Plantings, Orchard, and Re-potting

Trying to play catch up with blogging about the garden. Here is a list of dates around the time Chris managed to plant and work on the garden. This spring has been so unbelievably cold, rainy, and windy. We even had to start a fire in our woodstove April 30th!!  There are no leaves on the trees yet and some of the trees finally have some buds. 

April 14???(either before April break or during) Re-potted tomatoes

April 21- Moved manure and tilled the garden beds.

April 22-planted Broccoli, snap peas, cabbage, and carrots

April 24- Purchased blueberries, grapes, 2 peach tree, and 1 apple tree.

April 29th- Re-potted some peppers and eggplant

May 4th -Planting onions and leeks and re-potted the rest of the peppers. Snap peas are starting to germinate.

Chris also has moved our Asparagus, Strawberries, Rhubarb, and Hops to new beds. The peach trees have a new home where the asparagus and strawberries were. We'll see how the strawberries do, but we are looking to get a new crop of June bearing ones. The ones we currently have are ever-bearing and really don't produce that much fruit. The hops's new home is just 4 feet from their previous spot. The pergola for the hops is being transformed into a chicken coop and the hops will have a trellis that leaves to the coop to grow on. Hops are beneficial to chickens and the chickens will eat the Japanese beetles that attack the hops every year.

Hoping for some warmer weather to get the soil heated up!
I'll take some pictures to post this week.

Restarting more seeds

4/12
Chris looked up some information on soil and reasons why seeds may fail to germinate. He came across this website and discovered that
            "When using blood meal, partially composted manure or poultry-manure based fertilizer be aware that these high N sources need some time to allow for microbial activity start breaking the organic forms of N and drive them to nitrate (the process called mineralization). If planted into too soon, when first wetted and just starting to break down, these materials may give off ammonia, organic acids and other compounds that can damage germinating seeds and young plants. It is best to moisten the potting mix at least a week or two before you plant into it, making sure it stays warm and allowing time for phytotoxic compounds to dissipate."

So our best guess on why the seeds either were too slow to germinate or just completely broke down is because of the excess ammonia gas from the soil. It could of also been the sand or manure we purchased. Either way it is a pain and lesson learned: Buy potting soil to make soil blocks and screw making our own soil. The cost savings is not there and it takes way too much time and effort for the chance to negatively effect the seeds. 
I replanted some seeds in the same blocks and some came up and other still didn't. Gardening seems to teach you something every year. Always a challenge, but the reward is there when I can pull out a jar of tomato sauce in March or make a complete dinner from the garden during harvest time. 

Tomatoes and eggplant germination

Our seedlings this year are definitely taking longer to germinate than last year.  The mudroom is cooler than the loft space (wood stove below) and I am guessing that is the reason?? Our peppers are very slow to germinate. We had some hot peppers germinate today 4/6, but when you dig down to the seed, so are ready to come up and others look rotted. So we may just put new seeds in the same spot to insure enough pepper starts. Not sure if they got too much water and then it was too cold??? Every year is different, but we still have a lot of time before any of the plants will be going into the ground. The snow has just melted off the garden, but the ground is frozen solid.

 Our lettuce and spinach is finally looking good and ready for transplant. The cold frames were prepped today by Chris and the plants got some fresh air and sunshine.

 The broccoli and cabbage have their true leaves and are looking strong. A few of them died off which got us worries, so Chris planted another whole tray of them.

Yea for tomatoes!! The tomatoes germinated on 3/30 ~7 days long. The eggplant germinated on 4/3 ~11 days long. They are looking good and getting ready to snip the doubled up plants. 

The onions and leeks aren't looking the best.
Chris planted another tray of each so we can make
sure that we have healthy plants

The flowers are looking good and are continuing to germinate.

Planting the rest

Saturday March 22
Tomatoes: Grandma Mary's Paste, Aunt Ruby's German Green (Amazing), Gardner's Delight Cherry, Spicy Fiesta Hybrid, Pink Brandywine, Black Price, Heinz Paste
Tomatillos
Eggplant: Rosita and Diamond
Peppers:Early Jalapeno, Czech Black, King of the North Sweet, Hot Cherry, Peace Work Sweet, Hot Portugal, Bulgarian Carrot Chili, Hinkelhats
Herbs: Lemon Basil, Cinnamon Boys Basil, Thai Basil, Sweet Basil, Parsley
Flowers: Cosmos, Zinnias

The first day of Spring was March 20th; snow still on the ground, cold freezing temperatures, and a wood stove cooking like it has all winter.  Last year we started are tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers all a month earlier than now. Based on having such leggy tomatoes that had to be re-potted twice and peppers with flowers and baby fruit, we delayed the planting this year. Not to mention spring has yet to show itself. Plus there is a potential snow storm this coming week. Ugh, I don't think I have ever wanted winter to end more than ever before. I am craving the warmer weather to get outside for walks, hikes, and some serious swing set time with the kids.
If you have the opportunity to grow Aunt Ruby's German Green tomatoes- you should mostly definitely do it! Last year we did not do so well with the labeling of our different varieties ( I think it was the multiple re-potting) so we completely forgot that we grew green tomatoes.  We just kept waiting for these huge green tomatoes to ripen. Then we discovered the "green tomatoes" were actually ripe and wow they were so delicious and unlike any other tomato I have ever had.

What is your favorite tomato variety?

Hair cut

Since germination rates are not 100% with seeds, we plant more than one seed per each block. This insures at least one plant per block.  In the past, we try to separate the two plants in each block and replant the other one. This resulted in way too many plants.  Instead we now asses which plant looks stronger/healthier and cut the other plant. The roots of the stronger plant are not disturbed and now has plenty of non-competing room to grow.

Spinach and Broccoli

Onions

 

Onions

Rosalie's excited for gardening 

Onion, leeks, broccoli, and spinach germination

 Onions and Leeks have germinated

Spinach germinated either the 9th or 10th and is looking great. 

Broccoli also came up either the 9th or 10th along with the other varieties of cabbage. I think the extra heat from the floor really gave it a boost.

Germination

 Just four days the lettuce and cabbage seeds have germinated! They are little, but still there. Now the lights come on and we wait for our onion, leeks, and spinach to make their appearance. Also we just turned on the in-floor heating system today which should speed things up a bit.
Once the snow melts enough, the lights(glass covers) will go back on our cold frames, so we can re-plant our lettuce and spinach directly into the ground without any worry of frost.

Cabbage

Lettuce

Hello Spring.... are you here?

2014: A new year and another chance at a great garden. I am hoping to keep better track blogging our garden this season. I can't make any promises with our newest addition Vincent, but I will try. It's a great resource to look at for: when to start plants, what varieties we loved/hated, pests to control, and what to do or not do next year. For example we started our eggplant, peppers, and tomatoes way too early last year. Our tomatoes were ridiculously leggy and had to be re-potted twice! Our pepper not only had flowers but actual baby peppers on them. Lesson learned. Do not start plants too early, especially when we our having a super cold snowy spring.

March 8th
Onions, Broccoli, Cabbage, Lettuce, Spinach

What is even cooler this year for starting plants is our new mudroom/laundry room. Chris converted part of our farmers porch into a new space for our home. Crazily we started it in Sept/October (after doing a new roof) and Vincent came early (Nov 23). It's not finished, but the floor is tiled, washer/dryer are moved in, and the plant stand is in it's new home (next to the washer).

Can't wait for Spring!