Just weeding and stuff

They must have heard me, cause my secret cabbage seedling is gone.  I did pick and eat my kholrabi, so i claim victory over that.

So they are still getting in.

The fence simply cannot be working. Yeah it keeps cats and dogs out, but that's not what eats my stuff.

I think we might try using chicken wire sooner rather than later,  why wait?  As soon as i get another installment of funds, it will happen.  If i'm going to try again for a fall crop i will need it.

Or i will simply plant a whole row of kale (and maybe some pretty flowering types, beautiful and edible).  That is the only thing that still remains untouched.  I can't believe it.

The collards aren't getting hit too hard either.

I think i might try growing the chard in a big pot i have.  Or maybe get back into container gardening again. I like this idea and instructional i found in another little blog i follow called A Potter's Garden.  Her blog led me to this: SWC.
Now, i'll always keep a terrestrial garden, but if i can't keep the woodchucks out of my broccoli any other way, i'll have to grow my veggies in a box that is off the ground and can be surrounded by a small wire cage of some sort.

No way i'm going to let this continue and i'm not going to give up on growing cabbage and broccoli..

Anyway, i weeded a lot today. Got both sides of a whole row done and most of another. That makes me mostly caught up

I can actually see my onions now,  some of them are paired with herbs, so that is what those big green clumps are in that section.  The walkways are full of the pulled-up weeds.  I don't know if i should put them in the compost pile or leave them there, i'll be stepping on them regularly and if their roots dry out enough the remains will become mulch.

I still need to pull the weeds that are living on the edges of the walkways,  but i had to call it a day after these rows were done.  I hope to finish it up tomorrow.
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This is a mess!I used those strips of plywood to hold down the row cover, but i just haven't made putting them someplace else a priority.
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I have a baby cucumber!

Its blurry cause i stuck my finger in the photo, but this is so i can see how small it is now.

Hopefully these plants produce a lot and nothing gets into them.

I dug up and sent off a rosemary and a basil plant and sent a few of the Welsh onions i ended up not having room for (to my SIL). They are like chives, only fatter, flowering in white instead of pink and they have a flavor more like garlic.

I'm also brining up some country style pork ribs to smoke and grill tomorrow.  I have them in the basic salt and sugar brine with a tablespoon of 'sweet' pickling spice in it. I'm hoping that the spices will make things seem to taste sweeter since i won't use barbeque sauce on them.

I need to find out what i can use chervil with. I have a few plants that are doing great but i forgot what the stuff is good with.  I think it is in Herbes de Provence ....  maybe good with chicken?  I eat a lot of chicken.

I'm almost scared to say it, but my basil plants all look nice.  There is word of a basil blight that is not just causing headaches for commercial growers but home gardeners as well.  I don't know anyone else on my street or anyone within a few more streets who garden, so i think my risk is minimal.
 My sage also looks good.  I hope to have plenty to dry to use until next summer.

Currently reading "The Backyard Berry Book" i'm still reading the grape grower book, but the berry book i have os a library loan and its one of 5 or so that i borrowed, so it has a higher finish priority.

Oh, speaking of grapes, my Reliance and Marechal Foch have flower buds. I noticed this when i was giving my Toddler a supervised  run of the yard.  I didn't have enough hands for the camera so i didn't photo the grapes.  I think i will let them open just to see them once, then i will remove them in favor of stronger growth. 

Planning and plotting...

Today i plan to pick the Kohlrabi. They are going to be on the small side, but they type i have (early purple vienna) isn't  supposed to get to baseball size. I do wish they were bigger, but i think the plant is more likely to try and regrow leaves first rather than continue enlarging its bulb so i'm just going to make a single meal of the golf ball sized veggie.  I think i could put down some buckwheat seeds to hold the space for the seedlings i'll plant later.

It looks like the garden remains unraided again today.  Three days in a row with no new defilement. 

Today is nice and cool, it would be a great day to catch up with weeding but hubby and the oldest are probably going to be out visiting his sister  today, so i won't have anyone to  watch the toddler.  I'd have her outside with me, but she won't stick around and sitting in the stroller is not good enough for her.  She loves being outside, which is great, but it has to be her playtime 100%, not my time to get anything done. :o)

I wish my bulbing fennel was either bigger or needed thinning cause i'd send some over to my sister in law (she's the Chef and beautiful things can be done with baby fennel). I'm going to try and pot up a couple rosemary plants for her if i have the time to get out there and do it before hubby and daughter #1 head out.

I had wanted to grow way more herbs than i was actually able to get out this year. I have some seeds that are perennials, like winter savory and peppermint, and i think either oregano and thyme are perennial- or both are, i'd have to look it up again.  Anyway, i lost many of them to frost and the rest i  still haven't planted because i don't have a permanent place for them yet. 

I wanted to get going on those flowerbeds by now but the heat and weather came in so it hasn't happened....  but when it does, i want to put the herbs in there i think. 
 

Just some reference pictures...

In a few blogs i read there are pictures of seedlings. Those who have a higher zone number than i do, their seedlings are giant. Some of those gardeners still have a couple weeks before their planting date still....  i think mine is about 35 days away at the least....  my seedlings sure look puny compared to those early planters.  This year is an experiment to see if Wintersowing actually gives me a boost on a short season or if i break even.  I hope it won't delay...  but if it breaks even, i have to say that having the seed flats outside is a relief, since the inside of the house isn't severely cluttered from it. I only have a light shelf for the houseplant type seedlings.

Anyway, here's the pics:

Burgundy Okra

Bright Lights Swiss Chard

Point One Cabbage

I half hope this is the Strawberry. Out of 27 seeds its the only one up so far... :-/

Shiso, also spelled "Shisho"...

Should be a poppy. Out of most of a packet of seeds, only a few are showing up...  i sowed a whole flat.

Assorted melons, squashes and cucumbers

French Marigolds...  i let them get too dry by mistake, lost a few. But i have more seeds.

Gypsy Broccoli

Buttercrunch Lettuce

Polfast tomato

Purple tomatillo

Pruden's Purple tomato

Yellow Pear tomatoes

Collards and Pak Choi

Welsh Onions and Mirage Shallots

Chives all the way back, second from front on the left is the Burdock, left front is purple kohlrabi and then Red Russian kale on the right.  The other things are being slow to germinate.

Peppers, eggplant, a melon or two  and some very old tomato seeds that i am almost shocked to see them germinate at all, much less be numerous!

Sweet basil

Sweet marjoram

no less sweet itself.....Genovese basil...

And little grape is doing well.

Another sunny day today.

I went to Lowe's last night with my sister (who is visiting from CA this week) to check out the  PVC they have and to get a bead on the prices.  They were what i expected.  Which is good.  Only change to the plans (so far) is that i found out that the 3/4" schedule 40 will not accept the 1/2" sched 40. It isn't a lrge enough interior diameter-- but the 3/4" pressure pipe is. But the pressure pipe is rather thin walled, and 10 feet of  1/2" sched 40 does not bend to 2-3' wide very easily, i don't know if  the  pressure pipe will split due to the tension.

Any excuse to draw:

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I have a feeling that the hoop will not arch as pretty and nice as that, i think the uprights will bow so i get more of a half-oval (no straight sides), and the inside edges of the uprights will create pressure on the inside top and the outside bottom of the socket pieces.  But i am not knowledgeable enough to calculate these things.

So i'm going to get hubby to go to Lowe's with me and make sure it is going to work. He is sure it will, but since he will likely feel the need to rescue me in this project if   i flub it, i'm going to try and reduce the level of rescuing needed as much as i can.
He needs to get himself some PVC so he can do some ground wire burying for his radio antennas,  so we will make an evening of it.  I am also going to print off Home Depot's price on the pipe and see if Lowe's will price-match for me.  If they do, the savings might cover the sales tax.

Another thing i was thinking about... if the pressure of the hoops on the anchors will be enough to hold the hoops down if we get wind. If not, i essentially will have made a giant, white, Chinese Dragon kite...  So, i will have to make sure the Agribon is pinned down with heavy things like bricks or we will have to drill holes through the hoops and the sockets and pin them together with some stiff wire (think cotter pin)...adding another step.

Now this is beginning to sound really complicated, but i'm reminding myself that we only have to engineer it once. If it works, it will work the same way for the next number of years. If it does not work, there are a number of ways to fix it.
One of which is to simply cut the 10' 1/2" pipes down to 5' and just do it like the majority of people i have seen online-- shorter hoops, but simpler structure.

Why do i want the hoops to be so tall?
Because we have such a short growing season that i want the plants to be inside the hoops, under cover, in the warmer and more stabilized climate of the hoop houses for as long as possible. I also need long term pest control,  i hope to only need to completely uncover the rows once or twice a week in order to allow things to get pollinated. There are also cats in the neighborhood who have uprooted my plants before in using my smaller garden as a litter box.
Also,  snow cover,  if i leave some of my root crops in the ground, the taller hoops will be less likely (i hope) to get buried in the snow. I am hoping the taller walls will distribute more snow weight more evenly across the structure. ( I also plan to get a more sturdy Agribon material for winter use on the few hoops that will be used all winter.)

Do i think the hoop houses will do all these things?

Won't know unless i try, but from what i have been studying, there is a good chance they will do it, or they will at least help a good deal.

I need to start getting  the companion herb seeds going. I bought a 3-pack of flats with domes that have the dreaded 6-pack seedling compartments.  I dislike the 6-packs, i have the worst time filling them evenly and i don't like the crinkly sound they make, but they were fairly cheap and i needed more.I guess i will see if i can cope this time!

Ahhh, visualisation...

I just finished mapping the garden out, stakes and surveying tape.  Now i know i drew up plans for a 20x30' garden... but i could not resist taping it out 25x30'. This would give me an extra row to work with and if hubby is ok with it i will be happy. If he wants an extra row of lawn i can let it go i guess... but the little bit of lawn we do have tends to tire him out mowing... he's a very smart guy but he works at a desk and he can't do a lot of physical labor even though he is willing... so i really think that he is going to almost regret having a wider expanse of lawn to mow. He may almost "order" me to plow more of it into garden space by the end of this summer.  But then, i have to be able to handle gardening myself. This disabled leg of mine is going to give me trouble. Just taping out the dimensions is going to have me eating Tylenol like candy.
I plan on mulching deep to discourage weeds and i'm going to have to work my 11-year-old like a rented mule this summer. lol

Ok, so here are the pics:

I did not include the plot of JA's in my dimensions, since i didn't plan for them before i planted (it was kind of a rush job) and i need to bed some asparagus between that plot and  the taped off garden.
The garden is 7' forward of the back fence and i didn't measure the distance from the side fence next to the apple trees.


now i need to decide which beneficial herbs  i might start today
Oh i can't wait to get this going!

Update:
Hubby came home this afternoon and he looked at the area i taped out and he's fine with the size,  he had expected me to take over much more than that so we have a pretty good balance. There will be plenty of room left for his intentions and also for the kids to enjoy.  When i was a kid i considered my parents' garden a part of my play area, i spent a lot of time in it.
So this means one more full row in the front since i am going with the lengthwise row setup.