April Showers...

March had given me a glimmer of hope... maybe the last frost will be a month early this year! Then came April. Not just rain showers, but plenty of hail showers and a snow shower too! There was an almost two week stretch where nighttime temps would reach freezing every night. This led to a bit of a gardening slump. At the beginning of the month I finished up all of the winter sowing that I could do. Then came the bad weather, so I couldn't get out in the garden much. It was mostly a time of waiting.

APRIL 1
- Tried transplanting one Oregon Spring Tomato with frost protection... still died a few days later.
- Started hardening off all of the tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage, dill, and cilantro. This was also done too early since the weather turned ugly for the rest of the month.
- Winter sowed more amaranth (the direct sown have not yet germinated and the indoor sown have no true leaves yet).

APRIL 4
Amaranth outside finally sprouting! Later each and every one of these dies. =(

APRIL 6
Indoor sowed in peet pots:
Japenese egglpant - apparently it is too late, but I am going to try anyway.
Tomato, Double Rich and Sweet 100 - Timing looks pretty good, decent size by time I transplanted, but not leggy like the earlier ones. Was given free seeds for the hybrid, so don't really know what is going to grow.
Pepper, Cubanelle, hot thai, and hungarian hotwax - Good healthy looking plants, but small. In the future will start same time as the mini yellow bell.

Winter sowed lots of free seeds received from SASBE... only a few of them actually came up. The successes were:
Sweet William
Blue Sage
Lemon Mint
Garlic (from seed... don't know if it will make cloves or not)
Goatsbeard

APRIL 7
Direct sowed:
Space Hybrid Spinach - spinach performing well
Mangold WIterbi Chard - lots sprouted, then my dog walked on them and there are only two left. something keeps eating the leaf tips, so they are very slow to grow... still less than 1" tall.

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I stopped journaling at this point, so don't have the germination date or even direct sowing dates for a lot of the plants. Here are some pictures from the rest of the month.

Winter Sowing... can see sprouting Pak Choi, Broccoli, and Sunflowers
Shallots were brought inside when it started hailing
Perennial bed doesn't seem to be quite as upset by the freezing temperatures as the vegetables

A few veggies are standing their ground

Amaranth Doomed to Failure?

I don't know what it is about this plant, but I am starting to wonder if I will see any of my starts mature into a plant this summer! I have sown it every way: indoors, winter sown, and direct sown.

Direct sowing is out the window for next year. It took close to a month for the amaranth to germinate (the first two weeks of which were great weather), then when it did come up, the germination rate was very low. About a week and a half later all but two shrivled up in some hot weather (even with a healthy watering that morning).

Winter sowing went okay, again they were slow to germinate, popping up a few weeks after the direct sown ones. Now they are staying small. We will have to see how they compare to the indoor sown ones later in the season.

So far my indoor sown ones look the best. They are by far the largest with one set of true leaves fully open and a second set peaking out. Both other methods of sowing are yet to show even a hint of true leaves. I just planted out one of my indoor sown seedlings after hardening it off for several days. So far it looks pretty good, other than being a little leggy.

As of yesterday there were two direct sown (the smallest), two winter sown (sturdy but small), and one indoor sown (much further along growth wise) in a row in the garden. This morning I went out to check on all the plants and water where needed. When I arrived at the amaranth I only saw two seedlings left. Both of the direct sown and one of the winter sown had been hewn off at the stem base! Thankfully I have a few more winter sown still sitting in their plastic conatiner and I have one more indoor still in its peet pot. I have not had any cutworms and did not find one when I dug down underneath the plants. Who knows what did it, but if it keeps up I will soon be calling it quits for the amaranth.

March Garden Happenings

MARCH 3

In individual peet pots:
Basil x2 - slow to germinate, but did well. Winter sown ones were even better.
Broccoli x3 - germinated in 1-2 days, already leggy after 3-4 days. None of them hardened off well. Ended up direct sowing. Will not start indoors again.
Cabbage x2 - Similar to broccoli. Much easier to direct or winter sow.
Celeriac x5 - slow germinating and growing. Looks good now, but not sure if I want to invest in all the watering and fertilizer... sounds like a high maintenance plant.
Celery x2 - same as celeriac
Pepper, Miniature Yellow Bell x5 - Approx 2 weeks to germinate. Best looking plant started indoors. Could maybe even start sooner. Did not become leggy at all.
Tomatillo x5 - Started too soon, 1.5-2ft tall by time able to transplant outside, very lanky.
Tomato, Oregon Spring x5 - same as tomatillo.
Tomato, Taxi x5 - Same as tomatillo
Sage x2 - did not show up till 3/20! Still tiny, but healthy.

***Next time will use 3" and 4" plastic pots... peet seemed to stunt the growth of many seedlings***

Onions, purplette - started in 6" pot. Germinated well, but then week and unable to harden off - onions best direct sown.

Outside this week I cut an edge to the garden (it had no defined edge and lawn was creeping in), weeded, tilled, and ammended soil.


MARCH 8
Peas, sugar sprint snap - direct sowed outside with small amount sterile seed mix, sprouted 13 days later

MARCH 9
Sunflower, red - indoor in peet, winter sown worked great. Indoor very leggy.
Pok Choi - another leggy plant, winter sown much better.

MARCH 12
Direct sowed outside:
Amaranth - VERY slow to germinate (April 4), then withered with heat or cold. Winter sown are the best option so far. Second attempt at direct sowing done in May.
Broccoli - sprouted 8 days later
Sinach - sprouted 10 days later

MARCH 13
Direct sowed outside:
Cabbage - sprouted 9 days later
Lettuce, butterhead - sprouted 9 days later
Onions, sweet yellow - direct sown seems best

Bought 4" starts of:
Cilantro - will not grow again, too short of life cycle
Dill - will get again, but later in spring (or plant from seed)
Marjoram - love it, but bought it too soon... needed lots of TLC while indoors, great once planted in outdoor pot
Spearmint - Planted out right away and withstood unexpected snow and frost without problems

Winter sowed:
Broccoli - Better off direct sown
Peas, sugar snap - performed equal to direct sown peas

MARCH 20
Planted up tomatoes and tomatillos into 4" pots

MARCH 21
Major frost this am
Borage - bought 4" pot. Now in May is approaching 3ft tall. Great plant
Swiss Chard Bought starter pack too soon. Planted some out this week, they were hit really hard several times, but finally pulled through and started looking good by the end of may
Cauliflower - planted out 3 days later. 2 of the 4 didn't make it through major heat spell in May. Other two look great.

MARCH 24
Winter sowed:
Basil - lots came up, but I didn't keep track of dates
Beans, pole - only few came up... maybe the container it was in?
Beans, bush - came up in droves way earlier than I would have planted seeds directly. WS worked great.
Cucumber, lemon - 50% sprouted. Again, earlier than I would have direct sown.
Cucumber, Babylon - Zero out of 8 sprouted. Direct sowed in May.

Up planted tomatoes into gallon pots.

MARCH 26
Bought small sprouting shallots at the asian market, planted in 6" deep plastic "window box" planters.

MARCH 27
Pok Choi, winter sowed. Turned out much better than indoor. Harvested first batch a little later than should have... May 18th.

MACH 28
It snowed today!!!

MARCH 31
Lettuce, Bibb - winter sowed. Appears to be hardiest leafy green thus far, no bugs yet! (in May)

Welcome to My Garden

Welcome to my first garden. I am focusing most of my efforts on growing vegetables and herbs this year. I do have a small strip of planting space for perennials, but that is mostly filled from plants that I bought right after moving into this house last summer.

This is the vegetable plot. It is approximately 6 feet by 24 feet. At the far end are some leafy greens that are just starting to put out true leaves: Spinach, Cabbage, Lettuce, Pak Choi, Cauliflower, Broccoli, Chard, and Sugar Snap Peas. Up close is Borage.

On the deck I have the containers, mostly for my herb garden. It is still pretty bare bones right now. On the far right are two pots of oregano, one "hot & spicy" and another ornamental "Kent Beauty". The latter almost died inside over winter, but show signs of a slow recovery. Next to the oreganos, there is a container of catmint and spearmint. The catmint is from the garden last fall and is quite healthy. I am a little concerned it is going to swallow up the spearmint. There are also some chives that just won't take off. I may put them in a bigger pot soon to see if that helps. In the far pots I just recently planted several types of basil, some from the nursery and some I started from seed, as well as cilantro, sweet marjoram, and a couple planter flowers for color accent. I am yet to decide what will go in the main large planter pot. Maybe an ornamental pepper? It is still too daunting of a decision, so I am putting it off.