The Dawg Patch

[PlainJane]

Yeah, I was disappointed in the rainfall as well; would have liked an inch or two.
Your leeks look great! Are they all the same type?
Lol, my Major Wheeler has suddenly woken up too, like throwing a switch. I may move him to the big arbors once they’re in place or I may go with this:
https://www.almostedenplants.com/shoppi ... cker-vine/
The other side of the arbors will have passionflower vines.

[GoDawgs]

The leeks on the left side of the bed are Autumn Giant and there's Carentan on the right. I've never planted either one before. Fall '21 was the first time I tried growing leeks and did King Sieg. They did well so I'm trying two larger growers this time. I should say I tried doing leeks way long ago and they didn't do well at all. Then two years ago Self told Me, "You can grow scallions so you should be able to handle leeks. They're just big scallions!" It looks like Self was right.

[pepperhead212]

@GoDawgs Here's something I learned about planting leeks, many years ago (of course, I don't remember where!) - when the leeks have grown to 6 or 7 inches, and you go to plant them, poke a 1/4 or 3/8 inch hole 6" deep in the ground, and drop the starter into the hole. That's it! Even if only a little is showing, it will take off, and you don't even have to pack the soil down - the first rain fills it in. And you never have to pile the soil around them, to hill them - they will have a long white stem, without doing that!

[GoDawgs]

@pepperhead212 , that's kind of how I do it except I water them in a bit if the surrounding soil isn't very moist.

[GoDawgs]

It's starting to look like a garden again! The other day we got the pea trellis set up on the first bed, starting with the 18" tall strip. By tomorrow the peas in the second will be tall enough to need support soon so we'll do that tomorrow as well as get the large trellis panels in place on both beds.



Today has been an all day garden day. This morning I cut down the 7' dried up Jerusalem artichoke stems before the newbies started poking up. Then I took the weedwhacker between the beds in the garden and mowed the perimeter, after which Pickles mowed the whole place for the first time this year. I pulled more carrots and scallions and got the sides of the future okra bed turned and ready to plant carrots down the sides this weekend. The okra won't be planted down the middle until around the first of May.



After lunch I got holes prepped for planting 8 more broccoli, 4 kohlrabi and three cabbages this weekend, the scallion rows prepped and about 28' of scallions planted, and another 4' of daikon radish sown.

Unfortunately while prepping the brassica holes I caught my heel on the inside edge of the bed sideboard, lost my balance and fell, literally doing a face plant in the walkway between two beds. I was able to somewhat break the fall with my forearms but as I landed I heard a scritchy noise in my neck. It's rather sore tonight. Probably a bit of whiplash as my face bounced off the ground. It'll be stiff tomorrow but at least I didn't break my glasses. LOL!

The first two rounds of broccoli,cabbage, etc etc are doing great. It was time for a bit of fertilizer so they got that. This is that bed with the Kennebec potato bed behind it and the future carrot/zinnia bed behind the spud bed.



Speaking of spuds, they're almost all up in both beds. This is the other one with the Yukon Golds. I put the hoops on the day they were planted so that they'd be ready in case of frost. Turns out to have been a good move. I see three cold mornings coming up Monday, Tues and Wed with 37, 32 and 36 lows. The potatoes are small enough that we can just pull soil over them but I'm still going to put frost cover over the two beds just in case a few plants decide to poke through during the nights.



We have rain coming in, supposedly starting late tomorrow and here and there all day Friday. Saturday looks clear with more showers possible Sunday so Saturday looks to be planting day again. The soil's already prepped and that makes the rest easy.

[MissS]

Wow Dawgs I'm tired just from hearing about all of your hard work. The gardens are really coming into shape. I will be getting 7 inches of snow in the next two days and my ground is still frozen so I won't be doing much of anything.

I sure am sorry about that fall and hope that your neck isn't too bad in the morning. Pain sure does slow one down. Maybe put a little ice on it to help with the swelling.

[karstopography]

Yes, I hope that fall leaves no lasting impact. Gardening can be a contact sport. Sudden and rapid contact with ground with the old trip and fall, I’ve been there. I even stabbed my big toe with the garden fork once. Once was all it took to know I should never do that again.

@GoDawgs surely, you have endured a fire ant sting or two with working in all those beds you have and if you haven’t please let me know what you did to eradicate that garden menace.

I’m hoping the gardening activity on balance will be better overall for my old body and mind than not gardening, but when something like an unexpected fall happens out in the beds it makes you wonder.

[PlainJane]

I think gardening over the years has been a huge benefit now that I’m in my 60s. And DH and I just started going to beginners Tai Chi as his balance issues are getting worse (he’s had 2 spine fusion surgeries).
My worst gardening injury came while trying to leverage a boulder out of the rose bed I was expanding in Massachusetts. I lost my balance and toppled into an Abraham Darby, one of the thorniest roses in existence. Scariest was that my glasses were knocked off and I got a poke in the eye on top of everything else. At least my head hit the relatively soft ground and not the boulder I was wrestling with. I had to take 2 days off after that fun. Oh, and while speed pruning I almost sliced my left thumb tip off. Now I force myself to watch where both hands are and always always wear gloves.

[PlainJane]

Oh, DH fights the fire ants around us; I’ll have to see what he uses. It’s some combination of a powder and a liquid. They once got him pretty good and he’s been on a revenge tour ever since.

[rxkeith]

you have been very busy already. there will be no outside garden activity for al least a month here,
and that might be limited to repairing parts of the fence around the main garden

the key to minimizing injury from falling is to go limp. bad things happen if you tighten up.
one of the more painful injuries i have had in the garden was when the roto tiller bucked unexpectedly,
and caught me in the ribs. that put me on all fours for awhile.


keith

[GoDawgs]

@GoDawgs surely, you have endured a fire ant sting or two with working in all those beds you have and if you haven’t please let me know what you did to eradicate that garden menace.

For one, I don't use Amdro in the garden so that's out. But I did follow the advice of a lady who worked at the local feed and seed and that helps a lot. I fill a gallon jug with water, leaving enough room for 1/4c of dishwashing liquid (the cheap stuff). Mix well by tipping the jug back and forth a bit. Stand over the ant hill and holding the jug chest high, slowly pour a stream of that whole gallon right down into the hill. You've got the right spot when it just keeps going down and down with no runoff. About 3/4 of the way through the gallon I start moving the stream slowly over the edges of the mound too.

It will never kill the whole colony and certainly not the queen who is waaaay down deep but the next day you'll see tons of dead ants around the top where the mound was. I'm guessing the survivors dragged the dead ones out. Regardless, the mound is gone. It might pop up again somewhere else but then "death from above" will come calling again.

Dish soap is safe to use as just about all dish soap is now phosphate free. I've drowned little nests right next to plants and it didn't hurt the plants at all. It's best to get them when the nests are small. If a mound is really large, like out in the yard, it might take several gallons to douse it all and possible retreatment if rebuilding starts.

[GoDawgs]

Yesterday I took some ibuprophen when I got back to the house and had ice on my neck on and off all evening long. This morning it was pretty stiff but it's starting to loosen up some. Moving it left, right and down is a lot better but tilting back is still something done slowly. Today I will alternate ice and heat, a trick I learned many moons ago playing high school and college sports.

Speaking of sports, if I fall in the garden (something that usually happens once a year to remind me to be careful about foot placement), volleyball training from days of yore still kicks in about landing and rolling with it.., IF there's room to roll. Between beds (3' walkways) is a different matter. The prime concern is to land IN the walkway and not across bed side boards which can crack ribs. The other matter requiring the brain's quick calculation is to land as softly as possible (reduction of the thud factor) on my side (hah!) to protect my knee replacements.

I am always simply amazed how the brain can figure out all these things in a split second. This fall happened so fast I don't think calculations happened fast enough, resulting in the face plant which is a first. At least the into-the-walkway part happened. And always after a fall, Brain commands "Damage Control, REPORT!" and one by one various body areas will usually give the all clear and, thank goodness, rarely the "Houston, we have a problem..."

The dastardly hose wasn't the culprit this time. It was the treacherous side board. Harumph! Well, done for the year, I hope.

[PlainJane]

Most of my friends and relatives don’t understand that gardening is a contact sport.

[Rockporter]

Yesterday I took some ibuprophen when I got back to the house and had ice on my neck on and off all evening long. This morning it was pretty stiff but it's starting to loosen up some. Moving it left, right and down is a lot better but tilting back is still something done slowly. Today I will alternate ice and heat, a trick I learned many moons ago playing high school and college sports.

Speaking of sports, if I fall in the garden (something that usually happens once a year to remind me to be careful about foot placement), volleyball training from days of yore still kicks in about landing and rolling with it.., IF there's room to roll. Between beds (3' walkways) is a different matter. The prime concern is to land IN the walkway and not across bed side boards which can crack ribs. The other matter requiring the brain's quick calculation is to land as softly as possible (reduction of the thud factor) on my side (hah!) to protect my knee replacements.

I am always simply amazed how the brain can figure out all these things in a split second. This fall happened so fast I don't think calculations happened fast enough, resulting in the face plant which is a first. At least the into-the-walkway part happened. And always after a fall, Brain commands "Damage Control, REPORT!" and one by one various body areas will usually give the all clear and, thank goodness, rarely the "Houston, we have a problem..."

The dastardly hose wasn't the culprit this time. It was the treacherous side board. Harumph! Well, done for the year, I hope.

I hope you heal faster than you think you will. I fell in the garden right after we put the new brick step and wall in. My sandal caught the edge of the step and down I went. I grabbed the 4x4 post as fast as I could but still went down and I scraped my left shin real bad on the bricks, and my right foot under my toes was all tore up because it was jammed into the bricks when the sandal got caught. Needless to say, I don't wear sandals in the garden anymore. I was also able to avoid hitting the containers and things that are out there. I had pre-planned a wide berth area there for falls, but also for nice space to move containers into the garden for setup. Thankfully this also occurred before we had put any trellises back into the garden area, we were still planning the space for those, and it was a huge factor into why the 16x16 square trellis didn't fit, I needed more space in that area, I didn't want to fall into that anytime soon. The containers would have taken up way too much space when placed next to it as well.

I use this https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/produ ... -gel-12-oz for all matter of pain, joints, muscles, etc. Not on open cuts, scrapes or sores. Wear a glove and don't put it in moist areas like the back of the knees, etc, and most important it only takes a tiny amount to get the effect of it, and never put it on your feet bottoms either, it absorbs right directly into your blood stream on the bottoms of your feet. It's all organic, they also make one for humans but I can't stand the smell of it. This one is not a pretty smell either but I can handle the menthol smell better than the human one of wintergreen. This liniment gives the great effect of icy and then hot and it is an all natural product. It works great on the shoulders, neck region, well all painful areas(again not open wounds or moist areas) and it really helps minimize swelling.

Remember if you try this make sure you wear a glove and use very little, it goes a very long way. Also, wash your hands after applying even while having worn a glove. No mistakes if there is a tiny hole in your glove you don't see and you rub your eyes you are in big trouble. Most important of all, my Rhuemy approves it, lol.

[GoDawgs]

Some pics from yesterday. The front porch is multi-use. The is is one of two tables that get morning sun until about noon, enough for the plants but when summer heat approaches, it's not too much to stress them. It's where herbs grow and where things get hardened off pre-plant. I also grow stuff there that gets decimated in the garden by flea beetles, things like lettuces and bok choy. Pots and window boxes work well.



These are some things (Round Three) that will be planted out tomorrow; 4 each of broccolis Green Magic and Packman, 4 Kolibri kohlrabi and three more Early Jersey Wakefield cabbage.



Like everything else, the price of plastic window boxes from Dollar General and Family Dollar have gone up a lot. They used to be $3-something last year. Now the cheapest is $6! Forget the big box stores as they want a lot more than that.

The two "tables" were made using four plastic sawhorses and those dog-earred fence boards, all of which were on sale some years ago. The sawhorses were on sale one time, two to a pack and so were the boards, on sale at the time for about $1.25 each. I doubt they cost that these days! But they still show no signs of rot although every spring I flip them over as they get a slight case of the bends. The set up has served me really well and is super portable.

This is a shot of the tables back in 2016 when I was playing with starting a tomato very early. This was Feb 2!



And finally, something bright for those who are tired of looking at white stuff. It's a part of a giant (at least 10'x10') Chinese Fringe (Loropetalum) in full bloom right now. It will bloom off and on all spring and summer. New foliage is burgandy, maturing to green. These suckers grow fast!

[GoDawgs]

To plant or not to plant; that WAS the question! I have the third round of brassicas to set out and they're forecasting lows for Tuesday thru Friday mornings at 35, 30, 34, 39. After thinking about it, they are hardened off so I went ahead and did it. No mulching yet to let the sun maybe warm the soil a little more as it's 56 right now. Then I'll mulch on Monday to lock in any warmth and cover the plants with a light row cover. I did get the hoops and netting set up to keep deer out.

Four Green Magic broc on one side, four Packman broc on the other side, four kohlrabi down the middle and three cabbages across the far end.



It's starting to look like a garden. This is the lower half.



The fourth and last round of brassicas will go out in about ten days in the other half of the bed that was planted today. They're still under the lights but will go out to the porch this afternoon for hardening. I'll probably bring them indoors the night it goes down to 30.



Meanwhile, yesterday I planted the lettuce sets in window boxes for life on the porch. The green one is Tennis Ball, which makes a small head big enough for two salads. It was a variety Thomas Jefferson supposedly had in his garden. The red one is Merlot, a freebie from Baker Creek and supposedly the reddest lettuce out there. There's always something to play with!

[Wildcat82]

Going through your growlog, your brassica's always look perfect, like something out of a catalog. How do you keep worms from getting in your cabbage?

Growing up on our farm, our cabbage/broccoli always had worms no matter how much we sprayed. I still remember sitting there for hours trimming out the worm tracks out of the cabbage and tossing the parts of the head that were bug free into a 15 gallon clay pot to make sauerkraut.

[GoDawgs]

@Wildcat82, thanks for comments about the brassicas but I owe it to using bT on them. bT (bacillus thuringiensis) is a natural bacterium found in the soil. It is very safe to people and pets and ultra deadly to caterpillars and worms of all kinds. You spray, they eat, they die. You can spray and harvest the same day.

The particular brand I use is Thuricide which is, I think, a Bonide product. You can buy the ready to use form but to me that's a waste of money so I always buy the concentrate. One bottle will last a long time. Check the label on anything that claims to treat for worms or caterpillars in the garden and make sure that the active ingredient is bT. There are also different formulations of bT to use on Colorado potato beetles and others. Here's a good overview of bT, its uses and varieties:

https://www.gardeningchannel.com/a-guid ... t-control/

The key is to regularly scout your plants and at the first sign of munching it's time to treat them. Cabbage pests seem to appear here starting in late April so I start watching for them mid April. Same with tomato horn worms which appear in June so I start checking for munching about mid-late April. One treatment will usually do the trick until July when a second round appears.

The other pest which I have to deal with are the dastardly flea beetles which will shothole a lot of stuff. For that I use pyrethrin, spraying the bed surface right after planting. That seems to really help protect for a good while. This is something I only use in the early evening to make sure all the bees and pollinators have gone home for the day.

http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/pyrethrins.html

Neem oil and maybe some insecticidal soap are the only other treatment I use in the garden.

[karstopography]

Bt is good stuff. So is pyrethin. Pyrethrin I believe if I remember correctly is one of the alkaloids green plants, in the case of pyrethrin certain african daisies or chrysanthemums, synthesize to ward off pests. Pyrethrin does repel a variety of insects.

I haven’t had much pest issues with brassicas, but I have been growing them over the fall and winter when many of the pest numbers are naturally way down. I had one Chinese cabbage going into our spring here and holy moley, once it warmed up a little, the insects attacked. If you want to see if there’s any pests in a garden, plant napa type cabbage. I’ll always try to plant a little napa cabbage or bok choi in season solely as an indicator on pest numbers and to perhaps lure the pests away from the lettuce and spinach.

[GoDawgs]

It's a rainy day today, good for the stuff that was just planted. There's a fat red/orange blob that will come through here shortly so I'll finish this post before the weather obliterates our satellite internet for a short while.

The fourth (and final) round of brassicas went out to the porch this morning to start hardening off. Weather permitting, they'll be planted on the 19-20th.



I've postponed sowing the carrots as the soil is still a bit too chilly for them. No sense in pushing it and risking the seed not germinating well. Patience can be a weak spot for me sometimes. Meanwhile the peppers are popping up in their cups. The next major startings will be on the 19-20th for tomatoes and a few sweet potatoes in a window box to start them making slips for planting early May.

This is the bok choy called 'Heat Winner' that I got in the MMMM swap. Supposedly it likes mild to cool weather and has good tolerance to warm weather. That tolerance to warm weather will get a test, for sure.



They're supposed to get 9" tall and 10" wide so I might (probably) be transplanting each of these to their own one gallon pots later. Flea beetles would decimate them if I planted them in the garden. Behind the bok choy is a basil and two Mountain Mints.

And finally, one of the fall-planted collards is blooming and I'll let it go to seed for collection. I left the netting on too long and because the flowers have grown through it, I can't take it off now. But the bees and other critters will be able to access the flowers regardless so for now no harm, no foul.