Planted out melons and cucumbers.
Melons:
Blacktail watermelon, Minnesota midget, emerald gem, charentais, edisto 47, golden honeydew, noir des carmes.
Cucumbers:
Marketmore 76, Bushy, Spacemaster, Blanc de Holland.
The goal for this year is to mass plant the melons into one bed, and hope for crosses (all but the blacktail are cucumis melo) to replant next year.
Cucumbers, not as set on crosses, but the blanc de holland was vigorous and productive last year, whereas the others were slow and many weren’t even fully pollinated. Hoping to save seeds for some improvements.
Plants
Spring in the yarden
Trees and shrubs are budding! Looks like we will see flowers from the haskaps and leaves from the hazels very soon. Also, the Turkish hazelnut and hickory seedlings survived!
Plants
Still growing. There are a few clear winners here. 5 still looking healthy, 2 are more vigorous.
Plants
Looks like most of these guys are gonna make it.
You can see one that didn’t (left) but there are 10 in good shape with 3+ leaves. Will probably top up the soil a bit in the cells and get a bottom watering tray going.
Plants
Cold stratification success! I cracked a couple dozen plum pits and pulled out the seeds last fall, put them in a bread bag w/ moist potting soil, and left them in the cold room all winter. Just went to inspect the stash & noticed the bright white radicles! It’s planting time!
Got a dozen plum seeds planted. There were a few nectarine and peach seeds in there too, but I think only one or two germinated. Time will tell.
Mixed a bucket of soil (sandy dirt, some mostly-composted yard waste, last year’s failed potted plant soil & some well aged urine.
Planted into deep nursery trays.
I opted to upgrade my tree trays w/ these deeper ones I got used from a local nursery. They’re maybe 6” deep & have a large hole in the bottom for air pruning the roots. Plums!
Hopefully only one of a half dozen tree species I’ll grow this year.
Plants
Raised bed garden updates. There will be a harvest!
So far from 6 cucumber plants we’ve been harvesting 1-2 cucumbers per day over the past 2 weeks with more coming so long as blight doesn’t hit!
Tomatoes and ground cherries have another few weeks and beans are pumping.
Squash has another month at least, with at least (I hope) one squash on each plant.
Plants
Borage and calendula support showed up around the cherry guild. Borage working well as a trap crop. Aphids seem to have moved from the cherry to the borage!
Plants
Everything is growing well! Looking forward to identifying the cucumbers to see which are the most prolific. Really hoping some of the white cucumbers show up.
Melons are slow to start, but I’ve been feeding them quite a bit. Rotting grass clippings, and fermented plant juice made from dandelion leaves.
Kousa dogwood is slow to grow, not sure what’s going on. Ground cherry doing well. Underplanted with some beans just for fun and they’re popping up nicely. Strawberry plant is massive, and pumping out a few strawberries per day.
Mulberry tree put on some solid growth earlier this summer. Squash are up and crawling. Echinacea didn’t make it, but I have new seedlings ready to go any day.
Plants
Ground cherries are growing! Slow start from seed, but once they hit their stride, they’re unstoppable! First fruits already visible, 4-5 flowers on each with new leaves and flowers appearing daily.
Planted out ground cherry starts today. Weather was overcast and calling for a slight rain. Watered in with bacterial water from my fermentation experiment.
Plants
Build mini-hugelkultur rings to expand newly planted tree zones.
Pulled grasses/weeds, laid down layer of sticks and twigs, 4-6” layer of grass clippings then topped with 4-6” of soil.
Planted a row of echinacea and a butternut squash in the mulberry ring.
Planted a row of chives around hazelnut.
Planted a few ground cherries around the kousa dogwood.
Planted a butternut squash alongside another hazelnut.
Plants
Transplanted out my tomatoes and cucumbers which I started earlier last month.
Plants
Planted several melons today. Direct sown into the new raised bed, and into some large pots.
Varieties were zombie cantaloupe, blacktail watermelon, golden midget watermelon
Plants
Beets didn’t seem to like the transplant. Leaves are growing, but not looking healthy.
Bok choy did very well, turkish rocket is growing slowly, and the kale is not looking very happy, but it’s growing.
Plants
Transplanted tomatoes and cucumbers into the new raised beds today!
Plants
Brassicas and greens have sprouted, but no sign of the borage or calendula yet.
Plants
For some reason the watermelon seeds didn’t germinate. There were a few cantaloupe starts that I planted into the herb garden.
Plants
