May in the Garden

At the beginning of May, it's time to check in with the outside garden. 

According to the schedule, the Spring garden should be in full swing.  Seedlings we planted in late March and April should now be reaching maturity and in the process of being harvested.

For the Red Romain and Buttercrunch lettuce, that is definitely the case.  I did a series of plantings about a week apart, and the earliest plantings are fully mature and ready for harvest.  In fact, I have harvested outside leaves as well as one whole heads of buttercrunch.  The red and white radishes have been plentiful as well.  Growing beside them, the onions have leafed out and are holding their own.  Their height is allowing them to thrive, even though the lettuce is crowding them at the base.

The other bed was planted later, with Bok Choi, Swiss chard and Garlic.  Despite  later start, the Bok Choi have grown tremendously from their seedling stage and have put on plenty of major leaves in a short amount of time.  Both of these beds have been mulched with grass clippings to retain moisture and help with weeds.

At the far end of the bok choi bed, I've already planted three peppers and two basil.  While they are not suffering at all, they aren't actually growing and putting on any new leaves, either.  The truth is that the weather is still too cool for summer crops, or has been until recently.  While we've had pleasant days in the 70s, we've had just as many days in the 50s and nights in the 40s.  All the peppers can do is sulk and hopefully develop their root structure.

The general guideline is that summer crops like peppers and tomatoes really won't do much in the garden until after Memorial Day.  That's the  marker for putting in tomatoes.

Inside, the summer seeds have all germinated, but they are proceeding at different rates:

The roma and cherry tomatoes have exploded with growth and are ready to be transplanted into pots.   The peppers are taking their time, as are the big boy slicing tomatoes, who wish the roma would go away and give them some light.  On the right, the basil are holding their own, but in between are some seedling big boys.

At the other end, the peppers have sprouted along with the ground cherries, both of which are growing with modest enthusiasm.

April Garden Update

Last post, I talked about the seedlings, some of which were added to the outside raised beds.  But there are a few crops already planted and growing well.  At the very end of February I planted butter crunch lettuce, and this is what it looks like after 5 weeks of growing:

There are a couple of the new arugula transplants at the bottom right.

According to the planting information, the lettuce will be ready in 60 days, which would put it at the end of April. Realistically, I could begin harvesting individual outer leaves in about 2 weeks.












The Kale and Chard are at about the same place, having been planted a couple days later:

Transplant March 5

And the Napa cabbage trailed by about a week so it will be ready in early May.

Growing for 30 days - April 4

I harvested a few of the outside leaves this evening for some greens to stuff my gyros.  Perfectly sweet and tender. 

Seedling Update

So we are a little over two weeks since our last post, and I was mentioning that I would need to re-pot the Aerogarden soon, because the seedlings were outgrowing the current situation.   The post was on a Thursday, and I did, indeed transplant about half of the seedlings into larger pots that weekend.  These went out under the 4-tube fluorescent fixtures in the garage.

This included all of the Bok Choi, Some Arugula, and two Swiss Chard.  I planted the plugs into a larger plastic garden pot, using generic potting soil.  When I opened the Aerogarden, the roots had grown together into a thick matted tangle, which I had to separate out with careful fingers.  Roots were snapped along the way, and I had to coil some around the pot to make them all fit.  This suggests to me that I probably should have re-potted sooner.

I didn't loose any of them, though, and they all seemed to like the new light, on an 18-hour cycle.  I also gave them a weak feeding of miracle-gro.  After two weeks in the larger pots, they became as you see them above, still rather compact, but pressing on the lights.

Emboldened by their eagerness, I took a small sample of 4 Arugula and 2 Chard and planted them in my outside garden, after a couple of days of hardening.  The garage is not heated, so they hadn't been in a climate controlled area for many days, and I still have the low tunnels up to enhance the microclimate So we'll see how they do.

This is what they look like in the raised bed.

The Arugula above is definitely looking a little ragged and I'm hoping a bit of space will help them even out.  The spatulate leaves seem to be yellowing, but new leaves are showing in the interior that are deeply lobed in the Rocket style, and are a much nicer shade of deep green.

The chard, to the right, is in beautiful shape. With a rich red color on the stems and veins.

Both of these had roots throughout the pot, growing out the bottom and up the sides, so two weeks seemed to be plenty to get them ready for outdoors.

These were seeds that I planted in the Aerogarden on March 4th.  It's about 5 weeks later and they are ready for transplanting into the garden.  My calendar for their progress looks like this:

• Week 1: planted seeds into aerogarden plugs.  By the end of the first week, all the bok choi, arugula and chard had germinated.  One week for germination
• Week 2-3: weeks two and three, the seedlings grew well.  Water and nutrients were cycled and light was on a 24 hour cycle
• Week 4: In the middle of this week, I transplanted the Bok Choi, Chard and Arugula into small pots.  2.5 weeks in the Aerogarden as seedlings.
• Week 5: Grew for 1.5 weeks in transplant pots under fluorescent lights.  At the end of this week, I transplanted into the garden the first half of the re-potted seedlings.
• Week 6: This is the transplant's first week in the raised beds.  I still have all the bok choi in pots for one more week, giving them the full 6 week start cycle.

That gives me about 6 weeks from planting seed to transplanting into the raised bed.  And these are for simple plants.  It is likely that other plants (like tomatoes and peppers) take longer to germinate and require a longer growing out period before they are ready for the garden.

So that means that if I want to plant tomatoes and peppers in the first week in June, I need lead time of at least 6 weeks to prepare seedlings.  If that's true, I should be preparing to seed peppers and tomatoes soon.

First Planting

In commemoration of leap day, February 29th, I felt I needed to post a progress update.  It is Monday, and this past weekend I planted the first batch of lettuce.  I still have today left to plant the other half of the leafy bed, with Kale and Chard.  But even if I don't get it done tonight, I will at least have reached my goal of getting something into the finished bed by the end of February.

The weather this weekend was between 32 and 38 degrees.  Today, it is projected to get up to 70 F.  By the end of the week, it will be back down in the 40s.  This is the challenge of February.

Markers February 2016

The state of the mountain:
The upper bed has been prepared and has been covered with a tarp for the last 6 weeks.  The lower two beds have also been covered with tarps for 6 weeks, but the beds beneath them have been too wet to work.

This past week I put up the hoops  (8' grey electrical conduit) and covered them with plastic to further seal out the moisture.  The rainy weather has been constant for at least the last week, and it snowed on the 15th (last Monday)  so the pattern of having the most miserable weather in February has been holding constant.

However, I have swiss chard seedlings started (Bright Lights) and ready to plant.  At the Walmart garden center I found 9-cell packs of Kale and Butter Crunch Lettuce.  Both of these are ready to plant in that upper bed, which is scheduled to be the Leaf bed this year.

I wish the spinach or bok choy seeds had come up by now, but neither has done anything.

The middle bed is too low, and is inundated with ground water.  We need to create a proper raised bed in that location to help the drainage situation.

I need to get large flat pavers to hold down the ends of the plastic row covers, and 2x6s for the sides.