Tag Archives: Chard

April Showers bring HAIL?

The past month hasn’t seen much activity in the garden.  April, true to its history has been wet, wet, wet.  A surprise hail storm lasted long enough to see a rather large pile of hail exit the roof and establish itself in front of our porch.  Its remnants were still there the next morning when I left for work.  Fortunately, the hail was small and didn’t seem to do any damage either to the balcony lettuce or to the spinach seedlings just coming up at the community garden spot.  I’m sure the lettuce was wondering what was going on.

This Just In

Today saw the planting of two varieties of potato, Makah Ozette and Nicola. The latter is a European variety of a lower glycemic potato. I’ve only found ONCE source in the US so far, the Main Potato Lady.  Once again I opted for planting in half buried large nursery pots, 6 in all. I learned about this method from a community gardener in the UK.  Also into the ground went some beet (Cylindrical) and radish (French Breakfast) seed.  Yeah its wet but there wasn’t a lot of disturbing the soil except where the potato pots were ‘planted’.  I think they are happy.

Whats Growing

Broccoli and Chard:

4 starts of each went in the ground near the end of last month.  I wasn’t planning on planting chard but they are so pretty and I was so needing to plant SOMETHING.

Garlic:

Last years two garlic plantings are coming along nicely.  Looks like I have near 100% of what I planted up and ready to start the season.  I gave them a bit of fertilizer last month and with all this rain they should be getting the full benefit.  Bring on the sun.

Kale:

Another overwintered crop.  I planted these from starts late last summer.  We’ve been eating on them for about a month now.  They have started to go to seed but the dog will eat the unopened flower tops so life is good.

Leeks:

The last of the overwintering trio.  A fellow gardener offered up some tiny leek starts last spring.  They ended up getting overshadowed last summer and stayed pretty small.  They come back with a vengeance this year and are almost ready to harvest.

Lettuce:

The old lettuce seed I planted last month did nothing.  Not surprising.  I think the seed was circa 2014.  I picked up some starts from a local garden center and tucked a few starts of the old Amish variety in next to the onions and a few other from a mixed lot into the balcony planter.   I decided to bite the bullet and buy some fresh seed and start those in a plastic container inside.  They are about half ana inch tall now and will be tucked out here and there once things get more settled.

Peas:

My nearly vegetarian dog LOVES snow peas.  We do too but she ends up eating most of them.  I planted half as much as I did last year, a single cardboard trough worth.  The idea was to get them up indoors, grow them out on the balcony to about six inches then plant out.  The scheduled roof redo meant they went into the garden early.  So far so good.

Spinach:

The two varieties of spinach are coming along nicely.  Spinach bolts when the days get to be a certain length so the season tends to be short here as we get long pretty early.  Its a pity, the climate could make for some awesome spinach almost year round.

Out with the Old

I really can’t be trusted when it comes to garden centers. I’m like an addict. Each visit I swear I don’t need any more plants or seeds and just about every week I find myself there looking for my next fix. Today I ended up with two horehounds plants and some California poppy, sweet pea and zinnia seeds. Ask me where I’m going to plant them. :-/

I had a big day planned in the garden today. The kale was coming out and some goodies were going in. The chard and kale that I started under lights back in March needed a spot. Finding somewhere to put them was no easy task. I ended up harvesting the rest of the overwintering Kale, digging in some peat moss and fertilizer before putting four of the chard in its place and another one elsewhere. I tucked the four kale in next to the chard. I had one left over of each but not where to put them. They are now on the table in the center of the garden waiting to be adopted. I spread some Sluggo around here and there. I was told that slugs love dahlias and mine are just now coming up. My first attempt at dahlias and I don’t want to lose them to the slimy ones. I ran across a huge ant while watering my bed post planting. Pretty sure it is a carpenter ant. Probably there to for the wooden rails that line the beds.

When I initially joined the garden, the routine was that for every plot you rented you grew a row in another plot for the local food bank. It worked that way for the first two years and was a great way to get fresh veggies onto the dinner plates of folks who might not otherwise be able to afford it. In addition to our rows, Anita managed several VERY large beds that grew pretty much everything. It was a TON of work I’m sure. Rarely was I at the garden that I didn’t see her watering, planting or fixing hoses. This year instead of growing a row we signup for one or two time slots a month to, weed, help work the food bank rows or whatever else needs to be done. They actually started this later last year and it seems to work really well. It helps to take some of the load off Anita and we get to be part of the process in the areas that really need the work. I’ve weeded, cut back raspberries, harvested blueberries, watered and planted corn. Today was my first day this season. After working in my own plots for a couple of hours I watered several very large (10’x50′) food bank beds. Everything is looking great. The plants all seem very happy.

At home it was time to plant some of the Tiny Tim and basket tomatoes I had started from seed. I ended up putting a couple of the basket tomatoes in a long planter that sits on the balcony railing. I added a couple of the variegated nasturtium seedlings too. Not sure how they will do but worth a shot.