And.... They're Up! - April 27

And.... They're Up! - April 27

Finally... the radishes and peas are coming up!  I just kept checking the raised beds every morning and evening.  We have had a few rain showers, but nothing significant.  The soil was very dry so I had to get the garden hose out of winter storage and hook it up to the faucet.  I began to give those little seeds a drink every day... once in the morning and once in the evening.  It paid off.  The radishes and peas are up!

Here are radish seedlings (above).  

If you are new to gardening, it kind of makes sense to notice what these newly sprouted plants look like.  When they first come out of the ground they do not look like a miniature version of the ready-to-eat plant!  When I first started gardening, I would conscientiously go out to the garden with the intention of plucking weeds that were coming up.  However, sometime weed seedlings look very much like vegetable crop seedlings. So, developing an awareness of what the seedlings look like is important!


Below is a pea seedling.

 We have an entire week of sunshine and warmer temperatures predicted!  Happy gardening!

Cleaned out Rest of Garden Beds and Raspberry Bed - April 25

I cleaned out the rest of the garden beds and the raspberry bed. That means, I pulled all the grass and weeds and raked the seed beds smooth so that they are ready for planting.   

In the above photograph, you can see the row labels of peas and radishes. The labels look like little white headstones poking up above the side of the raised bed. I interplanted the peas and radishes among the tulips and Sedum spectabile. The tulips will be gone before the peas are ready to pick and the radishes will be ready to pull before the Sedum gets so tall that it would shade the radishes.


In the raspberry bed (below), I carefully used my fingers like a rake removing all the leaves which remained from last Fall.
  
It is important to be aware that new little raspberry plants sprouting up from the root are very tender and easily knocked off.  

I am disappointed that only four of the raspberry plants which I planted last year made it through the winter.  The ones that are left are the hardy ones, I am sure.  No weak-sauce raspberry plants will survive in this garden!!!

Below is a closeup of the developing leaves on a raspberry cane.

Have a nice day!

Time to Plant - April 16, and Hide and Seek with Rhubarb!

Time to Plant - April 16, and Hide and Seek with Rhubarb!

When I went to check on the pea seeds I saw that they had soaked up all the water and had expanded to double their size!  Some of the peas had fallen out onto the kitchen counter.  I scooped them into another bowl and added more water just in case they hadn't absorbed enough!

After breakfast, I drained the water from the bowl and then sprinkled in some legume seed inoculant. This inoculant contains Rhizobium bacteria which converts nitrogen from the air into a useable form for legume seeds (such at beans and peas).  This gives the legumes the ability to provide their own organic fertilizer!!!

The inoculant looks like black dirt.  


Next I made a furrow in the soil about 1" deep.  The package indicated that the seed should be planted 1" deep and 2" apart.  

In the picture above, you can see the pea seeds placed in the furrow... 2" apart.


The seed package also indicated that rows of peas should be spaced 12" to 18" apart. In the picture below, you can see the furrows in that arrangement. 

Next, I lightly covered the pea seeds with soil and then made sure that I labeled the row.  See picture below.

Next, I planted Cherry Belle radishes.  Reading the instructions on the package, I planted the radish seeds about 1" apart in a furrow 1/2" deep.  See the picture below.

Some of the seeds rolled out of my hand a little bit quicker and ended up being planted a bit closer than 1" apart.  More like 1/2" apart!  That's OK.  When it is time to thin them, we will eat the thinnings!

I covered the seeds lightly with some fine soil and labeled the rows.

I also planted Bright Lights Swiss Chard, following the instructions on the seed packet.


With the rain clouds moving in, I decided to wrap things up for the day by looking for the rhubarb.  

Rhubarb is a perennial plant that dies back in the winter and then regrows in the Spring and Summer.  I always place some distinctive rocks around the rhubarb plants because the first time I planted rhubarb, I did not do that.  The following Spring, there was absolutely no evidence of the rhubarb!  I  was living in Grand Coulee, Washington at the time and my wonderful neighbor, Madeleine, helped me to find the elusive plants!  Ever since then, I have delighted in the hide and seek that the rhubarb plays with me!

I went over to the area where I remember the rhubarb plants to be and located the rocks which I had placed next to the plants.  I had to get down on my hands and knees, but I found the rhubarb plants coming up in between last autumn's  fallen leaves (and a dandelion).  There it is... white and pink buds with just developing chartreuse colored leaves... barely coming up from the ground.  And it has multiplied!  Now there are at least two of the plants!  Great news!  Even more rhubarb for rhubarb pie!    

Preparing to plant peas... April 15

Preparing to Plant Peas...    April 15

I went out to the garden and the soil seems ready to plant.  After that snowfall it took several days before the ground was thawed out again!  I decided that I would plant the peas tomorrow, so before I retired for the evening, I put the pea seeds to soak.  

The reason that I do this is because the seeds will absorb quite a bit of moisture and that will help to start the germination process.  

First I put the seeds in a small bowl.  It is best to use a bowl that will hold the pea seeds with plenty of room for expansion.  

Here's a closeup of the pea seeds.  You can see how shriveled they appear.

Next I added water almost to the top.  I am leaving them overnight and will plant them in the morning.

The Unexpected? April 12 Snowstorm          

I could say that a Spring snowstorm is unexpected here in New England, but it isn't!  Thus, when I had cleaned out and prepared a couple of the raised beds, and then made my garden plan, I expected that I would be planting them in a couple of days!  Wrong!  On April 12, we received about 1/2" of snow!  

Basically, I retreated to the warm, cozy kitchen and with a cup of hot tea, I satisfied my gardening urge by perusing the garden seed catalogs and sorting through the seeds I had already purchased.  

It seemed like the only sensible thing to do!

Planning....

I have always tried to make a garden plan, usually with some graph paper and a pencil.  And I'm really comfortable doing it that way, but this year I decided to try something different.

One of my favorite seed companies, Territorial Seed Company in Cottage Grove, Oregon, has an online garden planner available.  There are a series of tutorial videos to help one learn to create a garden plan, and one can be just about as detailed as one wishes.  Other gardeners from around the world have uploaded their garden plans!  One can peruse those plans and get some inspiration for a garden.  

I am not going to spend a lot of time explaining how to use the garden planner program, as the excellent video tutorials do a great job of that.  I do want to mention a few features that really make the program valuable.  To get started, I entered my zip code into the garden planner, and it automatically calculated the last frost date in the spring and first frost date in the fall for my location.  After outlining the garden beds, I could click on the vegetables I intend to plant and "drag" them (with my mouse) over to the garden bed where I then planted them.  "Grabbing" the corners, with the mouse, I could enlarge one plant to an entire row.  I could even enter vegetable variety names.  The program automatically calculates how many of each plant will fill that row.  Opening up the "supplies" list reveals a list of all the vegetables that I have "planted" in my plan.  On the right side of the list is a graph that shows when vegetable seeds should be planted indoors, when to plant outdoors and when the harvest will start!  Pretty cool!  

Here is my first plan.  After I created this one, I went back into the program and refined it by adding vegetable variety names.  I also added more crops in different months.  

The garden planner is free for 30 days.  It can be found here www.territorialseed.com .  Just don't forget to save your plan so that you can refer back to it.  Also you can upload it to the web, so that others can see your garden plan and become inspired!  

Is It Spring.... YET???

Never mind the groundhog... we have had a few sunny days and that always starts to wake up the gardening urge that may have been dormant for the winter...  and it does feel like Spring!  It is hard to believe that we had seven inches of snow fall two weeks ago!  

Then, March went out like a lion.  We have had quite a bit of wind and some rain showers, so the grass is starting to green up.  However, the soggy ground has made it difficult to actually work in the garden.

A brief survey of the garden shows there is a lot of clean up to be done in the garden beds.

A few tulips are coming up!

At least a few of the strawberry plants that I put in last Spring survived the winter!

I definitely have my work cut out for me!

Starting the Garden - 2013

Dear Friends,

I have been lagging behind in starting my garden blog and a number of you have inquired about it!  I am so humbled by your request!  I had no idea that you were enjoying it as much as I was.  I am posting this to initiate the 2013 year.  It is not much of a blog post, but will be followed shortly with more content!  

Thank you so much,

Stephanie