Happy Cuatro de Mayo, a day with no festivities and also rain. Lots of rain. The theme of the last couple weeks has been … ‘on hold’. Everything that’s already in the ground is on hold growing any considerable amount with the lack of sunshine, and everything still waiting to be planted is on hold to go in the ground as each plant is slowly but surely spilling out of their respective seed starting trays.
I guess I’ll start with the bad news. The onions and cabbage I’ve planted in the plot are not doing well. The hunt is now on to figure out why.
First and foremost, there’s been a considerable lack of sunshine and extreme wetness the past 2 weeks and beyond, which is contributing to their lack of growing. However that doesn’t’ explain’t explain why they are struggling and shrinking off to oblivion, as you can see in the above picture. Unfortunately the cabbage is following suit.
Above are 2 very happy cabbage starts I’ve been blogging about since I started them from seed many weeks ago. Now let’s look at them now:
The purple cabbage has turned, well, purple. This might seem expected, but it’s really not what it’s supposed to be doing and is a discoloration due to something being wrong. The green cabbage is also struggling and becoming pale in color. That said they do show signs of new growth at the core, so that’s good news I suppose?
It’s hard to say what’s happening in this bed but there are a few hypotheses. First, it could be due to water needs. However I’ve been very careful to water these guys regularly as cabbage in particular enjoys more regular watering in the early stages, as I’ve been hyper aware of. Second, it could be due to transplant shock. This I’m on the fence about because from what I read, both onions and cabbage are supposed to do just fine with transplanting. It’s been 3 weeks since transplanting so I would imagine the shock, if any, would have dissipated by now. Third, and what I deem most likely, is something wonky with the soil.
The soil is very new, and it will take years to get it to great quality soil with a rick ‘soil web’ of nutrients and organisms. There’s a lot more issues that stem from soil than any other factor at the moment, ranging from improper nutrients, a lack of nutrients, improper soil temperature and improper PH balance, so I’m leaning towards something on that list being part of the problem.
I have a moisture meter probe that I use to measure how moist the soil is, which is why I’m ruling out watering as an issue for now, but to this point I don’t have a way to measure the other soil factors and I’ve not sent any of this new soil in for a soil test anywhere. That said, I did order a new probe that measures soil temperature and PH in one, so once I’m able to get that out into the plot the investigation will continue.
In summary, I am just hoping for some dry warm sunshine. I get that it is spring and unpredictable, but I transplanted these guys at probably the worst time where weather has just been deteriorated ever since this stuff got into the ground. I’m hopeful for recovery of these crops when an actual string of sunshine. It can’t come soon enough!
Com-post? More like Com-pre
I haven’t talked about this much at all yet, but last summer I built this 2-bin compost system. We started building a pile last autumn with fallen leaves and have been contributing to it ever since. Mostly we dumb rabbit litter in here which is rabbit poop, soiled hay and crumpled litter. Our green kitchen waste goes in a different covered bin to avoid attracting rats but every so often I sneak green waste into this pile to give it a bit of a nitrogen boost.
If there’s a common thread in most of the gardening books I’ve read it’s that #1: Compost is essential and #2: Compost is essential. I’m still learning a lot about how to manage a compost pile so expect a dedicated post on that later. For now, managing this heap will be a gradual project over the sprint/summer/fall that I plan on documenting for later. In a perfect world this will be cured to use later in the fall. In an imperfect world, well, it won’t be ready. That simple.
Side Characters
Plot 63P may be the main event of this blog, but I’ve got two other beds I built here at home that will be dedicated to edible crops. The idea for these is to grow crops that need either a bit more hands nurturing, or that I’d like to monitor more closely and conveniently.
Morgan has been and continues to be the main boss of the yard’s ornamental gardening, and as I’ve taken a more active role with these two new edible crop beds we’ve had more discussions about how to achieve the best of both worlds; pretty stuff and edible stuff.
We decided to make room in the yard for some classic companion plants that achieve a balance of attracting pollinators, being nice to look at, and keeping pests away from crops. These include sunflowers, nasturtiums and borage.
Morgan purchased some cloches to cover our sunflower and nasturtium seedlings that we recently planted in the yard.
6 sunflowers were planted at the edge of the yard and 2 nasturtiums were planted in each raised bed. Fun fact: the sunflowers come from seeds that were saved from the absolutely massive volunteer sunflower that grew in last year’s garden plot. If they grow to be the same size then we may quit our jobs and just start selling sunflowers. See the size of their parent below 👀
We snagged some borage seeds from our friends down in Corvallis who were willing to share them. Borage is blue flower and is both ornamental and edible, although they serve more purpose in the yard than on a plate aside from a nice looking garnish. They also release nutrients like calcium and potassium into the soil which will be helpful for the raised bed crops here at the house. I’m looking forward to tracking and sharing the growth of these three main companion plants as we move into summer.
Still Cooking in the Garage
We’ve still got a bunch of crops hanging out in the garage, waiting for their moment of transplanting glory, some of which really need to leave the coup, spread their wings and fly. Some very warm sun is forecasted towards the end of this next week (May 8th and beyond) where temperatures look like they could reach 80. Morgan’s mother has always touted mother’s day as the official planting day here in the northwest, and that seems to be proven this year at least. This is a far cry from today as I glance out my window at the dreary cold May Showers instead of May Flowers staring back at me.
Here’s the latest inventory:
Above we have our 4 tomato varieties. All are looking good and ready to transplant as soon as this sunny warm weather hits. Below is what these could become if they achieve all their dreams. I whisper motivational quotes to each start daily in hopes of getting them to perform at their highest level.
Next up is all of our herbs. I view our herbs as kind of ‘cross-category’ plants. Part of their value is in pest prevention from the odors they put off and part of their value is in using the actual herbs. Here’s what we got cookin’:
We somehow managed to get a rogue purple basil in this batch. So I’m excited to see what becomes of that. I’ve never heard of purple basil. The plan is to interplant these herbs with the tomatoes above. Apparently they make good companions.
Our cilantro starts are looking great so far. Our rabbits love cilantro so we’ll see how much they produce. If I’m feeling wild I’ll let one of them go to seed to experiment with harvesting coriander. This variety is specifically called ‘long standing santo’ cilantro. That’s got a nice ring to it.
This is a curly parsley variety rather than a flat-leaf variety. All the other herbs were starting to sprout except for the parsley. As I was staring at these containers with no growth after 10 days, I almost threw them out deeming them as failures, but then I googled parsley and learned they are one of the slowest herbs to germinate. I’m glad I looked that up before chucking them out! Specific variety is ‘moss-curled’ parsley.
Now rosemary is one of the more permanent decisions, as they are fixtures in a yard and can grow quite large. I doubt these will earn any real estate in plot 63P, but we will likely plant these strategically in the yard here at home. Specific variety is called…rosemary. It’s just rosemary guys.
Wrapping up our herbs are thyme and oregano. These will eventually need to be thinned some more, but they’re doing great and already very potent. Specific varieties are ‘english’ thyme and ‘true greek’ oregano. If all goes well, I think it would be fun to dry some of these to turn into dry herbs in the kitchen. We’ll see if that ends up being a lot of work or not. I guess they have to grow first before I get any ideas 💡
My Beloved
Finally, wrapping up the blog post is the King of the Garage; my beloved Charentais Superprécoce Du Roc cantaloupe, the subject of a blog post in the past (I really enjoy writing the full name of this plant if you can’t tell. No, I will never know how to pronounce it).
I don’t know why I’m so attached to this melon, but I am. It really needs to get out of this container as I think I started it a bit too early, especially with all this rain. However, it needs WARMTH and SUN. I know. Shocker.
Over the course of the summer there are going to be certain crops that I look forward to harvesting more than others, and this one will be one of them. I grew a cantaloupe once before in my very first garden plot a couple years ago, and although it was only one fruit, it was still fantastic. Melon is always one of those grocery store items I couldn’t care less about because they are boring and bland, so I’m pumped up to grow this one.
Hopefully the next update will be me talking about how these are all in the ground and flourishing, and my onions and cabbage will have made a complete and full recovery and we’ve won the lottery and I have a full head of hair and…ok I’ll stop day dreaming.
I’ll leave you with a teaser on a secret project I’ve yet to talk about on the blog…
…
3 varieties of potatoes are starting to peek through!
More on the potato journey later 👀
Until next time – AA
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