March 19th and 20th Planting

So according to the Old Farmer's 2014 Almanac March 19th, 20th, 28th, and 29th are the ideal dates for planting below ground crops.

I planted my garlic on the 19th.  I usually plant this in the fall, but not this year or last year.  Last year is grew the same as if it had been in the ground all winter.  I also planted shallots and Wandering/Egyptian Onions.  I couldn't decide if I wanted onions or not.  I really do hate the smell and taste of them.  Finally I decided that the Wandering onions are mild and the purple tint to the outside is so pretty dried that I would plant them this year.

Here are the Wandering Onions on the right growing from last year.  I keep onions and chives under all of my fruit trees.  They help keep the bugs away that like to live under the ground all winter and move into the fruit in the summer.  The Wandering Onions make new onion bulbs on top of stocks.  You can see the beige colored dead stocks and the tan bulbs at the end of the stocks (if you look closely).  I went around the yard Wednesday collecting the onions and planted the ones that were still firm.

March 20th my husband and I planted potatoes.  This year we added soil sulfur to the potato beds.  The bottom of the trenches are about 6 inches down from the top of the block.

These are the Russet Norkodah, which I have never heard of before.  We will see how well they do.

Hubby cut them into 3 pieces each.  Some people like to let the cut edges dry before planting.  I haven't found that it makes a difference freshly cut or not.  We planted them right away.  I will say that this is the first time we have ever cut them in thirds.  It will be interesting to see how the center piece of each potato does.

We evenly spaced out the potatoes and then dug down another couple of inches down and placed the potatoes in the holes.  Then covered them level with the original trench depth.

There are 2 rows of potatoes in each bed.  This bed shows the ones waiting to go in the ground and the ones ready to be covered.  We planted Red Pontiac (pictured), All Blue, Yukon Gold, Russet Norkodah, and Cal White.  While digging the trenches you see in this picture we found 2 tiny potatoes.  I got out last years map and found out that the potatoes we found were Cal White.  We had more potatoes than we could use last year so we left this bed of potatoes in the ground.  We forgot to cover them and they rotted.  We decided to plant potatoes in the same bed as last year to see what would happen.

Here is a picture of my garden map that I use every year.  This is my main garden area.  I created this in Auto CAD years ago.  I needed the practice, but you can make any kind of a map.  It really helps with rotating crops and knowing the name of the vegetable you like best when making comparisons.

Here is a picture of my messy garden.  As usual everything is covered with screens.  I have to keep the cat out of the soft soil now and later I have to keep all the other critters out.  The front bed is potatoes.  The one behind it on the left is potatoes.  The center one is garlic.  The two with the glass doors partially covering them in the back are carrots from last year enjoying the warm weather.

Speaking of carrots:

Here are some more carrots I picked on March 19th.  It is interesting to see the parts on the two carrots that were not covered by soil or carrot leaves rotted.

While checking to see how some of the other garden areas were doing I found these two asparagus growing.

This is my asparagus and parsley jungle.  The two asparagus in the above picture are by the black bucket in the back left corner of this picture.  All the green is parsley growing.  I wonder how much asparagus is growing under that mess.

Here is a close-up of the parsley growing just behind and to the right of the red pot in the above picture.

Sorry asparagus, but it is going to be at least two more weeks before I get a chance to clean up your area.

What's happening in the garden lately?

Almost all of our asparagus died 2 years ago.  We planted new last year.  Here it is growing with the parsley that managed to survive the tilling and digging.  The big bunch of asparagus in the front is about 14 years old.  Most asparagus lives 10 - 12 years.  Parsley and asparagus are great companions.

Twelve days later and look at how much everything has grown.  The asparagus in the front is almost 6 feet tall.  We do not cut the asparagus fronds.  We leave them to feed the roots.  Next spring we will cut/break them off at ground level.  In years past the fronds have been so dense laying on the ground that they have made a great ground cover and the asparagus has started growing in January.

I took the pink cover off of the end of the broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cabbage bed so you can see how they are growing above the original cover, but this weather is getting to freezing and below still.

A tiny head of broccoli is forming.

Another tiny head.  These plants really are the same color. Don't know what happened.  Now is the time to start seeds indoors for the fall crop, but the spring crop isn't very far along yet.

 Here is one of the heads of cabbage forming.  If the weather ever warms up enough for them to stay uncovered, the cabbage moth will be showing up.  I will be covering these with bridal tulle soon.  Pictures will be posted.

Another cabbage plant.  This should be forming into a head soon.

This bed of potatoes did not get covered a couple of weeks before this picture was taken.  Everything was brown, because it froze.  As you can see now it is coming back.

Another picture from the same potato bed after the freeze.

Now that all the tomatoes and tomatillas have a Wall of Water around each of them and a tomato cage around the plant too, it has become a pain to protect them from frost.  Larry thought of dropping empty buckets (my rain water ones) inside the cages to protect them.  So far it has worked good.  There are 15 of these.  I am all for lazy gardening.

The weather was nice one day about a week ago.  Larry mowed the lawn.  Randy Robison teaches in his classes to add a thick layer of grass (chemical free) or alfalfa pellets around the tomato plants and inside the Wall of Water.  It is to stay there all summer.  We decided to give it a try.  The plants are still little, so the grass is about 3 to 4 inches deep.

Same thing here.  This one is a tomatilla and little taller plant.  I don't think we will add more grass.  Will keep you posted.

Can you see the rhubarb flower?  I can only because I know where to look.  It is center front.  I know that at least 7 flowers have been cut off at the base of 3 plants already.  All these flowers mean that it is time to dig them up and divide them next spring.  Let me now if you want rhubarb.

Here is a closeup of a rhubarb flower.  There are four flowers at different stages of development right now.  This one is the largest.

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.