June - A Warm Welcome to Summer

Below are photos from the last days of May on Memorial Day Weekend, right through June 19th. Even as I type this, the gardens are transforming into a lush green jungle of vegetables.

I'm happy to report that 99% of seeds planted have germinated - even some older ones saved from 2007.

Here is a photo of my Zucchini Squash sprouting about 3 weeks ago. I can't put into words what a sight like this means to a gardener. All I can say is if you are a gardener, you already know what I mean.

On Memorial Day Weekend the pepper plants were moved out of the house and I finally was able to shut off the last of the fluorescent lights.

For the next month (until the end of June) these peppers will be in the 80 to 90 degree heat of the greenhouse.

But first, I transplanted each pepper into larger 3 or 4 inch peat pots. It was a humble set up on the driveway, but everything was at my fingertips - no bending over or working on my knees.

One hour later and Poof! All peppers were transplanted and ready for the greenhouse.

For the most part, peppers should not be set out at the same time as tomatoes. They need warmer temperatures to thrive.

Since this has been a warmer than usual spring, I chose to gamble and set out some peppers anyway. Note my 12" spacer stick and the container of garden sulfur. Peppers like to "hold hands" meaning they like to be closely spaced with their leaves touching each other in the rows. Also, a tablespoon of sulfur should be placed an inch below the peat pot when setting out in the garden. When the roots form and reach the acidic sulfur, the leaves will turn to a deep dark robust green.

This is the great tomato experiment that I am doing out front. If everything goes well, these 8 tomato plants should get tall enough to stop traffic! I highly recommend reading the book below; How To Grow World Record Tomatoes by Charles H. Wilber. You can click on the book photo below to buy it on Amazon.com.
Meanwhile, one of the most important lessons that I learned in the above book was to amend the soil with compost.

This year I've come up with a new version of my super secret tomato food and the ingredients are shown in the photo below.

Don't forget the wood ashes and egg shells! I will put a couple of tablespoons of this mixture in every hole when I set out each tomato plant.

I also make sure to add the Scott's Manure & Hummus to the top of every raised row. I work it in with a small hand rake before I plant. This goes for everything, not just tomatoes.

There's my 12" spacer stick again. I've found that 12 inches of space between my tomatoes works fine.

The first tomatoes were set out on Memorial Day weekend which was late this year, May 29 through the 31st.

I've got enough problems with groundhogs so I don't need to lose any tomatoes to a measly cut worm. I reuse these plastic soda and juice bottle every year.

Yes, that's right. There are speakers (only one pictured here) way out in the gardens. I do all my gardening to 70s music on Sirius XM radio - no commercials! It's all 70s, all the time at East Becket Gardens.

The last of the tomatoes were set out on June 13th - all 136 of them - 31 varieties. Lets hope for the best.

The sunflowers had a great start. However, the groundhog ended up wiping out this section of the gardens. I planted about 200 seeds in hopes of thinning them for the best plants. Now there are only about 10 left thanks to the whistle pig.

On the positive side, here are two photos which illustrate success with the cabbage and potatoes in the east garden. The photo above was taken of June 5th.

The photo above is of the same garden only two weeks later on June 13th. I hilled-up the potatoes and added precious manure & hummus to the top. A week later I will add hay mulch when they are flowering.

Here's a few flower buds on one of the potato plants. This variety is called Red Pontiac, which was one of my grandfather's favorite potatoes to grow.

Let's not forget about the house plants. This is a rare Clivia in bloom. I set it outside for a week so the bees and other pollinators could work their magic. I will save the seeds and start more Clivia plants. It takes about 5 to 7 years for a plant to produce its first bloom.

And what a spectacular bloom it is! Definitely worth the wait.

Lets hope that June continues to be warm and pleasant. These fair weather clouds are always nice to see. Don't forget to look up and stare at the clouds for a while. That's what the plants in your gardens do all day...

:)

Getting Started on the 2010 Season

Unless you've experienced this personally, you will never know what it feels like to plant an apple tree and take care of it for each season for four years, only to discover that some rodent debarked it under the snow over the last winter...

My 5 in one apple tree planted in 2006 was "Girdled" probably by a mole, 100% around the trunk. If an apple tree is girdled more than 40% it will die in the 2nd year thereafter.

The only way to save a Girdled tree is to do what is called a Bridge Graft around the trunk with many cuttings from the same tree's branches.

Bridge Grafting is pretty intense work. The most important tool is a freshly sharpened jack knife to cut into the bark - many times...

Custom-cut angles are needed to make each end of the graft fit into the peeled-back bark cuts. Copper tacks are used to hold the grafts in place.

Finally, you must seal all of the wounded area with tree wound dressing compound. The only compound I had luck finding was from a company called Treekote. the black gooppy tree compound is painted on the entire area.

My fingers are crossed and I hope that the grafts will work.

On May 1st, I planted 2 quarts of Red Pontiac Potatoes and 1 quart each of red, white and yellow onion sets. In my opinion, onions and potatoes are the easiest to plant.

And now we venture back indoors to see the tomatoes and peppers under the fluorescent lights. It's time to do some transplanting...

Here is hard evidence of what tomato roots actually do. They don't grow downward, they want to radiate outward. For now, I will transplant them into a 4 inch peat pot, which is simple...

Okay, I may look silly here, but this is a handy tip for anyone who works with potting soil while starting seeds or transplanting; Wear A Dust Mask!!!
The fine particles in potting mixes can clog your sinuses and cause a nasal infection, resulting in an unpleasant odor within your nose for a week or more. A simple trick to get the blockage cleared-up is to pinch your nose closed and try to blow out (kinda like popping your ears on an airplane ride). Repeat every hour or so until the sinuses are cleared.

Speaking of handy tips (no pun intended) let's talk about Sharpie® permanent markers. I learned the hard way... It's neater to use an "Ultra-Fine" tip to write on plastic plant markers, however once they're placed outside in the garden, the fine print will fade away to nothing. Suddenly the permanent marker isn't so "permanent!"
It may seem clumsy and harder to read, but the larger "Fine" tip is the one to go with. It won't fade as much and will remain throughout the season.

☺

April - A Warmer Than Usual Spring

This area has been blessed with a warmer than average spring season. I’d venture a guess that everything is a full two weeks ahead of schedule as compared to the last few years. The above photo is a tribute to how azure blue a spring sky can be.

Here is a photo of one of the apple trees in silver tip stage just two weeks ago. I sprayed the trees using organic dormant oil with my newly acquired backpack 4 gallon sprayer. But I don’t wear it on my back…

That’s right; I use the shoulder straps to secure the sprayer from falling over in the back of my trailer. And it works very well! There’s a fine line between being called “lazy” or “smart”…

Ah yes, the garlic is up! If you go back a few years in this blog, you’ll see that I started with 10 cloves planted in October of 2008. In October, 2009, I planted 46 cloves and it appears that 44 have made it through the winter. This variety (German Extra Hearty) can have 4 or 5 cloves per bulb. I’m making a prediction that I should have approximately (10 x 5 = 50) + (4 x 34 = 136) = 186 cloves to plant in fall of 2010.

I found some of these combo thermometer clocks at Home Depot and decided to create a nice housing for them to display at each garden. This one gets direct sun at sunset so the reading is off a bit. Actual temp was about 75 degrees.

These two photos don’t really show what I wanted to illustrate, but you might be able to get an idea of what I am doing. I added more turnbuckles to my overhead wire staking system. I liken it to winding a guitar string tighter & tighter. Each 70 foot wire now has 2 turnbuckles to keep them tight enough to bear the weight of whatever I tie to them; i.e. Tomatoes, cukes, squash, pole beans, etc.

And now for the inside… Here are two photos of the seed trays basking in the warmth of T8 fluorescent lights. There are about 400 seedlings growing right now, mostly 31 varieties of tomatoes and 7 varieties of hot peppers.

This is an amazing photo of my Tomato Pepper – yes, that’s the true name of this variety. These seeds were written about in the 2010 Winter edition of
The Heirloom Gardener Magazine
(in my opinion, their best issue ever! You can order copies by clicking on the link to their website).
What’s so amazing is that I found only one source for some seeds and the only seeds he had were seven years old! So what you see here is 17 out of 24 seeds planted that made it after 7 years of dormancy – wow!

:)

First Seeds Started

On March 13th, I began my first seed plantings of the season. These are all of the hot pepper varieties which need to be started as early as reasonably possible. This was two weeks later than my initial plan but a few varieties hadn't yet arrived in the mail and I didn't want to have different planting dates.

I do my seed-starting on a humble table I built at the top of the stairs. It's 36 inches by 16 inches, which is more than big enough to accommodate a standard tray to work with.

The eight Hot Pepper varieties that I've started this year are:

Beaver Dam
Bhut Jalokia
Congo Trinidad Habenero

Early Jalapeno

Fish Pepper
Paper Lantern
Tomato Pepper
Wisconsin Lakes

This is an example of how I start all of my pepper & tomato seeds. I simply fill the 1 inch by 1 inch starter trays with a 50/50 mix of potting soil and seed starter mix. Then I use the eraser on a standard pencil to create a small center hole for each seed.

This is my super secret technique for successful seed germination... I use a spray bottle to shoot water at each seed. I go seed by seed and when I get to the last one, I go back and hit each seed a second time. Note that the water in the sprayer should be at room temperature or luke-warm from the tap.

Next, and this is important, I use my index finger to gently cover each seed with barely enough soil to cover each one. Recent studies have shown that most seeds germinate much faster when exposed to some light.

This is the easy part. Just set under a light source and wait about 2 weeks. I have made the switch to the new T8 energy-saving fluorescent shop lights. I will run the lights from 6:30 AM until 9:30 PM which works out to 15 hours.

Some would argue that the lights need to be as close to the plants as possible. In my opinion, they don't.

:)

February - Not Much To Say

For anyone who truly is a gardener / farmer at heart, February has got to be the toughest month of the year. All there is to do is read books, research, plan, buy seeds and dream about the upcoming season. As the first day of March approaches, the idea of one more month of snow is sickening, but at the same time, I’m glad that the last 4 months of snow is now over with.



The weather last week was dismal and the worst snow yet. Wednesday there was 14” then Thursday it warmed up to be all rain (heavy) then that same night it changed over to snow, then heavy snow on Friday with another 14” by Saturday morning. Enough already!

This post will only have one photo because I rarely do any work outside in February, therefore no photos worth showing here.

I’ve been busy updating files and will post the latest version of the EBG Map here.

I’ve also been creating a compatibility chart for garden vegetables, but it still needs tweeking.

Finally, I’ve created an Excel file of my 2010 seed purchases and assigned each to one of the 5 gardens.

Okay, that’s it for February.

:)