Garden Update July 14 2011

We Missed The Frost & Garden Photos

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May 172012

Well last night the temperatures dropped down to about 2C. Hubby picked up some more floating row cover/frost blanket and we finished covering everything up. Thankfully we did not have any frost, but I’m glad to have the plants protected anyway. Tonight is only suppose to go down to 6C and after that it looks really nice for the next week.

Our flowering crab apple is in full bloom. Oh does it smell wonderful.

This past week our strawberries started to flower! I fed them with some liquid seaweed last week and have been trying to keep them watered. I need to get mulch for them soon.

Our first garden bed as it looked last Sunday night. Last night we finished covering the next two rows with the floating row covers. I also had to add heavier weights to hold it down. The storm that came through Sunday night lifted the cover off the last two rows. Now I have bricks and logs holding it down. It gets very windy here!

I’m going to wait until Saturday to finish planting out the rest of my seedlings.

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Garden Update May 15 2012

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May 162012

Sunday afternoon we were busy in the gardens again. We tilled up the garden patch a second time. Then we raked the sod clumps out. Normally the front garden isn’t bad for weeds, but we had such nice weather early in the season that they started growing early.

Hubby bought rolls of landscape fabric that was 3 feet wide by 100 feet long. He found a good deal on them for only $10 each. We will be getting some more! We cut them in half, giving us 200 feet for the same price, can’t beat that! We laid out the first strip, using bricks to hold the ends down. Then had our little ones help hold the edges down so we could rake the soil over them. That will keep the fabric held down well. We are planning to use a living mulch in this garden plot, so we used the width of our push lawn mower to space the rows. We need to put down two more rows of landscape fabric then there will be enough for the tomatoes and peppers.

We are supposed to get lower temperatures Wednesday and Thursdays night so we are using our floating row/frost covers to protect the plants.

Garden Update May 12 2012

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May 162012

This past Saturday we were finally able to start tilling the gardens. We would have loved to start working them sooner but between hubby’s back and the crazy weather this spring we were running behind. But the weather this past week has been wonderful! On Sat. were tilled up all of our gardens and I soaked the corn and bean seed.

Garden Photos

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May 142012

The weather this past week has been just wonderful! So I’m following cues from the weather and starting to plant out early. The long range forecast for the next few weeks looks nice. They are saying a few cooler nights, so I can just cover up my plants if need be. These photos were taken a few days ago before I started to plant outside.

Heinz Tomatoes

Our Heinz tomatoes were growing really well! They always do well for me, they are my staple tomato here. They really needed to be repotted. But the nice weather saved me from having to do that. They went into the garden yesterday and most had flower buds on them already, one had an open flower!

Heinz Tomatoes

Peppers

Our sweet peppers are off to a good start this year. I hope that we get good yields off of these.

Squash

I’ve started our summer and winter squash in the greenhouse a few weeks ago. I did this last year and they did really well for me. So far I’m having mixed results. The germination rate continues to be low.

Lupins

Delphinium

Some lupin and Delphinium flowers for my garden boarders.

Raised Bed

This is out of our raised beds. I turned it over a few weeks ago and transplanted my onions, broccoli, purple cauliflower and cabbage into it.

Onions

Broccoli

Purple Cauliflower

Asparagus

We have been harvesting from our little asparagus patch for the past week. Weeds have always been an issue with this bed. This year I’m trying something new. The old time method of salting asparagus patches. I just applied salt the other day and I’ll let you all know how it works.

Whats growing in your gardens?

Crazy Weather On The Homestead

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Apr 172012

Well it sure is a yo-yo of a spring here! For the most part our weather has been a week of cold weather near 0C, then a few days of low 20C, then back to cold! Two days ago we were having a pretty good snow shower, then today it was super hot! This sure is taking a toll on the plants outside.

In the greenhouse the seedlings are doing pretty good. I have noticed the germination rate is very slow this year, both with seed that I’ve saved and with newly purchased seed. Some tomatoes sprout in the normal 7 to 10 days, while others in the same flat have taken 3 to 4 weeks. I was just about to give up on some of them, then I found today they are starting to come up.

In the garden the peas are starting to come up and the rhubarb is just starting to leaf out. So far no sign of the asparagus, but it is still early here for that. With our weather going down near 0C again, it’s better that it waits anyway!

How are your seedlings doing? Has anyone else noticed the germination rate being slow this year?

Starting To Plant The Garden & Back To Eden Film

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Mar 212012

I just can’t believe the wonderful weather! It’s in the high 20′s C here today and tomorrow is suppose to be wonderful as well. If the weatherman is right, we are in for rain on the weekend then it’s back to cooler temps. But really 7 or 8 C is still nice for this time of year!

Monday I spent a good part of the day outside. We’ve been doing our school lessons at the pick-nick tables in a nice shady area by the house. This great weather is to nice to waist by hiding inside! Then the afternoon I turned over one of our raised beds. The crab grass was already coming in. If you have raised beds, I can not tell you how much easier a garden claw makes for weeding them!

Once the garden bed was all ready, I planted green onions, turnips, radish and spinach. It is a bit early to plant here, but all of these can take frost with out much damage. If we do get another deep freeze the worst case will be I have to replant. If the weather stays nice, then we will have an early crop.

A few weeks ago, I was asked if we had seen the film Back to Eden. I hadn’t but I love to watch gardening videos, so I was off to their website to check it out. We just loved it! I’ve been trying to get hubby to use mulch in the garden for years. But he really didn’t like the idea. The problem as it turns out, he didn’t understand what I wanted to do. I wanted to use a deep mulch system, similar to Ruth Stout. With this you leave the mulch on the garden and just pull it back to plant. Hubby thought that he would be tilling the mulch into the garden each fall. All he could picture was what a mess that would be to till.

But thanks to the Back to Eden documentary, he’s ready to start using a deep mulch system in the gardens! This will reduce our weeds, save water and provide a ground cover for all the beneficial bugs in the garden. I highly recommend anyone who likes to garden, check out the Back to Eden film. It’s free to watch on their website, or can order a DVD.

Starting Our Seeds For This Years Garden

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Mar 162012

The weather has been unbelievably nice this past few weeks! I started working on getting our garden seedlings started. I also moved my plants from the grow lights in the house out to the green house. The weather has been so nice, I haven’t had to heat it yet!

Thinking About The Gardening Season To Come & Testing My New Camera

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Jan 132012

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about our garden lately. I guess the spring bug has bit me! LOL While I’m still deciding what to grow and what variety’s I will try this year, my main thoughts are on how to make the work load easier. The last normal garden season I remember was about 6 years ago. Each summer since then has been “extreme” in some way. We have had very hot summers with no rain, cold and dry summers, summers that were hot and heavy rains leading to the gardens flooding. It’s hard to know what variety’s to plant some times! I’ve lived all my life in the same growing zone and until these past few years I have not had so much trouble in the gardens.

This coming year we are going to start using a living mulch system. I posted some videos in our forum last fall about these. Basically to start we will be using black plastic mulch in the planting rows. In between them we are planing a mix of red and white clover and alfalfa. As this grows through the season it will be cut and let to compost in place. This should provide cover for many beneficial insects and feed the soil steadily through the season.

I filmed this video yesterday with my new camera, it was a Christmas gift. I love it! The video is coming out very well! Sorry for it showing so small, I had a setting wrong in the video editor. I think I have it ok now.

The weather has been so nice, truly a very mild winter for our area! Maybe that’s why the gardening bug is biting eh? The winter storm I mentioned in the video so far has not been much. Last night we had a little rain, a few snow flurries this afternoon and now more rain. It’s funny what the weathermen are calling storms this year!

Tomato Forest, Chickens and Egg Yolk Tomatoes

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Oct 042011

I just realized that although I was making videos this summer for YouTube, many I had forgotten to post over here! I’ll be re posting them although a bit late. I often look back at my garden videos in the late winter, they serve partly as a garden journal for me.

This summer was the first in a long time that we did not have chickens. The last of our old hens had passed away. They left behind an empty but well manured out door pen. What a surprise I had when I noticed that we had a “forest” of tomatoes growing in there! All the seeds left behind from their favorite scraps were growing nicely. This first vid was in early August.

A few weeks ago the tomatoes finally started to produce. They turned out to be yellow cherry tomatoes, funny thing is the variety is Egg Yolk! Yes my chickens left me a harvest of Egg Yolk tomatoes!!! LOL!