N&C Midwest: April 2020

Agree...there has been extreme temps this spring!  Ohio...

countrynaturals wrote:

OhioGardener wrote:Last night all of my pepper plants in the cold frame froze, and I have to start some new seeds. It got down to 19°F last night, and that was just too cold for the peppers even though the cold frame keeps fairly warm. Always hate to loose seedlings that were lovingly being cared for.

YIKES! That really stinks, OG. Peppers take so long it makes it even worse.

I propped the cold frame open for a bit right now...things are fine.  Some things aren’t growing but others seem just fine!  

Set the lettuces out for an hour or so to start getting hardenend off...I am disappointed in the germination of a couple varieties but for the most part, it’s good.

Started Cherokee purple, Brandywine tomatoes, 6 peppers; Ancho, jalapeños, King of the North, Big Red, Sweet banana, Purple, and my love Ping Tung eggplant.

Sunny but cool.

Also started my nasturtiums and marigolds, dills, and basils!

2 of my lettuces spent the night in the cold frame, along with the cool weather crops, all of which are up and doing well.  

Celery are spending their days outside for a few hours; I have no experience with this veggie.  Other stuff (garlic, onions) are either up or coming up!  

Will probably plant the 2 lettuces out this weekend, and possibly the cilantro and parsley. 

Sunny, cool today.  Rain coming this weekend.

I put my 2 lettuces out just in time for the freeze last night....hope they. Made it, I didn’t cover them of course.  Hotties up on the lights right now.  Super hotties are next, in a couple weeks.  Sunflowers in between.

Fortunately, SR, lettuce isn't greatly affected by light freezes. I have two squares of leaf lettuce growing, and it is doing well in spite of the several recent freezes. Saw an article this morning that a local fruit grower says that he lost 3/4 of his apple and peach crop to the heavy freeze we had on April 22nd.

Removed the cold frame from the raised bed, and enriched the soil with compost so that it will be ready for planting bush beans the end of next week. Normally we have two 4'x4' sections filled with green beans, but this year I am going to plant 3 sections with bean. Tht will give us bigger batches to prepare for freezing each time.  This winter we have already run out of frozen beans from last year, which means we didn't put up enough last year. 

OhioGardener wrote:Removed the cold frame from the raised bed, and enriched the soil with compost so that it will be ready for planting bush beans the end of next week. Normally we have two 4'x4' sections filled with green beans, but this year I am going to plant 3 sections with bean. Tht will give us bigger batches to prepare for freezing each time.  This winter we have already run out of frozen beans from last year, which means we didn't put up enough last year. 

Wow!  I didn’t even grow beans last year...the Japanese Beetles are so bad.  I am gong to try Dragon Tongue beans this year, and my tried and true purple pole beans...I just need to be better at harvesting them!  

Had to restart 6 lettuces (germination issues, again) and started a mustard...everything else is good!

Pulled 8 radishes tonight—yum!

Cool and rainy-ish

Scorpio Rising wrote: I didn’t even grow beans last year...the Japanese Beetles are so bad. 

Interesting. We have a lot of the Japanese Beetles, but they never bothered our beans (yet).  The Evening Primrose seems to be a trap plant for the Japanese Beetles, and I kill a lot of them from those plants. Might be why they haven't gone to the beans.

OhioGardener wrote:

Scorpio Rising wrote: I didn’t even grow beans last year...the Japanese Beetles are so bad. 

Interesting. We have a lot of the Japanese Beetles, but they never bothered our beans (yet).  The Evening Primrose seems to be a trap plant for the Japanese Beetles, and I kill a lot of them from those plants. Might be why they haven't gone to the beans.

That is interesting!  I don’t grow Evening Primrose, but I might now!

Scorpio Rising wrote:

OhioGardener wrote:

Scorpio Rising wrote: I didn’t even grow beans last year...the Japanese Beetles are so bad. 

Interesting. We have a lot of the Japanese Beetles, but they never bothered our beans (yet).  The Evening Primrose seems to be a trap plant for the Japanese Beetles, and I kill a lot of them from those plants. Might be why they haven't gone to the beans.

That is interesting!  I don’t grow Evening Primrose, but I might now!

In early evening, round 4:00 - 5:00, the Japanese Beetles swarm to the Evening Primrose to spend the night, and I knock them off into a bucket of soapy water to drown them. Gets rid of hundreds of them every evening, and they don't seem to bother the other plants except for a few that find the Zinnia plants.

Wow, need to catch up with what everyone is doing!

Looks like most of you just about have your beds ready to go, and are still waiting for the cold weather to end.

I had a pretty rough start to my gardening season this year. Couldn't get my seeds to grow - any of them, peppers, tomatoes, cabbage, broccoli, lettuce...   

So I ended up buying a bunch of starters. Planted the first lettuce on April 10. Woke up the next morning and they were mostly GONE. Bunny food. 

But things are finally coming around. I put a cage over my first bed to keep the bunnies out, and the lettuce grew back. I'm going back to school on raising plants from seed and finally getting my tabasco seeds to grow. I'll probably try some more lettuce in the fall.

The tomatoes on the right are Celebrities - bushy, so I allow 4 squares for each. The SFG book says plant bushy tomato plants 1 to 9 square feet, but I've had no problems growing these in 4 square feet. Still need to get some mulch down for them, and you can see I've still got cleanup in progress.



This is what's left, as of last weekend. I was going great guns on getting the viney tomatoes and basil planted in the next bed, but had to stop because I sliced off part of a fingernail with a kitchen knife.    I'm just now getting back to where I can resume adding compost and planting.



That last bed on the left... that's what they all looked like in March. Lotta work getting them cleaned out. I will never let them get that bad again.

Good work, CK!!!!  You are describing my year last year.  Nothing germinated/worked.  I bought starts, had 5 cherry tomatoes plants ___NO___

I think your switch is good.

I will get some pic this weekend—the only thing really going out there is the cold frame, which is basically open now!  

Cold and wet here.

Scorpio Rising wrote:Good work, CK!!!!  You are describing my year last year.  Nothing germinated/worked.  I bought starts, had 5 cherry tomatoes plants ___NO___

I think your switch is good.

I will get some pic this weekend—the only thing really going out there is the cold frame, which is basically open now!  

Cold and wet here.

It really is a good feeling to see those beds cleaned up and producing again.

And it's good to know there is life after a total seed sowing failure. TBH, I think all the tweaks I made to my seed sowing process to get seedlings as fast as possible, and trying to get 100% of the seeds planted in seed trays to produce seedlings, got me overthinking things too much. Not to mention, creating hassles I didn't need. I'm such a nerd when it comes to anything I take an interest in. So I've just gotten back to the basics, and so far the results are encouraging.

We were fortunate this year here in KS to get some nice days in March and April, though we did have 4 or 5 nights that got down to freezing and a couple of weeks when it turned chilly and rained a lot.

Look forward to seeing your photos. I've been enjoying the photos OG and others have posted.