No More Rain Please

Sadly the area pictured above is actually where my lettuce needs to get planted. A little wet wouldn't you say? I am really starting to wonder if I am ever going to be able to get my lettuce seeds planted. It better stop raining before the end of the month so I can get them seeds in the ground without worrying about the seeds rotting or washing away. Of coarse first of all it has to dry out enough to be able to get tilled.

Pictures!

I love taking pictures and for whatever reason lately, I have not taken as many pictures. So since I am overdue, here are some pictures.

Some of my plants under lights in the basement


Some just transplanted curly parsley


Parsley waiting to be transplanted


Some tomatoes outside in the small hoop house


A flat of Catnip


Pepper plants

I have some more pictures that I have to post, and will do so either tomorrow or later today. I do not want to post too many pictures in on post. I have some pictures of outside and also some pictures of inside the big hoop house. We finally have quite a few things planted outside now. It is nice to see so many things finally growing in the ground, makes it feel like the market is coming closer.

We still do not know when the first market at valley city will be, but as soon as we hear anything we will be sure to let everyone know.

I am planning on having a post for a topic of the month for this month, May. I know we are already a week into May, but better late than never, right? The topic of the month will be about micro greens. Well, I better get working on the topic of the month.

Vegetable Pictures

Just thought I would take some pictures of some of the things we have available. Here they are:

Picture of some of the different kinds of eggplant we have available this year. We will also have some other types available, and will have to take another picture when the other kinds are ready.

Fairy Tale Eggplant
They are so cute, only about 3-4 inches long. It is a beautiful mini eggplant.

Baby Bush Zucchini

These are also a mini vegetable. They are only about 6 inches long, and barely have any seeds. They are great if you wish to add some zucchini to your meal, and do not wish to use an entire regular size zucchini.

Cherokee Purple Heirloom Tomato

We have just started picking a bunch of these, things had a late start because of all the cold weather. Some of them are a really good size.

Baby Romaine Lettuce and Butterhead Lettuce

I am planning to pull some Romaine Lettuce heads for Saturdays market.

I know it does not look like much but these are the first two purple beans that I finally got to pick today. They are so beautiful. They are also very very long, in fact they were too long to fit in a quart container, so I think I am going to have to sell these in bags instead of quarts, like I usually do. I think that these beans also have a really good taste to them also. I am very excited about them and can not wait till I have enough of these to sell, hopefully soon.

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Right now we are in the process of getting our "greens garden" ready for our fall plantings of lettuces for salad mixes. Right now it is a disaster, and we need to get it tilled and planted within the next week.

We are also in the process of making plans for a hoop house, that we are planning on making for our greens. We had some really bad problems with flea beetles and leaf minors. The hoop house would keep the greens protected from these bugs. I hope it works out, because if it does I should be able to grow some nice pak choi, since they normally get completely destroyed my flea beetles. If everything goes well with the our plans we should have lettuce and greens for spring, summer, fall and may be a lot of winter.

Transplanting and nice weather to come!

Today, thanks to the help of my mom, we were able to get a lot of transplanting done. There are still things that need transplanting but we were able to catch up on a lot that needed to be done. So while we transplanted we watched episodes of "The Legend of the Seeker" (my new favorite show, I am hooked) on the computer. It can get boring transplanting for hours. Trust me it is a lot less painful if you have something to watch.

Anyhow here is what we were able to transplant today: The rest of the peppers (Fish Peppers, Sweet Red Peppers, Flavorburst Peppers, and Islander Peppers), Stevia (I did not get too many of these to germinate, not sure why, was kind of disappointed, oh well there is always next year), Mexican Sunflower Tithonia Fiesta Del Sol (miniature variety, good for pots), and Strawberry plants (these did not germinate well also, not sure why).

I still have not transplanted those poor tomato plants from my last post. But trust me they are next! I just do not like to transplant tomatoes, so I have been putting it off. There are also some flowers that will need transplanting such as dahlias, asters and strawflowers. There are some others but I can not think of what exactly they are off the top of my head.

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Ok, now lets talk about the wonderful weather that is on its way starting tomorrow. I am so glad that the weather is going to be nice for awhile. There is a lot of planting that I have to do outside, so I am so glad that I should be able to get planting done this weekend. Here is what the weather is suppose to be like this week:
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Thursday- Almost 60 degrees- Sunny
Friday and Saturday- High 70's- Sunny
Sunday- High 70's- Partly cloudy
Monday- 70's- chance of rain
Tuesday and Wednesday- High 60's- chance of rain
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Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday sound almost perfect to me. I should be able to get a lot of work done one those days.

Monday, rain, but warm, that is ok with me as long as I can get a bunch of work done the days before, and as long as it is warm and I do not have to worry about seeds rotting, I will be happy.

Tuesday and wednesday, rain, but still not terribly cold, sounds ok to me. Besides the forecast might change by then, or I should probably say will change by then. They do not know that far ahead.


So if I can make it through tonight which will be pretty cold (30's) I should be ok. I am looking forward to the nice weather.

Hopefully this weekend I will be able to plant beets, pak choi, some kinds of lettuce, diakon radishes, kohlrabi, head lettuce, and possibly some carrots. We will see how things go. Oh, and I almost forgot I will have to transplant some onions and leeks. I am going to have to look at all my seeds to make sure I am not forgetting anything, because it sure seems like there was a lot more that I had to plant.

But for now it is time to go to sleep and rest up for all the work ahead.

Looks like I am behind once again

I just realized that I am once again behind on my planting. What I am worried about is it always seems like once I get behind it is very very hard to catch up.

There are only 60 days till the first market, and this past weekend I should have planted beets, kohlrabi, and Diakon Radishes outside, and I believe there where some other things too. Inside I should have planted zinnias, a bunch of herbs and some other flowers. I am not really behind on planting the things inside but I would have liked to have planted them already. I also have tomatoes and some other things inside that I should have transplanted already.

Boy do I feel behind. How will I catch up?

I am not sure how I am going to get more stuff planted outside unless it stops raining, warms up and the ground drys up enough to get it tilled an prepared for planting. I was able to get some things planted outside when the weather was nice for a week or so. Under row cover I planted about 2 weeks ago kale, collards, some lettuce, dwarf pak choi, and ishikura scallions (long scallions). I peeked under the row cover today and it looks like the scallions, lettuce and pak choi are coming up. I did not look at the kale and collards. It was raining and muddy outside and did not feel like pulling up another row cover, and was satisfied to know that something was coming up. I will have to check those some other day, maybe when it is drier outside and not raining.

I am hoping to start my seeds inside tomorrow and hopefully get at least some of my tomatoes transplanted. I am going to have to check the weather report and see if I might be able to get some things planted outside soon. Hopefully I will. I am hoping to have a nice big selection available for the first market. So I looks like I am going to need to get to work, so I can catch up, and have everything ready in time or atleast almost everything.