Showing posts with label 2013. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2013. Show all posts
Saturday, October 19, 2013
Year in Review
The year is certainly not over, but the gardening is! Here's everything I managed to pull out of the garden this year (and managed to take a picture of), Instagram-style!
Friday, April 5, 2013
Tilling the Garden, Finally!
The snow is gone, the ground is thawed, the mud is dried... finally, time to till the garden! I have been waiting for this day since... oh, about February. This year's garden is 65 feet by 100 feet, nearly double the size of last year's, and now that everything has been moved out of the way, it's time to call in the tractor!
Here's Justin, making some nice straight lines in the dirt. The edge of the garden is in shadow - it will get a little late-afternoon shade from the new barn, but not much. This photo was taken around 3:30 p.m., so even the western-most spot will get 7+ hours of sunshine.
Next day's photo of the garden... my official 2013 "before" picture. It's like a blank canvas, and I can't wait for it to be full of green! You can see where last year's garden was... those nice smooth sections in the middle of the picture. The darker portion at the right of the photo is where we dug up part of the hayfield to expand the garden. That half will get tilled again in a few weeks to take care of all the weeds that will undoubtedly spring up. So I can't touch it for now. Not really a problem: that's where the tomatoes are going, along with other veggies that don't get transplanted or sown for another 6 weeks. Besides, I still have 3000 square feet to work with for now!
Here's Justin, making some nice straight lines in the dirt. The edge of the garden is in shadow - it will get a little late-afternoon shade from the new barn, but not much. This photo was taken around 3:30 p.m., so even the western-most spot will get 7+ hours of sunshine.
Next day's photo of the garden... my official 2013 "before" picture. It's like a blank canvas, and I can't wait for it to be full of green! You can see where last year's garden was... those nice smooth sections in the middle of the picture. The darker portion at the right of the photo is where we dug up part of the hayfield to expand the garden. That half will get tilled again in a few weeks to take care of all the weeds that will undoubtedly spring up. So I can't touch it for now. Not really a problem: that's where the tomatoes are going, along with other veggies that don't get transplanted or sown for another 6 weeks. Besides, I still have 3000 square feet to work with for now!
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Transplanting Rhubarb
It's spring! Things are waking up in the garden and it's time to get moving - literally. With the clay-filled soil we have here, most plants have it tough from the start, especially when they are breaking through the winter-crusted ground to stretch their baby leaves, like this rhubarb. Looks like a green brain to me.
This really is a tough looking plant. The all-knowing internet informs me that it's ok to divide rhubarb in early spring, so I figure it will be fine to transplant it, since that's practically the same thing. It's not ideal to move it in its second year of growth, but it won't be the end of the world.
Here's the new home. The yard slopes down a little away from the fence, so I'm going to build a slightly raised bed right on top of the grass.
I've outline the bed with some brick pavers and dug holes through the grass where the rhubarb will be planted. The rest of the grass will be covered up with a few inches of topsoil, so I didn't bother removing the rest of the sod.
Starting to dig out the first root ball. Doesn't seem so bad. The roots are close to the surface, maybe this will be an easy job after all! Yeah, right...
Six inches down and the roots are as thick as carrots. That's great for the plant, not so great for the person digging it up. You can see I already chopped one of the roots in half, but rhubarb is a hardy beast and will heal up just fine.
Not much closer to pulling this thing out of the ground. I felt like a paleontologist, gently brushing the dirt away and trying not to damage anything. I was not be so careful with the subsequent plants.
Finally got it out of the ground. Time for your new home, little tentacle monster.
Once I had the four plants in place with topsoil mounded around them, I covered the surrounding area with scraps of landscape fabric to deter the grass from growing through the bed. Brick pavers hold down the edges and will form a short retaining wall to keep everything in place once I cover this with dirt.
Done for the day. It's about 8 pm by this point and the sun is long gone, so the colors in my photos don't match. Deal with it! The newly transplanted rhubarb gets a good watering; I'll finish filling the bed tomorrow.
Ta-da! One sunny afternoon and several wheelbarrows full of dirt later, the rhubarb bed is filled, soaked with water, and pronounced complete. Ok, so it just looks like an empty bed right now, but I have high hopes!
Now, I'm sure my landscaping skills need work, but hold your critiques right there: I have a bit of a disclaimer. The house and entire back yard are slated for complete demolition when a new house will be built more or less in the same place. So this is a temporary project that only needs to hold up for a few years, after which it will be time to dig up the rhubarb and move it to yet another new home.
Will I actually harvest any rhubarb this year? Good question. You are not supposed to harvest rhubarb in its first year of growth, since it needs all its leaves to gather energy to build its root system and get established in the ground. The second year - this year for me - you should be able to harvest a few stems, but that is based on the assumption that you left it in the same place as last year. I, on the other hand, have traumatized the rhubarb all over again and it needs to re-establish itself in its new home. So I should simply water the rhubarb and leave its lovely red stems alone this year. Patience and self-control are not my strong suits, however, and I can't promise I won't try to get enough for at least one pie!
April 22 update: Once the rhubarb was growing well, I spread a bale of straw over the bed to keep moisture in and protect the fragile leaves.
May 5 update: These guys have really taken off! The plant below is actually starting to flower, which means it's healthy, but I will need to cut off the flowers to coax the plant into sending up more shoots. We'll definitely have a pie or two this year.
Four plants were started from bare roots last year and did relatively well without any special care. But we need to till the garden and they are in the way, so they're being transplanted to a new spot inside the backyard fence. This should also keep the deer away - they didn't eat the plants last year, but had no problem tromping all over them to get to the other garden goodies like corn and beets.
This really is a tough looking plant. The all-knowing internet informs me that it's ok to divide rhubarb in early spring, so I figure it will be fine to transplant it, since that's practically the same thing. It's not ideal to move it in its second year of growth, but it won't be the end of the world.
Here's the new home. The yard slopes down a little away from the fence, so I'm going to build a slightly raised bed right on top of the grass.
I've outline the bed with some brick pavers and dug holes through the grass where the rhubarb will be planted. The rest of the grass will be covered up with a few inches of topsoil, so I didn't bother removing the rest of the sod.
Starting to dig out the first root ball. Doesn't seem so bad. The roots are close to the surface, maybe this will be an easy job after all! Yeah, right...
Six inches down and the roots are as thick as carrots. That's great for the plant, not so great for the person digging it up. You can see I already chopped one of the roots in half, but rhubarb is a hardy beast and will heal up just fine.
Not much closer to pulling this thing out of the ground. I felt like a paleontologist, gently brushing the dirt away and trying not to damage anything. I was not be so careful with the subsequent plants.
Finally got it out of the ground. Time for your new home, little tentacle monster.
Once I had the four plants in place with topsoil mounded around them, I covered the surrounding area with scraps of landscape fabric to deter the grass from growing through the bed. Brick pavers hold down the edges and will form a short retaining wall to keep everything in place once I cover this with dirt.
Done for the day. It's about 8 pm by this point and the sun is long gone, so the colors in my photos don't match. Deal with it! The newly transplanted rhubarb gets a good watering; I'll finish filling the bed tomorrow.
Ta-da! One sunny afternoon and several wheelbarrows full of dirt later, the rhubarb bed is filled, soaked with water, and pronounced complete. Ok, so it just looks like an empty bed right now, but I have high hopes!
Now, I'm sure my landscaping skills need work, but hold your critiques right there: I have a bit of a disclaimer. The house and entire back yard are slated for complete demolition when a new house will be built more or less in the same place. So this is a temporary project that only needs to hold up for a few years, after which it will be time to dig up the rhubarb and move it to yet another new home.
Will I actually harvest any rhubarb this year? Good question. You are not supposed to harvest rhubarb in its first year of growth, since it needs all its leaves to gather energy to build its root system and get established in the ground. The second year - this year for me - you should be able to harvest a few stems, but that is based on the assumption that you left it in the same place as last year. I, on the other hand, have traumatized the rhubarb all over again and it needs to re-establish itself in its new home. So I should simply water the rhubarb and leave its lovely red stems alone this year. Patience and self-control are not my strong suits, however, and I can't promise I won't try to get enough for at least one pie!
April 22 update: Once the rhubarb was growing well, I spread a bale of straw over the bed to keep moisture in and protect the fragile leaves.
May 5 update: These guys have really taken off! The plant below is actually starting to flower, which means it's healthy, but I will need to cut off the flowers to coax the plant into sending up more shoots. We'll definitely have a pie or two this year.
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