Perfect Weather

Look at that forecast! Ten days of my favorite kind of summer weather!

I've been kind of quiet because, well, there isn't much to say. It rained a lot. We had at least 7 inches of rain in a 10 day period. It was too mucky to be in the garden and it didn't need to be watered.

When I put straw on the garden, it didn't go the way I'd hoped it would, but it's a lesson learned. I took the straw off of everything and I lost a few peppers.

I broke down and bought chicken wire to replace the floppy plastic fencing I was using. I thought I bought a roll 5 feet tall and 150 feet long. I took down all of the fence I had and hung overlapping sections of chicken wire. My plot is 60'x11'. After hanging all of the fence, I can barely tell I've taken any off of the roll. It's still to heavy to lift and carry. At least one neighbor is going to buy some from me. I told her I would sell her 15' for $1. She's got a long, outside plot like I do. I think others might be interested and I can get rid of most of what's left  and make back some of my money.

The brussel sprouts that I broadcast are doing well. Yesterday, I weeded the bed and spaced the plants more evenly.  Today, they are standing straight and it seems like they've grown a bit overnight. I'm really happy with them.

The rhubarb has kicked off. The carrots have begun to show themselves and I have planted two more rows. I have seeds enough to plant again later this sumer. The peas are finally coming up, and now they'll have a sturdy fence to grow on instead of being tugged on by the plastic fence in the wind. The tomatoes I bought are growing from their original awesome condition, and the tomatoes I started from seeds are really, truly growing!! I haven't killed them! And there are lots of them! If they all grow the 7 feet tall as the others have in the last few years, my tomato-house-arbor-thingy will really serve good purpose.

4 O'Clocks from Burpee

Now that I have so much more and sturdier fence space, I decided to take advantage of it. I've planted more peas. I've planted a whole packet of long beans. 4-O'Clocks are the evening version of Morning Glories - the open in the evening and stay open until daylight. They are trumpet-shaped flowers and should draw hummingbirds and  honeybees. Instead of a climbing vine, they are bushy and may grow to 30" tall. I've put them along the fence line on the southeast corner and I plan on adding more sunflowers in that corner. The flowers will do well in the sun, and the brussel sprouts and other cooler-loving veg might be better off because of the shade.

The lettuce I planted from seed survived the rain. I bought some more greens to put in the bed with them. I accidentally bought swiss chard - two kinds. I put all of it in last night. The 3" pots that I bought had 12+ seedlings in them, so I'm going to have a nice carpet of greens. I have more lettuce and greens seeds that I hope to cycle through for the rest of the summer. I don't know if that actually works in the hotter weather, but I'm going to try.

I do have some pretty big spaces that are un-planted and covered with straw. It will keep the straw there for now and keep out the weeds. I want to keep some ground-space aside for the butternut squash I've got going. Having enough room for them has been a big problem for the last 2 years.

I had to move the bird feeder. It hung over the work space I made for myself under the tomato-house-arbor-thingy and earlier this week, I stepped inside to a soft, bouncy carpet of sunflower sprouts. The mass of them was solid and about 6" deep. It's easy enough to kill off the sunflowers there, but the seeds have continued to spread all over my garden and the one next to me. The bird seed I bought this year is the problem, and I bought 35 pounds of it! I've filled the two big feeders with the trouble seeds and hung them on the tree near my plot. I bought some of the same seed that I bought last year and put that in a smaller feeder last night. It was nearly empty today. I will move it into the tomato-house-thingy tomorrow so all of the "good" seeds are in the garden and the big feeders can empty or spill without messing up the garden.

I can say I am really satisfied and pleased with the garden right now. It looks like it's going to be very successful, and I think it's going to be pretty too. It still hasn't been worth it to take pictures - everything is still small and they don't show well in pictures, but with this week's weather, things should be aces by next Sunday.

My hands and feet are covered with little cuts and scratches from the chicken wire, I have my first bug bite on my face, the mani/pedi I got last week is doing wonders for keeping my nails from looking gnarly and stained from all of the digging, and my hands have been swollen and sore for the last few nights because they haven't done any real hard work in years.

Remember, these are BEFORE pictures

Oh, man. I took pictures of my garden plot today and downloading them, they look awful. There is wood everywhere. Right now, I'm using planks to reach into the garden to plant, then backing out and using the plank somewhere else. There's a pile of tools and stakes by the arbor thingy - I'll just call it The Tomato House and the wheely bin is turned over. Embarrassing, but I want to document progress.

Here goes...

The Land. The long plot on the end is mine.

Looking west

Looking east

Onions and garlic near, brussel sprouts and rhubarb far

Rhubarb

Spot for flowers

Soybeans

Marigolds on the fence line keep away pests

The Tomato House

Peas, marigolds ad squash

in the dirt!

It rained last night and the weather is supposed to warm up, and the hose is finally available, so I decided it's time to put some seedlings in the ground.

I am very happy to report that all of the soil prep seems to have done it's job. We've had rain a couple of times now and the top layer has not run off downhill leaving sand. Everything stayed put.

The rhubarb is doing well. The flowers in the bed I put in the other day are starting to perk up, and the marigolds around the garden look very happy.

I decided today is the day for peas. Some of the vines were well over a foot in the apartment and the tendrils were getting frustrated with nothing to hang on to. In they went. I also put in a couple of butternut squash and a zucchini. I have more vines that are ready to go.

It's time to transplant the tomato and pepper seedlings from the jiffy starter trays into cups. They're doing really well. (I couldn't remember which is which because I didn't label them when I put in the seeds. The true leaves are out and now I can tell which are which.)

red cherry tomatoes

mixed sweet peppers

Close-up of the red cherry tomatos

It really, really, really looks like a garden now. I took some pictures while things were messy, but it's a start for the record. Next week it will look even greater. Lots of things should be sprouting.

Warm sunny days, rain at night. I couldn't ask for more.

Oo, I forgot. I put two pepper seedlings in just to see if they will survive. Tomatoes and peppers usually go in about three weeks from now, but it might work. 

Claim it. Own it.

I got a late start today. Copied the garden  plan I'd made into a notebook. I've spent so much time reading up on different combinations of plants and what additives each kind of plant needs when it's transplanted, that I can't remember it all.

Home Sweet Home
The Land is outlined in red, my plot is in white.

I hung fence around the perimeter of my plot. I put up the garden trellis, but I made it bigger and a slightly different shape, dug out about a foot of soil from inside the trellis to mound around the edges. Tomatoes will go on the mounds and be trained up (and over?) the trellis.

I flattened the soil inside and used boards to hold up the mounds from the inside so it wouldn't fall in. I laid some carpet strips on the inside to keep the packed dirt down, weed free, and not too mucky.

Mr Hu, Mr Tse, Mrs Lang, Mrs. Gao, Mr. Bu, and a few others were outside working in their plots. As I was working on the trellis, they asked if I was building a house. The carpet made it a done deal for them, they couldn't stop laughing.

I am often the recipient of shaking heads, chuckling, and outright laughter. Sometimes people just cruise by to watch me, some come right up to me and take tools (or whatever) out of my hands to try to stop what I'm doing because they think I am making some kind of monumental mistake. I don't mind being different, but interference or anything more than a casual suggestion just pisses me off. I rolled with it the first year and a half, but last summer, I lost my patience. There is no benefit in "being nice to old people" around here. The respect doesn't go both ways. I'm not used to this, but it's got to be a cultural thing I'm missing. I've decided it's better to stand my ground and cut off the pushy people. I'd rather be left alone because people think I'm crazy than be pestered and patronized by friends.

There trellis is open to the fence on the north side of my plot. I don't want to make too much shade for my neighbor without losing vertical space. I left an opening on the side so I can get inside the trellis area. I'm using it to store my water reservoir, tools, stakes, and other things I don't want stolen. It does look like a little house and by mid-summer, I hope it's covered in tomato plants, flowers and climbing vines, with a cool, shady place inside.

I laid in three rows of soybean seed, all of the yellow onions and garlic. I put in three rows of carrot seed, and I set in the reclaimed onions I took out last week. We still don't have access to water, so I didn't water anything in. The soil is really light and was pretty warm today. I hope the dry, cool conditions will keep the garlic and onion starts from rotting until I can water them. Tomorrow I hope.

I've set aside and "alum patch" for all of the onions, garlic, and carrots. They are supposed to play together nicely and they will be near-ish tomatoes, soybeans, brussel sprouts and peas, which is supposed to be OK. When I first drew the plan, I thought I might have planned too much space for them, but when I've put them in the ground, it looks like it will be OK.

The plot seemed to change shape as the day went along. First it looked so big, then too small, then bigger than the other plots that are still untouched. By the end of the day, I checked the fence line. I'm glad I put it in before I started. My plot looks so much bigger than the plot next to mine. I felt guilty, but everything checked out OK. I adjusted the hay bales so they didn't push the fence over the north boundary.

Dehydrated and worn out, I cleaned up my mess of twine and fence packaging and came in. I think I was outside for 4 or 5 hours. I finished a lot more than I thought I would. I'm going to try to get water to the garden tomorrow, put in the last of the onions, get the peas going, plant the rhubarb and chives I'd brought inside and water it all in. Tomorrow.

It's supposed to be in the 30's Thursday and Friday nights, so the live growing things will have to be kept inside until they are tougher, then cloched when outside.

My antsy self is satisfied. The plot is mine.

nothing to do but wait

Around midnight, I noticed a sign in the lobby saying the garden tilling would be Saturday or Sunday.
In reality, most of these seedlings cannot go outside yet, they are too small, but I started to think about structure and design more.
It's been a grey day. Temp is about 45F. I needed to get out of the house, so I went in search of hay bales. I've been reading a lot about how useful they are with peppers and tomatoes so I went looking.
The first place, a big greenhouse place, had "totally nu" hay "bales." The hay was shredded into bits less than an inch long and it was packaged in a one cubic foot rectangular bag, like the peat moss I bought. Twelve bucks.

I went to a place called the SouthSide Farm Store. It's in Minneapolis at 38th Street and Bloomington Avenue. I know they sell urban chicken supplies, so I thought I'd check it out. 

Bales of hay like you would imagine them were stacked against a fence under a tarp. Nine bucks per pop. Small local business owner. Chicken feed in South Minneapolis for goodness sake. I thought I wanted three, but only two would fit in the station wagon.

I didn't realize they'd be so big. They are real, farm-sized bales of hay - 3'x1'x'1'. Satisfying though, to drop off those great big bales in my garden spot which still wasn't tilled when I got home.

I went to Home Depot and walked around in circles. I touched all the things I thought I would buy, but don't need yet.

I bought the 45 gallon wheeled garbage bin I planned for water storage. At home I installed the washer and nozzle bit so water will drain from the bottom and can be connected to a hose. It was really easy. The whole thing took 15 minutes.


I moved my tools and miscellaneous stakes from my walk-in closet to the bin, so when I'm able, I can wheel all the stuff out in one go. They were getting scattered about the place. After the first go at it, the cat isn't interested in smelling them anymore.

hmmm....

What to do? 

I took a nap. The seedlings have taken a pretty bad turn. I don't know why. More reading to do. 

More planning to do. I paced the garden and it's about 60'x10' with a 4'x5' patch of rhubarb already set.
Back to the drawing board as they say.

Bonus #2 Onion starts

I spread the compost/poo/moss in the garden. It's 65F and sunny. Very nice for it. I dug out dandelions. There are a lot of volunteer plants that I can't identify, but are all over the The Land. There is plenty of dill coming up too.

Bonus #1 Last week, I used a spade fork to loosen up the weeds on the garden borders. I decided to move the rhubarb that was on the long border. The plants were small, but when separated, there were over 20. When I was a kid, rhubarb plants would get 3 feet across. I've given away 6 so far. I don't have room planned for 14 plants. When I moved them, I put them closer together than I might have, but I'm not sure they'll all survive. After a week, they are floppy and pitiful.

Bonus #2 There were two clumps of chives in the far corners of the garden. They were each about the size of a fist and a couple of stalks were starting to bud. I decided to save them from the rototiller. They aren't chives, they're white onions! The roots were a foot long and the onions were so tangled around each other, some of the onions look like corkscrews.

I pulled them apart, cut off the greens, and trimmed the roots very short. There were 44 onions in there! I think I made the plants docile, but not dead. I've seen stubby onions like this planted before, so I think I did it right.

I forgot about the advice to cut back greens that are being transplanted until tonight. I cut off the long bits of the chives I brought inside from the garden last week. I hope this will improve the plants. They look kind of sick.

lil sprouts day 18

"The Rack" in west facing window

rhubarb and chives

cosmos

cubanelle peppers

mixed sweet peppers

cherry tomatoes

4 O'clocks

Brussels sprouts

sweet peas 1

yellow cherry tomatoes

butternut squash

zucchini + 1 butternut

spinach

sweet peas 2

poblano peppers

NEW chives, cilantro, chamomile and lettuce