New England April 2014

Nice set up, Lyndeeloo!

Well done, QB!  YOU can grow potatoes in bucket...I can't.  And apparently I can't grow them outside either as none of them have sprouted yet.
  
Meanwhile, I CAN grow greens and such.  Here are some photos of what's going on inside...

Peppers need up potting:

Rainbow chard babies are really trying to stay upright:

Basil & romaine babies...I just gave the basil some very light food this morning so hopefully they'll green back up soon:
There are already about 10 romaine of different sizes out in the SFG but who knows how they'll do after getting beaten down by torrential rain, sleet & wind, and then snowed on, all in the same night.  

These are supposed to be ground cherries.  Not sure if they are that or weeds since I planted them the same time as the tomatoes and they are just now sprouting:
Can anyone confirm that these are ground cherries?

CC

Hi CC your little babies look so nice. Mine are sad, sad, sad. I gave up on the tomatoes and started some new seeds yesterday. Will probably start some new brassicas and greens today since they are pretty sorry looking too. Tried to save some money and used an inexpensive seed starter/potting mix on the first batch.
YUP   Should have used MM. Found a small bag of leftover MM in the garage, so Fingers Crossed on the second try. On the bright side, my yellow peppers look nice so far which really surprises me and the potato experiment is out of control.

lyndeeloo wrote:Hi CC your little babies look so nice. Mine are sad, sad, sad. I gave up on the tomatoes and started some new seeds yesterday. Will probably start some new brassicas and greens today since they are pretty sorry looking too. Tried to save some money and used an inexpensive seed starter/potting mix on the first batch.
YUP   Should have used MM. Found a small bag of leftover MM in the garage, so Fingers Crossed on the second try. On the bright side, my yellow peppers look nice so far which really surprises me and the potato experiment is out of control.

Lyndeeloo, for seed starting I just use MM that I dig out of my garden in fall and leave in a wheelbarrow in the garage over winter.  I add fresh compost to it when up potting.  Seems to work fine and costs nothing.

Thanks CC. I thought using it directly from the garden might cause a problem, plus it was still frozen. LOL. I knew I had a small stash in the garage but couldn't find it at the time. So much for my organizational skills. Will do as you recommend and put some aside in the fall with a big arrow saying "You put it here, Dummy!" 

I did some garden cleanup from last fall.  Looks much better in the raised beds.

My asparagus bed doesn't have anything coming up yet.


My strawberry bed needs clean up and a bit of thinning and composting tomorrow.

I saw my first asparagus shoots yesterday! It was so exciting. Yours will surely be coming soon, QB.

I like your strawberry bed. Mine takes up four of my boxes, but they keep wandering out of there, they might be better out of the boxes.

I think most of my strawberries have given up the ghost.

camprn wrote:I think most of my strawberries have given up the ghost.

how can that be?! Any ideas that we can learn from?

camprn - were they old-ish? Or might you have had voles like me? I have more strawberries outside my boxes than inside them right now. I guess the voles munch on them during the winter from underground.

camprn wrote:I think most of my strawberries have given up the ghost.

From the cold?

sanderson wrote:

camprn wrote:I think most of my strawberries have given up the ghost.

From the cold?

probably, but who knows. The few survivors will go in a new bed and I'll try to propagate new plants. The temperature has been running cold and we are behind by about 3 weeks.

 
I just made a huge post was lots of photos in the whole thing disappeared all by itself. I'm not doing it again. Suffice it to say that I had no losses from the rain, sleet and snow we had on Tuesday and everything is doing really well. Heading out to put the tulle up now.

oh...Camp, I really would like to know if your strawberries were in one of your off ground beds? Llama mama had an issue with her strawberries in her table top bed. It seems that it may have suffered from cold on the bottom of the bed this winter.

CC

CapeCoddess wrote:
oh...Camp, I really would like to know if your strawberries were in one of your off ground beds?
CC

Boxes are directly on the ground.

sanderson wrote:

camprn wrote:I think most of my strawberries have given up the ghost.

From the cold?

Yes, most likely. They were mulched with about 3 inches of pine straw but I guess that wasnt enough. A lot of winter losses here this year.

quiltbea wrote:I did some garden cleanup from last fall.  Looks much better in the raised beds.

My asparagus bed doesn't have anything coming up yet.


My strawberry bed needs clean up and a bit of thinning and composting tomorrow.

QB, how many asparagus plants do you have in that bed? Did you plant crowns or seeds? If crowns, how old were they? did you use to victory garden planting method?

CapeC.....Yes, I used Bob Thomson's method digging a foot deep trench and planting one plant every foot.  Backfilled as the plant grew.  I've got 21 plants in that bed.
I planted 1-year old Jersey Knights because I understood planting 2-yr old crowns just set them back from transplant shock so I stuck with 1-year olds.
Was out working my beds today and haven't seen anything of my asparagus yet but I added 2" of compost only 2 days ago and the snow just disappeared a week ago so I'm not worried.  Once they pop thru they'll be growing about 6" a day.

I've been busy with direct sowing today;

On one side of my A-frame I planted 15 shallot bulbs from last year's harvest.


On the other side of the A-frame I've got my Asian greens; Tokyo bekana, Mizuna and Claytonia in front and Corn Mache in the middle.  My squares are going to be a little larger than a foot in this bed.


My cold-frame is reserved for Wrinkled cress and Arugula this year.


My greenhouse bed has Bloomsdale spinach and Raccoon spinach seeds and Cherriette radishes.


The other side of the greenhouse bed has lettuces and some Cherry Belle radishes so far.  Again, I'm making the size of the squares a bit bigger.  Along the center area will be planted some very tiny tomato plants this year.


I sowed sugar snap peas along this trellis.  I think I might put flowering plants in front of them but its not certain.


Here's a view of my greenhouse bed with the cover on.  Its going to drop to 29*F tonite so I want those lettuce seeds protected.  They aren't sown very deep.

That's my gardening efforts for now.  At least I've made some headway.

Hi, all.  I've gotten a *little* closer to starting my seeds insofar as I spent the better part of today organizing and re-sorting them, adding my notes from the ones I grew last year, working on this year's plan, etc. 

I have to go in to the office for a few hours tomorrow, so I still may not have time to start any inside as of yet.  I *had* hoped I could maybe start some peas outside, but it actually snowed up my way again today, so that didn't work out.

I'm still undecided as to what varieties I should try this year; part of me wants to be experimental & go with new stuff but last summer made for such a cold, wet growing season that it feels like I should just re-plant the same varieties I did last year just to make sure it wasn't the conditions that made the harvest less than stellar.

I'm thinking about the toms and my pole (dry) beans in particular.  Some of the varieties took *such* a long time to mature that I want to give them another "chance" as it were, but there are so many other varieties to try...

Dang, Tim Kelly just forecast freezing temps for tonight and Thursday night. And I just put up tulle. Guess I'll have to break out the burlap again. My last frost day was yesterday.
  

Maybe my cold is making it's way down to you, CC.  We had lows in the teens last night.  I just checked the 10-day forecast and it *looks* like we might stay above freezing for most of the week, but my LFD isn't until first week of June, so this is to be expected for us. 

We had a few years of early Springs up my way, so it's easy to forget that even though this winter *felt* like it was particularly long & raw & cold, it was really a "normal" winter, as much as I dislike admitting it.

Today is forecast to be in the 50s, and it's really nice & sunny right now.  I think I'll bundle up and go poke in the ground to see how far down it's thawed.  DH says the birds were hunting around in the boxes this AM, so I'm hoping that means there's LIFE waking up down there.

This Florida Native ain't likin' the cold...though I'm happy that at least it discourages the Palmetto Bugs from visiting, right CC?   

mollyhespra wrote:

This Florida Native ain't likin' the cold...though I'm happy that at least it discourages the Palmetto Bugs from visiting, right CC?   

I'm beginning to rethink moving back to Florida, bugs and all, after what this winter put us through here on the Cape...

  
 

Hmm...maybe a re re thinking is needed here. Thanks for the nudge, Molly.

CC, Florida is too drastic. I've been thinking mid-way, like Virginia.

CapeCoddess wrote:

mollyhespra wrote:

This Florida Native ain't likin' the cold...though I'm happy that at least it discourages the Palmetto Bugs from visiting, right CC?   

I'm beginning to rethink moving back to Florida, bugs and all, after what this winter put us through here on the Cape...

  
 

Hmm...maybe a re re thinking is needed here. Thanks for the nudge, Molly.

Move to Canada or St. Albans Vermont for a year or two. Cape cod will look quite temperate then.

Apparently, there's a good chance of ongoing cold weather, due to near-record Great Lakes ice coverage.  Even "downwind" areas may be affected.  

http://www.accuweather.com/en/features/trend/record_great_lakes_ice_coverag/25816804

Georgia's pretty nice if you can handle ragweed and huge clouds of pine pollen.

And the heat and humidity!