New England April 2014

2SooCrew wrote:Too much snow up here right now - at least 3 feet of it!

But look at that greenhouse in your avatar! It looks rarin' and ready to go! I wish I had a greenhouse like that. Wow! But it's too windy around here...that puppy would blow right over into the neighbor's yard. Can you plant some seeds in there now? or can you not even get to it?

CC

My world has finally moved from white to brown. And then this happened yesterday.

Woo-Hoo!  Very pretty.

That's gorgeous. What is it?

Marc Iverson wrote:That's gorgeous.  What is it?

I dunno. Some super miniature, super early dwarf iris I bought from a school kid doing fundraising a few years ago. It's only 7 inches tall, at the most.

CC, look at that beautiful ditch! It's a beautiful sight to behold! 

I planted my asparagus on a mound, because the ground is too soggy to go down. I hope they re-grow this year, I know the voles (or something[s]) took up residence in the mounds overwinter.

Does anyone know when we should be seeing the first little asparagus stalks?

And I also hear about the surprise about lack of pain. I spent hours outside hauling wheelbarrows of leaf litter, chicken manure, hay, etc., back and forth and uphill and down, and I thought for sure my muscles would be screaming, but nothing. Do you think they're still alive? Maybe they're dormant in there somewhere.

IT'S WARM!!!! All the windows are open. My tomatoes are huge (from the science fair experiment), I'm ready to PLANT. (I know, I know, too early...)

What can we plant now? Onions? Spinach? I have onion bulbs (potato onions) and spinach seed.

Glorious out there.

NHG, My peas & spinach are up!  Plant those.  I also planted swiss chard, radish & beet seeds. 

Would you please post a photo of your maters?  Are you putting them outside for a bit today?

CC

I planted my shallots yesterday. When I get home this afternoon I plan on sowing outdoors, spinach, chard, beets, radish. My peas are soaked and sprouting on the window sill. I will sowing those in a few days. I still have ice in the middle of 2 beds.

Ooh, peas can go in too? Yay.

I planted 8 squares of spinach just now, and covered with row cover to make sure nothing eats them. The garlic is coming up. There were several strawberry plants that creeped their way over into the spinach bed, so I dug those out and stuck them in an almost-empty strawberry bed that had a nice little vole nest in it.   Fortunately those strawberries reproduce faster than bunnies and they're all over, so I'll just dig them out of the aisles and throw them back into the beds.

CC, my good camera broke last summer on a trip to Florida, boo hoo. So I've been using my daughter's extreme cheapy but it doesn't hold a charge and I have to find the charge cord. We have like a million cords around here, you'd think they'd be kind and standardize them. But I'll try to put photos up of the seedlings. And the beds. I didn't traipse everything outside today tho, it's very breezy.

camprn, I'll bet by the time you get home today, no more ice in the beds.

It's also up-potting time... It's kind of a pain to have to plant these twice, and then transplant...

I have kale and kohlrabi seedlings up, will need to transplant those soon.

Heeeeyyyy... it's getting a little crowded here, Mum...



Frost in our forecast tomorrow night.  Time to drag out the plastics. 
All 3 plantings of peas are up.  
Maters are outside for the last time for a while.

CC

My tomatoes look a lot like those, CC.

My tomato plants still have no true leaves.  

Good, because mine are ready to go in but the weather isn't.

WOW! tomatoes are looking great CC.

camprn that Iris is fabulous!

Really windy and rainy here today. My attempt to start plants indoors is having mixed results. The tomatoes are spindly and not thriving. I am going to take advantage of the rainy day, stay inside and start some more seeds.

My potato experiment has been great fun. I've never grown them before, but had some sprout eyes in the pantry. So I said, "What the heck let's see what happens."  I cut them up and put them in a little seed starter mix less than 2 weeks ago. They grow so quickly you can almost see it happening.

I think I need to get them outside because they should be covered with soil still and I ran out of room in the pots. I started with only an inch of soil and kept adding as they grew. I just love watching them.

Go ahead and plant those babies out now, bury them deep.  
What kind of potatoes are they?

Hi camprn. They are russets. Our supermarket had buy 1 get 2 free and we couldn't eat them fast enough. So some became this experiment. LOL. Do I bury them completely, or leave a bit of leaf above ground? Thanks.

lyndeeloo wrote:Hi camprn. They are russets. Our supermarket had buy 1 get 2 free and we couldn't eat them fast enough. So some became this experiment. LOL. Do I bury them completely, or leave a bit of leaf above ground? Thanks.

You're going to have to do a bit of reading.
https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/t16841-rookie-topic-potatoes?highlight=Potatoes

Thanks camprn, good potato related reading indeed.  

Wanted to share a picture of my weekend project. I built a high rise garden for some of my strawberry plants. They made so many runners last fall and, of course, I couldn't let the plants go to waste.  I gave away as many as I could but they still took up more than half of my concrete block garden, leaving very little room in it for vegetables. So I built this behind my SFG and it gives me more space for about 40 strawberry plants.

 

Nicely done!

Nice!I LIKEY! Have you given thought about overwintering your plants in these pots?

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I other news, I'm being pokey about sowing. I did plant my sprouted pea seeds in the rain this afternoon. 

camprn wrote:Nice!I LIKEY! Have you given thought about overwintering your plants in these pots?

Thanks camprn! I usually take all my potted herbs and tuck them in between the house and the concrete block raised garden, then add leaves to cover them for the winter. I thought/hoped the same would work for the strawberries. What do you think? I haven't lost any herbs so far using this method.

I thought about going out in the rain today and planting those potatoes as you recommended, but I wasn't as brave as you were. Thinking about it was as far as I got. It was so windy and rainy I opted for online potato research. The weather man is talking about some snow tonight. We'll see.

boffer, that avatar is too hysterical.

Beautiful plant stand, lyndeeloo!

Lyndeeloo, Very , very nice!

I never thought about starting potatoes in containers. I'm going to try that.

I couldn't believe it when I awoke this morning.  We got 3 inches of the white stuff and it dropped to 27F.

At least the sun is shining and should melt it a bit.  Only 30F right now.

I got these red potatoes from a kitty litter bucket in July.
I put 2 inches of soil in the bottom.  Laid down 3 small potatoes.  Covered with another 2" of soil.  When the greens popped up, I buried it with another few inches of soil and kept doing that about 3 more times, then left them to grow.

Potatoes laid down 3/21 last year.  They came from the grocery store and were leftovers in a bag in my pantry.

You CAN grow potatoes in containers.