Rebuild Time Part 2

Last spring, we replaced half of the old wooden beds in our garden with metal ones. This year, we finished the job. There were still two 4-foot by 11-foot and two 1-foot by 11-foot wooden bed to replace. One of the smaller beds was filled with asparagus, which we relocated outside the garden. Part of the other smaller bed had horseradish, which we pulled out and deposited along the back treeline. After that, there was just a lot of dirt moving to do.

Garden bed rebuild in progress.

It has been a very wet spring. Because of that, and my lack of enthusiasm for hard work, the rebuild took several weeks to finish. My husband really did most of it. He built the six new metal beds, shoveled tons of dirt, added compost, and relaid the stone paths. I helped by decided which type and how many bags of new soil we would get to fill in and I added those bags to the beds. And finally, it was all done.

All the bed replacements finally finished!

But that was not all of the rebuild. For the past couple of years, the deer have been making themselves at home in the garden. Beyond the nibbled plants and obvious hoof prints, we got photographic proof last fall.

A taller fence was obviously needed. Our original fence was four feet tall. We got a couple more rolls of 4-foot wide plastic mesh fencing and 6-foot long bamboo poles for fence posts. The process of adding height to the existing fence actually went more smoothly than I expected. I had a plan, of course, but was still surprised that the plan worked so well. We wove the bamboo poles through the mesh fencing then lifted them up and zip-tied them to the fence posts that were already there. Then I went around and hand "sewed" the seam between the two fences so there wasn't a gap.

"Sewing" the fence seam together with some garden twine.

The result is an 8-foot tall fence all the way around our garden (except for over the gate).

Let's see those deer jump over this! (I know they could so please don't.)

With the garden now better protected, I got the rest of the seeds and plants into the ground. I had planted the hardier seeds - radishes, arugula, pak choi, chard, and peas - and the direct-sew tomato seeds (as directed) before the average last frost date and before we finished the fence. 

A lovely row of sugar snap peas.

After the fence I planted the bush beans, turtle beans, rattlesnake beans, blue Jarrahdale pumpkins, and glass gem ornamental corn. I also transplanted pepper, zucchini, yellow squash, and cucumber plants.

The young plants hardening off a few days before transplanting.

The spring rains continued and I mostly stayed out of the garden. Yesterday, I finally thinned out the seedlings. I also added a fence for the peas. Everything is growing, though much of it is unhappy with the large amount of rain. 

Corn and radishes before thinning.

This poor little cucumber plant isn't well.

One other thing we planted outside the garden was some luffa plants. We had very good luck growing them a few years ago. We still had some seed left and they were still viable, so now there's a tall teepee in the back yard near the new asparagus bed. There is also one long pie pumpkin plant under the teepee. 

I don't know why I didn't take a picture of the whole teepee.

You grow, luffa!

So far, the pumpkin and luffa plants have been left alone by our backyard wildlife. We'll see if that lasts. 

Oh deer, oh deer.

A sweet, fluffy bunny.

 

Let's Get This Party Started

Okay, so it was actually herbs that got started, not a party, but I'm just as happy. About a month ago, on March 16, I got out my starter trays, Jiffy pellets, and seed envelopes and got to work.

I like having a plan.

First off, I gave my starter trays a nice bleach bath. There's no reason to not begin with everything freshly disinfected.

We don't need any dormant funk messing things up.

I love the Jiffy peat pellets. Since I found them, I've used them exclusively to get my seedlings started. All you have to do is soak them in some warm water then slip them into the starter tray. Easy-peasy.

Jiffy pellets taking a swim.

While I feel like I can identify most herbs by sight now, it's always a good idea to record what seeds are planted where. In this case, I did two cells each for the herbs as well as eight for peppers and four additional for some wild native plant seeds. Then, the covered trays were placed lovingly under the grow light to enjoy fourteen hours of artificial sunlight each day thanks to the convenient timer.

Now do your duty!

Just four days later, the first dill seedlings emerged. 

Dill!

The dill was quickly followed by basil and asters the next day. Three days after that, the thyme, rosemary, lavender, catnip, and peppers emerged. The parsley was the final green sprout to show up on March 26.

Thyme, parsley, basil, rosemary, and catnip up front on April 13.

Lavender and dill on April 13.

As my little seedlings are enjoying the steady, calm weather inside the house, I'm making plans for their lives outside. I started my patio herb garden last summer with just two pots of herbs. Over the winter and spring, I've been collecting more pots.

Such pretty examples of international commerce.

Home Goods and T.J. Maxx have proven to be the best places to get reasonably-priced, pretty pots. I've added a lovely orange pot shaped like a tulip ($19.99, made in Vietnam), one with a painted floral design ($14.99, made in Spain), one with a raised feather pattern (14.99, made in Vietnam), a simple pale blue one ($16.99, made in Spain) , and a white one with partridges and pears ($16.99, made in China) to my collection. 

I think my basil will be in this pot.

We've still got a least a month before the seedlings end out all together outside on the patio. For now, the chives are on their own out in the world. Well, they're not entirely alone. They have the daffodils for company.

The chives seem happy enough with their yellow friends.

And the occasional rabbit comes by for a visit now and then.

I wonder if this is one of last years' munchkins?

Planting Time Again

This year, we haven't had much of a spring. We jumped right into summer even though summer is still officially a month away. As the days got into the 80s and then into the 90s, I thought about planting my garden but I resisted the temptation. The average last frost date for our area is around May 15. Last spring there was a late killing frost that devastated a lot of delicate plants. I didn't want to risk it this year. I kept to my conservative schedule that has worked well for me over the last ten years.

Let's get this party started!

Step one was to start some seeds indoors. I did this on April 18. It wasn't a big year for seed starting. I decided to take the easy way and purchase my tomatoes and peppers from the local nursery. All I really planned to start were some herbs. I used Jiffy starter pellets (love them!) and my long-used starter trays to plant three cells each of parsley, thyme, and basil. And since I had the whole grow light set-up going, I checked the viability of some seeds. We had some old adzuki beans lying around that I added to the tray (spoiler: not a single one sprouted). We also had some seeds that we had saved from a Long Pie pumpkin given to my husband by a coworker some years ago and some One Too Many pumpkin seeds I took from our fall decor purchased at a local farm stand. Side note: I got some gorgeous mums from the same stand so I plan on making the effort to get more this fall. I planted three each of the pumpkins and one of each grew. 

Two out of six ain't bad, I guess.

Step two was to directly sow the cool weather seeds. (cool weather, ha!) I did this on April 27. I put in peas, beets, carrots, chard, arugula, and baby pak choi. As of today, the pak choi and arugula are going like gang busters. I have about half a dozen pea plants, a few more tiny chard plants, and maybe a dozen beets slowly growing. The carrots are non-existent. That's probably because of the age of the seeds. They were from 2018 but I figured I'd try anyway. Oh well. A few dill plants seeded themselves. As for the perennials, the chives are doing beautifully, as always, the asparagus is producing faster than we can eat it, and the rhubarb is thriving after I split it. I finally got enough in one harvest to make a full pie rather than just a tart.

Our version of cooling the rhubarb pie on the windowsill.

So, that brings us to step three. I planted the rest of the garden today. I always like to plant on Memorial Day weekend. Step 3a was transplanting our seedlings. Along with my nine herb plants, two pumpkins, and five Greek basil cuttings propagated by my husband, we had a beefsteak tomato, a grape tomato, a tomatillo, and a pepperoncini pepper purchased from one of our local nurseries. (I was a bit disappointed when I saw the plants were brought into the nursery from a larger company but it was still supporting a small business.)

We gave the young 'uns a week of hardening off before putting them out into the big world.

I've always heard that pumpkins resent being transplanted. I'm not sure how true that is. The last time I tried starting pumpkins indoors then planting them out, crows found the seedlings within a day and tore them out of the ground. If I was a pumpkin, I'd probably resent that. I'm hoping our big guys will settle into the garden well this year.

Come on buddy! Think happy thoughts!

Step 3b is putting in the seeds. This year I planted my usual round of beans (purple, turtle, and rattlesnake), as well as, zucchini, cucumbers, parsnips, and daikon. I put in more peas as well to fill out the row and tried my version of a three sisters garden with strawberry popcorn, the long pie pumpkin, and rattlesnake beans all in the same bed together.

If you look carefully you can see the beans below the twine and the red popcorn in the foreground. And don't forget the pumpkin lurking in the back.

So, there it is. The garden is in! I patted the seeds and told them to "do their duty." Then we watered them in and did a little rain dance so it would rain this afternoon. (It did but not yet as much as I would have liked so far.) I'm looking forward to see how everything grows!

And now on to the obligatory critter shots. Here is a rabbit chilling next to our house.

We had to make some repairs to the fence to keep the bunnies out of the garden this year. I know we've let them have babies there for several years (see here and here and here too) but the inn is now closed. So, we added a layer of chicken wire around the bottom of the fence where the rabbits had been getting in. It doesn't keep the chipmunks out but we seem to be bunny-free so far. (knock on wood!)

Notice how the black mesh is neatly chewed off to allow bunny entrance.

 And finally, here's a baby bird in our cedars.

Maybe a baby cardinal?

 

Seedlings!

I just wanted to give a quick update on the progress of my seedlings. I planted Poblano pepper seeds on March 7. They were the only seeds we picked up before Covid-19 hit. When I got them, I figured I would just come back later to pick out the rest of the seeds. Alas, that has not and may not happen.

My lovely, strong Poblano seedlings

I started my tomato seeds on March 30. I had in mind what tomatoes I wanted to grow this year – Juliettes are a favorite of mine, and I was thinking of planting a Roma variety for sauces, and maybe a big beefsteak (even though I haven’t had that great luck with them in the past). Well, I had four variety of tomato seeds on hand from two years ago, so those are what got started – red cherry, black cherry, black vernissage, and pink brandywine. I grew them all last year rather unsuccessfully, but that was mostly due to my inattention and too much rain. They are good tomatoes, and I think it’s good that I’m giving them another chance. The seedlings are putting on their first sets of real leaves, and are looking well.

Assorted tomato seedlings

I also decided to start some sweet banana peppers as I had the seeds from last year. They came free with an order, and actually grew quite well. I started some basil as well. I wanted to start some parsley and other herbs, but I have no spare herb seeds from years past. I’ll just have to go without or see what I can find after stay-at-home orders are lifted.

Basil seedling – taken with the new macro lens on my phone

I don’t plan on starting any other seeds. I will be able to direct sow everything else. I am hesitant to make a full garden plan that uses just the seeds I have on hand because I hope to actually get some of the varieties I had originally wanted for this year’s garden. I generally don’t plant the bulk of the garden until the end of May, so there may still be time to buy some more seeds; if they aren’t all gone from the stores by them. Victory Gardens, or at least earnest attempts to start Victory Gardens, seem to be a thing this year.

I really do love this new lens!

Pre-Garden Experiment

Last year, I let a couple pak choi plants go to seed. In the fall, I collected the seeds for use in this year’s garden. I was a bit surprised that there were so many seeds in the dried little pods. I got probably five times more seeds than what I had gotten in the packet I originally purchased. That made me wonder if there was perhaps something special about the store-bought seeds. There must have been some reason for them to cost what they did. What if the ones I had collected didn’t grow?

Pak choi seed pods

Pak choi seeds – such lovely colors!

 So, I decided to run a little experiment to test the viability of my collected seeds. In late February, I planted a handful of seed in my starter tray. I had so many of them. It wouldn’t hurt if I “wasted” some to see if they would grow. In just two days, little seedlings were pushing their way up through the starter. Success!

Perfect little pak choi seedlings

The seeds were proven viable so, why not keep them going? Two weeks later, I transplanted a dozen of the seedlings into a couple of low, disposable tin baking trays. I used four trays for the improvised plantings. I took two trays and put a layer of river stones in the bottom. I poked holes in the bottoms of the other two and filled them with potting soil. Then, I put the trays filled with soil on top of the trays with the stones so that my two mini-gardens would have good drainage.

Seedlings in the tray gardens

Pak choi in the garden took just a little over a month to go from seed to harvest. A month after putting the experimental seedling into the trays, they were still on the small side. That was not much of a surprise. There really wasn’t much space for roots. The plants did look quite nice, though, with perfect miniature leaves. I feel, when planted in the garden, the seeds will do just fine.

Mini-toy choy

I gave the experiment another week or so then decided it was time to eat the test subjects. The twelve plants provided enough tiny pak choi leaves to add to a stir fry with fresh asparagus from the garden. While the plants never reached their full potential size, I am calling it a success and will confidently plant the saved seeds in this year’s garden.

Pak choi right after a watering

Starting Seedlings and Hardening Off

This year I finally decided to invest in a grow light setup so I could start seeds indoors. I had tried several times before with mixed results. Mostly the seedlings came up, had fabulous potential, then died off. I blame myself for those failures as I’m sure I lost interest at some point and did not treat the new little lives as kindly as I should have. I have come a long way with learning patience and care and this year had a very successful batch of seedlings.

Grow lights a-growin'

Over the winter I did a lot of research into grow lights. At first I thought I would rig up something on my own. I could buy a couple lights and then build some sort of stand but then I would need a spare table or sideboard which would cost more. Trying to be economical seemed to cost a lot more in time and effort. In the end, I went to the Gardener’s Supply Company website and ordered the Stack-n-Grow light system with one add on shelf. The unit was easy to set up, light weight, and had nearly enough room for all my seedlings. I say nearly enough because by the time I re-potted all of them, it was full to overflowing.

Brand new set-up with its first seedlings

I started my first seedlings at the end of February. I have been planning a flower garden (a very un-Shaker garden) since last fall. I priced out perennial plants and decided to try starting some seeds on my own. I planted Echinacea, butterfly weed, lavender, chrysanthemums, columbine, and wild Oswego tea, the seeds of which my husband collected while in the field for work. They all sprouted within a week and quickly grew into strong little plants. I thinned each to one per cell and watched most of them thrive. About a month after planting, I transplanted the seedlings into 3” peat pots. I had nearly a dozen of each variety.

Oswego tea seedlings before thinning

Butterfly weed seedlings, tall and proud

In early March I started tomatoes and peppers. I had gotten the tomato seeds free in 2014 with a catalog order. They are Martino’s Roma tomatoes, a variety I have never tried before. I usually like growing Juliet tomatoes and some kind of beefsteak but I figured I would give these a try. If they didn’t come, I could always get some other varieties at the greenhouse. But they did come and are doing quite well. I transplanted them twice before planting them out – first from the starter cells to peat pots then once more into large plastic pots. They were large enough to set out in the peat pots but the weather was still a bit iffy and I didn’t want to stunt their growth in the 3” pots. That seemed to be a good decision. I transplanted them out into the garden a week ago and they now have little buds on them.

Peppers and tomatoes in larger pots

Tomato successfully transplanted into the garden

I tried starting two types of peppers – California Wonder sweet peppers and Poblano peppers. The Poblano seeds came from a pepper we got at the grocery store and apparently were not viable. That’s too bad. I purchased the sweet pepper seeds and they grew very well. I did lose one of the seedlings early on but I still had five to plant out into the garden. They are looking particularly green and lovely so I have high hopes.

Peppers happily transplanted

So green!

I started another round of seedlings in early April – cantaloupe, fennel, dill, and cilantro. The herb seeds came from a Chia herb garden I found on clearance after Christmas. I had actually started the basil, parsley, and marjoram from the kit in January. (There were only three pots in the kit even though there were five packets of seeds. Weird.) So, the extra herb seeds got started with this round.

Fennel and cantaloupe seedlings in peat pots

I have learned that hardening off the seedlings is very important for successful transplant. Our back porch is wonderful for such a thing. It faces east so it gets some sunlight in the morning and shade in the afternoon. It is screened in so that air can move through but strong winds are a bit tempered. The flower seedlings got a good week of hardening off before I planted them out.

Hardening off the flower seedlings

Unfortunately, I kind of forgot to start hardening off the vegetable plants until three days before I intended to transplant them. I transplanted the flowers about ten days before the veggies and herbs. So, the veggies got a rapid transition on a particularly hot Memorial Day weekend but the vast majority of them did just fine. The dill and cilantro, however, melted right into the dirt and were no more. I’m not too heartbroken, however. I’ll directly plant some dill seeds in the garden and I don’t like cilantro anyway. It is a vile-tasting herb. I only started the seeds because I had them.

Panorama of my lovely garden on June 4, 2016

Overall, the seed starting went very well. I will certainly be doing it again next year.