gone three days and look what happens

Last night i returned after three wonderful days in Kansas.  Well, to be honest it was two days in the car, one fun evening, one lovely day and one fun breakfast in Kansas.  The reason for the Kansas trip was to attend the graduation of my youngest, Caitlin, who received her Master's Degree in Interior Architecture and Product Design from Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas.  I couldn't be prouder and that event deserves its own post and I will do that soon.

A lot happened while I was gone.

We had a shot of rain on Friday night or Saturday, more rain during the day on Sunday and still more rain during the night on Sunday night.  I hear predictions of more rain Monday afternoon or evening and maybe more still the next couple of days. 

The lawn grew.  It desperately needs to be mowed but of course it cannot be mowed while it is this wet.  One good thing is that by the time I am able to mow it i should have enough grass clippings to pick up and spread between the rows in my new growing space.  Not only is it long but there are wide swaths of yellow dandelions.

The orchard--the apple trees and plum trees are blooming.  We have flowers opening on both apple trees and both plum trees.  Both of the pears, last year's and the replacement planted a few weeks ago, are getting leaves and I am hoping that flowers won't be far behind.  The flowering cherry, an ornamental tree is also blooming.  I am hoping that will bring the mason bees to the yard and they will find the house I set out for them.

The asparagus went from being a bunch of spears to being fern-like over the weekend.  I knows that there is probably a word for that but it eludes me now.

The rhubarb is getting bigger and still needs desperately to be weeded.

More of the raspberry canes are leafing out.

The blueberries do not look any worse.  The one variety still has no leaves but the other two varieties are looking okay.   I am glad for the rain because I think the rain water might be better than the well water.  Last year I pH tested my well water and it was alkaline so it is not helping to acidify my soil.  I think that I will make an attempt to capture rainwater over the next few days and use that for watering.

The peas are up.  The transplanted kale are surviving.  The potatoes are just starting to come in a couple spots.  Maybe some varieties are earlier than others.  Nothing coming yet from the strawberries, a couple of the grapevines are just starting to get leaves the others are not yet.  Nothing much from the garlic. 

a greenhouse evening

It was still cloudy and wet out today so there was not much to be done outside.  All of a sudden parts of the lawn are looking shaggy and there soil is too wet for any gardening activities.  It was a good time to put in a little time with the seedlings.  I have a bunch of seeds that were planted late in April, maybe two weeks ago that will be transplanted into the corn field when it is warmer out.  They are only a couple weeks old but already the roots are growing out the bottom of the seed cells so it is time to get them in a bigger pot.  When I seeded the cells for the melons and squashes I seeded some as singles and some with two or three seeds in a pot.  The singles will be planted in rows and the multiples will be planted in hills.  The multiples were the most crowded and so they were transplanted from a 2 inch cell to a red solo cup.  Here are the rows of transplanted cups.  the smaller white cups in the middle are the brandywine and big beef tomatoes.  The acorn squashes are in the front and the Pumpkins are in the back and the squashes--zucchini, yellow and butternut are in the two rows behind the tomatoes.

Here are more tomatoes, Amish paste on the right and Matt's wild cherry on the left.

Here are a few more seedlings the left box is the inpatiens, they are not growing.   The large round and square containers are the asparagus, the small white cups are Swiss chard and the front box is mostly cucumbers.

Here are the marigolds

And another the greens from the sampler:

Some are starting to try to go to seed but I have been picking the seed heads.  They are tasty.  Much of the kale has been moved outside.  I am hoping that is not a mistake,  It seems a little windy.  The kale in the bigger planters are sitting outside.  One of the gutter planters has been transplanted into the garden.  They never got very big in the confined space in the gutters,  I am curious as to whether or not they will get bigger with lots of room for their roots to spread out.

I started an inventory of the seedlings that are doing well and hopefully will be ready for transplanting in two to three weeks into the gardens.  I think we may have some extras to share.

Last year we got an earlier start on tomatoes.  We started them in two batches the earliest ones intended for pots and the later planting intended to go into the ground.  By the time we had gotten to our last frost date the tomatoes were starting to flower.  We are not gong to be nearly that ready this year. I have started planting some of the tomatoes into big pots.  These will make the trip to the twin cities for Nikole's garden and yard.  Two brandywines:

And a big beef:

There will be more to come over the next few days.

flower and veggie seed update

 A while back I started some flower seeds in the greenhouse which are intended to go into the summer gardens both here and at Nikole's.  I planted Marigolds, Bee Balm and Impatiens.  It has now been six weeks since they were planted.  The Bee Balm have not germinated at all.  I planted a second smaller group with the remaining seeds and they have not come up either.  In a little online research it turns out that some Bee Balm seeds benefit from a moist chill so I am back out to the greenhouse to bring in the Bee Balm seeds to refrigerate.  There were a couple tiny seedlings that had started so I transplanted them into cups before sticking the others in the fridge.

The marigolds germinated but not well.  I planted only one seed per cell so some cells did not germinate.Two weeks ago when they were four weeks from the date they were planted I transplanted them into cups.  Here they are today.  They have multiple leaves and sturdy stems.  I think that we have about 24 plants.

These are the Impatiens.  There was a little mishap with the planting of these.  The little dish that I had transferred the seeds into got jostled and the seeds flew, landing on a thin layer of seed starting mix.  I spread the seeds and mix over the filled but not yet planted cells, planning to thin/replant when they came up.  We actually got a fair number of seeds to germinate and when they were still pretty small they were separated to one plant per cell.

 Here is one of the tomato seedlings from the first group planted...

Brandywiue tomato

and the asparagus...

and the kohlrabi...

This weekend I will be starting more seeds for the summer garden and hope to have more updates on seeds that have been started.

in like a lion, out like a lion

After a couple warm days with melting snow and feeling like spring is right around the corner we are back to heating the greenhouse at least for the overnight tonight and probably tomorrow night.  The temperatures are dropping and the wind is howling.  By dawn tomorrow morning they are predicting 0 degree windchills.   

Today was Easter and greenhouse greens made it to Mom and Dad's for the family celebration.  Before leaving for town I harvested some of four or five different crops for a pretty bowl with different textures and colors.  I also delivered Asha's salad bar to town so that Lisa can take it home with her for Asha.  It will be fun to hear if she likes it.  I also sent a pot of kale for Lisa who says she is eating kale everyday.   On Wednesday Nikole's salad bowls will be heading to the big city and Cait has had a salad from her planter of greens that went with to college.  She reports that her greens got their first spring rain. 

I have been spending some time with the seedlings for the spring garden.  The impatiens that had the oops were rearranged so that there were only one seedling in a cell.  The are still pretty tiny and I tried to weigh the effects of moving them when they are tiny and fragile or to let them get bigger with their roots even more intertwined.  They seem to be doing okay, so hopefully I made the right decision.  They are pretty cute--tiny plants maybe 1/4 to 1/2 inch tall with two perfectly round leaves. 

The marigolds are about an inch tall with four leaves.  I have been pretty disappointed with the germination but I am thinking that a few more might be coming so perhaps it will be better.  The ones that have come so far are looking pretty good. 

Still nothing with the bee balm.  I have moved it off the propagation mat wondering if it was too warm.  I hate to give up on it too quickly so I guess I will give it a little more time. 

The first tomato seeds that were planted were transplanted to bigger containers today.  These are the tomatoes that are to be in containers to provide the early tomatoes.  The largest seedlings are about two inches tall and are starting to get a little fuzz on the stems.  There are several different varieties.  It will be fun to see how they do.

No new pictures this time.  Here are a couple pictures that were shared on Facebook a couple days ago of Nikole's salad bowl.

rainy day in the greenhouse

Today was predicted to rain and then snow and I spent the rainy part of it in the greenhouse.  I picked some greens for a salad and planted some seeds for the summer garden.

These are the greens I picked for a salad: simpson lettuce, kale, red romaine and green romaine.  I ended up dressing it with a little homemade balsamic vinaigrette and some chicken salad.  It was pretty tasty.

Here is some of the red romaine.

The Simpson lettuce.

These are the tomato seedlings that were planted on February 24th.

These are Nikole's clay pots.  The are planted with kale in the center. The red colored plant is red romaine and then clockwise from the red romaine is Simpson lettuce, green romaine, spinach, butter head and green grand rapids.

This is the greens sampler that was planted  February 22 so we could try the greens that we will be growing next winter.  Some are starting to get their first sets of true leaves.

Pictured here are the flowers that are seeded sitting on the warming mat.  They are impatiens, bee balm and marigolds.

Images from Johnny's seed catalog:

                                             

                Impatiens accent mystic mix          Bee balm Panorama red shades            Marigold Queen Sophia