Memorial Day Weekend

This past weekend I planted the majority of my vegetables.

A few notes on things I have learned this spring with my seedlings and the weather:

First, the weather has been rather crazy as usual. Seems like a typical new england statement but I swear it always seems to get more and more erratic. The past 4 days saw temps ranging from 90 to 44 at night. 44 happened last night and I wasn't too pleased as it was the first night for many of my veggies in the ground. Daytime temps were steady 80s each day and now we're going to see highs in low 60s all week. Early in April we had mid nineties weather for 3 days in a row, followed by sub-par rainfall in April. Has not rained much in May either. Downpoured when we were out in Brimfield on Sunday but my house didnt see a drop. Our last frost date was April 26 . . . and there was a frost warning in Western Mass last night . . . May 25 . . .

Seedlings:

Thyme was too delicate when transplanted - I wont grow those seedlings again.
Lavender grew strong and healthy as seedlings, but died when I put them outdoors. 2 possible reasons: not warm enough / should have been transplanted into pot to grow more before ground planting. The latter makes more sense to me but could be a combination. Also, was not a full sun area.
Rosemary: jury is still out. Germination was SLOW. The plants in the ground are still seedling size. Basically the 3 earliest transplants were basil, rosemary and thyme. My rosemary is doing slightly better in the shady bed probably because they had a little bit better soil nutrients. **And my Dad did give me a nice sprig of his rosemary plant which I planted in the front left corner with PLENTY of organic material since that is the area with TONS of rock about a 15 inches down into the ground.

And the good . . .

Basil is doing pretty well. I recently re-planted a few in order to incorporate more compost and manure, and the result is very good.

Tomatoes are good . . . seemingly a little smaller than last year, However... the seeds I started in the jiffy pellets are another story!! Those are at least DOUBLE/TRIPLE the size of the ones I started in just starter mix and peat pot. Unbelievable difference!! Although it is one extra step to eventually put the sprouted pellet into the 3 inch peat pot with starter mix, it is FAR worth it! The pellet alone is the reason those were so much faster - the time to germinate was probably 4 days vs 7-8 days.

Gourds sprouted quickly in peat pots and pellets. Planted down the hill (not on the SLOPE of the hill, at base of hill) in 2 rows.

Pumpkins I still need to plant. I will put them in 2 rows just like the gourds. I still have to rip out all that grass in between rows. It's far better to have gourds/pumpkins/squash to rest and sit and grow laying in dirt than on grass - far less rotting/infection. TIP: Put a brick under a maturing fruit to prevent rotting. Must plant pumpkins tomorrow because their length is making them sag now in the peatpots.

Peppers are looking strong. This year I am doing golden peppers and they seem bigger and healthier than my ace peppers from last year.

I am allowing much more room for squash/zucchini/cukes/green beans this year, so I am hoping this pays off. These veggies are all in the front new portion of the garden.

Our shaded herb bed in the front yard which gets several hours of warm afternon sun has parsley, mint, rosemary, sage?? (we're stil not quite sure of this plant that survived the winter) and chives. The parsley is going CRAZY and came back from last year. It's almost 2 feet high. I put a couple extra rosemary seedlings here (as mentioned earlier) and they are doing better here than in the sunnier garden. Mint is not up yet (just planted a week ago), chive seeds are not planted yet, but there is a bunch groing from last year.

This is where I'm at. I could go into detail about my lawn work, but it's much more boring and not organic . . . maybe next year . . .

Garden 2009

I am off to my second season of gardening! This year I double my tomatoes (1 tray big beef, 1 tray brandywine -- thats 18 peat pots per tray, and I'll have 9 of each in my garden, maybe more??...so tempting!!), and also I have 1 tray of cherry tomatoes.

Other than my tomato obsession, I am growing:
parsley, chives, mint (partial sun)
rosemary, thyme, basic cilantro (needs full sun)
squash
zucchini
green beans
cukes
peppers

Down the hill we are planting pumpkins and gourds .

For decorative plants, we just planted a couple creeping phlox plants near our periwinkle by the driveway which barely survived the winter probably due to the excessive dirt and salt. I am planning on getting more periwinkle (I have a free unlimited source) and hopefully it will thrive - safety in numbers? Also we planted a forsythia down the hill just to the south of where the pumpkins will be. Not looking forward to trudging up and down the hill with water but it will be worth it. A rainbarrel down there makes sense.

To do all the veggies/herbs, I am roughly doubling my garden's size, while attempting to make better use of space at the same time. I also read about "green composting" so I am trying that by tossing 2 rows of mustard seed (it sproued in about a week in still sub 40 degree nights) in my garden bed and I'll dig it into the soil when I start ripping off the grass and working the soil more next week.

So far seedlings are off to a great start. I tried jiffy greenhouses and they are great. Lavender germinated very well and I kept it very moist - almost wet. Rosemary isnt up yet but I have read that it's best to keep them pretty warm and on the dry side, so I am hopeful that those will sprout up fine in a week or so. Basil, thyme and all tomatoes germinated beautifully. Especially surprising was that my old big beef and b-wine seeds sprouted faster in the jiffy house than my new tomato seeds did in the bigger peat pots! Interesting. I love having the fast germination in the jiffy house pellets, but transplanting is more work . . .

Also, I have 3 lights instead of 1 - only using 2 for now, but will get 3rd running soon.

More to come!!