Sunday, May 30, 2010

Planting warm weather crops

On this beautiful sunny Memorial Day weekend, we planted our tomatoes and peppers. The peas are blooming, also trumpet vine and chickweed; I was hoping that the morning glories would reseed themselves from last year, but I have only seen one coming up, about 4 inches tall. Irises are beginning to fade, poppies are in full bloom.

Saturday, May 29, 2010

First harvest


First real harvest of beet greens, kale, spinach, lettuce and arugula (and a carrot from last year).

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Peonies blooming


Peonies are blooming.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Warm weather at last



Looking at last year's photos, I am really feeling behind. It looks like the plants on May 5 of last year were far ahead of my plants now and I had already been eating greens for three weeks by this time. I did harvest some beet greens last weekend, but this was from beet plants that overwintered and were getting ready to bolt. I also harvested some carrots yesterday, but again this is from overwintered plants. Ah well...I intended to start tomatoes and peppers later this year to avoid frost and that turned out well, but I should have started greens a month earlier outside under plastic.

We are expecting sunny weather in the 80's for the next four days. I watered the garden this morning and stood back admiring the lettuce, onions, garlic and kale that are all approaching edible size. This weekend, I repaired frames that were damaged by snow and ice over the winter, and planted lettuce, chard and hot peppers at our friend David's garden.

Irises are in full bloom out front, but are just getting ready to bloom in the back. I saw some tulips still blooming on a shady side street. Star-of-bethlehem, oriental poppies, columbine, chestnut trees, white spirea and viburnum are blooming; Honeysuckle is beginning to fade.

Friday, May 14, 2010

Out of the cold and dark

Today marks the beginning of a stretch of mild, sunny weather following a week of cold and wet. The frosts were severe enough to kill most of the leaves on the young black walnut, catalpa and tulip trees. Surprisingly, the apple trees were unaffected. This morning, I liberated the kale and broccoli plants that were set out under covers April 14. A couple of them were beginning to grow through the hole at the top of the protective cover. They should be large and strong enough to survive attacks by slugs or cutworms at this point.

A couple nights ago, I had some fun planting amaranth, sunflower and comfrey plants in a circular arrangement. Many years ago, I had a solitary amaranth plant that provided a dignified presence in the garden. Remembering that plant, I picked up some amaranth seeds at the grocery store and started them inside a week ago. The seedlings are so tiny, I planted four clusters of them in the center of my patch and will thin them as they become more substantial. Surrounding the amaranth are about 30 sunflower plants from which I am hoping to harvest seeds for sprouting. Forming a second band around the sunflowers are 15 comfrey plants. The comfrey will be used for making potent compost and compost tea.

Did I mention that overwintering kale is probably not a great idea unless you want to save seeds? The kale that was left in the garden from last season bolted pretty quickly once it became re-established. I pulled all of the plants last week.

Greater celandine, dame's rocket and oriental poppies are blooming this weekend, honeysuckle and cornflowers are in full bloom, ants are crawling on peony buds (must be sweet), iris color showing through sheath, quince fading, daffodil faded a week or two ago.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Leaf-out

It seemed this morning as I was driving my daughters to school that the trees have suddenly burst into full leaf. After a cold and windy weekend which included some snow, it was striking to drive down the tree-lined streets of our village and observe sunlight breaking through the thick canopy of leaves.

The weather this weekend forced us to keep plants inside and to time-share the available fluorescent light. The seedlings are still very small and could use some warmth to kick start their growth before planting out in a couple of weeks. I asked my wife to remind me in the future not to early start anything but flowers, tomatoes, peppers, basil and brassicas. I have a couple trays of lettuce and chard that were started indoors and the plants outside in the garden are already about the same size.

Last week, we transplanted peppers (19 hot, 13 sweet), tomatoes (13 cherry sun) and five basil from vermiculite to small containers of potting soil. I have observed that the tomatoes that were transplanted earlier into pots turned a bit yellow and have not been growing well. I think that this may be due to using my version of Mel's mix (not enough nutrient rich humus and perhaps too much acidity from the peat) instead of a good potting soil and also to the low temperature of the room in which they are growing.

This weekend, I spent some time cleaning and weeding the garden beds and transplanting lettuce and chard where more than one seed germinated.

Tulips faded this weekend.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Bloom report

Lilacs are blooming; cornflowers are beginning to open; irises are sending up flower stalks; peonies are standing up straight and budding; fifteen gladiolus planted; lettuce seedlings have been on the porch for the past few days; many things that were planted directly in the garden are appearing now, though it is difficult in some cases to tell the intentional from the unintentional...