Garden Update

I will be participating in The Great Sunflower Project this year. Last February I was reading about the project in "Heirloom Vegetables" by Sue Stickland so I decided to sign up. The idea behind the project is they send you sunflower seeds and then they want you to submit bee counts to them on the sunflowers. They ask that twice a month your park yourself in front of the flowers and count the number of bees that visit in 30 minutes and then send in the information. It should be fun, now I just have to find a sunny spot of them.

I decided today was a good day to do a photo update of all the plants. Some things have really started to grow well others seem to be still rooting into there new home. I am also having a lot of seeds germinate that were in my compost. Although my compost does heat up it does not stay hot because I never have enough material to add at once. I think I am going to get one of those Japanese Weeders to take care of them. I am also going to start all the Melons, Cucumbers & Squash tonight in peat pots and germinate them in the cold frame. Anywho, here goes the photos:

Veseys Baby Leaf Blend looking great, I will be purchasing this mix again.
These were winter sown in February, in the cold frame.

Romaine & Bok Choy growing very fast

Easter Egg Radishes, should be ready soon

Spinach, the thinning will make it into Thursdays Meal Post

Garlic, Planted last October. Anyone know what month it is harvested, July?

Shell Peas, not much growth but they are doing well

Broad Beans

The Broad Beans are just about to bloom, can't wait. Broad beans
like cool weather so they are a great early legume to grow.

Oak barrel mixed greens. I have uncovered them and
now the squirrels keep digging up the newly seed ones, erg.

Onion sets are all up. Looks like the sets are winning over the seeded ones so far.

Kohlrabi. See all those little weeds, yikes!

Broccoli, it has not grown much yet but has bulked up a lot.
They are interplanted with onion sets & a row of radishes to the back.

Finally here is a shot of the poly tunnel, It has everything in it that was under
the grow light. Veggies, overwintered patio plants & seeded flowers for summer
planters (post to come about them soon). I have been leaving everything outside
in it for a few days. Looks like next Tuesday will have a pretty chilly night time
temp so I will have to cart them all in again if it materializes.

Tuesdays Photography

Here goes Tuesdays Photography Post. Not sure if I have left this out or not but these are not necesaryily photos taken on Tuesdays. This week I have a mix of yard photos & photos from other places:

Yard Photos:

Broad Beans just after germination a few weeks ago.

Epimedium rubrum

Pulmonaria longifolia

Daffodil 'Replete' - They sell them as Pink and say in fine print
that they turn pink as they age. We shall see.

American Goldfinch, Male.

Blue Jay - Nesting in the Maples out back.

Non Yard Photos: The forests & trees are in full bloom here in the eastern part of North America. Every one in the area should take a drive and see some wild blooms, they are spectacular.

White Trillium

Trout Lily

Blood Root

Toad

Not sure what this one is. It was a large shrubby
tree that looks to have been planted by the city.

Another busy weekend

It seems the later in spring we go the busier things are getting. With all this work though it should pay off in dividends once we near the end of June. This weekends garden related tasks were:

First thing Saturday I put the Tomatoes & Peppers in the poly tunnel and notice the first tomato of the season. Mister early tomato might just pan out. I will be putting everything out in the poly tunnel now that is under the grow light. I have been bring them inside at night, hopefully our night time temps warn up soon as it is a pain moving 8 flats of plants.

I then used up the remaining rhubarb in an Upside Down Rhubarb Cake, The recipe can be found here. The only thing I changed was adding strawberries to the mix.

I planted the seeded Yellow Onions & Shallots. I planted them in blocks, Eliot Coleman style, 4 to a hole with each block of 4 being spaced 12" apart. I then direct seeded early wonder beets, chioggia beets & atomic red carrots in between the onions. The end lettuce is Yugoslavian Red lettuce planted out from the cold frame.

The last garden task was finishing rough digging all the new raised beds by removing 12" of soil. All that is left to do now is finish any final adjustments on the framing and level off the bottoms to an even 12". I will refill hopefully this week with trucked in triple mix.

After all that the rest of the weekend was spent cleaning out the basement for the arrival of the water meter mover guy on Monday. The basement has been a disaster ever since we renovated the house, there was basically only pathways down there. It was a lot of work but had to be done to be able to move the meter reader out of my veggie patch.

Here it is tucked up against the front porch hand rail. Now there will be no more stepping on my beautiful soil to read it. It will also provides much better access to read it during the winter months.

How I built my Poly Tunnel, Finally...

Here is the unveiling of the completed poly tunnel. I really like how it turned out and the velcro works great. The poly tunnel is made to almost fit one of the raised beds and it is 58" long x 36" wide & 31" high. For this project I used the following materials:

• two 2x4x8 cedar
• ten 2x2x48 cedar balusters (8 for the trusses, 2 for the center supports)
  
• Gorilla Wood Glue (water activated)
  
• 3 1/2" coated deck screws
• 90 degree all weather angle brackets
• flat all weather brackets
• 1" truss head screws for the brackets
• 11 mil super strong woven poly from Northern Greenhouse Sales
• Velcro
• Velcro Glue
• 9/16" staples
• two 1x2x8 finger jointed spruce (for weighting & rolling the poly)
  

I made the roof trusses by cutting the 2x2x48 inch balusters on 22.5 degree angles to form the full 180 degree roof frame. Once the angles were cut I glued the joints and then clamped them in a work mate. When everything was lined up I pre-drilled the joint and then screwed it together with a 3 1/2" deck screw. I then let it dry and moved onto the next joint, a total of eight 22.5 degree cuts per truss.

The base of the poly tunnel was simply fastened together with butt joints, gorilla glue & two 3 1/2" deck screws. Once the base was fastened together I attached the four roof trusses with the 90 degree brackets and the 1" truss head screws.

With all the trusses fastened on I then cut center supports to stiffen things up. The front and back center supports were fastened in place with a 3 1/2" deck screw on either end. Then the center one was fastened with flat brackets and the 1" truss head screws.

With all that completed here is the finished frame. It is very ridged and the cedar makes it surprisingly light to move around.

I then stretched the poly on either end, stapling as I went and then trimmed off the excess. I doubled up the poly on the base to reinforce it from staple damage, the top edge will be reinforce once the velcro is added. The corners were folded and stapled down much like you would do in upholstery.

After the two end pieces were stapled on I cut the top piece of poly to fit. This was done by stretching the poly over the frame, tacking it in place with common nails as I went.

With the top piece in place I then cut off the excess with a sharp utility knife. Here it is with all the plastic cut to fit, ready for its velcro.

After cutting the top piece of poly it then had velcro sewn along all the edges. I used the velcro to help with wind resistance and to make it pretty much air tight. It also makes for easy access. The velcro was sewn 1.5" up from the bottom edge to accommodate the 1x2 for rolling and weighting down the poly. The two corresponding sides had the velcro sewn about 1/8 of an inch in from the edge.

The other side of the velcro was then glued & stapled onto the frame to line up with the top piece. Now that everything is in place it is time to make the poly tunnel operable so it can be opened up. I accomplished by doing the following:

This view is the top side of the poly. The two bottom edges had 1x2's stapled on to aid in rolling the poly up. Then two strips of velcro were sewn on the top to correspond with the two center supports. These stripes of velcro will then be used to hold the rolled up poly in place.

I then stapled 4 stripes of velcro onto the frame loosely. Lastly I stapled a small piece of velcro to the frame so the stripes can be tucked out of the way when not in use. I think I will later add more fasteners to these stripes to stop them from ballooning out. Now when the poly is rolled up, these pieces will wrap around and hold it in place like in the photo below.

Well there you have it, One poly tunnel thought up and built by Dan.