  In this trial all seeds were given 5 days to sprout, the seeds that did not sprout have been put back into the baggies for a few more days to see how they will do.                                                

There were two kinds of beets in this test.  Three of one kind were tested and four of the other.  One of each kind did not sprout but since they were only given 5 days to sprout, they did very well.   It looks like both are good to go so as soon as the weather warms up from freezing I will go out and stick them in the ground :)

Looks like the peas sprouted with flying colors.  They, too, will go in the ground at the earliest opportunity.  I will also purchase more pea seeds for a fall crop.

The pic doesn't show the broccoli well at all.  There was a 50% sprout rate for these, looks like for older seeds they have done well.  I will plant them in the ground in early to mid July for maturation in the fall in our area

                                              

These brusssels sprouts sprouted great!  Every one of the 11 sprouted and they look good and strong.  I will plant them out in the ground in late July to early August for October to November harvest. 

Some wax beans along with some sweet and hot pepper seeds did not sprout~~yet~~They will be given 4 or 5 more days in the baggies. 

4/12/2011  The pepper seeds did not sprout, they simply got moldy.  Guess I will purchase new seeds.

A few weeks ago I transplanted my tomato seedlings from the square pots you see in back on the left. 

There were 4 of them in each pot, and they were transplanted singly into the yogurt cups.  Now they are growing like wildfire and need to be transplanted again.  I was not ready at all to transplant them now. 

All last week I tried to come up with something tall enough I could put them into and bury most of their stems.  While I was out  the other day I was thirsty and bought a bottled water,  I hardly ever do this.  Anyhow, while taking a drink from it I realized it was the perfect size.   It must have been divine intervention that helped me decide to vary out of my norm and buy that bottled water.   :)

As I said, I hardly ever drink bottled water (I have a filter system at home), but my son's family drink a lot of it and recycle their bottles.  AHA!  A free source of the perfect size container.  I simply poke holes in the bottoms of my plastic containers with a hot darning needle so I did the same with this bottle. 

This weekend I will get some of my family's bottles and transplant my taller tomatoes. 

When it is time to plant them outside I will run a table knife around the edge to loosen them.  If they don't want to come out easily, I will cut the bottles.  Whatever I do to remove the plants, I will rinse the bottles and put them in my recycling bin. 

Transplanting every few weeks helps the tomatoes develop a hefty, strong root system.  If you want to do this, simply pinch off lower leaves and plant as much of the stem along with the existing roots as deeply as you can. 

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I planted some potatoes on Saint Patrick's day.  This week we have had some pretty frigid weather (below freezing day and night for several days now).  I hope they don't die in the ground.  We'll see in a few weeks. 

Checking seed viability

Today I decided to check my older seed stash to make sure they will grow this year. I put from 3-10 seeds on a piece of paper towel, rolled it tightly, wet it, squeezed out the excess and put it into a labeled plastic sandwich baggie.

There are sweet, hot and hotter peppers, broccoli, brussels sprouts, peas, beets, and several kinds of bush wax beans.

Now I can't wait to learn the results, especially the beets and peas because they can be planted now in my area. ~~~smiles~~~

 

 My new organic garden.

Here is a pic of my new garden space. At this time it measures 15' X 15'.  After life changing events in the past couple of years, I find myself renting a home instead of owning my own. I got lucky and ended up in a nice little home owned by a wonderful landlady. She is letting me have a vegetable garden in the extra lot beside the house.

This will be my first garden in 3 years. Since it is being started from scratch on an existing lawn I am taking the opportunity to test organically smothering the grass.

With access to the town's compost heap I went last fall to get some pine needles and ground up pine. Then I got some cardboard boxes from the local dollar store and put them down on the ground, then covered them with the mulch. I wish there had been time to finish the entire area I wanted to cover but the weather didn't permit it. So this spring I am covering it with newspaper covered with the pine mulch. I hope the grass will die in time for my planting in the end of May and early June.

Oh! I found a perfectly good bale of straw at the community compost heap. What a great find, it will be used to mulch my short little row of potato plants.  Thanks much to my sister who helped me lug it out.  It was wet and very heavy.

The area that was mulched last fall is wonderful, I pulled back the mulch to find the cardboard boxes had disappeared. Traditionally, at least in my circle, we plant potatoes on Saint Patrick's Day so I simply pulled back the mulch and plopped my potatoes in and covered them with the mulch. As they grow, they will be covered with hay or straw until they are almost ready to bloom. Then when they are ready I will only have to pick up the plants with the potatoes attached to the bottom......How Easy Is That???  In truth, there will have to be a little digging to find a few that grow deeper.  There will only be 9 of them so not very many but they will be soooo good.

Last fall just before I ran out of good weather, I raked my leaves and covered some ground with newspaper and about half of the leaves, but didn't get to finish so just left some leaves on the bare ground and covered them with plastic to keep them from blowing away. Today I raked those over the leaves that are covering newspaper. That is the area that appears higher in the picture. It is around 3 feet wide so that is where the tomato plants will be going.

4/12/2011

A couple days ago I finished laying newspaper and am going to put more mulch on the garden to make sure the grass is totally smothered.  I peeked under the paper in several places and the grass under the newest part is already turning white, the grass under the oldest part is gone but the dandelions are growing well LOL.  Maybe I will allow some to grow to use for greens.  This will depend on where they are growing.

I have decided to stop expanding the garden size (for now) because I don't want to over-do it this first year.  I can always expand it in the fall for next year.  The 15 X 23 plot is big enough to grow everything I want.  For now :)