Outside

Greens Looking Good!

The greens bed is looking particularly good this year.

On the right on the top and bottom are radishes. Also on the right are two lettuces - Black Seeded Simpson and Merlot. Both are cut-and-come-again varieties, so I can snip what I need and more will grow from the root. They should last until about the 4th of July, depending on how hot it gets.

What I'm most excited about, though, is the spinach, in two rows on the left. I've planted spinach for the past five years or so, and this will be the first year I'll harvest anything significant before it bolts.

Why is the spinach doing so well this year? I wish I could say it's because of something I've done, but I doubt it. The only thing I did differently this year was plant the seed thickly in the rows. All my books say to plant spinach 2" apart, but this year I had old seed and was running out of time, so I made two 1/2" furrows and put in lots of seed.

I think, though, the main reason the spinach is doing well this year is because it's been a cool spring. Here in Minnesota, we can go from frozen ground to temperatures in the 80's in about a month - not the best growing weather for spinach. This year, though, the temperatures have stayed moderate, in the 60's and 70's, so the spinach is able to grow slowly.

The first salad should be this weekend. I'm looking forward to it!

Bush Beans - Half bed planted

I planted a half bed of bush beans today - Blue Lake 274. This year I'm going to see how many green beans I can freeze for the upcoming winter. The taste of "fresh" grocery store beans is so woody and bleh - I'm hoping I can stock enough for garden beans once per week during the winter. We'll see.

What's Blooming Now - April 24, 2009

The first flush of green is spreading across Minnesota. Here in my neighborhood, a few things have started blooming.

The only flowers I have in my yard right now are daffodils.

Magnolias just started blooming yesterday, while the forsynthias have been in full-flower for about 4-5 days. On the left is a neighbor's full-size tree as seen through the woods. The same neighbor has a forsynthia in their front yard as seen on the right.

Yet another neighbor has a pretty rock wall with species tulips and little Siberian squill flowers.

Seed Order 2008

Here's the list of everything I ordered this year. It's a long list because I had to start from scratch - somehow I managed to lose (or throw away) my seeds from past years.

Suppliers
Fedco Seeds
Johnny's Selected Seeds
Pinetree Garden Seeds
Seed Savers Exchange
Seeds of Change
Territorial Seed Company
Tomato Bob's Heirloom Tomatoes

Salad Greens & Stuff
Merlot loose leaf lettuce: Territorial
Black Seeded Simpson lettuce: Fedco
Space Spinach: Pinetree
Fordhook Giant Swiss Chard: Johnny's
Tendersweet green cabbage: Johnny's
Super Red 80 red cabbage: Johnny's
Cherry Belle radish: Pinetree
Purple Plum radish: Pinetree

Snap Peas
Sugar Ann: Johnny's
Sugar Snap: Johnny's

Potatoes
Rose Finn Apple fingerlings: Seed Savers
Carola main crop storage: Seed Savers

Tomatoes
Sungold orange cherry: Fedco
Sweet Chelsea red cherry: Fedco
Yellow Pear yellow cherry: Seed Savers
Principe Borghese red drying: Fedco
Green Zebra green salad: Seed Savers
Gregori Altai red main crop: Tomato Bob's
Mule Team red main crop: Tomato Bob's
Pruden's Purple purple main crop: Fedco

Beans
Bush Blue Lake: Pinetree
Kentucky Blue Pole: Pinetree
Pete's Romano Pole: Saved from 2007
Purple Podded Pole: Saved from 2007

Peppers
Hungarian Hot Wax: Fedco
Ancho/Poblano: Seeds of Change
Paprika Alma: Seeds of Change

Curcubit Family
Marketmore 97 Cucumber: Territorial
Raven Zucchini: Fedco
Sunburst Scallop: Pinetree
Sugar Baby Watermelon: Pinetree

Ground Cherry
Aunt Molly's: Territorial

 Asparagus
Jersey Supreme: Johnny's

Garlic
Chrysalis Purple: Seed Savers
Music: Seed Savers
Siberian: Seed Savers

Pretty Urns

Although I'm a bit angry with the garden right now (which is, I know, irrational - it's an inanimate object - but it's true nonetheless), there is one thing I like and will plan to do again next year.

I've had a pair of these iron urns for three years now, and have not been completely satisfied with the annuals I've put in them - until this year. (The second of the pair is on the left side of the steps that are barely seen on the left in the photo.)

In the past, the trailing annuals I've planted here have tended to become dehydrated fairly quickly. The pot is metal and has a narrow throat, so it dries out quickly.

However, I really like the way this calibrachia (million bells)* spills out of the pot, and it has yet to dry out. I also like the combination of shapes - it all seems quite graceful to me. Plus, not only does it spill over the sides of the urn, it also covers the top of the dirt, so that when you look down at it from the steps or the upper garden, you don't see any dirt or leggy branches.

I will do one thing differently next year, though - I'll plant some plain maroon "spikes" rather than the ornamental amaranth. The amaranth is too tall, so it looks out of proportion (I couldn't even fit it in the photo). Plus it looks too "coarse" - like I planted a stalk of corn in the middle of a rose garden.

* Keri at Taste Memories remembered the name of this plant for me. Thanks, Keri!

Potatoes Planted

This weekend was busy, but I did manage to get the potatoes planted on Sunday, April 22. That's 11 days later than last year.

I planted two fingerling varieties: Rose Finn Apple and French Fingerling. Both were purchased from Seed Savers. Because of the great potato confusion of 2006, I've labeled them well - both on my garden plan and with plant labels in the garden. However, I did contradict myself. When I posted on my mistake, I said I wouldn't grow Rose Finn Apple again this year. However, because I'm not sure which was the more prolific variety, I'm growing both varieties again so that I can make a definitive and final judgment this year.

And now, for the most boring picture on a blog - ever - I give you my potato planting.

First Planting

It was a beautiful day yesterday, so when I got home from work yesterday I decided to plant the first of my vegetables. Now that it's mid-April and daylight savings time is here, the sun doesn't set until about 7:30 or 8:00, which gave me just enough time to get some gardening done.

So, what was planted?  Sugar Ann Snap Peas, Purple Plum Radishes, Cherry Belle Radishes, Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce, Merlot Lettuce, Olympia Giant Spinach, Space Spinach and Rhubarb Chard. This weekend I'll plant my fingerling potatoes - French and Rose Finn Apple.

Surprisingly, I'm not that far behind last year. Given our cold and snowy spring, I thought that I was way behind schedule. But, looking over my blog archives, I discover that in 2006 I planted potatoes on April 11, peas and spinach on April 13 and the rest of the spring greens on April 16.

April Bloom Day: First Day in the Garden

It's the 15th, so it must be Bloom Day in the garden blogger world. Well, here in Minnesota, nothing is blooming yet - not here in my yard, and not in anyone else's yard, either.

But, the good news is, this was the first outdoor gardening weekend of 2007! Although I didn't get as much done as I would have liked, several important items got checked off the list.

I composted four beds - one that's already been planted with garlic, the other three that will be planted with spring veggies this week. (I found several shoots of garlic when I removed the winter mulch.) I've decided to follow the advice in Teaming with Microbes  - I didn't dig in the compost. I'm still not sure how I feel about it. On the one hand, it was pretty darn easy to just spread it on top of the beds. On the other hand, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was getting away with something somehow. Well, we'll just have to see how it goes. I also got the bean and snap pea trellises set up. It's obviously too early to even think about planting pole beans, but the trellis is too hard to get it in place once the peas are growing.

At long last, I finally got some seeds started. The seed tray in the front is all tomatoes. I believe I sowed about 10 varieties. (I'll verify this later; right now I'm too tired to go downstairs and get my notebook!) The second tray holds two varieties of cabbage - one red, one green, kale, peppers (Ancho, Hungarian Hot Wax and Paprika Alma), and garden huckleberry. The huckleberry is my "wildcard" this year. From what I understand, the berries are pretty bland when eaten raw, but are a good substitute for blueberries when sweetened. We'll see how they go. Actually, the cabbages are new for me, too - I've never grown them before.

While I was working in the garden, Spouse was able to get two things checked off his list. One was getting the snow blower put away for the summer. That means it cannot snow again until next October - at the earliest! The other thing Spouse was able to do was smoke a cigar while watching me pot up the seeds. I think that was his favorite part of the weekend.

Caught in a Vacuum

Where is spring? That's the lament I'm reading all over the gardening blogosphere. Here in the Twin Cities, we are in a sort of vacuum, a suspended animation. About 1.5 weeks ago, we had a day when the temperature reached 83 degrees. After that, it dropped down into the 30's and has stayed there.

Although the cold is depressing, I think found the silver lining in our weather. Unlike gardeners in other parts of the country who had plants up and starting to bloom, here in my neck of the woods nothing has started to bloom. Heck, nothing has really started to grow.

That means, unlike Carol at May Dreams Gardens or Don at An Iowa Garden, I'm not mourning over the death of daffodils, lilacs or apple blossoms. Here in the frozen tundra, only a few chives are up and there are no leaves - let alone flower buds - on the shrubs and trees. My guess is that all the plants have slowed down and are waiting for the extended cold to leave town.

In the meantime, I'm behind schedule for planting seeds. I haven't planted a one. If things go well, I hope to get peppers, cabbage and maybe some lettuce planted on Wednesday night, with tomatoes to follow this weekend. This all assumes, of course, that spring finally comes to the northland.

Ice Out 2007

As I predicted (hoped) yesterday, the ice went out on the pond yesterday. Spring has officially sprung.

In the meantime, the weather has retreated from the summery conditions of Monday back into the usual end-of-March fare - 46 degrees, windy and rainy.