March 2020

March 6 - Here comes March like a lion. Yesterday the winds were strong. They were staining winds of 25 to 30 MPH and gusts up to 55 MPH. Today not so much. March is a volatile month with weather changing almost at a moment's notice.

This little crocus is trying its best to show us all the Spring is indeed here. I for one am ready for this year's garden to begin. I just might actually have a garden to enjoy this year. The last couple years have been challenging. For two years it's been a bust for gardening. I haven't really had a true garden since 2017 which was my best year. This year other than having the structure still in place, it will be like starting over. It will be a lot of work and time spent to bring up to a workable garden again. It may not all get done this year but I can hope for major accomplishments. One of the main time obstacles has been removed from my schedule so it will give me much needed time to spend at the garden. I have more plans in my head than can ever be accomplished in one life time but it's what keeps me exciting about living.

The lettuce and radish experiment was a great success. I am ready to harvest the third harvest from the lettuce and have a couple more good radishes on track to be harvested. It's a little more difficult to grow a good radish but the up side is that once it's known that the radish won't be turning out so good, it can be eaten as a microgreen so not all is lost even for a bad radish.

It's time to start sprouting some Bell Pepper seeds. Last year I sprouted the seeds and in 10 days I had plants growing. The seeds sprouted in five days and the planted sprouts were up and growing in another five days. I'm hoping for the same this year. It's a sure way of getting 100% planted germination. If the seeds are planted directly in the seed starting tray, it can take up to three weeks for them to germinate so if they don't germinate or are sporadic, then it's another three week wait to see if the next group will germinate. So the sprouting before the planting method worked great last year and this year will be the test to see if I still have the touch.

I hooked up the rain water hose to the tank a couple days ago. It's now set to collet water for the roof. February was a very dry month and it looks like March has started with dry weather. I think February had about .02 inch of moisture and so far there's been nothing in March. I'm just waiting for those Spring rains to kick in. 

Saturday March 7 

First day at Terra Nova Gardens. Not much happening there at the moment. I started building the east side of bed number 3 with the blocks that came from the flood area north of Fremont. I have a stack large enough to build one raised bed. This bed is in the formal area of the garden. It will most likely take me most of the summer to get it built. I do want the path done by the end of October. With the extra time in my schedule it just might happen on the road back to full production of Terra Nova Gardens. I have a high hope of really getting some things done this year. There's much to do and I have a head full of plans for both Terra Nova Gardens and Urban Ranch. 

This is the end of the first day's work.  The wall will continue for about 20 more feet. The top will be covered with a solid top block to finish out the side. I am hoping to be at least a section like this added to the bed every time I come to the garden. A little bit each day will get the job done soon enough. As I look around at Terra Nova Gardens I see need every where. The neglect for two years has really taken a toll on this garden. 2017 was an awesome year but now the garden just looks very sad and unhappy. I do hope nothing happens to circumvent the progress this year but one never knows what the future will bring.

It's raining today but so far it's been very little moisture. Not even enough to raise the rain water tank level. The website says .24 inches of rain which would be about 36 gallons of water.  The rain guage in the garden says no measurable moisture and the was in the big tank says no water saved.

This is the lettuce after two harvests and from the looks of it, definitely will be needing to harvest again today. The radishes are a little more finicky about growing. Maybe it just the way radishes are but not every one will turn out to be a good radish. After about a week of growth some will stand straight and stocky and some will be leggy and spindly. I've just pulled the leggy ones and thrown them in the salad for microgreens. I'd say only about a third of the radishes planted turn out to be good radishes. It takes about 20 days for a radish to grow to harvest size.

I have more kinds of radish to plant to see if one would be better than what I'm using. Right now the best I've found is Champion. The foliage stays small and the radish grow to a deceit size in about 20 days. I have some others that I want to try that are a bigger size but they might not be suited for indoor growing in PVC pipe.