The corn is getting really tall — no cobs yet, but the stalks are about as tall as they’re meant to get.
Category: Gardening
First Ripe Tomato
It finally cooled down enough for the tomatoes to start ripening …
Buckwheat
Our buckwheat is starting to form seeds!
Fall Seed Starting
I got the seeds started for our fall harvested vegetables. We bought these little seed starting trays on Amazon — a tray, a 12-cell insert, and a humidity dome with an adjustable vent. The kit came with plant markers … but it seemed silly to write something permanent on the marker. So I turned them into reusable markers by adding some of the blue tape you use for painting a room (because that’s what we’ve got & pen works OK on it). First I put three of the markers in a line on the tape.
A couple of quick slices with an Exacto knife, and I can change the label as needed.
I started the normal fall veggies — broccoli, broccolini, chard, and lots of cabbages. But I also started a sweet tomato that’s meant to produce in 60 days and a watermelon that’s supposed to produce in just 75 days. That’ll be the end of September so maybe we’ll get some watermelon this year!
Raised Bed Herb Planters
When we decided to use some old cinder blocks to build raised beds, the idea was to fill all of the blocks with dirt and use the spaces as bonus planting spaces for small plants like flowers and herbs. Functional and aesthetically pleasing. I never got far in that project — filled some blocks with dirt and lots of weeds. But no ring of herbs around the bed.
This year, I’m doing it! It’s a time consuming process to clear out the existing plant growth. I’m adding about two inches of rocks (we’ve got a lot of rock-covered beds that we want to de-rock), and filling up with soil. Anya started a bunch of herb plants, so she has been transplanting her seedlings into the blocks and adding some wood mulch (I expect these small blocks will warm up and dry out rather quickly otherwise).
Garden Progress
I knew the garden was growing well — there are tons of bean flowers, cucumber flowers, and tomato flowers. The buckwheat has sprouted, some of the corn is about a foot high. But it’s really cool to see a few veggies forming!
Garlic
The garlic has sprouted and is about a foot tall — I mulched around the plants to keep weeds down and retain soil moisture.
Greenhouse Construction – Part 2
We tightened down all of the connections, stretched the plastic over the top, and tied it down.
Now we have a 26′ greenhouse ready to grow lettuce and house the tiny bird tractor.
Greenhouse Construction – Part 1
We’re putting up the cheap high tunnel greenhouse that I picked up a few weeks ago.
It took a day to get the frame together.
Orchard Layout
We should finally be past freezing nights for the season, so it’s time to get the fruit plants out in the orchard. I’ve got a couple of gooseberries and a hardy fig to put somewhere. But, in the next few days, I’ll get the currants, honey berries, seaberries, pawpaw, and cherry trees planted.
