Providing that everything doesn’t get frozen in next few weeks. I should have some nice things to look forward to. Like these cool petunias: They are called Superbissima Giant Alba Petunias. They are one of the few things that I started January 1st that didn’t die off when everything froze while I was at the Sooner cup. I have about 8 types of different petunia seeds that I’m trying out this year. Can wait to see what they all look like when it’s completely open.
I have a very ambitious plan for most of my weekends, his past one I potted up a whole bunch of my starts: Cucumbers, Pineapple Tomatoes, Pink Bumble Bee Tomatoes, Pink Jazz Tomato, Tropical sunset Pole Cherry tomatoes, Luffa Gourds, & Nasturtiums.
For the new starts, I was able to pull over 4lbs of worm castings from the worm bin!!! I’ll be spreading the casting around to all the plants this weekend. I also started some compost tea this week, so I have been watering everything with it all week. I should have used it all up by the end of the weekend.
I really should just breakdown and buy a turbo shifter for collecting the castings. My back was pissed at me for days after I sat on the floor pulling the worms from the castings. I also need to remember to not water the bin for a week before hand. The castings were too wet, that’s why there were so many small worms at the bottom of the bag.
The rest of them weren’t ready but they will likely be this weekend. (Chervil, Celery, Summer Savory, Zinnias, Fennel, Charentais cantaloupe melon, Aji Cachucha peppers, Chocolate Beauty peppers, Mini Bell Pepper mix, Sweet Chocolate peppers, Thai Purple Ribbed eggplant, Black Beauty Eggplant, Romanesco Broccoli, Cauliflower De Jesi, Zebrune Shallot, and Thai Basil,) It’s a lot of plants. I also wanted to start a few more for the season last weekend, like tomatillos, a few more flowers, along with more dill and cilantro.
Since the heat mats showed up on Tuesday, they are germinating really fast. The eggplants and peppers are finally starting to show some more growth too. I guess it just wasn’t warm enough for them in the house. Not really a shocker, since I turned the heat off a couple weeks ago. Even though it’s still almost freezing at night, the house is still getting some sun inside during the day so the solar gain keeps it quite nice.
The most exciting thing is that I have some fruits forming on the lemon/lime bush. Looks like there will be 4 lemons and 2 limes this go around. Once I’m back from the work trip, I’m going to start moving it outside for periods of time to get it ready to stay out there for the summer.
The sweet potato slips should be ready to go into pots this weekend. They have roots, I just need them to get a bit larger before I put them outside.
Speaking of outside….
They turned the water on down at the community garden, yippie. Now I am hoping that the asparagus will grow better, now that it is getting more water, same for the garlic. The plot looks much better with the border completed. I still need to work on the south plot.
I might actually start on figuring out the irrigation this coming weekend too. I think I’ll start with the section of yard on the east side of the house.
It’ll be the most straight forward section. There are just those troughs, two raised beds, 1 whiskey barrel and the one grow bag to deal with. It’ll be easy to run the main line and feed off the other lines from it.
These are the few lil things that were hiding behind that rain barrel/chairs in the other picture.
The garage area should be easy enough. Like the east side, it’s a main line with just some drip emitters coming off it for each pot. What makes the garage area more complicated is the number of lines I’ll have to pull from the main line. There are a lot of individual pots here. Too many, I just can’t help myself either, I keep adding more.
There is this one bed that I just finished setting up this week. That I’ve decided to make into a “3 sisters” bed.
That means I’ll try growing corn, squash and green beans. I kind of did that last year in the north plot minus the squash. I’m just going to have to watch for the squash bugs invasion. That was the problem I had the last time I tried to grow watermelons in this area. I’m also going to put a couple grow bags next to it with Fennel, maybe that will help keep them away. True to form, I’m shuffling the pots around each time I add one, to make it look more pleasing.
The rest of the yard is looking much better, now that I’ve cleaned up the fall debris and the trees are all greening up.
I’m still not happy about those houses behind mine. There was NO reason they had to make them sit 10 feet higher then mine. I guess I should just be happy that the blue spruce tree block most of their view of my yard.
I love this view of the yard:
