Succession planting

This is all relatively new to me.  I'm learning as I go.  In years past I've done some succession planting, but never to the extent I am this year.  Most years I've done second plantings of zucchini, peas and various other things that were direct seeded.  This year I'm taking it to a new level.  Every few weeks I've planted new seedlings of broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, chard, and several other things. 

This is also in preparation for year round gardening.  I have one hoop over my beds, with plans to add several more.  I hope to have many of my new raised beds fitted with hoops to grow lots of cold weather crops.  Our diet has been slowly changing to eat more seasonally.  There has also been an increase in the number of greens we eat.  This is all a part of my master plan for providing my family with fresh veggies all year long. 

Since I don't have a greenhouse, my back porch has been my nursery.  It's very high tech.  The porch is North facing and relatively protected.  This gives the seedlings plenty of light, without cooking them and burning them.  It also allows them to be planted immediately, without hardening off, when I have the space for them.  I didn't want to spend a lot, so they are sitting in the top of one of those seed starter trays.  Since it's so lightweight, it's weighted down with grill tools.  Yup, we're redneck up here in Mass as well. 

Currently, I have chard, Asian greens, savoy cabbage, kale and lettuce going.  The right hand side was just started on Monday.

We already have sprouts.  I don't cover anything while sprouting, just keep them good and damp in the tray.  It rained last night, so they're nice and wet.  So far, I'm loving how this is working out.  Many things are currently in the garden and thriving, that were started in this manner.  Since the garlic was just pulled, most things are going in it's place.  Lots of yumminess for us!

Harvest Monday

Now is the time that things are really starting to come in from the garden.  It's so exciting and actually quite early for New England.  Above is a pound of garlic scapes.  These were made into garlic scape pesto and frozen in cubes for the year.  Absolutely delicious!

Some lettuce is also making an appearance.  It has not been a good year for lettuce in my garden.  I don't think it's liking all the heat we've had.

Lastly are the sugar snap peas.  These joined some of the garlic scape pesto in a wonderful chicken and pasta dish last night.  The peas are 3 weeks early this year.  We're loving every minute of it. 

Check out who else is posting over at Daphne's Dandelions for Harvest Monday.

What really needs to be sown inside?

I've been thinking about this a lot this year.  After the unmitigated disaster that was my lettuce and cole crops, I'm rethinking how best to proceed in future years. 

What I'm realizing, is that there aren't terribly many crops that need to be seeded under lights in my zone 6 climate.  Sure, the tomatoes, peppers and eggplants must be.  How about the lettuces and cole crops.  I had initially started them inside in an attempt to get an earlier crop.

I do realize that in the case of the lettuce, I had started it far too early.  The lettuce isn't a huge issue though, it's the cole crops.  We eat a lot of them and I've had terrible luck thus far.  They come up beautifully and then proceed to die one by one.  When I realized that not very much had survived, I direct seeded more crops a few weeks ago.

So far they seem to be coming along nicely.  Currently they are getting rained on, so they'll be even happier, even with the cold weather we're having right now. 

The lettuce and chard are doing quite well also.

Enter the hoop house.  I fully plan to maintain the hoops with cold tolerant crops all winter.  In early spring there will be plenty of space vacated by veggies that we've eaten, to start whatever I like.  Since I've had lousy luck inside and seem to do better out, it would make sense to just wait and start things where they'll stay. 

If this works for me, it will mean less work babysitting seedlings inside.  Less space taken up in my tiny house and less electricity used by my grow lights.  Sounds like a win win situation to me.  What do you think? 

Back with updates

It's been a crazy few weeks.  The flooding has ended for most, with damp, moldy remains for many.  When the rain was finished, we proceeded to have 2 weeks of sunny, abnormally warm weather.  It's been absolutely wonderful.  With all the beautiful weather, it's difficult to hold back from planting out everything. 

Last night was a return to reality with below freezing temps and more to come tonight.  Thankfully I don't have anything out that should be affected.   Above you can see my garlic.  It's been coming up perfectly this year.  So far it looks like the best year yet for garlic.  It's something I use in most meals, so I'm happy to have as much as possible.

This is one of the cabbage seedlings.  It is only one of 3 that survived.  The bok choy and broccoli didn't make it either.  This seems to be what happens to me every year.  I'm not sure exactly what I do to kill them.  A few weeks ago I direct seeded more brassicas and they seem to be coming up nicely.  That may be what I do each year instead.  I think my biggest issue is that I'm planting them too early and trying to hold them inside too long.  I keep learning.

This is the lettuce that was seeded far too early.  (seeing a pattern here?)  I thought it was dead and just left it where it was.  Lo and behold, it's coming back.  Again, I'm learning.

Those hard to see wisps of plant material are my onions.  They were planted out last week with the brassicas and are doing quite nicely.  I'm very happy with how these behaved this year.  It's actually my first truly successful year for starting onions from seed.  Usually they are killed off by fungus.  I planted far too many, but they'll all get used.  

The main garden is all turned over now.  I rented a rototiller for the very first time.  I have to admit that I was absolutely terrified of the thing.  It turns out that it was a reasonable fear.  Hubby was off meeting a wedding client, but J was home as my backup.  At first the plan was to have J help me get it out of the truck and I would do the tilling.  Hah!  Then the tiller started dragging me across the garden.  Thankfully, J took over and in not too much time, had it all tilled up for me.  He looked like I had almost killed him, so when his wife came home, I thought she might kill me.  She just thought it was funny.  Have I mentioned how great my neighbors are?  

Lastly, the fruit trees are flowering and leafing out.  This is the 3rd year for this peach tree.  It's still not very big, but seems healthy enough.  We'll have to wait and see if it produces any fruit or not.  Since we're getting another freeze tonight, and it's still only mid April, we won't get anything.  The warm weather has everything blooming and sprouting earlier than usual.  Hopefully, there won't be too much damage to the trees and plants that came back to life early.  

There is so much going on here now, I'll be busy until next November.  I love it!

First day of planting

What a gorgeous week we've had!  After flooding rains, we've been rewarded with May weather.  It's been in the 60's all week with 70's predicted for tomorrow.  Normal for us is upper 40's for this time of year.  It's just what the doctor ordered for my winter weary soul.

I took full advantage, now that my brood is back to health.  The Cascadia sugar snap peas were planted along the fence.  In the lettuce box I planted Winter Density lettuce and Winter mix lettuce with some Bright Lights swiss chard as well.  There will be salads galore. 

In one of my new beds, I planted Detroit Dark Red beets and Nantes carrots.

The carrots were seeded with this seed tape.  I tried making my own seed tapes last year with miserable results.  I wanted to try again with less work involved.  There is a discount store near me that sells these for 40% off, so I gave them a try.  They are certainly easy to work with.  If they work out, I'll make some up with toilet paper this year.  Last year I used napkins and seeds that were of questionable age, so it was my own fault that I had a failure.  

We'll be getting more rain early next week, so I won't have to water these in.  The soil is still quite damp, but not soggy.  It's amazing, I was actually feeling a bit blah until I went out and played in the dirt.  

The chickens are liking it too.

Sunning seedlings

It's gorgeous out today.  I thought the seedlings would like to be outside in all this beauty.  These are my bok choy, cabbage, broccoli and a few flowers. 

The onions came out to join in the party as well.

This is the very sad and overgrown lettuce.  It was in really sad shape.  I ended up transplanting it into my new hoop house.  I think it will probably not make it, but that's ok.  You live and learn.  I planted it far too early.  Another set of seeds will be sown today outside in the same hoop house.  Next year I won't make the same mistake.  

The rest of the seedlings will get hardened off and transplanted in a week or so.  The onions will need to wait a bit longer.  

This is the frame of the new hoop house.  It's a hodge podge of ideas from J and I.  I got the PVC poles and he added the wood and wire supports.  These were then covered with some handy dandy duct tape to protect the plastic from sharp edges.  The plastic will go up in a few hours.  I'll take another picture then to show the final product.  I'm hoping to use this as a mini greenhouse as well, in the coming weeks.  If all works out, we'll be making a few more to use next fall.  You can see how pathetic the lettuce looks in the far end of the bed.  I do believe I'm a lettuce murderer.  

Next on the agenda will be pea planting.  

Seedling update

 

These are the seeds planted on 1/31.  From left to right are Pinetree lettuce mix, winter density lettuce, bouquet dill and genovese basil.   They all came up quite quickly.  I had a heat mat under them until they germinated and then shut it off.  In past years I've done this in my chilly basement.  Even with the heatmat, I had very slow germination on everything.  This year they're in my schoolroom, which is still relatively chilly, but better than the basement, by at least 10 degrees. 

I'm really curious to see how the peppers do.  In years past, they've taken weeks to germinate and then were very slow to do anything.  I typically start them in mid February for that reason.  With the new setup, that may be too early, but we'll have to see.  

 

In this tray are my onion.  Yellow sweet spanish and red bull.  The yellow sweet spanish came up 2 days before the red bull, but both seem to be coming along quite nicely now.  The heat mat was turned off on those as well.  

My plan for next weekend is to start peppers, and eggplants.  It's still ages until anything can be done in the garden yet.  The ground is frozen quite solid, with snow in the forecast for midweek.  The month of February is always the month I decide that I want to move somewhere warmer.  It will never happen, but I wish it every year.

Sprouts already

 

They're up already!  Those are sprouts from Winter Density lettuce  and Pinetree Lettuce mix.  They are coming up rather quickly.  Just 2 days and I'm in business.  I love instant gratification.  

 

These are a little harder to see, but are sprouts from the Yellow Sweet Spanish onions.  The Red Bulls haven't poked their heads out yet.  Only 3 weeks until I can plant more seeds.  Patience is not one of my virtues.