Seedling Updates

It's been 8 days since I planted two of my flats of seeds. During that time we have enjoyed some warm, sunny weather and we have had some rainy, cold days. Thankfully my seed starting system has worked well in all the varied conditions and I am pleased to report really good germination for most of the seeds.

A tray of "Xanthos" Cosmos

The flat I seeded with strictly cosmos looks great. On one side 22/24 cells of "Xanthos" cosmos are up and on the other side 17/24 cells of "Rubenza" cosmos have germinated.

I also started seed of "Country Fair Blend" zinnia. Of the 25 cells I seeded, 18 are up. Next to the zinnia, I planted melon and cucumber seed. I have 9/10 "Magnificenza"  melon up and 2/10 "Lemon" cucumbers have germinated.

A "Crown Pumpkin" young plant

In my third tray I have a mix of winter squash, melons, and cucumbers that I planted in straight Nature's Best soil instead of a planting mix. At this point I am having a mixed result with this method. So far only 1/4 "Crown Pumpkin" squash have appeared and I want two of them

A "Magnificenza" melon seedling

The "Waltham Butternut" squash have fared a little better with 2/4 germinated. I only planted 1 "Delicata" squash and at this time there isn't any sign of it. I have 2/8 of the "Lemon" cucumbers up here, so I should have enough of these plants between my two sowings of them. And the big winner is the "Magnificenza" melon. I have another 7/8 germinated in this flat, so I have a grand total of 16/18 plants sprouted. I was worried that this might be a difficult seed to germinate. It looked quite small so I seeded a lot of it. As it turns out this is very viable seed and apparently not very hard to start! I definitely have all of the melon plants that I have room for so I will be looking for some good homes for my extra seedlings.

Below, a "Waltham Butternut" winter squash seedling

More Onion & Dahlia Planting

Tonight after work I planted my final onion variety for this year. I set in 10 "Candy" onion plants that I had purchased at the Farmer's Market. I have grown this sweet variety before and it has done well for me. Being a sweet onion, it is not a keeper. Because of this, it is the variety that I begin to harvest and cook with mid-Summer and on.

After I finished planting the "Candy" onions I returned to potting up my dahlia tubers. I was able to get an additional 22 planted tonight, for a total of 73 potted. A good start but still a long ways to go!

Working on the Kitchen Garden

We ended up with about a 2-3 hour window of dry weather between more serious rainfall today. While I certainly didn't get anywhere close to as much done as I had hoped, I still was able to make a little gardening progress on this wet, wet weekend. I focused today on the area I call my "overflow" kitchen garden. I began by giving it another quick, complete weeding. Then Dad helped me and we added 6 buckets of fresh Natures Best to extend and build up the bed.

Then I placed my two large size grow bags and planted the "Red Chieftan" potatoes that I had ordered from High Mowing Seed out of Vermont. The minimum order was 2.5 lbs and that was really more than I needed. But of coarse I had to plant all of the seed potatoes that they sent. So 6 went into the largest bag and 5 into the slightly smaller one. 

As you can see they were definitely ready to be planted! I also stuck a small volunteer potato plant of "Red Norland" into another pot placed between these two bags. It had sprouted up in the middle of this bed and I couldn't stand to toss it into the compost pile.

Next to the three potato bags I planted a row of 9 "Redwing" onions. I purchased these storage onion plants at the Farmer's Market a few weeks ago and I am glad to get them in the ground.

After I got the whole row planted and water in, I covered the row with two hoops and remay fabric. This will provide some protection from both the deer and the birds.

When I was weeding the bed I was pleasantly surprised to discover 3 small plants of Cosmos "Bright Lights". I had some plants of this variety growing here last year and apparently they self seeded. So I moved the 3 starts to the front of the bed where they can happily grow in front of the Zinnias I am also growing for this area.

And speaking of those Zinnias, guess what starting germinating today? When I looked inside the greenhouse this afternoon I discovered that the first 8 "Country Fair Blend" Zinnias had come up!

When I checked the other flat I found the first 5 Cosmos "Xanthos" and the first 11 Cosmos "Rubenza" had also germinated. Since I had only planted this seed Wednesday night, and the last two days have been cool and rainy, I wasn't expecting the seed to germinate quite so soon. So even though I planted my seeds a little later than I had hoped,  I am off to a strong start with germination rates this year.

Mostly Rained Out

The first Salvia "La Trinidad Pink" blooms of the year

Over the course of the day we received 09/10 of an inch of rain. Needless to say, it wasn't a really productive day in the garden. I did manage to get another 23 dahlias potted up after dinner, so that is something. But mostly is was a catch-up on indoor tasks kind of day, while listening to the rain beat down on the roof. I guess the good news is I don't need to do any more hand watering for a while.

Starting to Pot Up the Dahlia Tubers

This evening I officially kicked-off the dahlia season and began potting up my dahlia tubers. As is my normal habit, I began with the new tubers that I ordered this Winter. In about an hour I was able to pot-up my new tubers from Hollyhill Dahlias, Birch Bay Dahlias, Clearview Dahlias, and 5 from my friend Max up in Washington. I ended up getting 23 dahlias planted in their temporary home. It is just a fraction of the total number of tubers that I need to get potted but it certainly feels good to get this project started.

First Tilling

Tonight after dinner we headed down to the Big Garden and gave it the first tilling of the year. It is always a milestone on the gardening calendar for me. It really marks the start of my dahlia garden, although planting is certainly many, many weeks away. The soil was fairly decent for this first pass. Nicely dry in the normal sections and wet - but not really wet - in the usual areas. Looking back at past posts, this week really does seem the "average" date that we are able to do the first tilling each year. Last year it was May 12th, in 2014 May 15th, 2013 May 6th, 2012 May 14th, 2011 June 15th, and 2010 May 14th.

In other exciting news, I have the first germination in the flat of seeds that I started last Sunday. Tonight there are 3 "Magnificenza" Melon poking though the soil. Four days is pretty quick germination but it was 82 degrees yesterday and today and I sure that helps.

Dahlia Starts Arrive and More Seed Starting

When I arrived home tonight, I was excited to discover that my dahlia cuttings that I had ordered from Corralitos Gardens had arrived. In most cases, I order dahlia tubers. That is what almost all of the commercial dahlia growers choose to sell and I am also very comfortable growing dahlias from tubers. But Corralitos Gardens only sells live dahlia cuttings. They also sell some unique and foreign dahlia originations that no one else carries. So if you want to grow a few of those, then dahlia cuttings is what you will receive. This year I ordered;

• "Blyton Softer Gleam" - Ball Light Blend Orange/Yellow, 2005 British Introduction, Great cut flower
• "Yesterday" - BB Informal Decorative Yellow, 2015 Introduction
• "Camano Sunshine" - B Informal Decorative Yellow, 2012 Introduction, Corralitos' most productive cut flower
• CLearview Louise" - B Semi-Cactus Light Blend Yellow/Pink, 2011 Introduction
• "Gilwood Terry G." - BB Cactus Yellow, 2003 British Introduction
• "Darksider" - B Cactus Dark Red. A 2015 origination and winner of the Lynn B Dudley award. And this was my free gift -  $18.00 price to order!

Once your order arrives, it is really important to open the box immediately and unpack the cuttings from their protective  plastic clamshells. Then I get them quickly planted in 1/2 gallon pots and water them in well. It is hard to believe at this point these small starts will grow to be full size dahlia plants. But I know from past experience, by Fall, I won't be able to tell any difference between these cuttings and my dahlias that were started from tubers.

After getting the dahlia cuttings potted up, I turned my attention to seed starting. I am about 10 days behind where I would like to be on this task, but better late than never! So tonight I seeded two trays, to join the flat that I already started last Sunday. I planted;

• Cosmos "Rubenza" - 24 cells
• Cosmos "Xanthos" - 24 cells
• Zinnia - " Country Fair Blend"  - 25 cells
• Melon - "Magnificenza" - 10 cells
• Cucumber - "Lemon" - 10 cells

Wild Western Columbine

As we were planting the "Honeycrisp" apple tree on Sunday, we noticed a nice group of wild columbine not too far away. We have Aquilegia Formosa - the Western columbine - sprinkled throughout our meadows but sadly they are a favorite of the deer. This clump was no different. Of the 4 plants the deer had browsed off the tops of three of them. But this lovely one had survived the deer visits and was glowing in the sunshine.

Greens Harvest - Week #5

The greens in all 3 raised beds are just exploding right now. Between the warm weather and regular watering, it is hard for me to keep up with the harvest. I said our new mantra this week needs to be " eat more salads!" It is such a time of lush growth but I know also that this time is limited. By the end of the month the greens will be petering out and it will be time for some Winter Squash to take this real estate. But until then we get to enjoy our nightly, local salad. This week's harvest;

• "Heirloom Cutting Mix" Lettuce - 4.8 oz
• "Catalina" Spinach - 3.6 oz
• "Sweet Greens and Reds" Lettuce -6.0 oz
• "Charger" Spinach -4.0 oz
• Total - 1 lb. 2.4 oz.