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.

 

 

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.

 

 

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.

 

 

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.

 

 

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.

Seed Starting 2014

It is officially spring now. The days are growing longer and the sun is definitely stronger and higher in the sky. A boy’s thoughts are supposed to turn to starting seeds, forgetting the winter that would not end. I have already started my onions and the seedlings are doing great. While I still felt like hibernating, this week I did get my tomato and pepper seeds planted.

 

 

I am starting the tomatoes separate from the peppers because the peppers take so long to germinate. I used 3/4” soil blocks for the tomatoes and will plant up to 2” soil blocks when they get some true leaves.. This year I am using a bag of McEnroe’s Organic Potting Soil I saved from last year to make the blocks. Compared to Johnny’s 512, it is much finer and has fewer twigs and rocks to pick out. I added some horticultural grade vermiculite, since it is lacking that. I covered the seeds in the dibbles with some UltraSorb, described later, and put the tray on the heat mat.

 

For the peppers and eggplant seeds, I decided to pre-germinate them in a medium and transplant them to 1 1/2” soil blocks when they get some true leaves. The medium I am using is UltraSorb, a product from Moltan and sold by Autozone stores in the US as an oil absorbent for garage floors. UltraSorb is granular diatomaceous earth, not at all like food grade DE or the powdered DEs used in swimming pool filters. It is very popular and extensively discussed on the Tomatoville forum, where it gets rave reviews.

 

 

To hold the UltraSorb, I used a Styrofoam egg carton with slits cut in the bottom for drainage. The idea is to provide enough opening to drain (and bottom water) the tray without allowing the UltraSorb to leak out. I used a razor knife to cut the slits, but found I needed a few direct holes in the bottom (made with a toothpick).

 

 

I used a Sharpie to mark each cell with the pepper variety. Each cell was filled with UltraSorb and moistened with water. I then used a pencil as a dibble to make planting holes, planted the seeds, and covered with a little extra UltraSorb. If you want to try using UltraSorb, make sure you get the product by that name manufactured by Moltan. AutoZone sells another absorbent that is made from calcined clay and it’s pH isn’t suitable for seed starting.

 

 

With that done, next step is to get some of the brassicas going, broccoli, kale and collards, and then the lettuces. This year I am also going to start the kohlrabi seedlings indoor rather than direct sow. I keep forgetting they are not a root vegetable. Indoors at least, spring is happening. Outdoors, a lot of snow has melted but we are still getting single digit nighttime temperatures. Everyone around here is tired of winter and can’t wait for warmer weather.

February Gardening in New England 2014

 

This was gardening in New England in February, 2014.  This is the path to the compost bin where I walked in my slippers every morning, risking frostbite, to deposit the kitchen scraps in the compost bin. Gardening is all about optimism, the belief that the future holds promise, that this frozen mess will eventually thaw and the compost bin will heat up and yield some black gold to enrich my (now frozen) garden beds. We hope, we trust, we pray to our gods, but just realize, summer does not always come.

 

My maternal grandmother, Eva Weinert Thess,  came to the US from Hungary in 1905. Her ancestors were ethnic Germans who emigrated to the Batschka in the eighteenth century after several years of unending winter in the Rhine river valley. Valentin Weinert arrived in Tschonopel about 1786 with his first wife, Anna Catharina Schinck. None of their children born in their native village of Niederburg came with them, so it is assumed they died of starvation before the Weinerts emigrated to Hungary. If Valentin had not chosen to make that long but optimistic journey to a better land, I would not be posting here.

 

OK, OK, summer is definitely coming this year, I promise. It is now March and Daylight Savings Time has arrived. The sun is much stronger and there is still daylight when I drive home from work. The snow is melting. The oil truck finally made it up the driveway so we have heating oil. And the onion seedlings have sprouted under the grow lights. I have my seeds in hand and the 2014 gardening season has begun!

 

Bustin’ Their Britches

 

My tomato and pepper plants are still huddling inside under the grow lights where it is warm. They are getting leggy and it is past time they go into the beds, but it is still  too cold. We had the rain they forecast last week, off and on, but even if it wasn’t raining it was grey and ugly. And cold. Saturday daytime temperatures were in the mid-40s all day, and 42F overnight. In New Hampshire and Vermont it snowed last night, heavy in some places! Down South of us they have been having cold weather and even occasional frosts, giving them a little taste of New England gardening. Europe is experiencing similar unseasonably cold weather.

 

I have had the plants outside when I could, when it is sunny with reasonable temperatures and no threats of hail storms. I just can’t see exposing my pepper and eggplant starts to 40F daytime temperatures if I can avoid it. I’m trying to avoid any stunted growth from cold temperatures, since both types of plants are real heat lovers. The tomatoes can take a bit more cold weather, so I am hoping I can get them planted next week, maybe even Monday. Later in the week daytime temperatures are supposed to be in the low 80s so maybe we are seeing a break in this weather. It’s really dependent on the jet stream, which has moved very far south and is sucking in cold air from Canada.

 

The grafted tomato experiment is also shaping up. The grafted plants were potted up into plastic cups and have recovered from their trip to the east coast from California. Unfortunately, they are kind of spindly plants and are starting to get leggy. And I have to keep the graft above soil level to prevent the scion from rooting and negating the disease resistance of the rootstock, so burying them deep is not an option. I acquired a Juliet plant from a neighbor, Jem Mix, who grows organic seedlings and had her annual plant sale Saturday. It is a really stocky, well grown and robust plant (shown below on the right) and is going to be real competition for the grafted plant (on the left). Is the grafted plant up to the challenge, and can it justify its $8 price tag? The Juliet variety is already a robust grower and pretty disease resistant, so will the grafted rootstock add anything?

 

 

 

With the acquisition of the Juliet yesterday, the tomato planting list for this year is now finalized and my precious 14 squares allocated to tomatoes are going to be planted with  the following varieties:

• Sun Gold cherry (2)
• Black Cherry (2)
• Gilbertie paste (1)
• Striped Roman paste (2)
• Juliet (2, 1 grafted)
• Big Beef (2, 1 grafted)
• Cherokee Purple (1 grafted)
• Pineapple (1)
• Green Zebra (1)

Originally I planned on two Gilbertie plants but I had germination problems with it and only one of the plants is really acceptable. The other is a runt and I decided not to give it a coveted spot in the garden. After all, I’m not running a plant hospital here, I’m tying to grow some tomatoes. This is my first year for Gilbertie, but NE gardeners on the Square Foot Gardening forum like it a lot. Seed is hard to find, got mine from High Mowing Seeds. It takes a long growing season to ripen these, with fruits that get seven inches long and weigh 10-12 ounces, so hopefully we have a good tomato summer.

Easter in the Garden

 

It was a very pleasant Sunday, breezy but temperatures in the mid-50F range. We visited Tower Hill Botanical Gardens in Boylston. There was not much to see outside in the gardens, just some snow drops and crocus. Their gardens look pretty much like my own, weary of this winter but showing signs of the new growth that will soon turn everything from this drab grey-brown to green.

 

 

This morning I made a quick trip to see the garden. I was hoping to find the beds free of snow and indeed they were. A thermometer stuck in the pea bed showed a temperature of 48F and the soil was completely defrosted all the way to the bottom of the bed. So pea planting looks like a possibility next weekend, about three weeks later than planned.

 

 

I brushed some of the mulch off the garlic bed so it can warm up faster. Green sprouts can be seen everywhere in the bed and they look pretty healthy. Unfortunately, it appears most of the shallots either heaved or rotted. I am not sure if any will actually survive and grow. This was a fairly costly experiment, but it does free up the space for something else.

 

 

My brassicas and lettuces are doing great under the grow light and should be ready to go in the garden in a few weeks. The boisterous seedlings at the bottom are the Win-Win Choi. After seven days, I have a few tomato seeds finally deciding to sprout. Peppers and eggplant are still idling away on the heat mat, taking their good old time. Meanwhile, the onion pots are spending time outside in the sun on days with daytime temperatures in the fifties.

Spring Will Prevail

Well, I tried being all perky and optimistic, which is not my real personality, I assure you. Unfortunately, my performance was unconvincing to the gods and did not bring Spring any earlier. The garden is still covered with snow and the ground is too cold and wet to plant peas. But there is hope. This last storm went south of us and all we saw were a few flurries this morning. The sun continues to increase in strength and starting Friday, we are supposed to have at least a week of 50F temperatures. That should dispatch most of the snow, except the enormous plow bank at the end of my driveway.

 

My Meyer lemon is greatly enjoying the rays of the stronger sun reflected off the snow I didn’t bother to shovel off the deck. It is now approaching full bloom and looks happy, despite the loss of a few leaves this winter.

 

My lettuces and brassicas have sprouted and are doing fine under the grow light. The L-shaped set of barren blocks on the right were seeded with cilantro, but I finally realized that cilantro does poorly as starts and needs to be direct sown. So those cubes have been re-purposed and now have seeds for Orange Fantasia and Pink Flamingo chards, which may take a while to germinate.

 

I chose not to change the planting schedule for tomatoes and peppers,  so I have tomato and pepper seeds started in 3/4” cubes on the heat mat. When they germinate and develop their first set of true leaves, I will up-pot them to 2 inch soil cubes. I think once we get past this cycle of storms, spring will come quickly and we will be planting tomatoes by Memorial Day as usual.

OK, OK, it’s not quite spring

 

All the signs seemed promising so I declared Spring! last week. Now winter storm Saturn is slamming southern New England. Here in central Massachusetts, the 4-8 inch forecast is now 10-14 inches. We closed the tax office today so I did not have to commute to work. My updated planting schedule has me planting peas and fava beans in the soil on March 24, just 16 days from now. Right now, I would need a snow cat to get to my garden in the Bolton community gardens. But a week or two of 50 degree weather will do wonders and it is supposed to be that on Saturday. So I have not given up on spring yet.

 

My onion seedlings under the grow lamp above are definitely a sign of spring. I finally got my Red wing seed from Pinetree (actually, they substituted Red Bull) and it has sprouted (pot on the left). The Rossa Lunga di Tropea (center) and Copra are doing great and almost need a haircut. Next weekend I am scheduled to start my brassicas and eggplant on the heat mat. I will be using my newly acquired soil blockers for the first time, so it should be interesting. I will be able to get my hands in “real soil” (Johnny’s 512) for the first time this season. Spring is definitely here and I will not allow my spirits to be dampened by 2 feet of frozen mashed potatoes.