Jayne's Urban Paradise

[JayneR13]

I'm not quite as wet as you, but the soil is pretty wet. I wouldn't even try to plant anything right now, other than the crowns. Besides, we're still getting nights down into the lower 30s. Snow, even serious snow, is NOT out of the realm.

Indeed, I purchased a metal bed to replace the wooden one, which is a few years old and starting to show its age. It's an off brand that cost me $125! Name brands are indeed big expensive. The corners of these beds came apart nicely, so I have my hopes. Fingers crossed!

[GoDawgs]

We do what we can, when we can and however we can. Ya can't keep a good gardener down.

[JayneR13]

That's right! Even if we're not as fast as we used to be, we get it done! Gardening is good for us, on a number of levels.

[JayneR13]

Today was the day I went through my seedlings, adding some Osmocote, stirring up the compacted potting media, adding more as required, and removing any too runted or diseased to be useful. Granted most runts will come back and produce, but diseased runts aren’t worth the effort. I have time to reseed so why bother? And I picked some disease resistant varieties this year just to play around and see how good they really are, including Diva Cucumber: https://seedsnsuch.com/products/diva-cucumber-seeds. Imagine my surprise as I’ve found 4 of the 6 I started with some fungal pathogen! This was diagnosed via my plant app, PictureThis!

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I’ve reseeded with Spacemaster, which has had a few things chewing on them but a bit of home made insecticidal soap will fix that! AAS All-American selection too. I doubt I’ll be planting this one next year. Phooey!

On a good note, I found a 4 banger T5 rack on sale! The seedlings under the single bulb, 2 flats in 6 rows, will appreciate that. I might have over obligated myself a bit this year oh well!

[JayneR13]

Things are greening up around the yard! My neighbors’ daffodils are blooming

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My tulips are developing

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And the rains from the last two days made my garlic perk right up!

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One of my strawberry patches seems happy. I couldn’t find the other two.

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And my lilac is leafing out! Yay!

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Spring is springing! Happy gardening!

[bower]

I grew Diva once, and although they took forever to produce anything, I really liked the cukes. Good tasting, no seeds. Hope the last two can do right!

[JayneR13]

Interesting to know! I’ll keep an eye on any Divas that make it to planting. I replanted with Spacemaster, and have six plants up. They’re supposed to be very prolific.

[JayneR13]

Today was a nice day to go over to the pantry garden and give my new Cape Cod weeder a try, so over I went! Discouraging both dandelions and creeping Charlie in the garlic area can only help, plus I wanted to test soil temperature for possible reseeding. Sure enough, the temps are in the low 50sF so I replanted some bare spots. Onion sets in the front two rows and onion seed in back.

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I found four strawberry crowns trying to sprout, so I took those home to plant with the other crowns that seem happy under my lilac tree.

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Some bunching onion is coming up in my big raised bed.

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My tulips are coming along nicely!

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These are branches of my lilac tree that I cut down last year. They were leaning into my neighbors’ yard and were mostly dead & raggedy. I pruned them back and new shoots are growing in the proper direction!

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[JayneR13]

Said lilac tree is getting ready to bloom! Yay!

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The new high school greenhouse is looking good! They’ll open May 9 and sell until the plants are gone. Yes, I have plenty of plants & seed at home! Yes, I’ll walk over, just to see what they have, and will likely buy something. I like to support the high school kids.

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The new four light rack. I had to clean it up before use and it simply doesn’t hang evenly, so I’ll have to play with it a bit. For now it’s good, and the plants seem to appreciate the extra light.

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Another new fixture, a two LED light fixture on a PVC stand. Yes there’s the old single lamp fixture behind it. I really bit off a huge chunk of elephant this year and seriously needed the extra space! Between the pantry garden, my garden, and eleven seedlings for one of my fellow volunteers, the plants were ‘way too crowded and that’s not healthy. And there’s always next year! Did I mention that the pantry board bought some raised beds to expand the garden? Thankfully they’re thinking to plant kale and cilantro, and perhaps more onion in those. I have seeds for that!

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And lastly, my garlic is looking better. The Krasnodar red has nine of the eleven cloves I planted, which makes me happy. The white is still three with a possible fourth coming up. That’s off camera.

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My garden is coming alive! Yay! Happy gardening!