a modest first harvest

radish, "Easter egg"

Today, I officially harvested the first vegetables of 2011. These radishes were about the size of a large marble, but tasted great. I probably should have thinned my radish rows long ago, but I finally did that today. There are many radishes still in the rows, but they still need another week or so of growth. I will sow two more rows tomorrow for a late Spring harvest.

Spring flower blossoms

blueberry "Chippewa"

tulip 

creeping phlox

Asiatic lily

tulip

Tulipa bakeri

hosta

fritillaria

fritillaria

fritillaria "Fox's Grape"

my new pea trellis

One of my recent DIY projects was to build a pea trellis. Here is how I did it.

The trellis consists of two 6' x 4' rectangles, with a cross brace in the middle of the 6' sides. These were fastened together with 3" decking screws. The lumber used here are 2" x 4" untreated studs. Although I might not have the carpentry skills to make perfect 90 degree angles, these frames are very strong. To give the trellis some protection against the elements, I sealed the wood in boiled linseed oil.

For a growing support, I tacked 1" UV-resistant black plastic netting to the frames. I tried to make the netting as a tight as possible so that there wouldn't be too much sagging under he weight of the vegetables.

Finally, I wanted to make this trellis collapsible for storage during the winter so I added to brass door hinges at the top, which I salvaged from one of my other remodeling jobs around the house.

The trellis frame just sits on top of the frames of my existing garden beds. Although the weight alone makes the trellis quite stable, I decided to bend a few nails around the base of each side to lock things in place a bit better.

To train the pea plants onto my trellis, I took two approaches. At the base of each frame, I try to weave the young plants into the netting to get them started up the sides. For plants in the middle, I hung twine from the top of the hinge region. To weight the twine, I tied some old cabinet knobs to the ends of each string. Then, I just try to wrap the plants around the twine. They don't stay very well at first, but after a few days of training, they hold on pretty well.

Tuesday tuber report #5

My kitty litter pail potato growing experiment has been ongoing for three months now, and the spud we have lovingly dubbed "Mr Potato" is still plugging along. I will be the first to admit that this plant is far from looking healthy: The stems are leggy and no longer able to support themselves and the leaves are brownish with little red spots. However, new leaves continue to emerge and there is no evidence that the plant is in imminent danger of dying. Mr Potato is obviously no longer an indoor potato. He has been living outside for about three or four weeks now, since the temperatures have been pretty mild.

But now that I've had my "practice", it's time to plant some proper potatoes. My order of Yukon Gold seed potatoes arrived about a week or so ago from Johnny's Selected Seeds. I had previously prepared two long trenches in one of the raised beds, piling the excess dirt in the middle for later use. In total, I planted twenty spuds in this bed. You can't really tell from this picture, but these were the most pristine potatoes that you have ever seen. At $20 for five pounds, I would expect nothing less.

After covering the seed potatoes in a bit of soil, I went about erecting a hoop house for this bed. I am currently in the process of attaching hoops to most of my garden beds. Given the exponential rise in stink bugs in my area and last year's losses to other insects, I have decided to take preventive measures and use row covers wherever feasible.

To make my hoops, I bought 10 ft lengths of 1/2 inch PVC pipe that I subsequently trimmed to around 8 ft in length using a hack saw. The hoops were then attached to the outside of the bed using pipe brackets

Finally, I stretched Agribon-19+ row cover over the hoops and secured everything with binder clamps to the PVC pipe. Although the cover is lifted up in the photo below, these row covers are usually tied down to nails hammered into the end boards of each garden bed.

I have been surprised by the durability of these makeshift hoop houses. In recent weeks, we have experienced some quite heavy downpours with strong winds. The only effect on the row cover is that the ends often come loose in high winds. Other than that, they are working quite well and my seedlings seem happy.

Sunny Sunday

After last night's torrential rains, there was a welcome respite today of sunny weather. Plants throughout the yard are in flower and so I took the opportunity to take some pretty pictures.

These grape hyacinths have multiplied at least two or three fold since last spring. They seem determined to escape into the lawn as I keep finding flower stalks popping out from under the rock border.

grape hyacinths

The Grecian windflowers share the small circular plot in the lawn with the grape hyacinths. They are a new addition this year. Although I think they're pretty, I was expecting them to be taller. They're only about 2-3 inches in height. I suppose that I should read my catalogs more closely before I buy things.

Grecian windflowers

I was happy to find that the fritillaria are blooming this year. They have been growing in a shady spot behind the house for two years now, but there were only greens last year. In retrospect, I worry that I may have confused them with grass and ripped them out last season. Oops!

fritillaria

These wild tulips are growing in a mulched rocky island in the middle of the lawn. They were an impulse buy at Home Depot. You know what I'm talking about. Home Depot and Lowe's both have those boxes and bags of fruit bushes and flower bulbs at the front entrance. They're usually crazy cheap and I just can't help myself. So far, only the yellow ones have opened. But I think that there will be some additional colors since the leaves on the unopened plants are a completely different shape.

wild tulips

For some reason, my daffodils are late bloomers. Every place I look on my way to work I have seen blooming daffodils for at least two weeks now. But mine only decided to open in the past day or two. I'm not sure if it is an issue of sun exposure or poor soil, but I might need to move these guys to a new spot.

daffodil

In the shade garden, the bleeding heart plant is growing very nicely for its first year. It's about five inches tall now. I can't wait until it flowers.

bleeding heart

Finally, the raspberry bush is out of control. Every time I look, there are more canes popping up. At last count, I think there were ten. By the way, this is another Lowe's impulse purchase.

raspberry, "Latham"

Well, that's it for this Sunday garden tour. I hope to get back into the swing of blogging again soon. Lots of stuff is happening in the vegetable gardens and I need to find time to post more updates. Until next time ...