One of the side-effects of keeping your plants inside while it snows outside, is they believe it’s time to blossom. Apparently those blossoms attracted pollinators during the few days they were allowed to stay outside, because we have peppers and tomatoes growing in the garden already!
Monthly Archives: May 2010
The Great Bean Experiment
We had great success with some pole beans we planted a few years ago, even though we didn’t get around to planting until very late in the season. This year I wanted to plant those same beans again, but the bag of beans is really old. I didn’t want to plant them and not know if they were going to grow, so I decided to sprout them inside before planting them.
This is an experiment. I don’t know how well it will work.
When it was snowing outside, I soaked some bean seeds for about 8 hours (while I slept). In the morning, I drained the water and put a paper towel in the bowl below the beans. I covered the bowl with plastic wrap, poked a few holes, and waited for the beans to sprout. They did sprout, but they also got pretty stinky along the way. Maybe my beans were too old, maybe I kept them too wet or too dry. I don’t know, but I do know that about half of them sprouted, and I planted them. None of them have emerged from the ground yet, so this may still be a total failure. In case that happens, Charmaine planted a few rows of beans seeds for planting this year, and not sprouted inside. They are the control group.
I hope they all work, but even if they don’t, it’s been a fun experiment.
Aftermath
Casualties of the storm:
8 Armenian Cucumbers (80%)
4 Squash/Pumpkins (25%)
7 Tomatos (20%)
8 Peppers (10%)
Some of the damaged plants are trying to fight back, but if they don’t look good by the end of the week, I’ll be forced to call a substitution and put in the replacements. The short plants were so completely destroyed by the storm that there wasn’t enough left to show. Luckily we have replacements for most of them.
The End?
Someone upstairs is telling me to get a different hobby. They obviously don’t want me to succeed with gardening. It’s almost June and we can’t break free of freezing temperatures and this morning it’s another blizzard. At this point, I’m not even making an effort to save anything. If it survives, it survives, but otherwise I may just be done for the year.
I woke up this morning to the sound of rain. I was relieved to hear the rain based on the fact that we were concerned about snow falling over night. Then around 7 am as I was getting ready for work it started snowing. It now 8:36 and it’s still snowing. It’s not windy it’s just snowing. I think had we covered the plants with a tarp they would have a better chance but now I’m not sure.
I also gave away a bunch of plants last Wednesday based on the fact that I had over 70 peppers planted in the garden and I was a little tired of planting. Now, I’m not sure that I should have given away any plants at all.
It’s around 30 degrees outside which the plants can handle, but snow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
by: Charmaine
Ahead of the Curve
It’s May 19th. The main area of the garden is done. It’s amazing. Charmaine worked outside most the day and got all the rest of the beds planted. I took a few minutes to build what I call a “climbing gym” for the cucumbers.
Obviously, we’re not done with planting yet. In fact, despite having more than 70 pepper plants in the ground, we’re not even half way through the peppers… and that’s after discarding almost half the starts earlier this year. I think it’s safe to say we’ve over done it.
