Planting notes for equinox week

OK, a big update on what has gone into the ground this past week.

• Last Sunday and Monday we planted potatoes, German Butterfinger and Yukon Gold, one in each box on the north side of the shed so they will be well shaded.  We also reviewed the planting notes on the bag for the Yukon Gold potatoes.
• Beets (Jupiter variety) undersowed in the newest bean bed after consulting the companion planting color-coded simple chart.
• Carrots also undersowed in the other two bean beds.  Another packet of Ferry-Morse rainbow assortment in the old pea patch (which also has now four volunteer sugar pea plants up) and Danvers 126 in the original garden box that has the purple bell pepper start and a couple silverdusts on one end along with the assorted garden beans.
• Beets (Ruby Queen variety) put into the other half of the cabbage/chard box.  The cabbage looks like it is starting to head, and the swiss chard looks impressive, so it's time to test just how good a substitute it really is for spinach (which is struggling in the old tomato box, although volunteer dill plants look decent but not spectacular)
• The sweet corn in the old compost heap is rocking it ... pole beans will go in sometime this week, along with zucchini and summer squash, with a perimeter of pumpkins as well as the volunteer acorn squashes.
• Speaking of compost, we have run out of our homemade compost and I bought a Bobcat bucket load from Lynn up the highway ... and I will likely need another bucket load or two before this season's planting is done.
• New fruit trees for the orchard: a bit of a surprise!  My neighbor came over with two orange tree saplings in one hand and his shovel in the other, and planted them for me on Wednesday "Nosotros somos amigos!")  He also showed me how big of a "crater" to put around citrus trees, so we'll be digging up more rope grass in the near future on the rest of our struggling citrus trees.
• Garden fresh salads should begin this week, as the green leafy lettuce from the seeds I collected last year are looking great out there.  I may not know exactly what variety or strain these lettuce plants are, but I do know they are thriving.  I also have a volunteer green romaine lettuce coming up from under the layer of compost, so I will save seeds from that one as well.  Finally, the blush-tinted lettuce (Ashley variety) and the collards I planted in that box are also rocking it, alongside even more volunteer acorn squash.
• Tomato starts are up and need transplanting.  All three varieties planted have sprouted: San Marzanzo, Brandywine, and the Mortgage Lifter seeds from 2013, so I will be taking an assorted dozen next door as a "Muchas gracias por los arboles naranjes." ("Many thanks for the orange trees.")  The other 70-some-odd will go into the walk-in greenhouse we bought at Big Lots and hubby put together over a week ago.  Dad called me Friday and one of his questions was if that was up and running yet.
• Raking up the fallen dead leaves is now a high priority here, after seeing tangible and very positive results!  Must make more compost, for possibly the autumn, and definitely for next spring.

So that is a summary of the past week's playing in the dirt, with some notes for this week's round of playing in the dirt in between chickening and building for chickens.  LOL I wore my cute little cheapie Tractor Supply T-shirt to the county fair yesterday, and the folks at the UF Ag extension booth noticed and commented on it: "Living Life One Acre at a Time."  I mentioned it was so appropriate because while we only have about two and a half acres, we're doing most of this by hand, so it really is "One acre at a time."  Ya know, we may have the front acre almost covered by now.

Just to keep this from being a solid "wall of text" here is one pic of my silver dusts, shortly after I transplanted them.  I have two more pics, but the pic card is not playing well with GIMP right now.

three silver dusts with a couple aloe veras

Beans and corn sprouted

So Saturday, hubby found the bean sprouts peeking up through the compost.  Then we both went over to where I planted the corn, and sure enough there were little green blades popping up!  This morning they are obvious enough for the camera to focus, so here are pics.

garden bean sprout

newest garden bed with beans

corn sprout

corn bed, with a couple volunteer acorn squash

Yup, there are at least two volunteer acorn squash growing with the corn already.  No bother, as we are planting squash in this bed anyway.  Probably crook neck summer squash and zucchini - we do love stir-fry zucchini!

Now, in other news ... last night after we went to bed, as we were almost asleep, we woke to the noise of a shotgun.  Next door.  He fired off at least half a dozen shots, so we knew it was serious.  I asked this morning, and sure enough, the bears are awake already.  Grrr ... this bear was trying to open up their pig pen, so they are doing repairs this morning.  It did get one of their chickens, but both cows and both pigs are unharmed.  That's particularly good, because the cow is about to calve and the sow about to farrow!  I guess the electric netting fence will be tested sooner than we hoped.  Cross fingers and knock on wood that the bears are successfully deterred.

Garden beans sprouting already

Hubby just called me out to identify some sprouts out in the beds where I planted the gourmet blend of garden beans on Tuesday.  Yup!  They are sprouting already!  I think that may be the quickest I have had seeds sprout.  I soaked them overnight before planting them, so that may have done the trick.  The sprouts were not there this morning ... it is part of my morning walkabout to check the garden boxes and beds.  Hubby thinks it is cool he spotted them before I did.  Although we have had rain in the forecast for most of the week, it keeps missing us so hubby is out watering with the hose in the evenings.

Bean booster and a gardening book

We have been busy-Busy-BUSY the past couple days.  The weather has been just beautiful for this time of year, and - except for afternoon crash-naps - it has seemed a shame to spend such nice days indoors.  I bought more starts the other day: the last three Mysore raspberry canes I needed to make my nice symmetrical formation in front of the pumphouse, some dusty millers/silverdust starts, and a purple bell pepper start.  The raspberries and the silverdust flat were on clearance markdown.  I only paid $3 each for the berry canes (regular $7.98) and then $3 for the dozen silverdusts (regular $9.98) so that just rocked.  I also bought more seeds.

Speaking of seeds, I finally got the "gourmet blend" of garden beans in the ground this morning.  I had them out and soaking to wake them up, and I saw "Pea and Bean Booster," and this time I bought some because I knew what it is!  Let me back up a bit: Tractor Supply has bargain boxes of books, where each is only $5.  I have happily pillaged this box, usually for cookbooks that sound interesting but also for two gardening books, both Storey guides.  One is for growing organic orchard fruits (my trees may celebrate when I start reading that one!) and the other is Growing Organic Vegetables and Herbs for Market.  I figure market growers should know a thing or two about getting better crop yields ... and so far this book is not disappointing.  In fact, it has quite an informative section all about soil, and one chapter that includes microorganisms in addition to minerals.  A section mentioned inoculates to put with peas, beans, and various other nitrogen-fixing legumes.  As soon as I read it, I realized I see it in the seed racks, labeled "Pea & Bean Booster."  You know, if Burpee had labeled it properly "Pea and Bean Inoculate," I would have immediately realized what it was ... but then again I am a bit of a geek.  This year I bought it, and this year I am using it.  According to the book, I need to treat it like my bread yeast.

the book, the inoculate booster, and the bean seeds

Oh, a slight annoyance: there were a few broken bean seeds in my packet.  More than I usually get in my grocery-bought field dry beans.  I am a bit irked.  As y'all can see in the picture, it is not difficult to tell which seeds will be which colors.

I have hybrid silver-and-gold sweet corn seeds soaking right now, and hubby leveled out the original compost pile to make a squarish bed where we will give the "three sisters" planting a try.  Corn gets planted first, otherwise the pole bean plant will strangle it - I learned that the hard way up in Tennessee.

Finally, the really big announcement: I have MINT coming back from last year!

Preparing the bean beds

Taking one of the old salad boxes, cleaning out all but the flat leaf parsley plant still holding on after two years, and transplanted a volunteer fernleaf dill out of it before I cleaned it, added compost, and worked it in with a hoe.  That reminds me - I need a new and better garden hoe.

I also pulled up the three carrot plants and four radish plants ... and was terribly disappointed.  I didn't even bother to snap a pic, just tossed them in to the chickens to at least play with.  I forked the pea/carrot/radish bed, added compost, then hubby and I hoed it in.  Then I mentioned what was left of that small compost pile under the trees would make a good bed if it was spread out to proper size, and hubby got it done while I sat in the shade sipping ice water (at his insistence - "You need a break!").  After that, we switched spots, and I began to rake the leaves into new compost piles that should become beds either for winter planting or next spring.

The compost pile we used was only a year old, but it is also the one I had hubby's friend, "Airborne," stir up whenever he came down to visit last year.  Airborne usually was all excited and happy to be away from the big city, out in the countryside where he knows the food will be great (we always feed him leftovers!) and to hang out with hubby, and even me.  The problem is, he often shows up at sunrise when we are coffee zombies, so I took to pointing him towards the compost fork, or handed him the dog on the leash.  He would joke about a free workout, and I'd joke about him earning his lunch and/or dinner.  So this small compost pile, made up of mostly fallen leaves and a bit of grass clippings, quickly broke down into something very usable for beans.

three bean beds ready to plant
chick tractors in the background

I am planting a "gourmet blend" of garden beans, with one third being a normal green bush bean (Blue Lake) , one third being Royal Burgandy bush bean, and the last third being Mellow Yellow bush bean.  That ought to make for a fun plate.  If they produce well, and I have enough to can up, they'll make awesome-looking jars with the three colors.  I also have a whole package of the Royal Burgandy beans, and another of Dragon Tongue for fun-colored beans other than just green.  Then, I also have asparagus/yardlong beans, sometimes called snake beans, for the summer.

Along with all that, I have two packs of sweet corn, and a variety of summer and winter squash ... hubby wants to try out the "three sisters" planting.  We just need to figure out where we want to put that.  I'm liking the idea of planting in the clear spot in back, while hubby is thinking up front by the road-fence-decorative windmill.  We'll bat ideas back and forth while driving up to get a nice dinner and hit Lowe's for more supplies.

16 Mar planting notes

A bit of planting before the rain hits sometime tonight.
Transplanted: mustard greens, one Golden Jubilee tomato, "twin" red bell and yellow bell peppers.

Seed planting: more Burpee "Snowbird" snow peas in the snow pea bed where some previous did not sprout, plus some of last year's Burpee "Kitchen King" garden beans in between the rows of snow peas, and also in blank spots between the fernleaf dill, marigolds, and various yet-unidentified peppers and tomatoes.  American Seed "Alaska" green pea planted in the box where the Green Arrow variety did not sprout.

Must do posts on the compost ...!  Or maybe hubby will post up on it, as he spent the week getting up close and personal with the main compost pile.

Also posts on the fruit trees, and the chickens.

So I planted green beans

The past couple weeks, I've been planting the last of the green bean seeds for a fall harvest.In three beds, green beans were all I planted, and in all three of those beds what I have growing is ... tomatoes.  In one of the beds, it can be explained by the tomato plant in the corner of that box, but the other beds either didn't exist or didn't have anything planted over the spring and summer, so these little tomatoes-who-could must be from the compost pile that I've started using now.

Talking to my mom this morning, she actually asked if I knew the difference between green bean seeds and tomato seeds!  LOL Yes, and yes I know the difference between the seedlings that sprouted as well.  This mainly means my compost isn't "cooking" on the inside, even though it both looks and smells like nice compost.  It should be interesting to see which varieties these volunteers are, as the volunteers tend to be the most vigorous tomato plants.

Now, for an actual recent picture of me for friends and family:

planting green beans for fall

That's my new straw work hat, as opposed to the "Florida tourist" straw hat I bought in St. Augustine's Old Town a good five years ago or so.  St. Aug is a lovely little tourist trap, and we plan to go in November when they have the pirate festival.  Yes, those are my old garrison BDU bottoms as well, and they are more comfortable to work in than they were back in the spring.

When the weather clears up again, I'll need to do up a post with pictures for my experiment along the fence line.

Fall planting

Being this far south, gardening is a year-round sport.  That said, I didn't do so hot over the summer ... pun intended.  I'm down to about a handful of tomato plants left alive between the hornworms, the heat, and the sporadic rain.  I had thought I was doing pretty decent with my pepper plants, until I went next door and saw her three and four foot tall plants loaded up with ripening peppers.

So now I'll get a chance to do better with the fall and winter gardens.  So far I've planted green beans, snow peas, and carrots in the past couple weeks.

Another round of green beans

The green (bush) beans I planted in the 4th garden box are now ready for eating or preserving, along with more varieties of tomatoes.  Here's a quick picture in between search-and-destroy patrols for hornworms.

garden fresh green beans and tomatoes

Actually, that pic is from a day or two ago; I'm too busy hunting hornworms this morning.  I have noticed them early, and they are small ... but the white pullets seem to think they are 5-star gourmet.

New tomato varieties now that have ripened are the Mortgage Lifter and Black Prince.  I now have Marglobe and Mr. Stripey starting to turn color, and the German Johnson has definitely set at least one tomato, if the (*BLEEP!*)in' hornworms leave it alone.  I have at least three Cherokee Purples munched/ruined by hornworms already, and a couple of Black Prince tomatoes as well.  In fact ... between cracking from too much rain and now the hornworms, I still have yet to harvest a Cherokee Purple 'mater.

As for the green beans, I put four different bush varieties in the 4th garden box, and am pretty pleased with the results.  In fact, overall I am doing quite well with bush green beans.  Here are some notes on what I've planted.

• Harvester (American Seed Co) - decent enough yield in the 2nd garden box, but I have run out of seeds and am waiting for the remaining plants and bean pods to give me more to try in another box.
• Top Crop (American Seed Co) -so-so yield, also in the 2nd garden box, and also waiting for some pods to dry out on the plants as again I ran out of seeds from the pack.
• Tendergreen Improved (Ferry-Morse) - absolutely impressive yield in the 2nd garden box ... yet very much less-than-impressive in the 3rd box.  The main difference between the two boxes is amount of sunlight, especially midday sun.  Looks like these need to be planted for morning and late evening sun, with midday shade.
• Contender (Ferry-Morse) - excellent yield in the 4th garden box!  These make up most of the beans in the sieve pictured above.  Like the Tendergreen Improved, these bloom purple instead of white.
• Kitchen King (Burpee) - also a great yield in the 4th box, although these are shorter and skinnier than the Contenders, they are also a shade or two darker/deeper green.
• Heavyweight II (Burpee) - less than stellar sprout rate, so I had to resow and have not harvested much from them (in the 4th box).
• Tenderpick (Burpee) - worst sprout rate in the 4th box of the four varieties.  I have harvested some beans off the two initial plants, but there are no qualities that were memorable.

I bought some more lumber to make a couple more boxes over the weekend, although the current build project is an add-on to the Rampart, making it into a duplex.  I am hoping to make green beans a year-round idea here.