Sweet like Syrup

Strawberries...

Mike got home from Atlantic City after making 11th place out of hundreds in the tournament. He took the 4:35am train to Union Station and got home at 9am. So he woke me up on his way in... I spent a good part of the early/late afternoon resting then went out to "Sea Magic" all of the plants. I attempted spraying the tomatoes but they are so huge it's impossible so I watered them, sprayed everything else, and lightly watered the strawberry containers with the magic. Then I picked a few berries. Mike helped and got to try his first ones. Two were sweet but not as sweet as the last. The last one was as sweet as strawberry syrup. It was amazing. Of course it looked slightly mashed but that's how the farmers market strawberries look too. So it was the best one as of yet. Amazingly sweet an the best I've EVER tasted. 

Everything else needs to be weeded, badly. Slugs are arriving and the garden just needs to be tended to in general. I have my work cut out for me on what is supposed to be the hottest weekend yet. If I don't maintain things will start to go to seed and die. So I've got get on it, just not today. Too tired.

The darkest one was the syrup one. 

Tomatoes everywhere.

Green bean plants and slugged lettuce. 

Major Change

Rain Day...1

The weather for the week has luckily changed from all rain everyday but today to no rain except on Thursday when we'll have thunder showers. I'm so glad... My plants need the sun. We've had the rainiest month of May in a long time. I hope July isn't going to be like this too. When we get a rain spring season we usually get a July filled with thunder storms bad enough to take out trees. For now its sunny days ahead, unless it changes again.

Patch Market...

I went straight into PM today and had a look at everything. I wasn't going to water because I thought we were still going to get rain all week, at this point. So I just looked. I noticed that the second rotation of radishes have germinated. They look a little different then the last bunch, darker leaf color, but strong. It may be due to the warmer soil temp or the fact that I plant there before. I should have amended the soil with some compost but didn't. Anyway, I moved over to have a look at the strawberry buckets and noticed that a few of the blooms have berries starting. Not berries like the first one but ones already double the size of the ones produced by the small initial flowers. These will definitely be berries, well hopefully. Then I noticed that most of the blooms and berries on both the buckets and the topsy turvy each had the little dark striped crunchy bugs. There tiny but when you kill them they make a Big Crunch noise. I have no idea what they are but have seen them inside the house all my life and smashed them all my life. I've never once seen them outside. To keep my strawberries safe I went in to get the Cpt. Jack's spray. I sprayed the strawberries then checked the weather. I wanted to make sure the weather still called for rain because it was/is hot and dry. It didn't so I watered everything in Patch, carefully. I didn't want to wash of all the Cpt. Jack's I'd just sprayed. Then I moved into Potagar Schoultz.

First sizable start of a strawberry. Few more but this is the biggest. 

Same bloom in 5G bucket a few days apart. 

Second round of radishes. 

Potagar Watering...

Everything in PS needed to be watered so I hooked up the new hose and hose gun. It was amazing. I watered the entire garden in a matter of a minute. I filled the watering can with the "bucket filler" setting on the hose gun and watered all the potted plants and plants waiting to be planted. Then I grabbed the EcoSmart and sprayed the grass in the far beds, again. I don't recommend EcoSmart for grass it works way too slowly. The party pan and crookneck squash are dying to be transferred they have squash blooms and baby squash starting. The party pan plant bloom basically overnight. They are ready. So I tore the grass up with a large wooden board and mixed it in. We need to get the Corn Gluten preemptive weed killer before it starts growing back and we need to add some compost to the bed to stifle the turned grass and get it to start breaking down. 

It was so hot I came inside but I still have more to do like spray epsom mix and weed. I'll cool off go back out and write a second entry for the one I didn't write yesterday. 

Rain Infinity

Rain, Rain, Rain, Rain & More Rain...

Apparently, its going to rain for the next 5 days straight. If my garden doesn't die I'll be shocked. Today was one of the mild rain days predicted and it was dark and drizzling and humid and gross. Even though it was drizzling I went out to plant radish seeds. Sea Magic was scheduled to be applied today but with all the rain watering with it would have been extremely dumb and spray it on the plants foliage would have been as good as not doing it at all because the rain would have washed it all off. 

So I planted the left over seed tape an seeds right from the package. I ended up using the large plot that I was thinking of using for the other peanut plant, for radishes, because my Mom loved the first harvest so much. The small plots only grew 9 radishes between the 3 so I figured why not and if I thin them out early they should be done by mid-June and then I an use the bigger plot for something else or just plant more if we find a place for the second peanut plant. 

On another not I watched some videos of green beans on YouTube and it turns out the type we are growing don't need trellises. They aren't going to get that tall. So when I rain stops, if it ever does, I'll be moving the trellis out and sticking some kabob sticks in to tie the beans off a bit. That's all the green arrow variety really requires. It sucks because the teepee looks so nice but now I have the trellises to make a tepee I the squash or melon bed, instead of between them. I'll probably teepee the cantaloupes since they only need 1x1 sq foot of space if grown vertically. 

I probably won't be doing much gardening for the next few days and the rain will squelch any picture taking but I will try to run out and check on everything quickly to keep you updated on, hopefully, good or bad progress. 

First strawberry flowers I've seen that are placed on one stem divided into 2 shoots with a flower on each end. Just for your viewing pleasure, not relevant to today. 

Breaking Bad-- TEA?

Compost Tea...

Today, I did a couple side dressing things. I don't know what the difference is between side dressing and just overall care but that's what the label is on Smart Gardener so I am going with it. I don't use the exact side dressings recommended on Smart Gardener because I've done an enormous amount of reading on gardening and growing veggies so I wanted to try a few different things. I started with the compost tea, which was a recommendation, but I didn't do all the crazy stuff they list online like using a bubbler, strainer and extractor. To be honest it reminds me a little to much of Breaking Bad I didn't want to make the equivalent of Blue Sky compost tea. All I wanted to due was add some of the nutrients from compost into my already planted but not composted crops, like my spinach. Smart Gardener suggested that I side dress with compost tea every 3 weeks after the plants are 4 inches tall. Because my plants are supposed to be  harvest-able in like 30 days and there not even close, I decided to add compost tea at 3 inches. See I planted the spinach in the MG garden soil, no perlite. I think it definitely lacks something. So I went about brewing tea. I made a little sache garni with some old cloth, compost in the middle, folded up the ends, and rip tied. I put it in a 14 oz. disposable plastic (heat resistant) cup and poured boiling water over it. I let the "tea" steep for 4 hours as it cooled outdoors and then poured half of the mixture over the soil in my spinach container. I was very careful not to get it on the edible leaves. I only poured half of the mixture because the container didn't need 14 ounces of water. It is probably better to make it a couple days before you need it and water very infrequently before pouring it over so that the most nutrients are absorbed. Anyway, I poured the remaining half into 5G strawberry bucket because it is a "Heavy" fertilizer need plant.

Although, I used the steeped version of compost tea I made an even simpler version. I put a tablespoon of compost in a plastic cup, opened the tap over it, filled, and mixed with a kabob stick until most of the compost had broken down. The mixture was much darker had very little to b strained and only seemed to get darker and darker as it sat. I let that mixture sit for a few hours as well although I'm sure I could have poured it in almost right away. I really only used the steeped version because I'd put more work into it. The chocolate milk version really seemed richer and was much easier. The point of compost tea is to add nutrients that the plants roots can absorb like water. Very simple. You don't need a double bubble, strainer, tubes, Bunsen burners and all that crap. Just water and compost or water cloth/paper towel string/tie and compost. Whichever you like more. 

Epsom Spray....

Like I said I didn't follow all of the suggestions on Smart Gardener to a T. I'd read a lot about the use of Epsom salt and the great affect it has on plants. Epsom salt, not actually being salt but magnesium sulfate, adds nutrients to the plants leaves that produce a bushier, bigger, and sweeter crop. So I mixed one tsp. of Epsom salt into a plant spray bottle shook and went a-sprayin'. I sprayed all of my strawberry plants, the onion plants, the spinach, and the lettuce. All of them were said to benefit. I didn't spray the tomatoes because I put a tablespoon of Epsom salt in the hole when I planted them. I won't spray them for another 3 weeks and I'll let you know if it has a negative or seemly positive affect on the plants I did spray. I left my tests in the greenhouse un-sprayed to compare and contrast the results. 

Strawberry rocks... 

When I went outside to spray I noticed there were a lot of birds about. All of which I suspiciously suspected of wanted to peck at my plants. Because I am so overly protective of the strawberries as you know I ran inside, grabbed my painted rocks, and placed them about. I don't think they are going to work as I've strewn them about just because it doesn't look like they are hanging off the plants. I don't know that the birds are that smart but I rather be safe than sorry so tomorrow Ill glue them to the containers so that they appear to be hanging off the side. CRAZY PLANT LADY - ONE! 

Compost Tea- sache garni (Left) and chocolate milk type mix (Right).