The shaded side of the top was under a good 40' of snow but on the south facing side wildflowers were starting to poke through, some even blooming. The view is spectacular.
At the base of the mountain, off the beaten path, and up a small tributary I found a clearing a few years back that is full of stinging nettles, we returned the next day to fill our bags and the nettles are now drying in the greenhouse. My wife uses them in her tea concoctions. Nettles are a pretty amazing plant.
Things are looking up in our gardens. Salad bowls are overflowing with green goodness, seeding and re-seeding has taken place, all of the core crops are growing fairly well, and the weeding has been keeping us very busy this past week. All the rain has washed away my wit so pictures will have to replace so many words in this post.
Red Oak leaf and Black Seeded Simpson I believe.
RedBor kale and more lettuce lines the walkway to our greenhouse. I thought the Redbor would be more frilly leafed?
An intent little brown face in the oregano patch.:) He is thinking "Is that cat supposed to be in our garden?"
I like this mint, I planted it a decade ago and while it doesn't spread very fast it manages to come back every year. The name slips me but my wife suggests perhaps it was "Orange Mint"...doesn't taste very orangy though.
The kale in the foreground of this picture is a bit of an experiment as the seed was a cross between Gigante kohlrabi, White Russian kale, and Blue Curled kale. Time will tell how well this new creation suits our garden and palate, so far so good though as the plants are vigorous and the leaves impart a nice flavor to our salads. I'm hoping most don't bulb up like kohlrabi as it is the greens I am after. Anyway, more about this in another post.
The spinach is liking our extremely rainy spring.
Tomatoes not so much, but they are hanging in there and if it ever warms up for good they should take...might be another "ripen the green tomatoes on the porch" year again.
One of the few plants that thrives directly under our fir trees, once established, is rhubarb. Its impressive tap root allows it to delve deep for water. Notice that black cherry tree to the left, now almost 20' tall and grown from a seed maybe 6 or 7 years ago, it looks to be fruiting for the first time this year and will be the first of my many direct seeded fruit trees to produce.
Potato plants are starting to leaf out...we planted lots and lots of potatoes this year.
Carrots, beets, parsnips, and other direct seeded root veggies will soon need to be thinned.
Hesperis brightens up the garden with its pretty flowers and edible leaves...and I'll leave it at that as I'm at my wits end.:)
In keeping with our annual tradition of yearly experimentation we have once again planted numerous "new to us" varieties of edible plants this season. Ranging from various herbs and lettuces to bushes and trees, we are looking forward to seeing how they all perform and hopefully I will be able post my thoughts on them as spring and summer begin to unfold.
...but by mid-afternoon it had dissipated and the sun even managed a brief appearance.
Boy was busy inspecting the remnants of last year's corn as he cut it up into little pieces that will eventually be tilled back into the soil (a chore I didn't quite finish last fall).
These turnip greens have found their way into our salads almost every day since last November...definitely one of our hardiest greens.
Kale is finally staging a nice comeback, it was a rough winter for kale...a few too many freeze and thaw cycles.
In the greenhouse a pot of Hamburg parsley held over from last year puts on new green growth. You are supposed to eat the root but we find ourselves enjoying the greens too.
Onions seedlings are alive and well, growing oh so slowly.
With no room in the house I had to kick the just germinated basil out to the greenhouse...fingers crossed that it survives the cold, so far so good. I must admit to cheating a bit though as I have an oil heater that I turn on when necessary. Even so, I am tempting fate as the heater only graces me with a difference of 6 or 7 degrees, if it falls under 25°F outside my basil will freeze inside.
Comfrey needs to be planted out in the next day or so.
These little spinach and turnip seedlings were planted outside last night, more spinach will be direct seeded into the garden once it warms up a bit more. Normally we plant turnips in the late summer/early fall to avoid root maggots, but I thought I would take another shot at spring turnips this year.
Various other herbs, flowers, and salad greens are alive and well in the greenhouse.
Tomatoes will have to stay in the house for at least another week before we can get around to potting them up at which time the plants in our little arboretum will be set out under a covered row to make room for their less hardy brethren. Hopefully my next post will show us potting up tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants.
The majority of our tomatoes, tomatillos, ground cherries, herbs, peppers, eggplants, and other seedlings have all germinated and are growing well. The onions, celery, brassicas, lettuce, and other hardy greens have been moved outside to the greenhouse but as the nighttime temperatures are still very cold at times I will be forced to babysit the less hardy plants indoors for some time to come.
So today, and much to the chagrin of poor Mrs. H, I have classical music playing in the background...for the plants. I have been reading about how musical vibrations might help encourage the growth of plants. There are any number of theories on this ranging anywhere from how stimulating the leaves stomata (microscopic openings or pores found on the plant leaf) helps with the intake of CO2 and absorption of other nutrients to theories on how vibration can positively affect the growth of a plant's roots. Some say limited musical vibrations might even help a plant synthesize the hormone ethylene which in turn speeds up seed germination and helps to create stockier plants. So I figured why not give it a shot. The plants are dancing to the Northstar Chamber Orchestra's renditions of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Mozart, and Tchaikovsky for a few hours this evening.:)
Last spring I wrote about some of the unusual and frugal ingredients that go into our seed starting mixture and this year's soil is very similar in that it provides our seedlings with a few important necessities. We shoot for a mix of friable soil that will not harden too much and is able to retain enough water that it does not easily dry out, a soil that also furnishes plenty of nutrition to growing seedlings. In a sense, we simply look at the natural soil around us and attempt to copy nature's already perfect medium. This time around we are using a mixture of sand, chicken dirt, and abandoned ant nest debris with a little burnt bone and shell meal thrown in for good measure.
Weed seed and bug control agents hard at work.
Sand - (30%) This year I am also adding a little river sand to the mix having noticed how well wild onion, poppy, flox, and other seed seems to so easily germinate along the river banks.
So far so good as our newly emerging onion seedlings seem to like the added sand.
Shell, bones, and ash (maybe 1-2%) - A few years ago while way up in the forest gathering firewood we stumbled across a large pile of what I believe to be clam and other sea shells. How they got there so very far away from the ocean will forever remain a mystery. Anyway, we gathered the whole stinky pile up and brought it home to be used in our garden. I add the shells and any bones that we happen across to our fireplace during the winter and after removing am able to easily crush them into a fine powder. My thoughts are that adding a small amount of potassium found in the ash and bone plus shell meal for phosphorus and calcium makes for a beneficial additive.
Ta-da! The final product.
Something to keep in mind when using a non sterile soil mix, especially in cool and/or humid climates, is the issue of dampening off disease. We combat this by boiling a handful of thyme and sometimes chamomile in 2-3 gallons of water and letting set overnight or until the water turns dark. We use this thyme water mixed in a 1:3 ratio with regular water until the seedlings are well established. Thyme, chamomile, cinnamon, and a few other herbs all contain natural fungicides that can help prevent issues with dampening off....adequate airflow is also important. These herbs are a great source of calcium, magnesium, and potassium. Chamomile also contains sulfur and thyme has thymol, these being their potent anti-fungal agents.
