Arbors and Seedlings

When Patrick was here recently we started to build an arbor to hold up climbing things like peas, pole beans and maybe cucumbers. We did not get as far along on the project so Marci and I finished off the construction this weekend. There were a number of changes in the plan that we had to make to get the arbor together. If you look closely there are some places that are not square but overall it looks good and will hold up the climbers that we have this year.

I also am planning to visit Florida next month and I will will try to get a cutting from a muscadine vine that had it origin at least a 100 years ago on the Bailey's homestead.


Spring is coming and in the next 2 weeks the risk of a frost is likely to pass. The seedlings seem to be growing well and the tomatoes have a second set of true leaves and it looks like I will need to put the grow lights up higher to accommodate the growth of plants. In the next few weeks the ground will be warm enough for all of these plants to go outside.

Cherry Trees

This post is about two things.
The first thing is that there are faux fruit trees blooming everywhere. The Bradford Pears have been blooming, and the Japanese Cherry trees have just in the last two days opened their flowers. There are Crab Apples and a number of other trees and bushes that once were fruit and are now only ornamental. I suppose the reason for ornamental trees is that you get the beautiful flowers but no fruit. I suppose some think that the fruit is messy and you have to nurture the fruit and eat it. Some people seem to think that this is an inconvenient thing to have to do. I would purpose that if we have fruit trees then we should have the flowers, the trees and ultimately the fruit! I hope to some day have only real fruit trees so that I can fully enjoy them. I have blueberry bushes, a fig tree, strawberries and I have attempted to have raspberries. Some day I will have a full range of fruit bushes and trees.

The next thing is an interesting thing about my faux cherry trees. My house is around 50 years old. I would guess from the size of the Japanese cherries that we used to have that they had been planted around the time the house was built. When we moved here 5 years ago the trees were in very bad shape. They had split and were rotting from the inside. I have had both cut down now. The first was broken up pretty bad when we had to put in new septic lines so we had it cut down. The second one had pretty much broken in two and fallen on the ground. However, we still have two cherry trees. The one closer to the house had a shoot that had come from the root stock and now I have a fifty foot cherry tree but no fruit. The other tree in the front of the house had sent up several suckers from the trunk and I carefully selected one and cut all the others back. I think that this one will be a pretty, low branching Japanese cherry from the size and shape so far, while the other is a wild cherry. Alas though, I still will have no cherry fruit.

Fava, Broccoli Raab more Mushrooms

It is unusually cool this spring. I don't think that we have had such cool weather since I have been gardening here in Alabama. It is a little hard to believe that our latest frost is almost always before April 1st and yet it was 35 degrees this morning. It is said to be frost free by April 15th. For the last few years I have had great starts on plants by this time of year. I am little worried that it will warm up and some of the spring cool weather crops won't have time to make.

I do have some things to show for my effort. Another big batch of mushrooms from the block and I paired them with some great broccoli raab, both cooked with a nice omelet.



I have some fava beans coming up and the sugar snaps.

Delicious Mushrooms

I harvested some of the mushrooms and within minutes we were sauteing them in butter and eating them. It was amazing -they were so firm and fresh and wonderful flavor! I will have another batch later this weekend and then it will probably be time to put the block through another cycle.

We also had some wonderful whipped sweet potatoes made with the potato leftover from the giant sweet potato I had brought up from storage, because we had only used about half for the 4 cups I needed for the sweet potato pies earlier in the week. Also, learned that the extra pie should have been stored in the refrigerator...


I have been redoing my strawberry patch. It can easily get overgrown. I dug up the crowns and divided them. I planted what I could use and had a good grocery bag full of crowns so I gave them to an urban farmer friend for her own strawberry patch.

Other things that have been going on:
Starting planting pots of squash, eggplant, cucumbers and melons.
Transplanting chard and lettuce to the garden
Planting a second crop of fava beans, lettuce and other spring crops. I will put some more sugar snap peas out this weekend.

Mushrooms, Pea Shoots and More

Today the weather is still cool but no rain today. The Suburban Farmer has several projects in progress to report on.

First the Mushroom block is doing much better this time around and it can be really amazing how quickly the mushrooms can grow. These have appeared and are almost ready to eat in just 7 days. I will have to look for a good recipe to try these in.

Secondly the tomato seedlings are progressing nicely and have 2 true leaves on most of the plants. I would like to have them be about twice this size before it will be time to go outside.

Thirdly here are some beautiful flowers. I think that these are some two tone daffodils. I thought I had planted narcissus here but those spring flowers would have already come and go by now.

Finally here are some pictures of the sugar snap peas that are all coming up and few more days we will see them climb up the trellis.

A Busy Day

Finally the weather is a little more garden friendly. Although this last week is still cold, with many inches of rain there have been a few warm days. I will catalog the progress.

1) Sugar snap peas are all now appearing and and are about an inch out of the ground all around the pea frame after 2 weeks in the dirt
2) Cabbage, spinach and lettuce appear to be successfully transplanted.
3) Lettuce, beets, fava beans are starting to come up.
4) Red potatoes are in the ground in the one area that was dry enough to work
5) Eggplant seeds, after 14 days, are emerging in the seed pots.
6) The mushroom block that only made one mushroom last time has many baby mushroom that are now coming out
7) Strawberry bed had been thinned and mulched

Over the next week I will be working later but with the extra hour of light, the new farmer and the dry weather that is forecast I think we will get greens in the ground and will start potting squash, melon and other warm weather crops that can not go into till about April 15th, which is when the last frost date will pass and the ground will be warm enough to for things to grow.

New farmer

A new farmer has come to work on the Suburban Farm. Today we pick some more of the micro greens and washed them. We really cannot work on outside since there has been a practical flood the last few days. Some places got 4-5 inches of rain and there was water standing in the yard and on the garden plots so I haven't been able to finish the tilling.

These are some photographs of tomato and pepper seedling. It has taken almost two weeks but now we are getting 2-4 true leaves on the tomato. The pepper plants took almost 10 days to come up so no true leaves yet and not a single eggplant came up from the two year old seeds so I have just received the new seeds and will start some pots in the next few days.

Seed Potatoes

I want to plant potatoes this year in the garden. In order to plant potatoes you need "seed potatoes". Now every place I look in books or on-line the recommendations are to buy certified seed potatoes. I never see any in local stores and the ones on line are expensive. I have decided that I have been following the rules and regulations very closely and that it is time to "color outside the lines". The reasons given for not going to the local grocery store is that the spuds might be infected with viruses and that potatoes are sometimes sprayed with a chemical to keep them from budding out. I decided I would try some organic spuds and just see what will happen. They look pretty healthy and of course viruses are small so I cannot see them; however they are sprouting. Today I will cut them up and let the cut sides dry out for a few days making a scab before I plant them. We will know in a few months how it goes.

Daffodils

Daffodils are beautiful and remarkably hardy. Although we cannot eat them, the wonder of the daffodil is food for the souls and pleasure to the eye. They may look delicate but they are quite hardy and although we have had very unusual snow has not damaged this year’s. I have been taking the daffodils into work and for patients and I am surprised how good they look on day 3 and 4.
It has now be several years since I planted a few bulbs. No more than 3 or 4 in a patch that now look like they may have 12-16 flowers from splitting the bulbs.

I have good news about my tomato seedlings and can report that almost all pots have produced at least one if not two seedlings. However, I have yet to see any of shoots from the peppers or eggplant pots. It has been eight days. It may take a few more days to show but also the seeds are a year old. Seeds age and the longer you keep them they will be less robust and likely to sprout. I am still hoping to get a few and I really only need a few but this is one reason to consider buying new seeds each year and saving seed each year from your own garden. If you do save seeds you should remember that if they are hybrids like F1 that you will not get the same plant. More about that later.