June 6th
Yeah, I'm not keeping up on this blog very well. May is gone without an entry. Now almost a week has passed in June and nothing in this blog. What's up with that. Oh, maybe because I'm busy. Yeah, that's it.
My neighbor across the street at Terra Nova got some rocks delivered but was the wrong kind of rocks. He told me I could have them so I spent a day moving them over to my property. They will be used to build up the raised beds on the north side of the property. There should be enough there to build up another layer around the raised beds.
The bucket garden has been started for this year. I'll have a few tomatoes and a few Bell peppers.
The threat of hail inspired me to bring the buckets inside the house. It brings a whole new meaning to the phrase, "kitchen garden." After a couple days the threat passed and the buckets were back outside where they liked it much better.
The potatoes are liking the new raised bed. They are close to blooming. There were planted close to the end of April soon after Good Friday.
I have started building the hügelkultur bed by laying down a layer of grass clippings.
Then come the wood. This wood comes from trimmings the power company did a couple years ago that they just left piled up. My pile has covered this portion of the bed. It's taking more wood than I thought. There are a couple more piles along the tree line that I can use but I really thought that I could build a couple more but I'm thinking one will be it. Another layer of grass clippings will cover this wood and then about a 12 inch layer of dirt. This bed will rest until next year before planting.
June 8th
Today was a good day. All the pots for the trellis and wall were planted and watered. The cucumbers were planted in the cell trays. I have about 25 cucumber seeds that sprouted. That's about half the seeds on the mat. I suppose that's fairly good germination for seeds that are several years old. I think I'll try some zucchini seeds next. They might be coming in late in the season but that's ok.
I planted the cosmos and the hollyhocks. So we will see if they survive. They should have been planted a month ago so they are so over grown and leggy that I'm not sure they will really do any thing.
June 10th
I used the caulk gun sealer to seal up the leaks in the gutters. I'm hoping that I can start using the gutters to water the plants again.
June 11th
It rained today. I'm not sure how much. I brought in the newly sprouted cucumbers. They do look good. I will let them get a little bigger before transplanting them into the bigger glasses. I started the fresh seeds from Burpee. There were 34 seeds planted. Now I'll have to start working on the pots for the cucumbers and the water tank for the watering.
June 15th
The bucket garden is thriving quite well. The tomatoes are covered with blooms and all the plants look really healthy. I just am having trouble sealing up the gutters for watering. They just continue to have leaks some where.
Sprouting old cucumber seeds. Only half of these sprouted. They sprouted in five days.
I planted the seed sprouts in seed cells and two days later they were up and growing. This is about a week after the sprouts were planted.
When they were big enough I transplanted them into 8 ounce plastic glasses with holes drilled in the bottom. The next stop will be the final home in the plastic buckets.
Filled the gutters with water but couldn't see any leaks. The tomato gutter seems to be dry every day so I'm suspecting a leak some where still. Hmmm, it might not be a leak that's causing the water to be gone out of the gutters. It might be birds taking a bath in the gutters splashing the water out.
