There is progress being made, and we’re in the final countdown in the last two weeks until “last frost”. I’ve sown seeds for beets, rutabagas, peas and planted my seed potatoes. I started my corn seeds indoors, as I did last year. It worked well last year starting them in the mini blocks, so I’m doing it again. So far the long-range forecast looks pretty good, warming up and fewer freezing temps at night. I’ve also planted more leeks and scallions, and eaten some delicious asparagus.Last night it was Asparagus-Smoked Salmon Crepes, which turned out delicious.
I’ve begun to “harden off” the bee balm and alpine strawberries for planting soon–I think they can handle some colder temps, but I’ll watch the weather more closely before I plant. I’ll be using the cold frame, moved to an empty bed, for my area to harden things off. It’ll be a walk to get the heavy trays there, but I think helpful–after a few days I should be able to leave things there overnight.
We’re getting the beds ready for planting. This year I’m trying out Steve Solomon’s homemade “Complete Organic Fertilizer” (COF) to see how well it aids garden growth. I’m leveling out the beds, mixing in the manure that was on the top of each bed over the winter, and adding the COF. Some of the raised beds still are not framed, due to lack of materials, and difficult to keep them enclosed in the area I want them without some of the soil falling into the pathways. I’ll just have to make do and make the best of it.
Tim has leveled out the area where we plan to put the greenhouse and it’s ready for concrete, which we hope to get this weekend. It’ll be bigger than I had imagined! It’ll be nice, particularly in the spring, for getting the seedlings going, and I’ll be able to do that process without all the electricity we’re using for the light bench. We’ll also put down a concrete floor for the duck house, so we can wash it off for cleaning.
Tim is also working hard to fix our upstairs porch, which needed new posts for supports. The old ones had warped and were pulling the porch and its roof away from the house–not good. He’s working hard, and all these projects on top of his “real job”.
Indoor Forest
Here’s a couple of photos of our indoor forest, growing in their MAXI blocks. The tomato plants are growing like crazy, and I have to lift the lights a notch higher every day or two. I’m thinking that next year I won’t plant them quite as early, and may hold off an extra week or so longer for the tallest varieties. The peppers are also doing well, but not quite as tall.
Today I plan to start my squash and cucumbers, and get them going before I put them outside. It’s about 3 weeks until planting! Woohoooo!
Pathways & Weed Control
This weekend we finished covering most of our pathways between beds with woodchips. Last year Tim had found (at a local recycle place) some plastic stuff that’s meant to go under cement. He cut it into widths the size of the walkways and put it down to act as a weed & mud barrier. It worked well. After our “trial” period, we finished most of the garden that way. After we ran out of the plastic, we used leftover roof shingles to act as our weed barrier on the rest of the paths.
The City of Fort Collins had advertised wood mulch at $5 a load this weekend, so Tim took four trips to pick up four loads of the stuff. It’s nice, and we’ve got lots of it. It turned out to be two different batches, and therefore two different colors, but I think that in time they’ll all look the same. The garden will be so much nicer this year with the pathways covered and the weeds easier to control. There will still be weeds at the edges and in the beds, but they’ll be much easier to handle than the ones that took over on the pathways. Our other experiment with weeds will be a flame weeder we got. We should be able to use that for weeds outside of the bed areas.
We’re still looking for cheap, recycled materials to frame more of the beds. At this point, it looks like that will have to wait. If they don’t get framed before planting, they won’t get framed!
First Harvest
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| April 20 |
We’ve harvested our first lettuce, spinach and cilantro of the year! The photo at the right shows the cold frame now. HERE IS A PHOTO that was taken the day I planted, 3/19. We’ve got puh-lenty of lettuce and spinach, and had our first spinach souffle! I need to force myself to make salads every day, which are good, good for us, and using what we’re growing ourselves. I planted lots of it, thinking we would have the ducks now and that they would be eating some of it. Since their delivery has been delayed, I guess I’ll just have to pick it small and early, and eat lots it! It’s just too bad I can’t freeze and save lettuce. Since I planted the lettuces and spinach, I’ve also planted some beets, leeks and scallions here, which are also coming along nicely.
Updates: Seedlings, Ducks, Grass, Rain
Seedlings: The indoor seedlings are doing well! This week I transplanted all the peppers and tomatoes from the MINI blocks into their MAXI blocks, and they’re taking off. A few more seeds were sown for basil & other herbs and some marigolds. The beets I’d started were transplanted to the cold frame about 2.5 weeks after sowing inside. This is one of the things “not recommended” to start indoors, but as with many things, in the blocks I’ve found it’s fine to give them a quick start inside and saves time and wondering which or how many will germinate.
Ducks: Our order was delayed due to high volume of orders, and we weren’t able to get the ducklings the first week of April as we’d hoped. We’ll be getting the duckling delivery the first week of June. We’re really looking forward to getting the little buggers. We’ll have plenty of time to focus on the garden and other things before we get the ducks, and it’ll be warmer more consistently later on, so they may be able to get outside in less time after we get them.
Grass: We decided to try planting some grass seed in the area where the ducks will live and forage, in hopes it will be better for them. One advantage in the delay of the ducks is that it may have more time to get established and growing before they to out there. Tim cleared the area, broke up the soil a bit and planted the seed yesterday.
Rain: It finally RAINED! It has been so very, very dry this winter, it was exciting to hear some thunder, see some lightening, and later hear rain on the roof during the night. Not a lot, but it’s something!
W-I-N-D: Wind, Wind, Wind
This time of year I grow tired of the wind! It blows and blows. You’d think it would just give up after a time, but when it does, it just starts up again. It’s hard to be outside in the wind, even if it is not particularly cold. Now that it is warming up a bit, it would be nice to get more done outside, but with the wind blowing there is little motivation. The forecast for tomorrow was to be nice, and much calmer, but now it is showing “breezy” again. We had planned to take the horses out for a ride, and maybe we still will, but it’s awfully annoying (and a bit nerveracking) in the wind.
Soon we will be getting our ducklings. We have a brooder all ready for them, and anxiously await notification that they’ll be on their way! The new adventure will begin!
Cold Frame Planted!
I’ve filled the second section of the cold frame with more lettuces, spinach, kale, kohlrabi, leeks and scallions. Now it looks like this. I may have gone a bit overboard with the salad greens. I’ll have to pick them young, rather than wait until they are big, and then eat lots of salads! I also thought extra would be fine, and I can feed it to the ducks, which should arrive the first or second week of April.
Cold Frame Construction
Thanks for the question about construction. It’s good to know someone is reading this! We (or rather, Tim) built a new cold frame top, to be added to the other one, expanding the size. All of these frames are made to fit our framed beds, which are the same width, 3.5 feet. The beds were framed with barn siding material, just because we had some on hand and we wanted to use what we had.
Before the wind storm, we had attached the cold frame with short pieces of pvc pipe placed over the ends of the hoops onto a grooved piece of wood attached to the bed frame, as shown at the right.
After the storm, Tim decided to bolt it to the side of the frame as on the left, with wing nuts on the inside. It’s a little more work to get it on and off for watering and tending, but not bad. It was quite windy again last week, and the thing held on!
The plastic over the hoops is screwed on to the hoops with 1/4 round pieces of pvc piping (3/4″ round).
Tim took the piping on his table saw and ripped it into 4 pieces, as shown.
In order to screw through the pvc and the plastic and the pipe hoops, Tim pre-drilled each hole, which helped a lot to keep the screws from slipping.
The end hoops have an additional 1/4 round piece of the pvc to hold the edge of the plastic in place, on both the frame and the door, as shown. The door is screwed onto the ends of the hoops and opens out. When closed, it is held up by two nails that go through holes in both the door and the frame. (Not shown, sorry.)
Tim nailed these pieces of plywood on the sides to hold the sides of the plastic down. I held and stretched the plastic while Tim screwed.
A shot of the whole deal, upside down. I think those are the highlights of the construction. While stretching and screwing on the plastic, we kept the frame flat and kept checking the ends to keep the whole thing square. Once we had the plastic screwed onto the ends, the whole thing stayed pretty square.
There are more pictures, but I think these give the main idea. Here’s a shot of the two, now placed together to give a 12′ covered bed.
Tim has also made two more frames with hoops which we intend to cover with frost cloth to cover the most sensitive plants (peppers, tomatoes) just after planting in May. There are always a few freezing or almost freezing nights that time of year, and hail! We aren’t sure yet if or how we will attach the frost cloth. We may attempt a way to roll it over the hoops, so we can remove it and put it back again at will. We’re just not sure it will hold in the wind, unless we tack it down real good.
First Cold Frame Planting
I planted lettuces and some cilantro into the cold frame and it looks like this. The lettuces were sown in the house 4 weeks ago. The spinach has been in the cold frame since November. The other lettuces planted in November didn’t survive the cold. Now I know.
Wind Damage
On Wednesday night it was quite windy! Apparently there were gusts to 50 mph. Throughout the night we heard things going bump and ca-clunk, wondering what was loose. Thursday morning Tim looked out to see that our cold frame had “flown the coop” (or at least off the bed) and was in pieces. We thought that thing was indestructible, but I guess not! See it behind the bed it had been sitting on all winter.
There was some spinach growing inside, and I’d been taking new plants out daily to harden off, with plans to plant them soon. It’s a good thing I hadn’t planted the tender lettuces yet! Tim already had a frame built to make another cold frame, so last night he finished covering it with the plastic and put it together, and now we’re set. This one is secured a little better, and as soon as we pick up some bolts we plan to bolt it down even better, so the next time we get wind like that we should be ready for it. Here’s a shot of the new cold frame. Soon I should be able to get the lettuces planted, and some scallions and leeks.
Other than that, the seedlings in the house are coming along nicely. I now have 6 varieties of peppers growing, and just started the tomato seeds as well.