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dragonlady7Ha. Went to bed around 2:30-3 am last night, got up at 9. Slugged through today, passed out at 9 pm. Awoke around midnight. Still awake. I can't sleep, now, so here's a garden geekery post.
Today (Sunday) I also set up the grow-light area in the basement. I have a bunch of old insulated curtains, which I set up to cordon off the front room of the basement-- basically, the area underneath my bedroom, so it's about bedroom-sized. I'd've made it smaller, but I can't easily hang the curtains any closer in.
I have an old table (came with the house), precisely the length of a fluorescent shop fixture. I have full-spectrum bulbs in the fixture, which is adjustable so it's hanging about 10 inches off the table. I have a second fixture that's not set up right now, but I'll set it up beside the first-- perpendicular, I think, with a wider table, though I wish I had a taller table. Don't like bending down to see plants, and it's warmer further off the ground. But whatever.
I have a space heater, recently purchased. At the moment I only turn it on when the light's on, and have it blowing across the table, but I'll work out a better arrangement soon.
I need to find my timer, or buy a new one. I can't find it anywhere, which means, of course, it's somewhere obvious and safe. Hmph. I'll buy a new one so that I find the old one, because that's how things work around here.
I've started peppers (hot from saved seeds, sweet from purchased seeds), tomatoes (purchased cherry tomato seeds), lavender and rosemary from purchased seeds, and a few bits and bobs from saved seeds-- butternut squash, peas, etc.
I have room for more, so I'll probably do more tomorrow. I won't set up the second light fixture until the next batch, though, to save room for the not-so-much-in-advance stuff. (We're about 8 weeks out from this area's average frost-free date right now. I'm gambling on it being an early spring; I'm hedging my bets by planning on making frostproof covers out of old juice bottles with the bottoms cut out.)
Previous attempts at seed starting have been badly hampered by my total neglect of the temperature. It's only about 60 in the basement. That's not warm enough; peppers need at least 70-80 degrees of soil temperature. I got them to grow a few years back when I first tried seed-starting, but I think I grew them on the windowsill instead. They were leggy, but survived and produced well for me.
I don't dare do that now with the cats; they love that windowsill, and love trouble. So space heater and basement it is.
And the notes I made on my garden beds, I'm putting here for posterity.
My yard is so tiny though. The back is maaaaybe 20 by 30 feet. The front is perhaps 20x20 maybe, but with the added bonus of a lot of foot traffic. I plan on gradually taking over more and more of it. No one in this neighborhood does anything in front-- it's all obsessively-groomed lawns with carefully-landscaped shrubbery. I want to make a nice Victory Garden sign but don't know where to begin. Painted wood? I don't know.
Back beds:
B1) Beside south fence, between sun porch and the heavy dark shadow of the neighbor's garage.
B2/3) Currently nonexistent, will be perpendicular to back fence out into middle of yard, about 3 ft wide and 6 ft long.
B4) Parallel to back fence-- the first bed Z and I put in, which I've widened. About 3 ft deep, and only really 10ft wide, encroached upon by old perennial creeping 8-foot daisies that keep infiltrating.
B5/6) Along side of garage, really one big section but I think of it as two. Bed against garage filled with old perennial plantings of lilies and irises, which don't really bloom and don't look like much. Five or six feet deep, twelve to fifteen feet long. Largest bed, but hardest to use. Currently has composter in the middle of it.
B7) Matilda's old garden: behind the garage, safely out of sight. Part shade. Only like two feet wide, ten feet long. Rocky and weedy.
Front beds:
F1) Square in front of picture window, bounded by weed-choked brick path I need to re-lay. I think of it as being ten by ten feet but it's more like three by five. Hm.
F2) Carved around base of arborvitae, currently filled with strawberries. Bordered by above brick path. Two feet deep, curved, eight feet long maybe?
F3) A mound made of the sod cut from F1 and F2, planted with lilies and irises and tulips. Needs work. It's like two by two feet.
F4) Currently thickly choked with pachysandra, along south side of front stoop, there's about five feet by two feet where tall things could grow, though the base would be partly shaded. Currently holds a clematis and some volunteer grape vines that came out of nowhere last year.
F5) Currently all pachysandra and weeds, with a euonymus bush in the middle. Grew some beans along edge of bush, could grow more. Needs a lot of work, but probably ten by five feet, irregularly shaped. Right by driveway, high visibility.
So.
B1) Already contains raspberries and strawberries. Trench compost to side-dress, underplant with creeping thyme to control weeds (including mint, which has gotten in somehow-- argh!)
B2&3) Cut sod, remove (use elsewhere). Trench compost to side-dress, add garden soil from bags to lighten clay. Put in pea fence perpendicular to back fence. Add pole for beans at yard-ward end.
B4) Turn soil, add compost, remove perennial flowers, expand slightly, fertilize. Cut more sod from edges and plant lawn chamomile to keep grass from intruding on bed? Or edge with bricks. (Find bricks.)
B5&6) Double-dig. Remove roots/bulbs, perennials, etc. Put down sod, grass-down (including sod from B2&3), atop a layer of sticks/brown compost/leaf mulch to lighten. Then put soil back on top, including sand, compost, bone meal fertilizer.
B7: Turn to remove weeds, fertilize, mulch.
F1) Top-dress with compost; add trench compost to side-dress? Put down black plastic mulch.
F2) Interplant herbs among strawberries. Topdress with compost. Plant new strawberry plants in small German mounds.
F3) Expand: add squash/melon trellis in middle? Strip sod from edges of bed, plant with lawn chamomile to keep grass from encroaching. Edge with bricks??
F4) Strip pachysandra. Turn soil, amend with compost. Mulch heavily. Trellises against side of house, and use porch for trellising.
F5) Strip pachysandra. Move rubber edging from old bed. Leave wheatgrass and bush intact. Black plastic mulch? Or put in intensive interplanting of turnips etc. Part-shade means less suitable for herbs. Again, strip sod from edge, gradually replace all grass with lawn chamomile or creeping thyme.
What's going into these beds?
B1: Fruit and herbs. Specifically, raspberries and strawberries, with thyme, parsley (?) and perhaps some underplantings of lettuce. Morning glories up fence?
B2&3: On north side of fence, peas and beans. South side will be zukes, cukes, and some later-planted squashes in succession. (Interplant earlier squash with peas on north side? Look into it.) Succession on north side will be lettuce and spinach, shaded so they don't bolt. End of fence will be tall pole for scarlet runner; maybe some rosemary for scent? Morning glory for pretty.
B4: Tomatoes, basil, lavender, marigold, thyme, nasturtium, morning glory. (Nasturtiums may climb pea fence as well.) If no peppers in bed, then beans as well; otherwise peas.
B5&6): Bulk of the tomatoes, plus peppers. Thinking of using stakes for tomatoes instead of cages. Look into it.
B7: Turnips, spinach, beets, radishes, lettuce, peas.
F1: Bell peppers. One or two tomatoes, if room; nasturtium, some wild flax, marigolds. Against house, melon/squash/zuke? (If good trellis solution presents itself, then morning glories and nasturtiums with other vines.)
F2: Strawberries, spinach, head lettuce, marigold, herbs?
F3: Stella d'oro lily, melon trellis? with zuke, squash, canteloupe, nasturtium? Marigolds, wild flax.
F4: Grape, squash, melon, scarlet runner beans, zukes and cukes, whatever will sprout and climb.
F5: Shady. So, turnip, spinach, radish, lettuce, beets, perhaps succession planted?
I forgot about the herb garden along the driveway. It needs a lot of work too. But there are some good perennial herbs in there, so, good. I might put in some sort of trellis to be a noodge-- Mrs. Bob keeps peeling my climbing sweet peas off "her" fence and throwing them in the driveway, and I don't want to commit homocide.
And containers: I'll have a lot of containers.
Rosemary
Hot peppers (I've heard one shouldn't grow hot and sweet peppers near one another, since they might cross-pollinate, so I'll try to segregate the hot peppers this way.)
A tomato?
A cucumber?
Probably one with morning glories-- hanging basket? Will nasturtiums hang down? Am I getting tedious? Am I a one-trick pony? I just like to plant everything everywhere. The nasturtiums and marigolds sort of match, and the stella d'oro lily, and the scarlet runner bean-- all in reds, yellows, oranges-- but then I have blue morning glories and blue flax, and I'm not sure whether that works. W-ever, I'll plant what I plant and it'll look like what it looks like.
Next year I want to add an intensive square-foot bed out front, but I have so much work to do there isn't time now. I want to use the no-dig method, too. But I'll need some sort of edging, to raise it slightly. It could be north-south oriented, which is best-- taller plants to the north, shorter to the south. It could be totally square. It could be four feet wide. I could have so much stuff in there. But yeah, that sort of thing requires a lot of preparation and ideally you get it put in before the first frost so it's ready to go first thing in spring. So maybe later...
Anyway this year I think I'll start with the beds I have. Last season's garden was a disaster-- I think I got a handful of beans, seven or eight tomatoes, no peas, a big bunch of strawberries, and some herbs out of the garden. I don't even know that i got one cuke. I got three green peppers, and a bunch of hot hot hot ones. Almost nothing. And the yard looked like shit, i know, but I just wasn't ever free to deal with it. So I've got to come back from that. (A lot of the beds' current disaster states come from being so neglected.)
Ironic, given that I was unemployed starting in April...
Oh shit, I've been out of work for almost a year. How did that happen??? I've been so fucking busy the whole time. How tedious of me. I hate every option that presents itself. Ug.
Maybe I can sleep now. I'll try. I had just read something upsetting (not personal, more wide world news sort), but obsessing about my garden soothes me.
Today (Sunday) I also set up the grow-light area in the basement. I have a bunch of old insulated curtains, which I set up to cordon off the front room of the basement-- basically, the area underneath my bedroom, so it's about bedroom-sized. I'd've made it smaller, but I can't easily hang the curtains any closer in.
I have an old table (came with the house), precisely the length of a fluorescent shop fixture. I have full-spectrum bulbs in the fixture, which is adjustable so it's hanging about 10 inches off the table. I have a second fixture that's not set up right now, but I'll set it up beside the first-- perpendicular, I think, with a wider table, though I wish I had a taller table. Don't like bending down to see plants, and it's warmer further off the ground. But whatever.
I have a space heater, recently purchased. At the moment I only turn it on when the light's on, and have it blowing across the table, but I'll work out a better arrangement soon.
I need to find my timer, or buy a new one. I can't find it anywhere, which means, of course, it's somewhere obvious and safe. Hmph. I'll buy a new one so that I find the old one, because that's how things work around here.
I've started peppers (hot from saved seeds, sweet from purchased seeds), tomatoes (purchased cherry tomato seeds), lavender and rosemary from purchased seeds, and a few bits and bobs from saved seeds-- butternut squash, peas, etc.
I have room for more, so I'll probably do more tomorrow. I won't set up the second light fixture until the next batch, though, to save room for the not-so-much-in-advance stuff. (We're about 8 weeks out from this area's average frost-free date right now. I'm gambling on it being an early spring; I'm hedging my bets by planning on making frostproof covers out of old juice bottles with the bottoms cut out.)
Previous attempts at seed starting have been badly hampered by my total neglect of the temperature. It's only about 60 in the basement. That's not warm enough; peppers need at least 70-80 degrees of soil temperature. I got them to grow a few years back when I first tried seed-starting, but I think I grew them on the windowsill instead. They were leggy, but survived and produced well for me.
I don't dare do that now with the cats; they love that windowsill, and love trouble. So space heater and basement it is.
And the notes I made on my garden beds, I'm putting here for posterity.
My yard is so tiny though. The back is maaaaybe 20 by 30 feet. The front is perhaps 20x20 maybe, but with the added bonus of a lot of foot traffic. I plan on gradually taking over more and more of it. No one in this neighborhood does anything in front-- it's all obsessively-groomed lawns with carefully-landscaped shrubbery. I want to make a nice Victory Garden sign but don't know where to begin. Painted wood? I don't know.
Back beds:
B1) Beside south fence, between sun porch and the heavy dark shadow of the neighbor's garage.
B2/3) Currently nonexistent, will be perpendicular to back fence out into middle of yard, about 3 ft wide and 6 ft long.
B4) Parallel to back fence-- the first bed Z and I put in, which I've widened. About 3 ft deep, and only really 10ft wide, encroached upon by old perennial creeping 8-foot daisies that keep infiltrating.
B5/6) Along side of garage, really one big section but I think of it as two. Bed against garage filled with old perennial plantings of lilies and irises, which don't really bloom and don't look like much. Five or six feet deep, twelve to fifteen feet long. Largest bed, but hardest to use. Currently has composter in the middle of it.
B7) Matilda's old garden: behind the garage, safely out of sight. Part shade. Only like two feet wide, ten feet long. Rocky and weedy.
Front beds:
F1) Square in front of picture window, bounded by weed-choked brick path I need to re-lay. I think of it as being ten by ten feet but it's more like three by five. Hm.
F2) Carved around base of arborvitae, currently filled with strawberries. Bordered by above brick path. Two feet deep, curved, eight feet long maybe?
F3) A mound made of the sod cut from F1 and F2, planted with lilies and irises and tulips. Needs work. It's like two by two feet.
F4) Currently thickly choked with pachysandra, along south side of front stoop, there's about five feet by two feet where tall things could grow, though the base would be partly shaded. Currently holds a clematis and some volunteer grape vines that came out of nowhere last year.
F5) Currently all pachysandra and weeds, with a euonymus bush in the middle. Grew some beans along edge of bush, could grow more. Needs a lot of work, but probably ten by five feet, irregularly shaped. Right by driveway, high visibility.
So.
B1) Already contains raspberries and strawberries. Trench compost to side-dress, underplant with creeping thyme to control weeds (including mint, which has gotten in somehow-- argh!)
B2&3) Cut sod, remove (use elsewhere). Trench compost to side-dress, add garden soil from bags to lighten clay. Put in pea fence perpendicular to back fence. Add pole for beans at yard-ward end.
B4) Turn soil, add compost, remove perennial flowers, expand slightly, fertilize. Cut more sod from edges and plant lawn chamomile to keep grass from intruding on bed? Or edge with bricks. (Find bricks.)
B5&6) Double-dig. Remove roots/bulbs, perennials, etc. Put down sod, grass-down (including sod from B2&3), atop a layer of sticks/brown compost/leaf mulch to lighten. Then put soil back on top, including sand, compost, bone meal fertilizer.
B7: Turn to remove weeds, fertilize, mulch.
F1) Top-dress with compost; add trench compost to side-dress? Put down black plastic mulch.
F2) Interplant herbs among strawberries. Topdress with compost. Plant new strawberry plants in small German mounds.
F3) Expand: add squash/melon trellis in middle? Strip sod from edges of bed, plant with lawn chamomile to keep grass from encroaching. Edge with bricks??
F4) Strip pachysandra. Turn soil, amend with compost. Mulch heavily. Trellises against side of house, and use porch for trellising.
F5) Strip pachysandra. Move rubber edging from old bed. Leave wheatgrass and bush intact. Black plastic mulch? Or put in intensive interplanting of turnips etc. Part-shade means less suitable for herbs. Again, strip sod from edge, gradually replace all grass with lawn chamomile or creeping thyme.
What's going into these beds?
B1: Fruit and herbs. Specifically, raspberries and strawberries, with thyme, parsley (?) and perhaps some underplantings of lettuce. Morning glories up fence?
B2&3: On north side of fence, peas and beans. South side will be zukes, cukes, and some later-planted squashes in succession. (Interplant earlier squash with peas on north side? Look into it.) Succession on north side will be lettuce and spinach, shaded so they don't bolt. End of fence will be tall pole for scarlet runner; maybe some rosemary for scent? Morning glory for pretty.
B4: Tomatoes, basil, lavender, marigold, thyme, nasturtium, morning glory. (Nasturtiums may climb pea fence as well.) If no peppers in bed, then beans as well; otherwise peas.
B5&6): Bulk of the tomatoes, plus peppers. Thinking of using stakes for tomatoes instead of cages. Look into it.
B7: Turnips, spinach, beets, radishes, lettuce, peas.
F1: Bell peppers. One or two tomatoes, if room; nasturtium, some wild flax, marigolds. Against house, melon/squash/zuke? (If good trellis solution presents itself, then morning glories and nasturtiums with other vines.)
F2: Strawberries, spinach, head lettuce, marigold, herbs?
F3: Stella d'oro lily, melon trellis? with zuke, squash, canteloupe, nasturtium? Marigolds, wild flax.
F4: Grape, squash, melon, scarlet runner beans, zukes and cukes, whatever will sprout and climb.
F5: Shady. So, turnip, spinach, radish, lettuce, beets, perhaps succession planted?
I forgot about the herb garden along the driveway. It needs a lot of work too. But there are some good perennial herbs in there, so, good. I might put in some sort of trellis to be a noodge-- Mrs. Bob keeps peeling my climbing sweet peas off "her" fence and throwing them in the driveway, and I don't want to commit homocide.
And containers: I'll have a lot of containers.
Rosemary
Hot peppers (I've heard one shouldn't grow hot and sweet peppers near one another, since they might cross-pollinate, so I'll try to segregate the hot peppers this way.)
A tomato?
A cucumber?
Probably one with morning glories-- hanging basket? Will nasturtiums hang down? Am I getting tedious? Am I a one-trick pony? I just like to plant everything everywhere. The nasturtiums and marigolds sort of match, and the stella d'oro lily, and the scarlet runner bean-- all in reds, yellows, oranges-- but then I have blue morning glories and blue flax, and I'm not sure whether that works. W-ever, I'll plant what I plant and it'll look like what it looks like.
Next year I want to add an intensive square-foot bed out front, but I have so much work to do there isn't time now. I want to use the no-dig method, too. But I'll need some sort of edging, to raise it slightly. It could be north-south oriented, which is best-- taller plants to the north, shorter to the south. It could be totally square. It could be four feet wide. I could have so much stuff in there. But yeah, that sort of thing requires a lot of preparation and ideally you get it put in before the first frost so it's ready to go first thing in spring. So maybe later...
Anyway this year I think I'll start with the beds I have. Last season's garden was a disaster-- I think I got a handful of beans, seven or eight tomatoes, no peas, a big bunch of strawberries, and some herbs out of the garden. I don't even know that i got one cuke. I got three green peppers, and a bunch of hot hot hot ones. Almost nothing. And the yard looked like shit, i know, but I just wasn't ever free to deal with it. So I've got to come back from that. (A lot of the beds' current disaster states come from being so neglected.)
Ironic, given that I was unemployed starting in April...
Oh shit, I've been out of work for almost a year. How did that happen??? I've been so fucking busy the whole time. How tedious of me. I hate every option that presents itself. Ug.
Maybe I can sleep now. I'll try. I had just read something upsetting (not personal, more wide world news sort), but obsessing about my garden soothes me.
