Raspberries

I've decided to transplant my potted Raspberries into the garden. They have given me two years of delicious fruit but didn't do very well this past season. The spring harvest had plenty of fruit but the raspberries were small in size and the Fall harvest was little to none.  The poor harvest could have been the result of the weather but the fact that I'm not getting much in the way of new strong canes tells me it has out grown it's pot.

Bed 1 should be the perfect home. They will get lots of sun even in the Winter months and some shade in the late afternoon during the Summer months. The canes will have plenty of room to grow without taking over the yard.

Bed 1 before

I hope they do better in their new location.

Bed 1 after

Sunday in the Garden Part 2 (Picture Post)

Where has the time gone? I thought I better get Part 2 posted before another weekend passed. This post is just some photos I took last Sunday. As always click on the photos for a larger view.

These are the carrots I started in the greenhouse and transplanted into bed 2

 The carrot stocks look really healthy.

It won't be too much longer and I will be harvesting carrots.

Looking good!

I'm growing German Chamomile and Stevia for the first time this year. I picked a leaf off the Stevia to try and wow is it sweet. It tastes just like sugar. I'm going to dry a few leaves and grind them into powder and see how it tastes in my oatmeal.

The raspberries are starting to flower. I think my yield this year will be lower. I didn't have very many new canes come up. I think I should transplant them into a wider container to give them more room to spread out.

Strawberries are coming in.

I planted half a square in bed 4 with pole beans about 3 or 4 weeks ago and they are just coming up. This tells me it's a good time to plant the rest of the row. 

Oregano seedlings.

Nectarine blooms. I didn't get around to spraying my tree. Last year it had a mild case of leaf curl. Chances are it will get it again.

Lettuce in bed 4. I will be able to start harvesting this weekend.

Looks like we might have a new neighbor. I don't know what kind of bird this is but they are so very cute. The pair of them were building a nest in my morning glory. I'm sure they thought this would be the perfect place until the rain stopped and I started gardening. They were a little upset with me every time I walked past the area. Not sure if they are going to stick around. I haven't see them in two days.

This Saturday I will be in the Haven garden with 6 or more teens that need to get their community service hours in before school lets out for the summer. It's a good thing the temperature will come down a bit for the weekend. It gets darned hot in that garden. It was 82 today and tomorrow should reach 80. Come Saturday it will drop to 65 for the weekend perfect for gardening at Haven.

Catching Up

Last Saturday I continued working on my never ending water project. I now have soaker hoses in beds 3 and 4. Not that I need them with all the rain we have been having this week. But there will be a time in the near future that I will be happy I took the time to get the yard "hooked up". This will save me lots of time this summer and I will not need to rely on family to come over to water when I'm on vacation. My son was really happy to see me put the water lines in... as he said to me " it took me 45 mins to an hour to water your garden every other day when you were away". Ha ha! Tell me about it!

I still have more to do to get everything in the yard "hooked up". Bed 2 needs soaker hoses added to it. It currently had over head sprinklers. Beds 1, 5 and 6 still need water lines as well as all the potted plants. The photos below are of bed 4 with the soaker hoses.

Click on photos for a larger view

Square foot garden bed with water lines

The two tools I could not live without during this project...

Hose hole punches

If you are thinking about adding water lines to your beds I was doing some research on line and came across this video from the Garden Girl Patty Moreno on how to install a drip irrigation system. Which I found helpful even though I'm working with an existing sprinkler system.

On Thursday (March 17th) I about scared myself to death. I was working from home and about 9:00am the sun was shining on the patio so I thought I would take the tomato and cucumber seedlings out of the greenhouse and give them a little morning sun. So out they came and I went back to work. I walked by the window about 10:00am and looked at the cucumbers and saw this....

 Oh no! what have I done! I've killed all my cucumber starts! So what was it.... was it too much sun? No it was cool out... that's it... it was too cold and a bit too windy... I moved the cucumbers back into the greenhouse and gave them some water. After about an hour they came back. Boy was I lucky!

The tomatoes had no problems with the cool air and wind. In the photo below you can see some blooms on this cherry tomato.

 I really should pot these up one more time before they go out into the garden.

Tomato starts

Even though the weather has been cool the bok choy and pak choy is already starting to bolt. I will need to pull them as soon as it stops raining long enough for me to get out into the garden.

The carrots that I started in the greenhouse are doing so well. Who said you can't start carrot seeds indoors and transplant them out into the garden?

The sweet and hot peppers are doing much better than I thought they would in this cool weather. They have been off the heat mats for about three weeks now.

The raspberries seemed to have sprouted overnight.

And the nectarine is in full bloom.

The first apple leaf...

And finally the sweet potatoes. They are rooting very well. I updated my Sweet Potato post with some new photos. Scroll to the bottom of the post for the update.

As I finish up this post the winds are started to pickup and the rain is coming down. Be sure to check out my post on the hail storm we had this morning. Here is the link if you missed it.... Hail post

That's it for now. Happy First day of Spring!

Thursday's Harvest

Just a quick post on today's Harvest.

Bush Beans 4.0 oz This is the first picking of the season.
Raspberries 5.4 oz
Strawberries 4.6 oz
Zucchini 15.3 oz I let one of them grow just a little to big.

I have been playing around with Google Doc's and posted my 2010 harvest spreadsheet. In the left sidebar where you see "2010 Harvest" Click on the photo for my harvest details.

Weekend Review

I started writing this post on Monday. But then I went and got all responsible and started working on my taxes. Now that they are completed it's time to play!

I spent the weekend doing more clean up and transplanting. The weekend was warm and sunny unlike the past two days. Raining and cool.

Lets take a tour and see what's growing now that spring is here.
All but two of my brussels sprouts bolted with the warm weather we had all last week . Click on photos for a larger view.



I still have hope for the two remaining plants. But they better kick it into gear because I will need to pull them in two weeks to plant the tomatoes.



About two weeks ago I was getting some garlic out of the cabinet when I noticed the ginger I had in there had sprouted. I had no idea how ginger grew so I googled it. Guess what? I planted it. Turns out they're easy to grow. We'll see.



My potted Nectarine tree is in full bloom. It's looking healthier than in previous years. This could be because I repotted it with fresh soil and food. Now if I can keep the squirrels from stealing all the fruit before I can get to them.



The raspberries seem to have grown over night...



They are starting to fruit.



About the time Jenn over at Gamine's Garden was trying to decide which apple tree she was going to buy I was also toying with the idea of getting an apple tree. I know I have no space for an apple tree let alone two. But I ordered them anyway. Yes I ordered two Columnar Apple Trees. More fruit to keep the squirrels away from. But I have three years before I have to worry about that.



Here is one of mine starting to bud out.



Bed 2 is looking so fine. The broccoli looks healthy.



The cucumbers seem to be adjusting to being moved out of the greenhouse and into the bed.



I even have one seed sprouting. Click on the photo to see it better.



Another view of bed 2. You can see the potatoes in the background.



One of the potato plants is starting to flower.




Other things blooming on the garden...

Chives...



Sage



and in the greenhouse the Brandywine tomato....



I have a little garden shed on the side yard. It's a 2x7 but with all the stuff I cram into it you would think it was a 10x10



On Sunday I opened the doors to get something and it just exploded... Well not really but I couldn't find what I was looking for. What better time than to pull it all out and reorganize.



What was it that I came here for?.... I can't remember now but the next time I'll be able to find it.



I'll leave you with a photo taken from the kitchen door.



My next post... Avocado Tree?