Leap Day

Hello! Today is the 29th, Leap Day. To celebrate the day we are having horrible weather, really windy and cold, rainy and snowy combined. Some celebration...

I have been getting both blue jays and cardinals at my feeder, filled with finch food, sunflower seeds and shelled whole corn. Of course I get gold finches, sparrows of several kinds, and slate colored juncos. Occasionally I get a dove beneath the feeder, on the ground eating the scattered millet. I love birds, and so does Felix, my boycat. He likes to eat them, tho, not watch them.

I am going to visit my daughter and son a few hours from home on the 7th, and will get some plants potted up before I go, plus fill some of my seedling trays before I go, so they are ready to go the day I get home.

I am planting by moon sign and phase, and March 12th is the day I start planting seeds.

Last night I chose my tomato varieties for this year, 40 of them, a few are experimental, but most are dependable producers so I can get a huge harvest and make and can all the tomato soup I need for a few years. I need at least 100 pounds of tomatoes. I like an Amish recipe for the soup, even tho it has flour and butter in it, which is supposed to be a modern day canning no-no. I don't care, it tastes really good, and it kept just fine for us.

My kitchen garden for herbs

Here is my herb garden, on the South side of the kitchen/house. The rosemary bush in the pot is really very large, that is a 5 gallon pot it's in. My garlic and herbs grow beautifully here.

My hydroponic units in Summer 2011

Here are pics of my hydroponics units on the west /back side of the house. Loren built me the platform with wood chips as the surface, and he and I set it all up.

Several kinds of basil can be seen on the right front double tray in the photo above. Behind it is a simple lettuce blend that I harvest leaves from. The double tray on the left has salad niche (Thompson & Morgan Seeds) in the front tray, and heirloom lettuce in the rear part. In the EuroBucket system on the far left, I have cutting celery growing in the right 4 buckets, and regular celery, Tango, growing in the left 4 buckets. I can also grow watercress very well in these units, but did not do so in the year this photo was taken. This is a West exposure and gets hot in August. Watercress would be happier on the North side of the house, in the deep shade.

 This is several kinds of basil growing, including some lettuce-leaved kinds for pesto, and blue basil in the right tray.

 You can see a volunteer lettuce plant underneath the tray on the right side, above. And another one on the left side, poking up.

Here is a close-up of the celery. You mostly are seeing the cutting variety here. The celery is growing in a mix of perlite and Hydroton clay balls. Each bucket has a waterline going to it, and drains back into the Panda reservoir via a drain line.

We had a fox make her den in back of the Morton Bldg in Spring 2010, and she had 4 kits back there in the tall grass. So cute! The cats were fascinated with them. The cats are bigger than the Mama fox.

Red and Yellow Dutch Shallots from my 2011 garden.

 

 

 

Getting Ready to Garden in 2012

Last week I went to Madison, WI to get seed starting supplies. I go to the hydroponics stores there because they have the best stuff, like I used to get in CA so easily.

Got flats, cells, germination trays, and special potting dirt and special compost.

Now I'm all set and ready to plant.

Yesterday I cleaned out my cellar seedling table space, and organized everything there. I brought the stacks of flats and cells and trays from the storage area in the Morton Bldg into the cellar on the green cart.

I have my seeds at the ready.

Still have to buy onion plants, and trellis netting. Want to have planting mulching paper to help keep back the weeds.

I am going to use my electric Mantis tiller this year, to cultivate, and to hill the potatoes.  I bought 5 pounds of seed potatoes from Potato Garden (Ronniger's) but will also plant the varieties we already have and like. I like to have different varieties of potatoes for all the different uses.