Gardening Gardening

Seedlings started. Radish, lettuce, kale, spicy greens, flowers, arugula...

 

Looking great MaineMtnMan, good luck on your garden this year.

 

Breaking ground on a new garden this year. We've been using 4 raised beds with great success, but running out of room.
This year we decided to go full bore and add a 40x40 plot. And have big plans for canning. and possibly building some cool storage.
(This is borrowed ground in the neighbor's field. Same one that let's me cut firewood).
We're planning now for tilling & weed/grass control. Then large scale compost production and fence posts and electric fence. (Without e-fence we wouldn't get a single veggie... We've got every kind of wildlife here.)
This will probably take every weekend for 2 months to get started and all our spare time till mid summer.

Wish us luck. See you in October

 

I know the feeling, and I'm with you. We have to put a new garden in at our new house. We'll be starting work on the plot soon, but planting time is still quite a ways off in the White Mountains. Excepting Peas and greens, etc.

 

Maybe some root veggies.
( lettuce, asparagus, radishes, carrots, beats, onions, and potatoes soon.)

 

Yea, that too. But now were getting ahead of our selves. I still have 4 cords of wood that to be moved 130 miles.

 

Nice looking soil blocks. I'm trying soil blocks for the first time I this year.

 

So far I have garlic (planted in late Oct) and peas in. Blueberry bushes and strawberries look good coming out of dormancy. I planted 2 different kinds of elderberry in large planters on Monday. My neighbor traded me some Italian Oyster Mushroom plugs for some maple log pieces for her mushrooms. Ive been wanting to give mushrooms a try for a few years now but never got around to ordering them.

Tomato and pepper seedlings are doing well. I have hydroponic lettuce ready to pick now on my small tabletop unit. I'm converting a portable carport into a green/screen house for my hydroponics. I did dutch buckets last year for the first time and was impressed with how well they did and enjoyed the system. I'm going to build a larger NFT system (like my tabletop unit) from gutter downspouts for veggies like kale, beans and cucumbers. I bought 2 16# buckets of nutrients last fall when they were talking about fertilizer shortages. Those 2 buckets aught to last me several years. In worse case scenario I should be able to keep this system going with a deep cycle battery, small inverter and a trickle charger solar panel. Here's Hoocho's YT channel for anyone interested in DIY hydroponic system builds. https://www.youtube.com/c/Hoocho/videos

The hydroponic systems free up raised bed space so I plan on growing more long term storage crops like winter squash and potatoes. I'm also going to focus on more medicinal and culinary herbs this year.

 

I finished the 2022 spring garden this week. Wish me luck with the weather this year.

16 tomatoes (mountain pride, early girl, brandy wine and lemon boy)
8 peppers (jalapeno, heatless jalapeno, green bell, purple bell)
yellow crookneck squash
straight eight cucumbers
black beauty egg plants.

 

Getting seed starts going today.
2 types of Marigolds.
Brussel sprouts
Salsa peppers (seeds were giving to us by a couple that we camped next to last year. They didn't know the actual name.)
And
Carolina Reapers and Trinidad Scorpions. (Seeds are pretty old, we'll see if they germinate)

 

I’ve successfully germinated 3 year old hot pepper seeds before, just ended up with a lower germination rate. What I found was that it could take up to 3-4 weeks before they sprouted. It seems that the hotter the pepper, the more temperamental they can be too. As long as they weren’t exposed to extreme heat or cold you should be fine.

 

Uh oh...
These are 5+ and were in the truck console for a while.
I did read that 3-5 years was still possible...
No loss if it doesn't work.

 

Tomatoes are really taking off fast now.


The peppers which germinated a week and a half later are starting to really get established.



Last night I finished transplanting everything from the starter cells into the solo cups. I hope by mid May I can start transitioning everything outside

 

Yep. Miss July took this pic yesterday

 

Here I sit target practice is in the yard and no guns in the house.

 

Third turning of the compost since it started heating up again. It is reaching close to 140f now, but this should spice things up a bit yet:


Slowly adding the pike remains from the past winter as I turn it weekly.


The area the pile was just turned from, and will go back to next weekend.

 

Tilling done.
Healthy row of over wintered parsnips to work around and garlic in the far corner.

 

I got a break in the rain to go out for a little bit.

Chive

Garlic

mix of lettuces, kale, chard, spinach

No asparagus yet

Rhubarb emergence