May 2016 Has Been Rainy, Weird

I can't remember a rainy May in Wenatchee. It has been nice not to have to water as much. It has been warm enough not to cause concern for things like peppers and tomatoes, but it has been mild enough for the lettuce and peas to do well. Several of the recent Mays here have been way too hot for spring crops like peas and lettuces.

Here is a picture from the front of the garden. I now have 8 raised beds, each 8 feet by 4 feet. This year I added a bag of composted steer manure and a bag of composted chicken manure to each bed along with a good topping of my homemade compost. I let them spend the winter covered with chopped leaves and grass clippings. When I dug into them to plant things this spring there were plenty of worms everywhere. I have also added 12 feet of red raspberries from my grandparents house and a patch of golden raspberries, also from the grandparents. I have planted alpine strawberries along the shady side of the house and I now have three small jelly bean blueberry bushes and one medium blueberry bush. The Rhubarb bush in the front garden is also doing well.



The Carrots are just now starting to come up:



I planted marigolds on either end of most of the garden beds. They are from seeds from last year, the french single marigolds that I like.



These are the sugar pod peas. They are the only ones that are making peas so far. I planted them about 2 weeks earlier than the others.



These are turnips from seeds that I bought at the goodwill near my sisters house in Seattle, as a joke. I bet they will turn out great.



The beets came up this week, as well.

These peas were planted from some old seeds and not too many of them actually came up. It is too bad because this is my daughter's favorite type.



Here are my broccoli. No ants have eaten them off around the bottom this year. Fingers crossed.



A few of them are making little heads already:



My mom started some peppers for me. These are Alma cayenne:



These are a very pretty purple Aurora peppers, also from my mother:

I planted the onions (purple and Walla Walla) close together and I thin them as I use the green onions.



The onions are trying to protect the Kale from herbivorous insects, but it isn't really working. I have found quite a few caterpillars on it.



This lettuce over wintered and is now going to seed. It was nice to pick a few salads from it early in the spring, though.



I bought these spindly Jalapeno peppers at the FFA plant sale. They will be great in a while. Half of the six pack are in a larger pot with one of the ollas that my brother made me last year. They already seem to be doing better than the others without the olla.





These are two pots of Serrano peppers that I got at SavMart. There are a total of 8 plants.



These are two pots of orange bell peppers I found at Shopko:



I also got these Green Bell Peppers there. One six pack had 13 plants in it.



This is my basil and tomato bed. I have built a different support system this year. I hope it works  well. I have planted basil between each tomato. The seed packet I used was a mixed assortment of types of basil. There is definitely some lemon basil and a purple basil in there. I am pretty sure one is a spicy globe and there are a couple that smell and taste more like cinnamon or Thai basil which are my favorite.



The wooden trellis is 8 feet tall and I have put twines down to each plant. I will add a twine for each major tomato branch.



Here you can see the potatoes, which appear to be starting to bud. I usually plant potatoes just to make creamed peas and potatoes. I think they will be ready when the shelling peas are, so yay!



Behind the potatoes are the Fava Beans.



They are just starting to make beans.



I have planted alyssum around to encourage syrphid flies to reproduce here to help the aphid problem.



Here is the herb garden. You can see that the sage, savory, chives, thyme, and oregano survived over the winter. The rosemary and french lavender did not. One of the parsleys did make it, but since it went strait to seed, I pulled it out. I planted 4 new Rosemary plants, all different types to see if any will over winter. I also planted tarragon, french lavender, new oregano, thyme and borrage from seeds.



Here is the raspberry patch" the first  few are starting to turn red



I replanted the strawberry bed this spring, so I don't expect to get very many berries.



The golden raspberries have become a pretty large bush.



I just planted this border patch in the back yard. The farthest plant is an artichoke. Let's see how long it takes. If I can get a bud or two I will be happy. The other plants are a Shasta daisy from Fred Meyers and some marigolds from the FFA plant sale.



I am glad to announce that both of my grape plants I planted on the arbor last year made it through the winter and are making grapes already. This picture is the Niagara grape. It flowered very early and has set fruit.



This view shows how both vines have grown:



This is the red table grape, Its still flowering and has lots of large groups of buds. If it sets most of the fruit there will be loads of grapes.



I planted a flat of new alpine strawberry plants and they are almost ready to be planted out.



The plants I planted two years ago are making so many little delicious berries right now.



I picked a few after this picture. They aren't quite super ripe yet, like I like them, but still good.



Well, that is everything that is going on in my garden right now. Stay tuned for an exciting post about the chickens.

Spoiler: I put some fertilized duck eggs under the broody hens.

No Foolin' This 70 Degree Weather Is Making Everything Grow

Happy April Fool's Day!  I didn't even play any jokes on anyone today.  I guess I still have a few hours.  We'll have to come up with something.  Now I have some serious growing to report on from my garden, and I'm not foolin' around. Wow.  I planted a bunch of things last Tuesday, and a lot of it is already sprouting.

I planted three kinds of kale. Two of them have sprouted already. This is Russian Red.

You can kind of tell they are different. This is the smooth leaf kale.  I am still waiting on the Blue Curled Scotch.

It appears that the buckwheat that I planted a few weeks ago is coming up after all.  I have planted potatoes in one of the beds that I had planted the cover crop in.  I had given up on it. I guess I shouldn't have.

This kale seed must have been dropped here by accident.

The romaine lettuce is coming up really strong.

This is a picture of what is coming up in one of the salad mix squares.  Some of these sprouts look very radishy, or maybe kale like.

Speaking of radishes, these are the sparkler radishes I planted last week. With this heat they are going to catch up to the cherry belle.

The cherry belle radishes are looking very good.

This is the other salad mix square.  You can see little green sprouts everywhere.

I think that is all of the things that I planted last week, but all of the stuff I planted earlier is also growing by leaps and bounds in this wonderfully warm weather.

The fava beans that I started indoors and moved to the pot are really getting big.

I put my hand in this one so you can appreciate how big they really are.  The ones that I planted directly in the garden have not sprouted yet, but with all of this warm weather I don't think it will be long. It only took 3 days in the window for the toilet paper roll experiment. I never did tell you what I thought about the toilet paper experiment.  Well, I won't be using them again, sorry to say.  They all grew the most disgusting thick layer of fungus all over them.  I was surprised to find one of the fennel sprouting right through the 1/4 inch layer of mold three days ago. I transplanted it, just in case it will make it.  so far so good, but no other seeds have emerged through the fungus.

The peas are growing so fast in this warmth that I think the second row is going to catch up to the first row.  I had planned to plant a third row of peas last Thursday, to keep up the pea planting every two weeks idea, but I didn't.  I just don't know if I want to use that much space.   Maybe this weekend I will plant a third row.

The spinach sprouts are getting bigger and bigger, but have not gotten their second leaves yet.

The strawberries are getting more green new leaves, and the old leaves are dying off.  I don't think we will get a huge crop this year, but hopefully they will spread out with their runners and cover the beds they are in.

The potatoes haven't shown any green above ground yet, but I think they are working on it because I can see cracks starting to break where they are planted beneath.

I think you can finally see the grass on the photographs of the front lawn now. Look at it. It is getting pretty green. I am a bit worried about how many weeds are there with the grass.  I have been reading and everything says we can't treat with herbicide until the grass is really established and has been mowed a few times. I carefully pull out the ones I can reach from the side, and some of them will be taken care of the first time we mow (the sunflowers and the maple trees) but some of them will be an ongoing problem, possibly into next year.  We have some of those early spring annual weeds that are already flowering and will be done making seeds for next year well before we mow this lawn.  I will have to remember to put on a very early weed and feed treatment next spring for those sprouts.  Just in case you haven't figures it out yet, I am not one of those organic only people.  I am a chemist by training and have loads of experience with pesticide analysis in food, soil and water and have come to grips with the fact that chemicals are everywhere and are useful. I believe the real problem is that they are not being used in a sustainable way.  I might expound on this opinion in a paper or video later, but since my family has heard it all, and they are the only ones reading this blog I won't take the time and space here.

Okay, here is an update on the pear grafting experiment.  Well, sort of.  There is nothing really to report.  I can't tell if they are taking or not.  They aren't dried up and dead, yet, but they also aren't really showing signs of being healthy either. The natural buds are starting to open and show leaves and flower buds, as you can see in the pictures above and below. The grafted terminal buds seem to have swollen a bit, because they cracked the wax that had been covering them, but that is the extent.  I believe that if I had placed these buds into the ground they would be this far along.  I will not call this a success or failure until the grafts are really dead or have leaves growing on them.

I will have flowers very soon on this pear tree.  Since I need cross pollination I may not have pears this year. I know I should remove pears this year to give the tree a chance to establish itself, but I really love comise pears, and I am excited to see what they are like on my tree. I could bring home a few flowering branches from work and put them in a bucket of water next to my tree for the bees. I could make sure and pick off all but a few pears.  Hmmmm.  I will think on it.

My little rhubarb is taking off.  I am no longer worried about it. I don't think I will pick any this year, but it will be just fine despite the fact that I thought it was a goner when I bought it. I won't have enough strawberries for strawberry rhubarb squares anyway.

The tulips we planted last fall are getting loads of leaves but are showing no signs of flower buds yet.  I think I do remember reading on the label for these tulips that they were a later blooming variety.  I think that will be lovely.

The miniature irises have all bloomed now.  Look how cute.  I think for next year I will try to plant a few more, so they are not so lonely.  I know they will fill in a bit on their own, also.

This tulip bud is on one of the volunteer tulips. It looks like I will get to see what kind they are pretty soon.  I will probably dig them up soon after they are done.  If they are really pretty I will relocate them. If not then I will get rid of them.  I am such a ruthless gardener.  I have adopted the mantra "if I didn't plant it, I don't want it."  It saves me a lot of decision making anxiety.  These tulips have survived this long because they are beneath the weed block, and it will be quite an ordeal to dig them out.  My procrastination may save their lives.

Here are a few more pictures of the front lawn coming in all green.

You can see some sunflower sprouts in this close up shot.  They are everywhere.  When I pull them I can tell that some of them have been tilled way under and have still come up through 6 inches of dirt. They are determined little pests.  I want to eradicate them this year.  I do plan, however, to plant some sunflowers of the mammoth seed producing variety.  I hope those do not create the horrible weed problem that these ones have.  The neighbors said that they may have grown from the bird seed that the lady threw out for the birds, but they remember her saying she loved them.

Oh my gosh! I almost forgot to tell you I finally found some fingerling potato starts.  I have never grown them but I do love to eat them.  I wanted to try growing some this year.  My aunt had some fond memories of  a specific variety that her friends grew in Alaska and I found some seed potatoes for them at the Savemart here in town.  I only bought five of them.  I really don't want to use any more space for potatoes, but I had to give these a try.  They are in one corner of the bed with the fava bean row.

My blog posts are always way too long for any sane person to read, but if you are still reading, then have a very happy April Fool's Day and don't play any cruel jokes, just nice ones.