Spring is fast, working hard

About 50 outside! I am so excited to be outside!

This is my 2 days report.

Planted all the carrots (paper towel mats, 3 days, almost all seed germinated). You can see some paper towel mats are covered with compost and some are not.

also planted a lot of radishes, regular and Asian variety. My overwintered tatsoi is ready to bolt, I am harvesting it now.

 My friend is adding a room to the house, she has a lot of dirt after digging, so we brought some bins of soil in a future greenhouse. I will mi it with my compost. I never had enough compost!

Frame of the hoop house is almost done, but I am too busy with other stuff like plating and cleaning than building now.

 A llok at the garden - green in a cold frame.

 First peas - planted on March 10.

 Onion Stuttgarter planted today.

 Strawberries are alive - so nice!. I transplanted them in the middle of the winter.

 Some brassicas are ready to transplant.

 All of them in place.

 Look at those roots!
Napa cabbage Munuet

 4 of them are very good, I hope the weather will be not cold for them.









Kohlrabi

 Kale blue dwarf












Today was a big clean-up day.
This was a End of the Garden Mess - actually raspberry patch. A lot of fall leaves were collected there. And rocks, and twigs....

I cleaned everything, checked all the raspberry (I have 2nd year transplants), pruned them, added compost.



Is it the same place?
I also added trellis support.

 And those are new guys in the garden!
Gooseberry

 Raspberry jewel

 Black currants behind the raspberries.

Greenhouse Day 3

It was a windy day, very hard to work on a hoophouse.

 My finished structure will be 11 x 16 feet. I could make it longer but I have had lumber by 8 feet and I told myself - "stop! don;t be jealous, 16 feet is enough!"








I have 3/4 inches PVC pipes, 10 feet long, connected by 2. I put a PVC glue, I even add 2 screws , but the pipes did not want to cooperate! Every time I tried to put them on rebars and bend, the middle part was separating.You can see them pointing up!
I was tired so I inserted one rebar inside the joint. It worked. so if the hoops will be staying till tomorrow morning, I will have to buy 3 more rebars.

Now I can see The Spring!

The weather is getting better, I am so excited!

So it is official spring clean-up time.


The daffodils bed before

 ... and after!

Now I see they are alive.

I also cleaned some leaves, pruned some shrubs.....oh, so much to do!

I also worked on seed mats with morning.
I marked the board with 2x2 and 3x3. I do not like the idea to use glue, I just divided paper towel in 2 pieces and sprayed the first one,

 Those are radish seeds, I have many Asian variety to try this year.
Than I cover them with second part of paper towel and sprayed again.
Folded, put a name an stored in closed contained!

I believe radishes with germinate in 2-3 days, carrots probably later.

My $5.00 compost bin

I am so happy I have stapler now!
I do not know how I lived without this magic tool!

It took 30 minutes and $5.00 today to build my composting bin.
I am using old chicken wire, rounded for compost, but I need more bins and I want them to be portable.

So I made 3 panels today, using old floor woods and green plastic netting. The 25 feet cost $9.00 and I used only about 4x6x4m so it can be $5.00.
I did not finish the project, sometimes I made 90% and after when I have time I will finishing them.
I need to make a front panel.

Thank you, Mr. Stapler!

Harvest Monday, March 25th, 2013

The night are getting a little bit warmer, still below freezing point, but under the raw covers there may be not so cold and my greens look much merry.
I harvested some garlic greens, kale, bok choi, parsley and cilantro, giant mustard, mizuna, komatzuna and of course - my favorite - swiss chard.

Each Monday Daphne’s Dandelions hosts the “Harvest Monday” blog hop.   

Greenhouse day 2 and gardening under the covers

Days are getting wormer!
I worked 3 hours again and I made rear part of my hoophouse.
There will be no door, only a window later.
Today pipes did not cooperate at all! I spent so much time bending them together!





The plastic was getting dirty, because I had to turn the frame up and down on the beds. I hope the water condensate will clean it later.

My Green under the raw cover are doing good. There is a bok choy.

Redbor kale planted in February.

 Silly komatzuna decided to bolt so I cut the heads off for a salad.

Even overwintered mustard is getting back to life.
I wanted to through them away.

Greenhouse Day 1

Nice day, 40F!

Working on a hoop house.
I was reading so much about building hoophouses, I am getting crazy about it!
I am on a tight budget, so I am trying to spend less.

Some of the materials - 3/4 in PVC pipes, rebar,  1x3x8 lumber, regular (not greenhouse) plastic.

I am so excited so work!

Garden gate and more snow

It suppose to snowing again today!
I do not know when I can garden. But I can work anyway.

So next project is a garden gate, my old one was made from PVC pipes and I will reuse it in composter.

 I like to buy lumber from clearance section in home depot, so made a frame from 2x2 and finish it with 2x1I also painted the gate with weatherproofing stain. Only hardware and small critters net are left.









My other project is growing vegetable from cuttings.
There is leek started from seeds.
Yesterday I bought organic leek, cut tops and put them in water.

After 20 hr the leek grows 8mm!
What a speed!

I also trying to grow celery and bok choi.
And there will be more snow today. :(

Still cold outside

I am tired of waiting, where is the warmth?

We had snow at night again!
Anyway I have so much work to do, I am spending 2-3 hr last days.
There is my second butch of tomatoes , need to be transplanted.

 Basil at last! First time nothing was germinated, this time I used per-sprouted seeds.

 Chard on the windowsill is getting really large!

 My fennel - first time.

 Okra, I loved okra last year on the sunny porch.

 Celery Utah, transplanted and thinned.

 The biggest celery is now 4 inches long.

 Peppers.

 Greens on the top room.

 Mostly kohlrabi and broccoli are waiting to be planted outside.

 New container of cilantro.

 Borago - first time!

 Turnips.









 Asian greens.

 Yesterday with a help of my husband (thank you!) I added 5 more beds. Some are not finished and under black plastic. I do not turn the soil, just lay fall leaves right on the grass, than homemade compost+soil from woods.

I checked last year bed where I plan to grow carrots this year.  The soil is perfect, as I see, easy to dig, as butter! I just removed old mulch, ad turned the soil. Upper level is almost black, below the soil is more clay-look but can not compare with regular soil I have everywhere.
So my lazy raised bed method is working.

 Signs of sorrel

 I accidentally dump wood ash on the blueberry this winter. Now I am correcting this, removing all old mulch and adding a layer of compost.

 Strawberry Ozark beauty planted in early winter, now covered with black plastic.

 First irregular strawberry bed is cleaned and thinned from runners. There is mostly Ozark Beauty and Allstar. Last year I did not have strawberry, only some of them. So this year (second) I believe I will have a good harvest!