The Modern Victory Garden

Just one day before the official first day of spring and we got up to 65 degrees for most of the afternoon!   There was no way I was going to do much of anything else but putter in the garden on such a brilliant and sunny day!   My cat Sid joined me for most of the time and the first order of business was to move his potted catnip out of the greenhouse to the front entry area of the house.   He loves this plant!       

There is a lot of debris in the yard and deck because we had a high wind event last week.   Several large trees come down across our road as a result and the yard, gardens, deck, and driveway are just littered with branches, needles, and leaves.   Going to have to devote some time to sweeping up and clearing away the debris. 

You may recall that the seed potatoes arrived almost exactly a month ago and I put them out next to a window in the shop to encourage the formation of sprouts.   I am planning to plant the potato patch some time in the coming week and they are just perfectly sprouted for that.             

I need to cut about 35 of them in half to have enough seed pieces.   I will probably do that tomorrow because I want the cut portions to have at least 24 hours to dry out before I put these into the damp cool soil.   In preparation for the upcoming potato bed planting, I cleaned out the last of the overwintered parsnips and carrots from that bed.   They both were going to seed and needed to just be composted.   I then applied rock minerals to the bed (rock phosphate and greensand).   I had done all the other beds earlier this spring but did not do this last one because it had crops growing in it.   I also broadcasted some bone meal and organic all purpose fertilizer over the surface of the bed and then layered on some compost.   This bed is now ready for me to tackle the potato planting process.  

The other outdoor project I did today was to aerate the long vertical grow bed, cultivate it, and then rake it smooth.   I then planted up two thirds of the bed, putting Cascadia sugar snap peas under the trellis supports and Mokum carrots in the front portion of the bed.   I used my 2-inch planting jig for the carrot planting and that went very well.   I had started some Cascadia peas a few weeks ago indoors.   The soil mix was not wicking water very well and so the germination rate was not as good as it should have been.   But I still ended up with a good amount of pre-sprouted peas. 

These went into the bed first and then I just direct seeded the rest of the way along the bed.            

The final step is to cover the bed with some wire panels to discourage birds from pecking at the young pea sprouts.

The greenhouse plants are all just taking off and really growing beautifully.   Here’s a view into it looking down from our side deck.  

The pac choi growing in containers in the greenhouse are quickly putting on some size and it should not be long before we can start enjoying some of them.

Over the past week I have been steadily working on re potting the tomato starts.   I did another 15 of them today.   There are 32 more to go and I hope to have them done before too much longer.   More and more of them are shifting out to the greenhouse (out from the lights in the shop) and are now residing in the greenhouse during the day and are then moved into the shop at night to protect them from too much cold at night.                             

The super early Siletz plants are getting really good sized and are hale and hearty.      

They are now four weeks into their current pots and were ready for another re potting to even larger containers.   This was the last task I tackled for the day.   I put them out on the front porch to enjoy a little late afternoon sun while they finished draining off the drink of water I had just given them.   

They are spending their days in the greenhouse and their nights inside the house.   The next time I re pot these it will be in about four more weeks - when they will go into the large black containers that they will grow in for the rest of the season.          

I am glad I spent so much time outside today.   The forecast is for the weather to get cooler and showery for the next several days, so grabbing as much time in the sun while I can was my focus for today.    Spring is definitely here - and I must say it makes me happy!