Gardening

We just had our first bit of produce from the garden this year!  Two years ago, our first harvest of lettuce was on May 20th.  This year, it is May 11th.  By using the floating row covers and starting the lettuce a bit earlier, it paid off by providing some lettuce a week early.

Really, we could have picked the lettuce last week because the plants were still pretty big then.  Just under a pound of lettuce was picked from eight lettuce plants.

Last year, we had our first batch of strawberries on May 13th.  While I don’t have pictures, my wife did say she picked a couple today.  The strawberries are coming along – but they are slower this year because of the cooler weather.  But, that certainly helps the cool-weather crops – like the lettuce!

OK – here are some photos.  The first is of the New Red Fire lettuce that was taken from one plant.

And the Red Salad Bowl.  Last year, it wasn’t worth planting Red Salad Bowl, but it made a comeback this year.  This is from two plants.

Buttercrunch lettuce from two plants:

And lastly, the Simpson Elite lettuce from two plants:

Yum!  And a whole sink full of mixed lettuce!

Now, the lettuce in the patio garden has been trimmed a bit.  There still are other lettuce plants coming up.  Next year, I think I’ll be planting sooner because some of these may not even product because they are still very small.

Alright, so that is all for lettuce.  Here some other pictures from the patio garden.  First is the Anaheim Hot Peppers in the blue container.

The Easter Egg Radishes are doign well.  They are over a month now, but they are bulbing now.

And before moving on, a full picture of the patio garden.

Now – for the potatoes.  You can see four black containers in the above picture.  Those all have Kennebec potatoes in them.  I have another row of six beside the house – and all of them have come up.  We planted 82 Kennebec potatoes in total, and 100% of them have sprouted as of yesterday.  The Yukon Gold potatoes on the other hand are not doing as good with only about 10 of the 50 that have sprouted.

All of the Kennebec potatoes in the potato bin have sprouted as well.

And just next to the potato bin are the carrots.  A total of 152 Sugarsnax and 150 Scarlet Nantes carrots are still alive.  That is about half of what was originally planted – and almost all of those that sprouted are still alive.

Alright – now looking at the garden beside the house.  The broccoli and cauliflower are growing well – and the peas have really started to speed up in their growth as well.  Unfortunatley, I noticed that one of the cauliflower plants and one of the broccoli plants had purple leaves.  I’d never seen purple leaves on them before.  Unfortunately, the Snow Crown cauliflower plant died not too long later.

And the garden behind the garage is doing well.  Again, the peas are doing well (they didn’t germinate as well as I would have liked them to though) – and you can see the two rows of Kennebec potatoes that are now fully sprouted on the right side.

So what is left to see?  Everything in the front yard.  Here are the Tri-Star strawberries.  They are pushing up against the deer netting.  The past couple of years I put the deer netting as a fence around the entire grape arbor and the strawberries.  This year, I opted to just cover the strawberries and so far, it seems to be working out.

A couple weeks ago, we put in a lot of effort to get the flower bed cleaned up and ready for use.  Well, I opted to make use of it to plant the last of the broccoli, cauliflower, and onions in.  So they are doing well.

Alright – now let’s look at the main garden in the front yard.

Look at how well the Ventura Celery on the left-hand side is doing!  Amazing.  Those were all planted around December 19th indoors and set out in March.  Now, the rest of the celery certainly is growing – but much slower.  They were started indoors at the beginning of February/end of January.  The Copra onions have really began to take off as well.

The peppers and tomatoes were transplanted back into the garden a couple of weeks ago now.  They are doing alright – but one pepper plant doesn’t look like it will make it.  Making use of the space, I also planted two rows of radishes down the middle – which I’m adding to each week to have a good supply of them.

And the tomatoes.

The tomatoes that I had to purchase are the ones in the upper part of the photo.  They are quite green and doing well.  The others that were transplanted from 16-ounce cups, to the garden, back to 1-gallon ice cream buckets – back to the garden are in the other row.  They have some yellowing – but they are doing well and are much larger than the Better Boy tomatoes that I purchased.

This past weekend, the Bush Blue Lake 274 green beans and the Honey Treat corn was planted.  I soaked the seed for about 36 hours beforehand – and some of the green bean seed just fell apart in my hand.  I’m just not sure if any of the plants will come up – time will tell.  But, if I don’t see any kind of activity here in the next few days, I believe it will be time to re-plant them.  This time, I most likely won’t soak them.

That is all for the garden update!

April is now gone – with all of the rain that it brought!  Temperatures seemed to be much cooler this year than last – so hopefully that means our summer will not be as hot as it was last year.

Originally the plan was to make a post earlier last week, but several other things had to get accomplished first.  So this morning, camera in hand, new photos were taken around the garden.

The big change this week are a few things.

Yesterday, the wife & I spent most of the day working the front flower bed.  Because we live on a hill, a lot of last year’s work on making the flower bed eroded away.  So, some 10-inch tall by 1-inch thick treated lumber was purchased to put along the curb.  That way the entire area could be filled in – and be at least ten inches deep.  That will give the flowers more room!  Well, and, uhh – the broccoli and cauliflower that also moved in (hey, maybe some green beans later too!).

The rebar doesn’t look pretty.  Maybe we’ll get it painted.

The other big change that happened – was, well, the deer got to some of the tomato plants.  Unfortunately, they were planted out too early – so they were dug up and put in one-gallon ice cream buckets (as seen in the last blog post).  I left them outside one night since it was getting better out – and the deer ate off the tops of them.

Unfortunately I gave away the other Red Cherry tomato plants that I had extra – and the only one Red Cherry tomato plant we have left was eaten badly.  So, no Red Cherry Tomatoes this year.  It seems that three of the eight were untouched – and I’m hoping that maybe some of the others will come out of it.

So, for the first time, I had to buy tomato plants.  We went to the local Rural King store and got four Better Boy tomatoes for $1.90 after tax.  They wanted $3.50 for ONE tomato plant – but it certainly was about twice as large.  Oh well – tomatoes will just be a bit later this year, but that is how it goes.  I wasn’t going to pay $15 for four tomato plants.  Also in the picture below are the Crimson Sweet watermleon that are finally growing.  It took two weeks to germinate – and six of the eight have come up.  I only need three, so three can be given away.

From there, it is just a walk around the yard now!

Here are the two Anaheim Hot Peppers in the tote up by the patio.  They have remained outside for the past couple of weeks and have done well.  Of course, I could put the lid over the top of them on the cool nights.

The patio garden is coming along.  There are four rows of radishes in the front, a patch of oregano, and all of the lettuce in the back.  The California Wonder peppers are in the middle in black plastic containers.  Those will be planted soon (along with the tomatoes).

A closer look at the lettuce.  The lettuce on the very right is two months old and some of it is ready to harvest!  Note to self for next year – start at least two or three rows at the same time because one row just isn’t going to cut it for salads!

The carrots are still coming along.  They have been planted for about a month now and it took about two weeks for them to sprout.

The side garden is doing well.  The peas, broccoli, and cauliflower are planted here.  Yukon Gold potatoes were planted down the center – but none of those have sprouted yet (been like two weeks!).  There are other volunteer potato plants coming up though.

And the back garden still looks pretty bare.  Yukon Gold were planted along the row by the peas – and the other two rows towards the outside were planted with Kennebec.  Still, none of these have sprouted either.

Now to the front yard.  The celery is doing fantastic – well, in the front of the picture anyways.  Towards the back of the picture, they are not doing too great.  At least we’ll have some celery to harvest this year since last year was bad.  The onions are also growing too – but they’d better hurry because another 1.5 months and the summer solstice comes – and it will be bulbing time!

And lastly – the Tri-Star strawberries.  They are doing very well in the strawberry pyramids.  You can see all of the white flowers on the plants.

So far it has been an exceptionally good year for cool-weather crops.  Unfortunately that means it has set my planting of corn back.  I already had the corn in the ground by this time last year.  I had planned to put green beans in place of the corn once they were down, but I’m not sure if there will be time to do that now.  That is why.. they may end up in the flower bed!

Well, I’ll start off by saying that it was a very nice weekend!  A lot of progress was made this weekend with getting all of the potatoes planted.  Two varities – Yukon Gold and Kennebec were planted.  The Yukon Gold were planted in two rows – one by the house and one by the garage for a total of 54 planted.  The Kennebec were also planted behind the garage, in black buckets, and in the old potato bed – about 82.

I also got more PVC pipe since I the potatoes were planted ten inches apart this year instead of 12 inches.  That took eight 10-foot PVC sections that had 1/16-inch holes drilled every 10 inches.  Then I also had to get another six 10-foot PVC sections with holes drilled every eight inches for the corn this year.  We’ll see if I have any luck with spacing the corn closer this year – but just highly fertilizing them.

Then, I also decided it was time to get the tomatoes planted outside.  The tomatoes were growing exceptionally fast in the germination station and had outgrown their containers – and I couldn’t move the lights up anymore!  So, they were all planted outside.

Looks lovely!

What else?  Oh – I got the two Anaheim Hot Peppers planted in their tote just behind the patio garden.

The carrots have also been sprouting – so I took a quick picture of them.  About 150 each of Sugarsnax and Scarlet Nantes have come up so far.  If I remember right, I seeded about 520 carrots total.

The are that I dug out by the house – which will be used for watermelon – was also filled in with compost from the compost facility.  You can also see some of the black containers that the potatoes were planted in.

The compost doesn’t look all that great.  I wonder if they have mixed clay into this at the facility.  The very first batch of compost I got had horse manure in it (front garden right by the driveway – and the back garden).  But, it seems like the areas that have been filled since (like the second part of the front garden) haven’t faired as well.  I guess we’ll see this year what happens.

But, the story also holds true – here you can see how well the celery is doing near the front of the picture compared to the back.  The front is where the “good” compost was put in three years ago.

But, the onions don’t seem to mind and are doing well across the whole area.

Here is the whole picture of the front garden.  After the tomatoes and potatoes were all put in on Sunday, the deer netting was then put around the area.  I’m just using 1/2-inch PVC pipe to hold the netting up.  Looking at the celery – can you spot where the “good” and “bad” compost is?  Seems very prevelant.

More pictures – let’s look at the strawberries!  They are beginning to bloom already.

The Granny Smith Apple tree is also in bloom.

The grape vines are also budding out.

The side garden is moving right along with the broccoli, cauliflower, and peas planted.  A row of potatoes were put right down the middle.

I’m surprised how much the oregano has taken off!  This is just one plant – and last year, it was pathetic to say the least – but, it was the first year.  Now, it is starting to look great – and we might be able to get some oregano for drying soon!

And – the salad just keeps on growing!  Six days ago today, I planted two “holes” with four seeds each of Simpson Elite, Buttercrunch, Red Salad Bowl, Parris Island, and New Red Fire Lettuce.  Some of them have finally came up through the soil.  I’m not sure if I did my succession planting strategy very well for these lettuce plants.  It certainly seems like there is a lot of lettuce below, but it has taken between five and seven weeks for these plants to get to the sizes they are.

OK – well, that takes care of all the good news.

Now – for the stuff that ruined my mood.

Got home after work yesterday and as I was pulling into the garage, I noticed that the rain barrels were somehow pulled away from the garage!  Holy Moly!  So I parked the car and inspected and I’m extremely lucky.  When I made the rain barrel system, they are sitting on two “rails” of wood that are split in two.  There are two rails that are 12-feet long that hold up the first six barrels towards the back of the garage – then another two 12-foot rails that hold up the second set of barrels.  Well, the first set of rails were the original six that were put up.  When I expanded the system, I added the second set.

With all the rain we’ve had recently, the barrels were completely filled up – so I had over 660 gallons of water.  That is about 4,000 pounds of weight on each rail “set”.  Well, the first “set” was just fine – no problems – but the second set was in dire need of repair.  Right at the end of the garage, the barrels had leaned about ONE FOOT away from the garage!  I’m extremely lucky that the whole thing didn’t come tumbling down.  On the other side of the 12-foot rails, they were moved maybe a couple inches a way from the house – so it was much worse towards the end.

Just by looking at the picture above, you can see the bottom barrel and how it is snug against the wall – and you can see just how far the top barrel was moved.  Not pretty!  So, we were expecting some massive storms (and massive they were) last night – so I sped up to the home store and got two bags of quick-set concrete.  Before I left, I started the process of emptying everything.  Got back about 5:30 and they were still emptying.

Finally a bit after 6:15, they were drained.  I had two hoses draining them and it took almost two hours.  I then put some boards up in my attempt to straight the posts out, but they still are not fully straight.  I fear that this sytem may eventually come tumbling down.  I then tried to fill in the “ruts” that the posts left behind from moving and made large mounds of concrete around each post.

I got done just a little after 7 pm.  It was already starting to lightning and just as I walked into the patio – the extreme high winds (over 60 mph gusts) and pouring rain started in.  Great – concrete needs some time to set up and with all that rain, I was afraid it would wash away the concrete.  Not to mention – because of the rain, it was also refilling the barrels to add all the weight back!

But, when the storm cleared and I looked this evening, everything still seems OK and the barrels are still “snug” against the house.

See the difference in how close the top barrel is now that it has been set back in place?  I’m absolutely amazed that it simply didn’t not completely fall over with 4,000 pounds of weight on it.

And, you can see my attempt to cake concrete around the posts.  Because I only could fill the “ruts” that the posts made in the ground, I also put the concrete around the posts to build them up.  Short of taking down half of the entire system, pulling all the posts out (if that would even be possible), and re-digging the holes to fill with concrete, this was the best I could do – especially giving the limited timeframe with the storms coming in.

Lesson learned – ALWAYS FILL post holes with concrete.  NEVER fill them back in with soil.

Alright, that crisis was averted.  Now, for the next one.

Because of the storms, it was almost 80 degrees before the storms came in.  Afterwards, it dropped into the 40’s.

Woke up that morning and the temperature said 37 degrees!  Oh my.  First thought – tomatoes are dead.  Of course, since I had to get to work, I didn’t have any time to dig them up.  The temperature only made it to 45 degrees today – and the lows again tonight are going to be in the low 30’s.

So, lesson learned again – WAY too early to plant tomatoes.

I dug all of the sorry-looking plants up and put them in one-gallon buckets.  Certainly hope they pull through because eight weeks of growing would have been wasted.

So, two lessons defintely learned from this week.  Even though the temperatures were only getting in the mid-40’s at night for the past few weeks, things can change drastically.  And, never put posts in the ground and back-fill with dirt – especially when you are holding up two tons of weight.

The weather has been very nice the past few days.  It got up to about 70 degrees today before quickly cooling back down in the evening.

Last week, I planted the rest of the Copra onions and Varsity onions out in the front flower bed.  I didn’t have any other place to put them.  So, hopefully they will do well here – and they at least do act as a deterrent for the deer.  Deer won’t eat our daffodils – but they are eating all of our tulips and pulling them out of the ground – so unfortunately those are goners.

A total of 10 Copra onions and 21 Varsity onions were transplanted.

I also took two pictures on April 5th (which is when the above was taken) to compare the progress that the celery & onions in the front yard along with the lettuce in the patio garden would change in a week.

From April 5th (just after transplanting the third row from starting containers to the garden on the left side):

April 12th:

April 5th:

April 12th:

Note that I put down some mulched-up leaves that I collected last year around the celery to provide some additional fertilizer when water trickles through – and to also keep the moisture in.

I also had some company over at the neighbor’s house.

The neighbor has a very nice lawn with all kinds of ornaments and things – but it certainly would be a bear to mow around!  But, there is a deer caught in some headlights!  Him/her and some if it’s cousins were walking around the area.  As long as they stay away from my veggies!

The side garden is doing well.  The peas are beginning to come up.  Unfortunately, I planted about 334 Cascadia peas in two different areas – and only 140 have come up in 25 days.  Wow – absolutely surprised that germination is that low!  i went through and just put more seed right on the soil – I doubt they germinate, but if they do, it will help to fill in some of the barren areas.

The Tri-Star strawberry pyramids also had a make over this past weekend.  On Saturday, I went through and removed most of the dead leaves and stems from the strawberries – then also put a good dose of mulched leaves around them for some protection and fertilizer.

The Granny Smith apple tree is also beginning to put on some greenery as well!  I have to unfortunately put a net around the tree because the deer absolutely go deer-wild over this apple tree.  The first year of growth was horridly stunted because the deer were eating whole branches off the tree as it was growing.

Also decided to share a picture of my whole front yard.  There was a member on GardenWeb mentioning they were seeking ideas for front-yard gardening.  Here shows the strawberry pyramids and grape arbor in the front, you can barely see the tree hiding behind the arbor, then the raised beds off in the distance.

Visiting the germination station for a quick moment – the tomatoes are growing like crazy!  I don’t know what is in the water (well, I do – compost tea!) – but they are huge and look like they are ready for transplant already!

The peppers are growing very slowly – and then I still have a few other things – like extra broccoli and cauliflower that I don’t have room for.  Hey – maybe I should get those transplanted to the flower bed tomorrow!  There is plenty of room there.

And lastly – the job I was dreading for a while.

This area is just next to the house – but in front of the side garden bed.  This area was used to grow potatoes for the past two years – but unfortunately, all of the potatoes in this area rotted last year.  That is because the area is mostly filled with clay soil and had poor drainage.

Now, I put a lot of muscle into fully excavating the area.  This year, we will be putting in some watermelon here – which I’ll be starting inside this week.

Today I put in some mulched-leaves into the bed.  I’ll have to make a couple trips to the compost facility this week to get it all filled in.

Finally had a good day to make a video of the rain barrel and compost tea system.  There have been several nice days in the past few weeks – but I also needed to get some rain to demonstrate the barrels!  So we had a good storm come through a few days ago – which then allowed me to get this video made.

This is the last video on the rain barrel system.  The system now has 12 55-gallon drums – for a total water capacity of 660 gallons.  All of the water from a 24×24 foot garage roof is diverted into the system.  There are five downspouts on our approximately 50×24 foot house, so two of those were plugged up – and then one of them was diverted over to the garage roof (since the roof of the house is higher than the garage).  So hopefully with about one inch of rain, the barrels will be filled up.

Under the rain barrels, there are another four containers that will be used to brew compost tea.  I have a large 2-inch ball valve that separates nine of the rain barrels from three.  I’ll close this off – then turn on a smaller ball valve to release water from the three barrels down to the compost tea brewing system.  Once the three rain barrels are empty, then a small 1/6-HP pump will be used to pump the compost tea back into the three rain barrels – then the large 2″ ball valve will be opened.  By doing so, this will make a 1-part compost tea to 3-parts water mixture that will be delivered directly to the garden irrigation system.

On Saturday and Sunday, the weather was very nice!  It was pretty windy with gusts over 50 miles an hour, but it was in the mid-60’s on Saturday and over 80 degrees on Sunday!  Then we finally got some rain Sunday night – which filled the rain barrels about 1/3 of the way up.  Not sure how much rain we got – but I’ll take it!

Monday the temperatures then dropped to just above freezing overnight.  But, the rest of the week is to be nice and reach into the 60’s during the day.

Therefore, the opportunity arose to finally get some more transplants outside.

Let’s start off with a picture of some of the daffodils in the flower bed up front.  I may have to use some of the flower bed this year to plant onions – since I still have about 50 onions in the germination station!

I’m not sure what is going on with the onions – but every single Copra onion that has been transplanted has begun to turn brown.  This only just occurred over the weekend – so I wonder if it was because of the wind – or maybe I’m watering them too much.

But, overall, I haven’t lost an onion yet that was transplanted – so that is good!

On Saturday, I went to Maske’s Organic Gardening and purchased another row cover.  This one will be used for the 8 x 4 raised bed on the driveway where the lettuce will be planted.  Speaking of that – I put in the first two plantings of lettuce.  These were started indoors around March 1st and March 7th (one row each).

In the front is Simpson Elite followed by Buttercrunch, then Red Salad Bowl, then Parris Island, and lastly – New Red Fire lettuce in the very back.  After I planted them, I put in the floating row cover.

Switching gears just for a moment – the strawberry pyramids are beginning to look alive!  The Tri-Star strawberries have been putting on leaves.  Luckily it doesn’t look like any died over the brutal winter – since I don’t cover them with anything.

Now – going to the side garden.  The Cascadia peas are doing well.  As of today, there are 66 peas next to the house that have sprouted – and finally – one has sprouted behind the garage.

Now for Sunday – I spent quite a bit of time outdoors on Sunday getting things prepared.

I pulled the potatoes out of the fridge and allowed them to dry out.  Because they were in the fridge and I had the bag closed, some of them have some mold/fungus growing on them.  But, they will be just fine to plant.  So, I moved them out of the fridge and they are now in a dark room waiting to be planted this weekend or next.

Yukon Gold potatoes:

Kennebec Potatoes:

Then, I decided to go ahead and direct-sow some more Parris Island Cos Romaine lettuce into the 8×4 raised bed.  I want to ensure the lettuce fully develops before it gets hot outside.  So, I planted seven groupings of four – all spaced eight inches apart.

The container that I’ll be planting two Anaheim Hot Peppers in was filled with soil and placed just behind the patio bed – which is the blue tote in the above picture.  Right now I have the lid on it to keep it from getting water logged from any rain.

Now – for the part that took over an hour to do.  I had to use the “claw” garden tool to till up the carrot bed.  I put a layer of chopped-up leaves over the area a few weeks ago so it needed to be mixed in.  I’m completely out of shape – as I could easily tell after mixing in the soil.

But, I put in 28 rows of ten Sugarsnax carrots – and then 26 rows of ten Scarlet Nantes carrots.  The Scarlet Nantes carrot seed is probably half the size of the Sugarsnax carrots – so there were many times I dropped in two or three seeds into each hole.  Then the bird/deer netting was placed over the top to keep the critters out.

I’ve planted Burpee A#1 and Sugarsnax carrots side-by-side last year – and couldn’t tell any difference in the quality or taste of them.  So this year I’m trying the Sugarsnax beside a non-hybrid – Scarlet Nantes – to see how it does.  Scarlet Nantes seed is at least half the cost of Sugarsnax.

Moving onto Tuesday’s task.  Originally, I was going to plant these on Monday – but because it was to get to the point of freezing, I didn’t want to transplant the plants to the garden.  So, Tuesday I got the Premium Crop broccoli, Snow Crown cauliflower, and Green Goliath broccoli planted in the side garden – where the peas beside the house are planted.  In years past, I’ve separated the broccoli and cauliflower 18 inches apart – but this time I put them 12 inches apart to see how they perform.  When watching a “P. Allen Smith’s Garden Home” on PBS a few months back, he mentioned that he also planted Green Goliath broccoli – and spaced them 12 inches apart.  So I figure if he can do it, I can as well!

Premium Crop broccoli is new this year – and I’ve always had very good luck with growing Green Goliath.  So, I’m going to trial the two and see how they perform.

Here are the Premium Crop broccoli plants.  They were a good size when they were transplanted.

Compare that to the Green Goliath broccoli.  Was very surprised – but the Green Goliath simply didn’t grow very well this year before transplanting.

Time will tell to see how they perform!

And lastly – the Snow Crown Cauliflower.  These grew larger than the broccoli in the germination station – so hopefully I’ll get some good results out of them (and not just small button heads!).

I’m very surprised how well the plants around the garden and in the germination station have been doing!  Note that most of all these were started at the beginning of March (all except the onions and celery for the most part).

Lots of pictures here for this post on the last day of March.

I planted five varieties of lettuce four weeks ago, three weeks ago, two weeks ago, and today.  Here are the plants that were started four weeks ago:

The top left of the picture is New Red Fire Leaf Lettuce and to the right of that is Parris Island Cos Romaine Lettuce.  At the bottom of the picture on the left is Simpson Elite (yellow-green), Buttercrunch (green), and Red Salad Bowl (green-red).  I’m amazed at how well these little guys are doing!  Only one month old.  I’m thinking of getting another floating row cover so I can put it over the lettuce/herb garden and get these put outside soon.

Now, onto the next batch.  These are three weeks old:

Two week old lettuce:

Nice to see how they stack up against one another.  What a difference one or two weeks makes eh?  I bottom-feed all of these with a compost tea mixture until they are saturated.  I definitely think that using compost tea as a fertilizer does wonders.

Moving right along.  The peppers have FINALLY began to sprout.  This is an Anaheim Hot Pepper that is now about a week old:

Here are a bunch of California Wonder peppers.  They just began sprouting mostly this week as well.  Originally I planted two per cell – but after about 20 days with zero sprouting, I planted another two per cell.  Funny how those have sprouted in a matter of 10 – 12 days – and the others took over 23 days at the earliest to sprout.  It all comes down to the soil temperature.

You can see at the bottom of that photo I have a temperature gauge.  It shows 95 degrees.  With keeping these in the heated greenhouse with a clear lid over it and the heating pad on 24/7, it finally got them to sprout.  Originally the heating pad was only on for about 12-13 hours per day – and I didn’t get anything to sprout.  Here is the Planters Pride heated greenhouse that I use.  As I said, it has a clear plastic lid to keep the moisture and heat in, a tray that the seed containers sit on, the heating pad is then under that, and then an overall plastic enclosure that encloses it all.

Alright – now, let’s compare the broccoli and cauliflower plants versus last week.  They have grown considerably – maybe even doubling in size!

The tomatoes are doing well too.  Unfortunately, I may have squished one (a Best Boy variety) because the fluorescent lights were not lifted in time.  Can’t really see it here – but the stem has been bent a bit.  Hopefully it will straighten back out.

And a Roma tomato:

And a tray of some more tomatoes (Best Boy, Roma, and Red Cherry):

Now, because I’ve already set out most of the Copra Onion seedlings (well, as many as I could fit), I  had some left-overs.  They were transplanted into these containers and they continue to grow.  I guess I’ll be planting these down in the flower bed this year because I simply cannot let these go to waste.

Nor can I let these Varsity Onions go to waste either.  A GardenWeb member was nice enough to send me his remaining packet of Varsity Onion seeds – so they were planted.  It definitely is not going to be level playing field when I compare these two – since I’ve already set Copra Onions outside and they were started about 14-15 days earlier.

That is a lot of pictures isn’t it!  Well, we’re not done yet!  That covers all of the current plants in the germination station.  Now, let’s take a walk outdoors and…

Oh my!  What is that?  It is oregano that I planted from seed last year!  Yes, oregano will not produce much of anything in the first year.  But, it over-wintered well and it is greening up and growing already.  Hopefully we’ll get some fresh oregano this year!

I’ve also had some Cascadia peas begin to germinate.  Yesterday I counted 18 and today I counted 28.  That still is a far cry from the 334 that were planted.  All 28 that have sprouted are right next to the house – so the soil is warmer because of the inside house temperature.  None of them behind the garage have sprouted yet.  This same thing happened the past two years as well.

Are you bored yet?  Well, just three more pictures – and they are all from the front garden.

Unfortunately, the floating row cover proved to be too much for the onions.  So, I had to change how the cover was and made a house out of it over the celery.  Some celery stalks were also being broken off from the row cover as well – so I had to make some PVC supports to keep it off the celery.

Here is a closer view of the onions that were started back around December 20th.  They are doing very well – and are much further along than all the other Copra onions that were planted outside.  These things are still quite small – and they are now about 3.5 months old!

And alas – let’s take a peak under the floating row cover and see the bounty of Ventura celery!  I certainly hope this will be the year that the celery does well – because it was horrible last year.

Welp, happy gardening to everyone and hope you continue to follow me!

Grandma on my mom’s side of my family passed away around 1:30 pm.  She has had a hard couple of years between being in and out of the hospital and nursing homes.

She was due to move back home – tomorrow – but she went to the hospital on Friday with breathing problems.  They were assisting her breathing by the use of a CPAP machine that started on Tuesday – and it was set at 40%.  By last night, they had moved it from 55% during the day – to 80%.  She was non-responsive all day yesterday when we went to visit her because of the high levels of carbon dioxide in her blood.  Her lungs simply were not expelling the carbon dioxide correctly.  Today, Thursday, the decision was made in the morning to remove the CPAP machine.  About three hours later, she passed away.

The temperature has dramatically changed in Central Illinois.  It had been very nice for a fully week with temperatures in the high 60’s to mid-70’s.  Last night, heavy winds came through the area and brought with it much lower temperatures.  It got below 32 degrees last night for the first time in over a week.  When we arrived back home last night, all of the onions and celery in the front garden were uncovered because of the winds – so that had to be fixed.

The celery is doing very well – but unfortunately several stalks have broken off because of the floating row cover.  The onions are also doing well – both in the front and in the cinder blocks in the back garden – and none have been lost thus far.

A closer look at Ventura Celery.  This celery is now four months old (was inside for all but the past two weeks):

And one of the Copra onions that has also been living for four months.  This was also set outside two weeks ago.  This one is doing better than all of the others at this point:

Back inside, I am beginning to skip a week when it comes to planting lettuce.  I’ve planted five varieties of lettuce the past three weeks – so I have 15 total seedlings:

The top left is Parris Island followed by New Red Fire.  On the bottom left is Simpson Elite followed by Buttercrunch and Red Salad Bowl.  They were all thinned to one per cell today (only the first two weeks – the last week’s are still very small).

Here is the row with both Premium Crop/Green Goliath broccoli and Snow Crown cauliflower.  They are doing quite well and most are about three weeks old now.

And a closer look of one of them:

I’m excited to report that one of the Anaheim Hot Pepper and one of the California Wonder peppers sprouted this week!  It took three weeks to sprout – only one of them.  I re-seeded four additional Anaheim Hot Peppers and 16 California Wonder seeds over the weekend.  Now that I’ve left the heating mat on 24 x 7, the temperature has – in some cases – got up to 102 degrees.  Most of the time it hovers near 90 degrees.

The tomatoes are also doing very well.  A variety of Best Boy, Red Cherry, and Roma Tomato were planted.

That takes care of all the pictures from the garden – and mostly takes care of this garden update.

The only other update was on the Cascadia Snap Peas.  Absolutely none of them have sprouted outside yet – and it has been over a week now.  I was expecting the peas to start sprouting because of the very good weather we were having.  Hopefully the peas will start coming up in the next few days.

Earlier at the beginning of this week, some onions and celery were planted outside.

This week has seen a nice increase in temperature.  The nights barely dipped below freezing – but the past couple of days, it only went down to around 45 degrees.  During the day on Wednesday, it was about 63 degrees and fully sunny.  Thursday was even warmer – about 73 degrees.

Therefore, I took advantage of the temperatures.  On Tuesday, I got the rebar driven into the ground and put the chicken wire fencing up that will allow the peas to grow on them.  I had some two-foot high fencing that I used a few years back – and that is when I discovered that two feet certainly wasn’t enough.  So I re-used that at the bottom by the soil – then stacked another three-foot high fencing on top of it.  So the peas will have five feet of fencing to grow up now.  That should take care of that problem.

Last year, I stacked two sections of the two-foot fencing on one another next to the house – then used some green snow fencing behind the garage.  The snow fencing simply didn’t work; the webbing of the plastic was too thick for the peas to grasp.  That is why I’ve now setup all chicken-wire fencing – because it is just perfect.

On Wednesday, I planted all of the Cascadia peas that were needed.  There were approximately 200 planted behind the garage and 134 planted next to the house.  Because the soil I use is 100% compost, it was very simple to use a garden rake to make a shallow trench next to the chicken wire fencing.  Then I just walked down the row and dropped in the seed!  According to many online sites, you should plant pea seed two inches apart.  I’m sure I planted much closer than this – but this will allow me to thin if required.

After they were dropped in, I then covered them back up with the soil.  According to my 2011 garden plans, I was to plant out 298 peas.  Wow!  I planted out only a few more than anticipated (112 beside the house – so an extra 24 were planted there – and 168 behind the house – so an extra 32 there).

Because I put the peas in, I also wanted to close off the area around the back garden to prevent deer and other animals from getting in.  So I put up the fencing around the perimeter as seen here.

On Thursday – a lot of other stuff was done as well.  I was outside for a good three or more hours – up until sundown.

I started by transplanting another ten Ventura Celery from my germination station downstairs out into the front garden.  So, I originally alloted for 18 celery – but ended up putting in 22.  That is because I forgot that I was going to grow a row of green beans on either side!  Oh well – there will be plenty of time and space for green beans.  Even then, I still don’t know what we’ll do with 22 celery plants!  So in case something happens, I still have about 11 plants under the lights downstairs.  Certainly hope nothing happens with the temperatures – nothing that the floating row cover can’t handle anyways!

After that, I brought out the Copra onions and transplanted them as well.  When I started the onions, I seeded them directly into a tray instead of putting them in cells (like I did last year).  This was a fiasco.  The roots were everywhere and because the entire tray had 130+ onions planted so close, it was very difficult to pull the onions out without breaking the roots.  So note to self for next year – plant one or two onions into individual cells so they are easily pulled out.

In my garden plans, I estimated that I should be able to put four rows of 20 onions – or a total of 80 onions in the front.  Previously, I planted 14 onions – and then Thursday – it was fully filled in with another 62 onions.  So – I didn’t do as well as expected with only putting 76 onions in – but heck – only one row shy isn’t too terrible!

Then because the onions are so tiny, I know that the floating row cover would have been too heavy.  I ran three sections of PVC pipe along the garden area to provide support – and put the cover over everything.

After doing that, I then took the onions and went to the back garden and placed on onion each in the cinder blocks.  If I remember right, I put another 53 onions in the blocks.  I certainly hope that they make it – because some of these were very small – and were not ready for transplant.  But, they were being overly crowded in the tray they were being grown in – and I was completely out of room in the germination station.

Well, that takes care of the gardening duties for a while.

Down in the seed-starting area, I planted another four seeds each of Red Salad Bowl, Buttercrunch, Simpson Elite, Parris Island Cos Romaine, and New Red Fire Leaf lettuce.  It seems that these are averaging between four and five days for germination.  This makes the third consecutive week of planting lettuce.  From now on, I’ll be planting them every two weeks so we’ll have a good supply during the season – and to keep everything from producing at once.

It is two weeks later – and not ONE of the Anaheim Hot Pepper or California Wonder peppers have sprouted.  Part of the reason – I believe – is because the heated greenhouse area was barely getting to 80 degrees before being shut off for the night.  So, I put the heating mat on 24/7 and I’m hoping that this will get the soil temperature of the peppers where it needs to be.  Back in December, I checked the seed germination on the California Wonder pepper – and about 75% – 80% sprouted.  So I know the seed is good.  With plant 16 California Wonder seeds and four Anaheim Hot Pepper, there has to be one come up!  But, if nothing sprouts by this next Thursday, I’m going to do damage control and plant a lot more.

Wow – there certainly was a lot going on these past two days.

For starters – I took out all of the plants yesterday to get put in the sun.  It wasn’t very windy and it was about 50 degrees outside.  Perfect for getting the fluorescent lights turned off and to allow the plants to get some real sunlight for a change.

I only took out the onions, celery, and lettuce.  The broccoli, cauliflower, and tomatoes are still way too small to put outside.  Unfortunately, I also found out it was too soon to put the lettuce outside as well because they got a bit of “wind burn” as they call it.

Closer view of the onions:

This batch of onions were started back in December.  They are still growing strong!  And.. I actually planted these out to the front garden today (Saturday).  More on that in a bit.

And a closer view of the Ventura celery that was started back in December.  They are doing very well – and these were also transplanted to the front garden today (more on that later as well).

And lastly – the little lettuce getting some sun.

This year I am trying two new varieties of lettuce.  They are on the left side of the picture.  The lettuce in the first cell (three of them) is Parris Island Cos Romaine Lettuce.  The next cell is New Red Fire Leaf Lettuce.  The next cell was left blank (since I only have five varieties, not six).  Next to that, there is one tiny Simpson Elite lettuce.  This seed is now in it’s third year and still sprouting – although only one of four came up.  Next to that is Buttercrunch and lastly on the very right is Red Salad Bowl.

Amazingly enough, all four Buttercrunch came up (year-old seed).  Three Parris Island, three New Red Fire Leaf Lettuce, one Simpson Elite, and two Red Salad Bowl.

Alright – moving on to Saturday’s activities.

I called all over our town to the gardening centers.  I needed a floating row cover!  None of the big-box shops had it, some of the garden centers haven’t opened for the season, and alas – one place had some!  Maske’s Organic Gardening – just a jog up the road from us – had some!  I went over there and picked up a 25-foot by 5-foot floating row cover for only $10.  I gave him $11 after tax and had him keep the change.  Amazing – only one place in this city had these in stock.

Why did I need this?  Well, I certainly have enough clear plastic that I could have used – but the problem with clear plastic is (1) it will not allow moisture through and (2) it will heat up the covered area exceptionally fast.  That is where a floating row cover comes into play.  This is a very thin, lightly-spun fabric that you place over your plants.  It is so light that you don’t even need to provide support for it; the plants will hold it up just fine.  Floating row covers will let moisture in (but also help to keep it in as well) and allows for about 90% sunlight penetration while protecting plants from freezing temperatures.  According to the information on the back of the front cover, it said that the cover should be removed it temperatures above 85 degrees occur.  Well, certainly by that point, I won’t need to have the cover!

The instructions also said that one layer of this floating row cover would protect plants down to about 28 degrees – so about four degrees colder than freezing.  It indicated that if you layer it twice, it would then protect to about 24 degrees.  Amazing how it can do that!  But, the idea behind it is to trap the soil temperature into the area.

So, after picking this up, I went out and planted the Ventura celery into the front garden.  They are planted ten inches apart with 12 inches between the rows.  These plants were already root-bound in their 16-ounce cups – but they have been growing for just under three months!

Later on in the day, I then decided to plant the Copra onions that were started back in December as well.  Out of the 18 that came up and grew, 14 of them survived and were therefore planted in the garden.  They were all spaced six inches apart with six inches between the rows.  I didn’t take a picture of this unfortunately.

But, at night – I then went out and put the floating row cover over the plants.  For the onions – I didn’t trust that they could hold up the cover – so I sunk some PVC pipe into the soil to help provide support.  I then made a double-layer over the area (supposed to only get to 29 degrees tonight, but I don’t trust the weathermen).

I used some rocks around the perimeter to hold it in place – and done!  By doing so, I basically have just extended my growing season by a good month – if not more!  Now, just as long as the temperatures don’t fall below 24 degrees for the year.

Now – let’s talk about the next project – the compost tea project.

I’ve already been brewing compost tea and started last season.  I have a large 55-gallon drum (the white one in the picture below) that is filled with food scraps, grass clippings, and leaves.  I then put water into this barrel.  At the bottom, there is a spigot.  Last year, I had to sit there for a very long time to get enough compost tea out for my needs (since all the dead plant material makes it trickle very slowly).

The end of last year – I got an even better idea.  So, I went to get another two 55-gallon drums.  These are “reserve” tanks.  So I got some treated 2×4’s today and got those put in place – then put the three barrels on top of them – then ran some PVC pipe between all of them.

The idea is this – when all 12 of the rain barrels fill up, I have a large 2″ ball valve that separates nine barrels from three – just above the compost tea stuff.  I’ll close the valve – then open a smaller 1/2-inch ball valve that will then trickle water from those three barrels – into the white 55 gallon barrel just below.

You can see the large read ball valve just above the white barrel.  That is the 2-inch valve Then between the white barrel and blue, you see a vertical PVC pipe – which has the 1/2-inch ball valve.  Once it is turned, the water goes into the white barrel just below.

Follow me so far?  Hopefully so!  As the water from the three rain barrels above trickle the water into the white barrel, the spigot on the white barrel (at the bottom) is open.  As the water makes it through all the plant material, it will go through the spigot – and begin filling the two blue barrels on either side.  You’ll notice on the very right-hand side there is some PVC pipe sticking out near the bottom of the picture.  This will connect to another trash can that I used last year (currently in the house as I’m using it for my seedlings).  It will also be attached to the compost tea system.  That way when the three rain barrels above are fully empty, there is more than enough capacity between the three barrels below – and the trash container that will be hooked up.

Now – I have a 1/5-horsepower pump that I’ll place in the trash container.  I’ll then pump all of the tea out of the barrels and back up into the three rain barrels just above (of course – the 1/2-inch ball valve will be closed first).  What is the point of this?  Well, by doing this, I’ll automatically have a 1-part compost tea to 3-parts water in the rain barrel system!  Since it is hooked to my PVC irrigation system that goes out to the garden, it will be instant fertilizer that is built into the system.

Alright – I know I’ve typed everyone’s eyes off here – but I’m quite excited about this project.  Finally I will not have to sit and wait to fill up a watering jug to manually provide compost tea to plants.  I just turn on the irrigation system – and it is all done automatically!

OK – done with those projects.  Back inside, I took a few pictures of the cauliflower and tomatoes growing under the lights.  Because the cauliflower and broccoli look exactly the same at this stage, there isn’t any point in showing pictures of both.

Snow Crown Cauliflower (or Green Goliath / Premium Crop Broccoli – they look the same at this stage):

Tomatoes (again, they all look the same as well – but those that want to know – Red Cherry Tomatoes are in the first two containers in the front followed by two Roma Tomatoes and in the very back – a Best Boy tomato)

Unfortunately, I planted five Best Boy tomatoes and two have come up within eight days.  Not what I expected.  Certainly hope that I don’t need to plant more – because I allotted room in the garden for three Best Boy Tomatoes.

Same goes with the peppers as well – absolutely none of the four Anaheim Hot Peppers have sprouted – and none of the 16 California Wonder Peppers have sprouted.  They are sitting in the heated green house and I would have expected them to germinate by now.  I just tested the California Wonder seed in December and about 80% germinated.