What did you do in the garden today?

[Sueby]

Morning. I haven't seen any veggies out at the stores yet, probably this weekend will start the madness. But as for the couple plants I've picked up, I've been happy.

I forget who asked, but for up potting starts I use 2 parts potting soil to 1 part garden dirt.
I forgot to confess I bought some dahlia bulbs yesterday too.

Got the lavender planted this am, need to water it & the new flowers. My little bush squash starts have teeny tiny little squash on them. Hoping to get them in the straw bale tomorrow. The peppers in the tunnel are doing pretty good, I might plant the rest of them out there.

 

[jerryse]

I start my own cells, but I did notice not many places carry the small cells anymore, just the larger and giant rounds from BonnyBell.

Menards carries cells as well as our local grocery and ACE hardware. Boy did they look terrible. I don't think they brought them in from the frost. I found out it's a commission sale. The plant vendor doesn't get paid unless the plants sell, but rely on store owners to protect, water, and cover the plants. HA!

HomeDepot told me that when BBell comes in once a week to stock, they pull plant that have been there over two and compost them so that all the best and newest plants show off and get sold. They make their money selling early and reselling when things people buy die, either in the ground, or waiting to get in the ground. I swear they start selling extra early here for just that reason. Last frost here is May 22nd, and the plant sales started in earnest over a month ago.

I have plenty if you want some, let me know and I'll pop them in the post.

Thank you but I will see if these sprout . Packet is from seeds and such but I do not see a year .

 

[WthrLady]

Just give a shout.

 

[jerryse]

Got my spraying done before the strong winds started . Here is a pic of a hack this old man uses on a tank sprayer . Too much pumping . So I install a tire valve . The kind that has a threaded stem . Drill a hole and install . Air it up with a compressor . The pop off protects from over filling air .

 

[WthrLady]

Just hit 90 and still climbing.
I hosed off the alpacas, but phew. Came in to cool off myself.

Almost done cleaning the workshop.
Next is hosing out broody cages and washing those 5 gallon buckets.

The pastures look awful. We need rain.

Waiting to hear back from a craigslist guy about a stock tank for the littles before I build them a new home.

 

[igorsMistress]

It's funny, I was just catching up on todays posts thinking we all have in common that every time we leave the house we come home with new plants!

I went out with a friend & ended up with 2 lavender plants & a hanging flower basket. & a solar light wind spinner garden decoration thing. & some ties for the plants. Ugh & a new shovel & a plant stand & more pots for the starts. That's it, I swear.

You’re right. I go to Home Depot or Lowe’s with hubs and then tell him I need to go to the garden center for something and I’ll meet him wherever he is. He’s usually surprised if I don’t come back with a plant or seeds.

 

[igorsMistress]

The garden is coming along. Transplanting some more things some time this week likely. I did add thyme to the herb bed, or I should say I taught DW how to transplant starts outside into the needs by walking her through it. Now I can get her to transplant 32 tomatoes and 32 peppers. Lol! I also planted the Jerusalem artichokes with DS. He loves plopping tubers into holes. We did get me diet moved where we are regarding and leveling part of the yard, but we are not done yet. The biggest problem is becoming where to put the dirt. It's mostly top soil so I can add a few more wheel barrows to the raised bed the peppers are in to make up for settling before we transplant. Other than that though, there's going to be about a cubic yard of dirt that I need to relocate or get rid of somehow.

View attachment 2635642

That looks fantastic!

 

[BReeder!]

My new plan is to build raised beds, to make it easier to weed and to control temps, and maybe get a bit longer growing season. So I built 5, but after leveling and situating one last weekend, it was taking way too long. I was sore from digging, and my back was severely protesting.
So today my awesome neighbor who has a side business tilling, came and tilled and leveled the whole garden.
I have tomorrow off work, because I lied to my employer that I was getting my first covid vaccine tomorrow, even though I actually got it yesterday. [No side effects, except for a slight headache (easily cured with 2 Tylenol) and a bit of fatigue (took a nap for two hours, then felt great, and full of energy today.)]

So my plan for tomorrow is to situate the other four raised beds I have built, fill them with the compost that's waiting in my trailer right beside the garden, and plant lettuce and spinach in the one bed that's finished.
My seedlings inside are almost ready to go into the greenhouse - hopefully all the beds will be done by the time they are ready to plant outside, at least that's the plan...

The trees from Gurney's we planted 3 or 4 weeks ago are still not budding up, while the native trees we got from our local conservation district at the same time are not only budding, but branching out. How much time should I give the Gurney's trees until I demand a refund? They still owe me two butternut trees, that they claim have shipped, but when I try to track them, it says "arrival date is unknown." Ticks me off, I won't be ordering from them again.

Nature Hills Nursery is definitely super expensive, but the few trees we bought from them are super healthy and growing like crazy.

Did you plan the gurneys trees outside? And what's your weather like? My plum trees from them looked dead for a few weeks, and then they suddenly had green leaf buds sprouting. I planted outside the two days after the arrived, keeping then most with wet paper towel and wrapped in the plastic they shipped in for that first two days.

 

[BReeder!]

That looks fantastic!

Thanks!

Here's some pics from today. I feel like crap today - touch off flu possibly from working outside in the yard in cool wet weather the past few days, not thinking it's covid - but I dragged myself out of bed eventually and got transplanted the tomatoes and waterer everything. I had to run quite and string for the tomatoes before transplanting so it took me 4-5 hours with feeling like crap. It should have take me 1 hour. DW and I also planted our small block of corn with two varieties: bodacious sweet and early sunglow sweet.
Aside from the tomatoes, the other pics are not from today's labor but just same updates on things we already planted.

32 tomatoes in neat rows and trellises with the string method.

One of our kale plants. This is the best looking one, but there are others growing too.

The half of the herb bed that has growth right now.

This onion was missed last year when harvesting and it survived the winter. I rejoiced it from last year's onion bed and put it here a few weeks ago. To my surprise, it's thriving. It's larger than the garlic plants behind it in this photo. Pretty soon it will be surrounded by 100 more onions, which we planted a few days ago.

 

[pennyJo1960]

planted black mustard seed in a cat litter box we do not use