Busy Saturday

April has been the wettest recorded April in local history. Consequently we have not been able to get out in the yard. Today, however, we finally had good weather.

We began putting up the fence around the garden. We dug four post holes so far and constructed and installed two fence panels. We are using this fence design, however we have added a skirt of chicken wire at the bottom to foil the rabbits and ground hogs attempts to burrow under the fence.

The first of many fence posts

Getting out the new saw

What we got down the 1st Saturday

We planted our asparagus crowns today and sowed carrots and radishes directly into the soil. We also de-winterized our blueberry bushes.

Asparagus crowns

Strawberry Diagnosis

I read that a lot of gardening is observing your plants. They will let you know when they are hungry, thirst or sick. I have put this into practice and I am starting to learn what our plants are telling me.

Take our strawberries. I noticed our strawberries had spots on the leafs. At first I wasn't sure what was going on but the other day I thought it might be a plant disease. It turns out that it is. Our strawberries have a Mycosphaerella fragariae infection, or the common leaf spot. According to Cornell The disease is found in almost every New York strawberry planting.

It looks like we need to do a better job cleaning out the strawberries in the fall time, and not let them grow so thick.

Starting Lettuce from Seed

Today's weather was horrible and so we didn't plant any sweet peas. We did start our lettuce seeds today. They are in our seed sprouter in our dinning room in the sunshine.

We also have our peppers which are doing well. They were a little slow to come up. We are not sure what the issue was but we are happy they all came up. We started just enough peppers and were nervous when a few seeds seemed to have failed to germinate.

We have also purchased our asparagus crowns this weekend. We went with the Jersey Supreme variety because Cornell Cooperative Extension's website recommended that the Jersey Knight and Jersey King varieties. Jersey Supreme is the next iteration in the Jersey asparagus series.

Preparing the Garden

Knowing that the weather was going to be poor this weekend, I took a 1/2 day of vacation and did some work in the garden. I prepared two containers for planting. I had to remove the grass and level the ground.

Once the ground was level I added some pre-plant mineral mixture.

I then mixed up some soil and added it to the container.

I added another application of pre-plant minerals and our weekly fertilizer mix.

At the end of the day we have 5 containers in their places, and one planted with our strawberries. We should be planting sweet peas this weekend if it is not too horrible.

Moved Strawberries

Today we moved the strawberries from one container to another. We had to move them because they will be growing on the southern side of our garden and not in the shadow of our taller plants.

Working in the Garden

Today we had great weather and so we were out working in our garden. I dumped out and mixed up some more Mittleider pre-plant mix because I think I messed up on the measurements. This time I am sure that the ratios were correct.

I mixed up some Mittleider weekly feed. We purchased some triple phosphate to add to our 16-6-16 fertilizer to bring it up to 16-16-16. We did not purchase 13-13-13 fertilizer however it may be the less expensive route.

We placed 3 containers in their locations, leveled the ground underneath, applied pre-plant mix to the soil, filled the beds with our soil mix, then applied pre-plant and weekly feed to the top and mixed it in.

For our soil mix we used peat moss, vermiculite, and compost. We will have to be attentive to salinity issues with our plants given that there is compost plus Mittleider feed.

I was not very impressed with the Scotts brand compost. The compost had a very strong smell. We purchased manure from Lowe's and that didn't smell. That was a minor issue. The reason why I am not impressed with the product is that it is one dense clump. I had to break it up to try to mix it in with the other components. We have purchased a different type of Scotts compost two years ago and had similar issues with clumping. Their compost always seems like it was damp when it was packaged and has never dried out.

Mixed Mittleider Pre-Plant Mix

Tonight I mixed up two batches of Mittleider Pre-Plant Mix. Our box of Borax was clumped together due to the humidity of our basement. I may have added a little too much to the mix. I am excited to apply it to our garden!

April Garden Expenses 2011

Date	Item	Where Purchased	Cost	Comment
4 April	Lime	Bristol's Garden Center	$5.36	40 lbs
5 April	Peat Moss	Home Depot	$16.98	two 3 cubic feet bags
5 April	Tarp	Home Depot	$13.48
5 April	Humus Manure Compost	Home Depot	$24.70	10 0.75 cubic feet bags
5 April	Welded Wire Fence	Home Depot	$74.00	4' x 100'
5 April	Snips	Home Depot	$10.97
5 April	Screws	Home Depot	$5.94
5 April	Trash Bags	Home Depot	$15.98	for mulch
6 April	Mushroom Compost	Lowe's	$2.98	two 40 lb bags
6 April	Cow Manure Compost	Lowe's	$4.32	four 40 lb bags
9 April	Triple Phosphate	Country Max	$12.99	5 lb bag
16 April	Jersey Supreme Asparagus Crowns (25)	Gardener's Supply	$19.95	$27.85 with shipping
16 April	Triple Phosphate	Bristol's Garden Center	$11.95	5 lb bag
25 April	4' x 4' x 6' - Fence Posts	Lowe's	$23.88	four posts

Starting New Seedlings

Today we started some seeds. We sowed eggplant, bell peppers, and sweet peppers. We sowed the seeds in left-over MiracleGro potting soil. The soil is in newspaper pots that we made. We placed the seeds in a container and covered them. Since these plants like warm soil we put the container on a heating pad set on the lowest setting. The soil temperature was about 80° F.