Well it's been a few weeks since I updated, but things are going great! All the lettuce has grown quite well and has been thinned to just one row of one plant each. I hardened off the marigolds, one Jalapeno, and a few SuperSweet tomato seedlings, and put one of the SuperSweet and the Jalapeno in the ground! The bulbs are finally blooming (daffodils have been out for about a week and a half, tulips are still coming up).
I direct seeded some cucumber, but am afraid they won't germinate because we had a few cold nights over the last week. My Fortex beans, however, have finally germinated and are starting to turn upward!
Today I planted the watermelon (Mini Piccolo with Congo for fruiting since Piccolo can't pollinate itself). I also bought a small basil plant in preparation for lots of caprese salad when the SuperSweets start fruiting, which I transplanted today.
Well I missed a blog post last week as my grandfather passed away and I was home helping my mom and grandma get things settled. Not much happened in the garden anyway.
I did transplant some SuperSweet tomatoes into larger coir pots, as well as a couple of Jalapenos. They're much happier now and under their own light on a windowsill. I planted some marigold seeds, which popped up almost immediately and are taking off like crazy! I also did a second planting of Sweet Aroma tomatoes and Jupiter peppers. One of the tomato pods has germinated, but nothing on the peppers yet (I think I need to turn up the heat mat for them). Also planted a few broccoli just to see how it would go inside, though I was very successful direct planting them last year. Only 1 of 6 has germinated so far.
Today I planted some seeds outside, as I think we're done with the frost for real (got a cold snap a week ago and that put me off planting). So I seeded one side of my bean trellis with Fortex beans, and one side of my cucumber trellis with Muncher cucumbers. I also sowed a second row of my carrot mix (Yaya Hybrid, Kaleidoscope Blend, and Short n Sweet). Also took some time to thin my lettuce seedlings, which are doing quite well but I went way overboard with the number of seeds per hole. So they're down to less than 5 seedlings per hole, and I'll thin them more as I see which are the most vigorous in a week or two.
The bulbs are getting there, though since they don't get tons of sun since they're right up against the fence, they're a little slower than I anticipated. But the Muscari is up, the crocus is up, and some tulip heads are making their way up as well!
Well it's been a busy week for me in the yard!
Updates to the front yard
- Put down crabgrass prevention fertilizer in preparation for new lawn (planning to seed in early April)
- Sprayed existing crabgrass
- Cleaned up bushes in front planters: removed dead leaves and flower stalks, finally completely cleaned out all other leaves that got stuck underneath, fixed dripline
- Removed dead flower bunches from front pot and replaced with stock in white, purple, and pink around the central jasmine
- Removed dead plantain lily (didn't do so well in the early winter) and replaced it with astilbe
- Bought some trellises and planted clematis and bower vine, secured one of the two trellises to the house (will secure #2 this coming week/end)
- Ran 5/8" dripline to front side yard from back hose attachment, seeded flower mixes (mostly cut bouquet mix and wildflower mix), and set up drip sprayers to water that area
Updates to the backyard
- All lettuce except the Paris White has germinated! I'll have to thin them pretty quick here, as they're growing quite fast.
- Added new catgrass to catgrass bowl
- Lots of crocus coming up and blooming, as well as some of the muscari. Lots of tulips and daffodils showing leaves but not ready to bloom yet
- Revised previous dripline to new bean trellis: originally, I had set up an extension of the main line I installed last summer, but there wasn't enough pressure to get water to the bean trellis. So I fixed the original drip back to what it used to be, and ran a new 5/8" line from the same hose bib as the front side yard. The pressure is much better on both the original line and the new bean line and now the beans will have their own timer.
Seedling updates
- I got a new, larger grow light. I started with a bulb from Amazon in a clamp light, which was okay when I had about 6 seedlings, but not nearly enough light once everything else popped up. So I visited Home Depot (my least favorite hardware store, but the store with the biggest light selection) and picked up a Feit Electric LED grow light, which I mounted from the ceiling on an adjustable rope, and the plants are MUCH happier! It's on the same timer that the clamp light was on, but allows everyone enough light so I don't have to switch them around each morning.
- Started some marigold seeds.
- Supersweet tomatoes seem to be doing the best by far, and I have two excellent looking plants and one good looking plant. I'll have to repot these soon.
- Sweet Aroma tomatoes are in second place, doing okay but don't look as aggressive as the Supersweets.
- Jalapenos doing okay, but I'm down to 2 from the original 4. Not an issue, since I only need 1 really, but it's disappointing to finally call it on one you've been nursing along.
- Jupiter peppers finally germinated (much slower than the others!) and two look pretty good.
- Coleus is doing quite well, with one excellent pod, one good pod, and one pod that I think I overwatered.
It's been so warm the past couple weeks that things are starting to bloom a bit early, including the almond trees. This week is supposed to cool down by about 10 degrees, and we'll probably get to freezing one or two nights this week. So as excited as I am to start planting things outside, I'll wait until the frost looks like it's truly done.
We've had such nice warm weather this week that I spent some time out in the yard. I finally cleaned up the thatch that I didn't have room for in my green can and did another pass over the front lawn and side yard with the thatch rake.
My seedlings are continuing to grow, and I've moved my tomato seedlings off the heat mat with the others to sit in a south facing window during the day, which will probably provide better lighting than what they've been getting. The lighting situation is still a work in progress, as the fluorescent light I ordered turned out to be 4 feet rather than 2 (and 4 won't fit in my little bathroom corner)!
Since it's been so warm, some of the bulbs are confused and have started flowering! On Thursday, I had a couple crocus peeking out at me, and I expect to see some tulips soon, too.
One of my orchids has also started to rebloom! I've never had success keeping them around and happy long enough to see another bloom on the same plant, but this one seems quite happy in its window and has a couple spikes with buds getting ready to open. Today I also noticed it's sent up a new flowering shoot as well, which is another first for me.
Since the front lawn is fairly cleaned up, I put down some crabgrass prevention in preparation for reseeding in April or May. The only live plants in my front lawn are crabgrass at this point, so I'd like to see those go away before I put down new seed. I fixed a sprinkler that was a victim to the thatching rake, too, then watered to help the fertilizer sink in a bit.
This next week, I'm hoping to move more of my seedlings off the heating mat, thin them (as most have two small shoots per pouch), and get drip run out to the side yard out front that I'm planning to turn into a flowering corner for the spring/summer (previously lawn, but directly abuts neighbor's lawn/weedpatch and will eventually become overrun with weeds again). I'm also looking forward to seeing some seedlings sprout from the carrots and lettuce I planted last weekend. We'll see how it goes.
Well, this last week has been pretty quiet for gardening, especially since I was out of town for most of the weekend (took a nice trip down to the central coast to enjoy wine, sunshine, and the beach)!
My seedlings have continued to germinate and grow quite well. However, I need to rethink their lighting situation, as I have to move them daily so they don't bend too severely toward the light. I'm likely going to invest in a small shop light and install that this week, as I just have a clamp light now and it's definitely not giving everyone their fair share of light!
I did spend a couple hours out in the yard setting up dripline to the new bean trellis, moving the salad table and running drip to that, and planting a variety of carrots (Short N Sweet, Yaya Hybrid, and Kaleidoscope mix) and lettuce (Bibb, Buttercrunch, Paris White, and Salad Bowl). I only planted one row of each and will plant another row in a couple weeks so I avoid what happened last year where I had TONS of carrots and lettuce for a week or so, then they were all gone! I also spent some time putting some bird netting around the salad table, as the birds really enjoyed a lot of my lettuce seeds at the last planting, resulting in not much germination or growth.
While I intended to clean up the rest of the thatch in the front yard from last week, it just didn't happen today. I'll plan on doing that during the week sometime, running the rake over the lawn once more, and lay down some Weed n Feed (despite there being no lawn yet!) to tame any crabgrass (of which there's a fair bit).
