May 1, 2014

first bed is full

Today I filled my first bed in the new garden (actually the second from the edge, but the first one filled). I had half filled it last week and planted peas, and today completed bringing in topsoil and compost from a local farm. I planted broccoli (9 plants – a mix of early and late varieties), Asian greens, endive (escarole frissee and a broad leaved escarole) and 2 varieties of butterhead lettuce (Skyphos and Prizehead). It was a chilly day (45*F for a high) and rain is predicted all night…

April 29, 2014

today’s garden work

I thought I was going to just ” plant potatoes” in my community plot today, but lots of other things needed to be done. The potatoes can go in later in the week (I hope). This is what I did: – cleaned salt marsh hay mulch off asparagus bed and then top dressed with an inch of compost – cleared salt hay mulch off of rhubarb and added an inch of compost – cleared old growth from perennial flowers – disposed of old garden materials in dumpster we have on…

April 28, 2014

new garden gate

April 28, 2014

fruit trees

I bought 2 apple trees today: Liberty and Honey Crisp dwarfs.

April 27, 2014

putting up garden fencing

A cold dreary April day. My husband and I put up fencing around the 3 raised beds that I’ll be planting spring crops in soon. For many of the posts, we ran into rock about 4 inches down. Seems maybe there’s a layer of rocky fill down there. Suzie and Skippy patiently watched and were soaked by the cold rain by the time we finished. They dug a good hole under the rhododendron for fun and played in the fresh mud. Now, its evening, and they are clean. They got…

April 26, 2014

weekend gardening plans

Fence Our plan for the weekend is to get a fence up around my new garden. (Hopefully we can do this in between the rain drops!) For now, we’ll put a simple metal fence around half of the beds. I think we’ll go with a 5 or 6 ft fence. We have lots of deer, so the main purpose of the fence is to keep them out. We also have raccoons and rabbits that I’d rather not share my vegetables with. At the community garden I manage, we talk a…

April 22, 2014

pea planting

Today I planted my peas! The first seeds to go into my new garden. I brought three wheelbarrows full of loam down to one of my new raised beds. I added two 40 lb bags of composted cow manure, turned it, then raked the surface smooth. I planted two packages of 5 foot tall French snow pea seeds. For each, I cleared a 2 inch deep trench about 5-6 inches wide. Since I haven’t planted peas in this soil before, I sprinkled on pea/bean innoculant, scattered the pea seeds, then…

April 18, 2014

planting squash and cukes

Just planted a tray with squash and cucumber seeds. (in order of my favorites:) Squash: Waltham butternut, Buttercup Burgess strain, Jarrahdale pumpkin, New England Pie pumpkin, Hubbard blue ballet, and Acorn Honey Bear Cucumbers: Diva, Tokiwa, Sooyow nishiki, Straight 8, Sumter pickling

April 7, 2014

leveling my new raised beds

My raised beds are on a bit of a slope. To level them, my husband secured a 2×4 horizontally to the bottom of each bed at the downhill side. He used three 2×4 stakes on each and left these sticking out a few inches at the bottom. One some beds where the slope was steeper, we left the stakes at the soil surface and filled in below with a layer of brick. For most, the stakes were dug in leaving the horizontal 2×4 resting at soil surface. One or two…

April 5, 2014

germination test of old corn seeds

I’m doing a germination test of my old corn seeds. They were “Packed for 2009” – 6 years old. Any bets on whether they’ll sprout?

weeks and counting until my last spring frost

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