Treasure hunt!

The potato plants are finally dying, which means it's time for treasure hunt!
Dug out 6-8 plants for around 13 pounds of potato. Also got all my onion out - most are quite large, and did not want the others to stay in the wet ground for too long lest they rot. The total harvest is ~56.

The gladioli bloomed! Got beautiful red and white flowers. One flower stalk on the red plant broke, but some flowers still bloomed on the broken stalk. Thankfully the plants have two flower stalks. Reading tells me that it is not uncommon for heavy flower stalks to break, especially when the weather has been as rough as it has here. Speaking of stormy weather, the okra are still at home because the past few weeks have been cold. Am looking for a sunny stretch to get them out.

The zucchini plants have grown much larger in the meantime. And many tomatoes have come out, all green as of now. But the rains have bent some of the plants despite their supports. The beans on one side have grown quite tall, and are beginning to flower, but the later transplants are still looking small. Maybe the cold weather stunted their growth. The spinach were finally pulled out last week (mid July) for one last delicious meal. The peppers unfortunately contracted some kind of disease during the last long spell of rains. The flowers withered away without fruit and the leaves turned black near the edges. I ended up getting just 3 pepper pods. I decided to leave the plants there, after two weeks they look leafy and slightly better I think. I hope they flower again.

Goodbye peas, hello zucchini and okra!

6 July 2014
I was welcomed back home with four little zucchini seedlings! I think the four should be comfortable in the space there.
The tomato plants have a lot of spotted leaves on the lower branches. Maybe the rains and lack of air circulation did that to them.
Spinach still growing, but leaves are smaller, and they have not flowered yet, like many of the coriander plants.

8 July 2014
Time to take the pea plants out. They are not giving out any new leaves or flowers and are beginning to yellow out. Will clean up that patch and put some beans in. Got four beans growing at home now. Also got five okras at home now, thanks to P. Will transplant them soon.

Harvest and more

18 June, 2014: Pods begin to appear and develop. Another bean from the new batch sprouts! 

22 June, 2014: Bountiful harvest! The peas are so sweet when fresh! But lose their flavour in a day if kept in the fridge. Leaving outside lets the flavour last longer. But it is perhaps best to freeze immediately if not used. What I thought was a wild carrot turned out to be a weed, with a beautiful flower! So I let it stay.

24 June, 2014: Four home sprouted beans transplanted successfully! Also noticed what look like tiny buds growing on the peppers.

28 June, 2014: Noticed the first set of flowers on the tomato plants! No sign of pepper flowers yet. Removed two coriander plants that had flowered and put in some more seeds to keep the supply steady. Also started six zucchini seeds today near the pea plants so that they can use the nitrogen. Unfortunately, they are right next to the potato plants on the other side. My hope is that I can harvest the potatoes soon. Starting some more beans at home to replace the pea plants.

Shade, basil and beans

Had nothing to do in the garden today (15 June). Noticed that it was terribly sunny and hot and that the coriander next plot had bolted. OK, maybe it was time. Anyway that made me build an afternoon shade for my spinach. I hope they survive for a while longer. I do really like how they taste. The shade still leaves much of the coriander out in the sun for now.

In the meantime, only one of the original bean seeds sprouted (lower left corner of collage). I think the soil was too damp and cold for the others, and they probably rotted. So I put a few more in the soil in the middle of last week, and started four at home on the 14th. I also started one basil at home on the 14th. I have another one which P gave me. 

Potato blooms

Came back home from a trip to find potato in bloom! Realised that I might be a little late, so started hilling my potatoes. 

The rest of the garden is looking good. All the transplants are doing well. The plants in the coriander patch are now unambiguously coriander. Spinach plants are providing tasty leaves regularly. And the first pods of peas have begun growing out of the flowers! The onion tops are slowly showing signs of going brown - should be time to harvest them soon. The lone bean has survived and now has quite a few leaves. I planted a fresh row of seeds near this one hoping these will come out. Did not pre-soak them in water this time. But it rained last night, so the seeds as good as got soaked.

Coriander (Cilantro) and transplants (2 June 2014)

The first flowers are out on the peas! Exciting! Also noticed a few seedlings on the 31st of May on the coriander patch. Couldn't rule them out being weeds. Yesterday, tiny true leaves with the characteristic jagged edges started coming out. Looked like tiny fists unfurling.

Transplanted three peppers and four tomato plants yesterday. The peppers looked sturdy but the tomatoes had wilted from being in a closed car for too long. Happy to report that this morning they all looked to have settled in their new home. Lots of water and sunlight must have helped, and the temperatures were not too harsh either (74 high 46 low). Was a little concerned about the low, but I had been exposing them to the cold for about a week now. Encouraged, I transplanted four more tomatoes today.

Put up a wire fence around the plot yesterday to keep away rabbits and other bigger critters, which I suspect ate up my cauliflower transplants. 20 gauge 2 inch hexagonal mesh wire held in place by wooden stakes and 20 utilitech zip ties.

Hello world

Bean #1.

Updates and soil temperature data link

One more gladiolus has come out! Unexpected and exciting!

Have started cutting spinach leaves young, leaving just a few on the plant so it can grow. Learnt from last time's experience that the leaves can grow large, mature and not too tasty if left on the plant for long.

Potato plants are growing steadily now, as are the peas and onions.

Have started exposing the tomato and pepper plants at home to the colder weather outside to harden them off. Plan to transplant them end of this month. Also started feeding them some Miracle-Gro organic plant food and spacing them out some more to keep them well-ventilated, as suggested by friends.

No news of beans or cilantro yet.

And finally, a useful resource: Soil temperature data can be found here.

Coriander and beans started

Sowed nine seeds of coriander (Burpee) and thirteen of beans (Bountiful Gardens blue lake variety) today. Soaked the beans seeds for eight hours before sowing.

Gladiolus and tomato health check.

Woohoo! The first sign of gladiolus is out in the garden! I had given up, nearly! I hope the last frost is over now, 'coz I don't know how frost resistant this variety is. The weather is nice these days - warm but not too hot, there is cloud cover. The plants in the garden seem to like this, although I suspect spinach likes it cooler. They are coming out alright for now. The peas are growing well too. I tied them some string on the trellis to hold on to, and helped some of them direct their tendrils there (like helping a baby walk). The onions grow taller everyday. I counted 64 of them, out of a total of 75 bulbs I had sown. I am glad I did not split them in two batches. I am sure many bulbs would have dried up by fall just sitting around at home. Same for potatoes. I sowed all the seed potatoes I had and there are tiny potato plants coming out now! Pictures when they are bigger. Beans are next. 

The pepper plants at home are looking sturdier. A couple of them look like they can be transplanted, but I will wait till the first week of June before taking them out. The tomatoes will go out in June too, if they don't die at home. Over the weekend I noticed that some of the lower leaves on some plants were drying out, like the ones in the picture. Internet research led me to this. I don't think it is disease. And I don't think it is overwatering, because I have noticed the leaves wilt if I don't give them as much water as I normally do.   So it is probably lack of food. The upper leaves look healthy, though. Maybe the plant naturally decides to lose the lower ones. I might get some plant food if more leaves start to dry up. Until then I am going with composting the pot some more.

Spinach and plant hardiness zones.

I can finally say for sure that the small seedlings on the spinach patch are indeed spinach. Characteristic curled up true leaves in the center! There are around 15 of these little ones on the patch, but most are close to where the peas are. But I am going to leave them where they are lest I stress them out by moving them around. It will be nice to get a couple of harvests before they start to bolt. 

Plants at home got new pots today so they can grow more comfortably. Two of the super sweet tomatoes sprouted two days back. They have joined the two tiniest pepper plants on the window sill. 

While snooping around trying to increase my general gardening knowledge, I came upon this great resource:

http://planthardiness.ars.usda.gov/PHZMWeb/Default.aspx#

This map tells you what plant hardiness zone your area (in the US) falls in. Knowing the zone can be a great help to plan one's gardening schedule! And the almanac provides lots of useful information about plants suited for one's zone etc.

http://www.almanac.com/plants/hardiness-zone/7

Grow lights and sweet tomatoes

I get really lucky sometimes and yesterday was such a day. I noticed over the weekend that my seedlings were growing larger, so I needed to put some of them in bigger pots and also get more grow lights. I thought of using one more desk lamp. As I was mulling this last evening I suddenly remembered that the previous tenant had left behind a tubelight holder. As luck would have it, not only was the holder in working condition, it also had two functional tubelights in it! And I hadn't bothered using it for nearly two years! Even more amazing was that the holder had chains and I had some twine. So I ended up hanging up quite a nice looking grow light for my seedlings from the curtain holder near the windowsill! This should allow me to grow more quite comfortably. Losing no time, this morning I started 3 seeds of Burpee super sweet tomatoes (100 hybrid variety). Here's a picture of the setup and of the new potato patch I made over the weekend at the garden.

Potato time!

The last frost of the season is expected around two weeks later. So I thought this was a good time to get the seed potatoes out. I had mixed in some compost last week into the potato patch. Today, I dug four trenches about four inches deep and put all the seed potatoes in. I also included half a potato that had started shooting at home for a total of 22 cuts.

On the spinach patch I saw some seedlings today. I am still not sure if these are spinach or weeds, so I let them stay. There are about seven growing in a line close to where I had sown the seeds, and there aren't similar seedlings anywhere else on the plot. So I am hopeful that these are indeed spinach!

The peas and onions are coming along slowly but steadily. Tomatoes at home are growing fast. Need to transfer them to bigger paper pots soon. All but one pepper plant, have started growing true leaves. I hope they grow into sturdy young plants. The next set of seeds will be beans, after last frost.

Updates

Ten onion and ten pea sprouts. What I thought was a spinach sprout is most likely a weed, unfortunately. Spread some compost on the ground in preparation for sowing seed potatoes next weekend - that should be two weeks before the last expected frost.

Rains!

It was summer one day and winter the next.  Which was a little sad as I was just packing my winter clothes away. But it's been awesome for the garden! Tiny onion shoots, a couple of pea seedlings and finally one that looks like spinach! I now hope it rains some more and stays cool.

The plants at home are doing well too. I figured out that the reason they were so tall and wiry was because they did not get enough light near the window. So now they have a focus light, and are doing much better. They can now concentrate on getting true leaves out instead of growing longer.

75 onions!

Planted a bag of bulbs in 3 rows yesterday.

No sign of peas, spinach or the mystery bulbs yet in the garden but things have been happening at the greenhouse at home! All the tomato and pepper seeds have germinated! One tomato is droopy, not sure why. I hope it picks up strength soon.

Also soaked all the rest of the giant winter spinach seeds from Bountiful Gardens and sowed them in the ground because I read that spinach seeds do not store well. 

Spinach and peas and peppers and tomatoes

First workday of the season at the garden today. Day was cloudy and windy. Picked up trash in the woods. Found beer bottles! And then remembered that football parking is close by during football season.

Laid more bricks around the plot, now the whole boundary is done. I may lay a path of stones inside the plot to walk on, depends on whether stones are easy to find around the garden. Sowed giant winter spinach seeds from Bountiful Gardens and Burpee peas. Stuck another trellis into the ground. Need to find twine from last year and weave support. Need to wait till after last frost to begin beans. Plan to get seed potato from Tait farm. Really like the yield last year. Should find out when to start pepper indoors. So exciting to grow again!!!

Update: Started 6 Burpee jalapeno peppers and 6 Ferry Morse roma tomatoes indoors on 6 April.

More preparations

More bricks to line the plot. Last year's trellis for peas and beans (will sow in the weekend along with spinach I think) and support for tomato plants. Also watered the mystery bulbs, which I think are of either tulip, hyacinth or daffodil.

New season!

First time this season at my new plot today. A blessing it rained yesterday. About a quarter of the plot had tall plants the previous gardeners had left behind over the winter. These came out without protest from the wet soil. Mixed in compost and leveled the ground. Planted the mystery bulbs P gave me - 6 inches deep and 6-9 inches apart. Brought home the super fragrant dried up rosemary plant that was on the plot.