Sunday, May 29, 2011

Troubles in Garden Land

This columbine is over three feet tall and full of flowers.
The start of lilac time.
Alliums are nice colorful ball of flowers.
Unhappy tomatoes.
Its a wait and see what develops on this one.
I don't think I will have any of these grafts take.
The following are all the peletized seeds that make transplanting so easy.


The cold frame is full of transplants waiting for garden space.
The new fig is looking good.
My maple bonsai is really nice this year - check out the tea cup hosta in the pot.

Wet, this spring is so wet. It is raining again as I make this entry and by next week we are supposed to continue to get more. My heavy soil just will not dry out. Boy Howdy, this is the year we should have a crop of winter rye planted to help the soil dry out. I am planning to put in the tomato stakes tomorrow but will not be able to till yet unless I want bricks. To add to this complaint my tomato seedlings don't look happy (see picture) I think I maybe burned them with too much fertilizer or they got sunburned themselves because I sure don't want a fungus among us. But just to play it safe they got a dose of a fungicide today - if you have to treat your plants remember all fungicides are expensive - $20 for my bottle. With all the rain I could have a disease so time will tell. Plus, the grafted plants are just not making it. I have read that without a mist chamber grafting is tough - well that's an understatement - its way more than tough. I am down to three plants out of eight and they don't seem happy. I have some more root stock planted and will need to plant some scions and try that again. These grafts are almost two weeks old and should be able to be in the light but that's not happening. Try, try again and see what has to be changed to make grafting happen.
I planted my root stock for cucurbit grafting but germination was poor so I re-planted in hopes of getting another chance. I have the clips and would like to have some watermelons on real strong roots systems but my watermelons damped off and my root stock did not germinate too well - one out of four cells. That too we will just keep experimenting with and see what happens.
Otherwise the plants in the cold frame are itching to get into the ground. I am ready to plant the front bed with parsley and marigolds but have a rabbit in the area so bring on the Cayenne pepper to ward him off. I planted my tower but instead of flowers I used spider plants so hopefully it will look like a green and white tree. I used them because they are more drought tolerant than flowers.
The apples are in full bloom but with rain we may not get good pollination this season. I have yet to see any honey bees on any of the apple trees and I have a 25ft snowdrift crab blooming in the front of the house - that too has NO BEES! But my neighbors are all on commercial spray programs - ugh.
The new fig tree is growing nicely and may soon need a bigger pot. The old fig tree has made some nice growth this spring and now we await the formation of figs.
I unpacked the two new Earth Boxes and got my soil mixed but have not filled them yet. All the peppers are going into these containers this year.
The flowers in the yard are blooming nicely and a little warm weather would be more than appreciated.
Happy Gardening.

2 comments:

  1. I like the picture of your cold frames. This season's weather patterns has reminded me that I need to build some.

    Any tips on when to start them or how to build them?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi FrozenGardener,
    Yes, its easy just Google "cold frame manual" and my publication will come up as a link and you can copy the plans - their easy as I am not the worlds best carpenter but these are great garden tools. Hope you find time to build a pair and then grow food in them this winter -
    Happy Gardening

    ReplyDelete