1st May Harvest!

 

Yay!!!  Another harvest!  :)  Things are really speeding up in the garden right now.  The plants are in turbo mode.  Today I harvested a few things.

3 oz. of lettuce: 

5 oz of radishes:

4 oz. of baby turnips:

I made a small salad for my self for lunch and had both the boys tried a sliver of turnip.  PC ate it ok, but LO couldn't (he had to spit it out).  I added a few dandelion petals to my salad. :) 

Tonight, we will probably have salad for dinner.  We'll add a few carrots from the store but otherwise, it will be from the garden. Yay!

This page connects to Harvest Monday!

My 2nd Harvest!

I had my 2nd harvest of this year.  This is the first harvest from the plants I planted this year.  I harvested 6/8 oz of lettuce and 2 and 6/8 oz of radishes.  The lettuce was a gourmet blend and the radishes were an Easter Egg mix.  Some of the radishes were really small, but they were still good.  The purple ones were the spiciest and the white ones were the mildest.  My oldest son liked the white ones, but my little guy didn't like any of the radishes.  I made a small salad for each of my family tonight for dinner. 

It was nice having a salad that was completely from my own garden.  I just can't wait until some more of my crops are ready.  Some of them are getting really big.  Here are a few pictures of the gardens:

We got a lot of those "helicopter" seeds blow down into the gardens because of high winds the last several days.  It is going to be a pain to pick them all out.  I hope to get some help from my little guy with it.  

Today, I planted potatoes.  I'm a bit late on them, but they only arrived by mail last week.  I was getting a bit worried that they wouldn't arrive.  I underestimated how much soil/ compost/ ect. that I would need for the potatoes, so I was grabbing different mediums to plant them in.  I just really didn't have enough on hands right now.  Lets see in total, I used top soil, compost, unfinished compost, dried leaves, dried grass, peat moss, and some potting soil.  I have no clue if they will grow or not! lol!!! I lined the bottom of their bin with newspaper to hopefully keep back some of the weeds.  

My Potato Bin

I probably did something dumb... I decided to go ahead and plant both of my types of potatoes in the same bin.  The only problem is, one matures a lot quicker than the other.  I hope I don't ruin them by doing this.  It's just I have been hurting from tennis elbow and my time has been really limited lately, so I decided I really needed to short cut it.  I guess we will see what happens.  

This blog connects to Harvest Monday.

Sprouts! Sprouts! Sprouts!

Well, it rained most of the day yesterday, so I did not get out to the garden.  Today, was beautiful!  It got to 72 degrees and was bright and sunny, so of course, I headed out to the garden.  I was so happy to see that that some of the stuff from my February 27th planting is finally sprouting. :) This picture is of my lettuce mix.  Yes, those spots are tiny sprouts. lol!!!  Also my Easter Egg radishes are starting to sprout and I think I have 1 Parade onion sprout.  I am still waiting on my carrots to sprout. 

On the down side, something (not sure what) got into my garden last night and really went to town on the dirt. Grrrrr!  Whatever it was dug a lot of holes in my garden space.  *sigh* I tried to fix it the best I could and replant any spaces that were disturbed. 

You can't see it real well in the picture but there was a lot of digging!  Hubby and I are still trying to decide how we are going to solve this critter problem. I'm open to suggestions.

In my last post I mentioned transplanting some onions and leeks that I didn't think would survive.  That was 2 days ago.  Several of the transplants are still holding their own and some are even looking a bit stronger so maybe some of them will survive after all.  That would be cool. 

Mary Hysong told me what was probably going on with my indoor starts that developed a grayish film on the soil.  She said it was probably a fungus. Ewwwww... She suggested getting them light and fresh air.  So I took the ones that looked the most likely to survive out to the greenhouse and left the door open during the day (Closed it for the night).  I'll open it back up tomorrow since it's going to be in the 70's again.  Hopefully, I got to them in time and can save them.  If it get worse, I'll just have to start them all over. 

Today, besides fixing the holes in my garden and replanting, I also planted some more Parade onions, more Easter Egg Radishes, a container of Tonda di Parigi Carrots and a container of baby greens (mix).

Also, my little garden partner (my 9 year old son) was sick today. :(  I felt so bad that he couldn't be out enjoying the fresh air.  I hope he gets better soon.  It is lonely out there by myself.

Planting and Starting

(Transplants)

Today was absolutely beautiful!!!  It got to a high of about 67 degrees and was bright and sunny.  I was out in the garden for a few hours today (and got a bit of a sunburn!).  I still am not really seeing sprouts from the stuff that was planted on February 27th, but I was seeing some signs that there may be some soon (unless what I am seeing is possible weeds. lol!!!).  I am really hopeful that something may sprout in the next few days since we are going to have some really warm weather.

Today, I got a few more things planted.  I really wanted to get them in the ground since rain is in the forecast overnight and the next 10 days are forecasted to be in the 60s and 70s.  Today I planted cabbage, cauliflower,  broccoli, onions, leeks and celery.

I also transplanted the leeks and onions that I started indoors.  They probably will not survive, but I figured I would give it a shot.  They seemed to be really weak due to the poor indoor light that we have.  Most of the starts I am not even bothering with trying to transplant (they are very spindly), but I figured I would try with the onions and leeks.  So I did that today.  I also planted seeds in the same squares, so if when they don't survive, I will have back up ones growing.  I figure the onions if there are too many can always be used as green onions.

I got my peppers started.  I tried to start these indoors a few weeks ago, but now some of them developed this white stuff on the soil that then turned clay color.  Not sure what is going on with that but it looks really weird!  So I started new plants today and put them in the greenhouse to start.  If the weather stays like it is, it should be plenty warm in there for them.

I added a bit of Kelp fertilizer to the leeks, onions, carrots, lettuce, and radishes today, just a bit to try to get them get going.  I need to search out some other organic fertilizers, but I need to find the time for it. 

I hope you all have a wonderful week in the garden! I know this is not exactly a harvest, but hopefully soon I will have one to show off! :)  This post is linked to Harvest Monday (Yeah, a bit of wishful thinking!! lol!!!)

Garden Update- March 10, 2012

Today was a busy, busy, busy day in the garden!  Hubby and the kids put together our new greenhouse. You can see my review about it here: New Greenhouse

Hubby also put together the new cold frame.  Here is the photo of it:

I got some planting done.  Today I planted more lettuce mix, beets, turnips, and kohlrobi. I also emptied out the big compost bin.  I took all of the leave that were on top, out of it and scooped up the finished and almost finished compost and set it aside in some buckets.  I got two 5 gallon buckets full.  I moved the big compost bin to another location and put the uncomposted leaves back in it.  I plan to plant something in the location of where the compost bin use to be.  The soil seems to be nice and rich there. 

My garlic is looking pretty good.  I moved most of the leaves off it.  The leaves were making some of the shoots yellow, so before they died, I wanted them to get some sun.  I also tried to get most of the leaves that were scattered on the beds, but I still have a way to go.  Here is some of my garlic.

On the other hand, the stuff I planted on February 27th still has not sprouted.  Not one sprout has came up!  We have some 70 degree days in the forecast, so hopefully things will start sprouting!

Spindly Sprouts

*sigh*  Many of my indoor sprouts have sprouted (mostly the cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, leeks and onions) but they are growing spindly.  :(  Looks like I don't have enough light where they are.  Unfortunately, our house is just really dark and I don't have a good place for them.  Right now they have a 60 watt grow light pointed right at them, another blue light above them and they are in front of our patio door.  Unfortunately, our patio is covered so the direct sunlight is limited.  I also think the 60 watt bulb is just too high up.  I can't bend it any closer.  I think I am going to try to replace the 60 watt bulb with a full spectrum 100 watt bulb and try to figure out some other way to incorporate the 60 watt bulb.  Unfortunately, it looks like many of them are going to have to be replanted, because they are just too week.  I may go ahead and try to plant some of them like the cabbage outside.  I'll have to check my gardening books to see.

My Garlic

 

I wanted to post an update on my garlic.  It doesn't seem to have hibernated too much over the winter.  This winter has been unseasonably warm and spring seems to be coming early.  Under the mulch, the garlic continued to sprout.  I'm not sure how healthy it is, but it has been growing.  This sprout is poking up from under a layer of leaves.  On March 6th, I pulled away a lot of the leaves (after the picture was taken) since it has been so warm and the sprouts are growing.  I hope I did not pull them away too early.  If I see it is going to get real cold again, I will recover them if I can.