125. State of the Food Garden Address

I'm so anal, I've been agonizing over the title for days now.  It should probably be State-of-the-Food-Garden Address.  Or State of the Food-Garden Address.  I was just going to write State of the Garden Address, but in this post I'm not going to get into flowers -- save that for another post.  But there shouldn't be hyphens in titles, right?  So even though it seems cumbersome and incorrect to me, State of the Food Garden Address it is.  Maybe I should just have left it at 125.  Or "Garden Stuff," or for some, "Long, Boring Post About The Garden."  That's your cue to take a day off from me if gardening is really boring to you.  It's OK.  I won't mind.   

Can you tell the dreaded "transcript season" is upon us?  "Us" of course meaning "me."  And "transcript season" being what I call it, now that I don't usually have to do transcripts for a living any longer.  But school is OUT, my friends.  That means one thing:  It could be Death By Transcript for me very soon; I hate it that much. 

Anyhoooooo....

Things in the vegetable garden continue to be on an early course for me. It always boggles my mind when we take a drive up to Canada in June, and the vegetable gardens of people "far north" of me are way ahead of mine. I don't understand, but that seems to be the way it is, year after year. 

Everything I planted outside has germinated and is doing very well.  I also thoroughly abused a flat of lettuce and Scotch kale seedlings by putting them outside in one of my black planting beds well before their time, and without any proper hardening -- just directly from the very temperate indoor temperatures to the cold, harsh, big world out there.  That is a big gardening no-no. Then of COURSE we had hard frost and snow during the following week.  The poor little guys didn't look too well. I thought I'd lost them.  But lo, they seem to have rebounded. It is possible they won't amount to much after that transplant shock.  I'll keep you apprised.

Peas have germinated, and by covering them with spoiled hay mulch, I kept the robins from plucking them out of the ground as they emerged.  My theory is that the robins don't want to eat them, but they mistake them for white grubs until they turn green and leaf out:

Asparagus continues to do well:

Spinach germinated:

Direct-sowed lettuces are doing well.  I bought several red and variegated lettuce varieties this year. It will make for very colorful and nutritious salads.

Radishes are taking off:

As well as the beets and onions, which are sharing a bed:

Up close, the beets look like this:

The brown shredded stuff is .... do you remember when I ordered a kilo of dried dandelion leaves for myself to ingest?  Well, I tried them in smoothies and sprinkled them on my food.  Even I, the great dandelion champion, could not learn to like them.  So now they have been sprinkled on the beets to feed them.

I planted another entire bed of beets yesterday.  I'm set on fulfilling my family's demand for more pickled beets. Soon this might become Norma's Beet Farm.  But we love to eat the greens, too.  I don't think they freeze very well, but I will try not to let them go to waste this summer.   

The transplanted strawberries look terrific.  I'm trying to decide whether I should pick the blossoms this year, since they were just transplanted, or let them fruit. 

Both pear trees are loaded with blossoms, but since they have blossomed, the weather has not been at all conducive to bee activity, and I have not seen any bees out, so I doubt if they have pollinated, and the blossoms on one of the trees seems to be on the wane already.  It's probably just as well, to let those young trees build up strength.

The blueberry bushes are loaded with blossoms not quite open.  I took a couple of photos that were too blurry to post.  It was very windy when I was out there, and getting a still shot was tough. I hate to do this, but I think I'm going to have to buy netting to put over them when they fruit, so the birds don't eat them all.  After this long wait, I am not willing to share with the wildlife.

The lone plum tree that survived is also loaded with almost spent blossoms.  Unless there was some sort of immaculate conception, there won't be any plums here this year.  Again, that is just as well, to let the little tree build up some lasting strength. 

Indoors, the seedlings are doing beautifully, especially the ones in the deep-root seed-starting system.

I am a tad disappointed in the germination rates of the tomato seeds I got from Baker Creek Heirloom seeds -- only about 25%.  Mind you, I only started about four of each variety, so my sample might not be big enough to be definitive about it, BUT I put two seeds in each pod, and only one out of four pods (so actually, the percentage is only about half that) germinated.  The varieties were Rutgers and Royal Chico.  The Bonny Best seeds gave me 50% germination.  The tomato seeds from High Mowing Seeds, Glacier Tomatoes, also were disappointing in their germination.

In previous years, I've always had 100% germination in the APS system I have used for 15 or so years.  I don't even usually put two seeds in each pod -- only one.  So that's a noticeable difference in germination rates.  I've started some more.  If they germinate, even though they're late, they'll catch up pretty well.  Tomatoes are good that way.  If they don't germinate, I will have to buy some tomato plants to put in.  Remember, the goal is more canning of tomatoes this year. I wonder where I'm going to suddenly have all this much more time to freeze and can than I've had previous years.  Maybe there'll be a time warp of some kind. 

Comments

[Kristen]

What rule says there can't be hyphens in titles?

Sorry to hear about poor germination rates in the tomatoes. :(

If you are feeling really energetic, you can hand pollinate your fruit trees. All you need is some q-tips or a little paintbrush.

[Imbrium]

So, come fall can I have dinner at your house? :)

[sandy]

I saw ONE bee the other day But it did not look like it was long for this earth, drunkly flying haphazardly around. And it was cold out. I guess he was kicked out or something. Probably a bastard anyway. haha.
And, how can I resist....
WE'VE GOT BEETS!!!!!!
oxoxox

[margene]

How sad you live so far away. I want to live over your back fence so you will give me some veggies!!

[Adelaide]

If you find that time warp, would you let me know, please?

[sue]

ah, I wish you lived closer so I can give you some tomato plants. I was expecting poor germination based on reviews of the website I ordered from (but still wanted to varieties) but ended up with 100% germination. So, I have 100+ tomato plants when I need 16. Some friends are going to be getting surprise tomato plants this week. It'll be like zucchini in August.

oh, and I just put mine out yesterday and we're in the fingerlakes. I checked the forecast and we're past our last frost of the year (we're looking at lows in the 40's) - kind of scary. I would have liked to wait longer, but I was squatting in my friend's heated greenhouse, and she wanted my plants gone already.

[naomi]

Why shouldn't there be hyphens in titles?

[ann]

Gee you are making me really hungry! Everything looks really great. Have you ever been to the greehouse in Lacolle. When we lived in the islands thats the only place I would go. And yes, there plants were always bigger,greener and more bountiful. Oh well! Don't work too hard!!!

[Mary K. in Rockport]

I'm wondering what those big clumps in your soil are - could they be.....manure? You don't put that in fresh like that, do you? Also, is your soil rocky in Vermont? Here in Rockport, rather than dirt we have glacial morain and, no matter how much we improve our soil, we always have a nice crop of pebbles; it's very difficult to dig even a simple hole. It's been so cold, we're afraid to check our little plantlings out in the back yard. If they're still alive, they must be very hardy.

[Marcia Cooke]

How many of those beds do you have, anyway?! That's a lot of stuff! As for your tomatoes, do you use a heat mat to germinate? I swear by mine for tomatoes and peppers. I had about a 95% germination rate (the Hot Lemon Peppers were very slow, even with heat, but finally all srpouted) but mine weren't particularly heirloom or organic or anything. Burpee for the most part.

[jessica~]

I love your garden posts!! I really want to plant a pear tree. We used to have a cherry tree and never got one single cherry because the birds ate them first, so I totally understand about the netting.

[Tammy]

Oohhh... please post when the time warp happens! I'll be sure to get in on it so I can scour, card and spin some of the two fleeces I'm getting. (Is it fleece plural or fleeces - speaking of grammar?) No matter what happens with the lettuce - you've made ME green with all the garden talk! I want one so bad! But no matter how I look, there's no 4'x4' square that gets enough sun in my yard! So, it's another year of midnight harvesting the neighbor's garden. On the "Red Green Show" (a fine Canadian production), the guy always says, "If you can't be handsome, you might as well be handy." I've modified that to be, "If you can't have a garden, you can at least harvest the neighbors!" T

[Cheryl S.]

How disappointing on the tomatoes! But everything else looks great. I couldn't bear not to let my strawberries grow fruit the first year. Didn't seem to hurt them one bit.

[kmkat]

To continue Tammy's theme, the next thing Red says is, "We're all pullin' for ya!" And so we are all pullin' for your lettuce and Scotch kale and the other seedlings. Feel free to email me any of your garden produce when it becomes available.

[marianne]

Norma, I'm never, ever bored with any of your posts and I LOVE the gardening ones.
I'm right there with you, hoping for a time warp... I could use some of that right now.... ok... all the time.

[Katie B.]

*puts her English geek hat on* As far as I'm aware, either of your hyphenated title options would have been correct; after all, it's a descriptor, and you hyphenate descriptors (like, say, Eighteenth-Century Literature - just to pull an example out of my past ;P). I never heard of not putting hyphens in titles, but maybe that's a refinement I never encountered - although, I was writing graduate-style papers as a junior in college. Of course, I was also in Lit - there might be rules about that in subjects that are completely foreign to me that you have to deal with all the time.

For Tammy: I believe it should be "fleeces".

Yay for inspiring garden pictures!!! I got out and got one of my raised beds cleared of raspberries (well, for the first foot or so down, damn pernicious things) and planted tomatoes and sowed marigolds yesterday. I'm hoping to go turn some more ground today... depends how much energy I have after walking to the store and starting bread. ;P

[Cookie]

Let the strawberries do their thing. They will love you for it. Deer fencing works very well for protecting blueberries from the birds. If you put it on a frame, it will be easier to handle.

You make me miss gardening, Norma. No, not enough to get out there, but miss it all the same.

[JessaLu]

Very impressive start! I totally cheated this year - I bought tomato plants at HD and broke out the water teepees. They made it through the frost the other night so I'm hopeful.

[lisa]

It's all about the zones, you know... VT being, what, 3 where you are? I think lower Ontario/Quebec are 5... Our peas are up about like yours.

[Lynn]

When the veggies start disappearing from your garden this summer, maybe you oughtn't be blaming the raccoons. So, where did you say you lived?

[Kit]

Spring is the season of miracles, in my opinion. The world has suffered from the worst that life can throw at it and is bouncing back with beauty and joy.