Lead Tomato of 2010

Here's the only baby tomato that sprouted so far. I think I need to move to round two with the seeds. The peas were also being stubborn. Brought them in to the house, from the garage and now several more have sprouted. I hope to keep them safe from my indoor garden pest... and then get the peas in the garden very soon.

Expanding Peas

The peas had outgrown the gate "trellis." We expanded it by attaching the tops of three bamboo poles our neighbor gave us. The peas were very pleased and grabbed on to the bamboo before we could complete the installation.

The pea trellis expansion is still a little lower than the A-frame bean structure. As of tonight, the lead bean has entered the top quarter of the structure. Other beans are working to catch up. The leaves are filling out, also.

Still, at this point, it is difficult to envision the structure fully covered with the beans waving up on the top. Good thing I have former blog posts to remind me!

Garden Aliens

The peas have reached the top of their gate and the blossoms are just starting. I think a gate extension will be in order.


On other critter fronts, Petunia helped me with a little garden weeding tonight! DH has had lots of help from Petunias, but not me (& he doesn't want this help). After a quick appearance, she headed into a patch of lamb's ear at the end of a row. I hope she makes herself comfortable & has many a nice snack of slug.

This is a photo from a few years ago. Today, she was wearing a particularly dark & sleek outfit with yellow stripes.

It's August?

August 2nd in the garden, a cloudy day good for some time in the garden. That lavender spiky stuff in the back, right hand side is Emily's catnip! It has to be 6 feet tall. See this link to her gardening start. Guess the secret to catnip is protecting it from too much love in its first season.

The peas are the clump in front of the climber in the far back of the garden. I didn't try to keep them climbing up the climber, as I thought they were done, but I still have blossoms. They are Sugar Snap peas. They grow much taller than the peas I've grown in the past. They took longer to start producing, but have lasted longer also.

You cannot really see the beans growing up the back part of the climber. Several vines are close to the top and they've now starting blooming (but have lots of filling out to do still, see here).

The only encouragement in the pumpkin patch is that I can see growth from this photo on Saturday to today! But see this link for Aug. 2, 2007! Pumpkins are only second to Sunflowers in my book. Will they make it to orange?

Assorted Cloches in Action

A closer look at the pea sprouts yesterday revealed some nice roots out the bottom of the pot... an immediate call to action! As the forecasted rain hadn't started yet, I headed out to the garden to finalize the location for peas this year. In spite of the rain last week, the soil wasn't too wet for digging so I prepared the space for tall peas, short peas and climbing beans (all needing decisions about where to place the trellises, etc.)

The tips of the pea sprouts have been pinched back as recommended by Matron and they are sitting under the far window cloche. I hope to get them in the ground, but still under the cloche later today. Will add some radishes too.

Then I checked in on the broccoli, lettuce and chard in the winter sown/milk containers sitting under the larger cloche. I had already planted some of the seedlings in the ground under this large cloche, but had more seedlings than space.

I've learned the broccoli will grow quite large. I now tend to stash it around the garden, mixed in with other plants that can work around its eventual large size. So, all of the seedlings found homes in various places. The slugs will get some of them, but many will make it.

Next to two of the cloched broccoli, and under the front window cloche in the photo above, I planted two more broccoli with lettuce and chard mixed in. These lettuce & chard plants will be harvested as the broccoli needs the space. (The A frame part of the window cloches do have hinges holding them together, if you haven't seen them before.)

So, now that I've started planting things, I really must come up with a plan for the rest of the garden space!

Peas - Growing Notes

You can see I resisted my usual urge to go unlabeled. If it was only one type of peas I had planted, I would have not labeled. Instead, I planted two types, which I suspected I couldn't tell apart until harvest, so I labeled them Snap Peas and Snow Peas. Photo above is from today, below is from last week.

This is the second post collecting my notes on a specific vegetable. Fennel was the first one.

DH & I grow snap and snow peas because we like to stroll through the garden and eat them. Some do make it into a salad and we'll also eat them steamed. After a blanching, I'll freeze some for winter. We have never grown the shelling kind, though.

What are your favorite peas? When you do start them, and inside or outside? When?

Variety I'm growing:
(1) Sugar Snap Peas - 6 foot vines. I've used up the Cascadia Snap seeds I've grown in the past so I'm trying these. Territorial Seed Company. I picked them up from Thunder Mountain Farm on this Spring Excursion. Snaps are a favorite garden grazing menu choice.

(2) Oregon Sugar Pod II Snow Peas - 30 inch vines. Territorial Seed, left over from past years.

Seeding & Germination:
Soil temp. for germination: 40-75 F.
2008 & 2007 sown inside mid March in small but deeper pots to give the roots room. April & May, planted some directly outside to fill in gaps in the pea fence.
2006 sown outside mid March.

I had read that in our area, peas could be planted outside on Presidents' Day in Feb. Last year, I tried planting them outside early. While some sprouted, them just seemed stressed (cold & damp soil, I think) and they were not the first to produce. Plus something started eating them! See this photo. So, last year, I also started some inside and they seemed to do the best.
I do inoculate pea seeds as often recommended. I dampen the seeds and coat them in this inoculant powder that contains a rhizobial bacteria. It is supposed to help peas use and fix/share nitrogen in the soil.

Planted out:
2008 - soon, 4/5-moved outside to a cloche, and pinched back per Matron's suggestion
2007-transplanted seedlings by mid April

Trellising:
I have used fencing in the past. This year I'll need something taller if those Snaps actually grow 6 feet. Here is a photo with the 4 foot trellising I use. I didn't have much luck with the fall planting in the photo, though. I'll try again in a less shaded spot.

Harvested:
2007 - blossoms around May 20th, harvested first Snow peas in early June; vines finished up by late July. See this post on hidden peas.
2006 - blossoms in early June. See this photo.

Saving seeds:
? These say they are open pollinated varieties (not hybrids). Does this mean they can be dried and saved? Do you save pea seeds successfully & from what variety?

Memoriable Pea Moments:
I often see lady bugs on the peas, but this furry guy fascinated me. He showed up in August when the pea vines were ready to come down. So determined to get a good night's rest, so I left them in place that day. I didn't see him again after this.

Snap Peas Blues

Do your peas hide well?
Do they puff up in their shell?
Do they grow to be great big?
Can you ring them like a bell?
Can you search for ‘em every day
Yet find gigantic ones this way?
Do your peas hide well?

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Spent the morning blanching and freezing young peas and broccoli. I also picked every last giant pea pod that has been hiding out, in hopes of continuing the harvest of new peas a little longer. Some of the vines are starting to show signs of the warming summer, but others are still flowering.

Next came more beet harvest. Cooked & pickled some for the week. Added the young greens to the salad and prepared the medium sized greens for cooking tomorrow night. The largest and slightly yellowing leaves went to the compost.

Finally, rhubarb! I was starting to have second thoughts about it. How could I tell if it was ready? I understand it doesn't all turn red as a signal. Would it need so much sweetening that it wasn't worth messing with? Would it be too tough? But, I already had strawberries so next came the strawberry rhubarb cobbler. Not bad at all! I'll be having some more here soon.

It actually reminds me of the tart cherry sauce I was hooked on last year. See the post about it here. Since there are only a few cherries this year, I wonder how rhubarb might substitute? (I have more cherry liqueur from Germany now too!)

So now my question is ...how long can I keep harvesting it?

Fledgling Sprouts

A quick shot in the dark light of a pending thunderstorm, following a week of hot weather. It was thundering while I planted the cucumbers and squash, the last of my seedlings to go in the ground. Still no rain yet, but we're ready!

DH made it home tonight with salmon he caught yesterday. A salad from the garden including the first of the peas and broccoli, with a little spinach and chard along with the lettuce. Now that was a nice meal, just in time to send me off on a trip in the early morning. I do hope to make it to the internet while traveling, maybe even with some guest gardens. If not, I'll have material for later posts!

I was sure I would see Petunia this weekend. She might have been there, but I didn't see her. One of the snake crew did leave their old coat in the pumpkin patch yesterday. In between my laying down the coffee bags in the morning and planting pumpkin seedlings in the evening, one of them found the coffee bags to be a nice place to trade last year's fashion for something new.

Blossom Sighting

On May 20th, I noticed the first blossom on the snow peas. This is one that I started inside and transplanted. Last year, the first open blossom was on June 4th. On May 13th, I planted a few more pea seeds in gaps along the pea fence. I saw last tonight that they are breaking ground.

Pinked Peas

The new and exotic pinked snow peas are growing! The decorative pea pods with scalloped edges will just be a delight in salads, I'm sure. I'll save seeds, so let me know if you want some. And welcome to April (April 1st, that is)!

...So the real question is who do you think has been eating these peas? A slug would have finished the whole leaf. Who would only be eating in such a decorative manner?

Sprouting Notes

For reference, from the March 11 indoor sowings:
Lettuce - many sprouts today, March 14th!
Snow peas - 3 out of 8 have sprouted today.

From the March 3 indoor sowings:
Broccoli - 4 of 4 sprouted earlier
Fennel - 1 of 4
Parsley (old seeds) - none yet
Tomatoes, sungold - 3 of 4

From the March 4 outdoor sowings:
Peas - none yet
Radishes - 1, maybe 2 sprouts

The Corydalis Growing in My Garage

Here is what the January Surprise found in the garage now looks like. And the bonus surprise is the fragrance! I probably wouldn't have noticed it outside, but standing next to it in the garage, its fragrance really had me dreaming of spring. It's a Corydalis 'Blackberry Wine' that came to me as gift on May Day 2006. It lived on my front porch until I thought it was a goner in December and moved the pot to the garage. For now, it sits by a window in my garage, but in a few months, I think it will find a permanent home in a shady flower bed by the patio so it can really do its thing.

Sowing update:
No peas sprouting in the garden from last week's sowing so I decided to get a few cool weather crops underway inside. Lettuce, spinach and snow peas, plus flowering sweet peas. I really hope the sweet peas will grow well here. We've had a few days of some odd & warm weather (more Pineapple Express from HI, I've learned), but the garden soil just seems so cold and wet for encouraging little seedlings. I can watch them grow inside for awhile, protect them from slugs and then get them cozy outdoors later.

March Garden Madness

A fine surprise, weather-wise, yesterday led to some garden madness. The garden soil was quite workable and I was able to dig the winter crop of rocks while preparing a couple beds for future planting. Each was only a small pebble when planted last fall and now I'm set for many meals of rock soup!

Hopefully the snow peas and snap peas planted yesterday will do as well! I've never planted them this early, but thought I'd give them a try since some in this area plant them around the February Presidents' Day holiday. I can plant more later if needed. Oh yes, planted a few radish seeds also. The nice condition of the soil also meant the grass & weeds pulled quite easily. I brought out my favorite weed pulling tool (see this post for more about it). Yes, it is a "rat's tail" file, but you'll notice it easily loosens the soil to the bottom of the dandelion root.
Fortunately, I have friends who help in the garden rain or shine, even when I'm stuck inside.
I noticed last year, and again yesterday, that the worms really seem to like the green coffee bags used as mulch/weed block. This is one I picked up to move.
Not only can we recycle the paper/jars/cans from inside, we also have a yard waste wheelie bin. I can use a lot of yard waste in the garden, but not the awful blackberries! No way these cuttings will go to my garden. Starting this month, I'll be able to fill this up every two weeks and off it will go to more powerful composting than I could ever do.

On Saturday, I also planted a few seeds indoors: broccoli, fennel, parsley, and tomatoes. I'll do a post later if they show any promise of sprouting!

Needless to say, I'm going back to my desk today to recover!