Fava Beans are up

 

 

I planted my first ever fava beans on April 7 along with snow and sugar snap peas in the same bed. The peas have been slowly emerging for the past week but no sign of the favas until this weekend, three weeks later. I only soaked the seeds for about an hour and did not try pre-sprouting them. Given the large size of the fava seeds, I expected an event when they emerged and I was not disappointed. These things are huge, no chance of mistaking them for a weed. I now have to get some supports in place since these are Windsor favas and are supposed to get at least 4 feet tall.

 

A lot of work is going into the garden but not much to show for it yet. I have been working my way around the beds, preparing them for planting according to the schedule for what is going in each bed this year. The beds are filled with Mel’s Mix, a blend of equal parts peat moss, vermiculite and compost. The mix is very light and friable, but it does compact during the season and especially the winter. The beds are prepared by stirring them up with a trowel and adding additional compost, which supplies all the nutrients the plants will need for the season.

 

 

This weekend it was time for the carrots to go in. I am trying the seed mat technique from Annie’s Kitchen Garden to plant my carrots. The seed mat is made by unfolding a 6 inch paper napkin, marking seed placement, and then placing a seed on each mark and covering it with a tiny drop of white glue. I spaded the carrots 16 per square a la Mel’s book, but I see I could have fit in a fifth seed per quarter. Next time I’ll try that if I remember.

 

 

The key to making the seed mats work is to cover them with a thin layer of soil. I used some Mel’s Mix I have left over from filling a bed. The mats were covered with the Mel’s Mix and watered well, then mulched with chopped straw. One of the attractions of using seed mats, which should work for most kinds of small seeds, is you can prepare them ahead of time, say during the winter after the seed orders have arrived. Something to do in front of the TV, then store away in a plastic zipper bag for Spring.

 

 

On April 17 I set out all of my brassica and lettuce starts and I was happy to see how healthy and vigorous they looked. . This was after the scheduled planting date of April 12  for most, but a week early for the broccolis. About a week later we got a very cold night in the mid-twenties and all the plants were damaged. The escarole and endive above have rebounded, but the broccoli, tatsoi, and choi look very sad. I expected they would rebound but haven’t. Sunday I took a close up look at them and their foliage is totally perforated with pinholes, like flea beetle damage. I haven’t seen any flea beetles yet (although the black flies are definitely out). I’m not sure these plants will make it, so I am going to start some more plants to replace them. There is plenty of time and it makes no sense to try to nurse an ailing plant back to health.

Back to Gardening

 

 

I have been silent the past few weeks because I was so busy. I do seasonal tax prep and until April 15 it seems like I am a hostage, chained to the tax desk. And it gets crazy at the end.The tax desk becomes a confessional and Father Dave hears a lot of “bless me Father for I have sinned, I have not done my taxes for three (four, five, …) years.” And this year, April 15 was also a holiday in Massachusetts (you know, Patriots Day, Battle of Lexington Green, Battle of Old North Bridge, Red Sox Opening Day, and the Boston Marathon). A day that is normally a feel good day, a day of multiple celebrations, became a tragedy. We spent the day chained to our desks, listening to the radio and asking clients what they had heard.

 

All that is now behind me and I was able to spend my Wednesday gardening instead of doing taxes. In the morning I potted up my tomatoes and peppers, as I reported in the previous post. The afternoon was spent prepping the raised beds and setting out the lettuce and brassica starts, shown above. They are growing in 1 1/2 inch soil blocks made using Johnny's 512 Mix and I think they look particularly healthy, unlike the sickly starts I had last year using Burpee’s Seed Starting Mix made with coconut coir.

 

 

The raised beds were prepared by fluffing up the Mel’s Mix and adding compost. I also added some green sand, kelp meal, and blood meal to give the plants a boost and add micronutrients. The brassica starts looked particularly good.

 

 

Beedy’s Camden Kale.

 

 

Broccoli DiCiccio.

 

 

Broccoli Purple Peacock.

 

 

Collards Champion.

Potting-up Tomatoes and Peppers

 

 

Most of the tomato and pepper seedlings now have their first true leaves so it is time to pot them up into larger soil blocks. This is my first year using soil blocks and so far results have been good, using Johnny’s 512 mix for the blocks. Anything would be better than last year when I used Burpee’s seed starting mix made of coconut coir and perlite.

 

 

I got out my brand new, two inch soil blocker, lined  a 1020 tray with paper towels, and wetted some of the 512 mix in a bin.

 

 

 

Since my seedlings were started in 3/4 inch soil blocks, I installed the special adapters I purchased with the blocker that makes depressions in the soil block sized to receive the 3/4 inch blocks. These adapters are attached with a washer and screw that cuts into the plastic adapter. Given the difficulty I had installing them, they will probably remain in place and if I am not using 3/4 inch blocks, I will just fill in the hole with more of the mix and make my own depressions for seeds.

 

 

It took a while to fill the 1020 tray with blocks. I did this in the morning while it was still cold outside, before my visit to the garden. When I completed making the 2 inch blocks, I transferred the seedlings to the blocks, making sure there was no air gap around the 3/4 inch block to inhibit root growth. There was no need to water them in since the new blocks were quite wet from the block making process.

 

 

 

The tray of seedlings are now in their new home and looking a little puny in the larger soil block. I am hoping they will like it and I will have strong, vigorous transplants in another 6 weeks.

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.

AT Least It’s Spring Inside

 

Nothing is being harvested from the garden these days. At least the snow has melted off all but one of the raised beds. The beds covered with straw have the garlic and shallots, which are starting to poke up. The bed with the blocks next to it is the designated bed for the peas and fava beans. I poked an instant reading thermometer through the crust and it was 40F/5C degrees. A couple of inches down it was still frozen. I need it to be 50F for the peas, so I may have to adjust the planting schedule and push off planting the peas for at least another week. I did not stay here long, it was 29F/-2C with a stiff breeze blowing.

 

Back home there is some green under the grow lamp. The onions are doing nicely in their pots and have had their tops trimmed. I guess I could consider that a harvest. Today was seed starting day for the lettuce, brassicas and the Ping Tung eggplant. I have a set of soil block makers now so I got to play with them for the first time.

I used Johnny’s 512 mix. The trick was to get it properly moist. Too little and the blocks fall apart. Too much and they slide apart or stick in the block maker. I used the 1.5” maker and once I got the hang of it, I made 11 rows of 5, which pretty much filled up the tray.

 

 

After seeding the blocks, I used fine vermiculite to cover the seeds and misted the tops. I have a map of the blocks and also marked a legend along the tray with masking tape and a permanent marker. The blocks are now covered with a dome and sitting on the heat mat. Nothing like the smell of warm rubber from the mat to say Spring is on its way.

 

 

To see what’s going in with other gardens, head over to Daphne's Dandelions, our hostess for Harvest Monday.

Milk And Honey Mousse Cake

 

My daughter, Kate, had her 23rd birthday last Tuesday. We went to Ixtapa Cantina in Lunenburg to celebrate. The food was excellent, the Margaritas tasty, but desserts were the usual Mexican  restaurant fare: flan, fried ice cream, and sopapillas. No problem, because we had a birthday cake waiting at home.

Kate wanted something different for a cake and she is a tough critic. On my way home from an appointment in Concord, I drove past Idylwilde Farms, a farm stand in Acton, Massachusetts. They had a Milk and Honey Mousse Cake which was so darn cute I had to get it. The cake was made from vanilla cake layers with a chocolate mousse filling made with rum and honey. The cake was covered with a chocolate ganache frosting and decorated with honey bees. The wings were made from slivered almonds. Everyone loved the cake and it made a sweet ending to a pleasant evening.