Sometimes it is just work

What a busy day in the garden and yard!  We have been wildly weeding some of the garden beds over the last week, dumping the weeds on the grass by the beds.  We haven't been keeping up with the lawnmowing until today.  In order to get the lawn mowed we needed to unload the compost tumblers of their loads of compost in order to use the grass clippings for more compost.
Yesterday, my wife Illijana weeded the artichoke bed.  I then unloaded the compost tumbler and put the compost on the bed.  I also put compost in the rose bed, around the roses by our rose gate, and around the Queen Cox standard apple tree.
As Illijana mowed the lawn I weed whacked the edges and then used the grass clippings mixed with redwood sawdust, coffee grounds from Starbucks, and a mix of secret herbs and spices (blood meal, bone meal, cottonseed meal, and chicken manure) to fill the compost tumbler.  It will probably be composting at above 140 F by tomorrow, and will be ready to use in 3 to 4 weeks.
The yard looks great now, and it is raining, so we got the lawn done just in time.
There are some plants that need to be planted out shortly.  Here is a pic of the plants in the greenhouse. Click to enlarge.

lettuce starts

basil

The picture on the right is a close-up of the small leaved basil growing in the greenhouse.  It is almost time for pesto making!

Moon in Cancer, waxing

One of the nice things about planting by the moon cycles is that when I notice a planting day, it pulls me out of procrastination mode (perhaps spending too much time with the computer), and into getting things done in the garden mode.  This was the case yesterday as the moon is waxing, it is in a water sign (Cancer), and so it is theoretically a good day to plant upward growing crops.  I took advantage and planted 3 types of spinach in the concrete bed I constructed last year (varieties planted: Corvair from Johnny's Seeds, Bordeaux, a red veined variety from Territorial, and Oriental Giant from Renee's Garden).
I also planted a tray of 6 packs (that is 8 of them).  I used mostly 3 cells in each 6 pack for each variety with one seed in each cell.  Lettuces planted included greenleaf Black Seeded Simpson, red butterhead Skyphos, green butterhead Dancine, red Grand Rapids type Vulcan, green butterhead Victoria, red loose leaf New Red Fire, and iceberg Summertime.  I also planted broccolis Belstar, Packman, and Apollo, pac choi Win-Win, and oriental green Tah Tsai.
I also weeded the asparagus bed which is still producing well, and weeded the tomato patch in the hothouse.  I pulled out a tomato that had overwintered but was not growing well, and left a volunteer Stupice tomato, a potato leaved variety in its place.  All in all a great non-procrastinating day.

Full moon, red lettuce leaves, salad for lunch

     Since tonight is the Scorpio full moon I was spurred to get the planting of my next round of lettuce seeds done.  I planted 8 six packs full of lettuce seeds (12 different varieties.)  One of the things I like about lettuce is the amazing array of colors, textures, and types of lettuce.  Today for lunch we had a nine types of greens lunch salad including three distinct types of lettuce (green butterhead, green romaine, and red looseleaf).  Here is a picture of the washed greens before I assembled them into a salad. (Click to enlarge.)

I'm focusing this year partly on growing a wide variety of red leaf lettuces.  Here are photos of some of the types I've planted this year which are now growing in my garden.

Skyphos red butterhead

Yugoslavian red butterhead

Vulkan red Grand Rapids type

New Red Fire

red radicchio

Planting, tilling, and an experiment in quinoa

I did get to spend the entire afternoon gardening today.  I first rototilled several sections of the garden to prepare them for planting.  I had to put plants in the ground because they were getting a little overgrown in their seedling containers.  I planted four or five types of lettuce, other varied salad greens like tah tsai and endive, and then planted my big experiment of the year, quinoa, a grain generally grown in South America.  Here are a few pictures.

Quinoa

Concrete bed is full!

For dinner tonight, I picked a lot of asparagus, gave a bunch to a neighbor, and still had plenty to eat over a piece of toast with alfredo sauce.  We also had steamed beets and beet greens also picked today.  Yum!  I love that we have lots of lettuce and other greens as seen in the photo of the concrete bed.
Planting peas tomorrow.

Transplants, lunch, dinner

hardening off outside

I worked in the greenhouse this morning, transplanting teensy baby plants (primarily quinoa plants and mixed salad greens) that had grown too close to each other from the April 1st planting.  To do this required washing out six packs to reuse, adding potting soil, using a dibble to prick out the little plants, and then labeling them before setting them back on the heat mat in the greenhouse.  There are some plants from earlier seedings that are ready to go out into the garden.  Here is a picture of some of them. I usually put plants out of doors for a few days to harden them off when ready.

Soon to be hardened off

One other nice thing about gardening is the ability to eat the results of our work with nature.  Yesterday, I made lunch from different salad greens and dinner from the asparagus patch and from some young beets.  Yummy!  We had the beets simply sliced into rounds and steamed, the asparagus steamed in an asparagus cooker, and quinoa, all with an alfredo sauce.
Here are pictures of the produce before the meal preparation

kale, chard, beet greens, spinach, radicchio, green  lettuce, red lettuce

asparagus, beets

Transplanting into the garden

Today was the day I transplanted seeds I had started on Feb. 6th into the garden.  It has been a wild day or two of weather - cold, showery, with some small hail several times during the day.  The transplants had spent the last two days outside near the greenhouse in order to harden off, but I wish they had an easier time of it.  Several leaves were damaged by the wind and hail, but I am hoping the transplanting will help them.  Here are the pictures of the three or four types of lettuce, the 4 different kales, and the 4 different broccolis I transplanted.  Click pictures to enlarge.

Some transplants

Transplanting broccoli

Watering in with Maxsea

The transplants