Moolie - Happy Thanksgiving :)

[moolie]

It's not something I'll do all the time, especially now as we're coming into garden lettuce season in a few weeks, but it was interesting

Deb, I totally hear you on the weather thing! Last spring was super wet (and most of my beans drowned before they could sprout), this spring is super dry one week then wet the next so it's been difficult. And we have potential for frost right into June so we don't plant out our more tender plants till the first week of June, then we STILL have to watch the temps and cover with blankets if need be.

 

[moolie]

So I've been neglecting my journal and not posting photos of my garden progress, here's a shot of my seedlings and some garden views from a few weeks ago that I never got around to posting--I will post more recent photos when it stops raining:

week of May 1st

week of May 1st

week of May 1st, new 4'x4' raised beds (1 built from wood from old 2'x8' beds from hoophouse, the other 3 built with new wood) just planted early seeds (which are up now, but weren't when this photo taken)

week of May 1st, new 4'x8' raised beds built from old 2'x8' beds from hoophouse--we dug up any dandelions in the lawn under the new bed, then covered the grass with layers of cardboard and filled the beds with compost we had delivered. So now these beds look just like the 4'x4' beds in the other photo.

week of May 1st, took plastic down for easier removal/taking apart old beds to build the 4'x4' and 4'x8' beds shown in the other photos in preparation to build new greenhouse but will instead be reinforcing hoophouse and building 2 new 2'x8' beds for interior of hoophouse. Hubs is reinforcing our hoophouse for the new season so we can grow our bell peppers and some of our tomatoes in there. We had picked up some freebie windows as listed on freecycle last fall, but funds and time just don't allow at the moment for us to build them into a proper greenhouse just yet. Hopefully over the summer or into the fall we can get that built, but not at the moment.

I've been putting the seedlings (tomatoes, bell peppers, pumpkins, turnips, cardoon) out on the benches on our deck during the daytimes for the past two weeks to harden them off, and would have got them into the ground this week but we've had lots of rain all week and then frost warnings the past couple of nights so I'm playing it safe.

The lettuces, radishes, carrots, peas etc. are starting to come up in the raised beds, and I'll be planting beans this weekend along with starting corn and cukes indoors. I'll plant some of those outdoors as well, but with nights still so cool I want to see if I can get a jumpstart on them by planting some indoors as well.

I'll post more garden pictures soon.

 

[moolie]

Also, just in case anyone is interested, I'm tracking my progress planning meals and buying groceries on a self-imposed limit of $35/person/week in this thread

 

[Wannabefree]

Nice pics moolie! Can't wait for the updates

 

[Dawn419]

Looking great, moolie!

I love your light set-up and can't wait until I have the room to go there, again!

 

[moolie]

So today dawned bright and sunny, and we got tons of work done today on the new and improved hoop house! We just came inside after a busy day (it's almost 7:30pm) and tomorrow we will hopefully get the plastic on and build/attach the doors--I want Dutch doors front and back so I can open the tops for ventilation

Our original 11'x8' hoop house was constructed over top of 3 existing 2'x8' raised beds last fall, to extend our season. The new and improved one is being constructed specifically as a green house over two 2'x8' raised beds with just a center aisle (the two aisles didn't work so well), so we've beefed up the structure by adding a wooden base and more hoops--old one had 4, new one has 6 hoops.


We built a 10'x8' base out of 2x4s, drilled 1 1/8" holes in the sides for the hoops, and pounded the 2" copper pipe anchors a foot into the ground, then popped in our 10' sections of PVC pipe.

We had to make a trip to Rona AND Lowes AND 2 Home Depots to get more PVC pipes for the additional hoops, as one store had the PVC pipe (Home Depot), one had the cross fittings(a different Home Depot), and Lowes and Rona had nothing.

Door frames up!

Everything plumb and square and ready for plastic and doors!

 

[snapshot]

I love your gardens and hoop house! They look so good! At this point I am hoping for a Fall garden. I'm enjoying watching your progress!!!!!!

 

[moolie]

Just keeping track of my garden plans/progress here as posted in BarredBuff's How much did you plant? thread:

We're in the city, so our garden is nothing compared to the 50' and 100' rows that others are planting, but we do what we can. It's not all planted yet, but I'm getting there--can't plant everything out till the frost danger is past (sometimes well into June). But all of the seeds are planted out now

I started the tomatoes (see varieties below), 24 bell peppers (Sweet Allsorts), 3 (all that germinated) celery (Utah Green), 6 cardoon, turnips (Laurentian Swede), and pumpkins (Small Sugar and Connecticut Field) from seed back in March/April and have kept them under lights till now. The bell peppers and celery will go into the hoop greenhouse along with all the surplus tomato plant starts. The cardoon will join various herbs in our flower gardens. The rest are accounted for in the (screen shots of my Word Document) garden plans below.

This part of the garden is four 4'x4' raised beds, each square = 1 sq foot
Varieties:
Nantes and Chantennay Carrots
Early Girl Tomatoes (
Rutgers Tomatoes
San Marzano (Roma) Tomatoes
Tiny Tim (Cherry) Tomatoes
Yellow Pear Tomatoes
Valmaine (Romaine type) Lettuce
Ruby Queen Beets
Great Lakes (iceberg head type) Lettuce

This part of the garden is two 4'x8' raised beds, each square = 1 sq foot
Varieties:
Floriani Red Flint Corn
Hollow Crown Parsnip
Green Arrow Peas
Laurentian Swede Turnip
Top Notch Stringless Golden Wax Beans
Bush Blue Lake Beans
French Breakfast (long type) Radishes
Cherry Belle Radishes
Connecticut Field Pumpkins
Lungo Della Cina Cucumbers
Small Sugar Pumpkin

This is our "container garden" on the deck, and includes eight 1'x1' pots next to the house, and two 1'x4' planters up against a trellis
Varieties:
Tomatoes as above
Dill
Sage
Rosemary
Russian Tarragon
Greek Oregano
Sweet Genovese Basil

Hybrid Gold Rush Zucchini
Heirloom Long Green Cucumber
Vegetable Spaghetti Squash

 

[moolie]

A few photos of my plant starts:

Cardoon, Allysum, and Bell Peppers

Bell Peppers

Bell Peppers

Early Girl Tomatoes

Tiny Tim (Cherry) Tomatoes

And our apple blossoms

 

[TanksHill]

Hi Moolie!!!

Everything looks to be growing well!! I love the new hoop house. I tried something similar but had issues fitting the plasic. How are you going to do yours?

g