The Fungus Among Us....

Here's what I did instead of watching the Super Bowl....

I ... ummm ..."acquired" ... some alder logs (have chain saw, will travel)....

I drilled 50 holes in each of four logs and stuck a plug spawn (Shitake and Pearl Oyster) dowel  in each hole....

I sealed the holes and the ends of the logs with melted beeswax...

And stacked the logs in a shady spot....now all I have to do is wait....and wait...and wait...and it is supposed to look like this:

Shitake Mushrooms at Fungi Perfecti

Enjoy!

Deb

Harvest Monday...and More Planting Mania...

No harvest for me this week...just some potatoes from storage that I used with a roast chicken....

I'm joining other bloggers over at Daphne's Dandelions as we share our weekly harvests...it's fun to see what others are harvesting and what they are cooking up with it...check it out!

And I owe Daphne a big thank you for her advice on using a mini soil blocker.  My first batch turned out pretty pathetic...

The seedlings are happy (I planted these on Thursday...photo was taken Saturday!   Love those Asian greens!) ...the blocks are probably going to fall apart, so I'll just prick the seedlings out.  The next batch turned out much better after some advice from Daphne.

So...here's the grand tally of my planting spree...

And more....

Including the 600 mini blocks I now have 998 seedling going in the greenhouse...plus the 150 that I've already transplanted to the garden...plus the 200 plug spawn...No!  Wait!  That's another post!  ; )

Enjoy!

Deb

Ribbitt! Ribbitt!

Some folks depend on a groundhog to tell them if spring is near.  Me... I depend on our frogs.  During the summer the days here at the lake are filled with the sound of birds singing.  The evening and night are filled with the sound of frogs croaking.  Big, deep voiced frogs...tiny, high pitched frogs...hundreds and hundreds of frogs...  living here I have learned that when I start hearing the frogs, spring is not far away.  Yesterday I heard it...the first frog of the season!  Only one so far...but I am sure there will be more soon...

Now that I know that spring is near I feel very hopeful about this weeks' "extending the seasons" experiments.  I transplanted about 100 shelling pea seedlings (Dakota) into my pea patch on Friday...

The air temperature in the  covered bed has been staying between 40 and 60 degrees...and I figure since I transplanted seedlings the soil temperature shouldn't be an issue...we'll see....

I've started another bed with snow peas and some broccoli....

The tomatoes I started Jan. 22 are coming along nicely...

Almost all of my seeds germinated and several have their first true leaves and roots beginning to extend beyond the soil block...so I transplanted them to 4" pots....

So far...so good...fingers crossed that the frog's prediction is accurate....

Enjoy!

Deb

Planning. Planning, Planning...

Well, the two new lakeside beds are on temporary hold while we redo the landscaping nearby...which means that what was going to be my early pea patch is now not going to be available in time.  So the pea patch will go into Backyard 5 and I'm thinking of doing a 3 Sisters (beans, corn and squash) planting in Lakeside 1.  I read the posts on the Modern Victory Garden Blog about their 3 Sisters planting and I'd like to give it a try.... 

I've spent a lot of time online these past few days...I guess you could call it studying.  I'm hoping that doing more research and planning will result in a good harvest this year.  Last summer's harvest was pretty much of a bust except for the always cooperative potatoes.  Knee surgery at the end of June (and not being able to do more than hobble for the 2 or three months before that) kept my gardening activities to a minimum and then the weather wasn't cooperative either.

As part of my "studies" I've been visiting the blogs of many other gardeners...many of them with a lot of gardening experience that they generously share in their blog posts.  I was really impressed with the planting spreadsheet that was posted on Daphne's Dandelions.  I have the software for a spreadsheet, but am pretty much clueless as to how to set one up.  Google to the rescue!  There are so many people out there willing to share what they have made...I love the Internet.

My first find was an easy to use seed starting calculator on the  Johnny's Selected Seeds web site.  It was easy to use; I could put in the frost date for my area and it gave me the dates to start the seed and transplant out for many varieties of vegetables and flowers.  But I wanted something that I could download and modify, so I kept looking.

My next find was The Lazy Gardener's Seed Starting Chart  developed by Maggie Wang the "You Grow Girl" web site.  It can be downloaded for free and modified by the user, but didn't have quite all the features I wanted...so I kept going through the Google list...and then I struck pay dirt!

I found a spreadsheet that  Danny Clark shared on the AeroGardenGrowers Forum.  I can set it up by order of date of planting, rather than alphabetically, it has columns for the days to maturity and yield date, which is great information for successive plantings and, best of all...it's set up for Square Foot Gardening...it even has a separate page for laying out a garden!

Here is my filled in spreadsheet...(click on it and use the zoom feature to see it closer to full size)...

And part of my garden layout plan...

I now have most of my planning done and just need get my seeds started on time and get my raised beds cultivated and ready for planting...Kudos to Danny for sharing this great spreadsheet with his fellow gardeners!!

Enjoy!

Deb