What have you done today in the Garden?

Glad you mentioned lettuce. I must plant some in the greenhouse right away. Thanks.

 

Planted eggplants, red bells, chile nuevo including some hatch, some banana peppers and some mirasol. I was reading the wiki about the nuevo vs hatch differences in that type chile and found that mirasol is a family member too, but has a funny habit for which it is named:

"Named for the upright posture of the fruit that "points" to the sun; mirasol is Spanish for "looking at the sun". 'Numex Mirasol' was created by crossing 'La Blanca' and 'Santaka' peppers and selecting for upright fruit.[100] Released in 1993.[2]"

Those will look pretty cool and my wife may even think better of me!

 

Planted all of the Envol potatoes (earliest variety, developed in Québec), Yukon Nugget (early) and Kennebeck (mid season). Next is Soraya (also midseason) and finally Elba (late season).

Most are in the ground but I am trying large nonwoven fabric containers too.

Moved two additional large clumps of Crocosmia "Lucifer" to meditation garden. Deer and rabbits don't bother them, humming birds like them, and they don't need watering. Plus they are quite beautiful in bloom.

Mowed the fig orchard. They have lots of buds.

Fertilized the onions, shallots, garlic, peas.

The fabric container that I'm sewing from landscape fabric is almost completed. I'm reinforcing the places in the bottom where I'll cut drainage holes. I might add handles and might not. Then it's done.

Anxious to plant tomatoes but that's a month away.

 

Tell me how you feel about sulphur as a fertilizer? Do you use it much? Do you think it helps flavors? Today I was pondering the contents of a organic espoma hollytone bag and realized it basically comes with epsom salts and greensands and so forth but the sulphur at 5% is as high or higher than the NPK values.

Also today I glued a bulb auger drill into the end of a long tool handle to make a form of a dibbler. I made one for a elderly neighbor with a pvc pipe strapped to a pointy broom type handle so she could plant corn without bending over. I had her poke the hole and drop the seed down the pvc pipe into the hole. She shot corn so fast she got a whole row done in a jiffy. Then she had to go sit down for a spell!

I was quite proud of that one, but I like my electric drill auger at 24 inches so I thought I might try a seed shooter pipe with the two inch type auger on a long handle from a useless manual concrete edger. I hope it works well for general dibbling like squash and okra seed, but a pointy hoe got cleaned up and repainted for row work just in case!

Here is a pic of the espoma ingredients. I once had an unexpected contamination of compost and the tomatoes that we abandoned were so very bland compared the grow bag replacements I used epsom and espoma tomato tone on even though they were all celebrity. The calcium at 5% and Magnesium at 1% are both liming agents so I am thinking it won't drop the pH very low with 5% sulphur.

 

Yesterday went round to see my friend and ended up helping her with her garden and cleared up some brambles and cut back some plants.

 

Remember those two trenches that I dug a few days ago... well, it was for leeks and today the leeks were planted. The reason that I covered them was because of the little leek fly miner. It is active here until the middle of next month. We had a real problem with these flies a couple of years ago.

We also edged all of the paths on the lottie — what a job! My shoulders feel it this morning.

 

That is so much work! Looks good though!

 

Sjoerd, when we lived in town we used a manual tool that was two wheels with a round saw blade between the wheels to edge the sidewalk. When we moved here I found it did a dandy job edging flowerbeds and the path. This link will give you an idea of what one looks like: https://www.buildclub.com/product/bc4_21121-8483
This would be a lot easier on your shoulder. After all, those cups of tea can be heavy to lift!

 

Did a bit, took a few hours but had not a lot to show for it.

We bought this expensive bit of trellis from Bent's Garden Centre about fifteen years ago. It had been painted witrh a light brown (I won't call it preservative, I think it's just wood stain}. I would have painted with Dulux Woodsheen to match all the other woodwork in the garden, but my wife wanted to keep the original colour.

Fifteen years later and "the bottom fell off." Well the bottom bar had rotted away, so I replaced it with a bit of tanalised 3" X 2" then gave the lot a coat of Woodsheen. I managed to pull the new clematris away from it whilst I completed the work. It's a Cardinal Rouge.

There's a lot going on in this area. To the right is one of my trailcams, in its new location plus the "stop" to stop the garage side door swinging open and damaging it. There also a loop of cable I use to tie the door open when I'm in and out of the door. There's a porch light which passes through the trellis, (I'd put it there years before I bought the trellis).

To the left is the control for my two "pop up" lawn sprinklers.

Further left is a tap, for watering, there's also a connection for the hose on the back of the shed. I weould have done this with "speed-fit," but I did it in the middle of the Covid business when all the plumber merchants were closed. So I used a bit of hose pipe. I've a long piece of hose on the end of the tap. This is handy when filling watering cans if you've put a powder fertiliser in it. The hose, as it reaches the bottom of the can does all the mixing when you turn the tap on, no need to stir it.





Pleased with the number of blooms on my "cascading" wisterias on this pergola. They go blue, white, blue, but this year the two blues are more advanced than ther white.







Tidied up this "Amber" clematis on the fence between the corners of the house and garage. There was a lot of dead wood in it and the rest needed tying up. The fence could do with a coat of paint, I might do that next week, it was previously difficult to get at as there was a huge jasmine in the bed near the door, about eight foot tall in mid-summer, sometimes "I had to fight it to get through the door." But I've cut it right down and left one small branch which has shoots on it. So it'll be more controllable this year.



Gave everything a good water, the ceramic pots on the patios dry out very quickly.

 

It is always interesting to see your trellises!

 

Hiya Jane,
Thanks for that tool link. I can see the merits of this tool, because I need to work on the edges of my bits of grass paths from time to time.

I did not use the right words for the work that we did yesterday though. I was talking about the chip and stone slab paths. On both sides of these paths weeds try and grow and to keep them tidy, I use a schoffel ( or the so-called, “Dutch Hoe” sort. Do you know what tool I am talking about? Here is a picture: https://www.whiteflowerfarm.com/49807-product.html

What I do is to simply place the tool alongside the path and scrape the soil along the lengths of the path. It keeps the paths from being overgrown.

 

@Dirt Mechanic, I'm 100% certain I don't know the answer to your question . I have thoughts, however. (I inserted a quote then messed it up...)

Back when the earth was young and dinosaurs called across the wetlands with their melancholy songs, I used to read the old Rodale's Organic Gardening and Farming magazine. (Actually back then it was the new Rodale's Organic Gardening and Farming Magazine). I remember they liked using epsom salts as a sort of boost for almost anything. I usually don't do that, so I don't know. They also used to add
hair to their compost. Hair has lots of cysteine and methionine (I think) which are sulfur containing amino acids. I think the rationale for onions and garlic was their flavor components contain a lot of sulfur. However, I don't know about tomatoes and peppers. Doing a web search, apparently sulfur is important for tomato growth and flavor (here). However, as Mark Twain famously said, " Just 'cause you read it on that there internet, that don't mean it's a true fact". I do add Rufus's hair trimmings to my garden soil, and he has a lot of hair, so maybe that gives my tomatoes a certain type of terroir.

I've heard of Espoma and always thought it was good stuff.

That's a very nice thing you did for your neighbor

Today I planted the mid-season Kennebec potatoes in the new growing bag, planted the mid season Soraya potatoes in trenches, and found someone to dig the trenches for me to plant the late season Elba potatoes tomorrow.

 

Potted on some more cosmos, done 50 plants. Got some small ones left so I'm going to grow them on and give to my friend. Hubby cut a few branches off the plum tree it's slowly dying.

 

There was some ground elder that needed to be dealt with.
Annnnd the first spud leaves are above ground. This is a high point or us.
When I went to check at the end and discovered those first bashful leaves, I called out to my Bride, “ Is potato” !

 

Today is a bit of a down day with a drab sky. I tied up some tomatoes and watered the spinach in the green house. My son left with all of his care packages this morning. I grew a tomato specially for his Papa ( my ex father in law and still friend). It is a Sub Artic Plenty, designed in the Canadian prairies for a short season and can set fruit in cool weather. He is an old prairie farmer from aways back and health has interfered with his gardening. He was the first one to teach me to vegetable garden when I was 18 years old. He called to say how delighted he was, and especially that it is heirloom and he can keep the seeds. That made me very happy. He's always been a gentle gift in my life.

I washed the soil cables, and did the math to see what I can have plugged in at one time. With the cold weather, it will be one 48 ft cable and two heat lamps for night time. This should keep the soil at 14 degrees for the tomatoes, and keep the chill off the air around the tom's at night for a few weeks. The greenhouse will show up at night to the Iternational Space Station, I'm sure.

I'm hoping by the first week in May I will be able to manage getting some in the greenhouse, but that will be quite lucky. Two more cold nights I think ( -10 C) then highs of 14 and lows of -1 or 0 for two weeks.