Cats and Dogs!

I know this sounds extremely familiar and I am so hoping that this summer is not a repeat of last because it has rained, almost literally, cats and dogs. Pouring, nonstop, for 4 full days. Not one stream or beam of sunlight in just as many days. It's been unbelievably gloomy, dark, wet, and humid. Luckily, those days occurred in April and I am attributing them to April Showers. That's all it better be because last summer was rain, rain, and more rain. The most rain in the DMV area in 20 years or something along those lines. Quite possibly it was the most rain in the history of the DMV because they ran an article on it in the Washington Post, it may have been 20 days straight of rain (I don't I'll have to look into it.) 

Good news, the rain made everything flourish. I thought it would drown my tender seedlings but it didn't. There were 4 inch deep puddles surrounding every raised bed. It was unbelievable when I woke up this morning to sunlight and warmth. I ran outside breathed in the warm air and headed straight for my boxes. Everything looked amazing! There were even red berries on the strawberry plants I've yet to install in their permanent spots! 

The radishes grew in groups and the lettuce seeds have popped through. The romaine seedlings are a vibrant green and the strawberries that are planted look, just, OK but that's good enough for me! 

Radish seedlings (L). Grew in tight groups. I'll have to do a fair amount of thinning. Romaine lettuce green as ever (R)! Lemon Boy tomato plant (Bg). 

Lettuce seedlings (L) popping through. Sweet basil (R) greener then the day I bought it. 

Potagar Schoultz

Patch Update...

Today I didn't work on my garden except for watering and setting out the greenhouse. I noticed that the first carrot seeds started to germinate, there are only 2, so far, but I still have a few days. I hope they'll all come out but if they don't I'll have the time to replant. I didn't work on my garden but I did work on the Potagar.

Setting Up...

It was a beautiful warm Saturday with a nice breeze, Mr. S. was home and working on his garden. I woke up early but didn't get up until about noon. I stayed in bed watching Big Love. When I finally made my way up and out I saw that he'd built 4 out of the 5 beds. He had them laid out just as they were built and I asked "is this how you plan on setting them up?" He said "No I just built them and put them down. I still have one more to build. I think we might put one next to your bed [in Patch]." I thought about how I'd set up the raised beds in the measured space on Smart Gardener and about how I could have gotten the measurements so wrong. It didn't seem like all the four by four beds would fit around the four by eight bed. Next thing I knew I had the measuring tape out, had grabbed a built 4x4, and started moving it . Nobody was out back at this point so I thought I could easily try a few different positions out...

So I started rearranging and it turned out that I hadn't measured "so" incorrectly. I was a little off but not as off as it seemed. I moved the large bed into the middle and put 2 small beds on the left and 2 on the right (one was just the box of the bed that had yet to be put together). I thought it looked good but needed to get approval. I asked Mr. S to come take a look, he liked it but said I had to get Mrs. S to approve. One the conditions of Potagar Schoultz was that it made the yard look beautiful. He asked her to take a look and she liked it but thought that the yet-to-be-built bed should be left that way. Once I explained that it wouldn't take more of the space to the right she was in, I think she loved it! So I started putting together the last bed and set it in its spot. It looked good, GREAT!

Next Step...

The next step was to lay out the newspaper to kill the grass and weeds. Mr. S asked me to do that while he went out for a few minutes. I said that I would and went inside to grab a bunch of paper. I laid it all out and then realized that, that nice breeze was blowing it all up. I laid bricks, a rake, a hoe, and extra bundled up paper in the middle of each bed to hold it down. After I finished all of that I realized that those items wouldn't hold each and every end. I thought of how I could keep everything down while we added soil to each bed. I knew that we weren't going to do it right away and that when we did, it would take us some time. So, I watered the paper. Damping it did hold it down but I got soaked from the mid-thigh down. The hose isn't spraying properly anymore. I moved on to moving everything out of the way of the cement walk. We needed it cleared to roll the wheelbarrow back and forth. I finally grabbed the wheelbarrow, rolled over to the compost heap, and started filling it. I got it about half way full when Mr. S got back with lunch. I stopped cleaned up the remaining paper and went in to wash up for lunch. I was a hot mess from shoveling compost. It was the part I knew would be the most trying... 

After Lunch...

I took an hour break for lunch and to watch a little more Big Love. At around 3pm I went back outside. Mike's Dad was out there filling up the barrow for the 3rd time. He had almost filled one full 4x4. I helped him fill the wheelbarrow, add Perlite, fill more, add more Perlite, mix, wheel, drop in beds, and rake out what didn't drop. We did this 7 times. We filled two beds to the top and just added enough compost to the other beds to hold the newspaper in place overnight. The paper had dried by then. After that Mr. S went inside and I cleaned up the empty boxes, bags, and moved the wheelbarrow back to the heap for tomorrow. I was exhausted. I went in to shower, have dinner, and relax.

Later that day...

I took the print out from SmartGarden and started writing down the number of each plant we still needed and whether we needed seeds or seedlings. As I did that I realize that we had a large amount of certain plants to buy and they happen to be the ones that weren't favorites. For example, it was listed that we needed 16 sweet basil plants. I changed a couple things around so that 1 bed is dedicated to cantaloupe and the other to watermelon. I removed a few of the tomato and basil plants and added a few of the varieties with low yields  We're completely set for 1 more Home Depot trip if they have sweet potatoes if they don't we'll have to make one for trip for that. Once we buy everything and add the rest of the compost we'll be ready to plant each and every single seedling and seed minus the sweet potato, peppers, and watermelons. Those will be left inside until it heats up a little more. They like warm and long hot days. We're still in the "cool" time frame. It's going to look amazing with most of the things planted and even more amazing with everything planted!

Full View of all 5 beds from driveway gate.

Large 4 x 8ft. bed and left side 4 x 4ft. top corner bed.

Final Potagar Schoultz lay out.

Sugar Baby!

Watermelon...

Today was not much of a gardening day for me. It rained this morning so the outdoor bed in Patch, the Topsy Turvy, the spinach and the 5G strawberries was watered sufficiently. By the time the rain had stopped the heat had broken. It did warm up quite a bit from last night's chill but it wasn't even close to the 90's. The cooler weather isn't meant to last which is okay with me because the watermelon seedlings like the heat. The rest of my plants can tolerate the kind of heat we're looking towards; high 70's and low 80's. As I was putting out the greenhouses and checking on things I noticed that there were 4 watermelon plants. Three in one neat row and 1 in another newspaper pot. It was interesting to me that they sprouted where they did. They sprouted in 1 row to the far left of the pot.I'd originally planted 4 seeds in each corner but my guess is that the first watering washed them around. I take care to water gently when planting and otherwise so that I don't over-water but it seems that didn't matter much in this case. Like I mentioned before, the watermelon seeds actually germinating were my "reach." I told my mom this and she said that, that was weird because "in Honduras people spit [the seeds] out all over the backjard and they grow, with a lot of melons." I replied saying that was probably due to the heat and of course her reply was "well I used to see them growing all over the mountains where it was cooler and they were so big the men had to carry them on the shoulder." I'm still excited though and feel like the seeds germinating proves my green thumb but disappointed about the fact that they've germinated lined up in one tight row because that means that I won't be able to separate them to give the extra's away. I'll have to transplant all 3 and thin the weakest. The 4th germinating seed, in a separate pot, unluckily isn't looking very strong, which makes sense, I planted four seeds in that pot and only one has shown its little face or large face, if you're thinking comparatively. I forgot to check if one pot was primed and the other wasn't if so I'll let you know the results in tomorrows blog. 

Topsy Turvy...
Everything else seems to be doing really great except for the Topsy Turvy. One plant died and the other I was able to revive but the ones that are in there and not dead aren't looking too good. I feel like all the roots were dragged down out of position when I added the layers of soil and watered. I am so happy that I got extra's. I knew that the strawberry was the one thing I wanted results from because they're my favorite fruit and because of last years death. So the extras were a must and I am so glad I did buy them. If the Topsy Turvy doesn't end up working out (predicting that will be the case) I'll get at least (hopefully) 5 pints from the 5G bucket and 2 from the other container I plan to fill with the remaining plants. That should be enough to satisfy me, this year anyway. 

Home Depot...

Hours after tending to my gardening at home I made a trip to Home Depot for Mike's dad. He wanted to get the other 4 raised beds that he needs for his garden, Potagar Schoultz. I offered to do it so I did. I went to Home Depot asked someone where they were and once directed headed out to the Garden Center to get them. I thought they would be much heavier so as I looked for the right size I was plotting how I would get them on my cart and into the car. They turned out to be extremely light. So light I was able to carry two at a time up the hilled driveway when I got home but we're not there yet. I found the right size in 2 places and picked the spot where they were on the ground to choose from. I picked one and noticed that the grooves weren't cut out all the way so I put that one back and carefully looked through each one, picking the 4 best I saw. Once I had them on my cart I went over to the vegetable plants just to have a look. It turns out that Home Depot has recently switched from cool weather to warm weather veggies. The last trip they didn't have squash, cucumbers, zucchini, or cantaloupe. This time they had all of that and a million tomato varieties. I wanted so badly to pick up a squash or zucchini plant and maybe even a melon plant but I resisted. I knew that I didn't have space in my garden and Mr. S didn't say I could pick up anything for there garden. After taking a look at everything and really just admiring the plants I headed inside to take a look at the seeds. I figured if I couldn't grow any of those seedlings because I don't have the space I could at least test growing them from seeds. I've had such a great time testing everything. So I picked up a packet of zucchini seeds and kept looking. I realized that zucchini needed 36" so I put them back and grabbed a packet of crookneck summer squash (only needs 18') I figured maybe I could find a space for one 18 inch plant if it did germinate. I just couldn't resist. So I grabbed the packet and forced myself to leave because if I'd stayed I would have ended up picking out 7 more seed packets to "test." 

I headed over to the indoor garden space at the front of the store where they keep the Perlite. I know, I know I said that if the Bulk-man said that Mr. S. didn't need to add Perlite then he shouldn't waste the money. The thing is I tested some of the compost and it didn't have a drainage problem, not at all, but I could see it happening. So if Perlite can only help and not hurt then I figured it was better to be safe and add/buy the Perlite. For all of that compost he would only need 5 bags at $4.00/bag. I think the $20 is well spent considering that the beds were like $300.00 and the compost was $118.00. Why potentially waste all that money plus all the money on the 72 individual plants needed to fill Potagar Schoultz when $20 on Perlite could eliminate any potential problem with drainage. Plus, I think the Perlite makes the compost look more aesthetically pleasing, again worth it for $20. You put all this work and money into making something produce well and look nice so why not? 

I paid loaded the car and got everything into the backyard, or like my mom would say the backjjjard, all on my own. I was happy to do it and happy to be given the task. I've been getting so used to having a lot to do outside that today would have been a little dull without it.  

Bush Sugar Baby, planted in 4 corners, germinated at 7 days in a row.

Single Bush Baby in 2nd pot.

Revived strawberry plant from near death in Topsy.

March 29 - April 10, 2013

Seascape, died in root dragging dry-out during Topsy transfer.

Greenes Fence cedar raised beds, 4ft. x 4ft. x 7in.