Gardening and flame weeding

This was our first real farm weekend. I got to help with the flame weeder--really cool! You just point this massive blow-torch at the plants and they melt. You don't want to hold it on so long that you make them crispy, or start a fire, but you just pass slowly over the whole bed, killing weeds and seeds close to the surface. Then you can turn the vegetative material back into the soil. I did the flame weeding on part of the garden then we got them turned into beds.

We (well, Pat mostly, I was tending to dogs most of the time) turned four beds in the garden and mixed in compost and elemental sulfur. The pH test showed it was about 7.4-7.5. Good, but a little high for cabbages and peas especially. After researching some alternatives, we decided to look for zinc sulfate or iron sulfate at the store. They only had alumnimum sulfate, which the online research said would build up in the soil to toxic levels and warned to stay away from that. We went with elemental sulfur instead, which was the only other choice at the store. The elemental sulfur will break down slower in the soil, so most of it won't be available for the plants this year but it will be the future. So we dusted that on the beds and turned it in with the compost.

Pat planted by seed peas, carrots, radishes, and lettuce and cabbage plants. We put row cover over the lettuce and cabbage bed, and placed electrical wire bent into U shapes over the plants to protect them from the weight of the row cover. The row cover is held in place by rebar (found in the field, put there 30 years ago by my dad! Re-use!) and some old bricks. We used row cover for the first time last year and it did great. Really kept the bugs down and allowed the plants to grow to a robust size before we had to take it off for pollination.

I mostly played with the pooches to keep them occupied, tired, and so they wouldn't take themselves off somewhere. They had a ball! So did we :)

Lovely weather for March

60's, 70's in March?  This weekend, it was.  Just beautiful.  Got some much needed fresh air and vitamin D.  Planted some ferns, caladiums and bleeding hearts up behind the house in the shade garden...Played with the pooches in the yard...Pat planted some more vegetables--some seeds we saved from last year--tomatoes, cucumbers, melons, etc.  Everything gets doused with water mixed with fish emulsion this year.  Works great--like crack for plants!  My herbs are still pushing their way up.  I've got basil up and a few chamomile and maybe some lavendar.  I need to move one chamomile into a bigger pot or else it will get leggy.  Right now, just enjoying the weather and some relaxation... :)

*Sigh*

Sure would be nice to know if anyone out there has read this blog....

Flame Weeder

Our new flame weeder just showed up in the mail today.  This is what it looks like (photo of Johnny's Selected Seeds flame weeder, where we got it).  Pat has outfitted it with a backpack, so he can carry around a 10 lb tank.  It is really cool and looks kind of like a backpack sprayer only it is a propane tank on the back and the wand will be shooting flame not spray.  We will use this to keep weeds down this year since mile-a-minute and other weeds were ferocious last year.  Supposedly you can get the setting so that it bursts the cell walls of the weeds, when they are first emerging and before the garden plants come on.  Or you can use it between the rows of plants to spot-treat.  I have a feeling my dad is going to want to use this on my mom's flower beds!

Seed starting

Today I started my herbs.  I planted Genovese Basil-10, Thai basil-4, Fernleaf Dill-12, Parsley-12, St. John's-wort-12, Fennel-24, Chamomile-36, Thyme-5, Lavender-4, and Lemon Balm-4.  Last year I scattered the seeds on the seed tray and came up with WAY more than I needed.  I'm trying to keep it under control this year.  I planted them in the cell-tray and labelled each column A-X and each row 1-12. (pictured above, herb cell-tray; tray under lights)

Pat already started spinach, pak choi, lettuce, napa cabbage, red express cabbage, and kohlrabi.  He started them around 2/25/10.  By 2/2/10 we already started seeing germination and he took the trays off of the heating pads.  Spinach still had not all germinated yet, so we left them on the heating pads.  (in pic--kohlrabi & pak choi)

This year we have a big seed-starting cart.  It is on casters, so it is easily moved, and it has four shelves, each of which holds 4 trays.  Each tray holds 72 plugs or 288 small cells.  That is quite a lot of room!  Each row has 2 fluorescent light bulbs, and two of the rows have heating pads too.  We got germination so much quicker this year than last year.  Last year we had an ingenious but inconveninet system made up of foam-core boards routed out in zig-zag patterns, fitted with plastic tubing with warm water flowing from the hot-water heater, covered with asphault shingles and tin-foil!  All topped with shop-lights that were hung by chains of zip-ties.  It was pretty crazy!  It worked, but not exceedingly well.  Add to that the home-made pots (made out of newspaper and formed into pot shapes) and the home-made seed trays (made out of scrap lumber and sealed with trash bag liners).  This is a much more elegant system.  (pictured in our office)

Just for fun, this is a pic of our new puppy Duke.