Salad seeds started

I felt motivated to do some more planting this evening after hubby and I went out for dinner to celebrate the successful auction.  This time I planted two types of lettuce, some green English cabbage, and something called corn salad, which I have never tried but am quite curious to taste.

two kinds of lettuce, green English cabbage, and corn salad

So this tray, marked with a Heinz ketchup pack (what can I say?  The cat has not brought either of us nice colored twistie ties recently) consists of:

• Burpee "Salad Bowl" lettuce
• Burpee "Ashley" red lettuce
• American Seed "Early Green" cabbage
• Burpee corn salad

I guess I am really feeling the gardening urge so far this year.  Here's hoping the motivation sticks!

Oh, a short chicken note: We took six Wyandotte chicks from out underneath one of the "dragons" who was still on the ground with the chicks who did not figure out hubby's stairs of scrap wood from the deck.  After we got those six and put them in to cuddle up with Pollux, our capon chick nanny, hubby moved four more Wyandotte chicks up into the nest boxes with the other dragons.  My comment was, "It's a good thing chickens can't count, or I'd be in a LOT of trouble tomorrow morning!"

Salad days are here again

This year's designated salad box - planted from seed this time - is ready to contribute to the table!  Two kinds of lettuce and then a few baby small chard leaves as well.  The hens contributed the eggs hubby hard-boiled the other day.  What better way to kick it off than with a piece of prime rib hubby's dad sent home with him from New Year's get-together.  That's marinating in the back fridge, hopefully happily soaking up the port.  Fresh sliced mushrooms were marked down at the grocery Wednesday, and twice-baked potatoes will round out the dinner line-up.  It is also supposed to turn cold behind the last wave of rain, so this is the best time to roast some beast in the oven.

Here is the salad box, before pillaging.

this year's salad box: 2 kinds of lettuce planted,
1 volunteer green romaine, collards, and of course
volunteer acorn squash

I was intending to take a pic after the pillaging, but honestly I really didn't put that much of a dent in the leaves to be noticeable.

I intend to pretty much strip the kale plants, and the Swiss chard plants, tomorrow morning for dehydrating.  I want to get them before they bolt, and preferably on a morning it's cool.  Kale rocks when it's dried, then crumbled into scrambled eggs or a broth soup.  Oddly, the chickens don't seem to care for it ... they always tear through the turnip greens though.

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

Planted some more stuff

Wall-of-text, probably no pics ... this is where I keep my gardening notes so the cat cannot shred a paper notebook and I should not be able to misplace this.  After last evening's huge assault on the dirt and weeds, hubby asked what WE were planting today.  I love that he has become more interested in both the gardening (including composting) and the chickens (which may also include composting).  So we attacked another bed with digging fork, shovel, hoe and rake.  Here we go:

• Green onion (Burpee Parade variety) in the box next to the store-bought green onions I had planted either in the spring or last fall.  The ones I started from seed last year near the coop have outshone and outproduced the store-boughts.  For anyone who has not yet heard the trick on store-bought green onions: chop them down to where the stems turn white ... then instead of tossing the little bulbs, plant them.  Excellent for people who have little space and use containers for gardening ... but as I mentioned, the seed started ones are noticeably better.
• Chives (Ferry-Morse, garlic variety) in the same box as the green onions.  A nice bit of variety.
• Spinach (Burpee Bloomsdale Long-Standing and Satin varieties) in the same box, also in the original salad box, and a few scattered in where I planted mustard, spinach mustard, and turnip greens the other day.  We like spinach!  Especially in salads, on sandwiches, in casseroles, etc etc etc ....
• Peas (American Seed Dwarf Gray Sugar variety) along the trellis in the bed-without-a-box we prepped this morning.  An edible-pod variety, which will mean a lot of happy stir-fries for us.
• Carrots (orange, Burpee Big Top, Scarlet Nantes, and Danvers 126 varieties) scattered on one side of the pea trellis closer to the house.
• Rainbow carrots from Ferry-Morse.  Seriously, who could resist a purple carrot?  Or a gold one, or a white one ... you could say I tend to still play with my food on a more sophisticated level! LOL
• Parsnip (Ferry-Morse, Hollow Crown variety) I was surprised the seeds are so much larger than carrot seeds, since I thought the two more closely related.  Hmm, maybe kissing cousins instead of first cousins then.
• Radish (Ferry-Morse, White Icicle Short Top variety) just because.

I am pretty sure that is all that I have planted today.  I am out of half-empty envelopes and did not use all of any one up.

Green and red romaine lettuce plants taking well

Here are a few pics of the green and red romaine lettuce starts I transplanted the other week.  I have them spread out among three boxes, as at the time the neighbors' pet deer was still pillaging gardens.  (I still have not seen her recently ... I had nothing to do with that, either!)  I figure next week we can probably start eating a salad or two.

green and red romaine lettuce, with a few volunteer pepper plants, likely datil

green and red romaine lettuce in with basil and last year's green onions

last year's salad box, with the last few red romaine lettuce plants

In this last box, you can see a little bit of our composting-in-place going on.  Kitchen waste like coffee grounds, filters, egg shells, and vegetable scraps get put into future beds or existing beds that need a little boost.  Meat scraps go to either the dog or the chickens.  Dead leaves and grass clippings round that out.

Green and red romaine lettuce transplanted

Just a quick note that I transplanted green and red romaine lettuce starts in three different boxes.  Right now, our biggest garden pest is the neighbors' pet deer who had twin fawns this year.  She stripped their gardens first, then came over to ours (along with getting quite a few pears off the trees too).  So, I am trying to spread things out in hope that she does not eat it all.

Seeds in freezer for later planting, too.

Lettuce seeds collected

I just spent some time collecting lettuce seeds from the one spectacularly-growing lettuce plant in the garden box I also had peas in.  According to my previous post, the box was seeded with two varieties of lettuce back in February.  Here's the punchline: I am not sure which variety grew the one plant so well, as I had only two sprouts make it and one was puny and weak.  They are both the same ... but nothing to compare it with!  Oh well ....

So my plan of action is to plant the seeds I just harvested this fall, pick out a couple plants that look strong and impressive and collect seeds from them, and repeat for a few years.  If what grew this spring is a hybrid, then I'll have all kinds of interesting specimens to choose from come next spring.  If it breeds true, then both hubby and I shall feast on green salads through the winter and maybe even share with the chickens.  The chickens will probably feast all winter either way.  I estimate I will have a good, vigorous variety of green leafy lettuce that thrives in my yard in approximately five years ... with a bit of luck, of course.

My dirt, my dream.  Oh, and hubby has been getting some garden ideas of his own (usually involving his jalapenos).

Repairs and transplants

Hubby fixed the PVC pipes between the well pump and the storage tank last evening, and we did have water although the pump did not want to shut off.  We cut the circuit breaker, then turned it on this morning and noticed a small leak .... small leaks under such pressure never stay small.  Bah.  The problem seems to be the threads in the well pump hole, and by now the local hardware stores have closed for the day.  Guess we'll be going up the highway tomorrow to the big box stores.

While we were at the hardware store earlier this afternoon, I picked up some more cheater starts to transplant.  I have some Bonnie Red Sails lettuce and some Bonnie Georgia Hybrid collards.  The collards are mostly for the chickens, since the turnip greens I planted in the fall are just not keeping up with the birds' appetites.  The red lettuce will go into some salads, and probably some will go to the chickens as well.

I'll get pictures eventually.  I already missed the peach blossoms, but the Meyer lemon and the Persian lime have buds that should bloom soon.

18 Feb two varieties of lettuce

Quick note: put two varieties of lettuce seeds on the prepared dirt in three boxes.  Used Burpee Salad Bowl and Ferry-Morse Grand Rapids that were in my refrigerator over the winter.

Lovely day for hanging out the laundry.

Planting notes first week of Feb

No pics ... I'll get to those eventually.  I have now started the early spring planting, kicking off on Saturday with transplanting broccoli, cabbage, and lettuce starts that I picked up at WalMart on Friday.  On an impulsive whim, I also bought garlic bulbs and asparagus crowns ... now I need to quickly dig beds for them.  From what I've found online, asparagus beds in Florida usually only last about five years instead of 20-30 years up north.  Even so, that is still a better cost:benefit ratio than buying spears in the grocery.

Back in November, I had planted top-crop turnips, spinach, and lettuce ... and only got turnip greens and tomatoes, which died around New Year's with the first big cold front of the year.  The turnip greens have been doing quite well, much to the chickens' delight.  I plan to plant them more kinds of greens, as they have laid through most of the winter.  My neighbor mentioned to me yesterday that her hens aren't laying, so I gave her four eggs that were waiting to be carried in and in return she gave me a small round of Mexican bread she made (it was GOOD!).

2nd garden box planted

While talking to my son this evening, I realized I have not posted pics of the second garden box at all, and haven't done an updated pic of the salad box.  I grabbed the digicam before it got dark and remedied that:

3 kinds of mint: spearmint, peppermint, and orange mint

the veggie box:
tomatoes, green beans, carrots, zucchini, and cucumbers for pickles

the salad box:
4 varieties of lettuce, 2 kinds of spinach, 3 beets,  tomatoes, zucchini,  dill, basil

fresh-cut dill, basil, and parsley for scrambled eggs in the morning!

another round of fresh salads

First harvest - Salad Lunch!

Today marks a small but significant milestone here.  For today's lunch, I went out to the first garden box - aptly nicknamed the salad box - with an old wooden bowl and a pair of scissors to trim a bowlful of lettuce leaves for salads.  The romaine lettuce plants are bigger and more robust than the buttercrunch lettuce, so that made up the majority of leaves harvested, but I had two of the plastic cells in the buttercrunch flat that had two plants I could not separate (I did succeed at separating one other buttercrunch cluster for ten out of nine cells).

Since this is the first harvest (no matter how small) for this property, I simply had to snap a picture:

First romaine and buttercrunch lettuce harvest

While washing and tearing the leaves, I also grabbed the rest of the components for a good lunch salad out of the refrigerator: bacon, a hard-boiled egg, shredded mozzarella cheese, a slice of bread to make croutons, dried cranberries, baby carrots, and some store-bought spinach for the darker green we love.  Hubby asked if I intended to get a pic of the salads before we began to eat:

first salads from the garden box

Out in the seedling tray, waiting for this latest cold front to pass, are two varieties of spinach, two varieties of carrots, two more varieties of lettuce, and three varieties of beets.  We have already agreed to use part of our tax return on a chicken coop and some chicks ... especially considering how much will-power and self-discipline from both of us it took to leave Tractor Supply without a small coop kit and a handful of cheeping baby chicks.  As the season progresses, we plan (hope) to get more of our salads from just outside our front door!