Spring Cleaning, Spring Mess and Planting Peas!

It was a busy gardening day here at the home garden. Do you believe it was 74 today? The first thing that I did was clean up the cold frame beds. I moved some of the lettuce from the one bed to the other bed to make room for the carrots.

This is the Right Cold Frame Bed all ready for some carrots!

There is some Squire Kale, 2 overwintered Celery Plants and some Lettuce in the back. The greens in the front to the left is "The Italian's" Escarole.

This is the Left Cold Frame Bed.

There's a lot of lettuce in the front of this bed and one collard plant. I don't know how that ended up there. In the back is Lacinato Kale, Vates Collards, Lettuce and one overwintered Celery Plant. 

These babies where outside today soaking up the sunshine to get ready to be planted in the empty space in the middle of the left cold frame bed. There is some Dwarf Blue Kale, Red Russian Kale, Georgia Collards, Arugula and some Quadattro Stagioni Lettuce.

While I was playing in the dirt, I stuck the soil thermometer in the soil to see if it was warm enough to plant the peas. Yes!!! The soil temperature was warm enough! Since the extended forecast is calling for nice warm weather ranging from 60-70 during the day and in the mid to high 40's at night, the peas were going in!

Since there will be no planting of peas this spring at the plots, I have to use every square inch here at the house. First I took the netting off of the Garlic Fortress. I don't think the squirrels will try to dig up the garlic now.

I took most of the straw off of the garlic planted in this bed. The garlic germination is 100%! Then I put some supports along this side and planted Green Beauty Snow Peas. 

Next Bed #1 was cleaned up. 

At the far end of this bed is the overwintered spinach. There is an empty space in the middle for some cabbage and the balance of the garlic at this end. Most of the straw was removed from the garlic. 100% germination here too! Three sides of this bed were then planted with peas. Spring Blush Snap Vine Peas at this end, Alderman Shelling Peas along the left side and Sugar Magnolia Snap Vine Peas at the far end. 

As soon as the plots are ready........I can get rid of this...........

and this....

and this....along with a whole bunch of stuff stacked in the garage!

What gardening fun have you been up to???

What's Growing on at the end of February

The sun is shining and spring is just around the corner! Well, almost.....we are supposed to get a wintery mix tomorrow. 

There are some seedlings growing in the basement. 

These are the first soil blocks that I planted.

I am finding that there is a learning curve to growing in the soil blocks. I am sure I will master it sooner or later.

I did a little experiment and sowed the same seeds in these soil blocks as I did in the containers below.

As you can see, the containers are doing much better then the blocks right now.

The carrots that I planted in the big container in the basement.

They are coming along nicely. I had to re-sow some of them because I ripped the seedlings out when I removed the burlap. This time I put little pieces of cardboard over the seed mats instead of the burlap.

This is the Left Cold Frame. 

The Kale and Collards are really taking off. There is a celery plant in the back and it made it through the winter. This should give us some early celery.

This is the Right Cold Frame. 

The Kale in the back is doing well and the rest of this Tatsoi will be harvested on Friday after the weather calms down. There are also a couple of celery plants in here too. I think that I am going to remove the cold frame tops this Saturday. There are aphids in the left cold frame and I need to get them under control.

The over-wintered spinach is doing well. 

I have been harvesting a little here and there. I will probably throw some more seeds in this bed soon. That is the only way I can get spinach to grow. Just throw a bunch of seeds on the ground and forget about them!

The Music garlic is peaking through the straw at the other end of the bed where the spinach is planted. It's not easy to see in this picture though.

The balance of the garlic is Silverskin and is planted in another bed which is heavily protected from the squirrels. This variety is growing much faster.

That's what's growing on around here! What's growing on around your place???

The Garden & Cold Frames January 20, 2012

I thought that I would take some pictures of the winter garden today. We are supposed to have our first winter snow starting tonight into tomorrow evening. I am really looking forward to a real snow. We haven't had any snow since our crazy Halloween Snow Storm!

This is the Cold Frame on the Left.

This is where all the Pak Choi was growing that I harvested a couple of weeks ago. There is some Kale, Collards & a Celery plant in the back. There's also two Tatsoi plants in the middle which will be harvested soon. In the front of the bed are some small lettuces. Later this winter after the Tatsoi is harvested I will put some more Kale, Collards and Arugula in this bed for some early spring harvests. 

This is the Cold Frame on the Right.

This side is pretty much packed full right now. There is one row of Kale in the back and also a row of Baby Choi which is really big. The center is packed full of Tatsoi , some lettuce and a few green onions. In the front of the bed there are some Escarole plants and more lettuce. Once this bed is cleaned out with the exception of the Kale, the bed will left empty until I sow carrots in it.

Some Escarole and lettuce tucked in.

Some baby lettuce plants

Some more lettuce and green onions tucked in between the Tatsoi

The spinach bed has spinach of every size in it right now. I hope that this bed will give a great spring spinach harvest!

There are still a couple of green parsley plants in the herb garden.

Is there anything going on in your garden, cold frames or greenhouse mid-winter??

Harvest Monday............12/12/2011

This past week I have been getting some small harvests from the cold frames and a little from the spinach bed too.

A nice bowl of lettuce and finally some spinach!

The fattest carrot I have ever grown! One of four that survived the late planting.

Pak Choi

There are three varieties of Asian Veggies growing in the cold frames. The Tatsoi & Baby Choi are doing well with the exception of some nibbling from bugs. But, the Pak Choi pictured here is bolting. I guess there has been too much fluctuation in temperature with all the unseasonably warm weather and now cold weather.

Total weighed harvest - 1 lb.

Carrot - 4 oz.

Lettuce & Spinach - 4 oz.

Pak Choi - 8 oz.

Stop by Daphne's Dandelions our host of Harvest Monday to see what's going on in Veggie Gardens around the globe!

Cold Frame Maintenance & Changes

I've been doing a little maintenance on the cold frames. Before we went on vacation I did a little work on the tops. First I put some sturdier braces on the corners. Some of the original ones were not real sturdy and the tops started to twist a bit. Then I put new plastic on the tops. The plastic that we had originally used was some that we had around. It was not the proper plastic to use for the tops.....but, it was free. This year we decided to buy the proper type of plastic for the tops. I did some searching and found greenhouse plastic that is supposed to last for 4 years. I purchased enough to re-cover them twice. It was about the same price with shipping as buying a roll of plastic at a Big Box Store. I can either use it to cover them again or to make a protective covering if needed in the garden.

I was not happy with the original supports to hold the tops open. They were short and could not hold the tops open very wide...so I made some new ones. I just took some stakes that I had around and drilled holes in them.  They seem to be working well. We shall see how I feel during the cold winter days.

I also put concrete blocks in the front to put the bottom of the stakes in. I think this will work much better and I will now be able to adjust the height of the opening to as small or as large as needed.

The rope lights that were in the cold frames last year were also re-installed. I wasn't going to put them in. However, they seemed to work well last year. So, I decided to put them back. One of you bloggers out there (I don't remember who) did a post with a link to an article about winter greenhouse growing. The article said that if you have 1-2 hours of additional light during the night, it will stimulate growth during the winter. After reading the article I decided to add one light per cold frame. They are connected to a timer and come on for 2 hours in the middle of the night.

I found everything that I needed to make the lights in the basement.

The only problem that I am having besides the hungry bugs is this.

The timer would not fit under the flap to the exterior water proof outlet cover. I removed it and replaced it with an indoor one. Now I have to find a cover that will protect the outlet and the timer from the rain. I'm sure I will think of something. If not "The Italian" always seems to come up with innovative ideas!

We made it home just in time for.............

SNOW!!!! Yes, it is snowing here in eastern Pennsylvania in October! I really can't remember the last time that we had snow in October. We haven't even had a frost yet.......but, that will change tonight. It looks like we will get about 6" of snow.....just crazy!

As you can see, I haven't put the patio furniture away and the annual flowers are still alive.

I did manage to put the cold frame tops on early this morning before the snow started. I am so happy that I re-covered the tops before we left. I will attach them permanently when the weather calms down....but, the bricks will have to do for now.

The veggies growing in the basement are looking good and will have to wait a bit to get hardened off and planted in the cold frames.

As usual, we had a great time in New Orleans. I did read all of the Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard posts both weeks and some other posts as well. For some reason though, our travel computer would not let me comment on most blogs.

I will do a post or two about some of what we did while we were away. For now, the kit-cats and the washing machine really need my attention!

Rain, Rain Go Away!!!

The rain has just been relentless! Yesterday we had more then 3"!!! Most of that was from one horrible storm! We probably got another inch of rain today!

Tuesday, I finally cleaned out most of the summer veggies in the cold frame beds and sowed some seeds.

This is the Left Cold Frame Bed

If you look closely, you can see what the rain did to the soil. I will most likely have to re-sow the seeds. There are a couple of carrots that managed to survive the horrible heat, some leeks in the back, a huge pepper plant that I couldn't bear to pull out and one of the celery transplants from the plots in the right back corner. 

This is the Right Cold Frame Bed

The soil in this bed is a mess from the rain too. There are two little celery transplants (they are doing well!) in the left back corner a couple of carrots, a basil plant and one lone onion. It's a good thing that I am behind in my fall planting...or everything would have been ruined! I put netting over the beds in order to keep the Darn Squirrels out! They have been horrible the past couple of weeks, digging in everything!!

Look at my Sage Bush!!

The Thyme is not doing so well either!

These brown sticks used to be Rosemary :(

Boy, we certainly have had the most horrible weather this year!

Hot Home Garden Happenings

Here's what's happening at the home garden. Warning...lots of pics!

The Spaghetti Squash vines growing at the end of the herb garden are doing well so far. I counted 3 nice size squash this morning without looking very well. It's just too darn hot out. I will be pleased to get 6 nice squash before the dreaded SVB's decide to take the vines lives! Last year the SVB's were out of control and I got absolutely no squash of any kind!

Here's part of the Herb Garden. It's actually shaped in an L and goes behind the patio furniture. I really thinned it out this year and continue to trim the plants regularly for drying. I really should add some much needed compost to this bed....but, that will have to wait until things cool down a bit.

My first attempt at growing Rosemary from seed has been very successful. All of the plants are doing really well.

Here are Beds 2 & 3 which have 4 tomatoes & some carrots in each bed. If you look close, (click to enlarge any picture) you can see that I used a plastic fencing as bunny protection. This plastic fencing was around half the bed and I had chicken wire around the other half. Well somebody decided to stand on the posts lying there, pull the plastic fencing down and have a nice snack! After finding what is pictured below, I added some chicken wire to keep that hungry critter out! I didn't have any more chicken wire at the time I installed the plastic fencing since it was being used in the spring to keep the bunnies from eating the peas next door.

That was a huge Pineapple tomato (seed from Diana)! The hungry critter ate about 1/3 of the tomato and it still weighed almost 22 ounces!

Bed 1, which previously had the garlic, celery and peas growing in it is half empty. There are late planted cucumbers around part of the perimeter and dry beans in half the bed. I will plant spinach in the other half of the bed for a Fall crop.

The left side of the cold frame bed has a couple of peppers, some leeks, basil and I'm desperately trying to get some fall carrots going under those boards. You would think somebody would go out there and start picking that basil for drying!!

The right side of the cold frame bed is like a jungle. I have two tomato plants on the right and couple of peppers, some eggplants and some basil growing in it. The one tomato is a MWC and is basically free ranging right now since it has out grown the tomato cage. It will however provide some much needed shade for lettuce to grow under it. You would think somebody would get this plant under control!

Here's another angle of the two tomato beds and part of the cold frame bed. As you can see the tomatoes are doing quite well and have seemed to stay about the same height of 7' for awhile now.

Although the plants are doing well, the fruit is having a tough time ripening correctly. They are also cracking. I'm sure it's due to this horrible weather we are having. I decided to pick a lot of the tomatoes and bring them inside to finish ripening and avoid further damage. "The Italian" really needs at least 100 jars of tomatoes to get him through the year!

Well, it's about 10:45 AM, I'm eating my lunch and in need of a little nap before I tackle any canning in the kitchen! This weather and very early morning and evening garden chores really takes the energy right out of you!

Harvest Monday........5/2/2011

It is another week of overwintered cold frames greens and lettuce, with the exception of some herbs and scallions. I am really ready for something a bit different......but I'm not going to complain.

The chard and kale were flowering so the plants were pulled yesterday. I had so many collards, kale & chard on hand that I froze a few packages this past week.

There has been more overwintered lettuce then the two of us can eat. I gave some lettuce to our neighbors across the street. The husband recently retired and collects wine. He is always bringing over a bottle or two for us. I told him that if he keeps us in wine, I will keep them in veggies :)

I also made a large salad with lettuce, chard, scallions and some fresh herbs for my father in-laws BD celebration yesterday. 

One basket of lettuce that was harvested this week.

Total Harvest for the week: 2.625lbs

Chard - 12 oz.

Kale - 4 oz.

Lettuce - 26 oz.

Please stop by Daphne's Dandelions, our host of Harvest Monday to see what is going on in veggie gardens around the globe!

Harvest Monday.....4/25/2011

It's another week of harvesting overwintered greens. I harvested the last of the collards as they were bolting. Then I pulled the plants to make room for some warm weather crops. Some more kale was picked and it seems to be holding it's own for now. I also cut more chard. The chard is also trying to bolt.

Kale, Collards and Chard

Harvest Total for the week - 10 oz.

Chard - 3 oz

Collards - 4 oz.

Kale - 3 oz.

Stop by Daphne's Dandelions our host of Harvest Monday to see what's going on in veggie gardens around the globe!