Posted on February 27, 2022February 27, 2022Tiny greenhouse A little centipede in the garden dirt. Hopefully it’s an earwig predator. Hoops in! Seeds planted, cover on! We put lots of extra and smelly plants like cilantro and parsley among the carrots and bok choy and beets in hopes of earwig distraction.
Posted on February 23, 2022February 23, 2022Indoor repotting We got almost an inch of sleet today. Briar’s toes provide excellent grip. Squirrel tree in our neighborhood. This evening we repotted baby tomatoes and peppers. Mid last week I forgot some other repotted tomatoes outside and they froze. So those three varieties are being germinated again. But meanwhile these babies needed new pots. One dwarf tomato is thriving and fruiting; the other is drying up and has spider mites. Paula bought a basil and is keeping it alive. The indoor peppers have a good head start for spring but I doubt will fully fruit by then.
Posted on January 31, 2022January 31, 2022Earth movers Gram pretends to be a plant while all the plants are outside. We stopped to visit Shackleton on the way to compost facility. He likes to smell car bumpers while on his leashed walkies. Cars have been places! We were told we could self-load from this pile. Paula and I self-loaded. Thanks again to Dad for an excellent set of giant cardboards. We used all but two for this load of compost. Briar supervising.
Posted on January 30, 2022January 30, 2022Raising the raised beds The metal edging around the raised veggie beds is a bit of a tripping hazard, so we are going to gradually fill it in with dirt. I am also going to plant ground covers to slowly crowd out anything that needs weeding or mowing. Thank you Dad for the excellent supply of big cardboard pieces. One corner of dirt. The dirt came from the Chef and Paula’s gate construction over behind the garage. It needed levelling. I have a bunch of baby Roman chamomile to plant here as ground cover.
Posted on January 29, 2022January 29, 2022Straw bale gardening I read a book about straw bale gardening. The bale requires a bit of composting first. So one is wrapped in plastic to accelerate. Once it’s happy we’ll move to other bale. Next month seed potatoes will be sold at feed store and we can put them in. Thanks to friends of blog for donating their leftover fall decoration bales to this experiment.
Posted on January 17, 2022January 17, 2022Field trip for indoor plants and tomato gets a new cage Roman chamomile and Peruvian ground cherry soak up sun and water. Left dwarf tomato is Audrey’s Love that has right. Right dwarf tomato is Bendigo Dawn which has flowers but no fruit. Paula suggested we add bone meal so we did. We also added a bigger cage for climbing for the Bendigo Dawn tomato. Lettuce, peppers, bok choy, and jagallo nero kale.
Posted on January 11, 2022January 11, 2022The line is good We will finish it tomorrow, I think. Just took a picture in good light today.
Posted on January 10, 2022January 10, 2022Installing some edging against Bermuda grass Beginning to stake. This section not in yet. We got it all in tonight wedged in with dirt. We’ll let it relax in warm sun for a day or two, then go ahead and stake and fill the rest, as well as start picking out Bermuda grass roots from our side.
Posted on January 5, 2022January 5, 2022Winter wheat did not do fine So, even with covering, 12° F was too cold for the baby wheat. All wilted and dead. Oh well. It made it through 15 before, so it may have just been for too long, or finally past a threshold.