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

Until I found out that the leaves of the broccoli plant are good eating too, I felt the same way and usually didn't grow it. Now I get a few meals from the leaves while waiting for the flower heads.

Kay

You can eat broccoli leaves!? Why didn't I think of that! That's great advice and makes me feel much better about growing it this year! I can't wait to try that out.

Well I've been nibbling on lettuce leaves and on Saturday (while I was teaching a SFG class) one of my students said, "Hey, look! Radishes!"

Forgot to mention that I FINALLY got all my boxes filled with mix and even made a salad table.

The salad table's planted (lettuces, herbs, greens & radishes), but I've still got 24 squares that need to be filled and the tomato transplants are just about ready. Still need to make the vertical supports.

Even though I've got some short fencing around the 2' x 23" bed my beagles STILL managed to jump in (chasing a bunny) so it's a good thing I HADN'T planted yet. SOOOOO I got my Garden Commanders put in at least until the the plants are established.

Here's a picture of the Garden Commanders from last year:

Here's a picture of the Garden Commanders from last year:
[/quote]

JEALOUS!!!

My peas have just started to come up and the onions and garlic are doing quite well. I am still waiting for the carrots to show themselves though. All of my peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers and happily growing inside were it has been nice and warm! It has been really cold here lately.

You do have a few more neighbors around billamj. I'm from Chambersburg.

I planted my two version of pole beans(kentucky wonder, and tongues of fire), this past saturday.. Heard about the cold snap and possible snow coming and covered them up.. Wasn't expecting the wind along with it.. They got beat up pretty bad...



Not sure if I'll have to wind up replanting them or not..

My sugar snaps, onions, and carrots did great with the cold and all, and growing like weeds !!

FINALLY got almost ALL of my SFG planted today!

Today I did: the heirloom tomato mix that I started indoors, eggplant, peppers, herbs, lima beans, small watermelons & honeydew.

I also had time to transplant some dwarf trees that I had to "heel in" when they arrived and some of the strawberries.

Still need to make my vertical supports. I'm not sure I'll be able to start another bed along the side of the house, but I still want to start corn in my 2x2. Just waiting on a delivery of vermiculite so I can make more mix.

Tomorrow I'll be eating pork & bok choi with a salad on the side (only the lettuce & radishes will be mine).

I think *maybe*, just maybe, I saw a bud on one of my pea plants this morning. Ah, wouldn't that be great?

My lettuce transplants are doing quite nicely, and at least one of my broccoli transplants is growing (I can't seem to find success with the rest - maybe their box is too shady). The spinach is beginning to grow, the rest of the lettuces I did direct seeding on didn't survive the critters before I got something over the box.

Carrot and scallion sprouts are looking good too.

Now, if everything can only survive the cold weekend ahead, life would be grand!!

You guys are making me jealous! It's still a full month before my LFD But I do have my broccoli and cabbage planted, plus I direct seeded my peas, spinach and some kale, along with seed potatoes and onion sets. Nothing's coming up yet, but I spied on the peas and they are starting to come out of the seed! My garlic is amazingly huge! It's probably a foot tall and the base is getting wide. I was also majorly surprised to see that I have strawberry buds already! WOo!

It sounds like you're well on your way.

We've had some cold snaps and I just throw a blanket over the Garden Commanders (see my earlier post). Before I used those, when it was colder, I used my poly grown tunnel:

I finally have completed cages to go over each of my 6 4x4 boxes. It doesn't take much time working with chicken wire before I remembered what I hate about using chicken wire. I used black hardware cloth for 2 cages. Two boxes are still almost completely fallow, but some critter(s?) kept coming walking in my mix, and 3 times left deposits I'd really love to fence the whole yard, but that's not happening any time soon. So I'd love to hear your suggestions for keeping out the local riffraff (the 4 legged variety).

I have some 2 peas seedlings that are 5-8 inches long, and just finished my electrical conduit trellis tonight. I trained 2 peas onto the trellis netting, admired my work, and then realized that my new protective cage will either (a) squish the seedlings if I let it rest on the box frame or (b) leave a several inch gap which the offender can sneak through. I mean, I knew that it wouldn't work for the melons, but I neglected to think about the peas using the same trellis as the melons, only earlier. As a stopgap measure I re-trained them onto a one foot high section of plastic fencing stuck into the mix near them.

Carrots planted by my son are only about an inch high. I took Mel's advice and wrote "Ryan's carrots" on the box, and he's very interested in their progress. Green onions planted germinated at about 50%, then got disturbed by one of the trespassers. Mesclun has been very slow to germinate and grow. I thought it was a cool weather crop. At this rate, I may not get any before summer temps are here! And I planted them in a box that will be dedicated to organic strawberries once my order of crowns arrives to round out what I procured locally. I'm just kicking myself now that I didn't make it a double height box like all the rest have turned out to be (6" high vs. 12).

I mostly filled my 6 boxes using medium vermiculite available at Home Depot, before I finally found coarse vermiculite at Dutch Plant Farm in Frederick. The coarse is quite a bit larger (and of course what Mel recommends), but I was anxious to get started, and Dutch Plant Farm didn't have any until a few weeks ago. So I'll supplement my boxes with the right stuff as I get planting and just hope for the best.

After two Freeze Warnings in the past 10 days, I'm hoping that we are out of the woods and can get going unencumbered with our growing season. Happy gardening!

1) Karenberry to the SFG forum!

2) Tuxdad: My son & DIL live several blocks from the old football stadium on 24th St NE.

3) Kim - Where did you get your garden commanders? They are awesome!

In follow-up to my last post I have planted the following in my sq ft gardens - cucumbers, watermelon, pole beans, marigolds, nasturiums, love in a mist and parsley. In my flower gardens - blackeyed susan and will be planting more annual flowers (impatients & aster) this weekend. I also started herbs - sage, rosemary, oregano & basil in a long container.

This weekend I am hoping to plant my tomatoes and peppers and butternut squash and pumpkin since I will be back in DC next weekend. My other son, wife and grandson are also going to DC the same weekend but a few days earlier and later.

Anyway, crossing my fingers that we will get more sunshine and rain accordingly - but who knows!

Well I finally got my boxes filled and partially planted.

All I got in were the first batch of seeds. They are:

3 squares of broccoli raab
1 square of bush limas
1 square of bush peas(sugar snaps I think)
1 square of bush green beans
1 square of bush purple beans
2 squares of carrots
2 squares of beets
1 square of radishes

I really wanted to get all of my plants put in but I ran out of time. My Mom took a spill outside and I had to finish up what she was doing.

I should be able to get my plants in on Saturday. They are:

3 squares of collard greens
3 squares of swiss chard
9 squares of bell peppers
3 squares of cabbage
3 squares of head lettuce(3 different types)
leaf lettuces in 3 of the pepper squares
spinach in 6 of the pepper squares.

I figured that it'll be a while before a pepper plant will need a whole square so I decided to interplant lettuces and spinach with them.

Oh yeah....I used deck screws and mason string to make my grids.

I promise I will have pictures after I'm done planting on Saturday

Almost forgot......

I'm going to plant tomatoes, onions, and basil in the other box. I'll be able to plant them next week or the week after. It depends on weather.

SUPER!

I even put sticks in the squares that have been seeded so I know which ones to water until they start sprouting. I don't want to have to carry my map with me every time I have to water.