April 14, 2011 - The Garden Mid-April

The mid-April garden is quite a bit behind last year's. Our weather has been consistently about ten degrees below the normal temperatures for this time of year. Nothing has been harvested yet, with the exception of chives, which are abundant.


The North Garden

Lettuce and spinach


Cabbages, lettuce and shallots (back box), broccoli and garlic (front box). It looks like all the garlic and shallots are growing well. My mystery: I lost several lettuce plants, all one variety, Parris Island Cos. In the same area of the back bed, one of the cabbage plants has failed to show the growth that all the others have.


The future indeterminate tomato bed. Please notice that the horizontal board, which is part of the tomato support structure, has been set level. The planter in the foreground is also now level. The last time I showed a picture of this bed, both were way off kilter! There are two rows of radishes on the left side of the buckets, spinach and turnips on the right, and lettuce in the center. The planter is filled with bachelor buttons. The whiskey barrel to the right was just seeded with a lettuce mix yesterday.


The flowers along the fence include Sweet Williams, both tall and dwarf cosmos, lilies, dwarf zinnias, and two leftover broccoli plants right at the front. There is iceberg lettuce under the ladder. Not visible in this photo (off to the right) are hollyhocks, cone flowers and Shasta daisies.


The raspberries are way behind last year's growth.


My poor "renewed" strawberry bed looks awfully bare.


I'm glad I moved a few of the strawberry plants to two of the whiskey barrels!


If our night time temperatures ever get out of the thirties, I'll be planting my Fortex pole beans on both sides of this fencing, with carrots in the front. On the other side of the fence, in the kennel, are radishes, lettuce and mesclun. The morning glories are planted at the back corner, and some nasturtiums seeds have been scattered here and there and may or may not survive if it gets too shady. I see a lot of volunteer sweet alyssum, which will be allowed to grow. Not shown, to the right, is where the Chinese Red Noodle beans will be planted, with more lettuce plants in front of them. There is unprotected lettuce all around the garden, and evidence the birds have been enjoying it.


The East Garden

I bought a bale of straw today, and began spreading it on the paths of the east garden. Not for weed control, which isn't really much of a problem in my garden, but for mud control. I'm so tired of cleaning mud and dirt off of my floors, where I track it in every single day! I got half of a bale spread today....in the wind. It looks a bit messy right now, but it should pack down and look neater before long. It looks like I'll need at least one more bale to finish both garden areas and the kennel, but it's very reasonably priced at out local feed store, at $4.99 a bale.


Spinach, both plants and seeds, are in this bed. There are also turnips, beets and Swiss chard seeded here, as well as parsley plants.

Not shown, the next two beds which are not yet planted, except for a few leftover lettuce plants.


This bed, which is one of two that will be planted with sweet peppers, has a foot-wide intensive planting of carrots all along the left side, and more of the lettuce plants along the right side.


The Walla walla sweet onions are growing, but slowly. They are much, much smaller than last year's April onions.


Cabbage (left) and broccoli (right) interplanted with yellow storage onions. The onions are peeking through the soil, just not visible in this photo.

There is one more bed at the end, planted with sugar snap peas that have yet to germinate.


33 comments:

  1. Oh your garden is looking so good. I'm struggling with the cool weather, too. We should be in the upper 70's and I'm still walking around with a sweater on.

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  2. Thanks, Lynda. Yes, we should be hitting the 70s, and we're lucky to get up to 61F.

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  3. We had snow again today north of you, and expect more tonight. I just bought supplies to make a hoop house because I am thinking with this weather acting so weird it might be the only way I get anything to grow up here. My neighbors do say though that the weather has really been weird for the last year and that snow this late is not the norm. I know when I lived here in NE Washington before we had 3-4 month growing season. This time I am further north so I will be lucky to get 2-3 months. We will see. I am buying seeds for zones 4-5. Barn should be started next week, so here's hoping!
    Adele

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  4. Gosh, I would ask you to send some sun my way but it doesn't sound like you have any more of it than we do.:( Looks like your garden is off to a good start nonetheless, we have also been planting out hardy greens that can handle the frosty nights...don't expect too much growth out of them until it warms up though. I like the birds on your ladder.:)

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  5. Adele, I hear you! We're so lucky to have such a long growing season here in the Mid-Columbia, I guess I should stop complaining when we have an occasional cool spring! I used to live in Baker City, OR, and I know how difficult it is to raise a good garden in the colder zones. Last year my garden got off to a good start with a warmer than normal spring. Then it turned cold and all the growth slowed. At least this year's garden will be used to cool temperatures!

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  6. Mr. H., I like those birds, too. They don't eat my lettuce! Unfortunately, the frogs at the base of the ladder don't eat any bugs, either ;-) I wish I had a real live toad, like I had in the garden at my previous house.

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  7. Granny, everything looks darn good! I like that bucket idea, but I'd have to really beat Cecil to try it...old fashioned <his middle name ;o( besides I hope I have remedied that situation with the deer net when I'm ready to plant..(like you did with tulle)

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  8. Wow, you have an amazing garden, Granny. You have been hard at work. Everything is so neat and tidy. I am still trying to be rid of all the weeds. The rain rolls in every couple of days and up pop more of them! At this rate I will never get ahead. Thanks for sharing your wonderful gardens with us.

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  9. Everything looks great! Raspberries are looking good. :)

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  10. Well, Ginny, you know what they say about teaching an old dog new tricks ;-) My Mr. Granny is a stubborn old fool, too. But I kinda like him, so I think I'll keep him around.

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  11. Lorie, it's been an easy garden to keep weed free with very little work. I hope I'm not introducing a bunch of seeds with the straw I'm putting down! I might be crying the weed song myself by mid summer!

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    Katrina, I'm keeping my fingers crossed I didn't prune my raspberries down too low. Last year they were so tall I had to weave the canes down onto the wires to reach them! If this year's raspberries are as good at producing as last year's, I think I'm going to turn the strawberry bed into a second raspberry bed for next year.

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  12. I think we all got a little spoiled from last year's early warmth. I can't believe how far behind everything is compared to last year. But, when I drag out my journals, this year IS normal. And yes, snow showers this weekend. But, on a bright note, I have a half million blogs I follow that show me green growing things, so I'm a happy camper!
    And again, I gotta say it---I SO LOVE how NEAT your garden is.

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  13. It looks like things are going great - well except for the mysterious disappearances. Maybe they are related to my garden. I had my husband and my townhouse mate loosen the soil in a circle around where the peach trees were going. And with the round circles of the watered blueberries it looked like aliens and crop circles. We were all making jokes about it.

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  14. Everything looks great! Are you not growing peas this spring? Mine are taking FOR-EVER and making me crazy, although they are healthy and full LOL, but I have to complain about something :)

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  15. The gardens look so very good and will soon fill in once you have some significant sunshine. I am just beginning to add compost to my raised beds and hope to plant out some spring seedlings this weekend. Our nights are still pretty cold, but the last of the snow in the yard should be gone by Sunday.

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  16. The garden looks beautiful even if it is dawdling this spring with the cooler than normal temps. Our day time highs have been in the mid to upper 40's and that is it. We should be in upper 50's low 60's by this time of year. Everything is just poking along in the garden as a result. My overwintered spinach patch just cannot seem to get any energy for putting on the spring flush of growth and sadly In about a weeks I will need to pull it all out as that is the bed the tomatoes are to be planted in. The new bed of spinach is germinated but so small you cannot even get a picture of it. I expect this will be one of those years where suddenly it warms up (late) and the spinach will then all bolt. It's a good thing I have a great crop of kale and swiss chard coming along as this is shaping up to be a bad spinach year.

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  17. No worries. Those strawberries will be sending runners and taking over in no time! Hopefully the raspberries are putting effort into fruit production rather than cane and leaf, thats all. :-D Nice lettuces. Mine are nearly done now.

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  18. Sue, when I compare photos, my garden is behind 2010, but about on par with 2009. Much of it is even a bit ahead of 2009, because I was direct seeding most everything in 2009. So yes, it was our warm spring last year that is most easily remembered.

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    Erin, did you miss my very last sentence, LOL? But the peas are still a no show. I did get them in late, as I wasn't going to plant any, but the seed rack called to me one day and I couldn't resist.

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    Rachel, I've been taking a chance that the weather man might be right, and our lowest temperature will be 37. He's lied to me before though, so I don't know why I'm trusting him now!

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    Kitsap, my lettuce and spinach are the only things that are actually ahead of last year, because I started them inside early, and got them hardened off early. The direct seeded spinach is behind though.

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    Barbie, I know. That's why I put so few in the big bed, as this variety has such abundant runners I can't keep up with them! They were so tightly matted in their second year, I didn't get a great harvest from them. Maybe I can keep some of the runners at bay this time. I think I'll take my first salad from the lettuce and spinach this weekend. I need a Harvest Monday!

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  19. Hi, Daphne...I missed your comment (Alicyn is demanding my attention this morning). The lettuce plants looked as though the roots had just rotted. It was just the one variety, and only one of those eight seedlings grew really big and healthy, the others were all rather puny with four of them dying. None of my other lettuce plants had any problems at all, and they're all planted in the same batch of compost. Just one of those garden mysteries.

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  20. Well, duh! I'll blame my lack of brain cells on the boys LOL!

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  21. Ya, Erin, those THINGS will make you lose brain cells really fast. I raised five of them, so I know what happened to mine ;-)

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  22. I'm somewhat pacified that everyone is having cooler than normal spring! We're even predicted some flurries this evening(: Plants are not liking it one bit!

    Your garden is much more ahead of ours and looks great to me!

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  23. Random, I'm glad to hear my garden isn't behind everybody else's!

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  24. Granny, I think that we all got spoiled last year....everything was so early.

    It all looks good to me!

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  25. Robin, it's a good thing I got the pictures yesterday, 'cause today is cold, wet and gloomy. Again.

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  26. Mama always planted her beans on Good Friday, no matter the weather.

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  27. LOL, NellJean, that could be quite a spread! Last year it fell on April 2, which is way early for planting here. This year it falls on April 22, so that will be very close to the date I'll be planting them.

    You piqued my curiosity, so I checked my bean planting date for 2009, the year I kept a journal. My first planting of beans actually went in on April 9! I remember them being an excellent crop that produced very well! Maybe I will plant earlier.....as soon as this rain stops. I should know by now not to trust my memory at my age ;-)

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  28. Wow! You are so on top of it! I haven't even finished cleaning out my beds yet. Maybe I had better get on it.

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  29. Katie, I see sunshine this morning, maybe it will make the spring veggies grow a bit faster. I'm getting anxious to plant my summer crops!

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  30. Looks like you have a good amount of things growing even with the colder weather. I really need to start planting some stuff outside next week. It is still rather cool here but it has been sunny.

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  31. Dan, I planted more today. The sun was shining, and it was warm enough to garden in shirtsleeves until early afternoon, then the darned wind came up and the temperature dropped again.

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  32. Had to drop by and say the the level tomato bar and planter look much better! LOL. And the rest of your garden looks wonderful, too, even if it is slow.
    I so would not be complaining about cooler than normal temps; I'd be singing hallelujah and Praise The Lord at the top of my lungs!
    On the upside of warm, I do have an almost ripe tomato already, so the heat is good for something!

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  33. Thanks, SB, I think so too! Now to figure out how to keep the raspberry posts plumb.

    Oh, what I'd give for a ripe tomato!

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