Backyard Garden

Garden update July 5th. Lots of work in the garden as summer moves along. We had a long stretch of heat and no rain then days of rain, lots of growth and changes. I planted the empty row with our second round of lettuces, kales, chard, and more onions.We plan on one more set of planting in late July (before August but close to August) for early fall harvesting. It's hard to decide to pull plants from the garden but our lettuces had gotten very bitter, and the spinach was not producing anything. We had had a good run of eating lettuce everyday and then they started bolting.  The lettuce is a very tender variety and not great for cooking, if you have bitter lettuce you can soak it in cold water spin the water out and then cook it to get one last harvest. I let the sturdy and delicious asian greens go to seed (and they have such pretty flowers) to collect the seeds and try planting them.  We had out first harvest of lavender and mint to dry and store. Ginger growing in a tub. Cag...

The garden is doing well. We've been eating the salad greens and many of the herbs. The oregano and the sage came back from last year. The sage is just about flowering, so that's good for the bees. The Chives came back, and we finally gave them a permanent place in the herb garden. Jen's parents brought some rhubarb from their garden up in Sumner. We planted that in between the Pear and the Japanese maple. Next summer we should have our own. We have one row that we have not planted anything in yet. Likely we will use it to rotate out some greens. The rest of the garden is dotted with plants and flowers. At least it will be dotted with plants and flowers as soon as they grow. Now the battle for the garden begins. We had turned up out lawn, and this is our first year with the new garden, so the grass is coming back. It seems to like the new soil as much as we hoped our garden plants would. Along with the grass and weeds, we have a number of volunteers from where we added ...

Garden update from June 12th. Lavender bed Lettuce (asian greens mix) gone to flower already in the background and the salad we were eating in the foreground. Kale! The herb garden and the beautiful sage flowers. Napa cabbage. Tomato plants and marigolds in the large tubs, we grow them on the south side of the house by the driveway and they do very well there! Plus they don't crowd out the other plants...they get very large. Flowering chives int he herb garden. Storage cabbage. Beets coming up. Daikon radish coming up. White turnips ready to eat. More lettuce... Scarlet runner beans and pickling cukes in half barrels.

So it's a bit of a gamble, but it shouldn't be. The weather has been great this past week, hovering in the mid-60s. We hit 80+ degrees one of those days. It's Memorial Day weekend and should be a perfect time to transplant the seedlings Jen has been growing and raising for the past month. Maybe more than a month. We spent the day planting the seedlings and sowing the seeds in the garden, then watering the little beasts in the hope that they take and grow. Looks good, though. It is a gamble because last night, around 11:00 just before heading up to bed, I decided to check the weather. I never check the weather at night because I'm going to bed and I don't care. It's going to be colder than it was when the sun was out. Maybe it will rain, maybe it won't. I don't care because I'll be sleeping. But I checked it, and it said it was going to get down to 38 degrees. Not quite a frost, but along with that temp, the app gave a frost warning. I...

We have been getting the compost turned, giving the raised beds some extra composted manure and getting everything ready for the seedlings to go out. Hopefully this weekend we will have everything in the backyard garden and will only have the big garden left to work on. Our lettuces are ready, so our first salad from the garden is coming shortly...the kale and spinach have taken a beating though from the squirrels, for some reason they want to dig them up. I added a lovely aluminum pie plate on a stick to scare them a bit and it works until the plate gets free. I hate having what looks like junk hanging in my garden, but I also don't want the groundhog eating my lettuce and the squirrels digging up my other greens! The seedlings are holding on even though I have had some dampening off and the garlic spray seems to be helping some of them. I was glad that we put in grow lights for them because it has been so cloudy and rainy for the past couple weeks, although you can tell we had s...

 My seedlings have some dampening off this year which is a real bummer. I sprayed them with a garlic spray and some are coming back and some will not make it regardless. So I may nee another trip tot he nursery before I am done with the garden. My tomatoes are holding on, but the cabbage, basil, cilantro, and some of the flowers were hit hard.  Lilac! so beautiful and covered too bad it's all raining during the full bloom... Everything keeps plodding on even though we have not seen the sun for a whole day in well over a week (Last Saturday afternoon with intermittent thunder showers was the best we can hope for apparently) I think that when the sun finally comes out it will be in true Maine fashion and we will be in the midst of  summer.

The front porch was taken over by my seedlings. I brought a truckload up to my parents over Memorial weekend to plant in the big garden. We got a lot planted, but still need to do more. We also need to fill our beds here in the backyarden. I hesitate though because we have groundhog around again and I know it will demolish my yummy cabbages. We need to utilize the have-a-heart trap soon!

So now the seedlings have a light source to help the stay upright and not reach for the windows. I did contemplate the fact that we may be visited by the police because we have a fluorescent light out over a bunch of green on on front porch, but I doubt it. All they would have to do is peek in the window to see that it is nothing illegal. So any way I am running the light only in the daytime just to help the legginess of plants. Yesterday seemed to work already. Some of the seedlings are starting to get there real leaves and are starting to crowd each other out, just in time for our vacation next week when I break them up into separate containers...not sure I have enough room for that part though!

I planted some more seeds today... some summer squash, zucchini (so it will be a little staggered from what is planted directly in the garden), eggplant, parsley, sage, honey bear acorn/winter squash just to get things started in case the season is not perfect. I need to do my marigolds still, but otherwise most of the rest of the seeds will be directly in the garden. Now is not a bad time ot start lettuces, kale, and spinach. Although the weather here is going to be cold (40 degrees F as a high this weekend). I will be planting those outside soon. Very exciting. The other seedlings are doing well, the cat took out some of my cilantro so I have to have a gate up in the doorway to the porch, but not too much damage. We still need to set up a light although the seedlings are not too leggy yet some are getting close, like the cilantro and brussel sprouts. Now off to cubeland.

The seeds are coming up great, we need to get a light on them before they get more leggy. Hopefully it is not too late, tomorrow is Saturday and we should have time to get the light set up and hung.

I started some seeds in late April: Our front porch is a perfect spot for them to stay cool and get lots of light. The basil was coming up like crazy...unfortunately a bunch was lost because it "damped off". Here it just looks super strong and awesome: The morning glories were showing off as well... We started way too much for seed, but we were very excited. I planted basil, parsley, mint, oregano, cilantro, early green cabbage, red cabbage, green cabbage, tomatoes (yummy heirloom variety called Nepal, Ace Peppers (green if you pick early red if you wait), morning glories, marigolds, California poppies, Spanish flags, hollyhocks, a weird type of amaranth (I forget the name now), and Shirley poppies. Fun!