- I found the first pea pod today!!! It’s a green beauty snow pea.
- Potted up four of the OSU pepper plants. Small cell to deep 4″ square. I should buy a handful of non-deep containers.
Updates – June 4, 2014
- Planted a bunch more native plants in the east flower bed. Coreopsis, Echinacea, Ceanothus, Helenium, etc. It rained some, but I worked through it.
- Justin accidentally broke the main growing stem on one of the dwarf tomatoes. It has a sucker growing, so I think it will be okay.
- Added the insect netting on the Experimental OSU pepper plant. The fabric wouldn’t fit over a 3-ring tomato cage, so Justin pieced something together with bamboo.
- Added stakes and tomato cages to the three indeterminate tomato plants – Galina’s cherry, Carbon and Pink Berkeley Tie Dye.
- One of the pepper plants has flowers. Sweet Pickle I think
- Picked 4 Green Beauty snow peas. I wish I had like… 20 a day!
Updates – June 3, 2017
- Justin got the drip irrigation set up
- Planted a bunch of native plants in the flower beds. Still have a lot to do though
- Transplanted the OSU pollinator peppers into 5 gallon grow bags
Cucumbers!
There are two baby cucumbers growing! One Little Leaf and one Boston Pickling.
Updates – June 1
- All 3 normal indeterminates have flower buds
- Golden Gypsy has flower buds
- Sweet pickle peppers have had buds for a few days
- One of the Gypsy Queen peppers has flower buds
- Planted a few more Little Leaf and Boston Cucumber pickles
- Something is eating my bean leaves I think. Saw one beetle the other day, but nothing else since
Notes to Self / Updates
Had a bad storm last night. Dwarf tomatoes held up extremely well. No damage at all I think. The Pink Berkley Tie Dye was bent over, I should have had it staked. I think it’ll do okay though. I staked it and cleaned off the leaves some. Carrot seedlings were all smashed into the soil. I stood them up, they should do okay. Broccoli and brussels sprouts were also bent over. Straightened them out, they should do okay. About half of one of my biggest cucumbers plants snapped off.
Sprouted
- Scarlet runner beans sprouted today
Planted
- Planted 26 pelleted Romance carrot seeds yesterday
- I need to plant the 4 OSE pollinator project pepper plants soon
Phenology
- Hummingbirds have been at the feeder for about a week and a half
- Peonies started blooming about 3 days ago
- Neighbor’s elderberry is still blooming
Notes to self
Random things from the past few months to remember for next year.
- Sage wouldn’t germinate in water, but a few have germinated in soil
- Potting up cucumbers (to larger containers) is a pain. Very difficult to get out of pot for some reason.
Spring is here!
I’ve been growing my vegetable seeds inside under grow lights, and everything is growing great so far. Right now I have tomatoes, lettuce, peas, peppers, brussels sprouts and broccoli started. It’s been in the 60’s recently, so I started taking them outside to start acclimating/hardening off.
- 3/24/17: 20 min; sunny; 70° F; windy
- 3/25/17: 10 min; cloudy; 55° F; windy
- 3/26/17: 45 min; cloudy; 65° F
You can tell I’ve never done this before by the way I keep ridiculous notes on things.
My Asclepias tuberosa (Butterfly Weed) seeds that I planted last week are also doing great. All of them are up and have two tiny oval leaves. I think I may have planted a few more midweek. Most of the peat pots in the top tray above are A. tuberosa.
I tried germinating some other native Ohio wildflowers that need stratification using the water/hydrogen peroxide method. Some germinated, most didn’t.
Did not germinate:
- Hibiscus laevis (Rose Mallow)
- Vernonia missurica (Missouri Ironweed)
- Eupatorium maculatum (Joe Pye Weed)
- Geranium maculatum (Wild Geranium)
Germinated:
- Silene regia (Royal Catchfly) – ALL germinated!
- Liatris pycnostachya (Prairie Blazing Star) – a whopping 1 germinated
I threw some random seeds from an Echinacea mix in, too. There were 3 or 4 from that that germinated. Pretty sure 1 was butterfly weed. So any of the above that germinated are all potted up now, along with a few more butterfly weed.
And here’s my current view because it’s pretty:
Milkweed sowing
My Asclepias tuberosa (Butterfly Weed) seeds that I germinated using the hydrogen peroxide/water method have been growing roots for three days now, so I planted them this morning. 11 had germinated, 4 did not. I filled up small peat pots with moistened Espoma organic seed starting mix, and planted one seed per pot. I bottom watered them and set them on a seed tray on top of my Agrobrite light fixture that I have garden seedlings under. I used a cheap thermometer I have for Camo (bearded dragon), and the temperature on top of the light fixture is 83.7° F. The temperature on top of the soil on the seed tray on the light is 69.5° F.
I also planted some more lettuce mix seeds from Adaptive Seeds and stuck them in the tray with the milkweed.
I cut 5 strands from my Ceropegia woodii (String of Hearts) to propagate. Each had 5 or 6 leaf sets. I removed the bottom leaf set on each, and then stuck the stems in a glass with water. This is my first time propagating Ceropegia. I put the clear plastic top of Justin’s ice cream maker over the glass since some people online said they covered theirs. Plus it keeps Roly from eating or playing with them. We’ll see how things go.
I don’t know how temperature affects succulent leaf propagating, but I stuck a tray of leaves that I pulled off plants yesterday on top of the light fixture on Camo’s tank. The leaves I put on the dining room table seem to take forever to start growing roots, so I’m interested to see if some heat will speed things up. Temperature on top of Camo’s light is 83.3%. Temperature on top of the table is 67.9%. Huge difference.
Frassypants 