Jamie and Jacob - hopefully the spring rains don't move your seeds all over the place. I always get frustrated when I see a large cluster of carrot seedlings all bunched up, from rain washing them together.

Jacob - nice to hear the seedlings are all doing well! I have noticed that my leeks are growing like mad. I finally adjusted the height of the light, but still need to give them a trim frequently.

Jamie - Have you ever had hardy kiwi? I'm wondering if that's what my grandfather tried growing years ago. I think he had a kiwi vine and as I kid I was always expecting a full-sized kiwi, not knowing the difference lol. I've never tried it though.

Hope your slips perk up!

Finished up the grafting last night

put most of the cool weather crops outside to get some exposure while it's nice and cloudy to harden them up (do cloudy days work for that?) Broccoli, cauliflower, lettuces

This is a good site to see how off the normal temps you are right now in your location http://w2.weather.gov/climate/

Steve - I hope they will harden off OK with cloudy skies because that is about all mine have gotten in the last week they have been outside. I have another dozen broccoli that I need to start hardening off tonight.

More plants with bandages...I love it!

Chris - 6 to 8 days for broccoli is normal for me so your floor sped them up a bit.

Jamie - I'm surprised that Baker Creek would ship sweet potato slips this early. I'd take Steve's advise to fertilize and put them under lights for a couple weeks until it warms up.

Jacob - Brassicas are pretty tough but mid 20s can harm a young seedling that hasn't really established it's root footing after transplant. It sounds like you are going to stay a few degrees warmer than me but better safe than sorry.

Steve - looking good! You said all of your grafted tomatoes were Amish Paste or just some?

Seedlings are looking healthy! There definitely is still some UV exposure on cloudy days, so that has to help somewhat with hardening off.

Thanks for the link! It looks like we are about 6° below norm here. I'll revisit that site come next week, when temps drop again.

I was really surprised that Baker Creek shipped them so early also, but they're here haha! I'll pot them up and give them a little fertilizer this afternoon.

Chris- no, I have not had hardy kiwi before. It was a "why not try this?" sort of situation. They are Actinidia arguta https://www.rareseeds.com/kiwi-hardy-collection-3-plants-ships-m-june-/ ... I got 2 female varieties and a male pollinator. They get quite large and the recommended spacing is 10 feet between plants. The fruits are about the size of a grape, I believe, and they don't have "fur" like their larger cousins (Actinidia deliciosa).

@Chris yes the tops are all Amish Paste the root stock is Johnny's DRO141TX (F1)

This is the column (in the red box) that has the divergence of temp from the norm

What’s with this cool weather?! Doesn’t mother nature know it’s supposed to be April in a few days! We have nighttime temps forecasted down to 25 next week. Ugh. Time to bring out the bedsheets and beach towels to cover the tender things overnight.

Sounds like everyone is in a similar spot waiting for the weather to warm up! I’m interested to see how your grafted tomatoes do, Steve, and your topped peppers, LoneJack!

I had my first potato break the surface of the soil two days ago, so that’s a good sign. Will be sure to cover that one or bring the whole container inside on the cold nights. I helped a friend plant some veggies in her back deck container garden yesterday, which is always fun. She saw some brussels sprouts seedlings on sale at Walmart and not knowing how much room they take, bought two six packs. Does anyone grow brussels sprouts in the spring? I told her it’ll be an experiment because everyone I know grows them in the fall.

Sunday I had more fun with mulch and covered almost all of the front flower bed. Still need to finish the other two flower beds on each side of the house, but I need to weed them first because they both have a small but healthy patch of dandelions. I also need to wait for a calm day and go through the lawn and spot spray any big dandelions or crabgrass I can see before any more tender plants get put out. I don’t want anyone to have herbicide drift like I got from my neighbor last year.

While waiting for the basement seedlings to grow and tending to the lettuce, spinach, etc. outside, I’m also shooting and editing more videos. Next week we’ll put up a video about a combination herb planter that I’ll share. The others we’ve put up recently have been about flowers so I don’t necessarily feel they’re applicable to the veggie thread.

Will keep a lookout for morels in my yard where the elm was cut down last month. It was only beginning to rot/die, though, so it might be too fresh to grow shrooms.

Sunflowers ... I might have missed it, but how large are the containers you are using for your potatoes? Mine are in 15 gallon grow bags & I put 4 hunks of seed potato in each one.

@Sunflowers most Brussels take about 18-24 inches. LoneJack grows them I believe, he goes with Jade Cross Hybrids (a quick maturing breed) Jade Cross Seeds

Jack -- all my jalapenos are EMERALD FIRE

I wanted to try them because they should be medium hot and shown above states 65 days. Now you scare me with the 90 days DTM....

Tony

Tony - I don't think it took 90 days but they were a couple weeks later to size up than El Jefe for me last year. I think Totally Tomatoes is where I saw them listed as 90 DTM but maybe that is to red ripe.

Sunflowers - you may get a few morels this year and then a bigger flush for a couple or 3 years and then it might dwindle off. Or you might never find any. I've never grown BS in the spring before so can't help you on that. Your potatoes beat mine out of the ground I think. I haven't checked mine since the weekend but the earliest planted ones have been in the ground for 25 days now so it shouldn't be much longer. I need to check this weekend in case I need to cover them before we get the cold spell on Sunday.

Gotta love it when a plan works out! It appears that my work in the compost bins on the weekend has achieved the desired results.

The manure that I added is what I'd call already composted. There was a VERY small amount of it that seemed to be relatively fresh. I was afraid that it wouldn't get things cooking, so I cheated and tossed in some nitrogen fertilizer too. One way or another, things are cookin'!

Just for grins, I poked the thermometer in the garden soil about 3" down. I was surprised that it read close to 55.

Itsmce, pee on it when possible

I got the kiwi vines in some temporary pots. They look pretty good. Supposedly they grow really quickly and vigorously. I got two different females and one male pollinator in the package.

@Jamie keep us posted on the Kiwi I was considering getting some of those myself. Got some stuff in the mail too.

Steve - Although I understand your suggestion, if I did what you suggest, the neighbors would really talk! You see...I'd have to climb atop the compost pile, drop my drawers and squat, considering I'm female. The closest neighbor's deck is a mere 15-20 feet from the property line where the compost resides. They are relatively new to the neighborhood and they possibly already think I'm crazy. That action would seal the deal, I'm sure!

Lol, nice.

My Eggplants are coming along

Brussel sprouts moving along nicely.

I got to say I'm impressed with the Burpee Olympian Fig trees they sent me, lots of new growth.they were twigs in a a cube of "soil" when I got them but they're really moving now. Probably going to go nuts once planted and on the Drip irrigation. Will definitely be propagating this one if it truly can take the cold as they claim it can without dieback. These things are growing figs already.

Steve, those are some healthy looking fig trees. I need to investigate that particular fig. Keep us posted with the progress.

I didn't check this thread for a while, lots of progress on everyone's stuff!

Not so much going on here, but it looks like spring is here with milder temperatures as of late. It's only 2°C now, but will climb to ~10°C later and overcast, so I took my Rocoto seedlings under my poly-tunnel, which is usually 5-10° warmer than ambient on overcast days. They'll get more light than by windows. A lot of the snow has melted, so there is less diffused light coming in. The Rocotos are looking good and probably ~10" tall.

I finally had more spinach sprout, man those took long. I'm a bit late on their size and that of lettuce versus last year, but they'll get there. I'll probably transplant out to the poly-tunnel bed this weekend. I'll wait a couple of weeks to sow radishes. I learned they won't be mature faster if I plant that early, soil's still too cold. Maybe I can try small batch under the poly-tunnel though.

My C.chinense peppers, Biquinho and Habs, are doing ok. One out of three Biquinho seedlings is a runt and really tiny, but I'm already covered with two normal seedlings and two overwintered plants. These two are doing well enough. One is looking great and the other I had to prune because of large sections of dying leaves. This was the plant I trimmed-down less in the fall. Overwinter peppers always seem to do better when heavily trimmed here.

I sowed my C.annuum peppers 11 days ago and they're just starting to come out. I had one early Jwala for a few days now, a few more coming in and the HHW are just starting to show, finally. No signs of my mini-sweet peppers, I hope a couple make it, as I have no more seeds. These were from store bought peppers and I saved my own in 2016, they should still be good, I'll see. I can buy a bag and try fresh seeds worst case.

Gold currant tomatoes were sown at the same time as these peppers and came out after 3-4 days. Still tiny, but doing well. I'll likely sow my other tomatoes this weekend.

Getting ready to plant the cauliflower today (under clear domes). Since I have limited space in that raised bed, what's the minimum distance from each other?

Thanks, Tony

Tony - 15 inches is what I use for cauliflower and the larger broccoli varieties but you could get by with 12".

Isgen - It's funny that your Rocotos get more light on the window sill when there is snow on the ground to reflect the sun. My lettuce and spinach has been planted out since last Sunday without protection but it might have been laid flat by monsoon rains and possibly hail on Monday. I haven't ventured out to check it yet.

I am going to plant out part of my broccoli and cauliflower this Sunday and put either AG19 or plastic over it for a couple sub freezing nights and then we are going to warm up just enough that I can take it off early next week.

Itsmce - nice job on the compost! I still need to turn mine and add some granular urea fertilizer to heat it up. I wish my soil was up to 55 degrees. We are actually supposed to see some thing called the sun tomorrow!

Jamie - Nope you didn’t miss it! Mine are recycled planting containers from our local nursery. I think they’re somewhere around 8-10 gallon size. Last year I only tried one container of potatoes, but this year I have like 5 :-) I pretty much put a seed potato (or a few) in any spare container I could find that’s as large, or bigger than, a 5 gallon bucket. My husband had a blast hunting though the overturned container last year and finding potatoes!

I’m very interested in seeing how your kiwi vines do. Are they like regular kiwis?

LoneJack, I discovered two seed potatoes hiding behind the toaster yesterday :-O They had fallen off of the plate they were chitting on! So I planted them. Unintentional succession planting at its best! That would be some fantastic luck if we could get some morels. Anything I can do to encourage them? The ground is already kept pretty moist because we’re trying to grow grass there.

Congratulations on your thermometer reading, Itsmce! It’s always rewarding to see a plan work out.

Hahaha Steve, your heart is in the right place, wanting Itsmce to succeed, but we have to draw the line somewhere.

I was looking through photos on my phone from last spring trying to decide when to put the Mason bee cocoons out when I realized that we’re quite far behind last year in terms of spring growth. I have photos from March 20th with elm seeds all over the ground and the trees aren’t even close to blooming from what I can see.

Sunflowers - yes we are way behind last year's early spring. We are behind a normal spring too whatever that is these days. Our average high should be about 60 right now.

No, there is nothing you can do to encourage morels to grow around your elm except keeping the ground moist like you are already doing. It looks like Ma Nature will be doing that herself for the next week or 2. Either the morel mycelium is there around the tree roots or it isn't. Since it was a pretty old tree there is a good chance that it has the mycelium down there.

@LoneJack this may be of interest to you.

if you really want to see something find the charts that go back 50 years plus, the sun is going to sleep. Each peak in activity is less then the previous peak. https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/solar-cycle-progression

http://www.michaelmandeville.com/earthmonitor/cosmos/solarwind/Sunspot%20Cycles%20&%20Human%20History.pdf

Steve - Interesting. So we are at a solar minimum trough now right? Solar cycles are supposed to be 9 (or is it 11) years so we should be at the solar maximum around 2023?

I need some solar maximum right here and now!

Looks like we are still progressing into the minimum, 2 more years before it ticks back up, these are NOAA's predictions

Cauliflowers are in -- first seedlings to be planted outside (under clear plastic domes)!

Just topped my eggplants (never done it before) -- I started them way to early, they are already 8" tall in 12 oz cups, with lots of side shoots (one, Casper white eggplant, even had a blossom bud)!

In a few days I'll move them to 32 oz pots -- fingers crossed....

Tony

Topped CASPER white eggplant. I may get lucky and get more as I do with topped peppers....

Tony

Chris -- Oregon Giant Snow Pea experiment results as of today, March 29th:

36 seeds planted Feb 14th outside in exposed containers -- low temps never got below 23 F, but few nights windchill factor got to be below 0 F, and several times in the single digits. At one point the containers were frozen solid, in the afternoon sun only the top half inch could be pushed in with the finger test !!!

19 total have sprouted and are about an inch tall. 50% germination is not bad considering the brutal windchill factors.

Conclusion -- these snow peas are very hardy, and if you double the seeding, you should get great results.

Tony

p.s. interesting that one container got 12 out of 18 to sprout, while the other 7 out of 18....

Sunflowers- they supposedly have the flavor of a regular kiwi but the are much smaller and don’t have any “fur”. They are about the size of a grape and you eat them skin and all.

Regular kiwis are not hardy outside of zone 9 or 10, I believe. These are root hardy in most of the USA but the vine part may die back to the ground in the colder zones.

This is my first time growing them so I’m still learning.

The potatoes are growing fairly well. I have sprouts in all of the containers. So far the only problem is that the sides of he co raiders are flopping over a bit and covering some of the plants. I’ve propped them up for now. Once I fill them with more soil they won’t be so floppy.

Hey everyone, been a while since I’ve checked in. My grandfather passed away Saturday and then work has been wild too. I’ll try to catch up with what everyone has got going on, looks like the spring is in full effect!

Heres some photos of the first few trays of tomatoes (sungolds were a 95% germination rate Jack).

This weekend I hope to get all my beds ready, plant all my onions, transplant some kale, lettuce, spinach outside. Also will be direct sowing carrots, kohlrabi, turnip, and more spinach.

Sorry to hear of the loss of your grandfather, Kevin.

Kevin - I’m so sorry to hear about your grandfather. You’ve had a rough past couple months. Hope you’re doing alright.

Your seedlings are are looking great! How are all the other ones doing?

I'm sorry about your grandfather Kevin. Holding up alright?

Seedlings look great. I'm very much enjoying watching your progress this year, especially with the greenhouse.

Norm, potatoes look fantastic!

Tony, peas have a lot going for them. They not only taste amazing, but theyre dang (I didn't say a cuss word in that place in real life, I swear!!) hardy. What's your favorite? I like shelling peas best.

Man is it rainy here. This weekend looks cold, and it was today as well- only got up to 46. Sundays high looks to be around 40. I figured this would be our last major cold spell of the season, but nope. Next weekend looks to be back to the 40's and chances of frozen mix! The next week looks to be in the 50's as highs after Monday, and sunny. Too bad it's not cold during the week with school and warm on the weekends when there's more time to do things. I guess it wouldn't be any fun without a challenge.

Hey everyone! This thread is a littleoverwhelming but I hope everyone is having a fantastic start to the season. Sorry about your grandfather Kevin, your plants look great!

Can't say I have anything super exciting to share, but here is what I got.

Peppers

Broccoli

Leeks about ready to head outside.

My onions must have been a bad batch, they just inexplicably shriveled up and died and the leeks were totally fine. Maybe I will pick up a Dixondale bundle if they have any at the store.

I have tomatoes and basil I planted last weekend, expecting to see sprouts any day now.

Thanks for the condolences everyone. He was 74 (does that show my age?). I am holding up okay, mostly just trying to be there for my mom and uncles.

The rest of the plants are going great! Half of the peppers have been out in the greenhouse for over a week now. I cant remember if I posted this photo or not here (you all have been lighting up the thread!) - this is from the potting up session last weekend:

Thats around 200 of the 340 or so peppers. Liquid pain relief wasn't really needed but was definitely appreciated! This weekend I'll be doing two or three trays of tomatoes.

Peter - your plants are looking great too! When will you be planting out broccoli?

Tony - that's good info on peas! They sure are hardy! Thanks for the topping tutorial too. I think the plants I topped earlier this month are going to end up being little bushes...they are super squatty and have very overgrown foliage (you can see a couple of them in the foreground of the photo). I now understand why you want to let them stretch out a bit prior to making them split.

Steve - very interesting info on the sun exposure. I'll trade some rain for extra solar maximum right about now.

Sunflowers - I am excited to see the next video! Cant help with Mason bees but I will be pulling my praying mantis egg cases out of the fridge this weekend. Last year we brought it out in early March (inside our house) and they emerged a little too early - there was a light frost that I imagine probably took some of them out.

Kevin - I'm sorry for the loss of your grandfather. The death of a loved one is something that we all know we'll have to endure now and then, but it doesn't make the event any easier. I am hopeful that tending your MANY seedling has provided some time to reflect on your time spent with your grandfather. There's therapy in all those little plant cells and flats!

Tony - thanks for sharing the results of the Oregon Giant peas! I really want to start growing some soon. That's incredible that they survived after the container froze!

Peter - welcome back! Seedlings are looking great! Looks like you're about 2 weeks ahead of me on the peppers and broccoli. We have a nice weekend of weather. Now let's hope the temps can stay in line!

Kevin - Everything is looking great! Liquid pain reliever is always appreciated!

Jamie - Wow, that sounds like an interesting fruit! You’ll have to keep us updated on it!

Kevin - So sorry to hear about your grandfather. And you’ll have to give us a preview of the praying mantis egg cases! That’s pretty cool.

Jacoblockuff - I agree. Why can’t mother nature accommodate our work and school schedules?!

LoneJack - Okay so I’m not just imagining the late spring. I can’t believe it’s going to be 20something on Easter. We’ll have to wear winter coats to hunt for eggs! That’s just plain wrong.

This weekend will be full of Easter and basketball, and with the cold temps expected, the only outdoor gardening I’ll be doing will be covering things overnight when it dips into the high 20s. Ugh. I do need to count my pepper seedlings and make sure I’ll have enough. Some of the older seeds had spotty germination so if I’m going to start some this late, I need to do it as soon as possible.

@Kevin - I will wait 2-3 more weeks at least before they go in the ground. The ground is still pretty cold, and the small plants are easily nipped by frost if not protected. Ideally I would like to wait until the last frost but that is still probably 3 weeks away at least. There is no point in rushing them into very cold soil either, they just sulk until it warms up.

@Kevin deaths in a family always suck, you have my condolences. The Sun stuff is interesting only recently got exposed to it myself, another rabbit hole to dive into.

On the grafting front I'm getting a little worried, they aren't looking good but I've been told to expect this and they should perk up in a couple of days. (Fingers crossed).

Chris -- the snow peas must have built up a very high level of sugars that act as antifreeze. They are always sweeter in the spring, now they may be called supper sweet...lol

Tony

Wow, I can’t believe we have over 500 comments!! What do people think about having a thread for the 1-15th of the month of growing season? And another for the second? Too much work?
I am excited to try growing cassabanana again this year. This seedling looks pretty good and is going to start getting hardened off this week. I’m working tomorrow & Monday and then thankfully have three blissful days to garden, build beds, and set up tomato supports. Cannot wait to show my progress. Happy Easter to those who celebrate! Maybe my hens will give us some real life Easter Eggs;)

Chris
One Pot of Morning Glory Around a Support and The Other {20 cm} For The Pepper....
Have Question Now Though Should I Use Potting Soil For The Pepper Not Compost As Compost Would Dry Out To Fast on My Sun All Day Window?
Thanks
As I Live On The Ground Floor I'm Trying To Make a Living Curtain Because I Can NOT Stan Net Curtains!

I direct-seeded some orach and marigolds in the raised beds today and also finished them all off with some mushroom compost. I added some Garden-Tone to all of the potato bags and the other plants that I potted up last week. A friend of mine gave me some gladiolus corms today and I got them planted.

I also put out some Japanese beetle traps today.

Its really sunny here but we might get some more rain this evening and tomorrow morning. I hope y’all are having a nice Saturday also.

We got the tomato supports put back up and I’m using tomato cages as supports for the snap peas I planted earlier this spring.

Lost a game of chicken to Mother Nature tonight. Clear skies and gonna get down to 20. Too much to lose to chance the greenhouse.