Mid-May: Eagle scouts!

May 17 was a big day in the garden.  Des Athy directed his scout troup in the construction of a new  walkway on the eastern edge of the garden and built 3 beautiful new bins for compost and manure and woodchips.

Des is in the gray hooded sweatshirt, holdiong the post, with a big smile!  

Thanks, Des!  What a super gift to the garden!

Laura and Violet came to cheer Des on.  Violet loved getting dirty!

The scouts also helped move the cold frame...temperatures are getting too warm for it!  The lettuce got a great start, and one spinach plant from last fall made it through such a  rough winter!  

Early May---Rototilling, snakes, strawberry flowers, peas, and lettuce!

Pat Feeney volunteered to bring his Mantis tiller and rototilled the whole veggie garden except the perennial herb and asparagus beds and the two beds where I'd already planted garlic int he fall and onions last month.  I've always dug all the beds by hand.  This seems like a really good way to get the soil looser, although I've also read that tilling destroys the earthworm burrows.  So it's a grand experiment and we'll see how it works!  It was so sweet of him.  Not an easy job even with a tiller!  

Yikes!  The first snake I've ever seen in the garden...on the weed pile!

Strawberry flowers already!

The peas and lettuce are up, along with a million calendula plants that self-seeded themselves last fall.

(I'm writing this about early May in mid-June;  once again I've prioritized working in the garden over writing about it!  But hope to get caught up soon.)

April--seedlings, garden herbs, asparagus, garlic, raspberry sprouts

Tomato seedlings up!  

 Perennial herbs up!  Lovage (red leaves--will turn green), sorrel (bright green--sour!), chives (dark green grasslike in back)

 Garlics planted last October are up!

 The first asparagus shoot!

 Lovage

 French sorrel

 Chives

 Tarragon just coming up!

So happy to see the raspberry shoots because I pruned them all the way to the ground and feared I'd killed them!

March 27Greenhouse up! Seeds up!

Laid out all the poles.  Always a challenge to figure this out.  No instructions!

 Step 1

 Step 2

 Step 3

 and up it goes!  Two t posts tied to the front corners help hold it in place.  And the ropes keep the frame from coming apart in high winds.

Ran seed viability tests on lots of packets of old seeds.  Here's the successful results of 2011 California wonder peppers.  I put the seeds on wet paper towels in  plastic shoe box and see how many germinate.  If none or few, I know I need to buy new seeds.  But often, seeds from a few years ago are perfectly good!

March 18 and 21: Seedlings and First Days in the Garden

On windy chilly Tuesday afternoon, March 18, Rich and I began the work on the 2014 garden.  We cut down the old corn and asparagus stalks.  I'm so happy to have started actually working in the garden after 3 months of planning during such a tough winter.  Seeds that I ordered have all arrived.  Later on Tuesday, I started seed germination tests on a lot of the old seeds from 2010 and 2011 and planted 5 1/2 trays of vegetable and herb seeds.  No seedlings yet as of Friday, but I'm hoping to find sprouts by tomorrow!

Used 3 1/2 bags of seed starting mix for 5 1/2 trays of  seeds

Tray 1: (Jiffy Natural and Organic Seed Starting Mix) 2014 Gurney flat Parsley, 2014 Burpee curly parsley, 2010 Burpee curly parsley, 2011 Burpee flat parsley, 2014 Burgess basil, 2014 Terroir dark opal Basil, 2011 Burpee Basil  (decided to try the old parsley and basil seeds since they sprouted when we used them for a new year's resolution project in January)

Tray 2: (Jiffy Natural and Organic Seed Starting Mix) 2013 Burpee watermelon, 2013 Burpee Cantaloupe, 2011 Burpee carnival peppers, 2011 Burpee California wonder peppers, 2014 Burgess California wonder peppers, 2013 Burpee celery, 2011 Burpee baby spinach, 2014 Burpee baby spinach

Tray 3: (Jiffy Organic Seed Starting Jiffy Mix) 2014 Burgess Roma tomatoes, 2013 Burpee Roma Tomatoes, 2011 Burpee Big Boy Tomatoes, 2014 Burgess Big beef tomatoes

Tray 4: (Jiffy Organic Seed Starting Jiffy Mix)  2014 Gurney Broccoli, 2013 Burpee Red Cabbage, 2011 Burpee Swiss chard, 2011 Burpee Detroit dark red beets, 2011 Gurney Peanuts, 2013 Burpee Stevia

Tray 5:  (Jiffy Organic Seed Starting Jiffy Mix) 2011 Burpee marigolds, 2011 Burpee disco marigolds, 2011 Burpee nasturtiums

1/2 Tray 6 (Burpee Self-watering kit with pellets of seed starter) Basil and Parsley

On Friday, I was back in the garden.  I cut down the raspberry stalks...hoping I was doing the right thing.  I read that fall bearing raspberries bear on new canes, whereas summer raspberries bear on year old canes.  I know the berries on the east side are all fall bearing.  I think there may be a summer bearing on the west side so there I only cut the canes that berried last year.  Gardening is such an experiment!  Trail and error (or as one author put it, "Trowel and error!).

The raspberries before I cut them, on the far left.

Cut the fall raspberries all the way to the ground.  I read it is important not to leave stumps.

I remeasured and remarked the veggie beds and paths, even used the compass on my cell phone to try to get straight east-west rows this year.....we'll see!  Then I dug and raked bed 2 in preparation for peas and lettuce.  However, I found that about 6 inches down I ran into a narrow layer of frost!  Notice the line of white frost (vertical stripe) in this wedge of soil I dug from about 6 inches down

.The cold frame contained one spinach plant that made it through the winter, so I rolled the cold frame on its backside, dug and raked and weeded the bed, and then put it back.  When I plant the peas and lettuce, I;m going to leave the cold frame on that section and give some of them a head start!  Before and after photos:

Seeds ordered!

Finally got the seeds ordered this week, from 5 companies: Gurney's, Burgess, Terroir, Burpee, and Shumway.

Seeds

I got out all the seeds leftover from the past few years (because we got no free seeds this year!) and inventoried what I have and what I’ll need to order. I’ll need to do a little research on viability of different types of seeds. I know there are some that lasts for years, and others that don’t do so well.