soaking morning glory seeds

My mom told me this morning that she just planted her morning glory seeds. She said she soaked them overnight in water then planted them directly in the garden. I was pleased to be reminded of the morning glory seeds I saved last year. Mine are have a dark purple flower. My Mom's are blue. I'll have to remember to collect some of her seeds this fall.

community plot work

I did a number of little tasks in my community garden plot today. Its a wonderful place to spend the morning. The lilacs are in full bloom and so many birds singing.

I planted seeds for three varieties of sunflowers, nasturiums, two varieties of soy beans, and a row of radish. I am running out of space, so I am planting along side the beds I laid out. This will make my paths smaller, but why not?

My potatoes, fava beans, onions and beets are doing well. The carrots and parsnips are growing VERY slowly. I transplanted some very tiny and delicate lettuce a couple of days ago and covered it with white row cover to protect it a bit and increase the humidity. Its looking very good underneath.

I started preparing the bed where I will plant tomatoes soon. I marked the locations that 12 tomato plants will go in with little sticks. I need to collect enough poles for these. I noticed other gardeners have tomatoes in already. No rush with mine - the plants are still small.

I made hills in the bed where I will transplant my squash in a few days. The bush summer squash will go in the hills and the vining winter squash and watermelon will climb the fence. I'm still trying to figure out where I can put the cucumbers.

I set up a pot saucer as a bird bath on the far side of the plot. The birds are wonderful in the community garden. So many different songs. I have to look up who sings "old sam peabody peabody". I heard this bird today. My bird house in my plot has a nice pair of house wrens nesting. They are defending the house from a pair of pretty song sparrows. Chickadees are nesting in another birdhouse nearby. Tree swallows swoop all over. A bright pair of Baltimore Orioles was there last evening.

Lastly, I watered everything well. Its been really dry. The dark soil looks very nice with a good watering.

lettuce rows

gardening

I brought my trays of squashes and cucumber seedlings outside this morning to enjoy the warmth and sun. My tomatoes have been outside (in pots) for more than a week now. I'd like to plant them all this weekend. I put some fancy plastic film on the beds where the tomatoes will go. Only my chiles and peppers are left inside under the lights now.

I was amused to find big patches of dill that have volunteered in the path between my beds. I didn't need to go to the effort of saving seed and winter sowing. Such an independent plant!

Today I planted seeds in my home garden beds for pole beans and several types of bush beans (Cherokee wax, purple beans, green bean Provider, and haricots verts Maxibel). I mixed seeds for all of these together and planted them along side the peas. I sprinkled bean inoculant in the soil as I planted.

My dad asked my why I bother using inoculant for the beans. As he said, one plant makes too many beans anyway and by mid-season you're wishing you didn't have so many beans. The package says it improves the soil by increasing nitrogen fixation as well as producing faster plant growth and earlier harvests. My soil is perpetually low in nitrogen levels (I did finally remember to fertilize a couple of days ago), so I think it can use this boost.

winter sowing results

I've opened up my winter sowing bottles.

From the far left (the ones that grew best are bold-type):
Rudbeckia Indian Summer, Tansy, Delphinium Fantasia Mix
Purple Coneflower, Hollyhock Zebrina, Onions White Portugal
Wild Heliopsis, Dukat Dill, Delphinium Magic Fountains Mix
Onions Sweet Yellow Spanish, Shasta Daisy Alaska, Rudbeckia Green Eyes

Most of these did well. Only two pots have no sprouts: the wild heliopsis seeds that I collected and the Delphinium Fantasia mix.

winterplanting

"aerial" view of my plot

Again I survived perching on the tall thin tree stump for an aerial view of my new community garden plot. A few plants are now starting to grow. I have planted seeds for fava beans, carrots and parsnips. Also onion sets and potatoes. Today I transplanted some small beets, lettuce and onions that I raised from seed in pots under lights at home. I think everything in my plot will be from seed this year.

apple blossoms

rock meadow plots

Here are a few plots Skippy and I walked by today. Its great fun to see what's growing in the gardens. One gardener has tomatoes in already, with lots of plastic sheeting as protection. Rock Meadow can get very chilly at night in May! Many gardeners have beautiful spring bulbs in bloom. Onions seem to be a crop that does very well.

rock meadow bluebirds

I spent an hour at my community plot today after a long absence of at least a couple days. I was glad to see the bluebirds are still in the house on the Meadow that they have occupied for a month or so now. I think this probably means they are nesting, in spite of the swallows. I hope they will raise a big family! The photo is not the best resolution - I didn't want to go too close. That's Mr Bluebird on top. I suppose the Mrs is inside.

gardenbirds

new community garden blog

Here's a new idea! A blog written by a community garden. All gardeners can sign in and post. Kind of a bulletin board, photo journal combination. I love it.

Click here: Squirrel Brand Garden Community Blog

I wonder if any gardeners at my community garden, Rock Meadow Victory Garden, would like to do something like this?? I like this format better than a Google Group I think. What do you think???

photos from squirrel brand community garden day

Who knows what I talked about. But it was really nice to meet the gardeners at Squirrel Brand Community Garden. Thanks everyone!

presentation preparation

Well, I'm trying to figure out what a group of gardeners would want to hear me talk about tomorrow morning. I'm talking at 10 am at the Squirrel Brand Community Garden Spring Kickoff in Cambridge. The weather's going to be drizzly, so I don't expect too big a group (my parents are coming, so there will be at least 2 people). Let's see, I should come up with an outline ....

Title:
"The On-Line Community of Gardening: Garden Blogging"

aerial view

Our weather has turned into beautiful springtime the past few days. Temps only went down to 60F last night and the baby tomato plants (in pots still) stayed outside. Everything is growing nicely. I am starting to think that we may not get any more frosts - in my sheltered home garden at least. Yesterday I went ahead and planted sunflower seeds outside. I think bean seeds can go in soon too. Maybe the squash and tomato plants can be transplanted soon! Spring comes so fast once it starts!

I've been looking at the number of seedlings I have, plus the number of bean varieties I want to sow. Its disappointing not to be able to use the space next to my house (lead levels are too high there). I hope I can squeeze everything in to my raised beds and my community plot!

I was able to get the bed next to the house cleared out and planted with a thick cover crop of crimson clover seed yesterday. I planted two rows of enormous sunflowers along the house. And I bought a nice big half cedar barrel so that I can plant a few vegetables in this nice sunny area. Its such a big bare area right now.

gift plants

These are plants my sister and I potted up and gave to my parents for their vegetable garden. I was pleased with how nice they look. Almost like store bought! (I grew them all from seed.) They're a little wilty here because we forgot to water them, but they perked up very well. My dad planted them in his garden immediately when he got home. Nice straight rows. They look great!

The box includes 6 winterbor kale, 6 tuscan kale, 6 red russian kale, 12 broccoli, 6 garlic, 6 red lettuce (mervelle de 4 seasons) and 6 green lettuce (escarole blonde).

cucumber sprouts

Its a good week for planting squash-type seeds indoors in pots. Seeds like cukes, squashs, pumpkins and watermelons (curcurbits)... Maybe the weather will be warm enough to plant them outside next week! We'll see.

Here's what I have growing inside now:

Sowed April 21:
Watermelon (1 3-pack), sprouted April 29 (8 days)
Zucchini, Caserta (1 3-pack), no sprouts yet :(
Zucchini, Cashflow (1 3-pack), sprouted April 25 (6 days)
Summer squash, Sunburst (1 3-pack), sprouted April 30 (9 days)
Summer squash, Zephyr (1 3-pack), sprouted April 29 (8 days)
Summer squash, Starship pattypan (1 3-pack), sprouted April 29 (8 days)
Pumpkin, Big Rock (1 3-pack), sprouted April 29 (8 days)
Gourd, Birdhouse (1 3-pack), sprouted April 30 (9 days)
Cucumber, Rocky (1 6-pack), sprouted April 25 (6 days)
Cucumber, Striped Armenian (1 6-pack), sprouted April 30 (9 days)

Sowed April 27:
Squash, Lakota (1 3-pack)
Gourds, large ornamental (1 3-pack)
Squash, Delicata (1 3-pack)
Pumpkin, Baby Pam (1 3-pack)

Sowed May 3:
Cucumbers, Pickling (1 6-pack)

I plan to plant a lot of these around the fence of my community plot. All the ornamentals (pumpkins and gourds) will go next to my house where there lead levels are too high for growing edibles. I'll mix them with tall sunflowers. I like to make sure I grow a nice big patch of cucumbers, since we eat a lot of these in the summer. About half of these seedlings are for my parents. I haven't counted how many I have, but I think I'm ending up with quite a lot!

transplanted fava beans

This weekend my sister helped me transplant some fava bean sprouts to my community garden plot. At last there are green plants in my plot! I also have a nice rhubarb plant starting to sprout in the corner.

I sowed the fava beans in my home garden - half on March 18 and half on April 11, using a fava bean inoculant.

I hope they will do better for me this year than last year. Last spring, I planted them in my home garden without inoculant and they were completely overcome by aphids. Then I planted them again in the fall and they were killed by the frost before producing any beans. So far, these look good. I've saw some very nice fava bean crops in other plots at Rock Meadow last year, so I know it can be done.

Fabaceae

perfect weather for peas

Its perfect weather for the peas - rainy and cool. I ended up with an whole bed full of sprouts. There are four types:

"Pisello nano": A dwarf plant about 1 foot tall (70 days). Medium sized pods of about 6 green peas per pod. These did well in my garden last year.

"Tall telephone (Alderman)": A new variety of green pea I'm trying this year. 6 ft tall with very high yields. Pods are late and are produced over a long cropping period. The pods are large (up to six inches) containing eight to nine peas each. Introduced in 1878 (75 days).

"Sugar Sprint": A new stringless variety of snap pea about 24 to 30 inches high. Last year these were very sweet and very productive over a long season in my garden (62 days).

"Capucijner peas" (also called "Raisin Pea" or "Monk Pea"): An heirloom soup pea developed by Capuchin monks in the Netherlands in the 1500's. The peas are brown with a rough, wrinkled, raisin-like texture. Flowers are pink and pods a beautiful purple color (90 days).

Pisum sativum

early lettuce

I have two varieties of lettuce outside in my home garden. The red one is Marvel of the Four Seasons (Merville de Four Seasons), the green one is escarole Bionda A Cuore Pieno. I sowed the seeds for these indoors back in early March and transplanted them outside on April 11.

This year, I seeded my lettuce pretty dense in little flats, then transplanted them. (A flat that needs to be transplanted ASAP is on the lower right.) This way I'll get heads of lettuce, I hope. Last year I sowed the seeds directly in garden and found it difficult to thin enough to get heads. Nevertheless, the crowed plants made lots of delicious leaves.

Lactuca sativa