Working at home today. Planted my zinnias in peat pots finally!
I got one and a half raised beds weeded and planted some Cherry Belle radishes. I also pulled a lot of sour grass (red sorrel) from the south flower bed. Lots and lots of it but I pulled any particularly going to seed. It is very wet so that makes it easier. I really need to dig up all the plants in that bed and clean out the sorrel then replant. And add lime!
Tomorrow I will do weeding and mulching at the farm. It may be too wet to work but I'll give it a shot. I would like to plant more radishes and beets if possible. Running out of room Originally I wanted to plant tomatoes and peppers tomorrow and Friday but I think it may be too wet. Maybe not.
Forecast is for rain until Tuesday. Grass needs to be cut too but that's not happening.
I'm a couple of days behind here. Been very busy!
Saturday (yesterday) was our first day at market so on Friday we went to the farm early to pick the lettuce. Always better to pick it early and it was threatening rain so we really wanted to get it done. It took 1 1/2 hours to pick lettuce, radishes, rosemary, cilantro and some tatsoi. Then we washed it and used the large salad spinner. My son got a 4 section commercial sink last year and it was so much easier washing the lettuce in it. We got 17 large bags of lettuce. We didn't weigh it, I just filled up the bags. Everyone who bought it said it was a good deal. Funny thing is, we upped our price from $3 to $4 and no one complained. Actually, when I checked out other vendors, it was a good deal!!!
The only other thing we had to sell were tomato plants and some forsythia. I actually sold three forsythia. Last year I couldn't sell a single one. You just never know! I think I sold about 27 tomato plants. We had take about 100!!! I have 30 varieties and some just had one or two tomatoes so I really needed to take all that I did.
The rain held off until we finished. When we got home we had to run other errands which took the rest of the afternoon. We got a 50# bag of dried molasses to try as a soil amendment. It was funny because we got the last bag and when we picked it up they asked us what was going on because they had a run on it this week. I told them we discussed using it at our garden club meeting.
We also went to Office Depot to buy a cash box because I was tired of using a fanny pack for our cash. While we were there we looked at printers and they had a really good salesman who took a lot of time going over the differences in printers and what would fit our need. We ended up buying one even though I hadn't planned on it, but I really needed it because I had signage to be printed for market and my old printer is not printing anything with black ink.
Saturday was beautiful, cool and breezy but not cold. We sold all the lettuce and radishes and some cilantro and rosemary as well as the plants. When we got home around 2:30, we both took a two hour nap! I'm not used to getting up at 6 am anymore!
After we slept we did do some more potting up of the pepper plants. I noticed some aphid damage so I mixed up some spray and sprayed them all. Some of them even have blossoms already. Not good! It's funny because I always plant my peppers at the same time each year and two years ago the plants were so small when I planted them outside they didn't even show up in the pictures I took after planting! Last year they looked pretty good, about 4-6". But this year, I swear they are almost 1 foot tall!!! I don't think I did anything differently but who knows.
Today I got outside pretty early and my goal was to pot up all of the tiny seedlings I had started in vermiculite and all my winter sowing seedlings. I almost got them all done but it started to rain. I move my set up into the greenhouse and go all but about a dozen seedlings potted up so I'm happy. Now I can start more!
Oh, I did get some cucumbers and melons planted in paper pots yesterday too. I still have not gotten my zinnias started though and they are the bread and butter of my bouquets so I'd better get to it soon.
We stopped by the farm today on our way to Lowe's to get some timbers to make another raised bed. Some of the beans I planted on Thursday are already peaking through. And things were still moist so I didn't need to water, not to mention that we are supposed to get rain all week so it should work out pretty well. I hope. Back to babysitting tomorrow so we wouldn't get anything done in the garden anyway until Thursday.
It has been very hot during the daytime, in the 80s and mid 60s at night so I decided to plant more beans and my corn! I also planted zucchini and Delicata squash and more gladiolus.
The glads got planted in a row where they were last year and I had dug them up but missed several. I only sort of weeded first and decided to do a 'no till' type of planting. I cut the crimson clover but left the roots in. We decided that's what we're going to do for the tomatoes and pepper rows as well.
I planted more bush beans, Goldcrop and some Landrace Early Bush Beans from Joseph in the seed swap. I also planted a Cannelcini runner bean, Mezola pole bean and yellow Neckargold pole beans and some butter peas I saved seeds from last year.
I also planted F5 hybrid sweet corn, saved seeds so maybe F6 by now? Spring Surprise and Sugar Pearl corn. We're gonna have a lot of corn.
I planted zucchini, yellow straight neck squash and some delicata squash as well.
Tomorrow we will harvest our first lettuce and some radishes. Tomatoes are all potted up and ready to load. No peppers were potted up though. I just haven't had the time. But soon.
Ira mowed the crimson clover so hopefully this week I'll get our tomatoes planted. I'm off to make an inventory list of the tomatoes so I can decide which ones we will be keeping...
We are taking advantage of not having to babysit this week and spending a lot of time at the farm. Mostly weeding, although there is some potting up of plants to sell at market next Saturday. Matt told me we could dig up some comfrey to sell if we wanted since it is spreading quite nicely. I think we will take him up on that. At least I have quite a bit of energy this week so I can get lots done.
Today I finished weeding the garlic. Actually, more between the rows where Matt had raked the straw off the garlic. Lots of wheat growing and some was over a foot high but it pulled out easily and I was able to do two rows before lunch. We were planning on going home at lunchtime but decided to buy lunch and stay longer so I could get more done.
I still have a partial row of onions to weed but David mowed and I had grass clippings so I wanted to get the lettuce mulched right away. Ira had mowed recently but David went over it again and was able to pick up quite a bit of clippings, but not quite enough to finish the row. So, I'll wait a couple of days to finish it up. There was a huge hill of fire ants in the row, going all the way across the row. I knocked them out yesterday and they seemed to be less today but I still avoided the area. I will put heavy coffee grounds on them tomorrow if it doesn't rain.
I had planted 64 paper pots of Jade green beans but I kept them too wet with no drainage so I only got about 30 plants, but they were really nice and I planted them in the garden today. They are ahead of the ones I planted direct but considering I took a chance planting them so early, they are doing pretty good too. We mulched them with grass clippings yesterday.
I don't think a lot of the cauliflower and broccoli will recover from the cold night last week. Some of the broccoli started to button but most all the leaves froze and it looks pathetic. I am thinking I started it inside too early and it was too big when I planted it out.
The asparagus is finally starting to come in enough to have a meal. We picked about a pound today and had roasted asparagus for dinner. It was delicious even though I overcooked it while waiting for the spaghetti to cook.
We are supposed to get rain tomorrow so depending on when, I'll go to the garden early if I can or I'll work in the greenhouse and pot up seedlings and the rest of the tomato plants. I may even sneak over to the farm to dig some comfrey to pot up.
On Tuesday the farm got a big storm and with it, cherry sized hail that really bombarded the garden. We were planning on going to market this Saturday. We don't have much, just lettuce and radishes and some tomato plants, but now we have to delay another week. The lettuce should recuperate by then.
The cold last Saturday night (27) also got some of the broccoli and cauliflower because the wind took off the row cover. It should recover as well, but it is a setback. Some of the broccoli was starting to form heads. The fava beans are toast! We won't be growing them again!
The extreme cold also nipped a lot of new flower growth. The mums took a big hit. Hopefully they will bounce back.
The gladiolus I planted last week are starting to peek through.
I weeded about half a row of strawberries today and planted some sweet peas along the shed wall. David will put up some netting later. We have a whole week with no babysitting so I will be trying to do some serious weeding. The grass in my flowers is so bad they can hardly breathe!
