Full greenhouses, new pictures

Begonias and impatiens

Coleus on one end

marigolds on the other

A hodge podge of crops

Geraniums, dahlias, and others

Vinca and dahlias

Cape daisies, supertunias and ornamental peppers

 We are at that time of year when we are full or nearly so.  We had some early crops go out for plantings for the May graduation ceremonies.  We had the hardiest crops, petunia and dusty millers, out in the elements with just shade and frost cover when needed.  A few other items went to unheated hoop houses to acclimate them to the elements.  We have filled up the outside shade area again with similar crops to toughen them up and space out the larger wave petunias.  I need more shade cloth up as there are some other plants that would love to get outside to enjoy the weather.  
The extra heat from longer, sunny days has been to the benefit of many of the plants.  I have learned some things that I want to do differently.  I had some crops at two stages of maturity, I want to do a few more to get a jump on some of the earlier (pre-Memorial Day) orders.  This would allow us to harden off more crops so the customer's success increases.  I dream of building some benches that would bring our crops up and let us keep better control of weeds.  It would also double up the outdoor space with two tier possibilities.  It would be a fairly minor investment as well.  Every year there are new ideas to try and implement.  Time and money are the only limitations.

Hardening off the early plants

It is that time of year.  Time to start putting out those early plants to get them ready for the brutality of life in the garden.  Some of the things I will do an early start on are onions, lettuce, spinach, kale, cabbage... the cold weather crops.  You can start them indoors like I do with onion seeds for my storage onions, or start them in the ground like I do for green onions and peas.
If you start plants indoors they have the best of growing conditions.  Perfect water, perfect light...the good life.  Outdoors it is windy and cold.  The full sun is more than they are used to.  Taking plants out means doing it in slow steps.  First days are just for a few hours, out of the wind, indirect light.  Lengthen the time out, increase the light exposure, get them used to the breezes then bring them back in at night.  If you have an unexpected snow storm or cold snap into the teens and 20's, keep them in.  Within a couple of weeks they are spending the whole day outside from sun up to sun down.  The leaves feel thicker, stronger than the tender plants you started with.
The cold tolerant plants will be ready for planting out in the garden as long as the soil is workable.  If you have to chip away the ice, it's too early.  If the soil feels like a wet sponge, it's too early.  It should turn easily and hold together without water dripping out when you squeeze it in your hand.  You can use floating row covers to add some protection or a heavier frost cover if some colder weather sets in after planting.  It is surprising what cold weather crops can handle.  They are not talking very favorable conditions for my planned planting on Easter weekend, but I am going to start making my plans anyway.

The best laid plans

I was so excited about getting all my seeds.  I had great plans for what I would have in my garden.  I was really looking forward to three different kinds of flowering kale.  Well,  what did I do with them???  As it happens in my house, things go missing.  How three packages of seeds got separated from the rest is beyond me.  I looked everywhere logical and even some not.  No seeds.

One set of my asters did not germinate, at all, the other variety is fine.  I have seeded both collected and purchased black-eyed Susan vines to see how collected seed performs.  I lost some plants to neglect.  I thought the seedlings were fine only to come home from work to find some plants permanently wilted.  The Celebrity tomatoes barely made six plants because of that mistake.  Luckily I went over-board on varieties so I have other plants to fill the spaces...so far.

Other things I am happy with.  I had good luck rooting cuttings of several plants and was able to successful divide others.  I am rethinking how many plants I want to carry over from one year to the next.  I had all three tiers of lights going this last winter and that is more than I usually burn.  I would like to look at the difference in the electric bills from one year to the next.  It may not be an accurate assessment as we also had a more mild winter last year and we used less heat than the most recent one.  I also don't know if I like taking care of so much in the off season.  If I had a well lit, sunny greenhouse to retreat to rather than a basement, it might be more appealing.  Ahh, to dream...

The spring is coming in slow but sure.  I have been able to quickly move plants in and out at night with my wheeled shelf.  I need to expand operations with a set of stationary shelves for the plants already hardened off.  So far the rotation is working this year.  I have room on the shelves for the seedlings almost ready for transplant.  It is a dance of timing and space.

The vegetable garden is at the fun stage to watch.  Seedlings are popping up in my square foot garden making a patch work pattern of greens in rows and dots.  The onions are starting to show their strength in the way they stand straight.  They are still tiny, but they are strong.  The peas are sparse due to the cold weather following my eager planting.  I will get enough to keep me happy, so I can't complain.  The spinach, radicchio, lettuce and cabbages are all putting on new growth and expanding.  I just have to remember to keep them all watered.

My bare-root shrubs that I tucked into pots are sprouting new growth and I even saw some flower buds forming on the kiwi.  I stopped at the garden center for peat pots after work yesterday and left with a Goldencrisp apple and an Alberta peach.  I may have jumped the gun on these but they were 20% off.  I want to make the apple into an espalier so I have a new subject to read up on.  I want to put this in the same spot as our new patio (which is still a pile of bricks next to the garage).  The peach tree will find a spot to stand out in the yard anticipating the ultimate demise of the male mulberry that is growing on the park side of our property line.  With all the hollow spots and cracks, it is only a made of when, not if.  We had it trimmed away from the yard to try and keep it from landing on our garage and shed.  Fingers crossed...

I came up with a pretty cool trellis for my sweet autumn clematis this spring.  I used some of the old wire clothes line and dog tie down to form a frame work.  I used the plastic netting that I ran behind it last year to train it away from the rails and stairs.  The beauty comes in with the grapevine I cut and laced over the rear fence for Christmas lights.  I cut a bunch to length and fastened them to the edges of the frame.  It is functional and attractive.  I think it should hold through the summer especially after the clematis reaches the second floor and grows onto the second set of wires which have carried it to the roof line year after year.

I also got busy with setting out the praying mantis egg sacks yesterday.  The weather has been consistently warm and the timing feels right.  I put them inside upside-down 4" pots with netting over the bottom to keep out predators.  There is one hanging right next to the clematis in the picture next to the drain pipe.  A co-worker orders and sells them every year.  It is an inexpensive and fun project.  Look back to my pictures of the little guys when they hatched last year. 
http://gardeninggwen.blogspot.com/2012/06/praying-mantis-emerge.html

Praying mantis egg case

It has been a busy week in the garden, but the pace has been an enjoyable one.  I was able to mix up the heavy work with some light duty tasks.  I even had the pleasure of going up to the Milwaukee High School of the Arts for their day with the Burpee Grow Anywhere Garden Tour. http://www.burpeehomegardens.com/(S(gf2402r0mzl3vwjqb4vdltms))/Blog/2013/05/07/grow-anywhere-tour--making-milwaukee-smile.html
I came home with a Fourth of July tomato.  They are an early season plant.  I took out my wall-o-water towers and filled them up.  I planted the tomato tonight inside the warm, insulated tower.  It will be fun to see how well the tower works to push the season on the tomato plant.  More on that later.

I certainly spent enough time logging garden time in today, but I love to look back at the digital record to see what worked last year and what didn't.  Once the flowers get transplanted, I may not get back to writing for awhile.  I also have to make at least one visit to the garden centers so I can find some flowering kale plants!

Seeding, cutting back and general yard work

The pile of wood chips on the driveway is getting smaller each day.  I no longer do marathon hauling sessions, but rather like to chip away at jobs in smaller pieces.  The hardest areas have been done where I had to carry the chips in large buckets to fill the pathways of my garden (the wheel barrow does not fit through the gate).

Seedlings have been popping up like crazy, so I am spending a couple hours at a time pricking out little vegetables and flowers into larger cell packs.  As a result, more and more established plants have been added to the outdoor shelves and only moved into the garage to get them out of the cold.

Nature played a cruel trick on Wisconsin this year.  Last year we were two weeks ahead of spring's normal start.  Our friends in the northwest part of the state were dealing with up to 18" of new snow with the front that brought us cold rain.  Opening fishing season called for ice augers on some lakes as there was still 24" of ice on some of them.  Like they say, if you don't like the weather, just wait a few minutes!

I divided up my hanging basket of Mandevilla vine today.  I was just going to move it up a pot size when I noticed it had four individual stems from one pot.  It will be interesting to see how it handles the stress of dividing.  My jasmine has flowers on it already.  It amazes me that it can sit in the basement all winter and still put out a nice flush of early blooms.  Artificial light does not hinder this one.  I had done a drastic cut back on it last fall to make it easy to keep for the winter.  This also did not seems to set it back much either.

I think the tomatoes are ready for cell packs now.  I may have tried too many this year, but the seed catalogs were too tempting with the descriptions.  Only one tomatillo is going in this year though.  Four was too many.

There was some good bargains at the hardware store this morning for potting soil.  This is what made all the transplanting possible.  Mother's Day is next weekend so the stores are really gearing up for spring even if it doesn't always feel like it is here.  I also got 10-10-10 fertilizer for the asparagus bed.  Everything I read said to put 10-10-10 in the trench.  It was a pretty good day all-in-all. 

Seeding, pricking, and more seeding

Things are getting hot and heavy in my little basement greenhouse.  I had an excellent weekend of outdoor gardening so the indoor seeding waited for another couple days.  I hope I don't regret putting it off with plants too small to transplant later.  I was able to prick out my peppers, Celosia, and Heliotrope.  I had to make decisions about only keeping what I need instead of saving every plant.  Sometimes it is hard to toss some things on the compost pile, but I make myself feel better that I saved the best of them for planting.  My last batch of coleus is also almost fully rooted.  The first batch is ready to be nipped back to promote side shoots.  This makes a better plant over having a single stem heading up.  Try it, you'll like it!  Tomatoes are almost ready to be upgraded, too.

I have also had to make some decisions about what stays in and what goes out.  The violas are small but hardy.  A few of the seeds I am sowing now also like it cooler so outside they go.  I have a rolling rack that can move in and out of the garage for night time protection.  I think the petunias are next as they are also a hardy plant once they get hardened off.  The geraniums, jasmine and potted mandevilla vines are already on their way to complete outdoor happiness.

The garden beds are filling up with early crops as well.  I put in seeds for carrots, beets, chard, kale, radicchio, and pak choy.  I also put in my baby cabbages (an actual variety, not a size descriptor), romaine lettuce, onions, and radicchio plants.  All have been given a row cover to help them acclimate to the conditions.  With temps around 80 today, they are also going to be ready for water.  Time to break out the hoses until the rain barrels get their first fill.  I did not turn them until this weekend as we still had nights in the 30's when we were getting all that rain.

I dug in my asparagus roots on Sunday with compost from last year.  I used some of the soil from the trench to pot up my honey berries and kiwi vines as they came bare root.  The areas that they are to be planted in are in prep stage.  The plants were starting to leaf out, so holding them in pots is better for the health of the plants.  The chicken-in-the-woods mushroom plugs are also going into the same area.  These can wait in the frig for longer.

The sun is shining, the birds are singing

It has been a good week to be a gardener.  I got busy indoors last weekend sowing my seeds indoors and the sprouts are coming up.  Cabbage, lettuce, and radicchio have sprouted and as soon as the first set of true leaves pop, I will transplant them into larger cells so I can put plants into the garden later.  The basement greenhouse got a big overhaul also.  I made cuttings and dumped out a number of stock pots to make room for the seeding.  I also put up my shelves and light in my kitchen window for expanded growing space.

 We have had a change in weather in Milwaukee.  The sun has been showing up on a regular basis and the snow is nearly melted even in the shady parts of my yard.  I took a walk around the garden this afternoon and picked up a bit of soil in the garden.  It is a bit wet for working yet, but it has warmed up quite a bit, even in the bed not covered with clear plastic.  I think that I will have to get the garden peas and radishes in this weekend.  If all goes well, the onion plants can make it in soon.  I have to start hardening them off by giving them a few hours of outdoor exposure each day until they are ready to stay out all the time.

Even though I haven't gotten in early plants this year, I have done more indoor gardening.  I bought micro-greens mixes from Pinetree Gardens last year.  The germination is still very good, so I have been sowing 4" pots for fresh cut greens.  I add them to the top of a lettuce salad for a bit of flavor beyond romaine lettuce.  I also brought out the sprouting seeds and have done several batches of mung bean and alfalfa sprouts to salads and sandwiches.  Every little bit of homegrown makes such a difference.  Once you have put out the initial expense of seed, soil, and containers, it becomes more affordable to do yourself.  It is also fun to pop the little extras into the lunchbox for a bit of summer during the cold months.

Eviction Notice

The larger, hardy plants have gotten their eviction notice.  Such a cruel thing to do on a cool, rainy morning.  But, it had to be done.  My jasmine, scented geranium trees, mandevilla vine and rosemary all got moved to the north side of the garage to start the acclimation process.  They are just steps away from the service door, so should cold weather strike, I move them in there to take cover.

I moved a few of the potted items outdoors as well this morning.  My ivy geraniums and citronella geraniums were put into larger pots and put on the rolling rack.  The alpine strawberry boxes are added weight to the shelves for now, but will find a home hanging on the fence or someplace else soon.  I added casters to this shelf last fall.  Now I will be able to roll it into the garage on cold nights instead of moving the flats in one by one to the floor of the garage.  Next week will result in more evictions as I need the space indoors.

The reason for the evictions was two fold.  First, the larger plants need to acclimate.  Second, I ran out of room and transplanting had to be done.  My tomatoes have a good set of second leaves with strong centers.  I upgraded my Black-eyed Susan vines (Thunbergia). I flatted up the rooted coleus.  Also completed transplanting of tomatoes, agastache, some petunias, and parsley.  I came up with a solution for getting the new transplants within 6" of the lights.  I turned over 4, 4" pots at the corners of the flats to give them a boost up towards the lights.

I had great germination of the Thunbergia which are starting to vine.  For Christmas, my sister gave each of us a Topsy-Turvy strawberry planter.  I was not going to use it for strawberries so that became my transplanting vessel for some of the vines.  The variety I bought this year is Spanish Eyes, which is slightly lighter than the traditional Black-eyed Susan vines I have had, which I grew from saved seed with a 25% germination rate.  Some of these will go along the fence to vine in with the sweet peas, which will fade during the warm weather.  I also had some with the Sweet Autumn clematis last year.  The yellow and white combination was beautiful last fall.  

I have to balance the check book now so I can get over to the garden center today for more potting soil.  I am sticking with a light-weight mix which has served me well for indoor use.  I will also get some for the pots which will be coming together soon.  This winter I purchased an organic blend which was intended for indoor use.  I was skeptical of the heavier weight it had and it seemed to have "something" weird about it.  White flies showed up soon after (which I never had in my house before).  Another minus of this blend was that all the seed I started with this as my base layer had extremely poor germination.  Hard lessons are learned when I try to move forward against my better judgement.  Maybe I will listen to myself next time.  I really need to get a move on as time is running short in the day.  The garden center will not be a quick trip as I will want to browse.  Enjoy your own weekend.  Now that spring is really here, take time to stop and smell the flowers.

Jasmine