Season 2019 journal

[taboule]

Greetings,

I hope you all are in various stages of planning your garden -unless you're lucky and have started it already. We had a moderately dry January here, but the past few weeks have been wintry. A couple nights ago we had fierce winds, howling all night and kept me awake. We could hear all kinds of stuff flying around and many trees came down. In the morning while having my coffee I looked out the back yard and noticed things missing. The gas grill and the WSM smoker had lost their covers, and a large canoe that was tucked against the fence was gone. I went around the property looking for it, it was blown/slid over 150 ft and was caught by the far fence.

canoe-in-bed-2mar19.jpg

So i can honestly say I started my 2019 garden, and my first planting was a 16ft Mad River Canoe.

Back inside, I couldn't wait either and early February, I started 2 flats of walla-walla onions. I had an older unused pack, and didnt want to waste it. Seeds germinated in 4 days, but many didn't. So I bought a new pack, divided and added it between the 2 flats. Here's how things looked today.

WW-2mar19.jpg

[taboule]

...And because it's too early to do anything else outside, keeping busy de-stressing with home improvement (aka honey-do) projects.

HW_floor_WIP_feb19.jpg

Beautiful floor, taboule! Glad you and the Mrs were (mostly) okay after the wind storm. 150' is a long ways to roll a canoe and good thing the fence was there to stop it!

Best wishes to your 2019!!

[taboule]

Thank you Bee, happy new season to you too.

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So here's my first challenge for the early spring timeframe. I need to take an overseas trip to take care of some old personal business. Will be gone 3 weeks, mid-April through the first week of May. That is prime garden starting time -usually very busy tending little seedlings inside, possibly take some (cold tolerant types) out for hardening, and more seed starting. Dear wife is staying behind and graciously accepted to look after my babies. But we know it's a big job, and I want to make it as easy as possible. I'm thinking watering only -she'll have plenty of her own things to do.

I'll have to figure out the schedule, and would like to ask for any ideas or considerations you may have. Any experience out there on a similar scenario? Once plants are in the ground it's easier, as I have an automatic irrigation setup.

Thanks for any thoughts you may have.

[taboule]

We're expecting more snow tonight and tomorrow. So to keep the blues away, I decided to start a few more seeds, 6 new flats (in addition to the onions).

Flat 2, Peppers: Jalapenos, Nu Mex big Jim, Corno di Toro, California wonder, and a Greek frying peppers (no name)

Flat 3, Peppers: Poblanos, Habaneros, Long cayenne, and another Greek mild salad pepper (seeds are very old, that is my last chance probably of germinating them.)

Flat 4, lettuces: Silvya (red), Giant Cesar, Iceberg.

Flat 5, cabbages: Earliana, All Season, Red Acre, and baby choy (we started doing Asian stir frying in a wok, and these are perfect to add at the end.)

And to keep DW happy, a flat each of Pansies and Zinias.

Everything on heat mats, and for the peppers, I added extra insulation below the mat, and over/covered the plastic domes. That will keep more heat inside the flats and keep a higher temp.

I'll wait to start my tomatoes later than usual, due to my trip. We'll see how long I can hold off.

[Banadoura]

Good stuff Taboule!

I got depressed this winter, I couldn't wait to start, so I planted Maglia Rosa and Rosella Purple on February 17! Got 100% germination and my nursery is kicking with 7 seedlings.

Chose these as height wise they should still be manageable once we get to end of May to transplant outside.

It looks like you have some unused rooms in your house, ever thought of doing some kratky hydroponics?


Cheers,

[Gardeneer]

It seems that i am lucky down here in the south.
My next hurdle is freezing teps for the next 3 nights , 24, 27 , 35F..
As a precaution i will just cover my sweet peas.
I just potted up my tomato and pepper seedlings . I,ve got 4 weeks until plant out.
Good luck , Taboule. Whish your season starts soon

[taboule]

Thanks Gardenner, today we had a smorgasbord of sloppy weather: snow, sleet, and now freezing rain. My deck is frozen solid and I havent been able to grill nor smoke/bbq in weeks.
snowed-deck-mar19.jpg

Banadoura, Marhaba w'yeslamo.

I have done worse than hydroponics inside the house, but that was before DW moved with me. That bedroom floor is now finished, and I don't think she'll let me use it for anything unconventional.

bdrm4-floor-2019.jpg

Now I have a large basement for such experiments. More seeds have germinated the past weeks. Here are some greens, romaine lettuce and cabbage.

greens-mar19.jpg

[taboule]

Zinias, it took these little guys less than 2 days to pop up.

zinias-feb2019.jpg

Originally Posted by taboule

Thank you Bee, happy new season to you too.

----------

So here's my first challenge for the early spring timeframe. I need to take an overseas trip to take care of some old personal business. Will be gone 3 weeks, mid-April through the first week of May. That is prime garden starting time -usually very busy tending little seedlings inside, possibly take some (cold tolerant types) out for hardening, and more seed starting. Dear wife is staying behind and graciously accepted to look after my babies. But we know it's a big job, and I want to make it as easy as possible. I'm thinking watering only -she'll have plenty of her own things to do.

I'll have to figure out the schedule, and would like to ask for any ideas or considerations you may have. Any experience out there on a similar scenario? Once plants are in the ground it's easier, as I have an automatic irrigation setup.

Thanks for any thoughts you may have.

If the seedlings are in at least 4” pots, and those are set into trays, she could shuffle one tray outside each nice day in rotation, and just water everything else. If there’s a stretch of weather with nights above 50 she could leave them outside.

I used to live in Westwood, MA and was starting to leave seedlings outside by mid-April, typically. Good luck!

[taboule]

Hello,

Jane, I've been thinking along similar lines, except no round trip. Sometime between late April and early May, several varieties can go outside for hardening, without needing to come back, reducing the workload inside. I seem to be developing my strategy as I go, and so I started my tomatoes this past weekend.

Here's what I have so far:

Black Krim,
GGWT,
Brandywine, both Sudduth (pink) and red,
French oxheart (Coeur de boeuf),
SOTW,
Mortgage lifter,
Cherokee purple,
Carbon,
Greek Thessaloniki,
SOO,
PBTD,
trying to get a biggie one with Big Zack,
and for an early one, fourth of July (hybrid).

About 200 seeds total, more than I need but also accounting for less than perfect germination, and gifting. They should have enough time to sprout, and a transplant into 4" pots before I go. I probably would even start another batch before my trip, they'd need more babying before I'm back.

Also started some curly parsley and another batch of Sylvia lettuce. I had a hard time with the first batch, maybe the seeds were old.

Been looking at the SSE catalog, encouraged my wife to pick a few flower packs. So now I am committed to order, and been looking at the following, let me know what you think if you know them:

Gold medal
Hungarian heart
Speckled Roman
Red Zebra
and Rosso Sicilian

I'd like something new and different, that's why the bi-colors interest me. I also would like a good and productive determinate, for the old garden possibly and for sauce. If you have any ideas let me know.

tbc...

[taboule]

A few days ago we topped 63 degF. Much of the snow melted, I was so happy to finally dig out my grill and the WSM smoker-they were frozen in ice on the deck. It felt like spring. I went shopping for groceries early and found a sale on various meats ahead of saint Paddy's day. So I picked up a few pork spareribs and beef short ribs. I could only find the cut up ones, but they were thick and beefy so they came home.

Made new batches of rubs, 2 kinds, and prepped as below.
readyforthewsm17mar19.jpg

It was more than the 18" bullet could handle at once, so had to do it in 2 batches, it was work due to the wind and cold. But it all came out good, here's what's left after I dug into it.

smoked17mar19.jpg

And the leftover snacks for future consumption: tomato sauce in the summer, smoked meats in the winter.
snacks17mar19.jpg

[greenthumbomaha]

I enjoyed your thread but couldn't see the pics. Not your side, likely something with my log in.


I find some flowers need a lot more light and thus attention. I hope she remembers to take care of the rest! Save some to direct sow too.


People from MA always strike a nostalgic note for me. Are you coastal or westerner?
- Lisa

[taboule]

Lisa, thank you. It's not as enjoyable without the pics, the experience is partly visual.

I don't know much about trouble-shooting this type of issue, although I ran into it myself a few times (and was not be able to see my own pics.) If you like, you could try this:

You probably still see the icon of the pictures. Click on that, you may be redirected to a new page (in a new browser tab) where the site will ask you to log in again -even if you may be logged in already. Go ahead and log in, and you >might< be able to see the pics in the previous tab. Can't hurt to try.

WRT nostalgia, I'm probably a "coastal" although a transplant to MA -an old one at that. But I've lived close to the ocean/sea all my life, couldn't do without it. The new house we moved in is the farthest I've ever been from a coastline (maybe 30 miles straight?) and our next (retirement) home will be much closer to the water- Cape Cod if in the States, or waterview/front if in Greece

[bower]

Taboule, your place is looking great! Such a roomy plant setup. Great job on that floor too!
I wish I could advise you what to do on holiday because it's one thing I can't handle - leaving stuff in the greenhouse especially is a non-starter. So it's a daily commitment for me once I start plants for the summer. Lucky your DW can help.
Re: your retirement home - be careful about moving too close to sea level... that thing is rising and we don't really know how fast it will happen.