Mid-Atlantic: April 2012 - What's UP?

Hey Mid Atlanticers!

What's up (or about to come up) in your garden? Any problems? Successes?

I've been so busy with my SFG business that I haven't gotten MY garden done yet! Isn't that always the way? I even had to take out some of my version of MM (someone asked so let me explain . . . unless we have an agreement with the Foundation, we're not allowed to call what we sell Mel's Mix) out of my bed to give to a customer so I've only got about 2'x8' of my 23' long bed planted.

So far I've planted cabbage, lettuce, beets, onions, marigolds, spinach, garlic, snap peas, beans and radishes. The worst "pests" have been my Beagles Scout & Sophie. They jump over the short fence so they can chase the rabbit in the next yard. When they're not doing that, they're eating the mix. So I will have to replant a significant number of plants.

We've had a few nights where the temperature has gotten down into the mid 30s, but NOT down to freezing yet.

I received my shipment of dwarf fruit trees from Gurneys earlier than expected and wasn't ready for them. SO I basically just threw them all into a huge pot. Even though they were covered well, I may have lost the banana.

OH, I almost forgot, I also planted pansies and lettuce in boxes on my front porch railing and they seem to be doing well.

I planted lettuce, spinach, snap peas, radishes, and beets in my garden. I planted the seeds directly in the ground, not seedlings. I notice that my lettuce is growing slowly. I planted on March 15, but the plants only have the two seed leaves, about 1/4" in length. They've been the same size all week. Maybe I'm rushing things.

The peas look like they are doing well. I tried pre-sprouting the seeds this year. I placed them between wet paper towels, and put them in a baggie on top of my water heater for warmth. That worked very well. Once they sprouted, I planted them in the ground, and all the seeds have been growing well.

I planted 2 squares(each) of onionsand carrots about 3 weeks ago, and they're going nuts !!

I've got Asters, regular and dwarf marigolds(just one of the dwarf versions has sprouted), two types of 'maters, nasturtium have all sprouted in under my DIY growlight.. Waiting to see what happens with my 2 types of okra and pole beans, nothing yet, with them..



Gonna have to make another growlight here soon to give the sprouts room to grow while I wait on the other seeds to take off... May look at making some small ones this time rather than the large one I did up...

I'm still waiting for two things to happen:

1) building my boxes
2) finishing the compost

I'm actually building the boxes this weekend. My brother-in-law's coming up to help me. Or maybe I should say, I'm helping him because I'm such a tool tard.

The compost is almost done. It will definitely be ready by the end of April.

Then comes the fun part. Even though my own compost has an awesome selection of ingredients(rabbit manure, alpaca manure, horse manure, fish parts, A LOT of leaves, and the usual compost ingredients) which would be fine for the 5-ingredient blend, I still want at least two more composts. I have a source of duck manure compost. I have to pick that up in New Jersey. I also want cow manure compost. That's easy enough to get locally. Blend that with my compost and I will have some top-notch stuff. If I happen to find chicken manure compost around here(I know I saw it at a garden center around here), then that'll go into the mix as well.
Peat moss is easy enough to get around here too. If the price is decent, I'll get it at the feed store in town. I found a decent price on vermiculite at another garden center that's within 45 minutes of my house.
After I gather all of the ingredients, then comes the blend-and-fill part of gardening.

Just checked my sprouts this morning and one of my pole beans has "punched" through..

I'm not having much faith in the okras right now, after reading that they have a storage life of about 2 yrs.. If they sprout I'll have to let one of the pods get big so as to use it for seeds the following year...

I planted about 2-3 weeks ago carrots, radishes, beets, 3 different kinds of lettuce, and peas all direct from seed.

Next week I will plant beans and cucumbers. (I just got an email stating I can plant cucumbers now - I have previously waited until May 10th). Maybe that is why my cucumbers always horrible - it was too hot when they matured.

Also, planted garlic past fall for the first time.

Arrived in DC yesterday and spending the weeking with our son and daughter-in-law. They have a large plot in a community garden and today we cleaned it up, added compost, and made the grids. Tomorrow we will be planting!

Best of luck everyone!

Wow....looks like I'm bringing up the rear.

Nah, you're watching our backs is all... Besides, it's not a race...

Tuxdad wrote:Nah, you're watching our backs is all... Besides, it's not a race...

I guess someone's gotta watch your backs huh?

Anyway, I'm pretty excited. My brother-in-law's coming this morning to help me build my boxes. I'll take pictures during the construction process and post them here.

Too Tall Tomatoes,

It is not a race, I am planting sooner than before and am very excited. Also, being in Washington, DC this weekend, we have to plant today for my son and daughter-in-law while visiting. It is a family project since their garden plot is so large. It is their 2nd year. They are still alittle unsure, they just don't realize they know do know what they are doing. It is also an organic garden.

You are building you boxes now so before you know it, they will be filled and have planted seeds and plants. The boxes and filling take the longest, the rest is easy!

Keep us posted on how your progress is going!

Where in DC are you son and DIL ?? Use to live in NW, DC..

Too Tall Tomatoes wrote:

Tuxdad wrote:Nah, you're watching our backs is all... Besides, it's not a race...

I guess someone's gotta watch your backs huh?

Anyway, I'm pretty excited. My brother-in-law's coming this morning to help me build my boxes. I'll take pictures during the construction process and post them here.

Looking forward to seeing the pics !!

I've finally gotten my beds built and filled with MM so I'm going to start planting this week. Bed 1 will be my berry bed with 3 different blueberries with strawberries planted as a cover crop below since they both like the same soil ph. Bed 2 is going to be my veggie bed, going with onions, carrots, bush beans, tomatoes and squash in that bed.

Here's a question for the group, should I be concerned about stink buds affecting my beds? We see them all over the place around here, I don't think that you can go more than 2 or 3 days without seeing them. If so, what is the best way of handling them?

They haven't found anything that really helps with stink bugs. I used a sheer material to cover my plants (they especially loved my tomatoes and beets) and used a cordless dust buster vacuum to suck the buggers off.

Where are you located? Here in Maryland they don't seem to be as bad as they have in the last 2 years. Maybe they're "moving on"?

We're in Southeastern Pa. not too far from Reading. I can't say that I've seen that many so far this year but from July through November last year they were horrendous.

billamj wrote:We're in Southeastern Pa. not too far from Reading. I can't say that I've seen that many so far this year but from July through November last year they were horrendous.

Hey now....another Pennsylvanian.

I live about 45 minutes north of Reading

Like Mike, I've got some lettuces that have sprouted and have two very small real leaves, but they don't seem to be growing further. Other than that, I've got spinach, scallions, peas, and a couple carrots (critters got to most of the carrot seeds I think) that were sown directly into the garden and are growing nicely.

The scallions and thyme I left out (not in Mel's Mix - these were pots pre-SFG for me) are back and growing.

The garlic and shallots I planted in the fall are doing nicely (I think I lost only a couple bulbs out of the several squares I planted).

I bought a few transplants of broccoli, oregano, rosemary, onions, and lettuce. All are doing fine at the moment.

I spent three hours yesterday making more mix and getting my new containers filled. I'll try to post some pics later today!

This weekend's been pretty productive as far as my SFG is concerned..



I made a couple more frames to plant my 'maters' and beans, along with making a DIY compost sifter .. I'll be finishing the stones this week, sometime.. Gonna decide whether to add gravel or not around the edges..



The sifter's no mechanical wonder but will get the job done, after testing it out...

hey Tuxdad.....that compost sifter is awesome! Since I decided that I should sift my compost, I would love to build a sifter just like yours.

Go for it.. I'll be sifting a good bit with all the compost I have.. I'll probably use that for my herb sfg set up next to back porch.. Will just have to pick up a bit more vermiculite is all, or figure out an alternative to it...

Too Tall Tomatoes wrote:

billamj wrote:We're in Southeastern Pa. not too far from Reading. I can't say that I've seen that many so far this year but from July through November last year they were horrendous.

Hey now....another Pennsylvanian.

I live about 45 minutes north of Reading

I knew that there had to be neighbors around. Nice meeting you Too Tall Tomatoes. I'm hoping to have that problem at some point this year.

billamj wrote:

Too Tall Tomatoes wrote:

billamj wrote:We're in Southeastern Pa. not too far from Reading. I can't say that I've seen that many so far this year but from July through November last year they were horrendous.

Hey now....another Pennsylvanian.

I live about 45 minutes north of Reading

I knew that there had to be neighbors around. Nice meeting you Too Tall Tomatoes. I'm hoping to have that problem at some point this year.

I have some little lettuce and spinach sprouts that are finally looking like something I direct sowed them many weeks ago, and I'm very excited to see what will soon become my first (ever) harvest.



Also, my sugar snap peas are doing great....grabbing on to the trellis and everything else in sight!

The Kentucky pole beans are not doing much. I don't know if it got too cold for them or what, but they are just kinda hanging out with a few good size leaves. They don't seem to be going anywhere though.

I keep sticking some more lettuce/spinach seeds in the ground every other week or so, but I suspect soon I should shift my focus on to some summer veggies?

I put in some broccoli plants and onions sets over the weekend and sowed my first crop(s) of bush beans, green and yellow, as well as some carrots and bush cucumbers. It's worth a try anyway. The plants look good two days later. The really big news is that I got my blueberries and strawberries in the bed that I specifically built for them. Got them in early on Saturday and they're really looking happy at this point! I'll be putting in tomatoes and vine cucumbers at the end of this month.

We planted some corn a few weeks ago and it is starting to come up as well as a couple of pumpkin seeds. My kids were excited to start pumpkins, probably way too early, but we are in experiment mode around our garden.

I'm learning that some crops started from seed "cost" more than the benefit derived at harvest time. Such as broccoli. I would sure love to save money and not have to buy broccoli at the store, as well as the satisfaction of growing on my own, but never had much luck with it. It takes up a whole square to plant it and seems like we'd go through it quickly even if we did get a great harvest off of the one plant.

But again, still in experiment mode which is a great part of the fun. After all, isn't that what Mel did to figure out the SFG method?