my garden today

Mom's garden

This morning I visited my Mom and planted more of her garden. It's doing really well I have to say. Much more is planted there than in my gardens. Today I planted seedlings: 7 tomatoes, several peppers, a couple broccoli, some escarole, and a couple each of yellow summer squash and zucchini squash. Also I planted seeds for beets, sunflowers, and nasturtiums. I forgot to take photos. Next time.

community plot planted - finally

May 23! I can't believe I am planting so late this year. Today at my community plot I planted 4 varieties of seed potatoes today, lots of onions, leeks, and green onion seedlings. Also, flower seedlings: heliotrope, marigolds, and bells of Ireland. Flower seeds: sunflowers and nasturtium. The season has been chilly and the estimates are that the weather here is 2 weeks late in warming up. I think I'm another week late on top of that. We had a water problem at our community garden and finally got our water on this past weekend, so it worked out fine that I was late. I planted and then was able to water everything. It certainly has been dry here.

today's harvest

my winter bed in May

I'll be emptying this bed out soon. Tomatoes will go here for the summer. For now, I've left kale and collards to flower for the bees. They love them.

planting cabbages, brocccoli and bok choi

Finally! I've gotten the compost down to the garden (actually my husband did that for me - thank you, Steve!), spread and turn it. Then we hooked up the hose to get some water down to the garden. The brassica bed was ready for planting, so yesterday the plants went in! I have so many seedlings waiting to be planted that I'm so happy to be getting some planted. After planting and watering, I covered the bed with row cover to protect the plants from cabbage worms.

I planted three types of cabbage, napa, savoy and red. Also broccoli: mini and a package that had a mix of broccoli types. And a couple rows of bok choy Pechay.

new asparagus bed

Here's my new asparagus bed. The sprouts are up, so I layered on another 2 inches of soil/compost mix today. I'll add another 2 inches in a few days. The plants should have 5 inches of soil above the crowns.

I squeezed my asparagus row between the fence and a raised bed. There was too much room there to let it go empty, but it's a difficult place for planting. Hard to access. Also, the soil of the lawn below is rocky, compacted, and nutrient-poor. When planting, I layered on compost and did my best to turn it into the lawn soil. The asparagus is now a raised row, so I'll need to make sure the soil stays raised and doesn't flatten out. I'm hoping this will work.

sprouted potatoes

After 3 weeks of sprouting on my window sill, this is how my potatoes look. No, I did not sit and watch them the whole time. ;-) Tomorrow, I have two potato planting events scheduled. I'll help the kids at the Wheelock School in Medfield MA plant their potatoes and then I'll go to my community garden plot and plant my own potatoes. It's potato planting time!!

today's harvest

I pulled a big bowlful of cilantro greens today. I planted these last summer, but they came up and bolted, so I let them go. They self-sprouted a couple months ago. Today, we had a delicious salsa fresco.

sunning seedlings

today's garden work

rake edges of front lawn and clear out winter fallen branches
mow, lime and fertilize lawns
haul 2 truckloads of branches to Town DPW
finish mulching the back cottoneaster and peony bed
fertilize my blueberry bushes

I think I can start on my vegetable garden next!!! Yeah. It's about time.

My Master Gardener class this week was given by a professional landscape designer. I could definitely relate when she said a goal of design is to minimize the amount of lawn and the amount of mulched beds! I've spent 2 weeks tending to lawns and mulching beds. It's a lot of work!

master gardener help line

I'm working as a volunteer at the Mass Horticulture Master Gardener help line tomorrow. It's open MWF, 10-2 EST. Give us a call if you have a garden question. I'm just a student still and will be in the background helping out. The certified master gardener will answer the line. Phone: 1-617-993-4929. Or email us at mghelpline@masshort.org.

spring garden work

-cleaning out perrennial beds
-spreading bark mulch
-fertilizing lawns
-preparing vegetable beds

I had a giant pile of bark mulch delivered in my driveway. I'm cleaning out my perrennial beds and then spreading the mulch. A deep brown color. I'm almost finished with this. Today I bought fertilizer for my next yard project. I have several areas of lawns to fertilize. They're thick with dandelions and other weeds so I'm busy pulling weeds before fertilizing. I did soil tests and one area needs lime and phosphate along with nitrogen. Other areas need nitrogen only. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have time to spread this and water it in. Every thing gets spread separately.

My other project is preparing my vegetable beds. To most, I add 2 inches of compost. I do this every year and turn it under. Beds that will grow beans/peas and root crops (with the exception of onions) don't get compost. That ends up being almost all of my beds. I also have nice winter cover crops growing on beds at my community plot. That gets turned under to with compost. I've started this process and hope to finish this week. I have lots of trays of seedlings ready to plant out soon. The weather and soil have been cool here, but I think it's warming up now. It seems we're about 2 weeks behind the average year this year. I very pleased that I have lots of homemade compost this year. That's a really hard thing to come by. And there's nothing like good old home made!

I hope to show pictures of newly planted seedlings soon!

harvest

Today's harvest. A big head of escarole. A bit bolted, but lots of nice greens.