TurtleTracks


Blog For Free!

Archives
Home
2005 June
2005 May
2005 April
2004 December
2004 November

tBlog
My Profile
Send tMail
My tFriends
My Images


Sponsored
Blog
Tomatoes are in!
06.05.05 (10:46 am)   [edit]
Well, the cold weather seems to have finally backed off ... but the warm weather has brought rain showers. I managed to finish the weeding of the front raised beds on Thursday, June 2nd, and planted 30 tomatoes plants - all different varieties - out front. Then it rained that evening. Didn't get much done on Friday night after work, so had to really work to get the pepper bed weeded on Saturday, and got 24 peppers planted just before the rain poured again. There was over 1 1/2 inches of rain overnight. The last 1/2 hour of planting I was getting a hard sprinkle on my back, but I was determined to get the front peppers done.

The peas in back are up, and the pole beans in front are too.

Nothing done yet in the flower beds, and nothing in back. Raining off and on today. Might have to take Monday or Tuesday off from work if the weather clears.

Went to see the starwars "Revenge of the Sith" -- pretty good wind-up of the series, much better than the first two of this set. Too much flying explosions and crashes and fighting for my tastes, hard to figure out whose side is exploding what, but I guess restraint in high speed action is thought to be out these days. I much prefer the character driven scenes, though Padme became a little wishy-washy. But still, good movie. Now to dig out those old Star Wars first three tapes.

 
Cold spring AGAIN!
05.26.05 (12:14 pm)   [edit]
What have we done to deserve this crappy weather two years in a row! We get a couple of decent days in the low 70's, then back down to the 50's, cloudy, windy, rainy.

I managed to get my 5 beds of sweet corn in on Monday, May 23rd. Put them in to soak in cups in the morning, and planted after 7PM. They were mostly swelled out, but soaking overnight has been better. Two beds of Ambrosia (bulk seed from Coop) two beds of Kandy Korn (drat, seed from Walmart -- spit, spit! - some broken, splinter kernals, bought three small packets) and one packet of Jubilee (from Midway?). Turns out, the Ambrosia is earlier than the Jubilee, thought it the other way around. Next year, Mail order the corn early -- do not wait, Bodacious in bulk was all gone at the coop, although I did find some too late at Ralph's Greenhouse, but it seemed a bit expensive there. Oh well.

Gave lots of tomato plants away, but still have too many of some varieties. There is a perennial exchange in a week or two at work, so maybe will try to pot them up and slip them in to sell cheap for the charity donation cause.

The early lettuce is growing well. Should be transplanted to permanent bed location, but who has time? All the back garden needs weeding badly, and the front 5 tomato beds as well. And of course no time yet for the flower beds. I have bought some tiny annuals to put in around the arbor stepping stones and ought to at least do that, to heck with the weeds. Also better take a look at the dahlia roots I bought earlier and stuck in the basement. Argggh! No time, short summer, drat, drat, drat!!!!
 
First REALLY nice spring day!
04.16.05 (6:35 pm)   [edit]
Finally had a day that was as nice as something last summer. The temp was only around 65 degrees, but there was lots of sun and no wind so it felt warmer. Nothing has greened up yet, although after the rain we had a few days ago, it will soon. I got to wear shorts and sleeveless tee while working outside for the first time this year.

Garden progress: put in 2 new kinds of lettuce, red onion seed, bok choy seed, and some small miracle broccoli seed out in a cold frame at the end of the horse corral raised beds. That was on Thursday. Today I added 5 of the old lettuces to that bed. Not sure what the germination rate will be, as they are from 2003 or older. Will try to water every day until they pop up.

Transplanted the early sprouting tomatoes, and the peppers into styrofoam pots. There will be lots more of tomatos to do, but germination is so darn irregular this year, that some are just now getting decent looking cotelydons. Did the wet papertowels in baggie on Cabernet, of which NO seeds ever sprouted, and on Black Brandywine, which only has two sprouts. This will be the last replanting I do.

Also started marigold seed,and foxglove. Will leave them in the greenhouse, even if it gets cold.

Raked the grass in front of the house, but left the cleaning of the flower beds until tomorrow.

Noticed that the bleeding heart by the corner of the house is starting to sprout. Lots done, but way more yet to do. I hope this is the year I get the raised beds covered with black plastic. If the weather stays nice at least I should have another couple of weeks before I try to plant anything. Wonder if its worth trying to put in peas this early. I suppose if they freeze I can just replant.
 
April showers.
04.10.05 (8:00 pm)   [edit]
Sunday, April 10th

Had our first thunder storm on Saturday night, and this morning there are still little squalls passing through about every couple of hours. The last one dropped some hail, rained hard for about 10 minutes and I can still thunder in the distance.

Cleaned out the greenhouse yesterday. Hauled out three big black trash bags of old cardboard, broken plastic, and various junk I had kicked out the way under the benches. How nice to be able to turn around without tripping over stuff. I was going to carry out the seedlings this morning, but as it’s not sunny, I think they are better off under the fluorescents. I did leave the begonia pots in the greenhouse over night, and there they will stay, unless it sounds like it will freeze. Which it probably will in a few days.

The lake is starting to open up. There is a 30 foot strip of water out from the shoreline and all this hard rain should have weaked the ice considerably. Jim thinks it will be out by the end of the week. Stocking Lake went out yesterday, the same as the little leech slew on the way into town.

My tomato germination is still the pitts this year. I have to wonder if the heat matt was too warm for them. I never did lay a thermometer on it, or on the soil in the flats, but it just felt too hot at times. The pepper seeds sure loved it though, I think I had better germination with those this year than ever before. Very uniform, and even the stragglers are coming up, so I’d say 90 % success rate. I might have to think about transplanting some to individual pots next weekend.

My zigzag cacus that I got a cutting from Melanie is blooming! What a strange exotic blossom it has. There are several more buds, but since they have dried up and fallen off in past years, I don’t expect more than one other good-sized one to actually bloom. Wish I knew if I was supposed to keep it dry, and water more while blooming! Guess I’ll just keep doing what I have for now.
 
First day in the greenhouse!
04.04.05 (10:05 am)   [edit]
Yesterday, April 3rd, was the first day I brought my seedlings out to enjoy the sun in my plastic greenhouse. It was sunny all day, and temp in the near 60's, so the greenhouse stayed in the 80's, even with the rear flap disintegrated, and the front door unzipped. Had to bring them back in by 3:30 as the shade from the pines was cutting out the sunlight. It's cloudy today and tomorrow, but hopefully they can go out again on Thursday, if I have time to cart them out before I go to work.
 
A New Season!
04.02.05 (12:11 pm)   [edit]
Yes ... spring is finally here in Minnesota. Still, heaps of grey snowplowage hills abound in town, and our north facing slopes in the woods still have mounds of white encircling the brown grasses at the warmed base of each tree. But spring has sprung, and thoughts of warm days help me to get out of the winter doldrums and dream of the gardening season to come.

I think I will shift the focus of my blog to keeping track of gardening progress. I doubt this site will be visited by many people, so I will just keep some garden progess reports for my own benefit.

So - the sweet and hot pepper seeds were started two weeks ago, on March 20th. Sweet peppers are: Big Early Hybrid, Chinese Giant (new!), Giant Marconi, Gypsy Hyb. and Spanish spice. The hot peppers are: Big Chili II hyb, Bolivian rainbow ornamental, Garden salsa, Jaloro yellow jalapeno, Mucho naucho hyb. All are up and growing well, with about 80 - 90 percent germination rate. I have not made a final headcount yet, but I normally start 8 seeds of each kind. I misplaced the Serrano packet which came a week later from Pinetree, so will only get those in this weekend.

Tomatoes have been in for only 1 week. Three varieties have at least one seedling up, but I'm surprised there were not a few more. First up with three seedlings is Snow White, a pale yellow cherry with wonderful flavor. Also one Mexico, and a couple of "Thills" (a local friend who saves seeds.) Well, I have a total of 26 different varieties. Azoychka (new) Ball's beefsteak (new) Big beef, Big bite, Bloody butcher (new) Brandywine Black (new) Brandywine yellow, Cabernet (new) Fireworks (new) Giant valentine (new) Golden queen, Heartland (new) Jerry's big meaties, Jerry's Roma, Latvian, Mexico, Opalka, Orange strawberry, Persimmon (new) Polish Linguisa (new) Pruden's purple, Snow White cherry, Stupice, Thill's big meaty, Ungerecht delicious, Ungerecht russian. Whew! This is the most I have ever grown. Usually stop around 21 varieties. It will be fun watching them pop out in the next week.

I also started some wave petunia's today. Got pelleted seed (10 seeds) from Pinetree Seeds at a reasonable price. Oh, and the Bloody butcher tomatoes were from a friend, only got them yesterday, so they went in the "chicken dome" trays along with the petunias.

I am pressed for space, as I need to keep two big flats on the heated mat, but the grow lights are on the same table, so I have to stack the two flats with the sprouts on top of the covered unsprouted flats. It makes for a tippy situation. I should think about where else I can put a set of fluorescent lights, but my house is not that big!
 
Bucerias, here we come!
12.03.04 (3:09 pm)   [edit]
Just two more days until we will be in toasty warm Bucerias! My stuff is strewn around the guest bedroom, and the suitcase is waiting. The red duffle is full of used clothes to donate to the mountain coffee workers that Bob Howell visits. It seems odd to bring warm clothes to Mexico, but Bob says that it is cold in the mountains.

We will drive down to Minneapolis tommorow and stay in a motel overnight, as our plane leaves around 9AM on Sunday. The excitement is starting to build!
 
Friday night ponderings
11.05.04 (4:12 pm)   [edit]
Seems like a loooonnnng week. Election day and it's aftermath has taken a lot out of this country ... and a lot out of me. But I am glad it's all over and the horrid smear ads with the whiney or whispery voices are finally off of TV. I think it should be against the law to put any political ads on radio and television. Make people read the newspapers and magazines for their information. Advertisements are silly sound bites that rarely give any useful information. If people can't be bothered to find out solid facts about the issues and their candidates than maybe they shouldn't vote. And maybe we should make them campaign and debate with paper bags over their heads so they can't be judged on their looks! Could a really ugly but brilliant person ever be elected president in this day and age? Sad to say, but I doubt it. I think their looks, age, race, and gender should all be kept under wraps until after they are elected. Just run on the issues! Wouldn't that be a great surprise, to have an unveiling at the inauguration to see what the person we had voted in looked like?
 
I fixed it!
11.02.04 (6:13 pm)   [edit]
:D  Whoopee! I managed to change the time so it should be right.   Hey, on that note I think I'll quite while I am ahead for tonight.  Gonna take a quick look at the election damage on TV and then off to bed. 
 
Election night 2004.
11.02.04 (5:50 pm)   [edit]

:shock:   Well, I just managed to delete my entire new blog by inserting this stupid emoticon at the end of a whole long paragraph of text.  I am so disgusted that I can't continue for now. Rats!   I guess this will take longer to learn than I hoped.  Nothing is ever as simple they tell you.   


...... Okay I will (sigh) retry.


First of all, I don't know how to set the time so the posts come up in my time zone. I think I need the G-6, but it seems like it's all G+, which puts my posts into the next day! Hmm -- the future is now?  Too bad I can't know the election results already, which is marginally what this first blog was related to. I decide to try blogging so that I could keep in touch with friends and relatives while traveling. That won't be for another month, so I thought that would give me lots of time to practice using this stuff.