Bitter lettuce in April

I fixed a salad last night with the florellenschluss lettuce that's been going gangbusters in the cold frame. I've had the automatic arm to keep it from overheating during the day but with the weather warming up, it's still getting too warm in there and the lettuce started tasting bitter, particularly near the base. So today, I pulled off the cold frame to keep the temps down and hopefully extend the green season. The good news is that the cold frame is now covering two tomato and two pepper plants out in the garden with enough room still in between for me to use for hardening off seedlings.

Wildflower I.D. 101

While cutting the lawn today, I noticed a huge explosion of small yellow wildflowers in my neighbor's yard that have just begun to come up in my backyard. I picked a sample and keyed it out using Newcomb's Wildflower Guide. I'm still an amateur when it comes to botanical identifications but the key led me to believe that the plant in question is either downy or fern-leafed false foxglove, members of the genus Gerardia in the Figwort family. Can anyone confirm if this is correct from the picture?

Update: A friend with the Beagle Ridge Master Naturalist Chapter confirmed that indeed I am a complete amateur with flower I.D. According to her (and Newcomb's agrees), it's a common buttercup (Ranunculus bulbosus).

Heirloom tomatos, melons, pumpkins, and pole beans

I got a gift yesterday from my wife's coworker who passed along a couple of tomato seedlings (Pruden's Purple and Powers Heirloom) . She took home my extra asparagus crowns that wouldn't fit in our garden. Good trade. They're resting inside right now but will be going to the garden soon.

I'm getting a late start on seedlings for melons and pumpkins but I just got enough room under the grow light to get them going. The melons are two varieties: Earlisweet hybrid and Athena. I planted the Earlisweet last year but a very wet May and the cucumber beetles did them in and I didn't replant. The Athena is a new variety to me but a local organic grower of note, Anthony Flacovento recommended them in his newspaper column and I thought I'd give them a try.

The pumpkin is a Dill's Atlantic Giant. This is the the variety that all world record holders have been grown from for the past ten years or more. A new record was set last year, just over 1500 lbs. I'm planning to tend it well but nothing like the love they get from the world class growers. I just want a giant pumpkin for my kids at Halloween. I'm betting I can get to 200 lbs. or better. We'll see.

Finally, I set out some pole beans, Blue Lake F1 variety. I soaked them briefly in innoculant slurry and direct seeded them to the garden after cutting a hole in the black plastic around the already-installed climbing trellis.

The Big Day

This was the big day outside that we've been waiting for. The weather was pretty and temps were not too hot. Just right for getting outside. I put in the strawberry plants that have been growing under my indoor light and then covered them with a floating row cover (Agribon 19). I used wire hoops that I made myself from heavy gauge wire from Home Depot. This was much less expensive than buying the pre-cut wire from the row cover catalog. I also constructed a trellis for the pole beans to grow on, using three prefab climbers that I attached in a triangle using plastic computer cable zips. Finally, the bee hive that was gifted from my father-in-law and repainted this winter went outside, resting on a brick base to keep it off the moisture. It's still without frames and in need of some additional parts before hiving a swarm. We may not even get a swarm this year since there is a national problem with Colony Collapse Disorder. Before finishing, I also put out two broccoli plants.

Mower update

I changed oil and filter in the John Deere to begin the new mowing season. The LT 160 mower has just under 50 hours of service on the display. Last year was 24.5 hours at the beginning of the season so year #2 was almost identical in terms of engine hours.

Garden Faire more than just fair

I just got back from a quick spin through the 10th Annual Mid-Atlantic Garden Faire, held here in Abingdon. It's put on by the Master Gardeners of VA Cooperative Extension at the Southwest Virginia Higher Ed Center.

I had my one year old in a stroller so my browsing was pretty much limited to the larger main aisles rather than getting in the booths to inspect plants and accessories. Overall, it gives a great impression of being well-organized and with a wide selection of vendors both local and regional. I bought the weekend pass ($10) so I can go back again tomorrow and Sunday.

Postmortem

Well, the late snow and cold temps killed off some of the early salad plantings I had made outside the cold frame. The swiss chard seems to have made it through and maybe some sugar snap peas but the carrots, arugula, and spring onions are going to need a re-planting. Hopefully, I can get to it this weekend and whatever else nature has to send before the last frost date won't kill them off again.

Plastic protection prevents premature passing

I put out the first of the tomatoes and a pepper plant this morning. It's still too cold to do so conventionally but I hope I've given them enough protection with plastic mulch and Wall-o-Water coverings. I hope.

Spring beats a hasty retreat

I'm watching at the window right now as snow is pouring down. It's 37 degrees outside so it's not really sticking to the ground but if it continues after dark, things could get interesting. The National Weather Service has issued two alerts for our area; snow and high wind. Additionally, there's a flood alert not far away. Things could be worse, I suppose. The northwest is getting blanketed by a late season storm that is dumping snow in large amounts.

I guess it's a good thing I got the asparagus crowns planted on Friday. Or maybe not, if they don't survive.

Worm harvest

Since beginning the vermicomposting system, I've only been adding but today I collected castings for the first time. One bin of the Worm Wrangler.com system yielded about two gallons of castings after about 4-5 months of letting the red wigglers do their thing on our kitchen waste. The other bins are stacked and I'm filling about one a month, which means another two gallons of garden gold will be coming my way just as the planting season is really getting underway. I'm going to use this batch to fertilize the asparagus crowns that are going in the ground in the next few days.

Dogwood winter

Despite the warm weather in early March, Old Man Winter wasn't (isn't?) done with us yet. Last week saw four nights of sub-freezing temps that have wrecked havoc on gardens and farmers in the region. This is known colloquially as "Dogwood Winter," even though at our elevation, the dogwoods aren't yet blooming.

Luckily, I didn't have much out yet and was able to pull containers of herbs inside temporarily. I had placed one container of tomato and pepper seedlings in the cold frame to begin the hardening off process and forgot about them. Despite the thermal cover, the cold bit them hard and they died. Luckily, I have more inside under the lamp. Probably my biggest worry are the hop vines that had begun to sprout and climb. They were about a foot off the ground and look pretty bad right now. I'm hoping the rhizome will send up some new shoots. The chard and sugar snap peas in the salad bed had sprouted. They're cold hearty so I don't think any long-term damage was done to them. My biggest disappointment was that the flowering cherry tree at the north end of the property had just begun to break its buds when the chill hit. We won't be seeing it's spectacular beauty this year.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude would be proud

Yesterday was spent putting down plastic sheeting to warm the soil for planting. I used SRM red plastic for where the tomatoes and strawberries will go and black for the rest. Afterward, I filled the green Wall-o-Water solar collectors. The net effect was quite colorful and reminded me (on a small scale) of "Surrounded Islands" by Christo and Jeanne-Claude.