Hail Drama.

A bit of weather drama today as we had a rather assertive hail storm this afternoon. I was out in the midst of this covering our new potato pots and placing protective tunnels on some of the bedding starts.

That being said, 30 minutes after this photo all evidence of hail was done and the sun was trying to shine on the garden space.

I kept the covers in place for the new potato pots as we had a frost warning this evening...but nothing too bad expected.

One of those days where you have to just let the weather have its way and think about gardening tomorrow.

Frost Warning...

A frost concern for this evening so my pots are covered.

I use black garbage bags over my pots which makes it very easy. I've placed these a little early so that they will have a few hours to gain some warmth before nightime.

These are the new potatoes and they are precious indeed.

Today I planted a few Spacemaster Cucumber seeds in a starter pot and planted Chinese Celery in one of the main raised beds.

Also placed a row of Chinese Green Meat radish. They are a larger variety that I special order from a company that specializes in oriental seeds.

Reseeded my Snow Pea pot has the original seeds failed to germinate. I believe the seeds may have been on a bit of the old side but it was worth a try.

And the Flowering Cherry by the patio is in full bloom. Lovely for spring color.

Little Signs Of Progress...

 A rather dreary day here...but not too bad compared to a month ago. My "early" bed is showing signs of progress. In this I have planted Tom Thumb lettuce, French Breakfast radishes, Heat Wave lettuce, German Giant radishes, Pak Choi, Spinach and the first of my peas.

All are showing and I'm in the process of thinning as they become mature enough.

Its always so pleasant when the first plantings show and you feel that progress is being made.

The really big news of the day is that each of the four pots with new potatoes are showing signs of life. Yes, that little bud there will grow, be covered, grow some more, be covered again, but in the end it will mean a pot full of WONDERFUL new potatoes for Richard. They are such a treat and if they can be grown in these containers successfully that will be a big plus for the garden's production.

It is incredible what sort of production can be had out of just a few seed potatoes. One of those great benefits of gardening.

The supports are up for the climbing green beans. We are only planting Fortex this year, it is just a superior green to Kentucky Wonder. Better flavor, better freezer and truly stringless.

I have a tray of Fortex in peat pots as they can be touchy regarding germination but I have no worry regarding having to plant some directly into the bed as that's what I've done for all years we have been here.

This bed has been deeply dug and heavily augmented with compost/steer manure. These "legacy" raised beds' soil was very tired and they definitely need some serious attention.

It feels good knowing that as each bed is planted that the seeds will be growing with all they need.



Today I also started in pots two plantings of Black Beauty courgettes (zuchinni) and some more spring cabbage.

Every day a little progress :)

Cleaning and Seeding....and signs of life.

Today was a day of cleaning more beds, deep digging raised beds and adding compost, and turning and starting toenrich the Pot Farm.

Planted some bush beans as an experiment in a large container (Burpee's stringless), first row of carrots and turnips are in and peas and new spinach are showing.

Speaking of spinach the row showing in this photo is one I planted in late autumn and didn't use. It overwintered! I didn't know spinach would do that. Its a regular Bloomsdale Savoy variety and is producing like crazy. I've already sent bags to our two gardening neighbors and it will probably keeps us in spinach until the row I've planted is ready to produce for us.

If this isn't some bizarre quirk I will definitely be doing this for next year.

Also on the "good news" side I found the U.K. gardening site with an incredibly productive forum that I used to visit whilst in the U.K.. This site is BY FAR the best gardening site I've ever found regardless of where you live.  http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php

Temps in the low 60's this week but it should still be a productive week for us...fingers crossed.

Its That Time Again...

Pots and planters are being cleaned and gardening starts. Yay!!

Our first round of peas (Marvel) went in on the 13th, along with some French Breakfast radishes and Tom Thumb lettuce.

I will be gone for a few weeks as soon as the weather between here and New Mexico stabilizes and want to have as much in place as possible for Richard to tend.

We are trying something new this year...New Potatoes.

Richard and I both miss having them and we grew loads of them in the U.K...so this is how we are fitting them into our Idaho Falls garden.





I am using our big barrel tubs and planted the first today. The barrel is emptied of soil except for a few inches and I then provide a base of steer manure. The seed potatoes are placed on top then a few inches of soil is placed above them. I put fertilizer pellets on the top of this layer.

This pot will be covered with black material each evening to help keep the soil warm and ward off frost.

 ....and I wish I could figure out how to place these photos side by side...more lessons to be learned.

I've never grown potatoes in a container before so this is a rather exciting experiment.

First Frost Warning....

We received our first Frost Warning of the autumn this morning. Time to go out and think about what to harvest, what to cover....and hope for the best.

Spinach, and more Spinach....

 The beds are definitely thinning out as harvesting goes on....and as crops are harvested I'm putting in more Spinach. It likes the cooler weather and I'm hoping to get enough for a good freezer stock before frosts set in.

This box has Spinach now planted in the end where the Leeks were and another row of Spinach coming up next to the Green Onions.

 The end box has late Peas in, Radish, Green Onion and off course, Spinach.

Richard's Apples are starting harvest...though slowly. A lovely crop almost perfectly blemish free thanks to our Apple Expert neighbor.