Rain, Travel, and Repairs Complicate Gardening

There is a reason my crab apple is called Snowdrift.

The garden ditch was important with all the rain we had.

This tulip blooms this pretty yellow and as it ages -

It changes color until they are all pink - Great flower.

I am growing my own dandelion greens but these I found at a market in Chicago this week.

I also found these too -

Do you know what they are?  I have never eaten them at this stage.

We have had some wet weather and after over 14 days of waiting I finally got my lawnmower back from the shop - and have cut the grass twice since its return.  I guess I should have tilled a while ago because the rain has postponed that job for a while and so the weeds and grass are really growing.  Plus my seeding schedule had to be adjusted while I went to Illinois to  help move my parents and returned twice in the last month to get other jobs done.  Hopefully the garden and yard can get back on the work schedule.  I did get the west bed tilled before it rained - that was where we cut out the big cedars from last season.  Not too many roots to contend with and now that area is getting some dirt from where I am digging out to extend the kayak trailer cement pad.  I want to put bricks in the space next to my fence so I have a nice landing for my trailer.  The dirt I dig out, to make room for the brick pavers, is going into the west bed.  That spot should be good for squash, sunflowers and maybe the sorghum too.
The spinach in the hoop house is on its last but the lettuce will replace it soon.  The inter-planting of radish is making for a good crop but the warm weather earlier made some of them taste hot.  I have moved the seedling tomatoes and peppers out into a cold frame and have started another run of crops in the greenhouse today - cucumbers, herbs, and cotton.  I have not grown cotton for a while so with and area by the house that will get nice heat I decided to plant some brown cotton again.  I have started some cucumbers to grow in the greenhouse instead of out on a garden trellis. Last year I picked a poor variety for greenhouse growing so this year I got some that are supposed to be grown indoors hopefully they will be like several years ago when we had a great greenhouse crop.  I also want to try melons in the greenhouse, and will start them later after I am done with my seedling bench work.

I only have a few apple blossoms left and the fruit on the trees is starting to swell.  I am concerned that Plum  curculio will be early this year because of the warm spring so I will have to ready to bag fruit soon - I think.  There is video and explanation on a previous years post so when the job starts I will refer to those to help any new baggers understand our process.
Happy Gardening

Apple Blossoms in April?

A collection of later tulips.
I like these multi-stemmed bloomers.This is my favorite French Sorrel - good taste and strong grower
This is also a sorrel but smooth leaves. I am just not as fond of this as the other.
The hoop house is really producing.
The apple trees are very close to FULL bloom in April.

Double Daffodils have one main problem - the flowers are too heavy for the stem and so even without rain they fall over...
One of three bulbs to bloom - hope that the others will make their show next season after they grow. These are really out of their zone here in Wisconsin.

This weather is strange. The apple trees are close to full bloom and we are a full week away from May. Finding honey bees on the trees is close to impossible and my draw is my Snowdrift Crab apple in my front yard that is 20-25 plus feet tall and will bloom this week. However, I will probably be able to count on one hand the number of honey bees that come to it and likely never find my three fruit trees in the back yard. Sure hope those secondary pollinators show up.
All the flowers will have bloomed and we a ways off from Mothers Day too. Lilacs used to be the flowers of choice for end of year assemblies at schools but this year they will be a month gone by that time as I have one blooming already and the others are soon to follow.
The hoop house spinach is in its full glory and we have salads daily. The tomatoes are up in the greenhouse and the peppers should be next. I have been having some difficulty with the pelletized onions - getting them to sprout - so I tried a small tray instead of individual cells and hope that will make some difference. I also tried radish in a seed flat with the intention of growing them to maturity, if it works in a cold frame - maybe I can foil the root maggots and slugs and get crops all season - that's what the experimentation is all about.
Tulips and late double daffodils are in bloom and I succeeded in getting a fritillaria
to bloom for me - now if I could only grow turf in the front lawn!
Happy Gardening

Compost Bin Plans

Bi-color species tulips and crocus - Happy Easter
Compost bin plan -6'x6"x/5/8" Cedar fence board - Cut them in half - 3 ft
Measure for your notch - 3 inches in from end first mark to start knock out notches.
Make the notch the same size as the thickness of the board used - here the cut is 5/8inches. Cut both sides on the inside of your mark and...
Punch them out - because this is cedar they break out easily - your helpers can do this.
Do this on both ends of your boards so that you have a "Lincoln Log" system board that will be the sides of your compost bin and will allow air into the heap.
Stack them together and fill with your garden refuse and start your compost. Remember to keep the composted materials watered in the summer. Turning is your option.
This is an 8 board bin and I will be screening this soon and any material not broken down will go back into a newly started bin in the bottom as the starter layer.
I have planted lettuce and more radishes in the hoop house - Note another great garden tool is the planting board. (plans for it are in April of 2009 blog entry) or Goggle "planting board" and the images will come up.


I remember Easters of the past when snow covered the ground and Easter egg hunting was all in the house - well not this year. The grass is green and getting ready to cut so hiding eggs would have been easy.
The species tulips are in bloom and buds are visible on the apple trees. The frost several nights ago - 28 degrees- took its toll on the yellow magnolia buds so I may not get many flowers. Other plants seem to take it and the spinach in the cold frames and hoop house were fine.
I put my display cold frame back together in preparation for having a place for hardening off seedlings that I have been starting in the greenhouse. The beets, dandelion greens, and onions have sprouted and I re-seeded more onions and lettuce yesterday. Tomatoes and peppers are not far off, but because I had to cancel my May fishing trip to Canada, I have a bit more time in the seed starting calendar.
If you haven't built a cold frame yet there is still time to get the job done and have the space for seedlings. The plans are on the web ( Google - "cold frame manual") and back in the blog in April of 2009). A season extender is a great thing to have in your garden array. Also, this week I was talking about compost bins and thought I need to post mine which is easy, movable, and simple enough that children/grandchildren can help in making one.
6 foot by 6 inch cedar fence boards - dog eared do perfect - are the basis for the bin. You cut them as the pictures above show and stack them as high as you want. 6 0r 8 broads will make a nice size bin and its very portable. I have two in the garden and usually turn them once a year by screening the compost I want out of them then tossing the contents that need more time into an empty bin that I will start for the next year. The fencing material is inexpensive - mine were less than $2 a board so for less than $20 you can have a nice natural compost bin. I now have three and will start the new one in the space where I took the trees down last spring.
Happy Gardening

Busy Weekend

Flowers everywhere this week.
The garlic is ready for that first shot of fertilizer - the key to large bulbs, so I am told.
The fruit trees are really near flowering - too early for comfort.
Today's salad came from these hoop house plants
Our French tarragon is so good in salads and of course in eggs. Make sure you get real tarragon and not the Russian variety from seed that does not taste good.
This is the best of the several clumps of sorrel we have - good rich flavor.
Pellitized onions were planted today - should make transplanting easier.
Two seeds per cell - so much easier than the old way - of multi seeds per inch in a tray.
Storage onions from last year are used as sets for this year.
Shallots saved from last year planted for this years corp - I sure hope they work.

Parsley seed ready for the hot water treatment before seeding into flats.

Most of this weeks activity was in the last two days. Saturday I was part of the Garden Expectations Conference in Kimberly WI sponsored by the Outagamie County Master Gardeners and the UW Extension. There was a great crowd of enthusiastic gardeners and I got to talk about vegetable gardening - what fun. I also was part of the panel of "experts" that answered questions at the end of the conference. I got a "best tomato question" and really did not answer it - like how can you? But I guess in thinking maybe "Sugary" would be a great inclusion to any tomato patch and then" County Taste" might also be a good selection - but best tomato - I am still looking for that too.
Warm weather continues and so I got some onions and shallots planted in the garden. Both were left overs from last year that kept quite nicely in the garage during winter and looked ready to go into the ground today. One row of shallots and one row of yellow onions - variety's from last year.
I also planted seedlings. I planted red stemmed dandelions along with pellitized onions seed from Johnny's that are pictured above. I also planted curly leaf and Italian leaf parsley. I did the hot water treatment to the seed. I heated water in the microwave and poured it over the seed before I sowed the seed into flats. Last year this hastened germination so I am trying it again to see if I have the process correct.
I harvested both arugula and spinach from the garden for salads today and also have a tray of sprouted sunflower seeds, so some of them ended up in the salad today.
Cool weather is predicted for tonight and as you can see the fruit trees are really far along for this time of year - sure hope we don't get hard frost on them. However, living as close to the bay of Green Bay as we do, the bay warms quickly and then helps moderate the weather for us, so maybe frost will not bother us.
Happy Gardening

82.6 Degrees!!!

Even this early daffodil is blooming with my February Golds.
February Golds usually bloom first, and then the rest of my daffodils...but not his spring.
Cedar log for Mason bees.

The hoop house spinach crop.
Three seedling rows of radish and mixed greens sprouted in a week.

This March is really something. The thermometer on the garden shed measured 82.6 degrees at about 1 o'clock - really not March weather. I have seen bumblebees and today a white cabbage butterfly so bugs are out too.
I finished pruning the apple trees today and the tree in the garden has really swollen buds - sure hope we don't get any hard cold weather yet. Our real frost free date is in May. I have nice spinach in the hoop house and seedling radishes and greens are up. I have been leaving the door open with this warm weather - spinach hates hot weather and will bolt because of it.
I made a mason bee nest out of a piece of cedar log and will make another one for the other trees too. I drilled holes in the log and hung it in the tree and I hope it attracts some pollinators. Honey bees were almost totally absent last season and with all my crocus and daffodils blooming I have seen few bees - only that one bumble bee last week and none since.
Lettuce seedlings are up in the greenhouse and I moved the tray out to the hoop house for cooler growing. The some of the seedlings will end up in the hoop house anyways. Spinach, sorrel, chives and tarragon are all on the menu this week.
Happy Gardening

March Means Heat in the Greenhouse

Today these crocus are covered with 8 inches of new snow - Ah! March
The annual plastic cover for the inside of the greenhouse.
The pine lath strips make good anchors for both sides and roof application of plastic sheets.
Completed space.
This is my heat mat for starting seeds. Soon it will be in use.
Job done and the heat was also turned on today.
Cold Frame season extenders are great garden tools.
Google up -" cold frame manual " to get the plans for two frames from one sheet of plywood.

March is the traditional start for the greenhouse. The space costs too much to heat all winter as we had done in the distant past when orchids populated the space. But we soon determined that it cost as much to heat our home as the greenhouse and so I have been turning on the heater in March to start plants and move plants that have wintered under lights in the basement out into better spring light. Tomorrow all the amaryllis will get the move along with the geraniums that are in the basement. The black fig, that is just barely hanging on, will also get to move and hopefully will be happier.

Even for the short time the heater is running I still spend a day insulating the space with a double wall of three mil plastic sheeting. I have lath strips in place along the aluminum frame of the greenhouse so I can staple the plastic to them. For sure I am going to have to replace all of them next fall because they are so full of staples. When the plastic comes down in June I just pull it off the lath but the staples stay - so, to say the least the lath is really full of 1/4 inch staples.

Until the vent needs to start opening to cool the greenhouse I have insulation on that roof area too, but that is a bubble plastic that is covered with foil to help insulate the very top of the greenhouse. All this, I think/hope, helps with the energy use. Likewise only heating the space for a month is practical. April nights are seldom as cold as March and with the insulation the greenhouse stays a pretty constant 55 degrees.

This past Thursday, I had an excellent time at Qualheim's True Value Hardware in Shawano. I was there to talk about vegetable gardening to a nice group in interested gardeners ( 77 strong). I was the eighth speaker in the 2012 series of talks sponsored by Qualheim's. The week before someone spoke on Mushrooms and the list of other topics was varied and interesting. I sure would have liked to have heard the mushroom one. We talked about general vegetable gardening and I gave them the way to easily find the cold frame plans that I wrote for the Wisconsin Got Dirt program. I'll remind everyone again - just Google the term - cold frame manual - and in the results the first one is my plan.
Happy Gardening