Category: planting

Final days of indoor seedlings

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Remaining seedlings

Yesterday I dismantled the indoor seedling operation and cleaned the area. Reclaimed a lot of space in the living room!

Disposition of remaining seedlings:

  • Four Marketmore cucumber seedlings to plant, joining four already planted last week
  • Four soil blocks of celeriac
  • Twelve soil blocks of Afina cutting celery (indistinguishable from celeriac)
  • 24 tomato plants of unidentified variety. No room for these, so we are giving them away.
  • Five tomatillos that will go into the hoophouse
  • Four ground cherries to be planted in various places
  • Twelve pepper seedlings destined for the hoophouse
  • Four summer squash: two costata romanesco zucchini, one black zucchini, one patty pan (a very late germinator). I only want to plant three.
  • 18 winter squash destined for the community garden or maybe a few in the main garden

I’ve got a lot of planting ahead of me this week with these and direct seeding.

Young red squirrel

Potatoes planted

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Three locations of potatoes planted. One raised bed for fingerlings, a larger new bed for early varieties, and a garden row for later varieties (“keepers”).

Early varieties in new raised bed (smaller fingerling bed in background)
Garden row prepped
Garden row planting in progress

And a bonus photo of Sam sifting manure in the solar-powered trommel:

Manure sifting

Potting and planting

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Seems too early. We’ve always vowed to get a jump on spring and that’s what’s happening. Time on our hands from sheltering in place, I guess.

We potted up approximately 100 tomato, tomatillo and ground cherry seedlings today. I think they will outgrow these containers before ready to plant in the soil which is a worry. But they look nice. We have to move them inside every night and outside every morning.

Potted up

We also planted out a row of broccoli seedlings with a few cauliflower and red cabbage here and there. These are going under row cover. Hope they don’t get too cold! Note the down coat and winter hat Sam is wearing…

Brave little one

Peas etc.

Catherine1 Comment

A big day in gardening at our house. It’s always exciting when we get the peas in the ground. This year they have their own private trellis instead of climbing up the outside of the chicken run. The chickens were not kind to the pea vines last year. We’re planting very early for Maine, but it’s been such a mild winter and the soil was in good shape for planting.

We planted Red Kitten spinach down one side and Winter Lettuce down the other to fill in the bed as the peas climb.

Newly planted peas, spinach, lettuce.

There is also continuing activity in making up soil blocks and caring for seedlings. Tomatoes, tomatillo, ground cherry, broccoli, leeks, shallots, Cippollini onions, cabbage, cauliflower, celery. Started three types of pepper today: King of the North, Jimmy Nardello, and Red Rocket (hot – more on that below).

Small scale soil blocking operation
Broccoli seedlings
New tomato seedlings and peppers getting extra heat under plastic

On the other side of the gardening lifecycle, I decided to process the dried Red Rocket peppers that have been hanging in the kitchen since last fall. First goal was to get some seeds to plant, then I decided to carry on and use the spice grinder to make some home ground cayenne pepper. This enterprise had us coughing most of the afternoon as cayenne particles dispersed everywhere. Sort of like the coronavirus.

Ristreta of sorts with 2019 peppers “Red Rocket”
Pepper seed, skin, and pods

All-weather gardening

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Snow was predicted earlier, but the forecast changed. And indeed we are getting rain, rain, and more rain and strong winds. A real snow melter.

Yesterday in the hoophouse

I thought it would be pleasant enough sheltered in the hoophouse but the temperature was somewhere in the 30’s and my hands became numb almost immediately.

Nevertheless I planted some arugula, Salanova lettuce, and tatsoi in some of the empty rows in the hoophouse. Sam watered them in with the hose. Now we are warming up inside.

Chickens have started laying again, sporadically.

transplanting

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My first day up here when I didn’t have to work. So I was able to enjoy puttering around the house. Moved things around in the woodshed, so the wood can go in there. Some of this furniture may have to be discarded.

I also oiled the butcher block next to the stove for the first time. Once a day for a week.

And oiled the large butcher block – once a week for a month on Friday.

There are a lot of tomatoes that could be harvested – tomorrow.

I took a short bike ride around the loop to the ocean and back around Grant Street. It sure was a beautiful October day out there.

I transplanted the herbs and plants from Connecticut. Wonder how many will make it.

  • Walking onions – back row of garden
  • Comfrey – at head of back row in garden
  • Peppermint – stuck a stalk in the back raised bed; no roots on it, not sure if it will reroot
  • Lemon Balm – a large clump went into the head of the front row in the garden, next to the raised bed; this plant smells great and the bees love it
  • Berggarten Sage – a small clump in one of the herb pocket gardens
  • Feverfew – planted some very tender transplants in the same herb pocket as the sage; maybe it will self-seed like it does in Connecticut
  • Rosemary – put it in a pot because it won’t survive the winter; maybe we’ll get to enjoy it as a houseplant for awhile longer, sure looks nice and healthy
  • Catmint – planted the clump in the triangle right off the deck, should look great there if it takes hold
  • Artemisia – planted it next to the lavender already growing in the perennial bed, around the corner near where the root cellar would be