Late Spring Updates

We've been busy!  So busy that finding time to blog lately has taken a back seat to actually getting things done.  I'll do my best to stay current, so here's what you've missed:

The chickens live in the garage for the time being, at least at night.  Unfortunately, the garden shed that was being converted into their coop heaved when the snow melted.  I have an 9-inch gap between the ground and the bottom of the shed on one side, and the other side has sunken into the ground enough to make it impossible to open the door on that side.  My trusty landscape guy is going to shore it up, and figured that the previous owners never put down gravel before the concrete, which caused it to heave.  Lesson learned on taking shortcuts!

Cue running around like a fool

With the help of my friend, Reilly, I got the raised beds in last weekend.  I'm just now waiting for trusty landscape guy to deliver my topsoil, which will hopefully happen this weekend.

The kitchen backsplash has been complete for a few weeks, delayed by a miscalculation on my part when I ran out of grout and only had about 8 inches of tile spacing to finish.  It looks amazing, though, and I've decided on my days off that involve rain, that I can work on getting the kitchen cabinets painted and the countertop done.

The back porch walls have been painted.  I picked up some Sherwin Williams' porch enamel so that I can paint the floor next week.  Once that is done, I'll be moving furniture in and making it a usable space.

What's left?  So much!  Here's the list of projects that still need to be tackled:

• Paint both of the girls' rooms.  
• Paint Evie and Emily's bunk beds
• Finish removing glue from the entry and paint that.
• Paint the master bedroom.
• Decorate all of the above.
• Install a pea gravel patio in the back yard.
• Finish chicken coop and chicken run.
• Paint porch floor; decorate porch.
• Plant the gardens.
• Paint kitchen cabinets and swap out hardware.
• Resurface kitchen counters.
• Remodel bathroom.
• Add some curb appeal to the front door.

I'm sure I'll find more to add to the list.  For now, I'm just going to be exhausted for a bit.

Year One Down

Well, on Friday, I wrapped up finals week and my first year of nursing.  This year has been a whirlwind of early (4 am!) mornings, challenging skills to learn, and far more med cards than I ever thought possible.  I loved every second of it!

Now that break is here, it's time to get stuff done.

Today, I set the seedlings out on the back deck to begin the hardening off process.  We'll still be in danger of frost for another 5 or 6 weeks, but I'm hoping to get some cloches rigged up before then.  The seed potatoes have been sliced into 3-eye chunks and are scabbing over on the deck as well.  This step is important to protect them from simply rotting away in the soil, which has totally happened to me before.  At some point over the early spring/late winter... neighborhood kids cut down my sapling apple trees with steak knives (which I found in my yard).  I'm devastated, to say the least, but the one "stump" has sprouted buds this week.  It will never be a strong tree, but I'm hoping it can be used to either feed bees or pollinate another apple tree.

The fan I was using to circulate air in the dining room seedling central died and I thought I could get by without it... big mistake.  I've lost half of my peppers to damp rot (all of the hot ones).  I've planted more seeds, and the remainder are enjoying a slightly breezy day on the deck.

I also broke the hose... Well, one of the hoses.  It, however, is the hose that reaches the raised beds, so a new hose is also on the list.

There IS good news.  The peas and garlic are up.  The strawberries are doing well.  Hon Tsai Tai, spinach, basil, cilantro, beets, and carrots have all been planted (and some are sprouted).  I finally sanded down the little Moroccan side table I picked up at the antique mall last February.  I have a few options as to how it'll be painted, but I'm leaning toward something that'll look good on the front porch.  I've also figured out how to add my Instagram feed to the blog.  I took the girls to the creek for a photo shoot, and I'm planning on doing something with the results either in the entry or in the dining room.  Haven't decided, but I'm leaning toward the entry.

Oh, I did manage to finalize the front door's new color, and that'll be in the works soon.

It hasn't been ALL work and no play... I finished a book that I had started over winter break.

And So It Grows

As you may or may not know, I live in the northwest corner of Pennsylvania.  Due to our proximity to the Great Lakes, we have rapid weather changes.  In fact, last week we experienced temperatures as high as 80*F (26C) and as low as 16*F (-8C)... in a 30-hour timeframe.  Due to such fluctuating temperatures, you can imagine how difficult it is to get a garden in place.

Our first average frost-free "safe" day doesn't occur until the very end of May, and our first average killing frost date is mid-September.  It makes for a very short growing season.

So, what's an avid gardener to do?  Start seeds inside!

There are quite a lot of benefits to growing your own plants from seed.  First of all, the sheer abundance of variety trumps anything you can get at a big box store or even at a landscaping center.  You can find varieties that are collected by small mom-and-pop seed companies who are passionate about revitalizing nearly extinct seeds.  You can grow the same melons that Thomas Jefferson grew at Monticello, or tomatoes whose seeds were brought to the U.S. by a singular immigrant nearly 100 years ago.  Much of the produce sold at the grocery stores today have been grown simply for their ability to withstand shipping stress.  When you grow your own vegetables and fruit from seed, you can grow solely for flavor.  Everyone knows a vine-ripened tomato tastes worlds better than anything you can get from the produce aisle in the dead of winter.
 

just one page of lettuces at High Mowing Seeds!

Seed packets have a wealth of growing information on the back

I've waxed poetic about my favorite seed companies before.  I like to stick to small companies that have a commitment to selling seeds that aren't genetically engineered or genetically modified, who sign the Safe Seed Pledge, and who refrain from doing business with Big Ag giants like Monsanto, Archer Daniels Midland, Seminis (now a subsidiary of Monsanto), or ConAgra.  That said, I love the folks at High Mowing Seeds, Filaree Garlic Farm, and Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.  I've been ordering from these three companies for a few years, and I've had consistently excellent germination results... not to mention that their customer service is truly excellent.

Just some seeds I'm growing this year... purple carrots, anyone?

If you have never started seeds before, I would advise you start small.  Get a couple of varieties that are suited for your growing zone and grow something that is easy that you really like.  If you like green beans, I would highly suggest starting out with those.  They are nearly foolproof, yield beans all summer, and can be grown outdoors or in a container on a sunny balcony.  You can up the ante with cherry tomatoes and zucchini.  Easy, prolific, and delicious!  Heat-loving plants like peppers and melons are a bit more finicky, and require higher temperatures to germinate (or sprout).  If you do grow them, you might benefit from investing in a heat mat specifically designed for growing seeds.  Lastly, seedlings need about 16 hours of sunlight daily, and I solve this issue with a couple of shop lights that I picked up from Home Depot for about $15 each.  Plant light bulbs run about the same price, so for about $30 you can start enough seeds to fill your garden.  My current light bulbs have been going strong for 3 years now, so it really is an investment that'll pay off in the long run.

Here are some of my "babies" that have just sprouted:

A cabbage plant (purple rim) that Evie brought home from school mixed in with New England Pie pumpkins and Obus melon

Toma Verde tomatillos, H-19 Little Leaf Cucumber, Crimson Sprinter tomatoes

All Red and German Butterball potatoes

King of the North sweet bell pepper, Magnum Orange habanero, Ring O Fire cayenne, Little Tam Jalapeno peppers

Nutterbutter winter squash and Baby Blue Hubbard winter squash

Heritage and Latham raspberry canes (didn't start these from seed)

Amish Paste tomatoes

As you can see, you can use just about anything to start seeds in.  I have peat pots, yogurt containers, and half-gallon milk containers.  I do buy an organic seed starting soil mix to start seeds in, and as they grow, I fertilize them lightly with a tiny bit of Neptune's Harvest organic fertilizer that I just mix with water and add to a spray bottle.  For pest control (like the fungus gnats that killed last year's strawberry plants), I use sticky traps.  Sticky traps are SUPER sticky, so you want to make sure not to touch the sticky part, and keep it away from kids and pets.

In other news, it is finally finals week.  Six more days before I can start working on the house again!

Disclaimer:  I am in no way affiliated with any of the seed companies mentioned here... I just love them.  While I do have an Amazon storefront, none of the links provided are affiliated with the 1868Pleasant Amazon Store.  

Let's Get it Started in Here! Peas are in the Houuuuuse!

As much as I'd like to host the Black Eyed Peas at Chez Pleasant, it's just not going to happen.  It has been a crazy couple of weeks!  I've been working on seed starting, but boy, have we been through some stuff these past few weeks!  Emily started it off with a crazy stomach virus that eventually worked its way through the rest of us, and between doing copious amounts of laundry and making sure kids were not dehydrated, everything else was at a standstill.  I think we all have times like this, so you'll forgive me for not posting, right?  Right.  Okay, let's move on, because like Fergie Ferg says, big girls don't cry.

This past week, I've managed to get the tomato and pepper seeds planted and they're finally sprouting.  I'm growing 8 different varieties of tomato and 9 pepper varieties... 7 of which are spicy.  I do like a hot pepper.  Okay, I love them.  Since peppers crave heat for germination, they're on a toasty heating mat in the dining room.  I'm going to have to move them under the lights, though, to prevent them from getting leggy and unmanageable.  We can't have floppy seedlings.  

I love the names of tomatoes.  I'm planting
"Crimson Sprinter", "Matt's Wild Cherry"

Peppers... and Robb Stark (Winter is Coming!)

I learned a hard lesson in plant starting.  Remember those 125 strawberry plants that I ordered?  I planted them in the Topsy-Turvy Strawberry Planters.  They were doing great and just taking off like I would have a million strawberries in June.   Then I brought a basil plant home that I picked up from the grocery store.  You know, the ones that they put right next to the tomatoes that smell so good and you think, "Mmm basil.  I'm going to make marinara tonight!"  Only you bring it home, and make marinara that night, and a pizza margherita the next night, and that basil plant still has some tiny leaves on it so you think, I'll just stick this under the grow lights so that it can grow and while your head fills with dreams of bruschetta....

You get a fungus gnat infestation.  

See those black dots?
Gnats.

Said fungus gnats moved into my delightfully moist strawberry planters and wreaked havoc.  When I saw the first little cloud of black gnats fly up when I watered the planter, it was far too late.  I've lost about 80% of my plants, and have managed to control the rest from spreading elsewhere by hanging sticky traps next to my seed trays and fig tree.  

In the garden, I've discovered that the weed barrier I first purchased disintegrated as soon as weeds began to grow under it.  I've been holding off on purchasing mulch, as I've been trying to find a mulch that isn't dyed red or black or dyed at all.  You'd be amazed at how difficult this is to do in my area.  Locally, along the side of the highway, crews have been clearing brush and small trees from the sides of the roads so that drivers can see deer that jet across the road.  There are plenty of wood chips there, and I might just call and ask if I can haul some of it away.  If not, I swear I'm going to resort to cedar shavings that is used for hamster bedding.  Anyway, one corner of it flew up during a windy rain storm and when I attempted to put it down again, it just disintegrated in my fingers.  I'm not happy about that.  I got some heavy duty weed barrier at Big Box Store and I intend to weed the underlying layer of vegetation that has sprouted and replace it with the new and improved barrier.  I'm testing it under my potato towers, first, since it has a money-back guarantee to block weeds, I don't want to put it all down if there's a chance it'll peter out in a couple of weeks.

Outside, I've planted beets, peas, kale, lettuce, and red onions--all crops that can stand a little bit of cold.  I started my All Red, All Blue, and Rose Finn Apple potatoes using a tower method.  This is a great way to grow a lot of potatoes in a little bit of space.  I built mine with plastic chicken fencing which I cut horizontally, affixed in rounds with zip ties, and filled with a combination of hay and compost.  

Front to back:  1: kale & lettuce, 2: Spanish onions,
3: beets, and in the 4th box, peas... which are NOT in the house.
On the very right, looking like piles of hay, are the potato towers

Here's a better look at a potato tower:

The side yard, and now the front yard, are plagued with the weed of all weeds-- Bishop's Weed, the variegated form is known as Snow on the Mountain.  Both are illegal to plant in some states due to its ability to invade and choke out nearly everything in its path.  The moment the snow melted, there it was, an inch high.  Of course, I dug out what I could, but two weeks later, it's nearly a foot high.  

No, I haven't weeded the walkway yet.  This used to be a perennial flower garden, until the weed spread from the neighbor's house.

The weed spreads via an extensive runner root system, the tiniest bit of which can sprout another plant.  You cannot just pull it out, as it has bits that shred, spawning-- you guessed it-- more plants.  It's like kudzu, the vine that took over Florida, but shorter.  For years I have mulched, put down weed barrier, newspaper, applied vinegar, and done everything in my organic bag of weed-fighting tricks to keep it from taking over, to no avail.  It doesn't look terrible, but I'd like to be able to have flowers in the side yard.  My friend Kim said the only way to get rid of it is to move out (she has it too).  In fact, it is all over our town.  My goal this season is to try to contain it to where it is, and work with it where it stands.  It does get some lovely Queen Anne-type flowers, so I think I can work with it as long as it doesn't penetrate the garden beds.  Okay, well, it's already in the garlic bed, but once that garlic is harvested, there will be some digging and weed barrier action going on.

Garlic, kale, and weeds

I have plenty on my to-do list for this summer, and I'll be working on that and of course, keeping you all updated.  More to come, and I promise not to get buried under so much work that posting becomes impossible. 

PVC Hoop Greenhouse for Raised Garden Beds

In typical Pennsylvania fashion, we had a brief break in the icy, snowy weather to be reminded what spring is supposed to be like.  I took complete advantage of this by installing a couple of the raised beds I have been working on for a while.  Since our average last frost date is May 28th (and first frost is in mid-September), I want to have a way to lengthen our growing season, even if it is just by a few weeks.  Building a greenhouse right now is out of the question, but it also doesn't really help when your plants are already in the ground.  I decided to make a hoop-style greenhouse with some really low-cost supplies that you can pick up at any Home Depot or Lowes.

A couple of months ago, a local company in my town was offering free pallets.  I jumped on the chance to score some free lumber for raised beds, and I'm really happy I did.  In the pallet "yard" we found some wooden boxes that were used to package glass and mirrors.  In essence, they  were nearly complete as raised beds, but without bottoms.  Since I am installing the garden on a concrete pad, it is somewhat important that the beds have a bottom so that the soil doesn't wash away during watering and rain.  

This is what they looked like when I first got them:

All I really had to do was to pry off a couple of boards from one of the pallets that didn't have sides, and nail them to the boxes that did.  It sounds a lot easier than it was, since some of these boards had dozens of 3-inch staples that were just horrid to remove, snip, or bend.  

The concrete pad looked like this on Saturday:

That area in the middle that looks like it has gravel
is quick-setting concrete that I applied a couple of weeks ago.

I raked up the sticks in the foreground and applied a good dose of white vinegar to the cracks where the weeds have already started greening up.  Once they're covered with landscape fabric and mulch, they should no longer be a problem.

I underestimated the amount of landscaping fabric I'd need by about half.  I purchased a roll of 3 x 100-foot fabric, since the pad isn't that big.  It covered a little over half of the pad, and I had enough to put into one bed to hold the soil in.  Purchasing more landscape fabric is on my to-do list this week.

Once I had the fabric down, I had to move the garden beds to the concrete pad.  This was definitely the part I was not looking forward to, since I was going to have to do it by myself.  Luckily, I have my workhorse of a garden cart (the Tricam FR110-2 Farm & Ranch 400-Pound Capacity Steel Utility Cart).  The sides drop down so that I can haul something on a flat platform, and the cart can haul up to 400 pounds of material!  The only downside to having the cart's sides down is that the turning radius is slightly reduced, since the sides rest against the wheels.  Getting the boxes onto the cart was no picnic, as they weigh at least 70 pounds. I lifted each one onto one side, pushed the cart beside it, and let it fall.  I had to maneuver the ends so that the weight was equally distributed, but then pulling it the rest of the way to the concrete pad was a piece of cake.  Getting the box off of the cart and onto the fabric, evenly, without ripping the landscape fabric was a feat, but I managed to get that done as well.

To install the hoops, I picked up three 1/2 inch diameter, 12-foot lengths of PVC tubing from Lowes for less than $2 each.  I would not go shorter than the 12-foot length, as it may be too difficult to hold into place while nailing.  I also bought a package of 2-hole pipe straps (about $3) that would fit the diameter of the PVC.  I used some nails that I had on hand.  

While I did this project by myself, and it is entirely doable by yourself, I would highly recommend having another person handy to help with the bending and installation of the PVC pipe so that it does not snap back at you and cause injury.  Wear safety glasses.  If you are doing it by yourself, as I did, please be careful!  

Measure the length of the raised bed and mark the center on both of the long sides.  Then mark 2 inches from each end.  This is where you will install the PVC pipe.  

In order to avoid injuring myself, I nailed one side of the bed with the pipe straps, leaving about 1/4 inch between the nail head and the wood.  In other words, do not nail this side all the way in.  On the other side, I nailed only ONE side of the pipe strap, again, leaving about a quarter-inch of wiggle room.  This allowed me to slide the pipe easily into one side of the bed, bend the pipe, press it against the mark while maneuvering the strap over the "loose" end, and nail it into place.  Then I went back to the other side and finished nailing the straps into place.  In order to keep the pipe from flying up and decapitating me hitting me in the head, after the pipe was bent, since I was bent over facing away from the bed, I held it in place with my hind end and leg.  I'm sure I looked ridiculous, but it allowed me to free up my hand to hold the nail in place while I tapped the strap in.

Installed strap

ta-daaaah!

This is the finished bed, without the plastic covering, since there was nothing planted in there yet.  Filling the bed took 10 quarts of organic garden soil.  Since rain was predicted for the next day, I decided to put in an early spring crop of peas on Sunday morning and would allow the rain to water them in.  Before planting them, however, I soaked them overnight in water to rehydrate and give them a head start in sprouting.  Once they do sprout, I'll cover the bed with a plastic painting drop cloth and use PVC clamps to keep it in place.

peas!

I covered these up with soil and gave them a nutrient-filled watering with some of Elderberry Farm's Alpaca Compost Tea.  

I make a concentrated quart, and dilute it with water until it makes a gallon.

The label for this stuff is hilarious!

Bootleggin Walt is the name of one of the alpacas

Since I don't have any finished compost for soil amendment, I can use all the help I can get as far as nutrients, microorganisms, and beneficial bacteria right now.  The "tea brew" is about 8 months old and won't burn any of the plants.  It can also be used over and over until it finally has to be replenished.  We had great results with it in the last few months of summer last year.

After all that work was done, I kicked off my boots and put my feet up, watching the kids play outside for the first time in a very long time.

It doesn't get much better than that.

Garden Progress Report

We just had our first killing frost on Saturday, when temperatures dipped to 20*F/-6*C.  I cleared out the now-dead beans from the garden, leaving the kale and lettuce (which are thriving).  I also laid sticks on top of the garlic so that neighborhood stray cats don't dig them up.

Isn't that kale gorgeous?

Yesterday I took my brand-spankin'-new loppers outside to dispatch the oak saplings that were growing through the concrete pad in the back yard.  In order to create a new, much bigger garden, they would have to go.  Eventually, they would've been girded by the concrete anyway, and would have died a premature death.  With the help of my cleanup crew (a.k.a. my three daughters), we managed to cut and clear all but one stump to ground level.  I'm going to have to get the saw out and cut the last stump to the ground.  The diameter of the stump was about four inches, and far too wide for my loppers to cut (not to mention, my upper body strength to manage).

This is what we started with at the beginning of August:

overgrown concrete pad full of weeds and saplings

And here is what it looks like today:

Slow progress, but looks much better!

I still need to weed the remaining plants that are growing through the cracks, as well as apply white vinegar so that they don't grow back again.  I ordered a 100-foot roll of weed barrier from Amazon, and I'm going to double it over the concrete, once I've filled gravel between the deeper cracks to level them.

We're trying to plan on the number of raised beds we'll need to grow all of the food we'll need to harvest for a year.  I'm thinking we're going to need eight to ten 8x4-foot beds.  I received my seed order from High Mowing Seeds, and I've divided them into seeds that are directly sown and seeds that we'll start in February.

Organic seeds are the only way to go

I'm really looking forward to next year's garden already.  I've also started hunting for heirloom organic apple trees, and hopefully, I'll have some luck finding varieties that'll do well in my clay soil.

What I'm working with....

This week we cleared the spot for the vegetable garden.  There used to be a garage in the side bit of the back yard, but it was torn down long ago.  All that remains is a cracked concrete pad littered with weeds and tiny saplings.  We started with this:

It is difficult to see what is in this tangle of weeds, but we found a shoe, parts of a toy scooter, several empty tuna cans, and assorted aftermath that comes with neighborhood kids playing in the yard.

Yesterday, we trekked to Home Depot to make a realistic budget for the raised beds.  We chose 2x12x16 pressure-treated boards for the beds, at about $25 each.  The beds will be 8 feet by 4 feet.  Three boards will build two beds, and we want four beds of that size.  Sixteen brackets at $5 each will be needed as well.  We also want to build a bin for growing potatoes, but this year, we might be relegated to growing them in an actual bin.  It may look like a pretty steep investment to start with, but we eat a lot of vegetables, all organic. I just paid $7.56 for two knobs of organic celery root, and another $5 on 3 lbs of organic potatoes.  We can see how quickly the investment will pay for itself.

The other plan for the garden is to cover the pad with weed blocking fabric ($15 for 100 feet), and cover that with either bark mulch or pea gravel.  I'm still in the process of getting quotes on how much that will cost.  The problem with mulch is that it would have to be replaced every other year or so, and tends to be dyed in our area.  I also don't want a friendly environment for mice, voles, and moles to be able to get around in.  I could leave it uncovered, but I would still have the issue of uneven concrete to resolve (it is an eyesore).  Lastly, I'd like to enclose the area in a chicken wire fence to keep stray cats from using my planting beds as a litter box, as well as deter skunks and raccoons from getting in for a midnight snack.

Stay tuned for progress reports!