2015 gardening season, day 1

Nothing too spectacular, but I got two of my 5 garden beds ready for planting, and got my first lettuce seedlings and some onion sets into the bed today - along with a few other "little" projects, like cutting down a tree that was blocking the sun to the garden.



I was running out of light when I shot this, so it's not a very good photo, but sure is good to see stuff growing again!




Kate

Hey, its lookin' darn good.  Keep up the good work.
Welcome to SFG.

Looks GREAT, Kate!

Thanks for the great photos, Kate.  They seem so tiny when you first put them in, don't they?  Sometimes I feel like I shouldn't leave them alone or something will happen to them.

CC

CapeCoddess wrote:Thanks for the great photos, Kate.  They seem so tiny when you first put them in, don't they?  Sometimes I feel like I shouldn't leave them alone or something will happen to them.

CC

Just think of them as weeds. Then you will not worry about them. I must admit I am getting rather relaxed now about growing things. Tough love.

And Kate,

I am itching to plant but my boxes are still frozen solid and it is flurrying outside....

It is snowing again here today, but I did get to pot up some seedlings!

Kelejan wrote:

CapeCoddess wrote:Thanks for the great photos, Kate.  They seem so tiny when you first put them in, don't they?  Sometimes I feel like I shouldn't leave them alone or something will happen to them.

CC

Just think of them as weeds. Then you will not worry about them. I must admit I am getting rather relaxed now about growing things. Tough love.

That's what my sister keeps telling me.  Haha!  I'm more relaxed when it's something I've grown before.  The lettuce is something new for me this year.

Goosegirl wrote:It is snowing again here today, but I did get to pot up some seedlings!

We got snow today, too.  I've got my lettuce under a plastic tent - don't know for sure if they really need it, but either way, they're doing fine.  Inside, got spinach seeds just beginning to sprout, and I got the tomato seeds started last weekend.  They're just starting to poke up through the potting mix, and should be ready to put outside at the end of April.  Love this time of year.

Kate, really nice layout, I suppose your not concerned about deer with that great looking fence

Haven't found any deer in the backyard so far!  That would be quite the event.  But the squirrels and rabbits can be troublesome at times.  Still looking to build chicken-wire cages to keep them (and my dog) out of the garden beds.

It'll be two weeks tomorrow... we've been getting just slightly below freezing most nights, but this morning, we woke up to a hard frost.  Forecast said the low would be around 32, but at my house, it was closer to 22.  I was almost afraid to look...



Yep... hard frost on top.    (Yet, here I was in my shorts...)


But the new frost cover I built did its job, everything inside was fine.  My first bed for this season is now a full-house, with lettuce, onions, spinach and one head of cabbage.

Now, at 2pm, it's sunny and almost 60 degrees.  Go figure.

New this week - the onions started showing up, and the spinach I planted last weekend is already starting to come up.  Still waiting on the two more squares of spinach I planted a few days ago, but it should start coming up by the end of the weekend, if the first batch is any indication.




I started my tomato and pepper seeds two weekends ago, and they're coming along just swimmingly!  Lots of Celebrities, some Sweet 100's, and this year I decided to try Burpee's "Super Sauce" tomato.  (These aren't all mine, I started some for friends and neighbors, too.)

Congrats on surviving the freeze and for the lovely little green seedlings.

Yea!  Glad to hear it! 

       

On thursday we had a cold front come through, bringing some pretty high wind gusts.  This partially collapsed my nifty frost tent and when I got home from work, some of the plastic was flapping down onto the plants.  Yep, they were getting hammered!    Epic failure.

Note to self: my tent design needs improvemen - do ya think? - but we had a frost coming that night so ran to the store for more PVC pipe, zip-ties, and some chicken wire.  I don't know what I'd do without PVC and zip ties, honestly.  I threw this together in about 2-1/2 hours, just in time before dark.  It should also keep out those wascally wabbits, birds, not to mention the family dog.  Don't think it'll keep the cabbage moths out, though...



Most of the damaged plants are recovering, but I did lose a few spinach plants.  There's time to plant more yet.  But here's how it was today.  I'm pretty pleased with it so far.

Kate, But, now you have something to which to secure the tulle! And, you can create a gable roof against rain. Very convertible.

Oh, well sure!  Don't know why I didn't think of that, since I was already thinking plastic and chicken wire.  Or, maybe some shade cloth, to keep lettuce and spinach going all summer.

Kate, I love this idea.  To me, it seems a bit more manageable than arching PVC pipes that I use.  It's perfect for tulle I think.  I might steal this idea!

Steal away!  I'm definitely going to make a few more of these.  But I think I'm going to keep the arch/hoop frame and make some improvements to it to make it more stable.  It'll still be useful with taller plants.

Looks good, Kate.  I may use this for some of my beds too...

I absolutely love the PVC design - going to see if we can whip one up this weekend to protect my bed - I'm getting a late start on the cool weather crops here in the Mid-Atlantic but the weekends have not been kind - either weather was bad or we had other obligations!

How interesting it may be to make a grid on top also, using as a top support for taller plants like tomato's.
If there were enough tall plants on each side they could counter balance each other so no stakes would be needed,,,
All that would need to be done is carefully lead the tops through the grids.
May be a little pricy, however once it's done, just like Mel's Mix...it's forever.

We were out of town most of the week, leaving the gardening in the care of our pet sitter.  Upon return today, I was shocked to see how "box 1" had grown...



We got 3 inches(!) of rain while we were away, so most of the watering was taken care of by Mother Nature. The onions are looking a bit jostled, but some of the green onions are ready to harvest.  I'm starting to become a big fan of buttercrunch lettuce, though I haven't had a chance to taste it yet, but if it tastes as good as it looks, it may become my main lettuce crop.  Getting ready to start some romaine this week to put in next weekend... the plot thickens!

Is it better to allow a whole head of lettuce to grow before harvesting, or just cut off outer leaves as they grow?