oldmobie's Doings

[oldmobie]

This is my first year WinterSowing. Every jug has sprouted something, except for my mustard and kale. That was also the driest jug, so I waterered it and put it back. Transplanted all the cool season stuff out to one of my square foot beds. Leaving the warm season stuff for later.



Left to right:
Front row: Lettuce - spinach - michihili cabbage - pak choi
Row 2: empty - empty - empty - collards
Row 3: empty
Row 4: Broccoli - empty - empty - cauliflower

Gonna direct sow a bunch more lettuce, a bunch of radishes, and some Romanesco. (Don't know if that's broccoli, cauliflower, or a cross.)

[oldmobie]

Direct sowed lettuce and Romanesco to finish the SE square foot bed from yesterday. Romanesco in the 2 middle squares in back, lettuce in all of the 3rd row and the first 3 squares in row 2.

Wife planted SW bed (4X4) in onions, 9/ square. She also sowed radishes in NE bed (4X4), 16/ square. (Holy cow, what'll we do with 256 radishes?)

No home yet for her 4 bare-root roses and 2 blue-berries. Temporarily planted in wash-tub of mel's mix so they can be watered.

[oldmobie]

Planted first 4' X 4' bed of potatoes into the ground in NE corner of garden. Supposed to be Yukon Gold, but look suspiciously white when cut. Cut eyes for the other potatoes and put on screens to dry.

Radishes coming up nicely. Onions starting to green up. Either lettuce and Romanesco are starting to come up, or I'm gonna have weed troubles in that bed.

Planted large patio pot with Swiss Chard on the north, 6" White Icicle Radish in the middle, and Sparkler / Cherry Belle mix on the south. A few white radish are for eating, but most are for seed. Hoping for a cross.

[oldmobie]

Finished planting potatoes and onions today. Potatoes are under the straw, our "spare" onions are in the tractor tire, in some of the concrete blocks and in the SW corner of the NW square foot bed.



NE square foot bed of radishes coming along nicely. Ordered "Groundhog" radish seeds from ebay today. Gonna find out if those big ol' taproots really draw up nutrients and break up clay!



My wife weeded for the potatoes, between the square foot beds, and between the strawberries today. The strawberries were just planted last year. We're hoping they'll fill in this year and crowd out the weeds.

[steev]

Is that 2"x4" fence wire hooped-over, by the tire?

[oldmobie]

Apr 22, 2014 20:26:23 GMT -5 steev said:

Is that 2"x4" fence wire hooped-over, by the tire?

Cattle panels. Did a great job last year for beans and cucumbers. Not bad for squash. Would have done well for a tomato longer than the one we grew on it. Guess I should try an indeterminate?

[blackox]

Looking good.

Is that you in your profile pic? I have to say, nice hair!

[oldmobie]

Apr 23, 2014 8:28:54 GMT -5 blackox said:

Looking good.

Is that you in your profile pic? I have to say, nice hair!

That guy ís named Jeffrey Dallas. It's from his music video Akbar. The dorkiest garden related thing I could think of.

[steev]

That does indeed set a high bar for dorkiness. Akbar is a fitting companion, not unlike "Wilson", the volleyball, was for Tom Hanks in "Cast Away".

[blackox]

I was originally talking about Akbar. I've never heard of Jeffrey Dallas until now, I'll have to check out some of his other videos. Dorkiness is great when you have nothing else to do.

[oldmobie]

We moved the burn barrels today from the corner of the yard where my wife wants to start her butterfly garden. Since we'll mostly be direct sowing, it's time to get started. (Sorry for not having any pics, but if you imagine a corner of a yard with no barrels in it, you'll get pretty close.)

[oldmobie]

Did battle today with the section of yard we annexed into the garden last year. Extending the electric fence protected it from mowing, but we ran out of mulch. The result was that the grass grew up about chest high, in mounds so tight a shovel barely cuts through the roots. When it died back in winter, it left behind heaps of 2 1/2' - 3' straw. I cut that down with a tool I grew up calling a whim-wham.
Then we gathered it in one corner and spread it out as our first layer of mulch. I figure given the chance, it'll pop right back up, so next comes cardboard and straw, unless we get woodchips by then. That's for another day, though. We just beat the rain today.

[oldmobie]

[steev]

That's very neat and compact.

[oldmobie]

Transplanted my kale and mustard today. (Blue square) It was my last cool season WinterSown jug. Looks like I'll be cutting my first lettuce later today! (Near left square). The direct sown lettuce scattered behind is still tiny. Probably nothing over an inch.

What's up with my Michihili cabbage? (Green square) It's supposed to look like this:



But instead I have this:



I get that it's bolting. We had a week or so of pretty warm weather. But it's WinterSown! It was out there through frost! Where's the "head"? Did it just break the seed open and shove out a flower stalk? Oh well, I think that was all my seed. I guess I'll let it produce seed, and hope something in a future generation bolts slower, so I can select for that.

Sad as it is, I think this is my best ever spinach production. (Left of the cabbage) I think I'll be sure to save seeds. And stick with WinterSowing for all my spinach. It seems to like it. May even experiment with overwintering.

Somehow my carrots all came up at the edges of the "bed". (Pot) I transplanted some to the bare area in the middle. I want that to fill in before I thin the rest.



Went with wood chips on the west end. Just finished putting 'em down today. Also planted the Rhubarb and the 2 new blueberries over there. One may be dead, but we'll wait and see if it improves.