PNW May updates :)

Looking good Rose.

Kay

Looks great Rose.

I thought I would post a few photos of my garden. First is my asparagus, planted from seed January 2011, and in this shot you can see my other "main Crop" of quack grass (
This is my basil, which I have taken several flower pots and measure and calculated them to be 1.5 square and this way I can try to bring them inside in the fall. They have thus far been in greenhouse, but am just getting them outside now

These are my peas, I started planting them in March and have done it gradually, I have 32 squares of peas, since they are such a high protein source, I hope to freeze lots of peas for winter. (more shots of the quack grass)



This is my garlic, I planted these last fall, (non SFG) but am very much looking forward to this next years planting, I am going to plant them into the beds that I have taken out other things. (more shots of the quack grass )
This one of my few healthy looking pepper plants, I am hoping that perhaps up potting them and warmer weather, and lots of water, they will catch up to where they should be. These I planted in February.....

A few brandy wines living on their own in the GREAT outdoors. They have been out for 3 nights, and seem to be doing well.
I am really going to have to watch the temps next weekend, as it might dip down again.


and my carrots, you can see a few extra seeds fell into a few to the wholes. may need to do some thinnin

This is a beefsteak tomato living in a large bucket in my greenhouse, I hope to keep a few in greenhouse for awhile longer and then bring them back in in the fall..

This is my artichoke, I overwintered and the dug up early, babied in the greenhouse and now have essentially planted each plant as a one square foot. The pot is about one square foot and I have dug down and also have mels mix below. I will be fertilizing these well, as artichokes are heavy feeders... LOTS OF WORM castings and guano.


This one of my 4x4s planted with spinach and Kale, the Kale would look much better except that we just had a huge feed of Kale the other night and so plants heavily trimmed, will be lots more in a few days.

Beautiful, GWN, just beautiful! What kind of kale are you growing? We grew our first crop last year, and have become real fans, especially of the Tuscan 'black' kale. Looking for a real good curly leaved variety.

Rose everything looks so nice. Your husband did such a wonderful job on that trellis - just beautiful. He's a keeper! But about your spinach... Uh, you saw my pics didn't you?

Well, I'll be the first to point out that I don't know beans (as the saying goes...), but I planted my pole beans after the last frost date, because that's what the ANSFG book and the seed packet said to do. I checked my soil temp and it was above 60. I checked the forecast and it was going to be warm and dry. So I planted! Yesterday I found signs of life!
What do you know, the chart works.

Hmmmm, I noticed nobody tackled my lettuce question. Well, we'll see what it does and I'll hope for a better crop in the fall.

Oh look, baby on my lap caused me to take so long to post this, that two others have posted in the meantime. Hi Nonna and GWN! Love the pictures GWN but don't envy you all that quack grass! My brandywine hardly even looks like yours. I better get a pic of mine up here.

gwennifer wrote:...Hmmmm, I noticed nobody tackled my lettuce question. Well, we'll see what it does and I'll hope for a better crop in the fall...

It's only been a month! Actually, my lettuces, rads, and spinach have all been slow this year. I'm able to have lettuce all summer unless it's unusually hot.
I planted a few beans just 'cause you did I'm glad to see yours have sprouted. I might have to go plant a few more today.

Despite Deb's tried and true test for determining corn planting dates, I planted mine last week. I'm hoping they germinate during this warm spell before we get back to weather as usual. I planted long season corn; if they don't stick their heads up, I'll still have time to plant a short season cultivar.

nonna

What kind of kale are you growing? We grew our first crop last year, and have become real fans, especially of the Tuscan 'black' kale. Looking for a real good curly leaved variety.

I became a fan whilst in Oregon where we grew black curled scotch which grew huge, and last year here we grew improved siberian.
However this year I grew Lacinato, which has long dark blue green leaves, and love it the best.
It is more tender than the others for cooking, seems pretty hardy.

GWEN.... congrats on the beans
I guess I had too many years that it did not come up at all, that I wait now.
DO keep planting though, that way you can have it longer.

Nonna.PapaVino wrote:Beautiful, GWN, just beautiful! What kind of kale are you growing? We grew our first crop last year, and have become real fans, especially of the Tuscan 'black' kale. Looking for a real good curly leaved variety.

I highly recommend the winterbor variety of kale. It lasted all summer in my NC heat with only a daily spinkler as I was out of town for 4 months. Then it kept going through the entire (granted mild) winter in my hoop house.

Ka

Thanks, Walshevak, I'll make a search for the seed and try planting it on the north side of the house where it's cooler. (Oregon is experiencing an unusual warm, dry spring.) If that fails, I'll plant early fall and hope it survives the winter. Luckily, I have some Swiss chard coming on that will fill in the gaps.

Nonna.PapaVino wrote:Thanks, Walshevak, I'll make a search for the seed and try planting it on the north side of the house where it's cooler. (Oregon is experiencing an unusual warm, dry spring.) If that fails, I'll plant early fall and hope it survives the winter. Luckily, I have some Swiss chard coming on that will fill in the gaps.

Territorial Seeds. There is also a redbor variety that I'm trying this year. If it doesn't taste good, it looks terrific in the fall flower bed with pansys and snapdragons.

https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/t9418-what-i-saw-at-the-garden-center-yesterday



Kale planted spring 2011, spinach starts put in Nov 2, 2011. Picture taken Mar 10, 2012

Kay

boffer wrote:

gwennifer wrote:...Hmmmm, I noticed nobody tackled my lettuce question. Well, we'll see what it does and I'll hope for a better crop in the fall...

It's only been a month!

I interpreted the silence as no one wanting to break the bad news to me!

Wow, Walshevak, that's a beautiful kale planting! Now I'm truly motivated. BTW, I did find both a Redbor Hybrid (magenta kale) and Ripbor Hybrid (curled bright green) on a Territorial Seed rack--bought both. Will be planting them in morning. Didn't think about planting them for fall decor, but can envision a big pot of them on the front deck! Gonna do it. Thank you, thank you. Nonna

GWN everything looks great!.....love the pictures!

Congrats on your asparagus ...for some reason ours never showed up....planted 6 crowns...first time trying to grow them.....maybe they will come up next year....now we are trying to decide what to plant there in their box now that we dont have asparagus coming.....

not sure whats going on with your little pepper....all i know is some weird stuff is hapening in our garden as well....could be the seeds....could be the weather....

Walshevak that is some great looking kale!!!.....ours are really stunted for some reason....first time trying to grow them....i dont really like the taste much....but thought we would try them in juicing....

Boffer curious if you soak your corn seeds before planting?...we are starting ours in jiffy pellets again this year....i know some dont have very good results using them but we used them last year and the corn did very well.....we just take off the outer netting and put them into the ground......we just sowed 100 kandy corn seeds this afternoon let us know when your corn comes up......that will give us an idea of how long putting them in the ground verses germ them in the pellets takes.....

hugs

rose....

GWEN....congrats on your beans!!!!....how exciting they are so cute when they start to peek out of the soil

i dont remember what you asked about lettuce....will have to go back and read and see.....ok found it....what should your lettuce look like.....

here is a pic of our lettuce the top 2 squares were planted by seed indoors and then transplanted out in april at the same time we planted the bottom 2 squares were direct seeded ...i will look back to see if the date is right.....but pretty sure.....it was around the first of april.....



hugs

rose

.for some reason ours never showed up....planted 6 crowns...first time trying to grow them.....maybe they will come up next year..

When did you plant the crowns? Last year or this year?
If you planted them this year, I know they can take a long time to emerge.

FamilyGardening, hang in there on the asparagus...I planted 12 two-year-old starts of Sweet Purple asparagus crowns early this spring, and only 3 of the plants have bothered to send up shoots. I'm sure they're down there busily making good roots and will sprout next spring. They were not planted in square foot beds, but in an older, long bed created from Mel's first edition of Square Foot Gardening. Having said that, I'm sure they may enjoy a top dressing of the new cattle compost, some sand, peatmoss and vermicullite. Won't be entirely ANSFG recipe, but close. Both of us will be surprised and pleased next spring to see all the spears poking up from our beds. Right?

there maybe hope for our asparagus???...... ......thank you Nonna & GWN!

should we not plant anything this season in that box then?...just let them be?

they were planted this spring....

they are not in MM...they are in our compost back garden....hubby planted them down in a trench on top of a mound and only covered two inch's past the crowns.....we have been waiting to add more soil once they started to grow.....should we just leave them?.....add more soil now?....or wait until we see some action?....if no action this year.....should we heavy mulch them for over winter?....add more soil....do both?....sorry so many questions....im just so excited that we may still have a chance with these guys.....

hugs

rose

Thank you for the lettuce pic Rose! Just the reassurance I needed.

Although it makes me want to start lettuce indoors next year...

FamilyGardening wrote:there maybe hope for our asparagus???...... ......thank you Nonna & GWN!

should we not plant anything this season in that box then?...just let them be?

they were planted this spring....

they are not in MM...they are in our compost back garden....hubby planted them down in a trench on top of a mound and only covered two inch's past the crowns.....we have been waiting to add more soil once they started to grow.....should we just leave them?.....add more soil now?....or wait until we see some action?....if no action this year.....should we heavy mulch them for over winter?....add more soil....do both?....sorry so many questions....im just so excited that we may still have a chance with these guys.....

hugs

rose

Definitely don't give up on the asparagus, but if you want to play it safe with another crop in the bed, basil and asparagus play nicely together.

GG

It's ridiculously late, but I can't go to bed without posting that my cucumber seeds sprouted today (I direct sowed them). So excited to have cucumbers and beans to climb the trellis. And the beans are so cool so far! This is fun, fun, fun.

Lavender Debs wrote:

gwennifer wrote:It's ridiculously late, but I can't go to bed without posting ...snip.....This is fun, fun, fun.

This is why I love this board (especially the PNW page)

same here Debs!

gwennifer thats awesome to hear your cucumbers have sprouted.....that gives me hope to go ahead and put some in the ground.....i have a few germ for seedlings....but last year we had an awful time with cucumbers from seedlings that we had to buy some to transplant......

hugs

rose who is going to direct plant some cucumber seeds today and just figured out how to change font color.....

FamilyGardening wrote:Boffer curious if you soak your corn seeds before planting?...we are starting ours in jiffy pellets again this year....i know some dont have very good results using them but we used them last year and the corn did very well.....we just take off the outer netting and put them into the ground......we just sowed 100 kandy corn seeds this afternoon let us know when your corn comes up......that will give us an idea of how long putting them in the ground verses germ them in the pellets takes.....

No soaking, direct planted 5/8 and about 20 have popped their heads up today...8 days of sunshine works miracles!

Last year, when I planted, I left winter's protective black plastic on my corn patch for the extra heat and weed control. I cut an X in the plastic to plant each seed. After 3 weeks, only 7 out of 200 seeds had germinated. One day I was watching my cat paying unusual attention to the corn patch. She was watching and trying to pounce on an erratically moving lump in the plastic. Under the plastic, it was warm, dry, and reasonably safe from predators. I had created the perfect food hunting environment for some lucky little rodent, probably a field mouse! It was well into June by then, and given last year's cool summer, I had to settle for a short season cultivar that only produced so-so.

thats awesome boffer!!...baby corn....awwww

funny story about the cat and mouse....hee hee

we were afraid of rats or mice using our straw last year in our three sisters garden....until....we found a huge snake who had already made it his home!! he spent all summer in there!!.....he surprised me a couple of times....

hugs

rose

oh great....
That is exactly what I have done with my garden, the black plastic with the diamonds cut in them,
However I am putting in plants that have already germinated, Peppers and cantaloupe.
You really took all the fun out of it, really a mouse??