Rainy day update

April 13, 2014

After several beautiful days of spring (temperatures about 70 F!) the rain  and cold have returned.  I did get a fair amount of work done over the weekend getting most of the fence "rabbit proofed" and some preliminary tilling done.

Unfortunately, my tiller died*, so I spent the morning taking it to the repair shop (ouch!).  The kale and spinach shown in the photo are actually doing nicely and we have been eating both regularly.  The arugula is actually starting to flower, so I put out another row, as well as a row of Bok Choi since both can certainly take the cold weather.  I also cleaned up and started my "fountain" and put in a bunch of watercress that we picked up at the Bloomington Farmer's Market this last weekend.

The weather certainly looks bad for the coming week, and hard frosts are predicted for tonight and tomorrow night*.  To be safe I brought my seed starter indoors.  As you can see most of the beans and squashes have germinated and are doing nicely--all we lack is warm enough weather to transplant them!

*UPDATE  (04/15/2014)

Woke up this AM with about 1/2 inch of snow on everything in the back yard :-(.   The forecast for tonight is a low of 24, so I may lose most of my leaf veggies.  That is the bad news--the good news is that J & S called and said they were able to get the tiller working!

When spring explodes!

Today was a perfect day!  The temperature hit 70 in the afternoon and it looks like every spring flower decided it was time to bloom.  While some of the crocus have been out for over a week, and the daffodils slightly longer, today everyone joined in.

The back yard suddenly became purple this afternoon.

The ftlowering cherry will probably be in full bloom by tomorrow.

 

Daffodiles are everywhere.

Trillium and bloodroot are up.

Even these little guys decided today was the day.

On the gardening side, most of the seeds have germinated and the rabbit fence has been started (more later).

More signs of spring!

April 5, 2014

It was actually sunny today for the first time this week  so I went out to check the mud and empty the rain gauge (4.1" since March 29).  It has been a little over two weeks since I first saw the rhubarb starting to emerge from the ground.  I decided to see how it was coming this morning and it certainly looks healthy!

I also checked to see if there was any other activity worth noting and, lo and behold!

This is the first sign of the new asparagus bed I put in last spring.  I have about eight plants of several different varieties, and I can see at least for or five spears coming through the mud.

Peas!

Each year I manage to plant peas (sugar snap) earlier than I should.  My grandmother Huffman always said she planted them on Valentines day.  Since we are 100 miles north, I assume this translates to about two weeks.  This year the peas were the first thing to actually be planted in the garden--March 22nd.  The ground was just barely dry enough to use my cultivator/tiller on, but it worked up OK.  Below is the result as seen on April 04!

There are probably 6 - 10 that have sprouted in the last two days.  I had to walk through the mud to get this photo.  We have had 4.1" of rain so far this month (notice--that is only four days), so they may wash away!

Growing potatoes the modern way

For the past two years I have tried growing potatoes in my back yard garden with moderate degrees of success.  I decided this year to approach the potato growing in a scientific way.  What I am describing is actually not terribly scientific--for example I did not apply for external funding--but I am going to keep track of what I did and whether of not it worked.
Naturally, I started with a comprehensive literature search which allowed me to come to the following two conclusions:

1. There are hundreds of ways to grow potatoes.
2. There are hundreds of ways not to grow potatoes.

The one thing which really stands out is that if you can successfully grow potatoes, it is necessary to write it up for a blog--either your own or someone else's.  The blog entries also fall into two categories:

1. The successful ways to grow potatoes, which means you write up how you did it at the end of the season after you forget what all that you did; and 
2. The unsuccessful ways, which means you carefully describe what you did at the first of the planting season then never mention potatoes again.

Being cheap I did not buy seed potatoes, so I may be introducing all kinds of blights etc. into the garden.  My wife saved a half dozen bakers that had started to sprout and I had a basket of small potatoes from last year that had also started sprouting:

Following everyone's suggestion I cut the larger potatoes into segments and let them dry for two days on the picnic table.

The next step was to prepare an area in the garden.  I picked a spot by the back fence which was about 5' x 5' and tilled it (using my cultivator) to a depth of about 8" (as deep as it will go).   A layer of relatively recent compost was then added, as well as some well composted leaves.  After tilling this mixture I installed fence posts in each corner and used chicken wire to enclose the area.

  

I then split the remainder of the bale of hay into sections about 6" thick and placed them on the prepared surface.

Slots were then created in each of the sections and the potato started placed on a small amount of leaf compost in the slots and the crevices between the six sections.  Following this the potato starts were all loosely covered with a layer of straw, and the bed thoroughly watered.

Now, if you find this is the last entry on potatoes on this blog you will know that none of this worked!  I am actually confident that I will have at least some success, so I will keep you informed.