Raspberry Update

Remember when I bought a raspberry on May 3 and it looked like this:

?

Well, today, it is May 28 and my raspberry bush is looking pretty bushy. I made my first rhubarb crisp of the season last weekend and I eagerly await the day I can make raspberry/rhubarb crisp. Party at my house... hey...

Lots of brand new shoots have been sprouting from the dirt. Little guys like these...

There are little buds on the tips of each branch that might be the start of the actual berries? But I'm not entirely sure and, I suppose, only time will tell.

This plant is probably the most curious to me. Well, this plant, and maybe the radishes since I can't see what they are doing down there, way underground. Today, Rob pulled one up because the greens are getting pretty tall and they were in the ground for about 4 weeks now. It was a stem and no radish bulb. I think that means we have too much nitrogen in the soil? We are going to try to balance the nutrients in the planter to see if it helps. 

But.. then.. it begs the question... are these plants spent then? Can they still develop a bulb? Do I need to start anew? I have no idea. Most of what I have read on radishes is that 'they simply grow'. No rules or regulations. They are just supposed to work. Mine worked sans bulbs. This is what bulb-less radishes look like.... 

Oh me, oh my

My poor, poor little plants. You nurture them for 6 weeks, fawning day in and day out over them, and then they are slapped in the face by reality. Mother Nature can be pretty heavy handed sometimes.

The zucchini, tomato and marigolds in the large planter weathered most of last week well. But one night (Thursday perhaps?) came a hard frost. A frost that made me nervous enough to throw a fleece over the hoop house. Though they survived the night, they were definitely kissed by the frost. The zucchini shows it the most. My poor plants.

                                             

Saturday was planting day since the forecast predicted a week full of 70 degree weather. It felt like the time. Planted on Saturday and Sunday became a blazing, sun filled scorcher fulfilling the 70 degree promise. While I was away at work, my babies were getting a sunburn. Our efforts hardening off were no match to the sun strengths. All of those days they sat outside weathering were nowhere near as sunny. And sunny Sunday did a number on them. At least, I think it is sunburn? It turns out it's a rather hard thing to confirm online. Even harder to find a remedy to. The leaves on my bean plants and some marigolds look almost metallic; pale silver in color and losing green pigment. My poor, poor plants.

                                                

And then came Monday. A day that I should have been more prepared for - rain. The rain was not a surprise, but the torrential downpours were. My plants were left soaked, droopy and heavy with fluid.  We (and by we I mean Rob) scrambled to move what we could indoors and secured the failing hoop house. My poor, poor, poor plants.

I am hoping for the turn around. Wishing for the perk up. I'm feeling a little bit like a failure and a little bit overpowered by nature. My poor, poor little plants.

Woo woo!

They made it through the night! No signs of unhappiness. We even have a second zucchini blossom opening...

Hello hoop house

I've been desperate to get things outside and of course the weather hasn't been cooperating. Granted, it's mid-May, which isn't very dependable and generally too early to put things outside. But I'm doing it anyway.

I built a mini hoop house around my big planter to protect from the elements, hoping to move some things outside and out of my kitchen. I used PVC tubing anchored by some U-shaped brackets that I screwed onto the outside walls. Covered, of course, by plastic, and the 1mil I bought isn't heavy duty enough, but it'll do the job this time. This was a $10 solution to the 'get me the fuck outside' problem. 

I left the kale in there last night to weather the storm, and it seemed a success. Today we (by we I mean... I made Rob) planted our tomato and zucchini. Cross your fingers everybody!!

This gives us the opportunity to pull the tarp back during warm minutes, and protect a little bit against the cold ones. I hope it does the trick, if not, I still have one tomato and one zucchini waiting inside as back up.

Also, those tiny sprouts in the middle are radishes.

I can't wait to start reaping the rewards.

Day 39

And they desperately want to be outside. I'm weathering all week and hope to get them outside this weekend assuming the storms stay at bay.

The weathering process seems straight forward enough... ease them outdoors little by little and into the sunlight little by little. What nobody bothers to say is the first few days you do this, after a matter of 30 minutes you will check on your plants and they will be droopy, wilty, sad and dead looking. You will think you failed and go into hyper recovery mode - rushing them indoors, out of the light, watering if necessary. Little by little they will get stronger and you will feel less and less like a failure. 

Unfair attention

I just thought you should know that while my vegetable starts are bursting at the seams... my house plants continue to kick the bucket.

Containers, containers

It's another cold (ish) day and all I can do is play with some dirt. 

I'm getting my containers ready today and planting a few of the seeds I can sow directly outside.

 

In the big trough, I planted seeds for my English breakfast radishes in the center. 

They will eventually be book-ended with one black krim tomato and one zucchini.

 

The blue container will eventually be my bush beans, but it needs to warm up considerably for those. The orange container is my blue dwarf kale. The kale has been happy enough to sit out there all day. I have yet to try overnight. I just sowed some marigold seeds directly into the stone circles. Hopefully they'll come up and keep the bunnies away.

 

I saw this stacked planter idea on Pinterest. It will be my herbs. 

I put a row of marigold seeds on the bottom and spearmint on the next up. 

The top two will be filled with the basil and sage starts growing in my kitchen. 

I am unsure about this contraption. 

I bought a raspberry bush! And that trash can looking container for it. There is some debate on whether it will flower this year or if I have to wait until next year. 

I hope I get some berries this summer. Fingers crossed.

That's what I'm doing today.

And they said I couldn't Sage..

All the books say not to fuss with Sage seeds. All the books say 'don't bother'. They told me to buy starts. They told me 'buy mature plants' to father.

Round two of sage seeds just graduated to Newspaper Class

Gardening Win

When I hit day 7, things were moving faster than I ever thought they would. Sixty percent of my seeds had already sprouted and that morning I just had the urge to pick one up. And I saw:

ROOTS! Which sent me into an emergency re-potting situation. Correction, sent Rob into an emergency re-potting situation, since I had to leave for work and those couldn't wait another day. While I gave hopeful violinists the bad news they didn't advance into semi-final auditions... Rob was going all Martha Stewart on me, making newspaper pots. Newspaper pots because I'm cheap.

I came home that day to a dirt station on the living room rug, a dirt station in the kitchen and then I joined in and made a dirt station on the table. Since that day, dirt has been everywhere. My house smells of dirt around the clock. I am constantly brushing it off my feet or into a dust pan. And the re-potting never rests. So today I had a gardening win over the dirt problem.

I grabbed this Rubbermaid tray to start carrying my plants outside for weathering. It's been hovering around the plants for a week now and I had to re-pot the sage today. And then it hit me:

All of my dirt problems - SOLVED (well, except the smell). I now have a designated indoor re-potting station. Clean up is a breeze since I can just pour the spilled dirt back into the bag. Such a simple thing. Genius.