2016 Garden - Starting Early

onion sets jsut got here yesterday so i have to get my game on and till the gardens

 

I did something wrong with my onions last year. Red onions and walla walla sweets only grew to golf ball size.
But they were in hard soil. Maybe this year in the light soil they'll do better.

 

ours have been nice dont plant them overly deep i think that helps. by the time im pullin gthem only about 1/3 of the bulb is still in the ground
got my beds tilled and mostly leveled so plan on planting garlic and onions tomorrow

 

I may have been planting the onions too deep. I will try going shallower like you said Butch.
I love sweet onions and use them a lot in cooking. Not much for raw but grilled onions go great on everything.

 

planted yesterday made note put them in to he 2nd knuckle in well tilled earth

 

Yesterday I planted lettuce, celery, broccoli and cauliflower.
Probably too early but I can not help buying plants when I see them at the grange.

 

A couple nights got cold and wiped out my tomatoes.
I knew better but thought I would gamble.
But that's ok. I have better variety seeds planted that should be ready to plant later.
I will be trying a couple white heirloom varieties that sound good.

 

blue berrys are in bloom and they are calling for nasty cold wi im goingto be covering them wih plastic again thei year

 

Butch, I'm hearing it will dip into the 20s near the end of the upcoming week in the DC area, so I have to imagine it won't be any better where you are at.

Leah's been working in the herb garden and has already planted a bunch of lettuces. We built 3 more raised bed boxes a few weekend ago for expanding the veg garden. Need to fill them and also need to replanticsh soil in 4 other raised beds. Soil delivery is scheduled for Monday, so looks like I will be working out there at night this week getting it all moved into the beds. Starter trays are covering the kitchen counter right now; they are mainly planted with tomato and pepper seeds.

Hopefully the cold snap won't do much damage. The cherry, plum and fig trees are all going now, so I hope they do not get hurt. The blueberry bushes haven't done squat yet, although that has been the story every year since we planted them ~4 years ago.

 

not happy about the cold snap but we have to get our peas in in the next few days i will cover them in clear plastic over nights jsut to be safe. same will go for the roses and blue berry might do the raspberry also.
i doo need to get lettuces going too soo sick of the crap they selll at local store. even better is kelly can eat it (store stuff is hard on her )

 

Try growing Red Romaine.
That is my very favorite. Sweet, tender and looks really pretty.
It also keeps going when it gets hot without bolting.

Supposedly we are past the last frost but I am going to spend the next couple weeks getting everything ready before putting out tomatoes again.
My peas are a few inches tall now. Lettuce are on the 3rd or 4th set of leaves and potatoes are coming up.
The herbs are all showing good growth as well.

 

well mother nature is being a "hoe bag" calling for 22f tonight and snow tomorrow the roses and blueberrrys have buckets over them but could not finid a good way to cover the raspberry plants so they are jsut going ot have to take a beating. i hope to feed them heavy so the new growth comes back quick

 

Good luck. Hopefully won't get below high 20s here, and only for a few hours. The dang figs are in full bloom, and I really hope they do not get too messed up. More roller coaster weather next week, too.

 

I decided to gamble and planted 3 dozen tomato plants today.
Black Krim, Cherokee Purple, Pineapple, Speckled Roman, San Marzano, Chocolate Cherry, Sungold, Pink Bumblebee, 4th of July and Oregon Spring. Most of these are heirloom varieties I have wanted to grow. I will be watching the overnight forecasts to make sure I don't lose these.

I just checked the extended forecast and it looks like it will freeze tuesday night so I am going to get plastic ready to make a tent over the plants.

 

roses looked ok afterr i uncovered them but ill not know abuot the blue berrys till later today. they are uncovered now but will ha veoet see how the flowers look after the sun hits them a bit

have to let me know how you like the san marzen and how they compare to roma at this point we still have alot of canned sauce so im not sure what we will do with this years mators

 

Weather here has been really squirrelly. Was pushing 80 degrees F a couple days ago--normally in the mid-50s. Might have to buy some tomato starts--at this rate I'm too late to get seeds going. And didn't come close to getting all the roses pruned, and they're already covered with buds. Cherry trees are already done blooming, but the crabapples are pretty now.

 

Has anyone here ever used Azos (Azospirillum brasilense)?
It is a beneficial bacteria a grower of the other type of gardening told me about.
So far I have mixed some with water and poured in a seedling tray. New transplants set in the tray overnight before I transplanted.
It might be my imagination but it looks like I am seeing plant improvement in just 2 days.

Also....I checked the weather forecast again. Now it is not going to freeze this week.

 

we used some kind of bio jump starter on all the beans last year seems to have helped i ll have to look and see what it was called

 

It is kind of jumbled but here is the garden so far.

 

That's from just this year? Wow...you are getting a big head start!