The weather has fluctuated so much over the past few weeks, none of our plants seem to know what to think. We’ve had highs of 85 and lows of 43. The wind has been hellacious several times this month, including yesterday and today, leaving much of our yard a mess and several damaged plants (mostly snapdragon’s and broccoli).
The spinach I planted last month is very healthy and getting bushier every day. We harvested some for sandwiches the other night. The broccoli is rather pathetic and struggles with the fluctuating temperatures. The bottom inch of some of the stems dried out after transplanting, leaving them fairly brittle and susceptible to the high winds (up to 50 mph yesterday!). They are still growing and are about 7-8 inches tall (the tallest ones are the ones with brittle stems…??) but I’m certain I won’t get anything other than their greens before they finally bolt. I’m looking forward to trying these again in the fall and overwintering them. I’ll direct sow them in hopes they won’t become brittle near the soil line again. I don’t know what caused that or why it only caused it in some of them.
Our sunflowers are coming up. It took nearly two weeks for most of them to sprout. Even though the temps were warm enough, the current position of the sun keeps our yard shaded for much of the day, so the soil temps didn’t get as warm as quickly. We also have one bush bean coming up and several of something that could be a weed or could be alyssum. I really need to add photos of each of my plants in various stages to my (newly created) garden book.
This also sprouted recently. I have no idea what it is but since it doesn’t look like a weed, we’re letting it grow for now. Any guesses?
In the front yard and hopefully working on coming up is: nasturtiums, marigold, Scarlet Emperor runner beans, Yard Long pole beans, Tendergreen bush beans, German Chamomile, Japenese Hullless Popcorn, Straight Eight and Snow’s Fancy Pickling cucumbers, California black-eyed peas, sunflowers (Mammoth, Big Head, Funky, Ornamental Mix), and Rouge Vif D’Etampes and Howden pumpkins. We have a bunch more to plant but I’m waiting until I see things come up and fill in before confusing myself further. Note to self: Use plant markers.
Our fruit trees are mostly covered in small leaves at this point. We’ve wrapped their trunks in cardboard for the time being while I debate the merits and risks of painting them white to protect from sunscald. These are the buds on the Fuji apple tree.
Of my indoor summer seedlings, the following germinated: 3 of 4 Pineapple tomatoes, 4 of 4 Jellybean tomatoes, 7 of 8 Amish Paste, 5 of 8 Brandywines,3 of 8 Mortgage Lifters, 3 of 8 Romas, 4 of 4 Jalapenos, 3 of 4 bell peppers, 1 of 4 Eggplant. ZERO of my strawberries germinated making me dislike this indoor seed starting mess even more.
Our irrigation hoses kept popping off their adaptors and wasting unmentionable amounts of water, so we used zip ties to hold them on. We’re still trying to adjust the watering times to the front yard. We either end up too dry too quickly or with water runoff on the sidewalk. The back yard (trees and raised beds) seem to be doing well, although the surface is drying too quickly to hope to start seeds outdoors in them. But I’m still determined to figure out a way to not start any more seeds indoors.
I’m soaking up garden updates where I can despite the fact that most other bloggers aren’t quite near planting yet (have one for me to read?). I can’t wait until I have some really exciting photos to share – like a front yard that shows more than dirt, or a Boston Ivy creeping up my column. Or lots and lots of food.
Will this wind ever stop?
My name is Tara. I am a mama and a lover, a full-time nomad, a passionate devourer of Life and an Organic Life Coach.
Your plants look great!! I can’t wait to see more pictures when they are all ready for harvest…YUM!
Everything looks and sounds wonderful! We are a bit behind you on temps and weather, but I have started spinach, cabbage, kale, swiss chard, mesclun greens, tomatoes, peppers, ground cherry, wonderberry, kohlrabi, parsley, basil, lovage, borage, and … a few more I can’t remember right now. Will only be able to plant verrrrrrry early happy with cold stuff on about the 15th of APril. Can’t wait!
Well it looks good despite the weather. How nice to be picking the spinach already, I love spinach.
I look forward to hearing about your tree painting conclusions. Everyone paints them over here, the sun is fierce.
Love your garden posts.
I feel ya on the wind. Last night we were walking to our car from dinner and the wind was so strong I could hardly walk against it a few times. I think its the strongest wind I’ve ever been outside in (but not inside for, if that makes sense).
I have been covering my tomato and pepper plants with bowls a lot this last week because of wind or frost (gosh darn stupid tx weather). Talk about up and down weather. 80 and then frost. What?!
And last night, my worst fear. Hail…and I wasnt home to cover anything up. My azaleas and veggie seedlings I was most worried about but everything seems to be fine.
None of my other seeds have sprouted but it hasnt been two weeks yet. I hope that they will. Its been cold for them a lot since I planted. I still have time to re-plant I guess if they dont make it.
I need to start taking photos like you. Do you self host on this wordpress thingy?
Gorgeous garden photos! Making me jealous since I’m sitting inside watching a late March snowstorm…
~alysson, thanks for commenting! and me either!
~denise, i’ve seen soooo many people who are platning mesclun. i feel kinda silly saying i have little idea what it is or why i never saw it in my seed catalogs. is it easy to grow?
~mon, i’ll definitely post when/if i reach a conclusion.
~kristin, i totally feel ya. i’m thinking we might construct some type of cold frame for next fall-spring to help protect. it is still early in the season though. you’ll have plenty of time to replant if need be – hopefully it won’t come to that. yes, i self host here but wordpress.com offers free blogs, similar to blogger but i prefer the capabilities (although there is less capability to customize layout/themes).
~lisa, it’s almost april; the snow should be done soon right?? MN and WI are looking less and less appealing. i can’t even walk thru the grocery store without feeling too cold. i feel for ya on having to wait to plant. maybe a window herb garden would help?
your plant that you are unsure of kinda looks like basil but i don’t think that would just pop up like that. Unless wind caught a seed! lol
good luck garden looks great. according to the norm here in Indy I have to wait until mothers day. (augh!) but my seeds are all doing GREAT inside!
It does looke like basil but it’s definitely not. We haven’t had basil planted outdoors in the front and the backyard basil never went to seed. Also it has no distinct smell and it’s soft and fuzzy. It’s very much herb-like but I just can’t figure out which herb! I’m wondering if something came in with our mulch though. Hopefully something good!
We have had massive amounts of wind ourselves.
Question about your pepper seeds–do you have a trick to get them to germinate? I planted an entire flat of Golden Cal Wonder (48(!) total) and only 22 germinated. Cannot get my Quadratto D’Asti Red Peppers to germinate, or hot peppers. Do you soak your seeds first?
Phoebe, no I didn’t soak them. I only soaked things like beans before planting them outside. With our Cali Wonders, I just planted them in their newspaper pots and kept them in a tray on a heating pad. I’ve heard of people placing them on a wet pper napkin inside a plastic baggie and placing the baggie on top of a warm lamp; maybe that would help?
oh, i’m so jealous of your lovely spinach! we have quite an extensive garden, but i always struggle to get spinach to thrive. we end up eating a lot of kale and chard as a result, but i’d love to have some homegrown baby spinach for my salad!
Here’s a trick for direct sowing outside: after you plant and water, cover the soil with a paper bag until they germinate. It keeps the soil moist and the perfect temperature so it doesn’t dry out. You can even water on top of the bag if you think you need to. Worked well for my peas but it blew off my carrots until I weighted the corners down. This was a tip from an awesome organic gardener who owns my favorite local nursery- she’s pure genius in my book.
I think your plant looks a bit like a potato do you throw your old peelings into the garden to compost them?? and could one have sprouted??
A potato. Hmm…could just a peeling do that though? And it’s been months since we’ve buried anything; wouldn’t the worms have gotten it by now? I just looked at some pics of potato attempts last year and you may be right. We plan to let it grow so I guess we’ll see!
Mystery plant looks like a potato. Just hill up dirt/straw around it. And if there was an eye in your peeling, yes, it could happen. All sorts of groovy things can happen in the compost pile – that’s where some people get the best tomato plants or pumpkin plants and so on.