Garden progress

The tomatoes have been pleased with the little coverings, have reached the top and are flowering.  However, they may have preferred if I flipped the top of the cover back over them for these past few cool days.  For certain seedlings, I’ve added anti-slug wire fences as recommended by my neighbor. Sunflower seedlings are planted in the flower/herb/perennial bed. The rain was helpful and now some sunnier days would be most welcome!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! Breakfast, church service and a nice day to be outside.  We found the parts to the “covered wagon” cloche from some years ago.  It is a good fit for one of the newer beds and for the peas, broccoli and Swiss chard.  I won’t be able to move tomorrow, but that’s ok.
Started seeds for lettuce and purple sprouting broccoli and upsized the tomato pots.

Puyallup Demonstration Garden

This is what I want to see at my house... a pumpkin patch all ready to go.  That's a polka-dot composter pig in the corner.  These photos are from our accidental visit to the Puyallup Master Gardener Demonstration Garden.
  

(DH surprised me today by mowing the tall grass around our pumpkin patch. Now it is up to me to reach the soil level.)

Here are two different designs for hoop cloches.  The design, above, has a wooden frame that keeps the hoops in place.  The design, below, has short hoops that are attached to the wooden bed frame, without a ridge support.   I move my cloche to different places in the garden so it is more free-standing than these designs.

Above, the people are walking through the Jack and the Beanstalk children's garden.  The other beds are just getting started for the year.

And a perennial / wildlife garden, above. 

The garden has classes and children's activities throughout the summer.  Here is the link to the schedule.

Covered Wagon Cloche Returns

Since I came home Saturday with some tomato plants, they needed a home.  I prepared one of the garden beds and moved the cloche frame in.    See these links to part I and part II of the cloche's first days.

Inside the cloche, I planted the tomatoes and mini bell peppers.  Outside of it, I planted broccoli and Flashy Trout's Back romaine lettuce.   Then I put the plastic in place using the clips from Japan.  The photo, above, is before I closed the ends.  

That's a large Oriental poppy seen through the other end.  It's not yet blooming like Alison's. 

Here it is closed up for the evening.  On hot days, I don't open the ends all the way.  I undo a clip at the top of each end which opens up a "vent" simply due to the way the plastic fits over the frame.

This same frame recovered from this snow damage and here too.  

New Cloche Clips

Molly - I have my own Japanese clips!  These are on the cloche (more on that tomorrow) in place of the clips in this post. 

After seeing Molly's clips when our SAGBUTT garden bloggers group went to her garden on Tiger Mountain (see this link), I asked my Japanese connection about them. 

My friend from Japan mailed me some.   They are clothes pins for hanging laundry on bamboo poles.  I will be able to thank her in person when we attend her wedding later this year.

While my old clips were ok, they were damaging the plastic covering and they were hard to use when wet or cold.  These new clips are very easy to use.   And now I have a whole garden bed planted, including some tomato and pepper plants in the cloche.

Garden Dolly

One of the things I brought back from Kansas is this lightweight, but sturdy, dolly/hand truck. Pretty sure my dad had made it about 40 years ago (but not for a garden). As you can see, it is just the thing for moving the window cloches I like. They are heavy and awkward to carry but now I'm set!

It was time to move the cloches from the tomatoes and thin out the borage. All four tomatoes had grown up through the top of their cloches while I was gone.

This row was intended to hold some vegetables this year, but the herbs and flowers have filled it up. Much better than a row of weeds and grass at least. The catnip is huge already this year. I'm surprised since it has been so cool and rainy.

Cloche Damage

Yesterday, we checked on our collapsed cloche. The top was all the way to the ground! The "ribs" didn't break, just bent. We removed the ice and the plastic.

With a little pulling on the "spine" along the top, the ribs straightened out some. On a sunny day, we'll see if we can work out the kinks further. As you can see, all of the plants under it have been squished and frozen!

I'm glad to have the piles of leaves in the beds, under the snow. Hopefully, the wormies are happy with this insulation and are still busy at work (or will be as the temps warm up).

Cloche Collapse

Christmas eve morning, more snow, and maybe a little sagging going on at the cloche. (Left side, middle of the photo, above.)

In the afternoon...it proceeded to collapse! I'll investigate the damage tomorrow.

The Other Cloche

The broccoli looks good under the window frame cloche (all the other seedlings were eaten by slugs). We've been harvesting lettuce and chard leaves from these plants already.

Inside the Cloche

I found this pea plant blooming under the cloche! It was the only one that sprouted from seeds I planted this fall. I transplanted it under the cloche and forgot about it (I'm discouraged about the other seedlings I planted in there as the slugs seem to have eaten the broccoli and lettuce). I was surprised to find this blossom.

The calendula is also blooming in the cloche (but with a little mildew which came along with fall). The bright spot inside is noticeable from outside the cloche also.

I haven't really buttoned up the cloche for the winter and wanted to try a new way to access the inside. I have an idea so once we have another dry day, I'll post whether or not it works.

Fall Seedlings

I started some broccoli, lettuce and chard to see if we might eat into the fall. Unfortunately for the broccoli, the days may become too short to make it to harvest. This one is happily growing under the window frame cloche, along with lettuce and chard (which, of course, we can eat quite young).
So, as an experiment, some seedlings are out in the open, some are under the window cloche and some under the partially covered cloche (only partially covered to prevent scorching on the beautiful fall days like today). In spite of my coffee ground distraction method, the slugs have found several of the broccoli seedlings.

Cloche Benefits

I'm especially celebrating any blooms this year. This calendula started blooming a few weeks ago. Those outside the cloche are still just seedlings. This 50 degree weather isn't helping. Boy, this was a good year for the cloche experiment! Here are the chives, a few weeks ago. The ones outside are finally blooming now.

On one warm day, I opened up and then ended up removing the plastic covering. The chard & lettuce plants are now bolting. I'll clear out some of this soon, plant squash and put the plastic covering back on.

Cloche Micro Climate

It may be a cold spring, but in the cloche, it's another world. The borage is blooming. It will be a long time before we see blooming borage in the world outside the cloche. Chard, Borage, Chives, Lettuce & Parsley inside the cloche, above.
Cloched chives, soon to be blooming. These treats are especially appreciated this year, as spring is off to such a cold start, and so is my garden activities.

Yesterday, I did transplant the fennel seedlings in the garden and planted some pea seeds to add to the seedlings started in doors and transplanted some weeks ago. The broccoli seedlings in the garden are ok, but some have become slug food (especially the ones I planted in the cloche).

I do need to plant beets and carrot seeds... but today we also had to fit in a nice walk and geocaching since the weather was right!

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!

March Salad!

I have been a bit negligent of my "covered wagon" cloche. Can you believe it did pay off a little anyway? This was our salad last night!

The chard has lots of fresh leaves and so does the red lettuce. There is no chard or lettuce outside of the cloche right now. The green lettuce I started out with in Oct. turned to mush by the end of Dec. The chives and parsley are doing about the same inside & outside the cloche.

The winds we've had often blow open the ends. I will find a better way to close it up in the future. But, it is still more warm and dry inside than anywhere else in the garden. See the Cloche label for more information about it.

I will plant the lettuce and chard seedlings from my winter sown milk jugs in the cloche soon.

Bloom Day & Monthly Garden Photo

Thank goodness for Snowdrops, that's all I can say about February blooms! See Carol's May Dreams Gardens and her Feb. 15 post for other participants in bloom day, some with more luck.

Here is my February garden photo. Still not much different than January. As you can see, the shade was creeping in also. There are two special "things" captured in the photo, though. What do you think they are? Just for fun, go here to see the garden in Sept. 07.
Finally, I think somebody has been spending time in my cloche. In two corners, the mulch seem to be smushed and displaced. I am having trouble keeping the ends of the cloche covering shut. The wind pops them open easily. Even if they stayed shut, it would be easy for some critter to crawl in. May just be a cat napping in the warm space during the day or a dry space at night.

January Garden

The January 2008 Garden. It doesn't look that much different than November, but some different than January 2007! Click on the Garden-Monthly Photos label below to see other months.
Parsley, inside the cloche. I see lots of calendula seedlings too.
Swiss chard, inside the cloche. I think early lettuce will be very happy inside here also. Now if I can just keep the ends from blowing open and letting in the chill.

Cozy Cloche Report

Here is a shot of the chard, calendula and parsley inside the cloche. They aren't growing very quickly but they do look a bit more happy than the chard outside the cloche. The sedum pan garden from the patio is overwintering in the cloche also. Otherwise, it spends the winter constantly waterlogged (even with holes drilled in the bottom).
The chard outside of the cloche doesn't look too happy about the cold & snow and frosts we've had lately. I suspect it will be quick to send out new growth in the spring, however.

Sunny Cloche

So far so good. The cloche is still avoiding the barn shadow. In another month or so, it will catch some afternoon shade, I'm sure. For now, it catches the sun. The nice day today allowed me to remove the monster size, now frost blackened, tomato vines and do some other clean up.
Inside the cloche. The lettuce, chard and parsley seem to be settling in. The chives look pretty sad, but that's because of not so much care in transplanting them. I figure they'll pull through. I had simply dug up a big clump, chopped back the leaves, divided and plunked them in the ground. Scroll down to see the earlier postings this month about building this cloche, if you like.

Covered Wagon Cloche Part II

It's covered! I was spending too much time and energy looking for the best answer so I went back to the hardware store "saddles." Thanks to the input from commentors, I even tried making my own clips out of extra tubing, but couldn't get it to go over the cloche tubing. Big metal binder clips were a great idea too (so many uses) but they wanted to slide right off because of the plastic.
See how the saddles have ridges to hold them on, as well as the nice thumb spot for holding or removing them. I had also found an assortment of the bright clips, below. There are only 4 that will stay on the tubing, though. The others were too small. I'm using these 4 clips in the place that I'll open regularly. They are the easiest to remove.
The smaller clips work well to hold open or hold closed the ends of the cloche.
Lettuce, chard, chives, and two flowers are in there to see how they'll do.


Of course, we had quite a wind storm yesterday while I was gone. No movement to the structure but the plastic had blown around and some clips had come off. In the dark last night, I found enough to put the plastic back on. Tomorrow, I'll see how the plants held up.