Here it Comes

Finally. I think it might finally be spring here in the Heartland.  So many things to do suddenly.

Like mowing the lawn.  I need to find the charger for my mower and make sure the batteries still work.

The really good news is I can finally start planting the gardens for the year.  We're scaling back a bit this year in an effort to maintain sanity whilst the changes keep rolling in.  Gearing up for a move and the demolition of the old homestead this summer along with planning for festivals and farmers markets has left me with little time for anything else.  So we scale back a bit.

Next year we hit it hard, I hope.

Anyway...here's a gratuitous pic of my onions-to-be.  Every year I try to start seeds. They sprout then die.  So, I go out and buy sets because I can't find plants anywhere.  Then I find plants and buy those, too.  I'm hopeless.  But I will have tons of green onions for the farmer's market, so there is that.

The onion plants in the front are a mere fraction of the whole bunch of onions I got.  I pick out the biggest and the best for nurturing into larger bulbs.  The tiny ones go in the ground for spring salad onions.  I have Red Candy, Candy Hybrid, and Walla Walla this year.  The bulbs are the standard big box store variety.

My seedlings are getting way too big to be in the house.  I will remedy that over the next week or so:

These peppers want to flower!

The tomatoes are way too big.

Some of the plants will probably not make it outside.  For example, this basil is getting big enough to harvest fresh for a meal.  At this stage, it probably won't harden off well and will sun scald or be stunted by the transplant so I'll direct seed some more outside. I might try potting them up to a bigger container and see how long I can keep them going in the house.

 That's it from The Slice for this week!

Late Spring Update

It happens every year.  I get going on the garden and everything else goes by the wayside.  Here's a little update on what's been happening here at The Slice.

Onion plants

After trying to start onion seeds and wasting three packages of seeds in the process, this is what I have.  One onion.  I hope it gets big enough to eat.  I had ordered a bunch of onion plants online,  I was sorely disappointed in what I got in the mail.  But, I planted them anyway.  A lot of them seem to be doing okay in spite of their spindliness at the beginning.  Good thing my neighbor gave me the rest of his sweet onion sets.  They're growing really well.

Watermelon radishes

Germination was iffy at best for me this spring.  Every last one that did start to grow almost immediately bolted and set seed.  I will try again in my fall garden.

Cabbages

Holy cow have they been growing like mad!  I discovered that one of the cabbages I bought is actually a cauliflower, but what the heck?  Let's see how this turns out.  The broccoli, cauliflower, and brussels sprouts are all doing very well.

Sweet potatoes

Following the disasterous results of the first attempt at growing sweet potato slips, I tried again with a new potato and got some very small slips.  They were really tiny so I just planted the whole potato in the pot.  We shall see what happens.  I also bought a couple plants at a local garden center as well as some mail order slips.  I was deeply disappointed in the slips when they arrived.  But, I planted them anyway and more than half of them have new growth.  If I actually get enough sweet potatoes, I plan to try canning them this fall.

Okra

The okra was a last minute addition to the garden plot this year.  I impulse bought a fifty cent pack of seeds at the local dollar store. I think every last one of them came up. I don't even know if I like okra.  Guess I'm going to find out.

Chamoe

Chamoe is also called Korean melon.  I totally blame Hollis for this one.  I ordered the seeds and planted them out about 10 days ago.  These are the babies. 

Infrastructure

My hubby built a new trellis.  By the time it was done, most my vining crops had been planted elsewhere.  So I plan to train whatever sweet potato vines I get if I get any at all.  I also planted a few Sweet Dumpling squashes in the farthest pot.  They will probably climb the trellis all by themselves.

Eggplant

Other than a little flea beetle damage and a healthy coating of weeds, the eggplants seem to be doing just fine.  I planted three varieties...maybe four...and they're all growing well and fixin' to flower soon.  I tried an eggplant recipe that a friend cooked for me last week and it was edible.  It is my goal in life this year is to find an eggplant recipe that I like.  We shall see if my hopes are in vain or not.

Tomatoes

My beefsteak plants have set their first greenies.  The Homestead plants were first to the mark this year and I noticed some Romas today as well.  The plants are looking fabulous.  I added some 'Jubilee' tomatoes that I impulse bought.  They're orange tomatoes and I love them.

Squashes

I have severely curtailed my squash planting habits this year.  I've planted only delitica, sweet dumpling, black beauty zucchini, and yellow crookneck.  Above is an image of my delitica seedlings which were ALREADY being menaced by the evil and dastardly squash vine borer just today!  Blasted things anyway.  My plants are small on purpose to hopefully avoid infestation.  We shall see how it goes. I'm hoping to avoid the use of the dreaded garden dust.  But, I will if I have to.  I've also found a few squash volunteers from last year's plantings.  I've decided to let them grow and see what I get.  And maybe the vine borers will menace the volunteers instead.

Melons

In addition to the chamoe melons, I have Sugar Baby watermelons and Minnesota Midget cantaloupes.  This picture is the watermelons.  The cantaloupes have only just sprouted in the last couple days.  Hoping for some juicy melons this summer.

Well, that's about it.  See you later!

This Can Only Mean One Thing (onion experiment part one)

Uh oh.  This can only mean one thing.

Yep.  It has been a while.  The last couple months have dashed by in the particular way that only the holiday season can do.  I've been busy with craft shows and market store and my job and my home and my family and...

I think you get the idea.

Now that the dust has settled somewhat, I'm back to thinking about my slumbering garden.  I didn't get nearly enough done this fall to put things to bed out there. I'll have quite an undertaking getting things ready in spring.  But, it is what it is.

Today we are in the midst of an old fashioned January ice storm.  We have about a quarter inch of ice on the trees.  The streets are ridiculously slippery.  But the worst part is the sidewalks.  I nearly crippled myself getting to my car after work last night.  I cursed myself as I remembered my Yak Traks sitting on the shelf at home.  Dangit.

However, today I am toasty warm in my little house and I'm thinking about the garden.  I joined a group on facebook called Grow It Cook It Eat It.  Together with a bunch of other gardeners all over the world, I am learning to grow some new things.  I decided to join the 'growing onions from seed' group there.  Today, I started my onion seeds.  Yep, it seems early to me, too.  But I'm assured that 10-12 weeks is not too early for onion seeds.

The two brown containers are Sweet Spanish onions.  The black containers are Lisbon bunching onions.

Here they are on the plant starting shelf.

Every year I look for things to try to make my seed starting more successful.  This year, I'm sprinkling my seed starts with cinnamon to help ward off fungal infections.  I'm also using a small fan to gently blow on the seedlings. This is supposed to make them tougher and stockier from the get go.  We'll see.

I hope to keep up on my blog with the progress of my onion experiment.  Meanwhile, I'm going to go work on my latest personal crochet project.  I am in the midst of crocheting a collection of afghans for my living room.  Snug Netflix binging awaits!

April Garden Update

It's garden time.  Can you dig it?

Yep, I'm giddy with anticipation.  At last I have dirt under my carefully manicured fingernails.  It happens every year.  Just about the time I get my fingernails to the perfect length and shape to look really nice and elegant with nail polish, garden season arrives and screws the whole works up.  But, I don't really care much.  The season has begun.

Last weekend I was hunting through what is left of our potato harvest from last year in the bitter hopes of finding a couple of unsprouted spuds.  No luck there.  But, I decided to make lemonade out of those lemons and I planted a dozen or so pre-sprouted red taters in a nicely prepared bed out back.  I can hardly wait to see if they will actually grow or not.  Someone told me once that they won't if they're already sprouted when you plant them.  That sounds sort of foolish to me, so we'll see.

Tonight, after a week of on and off again rain and a smattering of snow yesterday, I planted my peas, some radishes, a row of carrots, a row of beets, and 100 yellow onion sets.  I got lucky and found the onion sets on sale for 99 cents a bag of 100.  Less than a penny apiece!

So, naturally, I bought three varieties.  As usual, I will plant way too many onions and I will have to tuck them in where ever I can find a little space.  We somehow manage to use them anyway.

Now that it's getting dark outside, I realize that I need to take some new pictures of the garden.  We modified one of the beds and made it deeper.  All of the beds are practically overflowing with composted goodness.

I also found some dill seedlings when I was planting the carrots.  It really is true.  Once you've had dill, you will always have dill.  My mother-in-law was right about that much.

Can You Smell That?

It's in the air.  I'm not talking about the feed lot on the edge of town although that odor is omnipresent in the atmosphere these days.

No.  I'm talking about spring.  Here we are just past the Ides of March and spring is definitely in the air.  I'm talking robins.  I'm talking greening grass.  I'm talking crocuses poking up from the ground.  I get spring fever really bad and this mid-March weekend was glorious for my garden and my spirit.

This year's tax refund treat was a little electric tiller/cultivator by Earthwise.  I bought it with my own hard-earned money stripped shamelessly from Uncle Sam's hand.  What do I love about this tiller?  Many things!  First of all, no gas or oil to mess with.  Then there's the push button starter.  That's right, no pull cord to yank my shoulder out of joint.  It weighs about 25 pounds so there is no struggling to guide the tiller and it goes after the soil like it's collecting a debt.

Yesterday, I assembled 'Tilly' and took her for a test spin. In about five minutes, I had turned over and incorporated the leaves and grass I used to mulch these two beds last fall.  Another five minutes of work and they'll be ready for planting.

Emboldened by my tilling prowess, I escorted Tilly to the opposite end of the garden where we had not yet broken ground for planting.  After about an hour, Tilly and I had created this:

No.  This is not a grave site.  At least I hope it's not.  This is the site of my potato patch for this year.  I am anxiously awaiting construction of a nice, wooden raised bed about 8 x 8 feet square.   I am very impressed with the performance of this little tiller and I heartily recommend it to anyone looking for a small tiller/cultivator.  This is the one I got.

Yep, it's time to think about potatoes again.  I remembered this when I went to the Big Town to get a new dog bed for Lucky.  In a fit of pique triggered by God knows what, last week he managed to flay and gut his old bed.  The gore factor was pretty significant and we had to haul the carcass away forthwith.  He went without a bed for almost a week.  The way he acted you'd think he had been consigned to the garage floor.  The living room has perfectly fine, if soiled and somewhat worn carpeting suitable for lounging by the canine crew.  Nonetheless, he moped and carried on while restlessly shifting from one spot on the floor to another heaving heavy sighs until I broke down and got him a new bed this afternoon.  Here he is 'enjoying' his new bed:

You're stealing my soul!

Lucky isn't super fond of having his picture taken.  I have more shots of the back of his head than anything else.  He's a beautiful animal with amazing blue eyes.  If I didn't have the pics from his puppy hood, I'd never be able to prove it.  In contrast, here is Dotti-dog on the same bed less than 30 seconds later:

Caught her mid-lick. This dog always makes me smile.

Back to the potatoes.  After much hemming and hawing at the display in the garden center carefully weighing the qualities of the available varieties, I went with the early season Yukon Gold and a white, mid-season called Superior. Stay tuned for performance critique and results as the season progresses.  I hope to plant by the first of April.

When I think of planting potatoes, I also think of planting onion sets.  This year is no different and the varieties are the same ol', same ol' I get every year.  Generic white, generic red and generic yellow.  The shallots grew gangbusters last year and they were right tasty so they went in the cart as well.

Yes, I know 300 is a lot of onions.  Typically I wind up discarding about 15-20% of the sets due to decay and then only about half of what's left will actually grow.  Plus, I've never gotten an onion any bigger than a tennis ball out of my garden.  Small onions don't bother me though.  I hate to leave a part of an onion in the fridge.  It never seems to get used up and pretty soon the fridge stinks of onion.  I also decided to try growing onions from seed this year.  It's a new thing for me so I'm reluctant to not plant onion sets as well.  I may have an abundance of onions at the farmer's market this year...which is another topic coming soon.  My first farmer's market experience as a seller!

So that's where I'm at.  I've started a few seeds...peppers and eggplants and the onions of course...but I'm not ready to talk about those.  For now, I'll dream about taters with sour cream and chives.  At least until the snap peas come on.

360 Degree July Garden Tour--2013 Edition

Phew!  Still hot! Not 360 degrees, but 97 is pretty warm. Yesterday was a scorcher!  So I spent my day indoors looking at and editing a whole slew of pictures I took of the garden inhabitants over the last week or so.  Let's start in the back garden where I have the vegetables growing.

Okay, so these aren't technically growing anymore.  Lying here on the edges of my Top Hat Blueberry bushes drying in the sun is but a mere portion of the onions I planted this year.  I planted them in three waves about 2 weeks apart and guess what?  They're all coming on at the same time anyway.  That's the last time I try that.  In the background, you can see where the bush beans will be emerging any time now.

This is the boatload of shallots that I got from the 12 or so sets I bought in the spring.  Note the cutting edge, high tech drying tray.  Can you tell I made it myself from an old trash can lid and a brick to keep it from sailing away in the wind?  Nothing but the best.

If you look a little left-ish from the onion drying station, you'll find where some of the onions had been growing and some still are, a respectable stand of volunteer dill and my potato buckets that have been re-purposed for cucumbers and tiny pumpkins.  I have created a 'trellis' by drilling holes in the edge of the buckets and running twine from there up to the edge of the patio cover.  Since I took this picture, the cucumbers in the two right hand buckets have grown at least a foot.

Against all the odds of a crazy spring and summer, I have an actual tomato.  I have spent a little time wondering if I would get any.  Apparently, I will get at least one little Roma.

Here we find a close up shot of the coleus I started from seed.  It was called 'Rainbow Mix' but all the coleus are pretty much exactly the same.  What are the odds?  Not much of a mix, if you ask me.

On the back arbor, I have hung four little planters with begonias, white petunias and moss rose.  An odd combination, I know.  I just went to the garden center and picked out the plants I liked the best.  This is what I wound up with.

The white petunias.  You can't tell in this pic, but there is a slight pink cast around the edges.

 

 

 

A particularly nice moss rose blossom

Look behind you and you'll see what might be the silliest garden thing I've ever done.  Yes.  That's corn.  It's a special variety called Corn On Deck and I got it online from Burpee.  I can't say I can recommend it though.  I got a package of 30 seeds and planted them according to the instructions.  This is all I got.  Admittedly, they are starting to tassel but whether or not I get any corn at all remains to be seen. And no, Burpee didn't pay me to say those things or give me the seed.  As much as it pains me to admit it, I bought it myself.  Let's step over to the berry bed.

These are the first raspberries I've ever grown.  They are black raspberries.  The tiny handful that I got were delicious.  Continuing on around the corner we find my second tomato bed.

The plants are still small but they are sturdy and there are blossoms forming.  I am always impatient for tomato season to begin.  This year has been torture.  That gigantic plant on the left side is my tomatillo plant(s).  Lots of sweet little yellow flowers but no fruit yet.  The marigolds in the front are from seedlings I started in March.

In the foreground here, my much anticipated asparagus plants have sprouted!  All but one of the crowns I planted has come up.  I was expecting a 50% survival rate, so this is unprecedented.  Looks like we'll have a good bed if they all make it through the winter.

 Just look what the cabbage loopers have done to my brussels sprouts!  I am constantly on the lookout for these tiny green menaces and my response is swift and squishy.  Next year, the brussels sprouts get the row cover treatment instead of the squashes.

A wider shot of the fence in progress.  Yes, the white chairs are for sitting and admiring the work so far.  Come around to the front yard.  There are some really great flowers to see there.

RAWR!!!

This is what I've been waiting to get to!  My hen n' chicks have flowered!  I've seen many beds of these succulent lovlies, but never any in flower.  They look FIERCE!

The most beautiful orange lilies I've ever grown.  The picture honestly does do not do them justice.  Stunning is the word.

On the other side of the bed we find bee balm in lavender.  This is the 'natural' color of these flowers.  It is just starting to come out in bloom now.

This is a hybrid bee balm...I've forgotten the variety just now.  I should write these things down.  This blossom is past its prime, but the red is spectacular!

Due to the fence construction activity, I've had to relocate my potted peppers.  Here they are sitting on the end of the driveway.  Lots of leaves and not many flowers yet.  But their time is coming.

On the fence around the kennel area are these two hanging pots with impatiens and coleus.  I did not start these from seed.  Aren't they beautiful?

Well, I guess that's it.  Good thing too as it's getting hot again.  What does your garden look like in the middle of summer?

Onions and garlic and shallots, oh my!

Yep, that about covers it.

The first wave of onions has been harvested.  They came earlier than I thought they might.  I was surprised to go out yesterday and find the tops of many of the first batch lying over on the ground.  So I have a couple racks of onions drying on the patio.

Most of the shallots were dug today also.  I got A LOT of shallots from the 12 or so I planted in the spring.  They are also drying on the patio.

I got curious though.  As I was pulling out some onions that had gone to seed, I realized that many of the garlic plants had turned brown.  So I dug them up and found little, tiny garlic bulbs.  I don't know if they'll be useful or not, but they are also drying on the patio.

All this onion pulling left me with a nearly empty raised bed.  So, I decided to give green beans another shot.  I planted a bunch when we got back from vacation, but nothing happened.  Not a single one grew.  So, I'm shooting for a fall crop of beans.  We shall see.

Now I'm eyeing the place where the garlic was and wondering when I should plant more snap peas...hrm....

I love summer.

The Planting is Done! I think....

Finally we have stable, reasonably warm weather.  What an odd spring!  I've been remiss in taking photos the last few weeks.  Life got busy.  I was out and about on vacation last week, so my pictures are more like this:

and this:

than this:

But here's an update on the garden goings-on.

• The potatoes are officially dead.  I took the soil from the pots they were in and mixed it with peat moss and vermiculite and used it to fill my new...
• Asparagus bed.  I may have mentioned my extreme love for asparagus before.  I planted 30 asparagus plants.  Pics as soon as the 15 I'm expecting to sprout show up.
• The radishes and spinach have come and gone.  Tasty and wonderful!
• The peas have finally flowered and I have a few tiny little pods forming.  Only about half the pea seeds I planted have sprouted so the harvest will be small.  It's okay, though.  They rarely make it to the kitchen anyway.
• I'm impressed with the Brussels sprouts plants!  I gotta get some pics of those, too.  They are growing like crazy.  I guess the cool, damp weather is perfect for them.
• The onions are also doing really, really well.
• The new plantings include cucumbers, tiny pumpkins, zucchini, winter squash and yellow wax beans.

Lots more has happened and I'll get to it in time.  Right now, my bed is calling.  I'm still adjusting to getting up for work in the morning after my vacation.  It's painful.

But all is well.