garden chores

Today it is sunny and ~ 75, no rain but the ground is very soggy.

Herbs

• planted them in the strawberry pot a few days ago, look good so far
• a few pockets have settled so I added some more soil

Potatoes

• these guys are growing like crazy!  I will need to hill them again soon.
• the white bucket stays very wet, need to keep my eye on it

Strawberries

• first red fruits were already eaten by pests :(
• need to build a secure structure for the anti-pest netting

Carrots

• the bucket always seems dry on top
• sprouts are filling the bucket but they seem so small still?  I wonder when I should thin the seedlings?
• the side planting is much bigger (of course they were planted several weeks earlier)

Bucket #2 (future squash)

• looks sunken in, i'm concerned about the self-watering setup collapsing
• so far I've planted several rounds of four seasons lettuce with no luck, not sure what the problem is

Bucket #3 (future squash)

• has settled a little but no where near as bad as #2
• good results with the heatwave lettuce :)

Peppers

• hot/sweet bananas look somewhat damaged from the frost but recovering
• 2 bells from Burpees look good but the 3rd one is amost dead :'(  -> need to look up the guarantee info

Beans/Cucs

• fire ants have moved into my raised bed :(
• several sprouts are up... made a huge seed planting a few days ago too

Garlic

• just found out I probably planted the garlic wrong.  I planted the whole bulb... it's growing though
• today, I gave up on the romaine lettuce and put the 2nd garlic clove, split up, in that spot

Onion/Shallots

• look to be growing well, but they are reaching for the sun.  I've rotated the bucket a few times to help.

Asparagus

• I had almost given up but two baby stalks were poking out of the soil today!

Spinach

• seem to be growing well from seed, but really slow
• still no edible harvest

a beautiful day in the garden

Today was a beautiful day to be gardening!  Here is a photo collage of all my wonderful veggies and Matthew's new flowers... enjoy :)



red potatoes

strawberry blossoms :)



 


lettuce



carson's goldenrod



  

 


<>

chinese cabbage



nasturtium



 



first carrots



flower bed

 

 













matthew's flowers







awe...

 

spinach

swiss chard

onions, garlic, shallots

beans and cucs

asparagus

banana peppers

carrots

russet potatoes

red potatoes again



buttercrunch lettuce





  



a little maintenance

The weather of the past few days has certainly taken it's toll.  With all of the rain we've been having, I learned a valuable lesson about my container design -- must install drain holes for overflow!  Now I know why my potatoes have been so soggy... no where for the extra water to go!  It was easy to fix in my double buckets, but with the barrels I had to just make a guess.  I just hope I didn't drill the holes too far down.

My pepper tent did not hold up to the fury of the wind.  I think it still saved them from the worst of the freezing and frost, but I'm afraid they're still showing some signs of cold damage.  Only time will tell if it's too much for them to recover from but I'm pretty sure I should plan on putting in some back-ups just in case the harvest is affected.

Next issue, one of my potato buckets collapsed.  The PVC rings in the bottom did not stay glued to the bottom bucket.  This caused the soil in the "wick" to flow out into the water reservoir creating a sink-hole.  The soil and potatoe that were above the part of the bucket collapsed into the reservoir.  Well, that's what I get for not letting the silicone adhesive cure long enough.  So I've torn the whole thing apart, dried it out, glued it back together, and now I'm letting it properly cure.  I think the potato that was in the sink hole will be ok.

On the brighter side, good things are happening with the lettuces, spinach, and carrots.  The broccoli has come up with it's cute little leaves and the strawberries are in full bloom.  I'm still waiting for some action from the beans and cucs.  I planted a few more seeds today.  Also, still no signs of life from the asparagus or the ceasar lettuce.  I put in another few inches of seed in each of the lettuce, spinach, buttercrunch, four seasons, heatwave, and carrots.  I'm hoping this will set me up for a nice continuous harvest later in the summer. 

:)