End of July Garden Chores

Although I spent several hours working in the garden yesterday, there was still quite a bit to do today.  Here are a few of today's garden chores:

• I turned the compost.   I do this by pulling Geoffrey's stakes out of the ground, carefully pulling  him up over the compost and moving him over a few feet.  Then I use a garden fork to scoop all the compost back into Geoffrey, only upside down, so the newer stuff goes on the bottom and the older stuff ends up at the top.  This took about an hour today, because there is a lot of compost.  The older stuff is decomposing pretty nicely, although there are a few twigs and other larger pieces that still haven't broken down.

Geoffrey, before turning

• Transplanted a few plants that weren't doing well in their current locations.  A few weeks ago I stopped by a nursery and picked up a few plants (two bell peppers and an eggplant) that were on sale because it was really late in the season for buying transplants.  I figured they probably didn't have a great chance of survival but they were cheap so I decided to take my chances.  At that time, the zucchini and squash were mammoth so there was no room in the veggie plot for them, so I planted the peppers in pots.  One of the bell peppers was doing okay as was the eggplant, but the other bell pepper is withering away.  Since I had cleared up a lot of space in the plot by removing the zucchini plant, I decided to move the dying bell pepper to the veggie plot to see if that might save it. I turned the soil with my garden fork and added some fertilizer and manure, moved the pepper and sprayed it with some fish fertilizer.  I also moved another pepper from a pot to the other side of the veggie plot, because it wasn't growing well in the pot.

• Planted some onions and carrots.  Since there was plenty of room around the newly transplanted pepper plant, I sewed several onion sets and carrot seeds.  So far none of the carrots I've tried to plant have come up - either they never germinated or they never grew bigger than a few centimeters.  But, I'm going to keep trying until I get it right. 

• Harvested four hot peppers and two small onions.  My last attempt at harvesting onions produced a handful of tiny, stunted specimens, which I decided to call "red scallions."  

 

This time, I got two slightly larger onions, which gave me a bit more hope for the next set of onions I just planted.  I also planted a few more onion sets in the area where I harvested the two onions.

• Watered the tomato pots with water from the rain barrel.  After a long dry spell, we are finally getting some rain these past couple of weeks.  So I've been able to use the water from the rain barrel quite a few times.  Since it's situated right at the end of tomorrow pot alley, I like to use it to water those pots. 

 

I've developed a system now using two alternating watering cans - I let one fill up while I'm using the other to water the pots and then I switch back and forth.  That way, I don't have to keep turning the rain barrel spigot on and off when I fill up the watering can.

• Tried to salvage my pot of beans.  A few weeks ago, I planted some pole beans in a large pot and they have started to germinate.  

 

However, only three beans have come up out of about the 12-15 seeds I planted.  I realized today when I looked more closely, that the pot was extremely water logged.  Evidently, there weren't enough holes drilled in the bottom for the water to drain properly.  When I tipped the pot over, a huge amount of water came pouring out the top and down my driveway.  I brought out my drill and drilled some more holes in the bottom (which is tricky to do with a huge pot filled with wet soil and bean seedlings that you don't want to kill).  I don't know if the seedlings will survive.  I planted a few more bean seeds for good measure, although it may be too late in the season to start beans.

Seedlings, and Closets and Trees, Oh My

This week, I'm taking a "staycation" from work, to try to get a bunch of stuff down around the house and garden.  Our schedule is chock full of appointments with landscapers, tree trimmers, and closet designers.

Yes, I have decided to get a custom closet in the master bedroom closet.  I will finally have built-in shoe racks!  It's quite fun - although a little overwhelming because you have to choose how you want the closet configured.  And once you decide, you're pretty much stuck with the outcome, so you have to choose wisely!  I know I need a lot of shoe space and the MOTH needs tons of drawer and shelf space for his enormous and continually expanding collection of T-shirts, many dating all the way back to the early '80s (have I mentioned he's all mine, ladies!).

We have between 4 and 6 appointments scheduled throughout each day.  We've received several estimates from tree trimmers, with suggestions on how to tame the hideous overgrowth in my backyard:

And a couple of landscapers who have promised to provide us with design plans and estimates.  Interestingly, they all tell me that the plantings the builder put in at the front of the house are all wrong for that space.  Most of them will have to be moved elsewhere, or just eliminated altogether.

The good news is, I shouldn't be too sad about the death of my poor tree:

Because, evidently, it was all wrong for that space too, and now we can just take it out and replace it with something more appropriate.  Oh, another piece of great news?  Evidently, there is a huge cluster of poison ivy growing in my backyard like a ground cover, and like a vine up the gigantic oak tree at the bottom of the yard.  That will have to go!

Any free moments in between appointments are spent on garden-related tasks.  Today, I planted some new seeds:

I also picked several clusters of disgusting tiny green insects off my Lettuce (Rosalita) and Swiss Chard:

I don't know anything about insects, but I think they were Aphids.  They did sort of look like this:

Courtesy of Wikipedia

Today and yesterday, I transplanted some of my seedlings into bigger pots.  Here are some different varieties of tomato, an ornamental black pepper, which I planted along with some parsley, and another parsley seedling that I've planted in a pot with some chives seeds.

Tomato Sweet 100 (Cherry tomatoes), which I grew from seed

Tomato Akers West Virgina, purchased at the Rutgers Garden day on Saturday

Ornamental black pepper (from Rutgers) with a couple of parsley plants grown from seed

A type of black tomato I can't remember the name of right now - purchased at Rutgers

Parsley from seed.  I planted some Chives seeds around the edge of the pot

Here is a long view of all the new pots lined up next to each other:

I added bamboo stakes to the tomato plants, so they can be tied up as they grow

These are all transplanted into organic potting mix with a little fish emulsion fertilizer.

Then, I snapped a shot of this little Arugula seedling, which I direct sowed in one of the garden beds in front of the house about two weeks ago.  I sowed about 6 seeds at the time and around 4 of them are coming up.  I previously started some Arugula seeds inside, but they did not do well -  I think they "bolted" because they were on heat mats and were probably too warm.  So, after that I started several more Arugula seeds inside (without heat mats) and these ones outside.  It will be interesting to see which turn out better.  However, since it looks as though my plant beds are all going to be disrupted in the landscaping process, I won't be direct sowing any more seeds in those beds for now. 

Finally, I planted this guy on the corner of my house.  I have no idea what or who he is.  I went to a  meeting of my local town garden club a couple of months ago and several people brought in plants from their gardens to exchange.  I ended up taking home this guy - the person who brought him could not remember his name, but said it is a flowering plant and grows well.  He has been sitting in his little pot for that whole time while I tried to decide where to put him.  Again, he will probably have to be moved in the landscaping process, but according to his original owner, he transplants very well, so I'm hoping he'll be fine.  If not ... well ... easy come, easy go?

Unknown plant from a stranger

 Tomorrow, we make another trip to home depot for more  pots and potting mix. 

Holy Cow - These veggies better be delicious!

I'm exhausted

I spent hours yesterday transplanting these:

Into these:

By the end of the ordeal, my back was killing me, frankly.  I had no idea how exhausting it would be to transplant all those seedlings.  Hence, the title of this blog post.  These veggies better be freaking AWESOME!

Until now, I had my seedlings set up in the master bedroom closet, but now that I've transplanted them into bigger containers, they need more space.  So, I am setting up my potting center down in the basement.  It is a work in progress.  I set up two grow lights and dragged over some old furniture from the corners of the basement - some shelves and an old chair.  I added an old clock that used to be in our kitchen:

Then I brought down a rug that I purchased in Morocco several years ago and threw some cushions on the floor.  I don't have a potting bench yet, so - for now - I am using my boyfriend's old coffee table and side table (circa 1980's).  And voila! My new gardening center:

Here is a close-up of the seedlings:

In case you're wondering, yes, those are kitty litter boxes.   I sent the boyfriend to Home Depot to find plastic trays for the transplants and guess what? They didn't have any!  Now, tell me.  Why would you sell seeds, and seed starting trays, and all kinds of other plant related stuff, but not simple, basic plastic trays to put your seedlings on after they outgrow the little seedling starter packs that you sell?

So, being the creative, industrious people that we are, we went over to Walmart and bought their cheapest kitty litter trays and that's what we are using for our seedlings.  And, fortunately, even if I decide one day to give up seed starting - kitty litter trays will never be out of fashion in this house: