Begining to Pot up the Dahlias

This morning I got up early and worked the first shift of a fundraising sale for the Dahlia Society. After I returned home I finally had the time to begin potting up my dahlia tubers. I like to pot up the tubers for two reasons. First, I never know when my garden will be totally dry and ready to plant. By potting up the tubers, I can control when they are planted, even if it isn't in their permanent home. Secondly, by starting each tuber in a pot, and then transplanting it into the garden, I can be assured of not having a "gap" in the garden where a tuber failed to come up. I have had so much on my plate the last two weeks, between work & dahlia society commitments, that my own gardening was getting neglected. But today I was rewarded with pleasant weather and cats and family members to keep me company. By the end of the day I had potted up 73 dahlias. A good first days work!

I have really been enjoying my "Blauschokker" Purple Pod Pea plants the last few weeks. The blooms are so pretty. They start a two-toned fuchsia and pink color and fade to a soft lavender purple.

After the petals drop off the deep purple, baby pods appear. As of today I have my first 5 pods set.



Mid-May in the Kitchen Graden

Another beautiful day today. We hit a high of 80 degrees. After work I decided that it was time to take off the remay that had been protecting the radish bed and the onions.  I also went through the whole garden and weeded. The garden looked so much better after all of my work.

The radish are definitely big enough now that I don't need to worry about the birds pulling them out.

The "Plum Purple" radish are starting to size up and are such a pretty shade of purple.

The largest two varieties in the radish bed are the "Cherry Belle" & the "Early Scarlet Globe". In fact I can't really tell much of a size difference between the two. Both are ready for some early picking.

The garlic row continues to amaze me. The plants just keep getting taller and the stalks thicker. I still haven't seen any sign yet of garlic scapes protruding from the hard-neck variety Chesnook Red".

My onion row was ready for the remay to come off as well. The red "Mars" onion plants had already reached the top of the tunnel. As you can see in the above picture, the "Mars" plant on the right is larger than the "Frontier" onion on the left. It will be interesting to see if this growth trend continues. I don't recall my "Prince" onions being substantially smaller than the "Mars" plants the last two years.

Here's a close-up of a "Mars" onion.

And a similar shot of a "Frontier" plant.

The "Blauschokker" Purple Pod Pea plants have really started to heavily bloom. Lovely!

I also thinned my radish bed. While many of the seedling I pulled were too small to keep, a few of the radish were almost full size. I washed those up and voila - the first harvest of the year! .7 oz. of home grown goodness.



The First 80 Degree Day of the Year

As promised we were treated to another amazing Summer-like day today. The high reached 82 and everyone -people, critters, and the plants - were loving it! It has felt kind of funny the last three day having to remember to water my young garden plants each evening. I normally don't have to worry about such things in a typical Oregon Spring but I am not complaining.

The five radish varieties that I planted on the 15th have come up and are growing like - well like radish!

There's a reason that radish are one of the vegetables suggested to plant to encourage young children to garden. You plant them and they come up quickly and do well. This adult still appreciates those qualities too! It won't be too long before I will need to do a bit of thinning in the rows.

Now here's a interesting development in my garlic row. My only hardneck garlic variety that I planted this year, "Chesnook Red", has had a very different growth pattern than the two softneck varieties planted next to it. As you can see in the above picture that was taken last week, these plants have been growing with a low, outward pattern. Each new set of leaves would go up and then reach out resulting in garlic plants that weren't getting very tall. Until this last week when....

suddenly their growth pattern changed and now the leaves are standing straight up. They are now almost as tall as the two softneck varieties and look just like them. So what triggered this change - time of year, temperature, fertilizer? And is this typical of hardneck garlic plants? Inquiring minds want to know!

Behind the garlic, the young onion seedlings have settled in well after being planted a week ago. The remany is protecting them from the birds but I also think gave them some added protection from this sudden, Summer-like weather.

The "Blauschokker Purple Pod" Peas are now growing like crazy up the bean tower. 

And the "Sugar N Spice" Sweet Peas that I planted in the two pots have almost all germinated. Soon I will need to move the pots from the front walkway and set them behind some fencing, safe from the deer.



Planting the Spring Vegetable Garden

Finally - a sunny weekend in the forecast! I got up and headed right to the Farmer's Market and the Hayhurst stand. Top on my agenda today was getting my onion seedlings planted. For the last 3 years I have planted purchased onion seedlings instead of onion sets and have been thrilled with the results. My plants are larger, healthier, and have produced bigger bulbs from seedlings. For the past two years I have planted the red storage onion "Mars" and the yellow storage onion "Prince". Both have grown well and stored amazingly well. I am still pulling last year's onions out of storage now and they are firm, juicy, and in great condition. When I stopped at the Hayhurst stand this morning I was disappointed to discover that they weren't carrying "Prince" this year. It has been replaced by "Frontier" another yellow storage onion. I was assured that I would like "Frontier" just as much as "Prince" so I picked up a six-pack of it as well as one of "Mars" and headed home to plant.

I started by building a long, narrow raised bed, parallel to the garlic row. Once I had my bed constructed I set in 10 plants of "Mars" and 14 plants of "Frontier". I then watered in my seedlings well with a good drink of liquid kelp fertilizer.

A newly planted "Frontier" onion.

And a new "Mars" plant. You can see the immature bulb is red even at this young age.

Directly in front of the new onion row is the garlic row that was planted last October. The plants seem to be doing well. The tallest of them are about 14-16" tall now. The plants do seem to have a bit of yellowing in some of the leaves. I gave them a good drink of the kelp fertilizer too and hope this helps.

Here is a picture of the "Chesnook Red" plants, a hard-neck variety. They appear to have recovered from getting buried in a couple feet of snow last month after all of the snow from the roof landed directly on them. They seem to be growing in a much more compact fashion than the two soft-neck varieties.

Here is the section of "Nootka Rose". "Nootka Rose" is my only variety that has sent up more than one shoot from the individual cloves that were planted.

And finally the Silver Rose " plants.

And then there are my poor "Blauschokker Purple Pod" Pea plants. They have really struggled since getting planted a month ago. I have discovered that they really need more to climb on than this bean tower offers and getting buried in snow wasn't very helpful either. I think that I have lost about 6 plants at this point.

But those that are left have finally gotten a hold of the tower and are putting on some really healthy, vigorous new growth. We might yet see a pea blossom from this motley group!

After I finished getting the onions planted and covered I moved on to my second project. I built another raised bed. This one is for my Spring radish crop. I planted six rows with a total of four varieties. They are:

• "Cherry Belle" Red Radish - Territorial Seed. A new variety for me this year
• "Early Scarlet Globe" Red Radish - Seed Savers Exchange - A new variety for me this year
• "Plum Purple" Purple Radish - Seed Savers Exchange - I grew this last year
• "Ostergrub Rosa" Pink Radish - The Cook's Garden - A new variety for me this year

As you can see, Tom-cat was a huge help with my planting projects. I think that the cats were as excited as the humans were to finally have some sunshine to enjoy. The temperature hit 64 degrees and it felt wonderful.

After I finished planting the radish I covered them up with a remay cover as well. Last year the birds pulled up my just-sprouted radish seedlings so I have learned my lesson. I will remove the remay tunnel after the plants reach a couple of inches high.

Parvati and I hope that wherever you were today, you had a chance to get outside and enjoy some sun - Yawn!

Early March Kitchen Garden Update

This weekend I decided to take the remay hoop cover off of the garlic row. I hadn't noticed earlier but Wednesday's snowfall partially flatten one of the metal hoops.So, off the remay came! All of the garlic plants are big enough now that a bit of random nibbling on their leaves by the finches shouldn't bother them too much. Pictured above are the "Nootka Rose" plants. They are continuing to look really good.

Here are two of my "Chesnook Red" plants. I sure hope that hard-neck varieties are suppose to grow like this because all of my Chesnook plants look exactly like this- short and squat!

And then there are my poor "Blauschokker Purple Pod" pea plants.They have been in the ground now for a week and have had temperatures in the mid twenties and snow two nights! Thank goodness they are such tough plants. Mine do look a little worse for wear but should be fine. I was excited to see that the first plant had wrapped its tendril around the tower. If they can all get a hold of the tower they will be able to withstand the wind and bad weather a bit better.

Snow, Sun-breaks, Hail, and Planting the Peas!

Today was certainly an interesting weather day. It started snowing in the early morning hours. The snow actually stuck and accumulated a bit, but then began to melt as the sun broke out around 9:30 AM. All morning and early afternoon dark clouds kept rolling through the area, bringing another round of snow showers. During one of the sun-breaks, I decided it was time to get my pea plants in the ground.

Last Monday, at the monthly Avid Gardeners meeting, Alice Doyle of Log House Plants brought a wonderful selection of Pea plants for sale. Since the meeting was held on Presidents Day, the traditional day to plant peas in our area, Alice was selling the Peas for just $1.00 each. How could I walk away from that deal? There were many varieties to choose from but I went with a new-to-me one - "Blauschokker Purple Pod".  The tag describes it as " an open-pollinated, shelling variety. Beautiful ornamental edible. Red & violet flowers are followed by dark violet 3" pods with sweet, tasty brown-grey peas. Use peas fresh or dried in soups & casseroles. 80-90 days from transplant." Doesn't that sound interesting?!

Each 3" pot had 5 healthy plants. I set in the ground one of my bean towers from Gardener's Supply Company. On each of three sides I planted 5 of the young pea plants. The wind was gusting off and on, and the poor plants kept getting pushed to the ground. Fortunately peas are hardy and it won't be too long before their tendrils will have wrapped around the tower for the first time. Then they will be off and running.

After I planted the peas I pulled back the remay cover on my garlic bed. The garlic is looking good. The growth pattern on the hardneck variety "Chesnook Red " pictured above, is certainly different than the softneck variety "Nootka Red", pictured below.

After getting the peas planted I turned my attention to the front flower bed. It is slowly getting overtaken by young bitter-cress plants. I know from experience that if I don't get them pulled soon, the mature plants will fling seeds all over the bed. And then I will have the same situation next year. I had been weeding for 1/2 hour or so when the sky darkened and the roof started making popping sounds - hail! I ducked under the eves of the roof and watched the hail pour down.

When the storm had passed, my poor little snowdrop cluster that I had just plated earlier in the day was surrounded by hailstones. Fortunately, snowdrops are one of the many tough, spring bloomers and they showed no signs of damage. A quick walk back to the kitchen garden revealed that my peas were just fine too. Who know what the rest of the day will bring! Gardening in February isn't for sissies!