Mammoth Pot leeks

This is my first attempt at Pot Leeks. I've never seen one or ate one, So I don't really know what i'm doing with them. More to come later, you can see my homemade shades out of bed linens. I bought the seed in Great Britain. Maybe I'll find out why nobody grows them in the U.S. I planted them about a week ago.

Trellis I am using for Pole Beans, Watermelon, Cucumbers, and Cantaloupe.

I am going vertical with my climbing plants this year. I have made trellis out of electrical conduit, 8 foot tall concrete reinforcing wire tubes, and I made a pvc tube arbor for Thunbergia ( Black eyed Susan vine). I used bird/deer netting on the trellis, that I bought at Lowe's .

Head lettuce and hoop tunnel with shade cloth.

Here is my head lettuce plants that I planted about the 20th of April, and now one month later. I am watering them daily, and have discovered that they really can't take much sun. I put some burlap over the top for extra shade, I think the shade cloth is only 20% blockage. When I buy more I think I'll get 40 %.

Picloram, Clopyralid, or Aminopyralid damage in Tomatoes, and peppers.

There is a new generation of herbicides being used in the U.S., they are called Clopyralid, Aminopyralid, and Picloram. These chemicals are threatening the entire organic gardening and farming movement. They can be introduced to your soils, through finished compost, manures, lawn waste, leaves, and straw mulches. As little as 3 parts per billion will wreak havoc with tomatoes, potatoes, spinach, lettuce and beans. It takes as much as a year in the soil to break down. If these herbicides show up on certified organic operations, they are automatically de-certified for three years. Even composting will not affect the herbicide.  The American food chain is incredibly contaminated, and now almost impossible to avoid .this contamination. These are my own  plants with pictures taken today. Please call your governmental representatives and get this stuff banned quickly. They make Round-up look like kids candy.

Spring Bloomsdale Spinach

This is the Spinach I planted last September. Spinach can be a little temperamental to grow. If it is too warm or dry it wont sprout. It seems to be both day length sensitive and temperature sensitive, causing it to go to seed.The Bloomsdale Long Standing Winter Spinach, can be fall planted, and easily survives the winter temperatures. Here it is the middle of April, and it it already going to seed, but we started harvesting it the middle of march. So it has it's quirky lifestyle, but it is a great plant if you don't try to fight it's natural parameters. It also makes a nice winter cover and green manure plant when it is past it's prime.

Garlic and French GreyShallots

The garlic and shallots were planted late last October. Really they are very easy to grow. Basically you just have to keep them weeded. I am growing Red Janice garlic, French Grey Griselle Shallots (Allium Oschanini). I was gone at harvesting time last year and my son in law didn't know what the shallots were. I couldn't find them any where, and finally discovered that he had thrown them in a composter, where they cooked in the sun all summer long. But they survived the experience and this is my second year of my own line of shallots. I tell this story to point out that they aren't hard to grow and can take some abuse.

Trench Composting Manure, and Double Digging my raised beds.

I have been trench composting manure and double digging my raised beds since last fall. Double digging doesn't seem too popular in gardening circles right now. I am convinced it is worth the trouble, for maximum production in  quantity, and quality, and size of your vegetables. For each 4 square feet of room in my beds I have worked in two wheel barrow loads of manure. I am in the city so I can't compost it, above ground, both because of the odors it would cause, and the volume that I am applying. I bury each pickup load as it arrives. Even with the freshest manure there is no odor when I am done. I am starting to get some very good soil. This is my third season. It has been a little heavy going. Even though we have had very little rain, the beds are quite saturated with water. If I didn't have such high percentage of organic matter I wouldn't have been able to work them up. They say that the organic matter absorbs seven times it weight in water. No matter how hard the rainfall I don't lose a drop in runoff.

Sugar Snap Peas w Trellis

I planted some of these last December, and then filled them in with more seeds in early march. I set up an eight foot tomato cage for a trellis. I think I'll set up the cage next year in December, and then plant seeds around the perimeter. They vine and climb quite by themselves, with very little help. These are the original Sugar Snap peas, and are supposed to grow six feet tall. They are the non bush variety.

Calcots- Forcing onions

These are my Calcots onions that I have been harvesting. I will have them all pulled by May 1st. They will get hot too eat as the weather warms, and I am going to plant my peppers in their space. I tried to save money last fall by planting yellow onion bulbs instead of white onion bulbs. I don't think it affects taste too much, but it seems to affect the shape. They seem to end up shorter and more bulb like at the tips. The edible portion as you can see is about 12 inches. They are like green onion/ Scallions on hormones. People around here haven't seen any thing like them and were asking what do you do with them. They are very sweet, do with them as you will. It seems that each bulb planted produces about 5 Calcots harvested.

Semi Erect Blackberry Plants w Trellis

For whatever reason the pictures of my Blackberry plants are visited than any other. They are really quite easy to grow and maintain. This year I am only using leaves and straw mulch to feed the plants. Too much nitrogen and fertilizer stimulates the vegetative growth of the plants which really isn't necessary. They fruit off of last years canes. Each year new canes emerge from the roots. The trellis is composed of a post and cross tee at each end of the bed. You can see each side of the post has two parallel wires. One at about 18 inches and the other at about 5 feet in height. As this years cane growth occurs I will tie them to the support wires with cloth rag strips. So then this years berries will be produced on the right hand side of the picture and next years on the left side of the trellis. After the canes fruit and  begin to die back, you cut them off at ground level. When the new canes reach about five feet in height, you snip off the tops, and they will branch out a little. I keep these trimmed backed somewhat too. The plants don't spread by roots. If you want to multiply them, allow the canes to root tip in the ground or a container filled with earth. Plant them about 18 inches to two feet apart. The trellis keeps everything nice and orderly. They are a piece of cake to maintain.

My hotbed plants.

I started these plants in my manure powered hotbed about march 1st. So about seven weeks ago. All in all I had really good germination with about everything. The exceptions were with older seed, which affected the onions and some of the Cole plants. We had the warmest month of march in history, which apparently helped the peppers, as I had very good germination with them. The tomatoes have done very well also. The bed is four feet wide, and next year I am going to narrow it to three feet, to make it easier to manage. Yesterday I sowed eggplant, which I overlooked earlier, some black carrots from Turkey, Thunbergia, Evergreen onions, and various beets for a second crop. I think with this bed, I can start plants all summer long. I'm thinking about starting my melons and cucumbers in here as well, in peat pots. It sure beats plants all over the house, and they are used to the sun as well. Several days ago I transplanted in the bed leeks and celery.

My Sugar Snap Peas are sprouting.

I planted these Sugar Snap Peas with my grandaughter last December 4th. I suspected they would sit dormant and sprout early on. It appears that I was correct.

My 1st Wintersown Sprouts are up.

These are some Broccoli  seeds that I planted in milk jugs last January. They have been outside all winter and are the first jugs to sprout.

A few modifications to my hotbed.

For whatever reason the manure isnt heating up. It's been pretty cold, snow, and one night it was 16 degrees F. My soil temps were a steady 40 degrees. I bought a small electric heater and an insulated blanket that concrete workers use. At night I cover the bed with foam board and the blanket. The soil temp has come up to 60 degrees and the air temp in the upper 80's by day. I have a row of Iceberg lettuce that came up yesterday.

I planted the first seeds in my Hotbed today.

I planted seed for Celery Verde Pascal, Celeriac Giant Prague, Leeks Blue Solaize, and Mammoth Pot Leeks,Lettuce Iceberg, and Romaine,Onions Evergreen Bunching, Chard,Argento and Peppers Chimayo, Baby Belle Tri-color,Melrose, and Carmen. The soil temperature after four days, down  four inches is about 60 degrees, so well see what happens. I've decided to only plant the Evergreen Bunching Onions because they survive the winter and you can dig them all winter long. The soil already was starting to dry out and I had to water after I planted. I sprinkled milled Sphagnum moss on top of the seeds and tamped them down lightly

 Also you can see the foam insulation I am putting on at night until it gets warmer.

Garden Hotbed with sash

So here is what I ended up with at the end of the day. It doesnt look real pretty, but it should serve it's purpose. I bought two of the sash for five dollars each, some body gave me one, and I had some plexiglass and made one for about $15 . The bundle of foam cost $18. So its more or less a $35 dollar project. The picture doesn't show it very well, but the sash slope away from the shed.  Yesterday was the second day and I put a thermometer in the soil. It said it was 30 degrees, which was a little disappointing. This morning it read 30 again, but it got down to 18 degrees last night. I am covering the sash at night with more sheets of foam. Today was sunny and at 5pm the thermometer read 60 degrees.  Im hoping this shows the manure is starting to heat up,because the probe was down about four inches, and even though it was sunny, it was only about 25 degrees and I don"t think the sun alone would have heated up the soil to that depth. I am hoping I can plant my first seeds tomorrow afternoon. I want to plant celery, celeriac, peppers and a few others that grow slowly. I think I'll wait till about the middle of March for the Tomatoes. I think it would be best if all the sash were made of wood. Also the plexiglass is relly nice to work with, but it's probably expensive in big sheets. My bed is four feet wide but three is probably better. Its probably best to round up the sash or old storm windows and the size your bed accordingly.

Getting the Hotbed ready for the windows.

I sprinkled the soil to wet it, and then I mixed up some subsoil clay, type S lime, and manure to make a primitive cement or mortar. I had thought about throwing some Portland cement in, but didn't have any. I was really trying to spend as little money as possible. The purpose of the cement is to seal up and slope the ends. This whole bed is on the south side of a garage, which blocks it nicely from the North and the wind.

My home made sieve and the sifting process.

I read that you should run your soil through a sieve to prepare the seed bed. I bought a three foot long piece of hardware cloth "1/4 inch holes", and then with roofing nails nailed it to the two by fours. Then with last years soil I tried to run it through the screen. This part was really tedious, mainly because the soil was wet and really didn't go through very freely. I had a nice pair of rubber gloves and worked it back and forth with my hands. You can see what didn't pass through. The soil that did was really nice, and should work well for the real small seeds I want to plant. This part was real tedious and time consuming. After I was about half done filling over the manure with 4-5 inches of dirt, I had to give up and used the unsieved soil, which will work fine, I suspect down the road a bit. 

Hotbed, Insulation, and Horse Manure.

I lined the pit with one inch polystyrene foam board, to keep the heat from escaping. Then as you can see I began to back fill it with the manure. As I went I watered it real well with a sprinkling can and packed it tight with my feet. I kind of wish I had put the foam underneath as well. Maybe next year. 

My Hotbed Pit

This is the pit that I dug last fall. In January I piled it full of manure

, and then this Tuesday the 22nd as you can see here, I emptied it to begin the process. I'm not really sure it's deep enough and I think next year I might dig out another six inches or so. This is where I grew my tomatoes last year.

Experimental Garden Cloches

Real glass cloches are so expensive. I saw some today for about $25.00 each, so I am experimenting with some different plastic containers I picked up at Walmart. The white tubs were only $1.50. I don't think much is going on inside of them. It seems the limiting factor with plants is soil temperature. Until it reaches plus 50 degrees not much growth is going to happen.

Raised beds using sand bags.

I have some beds that end on a sharp slope, and I wanted to give them a more definite end. A while back I was in the Honduras and saw them using sand bags to make huge raised beds ten feet high or more on one end. I thought it was a pretty good idea. I think these including sand cost about $1.25 each. The sand bags come with strings to tie them off.