Saturday 10 April 2010

Garden

Well, after much thought I have finally decided where I will put a lot of the potatoes. I rototilled a spot near the bird bath I put up. The space is roughly 7ft by 8ft on one side, and on the other side it gets wider to about 10ft. So the shape is a little odd, but thats no the point. I dumped one wheel barrow load of dirt (I'll to that later, where I got the dirt) and two wheel barrows of horse manure. I dug them in and than did a criss cross with 2x8s and 2x4s giving me something to walk on. I am doing it more of a deep bed or square foot gardening method. I am not doing rows. I checked on the potatoes in the winery and found that the white potatoes were doing good, but they had some mold on them and they were really damp in the bag. So I got them out of the bag and put them in a milk crate with the red potatoes. Both are just starting to grow eyes. I will do some 'earlies' eat them while they are still young. But hope to do some harvest ones, near the end of the summer for storing.

I am also hoping to do a lot of sweet potatoes, I have a deep bed I dug in the middle of the woods by our log cabin, and I am hoping it gets enough sun. I will probably try to plant sweet potatoes somewhere else too. I am picking up a few bales of straw soon, I want to try planting a few potatoes and sweet potatoes in them and see how they do.

I have just about everything (vegetable) that I am planting in the greenhouse or in the garden. I have a few things like pumpkins and squash, which some of it I want to plant later. Some of the squash I want to plant every month or three weeks. I am planning on growing pumpkins on the hill side where we chopped down trees to let in light. Just sorta let them go wild and hope the deer don't get them. :)

My dad helped me finish putting shingles on the back of the greenhouse, so that was nice. At some point I need to re organize me greenhouse. Take everything out for a day. Clean up everything. Put everything back in order. And before fall I would like to get about half or more of it tilled up so I can grow stuff all through the winter. I am thinking carrots, and lettuce and brassicas.

I am already planning my fall garden. Brassicas, peas, winter squash, lettuce (hoping on planting that every month or 3 weeks year round), some more root crops.


I have figured out what was going on with the bee hives. And it can be easily fixed, I was working on it when my dad wanted to put the shingles on, so it didn't get done today. I have to take off the sides and redo them, not to hard.


I put in a small 'root cellar' by the greenhouse. I dug down 3ft (hence the dirt for the potato plot), put a few rocks on the bottom and put a small metal trash can inside. In the winter I will put a bag of leaves on top to help keep it from freezing. It will keep some stuff at the garden, I can also use it to keep stuff cool, like if I make a lunch and bring it down to the garden or a drink.

I finished tilling the flower plot up by the house. Got the sunflower seeds from last year and found tons of mold all over them. I put 3-4 hundred at least in 3x3ft space in the middle of the plot, hoping I get a few. Last year I did the whole thing with sunflowers and the squirrels ate 1/8 of the seeds before sprouting, and than quite a few of the heads of the sunflowers. Next time we go to Lowes we will pick up a bag of wild flower seed mix and sprinkle that on, we've done that for the last 3-4 years.

I was looking into putting a root cellar in the corner of my winery, but have thought twice about it. The main thing being that that corner is the SW corner, which gets the most light, second it has two windows, which means I could cool it off quickly with out side air. But the main problem with them is that they don't have much insulation and it lets light in. So I am thinking the north west corner would be better. So, maybe this summer my dad and I can do that. He thinks we need to hook up a fridge to it and turn that on to keep it cool. I think if we get it just right it will work. Last year we had 20 bushels of apples and it took about 2 months to use all of them up. By the end they were going bad. But, they were in a room that was not very insulated, and I think that was the main problem. Second was that I didn't realize that to make cider I need to use the apples right when I get them instead of waiting a few weeks. So, this year I will be using them up sooner. So, I hope that I can convince him to try it without a fridge this time and see if we need it. I am looking at a space 5x7-8 ft. Don't need it real big.

Anyway, have a lot to do before tomorrow. So, I will be signing off. Every time I see rain in the forecast I rejoice! :)

~the Gardener

English Vintner

2 comments:

  1. One comment about using a bag of leaves in your root cellar. I found that the bags of leaves that I had ended up with ants living in them. They like the dry with all the free space to run around. you may not have any trouble, but t's something to think about.
    Kevin

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  2. Yes, I just realized that a few bags that I had had in the greenhouse had ants. I am not actually putting the leaves in the cellar, but on top. To add insulation. Thanks!

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