Month: April 2011

Well, I’ll start off by saying that it was a very nice weekend!  A lot of progress was made this weekend with getting all of the potatoes planted.  Two varities – Yukon Gold and Kennebec were planted.  The Yukon Gold were planted in two rows – one by the house and one by the garage for a total of 54 planted.  The Kennebec were also planted behind the garage, in black buckets, and in the old potato bed – about 82.

I also got more PVC pipe since I the potatoes were planted ten inches apart this year instead of 12 inches.  That took eight 10-foot PVC sections that had 1/16-inch holes drilled every 10 inches.  Then I also had to get another six 10-foot PVC sections with holes drilled every eight inches for the corn this year.  We’ll see if I have any luck with spacing the corn closer this year – but just highly fertilizing them.

Then, I also decided it was time to get the tomatoes planted outside.  The tomatoes were growing exceptionally fast in the germination station and had outgrown their containers – and I couldn’t move the lights up anymore!  So, they were all planted outside.

Looks lovely!

What else?  Oh – I got the two Anaheim Hot Peppers planted in their tote just behind the patio garden.

The carrots have also been sprouting – so I took a quick picture of them.  About 150 each of Sugarsnax and Scarlet Nantes have come up so far.  If I remember right, I seeded about 520 carrots total.

The are that I dug out by the house – which will be used for watermelon – was also filled in with compost from the compost facility.  You can also see some of the black containers that the potatoes were planted in.

The compost doesn’t look all that great.  I wonder if they have mixed clay into this at the facility.  The very first batch of compost I got had horse manure in it (front garden right by the driveway – and the back garden).  But, it seems like the areas that have been filled since (like the second part of the front garden) haven’t faired as well.  I guess we’ll see this year what happens.

But, the story also holds true – here you can see how well the celery is doing near the front of the picture compared to the back.  The front is where the “good” compost was put in three years ago.

But, the onions don’t seem to mind and are doing well across the whole area.

Here is the whole picture of the front garden.  After the tomatoes and potatoes were all put in on Sunday, the deer netting was then put around the area.  I’m just using 1/2-inch PVC pipe to hold the netting up.  Looking at the celery – can you spot where the “good” and “bad” compost is?  Seems very prevelant.

More pictures – let’s look at the strawberries!  They are beginning to bloom already.

The Granny Smith Apple tree is also in bloom.

The grape vines are also budding out.

The side garden is moving right along with the broccoli, cauliflower, and peas planted.  A row of potatoes were put right down the middle.

I’m surprised how much the oregano has taken off!  This is just one plant – and last year, it was pathetic to say the least – but, it was the first year.  Now, it is starting to look great – and we might be able to get some oregano for drying soon!

And – the salad just keeps on growing!  Six days ago today, I planted two “holes” with four seeds each of Simpson Elite, Buttercrunch, Red Salad Bowl, Parris Island, and New Red Fire Lettuce.  Some of them have finally came up through the soil.  I’m not sure if I did my succession planting strategy very well for these lettuce plants.  It certainly seems like there is a lot of lettuce below, but it has taken between five and seven weeks for these plants to get to the sizes they are.

OK – well, that takes care of all the good news.

Now – for the stuff that ruined my mood.

Got home after work yesterday and as I was pulling into the garage, I noticed that the rain barrels were somehow pulled away from the garage!  Holy Moly!  So I parked the car and inspected and I’m extremely lucky.  When I made the rain barrel system, they are sitting on two “rails” of wood that are split in two.  There are two rails that are 12-feet long that hold up the first six barrels towards the back of the garage – then another two 12-foot rails that hold up the second set of barrels.  Well, the first set of rails were the original six that were put up.  When I expanded the system, I added the second set.

With all the rain we’ve had recently, the barrels were completely filled up – so I had over 660 gallons of water.  That is about 4,000 pounds of weight on each rail “set”.  Well, the first “set” was just fine – no problems – but the second set was in dire need of repair.  Right at the end of the garage, the barrels had leaned about ONE FOOT away from the garage!  I’m extremely lucky that the whole thing didn’t come tumbling down.  On the other side of the 12-foot rails, they were moved maybe a couple inches a way from the house – so it was much worse towards the end.

Just by looking at the picture above, you can see the bottom barrel and how it is snug against the wall – and you can see just how far the top barrel was moved.  Not pretty!  So, we were expecting some massive storms (and massive they were) last night – so I sped up to the home store and got two bags of quick-set concrete.  Before I left, I started the process of emptying everything.  Got back about 5:30 and they were still emptying.

Finally a bit after 6:15, they were drained.  I had two hoses draining them and it took almost two hours.  I then put some boards up in my attempt to straight the posts out, but they still are not fully straight.  I fear that this sytem may eventually come tumbling down.  I then tried to fill in the “ruts” that the posts left behind from moving and made large mounds of concrete around each post.

I got done just a little after 7 pm.  It was already starting to lightning and just as I walked into the patio – the extreme high winds (over 60 mph gusts) and pouring rain started in.  Great – concrete needs some time to set up and with all that rain, I was afraid it would wash away the concrete.  Not to mention – because of the rain, it was also refilling the barrels to add all the weight back!

But, when the storm cleared and I looked this evening, everything still seems OK and the barrels are still “snug” against the house.

See the difference in how close the top barrel is now that it has been set back in place?  I’m absolutely amazed that it simply didn’t not completely fall over with 4,000 pounds of weight on it.

And, you can see my attempt to cake concrete around the posts.  Because I only could fill the “ruts” that the posts made in the ground, I also put the concrete around the posts to build them up.  Short of taking down half of the entire system, pulling all the posts out (if that would even be possible), and re-digging the holes to fill with concrete, this was the best I could do – especially giving the limited timeframe with the storms coming in.

Lesson learned – ALWAYS FILL post holes with concrete.  NEVER fill them back in with soil.

Alright, that crisis was averted.  Now, for the next one.

Because of the storms, it was almost 80 degrees before the storms came in.  Afterwards, it dropped into the 40’s.

Woke up that morning and the temperature said 37 degrees!  Oh my.  First thought – tomatoes are dead.  Of course, since I had to get to work, I didn’t have any time to dig them up.  The temperature only made it to 45 degrees today – and the lows again tonight are going to be in the low 30’s.

So, lesson learned again – WAY too early to plant tomatoes.

I dug all of the sorry-looking plants up and put them in one-gallon buckets.  Certainly hope they pull through because eight weeks of growing would have been wasted.

So, two lessons defintely learned from this week.  Even though the temperatures were only getting in the mid-40’s at night for the past few weeks, things can change drastically.  And, never put posts in the ground and back-fill with dirt – especially when you are holding up two tons of weight.

The weather has been very nice the past few days.  It got up to about 70 degrees today before quickly cooling back down in the evening.

Last week, I planted the rest of the Copra onions and Varsity onions out in the front flower bed.  I didn’t have any other place to put them.  So, hopefully they will do well here – and they at least do act as a deterrent for the deer.  Deer won’t eat our daffodils – but they are eating all of our tulips and pulling them out of the ground – so unfortunately those are goners.

A total of 10 Copra onions and 21 Varsity onions were transplanted.

I also took two pictures on April 5th (which is when the above was taken) to compare the progress that the celery & onions in the front yard along with the lettuce in the patio garden would change in a week.

From April 5th (just after transplanting the third row from starting containers to the garden on the left side):

April 12th:

April 5th:

April 12th:

Note that I put down some mulched-up leaves that I collected last year around the celery to provide some additional fertilizer when water trickles through – and to also keep the moisture in.

I also had some company over at the neighbor’s house.

The neighbor has a very nice lawn with all kinds of ornaments and things – but it certainly would be a bear to mow around!  But, there is a deer caught in some headlights!  Him/her and some if it’s cousins were walking around the area.  As long as they stay away from my veggies!

The side garden is doing well.  The peas are beginning to come up.  Unfortunately, I planted about 334 Cascadia peas in two different areas – and only 140 have come up in 25 days.  Wow – absolutely surprised that germination is that low!  i went through and just put more seed right on the soil – I doubt they germinate, but if they do, it will help to fill in some of the barren areas.

The Tri-Star strawberry pyramids also had a make over this past weekend.  On Saturday, I went through and removed most of the dead leaves and stems from the strawberries – then also put a good dose of mulched leaves around them for some protection and fertilizer.

The Granny Smith apple tree is also beginning to put on some greenery as well!  I have to unfortunately put a net around the tree because the deer absolutely go deer-wild over this apple tree.  The first year of growth was horridly stunted because the deer were eating whole branches off the tree as it was growing.

Also decided to share a picture of my whole front yard.  There was a member on GardenWeb mentioning they were seeking ideas for front-yard gardening.  Here shows the strawberry pyramids and grape arbor in the front, you can barely see the tree hiding behind the arbor, then the raised beds off in the distance.

Visiting the germination station for a quick moment – the tomatoes are growing like crazy!  I don’t know what is in the water (well, I do – compost tea!) – but they are huge and look like they are ready for transplant already!

The peppers are growing very slowly – and then I still have a few other things – like extra broccoli and cauliflower that I don’t have room for.  Hey – maybe I should get those transplanted to the flower bed tomorrow!  There is plenty of room there.

And lastly – the job I was dreading for a while.

This area is just next to the house – but in front of the side garden bed.  This area was used to grow potatoes for the past two years – but unfortunately, all of the potatoes in this area rotted last year.  That is because the area is mostly filled with clay soil and had poor drainage.

Now, I put a lot of muscle into fully excavating the area.  This year, we will be putting in some watermelon here – which I’ll be starting inside this week.

Today I put in some mulched-leaves into the bed.  I’ll have to make a couple trips to the compost facility this week to get it all filled in.

Finally had a good day to make a video of the rain barrel and compost tea system.  There have been several nice days in the past few weeks – but I also needed to get some rain to demonstrate the barrels!  So we had a good storm come through a few days ago – which then allowed me to get this video made.

This is the last video on the rain barrel system.  The system now has 12 55-gallon drums – for a total water capacity of 660 gallons.  All of the water from a 24×24 foot garage roof is diverted into the system.  There are five downspouts on our approximately 50×24 foot house, so two of those were plugged up – and then one of them was diverted over to the garage roof (since the roof of the house is higher than the garage).  So hopefully with about one inch of rain, the barrels will be filled up.

Under the rain barrels, there are another four containers that will be used to brew compost tea.  I have a large 2-inch ball valve that separates nine of the rain barrels from three.  I’ll close this off – then turn on a smaller ball valve to release water from the three barrels down to the compost tea brewing system.  Once the three rain barrels are empty, then a small 1/6-HP pump will be used to pump the compost tea back into the three rain barrels – then the large 2″ ball valve will be opened.  By doing so, this will make a 1-part compost tea to 3-parts water mixture that will be delivered directly to the garden irrigation system.

On Saturday and Sunday, the weather was very nice!  It was pretty windy with gusts over 50 miles an hour, but it was in the mid-60’s on Saturday and over 80 degrees on Sunday!  Then we finally got some rain Sunday night – which filled the rain barrels about 1/3 of the way up.  Not sure how much rain we got – but I’ll take it!

Monday the temperatures then dropped to just above freezing overnight.  But, the rest of the week is to be nice and reach into the 60’s during the day.

Therefore, the opportunity arose to finally get some more transplants outside.

Let’s start off with a picture of some of the daffodils in the flower bed up front.  I may have to use some of the flower bed this year to plant onions – since I still have about 50 onions in the germination station!

I’m not sure what is going on with the onions – but every single Copra onion that has been transplanted has begun to turn brown.  This only just occurred over the weekend – so I wonder if it was because of the wind – or maybe I’m watering them too much.

But, overall, I haven’t lost an onion yet that was transplanted – so that is good!

On Saturday, I went to Maske’s Organic Gardening and purchased another row cover.  This one will be used for the 8 x 4 raised bed on the driveway where the lettuce will be planted.  Speaking of that – I put in the first two plantings of lettuce.  These were started indoors around March 1st and March 7th (one row each).

In the front is Simpson Elite followed by Buttercrunch, then Red Salad Bowl, then Parris Island, and lastly – New Red Fire lettuce in the very back.  After I planted them, I put in the floating row cover.

Switching gears just for a moment – the strawberry pyramids are beginning to look alive!  The Tri-Star strawberries have been putting on leaves.  Luckily it doesn’t look like any died over the brutal winter – since I don’t cover them with anything.

Now – going to the side garden.  The Cascadia peas are doing well.  As of today, there are 66 peas next to the house that have sprouted – and finally – one has sprouted behind the garage.

Now for Sunday – I spent quite a bit of time outdoors on Sunday getting things prepared.

I pulled the potatoes out of the fridge and allowed them to dry out.  Because they were in the fridge and I had the bag closed, some of them have some mold/fungus growing on them.  But, they will be just fine to plant.  So, I moved them out of the fridge and they are now in a dark room waiting to be planted this weekend or next.

Yukon Gold potatoes:

Kennebec Potatoes:

Then, I decided to go ahead and direct-sow some more Parris Island Cos Romaine lettuce into the 8×4 raised bed.  I want to ensure the lettuce fully develops before it gets hot outside.  So, I planted seven groupings of four – all spaced eight inches apart.

The container that I’ll be planting two Anaheim Hot Peppers in was filled with soil and placed just behind the patio bed – which is the blue tote in the above picture.  Right now I have the lid on it to keep it from getting water logged from any rain.

Now – for the part that took over an hour to do.  I had to use the “claw” garden tool to till up the carrot bed.  I put a layer of chopped-up leaves over the area a few weeks ago so it needed to be mixed in.  I’m completely out of shape – as I could easily tell after mixing in the soil.

But, I put in 28 rows of ten Sugarsnax carrots – and then 26 rows of ten Scarlet Nantes carrots.  The Scarlet Nantes carrot seed is probably half the size of the Sugarsnax carrots – so there were many times I dropped in two or three seeds into each hole.  Then the bird/deer netting was placed over the top to keep the critters out.

I’ve planted Burpee A#1 and Sugarsnax carrots side-by-side last year – and couldn’t tell any difference in the quality or taste of them.  So this year I’m trying the Sugarsnax beside a non-hybrid – Scarlet Nantes – to see how it does.  Scarlet Nantes seed is at least half the cost of Sugarsnax.

Moving onto Tuesday’s task.  Originally, I was going to plant these on Monday – but because it was to get to the point of freezing, I didn’t want to transplant the plants to the garden.  So, Tuesday I got the Premium Crop broccoli, Snow Crown cauliflower, and Green Goliath broccoli planted in the side garden – where the peas beside the house are planted.  In years past, I’ve separated the broccoli and cauliflower 18 inches apart – but this time I put them 12 inches apart to see how they perform.  When watching a “P. Allen Smith’s Garden Home” on PBS a few months back, he mentioned that he also planted Green Goliath broccoli – and spaced them 12 inches apart.  So I figure if he can do it, I can as well!

Premium Crop broccoli is new this year – and I’ve always had very good luck with growing Green Goliath.  So, I’m going to trial the two and see how they perform.

Here are the Premium Crop broccoli plants.  They were a good size when they were transplanted.

Compare that to the Green Goliath broccoli.  Was very surprised – but the Green Goliath simply didn’t grow very well this year before transplanting.

Time will tell to see how they perform!

And lastly – the Snow Crown Cauliflower.  These grew larger than the broccoli in the germination station – so hopefully I’ll get some good results out of them (and not just small button heads!).

I’m very surprised how well the plants around the garden and in the germination station have been doing!  Note that most of all these were started at the beginning of March (all except the onions and celery for the most part).

Lots of pictures here for this post on the last day of March.

I planted five varieties of lettuce four weeks ago, three weeks ago, two weeks ago, and today.  Here are the plants that were started four weeks ago:

The top left of the picture is New Red Fire Leaf Lettuce and to the right of that is Parris Island Cos Romaine Lettuce.  At the bottom of the picture on the left is Simpson Elite (yellow-green), Buttercrunch (green), and Red Salad Bowl (green-red).  I’m amazed at how well these little guys are doing!  Only one month old.  I’m thinking of getting another floating row cover so I can put it over the lettuce/herb garden and get these put outside soon.

Now, onto the next batch.  These are three weeks old:

Two week old lettuce:

Nice to see how they stack up against one another.  What a difference one or two weeks makes eh?  I bottom-feed all of these with a compost tea mixture until they are saturated.  I definitely think that using compost tea as a fertilizer does wonders.

Moving right along.  The peppers have FINALLY began to sprout.  This is an Anaheim Hot Pepper that is now about a week old:

Here are a bunch of California Wonder peppers.  They just began sprouting mostly this week as well.  Originally I planted two per cell – but after about 20 days with zero sprouting, I planted another two per cell.  Funny how those have sprouted in a matter of 10 – 12 days – and the others took over 23 days at the earliest to sprout.  It all comes down to the soil temperature.

You can see at the bottom of that photo I have a temperature gauge.  It shows 95 degrees.  With keeping these in the heated greenhouse with a clear lid over it and the heating pad on 24/7, it finally got them to sprout.  Originally the heating pad was only on for about 12-13 hours per day – and I didn’t get anything to sprout.  Here is the Planters Pride heated greenhouse that I use.  As I said, it has a clear plastic lid to keep the moisture and heat in, a tray that the seed containers sit on, the heating pad is then under that, and then an overall plastic enclosure that encloses it all.

Alright – now, let’s compare the broccoli and cauliflower plants versus last week.  They have grown considerably – maybe even doubling in size!

The tomatoes are doing well too.  Unfortunately, I may have squished one (a Best Boy variety) because the fluorescent lights were not lifted in time.  Can’t really see it here – but the stem has been bent a bit.  Hopefully it will straighten back out.

And a Roma tomato:

And a tray of some more tomatoes (Best Boy, Roma, and Red Cherry):

Now, because I’ve already set out most of the Copra Onion seedlings (well, as many as I could fit), I  had some left-overs.  They were transplanted into these containers and they continue to grow.  I guess I’ll be planting these down in the flower bed this year because I simply cannot let these go to waste.

Nor can I let these Varsity Onions go to waste either.  A GardenWeb member was nice enough to send me his remaining packet of Varsity Onion seeds – so they were planted.  It definitely is not going to be level playing field when I compare these two – since I’ve already set Copra Onions outside and they were started about 14-15 days earlier.

That is a lot of pictures isn’t it!  Well, we’re not done yet!  That covers all of the current plants in the germination station.  Now, let’s take a walk outdoors and…

Oh my!  What is that?  It is oregano that I planted from seed last year!  Yes, oregano will not produce much of anything in the first year.  But, it over-wintered well and it is greening up and growing already.  Hopefully we’ll get some fresh oregano this year!

I’ve also had some Cascadia peas begin to germinate.  Yesterday I counted 18 and today I counted 28.  That still is a far cry from the 334 that were planted.  All 28 that have sprouted are right next to the house – so the soil is warmer because of the inside house temperature.  None of them behind the garage have sprouted yet.  This same thing happened the past two years as well.

Are you bored yet?  Well, just three more pictures – and they are all from the front garden.

Unfortunately, the floating row cover proved to be too much for the onions.  So, I had to change how the cover was and made a house out of it over the celery.  Some celery stalks were also being broken off from the row cover as well – so I had to make some PVC supports to keep it off the celery.

Here is a closer view of the onions that were started back around December 20th.  They are doing very well – and are much further along than all the other Copra onions that were planted outside.  These things are still quite small – and they are now about 3.5 months old!

And alas – let’s take a peak under the floating row cover and see the bounty of Ventura celery!  I certainly hope this will be the year that the celery does well – because it was horrible last year.

Welp, happy gardening to everyone and hope you continue to follow me!