Early May Garden Tour

This week we have hit 80 degrees a few times. The garden is in small but full swing. I ran out this evening to get some pictures, oh yeah it is snowing. Well as you can see the tomatoes are growing big under their buckets. Thank god the cucumbers are still inside.

Garlic is looking healthy. If we can grow anything it is garlic. I planted these in October and even with the cold snowy winter, they look great. 

We also have lettuce dialed in. Lettuce has been producing for about a month. Here is a shot of the lettuce under the hoop house in the snow. I cut everything completely back on Sunday. Four days later we are back in business. I have three lettuce varieties that really work, parris island cos which is an heirloom romaine, rouge d'hiver which is a red romaine lettuce, and black seeded simpson which is a good general purpose lettuce. I also started spinach inside and those add nicely to the flavor. 

Anybody There?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, not much going on here. Spring has sprung and the yard is starting to look green. Garden preparations are well underway and the garage and hoop houses are full of seedlings. It has been cold and snowy so not much has happened with house projects. It also seems that any intention I have of working on the trailer is foiled by a growing little boy and his refusal to sleep or let mom have any sleep. Even so, there has been a tiny bit of progress lately.

The upper cabinets are hung. I took the afternoon off on my birthday and hung cabinets. Funny what passes for relaxing activities these days. This cabinet over the kitchen counter will have sliding doors.

 

The other cabinet over the curb side bench will have a top hinged door. This upper cabinet will hold the stereo.

The bench framing has been completed. These will have hinged tops for storage and be skinned with walnut plywood too. The other recentish activities have included installing the shelf framing in the closet.  

As I have been saying for months now, I'm a few hours of work away from starting electrical. 

Spring is Here, Let's Get Planting

After the big snows last week, we finally have gotten a break. Yesterday we hit 60s with some decent rain and it really smelled like spring. The vast majority of the snow is gone and with all the rain and upcoming warm weather, I'm sure the trees will start budding out soon.

I have been diligent in seed starting with lots of lettuce and spinach planted in early February. Fortunately, first of March meant the bulk of the seed starting. I have all the tried and true varieties and a whole bunch of new things to try. I have started far more tomato types than we even have space for, oh well. If they take, I will be a good person to know come the first part of May. Everything this year is being first sprouted in a damp paper towel in the furnace room and transplanted into soil blocks in the garage. The majority of my seeds come from Baker Creek seeds in Mansfield, MO. They are close to us and their seeds do very well in Kansas City. The other seed houses I have are Jung and Pinetree seeds. I really, really like the Jung little leaf cucumber and Pinetree's spinach has germination rates much higher than anything else I have tried.

 

 This is the improved seed starting setup. I bought the taller covers so I can keep the humidity up much longer than the old short versions, as the plants get bigger. Previously when the seeds outgrew the short covers, they got cold, dried out, and really didn't do well. The tall covers are the way to go. Last year I cut an old blanket to hang around them to keep the temperature up. It gets held up with Velcro on the underside of the cabinets. This year I glued aluminum foil to the inside for improved reflectivity. Maybe it is the placebo effect, but the plants really took off after the foil installation. A couple of these have seed heating mats underneath. I moved offices recently from one with southern exposure to one with eastern exposure. To compensate I bought a 2ft 4 tube t5 grow light. It just got installed and is really bright. I moved all of the citrus, bonsais, and random vegetables to my office. If they take off I can see getting a 4ft T5 setup for the garage next year. Yeah, I'm the weirdo with a grow light in my office.

 

Saturday I spent a good portion of the morning working in the garden. The worms were up at the top and the robins weren't far behind. The far hoop house has some left over lettuce and kale from last fall. It will shortly be planted with peas. I had a research project with the lightweight aggregate association send some wrong material recently. I can't use that material for research so I am amending all the beds with expanded shale aggregate. It holds moisture well and keeps the soil loose. Sometimes it is handy to work with the aggregate companies on research.

 

This bed will the the lettuce bed for the year, or at least until it gets hot. I planted month old starts of spinach (space F1), leaf lettuce (rocky top), and head lettuce (parris island cos romaine) this weekend. There are more started in the garage for staggered planting in a month. The black milk jugs are filled with water to help store some heat. Afterward it was buttoned up with six mil poly and spring clamps. I have to say the cheap PVC hoop houses with plastic and clamps really do a nice job. They don't cost anything to build and the plastic lasts a couple years. I just stick the PVC into the ground so it is easily moved.

For dinner tonight we had 50 clove mushrooms and pork tenderloin in the slow cooker with kale from the garden. The young, early growth kale was wonderful. It was probably the best kale I have ever eaten and would be on the menu 3 times a week if it stayed that good. Next fall/winter I will probably plant an entire kale bed just for a couple meals through the winter.

First Harvest of the Year

It has been pretty quiet around home this winter. I have traveled a bit, but that's about it until now. The sun is getting stronger and the temperatures are starting to warm up. The lettuce I put in the garden late October has been growing lately and ready for the first harvest. It's a couple salads worth.

The first round of early seeds have been started. It is mostly spinach, leaf lettuce, and head lettuce with some wild flowers for the bees thrown in. Most of the seed start won't begin in earnest until March. This year I am starting all the seeds in paper towels in plastic bags placed on the furnace duct work. Once the seeds germinate I am transferring them to soil blocks. So far these have been really simple. My mix is 2 parts starting mix with 1 part manure and enough water to hold everything together. The germinated seeds are dropped in and covered with a little perlite. I'm keeping my fingers crossed but so far everything is doing great. 

I have room for 4 or 5 trays under the lights. Come the first of March I will need all the space. 

Mid-Winter's Garden

The snowstorm that blew through last week left us with patches of snow for Christmas. The robins were thinking they clearly made a mistake hanging around this late and proceeded to gorge themselves on the remaining Bradford pears.

I have made a little bit more of a concerted effort to do some winter gardening. I tend to have terrible germination rates both outside and inside, so the hoop house is a bit sparse. I am using black-painted milk jugs as heat sinks. They are filled with salty water to lower the freezing point and a little bleach to keep them from growing. They seem to be doing something, the lettuce close to the jugs is significantly bigger than the other lettuce which hasn't put on much size at all. We have had a few nights into the single digits and the lettuce is still going. I will keep my fingers crossed for a new years salad.

The second planting of lettuce started in the garage December 1 is much smaller. 

This is my third year using this type of hoop house setup. It is just pvc tubing stuck into the ground covered with six mil poly. It is clamped down with cheap spring clamps from the hardware store. I end up leaving a couple of these up until at least May to speed up the tomato starts. 

Christmas Preparations

Winston is already a month old and seems to really like staring at the Christmas tree.

 



Happenings at the Ranch

We have been staying pretty close to home for the past few weeks so there aren't much in the way of updates. We had a house full for thanksgiving. The weather was great, 60s and sunny. The turkey was smoked with a bacon coat and turned out nice and juicy.

 Lots of naps the last few weeks.



Lots of naps. 

 The concrete countertop project for the next door renovation is coming to a close. That island is one piece of concrete 12 feet long.