April 2013 New England

Thanks guys I appreciate it.
I think I will add some more MM, as they're not full to the top.
I used the awesome link in the sticky's and found my frost dates.
I just got home from work, so I'm going to sit with Mel's book and make a list of what to plant and when. Also going to check out the Old Farmer's Almanack link,
thanks again,
Becky

I've written my planting dates right into my book. And my book is so full of all kinds of notes that I would be lost without it.

CC

Well, it was a good day in the garden today!

I started out transplanting a bunch of stuff into larger containers (read about some of that in the carrot week thread), then DH & I did some weeding between the garlic shoots and then we covered up the 3 other beds that have MM (two more yet to fill) with black plastic to both try and heat up the soil some and also to knock out any little weedlings that have a mind to sprout.

Then I saw that my daylillies were sprouting so I started to clean around them, which turned into weeding around them, then around the asparagus patch, then the rock wall, across the driveway to another flower bed, and then finally up the two beds next to the porch steps.

(I'm gonna need some Ibuprofen tonight!)

I still have around the house & porch to do and up one side of the garage, but if I get another day like today, the Spring cleaning will be done!



Hopefully, between now & this weekend I can start setting out some onions & the peas I've got soaking. I'm running out of space under the grow-lights!

We had a really hard frost last night, so I may decide to get some hoops ready just-in-case. The only thing that's actually in the ground is garlic, but once the rest of the stuff goes in, I don't want to risk losing any of my precious seedlings.

Camp, when do you set out your Shallots? I assume with the onions, right?

I watched the 3 month forecast on WeatherChannel today. They say that May will also be colder than normal for New England. Shucks. I doubt I'll ever be able to grow eggplant this year from the reports. They need such warm nites before they get productive.
They also say the June thru Aug will also be lower temps than usual for us. I don't mind the cooler temps for summer. Makes working in the garden easier when one doesn't 'glow' from the heat.
With another below freezing nite, I just up-potted some seedlings indoors today and brought all my 'hardening off' plants indoors again for the nite.
My experimental tomatoes are snug under plastic covers and blankets. I'm still not sure about the Taxi tomato making it after it got a bit too cold when the blankets flew off 2 nites ago.
I still haven't raked off the winter layer of leaves that have covered my strawberries all winter. I'm trying to give them a little more time under their blanket of leaves.
We all seem to have our trials and tribulations in the northeasst this year.

I hope a three month forecast is too far off to be accurate!!!

Time to start looking at real estate in longer growing seasons... believe me, I've thought about that this "spring"...

Go long lettuce, spinach and broccoli then.

Longer spring, ay? I like that. Never been a big tomato and pepper eater but I sure do love my greens! I've been on the fence about putting in more lettuce seeds so I think I will do that tomorrow. The community garden is going in this weekend with cold crops so this may all work out just fine.

NHG, you could move here. The magnolias and cherry trees are in bloom now. But if it were me I'd be heading to the Carolinas.

Speaking of strawberries, something ate all the leaves off the ones I recently planted. What does that? Rabbits?

CC

Grr CC, so sorry about your eaten strawberries! I don't know who does that - squirrels? Chipmunks? Rabbits? Deer? You can put the Agribon (or similar) row cover over them to protect them if you want. I hear it does a good job.

It would probably be good for us to eat more greens anyway. In cool spells, assigning more bed space to greens would probably be a great idea.

After 1.5 inches of rain we finally got some sun this afternoon and the temp made it up to about 58, if that. Since we may have a longer spring I put out more kale and lettuce transplants, and the 3rd week of radish seeds today. I also planted my experimental cabbage stumpling that sprouted a few days ago.

As I was looking at the 6 sqs of carrots it suddenly hit me that even tho I planted those 3 different carrots at 3 different times, they all sprouted at the same time. What's it all about, Alfie?

What's everybody else up to? Any photos to share?

CC

Yesterday the temperature didn't get above 39F and I had to go buy and install an electric fence to go around the bee hives... today we were up to 73F, a gorgeous day. Sweltering, I had to get out of the noon time sun, besides that the tree pollen is making me miserable.
I have to harden off some plants the next few days and hopefully place them in the new, modified garden this weekend.
Photos tomorrow.

Ah yes, photos. Will try to do that.

It was around 70 here today. Guess today we beat you on temps, CC.

I transplanted a bunch of lettuce and spinach yesterday (or maybe it was the day before) and it's looking kind of weak. In fact, I'm not having a great deal of success with transplants so far, but maybe they just need to get adjusted and take root. Cross fingers.

So this means I now have transplanted peas, onions, spinach, lettuce in the beds. Strawberries look good and garlic looks strong. Still have to get the carrot box 2nd tier on, then I'll plant those. And I have to check my chart and see what else.

It was great to have a nice day today! Picked the 3rd tick off me a few minutes ago - it's getting to the point where I can tell it's a tick just by the flat feel when I grab it, I don't even have to look.

So after 18 years of struggling with a garden in the poor soil of southern New Hampshire, I discovered the Square Foot Gardening book people have been telling me about and in desperation decided to give it a try.

At first my husband wasn't very enthusiastic about building the boxes, but after the first one (we were building two), it was so easy and he liked the idea of having the garden nice and neat that he has promised to build me two more next year if I'm successful. He wants his tomatoes and basil.

So I'm keeping it simple this year. Tomatoes, basil, bell pepper (I've never had any luck with them), kale, cilantro, beans, peas, carrots, parsley and swiss chard. Most of these are a single square crop just to see how we do.

I'm also experimenting with hydrogen peroxide to speed up the germination process. I'm late, I didn't get the seeds started until April 18. Today, the radishes peeked up.

Deborah......Since its a late spring this year, you aren't really late with sowing and planting. It'll be easier to buy plants this, your first year. There are now many different tomatoes available at the big stores, Walmart, Lowe's, Home Depot, etc so you have lots of choices. I've already also seen bell peppers in the stores now. Just make sure you harden them off about a week before you plant them outdoors and make sure the nites aren't frosty. Toms and peppers will die from frosty nites.
Good luck with your garden. They are the tastiest, better than the stores.

Deborah, raised beds made all the difference for me. Too many rocks, too many poor draining lowlands, forget that. Without raised beds, I couldn't have a garden. Either that or something like sheet mulching, which is still building your garden beds upwards.

Well, my spinach transplants that have been out there for a few days now seem to have a problem with the leaves turning white.

I'm thinking it got too cold and they didn't like it.

The peas are doing well out there, most of the lettuce seems to be continuing to grow after transplanting. The onion grass blades are still mostly there, altho hard to see.

A row cover probably would have helped the spinach. This morning when I went outside, there was ice in the wheelbarrow, so it obviously got to freezing here last night.

Deborah! Are you starting your herbs from seed? I tried starting parsley but it wouldn't germinate. Let me know how yours do.

Update: This morning I took my old parsley plant from the window, cut it down and divided it into about 6 plants, then stuck them in some water before planting out 2 and potting up 4 this weekend. I don't know if this will work or if I just killed them but they were pretty sad to begin with.

I'm also considering putting out the 1 cucumber that sprouted soon. I really don't want to have to do the cover/uncover thing but our nites are still in the 30's/40's. Days will only be in the 50's for about a month more.

Today 2 coworkers and I are going on a field trip to my SFG's coz they don't believe I have things growing and that I can nibble on micro greens already. But my garden of kale, broccoli, collards, pak choi, onions, spinach, daikon, peas, carrots, garlic, carrots, celery, lettuce, beets, cabbage, chard and radishes looks great so far! And all grown from seed! I need to build more boxes.

Camp, so so sorry to read about your hive. What a shocker that must have been.

NHG, dang spinach...it's the bane of my existence so I seeded heavily...and now I have too many. Do you have cooler day temps than inland, being on the coast?

CC

CC, regarding your plethora of spinach plants: Keep in mind that there is a brief growing window for it here in the northeast and that soon it may be too warm for it continue growing.
My plan is that the spinach is going to take up a lot of the space that I will be using later in the season for tomatoes and peppers and such. I am putting out many plants and freezing what I can. When it bolts it will be nearly warm enough to put out the summer plants.

camprn wrote:
My plan is that the spinach is going to take up a lot of the space that I will be using later in the season for tomatoes and peppers and such. I am putting out many plants and freezing what I can. When it bolts it will be nearly warm enough to put out the summer plants.

Oooohhhhh...so that's how it's done. So the bolting spinach is the indicator for summer veggies. I like that! Next year I'll plant it where I planned my toms, peppers & cucs instead of having empty squares. Thanks, Camp!

CC

Thank you everyone for the warm welcome (no pun intended).

Yes, I'm starting everything from seed. The peas, beans, carrots, and radishes went directly into the ground. I'm following the New Square Foot Garden book as closely as I can. I didn't do the extra tall square for the carrots because I plan on harvesting them small.

I have a mini greenhouse so in cups I've started everything else. Today, almost everything has germinated in there, but I'm finding it hard to keep the Mel's mix moist. The cups have holes in the bottom and are in trays of water, but the top keeps drying out and I have to spray them at least twice a day. Potting soil does a better job of wicking the water from the tray all the way to the top.

Went out this morning to uncover my tomatoes from their blankets against the frost last nite. Found something had got in only one square of my shallots. Dug or pulled them out of the beds and tumbled them elsewhere from their holes but didn't eat them or destroy them so I just buried them back in the soil and watered them in. The kale next door wasn't touched. We don't have cats here but something must have visited last nite. When I let out the dogs at eleven, they went racing up the hill toward the garden barking but it was too dark to see what they scared off into the woods. Maybe a neighbor's cat? I think I'll go out and patrol earlier than eleven tonite.

Did you see any tracks? Doesn't sound like feline behavior.

I was thinking maybe skunk. Skunk or 'coons?

But regarding the white leaves on your spinach, NHG, it sounds more like sunburn than freeze-burn. Have they recovered?

yeah, I vote sunburn on the spinach, too. The tips and edges of some leaves on a couple of my toms turned black and eventually crispy from cold wind I think.

Soooooo...I'm on Freecycle yesteday and someone wants hosta. I have tons of hosta and am constantly digging it up and giving it away. Got in touch with the gal and she ends up being an ex bf's sister that I've always liked but haven't see in a million years. AND she's got 4 horses! So when she comes to dig up my hosta, she's bringing horse poo for my compost pile! I know horse manure needs hot composting due to seed content, right? And the new pile won't be used til next year unless I run out of my current pile which I doubt, so there's plenty of time to get it right. I just need my darn hip to heal so I can do the work.

And check this out...I actually had to harvest all my pak choi today due to it getting ready to bolt. How weird is that??? And not fair...way too fast. Now I don't know what to put in there. Lettuce seedlings I guess.

All for now. Beautiful weather we're having. I started out in thermals & sweats, and am now down to work shirt & jeans. Supposed to be like this all week.

CC

Sunburn? Huh. Well, I guess that could be - this is the first year I'm growing spinach. I hope they totally recover! I really love spinach. I wish the lettuce would hurry up and grow too. I know it takes a while when they're small and they're transplanted.

Too funny about the chance meeting over hostas, CC. I hope the manure works! You might want to ask her if her horses are treated with anything, like dewormers or whatever.

Interesting that something is bolting so quickly. Makes you wonder about warmer than usual temps. I had been thinking this was a chilly spring - but I guess when you consider the number of frosts in April, it hasn't been? Guess I'm just ready for tomatoes and peppers! Let's get on with it already! Why aren't my beds full of vegetables?

edit: By the way, where's our April showers? If this keeps up, I'm going to have to water! (Are you all watering? Maybe I should be already)

I've been watering for ages. Heck, I mowed the lawn today...well, only the back yard coz it's flat. The rest will have to wait til I can repeatedly traverse inclines again. Did tons of other 'easy' yard stuff, too, like weeding, lopping, spreading compost, raking.

Oh, and I gave my neighbor out back a bucket full of my new compost coz he's starting his own pile and only had leaves and grass. That's how it gets inoculated, right? That's what I told him anyway. And maybe there was lots of worm eggs in it coz there sure was alot of worms.

Anyway, I'm all showered and exhausted and heading for those pak choi babies in a stir fry over rice. YUM!

CC

Well... This afternoon, after waiting for the hardneck garlic and the grey shallots to come up, I dug in and found... nothing. they all rotted and gone back to the Earth, as it were.
So... in it's place I planted out the baby boc choi, red chard, white chard and broccoli rab. Sowed breakfast radish. Spinach can go out in a few days.


I really need to get some other beds redone and get the beets and brussels sprouts in........ maybe tomorrow.


Look at this, this was the brassica bed last year. Everything was growing well and then stalled in August...


and here is why. Tree roots.