Weekly Gardening Thread - Almost Spring

Brains | 3/14/08 | Garden Girl

[Gabz]

Hey all! Since my computer decided to eat a couple years worth of my articles, and I’m too lazy to dig out the papers and retype them, I thought I’d just give you a rundown on my greenhouse and answer some of the questions a few of you have been kind enough to ask!

I don’t have any formal training, other than a few years of horticulture classes in high school FFA. My grandparents and parents gardened, and I grew up following them around on the farm. I do have a great love for the land and of growing things, and a tremendous amount of curiosity. If I was a cat, I’d’ve long been dead!

First, let me tell you a little about the garden center where I work, and then I’ll tell you about the greenhouse I manage. The garden center is small, larger than some, but not on a par with Diana’s in Wisconsin, or any big name nursery. We only have six employees, and we pretty much can all do everything. The guys do load more, and the girls work in the greenhouse more.

The garden center building itself is an old dairy barn, a leftover from when there were actually neighborhood dairies. Side note—I don’t even know anyone in our county who has milk cows! The building was rolled on logs to it’s present location sometime around 1960. The garden center has been in it since 1963. It’s a story and a half A-frame. One story wings were added to both sides, giving us additional space. The original loft is blocked off by the ceiling and unusable.

Inside the store, every square foot is ruthlessly organized. We sell feed, hay, fertilizer, chemicals, Toro mowers, Stihl products, hoes, rakes, and other tools, gardening soils, pots, dog and horse supplies, feeders, and seeds. While most of the feed is in the huge warehouse out back, we keep dog food and 25# bags of bird seed and feed in the store itself.

We sell all kinds of Purina feed, from your basic chicken and rabbit and horse to monkey and chinchilla and llama. In the past we’ve carried emu and ostrich. I’ve even ordered crocodile food for the state aquarium! We still weigh out seeds. The smaller seeds are kept in half gallon Mason jars—the same ones that are original to the store. We have a multi-tiered spin bin that was manufactured in 1918 to keep larger seeds/amounts in—beans and corn and lima beans.

The seed counter has four sets of scales, two antique and two newer. The older ones are the bigger ones, one with both a scoop and a flat space for weighing, and one with loose weights and a big round glassed in dial in the middle that says—over, under, and right in the middle, a red line for exact weight.

We have a wood stove, one that’s been in the building since the early seventies, and serves as a daily gathering place for many of the local farmers and loafers. Alas, the heat is just a memory because the insurance company says a woodstove is a big no-no. We have chairs scattered around the woodstove and a plaque hanging behind it that says—Hunting and Fishing Stories Told Here. That’s not all that gets told! You can get a real education just sitting around and listening! The primo chair is an antique oak captain’s chair, painted gate way blue, also known as the Blue Chair Café.

A lot of our loafers are veterans, and they tell stories, too, without a lot of details. About the most you’ll get out of them is a head shake, and yeah, I was there. We’ve lost, in the last few years, all our WWII vets, and the vets from the Korean war are getting fewer and fewer. Many of our loafers are not only vets but farmers/hunters/ fisherman or some combination. We carry chicks in the spring, and they’ll be in shortly, around the first of April. We have a rabidly stringent local ASPCA. We are very careful not to get chicks Easter week! I’ve never figured out why it’s okay to order 500 chicks that are destined for the freezer in five or six weeks, but it’s a crime to buy one for a child for Easter. Either way, they’re going to end up…

One day old when we get them, the chicks come from a hatchery in Ohio because there aren’t any local ones. The chicks are hatched, debeaked so they don’t peck each other to death, given a shot, sexed, and put on a plane. They go from Ohio to Muleshoe Texas, and are then flown back to eastern NC, because the airlines have decided, in their infinite wisdom, that it’s closer to go that route than to send them straight to NC. They come in to the post office, and the post office loses no time in calling us. Usually, they just hold the phone out and lets the peeps do the talking!

Inside the store is great, but my true love is the greenhouse. Walk straight through the store, out the back door, and turn right. Welcome to my world! The original greenhouse was a small, probably 8x10 lean-to on the back of the store. We currently have a 30x60 Quonset type greenhouse, double layer plastic. Just like inside, we maximize every inch of space. We have three tiers of hanging baskets hanging from the ridgepoles on both sides. We also hang baskets off the sides and ends of the tables. We have seven tables, six ranged down the middle and one on the north side, longwise. What we don’t have is space!

Ideally, a greenhouse should be oriented more north/south, so it gets equal light. Ours is east/west, but it works for us because I can put our shade loving plants on the longwise table on the north. Most of the time you think about keeping a greenhouse warm. Here in the hot and humid south, our biggest problem is keeping it cool. We have a shade cloth which stays on more than off.

We have a table and a half of sun loving annuals. The second side of the second table is viny stuff—cukes, squash, zucchini—and okra. The third table is peppers—hot on one side and sweet on the other. The next table is herbs and eggplant, and the last one, the biggest one, is tomatoes. We try to keep canning and cherry on one side, and bigger tomatoes on the other side. We normally carry 30-40 varieties of tomatoes.

On the floor on the south side, we put a double row of watermelons and cantaloupes, and the next set of okra. On the floor on the north side and the back, we put the second set of peppers and tomatoes.

New transplants and seeded but not up yet trays go on the floor under the tables, for a couple of days, or until we have room to move them out. It gets tight this time of year. It’s a big shuffle puzzle—you know—the kind where you can’t take the pieces out, you just have to keep moving them around until they fit!

We grow most of our own stuff, with the exception of geraniums and petunias and a few other things I don’t have room for or sell enough of to justify the space. Opposite the greenhouse is the shop where the boss and one of the guys work on Toro and Stihl products.

Between the shop and the warehouse is a plot covered by landscaping fabric, about 50x100. Right now, we have 230 J&P roses out there, just leafing out. When the roses are gone, about mid May 500 mum cuttings will come in and they’ll spend the rest of the summer growing on the tarp.

Between the shop and the greenhouse, we have pallets outside. Currently, all our cole crops are on them. Lettuces, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, cabbages, spinach, chard and a few others I can’t remember right off hand. When the cole crops are gone, we’ll put zinnias and Wave petunias and perennials out there.

Collards are a huge part of our fall crop, and we’ll plant collards until we hate the sight of a collard seed! We’ll start about the middle of July. The best time to plant fall crops here is mid September, and we’ll work all summer to meet our goal. It is a hard thing to keep a cold loving plant alive through our summers!

About the only month we don’t have anything in the greenhouse is December, and we try to take everything out of the greenhouse and clean it. Clorox the tables and the floor, change the landscape fabric on the floor if it’s worn through, replace the plastic if needed. The plastic will usually last about four years, barring any horrible hurricanes, before it gets milky and we don’t get enough light.

A greenhouse is like a toddler—it always needs something and you can’t leave it alone for a minute without it getting in trouble!

Hope you enjoyed your little field trip, and now class, it’s back to the real world!

[Gabz]

Morning All!!!!

Thanks Garden Girl for a great tour!

Please take a minute to check out SwampSniper's thread:

Signs of spring

[Poetgal26]

Wow sounds amazing, I can’t wait to get our garden going this yr, it is relaxing sometimes to go out there and work but at the same time it is harder work this year, cause I have a toddler that I am probably chasing around our big yard too...

I have fond memories of gardens since a child, even though I didn’t do much planting, but I did some weeding and just played in the mud and dirt...lol

[Califreak]

I finally prepped my garden!

Seedlings are sprouting in their little egg carton homes.

Going to try upside down tomatoes this year.

I was thinking about a greenhouse for okra.

[Gabz]

I remember my days in the garden with a toddler, thankfully I had a very small garden at the time.

My daughter and her best friend are in charge of the friend’s little sister in the garden now. Their mom and I do our gossipping while working in the dirt.

[OB1kNOb]

Gabz if you have a ping list for Gardening and Outdoors, please add me.

[Poetgal26]

LOL yeah LOL ....I will have to wait a while to have free labor, cause my son isn’t old enough to help mommy out ...

Also I see you are from VA, what part? if I may ask...we are kinda neighboors, I am in Delaware

[Gabz]

I was hoping to have my field prepped by today, so I could get peas and beans in this weekend. By some quirk of fate hubby got roped into downing a tree at the Moose Lodge and that has been taking up his time. Hopefully he can at least get started on MY field needs tomorrow.

[Gabz]

Welcome aboard the green thumb express!!!!!

[gardengirl]

You’re welcome, and I hope everyone enjoys it!

Swampsniper has beautiful pics, for all those of you who haven’t seen his stuff—check it out!

[OB1kNOb]

Great! Thanks.

[Califreak]

We don’t have a field. Sniff. Maybe about 100 sq yds to be doubled with a tiller this weekend.

If I was good at it, I would devote 3/4 of the backyard to this effort.

I am still learning.

My corn last year was pathetic. It was small and tough because I left it on too long hoping it would get bigger.

We’re putting it in a sunnier location this year, and maybe bigger, so hope to improve this year.

[metmom]

Not much in the way of signs of spring here yet. Here it is almost the middle of March and no crocuses and no robins.:(

Last night I heard several large flocks of geese flying overhead and the temperatures are definitely getting milder.

The last frost can’t come soon enough for me.

[trisham]

It was 41 degrees here this morning when I walked out on the deck with the dogs. Two geese flew overhead, honking away.

We are still a couple of months+ away from planting any warm weather plants, although we can seed lettuce in the near future. We have a few mini-crocuses popping up, which is cheering, but the deer were ruthless in nipping at our Japanese cypress and rhododendron. All will have to be relocated behind the fence in the back yard if they are to survive.

[RandallFlagg]

Time to start planting that tobacco!!

[Gabz]

I will have to wait a while to have free labor, cause my son isn’t old enough to help mommy out ...

The free labor is wondrful!!!!!!!! My daughter and her friend will both be 10 before harvesting starts, but I can generally keep their attention span long enough to get several 30foot rows of seeds in before they decide playing with the cats is more fun!!!

Also I see you are from VA, what part? if I may ask...we are kinda neighboors, I am in Delaware

Neighbors? You're right, we are. I live on the Eastern Shore near Chincoteague, just about an hour from the MD/DE line. I lived in Dover for 21 years before moving here, and my husband grew up in Dover. Where in Delaware do you live?

[Gabz]

You have to understand, I’m originally a city kid so my idea of a “field” is different than that of real farmers. My “field” last year was about 120’x80’ and I hope to bring it to 160’x120’ this year.

Hubby wants that also, it means less grass to cut. tilling that much up will negate any grass cutting for him on about 1/4 of our property.

[Califreak]

I don’t work, so I’m stuck with cutting the grass, which I don’t really mind.

Hubby’s all about food, so that’s why he helps out. He’s not really interested in landscaping, but he can get behind the idea of raising your own crops.

We would keep chickens, but we’re in city limits, so we can’t.

[Califreak]

Where do you get the seeds?

I was wondering if I could grow anything reasonable.

[Gabz]

The last frost can’t come soon enough for me.

Same for me!

Easter was a bit later last year than this year and on Holy Saturday we had 6 inches of snow. The only significant snowfall we had all winter. Go figger.

[RandallFlagg]

http://seedman.com/

[Califreak]

Thanks!

[Red_Devil 232]

I am always waiting for your gardening thread each week. Thanks for the tour of your garden center. We used to have something similar around here but about six years ago it changed drastically. It is like walking into a bath and beauty or candle shop now. The local co-op is the place to go but they do not have a green house.

Still no buds on my fig trees.:(

You mentioned watermelons and I have a question or two. I will be planting some Sugar Baby seeds in a raised mound that will consist of tilled soil (a red clay) with a commercial composted manure and addition of compost from my pile. How big should I make this raised mound and how many seeds should I plant? It does get very hot here so should they be in full sun? I know this question can't be answered with any accuracy, but how many watermelons should I expect to harvest from one plant? Do they grow and ripen all at the same time?

Looks like spring has arrive here in central Miss.

Friday	Saturday	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday
75° F | 55° F 24° C | 13° C	79° F | 42° F 26° C | 6° C	66° F | 47° F 19° C | 8° C	75° F | 55° F 24° C | 13° C	77° F | 51° F 25° C | 11° C
T-storms 30% chance of precipitation	Partly Cloudy	Clear	Partly Cloudy	Mostly Cloudy

[Gone_Postal]

bought a used tiller and now tilling my garden...making it bigger this year going to inclued strawberries and blueberries along with broccoli, and the standard veggy's
Here's to a great harvest....

[Gabz]

Help GG!!!! -— Red Devil is asking me questions that you are far better at answering!!!!!!!!!

[SunkenCiv]

That does it. I’m going to start a few seeds.

[Red_Devil 232]

See! That is what I like about this garden thread everybody is going to learn something useful at some point. If GG does not know then there will be another FReeper who will have an answer or two!

My two Irish Setters love watermelon. I bought one last year (small like a Sugar Baby) and left it on the porch (no room in the frig). When my wife came home she asked me where the "guys" got a watermelon? What? All we could figure is one of them started playing with it and rolled it down the steps, cracking it open. They both had a feast!

[metmom]

We got nailed with a blizzard in late April last year that gave the kids a snow day. UGH.

It’s about 50 out right now. Time for a walk to run some errands.

[metmom]

With your blueberries, clean up the ground every year from the dead berries and other litter. It prevents bugs from overwintering and getting worms in your berries. The worms overwinter in the fallen berries and re-infest the plants in the spring.

I have a friend who has a blueberry patch and she said they try to keep the wild turkeys around every year by feeding them. If they stay, they eat all the berries on the ground, even the bad ones, and it cuts down on the worms and they have to spray far less.

[metmom]

I tried Sugar Babies. Didn’t work. It’s either too cold or too dry up here. I don’t know how the farmers at the farmers market grow them but they do cause I know some of them and they told me that they are theirs.

[Gone_Postal]

thanks for the info as this is my first attempt with blueberriers..I need all the help I can get..thanks again

[metmom]

I got some bushes two years ago. They’re supposed to be the more compact ones, two to four feet. Last year one bush produced about a dozen berries and they were AWESOME. Fantastic flavor.

[metmom]

I have a recipe for blueberry spice jam that’s incredible too, if you’re interested.

[gardengirl]

So glad you enjoy it! I enjoy sharing. Love to have the kids from the elementary school 2 doors down come and tour. Sadly, it takes an act of Congress for them to walk across the playground and the softball field to come see us, and we both enjoy it so much.

About the watermelons—no wonder your dogs ate it! I love sugar babies! Mound size is up to you. It was originally done because a mound of dirt will heat up faster in the spring than flat earth. :) Sow 2-3 seeds per mound, then when they come up, thin to the strongest one. You need about 21 square feet per mature plant. Yield depends on weather, and they do need full sun. Unfortunately, they will all come off about the same time.

[gardengirl]

That must have been the same one that dumped a week long nor’easter on us! Froze everything that didn’t blow away.

[tubebender]

The rains returned to Humboldt Bay area mid week and shut us out of the garden. The wife will be in the greenhoouse today and tomorrow transplanting some of her flower seedlings into 6 pack cells. Takes lots of patience and speed.

We had a landscape designer over yesterday to give us a proposal for our front and north side foundation area. We ripped out all of the 30 year old plants and added fresh soil and amendments. we had the Redwood trees in our front yard limbed up to 35 feet and thinned to put more scarce sunlight on the front area. Daffodils and some Rhodys, Camellias, Primroses and English Daisies are blooming.

[Gabz]

making it bigger this year going to inclued strawberries and blueberries

Bigger is always better!!!!!

Good luck with those berries. I've tried both, with no luck. Keep us posted with how you are making out with them.........I just might try them again next year.

Here's to a great harvest....

AMEN!!!!!!

[Gabz]

ROFL!!!!

I can just picture those setter faces slathered in watermelon juice! Too funny.

We had a Chesador (half Chesapeake Bay and half black lab) that absolutely adored green tomatoes. The year before we moved to Virginia I could not for the life of me figure out why I wasn’t getting any tomatoes because the plants were some of the best I had ever had. Then one day hubby caught the big lug just chowing down on them. I wanted to strangle that dog that day........

[Gabz]

No snow day associated with the Easter storm last year. The 6inches we got Saturday was gone before it was time for Easter sunrise services.

It’s well over 60 here and the sun is shining. I’ve got the doors and windows open up here in my attic office, but going out for a walk or anything fun was out of the question today -— I’ve been doing our taxes. talk about UGH..........

[Gabz]

I have a recipe for blueberry spice jam that’s incredible too, if you’re interested.

I know I am!!!! My husband's fave of my blueberry jams is blueberry lemon and I'm willing to share that one with anyone interested.

[metmom]

Gack!! I need to dig it out!

Basically, it’s just blueberries with some cinnamon in it. Plain blueberry is kind of dull, but adding just the cinnamon makes a world of difference.

I use pectin called Pomona’s Universal pectin. It allows you to easily make low sugar and large batches. I use 12 C fruit, 3 c sugar, the cinnamon and the pectin. I get almost exactly 7 pints, or one canner load, from each batch. Talk about time and clean up savings.

If you buy a large quantity of the pectin, (half a pound) it seems pretty expensive, but when you figure out the cost per jar, it’s way cheaper than the Sure-Jell or Certo.

[Red_Devil 232]

I am going to fence off the area where I plant the sugar babies because of the dogs! They never bothered the raised beds I had last year but I will just let the watermelons grow on mounds at the back of the house and the dogs would trample them if I don't.

My wife and I both enjoy watermelon but when we give a bowl of watermelon to them it is gone in seconds! It is the same thing with spaghetti pasta (no sauce just noodles). If I ate anything that fast I would be hurting!

[Gone_Postal]

I’m always up to something new...please send me the recipe thanks....I’ll let you know how it turns out when I try amd make it....

[tubebender]

I was rushing things here when I said she was transplanting seedlings. They are not ready yet.She was planting Marigold seeds.

[Gabz]

I know what you mean about the cost of pectin and so buying in bulk does make sense. Unfortunately for me, the majority of my recipes call for liquid, not powder pectin.

My blueberry lemon jam is basically your standard blueberry jam recipe, just with additional lemon juice in it. I don’t think I’ve ever come across a recipe for blueberry anything that doesn’t call for a bit of lemon juice.

[metmom]

Pomona’s comes with recipes.

[gardengirl]

Too funny, Gabz! We used to have a Chessie that thot our garden was his own personal ball supply store. He didn’t eat it, he just picked it and wanted you to throw it!

Customer last year told us the coyotes couldn’t carry off his cantaloupes/ watermelons so they would drag the whole vine into the woods and feast there!

[gardengirl]

Did you know you can freeze watermelon? We inadvertently froze a whole one—like to never have gotten it thawed enough to cut! IIRC, you can’t let it thaw much to eat—just cut the watermelon in chinks and freeze it that way, eat it like popscicles. The dogs would probably love it, too!

[gardengirl]

It’s about 70 here and beautiful! Took the rat terrorists for a walk when I got home. I love this time of year. No gnats, no mosquitos, no yellow flies, no greenheads. The pine trees are candling so the ground is yellow. The red maples are covered in gauzy drapes and the jasmine has jsut started blooming. There were a few yellow petals scattered on teh ground because the wind has blown pretty good today. Saw a great blue heron after some of the first butter minnows to show up in our gut. Alas, no tiny white violets or wild iris. A couple of local kids have been riding their 4 wheelers and motor bikes in the fields and woods where I walk. Not ours—I wish it was! OTOH, the patch of cattails that sprang up a couple of years ago during a wet season is gone thanks to the kids! Now CAMA can’t declare that spot wetlands! Theoretically! :)

[Free Vulcan]

Thanks for the virtual tour. Sounds somewhat like our old Dehner’s store here before it closed.

I got around and got all but one of the bluebird houses cleaned and put back up this week. Got to do the last one and the wren houses next week as well as dig the parsnips, jerusalem artichokes, and horseradish. The greens survived under the hoop tunnel so I’ll have salad in early April.

Still more plants coming up, and the super rare Datil peppers are sprouting along with tomatoes, eggplant, and tomatillos. Hopefully I’ll get some peppers this year. Cabbage-broccoli-kohlrabi, and leeks will be ready to put in the ground in about 3 weeks, bee balm and alpine strawberries in a couple of months.

Ran out of dirt, will have to wait for the garden to dry to dig more out so I can start my remaining tomatoes & eggplants, celery and celeriac and garden berries (ground cherries, naranjilla, huckleberrry, wonderberry, litchi tomato) and ornamental chinese lantern.

Most my garlic and shallots heaved out of the ground, had to push them back in but they survived the freeze-thaw and are already sprouting a little. If I’m lucky I might get in an early row or two of peas next week.

We’ve had a crappy crappy winter with lots of snow. I’m ready for spring like I haven’t been in a long time.