In The Garden March 2024

[laurazone5]

WE MADE IT!!!!

Big weekend here on the urban homestead.
Chip the front yard.
Found a pretty neat gravity irrigation system, so I have prepped 4 five gallon buckets for paint. I'll drill the holes and assemble the pieces!
Build 2 tables out of old pallets for the system.
Put my 6 and 8 week cold strat seeds in dirt

It's supposed to be in the low 70's Sunday and Monday, so I'm gonna make hay while the sun is shining.

[woolybear]

Need to get my little celery starts separated and into bigger pots. FINALLY after 4 weeks of sitting on heat mats a sweet pepper has sprouted. And now that I feel like getting into the garden and starting to prep it my back decides to go spastic in the mornings that I can barely move.

[laurazone5]

[woolybear]

Potted up the little celery starts, 10 pascal and 8 utah. Curious to see how well each compares to the other in growth and taste. I think the store bought plants from last year were the Utah. I had no complaints with them, they had a bit of a "stronger" taste but I found them fine for eating and cooking. I did not tie them up to blanch the stalks, only cut and ate them. Less work and tasted fine.

[Txsteader]

Finally finished filling/fertilizing the new beds in the backyard. Yesterday I planted lots of flower and herb seeds in cups to plant around/amongst the beds.

Earlier in the week I'd planted more snap beans, chinese cabbage, carrots, lettuce in every bare patch in the flower beds around the house. This is in addition to the designated beds that are/will be planted in the backyard. Didn't even bother to label anything. I noticed Saturday that all those seeds are coming up. It must have been a good moon sign because they all seemed to pop up on the same day - a couple of the snap beans were just beginning to show at the surface on Friday, they're all standing 1" tall Saturday morning. It still amazes me after all these years.

It occurred to me that I have so many veg seeds that some are starting to get pretty old, so rather than just throw them out, I'm going to plant as much as I can, anywhere I can find a bare patch. If they germinate and produce, great. If not, no great loss. But I need to start thinning out the stash so I can refill with fresh seeds. Last year's drought killed so much of our grass that I want to take the opportunity to expand all the existing flower beds but plant vegs.

I read this weekend that some geniuses @ Uni of Mich determined that home gardens produce 5 times the carbon footprint of commercial agriculture. Yeah, 5 times! I'm not real sure what they plan to do with that information but I don't like where it could lead. So if 'they' come looking for a garden, they'll only see the 6 little raised beds in the backyard but not all the veg that's growing among the flowers and shrubs all over the yard.

[ohiodreamer]

70 degrees today (crazy temp for Ohio in early March). Had to get out in the garden! So I ran out this morning and turned 2 beds that had a heavy load of ground-up leaves on them. These 2 beds will be spinach and brussel sprouts, so early planting. Felt good! Pulled some "baby" weeds that were growing. Planting won't be until mid April at the earliest, but with it loosened up the chickens can get in there and kick around. Might do another bed or two this afternoon after the baby leaves.

[Billy G]

Found a few older seed packets of salad greens stuff so it's no great loss if my weird weather experiment falls on its' face. Yesterday I replaced the plastic on a couple of cold frame covers, and today I raked the mulch off two beds to seed out. Tonight I'll have my bride pick out what she wants to try and I'll get them in tomorrow between the raindrops. 

After that I cut a bunch of limbs to dry which I'll cook off later in my retort and then toss the resulting char into my compost pile. Sure has been nice to get out and get caught up but I agree with a couple other posts that we do need a cold snap to kill off the skeeters and such.

[laurazone5]

Finally found the bottom of that chip pile!!

Started a new project, but need another chip drop to finish!

[laurazone5]

I have seeds that are more than 15 years old, that still germinate like they are new.
I keep them in a cool dark spot.

I just emailed a very reputable seed co. and told them the seeds I bought, 3 months ago, never germinated.
They sent me a new pack.........but I never throw away old seeds.

Gonna re pot my Hibiscus, Bitter Melon, and 4 different kinds of peppers. They all have their first set of true leaves so I need to give them some space!

My daughter is gonna bring my drill back Thursday, so I will start working on my gravity bucket irrigation system.
I made 2 table tops out of pallets yesterday. This weekend I will add legs, and sand for paint!!

[laurazone5]

Tomatoes are poking their heads up!! Starting to transplant from cells to cups!

[laurazone5]

This is the room where the magic happens!!




All super hot peppers are transplanted.........
While poking holes in the bottom of the cups, I was using a steak knife, and it slipped, and found it's way into my hand.
Bled like a stuck pig for about 10 min, wrapped it in gauze and finished!!

[laurazone5]

Between the time change, and crushing depression, I have fallen a bit behind schedule.

March Projects:

Drill, spray paint, and outfit irrigation buckets.
Build small greenhouse to put things in next month.
Put legs on pallet tables, sand, paint/stain.
Purge garage.
Get all seeds started.
Clean and ready humming bird feeder.

I am thankful for the full sun today and the sound of my wind chimes!

[ohiodreamer]

We ran to Berlin Seed last week and picked up my order. While there I went to the live plant fridge and picked up a gooseberry and a current to plant We really wanted to add some bushes to our "permaculture bed"...in quotes because, well, it's an overgrown mess with fruit trees, LOL! But it will get there, some day...right??

[woolybear]

IT'S A MIRACLE lol 40 days after planting my cayenne pepper seeds are starting to sprout. No signs from the banana peppers yet, still only one yellow bell no other sprouts. The replanted pepperoncini and ring of fire are starting to pop up 7 days after planting. Can someone explain why peppers are so blasted stubborn about sprouting?? I'm using a seed heat mat to keep their little home warm.

[laurazone5]

Managed to take my garage from Early American Hoarder to organized chaos. LOL
Once I get rid of the big items that will free up a TON of room.

Big thunderstorms (2 waves) coming through today.
Elederberry's have leaves, tulips and daffodils poking all their green through.
Chives are alive and about 10 inches tall!

So much to do and I feel like time is slipping through my hands.............