All posts by : Laurie

Oh, no!  It hailed today.  It started out as quite a downpour of water, and I was a bit concerned that it might hail….later on my fears came true.  The hail was pea-sized.  The only real damage I’ve seen so far is some of the leaves on the peppers were pretty badly beaten.  The basil was a bit sad looking and a few marks on some tomato leaves.  All in all, I guess things turned out ok.  At least we didn’t have ripe fruit being bombarded.

This morning I doused all the plants with “manure tea”, with thanks to my helper on the other side of the fence.  I pruned the suckers off the tomatoes and planted some more marigold seeds.  

The broccoli is noticeably bigger, and so are the kale plants.  The brussels sprout seeds have sprouted.  The leeks & celery look good.  I think there are buds on the watermelon plants.

On inspection, we’ve seen a couple of asparagas shoots begin to appear, which is a relief, because we were beginning to wonder if they’d ever sprout.  There is also some life on some of the strawberry plants, which were both planted as roots. 

I got a shot of curly endive, too–reminds me of a chia pet or a green ‘fro.

Here are some shots Tim took of the garden from the rooftop. The first from above the garage looking down, and another from the barn roof looking at the entire yard–the only thing not seen is the “three sisters” over on the northwest corner behind the porch.

Tier 1

Tim completed the bed for the Three Sisters (corn, pole beans, squash), and I planted it this morning before it began to rain.  We have found a few different suggestions about how to plant this combination, so we’re experimenting with a few different options.

I got a book from the library I’ve just begun to read: “The $64 Tomato” by William Alexander. Just the premise of the book sounds funny!  After all that this guy went through to plant his garden, he estimates that each tomato he brings in cost him $64.  I fear that will be the cost of ours this year!

One of the books I’ve been reading suggested planting celery & leeks in a row together, alternating every other one, in a trench to be filled in as they grow, to blanch the bottoms. I planted them this way, along the front side of one of the tomato rows–both grow well with tomatoes. I hope they like their new home!

Tommy the toad has brought a new friend to the garden, who is a little smaller. They both seem to like the pea bed–that’s the only place I’ve seen them. It’s funny how they keep coming back. I guess they are not a problem, but I don’t want them disturbing pea seeds that haven’t yet emerged.

Everything is looking good, and we keep admiring our hard work. We just need to finish Tier 3, the other half of the tomato bed, then a spot for watermelons down near the strawberries. After that we’ll do the corn patch on the other side of the yard, and we’re done with planting.

We still have a lot of the topsoil we purchased. I suppose we’ll use it to amend the unused areas that we will begin to prepare for next year’s rotation. I suppose this worked out well (only using about half the yard), so we can rotate our crops better. We’ll have to come up with a whole new plan next year! I’m bummed that this topsoil came with weed seeds in it. They are growing all over the place, even after our careful planning to keep them out by using cardboard underneath each bed. Grrr. I knew I would have to do some weeding, but didn’t expect so much.

This morning Tim took some time off work to get out in the yard, and got the beds done for the strawberries.  I got them planted in the afternoon, all in nice little mounds, one for each plant. I bought roots, two varieties.  There’s about 40 plants.  I don’t expect strawberries this year, and some resources suggest picking off any buds I see before they turn to fruit, to allow the plants to get established the first year.  (Others say it’s not a problem to get some fruit the first year.)  I guess I’ll do some of each, and take notes!  Let’s see…”Plant A: I picked off the flowers in 2009 and got better yield in 2010; Plant B: I got 4 strawberries in 2009 and fewer than Plant A in 2010.”  Is that how it will go?

Yahoo…we finally got the tomatoes planted.  It’s exciting to see everything coming together.  Tim got out early to construct the trellis for the tall indeterminite plants (Brandywine and Sugar Sweetie), and we got those all planted (18 of them) in the back row of Tier 3.  Then we put in stakes for the determinites (so far just the Romas) and got those planted.  I also have some of the Ace variety started, but they’re only about 2″ tall, and I’m not sure about taking them outside just yet.  I’ll wait a couple of weeks, and they should provide a later harvest.  I also planted 4 of the romas down by the asparagas, just because they’re supposed to grow well together.  That took all morning–Tim started around 6 am, and I got out there around 7.

It was a warm day–yesterday was cooler and probably better for planting, but this was just the way it worked out.  I kept watering them just to keep them from wilting, but hopefully they’ll be ok.  After we got those done, Tim began to work on creating the beds for strawberries, while I planted the bush beans I’d started inside a couple of weeks ago, and also put new seeds in the ground for more.  I’d started 10 

edamame and 10 tavera french beans inside, because the soil blocker material I’ve read said that even though beans don’t normally transplant well, they will in the soil blocks because the roots aren’t being disturbed.  So, I gave it a try.  Eight of the edamame sprouted, but only four of the tavera sprouted.  Since I had the empty soil blocks, I went ahead and put

 them in the ground and put my seeds into those, so they’ll have that nice soil to get started in.  Could be a good experiment, and I can compare the ones started in the soil block mixture with the ones started in the ground.  I also put my marigold seedlings around the beans, as they are supposed to grow well together and help repel bean beetles.

I realized, too, that of all the seeds I’ve already planted, I haven’t paid attention to the soil I put them in.  Perhaps I should have been more careful to mix some good soil together for planting the seeds, similar to the soil blocking mixture.  Hmmm.  If a lot of these don’t sprout soon, I may have to plant them again, but with better soil next time.  Lots of experiments this year!!!

After the beans, I moved on to the summer squash section.  My reading indicated that I should plant them in “hills” but didn’t specifically say how big these hills should be.  I made little hills about two feet apart and planted my seedlings along with a few seeds.  I’d forgotten about hardening off these plants and they haven’t as yet had any time outside, but hopefully they’ll survive the shock.  If not, the seeds I added should sprout and I’ll still have plenty of summer squash.  The 9 plants look kind of small now, but I know they’ll grow and I’ll have plenty of squash.  I also planted some seeds for nasturtiums around the squash.  They’re supposed to grow well together and be pretty.

By then we were pretty hot and tired!  As soon as we can, we’ll get the strawberries planted, then finish the part of Tier 3 where the younger tomato plants (Ace) will go along with celery & leeks and maybe an onion or two in between each tomato plant.

We’ve been letting the cats out lately during the day, especially when we are working outside. They like coming outside, and Bayou is getting more and more brave, exploring new territory.  She likes to visit me while I’m working in the garden and meows a lot as she walks. We’ve been calling her the “stealth cat” because she is NOT, as she runs along so loudly and meows so much.  She’s even been seen in the barn a couple of times–perhaps she smells the bunny that seems to be living in there.