Spring Garden and Chick Update

Moving the chicks outside this week was quickly followed by a lot of cloudy rainy days.  So there are no photos.  I don't want to stress them out in their new coop.  They are adapting, eating, drinking and pooping.  I have the tall brooder warmer in the pen and they will get under there when they get chilled. But mostly, they are loving their roost bar and acting like "big birds."

The new 12 chicks arrived that are already presold.  They are, of course, cute little fluff balls. Six Barred Rock and six Rhode Island Reds.

Garden is the big factor here this week.  Plants in the greenhouse are finally picking up.  I had purchased some cloned plants to supplement the plants that did not start well in the greenhouse. The Onions and Garlic starts are looking good in the back section of the square garden. We have covered the broccoli and cauliflower starts to help keep them a bit warmer but also protect from the cabbage moth, and other bugs that like to eat broccoli.  The strawberries, peas, and lettuce are looking quite good. Also, the wintered over plants are thriving.  I have already cut half of the oregano for drying and cooking.  The rest will be cut in a week or two. Potatoes finally came up and are looking strong.

Pea starts planted 2 weeks apart	Potatoes - not sure which are what
Potatoes popped up a little later	More Potatoes that finally popped up
Strawberry blossom	Wintered Over Parsley
Wintered Over Oregano	Wintered Over Marjoram
Winters Over Thyme	My starts next to a Cloned Tomato Start
Pepper, Tomato & Lavendar Starts	Some of my lettuce starts 1+ month old
Lettuce Start 2+ mo	Onions Left and Garlic Right
The new garden space	Cover tunnel for Broccoli & Cauliflower
Inside the tunnel	Wet dandelion Seed Head

Zero Percent Chance of Rain!

And it rains more than merely a drizzle! What the....! 

The electric oscillating fan that we set outside the greenhouse door to produce cross wind and keep it a bit cooler, is now drenched. The Potatoes that have been drying/curing for three weeks, are now wet! Hoping it's just the top surface of soil. I covered them as soon as I realized it was raining. It had not been raining too long, or too hard, since the area under the trees was still totally dry. 

Thankfully, I had the tomatoes in the shade of the tree because we had two very sunny hot days on Thursday and Friday. I didn't want the fruit to get sunburned. So I quickly moved the tomato plants from the shade of the trees under some real shelter as we have a lot of fruit that the rain also has the potential to damage. 

This rain, however, may cause the green blackberries to mildew.  😒

Aside from the Berries, Potatoes and Tomatoes, everything else that I have can handle the rains. 

Mid June Garden Updates 2019

This top photo is of one lonely basil sprout.  I am hoping it survives and that others pop up soon. I tried to get a photo of the dill, but those are so tiny, and my lens is not strong enough to show them yet. I don't know if the thyme are sprouting. I don't know their sprouts from weeds, yet.  Carrots are also sprouting, but, like the dill, are too small to photograph. 

Tiny Basil Sprout 6-14-19

This is the one lettuce pot, of the three, with the most seeds that germinated.  I have since thinned it out to two sprouts per location (5), so that they don't crowd each other. Each pot has a different type of leaf lettuce. 

Leaf Lettuce in Pot 6-14-19

 This is a group of potato blossoms.  This barrel has the most blossoms and most foliage. 

White Potato Blossoms  6-14-19

Radish.  While I did not plant a lot of these seeds, only half have popped up.  I will replant this weekend to fill in the empty space.  

One of a few Radishes  6-14-19

Now that we have the ants under control, I get to pick five to seven fresh strawberries every morning. YUM!

Strawberries Galore  6-14-19

My beans are looking good.  Like  the Basil and Radishes, the beans are also in my square garden bed.  The past few years, I have planted the beans on the East side of the garden, but last year's crop was slim.  I only ended up with two bean plants that survived.  This year, I planted them on the south side of the garden.  Eight popped up this week. Two were mowed down by slugs. I have put slug bait around the outside of the garden and  then, over the weekend, two more beans popped up.  I have thinned it down to five solid starts.  

Bush Bean sprouts  6-14-19

These are some of the largest of the strawberries that are almost ready for picking.  You can see that I layered the soil with leaves to keep the berries out of the wet dirt.  I like to use leaves because they don't contain any weed seeds, like straw/grass contains, and there are no splinters like bark shavings have. 

Large Strawberries  6-17-19

I think I mentioned that I had four cucumbers starts.  Then suddenly poof, over the weekend, one vanished into thin air.  No roots, no stem, no nothing! I have never had that happen before. I have replanted in an attempt to get one or two more seeds to pop back up. In the meantime, these three are getting larger and seem very happy. 

Three Cukes  6-17-19

I added blood meal to the tomatoes again.  This will be the last time for adding blood meal, and from here on out I will use a "fruit" fertilizer every other week to help with the actual tomatoes which should be starting soon.  I have lots of blossoms on the SunGold cherry tomato plant, and we may actually have some cherry tomatoes to eat by July. (Fingers Crossed.) 

The Four Tomato Plants  6-17-19

The potatoes are continuing to look healthy.  No more fertilizer.  Just a good watering once or twice a week and pull them under the shade of the maple tree on the really hot days to protect them from burning. 

Close Up on Potatoe Blossoms

That's my garden update for the middle of June. 

First Weekend of June Planting

I know, I'm about two weeks late on many of the summer plants, but I did get the seeds in the ground today. 

Planted today:

• Lettuce 3 types, 5 per pot
• Cucumbers 4 plants, 3 pots (I trellis them between pots)
• Radishes 1 row
• Carrots 2 rows (intended to plant 4 short rows but changed layout of garden, see below)
• Thyme 1 row
• Basil 1 row
• Dill 1 row
• Bush Beans 1 row

There will be a lot of thinning over the next few weeks.  I way over planted everything.

This particular garden bed was a mess of roots and blackberry vines that came up through the bottom of the garden. The snakes were not in this garden under the "weed killing tarp" tilling it up for me. Plus I had to take a spade to get deep into the soil to dig out the stupid wild blackberry vines, and get the weed roots dug/broke up. I "hand tilled" with a shove, pulled out weeds/roots, threw on a thin layer of manure before raking/leveling and planting. I am hopeful that I got the majority of the roots and that they won't "re-root."  

This past month, I had a hard time keeping the tarp in place on this bed because this bed is more exposed to the winds, and the storms kept blowing the tarp back, exposing the edges of the soil to the rain and stuff. It took me the better part of Saturday to get the soil ready to plant. I have a "cage" around this garden bed because, with the bed being out away from the house, the crazy dogs, cats, coyotes and deer like to romp in it. I included a photo (more for my memory of what's where) of the rows of herbs and vegetables that are in this bed.

Remember that before I threw the tarp on that garden bed, I had pulled out a bunch of wintered over onions? Some are struggling to grow. Two, however, have started to flower.  They grew some really thick stalks with one big flower bud at the top of that stalk. I have read that if I allow it to continue until it is dead/dried, that I can shake the seeds from the flower into an envelope and plant them early next spring in the greenhouse. It will drain all the nutrients from the onion in the process. Worth the try, I guess. 

Day Three - Corn

In the other raised "corn" bed, half of the corn have come up. That's a pretty fast start - I planted mostly germinated seeds just three days ago! I counted 20 little sprouts today.  I have my PVC in place in case I need to cover to protect the plants.  The weather temps are supposed to turn cold (low 60s as the highs) later this week. I have the floating row cover all ready to toss over the corn bed for those days to protect the tender growth and keep the ground warmer.

With that, my Micro Garden is on its way.  Finger Crossed!!!! 

I took some more photos today.

Bigger Garden Bed
Corn Sprouts on 6/2/19	Some Sprouts Circled - PVC in place.
Cut Oregano Drying	Potato Barrels
Berries Starting to Ripen

End of May is Planting Time in PacNW

I don't have a lot planted this year because of weather, compared to last year.

Planted and doing well:

• Tomatoes - 2 cherry tomato varieties and 2 heirloom standard varieties
• Sweet Peppers - 3 varieties; 1 red, 1 yellow and 1 green
• Potatoes - 2 barrels of Red Pontiac and 1 barrel of White California (no blooms yet like last year at this time)
• Onions - 24 walla walla sweet, 8 yellow and 8 white.  
• Garlic - 10ish purples from starts last fall. 
• Greek Oregano - (first harvest today)
• Strawberries - 4 sets with berries on 2

Just Planted or prepping to Plant this week

• Sweet Corn - 40 planted today
• Cucumbers - 4 in pots tomorrow 
• Carrots - 4 rows
• Radishes - 1 row
• Basil - 6
• Bush Beans - 4
• Dill - 8
• Lettuce - 8

Cherokee Purple heirloom	Chocolate Cherry heirloom
Sun Gold cherry	German heirloom
Green Bell Pepper with Oregano in background	Red Bell Pepper
Yellow Bell Pepper
Red Pontiac Potato (not yet blooming)	Red Pontiac Potato (starting to bloom)
White California Potato
Onions blown over from storm	Corn Bed Planted day 1
Garlic almost done
Strawberries (almost)	More Berries