New England, May 2015

Beautiful peppers.

You know I'm getting mighty tired of toting inside then outside my trays of tomato and peppers seedlings every nite.  I don't want them to feel the chill even if it doesn't hit frost numbers.  I think tonite in my area is the last of the mid-or high 30sF for the nites.  Looks like temps rising in the 40s and 50s and sometimes even the 60s in the next couple weeks.  Hooray for spring.  I really need to get my tomatoes out of those 16-oz solo cups.  I usually up-pot to 2-liter bottle bottoms but didn't prepare any for this year, darn it.

I hear ya, QB. I didn't up pot my 1 foot hi tomatoes. They are still in their little 2 inch cell packs. They look so ridiculous that I won't even show a photo of them.

I didn't do anything with the ground cherries either. They're all crowded together in 1 clam pack still, as are the basils. Don't know how I'll ever be able to separate and plant them. But tomorrow is the day! We should be home free. After that!

Huh... Can't use the emoticons today for some reason. They are showing up but they don't do anything when I tap them. Oh well, color me embarrassed.

CC

I planted my garlic in October.  When I tried it in 2013/2014 the squirrels got to it in the spring and I only got one clove.  It was really hot.  This year I  put out my mothballs and the garlic has been safe but (if the pictures turn out) you can see someone has been digging in my garden anyway.

The garden right now has some radish and weeds, I'll clean it up before I plant.  My husband built two new boxes so I'm expanding.

This year I started the plants in the basement under a grow lamp and then moved them to the greenhouse the beginning of April.  The basement was cold so they were slow starting, once they hit the greenhouse and the warm days, they went crazy.  It think I need to harvest the lettuce already.  My husband thinks it would be safe to run a heater in the basement, I'm wondering if a heat pad would be safer.  To be honest, I don't really trust either one since they would be running constantly and sometimes no one would be home.

I don't know Deborah, but with all those beautiful, healthy plants, it looks to me like whatever you're doing you're doing it right. Are you planting those out this weekend?

CC

My plant out date is tomorrow! Last night was a finger-crosser but it looks like the buckwheat did not frost over. It was a little confusing because the forecast said patchy frost until 7 a.m., but there was no official frost warning...

Today is chilly and windy. Tonight will be chilly. After tonight it's the heat of mid-summer! Now it's too chilly to plant out, by mid-week it will be too hot to feel like planting out! ha. Can't win.

My face remains so itchy that it's hard for me to feel like doing anything. I don't know if it's tree pollen or a fungal issue, but wow, makes it hard to feel like doing anything outside. But tomorrow it doesn't matter, I'm planting out no matter what, or my poor seedlings, who are still also in their small cells!, will start to keel over. They can't wait to get in the ground. They're so big and beautiful, I really like my mini fake deck greenhouse, it does the job with 4 trays of seedlings. (I guess 8 can technically fit in there, but I have heavy items on the bottom 2 shelves to keep it from blowing over in the wind.) They've never looked this good before, even if they are starting to wane now. But I've been bringing them indoors on nights like last night where it went below 45F.

Oh, did you all get the email about Johnny's Seeds free shipping on Memorial Day? Woohoo!

Oh man, NHG... Why'd you have to go and say that about Johnny's seeds.? I don't need any seeds but I love free shipping! Itchy face sounds like sunburn to me. Itchy face... Hahaha... Sounds like a nickname. You have any aloe or coconut oil you could put on it?

Memorial Day is the traditional day for planting.  The 10 day forecast has days in the 90s and nights in the 60s.  I'll have to open the windows of the greenhouse or whatever doesn't get in the ground Monday will be cooked.  I need to make some Mel's Mix for the two new boxes but I won't get to that until Tuesday and then I'll finish my planting.

It looks to be an exciting gardening year for me.

I bought eight different heirloom varieties and then realized that all the seeds will be hybrids when they cross pollinate.  Duh!  The fruit will be pure, I just won't be able to harvest the seeds.

We need rain.

CC, don't forget, Johnnys doesn't have just seeds, but all kinds of garden supplies too.    And oats seeds if you want to green manure at the end of the season.

I found out coconut oil is great moisturizer! Surprisingly non-greasy. Plus if you ingest it (in small amounts of course) it's an antifungal. Come to find out it's great stuff.  

Yup, we're going from early spring to heat wave in about 48 hours!

camprn, wouldn't rain be nice? I can only try to imagine what it's like to have rain.... Meanwhile, the $15 sprinkler was the best investment I ever made. It's on the garden right now, getting everything ready for planting tomorrow. I don't want to transplant into dry soil, and I don't really want to soak the leaves as soon as I get them in there.

I bucket watered this afternoon and will do it again tomorrow to make sure it goes deep. Droughts are a royal pain.

NHG what kind of sprinkler did you get? I have a few and my favorite is the one that's flat one on the ground with six different spray choices on a dial. But I don't use it on the SFG. Maybe I should.

I rec'd my new hose today, the kind advertised on TV that stretches out when there's water going thru it and that shrinks when its empty.  I like it.  Its so light weight compared to the heavy rubber one on the reel.  I can carry it easily when I'm done with it.  And its long enuf I was able to water my flower beds today.  They needed it.  We're not getting rain til Monday.

QB, that hose sounds great because the hoses I lug around are h-e-a-v-y! We have about, I don't know, maybe 4 or 5 hooked together to get all the way to the parts where we need them, it's pretty crazy. A lightweight hose would sure be easier! I did get the non-kink hoses because I was so tired of having to fight hose kinks, I think they're heavier than usual.

CC, I looked online at reviews for the closest, cheapest sprinkler I could get.  Lowes had a brand that reviewers didn't like so much (LOL funny), but Home Depot's brand seemed to have much better reviews so I went with that - oscillating, has about 18 holes, so far it works okay.

Here's a link of an article I found: 32 companion plants to grow with your peppers. One thing they mentioned was chives. They're perennial, but I'm thinking about sticking a chive in each box, since it seems to indicate they're good friends for all plants:
http://www.treehugger.com/lawn-garden/companion-plants-grow-your-peppers.html

I think I know why I didn't get a lot of asparagus this year, even tho it is year #3. I'm seeing a lot of spindly asparagus plants with berries on them. That means they're female, and put their energy into reproduction rather than into the stalk. I think I may have ended up with a high ratio of female plants. I guess I'll just keep planting some of the asparagus seeds, because supposedly the seeds end up being about 50% male/50% female. Too many seedlings will crowd out the bed and make the asparagus less productive, also. I guess once the bed gets more populated, I'll just pull the females as I see them mature. Not this year tho. I still have room in that bed for reproduction. Plus, I used the seeds to start a new asparagus bed, which is growing young ferns this year. Each year I think I'll start a new patch of asparagus here and there, because one can never have too much asparagus.

I can't believe they charge $3.99/lb. for asparagus at the store... It's so easy to grow, at least in season.

That's a great idea to make new beds with the new berries each year. My asparagus are all male so I don't get berries. *pout*
(finally figured out that it's Firefox that won't let me use the emoticons on this forum. I can use them with Chrome but Chrome lags so horribly on my tablet that sometimes I just won't go on it.)

Another beautiful day today! 54 degrees now which is already warmer than the highest temp yesterday. But it's so windy out! Some of my four and five foot tall asparagus have blown right over. Are you guys getting wind? Should I stake up the asparagus that are laying on the ground or leave them be?

I've had trouble with my asparagus falling over too, not this year yet, but by season's end. I planted them on a mound which I realize now is a mistake because they get blown over by the wind. I've thought about putting 4 stakes around the corners of the bed and tying string  so they won't fall over, but haven't taken that step yet. Once they fall over, I don't suppose they'll ever upright themselves, but it would probably help to prop them up to prevent breaking of the stalk, I would think.

It's not windy here today! It's T-day (transplant), among other things. The house is cold but I'm keeping the windows shut to try to keep it as cool as possible because really hot temps are headed this way mid-week. So happy we're finally going to get w-a-r-m.

Edit: Oh!! They changed the forecast. Now I see wind gusts of 25 mph. Bleh.

Gusts to 25 could be hard on little transplants. But when I look at the Cape forecast looks like it's windy all week. Maybe I'll stick a board in front of them to try to keep them from getting blown over.

CapeCoddess wrote:That's a great idea to make new beds with the new berries each year. My asparagus are all male so I don't get berries. *pout*
(finally figured out that it's Firefox that won't let me use the emoticons on this forum. I can use them with Chrome but Chrome lags so horribly on my tablet that sometimes I just won't go on it.)

Another beautiful day today! 54 degrees now which is already warmer than the highest temp yesterday. But it's so windy out! Some of my four and five foot tall asparagus have blown right over. Are you guys getting wind? Should I stake up the asparagus that are laying on the ground or leave them be?

Clear the cache?

When the wind has blown over my asparagus, I've always tried to prop them back up, but if you think of how far down the crowns actually are, I don't think it would hurt anything to just let them be, unless the knocked-over plants are in your way (mine would have been).

In the past, I've used small tomato cages to help support them, but last year it occurred to me to do a modified version of a Florida Weave on them: I pounded two hefty long stakes into the ground, one on each end of my row (the asparagus isn't in an SFG) and then strung cord back and forth between the stakes so that as the plants grew, I tucked them into the "arms" of the cord.  Then I used clothespins to pinch the cord together judiciously to help contain lateral movement.  

Worked like a charm last year.  There's always a rogue that grows too far from the main row, but other than that, it's a great system for me.

HTH!

Third time trying to post this. I kept getting a message that it timed out and to retry. Dang I hate that! 

Anyway, great idea, Molly! Especially about using the clothes pins because I would have lateral movement also. 

camp, I cleared the cache of both Firefox and Chrome but everything has stayed the same if not gotten worse. Good thought though. Some days are better than others with these programs.

Caught Miss Lilly sleeping on the job this morning when I rounded the corner to the SFG and found a flock of mourning doves eating my carrots seeds. I raised holy hell, Lilly included. Told her to stay right there and guard the SFG while I went to the grocery store. I came back and she was gone but there was a dead mole where she had been. I guess it was a peace offering. Still doesn't make up for the fact that she was m_i_a again.

 I got everything planted out today except the peppers which need to get a little larger. And I have a bunch of ground cherries left as I only planted five and started about 20. The slugs will probably take down the first five anyway so I'll have some backups. The slugs and I can then dance 3 more times. Or maybe I'll smarten up and break out the beer.
 

The beer route always makes me feel better, I know that.

Too funny about the mourning doves! Carrots continue to be a challenge to grow. If it's not one thing with them, it's another...

I transplanted most things today, didn't get to everything, and I still have to plant pole and bush beans tomorrow. I couldn't fit everything in the boxes and rows, so I started just sticking things wherever I thought they'd fit.   Well, when they start to grow, I'll remember what I put where.

But I noticed in a couple boxes where I transplanted the peppers, tomatoes, basil, and celery, that they're looking pretty droopy. But maybe that's just transplant shock. They seem to have liked it much better in the greenhouse in their safe little cell packs.

Everything is going to need a lot of water this week. 30-40% chance of showers on Thursday, but other than that, dry as a bone. "Rain cloud" never used to be in my job description, but I guess it is now.

Best moment of the day, yesterday, was when I opened the back door to step out and there, there was a startled mama wood duck and her parade of five babies 2 feet in front of me.

Oh! Did you show them where your slug supply was?

That's a sight I would love to see. Free manure, too.