Let spring begin (please)

It's not like I have any say in this, but after 3 days of temperatures that would be below average in January, it looks (knock on wood) like the weather is finally on the upswing into spring.  It looked like that several weeks ago, when I was raking leaves off the flower beds and the strawberry bed and doing other spring-like work that I normally do when I'm sure that winter is over.  But it wasn't, not by a long shot.  Three mornings below 20 F - Thursday morning the low was 16 F - and most of the exposed strawberries were killed.  The pond had a thin sheen of ice over it.

Beginning Thursday the 10 day weather forecast looked more promising, with more seasonal weather in the forecast.  I was ready to garden Thursday morning, chomping at the bit as the saying goes.  The seedlings under the lights indoors were crowding each other badly, shading the seedlings that had just germinated.   I wanted to at least remove the lettuce to the mobile coldframe.

The Earthbox was prepared indoors that morning.  A self-watering container has a reservoir to hold water, some sort of platform to hold the growing medium above the reservoir, and 'plugs' - openings in the platform where the medium can contact the water in the reservoir and wick it into the medium.  I insert plastic pots, which have a few slits in the sides, into the openings to slow the wicking process.  Without these I've found that the water is taken up too quickly and will saturate the potting mix.

Once the Earthbox was filled with wetted potting mix it was hauled out to the coldframe.  Thursday was totally cloudless, and the temperature inside the coldframe reached 70 F by 11 AM, even though the outside temperature was about 35 F (and rising quickly).  The pavers were warm to the touch.  Once the reservoir in the Earthbox is filled with water it contributes to the thermal mass inside the coldframe.  I've found that the coldframe can maintain a temperature above freezing during a light freeze, enough to protect most plants.

The lettuce was transplanted to its new home.  Lettuce in containers is much cleaner than lettuce grown on the ground.  I usually get about 5 pounds of lettuce from a self-watering container, which is very productive.  Some of it is cut and allowed to regrow, while the bibb lettuce is removed as a head then replaced.  This year I plan to move the containers to the new ledge once the weather turns warm, where it will get afternoon shade.  I'm hoping this will extend the season somewhat.

After transplanting the lettuce it was time to prepare some beds.  An earlier post showed the large bed after a cover of leaves was burned to kill the weeds. The surface of the bed was a mix of dead plants and char.  I decided against spading over the bed, a lot of heavy work with no obvious benefits, and opted to run the little tiller/cultivator at a shallow setting to break up the surface.  This is the beast here:

It did not take long with the tiller, as all I was trying to do was break up the surface for seeding with a cover crop of field peas.  That will have to wait a few days since the soil was quite cold and a little frozen in places.  One edge will be planted in sugar snap peas, and that will also wait until the soil warms a little.

After prepping the squash bed it was off to this year's brassica bed.  The first set of brassicas growing indoors are ready to go out anytime, but the soil needs to warm a little.  This bed was turned over with a shovel.  Mostly the weed cover was chickweed, which was either buried or removed.  There was no need to run the power tiller in this bed since the soil broke easily to the hoe.  After amending these beds for years with compost, they finally have sufficient tilth to break up easily with simple hoeing.  Satisfaction!

The door of the coldframe is propped open to prevent overheating.  On a sunny day such as yesterday, the temperature inside can climb well over 100 F if the door is shut.  There is a temperature sensor inside the coldframe that keeps me updated when I'm in the house.  Today is overcast and the door is closed.

I plan to move the tray of onions into the coldframe on Sunday.  That will make room under the lights to plant more seeds - peppers and another set of brassicas.  After an unexpected reprise of winter, things are moving along again.

Monday March 13

It's not the first harvest of the year.  That would be parsnips, which I dug up in January.  This is the first harvest of a green vegetable.  The spinach was planted last October.  With the mild winter it has sized up earlier than normal.   These four plants were removed to thin the row.  There was enough to make a dish of spinach alfredo.

Since this was harvested the weather has turned very cold and will remain cold until Thursday.  I probably won't get any more spinach for a week or two.  To see what other gardeners are getting from their plots, head on over to Our Happy Acres and have a look.

One less mole

Last year I nearly always had the mole trap set over a tunnel, hoping to rid the yard of these burrowing pests.   Never got one.  So I went on YouTube and watched some videos.  Armed with a little more knowledge, I set a trap last weekend over a mole tunnel.  This one was on a rampage in the yard, and this picture shows about half of the tunnels it made over the weekend. . 

Sunday morning I checked the trap and found that it had been sprung.  I pulled up the trap and there it was, a very dead mole.  Later that day I saw a new tunnel in the same area (I had stomped down the old tunnels) and set the trap again.  That evening the trap had been tripped again but no mole was found.  It may have been mortally wounded because no new tunnels have been sighted.  One, maybe two, less moles. 

These animals have become an absolute scourge in the yard and garden.  It's not true that moles feed on beetle larvae exclusively.  They will eat every earthworm in the garden,  they are not picky. 

Last Sunday the weather was gorgeous, April-like.  With rain on the way that evening I spent the day working in they yard.  I weeded the raspberry bed, spread some fertilizer on the soil, and put some mulch over the bed.  With the early spring, some of the raspberries were sending up shoots. 

I gathered more leaves, spread them over the parts of the squash bed that were not covered in the first burn, and set them afire.  I learned something here.  It's better to light the pile on the downwind side.  The fire must advance against the wind, and it will burn more completely with less smoke.  I checked it the following day after the rains went through, and this is what it looked like.

There were still some weeds at the edges that looked alive, but after a few days most of them had succumbed.  You probably can't do this if you live in the city, but it appears to be a very effective way to kill any weeds that survived the winter.  The most problematic weed here is ground ivy, which spreads with runners and is hard to remove.  I'm hoping that the heat from the fire finished them off.

Indoors the seedlings are coming along nicely.  The first set of brassicas is setting true leaves and the lettuce looks healthy, while the second set of brassicas and lettuce have not yet germinated.

The Pontiac onions are also doing well and are ready to be thinned.

I was planning to set the lettuce and onions into the mobile greenhouse later this week.  Then I checked the forecast and got a shock.  Sunday morning the temperature is predicted to bottom at 17 F (-8 C) with a cold spell lasting several more days.  Holy cow!  After crazy warm temperatures in February, we get January temperatures in March.   Even though it's getting a little crowded, the seedlings will stay indoors for at least another week.  I'll start the peppers once the onions are moved out.

Even though it won't be used for awhile, I took the mobile greenhouse out of the minibarn and wheeled it into its springtime spot, then set the pavers in place.  The concrete pavers retain heat overnight and keep the inside several degrees warmer than the outside.

It looks like spring is not really here yet, but after this final cold snap it will be here at last.

State of the Garden March 1 2017

or Making the garden great again. 

Was it ever great?  Was it ever that bad?  Let's not dwell on such pesky details, it's time to put out the old and replace it with whatever.  It looks like the health care system for the garden has to go, after all the tomatoes had a bad case of blight last year.  The current system of maintaining the garden health, combining organic and cultural controls, has been imperfect (although insect problems have diminished greatly over the years), so it obviously has to go, to be replaced by an obviously much better plan that exists for now in a nimbus cloud of happy thought, ready on cue for implementation.  Now, there may be some issues with completely destroying a health care system that actually works, although imperfectly, something a self-promoting billionaire who claims to have all the simple answers may have realized when he said - "Who knew that a health care system was so complicated?"   Actually just about everybody who needs to navigate the byzantine passages of a for-profit system, which doesn't include billionaires, another pesky detail. 

Maybe I was thinking about something not quite the garden, and I don't actually have any plans to throw out what I've been doing in the past, just improve it.  The garden beds, now dormant, are looking quite nice, thank you.   Some of the beds have a mat of dead cover crops over them.  I think this is much better than bare soil.  Poking a finger in the soil reveals a nice loose tilth beneath.

Field peas that were seeded later in the season last year managed to overwinter quite well and are growing again, along with a lot of chickweed.  Both of these plants are good rabbit food, so I'll be harvesting this for the bunnies until it is spaded under for planting.

The large squash bed is another matter.  Ground ivy has occupied much of the area and it's a real nuisance.  I'm trying something different this year.  There are still a lot of leaves that blew against the buildings.  A few cartloads were gathered up and spread over part of the bed:

The leaves were then lit off, in the hopes that the fire will kill the weeds and any seeds on the surface:

After a heavy rain last night, I checked the area this morning.  Where the fire burned completely it looks as though the weeds were killed.  I plan to gather some more leaves and burn them over the rest of the bed.  In a few weeks I'll seed the entire bed with field peas.

The two apple trees were pruned about a week ago.  I'm pruning them much earlier this year due to the mild weather.  Fortunately we've been having some days with more seasonal temperatures and I'm hoping that the cool nights will keep the trees from leafing out prematurely.  This is the Golden Delicious tree.  It had a lot of watershoots that were removed and the leader was cut down several feet.

The leader on this Fuji tree required even more drastic cutting back - it was way too high.  The surrounding branches near the leader were also cut back so they weren't any taller than the leader.

A few days ago I removed the plastic greenhouse from the winter bed.  A cage with chicken wire on the sides was put in its place to keep out any wandering rabbits, squirrels, or dogs.   There are four rows of garlic, each row a different variety,  three rows of spinach, a row of lettuce and a row of bunching onions. 

Last autumn I tried seeding a new variety of spinach, Reflect, for overwintering.  It's the row on the left side.   The variety that I've been growing for years, Double-choice, is represented in the two rows on the right.  I'm always happy to trial a new variety and find that it works even better than what I've been planting in the past, and the Reflect spinach is doing markedly better than the old variety.

In a few weeks the first set of brassicas and lettuce will be ready to go outside.  Looking forward to a new growing season and hoping everyone else's plans work out. 

First seeds started and the light setup

It's a beautiful day in the Midwest, sunny and 64 degrees (18 C).   And it's not just today, the forecast calls for the same balmy weather for another week, with no low below 40 F.  That would be normal in April, but this is mid-February.  If this warm spell keeps up, many deciduous trees will leaf out, as they did in 2012.  That year an early warm period followed by a later hard freeze killed the leaves on any trees that budded out too early.  Those trees had to leaf out again, which was especially hard on the tulip poplars.  I'm worried that my two apple trees will leaf out only to have the tender growth killed by frost, but there's nothing that can be done.  Usually I prune the apple trees in early March, but this year I'll prune them this weekend.  Strange and bizarre weather.

The spinach that was sowed last October is doing really well under the plastic greenhouse.  There are two rows of Burpee's Double Choice, which I have overwintered for years, and one row of Reflect, which was overwintered the first time this year.  The Reflect spinach is growing really well, even better than the Double-Choice.  If it doesn't bolt as the days get longer it will be my first choice for overwintering spinach in the future.  I expect a small harvest of spinach next week when I thin the rows.  A row of Pinetree winter lettuce mix also made it through the winter.  

Several years I ago I came up with this self-watering system for starting seedlings.  The system uses two trays, a solid tray and a tray with slits or small holes in the bottom.  Three pieces of PVC pipe are screwed to the perforated tray.  The pipe makes a space between the two trays that will hold about two quarts of water.

A wicking mat is set into the slitted tray.  The ends of this tray are cut so the mat can be pushed through.  In the past I bought this wicking material from a nearby store called Worm's Way, a hydroponics supplier, but they closed their retail outlet near Bloomington this year. with the conversion of the highway to Interstate 69 shutting off their road access.  At a Michael's craft store I found a bag of quilt filling, and it looks exactly like the wicking material I used to buy.  It is cut it into pieces to fit into the trays.

The ends of the wicking mat are folded under the bottom of the perforated tray, which is set into the solid tray.  Add some water and it's ready for pots and cell packs.  The beauty of this setup is that it provides just the right amount of water to the plants and the reservoir will last about a week before it needs replenishing.  With larger plants like tomatoes and okra the water will last several days, still a real timesaver.

I seeded 12 cells of lettuce, enough to fill one half of an Earthbox.  I'll seed 12 more in a few weeks.  The seedling mix is Miracle-Gro potting mix.  Maybe it's not the best mix but it does the job, and it has enough fertilizer in it to sustain tomato and pepper seedlings until they are set out.  I put some mix in a plastic tub, added 1/2 teaspoon of beneficial microbes and rubbed the mix with my hands to break up any clumps.  A little water was added to moisten the mix then it was added to the cell packs.

The cell packs are 3 inches deep.  I like to use the deeper pots for lettuce and brassicas because the seedlings seem to get a better start as long as the root ball can be kept intact when it is time to transplant. These are pots that originally had some annuals from the nursery (frugal gardeners motto:  don't throw anything out).   Once seeded the pots were set in the trays and the tray was covered with a plastic lid until the seeds germinate.  I don't use bottom heat except when starting the peppers, the rest germinate fine at room temperature.  The light will be turned on a 16/8 hour cycle once the seeds germinate.

The light unit is a modified shop light with four T8 flourescent lights.  Two of the lights are 6500K and two of them are 8000K,  so they are strongest in the blue region, which tends to give stockier growth.  I found the 8000K bulbs at Rural King.  They are probably used in chicken houses to mimic daylight.  The old rule of thumb is reds for flowering and blues for foliage.  I've done some research on this and found that even the 'warm white' 3200K bulbs are not very strong in the red region that plants need, which is why I go with the high K bulbs.

When the four light setup was put into operation a few years ago two of the bulbs were Gro-Lux bulbs, which provide a red/blue mix of light perfect for photosynthesis.  Under this light the seedlings grew wonderfully the first year, but toward the end of the second season the seedlings became spindly and grew poorly.  So the bulbs were good for about a year, and at their cost I wasn't about to replace them every year, which is why I go with standard daylight bulbs now.  Anyone interested in more detail about lighting and seed growth, this post from 2013 provides some useful information. 

This is just the start.  In a few days I'll seed 72 cells (a full tray) with onions.  Most of the potting-up work I enjoy, but the onions are pure tedium.  Then it will be time to start the first set of brassicas.  The season is underway!

Seeds are here

The seeds from Totally Tomatoes arrived yesterday, the last of the mail-order seeds.  Last year I was able to mostly 'coast' on seeds from the previous year, but this year the seed supply was very much depleted and a larger than usual order was called for.  Most years I try to order from as few suppliers as possible, trying to keep shipping costs down, but this year that was out of the question.  The seeds came from Peaceful Valley (cover crops), Pinetree, Johnny's, and Totally Tomatoes.  Later I'll place an order with Planet Natural for some anti-fungals and other supplies.

Here's what came in:
Cole crops (* denotes a new variety):
Green Magic broccoli.  An early broccoli that has done well for me.
Imperial broccoli*.   A mid-season variety that is supposed to have good heat tolerance.
Point One cabbage*.  This will be the first pointed cabbage for me.  If anything the novelty makes it worth a try.
Golden Acre cabbage.  An early cabbage with great flavor.
Minuteman cauliflower*.  An early F1 hybrid that I'll grow along with Snow Crown.

Beans:
Provider.  My favorite bush bean.
Fortex.  My favorite pole bean.
Musica pole bean*.  I really lucked out here.  While ordering cover crops from Peaceful Valley, I saw that they offered Renee's seeds, which carries this variety.  I've been wanting to try Musica for some time but did not want to place a separate order for one pack of seeds.  Maybe this bean will be the one worthy of growing alongside Fortex.

Peppers:
Bastan ancho pepper*.   Dave at Our Happy Acres grew this pepper and it looked like a good one. I have been growing Mosquitero anchos, which is also a high quality ancho, but a bit late for this zone.  Bastan looks to set peppers a bit earlier.
Magyar paprika*.  This is also from Renee's, another find.
The remaining peppers are bought as seedlings from May's greenhouse in Bloomington, which carries nearly 60 varieties of pepper seedlings.  Since the garden is not large it doesn't pay for me to start peppers from seed, with the exception of the hybrid anchos, which are much better than the OP varieties.

Tomatoes:
I'm growing more tomatoes this year, using the space that in the past was planted in potatoes.  Hopefully some varieties will survive the blight and septoria leaf spot.  Some of the varieties are heirlooms or older F1 hybrids that Totally Tomatoes claim have some blight resistance.

Better boy*.  An older F1 large slicing tomato that is supposed to have great flavor.
Black plum*.  Not sure if I'll grow this.  Supposed to be one of the better tasting sauce tomatoes.
Ferline*.  This F1 is blight resistance.  I did not notice until the seed packet arrived that it takes 95 days to mature, which will be late August here.  If there's space I'll plant one, but that is a very late maturity date.
Mountain Magic*.  This campari type tomato is blight resistant and reviews say it has great flavor.  I'm not a fan of the small salad tomatoes but a good flavored one may win me over. Worth a try.
Old Brooks*.  An OP heirloom that TT claims has some blight resistance.
Plum Regal*.  A determinate sauce tomato that is blight resistant, although reviews on flavor were lukewarm.
Roma VF*.  Another determinate sauce tomato that TT claims has some blight resistance.

Cover crops:
Biomaster field peas.  I've grown these several years.  When inoculated their roots develop numerous white nodules that harbor nitrogen fixing bacteria.  I sow them in the squash bed in March, then plant squash into them in late May.   The cut foliage is great forage for the rabbits.
Red cowpeas*.  A heat loving legume.  This will follow crops like onions and cole crops that are pulled out in the summer.

The rest of the seeds:
Reflect spinach.  I first tried this last year and really like it, very early and tasty.
Pontiac onion*.  A yellow storage onion from Johnny's.  I've been growing Ruby Ring for several years but this year have had more than the usual number of sprouts.  Time for something new.
Nantes carrot.  An old standard.
Red Ace beet*. Claimed to be the best all-around beet. 
Vertina cucumber*.  A smooth-skinned pickling cucumber from Johnny's.  It's parthenocarpic, so it won't need a pollinator.  Will replace Calypso this year.
Metro Butternut squash.  A mid-sized butternut that has done well here for years.
Buttercup squash. Just hope it doesn't succumb to the borer.
Javelin parsnip.  It just doesn't pay to plant the old OP varieties.  This one is much better.

Along with the seeds carried over from years past, it looks like I'm ready to start seeding.  I'll seed lettuce in about a week, then start onions a week after that.  In the near future I'll post on my seed starting setup and lights.  Happy gardening 2017.

2016 - A quick overview and plans for next year

Except for parsnip, this year's plantings have all been harvested.  Total yields for the season were on the light side at 313 pounds.  There were a number of reasons for the low yields.  Last spring I was trying to finish a kitchen remodel that had been ongoing for over a year.   Since there was some uncertainty when the kitchen would actually become functional again, only a few cole crops were started indoors, consequently the yields of broccoli, kohlrabi, cabbage and other brassicas were light. 

Tomatoes were hit by what I believe was early blight and septoria leaf spot, and yields were abysmal, just over 12 pounds from 4 cages.  Pickling cucumbers, which in the year previous had yielded prodigiously, produced just over 10 pounds from 3 plants.  Potatoes and sweet potatoes were hit hard by voles.  I still harvested 40 pounds of potatoes but no sweet potatoes.  On a more positive note, it was a mostly average year for peppers (13 pounds), okra (12 pounds), onion (25 pounds) and snap beans (19 pounds).  

Winter squash had their best year ever, with a total yield of 135 pounds.  Perhaps it was the  rabbit poop compost and nitrogen-fixing cover crops, or it was just a very favorable year for squash.  At any rate I'll continue to prep the beds much the same way this year. 

Under the protection of the plastic greenhouse next year's leafy greens are growing.  There are 2 rows of Burpee's Double-choice spinach and one row of Reflect spinach, a row of Pinetree winter lettuce blend, a row of bunching onion, and on the left, garlic.  With the extended warm autumn the garlic got off to a fast start.  I'm not sure what will happen with it being in the relative warmth of the greenhouse.  I've found the greenhouse prevents the soil from freezing unless the weather gets brutally cold.

Next year, yes, changes must be made.  I actually wanted to implement some changes this year but the remodeling work ruled that out.  First of all, no roots or tubers next year.  The rodents know where they are and they will be back.  Potatoes will be grown in containers or bags, sweet potatoes will not be grown at all.  That leaves a lot of free space in the largest bed, and that's where the tomatoes come in. 

It's unacceptable to give up on tomatoes, that means that major changes in methods are needed.  Here's a list:

• Plant varieties that are blight resistant.  There aren't that many varieties available, and I've found that many of them are the saladette/grape varieties which I don't really care for.   Still there are some blight-resistant slicing tomatoes available, such as Ferline, Defiant, and Stellar.  There are also heirlooms which have been noted to have some degree of blight resistance, Pink Brandywine and Old Brooks, although they have no resistance to the wilts.  Also noted for blight resistance is the older hybrid Better Boy.  Plum Regal is a (supposedly) blight resistant hybrid paste tomato, so I'm sure I'll grow that as I need mostly sauce tomatoes.  I don't know if Juliet is a good sauce tomato but it has some blight resistance also.  I'm toying with the idea of buying a grafted Brandywine plant.  The list is still a work in progress.
• Cage strategy.  I've been growing tomatoes in cages made from 4 foot by 8 foot remesh, which were rolled in cages of about 22 inches in diameter.  Two plants were grown in each cage, and two cages were wired together in pairs.  I may continue to use these cages for determinate tomatoes, which I've never grown before, but the cages will be staked singly, not in pairs, and varieties will be isolated from each other.  The extra space in the large bed will get some tomato plants.
• New cages.  These will be made from a 50 foot roll of 5 foot remesh.  That extra foot will be a bonus for growing indeterminate tomatoes, which can really utilize the extra height.  I plan to make cages of about 16 inches in diameter, thinner and taller than the old cages.  Each cage will get one tomato plant.  They can be wired together in pairs, which saves on staking, as long as the same variety is grown in both cages of the pair.  
• Mulching.  This is supposed to prevent splashup when it rains.  I don't know how much this will matter, as I prune off the lower foliage as soon as the plant gets a few feet tall, but certainly can't hurt.  

Most of the seed-buying decisions have already been made, but I'm still working on what tomato seeds to order, and it's a great way to pass the time on a winter's day.   I try to keep the number of companies that I buy from at a minimum in order to hold down shipping costs, but it looks like this year I'll have to order from a number of suppliers.  I always order from Pinetree, but this year will also place an order with Totally Tomatoes, Peaceful Valley (for cover crops) and Johnny's. 

Finally, next spring the strawberry plants in the perennial bed will be taken out and replaced with more asparagus.  The bed currently has 6 asparagus plants and there should be room for 4 more, which should make for decent yields of asparagus in the future.  Plenty to keep me busy. 

Here's wishing everyone a successful 2017.  We'll all need some luck in the coming year.