Harvest Monday – Looking Ahead

April 14, 2014

Nothing was planted this week. I mainly weeded (stinking wild onions), spread more newspaper and mulch, and watched seedlings come up.

(before…) (after)

It may be difficult to see but the light-colored mulch on the left is the section I did about a month ago. Moving to the right, around the Magnolia tree, is a section we did earlier in the week. The darkest section is the last bit we covered in mulch at the end of last week. As the weather warms and the grass grows, I feel more and more pressure/motivation to cover everything with mulch, seeing how we do not have a lawn mower that works…

Greenhouses

A warm weather crop sprouted in my greenhouse — a tomato!…or a pepper…we had more snow than normal this winter so, even though I wrote what was in each greenhouse in permanent ink, it has all faded. Of course, this week we are going to have one night that will hit 32 degrees so that greenhouse will have to be covered.

I’ll have to wait and see as it gets bigger whether it is a tomato or a pepper. As far as varieties, I guess I’ll have to wait until harvest for those. I planted eight varieties of tomatoes, two of cantaloupe, three of winter squash… There is nothing I can do about it now.

I made a note in my gardening notebook about making markers to put on the inside of the greenhouses to see if that makes a difference next year.

Though no plant harvests, seedlings are giving me some hope: peas, kale, carrots, lettuce, spinach

(Peas on left were the ‘old’ seed, sewn too heavily. Peas on right are peas I ordered, planted two weeks later, and spaced out much better!)

Kale planted a month ago is doing well (I apologize for the blurriness).

(I found this lettuce had overwintered on its own! 🙂 )

Chicks are getting their wing feathers 🙂 So cute! Actually, not as cute but still neat!

Still getting about 16 eggs a day from our 18 layers. Not too shabby!

FRUIT

Strawberries are looking healthy. I’m pinching off one or two flowers/day.

Of the MANY raspberry plants ordered last year, only a couple came up. They did well at the beginning of last summer but it was such a wet summer, many of them molded and did not return.

We cut a line out of tarp because we heard they spread so much – we were trying to control where they spread. Some of the raspberries did not get the memo…

(These grew through some apparent holes in the mulch)

Lastly, our blueberry bushes are beginning to bloom and the bees are loving it!

Whew! That ended up being a longer update than intended. Sorry about that!

Check out what others are harvesting at Daphne’s Dandelions.

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