What have you done today in the Garden?

Planted up another container with tomato plants and put a lot more plants into the small greenhouse to harden off.
Just itching to get the summer plants in but the spring plants haven't finished yet.

 

We lost another tom plant to a cut worm. I found it and removed it.
We then planted the rest of the toms. Fingers crossed.

I strimmed a lot of weeds inside and outside the lottie and along side the canal.

The spuds got some of our compost. I will plough that in, in a few days. The broccoli patch got compost.

We ended the day by making a work plan for tomorrow.

 

The other front tire on the big tractor came off the rim. The tire guy will be out this afternoon.
The grass hay is now almost two feet high. Managed to get one side of the front pasture mowed before the tire gave up
I did mow the front lawns and perimeter of the property with the small garden tractor Sprayed the perimeter of the property with weed killer and the garden for weeds spot sprayed in and around walkways.
Had a few hose leaks to fix . lost water pressure need to repair the sisters pump. Cleaned out the cistern full of tree roots. OMG…the Leland Cyprus tree roots are water greedy.
The past couple of days temps in the 90’s broke a few high temp records.
Also managed to pull up the wild blackberries the birds plant everywhere. Don’t think I’ll ever get them all out this season.
Finished the grape vine trimming. Took several piles of debris to the compost pile from different areas of the garden.
Have a huge patch in the pasture where the voles have taken up residence. Hoping to finish up the grass hay mowing tonight when it cools down and set traps for the moles…caught one so far . Hope to scare out the voles when I mow as the hawks follow me around the pastures to catch their dinner. Team hunting…
Lots of rhody’s and azaleas blooming. Peony’s , lilacs dogwoods. The magnolias and ornamental cherry trees are done bloomin leaving behind flower petals of pink and white looking as though the garden is covered in pink snow.
And the pollen tornados are in full swing. Soon everything will be covered in yellow . UGH..
Just tryin to keep up with keepin up…
Sooo, that’s what I’ve been up to the past few days. Gotta do most garden maintenance chores early before they get outta hand.

 

Chapeau. You are a hard working person. So impressive.

 

So are you Sjoerd… I enjoy working with and manipulating mother natures plants in various degrees to obtain a lasting effect.

 

Whoooa @Pacnorwest you go !!!!! I’d say pace yourself but obviously I’d be preaching to a professional workaholic.

 

Planted the first row of bush green bean seedlings. I covered with fencing to protect from birds. If any are damaged in am, I have cloches made from gallon water jugs, to cover at night. This is the earliest, by at least a month, maybe six weeks, that I have planted green beans. Most usually get planted in June or July where I dig up garlic and potatoes. They need about 60 days to produce fresh green beans from seed.



With a week in the 90s F, I can't say they need warmer weather for planting.

These were home-saved seeds. Every seed sprouted.

I'll start seeds for another row tomorrow. Plus black Turtle beans, plus some Chinese beans.

It was my big volunteer day so I didn't do a lot more. I did collect the coffee grounds. I don't need them now, but otherwise they go into the trash. I'll compost them instead.

Two days ago I planted two rows of sad looking red onion plants, thinking that my seedling onion plants are so puny. They are perking up now. My seedling onions actually look a bit better now, too. Funny how that happens.



Today I filled the last fabric container in the original planter, and planted peppers. This one contains an over-wintered Thai pepper plus two new Thai pepper seedlings. They don't grow that big for me, so I think the container will hold all three.



I mulched all of the peppers planted so far, with crunchy brown tree leaves collected last fall. The topsoil was drying out too fast and needed cover.

This is two over-wintered Tabasco pepper plants, plus a seedling started from saved seeds. I don't know why they look so different. I don't think I mislabeled them. One got pruned back more severely. Maybe that's it.



There is still a lot of Spring garden work to do. Tomorrow I will drive the pickup to the dirt place and buy more topsoil, then see how far I get filling containers for planter #2. I'm pretty exhausted but it's a one-time job and the time is now. The sooner I get the plants into those, the less risk of them being crispified by the heat wave.

By the way, I guessed the aphid and whitefly situation would resolve when the plants are permanently outside, and that's exactly what happened. No aphids ir whiteflies anywhere.

 

Emptied the 3rd compost bin, I've filled up 2 containers with it and 3 compost bags.

 

Only thing I'll be doing this evening is covering up some plants cause we have a freeze warning overnight.

 

Today the greenhouse was organized so that I can move around to water. The grow lights and heated soil cable are off for now, and peppers could be repositioned. The first Beef Steak tomato has made a wee appearance, and there are about 15 Red Robin Cherry tomatoes starting.

The remaining six peppers were transplanted into the raised greenhouse bed. The cucumbers are up. They will be pruned and controlled this year as not to take over for the peppers. I have enough pickles for a year, so the emphasis is not on cucumber volume this year.

I dug a new wee garden for sweet peas, and transplanted them. The strawberries are beginning to flower, and I squashed my first three lygus bugs. I have this "plan" to put wee bug bags over the newly forming strawberries to try and keep lygus bugs from sucking on the seed points/deforming the berry. We shall see if it works, or if I have the time to keep up.

The squash are coming up which is wonderful to see. The Haskap berries are in flower - first flowers. I've never eaten a haskap - it is exciting as they are rumoured to be the flavour of a raspberry crossed with a blueberry. I helped with a little cross polination to be sure they set fruit. Two apple trees ( crab and Norgold) opened their blossoms. I strung reflective ribbon to try and stop the finches and grosbeaks from eating the petals. The transparent is ready to open and is a bi-annual. It has hundreds of blooms so I hope it sets fruit. They are wonderful sauce apples and the neighbours get excited when it has a good year. I will put reflective ribbon in it tomorrow when someone can hold the ladder for me.

I tied in a ladder and hung bamboo blinds on the outside of the porch today to try and help with the sun. We miss the birch trees that always shaded us on that side. Thank goodness for the other trees. This also shades the few plants I still have on the deck waiting for their permanent home in the garden.

The grass was mowed around all of the berry patches and greenhouse to keep the voles from having hiding spots. I caught what I think was the last greenhouse invader in a gopher trap beside the greenhouse last night. That is a relief.

I forgot to plant cilantro so those seeds were started today. I am outside by 5:30 a.m. to beat the heat but the dew is so heavy that it is insulated wellies until about 10 am. Now is home care time.

 

@Daniel W - great job overwintering your peppers! They look amazing! Is that a first try for you to do that? Would you do it again?

 

Thanks @Melody Mc. I've overwintered peppers before, but it's been a long time and only a couple of plants. They were hybrid Jalapeños and they were more productive than new seedlings. Before I decide to do it again, I want to see how they compare to first season plants. If they are earlier or more productive, I'd like to continue doing that.

The big challenge is aphids, and that is huge! In the end, what worked best was turning the plants on their sides in the kitchen sink and using the water sprayer (gentle) to wash th leaves such that the aphids dont fall back into the soil.

Today I drive the pickup back to "dirtland" and bought another 1/4 yard of just topsoil. I'm mixing that with either peat-based or forest product-based soil conditioner, plus perlite for aeration and drainage. That will fill the final eight growing bags. This year, they'll all contain pepper plants. Next year, maybe, beans or various plants. I lined the planter box with plastic and installed a cinderblock platform inside the box to raise the bags. I filled one but it's hotter than a stolen tamale out there now. The object isn't to get heat stroke, so I'm inside until evening.

I planted the cover-wintered sweet potato vines. I had them in a forgotten corner of the sunroom, roots in a jar of water. They are kind of abused-looking but they will probably recover. Much bigger vines than I started with last year.

I planted more bean seeds. Next, more marigold seeds, zinnias, celosia, amaranthus.

 

Today I filled 4 of the 8, 25 gallon growing containers with soil mix. Three now have their pepper plants.

It was hot. I worked an hour, went inside, showered, drank fluids, rested an hour, then back outside again.

Every cloud has a silver lining. Yes it's unseasonably hot, very much so. On the other hand, I think a lot of crops will start bearing earlier. The challenge will be keeping them watered. Another thing I like is the line-dried clothing is mostly dry in an hour, some in 30 min. i enjoy the crispness of those clothes.

I planted another batch of bush green beans. This time I inoculated them too. We can compare inoculated with uninoculated now.

I also planted some black beans. The variety is "Black Coco". Apparently they are earlier than other black beans, and highly flavored. I inoculated those

Thanks for the reminder! I need to plant mine, too!

 

Worked on leveling the ground where the stump was removed. Went to get grass seed to fill in the bare spot at the local Ace Store since they have a fantastic selection of garden good. The parking lot was so full and so many people coming and going it looked like a foray. I managed to get safely turned around and came home to order online. Will visit earlier in the day tomorrow to see what seeds they have left.

 

Planted up 2 containers with 4 tomato plants in each, still got 3 plants to do.