More Goings on in the Garden

bolting lettuce and finished spinach

I think April might be the busiest month of the year for gardening. I know I have a lot of things going on at my place right now. In the back of this bed is lettuce I'm letting go to seed. This is the Italian Misticanza mix. I have another bed of this bolting also. Since I wanted more red lettuce I've pulled out most of the greens from this bed. You can also see a California poppy volunteer there. Down front is a patch of spinach. With the warmer days it's getting pretty tired so I picked all the good leaves.

Then I cleared the area of weeds and roots (the chickens loved them). And scattered a bit of horse manure over it. I'm thinking of doing this bed as a '3 sisters style', but instead of corn, beans and squash I"m thinking about using okra, black eye peas and maybe sweet potatoes.

new lettuce bed

Lettuce pickings are down again as another outdoor bed turns bitter and the tubs of Salad Bowl in the greenhouse join them. In the meantime this newer bed has produced a few leaves big enough to pick, along with some radishes. Along the front end with the radish are some cilantro. In the upper left are some turnips.

Pea plants in the greenhouse

We had quite a storm Friday night and Saturday with a lot of heavy wind. It shredded part of  the plastic on this end of the greenhouse (it was a bit old and starting to go already). It also blew the pea plants around quite a bit and now I must crawl over the rocks to get around them. I think I'm going to let them start drying off for the seed and so I can get them out of the way. Next year I'll try to remember to not let the plants from all the tubs grow together, so I can move them outdoors to a semi shaded spot come spring.

Around the Garden

strawberries

Well I lost the first strawberries that tried to ripen in the greenhouse to rotting. They were touching the soil and were buried under the henbit and chickweed. So I cleaned up the bed and broke down and bought a bale of straw $11, ouch. But I mulched around the berry plants, the potatoes that I planted in Jan that are sprouting up and sprinkled a bit on one of the beds on the terraced garden.

Cantaloupe seedlings

The cantaloupe seedlings in the greenhouse are doing well. I'm going to have to thin them down to just one or two plants tho! Also sprouting up are some nasturtiums and there is a California poppy peeking in.

corn seedlings in soil blocks

I've started some Golden Bantam Improved corn in soil blocks. I usually don't start corn until May, but we are already having May type weather so decided to go ahead. I start them in soil blocks because of the birds, they are so terrible, pulling pea, bean and corn seeds out of the ground. This way they seedlings won't have root damage but will be big enough to hopefully escape the birds notice.

Eggplant seedlings

 I have 10 eggplant seedlings that I started indoors weeks ago. There is a hybrid eggplant that is a shocking pink called Neon. I grew it a few years ago and saved some seed. So these will be all different forms and colors. I'll pick my favs and save seed from them again, eventually developing my own. Of course I"m hoping for a shocking pink open pollinated eggplant....

volunteer pepper seedlings

 Remember the Yellow Marble tomato plant that lived all winter? Well apparently when I tried to get it to root on it's stem I broke the stem and it died before rooting. But it looks like there are some pepper plants of some sort volunteering from the compost I put in the planter.

Amish Paste tomato seedlings

I have about 25 canning tomato seedlings, about half Amish Paste and half Italian Heirloom. They will be going into the ground soon.

Little green plum

The plums are getting bigger, although we did lose some in a bad wind the other day, there are still a lot on the tree.

Dwarf Grey Sugar peas making seed

It is getting so warm that the Dwarf Grey Sugar peas are growing faster than I can keep them picked. They have also billowed out into the walk way at the bottom so bad that I can't really reach the tops without breaking the stems along the bottom. So the tops are loaded with pods going to seed. Which is ok, I needed to replenish the supply.

turnip seedlings

I have a small patch of turnips and thinned them out this evening. I tossed the greens in with some chard, lamb's quarters and spinach and cooked them up with bacon and onion for dinner.

one part of the front yard

Here is one part of the front yard, left, some Princepe Borghese tomatoes, some green onions and sweet alyssum. Buried in there are a few new strawberry plants. On the right behind the wire trellis are bunches of Italian Red Bottle onions, in front of it are more green onions and sweet alyssum. Oh yeah, one lone pea plant that the birds missed. The mass of green in the front is madder, a red dye plant.

Headboard trellis & Victorian cloche

Next to that bed is this one. I haven't planted the main part of it yet. On this end is an old head board I picked up off the side of the road. My cute little Victorian cloche is now protecting some watermelon seeds.

terraced garden

Over on the hillside terraced garden the first snapdragon is blooming. You can see I've added some straw to help keep the soil moister and to prevent erosion when it rains.  I've also added some more herbs to these beds, a citrus flavored thyme and two sages, a purple and a golden.

native penstamin

Around these terraced beds are clumps of native penstamin. They really attract bumblebees and hummingbirds.

Tall bearded iris

Here's a close up of my tall bearded iris.

sweetpeas

More sweetpeas began blooming this week. I can get high on these things, they smell soooo good! I planted all sorts of seed, some I collected from a garden fence I walk by sometimes, some from several old seed packets. I'm always attracted by labels that say "highly fragrant" and "old fashioned".  I just wish cameras could capture that fragrance to you could enjoy it too!

Harvest Monday

Fresh Eggs!

And it's Harvest Monday once again! Harvest Monday is a great blog hop sponsored by Daphne's Dandelions. A great way to visit gardens all over the world!

I didn't take too many pictures of harvests this week, just too busy doing other things, but I got lots of eggs, 4 hens averaging 3 a day.

I got a couple of spears of asparagus, picked some mustard, chard and lamb's quarters for cooking.

salad

I picked lots of salad with lettuce, mache, claytonia, chard, spinach, lamb's quarters, chickweed, chives, viola blossoms.

peas

I picked lots of peas, Dwarf Grey Sugar from the tubs in the greenhouse and the Mammoth Melting Sugar out in the garden are beginning to come on. In the photo the two extra large pods on the upper right are the Mammoths and the others are the Dwarf Greys.  It's getting  a bit warm in the greenhouse for the peas and I wanted to move them outside to a cooler spot, but the three tubs have all grown together so I can't move them without ripping them apart. I will have to remember next time to give them more space and keep them separate. Because they are so warm they are really getting past their prime quickly, before the pods are even very large, I just let them go to make more seed for next year.

Green Globe Artichoke

Around the yard: The two artichoke plants I put in last fall are growing fast, hoping for 'chokes soon.

baby lettuce

I'm now looking for every damp shady spot I can find to plant a patch of lettuce in. These little guys are out front covered with window screen to protect them from the birds.

Sweet Peas

The first sweet pea blossom opened this week; heavenly!

sweet peas & violas

The sweet peas are on a small obelisk in a large wash tub by the front gate and surrounded by the violas.

Tall iris

This tall two toned iris doesn't usually bloom until about mid-May, so it's waaay early!

worm bed experiment

I loved Harvey Urssery's worm beds in his greenhouse and decided to try something similar in the narrow paths between my raised beds. These bed dry out way too fast and I've thought eventually I will take the sides away and dig them down lower into the ground. Then I thought perhaps I could make worm beds between them with scrap lumber to walk on. That would keep the sun off the sides of them and help keep them from drying out too fast as well as growing more worms for chicken feed.

trellis bed ready for planting

I also got this trellis bed ready for planting. You can see the before pictures on my post from the other day.  I've decided to plant a few cukes at one end and then the rest in beans. I don't eat that many pickles so don't really need a ton of cucumbers. And I eat way more beans than cukes!

April in the Garden

First iris to bloom in the yard

I love this time of year, when some of my favorite flowers are blooming, iris, lilacs, roses, apple trees... It seems the garden is bursting at the seams these days!

I have so many old bearded iris in the yard, these plain white ones and some plain dark purples are the early bloomers; later there will be a tall yellow and a two toned purple and lavender.

lilacs in bloom

I love my lilac bush, it smells heavenly. The scent of iris and lilacs reminds me of when I was a kid and mom would put vases of them around the house.

apple blossoms

While that late snow browned the edges of some of the petals, the apple blossoms seem to be ok.

the terrace garden

On the hillside terrace garden the poppies, cilantro and wild flowers are getting a good start.

patio garden, west side of house

The patio still needs some cleaning up.

Princepe Borghese

But the Princepe Borhese tomatos are blooming.

Sweet Magnolia, a purple snow pea

Between the crazy weather and some rabbits, there are only a couple of Sweet Magnolia plants left, but they are making peas.

Sweet Magnolia pea blossom

And their flowers are pretty too!

Bleushokker pea blossom

There are only a couple of Bleushokker peas left too. They were in the coldest spot in the back garden and the Dec. snows did most of them in. They do have pretty flowers and they are the yummiest soup pea ever!

weedy spot in the back garden

I tried to get this silly picture to be vertical, but Blogger doesn't want to do it so it's sideways. This is a corner of the back garden, on the east end. This is a narrow trellis bed where I had planted Sugar Snap peas. there were only a couple of plants left in there and they were pretty sad looking with the crazy weather we've had this year, so I pulled them out along with all the weeds and fed them to the chickens.

Most of the weeds are gone.

Most of the weeds are gone now. I will probably plant either beans or cukes here, haven't made up my mind which one. On the right of this picture you can see the Mammoth Melting Sugar peas, which just started producing. More about those on Harvest Monday!

brassicas

This is one of the two brassica beds. on the right side is the purple sprouting broccoli, in the center are the Romanesco and on the left are either De Ciccio or Waltham, the tags got lost so I'm not sure which. I weeded out all the hen bit and discovered the bed was pretty dry; perhaps that's why they haven't done as well as they should have. Either that or I'll blame it on poor soil, late planting and crazy weather! Behind this bed is the one with the Mammoth Melting Sugar peas and behind that, the trellis bed that I weeded out.

Red Pontiac potaoes

The Red Pontiac potatoes that I planted in January are sprouting up and looking good. Some of them were just breaking ground when the snow came a couple of weeks ago; I just piled a little dirt over their tops and they didn't get frost bite.

Cecile Brunner Rose

The Cecile Brunner climbing rose that I planted a few years ago has grown quite large. I spotted the first blossom this after, after catching a whiff of it as I walked by. While the blossoms are very small, they are very fragrant. I hate that modern roses have so little scent and refuse to buy them. I want roses to smell, what use is pretty if there is no fragrance?

bolting celery

In the greenhouse the celery is bolting. The cilantro is already there. I let it bloom all over because it's small fine flowers are good for the beneficial insects.

Cilantro/coriander blooming

snapdragon

The snapdragons are blooming in their wall pots. The ones I planted around the yard are a bit behind since the air and soil outside are cooler.

tomato plants on the shelves, peas in the background

The greenhouse shelves are loaded with plants; more small fruited tomatoes, Snow White, Currant, Princepe Borghese.

baby tomato plants

The large fruited tomatoes were started later and so are smaller; Amish Paste, Italian Heirloom, Black from Tula.

basil seedlings

Lots of Classic Italian and Lime Basil seedlings.

green strawberry

There are some green strawberries in the greenhouse bed.

old seeds sprout!

The greatest thing though, is those Hale's Best Jumbo cantaloupe seeds that I saved in 2003 had almost 100% germination in the greenhouse under their cute little Victorian cloche!

Chickens!

And here are all the chickens, my four hens and my young Buff Orpington rooster, standing tall in the center. He isn't crowing yet but I have seen him getting after the hens, so I think I'll set aside some money next month for an incubator. I'd like to hatch small lots of chicks at a time for meat.


These chickens are not as tame as my previous ones. My other chickens I raised from chicks when my grand daughters were with me all the time and the girls were always petting and playing with them so they were very tame. These were in a large pen with about 50 others and while not exactly wild they don't come sit in your lap either! In fact they are just now getting the idea that when I come up to the fence and call them they should come because it means I have a treat, either scraps, weeds or worms.