2013 Garden, Take Two

When we returned from vacation the first thing I did was peak under the ag cloth at 9:30 at night.  I did not see anything, but did not worry about it since it WAS dead dark by then.  Morning would tell the story.

The story was this: one sugar snap pea, one radish, three possible spinach plants, and two wax beans!  That was not much to have accomplished in the garden!  Well, not liking to be disappointed, I went out this morning in the rain to work on renovating the garden.  After sharpening the shovel (I used my very meager personal funds to purchase a nice single slant bastard file (yes, bastard..you tell me why it is called that.  I don't know.); finding the trowel I had put away last fall; collecting two small sections of 2" by 4"-maybe 6" wire that was on the trailer getting ready for the metal recycling as well as a couple pieces of PVC pipe from a defunct try at making a tomato trellis in the growbox in the field, and collecting the tray of seeds I had put in the peat moss disks on 3 May, I was ready for work.

Single Slant Bastard File--It worked great to sharpen the round-pointed shovel

Did I forget to tell you that, different from the outside garden project, the INSIDE garden project was WAY more successful, at least in some ways.  Only one of the 72 disks I had planted did not have a plant coming through the peat...the zucchinis were the winners, so to speak, as several were 6-8 inches tall.  Really, that was not success because you want short fat plants to put into the garden, but I am planting them outside anyway and will take our chances with them.

Below are some pictures of the reprised garden:

Along the right side you can barely see the wire with the white PVC stakes to hold it upright in the ground where I hope to train the tomato (maybe one more will be added) and the cucumbers.

 

 

 

 

Front garden, take two

Along the front you can see in the distance the planted carrots and beets.  Yes, I do know that you are supposed to plant them in the ground, not transplant them, but I wanted to give it a try.  Next year I am hoping to build a "real" seed starting area in the cellar...will have to save my pennies and nickels to buy the wood and light (if we have disposed of the one we had a few years ago when I tried it before) fixture.  I will also need to finish organizing the cellar so the table I have in mind to use will be available as a seed garden.  Hope springs eternal...

This shot below shows you where the beets and carrots are planted in their disks. I really do hope they work.  The "cloth" that holds the peat moss together has a hole in the bottom so I am hopeful that the beet and carrot roots will find their way through to the soil and be very happy campers.  You will notice that the pepper plant has some blossoms on it.  A wonderful friend gave me the pepper and the tomato.  I have added three more bell pepper plants in the messed-up grid beside the nice looking pepper plant.  I do not know what kind of pepper that one is, but actually hope it is not a Scotch Bonnet!  Those are bit much for my palate.

Carrots, beets, pepper and tomato

 The picture below shows the one sugar snap pea, a weed or a radish, and the one good-looking zucchini plant.  I put the zuke very near the edge of the garden so that half of its growth will be over the lawn and not taking up so much of the garden. Time will tell.  For all I know, the lawn mower with prune the zucchini regularly!

Zucchini plant bottom left and sugar snap pea plant upper right

Collard greens that I hope will survive, and even thrive this season.

This seed packet is something new for this season (I do not count the four collard plants I put in from transplants last year that the moles, field mice/voles, or other varmint took out very early on!) since I have become greatly enamored of collard greens.  They are so good lightly sauteed in olive oil with chopped onion and garlic.  Yummy, yummy, yummy!

So, the 'addition garden' is now planted and ready.  We can hope for the best.  If Mel Bartholomew ("Square Foot Gardening" author) is correct, it will take about two hours a week to make this garden productive.  I am hoping he is right.  I am going to try to tilt things in our favor by using Mittleider method fertilizer.  I also hope to get the growbox in the field planted at the end of the week after purchasing two more pieces of rod to hold up the climbing fence in that garden.  I am in search of 6-foot rebar.  Wish me luck on that one.  When I have those in place I will look for some heirloom tomato starts, will plant more wax beans and the rest of the zucchini and cucumbers.  AND THE COLLARDS!  I think I will plant some of them on the back side of the tomato climbing fence so they will stay cooler through the hot summer.

So, we are

Hot for Gardening

It is July 12.  Memorial Day weekend is the traditional start of gardening when planting here in Vermont is likely to avoid frosts.  This year, again, we had an early spring and people were already eating lettuce, spinach, and other goodies by Memorial Day.  We were not.

When Bob was gone on his Appalachian Trail hike in early June I went out to the growbox to see what I could do.  There were so many weeds and so much brush coming up through the hardware cloth (or whatever it is called that is guaranteed to prevent weeds from coming up), that I could not do a thing with the garden.

Finally the stars aligned and we had tools, equipment, and personnel all in the same place at the same time and yesterday Bob roto-tilled up the grow-box.  If we were really smart we would have thrown on the Mittleider fertilizer, roto-tilled in into the soil, let the garden rest a week, then roto-tilled again, but...I just could not be that patient so out I went today in the brutal heat of mid-day after Bob left to help Ben with his house today.

Growbox rototilled and ready for PACC  5' by 30'

Last year I had a very simple tomato support system, but it failed due to the fact that Jacob Mittleider used 4 by 4 or 6 by 6 posts and we did not have the money nor did I have the expertise nor the strength to do it myself added to which I was stupidly too proud to ask for help...SO, I made my own duplicate system using PVC pipe.  It did not work, however,  I only spent about $17.00 on the parts.  What a bust.  Oh well. Live and learn.  Hopefully I have learned.

So this year I decided to use the same parts to do a different sort of tomato support system.  My thought is that it is important to put in the supports before the tomatoes go in...so I did pound these uprights in with a sledgehammer to the best of my ability.  The string support will follow later if the tomatoes make it up a few inches.

Rebar and PVC uprights from last year's disaster plus drip hose that also failed last year when I forgot to shut off the hose and drained the well dry.  Dumb.  Note attached to my pocket as I type to remember to shut off the water in another half hour.

There are actually two rows of projected produce---about 24 plum tomato plants and a row that includes zucchini squash, collards, and green onions.  Judging from the packets, there is some likelihood that the zucchini have time enough to produce a harvest before the frost.  The collards may possibly make it as well as they are supposed to be "improved in flavor after a frost".  That remains to be seen. (I fell in love with collards in North Carolina last year...even without the pork added to the cooking process.)  The green onions need 4 months to grow to harvest.  I am sure that won't happen but maybe they will be mature enough that I can bring some into the house and put them in the planter that has one benighted tomato plant in it on the porch currently.

North end of tomato row where tomatoes are planted about a foot apart and which I hope will have begun to stand upright by next Tuesday when I need to go out and put the Mittleider fertilizer on them again...twice a week.  If they are upright, I will start in with the string supports at that time. If not, I will wait until next Friday.

Having sat here at the computer for half an hour now my heart has stopped pounding like a jackhammer,  the blood has stopped shrieking through my veins, and the water has stopped dripping into my eyes. Now the heart is just thump, thump, thumping loudly, the blood is swish, swish, swishing at a somewhat breakneck speed, and the dripping has stopped and I am just soaked from the skin out.  Working this body hard in the heat of the day has repercussions!

Really I was only out there in the garden for a little over an hour and not working fast...just plodding along but  I WAS wearing my Bug Baffler which is black, and keeps the bugs at bay but is very hot.  When I came back into the house I drank a full glass of water THROUGH the Bug Baffler in about 3 seconds flat.  Since I am feeling a little headache-y and nauseous I think I will go pour in some more water and maybe eat a couple green olives then lie down.

Happy harvesting to all you gardeners who put your gardens in at the appropriate time.  One tip I am reminding myself is that before the snow flies, or certainly before the ground freezes, I want to yank up all the garden refuse, compost it, and roto-till the garden, really putting it to bed properly.

We will see...