Got some done in the kitchen container garden. Planted in 5 bins with two varieties of taters that have been sittin' chittin' for a while. Corn salad is on the grow again, so I sowed in some extra seed to it's bin. Everything in the bins is still under their caps.

Had to reset a couple of the upright greenhouse cages. Wind has been fierce, and the staking and weight that survived the winter has failed. So a few 60 pound tubes of sand from the pole barn is now weighting them very well. Some brown leaf cleanup in the kitchen garden to block the drafts and we are good to go again. With the weather being what it is, I'm gonna be putting out the hardy starts soon enough.

Also with the wind, got a lotta deadfall in the yard to cut up and burn up. There will be a layer of ash to go into a couple compost layers soon enough.

Garlic is popping up by a couple-few inches. Some of it is kind of floppy with the spring temp fluxes, but they will get over it soon enough. Some leaf brassicas are popping up in the open beds- if temps hold up, I might be starting to harvest greens in a week or two.

We got about 1/4" of rain today and thankfully the predicted bad storms did not materialize. The lettuce seeds popped up and I thinned out the new row of spring planted spinach which popped up 5 days ago. The fall planted spinach is looking really good, very little clean up after a hard winter and their first picking is close at hand. The peas are cracking ground now too and I picked up some broccoli and cabbage transplants yesterday for planting tomorrow.

The plum trees are starting to bloom as the pear buds swell and are close to bloom. The Fig trees are showing some life too after the hard winter. I see Blueberry buds popping up all over the bushes so it looks like a good year ahead. Long range forecast shows a couple of mid-30's nights coming up but no hard freezes in sight, so far.

I'm just itching to get my hands into the dirt, but it's 17F right now and we got more snow today. Yesterday's winds were vicious, a lot of people lost power (and shingles), but we were fortunate that it was no worse than several hours of 50MPH winds and some snow.

I planted pepper seeds today, both sweet and hot and they are on heat mats, I'll do tomatoes and other vegetables in a couple of weeks. I'm also starting some flowers for the first time and I have a couple of sweet potatoes happily growing "slips". One purple sweet potato must have 2 dozen sprouts already and the white one that my DH really likes has half a dozen, hopefully it'll get a few more. I've not had good luck with sweet potatoes, they need longer/warmer than I've ever been able to give them but this year I'm planting them in some potato "boxes" that my DH and I made, no tops or bottoms. They are much like a mini raised bed, but portable and easily stored. I'm going to fill them with compost and cover that with black plastic for a couple of weeks to warm up the soil. Plant the slips in there after the soil warms and I can cover them if it gets cold, maybe that'll give me a week or two "jump".

If I plant 3 slips per 2'x3' box 3 feet high/deep, I should have enough extra slips to give away to the entire County! If they don't do well, I'm giving up on sweet potatoes, reluctantly.

Annie

This is the extent of my garden right now, out in the cold frame. We're having typical PNW spring weather. We had our "false spring" and then cold rain and some hail.

I have tiny peppers in the greenhouse on heat. I started peas in the greenhouse and the seeds rotted in the pots! I replanted and put a little heat under them too. So much for planting them in the garden in Feb. (out here). I start them in pots to get ahead of the slugs.

(My greenhouse is attached to the S side of the house with a three foot cinder block wall, slightly warmer than freestanding I think.)

Annie, I tried sweet potatoes one year, we really don't have the climate for them either. The ones that did the best were planted in a huge black nursery pot.

I saw this graphic about the different types of potatoes:

And this one:

A perfect day to be outside, 70's, partly cloudy, with a sweet breeze. Some pics from today....

2 rows of fall planted spinach (wide rows with 2 skinny rows each)...these will first picked by this weekend....

Below are 2 more wide rows of fall planted spinach, but I had to re-plant the one on the left (w/standing brick) of which the newly emerged seedlings can barely be seen.... Actually there are 5 rows in this pic below, from the left edge to the right :

Cabbage seedlings, young Spinach, Broccoli seedlings, fall Spinach, more Broccoli...

As the spinach bolts in late May the cabbages and broccoli will expand over their vacated space. Once the cabbages and broccoli are harvested by late June their vacated space will be over run with summer cantaloupe vines....I have to be creative as both me and my garden shrink ;-)

Both the Pear trees and Plum trees are now starting to bloom....

leah, I always plant regular potatoes, usually Red Pontiac, Kennebec and fingerling. Last year I planted some Adirondack Blue and some Dakota Rose as well. I'm still eating the Dakota Rose, it kept well, and I canned the last of the Kennebec and Red Pontiac, after sorting out as many as I need for seed potatoes. I never met a potato I didn't like, must be the Irish in me, LOL.

Sweet potatoes, though, are elusive. I don't know if it's the short growing season, the cool nights, the soil, but I got really nice Georgia Jets ONE year, and little finger sized roots several other times. So now I'm starting my own slips. As you can see, I settled one purple sweet potato and one white one into a pan of potting soil. Both potatoes are sprouting but the purple one is making a jungle.

I broke off half a dozen sprouts and put them in a jar of water for rooting, because I wanted to have enough time to correct any errors, I have lots of sprouts left if I need to change course of action! (Excuse my dirty kitchen window, it's raining right now)

My peppers were planted in their little starting trays last weekend, they are not up yet but are snug on their heat mats under lights. The next shelf up has some dahlias that I started from seed, a beginning rosemary plant, some chamomile, pink and yellow asters and red and gold Cockscomb. Some flowers take so long that if I don't plant in advance they bloom for about 2 weeks before the frost kills them. Oh, and the little white muffin cup on the right has a micro-tomato for my step-DIL, I had one all winter and the kids loved to pick the ripe tomatoes off and eat them. TopHat, and I told her I'd start one for her, so there it is, LOL.

I have 10 shelves with lights in my entryway so I figure I have room for approximately 450 of the 3 inch pots, and I'm working on filling them, next weekend it's tomatoes, lettuce, eggplant and the crucifers.

vgkg, I'm envious of those blossoming fruits trees, but tomorrow it will snow. Again. I guess my fruit trees know what they are doing, still dormant.

Annie

I have seedlings up from broccoli, cauliflower, and butterhead lettuce. I set out onion plants today and 1 row of glad corms.

We started cabbages and kale 2 weeks ago in soil blocks, now in 2-inch pots and going outside during the day. Peppers, tomatoes on mats under lights, leeks also up and going in trays.

Sadly our peach has already started to bloom and we are nowhere near safe from frost here in the mountains. I covered it with a sheet last night when it got to 26 degrees, and it looks OK. Fingers crossed, we do love summer peaches!

Planted presprouted Sugar Snap Peas seeds on St. Patrick's. Anybody plant early Peas?

Growing some Kohlrabi seeds inside. I like Kohlrabi and it is so easy to grow. The newer hybrids are so much more vigorous than the old types, but nurseries sell the older types.

After an icy February, garlic has had a slow start. Bunching onions waking up, they grow but I prefer new plants. Have some overwintered Leeks, think I'll try to move a few to let them flower for novelty.

Annie I also worry about a late freeze and the fruit tree blooms, long range temps will dip into the 30's over the next couple of weeks but that should be ok, the 20's would put a hurtin' on them for sure, esp 2 nights in a row.

Robert we plant "Frosty" variety peas and they are just poping up now. Also got 1/2" of rain last night which should give them a boost. I bought my 2 cheatin' tomato plants yesterday and will hold them indoors and take outside when temps are right, hope to plant them in the ground by mid-April as they develope buds.

5 kinds of squash

Red bell and Wonder peppers

Peas and beans starting to come in

Lots of tomatoes (as usual)-Mostly determinate varieties (BHN-589, Celebrity, Tycoon) this time around, also Chocolate Stripes, Sungold, Black Krim, Sun Peach, Chocolate Cherry, Pruden’s Purple, Red Zebra, Red Brandywine, and Mrs Maxwell Big Italian.

Garden Girl, I wish you good luck and warmer weather for your peach tree. VgKg, and Annie nice looking early start gardens-y’all always get a better start than me even though it has been hovering near 90 here for almost all month.

Robert I planted 3 kinds of peas/beans and have lots of small (3 inch) plants growing in containers. I really like Kohlrabi too-and have seeds from 3 or 4 different types-so i think you just inspired me to plant some Kohlrabi seeds.

Lea, I actually got frozen out in February too-couldn’t plant the squash out until March, so there are lots of blooms on plants that are stunted and not ready for blooms yet.

Annie i am growing some ghost peppers, purple ghost peppers and Carolina Reapers this season-it is making me sweat just looking at them (or maybe it is the 90 degree weather lol).

Dear Jupiters drupes I'm done with the wind we have been getting. Freshly weighted greenhouse cage? Still managed to get pulled apart and over, yikes! I'm just glad that there wasn't anything in it. Pulled the plastic cap off the frame to reset it. Got a bunch of bug cloth on clearance last fall, and think I might dedicate a pack of it to a bug cover for that frame.

But.... daffodils are blooming, and maple trees are fuzzing along with verdant haze developing in the tree line across the ponds. And things got wet and windy enough out there to stall out early ash making, lol. Firepit area is cleaned up and ready for cutting though, yay!

I'm a couple days behind starting 6 week seed, doing that today. Mostly flowers with a couple herbs and sweet peppers. Peas to sprout are on the stack too. I wanted to wait till after this weather streak blew through before starting them up.

Most of the 8 week stuff is growing along nicely- I think I might need to pot up the mini tomatoes already. It's been a long time since I've grown true mini's, but dang if they don't look plush at only an inch tall! Red, orange, and yellow for the kitchen snacking pot this year :) The main garden big tomatoes and pepperonchini are almost ready for it too. Sea kale hasn't started to come up yet, but it can take several weeks for it. And the second sowing of it happens today with the other 6 week seed.

Richard, I planted the usual Dragon's Breath and Death Spiral but we don't use a lot of those. We mostly use poblanos and black Hungarians as well as some of the Balloon Peppers PartyMusic sent me seeds for. We use a few red habaneros, mostly for Habanero Gold jelly, and some Sugar Rush Peach. This year I've also planted Anaheim, Big Jim and the seeds from some Hatch chilies I got from Misfits last year, so I'm going to experiment. I also plant red biquinho for pickling but they are only about the size of my fingernail so one plant, hundreds of peppers and picking is tedious. Lots of sweet peppers.

Beesneeds, wind here too, 50 MPH gusts yesterday. We had to secure the calf hut because last week's wind flipped it right up onto its top. Now, it's not a building, but it's a 4x6 foot run in shed, 3 sided with a roof and built of 2x4s and plywood so a couple hundred pounds at least. That got picked up and rolled over a couple of times, landing on its top. Poor calves didn't know what the heck was going on, LOL. We do have an open barn so they and the mothers can just go inside but the babies like to lie in their comfy little shed while Mama stands eating at the hay feeder.

And, of course, it snowed today and is supposed to snow more tonight, although it will not stick around, it'll melt by tomorrow afternoon.

This is what it looks like outside my kitchen window now. We're supposed to get 3 inches tonight, another 3 inches tomorrow. I'm tired of shoveling, I'd rather hoe, so it needs to stop, geez. Even that little red cardinal is over it, I think!

On the bright side, my seedlings are still warm and comfy on my entryway porch, under lights and on heat mats. My daily check revealed 2 poblanos, 1 pasilla and 1 balloon/mad hatter have germinated, that only took 8 days. Hopefully the rest of them will follow shortly.

Annie

Whew! Temp hit the low 80's these past 2 days, had to break out the bandanas. Looks like a good rain heading our way soon, just hope it's not violent. Some garden pics from this morning below.

The asst Lettuces are up, some more sparce than others but plenty for us 2...will plant more seed soon.

The Peas are also up and running...they will be followed by late corn in June.

The Blueberry bushes are coming to life....

The Cherry tree is now in bloom (sweet cherry)... as the pear blooms are dropping

Lastly, here are 2 rows of Spinach, the row on the right was planted in the fall (mid-Nov) and the row on the left was planted about March 5th. I picked the row on the right along with 2 other fall rows (not pictured) after I took this pic below. VgQn cooked and froze about 24 servings. It's nice to get an early harvest before it gets too hot and it bolts, generally by late May here. I'll update on how well the fall vs spring planted produces (both via seed) and their upcoming bolting times. The broccoli pictured in-between the spinach rows will take over that space once bolting occurs.

Where is the April thread?

Ok, just made the April thread :)

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/6490182/garden-tales-april-2025