Heirloom seeds

I have been doing more research on heirloom seeds and found that the Jersey Knight and Purple Passion asparagus I posted as heirlooms are NOT heirlooms.  Sorry for the mistake.

Garden Progress Pictures

These are the Cal White potatoes that I planted on 3/22.  They had white sprouts on them when I planted them.  They have grown enough that they have also been covered with 2 inches of peat moss.  Maybe next year I will take the potatoes out of the refrigerator and get them growing before I plant them.

This is all that has grown on the red potatoes that I planted 3/17.  There were no sprouts on these when I planted them.

The Yukon Gold growing in the tote are a little larger than the red.

The kids have lettuce growing better in their barbecue that I do in my bed.

That patch of green is mesclun.  The lettuce is just two tiny starts in front of the mesclun.  Spinach is on the left, looking like a few weeds.  Behind the mesclun is beets.  The carrots on the back left have not germinated yet.  All of these things were planted on March 29th and 30th.

A few of the peas are coming up good.  There are a lot that are just breaking through the soil and don't show in this picture.  These were planted 3/30.

All-in-all I must say that of the things planted outdoors nothing is doing as well as expected, except the mesclun and the Cal White potatoes.  Everything is slow to germinate this year.

This is cilantro that grows mostly in the shade at my front door.  This is what started growing a few months ago.  It has been in this pot for about 4 years.  Everything you read about cilantro will tell you to grow it in full sun.  All those in this area who grow it with success grow it in the shade.

This is one of the cilantro plants I started indoors from seed on 2/28.  This pot's label says that it holds a 6 inch plant.

Genovese basil that I started from seed indoors 2/28.



Tomatillos started indoors from seed 3/5.  We are going to plant one of these in a Topsy Turvy as an experiment this year.  If you use a Topsy Turvy, you will need to water it often.  Probably more than a normal container.

The Walla Walla onion sets I planted on 3/31 have grown grown quite well.

The garlic planted in the fall of last year are doing good also.

Here is a picture of my rhubarb. These are all the same kind, but for some reason unknown to me, the back three always grow a lot sooner than the front three.  I have one water well dug out so far.  It was full of volunteer violas that I transplanted.

Here is an asparagus plant that is 12 years old.  Ten to twelve years is about the life time of  asparagus.

One year old asparagus.  I won't harvest any of theses one year plants until the third year.

This rosemary plant is in a place where I removed the bed and the other herbs.  I pinned 4 branches that were curving upward into the ground with some tie wire.  I made a "U" shape and turned it upside down.  There is about 5 inches of wire going into the ground and about a 1/2 inch of soil over the wire.  I will check for roots in a couple of months.

This is all of the small buckets of water that I have left.  There has been a lot of evaporation.  The rest has been used on the garden outside and the seedlings/plants indoors.  I am looking for very large water containers for next year to make a better storage system, but I am very thankful for any free water.

Container Gardening withTwo Grandsons

Today, 4/1/11, two of my grandsons and I did some container gardening for them.  The date stamp on my camera is 12 hours off.

This poor little barbecue has had flowers in it for the past 4 years.  When I pulled out the dead flowers and soil the legs fell off.  We will use it anyway.

Here is one of the boys getting soil that was dug out of the potato trenches and put in this bucket.

Here is the other grandson getting compost.

      

Taking turns mixing soil, compost, vermiculite, perlite, and peat moss to plant in.

The bottom of the barbecue was lined with newspaper to hold the soil in.

 

We watered our planting mixture good and then sprinkled lettuce seeds on top.  We found 3 volunteer lettuce plants in the garden and transplanted them into our container. 

    

 Then we covered the seeds with vermiculite, patted it down and watered again.

Empty peat moss bags we are going to plant our potatoes in.

      

Here we used peat moss, potting soil, compost, vermiculite, and perlite mixed together in our bags.  We punched 12 little holes in the bottom of the bag.  We planted two potatoes in each bag and watered them.  As the potatoes grow we will unroll the bags and add more soil until the bags are filled.

Only one onion lover in the group.  We took an empty mint candy container, punched holes in the bottom, lined the sides with a Cheez-it box, and put 4 onion starts in it.

      

Here we are with the first of our container garden.  We punched holes in the bottom of the black buckets and planted carrots just like we planted the lettuce.