New England, April 2015

CapeC......The holes are to give the parsnip room to grow.  Those things grow so darn long, like 18" or more sometimes.  The hole loosens the soil so they have room to spread their roots.

As for nuts trees, I think I read something about something in nuts that prevents growth of other things near them.  I'm not sure if it was a specific type of nut tree or maybe a couple so you might want to check into that before planting nut trees.  Just a thought.  If I have time, I'll google it and see if I can find out more.


I potted up all my 8 Kalettes and some of my larger tomatoes from their cells to 4" pots  and 16-oz paper cups.   I had some room under my 2-ft long grow light that's reserved usually for my houseplants.  My houseplants will have to make do under the table lamps for now.

quiltbea wrote:
As for nuts trees, I think I read something about something in nuts that prevents growth of other things near them.  I'm not sure if it was a specific type of nut tree or maybe a couple so you might want to check into that before planting nut trees.  Just a thought.  If I have time, I'll google it and see if I can find out more.

Black Walnut Tree

Thanks Yolos.  Would you believe I forgot to check it out?  Comes with my age, I guess.   At my age I can't be sure.

What a beautiful weekend we had here! Perfect for working in the garden. Got the strawberry bed all cleaned up, the gardens ready for planting, the brassica bed planted and all the hoops up for the netting. I put plastic over the hoops on one of the gardens in hopes of getting some plants outside earlier this year.

Lyndeeloo, do you take the pine needles off the strawberry bed when cleaning?  I leave mine on and let the strongest plants push up thru, like BTE without woodchips.  Although this year they have to push up through seaweed, too. Only the strong will survive.

This is my spring plan, 'cept it gets fillled in mostly after planting. 
The list on the far right is what's already been planted. The list at the bottom is to remind me of what I need to save space for.

The leeks on the left in the 4" pot are supposed to be planted out come May.
 I need to go back and fine the planting method used by Camp.  I seem to remember it was easy compared to Victory Garden guy.

The daffies and these blue flowers are out now.  
The tulips are comin'.  Everything is WAY behind previous years.
Drizzly out right now.  I'm hoping for a downpour.  Dream on, CC...

Wowie! Those blue flowers are so pretty! I love blue. Blue salvia is on my list to get and plant, once I can find it.

I spent most of this rainy day trying to decide what I still want to buy and then trying to find it and then trying to decide if it's worth it, or if I should wait until next spring. I want an Illinois everbearing mulberry, a siberian peashrub, comfrey, a male and female kiwi, and more grapes would be good. But the Fedco spring tree order time is over, altho they don't have mulberry anyway, I can order the mulberry from way out in Washington (Burnt Ridge), but hmm. Decisions decisions.

This is a good time to plant! Now that it's supposed to be rainy for several days. I jammed some peas around my fruit trees. I have a packet of peas from 2011 in a wet napkin to see if they're going to sprout - it's been 24 hrs. and not yet, but maybe.

That's some chart, CC! 

When it dries up I'm going to get some photos of the garden as "before" shots. The kale did not make it through the winter. 

It's pouring here.

CC, Excel spreadsheet with handwritten plants?? That's what I do.

I think it is Excel...or Corel.  I have one on one puter and one on the other.  I like doing this because once you have the grids made & saved, you don't have to change anything unless you build new boxes or move any around.  Just print a couple pages out every season.

CapeCoddess wrote:Lyndeeloo, do you take the pine needles off the strawberry bed when cleaning?  I leave mine on and let the strongest plants push up thru, like BTE without woodchips.  Although this year they have to push up through seaweed, too. Only the strong will survive.

CC, I leave the needles in place, too. They worked out so well last year, I will raid my friends yard again this year for more pine needles. 

I made up a chart like that, too. I always print extra copies because I change the plan so many times. LOL!

April showers! 1 1/4 inches of rain since yesterday morning. Things are really starting to green up now. Had a good t storm overnight and it poured. I was worried about the tiny plants I put in over the weekend, but they look fine. ☺

My yard has a lot of flooding EXCEPT for the raised beds. They are so great at draining, which is why I found this system in the first place. 

The cherry tree I planted is in a huge puddle now. We'll see.

My garden plans are made up each year very similarly after looking over last year's rotation.  The crops are entered in pencil so when I change them, and I know I'll change a few or more, I can easily erase.  I don't enter them in pen til they are put in the ground.  And I always keep the years before so I can see what I planted where.  I like to rotate where possible.
Its  another rainy day, and like many of you, we've had between an inch and two of rain the last couple days.  I'm so glad my son cleaned up my flower beds on Sunday while the sun was shining and the ground dry.  They are ready for my input whenever I can get back out there.

I put out my babies that looked about the size of quiltbeas this past weekend for a nice sunbath:  Tomatoes, broccoli, basil, leeks, peppers, beans, flowers, and other herbs.  Then a giant gust of wind came up and blew over the whole tray  So Sad!  My husband just took out the deck furniture and the pagoda blew over too!  Womp womp.  SO, got some broccoli and cabbage and celery at the local garden store, they said the herbs will come in about 2 weeks.

Aw, heartbreaking, wulf!  I had that happen once, too.  I have a cart with 3 levels and it blew off my stoop.    Lesson learned is right.  These days my babies are placed on the ground...but I have a cat to keep critters away.

CC

wulfferine, so sorry to hear that! A few days ago I had my baby sunflowers on a greenhouse shelf unit on the deck, and that blew over and 4 out of 6 of them kicked it. It was my fault for not securing the shelving - I knew that could happen because it's kind of flimsy to begin with. Lessons learned!

We finally got around to putting the old hoop that collapsed under the snow this winter back up over one bed and built 2 more last weekend!  We're still battling snowdrifts in the back yard and temps below freezing at night, but the hoops get mighty warm in the daytime! The perennial herb/ kitchen garden was still covered in snow and ice, but thankfully the hubster was willing to take the snow blower to the front beds a few weeks ago to encourage an early thaw!

We planted cabbage, brussels, lettuce, kale, chard, spinach, carrots, and turnips. 300 onion babies and 100 garlic tops are starting to peek through... now if we can just keep the deer away from the fruit trees we'll be all set! This week the littlest helper will help us plant corn, peas, squash and search for our garden fairies to see if they made it back from the south yet!

Does anyone else get a weird look when they talk about the variety (and production) in their tiny gardens? I swear my coworkers think I live on a 300 acre farm and not less than an acre in a residential area!

Beautiful IP!! And welcome!! Is everything going under hoops right now?

NHGardener wrote:Beautiful IP!! And welcome!! Is everything going under hoops right now?

Thanks for the welcome and everything but the carrots, onions and garlic is growing under a hoop right now. We also have sensitive summer babies like tomatoes, peppers, herbs, etc still living on our dining room table (who needs a dining room anyways, right!) until temps regulate a bit more.

ImperfectPotager, Welcome to the Forum from California! Thank you for posting photos of your garden, we love photos! If you want, please go to the Home page and "Introduce Yourself." It sounds like you have quite a bit of gardening experience.

Welcome IPotager.
Its nice to see another Mainer on board.  Your covered beds are sure unique.  They must extend your growing season well.
I have just one more patch of snow by the deck and then along the row of dwarf fruit trees and then I'll see everything green again.  Of course, there's still snow in the woods that surround our house.  The soil in my raised beds has warmed up remarkably the last few weeks.

All of my Johnny's sugar snap peas from 2011 have sprouted in wet paper towel. So it's good to know those can last for years.

I had the same with old peas from 2011 & 2012. They are now about 2 inches tall. Isn't it amazing?! 

Oh, and  to ImperfectPotager!!! Nice beds and tunnel!


CC

2012 peas (garlic in the bed behind it):

WOW!  CapeCoddess, those peas are looking like they are ready for spring!!  What great beds with a great view!

Yes, I'll be putting up the trellis be for we know what happened! lol

How cute are these shallots (along the right side)?!  I just planted them what...about 10 days ago?

Here are 2 squares of spinach out of about 10: