Still work to do, but the season is short

Just a quick update tonight.  We saw some good rain today.  It held off until early afternoon making for some additional garden cleanup.  The broccoli is final done, it was good.  We are still harvesting kale and will into December.  The brussel sprouts are trying to make it, but they are late, perhaps too late.  My learning is that I need to get them started earlier and give them a little more shoulder room.

Thanks to Selmer Tree Trimming for a load of chips.  We continue to add to the planting bed on the property line.  Can still use at least two more truck loads.  We'll see.

A busy week at work is planned so little additions.

Be safe, it will soon be time for planting seeds inside.

Bill

The end is getting closer

Got a lot of work done in the garden this weekend.  Harvested carrots (very sweet and relatively big), removed asparagus tops (frost had taken care of them), removed spent pole beans and tomatoes from their trellis systems, and turned under 4 beds (double dug the tomato bed).

The brussel sprouts are still growing good and Thanksgiving meal is assured.  The kale continues to hold up well.  Green smoothies are great.

The balance of the garlic was ground and put into the fermenting jar.  Very pungent, but a great way to preserve.

I will have pictures by Thanksgiving.

Be good and be safe.

Bill

Welcome Back! - Garlic

It has been a very long summer.  Personal and work life have not been in balance.  I have no one else to blame but myself.  The garden did great thanks to my wonderful wife.  While the brussel sprouts were late (and still have a ways to go), the kale has done great.  Tomatillo's abounded and 2 full gallons of fermented salsa have been put up.  Beets also did well.  A 5 gallon bucket is currently fermenting with ginger, orange zest, cinnamon, and cloves.  Should make for a great Thanksgiving.

The garlic planting was completed yesterday.  We planted all hardneck varieties.  Included in the mix were Maxatawny, Killarney Red, Chinese Purple, Gabriel's Red, Bavarian, Bangkok Turban, Chrysalis Purple, German White, and one that has been around for years but the name slips me.

Two beds this year.  8" rows and 6" spacings.  This should set us up for 150+ cloves of great garlic.  All of the remaining garlic will be peeled and then put through the food processor for fermenting.  This is a great way to preserve garlic for the winter.

Sorry it has been awhile since I have posted.  I will try to take more time.

Thanks,

BVB

Hot, humid and lots of work to do

Best decision of 2011, grow the salad green in pots on the deck.

Basil and Parsley in the kitchen garden

Parisian Pickler cucumbers on the trellis

Cole crops: broccoli and cauliflower

Onions on the left, mixed peppers on the right

Trellised tomatoes, mulched and yielding good

Asparagus, done for the season, weed, fertilized, and mulched

Kale and Chard

It was garlic, now it it is planted for fall: beans, carrots, beets, chard

Red currants, ready for the deh

 First, my apologies for the delay in pictures.  It has been a busy year so far with work, my parents health, and just being busy in general.  As you can see, the garden has been quite good.  The asparagus was late, but it yielded good.  It's put to bed for the year, weeded, fertilized, and mulched.

We are enjoying the triple kale treat this year.  We chose 3 varieties and all are unique.   Makes a great morning "green shake".  The chard is also doing very good for cooking and smoothies.  As late as the year was, cold and wet, all the crops are coming on good now.

One thing with the heat, we are learning that the raised beds need a lot more mulch and water.  They plants are really growing.

Enjoy the pictures.  If you have questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Bill

Garden time.... moving fast!

If you would have asked me yesterday, I would have told you that I was not going to be planting anything in the garden on Sunday, 5/22.  Even waking up this morning, I really questioned the possibility.  Even up until 3pm, I still questioned my sanity for asking.

I was WRONG.

Spent most of the morning doing some general repair of a raised bed that was damaged when we took the birch down earlier this summer.  A new 2x6 was all that was called for.   Also tried out my father-in-laws B&D 14" electric string trimmer.  Not very good reviews on Amazon, but it did a really great job for me.

My wonderful wife took the time to spend a couple of hours weeding and all she asked was that I help.  Gladly.  We got a big push done and now both of the big compost barrels are full.  Grass cutting took almost 2 hours given the amount of growth that has gone on.

Some pictures to mark the progress that is finally being made.  Thank goodness for raised beds!

Harrow Sweet Pear - Garden Spot

Contender Peach - Garden Spot

Bartlett Pear - Garden Spot

 The garden beds are a blessing in a wet year like the one we are in.  In a lot of instances, people are still going to be a week or more out.  Get me close, and I can get it in!

Onions are starting to come on very quickly

Block planted greens: chard, beets, spinach.  Yes, the beans are up!

Parisian Pickling Cucumbers

Peas, and the trellis is ready!

Tomatoes after a hard rain, with a little hail thrown in.

ASPARAGUS - this is what it is all about!

Garlic, three ways.  Getting ready for a foliar feeding!

Be safe, stay dry, and always practice safe gardening.

Bill

Warm day, time to plant.

Took the opportunity to get 5 more garden beds tilled as well as planted 11 broccoli, cauliflower, and kale plants tonight.  Looks like everything we planted on May 8 is through the ground.  Took time to finish planting my greens bed.  Believe it or not, I have beans through the ground.

Windy, Cold. Windy. Cold.

It is hard to believe that today is the 15th of May.  I had to wear a sweatshirt today when I cut the grass.  Cold northerly winds went right to the bone.  The good news is that today was relatively sunny, warming the soil and allowing for some opportunistic weeding.

Really nothing to report new in the garden. Everything that we planted last week is pretty much sitting, waiting for warmth to start growing.  I expect to see radish plants poking their heads up pretty quick.  The rest of the garden beds are too wet to work.  Perhaps we will see something by the end of the week.

I did have the opportunity to get out to the UWGB NAS Heirloom Plant sale.  #17 in line.  One of of my best performances.  Picked up 32 plants: tomatoes, peppers, flowers, and some other stuff.  I have to say, the selection was great and the plants looked great.

I then took a quick trip up to Oconto to visit the Martins at Garden Spot.  Picked up 3 fruit trees for the yard.  Two bare root pears and a potted peach tree.  Kind of difficult to think about planting things when it was raining pretty hard.  Great looking trees and a great selection.  Ronald is very helpful.

I have moved my transplants of broccoli, cauliflower, and brussel sprouts outside.  They got a good workout in the wind, but it will toughen them up.  Hopefully this week I can get the balance of the kale up and on the deck.

We'll see what the week brings.  I would like to get some more in the garden.

Until then, garden safe.

Bill

Happy Mother's Day - Spring may actually be here.

Took advantage of the break in the wet / cold weather to tackle the garden tasks at hand.  Primarily, we have been waiting on the soil to dry out in order to plant some of the cool season seeds (spinach, swiss chard, and beets).  Given that it stayed relatively dry over the past few days and the sun decided to shine, I was able to do a little work on Saturday to break open the soil.  On Sunday, I was able to get the Mantis tiller out and work 4 beds into somewhat reasonable shape for planting.

#8, #5, #9, and #13 all got worked.  #9 was planted with Sugar Snap peas, after I got up the trellis for the new plants to hang themselves on.  I also planted 3 blocks of spinach, beets, and swiss chard along with 3 blocks of Speedy green beans.  I know that it is probably a little bit early for the beans, but they do taste good.  I also stuck a number of radish rows into the planting.

I did finish weeding the asparagus beds (#1-#4).  It seems the work was just in time as I have a meal of asparagus almost ready for picking.

The raspberries are slow due to the wet and cold.  I am very concerned about the purple raspberries coming back after a very, very rough wet summer last year.  Some of the red raspberries have broken dormancy, but I have not been able to find any signs from the purple.  Time will tell.

The inside seedlings continue to make progress.  I probably will have a couple of potted candidates to take outside, sometime this week.  Kale, broccoli, and brussel sprouts make up the base of most of the plantings.

Hoping we don't get deluged this week.  It would be good to get at least another one or two beds ready to go.

Remember, the NAS Heirloom Plant Sale at UWGB is this Saturday at 9 am.  They start handing out numbers at 7am.

Have a good week.

Bill

A week after Easter and it still feels like it could snow

With the cold and wet weather continuing, I took the opportunity to plant some spinach and swiss chard inside.  It will give me a leg up once it gets dry enough to work in the garden beds.  The onions are still very slow, and probably quite cold.  Once the weather warms, they should shoot right up.

The garlic is doing well after an application of bone meal.

We had some very wet weather last year and I was afraid my raspberry patch was a memory.  Today, I got in and cleaned them out.  For the most part, I was pleasantly pleased.  I saw good regrowth on all 4 varieties.  The primocanes from last year showed enough life to be optimistic about the potential for a crop this year.  Time will tell.

Next week is Mother's Day.  Make sure you plant something for your Mom.

A note of reminder.  May 14 9:00 am will be the annual heirloom plant sale at the UWGB NAS.  I know that I will be there early.

Be good and be safe.  We'll talk next week.

Bill

Took the opportunity....

The weekend was very good.  A good break on Saturday afternoon and Sunday from the rain.  After another day of drying today, I planted both the yellow and red onion plants that I picked up from Garden Spot on Saturday.

The soil worked up very good and I was able to get the 3 rows of double plants into one of the 12' beds.  6 " spacings will allow for a generous taking of green onions throughout the summer and some really great onions later on into July/August.

Rain is predicted for the next few days so timing appears to be good.  Keeping fingers crossed.

Be good..

Bill

Happy Easter from the still cold waste lands of the Frozen Tundra

Chives are doing great!

We still find ourselves in the middle of a continuing cold and wet stretch.  Last week saw 10" of wonderful white stuff grace our yards.  For the most part, the snow is gone and only small plow banks survive.  Yesterday was rainy and cold.  You know the kind  of cold, right down to the bone.  It did clear up a little in the afternoon with the sun finally coming out after 4pm and allowing the temps to get into the high 40's.

I took the opportunity to get a few more seeds into starting medium.  Red Russian kale and cauliflower made it into starting cups.  I will start some dwarf curly kale on Sunday.

Also on Saturday a trip to Garden Spot in Oconto to check out the plants.  Ronald and Lillian Martin have a great little green house located about 4 miles west of Oconto on Hwy 22.  For people reading this, Ron is a regular at the Saturday Farmer's Market in Green Bay.  I picked up my onion plants (Red & Sweet Yellow), some primocane Blackberries (PrimeJim & PrimeJan), and some kale seed I was looking for.  I will be following up on a couple of fruit trees this week.  Be sure to check it out:  Garden Spot, 3645 Hwy 22, Oconto  920-835-1237,  M-Sa 8:30-6:00, closed Sunday.  Well worth the drive.

The garden continues to lag.  Cold and rainy does not get the garden started.  The garlic is doing great and will get little help from some bone meal today.  After that, it will be all about foliar feeding with fish emulsion.

Grass is green but beds are very cold and very wet!

Garlic is doing well, despite the snow of last week!

 

It's April 19th in NE Wisconsin.

8-10" of snow.  Aren't we supposed to be planting?

Hopefully we can make it to work tomorrow.

OK. It's late, but....

It's tax time and not time to be planting seeds.  I know that.  I articulate that.  I still don't follow my own advice.

Today, I planted the following:
Brussel Sprouts - Long Island Improved, Bubbles
Broccoli -  DiCicco, Calabrese
Kale
Cauliflower
Basil - Italian Large Leaf, Genovesse, Thai, Licorice, Sweet
Parsley - Moss Curled, Double Curled, Italian Dark Green
Cilantro
Rosemary
Lettuce / Romaine - Outback, Caeser Blend
Swiss Chard - Lucullus, Bright Lights

They are sitting on top of the boiler so a nice heat source that should help the seed explode.


This year I am going to do a lot more staggered planting of our plants.  Think about it.  You go to your local garden center and get some plants that most likely have been started at the same time.  They might have been slowed up to meet some predetermined delivery window.  The way I look at it, one should keep the plants growing very, very fast and not slow the process down.  From inside, to deck, to hardening off, to garden.

Time will tell.  Consider that the sleet on the windows last night put me to sleep and the flooded back yard welcomed me to light of day.  Remember, this is spring.

Be safe.

Why would you want to garden.

A great article from ThePeoplesVoice.org should give everyone a new reason to plant a garden this year.  Some of the thoughts you will agree with and some not.  But in general, you can't argue with them.

Enjoy the read.

Bill