Mood:
energeticIt has been 6 months since I last updated, but here's what's been going on:
JANUARY
In January, I stayed inside most of the month. The 1st brought the coldest temperatures I've ever felt in St. Johns. -26º. It didn't get above 0º for three days at my house, and then it was another week before it got above freezing. I had some aloe vera plants in the greenhouse, but even with the insulated North wall and slanted South face and the heater going 24 hours a day, it still got down to 20º in there and wiped out almost all the plants. Somehow, two aloe vera plants that my daughter bought from Rosa Lee made it. They lived in the house for a month or so after that. I tried to stay inside, wrapped around my seed catalogs, planning my garden and praying my grapes would make it through the cold. I had my doubts...
FEBRUARY
In February, there were some really nice days. I burned some dead stuff outside, did a little scraping of soil, and started gathering materials for some new raised beds. I also placed my order for onoins from Dixondale farms, buying Candy (white short-day), Red Candy Apple (red day-neutral), and a sampler of day-neutral onions that were red, white, and yellow. I also placed my order with Wood Prairie Farm for Red, White, and Blue potato samplers, and some Swedish Peanut fingerling potatoes. I had my husband weld together some nice potato cages and line them with snow fence, so I can grow potatoes in them, piling soil, straw, and compost in the cage as the potatoe grow. This was also the month I placed my order with Gardens Alive!, because that's when I got the free coupon for $25 of merchandise. I never know when it is going to come, but I'm always happy to see it. I also planted some lettuce and chard in the greenhouse at the end of the month. I can't wait for green food!!
MARCH
In early March, I planted the potatoes and onions I ordered in February, and I started my peppers and tomatoes at the end of the month. Just for fun, I used seed for the peppers that I had bought at the dollar store. I planted 3 packets of Anaheim seed, about 100 seeds, and about 90 came up. That isn't horrible, I don't think. I also used leftover tomato seed from last year; Chocolate Cherry, Early Girl (someone gave these seeds to me), Black Krim. I decided after my poor sale last year that I would only plant what I needed and half again, in case anyone wanted plants. If they didn't, I could always find room for them in the garden. I also watered my compost bins at the end of the month, and turned them. It took me about three days to get them all done. I got out the chipper and broke down some of the dead weeds that I had gathered, and also fed through some leaves and pine needles I got late this winter. I now have enough materials to almost complete 6 new large raised beds, as well as 6 or 7 little ones. A big THANK YOU SO MUCH!! goes out to Clay for giving me his leftover timbers from building the barn. Love you, Clay!! In mid-March, I transplanted some broccoli and cabbage seedlings I cheated and bought at Lowe's. I'm sorry, but if you show me something green in March I'm going to buy them. I can't help it!! On nice days, I was outside pulling early weeds and tilling the soil in my raised beds with my Mantis.
APRIL
April brought more cold weather, but nothing like -26º, thank goodness. I haven't been warm since September, and I'm getting tired of it! But the up-side of this is that I have 8 broccoli plants, 8 cabbage plants, 200 baby tomatoes, peppers, and flowers in the greenhouse, I'm eating lettuce and chard out of the greenhouse, and I have prepared the soil for all my little beds, and most of my big ones. There is still no sign of life in my grapes or my blackberries, and I fear they are all in that big heaven in the sky. Stupid weather. I did see my first asparagus spear, and the rhubarb is really starting to grow. The next day, that first asparagus spear was frozen and limp. Stupid vegetable. It is still cold!! I still planted all my bell pepper plants outside under walls-o-water, along with 2 tomatoes. I have more faith in those walls of water than I probably should, but oh well.
MAY
Finally some warm weather! Kinda. But I planted several more tomatoes outside in walls-o-water at the beginning of the month. I also started a watermelon outside under a WOW, but it never did sprout. Not sure why. Louis bought some cotton seeds and planted them out. My potatoes looked really good until late in the month, when the tops froze. I think they'll come back, and sure enough, they did, about a week later. They froze again. Came back again. I'm not sure I'll plant potatoes that early again. But the onions are doing well, and by the end of May, they are starting to bulb. I can feel it when I stick my finger in the soil. Days are getting warmer, finally. On the 25th, I got some Sweet Potato slips from Henry Fields or Gurneys or somewhere. I planted them. We'll see how that works out...
JUNE
Yay!! I'm all caught up!!
So, the first of the month was hectic because I'm coaching softball, I sit on the little league board, I have 4 4-H clubs, and I am still busy being depressed that I didn't get a job at the schools. Maybe it isn't meant to be. But the weeds are growing very well. I took off all the walls-of-water and EZ Walls on the 1st. I thought I was tempting fate, but the plants were growing out the tops anyway, and they need to be tied to supports. I use these steel cages Garry welded for me from rebar. They do weigh about 15 pounds or so, but they are very strong, 6-feet tall, and have legs that go into the soil 12" or better. I can also run guy wires down to the edge of my raised beds and secure them to nails in the wood, if the wind is too ugly.
We had a good garden meeting on the 7th, even though the lady I was gong to have talk to us about rain collection was evacuated from her home in Alpine.
In my own garden, I've now covered my potatoes three times, and several of my plants are at the top of the raised beds, and many of them are hanging out. I have some potatoes in a big white 55-gallon drum with the lid cut off. They seem to be doing well. I also have some in laundry baskets of various types and sizes, and so far they all seem to be doing well. I will remember to line the laundry baskets in the future, as the soil runs out a little when I water. But other than that, everything is looking good. My onions' shoulders are sticking out of the soil, and the biggest ones are upwards of 3-4" in diameter. I had to eat a white one the other day, because it was crowding its neighbor, but it was delicious. Sweet and juicy, with good flavor. I will ALWAYS buy my onion plants (NOT sets) from Dixondale Farms in the future!
As of today, the 23rd of June, 2011, I've harvested 8 heads of broccoli, several onions, about 5 pounds of swiss chard, 8 heads of crisp-head lettuce, a pound of rhubarb, several pounds of asparagus, like 6 strawberries (don't tell my kids, they think they aren't ripe yet), and a handful of peas. My corn is about 10" tall, and I have tomatoes on my Chocolate Cherry plants. My potatoes are blossoming, meaning there are baby new potatoes ready to pick, if I want them. I'll be darned if I can remember which plants are in which beds, though. I knew I should have written them down! My sweet potatoes are doing okay, only okay. I planted 25 slips, and i think I have 17 or so that are putting on leaves. I know I've pulled 5 out of the ground because they were dead as dead. Next year I will grow my own slips and start them way earlier and mulch the bed and cover it with plastic. I really am excited, though!
The new things I'm trying this year are:
- Asparagus (yard-long) beans
- Armenian cucumbers
- Fingerling potatoes
- Sweet Potatoes
- Parsnips
- Rutabagas (my neighbor used to grow these, and I HATED them. Maybe if I grow them I will like them better? Granny used to call them "hanovers)
