Up with trees!

Monday May 5th

In the aftermath of our lovely, sunny weekend here in NE Oklahoma I managed to get out and construct my new floating row cover over Plot 5 which houses the potatoes. I'm trying to keep these plants covered because I REALLY want to grow some spuds this year after 2 years of failure through bad planting, over watering and Carrot Beetle attacks.
I bought flexible plastic piping which I cut into 7 foot lengths and some 24 inch lengths of Rebar.
I sunk the Rebar into the soil until about 8 inches was left above ground then put the pipe over it to make a hoop. I used my newly purchased cover material, which is of a little heavier quality than the last lot at around 1oz weight, and fastened wooden lats along the sides as before. This time, instead of using nails to fasten the 2 lats together I used short screws so that, if the material ripped, I could easily seperate the wood and replace the damaged covers.


New floating row cover design




Inside Plot 5

I'm really pleased to say that the young tree saplings I planted are looking good.
These were all sent to me free when I joined the Arbor Society and I urge you to join too by visiting them at http://www.arborday.org/.
The trees are guaranteed to grow and they will replace them free of charge if they don't.
You can't get better than that. UP WITH TREES !!
The following pictures show how mine are doing and I'll keep posting updates on their progress.



Sargent Crabapple



Washington Hawthorn




Crepe Myrtle




White Flowering Dogwood




American Redbud




Goldenraintree




After all this gardening activity I decided to make my speciality dinner of Spaghetti Bolognese.
I'm the "Guest Chef" on my wife's cooking blog this week and you can see the recipe soon
here



Mick's Spaghetti Bolognese and Garlic Bread





Oh, by the way. It's raining again.................................

More storms

Saturday 3rd May

It was a busy weekend as we had to go on the "Full Retail Experience" on Saturday.

Both my wife and myself hate shopping so to help brace ourselves for the shock we had a lovely lunch out at Java Dave's in Grove. Then we went into battle and didn't get back home until around 6-00pm.

But Sunday I was up early, without Alvin's assistance, and got out in the garden.

Staked Peach Tree

I wire staked the young peach tree as it had a pretty bad lean on after the ice storm. It looks well and has lots of little peaches forming but whether they'll form to full size is another matter.

The old peach tree has once again been hit with Peach Tree Curl and so I'm not expecting anything from it again. Both these trees will need spraying early next year if we are going to be in with a chance of fruit. To be honest I'm finding fruit trees a bit of a pain in the arse and won't be planting any more, thats for sure.

I had to get the grass mown as it was looking like a jungle so I broke "Herbie" out of the garage and set about the task. It's usually a 4 to 5 hour job....


One man went to mow..........Herbie and friend, straining at the leash.

So I mowed........................................

And mowed...............

And mowed some more...................

Then it was time to look at the veggie plots.....

Plot 1

Plot 1, now the "onion patch"

A couple of the sunflower seeds have broken through here as well as this volunteer potato plant.

Volunteer potato plant in Plot 1

Plot 2

Plot 2 waiting for seedlings

I'm probably going to plant watermelon and cucumber in here, I have the seedings ready to go in. There's also more sunflower activity going on as seeds sprout and break the surface.


Sunflower seed breaking through in Plot 2

Plot 3

Plot 3 with fancy new floating row cover supports.

Things may be slow but are coming along here. The second crop of radish looks good and a few lettuce plants have sprung here and there. I'll go into the new floating row cover design later when I have more time.

Plot 4

Plot 4 looks nice and green.

Plot 4, my smallest plot, is doing well. The turnips are growing strong but you never know if your going to end up with lots of leaf and nothing under the ground. I need these for my egg swapping plan so I hope they do well. Spinach continues to s-l-o-w-l-y grow. The 3rd batch of radish which was mixed with carrot seeds are coming through. The idea is that the radish come through first and break up the soil which makes it easier for the carrots. No carrots in sight so far though. But the first radish harvest is in and refrigerated.

Radish, best picked early before they get bitter.

Plot 5

Hilled on the left, mulched on the right.

I added more earth to the hilled plants and more straw to the mulched ones. I also decided to make a new floating row cover for this plot so I can keep it covered for a while. I need to make it higher to give the plants room to grow. The new material arrived this weekend so I'll get it started this Monday hopefully.

Plot 6

At last, the tomatoes are out.

The tomato plants finally went out Tuesday evening. Then the temps plunged down to around 38F to 40F. I'm glad the floating row covers were in place. Wednesday night still not too good although it didn't get quite as cold. Terrible storm Thursday night with winds reaching 60mph. Radio going off throughout the night so not much in the way of sleep. Friday morning I expected to find both the covers and the plants gone but everything held although I lost one tomato plant, snapped off at the top. Oh well.

I'll be digging the cages out of the shed on Monday, removing the covers and from then on they will be on their own

Reward for all the hard work.

When at last the work was done it was time for a couple of cold beers and a barbeque of sausages, baked potatoes and my wife's "Grilled Cheese and Tomatoes.