Jack and the Beanstalk (plus more pics)

So this is a picture of our dry beans on day two of their sprouting. The previous evening they were merely tiny little sprouts barely breaking through the topsoil. Oh my it appears I am going to be stringing these guys up as soon as this weekend.

And now for a dump of pictures as per requested from one of my readers:
First, a perspective view of the yard/garden as of this evening.



And for comparison, a picture from the depths of our snow storm back in late December.



Now that is a little extreme even for Portland. But we are now firmly into rose season. These are wonderful shots of our front fountain roses and our house.





And I absolutely love this rose called Berries and Cream which is just starting to peak.



And then there is our Rhododendron and our Oriental Poppy.





Last night we had this broccoli as part of our stir fry for dinner. Yum.



And as always, Rosie, Dot and Daisy have been there to scratch, eat and fertilize.


I got the Queensland Blue Squash seeds planted tonight. I have high hopes since all eight seeds of Sweet Dumpling Squash have already sprouted. I did confirm numerous corn sprouts this evening and I got the Buttercrunch and Romaine lettuce starts planted as well.

We are experiencing some unusually extended warm and dry conditions right now. It's Rose Festival which means it is supposed to be raining. Oh well. I'm watering in earnest each morning and doing damage control in the evenings with temps today hitting at least 84 and tomorrow a few degrees higher.

Enjoy.

Things Are Starting To Grow

...or at least sprout. I've got almost everything I want planted in the ground. I just have another two hills of winter squash and putting in some more lettuce starts to do. In the mean time, the pole beans, dry beans and sweet dumpling squash have sprouted. And I could have sworn I saw a corn sprout this morning when I watered.

Ah and watering season has begun. We are in a somewhat unusual extended dry, warm period with consistent highs in the mid to upper 70s each day. It's perfect weather for germinating the corn and squash. But it also means I get up every morning before work to water the garden beds, and this year the lawn in the main yard that I have left. I realized I need to water our lawn portion now because that is primary chicken food. We do not have a monoculture lawn of pure grass. We've got grass, crab grass, dandelions, clover, moss....you name it. I do mow it consistently to keep the weeds somewhat down. But the chickens love the variety, especially the clover and they also love to eat dandelion flowers when they are in full yellow blossom.

Within a week I expect the extended weeding season to begin. After my last planting it will mostly be maintenance from here on out.

Mowing and Planting

After work yesterday I mowed the surprisingly tall grass. Man it is just growing fast this year. Maybe it's the "help" from the chickens.

Then it was onto more planting. I put in two hills each of Sweet Dumpling Winter Squash and some yummy smallish sugar pumpkins. This same variety of pumpkin made for great pies last Fall and we still have two or three bags of frozen pumpkin puree in the freezer. I also planted three rows of sweet corn in the parking strip. It's a little bit of a tight squeeze out there, but I think it will work. And if it does, we are supposed to get 8-10 foot tall stalks with 8-9 ears per stalk. That will be cool.

First Major round of Planting Done

Over Saturday through yesterday, we got a lot into the ground. Some of the stuff is easy to identify a month from now such as peas and beans. However, we have six different varieties of tomatoes and twelve different varieties of peppers. So I made a hand drawn map showing the general location of each plant with a key to the numbers. Here's my crudely drawn map of the main yard:


This does not include the back corner or the parking strip. I do have some red and blue potatoes planted in the upper back corner which have come up. But I have not planted in the lower back corner or the parking strip yet. And I have not planted the winter squash, pumpkins or beets but I will probably do that this coming weekend. Here's the key to the map:
1. Green Zebra Tomato
2. Amish Paste Tomato
3. Maritan Giant Tomato
4. Perone Sprayless Tomato
5. Tangerine Sweet Pepper
6. Purple Beauty Bell Pepper
7. Sunrise Orange Sweet Pepper
8. Cilantro
9. Red Ruffled Pimento
10. Nardello Sweet Pepper
11. Corno di Toro Pepper
12. Pole Beans
13. Sorrel
14. Broccoli
15. Bush Snap Peas
16. Prize of the Trials Tomato
17. Amana orange Tomato
18. Ring O Fire Chili
19. Czech Black Chili
20. Bolivian Rainbow Chili
21. Ancho/Poblano Chili
22. Conquistador Chili
23. Hungarian Hot Wax Chili
24. Lemon Basil
25. Aromatto Basil
26. Garlic
27. Dry Soup Tiger's Eye Bush Bean
28. Red Cherokee Wax Bush Bean
29. Round Black Spanish Radish.

The radishes and some of the bush snap peas are left over from my experimental February planting. I had to replant more bush snap peas, and I believe our two attempts at lettuce were eaten by slugs.

My body was toast last night after two days of shovel work and then choosing to ride my bike to work on my hilly commute. But the planting got done at just the right time around 7 pm as it started to rain quite seriously at about 8 pm.

Next up, I need to clear the cover crop from the lower back corner and get the rest of the potatoes planted and plant my sweet corn, squashes, beets and some various greens. I'm going to break down and buy some lettuce starts but I will give the seeds a try again too. Then I will continue my ongoing battle against my invasive species problems of bamboo, blackberry, two different types of morning glory and a vine that spreads along the back cyclone fence.

A Time To Sow

Finally, it is time to plant. Well after five hours of turning manure and compost into the beds it is time to plant. I'm sore but not broken. After the shovel work I took April's advice, showered, made myself an aggressive margarita and then retired to the hammock. I lay in the hammock and listened to a really cool episode of Radio Lab on NPR and then nodded off for a good nap.

April planted our six tomato plants. We got them on Thursday via UPS. It is a little strange to get vegetable plants in a cardboard box:


But the pepper and mato plants are healthy and we have had fabulous luck with these in the past:



As usual, I had lots of help from our chickens when I was turning soil. They just love the worms. Last week they came up the back stairs probably because they thought I could get them some more worms.


I'll upload some more pictures tomorrow after we finish planting seeds and I start in on the potato patch and the corn in the space between the sidewalk and the curb. Well have to get some more chicken wire tomorrow to keep the chickens out of where we plant seeds lest they scratch them all up.

Great weather. Great weekend.

A Rainy Evening

I was able to finish cutting the rest of the sod last last night. And just in time since we got quite a dousing of rain this afternoon and evening. On top of that, I received emails late yesterday confirming that the tomato and pepper starts have been shipped and will arrive tomorrow. We'll unpack them tomorrow night and leave them on the back porch to harden for two days. I have a law school reception to attend tomorrow evening after work so I'll head to Portland Nursery after work on Friday to get manure, compost and a new metal rake. Saturday and Sunday will be spent turning in the amendments and planting. I'll then clear out the lower back corner bed and plant potatoes. If I have time (and energy) I'll clear the parking strip cover crop and plant our sweet corn.

In the mean time, since it was a rainy evening, I put my energy into the kitchen. I made a Potato Leek soup and have a French Bread dough now rising for baking in the morning.

Still Cutting But Getting Closer

I'm still in the process of cutting sod to enlarge the front middle garden bed. I forgot how tedious this can be. Anyway I should be able to finish the last couple of feet to the driveway this evening. Then I'll move the chicken coop off of the lower back corner, hack the rest of the cover crop down and turn that over. I'm going to plant the rest of the potatoes in that bed along with sunflowers along the edge.

I'm hoping that our tomatoes and peppers arrive soon. After I finish the middle bed tonight and then spread more manure and compost on all of the beds, we are ready to go to start planting. I'm going to call Seeds of Change to see if I can get an estimate on when the plants will be getting here.

More Maintenance

The ground is still pretty sodden and we're expected to get a little bit more rain over the next day or so. I worked the front corner under the Rhody for a bit continuing to try to rid ourselves of the dreaded bamboo. The chickens absolutely loved getting worms as I turned over dirt.

The peas are up and so is the lettuce. Our red Oriental Poppy popped open its first blossom today and the irises April planted last summer look like they may blossom this weekend.

As the weather dries out, I'm looking forward to expanding the planting beds this weekend and beyond. I should be able to start planting a whole lot more in earnest late next week. Oh, and I have to mow again already. I am so glad that I am slowly getting rid of more and more of my lawn. I am keeping a small stretch in the back on which we can hang out during the summer in the shade.

Wet Again

Lots of rain recently. But the timing has been good since I was finishing up crew season with our West Coast championship regatta this last weekend down in Sacramento. And down there it was three straight days of rain too. They desperately need that rain down there so it was a good thing overall.

I went out and did some blackberry/vine/invasive plant patrol. I cleaned out under a couple of my roses and weeded my radishes. We are about a week or so awa from radishes. That will be the first official harvest of the year. April kicked some butt over the last week and cleaned up some parts of the yard, planting more flowers where she cleaned up.

We moved the coop back over to the lower back corner so that the chickens will eat up the cover crop left there. Also that frees up the space in the yard that I have to turn over. It is still way too wet to try that. But maybe Friday or Saturday I can recommence taking out lawn to be replaced with food and flowers.