Dreaming of Spring Gardening in the Middle of a Wisconsin winter part 2

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Hot and miserable here. Looks like hay is ready for a second cutting. Just need a few dry days to get it done.

Jim I will be curious if your lettuce germinates in this heat. I never had much luck trying to get a second crop. If yours does it will inspire me to try to plant some more. I might just do it anyways. I have a raised bed with nothing much in it as the spring lettuce didn't germinate well. I guess that's what I get for buying lettuce seed from amazon.

 

[jvls1942]

I am sticking close to the AC today.
had rain at 7 this morning.
looks like some more this afternoon.'
Lisa, I will plant the lettuce in a container and keep it in the shade. i don't think it needs direct sun. especially the hot hot sun.
tomorrow i will go to menards and get a couple of cement/mortar mixing tubs. one for lettuce and one for baby carrots.

 

[Callender Girl]

Yesterday was like experiencing weather on an endless loop of rinse and repeat. Downpours would be followed by periods of sunny steaminess, which would be followed by downpours and more sunny steaminess, from 5 a.m. until after 9 p.m.

The ducks and geese were delighted; the rest of us, not so much.

I needed to go into Fort Dodge (which recorded just over 3 inches of rain). It wasn't raining when I went into Menards, but while I was buying cat food, the rain began pelting the metal roof so hard that I was forced to keep shopping. I found a great solar motion-detector light I had no idea that I needed!!

Same thing happened at Bomgaars and Hy-Vee -- where, while looking like something a cat wouldn't bother to drag in, I ran into someone I hadn't seen for years. I must have looked pathetic, because he initially walked past me (wee breath of relief there), then came running up minutes later and said, "I know you," as I was trying to choose a single white onion.

At least he acted as if he didn't notice the puddles that were forming at my feet from water shed off my decades-old raincoat, tattered jeans and garden clogs, an outfit chosen for function, not fashion. Of course, my sopping wet hair was plastered to my head, and any remnants of makeup had been washed off my face. Yeah, it was good catching up with Bruce -- who knew me when I was a business-suited professional, not a bedraggled chicken-keeper.

You two have me curious about planting lettuce in July. I have seeds left, so maybe I'll give it a try. My current leaf lettuce crop is doing great! Wish I could say the same about my peppers, which should have been thrilled with all the recent heat. My Anaheims are producing, but the sweet peppers don't even have blossoms.

IF the predicted sunshine comes through today, I think the first of the Supersweet 100 cherry tomatoes will be ready to pick.

 

[jvls1942]

it probably took Bruce that long to remember you.
Annie bought 2 tubs/. I haven't been outside to see what she got.
Barb, if you plant lettuce, put it in the shade.
keep it as cool as you can.
I have to go steal some dirt from DD Barby 's stock pile. one of these days it will run out.
I put tomatotone on the tomatoes and watered all the plants. just before it rained, hard.
this alternating rain and sun should germinate the corn seed quickly.
if it grows, it should be ready by the middle of Sept, . if we don't get a hard frost, that should be OK.

 

[jvls1942]

i stole six buckets of black dirt from Barby.
might have to get some more. will make a layer of rotted wood chips in the bottom of the tub, then i will need less dirt.
59F this morning. i hope it stays cloudy for a while
i have the bathroom fan on, sucking cool air through the kitchen window.

 

[Callender Girl]

Congrats on your larceny!

It's 63 here, and I am pulling air in from a box fan in a living room window.

 

[jvls1942]

64 F and looking like it might rain.
yesterday i got the carrots planted. i made a "salt shaker" out of a plastic container. put about 1 1/2 cups of corn meal in it and mixed in the whole pkt of carrot seed. it worked like a charm.
bro Dave came to visit , so I didn't get the lettuce planted.
the cat caught red squirrel no.3, that we know of.
he is using the litter box up in the garage,. he could just as easily go outside , I would think .
thinking of taking one of the rain barrels and making it portable so I can haul water to the corn if I need to.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I usually grow peas for the parrot, but apparently tonight we are eating a few as well. I better get shucking, be about a half cup when I'm done.

 

[jvls1942]

I was locked out of the computer until just now.
Kalib woke up to go to work and fixed it for me.
I got the lettuce planted this morning. went to the wood chip pile with Ollie to see if I could scrape up some well rotted chips. I scooped a bucketful up and dumped it on top of the pile. took a light push and carried the load to the garage, where I was working. the little scoop ended up to be 3/4 of the bucket full. it was beautiful , soft and black. no chunks in it at all. all i needed was one 5 gal pailful
i filled an extra pail and hauled the dirt back to the chip pile.
I won't have to steal from Barby any more. there is about 2o cu yds of the chip pile. all I will ever need.
we do not shuck our peas. Annie boils them whole and we make a meal of them,.
Annie had to mow the grass where the hose was stretched across. so I couldn't water the lettuce.
she is done mowing, now. I am not very impressed with the shrinking hose. it is fine, as a hose, but it really doesn't shrink much. it just empties out and gets limp. i still have to pull it back to the outlet just like any other hose.

 

[Callender Girl]

My computer wouldn't play with me early this morning, but I wasn't surprised because the predicted thunderstorm was well under way. DISH TV was also knocked out. But, I could still watch a program on trumpeter swan restoration that I had DVR'ed last night.

Several years ago, Moorland Pond -- which is about three miles from me -- was part of a trumpeter swan restoration effort. I managed to get a photo of one of the DNR guys holding an unhappy swan with an outstretched wing. Their wing span is about 8 feet, and the DNR guy was doing his best not to take a wing to the face.

The swans don't seem to return now, but for several years, they were raising cygnets on the pond.

Jim, your wood chip pile sounds great. I, inspired by visiting Charles Dowding's Homeacres, am planning to finally create a proper composting system this year.

I wondered how well one of those shrinking hoses would work. Guess I'll save my pennies on that one.

Of course, I won't need to do any watering this week. Storms are in the forecast for the next three days.