The light at the end of the tunnel ... updated ...

Planted March 11 ... Peas (Cascadia), Lettuce (Merlot and Red Sails) and Radishes (French Breakfast).  Looking good the first week of April!

Enjoy!

Update: 4/20/2013

Right on schedule ... I need to harvest this bed to have room to plant tomatoes at the end of May.

Walkabout ...

I did a walkabout in the garden this morning ... enjoying the *gasp* sunshine!!  Yes ...we have sunshine!  Four days in a row now!

My experimental  Dakota shelling peas are enjoying the warm weather ... 

they are about 2 1/2 feet tall now ...and ...

...that arrow is pointing at a pea pod!!  

The experimental snow peas are feeling pretty good, too!

They are almost 4 feet high and covered with blossoms ...  both types of peas are ones I experimented with by starting them early in soil blocks under lights.  I think that effort paid off; the peas that I sowed directly are way behind these ...

The potatoes are growing well ...

Especially the experimental ones that I started early with a germination mat under the box ...

Here's a peek into the greenhouse ... also known as the
"Paradise Cove Tomato Resort"...

I have drip irrigation in the individual pots and the electric box is for the heater and lights (which I hopefully won't need anymore this season).

The kales, chards and tomatoes in the terrace garden are sunbathing today ...

...so are the lettuces : )

And last, but not least, the strawberries in a "vintage planter box" on the deck are starting to blossom!

I'm going to go back outside now and enjoy the sunshine before planting some cucumber seeds to replace the plants that, as my friend Dorothy put it, "committed suicide due to weather induced depression".

Enjoy!

But wait!  Late breaking news!  The all new "Pepper Palace"  : )

Enjoy!

A Garden Update ...

I've spent the last week "puttering" in the garden ... nothing really big is going on right now; I'm just weeding, feeding and playing with some new ideas.

I decided to try direct seeding of some Asian Greens (Joi Choi, Tatsoi, Chinese Cabage and Mizuna) using Annie's Granny's seed mat/tape method.  And I had an idea about making sure that the paper I used for the tapes would dissolve quickly ...

I also had an idea about using seed tapes for planting carrots ...

I set down the tape with the carrot seeds, covered it with a thin layer of soil, watered gently and then cut a piece of clear plastic sheeting and laid it over the soil to keep the moisture in.  I can see through the plastic to check for germination or see if the soil is drying out.  I also laid a soil heating cable on top of the plastic, just to speed things along.

I've been working on the drip system for the raised beds ...

All of the beds on the right side of the garden are now hooked up ... I still need to add another line for the beds in the front and into the greenhouse.  Aren't my peas pretty?  Look at all those blossoms!

I've also added  drip emitters (the little red thing in the photo below) to 

 the potato boxes ...

These are the potatoes from my potato box experiment.  They are about three times the size of the ones I started without a heating mat ... I need to add a fourth board to the box any day now!

I borrowed another idea from Granny; her "Bottomless Tomato Bucket" method for some of my tomatoes ...

These are determinate tomatoes, so they don't need a lot of caging ... the buckets will keep the tomato foliage up off of the other vegetables planted there.  I'm going to add individual drip emitters to the tomato buckets the same as I did for the potato boxes ...

The sun is shining today ... my garden chores are done ...I'm goin' fishing : )

Enjoy!

A Five Season Planting Guide...and a Pea Patch Report

I've spent the last few days studying two of Eliot Coleman's books, The Winter Harvest Handbook and Four Season Harvest, and using the information to create a spreadsheet for extended season gardening.  I designed the spreadsheet so that it adjusts for both hours of daylight and temperature and used the season ordinals (Winter Solstice, Spring Equinox, Summer Solstice and Fall Equinox) as well as the cross-quarter Celtic Festivals of  Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh and Samhain as the guides for my planting "seasons". What I ended up with is a "Five Season" Garden; Spring, Early Summer, Late Summer, Autumn and Winter....

Click the spreadsheet photo to go to the real thing in Google docs.

There are two pages; one in order of seed starting date and one in order of planting date. I'm hoping to get some feedback.... Any suggestions for other cold tolerant vegetables that I can add to my list?

And a big thank you to Annie's Granny!  I didn't know I could upload my spreadsheets to Google and share them until I saw it on her blog!

It's been sunny (but cold) here today, so I took the covers off of the pea patch to let the seedlings breathe a bit.

The peas are coming along nicely; the first ones I planted are almost six inches tall!  It's been getting quite cold at night so I added another layer of insulation to the bed...

 I'm not using hoops to hold the row cover material up...just a few sticks, so it's more like a tent, but it's working fine; the peas seem quite happy.  It's going to get cold again tonight so I closed up the covers early to let the sun warm it up again before sunset....

I'm still keeping a 40 watt light going under the hoops to warm things up a bit more at night...


Enjoy!

Deb Fitz