Well Over Knee-High

On the eighth of July!
(surely was at least knee high four days ago)

To see an exciting demonstration of the pop-up sprinkler system, watch this:

SEEDS!

Thankfully, seeds were 50% off the day I went to pick up most of the new ones. I am going to try using some leftover seeds from 2006, too (these are lying down on the counter in photos). All new seeds are propped up along the back, against the wall. How am I ever going to fit all this potential from the Seed Lab in the yard? I don’t know. Have to figure that out next ….

First Outside — this week

• Onion, evergreen white bunching
  
• Parsely, Italian flat leaf
  
• Parsely, Italian flat leaf (2006) — plant in circle garden
  
• Lettuce, bib limestone
  
• Rocket (2006)
  
• Mache, winter lettuce (2006)
  
• Swiss chard, bright lights
  
• Spinach, smooth leaf (2006)
  
• Lettuce, looseleaf blend
  
• Radish, icicle (2006)
  
• Radish, French breakfast (2006)
  
• Peas, Alaska early bush (shelling)
  

First Inside — already done!
These were started in the peat containers last Thursday.

• Lettuce, garnet oakleaf
• Chives (2006) — most of these will go in the circle garden or in front beds
• Chives (2007)
• Garlic Chives
• Leeks, giant musselberg
• Carrots, little finger (2006)
• Carrots, purple haze (2006)
• Fennel
• Broccoli, green sprouting calabrese
• Broccoli raab
• Cauliflower, early snowball
• Squash, yellow crookneck (2006)

Mid- to late-April Outside

• Eggplant, twilight hybrid (keep under cloche)
• Garden beans, pencil pod wax bush (2006)
• Garden beans, jade

Sow Inside in Later April

• Pumpkin, sugar or pie
• Cucumber, space master
• Cucumber, lemon
• Zucchini, jackpot hybrid bush (2006)
• Zucchini, black beauty bush
• Round zucchini, bush summer squash
• Squash, scallop bush mix
  

Sow Inside in May

• Brussel sprouts, dwarf improved
  

Sow Outside in May

• Garden beans, Blue Lake Bush
• Lettuces, chives (rescatter, if there’s any room!)
  

Sow Mid-Summer Outside

• Endive, green curled
• Lettuces (rescatter, if there’s any room!)
  

Not Pictured
When I get the tomato transplants, I will underplant them with common vetch. We learned in our soil-building class that this can help replace nitrogen as well as reduce weeds and soil compaction.

The Plan for the Peat Trays

I’m using a garden notebook my friend Shannon gave me. So far, I have only graphed the first indoor sowing, as I am saving some rows in the peat trays for next month’s indoor planting.

Last year I devised this patented notation system, creating codes for the seeds since the first time I did this, I didn’t know what anything was when it started sprouting. I also place a patented locator figurine in the trays. These must stay in position so I can stay oriented. This year, I am using dinosaurs — a brontosaurus in Tray 1. A stegosaurus in Tray 2.
Makeshift Greenhouse

The little library/hallway has south-facing windows and a perfect surface to fit the trays. Here’s where they stay. I like to rotate the trays a little over the weeks, though I am sure it probably makes no real difference in the actual light they get.

Warm in New Home
Crossing my fingers for a warm jungle of sprouts soon!

Waking Up

The raised beds are still covered and cozy in their burlap blankets this week. Big plans for them in the next few days!

Last Fall, we took a class from the Seattle Tilth called “Putting Your Gardens to Bed.” We learned about a soil-building technique, which we’ve tried here, called the InterBay Method. It was very simple and promises to replenish the soil naturally and grow lots of beneficial, hardworking microorganisms.

Basically, we layered “greens” and “browns” on top of the existing soil, wet everything, and then placed burlap (free from the coffee roaster) on them. We just left them alone all winter. The greens and browns are things like leaves, other garden matter, compost, and used coffee grounds (free from the Starbucks down the street). We also kept a few things in the garden and kept gaps in the burlap — lavender plants and some parsley. They said leaving some things like this can help reduce soil compaction and also put good things in the soil, too.

I haven’t even peeked under them yet, but J has and says it looks like great black stuff under there.

Spring is in the Air

This past Sunday (March 4) we headed out for the first real day of gardening! Only a few days earlier, we had about four inches of snow but by Sunday all had melted, and the air had warmed and cleared. My tactic this year is to approach the yard section by section for initial clean up and some pruning, as well as finally deal with a few projects we haven’t quite been getting to.

So we started right out front by the street. This is the area under the plum tree, where we had a sick --- but beautiful --- very old rhodie removed about a year ago. We also had a completely overgrown patch of what we were told are irises, though we have only seen the small, orange berries since moving in two years ago. Although I seem to have a vague memory of seeing one or two flowers, we are fairly sure they just haven’t bloomed. I guess this is because they were overcrowded.

These irises are called “Stinking Iris.” I read a little about them. Supposedly when you bruise the leaves, the emit a bad odor, usually described as roast-beef-like and that can be smelled from a good distance away.

Although I haven’t eaten roast beef in about 18 years and have never cooked one myself, I am pretty sure I know what that smell is. And I don’t smell it! (Well, maybe just a little but I’m not certain that isn’t just from the suggestion.) Or maybe we are just used to it, and everybody on the block knows us as the Roast Beef People.

For 6+ hours, we raked leaves, weeded, and pruned. J focused on those irises. And he replanted them in a new pattern to help fill in. (Hoping for a new bush of some sort soon to add, too – and eventually really spruce things up with a full, mixed hedge and dwarf fruit tree!)

It felt great to get outside and make some progress. Yay for Spring! I am looking at (and smelling) the new deck furniture in the basement every time I go down to do a load of laundry. Can’t wait.