Frozen muck

We had warm weather on Friday and again yesterday, so I decided to look in on the garden.

My plot is on the southern end of the garden. It's in the shadow of our building until late morning, then I have full sun until sundown. 

The ground for the whole garden slopes with the high point in the northeast and the lowest west and southwest. The eastern border for the entire garden is dry, and the plots are dry all the way west, except mine. It's got an inch of ice or more on the low end.

Some of the chicken wire I used last year wasn't rolled up nicely and it blew around in the wind over winter. I tidied up what I could, but some of it is still embedded in ice and won't come free without a lot of working. I've left it for the sun.

I was frustrated with the brussels sprouts I grew last year. I used about 20% of the garden plot to grow them, but none got more than 2 feet tall and the buds didn't get larger than marbles. I left them standing to freeze over and it looks like I made a lot of wildlife friends. All of the leaves and buds were gnawed to the stalk and the top of the stalk was chewed off too. My plot is covered in little poops - maybe bunny. As things were melting, the dung smell was getting strong. It's all good for the garden, I say.

I left some onions and herbs in the ground, covered them in hay, chicken wire, and laid stakes over top to hold things in place over winter. I've never done this before, so it's all guessing. I removed the chicken wire and stakes. Parts of the hay were still blocked in ice. If I did it right, onions should sprout in a few weeks. I put in 300 sets last year and had a really bad show. I'm not sure how much is left in the ground, but any harvest is an improvement.

Parks of the ground are hard and easy to navigate, but I sunk in ankle deep in spots. I didn't fall, thank goodness. Some of the elderly neighbors were watching me. They already think I'm crazy. Crazy and covered in mud is more than I want to give them right now.

I broke up the icy chunks of straw and spread them around a bit. We'll have below freezing days this week. I won't be outside to work for a while. The action is indoors.

In the apartment...

I decided to add the top shelf to the green house. The green beans are over a foot tall and  were running out of space fast. I repotted them and moved them to the top shelf. The squashes are growing fast too, so I put those in bigger pots.

I tried out some marigold seeds I bought at the dollar store. I put marigolds on the three external sides of my garden plot for pest control. I think the border is about 80 feet long. If I succeed with the marigold seeds, I'll save myself a lot of money. They sprouted quickly and look good.

Friday, I decided to try garlic, chives, and ginger root. I planted around 50 cloves and just one nub of ginger. Like the onions, my garlic and shallots didn't do well last year. I'm doing something wrong. 

I love the plants I get from the Pflaum family, but I want to do my own this year. Well, as much as I can. They generally sell 3" pots of seedlings 3 for $5 and there are 3 seedlings per pot. They've been really helpful these past few years and I visit them every weekend at the Minneapolis Farmer's Market when things warm. By early June, they are nearly out of everything and their plants are well mature. Since I started my seeds mid-March, I hope that my seedlings are ready to plant in very late May too.

The annual kick-off at the MplsFM is 27 April and I'll surely be there the first weekend it's a sign of the season for me. I'm not sure I'll buy from anyone that weekend, but I have to go.

I've noticed the starter beans on the green bean plants have withered and started to turn brown. The little energy bombs are nearly depleted.  They're still adding at least an inch per day and they were looking dry this morning. Many of the fast seedlings were looking droopy. I watered everything and closed up the greenhouse. Last week's mold made me really sick and I worried about it hurting the plants (making me sick later) so I left the door unzipped to dry things and move the air.

The trays under the plugs and pots have been refilled, everything is zipped up again, and the lights are on. I added 2 more incandescent bulbs last week for a total of 3 and there are 2 compact florescent bulbs. It gets warm in there fast, so I've had to be mindful of seedling placement. I'm afraid I overheated the lettuce I started. It's made very little progress this week. I put the pots in my refrigerator for a few hours and now they live on the lowest shelf. The leaves are showing more signs of being ruffles. Onward!

It's condensing in there again. It's a dim day, so I've got the lights on, but I'll turn them off after an hour more so it doesn't get too steamy. I hope the little boost of light will perk up the droopy plants and the warm lovers will perk up too.

I am not a confident gardener. I have killed off a lot of seedlings at this stage in past years. If I could get to really nice true leaves, I'll be so happy.

I need to stop messing with the plants for now. Water. Light. Leave it be. If you've got some spare kind thoughts, I could use them.

It's rain again

 We had a wicked rain storm again last night. Thunder and lightning and driving rain that sounded like hail.

I checked the rain gauge this morning and for all day yesterday and last night, we had 2.5 inches of rain. That's nearly 5 inches in the last 3 days. We might get rain again tonight.

This morning my squash seedlings were flattened and the leaves were pasted down with mud. The plastic mesh fence caught a lot of wind and  came loose in places - the peas couldn't hold on to it. All of the water highlighted the high spots with sand and low spots with silt. I can level things. Everything is very fixable and it's kind of nice to have a test like this so early in the season

It's going to be good. Hopefully it will be warm enough in 2 weeks that I can get serious about transplanting the peppers and tomatoes.

It looks like the brussel sprouts might be sprouting and the onions are spouting too.

Good stuff.

30 April The Weather

We've been in a cold spurt for over a week now. It's a flux in weather that isn't unusual here. The temperature has been closer to normal - our mid-80's a month ago was too much to hope for, but sometimes it's hard to tell.

I've been watching things because I actually have seeds and plants in the ground, but I just pulled up the weather and I was surprised. I thought when I looked at the weather yesterday, we were going to be in the 60's this week but look! Rainy and warm is a nice way for the plants to get going.

Some of the seedlings are in the greenhouse and the rest are in the apartment. Fingers crossed!

My kingdom for a hose

Trouble. I know, I'm trouble.
Last week I went to our apartment building's office and asked for the tool shed to be unlocked and the hose to be set out for us to use at the garden.
This week, I watched for the hose. Nothing.
Yesterday, I went to the office, saw the building manager in the hall and asked her about the hose. She said she needed to fill out a work order and it would be done yesterday or today. I said yesterday would be better. It wasn't out by 6p yesterday.

I went to the garden around 4p. Still no hose. If we don't get the hose today, we won't have it until next week.

I went to the management office again. I asked after the hose.

I planned on the water being available and since it was not there, I might have had to plan differently. I was just trying to get an answer - would we have water this weekend?

She does this backward, spinning, evasive thing when she's got bad news, even if it's something small, so it's hard to tell how bad the news is. It takes a really long time to get to a straight answer and it seems to be an attempt to wear a girl out while throwing out ridiculous excuses/reasons/accusations in the process which contradict each other.

She didn't put in a work order. She doesn't have to put in a work order. She did not notify maintenance to do it. This is not going to change until next week because maintenance is on call during weekends, but otherwise not available.

The swamp of crud I went through to get that information out of her is ridiculous and entirely unnecessary. Even when I restated the above, she refused to confirm it. I could only get a "maybe" and "that's not what I said."

This is one of those integrity-break thingys that make me crazy. If you did something or did not do something, and someone asks you a direct question about whether it has or not happened - answer the bloody question so things can move forward. If you've got bad news spill it. If you've set consequences, enforce them.

I'm universal on this one, I'm not excluded from responsibility or penalty. It's easier that way. I don't do "politics." It's an autism thing. I literally don't understand it, don't know how to do it, and I don't always recognize it. I prefer things predictable. I am monumentally focused until "the end" is achieved.

Any hooo....

Without access to the garden hose, the most efficient way to get water out of the building is to fill the container in the craft room on the main floor of the building, go down the hall into the stairwell, through a one-way locked door, past the non-functional greenhouse to the garden. Return to the building via the main entrance which is also locked, but our passkeys will let us in. Go past the office, down the hall to the craft room and repeat.

When we have access to the hose, it's connected to the corner of the building, and it's 50 foot length almost goes to the north-east corner of the garden, but not quite. Those gardeners (most of us, really) keep a water heater tank and use a spray nozzle to aim water to fall into their tank, then they water by hand.


In my new spot, I am exceptionally lucky because I am so close to the spigot. It worries me terrible that 70 and 80 year olds are trying to carry gallons of water in and out of the building. Easily half need a cane or walker to get around. It's a contradiction of reason. Plant as early as possible to get as many crops as possible versus risk falling. It's made worse that most keep their walking paths under 10" wide to keep the growing area as large as possible.

So I'll carry water out this weekend, hope for a hose on Monday, and keep the onion, garlic, and spinach going by hand until then. Someone stole my watering can, so I'm going to find something else to use, like a waste basket.

and on...

22 April Weather

Wintery spring for a while

A few days ago, we were told to expect ice pellets overnight with snow this morning. It got windy with rain on Saturday. Instead of ice and snow, we got tornado weather yesterday. The temperature dropped from 78F yesterday afternoon to 36F this morning.  We'll have this cold for at least a week.

I didn't cover the outside transplanted rhubarb. It was a hard decision, but I finally decided since it can winter over, it could handle a couple of cold days. I have a backup rhubarb plant in my apartment. And there are 13+ plants outside. If all of them take, I'll be buried in rhubarb. Much will go to friends and neighbors. Friends will take the extra starts. I could probably start my own CSA.

The seedlings are blowing my mind. A lot of seeds started, but became too squished. I re-potted them last night, and it's a good thing I did. The root structures were long and spreading. It would have been knots in a few more days. I accidentally broke more roots than I liked. The look OK this morning.

I couldn't bring myself to thin them, so I'm approaching 100 plastic cups with up to 5 seedlings each and I'm not done. The cat is irritated about the time, the smell (soil is distracting her), and the space this is taking up. I am running out of flat surfaces and will start making an island of boxes in the middle of the floor so everything can get as much sun as possible. I only have 1 west facing window in the living room. The bedroom is too small to keep plants in there. Grow, grow, grow!

Good news! The garden is going to be tilled on Thursday. I have to buy another 200lbs of soil additive and spread first it so it can be tilled in.

Seedlings will be planted over the next 3 weeks then watered and occasionally cloched as weather dictates.

That's the plan anyway.

For the next 10 days...

Country Wisdom & Know How

ISBN-13: 978-1579123680

Gardening is not intuitive and should not be taken for granted. Put seed in ground, water, harvest? It's not that simple. I have gotten green things to come out of the ground with that, but "harvest" has been more conceptual than practical.

I bought this book in 2007, and I've kept it on the shelf. I was reminded of it when I saw the most recent edition at the book store.

The edition I have has 8pt font, 400+ pages, and they are the size of a 1/2 sheet newspaper. I forgot how much I like to read non-fiction for fun, but this is A LOT of text to look at. I lost my momentum to read it cover to cover. The newer edition has three times the illustrations. I went at this with a mission though.

I started reading a couple of days ago. There is gobs of information on plants, gardening, building things for gardening, cooking things from the garden, feeding birds, crop crafts... - I got a little heady there for a minute. I'm just reading about gardening for now. 

I thought I had the seed start stuff down, but I was missing bits.

A lot of my doing has been aping my neighbors. I see some with shallow trays with soil and tiny seedlings. And I see styrofoam cups with bigger seedlings. In both cases, I've seen them carried out to the garden for planting, but I missed a step.

When people have been taking the tiny seedlings to the garden, they've gone straight into the soil in what I call nursery beds. They are used in high crop rotation gardens. There are two growing beds to each nursery bed. The most mature bed is harvested every day with fresh greens. The second most mature bed is growing, and the nursery bed has all of the seedlings. As the most mature bed is harvested, the medium seedlings are planted with a handful of manure in the empty spots. Two beds are constantly being harvested and transferred to while the nursery bed has new seedlings starting all of the time. Crops change as the weather changes. These beds are done in addition to crops that need longer grow time like squash and cucumber. 

I failed to notice how carefully the nursery bed is attended, especially in extreme temperatures. The reason those gardeners are able to move tiny seedlings outside is because the nursery bed is so carefully tended to mimic what others take for granted by starting indoors for a longer amount of time.

The coffee cup transplants have stayed indoors longer to get taller and stronger and only put outside when the weather stabilized. There is no crop rotation. Things are planted close together, harvested periodically through the summer, and by harvesting, the plants are thinned allowing the plants that stay in the ground longest to get the largest for a fall harvest. This allows for eating "baby" veg too, but with less variety.

Since I saw both sizes of seedlings go in to the garden, I assumed they were equivalent. When I grew my seedlings in my Burpee seed starter set to a couple of inches tall, I put them in the ground, they died. I bought plants from a vendor and they went off gangbusters.

My reading told me I should start seeds, transplant them into larger containers, grow them bigger, and then put them outside. I thought that transplanting and then transplanting again would be harmful, but I'm reading that not only is it necessary, it could be beneficial for the plant's hardiness.

I had started many seeds in shallow-ish plasic containers with seeds every .5 inch or so (like I saw in the first example I mentioned above). Today, I dug out the squash and zucchini seedlings which were nearly 6" tall with roots that were running around the sides of the plastic containers. I put them into individual plastic party cups. I also replanted spinach - which I realize was going to sprout like a bed of grass if I hadn't done something. The first spinach to come up had 1" stems with 1.5" leaves. They were floppy, but developing their secondary leaves. When I went through that planter box, I realized that the tiny seedlings that had barely broken through had super root structures. I transplanted all of the seedlingswith three to five per party cups I filled 20 plastic cups with the spinach alone! If I would have left it be, they would have choked. I'm going to grow spinach and herbs in a vertical planting system to save ground space. I think I'll have plenty.

B.Sprouts and cherry tomatoes are over 1" tall. I'll have to transfer those in the next day or so. Peppers are starting to emerge. Peas, which I started less than a week ago in Burpee seed starters are threatening to get huge quick, so I'll have to move those before they get root bound in their little starter pods.

I will have plenty of seeds to transfer and lots to give away. I think I'll do much better this year. 

I still have lots to read. More seeds starting and more seedlings to move. Traditional planting dates around here happen mid-May to Memorial Day. I think I'll be very ready to meet the day.

Rain tonight, ice pellets Sunday night, and snow on Monday. The weather is back to "normal." It's comforting.

2011 Recap

Last summer I decided to plant Russian Mammoth Sunflowers. I'd read up on them and was excited to see if I could get close to the 10 foot goal. When the stalks were about 5 feet tall, they started to bloom (very early) and accelerated seed production. When trees do this, it means they are under stress and they're going to try to drop seeds before they die. These sunflowers were on the back border of my garden plot. When I checked them, I saw that all of the leaves on one side of the stalk had been cut off. Long story short, my garden neighbor, Alexi, cut them off without telling me. When I discovered it, Valentina (Alexi's wife) was in the garden and I was really mad and asked her what happened. When I saw Alexi, we went through several stages: he was mad that I upset his wife and got up in my face about it, he would never apologize (Jesus died to forgive all of his sins), and he mocked me. The idea that I was upset with him because of what he did versus the value of the damaged plants didn't seem to sink in.

When my sunflowers continued to die off because and there was so much anamosity going on with Alexi, the garden wasn't a pleasure. The blog was put together so my sister's kids could watch the plants grow since they didn't have a garden at home. The special focus was to be the line of sunflowers at the back of the garden, and when they withered and died, I lost heart.

My peppers never grew taller than about 14 inches, but by the end of the summer, I had full sized peppers that touched the ground. Most of my neighbors didn't get any fruit from their peppers.

My tomatoes got to be six to seven feet tall/long. Cherry, grape, and pear tomatoes did great. I was giving them away. Full size tomatoes in our part of the country were really bad. They took a long time to grow and were full size by September, but never turned red. In our community garden with just shy of 1000 tomato plants, folks were pretty devastated.
My sweet peas barely produced. The Asian long beans only produced 4 beans. Brussels sprouts were strange. One plant developed a stalk that was 6 inches across and didn't get very tall. The other got about 3 feet tall, but since the season had such a slow start, it didn't have a chance to produce like it could have. Edamame was very successful. I'd never grown them before and planted them too close to each other. Then ended up flattening out the plants on the sides so all could get sun. My butternut squash did great again. My herbs (lavender, mint, cat mint, sage, rosemary, chives) did really well. Flowers were a bust until late in the season.
It was such a strange year weather-wise that overall, I think the garden was successful, but not all at the same time.

Tropical Minnesota...

...is not just the name of the tanning salon on Main Street in Hopkins where I still have credits for 60 minutes of tanning from 4 years ago.

Our heat index is expected to be over 100F for most of the week. My spinach bolted within a week of going in the ground - I didn't get any harvest. I hope this weather will help the peppers. Lots of watering this week.

I "installed" 4' plastic fencing around my plot to keep Alexi (Valentina said he cut my plants) from getting at my plants and to burn off my frustration. The birds are loving it. They know that they can land on my beds and nothing can get at them, not even the people-critters. Happy little birds.

I'm knitting like a knitting fool. Knitty's Winter 2008 Dead Fish Hat pattern. I finished one last week and I'm nearly done with #2.  Pictures to come.

1:30am and some really strange thunder has finally started after 1/2 hour of lightning. It's gonna be weird. I'd love to open the windows, but I've finally gotten the humidity in my apartment under 75%, so I've got to stay buttoned up.

Hey Shorty! What's up Stretch?

My sweet peppers are too short. They are all under 14 inches. One has fruit and the others have buds. It just doesn't seem right.
I decided to check out the University of Minnesota site and I found a paper with basics about peppers. I think the plants are short because of all the weird weather we had - they need warm weather to grow and all of the flux, they just couldn't get in the mood. It warns, though, that high temperatures will cause the blooms to fall off. I haven't noticed anyone's pepper plants. The tomatoes are tall so maybe their peppers are short too. I'm going to water with plant food for the next couple of days and see what happens. It's over 90 again today so fingers are crossed.


The sunflowers are getting really tall. I've learned that the stalks are really tenacious. They'll do whatever they can to get at the sun and grow tall. They seem to grow from the ground up rather than the head stretching to grow up. One plant was growing through the mesh I've put up for the climbers. The "shoulders" of one leaf set were caught on a horizontal section of the mesh. The stalk kept growing from the base and the stalk was forming a "c" shape because it was pushing up, but was caught. It's free from the mesh now and the leaves that were hooked on the mesh died.

I have a clump of 6 or 7 sunflowers that are planted close to each other. I noticed early on that they were wrapping around each other to follow the sun and get the most sun possible. I put a large tomato cage around them to contain the stalks so they wouldn't fan out and shade the neighbor's plants. This has worked well. The plants are growing straight. They lean against the cage which reinforces it and keeps them all in check.

Four of the sunflowers are planted in a row on the border with Alexi/Valentina. They were blown by the big storm last night so they were leaning over the neighbor's plants. They are about 6 feet tall and since they are in a line, there isn't much I can do to keep them together. As a short term solution, I put a large zip tie loosely around the stalks, tied cord to the zip tie loops and tied the cord to a tall stake six feet away. There is a lot of extra cord on each tie so there is some flexibility as they grow, but I hope they will get back to straight, anchor well, and I can remove the cords. I'm mentally planning a Plan B, but no run to Home Depot yet.

They call this a shelf cloud

Second day of 95F+ = severe storms = no need to water

Can you hear the music from Jaws?
Danger approaches.

The weather man on the 5pm news is very excited. Tornado warning: There are "take cover immediately" warnings for places to the west. Also 2" hail. The rest of us are in a severe thunderstorm warning which means rain and wind is coming and tornadoes may follow that.

My afternoon plan was to hang out by the garden with a beverage and a book, but I got side-tracked. I'll watch the storm from my sofa.

It's not all about snow here.

YAY! Tomato Weather!

It Smells Like Rain. Again.

The soil in our garden is strange to me. Instead of black, rich topsoil like that where I grew up (at least 2 feet deep), the garden soil is really sandy with dirt that is more like silt.

When I dug a hole for my water storage, I got almost 15 inches before I hit a 1.5 inch layer of sand. Below that was a dirt layer where I've found insulated wire and pipes. Below that is a compacted clay mix. I came across enough buried pipe that I had to stop digging. I'm not sure what was in this spot before the building was made in 1981, but the stuff left behind is under our yard and garden; our top 1-2 feet of soil are a cover job for the construction junk below.

Sand collected on the surface of the soil after the rain.

When it rains, the rain will flatten the surface of the soil. When it's smoothed out, the water rolls off instead of absorbing and pool in low spots. The silt gets washed off the high spots and sand is left behind. Since I've trenched a bit  between my beds, the trenches fill with the silty dirt, I scoop it up and put it back on the bed and mix it in after the rain.

If it has rained, we all go out with hoes and small cultivators to scratch up the surface of the soil. If we don't break up the sand on the surface, it turns really hard like concrete, which makes the water situation worse. The turning of the surface also helps with weeds, and gives the surface texture to attempt to keep the soil and water in place.

I've got two problems. The rain keeps washing away the top of the soil. The other problem is the overcast cool. We really need a stretch of warm, sunny days to dry things up and put them to rights. The plants just won't grow when it's this cool.

A shiny, sandy crust after the rain. Seeds trying to break out.

The latest soybeans I planted are coming in very slowly. Many of the first set of seed I planted rotted from the cool damp. This second set is barely breaking through and there are still a lot of bald spots. I can't scratch up this surface because I don't want to disrupt the seeds that haven't emerged yet or the root systems of the very small stuff.

According to the news, Minnesota farms have had twice the amount of rain we'd normally have and the crops are half as tall. Standing water is starting to drown the plants and hay that could be harvested can't be because heavy equipment would get stuck in the mud. It's too early to say the crops are badly damaged, but more rain is worrisome. Though I live in the suburbs now, I grew up listening to KBEW in the morning before school with Paul Harvey and the daily commodity prices. Somehow crop status was burned into my brain as a measure to determine if all is right with the world.

The rain is supposed to start in the next few hours and it is supposed to rain on and off for at least three more days. Severe weather is also possible.

Think good thoughts for us.

A Big Day

Today was a big day as the garden has actually become a garden with plants and everything. The fact that I'm the first person to put plants in the ground has caused a certain amount of anxiety for myself and my neighbors. None of us are confident about the weather. I installed 24 plants from my favorite grower (Julie Pflaum) and some seedlings from the apartment. I'm hopeful.