Gardens Started!

I can't believe how quickly the the endless winter season ends in the blink of an eye, and now we've been blessed with an early "hot" spring. It's so nice to feel the sun again and to get outside and set up for the garden. I was happy to set out my "hose hub" just last week, after all I need to get those hoses hooked up for all of the gardens!

Early Tilling

I tilled 2 gardens on Saturday, April 19th - that's the earliest tilling time I've ever been able to accomplish. The weather has been amazing with a full week and a half of sunny, cloud-free brilliant blue skies with weather reports of temperatures as much as 15 to 20 degrees warmer than normal for this time of year. I'll take it!

For the record, we broke the 80 degree mark here on 4/17/08 with 80.8 F @ 3:10 PM.

Rhubarb Report

I have some before/after Rhubarb photos below. What a difference in only 5 days!



Radishes Are Fast

Speaking of 5 days... Radishes are one of my favorite spring seeds to plant because you get such fast germination. These German Giants were planted on 4/19 and are nearly 100% up only five days later.




Seed Dibble


Here's a handy seed planting tool that anyone can use. It's a common split end clothes pin that I marked for planting seeds at accurate depths for best germination. Notice the blue markings I made for the 1& 1/2", 1", and the balled end itself just happens to be a perfect 1/2" depth.

Using the clothes pin upside down is the simplest way I know of to plant seeds quickly.

Mark Seed Packets Ahead

One more tip: in winter when you've nothing better to do, as soon as those seeds arrive in the mail, read them over and hand write the recommended seed planting depth in big numbers on the seed packet. More common than not, the packet won't have that info in the skimpy @#$%! print and you'll find yourself outside, all geared up in the garden, squinting in disgust at the seed packet, then trudging back to the house for your trusty garden book to get a seed depth... I've been gardening most of my life. I'm now forty years old and I went through all of that last weekend...

Seed Planting Data

I planted many other early spring plants, so here's a list of what & when:

Radish - German Giant - 4/19
Radish - Giant Sakurojima - 4/20
Snow pea - Oregon Sugar Pod 2 - 4/19
Turnip - Purple Top White Globe - 4/20
Pac choi - Chinese White Cabage - 4/22
Mesclun - Mild mix - 4/22
Mustard - Tendergreen - 4/22
Spinach - Tyee - 4/22

Most of the 70 ft. X 25 ft. garden is now full with the early spring plantings! I left two rows for beans & tomatoes in late May.

Got Lovage?

I'm glad that I do! I transplanted two Lovage plants into this garden last spring (2007) and they basically sat around as expected that season. This year, I expect large growth and I'm seeing evidence of this right now. Check out the two photos of the same Lovage plant taken only 5 days apart! Talk about a spring explosion!




Indoor Update

I've been transplanting many of the tomatoes, broccoli and cauliflower seedlings into both 4" and 2&1/4 inch peat pots. I'm really impressed with the fluorescent lighting methods this season and expect a huge boost in tomato production this season. most of the 13 varieties will be grown for seed production depending on how each variety reacts to conditions here.


Here we go!

:)