Posted on 03/21/2014 12:44:59 PM PDT by greeneyes
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Here is why I am fantastic - this morning, I surveyed the plants on the deck and in the greenhouse and in two wood long planters sitting on the ground in the actual garden part, and the net room on the actual garden part.
Every plant out there I started with seed except the three prepackaged buckets of potatoes I got at Walmart, and the lettuce strip and the onion bulbs and Egyptian Walking Onions, three blackberry stalks, and strawberries. I can absolutely make seeds grow fast as long as I have Espoma seed starter. I bought four big bags of that so I'm not running out of that for a long time.
Here is what I saw this morning:
Egyptian Onions are strong looking and I don't think it will be long before they start doing their thing to grow new onions on the stalks growing up. The stalks will fall over with the weight of the new onions and those new onions will grow roots and start the process all over, thereby they are “walking”.
Lettuce strip in long wood planter - I see tiny green lettuce coming up.
Net room - Now, this amazes me. There are at least 30 onion bulbs in grow bags and they shot up inches last night. Anywhere from one and a half to two inches taller than they were yesterday. Don't know how that is possible, but it happened.
Deck plants - There is a bucket with a green, solid stalk that died back and now it is growing a limb on each side of the maybe 2 inch plus stalk. It is a Mortgage Lifter tomato that died back due to the cold. I have new ML seeds under the grow lamp but this killed back one may recover since it has new growth on both sides.
Every plant on that deck looks great - the Deck Corn grown from seed is taller every day, about 4-5 inches tall now.
There are healthy peppers of all types and three kinds of container bush peas and celery and three blackberry stalks growing healthy limbs and leaves, and cucumbers and three types of bunching onions, and 40 or so blooming strawberry plants. There are containers of Johnny's tobacco, healthy and growing. The one Tromboncino squash is at least four inches tall and looks great.
Four types of tomatoes are okay but the cold didn't help them one bit. I have more types of tomato seed under the grow lamp.
There are numerous healthy, growing plants in the greenhouse that must be transplanted now into permanent pots. Those are more types of peppers and cucumbers and peas and others I don't recall this minute.
There are 16-18 cups of seeds under the grow lamp, more Deck Corn up, more tomatoes (see Typhoon green coming up this morning), more cucumbers (see green on one cup), two types sunflowers already up, one T squash I can see green coming up. These seeds were planted this past Monday using Espoma seed starter. To have seedlings come up four days after planting is great.
Last year in about April when I started, I knew nothing. Now, I have so many foods grown from seed and growing so well, I dub myself a “fantastic” gardener. :o)
Molasses and Milk, and dried Molasses, and cornmeal is something that they tout a lot around here.
I think Medina is one brand of these products availiable at nurseries.
Did you have fresh tomatoes over the winter? I had a tomato plant also this past winter. No tomatoes this winter for me.:(
I cleaned out a corner of the garage to designate it for garden stuff. Amazing the missing junk that emerged from that black hole. The remaining 98% of the garage will be daunting what with no one putting things where they belong and family dumping their junk off here. I refuse to look in the sheds which have four generations of junk that can’t be thrown out. Mother stopped by when I was organizing my garden corner and started in (yes, I’m still 6 years old) about where’s grandpa’s this and grandpa’s that which needs to be put into a museum because it so unique and valuable. Sorry, mom, but it’s so valuable then you should have gotten it out of the shed 30 years ago.
I think we are all hopeful about our gardens, and I admire your tenacity. I had a moment of.."it's coming" when I read Eric in the Ozarks problem with little spots on tomato leaves.
I hope it's a bad bug free year, and that it's not 105 by June 15th.. What I am enjoying now will seem like a nightmare if it's 92 degrees at 8 in the morning..
I am moving things into containers, (smart pots, and plastic pots(, and into the open garden today..My cigarette break is over, so it's back outside for me...
Tomatos and peppers planted in the ground floor garden. We still have room to put the squash, and cukes , but that will be a bit later, since I haven’t started the seeds yet. I took some of that potting soil we like and ran about 3 qts through a 1/4” screen sifter to remove any bark or sticks from it to use as a seed starting mix. I hope to get those started later today.
The plants in the raised container garden are growing fast. I like having it at a comfortable height. If this is successful, I could get interested in expanding next year.
My wife planted 8 packs of zennia seeds in the flower garden way out back. This is where the Texas wildflowers will be, and the blackberries.
While out along the roadside in front of the house looking around at wildflowers, I found some white ones.... blackberry flowers, right across the street!
I have actually been in the shop doing a little bit today. Trying to get some things done before it rains. Will probably collapse from exhaustion soon, and be worthless the rest of the weekend. Oh well, Its better than getting 0 done all weekend.
Does anyone grow worms? I should have about ten pounds of castings for my Missus when she starts planting.
I use Rubbermaid totes and bought my first worms at WalMart. Use newspaper and old phonebooks for bedding. Feed them coffee ground, teabags and kitchen scraps.
Best pets ever.
Where’d you get the typhoon green tomatoes?
All sounds great!
:o)
Anything you get done is something you didn't have before.
I have the big bags of potting soil mix on the deck under the roof so I can fill pots even if it rains and I have so many to do, I must do some today. That is where I am, nothing gets transplanted until I have those pots filled. It requires bending to get soil out of that big bag since it is so heavy, it has to stay on the floor, can't lift it. So, I fill pots until pain gets me, then go in and rest the lower back.
The Sears work table came yesterday and I ordered it just two days before. It is terribly heavy when put together (will hold 500 lbs of weight), so I may leave it for the engineer to put together if he gets to come to a school in April sometime. If not, I'll tackle putting it together where it is going to stay. I couldn't lift the box the parts were in. I took them all out of box to be able to move it piece by piece to another place in the room.
A happening: When the engineer and I were working outside and took a break since two chairs were now available to sit in under the roof, he began to whistle “bird talk” and the bird talked back to him. There is no difference in the sound of the bird and the whistle that came out of his mouth. He said it was a mocking bird he was talking to. The bird would make a sound and the engineer made the very same sound, so the bird would make another sound, and the same sound came from the engineer. You would definitely think it was a bird if you heard his whistle which he would change every time he whistled.
He learned “bird talk” when a teen ager and would talk to the different birds that came around their place. He also talked to owls. One time, an owl flew to him and swept over his head. That owl thought he was one.
You’d have thought with so many freezes this year the bugs would have slowed down. Not so. Wednesday, I saw and squished a squash vine bore in it’s little black and orange stage. The ants are already going strong.
Saw the first humming bird this morning so need to get the feeders out.
I forgot to mention of the three pots of different potatoes I got at Walmart, I see two potato plants coming up in each one. Each one has three potatoes of that kind. Each one is a kit that had one pot inside another with the three potatoes included plus the medium to grow them in. When they are ready to harvest, lift the first pot out of the second pot and the potatoes can be seen or quickly found to get them out.
My orange tree has many blossoms opened and more to bloom.
Using an ice pick, I punch four or five holes in the bottom of a 5 oz. paper cup and punch some around the cup close to the bottom. I plant the seeds in dry Espoma according to the depth on the seed instructions. Then, I put the cups in a low plastic container (have used bakery shells rolls and cookies come in), and have the tray some peat moss cups came in. I fill the tray with about 1/2 to 1 inch of water from the bottom of the tray. When that tray dries out, I add more water. I use filtered water from the faucet. The water is soaked into the cups in several hours so it is fed water from the bottom up. This mix works starting some seeds after four days and longer of course according to other seeds needing a bit more time and most of the seeds will sprout, usually all of them. It grows lots of roots on the seedlings before you know it and need to transplant.
Espoma Seed Starter
For all seedlings and cuttings
Promotes root growth
Espoma Organic Seed Starter is a rich, premium blend of the finest natural ingredients and is specially formulated to grow seedlings and cuttings.
Contains
Sphagnum peat moss, peat humus, perlite, and is enhanced with Myco-tone, a blend of mycorrhizae that helps to promote root growth, increase nutrient and water uptake, and grow larger plants.
What is Myco-tone?
We have enhanced several of our mixes with Myco-tone™, a proprietary blend of 11 different strains of mycorrhizae, which have been proven to promote root growth, increase water uptake, and reduce drought stress and transplant shock.
I took every small pot out of the greenhouse and put them on a table in the roofed deck and started filling up large black gardeners pots with potting soil mix. I got 11 planted and there are 11 left to plant. The outside humidity is 65% and I had sweat running down my face and my back said stop, so I did. I left the newly potted ones on the roofed deck so if it rained, their potting soil wouldn’t turn to mush with them swimming in it. I did water them on the deck after transplanting.
I can’t transplant baby carrot plants worth diddly, they are too fragile. They need to be direct planted in the pot where they are to live. I’ve got a ten gallon grow bag with large surface in the net room filled with potting soil mix from last year, so will plant carrot seed in that and stick in a few Jobe’s veggie spikes for new plant food. I have plenty of baby carrot seed. I’ll do that tomorrow as I am done for the day out there.
“Saw the first humming bird this morning so need to get the feeders out.”
I have a metal pole in the ground in the middle of the real garden that is about 7 ft. tall. It has a pulley on it to lower or raise a hummingbird feeder. I need a new feeder. Put that on a list to get at Walmart next time I am out. Those feeders will be with the animal stuff which is next to the door to the gardening center and not many people are around there. Should be able to get the feeder and check out in the gardening center so won’t have to stand in line forever to get out of that store - I really don’t like that store - maybe I’ll go to Lowes instead, they should have one.
I’ve got to weed one of my raised beds so I can plant baby carrots there. That’s this afternoon’s project just as soon as hubby gets done with his outside projects in a little while. I’m sorting through all my direct seed stuff for summer to make a final decision on what exactly I’m going to be planting out and hopefully saving seed from.
Let’s cross our fingers this all works out.
I can see my garden!!!!! There are still piles of snow here and there, but it’s not in my garden anymore.
I stopped by Jungs today and saw Diana. Didn’t get a chance to talk, it was more of a wave as she ran around helping other customers. I picked up enough Wall O’ Waters for my backyard garden, and some more seeds. Garden stores , craft stores, and bookstores are the three most dangerous places for me to be :)
I hope to be able to plant in the Wall O’ Waters next weekend, but I have to wait for Dad to move the rabbit fence. He wants it moved to inside the raised beds instead of outside, but if I do it he’ll take it apart and say I did it wrong, and he’s too busy to do it himself. Maybe I should do it anyway knowing he’ll grouch at me, if it gets him to find time and gets it done? Who knows. I want my house to be finished.
It’s nice out today, I left my coat at home when I went out :)
It's Tycoon, not Typhoon tomatoes. I ordered them from David's Garden Seeds on Amazon, but if I'd just ordered 250 from the distributor to the US, for 6 bucks more I would've got 250 seeds, IIRC...As opposed to 25 seeds for 12 bucks with shipping.
Black and orange larva stage sounds like a ladybug..
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