SunnyBeachJewelryGarden

Thursday, April 23, 2015

Carrots

The fist carrots were in on Apr 12, it is 10 days now and I can see some of the young plants up.

I still have some small carrots in the ground, missed by me and my deers.

First I cleaned the bed from leaves (this winter I covered most of the beds with oak leaves and black fabric), then added compost and peat moss.

I sowed the seeds, cover them with peat moss and tapped with wood board.

The bed is covered with "argibon".

In a meantime my rhubarb is up

And greens in square foot bed is doing good.

Friday, April 10, 2015

I am not very experienced gardener, especially in growing strawberry.

I am growing everbering and june berring types and I do not have much sun in the garden, which may be the reason I do not have big harvest.

The first type of berries I got was Ozark beauty - and the plants and 3 years old now.

You can see the plant inself is pretty healthy after the winter. I was covering them with oak leaves.
It was a lit of snow this winter and some of plants did not survive - I see the growing point is rotting and 3-4 plants so I have to remove them.

Last year I planted 3 more bareroot types - 1. Honeoye

That's how the bed was look like after the winter - plants covered with wood shaving and leaves.

I did not see berries last (the first) summer.

I was also surprised that some of the plants roots are out of the soil.
I checked the plants, removed the old mulch, added compost to the roots and new mulch - wood shaving again.

The bed after the clean-up.

Two other types are Tristar and Tribute, everbering types - they were very productive last year.

My experiment was of growing them on the black mulch. I like this idea, no weeds, but I lost 5 plants this winter. The plants were pulled out of the ground and frozen.

The Tristar plants after cleaning.

My absolutely love is alpine strawberry - last year I added to my collection -

Golden Alexandria.
Small plants, with green-yellow leaves and everbering berries with very strong smell!
Not so much but as a treat!

There is one of the bed under my red currant bushes.

This one is a wild strawberry that was brought from NH forest and overwintered here.

Monday, April 6, 2015

Harvest Monday 4/6/2015

My harvest today is some of the volunteer garlic.
Last year I planted some bulbs here and there to deter deers and also some of the small bulbs I probably missed to harvest. And now I have volunteers everywhere.

The whole garlic bed, planted in different time.

Overwintered lettuce and asian cabbage.

The first of the bulbs.

Green peas planted a week ago.

Shared at: Daphne’s Dandelions “Harvest Monday” where everyone can share links to their harvest or how they are using their harvests for the week.

Sunday, March 29, 2015

Starting a first square foot bed

Some of the backyard in covered with snow, but the garden is full of spring sun. The forecast says there will be very mild night and good days like 40-50F.

So I decided to make One Good Raised Bed :)
I usually have 1-2 layers of old bricks beds, but this one suppose to be a good example. I hope.

Last year it was a parsnip bed, parsnips were good but short and "hairy". I checked the soil - 4 inches of good loose organic soil and than red clay with rocks.

No miracle the roots were not able to form. (I am gardening only 3 years and couldn't make all the beds fertile).
So I weeded, added lime, peat moss, "black kow", sand, urea fertilizer, 2x4 scrap woods and grid out of cord.

The first transplants are - spinach, chard, salad mix and Asian mix. I also sowed radishes and more spinach.

On the other bed with trellis (last year tomato trellis) I transplanted green peas - Lincoln.
All the plants we watered with warm water and covered with 2 sheets of row cover.

I have more peas transplants and I will wait till the first rows will survive.

Wishing everyone a nice spring gardening!