Friday, April 24, 2015

I’m Ready to Garden, Is the Garden Ready for Me?

Holy cow, it’s almost May. Who knew that old saying, April comes in like a lamb and goes out like a lion, is actually true? The 8 feet of snow have melted and left everything kind of boggy. Luckily I garden in raised beds which are workable if still a bit wet. The 2-3 inches of rain Monday-Tuesday didn’t help, but at least it watered in the onions I got planted on Sunday. But now it is cold with high wind gusts and overnight lows near freezing, just like winter weather. We even lit the wood stove today to take the chill off the house.

 

Onions

 

I did get all but one of my planting beds weeded and prepped, ready for planting season. Peas are in, and Thursday and Friday I planted the rest of my onions and shallots. Above are some of the Red Zeppelin and Candy onions. They look kind of shaggy and pathetic, but that is because they are still dormant. It will take a few days for them to rehydrate and send out new roots. The Red Zeps were the biggest of the onions from Dixondale, almost every one the size of a pencil. The few small ones were tucked in here and there for green onions.

 

Shallots

 

I planted the tub of larger shallots, the ones originally started from seed back on February 26. Due to poor germination, I threw a bunch of seeds on a wet paper towel and pre-germinated them. This produced an additional quantity of seedlings in another pot which are still a little too small to transplant yet. Those will get planted in a week or two.

 

Spinach

 

Given the weather, I tried to get a jump start on the spinach by planting seeds in 3/4 inch soil blocks. I have heard that spinach does not transplant well and is prone to bolting. I figured if I could get quick germination I could whisk them into the garden before they knew they were being transplanted. So why, with fresh seed, did only two germinate quickly? After another week I now have 8 plants out of 40 cubes, almost enough to plant one square of the 4 I planned on.

 

Peppers

 

I adjusted my seed starting schedule to assume that maybe this planting season might be delayed a week or two, given the horrendous winter. Given the weather this week, that is looking like a reasonable decision, except for one vegetable. Peppers. The things are so slow to germinate and so slow to grow, delaying starting them does not pay off. I believe it is better to deal with potting up peppers than wondering if you will get any plants this season. And I believe peppers should be healthy, actively growing plants when set out in the garden. The fact that a runt might improve and actually grow in the garden does not mean you will get any fruit from it, so it is just wasting space. This is particularly true for certain long season peppers, which of course are the interesting ones I want to grow.

 

So here it is almost May and you can see my peppers above, planted on March 29.  I have enough germination that I should get a couple of plants from each of the 9 varieties planted, so I declare success! But none have a set of true leaves yet and they do not seem to grow at all. Everything seems to be in slow motion this season. The brassicas are progressing but the peppers, the toms, and even the lettuce just seem to sit there. I’m getting tired of babysitting these guys and want them out in the garden, the sooner the better.

14 comments:

  1. You have lots of interesting peppers, they grow so much faster out in the garden under full sun. It looks like you have some Aji Dulce peppers, I started the same for a friend. How do you use your hot peppers?

    I use sweet peppers in stir fries and hot peppers in salsa.

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  2. The Aji Dulce peppers are sweet peppers used to make the traditional seasoning of Puerto Rico, sofrito. I'm growing some for myself and some as a gift for a friend. The Trinidad Perfume and Arroz con Pollo are habanero-type peppers without the heat. The Lemon Drop or Aji Limon is a new one for me and is supposed to be hot with a citrus flavor. Peppers are an interesting vegetable to grow, there are so many types you don't find in the store

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  3. I never start my spinach indoors. Occasionally I'll chit it, but I get good germination if I put it in the soil as soon as the ground can be worked. I've never experimented, but I think it helps to have the fluctuating temperatures. I used to try to germinate other things like peppers and tomatoes in those small soil blocks. I've found them to be hard to keep constantly moist. Though I love soil blocks. I never use the little ones anymore. Others have told me they have no trouble with that, but I have.

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    1. That's how I killed my peppers last year. Came home late from work and they were dried out and dead. I'm watching these guys. Bigger problem for me is they tend to move around and you lose track if you have several different varieties in one tray.

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  4. I grew the Aji Lemon last year and loved it. Big bush with tons of medium size peppers. Great fresh and a definite hint of lemon. Not super hot, but really tasty. Its something I have added to every year batch. Trying the Aji Dulce this year.

    Onions grown from seed always seem so lost when you plant out. Thankfully I have some small topsets that always provide fresh green onion early in the season as they overwinter.

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    1. Good to hear. I'm looking forward to tasting those two.

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  5. I usually start spinach indoors in paper pots, the pots are big enough to give the roots enough room so that when I set them out there is minimal disturbance. I don't bother with direct sowing anymore, even when conditions are optimal.

    Yeah, I'm getting tired of coaxing peppers along also. I used to love growing the mild habanero type peppers, they are so flavorful, but they produce so late in my garden that it was always a crap shoot as to whether or not I would get to harvest anything so I gave up on them. They really seem to resent the cool start of summer that we get here.

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    1. They really need to be big, robust plants when set out and the weather has to be settled to have any chance of getting fruit. My starts are weeks old and don't even have true leaves yet, but we are six weeks from transplant date.

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  6. It looks like we have pretty much the same schedule as I also got my peas and onions out last week - the earliest ever for me, but apparently this is the correct time to get them in, so we shall see.

    We also had very bad winds here - many of my little plants look pretty battered, especially the collards & spinach. I'm hoping they make it - we are expecting some good weather in the days to come so we'll see if they recover.

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    1. I didn't put out the plants because of overnight temps close to freezing. Didn't want to risk freeze damage to my starts just for a few days advantage.

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  7. Those are some very interesting pepper varieties! I had wanted to try some new ones this year but really struggled with germination - the area where I start my seeds has poor insulation and I think it was just too cool in early March. So I got less than half of what I was hoping for in total and none for some varieties.

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    1. Peppers are always a challenge. You really need to have a heat pad or equivalent to have a chance. Even then it's spotty and seeds of the same variety can vary in germination time by weeks.

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  8. Sorry Dave, but you have misquoted the saying - it's March that comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. Supposedly representing the transition from rough wintery weather to calmer Spring conditions. Yes, well.... Over here we still have low temps, typically about 12 or 13C during the day and only 3 or 4 at night. Hardly "temperate"! Many of my plants (e.g. chillis and tomatoes) germinated well but have thereafter grown very slowly. I am looking for the opportunity to harden them off outdoors, but it looks as if I will need to wait a bit longer.

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  9. I've been starting spinach indoors for several years now and I've not noticed it bolting any sooner. It doesn't bolt any later, for sure, but t does well for me. I really like it for the fall crop, where our temps are just too hot to reliably germinate spinach (or lettuce) outside. I have had problems with some varieties germinating, notably Viroflay. But I think that is usually old seed, the fault of the seed co.

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