Garden Friday

 

 

 

Welcome to Garden Friday,

where we share what's happening on our

Zone 7 Piedmont homestead.

(These double daffs are beautiful,

but not as helpful to the pollinators as singles.)

 

Our biggest project this week was to spread

three yards of gravel along the back walkway.

Using the mower and one of our small trailers

sure makes the job a lot less tiresome.

 

Although this type of work is taxing,

it's good for my bone building

and gives such a feeling of satisfaction,

when things around the homestead are looking their best.

 

We also used some of the gravel to fill in a ditch

near the chicken run to aid in diverting rainfall.

There is sometimes standing water,

which is not good for the chooks.

Hopefully, this will remedy the situation.

 

The garden is coming alive!

 We may have had our last night of freezing temps,

and I am working quickly to get things ready for spring planting.

Here are a few of the winter sowing seedlings 

that will be transplanted to larger pots

or directly into the garden in the next week or so:

tat soi

cabbage

leek

 

red ripper beans

 

The beans may be babied a bit longer,

as it is probably not the ideal time to plant them out.

buttercrunch lettuce

 

As you can see,

we have plenty of lettuce growing.

I'm hoping to use some of it as part of my

ongoing experiment with foodscaping.

It'll be nice to share some of it with friends as well.

 

These lettuce plants were all germinated

using the winter sowing method,

then transplanted to cell trays.

It's taken about a month for them to get this far.

 

We'll have several varieties ready for eating in no time,

with resowing taking place to encourage a staggered harvest.

I've never grown on this scale before,

but the winter sowing method made me a believer! 

 

I actually had time on Tuesday

to transplant and fertilize some of the seedlings.

Fish emulsion was used to soak the cell pots

in repurposed sheet pans for 20 minutes.

The cookie sheets are an efficient way

to bottom water young crops.

The cell pots were then placed

in the garlic bed to grow a bit more,

until they are ready to put out in the landscape or garden bed.

 With spring temperatures ushering forth,

only a few beds required covering overnight in the past week,

as there were delicate seedlings placed here.

 

The sweet potato slips are coming along

and were pinched off of the spuds

and placed in water to grow.

We have plenty of time before these are planted.

Here's hoping that spring is coming up 

wherever you call home.