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.

Gardening Fail

I mentioned in my last post that I started without knowing much about cool weather vs warm weather crops, or about planting times. Here's an example of a gardening FAIL.

Those beans that are stupid tall started flowering indoors today. I guess my best course of action is to pinch off the flowers since they will put all their energies into flowers that can't be pollinated. So very sad to pinch off such a pretty little thing.

These bean plants are now four weeks old. They should probably be going into the ground at three weeks, but with all the snow and rain and cold, being a warm weather crop they wouldn't survive a minute out there. They need 60/70 degree weather and Minnesota just won't get there. Next year I will start the seeds the last week of April, three weeks should fall right after the last frost then. Or at least closer than I am this year!

That is my note for next year.

Meanwhile, I am trying to indoor weather my plants a little and am putting a low fan on them from time to time. I read it somewhere but don't really know if it's a GOOD idea. The logic seems appropriate. I figure it's a beating before the beating I will ease them into outside. It doesn't seem to hurt them at least. 

#gardenchronicles

Any good gardener will tell you the most important thing about gardening is taking good notes. I am not a good gardener. But I am a good writer.

#gardenchronicles started showing up last year in my instagram feed when I planted my first small container vegetable garden. I had successes and failures. After last year, I said BIGGER. True to my word, this year I went really big but started really small... with the smallest of small... seed.

It seems the more I am confused, the more I seem to learn. I'm reading and re-reading and failing and winning all along the way. The good gardeners of the world say to take notes for a better next year.

Here are my notes as I am 26 days in:

I have learned so much about the importance of paying attention to germination days and grouping plants according to that timeline. Mostly because I sure didn't do that. I know more, now, about cold weather and warm weather vegetables and, man, did I do that wrong! It would have been useful to know which plants are slow growing vs fast growing, something I am sure one only learns from the experience I am lacking. I currently have 1/2 inch plants next to 30 inch plants - a height difference that makes you wonder...where do I put the light? And lastly, perhaps most importantly, I have learned that when you put a seed in dirt, it really DOES grow and I surely don't need this many next year.

Now onto the specifics:

Zucchini (summer squash)

- fast and tall grower
- warm weather crop
- start seed indoors the last week of April
- this giant seed preferred growing in loose dirt in eggshells (vs tightly packed pellets), they easily pushed through the soil

Bush Beans

- fast and tall grower
- warm weather crop
- start seed indoors the last week of April
- this giant seed preferred growing in loose dirt in eggshells (vs tightly packed pellets)
- this particular plant (out of 3) is stupid tall, I can't slow it down! I put the light right on it so it didn't have to waste energy reaching for it and it grew right past. It's leggy and huge and it makes me nervous. I actually checked my seed packet to make sure I didn't buy climbing beans!
- books tell me beans are independent growers and are not companion to anyone.

Tomato (black krim variety)

- slower growing and hardy
- start indoors the second week of April
- I have had pretty good luck thinning these by pricking out rather than pinching off seedlings. Hold tiny seedlings by leaves rather than stems.
- they all popped up in mass, I have given away 7 or so and still have 3 at home

Marigold

- slower growing
- start indoors the second week of April
- every single seed I planted grew
- start indoors the second week of April
- I have learned they are the prettiest
- Apparently, Marigold like bad soil - this is not something I have learned from experience yet, but have read about. Likewise, books tell me they are a good pest deterrent, so I'm planning to surround my veggies with them

Sage

- the slowest to germinate, full 10 days
- start indoors the second week of April
- after I already bought the seeds, I read everywhere that they are a pain to start from seed and you should just buy starts. I got a few buds initially then killed them all with a light that was too close. This is my second attempt at Sage seedlings (seeds, use em if ya got em) and it's looking promising.
- I am bad at photographing sage

Kale

- quick to germinate (popped up in a single day)
- slow to grow
- cold weather crop, I am currently starting to ease them into the outdoors with plastic bottles as greenhouse covers. Apparently, kale is sweeter when kissed by frost (but a french kiss will kill them)

Basil

- slow grower
- I'm surprised that only two of my four attempts have survived so far. I tend to think of basil as hardy and the seedlings are not so
- they are cute when they grow though









We will also be sowing some mint and radishes directly outside soon too.

The verdict is in:

I will NEVER use pellets again. They are packed too firm that it made pushing through difficult for big seeds. They stay hard little clumps forever. I like the eggs. When I transferred into paper pots, the eggs kept the water close to the plant and maintain the moisture better. Also, my biggest kale and tomato plants were started in eggshells. The eggs win.










Day 29:

And I'm not kidding, that bean plant is really 30" tall

One more thing: I learned a lot about growing lights. Most bulbs that call themselves 'grow lights' are not any good at it. They veer to one side of the color spectrum, offering green foliage but lacking blossoms for example. It's important to buy full spectrum light bulbs. I bought some CFL's in the 5000 Kelvin range, they are usually labeled things like "natural daylight" in 100 Watt (comparable). My plants seems to love it. My plants did NOT love the 'grow light' I bought when I didn't know any better.