Hail scare and, finally, sprouts!

This past Friday I had quite the scare.  I knew there was a chance of thunderstorms.  Shortly after I got home from work I was out puttering, intending to harden my sprouts off and do some watering.  One look at the sky told me no watering on my part would be needed.  A few minutes later, I got a county emergency alert on my phone with a severe thunderstorm warning... potential for winds in excess of 60 mph and hail the size of ping pong balls.

I LOVE thunderstorms.  Love them.  (If I grew up in tornado alley, I would probably feel differently.)  But at the thought of what hail that size would do to my garden, I panicked and ended up racing around to cover my plants with whatever I could.  Partway through, I snapped this picture.

We did get an intense downpour, but thank goodness, no hail.  Hail was in the area, though -- my husband and two friends all reported hail golf-ball size or bigger on their commutes home.

We are really blessed with the location of our house... the worst of the bad weather almost always passes us by.  In ten years we have had only one really hellish bash of rain which I think was a severe microburst.  I was certain the back side of the house was going to blow in.  Our neighbors ended up replacing siding from that one, but we were screened by the mature trees on that side.  (And given that, I try not to complain too loudly about having no decent growing area on the south side of the house.)

In other news, things are finally coming up!  Nasturtiums, both kinds of pole beans (Christmas pole lima and Cherokee Trail of Tears), cukes, and I am going to take a chance and say I saw a pepper sprout.  The Cherokee beans and the cukes were just up today.  I transplanted my cabbage and basil, even though they only have seed leaves.  I don't have much hope for the cabbage, but I can try again in the fall.

Wish I had a better camera for this Cherokee bean.  It is quite beautiful, half the outer hull and half a delicate ruffle just trying to unfurl.  When I checked it this morning, the hull was barely visible above the soil, and here it is this afternoon, trying to pop up.

Here are the potatoes after their second 5-gallon covering.  I am now certain that I didn't reserve enough backfill for them, but wise folks at SFG have suggested straw, so I'll try that.

Radishes are getting big, as is the rapini.  The lettuce is doing well, too, though no where near ready to start cutting yet.  Can't wait!

Lettuces (and onions):

Left to right:  Carrots & onions in the high rise, radishes, Rapini, and Kohlrabi

My lonely corn plant:

Nasturtium:

Tomato plant direct-seeded into my SFG.  I can't focus in on it closely enough, but it is MUCH sturdier than the ones I started indoors!

How does my garden grow?

It has been quite chilly lately.  I have gotten in second and third outdoor plantings, though, and the seeds do seem to be coming up quite quickly.  This would be comforting, except I still have a bad case of Plant Envy for those great big Home Depot plants!

Here are some "What's up?" pictures taken today.  Sorry about the light, it has been raining all day.  The biggest news is that I think I am seeing some tomatoes sprouting from directly sown seed, and my potatoes are ready for their first ground of cover-and-grow, and if I squint hard enough, I think my strawberries might just be sprouting.

Here are the Kennebec potato plants.  They seem very happy in their new bed.  I will be covering them with more soil in the next few days.

These just might be are strawberry plants.  So very tiny!

Mixed lettuces.  So far nothing has been eating them, don't know if it is the coffee ground or the shed cat fur.  Top square was planted first, middle square second.  The bottom square is transplanted thinnings from the top square.  They are not quite as strong but seem to be doing okay.

Tomato sprouts!  There are two (I think) showing their faces.  This one is Cherokee Purple.  Trying to protect them a bit with cut-apart water bottles.

Swiss Chard:

Pak Choi, both squares (the left a later planting):

Rapini Broccoli:

Front to back:  Radish, Rapini, and Kohlrabi.

Carrots, plus some onion sets interplanted:

Summer Savory:

Kohlrabi:

My one lonely garden pea sprout.  I planted more, honest! 

This may be Amaranth.  I sure hope so!

My one lonely corn sprout.  I need more!  Hard to see, but the true leaves are just starting to show.

Indoor sprouts, plus some gorgeous heirloom tomatoes that were gifted to me.  Why are the indoor sprouts so leggy?

The sprouts are backup tomatoes, peppers, basil, cabbage, catnip, and marigolds.  The peppers were extremely slow to germinate, but they did, finally.  Out of all of them it is the heirloom marigolds that are doing the worst, just one sprout from 4 pucks.  I thought marigolds were supposed to be easy?! 

I still need to lay down more mulch around the SFGs, get the trellises up, and think about an outdoor watering system (the hose is very unwieldy!) but given all the rain lately, I am going to wait on those projects for now.

Happy Gardening!

My garden smells like an espresso!

It's sad that I'm so congested from all the pollen in the air right now, because my garden smells just like an espresso.  Yep, I scored at Starbuck's!

All I had to do was ask for used coffee grounds and they got the bag right away, good wishes for my garden, plus emptied all the machines currently in use and looked in back for more.  There's filters mixed in, but I picked around them.  I put a light scattering across the beds, plus a couple handfuls in the watering bucket to make a tea for other plants.  (Yes, I clogged the watering can head.  Easy enough to unclog, though!)  So now the soil has a black-brown glow to it and the smell is incredible.  I tried to keep it to a light scattering so as to avoid nitrogen burn.
 
More plants are up!

Taters....hard to see, but they are up.  Finally!

Kohlrabi.  (Lots of brassicas are up.  So are the carrots, I think, but I forgot to get a shot of those.)

Lettuce...

Indoor seedlings, getting their first (very brief) taste of sun.

Pea shoot!  And my attempt to protect it from hungry things... plus maybe some mini greenhouse help?

I was going to wait to post this until the grass was cut and general cleanup, but, here you go.

 

Here's a picture of blossoms on whatever-it-is in the perimeter bed.  The leaves are pulled back to show the tiny blooms. 

Mulch Day

Happy May Day!

Eight bags of mulch down on the perimeter beds, two held in reserve.  Got another few compliments from the neighbors today as well, always a nice thing to hear.  I am still debating how to handle narrow strips of grass between the perimeter and the SFG's; I am tempted to rip out the grass there entirely.

Several more SFG squares are showing seed leaves -- radishes and some of the brassicas.  Tomorrow I want to start Round Two of planting -- carrots, rapini, pak choi, chard, and lettuce.  A one-week stagger may be too tight but I am anxious about the growing season.  I would rather get too much too soon than have an entire crop bolt on me later.  It's all about the learning curve, right? :)

Our cats are shedding, so I put down shed fur all around the lettuce square.  I read somewhere that it helps against slugs, no idea if that really works but I really don't want to lose my first crop.  I've picked one slug off the timbers already, and given a caterpillar an invitation to the neighbor's yard.  Next week I want to hit the Starbucks near my office.  Wish me luck on scoring used coffee grounds!