I've been pretty busy with other projects, but I'm back on track with the garden. I tilled compost and Happy Frog soil conditioner and added a bit of steer manure into the soil last week. The plants are pretty much hardened off, but I haven't set them out in the garden yet. Some plants can't go out yet even though they're large enough. Tomorrow I'll be building a couple of trellis's for sugar snap peas and the cucumbers. I'll also plant onion sets,, cabbage, broccoli, carrots, lettuce, the peas, garden beans, radishes and beets. It's too early to set out the eggplant, squash, tomato's and peppers yet, so I'm going to take this opportunity to start some jalapeno's, tomatillo's and multi-color carrots to fill in some gaps. I also started a bunch of Sun Gold tomato's, Broccoli Raab, Belgian endive, Anaheim peppers and they're almost ready to transplant to 4" pots. They need to come out of the seed trays, but they're not ready for the garden yet. I also have to figure out where I'll put the herb garden. I want to have a mix of cooking and medicinal herbs. So far I've only got basil, oregano and rosemary. We'll need a bunch more. A friend has offered us almost forty dozen canning jars of various sizes for only $2.50 a dozen. I'll pick those up on Wednesday. Then we only have to buy lids and inserts. I want to buy the reusable inserts. We bought a Presto pressure canner the day before yesterday. I would have loved to buy an All American canner, but it's out of the budget and the Presto was on sale for $79.95. We'll just pick up a couple of spare gaskets, a pressure gauge and pressure relief valve for just in case. We already have a water bath canner. This has been an expensive project, but the costs will amortize over the years and it sure feels good.
Bokashi your oak leaves and even wood chips for 3 weeks...bury them and they'll turn to dirt MUCH faster than traditional composting. bokashicomposting.com Missing kale and potatoes.
The garden is dead. I had triple bypass surgery on April 20th and was hospitalized for almost two weeks. Friends planted all my starts and it was a wonderful gesture, but they couldn't stay long and had to get back out of state. There was a frost and with me unable to do anything, the plants gave up the ghost.
It's still early. I am putting tomatoes starters in container on the porch this year.(to accommodate my wife's health). I should get a few of them done tomorrow.
I'm going to pick up some starts this week and get them in the ground. I can find organic starts pretty easily. I just hate to see all that hard work go bye bye. The garden will also be much smaller than I originally planned.
