Wednesday I decided which varieties of what I'm growing this year.
Yesterday I got out the flats and filled the pots with soil.
And I just finished putting the seeds in the soil and soaking everything down thoroughly.
Three flats of 2" pots -- total of 96 pots!

Almost half of those are for neighbors and other people! I wouldn't have room to plant that many veggies outside unless I took out all the rest of the grass--she said, thinking!

Skybird

The use of the shed-attached hoop house has begun, after the addition of my redneck window.

Kale, cabbage and such were moved in, yesterday. Now, the "laboring digitS'" can spend, seemingly, half his time here at home, carry plants around the yard ... That's not because of the kale and such but moving those out of one hoop house and into another was just a first step ...

What really needs room -- the tomato plants! Skybird suggested "checkerboarding" several years ago and, wow, they are real space hogs! I may as well get the bamboo stakes for them now because they will need them ... growing on a checkerboard, or not. What do you suspect - are all commercially available tomato plants treated with a growth suppressant? I know it's common for ornamentals.

A real digit energy burner is my reluctance to use overnight heat in the hoop houses. Those little electric space heaters just run continuously! A tall fan really helps. Still ..!

So, the tomatoes go on "field trips" to the hoop houses and return to the heated greenhouse each night. It won't be long before I'll have to use the space heaters and the field trips will be to the outdoors for hardening off.

Steve

where frost every April morning has given way momentarily to above-freezing, 30mph wind gusts. i bet that 4am plastic film is bouncing!

Today I got in some uninterrupted garden time...deadheaded the daffodils, cut back the Russian sage, pulled the dead leaves from the Iris, fertilized the from beds and set a few pavers in place behind the shed and moved a wheelbarrow (1/3 full) of gravel from a pile in the back to the backside of the shed. I'm pooped. At 7:45, I'm seriously considering going to bed! But it was a GREAT day!

Yesterday was the greenhouse shuffle, all 12 trays out to the sun for the day, then all the trays back inside for the night. It was breezy - next up weather-wise we have a cold front with down to 23F and high wind watch. They'll stay inside.

This afternoon, DW and I planted out leeks and bok choy. They have been living in real cool conditions.

There are onions in more need of being set out but they go in a distant garden. It's still hard to get away from the greenhouse with morning temperatures below freezing and clouds. Nothing much will benefit from frost every morning, anyway. It did turn out to be a nice afternoon ...

There may be snow by morning.

Steve

There was snow ... but, it was raining at those same moments. And, not very much of either.

I used the time poorly. With a few sunbeams, the tomatoes were able to be moved outta the heated greenhouse and into a hoop house. Some I held back and moved from their 4-packs into 3½" pots. I shoulda up-potted more of those oldest plants.

Now, I have some late-sown peppers and eggplants to move into 4-packs and the other half of the big guys to up-pot and it might be a good enuf day to work in the garden. I gotta get out in the greenhouse and get more done early. Maybe a cuppa tea after breakfast to carry out will provide motivation ... there's that tiny campstove I could bring out ... maybe breakfast ... unh ...

Steve

Been on a potting up frenzy, moving dozens of basil, parsley, beet, chard, arugula, kale, and English daisy seedlings to three inch pots. The four o'clocks are germinating too but still too small to pot up. I've also set up a self watering container for pepper plants to be potted up into. Having so much fun planting and potting up in the greenhouse, I've neglected to go cut holes in my plastic mulch and direct sow in the garden.

ツ

Set out half the dahlias. More than half are out of the basement storage room, some were in the garage, overnight. Sooo, there is less of the stairwell work, this morning.

The beds were prepped about a week ago. Post hole digging went quickly enough. Imagine starting enough bedding plants for several hundred square feet of ground. Then, compare that to the few hours spent twice a year, dallying with dahlias.

Steve
now off across frosty lawn grass to the greenhouse with his tea mug to pot up some more plant starts for several hundred square feet of ground ...

Yesterday I was out in shorts cutting all the dead growth out of my peony!

Today I'm sitting here watching it SNOW! BIG, wet flakes right now!

Wonder what tomorrow will bring! More snow if "they're" right!

Skybird

A few days ago I potted up the dahlia tubers that I bought a few weeks ago into 1 gallon pots to try to give them a head start. last year I got them out a little late and they started to bloom just as the first frost hit. Anyone else do this?

I also decided to grow my lilies in pots for this year as I am not sure where I want to plant them yet. Also, they are starting to grow in the bags, even though I had them in a cool dark room. Anyone else have luck growing them in pots? I have some orientals, asiatics, and some hydrid types (can't remember the name and I would have to go outside in the dark and cold to look at the tags).

Can't wait to get out into the garden! but it's too wet right now...

The one Oriental lily I have, 'Pink Perfection' gets OVER 6' tall! I think all the Oriental lilies get very tall, and if I'm right I don't think they're gonna work in pots--even BIG pots. If you put them in the ground somewhere, anywhere, they're pretty easy to dig and replant whenever you want to--well--not in mid-summer when they're going to bloom! But fall would be a good time! Or spring, but might set them back a little for that year.

TreeBarb likes lilies a lot, and maybe she'll have more advice.

Skybird

Edited!

When I stopped to think about the lilies again I realized that it's my CHINESE lily that gets so tall. I think all the Oriental and Asiatic lilies stay shorter--more like 3', and possibly they could be grown in pots. Not sure! TreeBarb! HELP!

Thanks for the reminder Julia and Digit! I'd forgotten about the dahlias and it is time to plant them. I plant my dahlias in a 22" x 10" x 12" deep terra cotta planter. I let them go through a frost or two in fall, then cut off the dead tops and bag them in peat moss. They get stored on the north wall of the laundry room, the coolest part of the house. None of our outbuildings are heated or air tight or well insulated, so I don't think they'd survive the winter out there, but I could be wrong. I've potted them in one gallon pots to take to the swaps and it was a tight fit! I'd give them a bigger pot, maybe 3 gallon if you want to grow them in containers. I'm thinking a one gallon pot might not give them enough space and nutrients to really get going and maybe that's why they were late?

I do love lilies and have orientals, asiatics and planted 3 of the big chinese trumpets last fall. Mine are in ground. The only potted lilies I've done are for the swaps, so I don't have experience with growing them through a season in pots.

I don't have much luck with growing in small containers or 1 gallon pots in general. I'm diligent with the veggie starts, swap plants and new potted trees in spring, but once that phase is over I'd rather not fuss with the little ones. They dry out so quickly that I often miss them until it's too late. I prefer bigger containers so if I miss a day or two of watering, all is not lost.

Julia, if yours are starting to grow in the bags I'd go ahead and pot them up or plant them in ground. when it dries out a bit. Are you doing pots instead of in ground so you can learn about their growing habits, height, color combinations and how much sun they'll take before choosing their in ground spot? If that's your goal I'd pot the individual types together and not mix them. If you change your mind and decide to plant in ground you can move them in the future. I have fall transplanted some and the only tricky part was remembering how deep they were planted, just like tulips and daffs. I have them sited here where they get about a half day of full sun, and they do need moisture, they're not a xeric plant. I hope this helps.

Barb

Thank you, Barb and Skybird,

The dahlias are temporarily in pots because I had foot surgery a few weeks ago and can't dig, but can happily sit on a bench and put things in pots. Gotta get my hands in the dirt! now that I am semi-recovered, the ground is too wet. I will plant them out before they get too big for the pots, after the last frost. I may have a few left over to bring to the swap, I got a little carried away at Costco...

The lilies are going is some large (16" plus diam?) glazed ceramic pots that I got cheap at home despot this winter when they were clearing them out when they changed suppliers - now I wish I had gotten more! as you suggested, I'll plant one type to a pot to see how they do. When they are blooming I can move them closer to the outside sitting areas, then to a less conspicuous spot when they are done. I am growing in pots because I am not sure where to plant them, plus I am toying with selling as this house as it is too big for one person and the kids have flown the coop. I would want to take them with me or give them away to friends who would appreciate them . Here is a link I found to growing lilies in pots, in case anyone is interested: https://plantlilies.com/growing-lilies/growing-lilies-in-pots.html

So my "Today, I ....." is pot up lily bulbs and put them in a protected area for a while.

As always, thanks for the advice!
Julia

My dahlia plants sometimes have only one bloom before frost, not usually, tho'. If they want to bloom so late, they may not be identified and be left when the others are selected and taken indoors for the winter. Dahlia bloom season always hits its peak just as the fall frosts shut down the season.

Yesterday and the day before, I planted onions and .. more onions.

The tractor guy arrived on Thursday. He did a fairly good job but only tilled the "big veggie garden." I guess he will be back for the "garden extension" which is a little bigger...

I put together a PVC pipe with a couple of valves for the garden. Today, I went back to Ace hardware to measure a fitting like one of those I put in! You glue 'em together, then you can't see how far they are in there ...

An olde guy once told me that we should sing the "alphabet song" while holding freshly glued PVC fittings. I didn't do that! Before the glue set, the fitting backed out about half. It has about 3/4" where it should be so, l think I don't need to cut it out and put a new one in ...

Remember your alphabet song if you are gluing PVC ツ!

Steve

Julia,

Heal well and enjoy potting! If you're contemplating a move then pots are the way to go.

I've gotten carried away at Costco, too. That's where I've gotten most of my dahlias. I checked yesterday after posting and they are starting to grow, so into the pot they'll go today.

Thank you for the link!

I planted out onions, too, and sowed parsnips. Radishes, carrots and beets sown a few weeks ago are coming up now that we've had moisture. I've got my shovels back from sharpening and may try to plant trees. We'll see if it's still too wet.

Digit, it's good to know some of what we learned in school comes in handy. You're supposed to sing the alphabet song twice while you wash your hands!

Barb

Today I planted a brazillian baby shallots. Or however many you can stick, one by one, into prepared softened soil in two hours of steady work. I hope they take. I just stuck them in an inch deep in 1/2 leaf litter, 1/2 soil. My leek seeds didn't sprout very well, and I need to redo those. But onions are ready to go as soon as I can get DS to prep the bed. That, and aphid patrol on the pepper seedlings. Oh, and moving hoses around now the irrigation water it here.

This morning and every morning over ... several days,

I've been up every 2 hours from 2am on,

to check on the temperature of the hoop house with its tomato plants. Getting the space heater and fan set right ... Hopefully, I will not feel the need to continue this, at least, every night. Olde age helps. You know how us oldsters sleep. And, one does learn the drill after a few years.

Steve

We had a wonderful soaking rain. Got the peas and favas planted, roses pruned, and just about all the "winter interest" cut back. We used to have over 50 roses until the Great Black Stem Blight showed up. Never again.

Yesterday I planted my first crop of "store-bought, growing" potatoes--and two "real" potatoes Barb gave me, I think they're Yukon Gold! In order to do it I needed to get far enough down in the compost pile to get to some nice half-finished stuff, so in order to plant the potatoes I wound up moving and/or fluffing about 80% of my compost pile! TODAY my body is reminding me it's OLDE!

Edited to add: Today I also baked 16 dozen cookies to take with me on my trip! Ok! So, not garden related--but they're sure good!

Today, I finally finished up-potting tomatoes and eggplant オ !

I feel ahead of the game since the last of them could have waited a few more days. I also got the last cookie out of the box and saved the first box for starting seeds in 2016! Oh no, I wasn't moving any tomato or eggplant seedlings out of the '15 boxes. They were in 4-packs and going into 3½" pots.

I have given some of the earliest ones into those pots a bamboo stake. What I need now is some room! I'm afraid to use the unheated hoopies for overnight plant camping on the lawn. There was frost on 2 mornings this week. However, I may have just painted myself into a corner with this latest up-potting. Ah well, I have several tarps.

Steve ت

I dug a swimming pool. . . see. . .

maidinmontana's ideas · More Info

That's what it reminds me of. . . but really I dug up bricks that were a platform for a fire pit I'm relocating. . . I want to plant a tree somewhere close to the *pool* for some much needed shade in this SE part of the yard.

I've been asking on the tree forum, checking some out on line, well spent a good part of the day looking for the perfect tree. . . any opinions from this gang?

~Debi

I just commented to DW yesterday that every tree causes some trouble.

It doesn't help much that most lots have room for only a couple of trees. That means, unless one moves around a good deal, experiences living with different trees is very limited. Well, someone may have an estate of many acres with hired gardeners, I suppose.

The dogwoods are blooming here, so pretty! I wonder if they are troublesome ...

Steve

Maid,

I liked the amelanchier suggestion, although it's going to be more shrubby for quite a while. So it's mostly a full sun location? What's the distance between the garage and the fence? I think you mentioned wanting a 25 foot spread. Any max on height?

Apricot is the first thing that pops into my head, you'd have a fruit trio.

A dogwood might work, too. They're generally an understory tree, so It might not like the full sun. but size-wize it fits the bill. Or Acer glabrum (Rocky Mountain maple). Those two are slower growers, though.

I found this link from the Montana extension service. You'll have to scroll through the beginning, the first 27 pages are conifers.

Trees for Montana

Barb

Hi Barb, The distance between the garage and the fence is roughly 40'. and yes, I was thinking a 25' spread would give enough room so it didn't look crammed in there and keep it off of the garage. And, yes nothing but full sun. Height isn't an issue.

No more fruit trees, I have so many problems with them. My beautiful (old) apple tree was recently diagnosed with blight. My plum tree (as ugly as it is) has been sporting aphids since we moved in here.

I wish I could pick up my apple tree and put it right there, seriously.

I was really leaning towards a hybrid poplar. . . ??? there are a lot of opinions about them, but as always if you ask a question you're going to get an answer, and not always the answer you want to hear.

I like the maples, I read they don't allow grass to grow under them due to their shallow roots. Although my neighbor has one and his lawn looks fine, as far as that goes.

The swimming pool hole is bugging me, but other than that I will take my time and hopefully find the *perfect tree*.

Thanks again,

~Debi

Yesterday, I emptied the shed-attached hoop house of all plants and today, I pulled the puny weeds that were growing up from the garden beds under the boards and flats ツ.

It's time to turn those beds back to my backfence neighbor so he can get them into his own gardening! ... first, I'll have to pull off the plastic film and get the pvc hoops outta his way. I'll find out if he wants some cucumber, melon, tomato, or hot pepper plants for those beds so we can share those with him.

I'll get the double doors back in the shed so it doesn't look like something you would put a pregnant sheep in during lambing ... you see where I get my inspiration for building it?

Yesterday also, I got a bag of the good composted chicken pucky worked into the soil of a couple of small beds in the shady corner of the little veggie garden. Basil is hardened off and ready to go in there.

Had very little reason this year to start cucumber, etc. in containers what with all the warmth we have had in late May but I didn't know the month would be like that 3 weeks ago! Have to get those plant starts out in the open garden, probably tomorrow.

ツ Steve

So much mulch this weekend. I also discovered that the worms have been working on the oak leaves I left behind my shed, and they were kind enough to leave me about a cubic foot of castings.

I'm still dragging my feet on sticking the zuch and pumpkin seeds in the ground, and I'm behind the 8ball on that timing. But I have a few dozen babies in the veg garden and the greenhouse plants are coming along, and mostly potted up. I have another 20ish 3" pots in there with tomatoes, basil, and swiss chard starts that can probably go directly outside any day now.

I transplanted a couple square feet of a vigorous peppermint plant into a sunny corner of the yard, from the kitchen container garden. Maybe I made a mistake letting this beast out of its cage.

Finally we have also put some exciting new perennials in the ground for the xeriscaped front yard: penstemon, agastache, and english daisies.

Maybe I made a mistake letting this beast out of its cage.

I planted some in the overflow of my pond, about 4 years ago. Mint certainly likes a moist environment. :)

I started my squash and cucumbers on a heat tray last week, 100% germination, and I've found that the whole thing about them being delicate and difficult to transplant s nonsense. They fill a 4x4x5" deep pot with roots pretty quickly, and I transplant them when there is one true leaf.

My experiment with germinating tomato seeds directly in these larger pots will not be repeated. I ended up separating and transplanting seedlings anyway.

Anyway, it looks like I'll be able to plant everything out this coming week.

Sunday, I pulled weeds for hours! So much purslane in the dahlia garden! So much grass in the Walla Walla Sweets!

Yesterday, I ran the 31cc tiller in the paths of the dahlias and the little veggie garden. It doesn't do much good but retards weed growth if nuthin' else.

Today, I built a pea trellis, spread some composted chicken pucky and tomorrow I'll be back to the big veggie garden to till it in. Oh, I'm using the big tiller this time so I gave it an oil change in anticipation of its big day killing weed seedlings and stirring in the fertilizer ツ.

Steve

Purslane goes wild here once the days start getting warm. For a few years I tried hand weeding it but that method hasn't slowed it down. This year my plan is to have all the beds mulched as soon as possible. If I leave some beds unmulched I will go back to hoeing them down.

"What have you been up to, to grow?"

I started a vegetable herb garden at my girlfriend's house. Got most of seedlings in the ground. I have always gardened in sandy soils so starting in a heavy clay soil is something new for me. It was part of the lawn not long ago. Started on March 14 covering the grass with cardboard.

Covered over with commercial compost

Planted out on Sunday

It seems like the grass was mostly dead. It might be an issue this year trying to grow back

My brother, as a practical joke, gave my sister a set of 50 of those pink flamingos.

David, if your sister would ever like to regift some of those, say maybe half of them, my neighbor would LOVE to have his own private flock of Pink Flamingos! The two he's had forever should have been sent to the emergency room (or the Flamingo Cemetery!) a couple years ago, and he'd be in Pink Heaven if he had enough to set up a whole line of them marching across his front yard!

;-D

Skybird

Yesterday, I ran the rear-tine rototiller in the garden for nearly 4 hours.

Got up at 2:30am but luckily was able to go back to bed and sleep another hour. Got up again and fell asleep in the LazyBoy. I have no new, specific aches and pains so I think I got away with this uncharacteristic behavior ... Same olde, same olde, only worse ... I may recover.

Today, I think I'll be weeding sitting on a stool ... oh, and I gotta give the tomatoes some relief from the fleabeetles with some Spinosad spray.

Steve

...got in the peppers and tomatoes that I held back due to low temps and hail, and put up frame and shade/hail cloth, which I needed because we got pea-marble sized hail last evening.

Yesterday I was lugging tools up and down a mountain so I fell asleep practically as soon as I got home, well, AFTER the mad rush to get everything covered before the hail hit. However, Today I took it a little easier and drove the quad around to get where I needed to go so I had some energy to plant some perennials! If the wife is in a good mood, I might get to head back out and plant some more before they all die in their little pots.

That bed looks great Greg! Say, are flamingos good for pest control, lol!

Thanks Zach. Hehe, not sure how good the flamingos are for pest control.

Dan, we got hit yet again by hail yesterday. I've lost track but it's 4 or 5 hail events this spring. Nothing too damaging so far. I was thinking about using some row covers attached to my mid-tunnel frames. The battle against the hail continues...

My latest hail protection system. The conduit is fairly cheap to buy. If anyone wants to use the bender let me know.

Yesterday I watched it rain............

I protected my three tomatoes and one pepper from hail. As for everything else, I'm really afraid to take a full survey. One brand new hosta I had just planted in the front lost all it's leaves to the hail. Hosta, what hosta?

Today, DW and I finished our first go-around for weeding the early plantings. Yay!

We, or I, have actually gone through several things twice and, where the rototiller is the implement of destruction, gone through the warm-season plantings. Left are the beans, especially. Some areas are fairly baaad! But, those aren't extensive. I've got more beans planted than usual but some are still developing their first true leaves. In other words, that bed was just tilled.

What is really good is to finally have the onions cleared of weeds. Tight work!

Steve

I'm sort of running out of things to do...well, except for the fact that it's finally warm enough for purslane and amaranth to germinate and, as usual, they're *everywhere* there is any exposed soil. I would swear the previous owners of my house (I've only been here two years this past April) must have sowed amaranth on purpose at some point in the past. I know I should learn to love eating purslane, but I'm not into weed cuisine yet. Soon.

But, the pole beans are growing inches per day; squashlings are getting more and more true leaves; corn is well on the way to knee-high-by-the-4th; I'm being really wishy-washy about the tomatoes...pinch and prune or just let it all hang out; garlic scapes were just picked Monday... OK. The shady perennial border needs to be weeded because it's filling up with Chinese elm seedlings by the hundreds from the beautiful tree in my neighbors yard, but I just can't bring myself to do it. There are spiders over there, and they're big, and they're bold.

Weeding and mulching. I still have some propagated ice plant and agastache to plant out, hopefully DD will do that for me tomorrow. Yikes, the garlic harvest is coming soon.

I harvested a few garlic plants a few days ago. First time in nearly 40 years that I've had garlic.

It was that old feeling after I looked at those cleaned bulbs. Maybe you remember this from when you first began growing some veggie or another ...

"These couldn't be coming from my garden soil. This kind of thing comes from the store."

ツ Steve

Weeding is on the agenda. I'm just in awe of my potatoes this year! They are enormous already. Have some plants I got in Bluestone's sale that need to go in the ground. So glad to be able to get out there and do something for more than an hour between downpours.

It looks like we have a straight week of 90+ and the only rain I have seen at the house for a while was just spitting at me, dried almost before it even hot the ground. July and August are shaping up to be hot ones, I'll take it as long as the humidity goes down a notch, or 30. Call me crazy but yesterday I actually busted open a hay bale and mulched around the tomatoes, spuds, beans and eggplant! Also tied up some loose ends on the tomatoes, but that's about it. I need to get some basil seeds started, who would have guessed the ones I planted a week ago wouldn't be able to stay wet enough, looks like I'm indoor sowing those. That's okay, I need to get my set up organized so I can start kale, chard, and choy next month.

Like Jali, I'm very happy with the potatoes this year.

I also finished the solargraph cameras and tomorrow morning early one is going up over the garden, and another out in the landscape overlooking the house and yard.

My potatoes are looking on the small side (foliage wise) compared to last year. Then again i got them in the ground about a month earlier than I did this go-round. Then again, they also got pinched back by frost a time or two last year as well. We'll find out in September or October how well they have done.

I planted about 3 times as much as normal (30 row ft. Rather than the normal 10) because I didn't plant any onions or carrots since we prefer spuds over both of those and carrots are hit or miss anyways for me (usually miss).

Dan. Aren't those cameras for long-exposure pix? (Okay, I looked up "solargraph" ;o)

Today, I hilled the spuds.

I am NOT enthusiastic about the potatoes. I'd like to say that I'm between 2 major potato growing regions, ID & WA, but really, I'm between a rock and a hard spot ... Not only isn't the soil right but the big, early heat-up this year seemed to mess things up for the spuds. The Daisy Golds flowered, way early. All of the plants are puny!

Steve

My "Buttes" have already started to flower as well, Steve and they are half the size my Sangre's were last year before they did. We got a sudden heatwave as well, after two months of cold gloomy rain, we blew past the 80's and shot straight into the 90's, no sign of it coming down either.

Steve, my exposures are anywhere from 3-6 months, depending on camera size

. All these going out today and tomorrow will be 6 months. I'm picking up one at a reservoir near here out for a year. Here's one where I didn't get the size of the can correct & summer months missed, new canmeras will correct.

Speaking of spuds, one of my 'Sangre' didn't come up, likely due to weather. That's 4-7# of potatoes gone, historically. :o/