New England ~ May 2014

I was just reading online that a person grew strawberry plants in a child's plastic pool successfully.  The person was located in Wisconsin. Has anyone else tried it?

Also, I read that day-neutral strawberries can grow/produce without much sun.  What do you all think of that claim?  Anyone have experience with that?

Thanks!

we have a storm coming through just now, history if 1"+ size hail. Car is in garage and tender veggies are covered.

camprn wrote:we have a storm coming through just now, history if 1"+ size hail. Car is in garage and tender veggies are covered.

We had hail of a T-storm on May 29, 2012. 

And I heard about Keene getting a June-like washout, with May of 2012 getting 8 inches in a single month, IIRC! 

Looks like the wettest since May, 2006!

Vermont had a tornado warning 2 hours ago. It looked like a whammy heading right towards Springfield!

But, there were hardly even any T-bolts over downtown. 
Not even so much as a 45 MPH wind gust over downtown, so we're fine.

RJ good for you to dodge this one, Rutland and surrounding areas got hammered with one inch hail.

Wow. I should probably watch the weather forecast more often.... I don't think we had much of anything here, except some rain.

camprn wrote:RJ good for you to dodge this one, Rutland and surrounding areas got hammered with one inch hail.

May 29, 2012 reportedly brought one inch hail real close to downtown, if not downtown, too. Was riding through hail after we left the Woodbury florist and when we got to the intersection that's next to McDonald's.

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I thought for sure it was gonna hail right over downtown! 

I was expecting the most likely to be hail, and trees touching power lines.

It's raining hard here now (and cold!   )  Tomorrow night is forecasted to go to 39 degrees.  C'mon summer, where the heck are you!  (And what am I going to do about my poor plants outside in 39 degree weather!)

The forecast for tomorrow calls for lower day temps than Juneau, Alaska! What the fracking heck?!

RJARPCGP wrote:The forecast for tomorrow calls for lower day temps than Juneau, Alaska! What the fracking heck?!

 
I wish I didn't know that!

Plants will be fine I  39°F for a day or 3.

Raw, cold & windy out, fersure.  The constant misty drizzle doesn't even show up on the radar.

Garlic hanging in there:

I put jars over the sprouted zucchini (yes, I'm trying again...I have a plan). The unsprouted squash are still under pots:

Two transplanted Marketmore cukes (which actually haven't fallen yet! 

Hardened off peppers, ground cherries, basil & zinnias are in the window today, still waiting to be planted out:

My fig is sprouting, albeit from the bottom (see the 2 little green sprouts at the base?)


And to think that yesterday I harvested most of last years spinach thinking that it was getting too hot and they would bolt.  I'm glad I left the middles...maybe they'll keep growing for a bit longer considering the weather. 



Meanwhile, this years spinach, planted end of winter, only had about a 33% germination rate and is still kinda puny but I have high hopes.

I was reading last years NE May & June threads and we had bad weather then, too.  Molly even got snowed on!  

Hang in there, kids...it's almost over.

CC

CapeCoddess wrote:Raw, cold & windy out, fersure.  The constant misty drizzle doesn't even show up on the radar.

Garlic hanging in there:

I put jars over the sprouted zucchini (yes, I'm trying again...I have a plan). The unsprouted squash are still under pots:

Two transplanted Marketmore cukes (which actually haven't fallen yet! 

Hardened off peppers, ground cherries, basil & zinnias are in the window today, still waiting to be planted out:

My fig is sprouting, albeit from the bottom (see the 2 little green sprouts at the base?)


And to think that yesterday I harvested most of last years spinach thinking that it was getting too hot and they would bolt.  I'm glad I left the middles...maybe they'll keep growing for a bit longer considering the weather. 



Meanwhile, this years spinach, planted end of winter, only had about a 33% germination rate and is still kinda puny but I have high hopes.

I was reading last years NE May & June threads and we had bad weather then, too.  Molly even got snowed on!  

Hang in there, kids...it's almost over.

CC

The snow that Molly got was during that unusually chilly spell on May 25 and 26, 2013. 

Luckily, nothing that bad this May. For last May, I heard that ski resorts were reopened!

CC, when you say last year's spinach, do you mean you planted it last year and just left it in all winter?  When did you plant it and did you cover it over winter?  Thanks!

Wow!  35 degrees here this morning.  Some reports of minor frost in the area.

Didn't even think of keeping more of an eye on the thermometer - knew it was going to get cold, but not that close to freezing.

Hope everyone's plants are doing okay.

Wow - minor frost? I don't think that happened here - hope not! Anyway, it's OVAH. Yay. Nothing but blue skies right now...

CC, love your photos! I love those blueish purple flowers too.

Your spinach looks great, yay for your fig tree!, and your basil and peppers look so green and healthy. Must be that seabreeze.

My potatoes are coming up! I bought a bale of straw yesterday to keep piling on them as they grow. (It's only a 6" bed so I think I'm going to have to build upwards.) The peas were loving the cold weather, I planted some more spinach, the pole beans are doing well, about 5" high. The tomatoes I put out there early still look healthy. This weekend our local library is having their plant sale and I hope someone has pepper plants there, because mine are weak, if they make it they'll be small and slow. I have vine seedlings to put out there soon, but the first batch of vine seedlings with a few survivors that I transplanted out there a week ago are looking strong. Oh, the strawberries are filled with blossoms now, and they've grown in height and gotten more bushy.

Still thinking about a camera. I know I need to post photos.

That rain most likely did a world of good out there. I'll bet we really see things shoot up now.

Gosh, I hope everyone's garden is doing OK.
We hit 36 last nite.  I didn't' realize it was going to be as cold til the late news, so I didn't get out to cover anything and just hoped for the best.
Checked this morning and things are looking OK.  No frost.  Yousa.  That was close.
Sun is shining today and should be in the high 60s again.

cpl100 wrote:CC, when you say last year's spinach, do you mean you planted it last year and just left it in all winter?  When did you plant it and did you cover it over winter?  Thanks!

Yes, Cindy, I planted the Big Ruffles or Bloomsdale spinach seeds, can't remember which, last year in August I think.  Ate off them in the fall, did nothing to them and they grew back this spring.  Same thing happened in 2012/2013. 

Which led me to experiment with planting fall seeds in 2013 to see if they'd sprout in the following spring.  Nada.  Apparently the plant has to be established in order to come back...at least in my area anyway.

CC

CapeCoddess wrote:

cpl100 wrote:CC, when you say last year's spinach, do you mean you planted it last year and just left it in all winter?  When did you plant it and did you cover it over winter?  Thanks!

Yes, Cindy, I planted the Big Ruffles or Bloomsdale spinach seeds, can't remember which, last year in August I think.  Ate off them in the fall, did nothing to them and they grew back this spring.  Same thing happened in 2012/2013. 

Which led me to experiment with planting fall seeds in 2013 to see if they'd sprout in the following spring.  Nada.  Apparently the plant has to be established in order to come back...at least in my area anyway.

CC

Going to try that.  Thanks!

RJ, What is the plant with purple flowers?

sanderson wrote:RJ,  What is the plant with purple flowers?

The 2nd photo is ajuga.  Ajuga is like a ground cover.  I LOVE IT!

CC

CC, Thanks. I've never seen ajuga that color or height before. Very pretty.

Everything looks really good CC! I wish my spinach would do something. I seed it, it sprouts up nicely and then just shrivels up and dies. One more time and then I give up. Maybe the third seeding will be the charm!  

the last few days of cloudy misty weather saw this years spinach growing in leaps and bounds. I think this tells me I need to get them out of the Sun and into the shade.
I'm going to put some shade over them today and see what happens.

38 degrees here this morning. Gruesome! And unforecasted. I just finished watering everything well in case it goes down that low again tonight. High today is 58 and sunny! Perfect gardening weather.

Direct planted cucumber seeds are sprouting today. I'll put plastic lettuce containers over them tonight and put the jars back on the transplanted cucumber seedlings, too. But check this out, the one on the left was grown and planted in a TP paper tube, the one on the right was grown and sprouted at the same time in a cell pack.
looks to me like the tube is stunting the growth of the seedling a bit. the bottom of the tube was opened up before planting.

No sign of the pole or bush beans planted last weekend yet.

Fellow FTAs, guess what!? My neighbor just sold her house and came over this morning telling me that she'd like to buy me anything I want from the nursery to remember her by. I said I'd love a plum tree. Now I need to do you do the research to see if I need more than one. Does anyone know?

CC wrote: "My neighbor just sold her house and came over this morning telling me that she'd like to buy me anything I want from the nursery to remember her by."

What a nice neighbor!

CC, from what I read in the Fedco trees catalog, hybrid plums need pollinators, European plums do not, but will produce more fruit if they have one.

I planted 2 plum trees this spring: A Green Gage and a Stanley.

Here's the section on plums (page 25) from Fedco's tree catalog (if the link works...)

http://www.fedcoseeds.com/forms/ft36cat_highres.pdf