New *Improved* Potato Bins

Today Mickey helped me rebuild the potato bins, and they look sweet, if I do say so myself.  So far, we just have one around the earlies, and I will be in desperate need of compost to fill it, as well as building a second bin. Of course I still have about 30 seed potatoes to plant but the ground is much to wet to work at all.

The Giant Jersey Knight asparagus is tipping out of the ground about two a day for the last two days.  I am very excited for the arrival of Asparagus harvesting!  It is a proud moment for me, and I encourage the investment of time and money to anyone who enjoys this crop, it is so worth the effort and the wait!  Being Perennial, a lot of people are afraid to try to grow it, but it is so easy, anyone can and should try it.  Not to mention when the harvest is done, the ferns are so graceful and pretty in the garden.

I have been seeding spinach and lettuce, and I plan to continue that, as well as carrots outdoors until I finally get a sprout or two.  I will also be planting another sowing of peas soon as well, So we can continue to harvest as long as possible.  The succession of planting is a bit harder to time than I had expected, but we are going to keep trying to get everything in and pray that there is room for it all! =)

My new Tomato, Pepper and Eggplants seem to be doing quite nicely in the Prop Box, until the proper planting time. And we are about to start sowing more seed.  Roma Tomato, melons, and squash for early summer and another round following by a few weeks.  That is the tentative plan, anyhow. I want to try to have some really late tomatoes that will have to be pulled before frost.  The more that I get growing the more I have to learn about it. I think will have plenty of fresh veggies this year, but that doesn't stop me from wondering how to grow more!

Yesterday we also bought a garden cart from a neighborhood kid.  It is pretty sweet, and we have considered getting one before but they run about $100 and Mickey knew he could weld one up, he just never has.  This one was at a good price and I think it will come in very handy.  I have already used it to drag bagged leaves all over the yard and move pots from here to there.  And I bet the kids will love to be drug around the yard in it, too!

picture update 1 of 2

this is leaf chlorosis on blueberry....this worries me because I read in blueberries, that iron deficiency can cause this. What causes iron deficiency??? The PH is too high, and therefore iron is unavailable. This is an early warning sign, and that is why I am monitoring closely and adjusting as best I can! Check out these links:

Here is a PDF Pamplet on Blueberries

And The Blueberry Bulletin from Rutgers U. in NJ and some Info from Michegan State
This is an aparagus fern that has apparently gone to berry. This is common on old varieties (that are open pollinated and have both male and female plants), but I planted Jersey Knight, and they are supposed to be an all-male hybrid. You can barely see the lowest berry is turning a sort of red color. I haven't decided what, if anything, I should do. I considered trying to grow the berries to give away or plant in any gaps in my bed. We'll see! :)

OOOOOHHHHH!!!!!!!! The strawberries are flowering!!! There is only 3 flowers, but I bet that is enough for little Audrey to get excited. I am assuming they are everbearing, since they are called "eversweet".....mmmmmmmmmm yummy!
And here are my beautiful lilies. There is a belladonna lily in the background (aka: naked lady) and my double bloom on this new stargazer. I can't eat them, but they sure are pretty! And they smell like heaven! I have decided lilies are in my top 10, maybe even top 5 plants, even though they have no purpose other than making me smile!!!! These also fit into my mmmmmmm! yummy! category, because they smell so so so so so good!

Lessons in the garden....I feel like I am actually learning!

I was so excited to see that there are pretty decently sized potatoes when went to check them last night. I was trying to decide if I should add soil to hill them or if the straw was sufficient. I decided to add soil to every plant once I saw the state of growth. I want more than a few taters per plant, and I felt like the straw was just turning the already weak stalks to mush and harboring slugs closer to the plant than I would like.Since I am hoping to multiply the number of potatoes that we harvest by keeping them hilled well, I thought the best "method" was a combination of methods. I pulled back my straw "hills" and added approximately 5 gallons of soil per hill, maybe more on the larger plants....and replaced the straw. I tried to use the really moist, soggy straw against the soil hills, and the drier, outermost straw further up the plant to support the "hilling".

Some of the spuds looked edible. Like these small ones in the picture they were about the size you would pick out to make baked potatoes for the kids...or for roasts (new potato sized, and some smaller, too).....BEAUTIFUL!!!! I can't describe how excited I was to see these little tubers, I had to run to the house to grab a phone or camera to take a picture! I imagine digging them in a few months, and I am just so proud of my little "grocery store" sprouted potatoes...and everyone says they treat them to prevent sprouting! HA! these had HUGE gangly sprouts!!! Next year I will fork up the moola for seed potatoes, and rotate beds or cover crops to avoid issues with pest and disease...but as for experimental food growing.....I think we're doin' alright!!!

(now lets try garlic again!)

the Asparagus i s doing pretty well. I have noticed some slight yellowing of the ferns but they seem healthy despite this. I am trying a foliar iron feed to help with this and I intend to allow them to dry a bit more between waterings, as I have read this can cause yellowing as well. But I figured the iron wouldn't hurt, and I was spraying the blueberries anyways.....

I have been fertilizing about every other week with a 13-13-13 all purpose. Some of the spears have been coming up so thick that it is very tempting to taste one, but I know that it would risk the health of the crowns so I don't! But it is mouth wateringly tempting. I am thinking about withholding Nitrogen, so I may have to buy a new fertilizer, so the ferns don't get too spindly.

The first picture shows how many spears are forming from one healthy crown. This second picture shows the size of spears that have been coming up. This one is about to loosen and turn into fern......

I can't wait to harvest something from the garden!

Yesterday I noticed a bunch of yellow orange eggs under a potato leaf, and from reading I know that is a Colorado potato beetle larva cluster (most likely), and we smooshed them without prejudice (and without talking a picture). I have also noticed a lot of flea beetle activity on the potatoes as well, I have just not concluded what I will do about it. Other than that, there haven't been a lot of Japanese Beetles, YET....or cabbage worms, like my father in law had on his broccoli. they are crafty little buggers, hiding along the leaf veins and are a bluish green like the broccoli (because that is what they chowed down on!) and that makes them very hard to find!!! I have only found one in my garden and it was a striped one. And I also found one asparagus beetle as well. Any other holes we've found that weren't from caterpillars and flea beetles have likely been due to slugs. Which is starting to become a nuisance. I think I may need some Diatomaceous earth. That or beer bait, but I think I'd rather drink it!

Overall, the garden is doing quite well. I have been working on moving the compost and bins to the other side of the garden. And preparing to plant out fruits. I have spent a lot of time investigating pale green new growth in blueberries. The only conclusion I can come to is that the soil in their pots has a higher PH than it should. This prevents the uptake of important nutrients such as: Nitrogen, Sulfur, Iron , Magnesium and other trace minerals that are important for the proper chlorination of the leaves.....the best and most sure way to solve this is to acidify the soil greatly, and feed with an acid loving plant food, as for azaleas. I will have to mix peat into the planting and test the ph often. I plan to mulch with chopped oak leaves, pine bark and needles. I have heard that commercial growers mayy use leaf testing over soil testing to manage PH and nutrients because the test results fluctuate so much through out the growing seson, it may be more accurate. That is something to check out in the future....once they are planted!

Edit: "Iron is necessary for the formation of chlorophyll, which is responsible for the

green color in plants and necessary for photosynthesis (sugar production in plants).

Any reduction in chlorophyll during the growing season reduces plant growth,

vigor, and tolerance to stress conditions. Plants with reduced vigor from iron

chlorosis are more prone to winter injury, and winter injury may aggravate an iron

chlorosis problem. Weakened plants also are more susceptible to other diseases

and insect infestations." (read from : coloradogarden notes iron chlorosis _)

The Garden Lately

These are my Ever sweet Strawberries, as you can see I am trying to root the runners before planting. And the next pic is the Blueberries; two each of three varieties: Elliot, O'Neal, and Chippewa. They currently reside in a thick mulch of chopped oak leaves until planting. This is also where I found my Giant Worm, if I ever get a chance to post a pick of him, I will.

These are the two "rotational" beds the one with the bird bath is Potato and Peas. The other bed has Tomato in the cages, peppers in between a few of them and broccoli down the front and side. I also seeded carrots in front of that, and cantelopes behind the tomatoes against a fence, but alas, no sprouts! :(

And finally, this is the Asparagus bed. I have been waiting YEARS to plant this. As it takes 3 years minimum to reach harvestable maturity, waiting is the last thing you want do. These are "Jersey Knight" hybrid, male crowns I purchased from Burgess (in Bloomington, IL) I believe it was something like $5 for 10....so I jumped on it. I water it, mulch, feed and weed it like the rest of the garden, and sometime in 2011, I can eat some! :)

Seasons and Seasons of Cold Wet Weather

Wow! I can't believe it has actually been 3 cold, wet seasons since I tried to start this little blog and attention has been mostly just on my gardening last summer. I could have put in a few posts through these dark days, about fall deer season....(which was a flop for me, but I had the pleasure of butchering my husband, and brother's deer). Along those lines, my deer skinning and salting skills are definitely improving, and although I didn't get any further in the process than simply fleshing and salting, it does look nice and workable for next season......

Winter was just filled with good hot food and lots of daydreaming about sunnier, warmer days....
I have been looking into canning and food storage, drying, bulk cooking, freezing and vacuum sealing.....(it's all relative, I tell you!)

But alas, I should have followed through on my indoor growing plans....here it is mid April and I have just set my tomato seeds in a few days back and still have no light! And the weather intends to stay poor for warm weather crops for a while....so maybe there is time!

I did try to throw in some sprouted potato, but I would be willing to bet that they rotted in the cold! I have some pea sprouts ( I intended to use as a early season cover crop) that are about 2 inches tall.....That is bed # 1...which is likely to be dug up in the near future and planted out with something different.
Bed #2 is prepared for cantelope and tomato when it is warmer. I have 12 little tomato pots seeded...6 italian heirloom, 6 amish paste...those were healthiest and tastiest of the 4 varieties from last year. I hope to get a few transplants when it warms up to supplement my varieties and hopefully make the harvest a little earlier.

BEST NEWS:

1. In the last few weeks I put in a dwarf lodi and a dwarf granny smith apple. I also put in a North Star Cherry. It is naturally dwarf and self fertile. I should be getting some flowering crab apples as well...hopefully that will cover my bases as far as pollen goes....

2. I put in 2 'nugget' hops rhizomes. One has already sprouted (it was the larger of the two).
I am already regretting not having the supports in!

3. I expanded my last garden bed, and dedicated it to my 20 Jersey Knight Asparagus crowns!!
there was only a half dozen or so out of the lot that were especially small...but they had sprouted! :( They are in their trenches, awaiting their next layer of soil and compost!!!

These things make me so happy!!!
I know it will be YEARS before I have fruit or asparagus spears, but the way I look at it, I have been waiting YEARS to plant a fruit tree, especially granny smith!! :) If I wait anymore YEARS without planting some food, that is that many more years I won't have done it!! SO there you have it....
Plans are expanding in my mind for more and more TREES, fruit for me and my little birdy friends. But the planting I have already done makes me very proud, and I can't wait to celebrate Arbor Day....but I plan to plant 10 trees instead of one!

Well, that is all for now....I will try to update more often!