Dusting off the old blog...

Corona Virus Quarantine day 17

Welp....here we are. Bizzaro land. The last day in the office for DH was Friday, March 13 (he's been working at home since). We're honoring the quarantine request of Gov. Cuomo by social distancing & only going out when necessary: Grocery store, once to the hardware store and we walk the dogs twice a day in the neighborhood. Not much to do...might as well garden & blog.

I haven't been gardening much in the past few years. The trees grew too tall & shaded my old plot. Last year we took the fence out & I did a lot of container gardening on the deck & patio. A neighbor had cleaned out her garage & was selling huge ceramic pots for $1 each so I scrounged around for cash & bought 15 or so. Score!

This year for my birthday DH got me wood & dirt. He knows how to make a girl happy.  I designed & threw up a raised bed in 2 days. It was a lot of work. DH supplied the muscle. It's 16'x4'x20"- long & skinny. My one trip to the hardware store was for wood & screws. I called the local nursery & they delivered topsoil & leaf/mushroom compost.  I scrounged around in the garage & found my old pea fence & gardening bag with twine. I spaced finishing nails out every 12" & made squarefoot gardening squares with the twine & put up the pea fence.

The new bed.  You can still see the outline of the old bed up in the top left corner. (We're looking E/SE).  The flower bed is the blob in the lower left corner & the circle on the right is the peony bed that needs to be fenced or moved because it always gets clobbered by the dogs.

I have seeds of all different ages. Some of my tomato seeds are really old- I soaked those in bleach solution for 30 minutes before planting-some in the flats, some in little dixie cups, some in a milk jug.   I got out my heat mats, grow lights & seedling flats & got things started. It's a lot harder than I remember. I'm having damping off & leggy seedling issues. I found a bunch of milk cartons in the garage so I'm starting some seeds by the winter sowing method. Fingers crossed.

This is the current starting line up*
*subject to change

Started outside in the garden:
Peas
Fava Beans
Rapini
Carrot
Swiss Chard
Kale
Arugula
Lettuces:

Winter sowing:
Borage
Sunflower
Calendula
Marigold
Zinnia
Parsley
Cilantro
Mentuccia Romana
Shiso
Arugula
Rapini
Kale
Roman Chamomile

Starting inside seedling flat & heat mat:
Tuscan Kale
Basil
Corriander
Lettuce-I think this might be a bad idea
Tomatoes: Black from Tula, Champagne Cherry, Black Cherry, Stupice, Matt's Wild Cherry, Cowlick's Brandywine, JD's Special C-Tex, Tigerella.

Also: DeMilpa Tomatillo & Molly's Ground Cherry

Starting inside Dixie cups & heat mat:
Zucchini: cocozelle & Striato di Napoli
Cucumber
Squash: Thelma Saunders & Buttercup
Melon: Sugarcube
Tomatoes: Champagne Cherry, Matt's Wild Cherry, Black Cherry, Tigerella, Green Zebra, Black Zebra, Ruby's German Green, Black Krim, Purple Dog Creek, Earl's Faux

Starting in a milk jug on a heat mat (I'll pulling out all the stops):
Tomatoes: Champagne Cherry, Matt's Wild Cherry, Black Cherry, Tigerella, Green Zebra, Ruby's German Green, Black Krim, Purple Dog Creek, Earl's Faux

Yes, that's a lot of tomatoes. but since the seeds are between 6-10 years old I'll be lucky if a few of them germinate. If, by crazy luck, I have more than I need I'll put them by the curb & give them away for free to a good home.

Oh! I saw my first daffodils this morning. Things are looking up!

Tea Time!

I've been wanting to fertilize my yard & garden for years but wasn't really sure how to go about it. The "traditional" way, of course, is to mix up a funky blue chemical with some water and soak the plants with it. When I moved into my first house the previous owners left a big box of miracle grow in the garage. The color of the stuff freaked me out. It freaked me out so much that I still have the box, brought it all the way from NC. I don't want to throw it out, I don't want to use it. So it sits on a shelf in the garage. I use composted manure and leaf mould in the veg garden every year but I'm looking for something to use in the flower gardens as well as the veg garden.

Along comes the Helpful Gardener Forum and their sticky in the organic section about aerated compost tea. I started reading and googling and a few days later I have made my own compost tea brewer for super cheap. It's happily perculating away and should be done later this afternoon. I plan on having a few "control" plants. Since I have several Arugaman's Eggplants, basil, rosemary and Cheverna chuska peppers, I'll do 2 mixed pots of each and one will get the tea, the other just water and we'll see what happens.

I still have a TON to learn. Biology isn't my thing but I'm reading and making notes. I figure as long as I don't kill my plants with it (they say that's virtually impossible to do) I should be ok.

I also potted up most of the remaining pepper, eggplant and tomato plants. I still have a few to go but the main work is done. I've been hardening off the plants outside during the day. It's still getting down in the low 30's at night so I bring them in in the evening. Things are looking good!

What's blooming now: Forsythia, primrose, daffodils, cherry trees, scilla siberica

April!

It's been a scorcher! I took Friday off to work in the yard. We broke a heat record 86! No shade. Brutal. I planted the favas, peas and spinach. Friday was veg garden day: I put up the pea trellis, laid out cardboard on the paths. I also cleaned the grill- a 3 hour job that I wasn't planning on. Saturday (also brutally hot) I started a new bed by the mailbox. I mapped it out with the chewed up soaker hose, dug a trench around the perimeter and laid out cardboard. I also weeded the front, side and back flower beds and raked up some leaves. Big winds came in on Saturday night, blew over the pea trellis and blew more leaves into the side bed- I can't win! Yesterday (cooler, sunny highs in the high 60's) I put the plants that have been wintering in the sunroom out on the deck. Ghislaine de Felagonde has little buds on it! I really need to pot up some of the seedlings. I found the pots that I thought DH had thrown out (In a tub behind the kayak). The attached pic is one I took this morning of the lady's mantle. I found several volunteer lady's mantle when I was weeding this weekend- cool!

Mon04/05
70°
Breezy, Risk of a Few Showers
50°
Mostly Cloudy

Tue04/06
70s°
Mostly Cloudy, Showers/Thunderstorm Risk
50s°
Mostly Cloudy, Couple of Showers Possible

Wed04/07
70s°
Few Showers/Storms Possible
40s°
Risk of a Few Showers

Thu04/08
50s°
Cooler, Showers Possible
40°
Mostly Cloudy, Shower Risk

Fri04/09
50s°
Partly Sunny, Risk of a Few Showers
30s°
Partly Cloudy & Quiet

Sat04/10
50s°
Sun & Clouds
40°
Scattered Clouds

What's blooming now: Violets, Daffodils, Primrose, Forsythia

Peas & Beans & more...

I started the peas and fava beans last week in newspaper pots under a deli container out in the garden (you can see it under the teepee in the previous picture). Despite the cold (it got down to 20 at night this week and daytime temps were in the 30's) the Alaska peas have started to sprout. Cascadia's aren't coming up but they are old so I don't have high hopes. Fava's haven't come up yet. I set out the spinach and onions (started from seed) in the garden today. They are still in their paper pots. I'll probably plant them later this week.
I saw some daffodils yesterday along the highway-I think it's a warmer microclimate being between concrete sound barriers on either side of the highway. They looked so pretty. My neighbors primrose is flowering- dark blue. Mine aren't doing anything yet but they do look green so that's encouraging.
Wintersowing is going well I have things starting to peek out. I did bring some jugs in the other night when it got down to 20. I also covered some up with a drop cloth. It looks like everything made it. I moved the chard in the garden (the ones that seem to have survived the winter) and I planted more in one of the flower beds.
I need to pot up tomatoes, peppers, tomatillos, basil and eggplants this week. I also need to get the sawz-all from my brother to start making Earthtainers (http://earthtainer.tomatofest.com/). I came to the realization that I have WAY more plants than space (especially tomatoes) this year and will need to utilize the deck, patio, driveway and flower beds. I plan on canning and drying this year (total beginner). Come September we're going to have tomatoes coming out of our ears, DH is probably going to kill me! But we use diced, peeled and tomato sauce all year round so as long as they don't go to waste...

Winter and Spring Battle it out

What a wild week! I had to go to Connecticut last week for work- rumor has it we had beautiful weather here while I was gone. I came back late Thursday night: the lawns had turned green and I saw my first Daffodil on Friday (4/3). Then the winds picked up the temperature dropped and on Saturday we had rain/sleet/snow and back again. Sunday was nice: sunny and in the 50's then the wind picked up and I woke up at 1:30am Monday morning and everything was covered in snow! We got about 2-3 inches, it snowed all day but it warmed up enough that it didn't stick to the roads and it kind of melted. Today it snowed a little bit but everything has melted.

The forsythia is about ready to bloom. Scilla siberica the little blue star-like flowers are blooming on people's lawns. I think they are beautiful- probably my favorite early spring flower. I have one in the side yard. I think he needs some friends! I potted up some more tomato seedlings today. I have 50+ and still potting. I have to take inventory of what I have and who wants what. 10 are going to my pottery instructor. I have his picked out already and put them in their own tray. I need to save some for my nieces and nephews and a coworker or two and my friend Patti in Ithaca. I don't know what I'm going to do with the rest. NOTE TO SELF: Tomatoes have an excellent germination rate- don't plant more than needed next year!

Pretty much everything I have started from seed has sprouted except the 4 o'clocks (old seed, not properly stored) and the cilantro (used seed from my kitchen cabinet-I thought I'd take as stab at it!) and my pepper "Cherneva chuska" or something like that. The pepper seed is new this year I'm not sure what's wrong with it-bad batch I guess. Jury is still out on the Shasta Daisy's (also old, not properly stored seed) and the cucumbers -that is also new seed maybe planted too deep? Not enough time on the heat mat?

I'm looking into winter sowing for next year. I am using every available flat surface and am running out of room. I won't even start about the heat mat and shop light rotation. I've read some forums where the people swear by wintersowing. I still have some more seed to start for this year, I wonder if it's too late to try it this year....

Above picture is Sedum "Autumn Joy" emerging. Picture was taken on 3/28