Updating after a long hiatus
Much has taken place since our last post back in the spring of 2012. My mom passed away on November 3, 2012 after a short illness. Her last two months, thankfully, were spent at home under hospice care, so my promise to keep her out of the nursing home setting was fulfilled. Her health had been declining over the summer as her 92 year old body was saying, "Enough already". She kept her humor to the very end and still recognized us on a few occasions. It was a very sad last two months, but we were all there for the final days, so I feel good about that.
After a long, cold winter, the idea of growing things began to nibble away at me as my viewing of other garden sites stimulated some thoughts and ideas for the coming season. In particular, a guy down in Virginia has been very productive in posting garden videos throughout the year, including lots of growing tips in greenhouse gardening. Now, there is no way to duplicate what he does, as the weather quite a bit different down there and his greenhouses have wood burning stoves that he maintains through the colder winter nights. His videos are posted under mhpgardener on YouTube.
I bought a second small greenhouse (6x12) and built some nice raised beds (2x12) x2 so I could grow some early produce. Instead of growing warm weather products (tomatoes and peppers), I decided to grow cool weather crops (peas, broccoli, lettuce, spinach and radishes). That has ended up being a good idea as these cool crops are growing very nicely under the greenhouse plastic. My first greenhouse ((6x8) has lost it's plastic cover (kind of disintegrated), so I bought some new 6mm greenhouse plastic that should be coming any day now and I will try and learn how to install that. I will then have 20 feet of greenhouse covering.
I also have planted potatoes (3 varieties - German butterball, Yukon gold and Pontiac Red), peas and candy onions, and broccoli outside in the main garden area. I have some more onion plants coming from Texas, so there will be quite a few onions growing this summer. The broccoli plants were started under a moveable cover in January (an idea that my Virginia gardener suggested in one of his videos) and lo and behold, the seeds came up nice and strong by early March. So I ended up with some very nice looking broccoli seedlings by the middle of April. I am hoping the transplants will take.
There will be lots of work over the next few weeks and I am hoping to document some of that with some nice photos. The gardening bug is starting to really take hold and I am very excited to get a season of good crops and continue to develop some good gardening habits.
After a long, cold winter, the idea of growing things began to nibble away at me as my viewing of other garden sites stimulated some thoughts and ideas for the coming season. In particular, a guy down in Virginia has been very productive in posting garden videos throughout the year, including lots of growing tips in greenhouse gardening. Now, there is no way to duplicate what he does, as the weather quite a bit different down there and his greenhouses have wood burning stoves that he maintains through the colder winter nights. His videos are posted under mhpgardener on YouTube.
I bought a second small greenhouse (6x12) and built some nice raised beds (2x12) x2 so I could grow some early produce. Instead of growing warm weather products (tomatoes and peppers), I decided to grow cool weather crops (peas, broccoli, lettuce, spinach and radishes). That has ended up being a good idea as these cool crops are growing very nicely under the greenhouse plastic. My first greenhouse ((6x8) has lost it's plastic cover (kind of disintegrated), so I bought some new 6mm greenhouse plastic that should be coming any day now and I will try and learn how to install that. I will then have 20 feet of greenhouse covering.
I also have planted potatoes (3 varieties - German butterball, Yukon gold and Pontiac Red), peas and candy onions, and broccoli outside in the main garden area. I have some more onion plants coming from Texas, so there will be quite a few onions growing this summer. The broccoli plants were started under a moveable cover in January (an idea that my Virginia gardener suggested in one of his videos) and lo and behold, the seeds came up nice and strong by early March. So I ended up with some very nice looking broccoli seedlings by the middle of April. I am hoping the transplants will take.
There will be lots of work over the next few weeks and I am hoping to document some of that with some nice photos. The gardening bug is starting to really take hold and I am very excited to get a season of good crops and continue to develop some good gardening habits.
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