2011-2012 Garlic Planting Map

Row 3 (140')
- Brown Vesper (4')
- Colorado Black (4')
- Duganskij (4')
- German Brown (4')
- Estonian Red (4')

- Iowa (4')
- Israeli (4')
- Korean Hot (4')
- Korean Rocambole (4')
- L. K. Mann's C751 (4')

- Ontario Giant (4')
- Pride of Maine (4')
- Rosewood (4')
- Russian Giant (4')
- Uzbek Turban (4')

- Wild Rocambole (4')
- Wisconsin German Red (4')
- Xian Turban (4')
- Achatami (4')
- China Stripe (4')

- Chrysalis Rose (4')
- Davido (4')
- Dubna Standard (4')
- GSF #79 (4')
- Himalayan (4')

- Hungarian Purple Stripe (4')
- Jurjevich (4')
- Pi 493097 (4')
- Poodles (4')
- Red Toch (4')

- Webber Creek (4')
- Western Rose (4')
- Zemo (3')
- Chesnok Red (5')
- Romanian Red (4')

Row 4 (140')
- Susanville (5')

- IB A1 (3')
- IB A27 (3')
- IB C34 (3')
- Khabar (4')
- Riesig (4')
- Ukranian (4')
- Zemo (4')

- China Stripe (5')
- Chinese Purple (5')
- Dushanbe (5')
- Elmer's Topset (5')
- Japanese (5')
- Lotus (5')
- Red Janice (5')
- Shantung Purple (5')

- Ajo Rojo (5')
- Bright (5')
- Bogatyr (5')
- Chet's Italian Red (5')

- Continental (5')
- German Red (5')
- Georgian Crystal (5')
- Georgian Fire (5')
- Ididared (5')

- Inchellium Red (5')
- Kettle River Giant (5')
- Killarney Red (5')
- Marino (5')
- Martin's Heirloom (5')

Row 5 (100')
- Marjean (5')
- Metechi (5')
- Music (5')
- Northe #3 (5')
- Pennsylvania Dutch (5')

- Persian Star (5')
- Pskem River (5')
- Phillips (5')
- Russian Giant (5')
- Russian Red (5')

- Siberian (5')
- Spanish Roja (5')
- Silver White (5')
- Temptress (5')
- Tzan (10')

- Udabmo (5')
- White Russian (5')
- Continental (5')
- (shallots) (5')

2 nice weekends in a row!

If this keeps up, it's going to be a very productive summer, even if it did get a late start.

I finished cleaning out the bean row (#5) yesterday, did the next row (#4) today and hope to do another (#3) on Tuesday.

Peas came up Friday, Favas started poking through today. I put up the pea trellis and realized it was longer than I thought so I planted a few more. It might be too late but we'll see.

Things are heating up!

I think the heat has something to do with the 18 fluorescent bulbs that are now on in my living room.

I transplanted the last of the tomatoes into bigger pots today. There was an RL Grandpa Willie's but other than that there were no surprises. These were mostly spud leaf types and all from Dean Slater in Michigan.

The Genovese basil and Winter Density lettuce - both from HMS - that I planted a few days ago are sprouting. All the basil looks to be sprouting. I'm hoping half of the lettuce is just behind.

The bigger lettuce got kicked off the island (or planting rack) today to make room for squash! I'm putting it into 5 50 packs and 3 trays with 78 cells in them. The 5 trays are done tonight. Here's the breakdown:

50x Bush Buttercup
50x Baby Blue Hubbard
25x Sweet Meat Squash
25x Winter Luxury Pumpkin
10x Amish Pie Pumpkin
10x Long Island Cheese
10x Green Striped Cushaw
10x Marianna di Chioggia
10x Boston Marrow
10x Pink Banana
10x Guatemalan Blue
10x New England Pie Pumpkins
10x Sugar Pie Pumpkins
10x Strawberry Crown

Hopefully the rest will get done tomorrow!

Spring Updates

Tomatoes are all transplanted except the last round of 28 plants - mostly spud leaf varieties. Those will get transplanted into 4.5 in pots this weekend. They're probably staying at home as my half-shelf at Stillmeadow gardens is already more than full. They continue to help me out with the garden in any way they can. They're pretty great!

Peppers are still looking good. Most of them are still in the 2" cells which might be a little crowded by planting time but they're just going to have to deal. I don't have room to transplant them. Next year I'm thinking about putting them in 18 cell deep trays instead to give them a little more room. I put some into 4 inch pots this year just to see how much of a difference it makes.

Garlic is coming up and looking good. Some of it got frozen tips when it first came up from a couple of 15ish degree nights. I also removed some straw where it was more than 6 or 8 inches thick (matted down). I got a little overzealous adding the straw last fall. This photo is what it looked like after the last freeze. It's greener now!



Lettuce - I planted some Red Salad Bowl lettuce from Harts in a 26 cell tray on April 14 and transplanted it into a 50 cell tray today. There were more than 50 plants but I saved the biggest and fed the rest to some guinea pigs. I started a new 26 cell tray with Winter Density from HMS today. Here's the transplanted Red Salad Bowl.



To the right of it is some cabbage in 26 cell trays. These trays are pretty great. They have 2 rows of 13 cells and 3 of them fit into a standard tray perfectly. Jolly farmer sends out plugs in them and I got them from Bruce and Betty at Stillmeadow.

Cabbage-wise I have 8 26 cell trays planted. Ther are two each of Farao F1 (HMS), Red Express (HMS), Michihli Chinese cabbage (Harts) and Savoy Perfection (HMS).

Peas and Favas - There's 15 or so feet of Sugar Snap Peas (HMS) planted in the ground in Craftsbury as of Easter Sunday (April 24). There are also a dozen or so Bergeron fava beans from Leigh Hurley. This is the bed they are in but I took it before I planted.



I have a new plant rack. It's 5' wide, 2' deep and 3 levels tall. It'll hold 12 standard trays under 3 sets of lights or 15 trays if I overflow a bit. They're made from a bunch of 1x4s that I nailed and screwed together on Thursday. I'm just waiting for 2 more shop lights to come in and it'll be done.



The curtain on here is to keep us from going blind. 8 bulbs that high in the air is a bit much!

Updates starts pics and transplanting

Something close to this was originally posted at TTG but I decided to use it as a blog post too.

These are the varieties I planted a lot of - pics taken last Saturday:

Commercial varieties

As you can see they were getting a little crowded. I decided to remedy that. These are the biggest bestest plants that I saved for myself - 5 each of 12 varieties:



These are the rest which will get sold in a greenhouse in a few weeks:



I put about 60 runty ones plus the Tamina's that came from the heat mat in 6 packs to give them a chance. We'll see how they do.

These are plants that came seeds I got from from either Dean Slater or Tatiana Kouchnareva. The Kozula stuff is from a breeder in Poland and are likely not stable lines. I planted far less of each kind since they're just for me:

The good stuff

Some of those need to get transplanted this week - especially the Darth Maters which keep trying to beat up the other plants.

This just in..

Into pots full of Pro-mix that is.

54. Berkeley Tie Dye Heart
55. Berkeley Tie Dye Pink
56. Flathead Monster
57. Grandpa Charlie's
58. Grandpa Willy's
59. Spuda Yellow Strawberry
60. Spudatula

Maters maters maters

I ended up planting pot number 41 with Tamina and putting them on a heat mat with the peppers to see how it would do. It germinated in the same number of days as the ones not on a heat mat and the seedlings were week and stringy. From now on I'm not going to worry about not using a heat mat for tomatoes!

These were planted on 3/22:
42. Marglobe
43. Marglobe
44. Il Patano Romanesco
45. Il Patano Romanesco
46. Cuore Di Bue
47. Cuore Di Bue
48. Kellogg's Breakfast
49. Chocolate Cherry

These were planted just now:
50. Giant Paste
51. Long Tom
52. Romeo
53. Sweet Beverley

I replanted chocolate cherry, giant paste, long tom, romeo and sweet beverley because the first batches didn't germinate well. Some of the pastes didn't germinate at all. The Kellogg's Breafkast did fine the first round, I just wanted some more to sell at the greenhouse.

Pictures of all the starts (taken 3/21 or 3/22 .. I forget) are here:
https://picasaweb.google.com/jbosmith/MaterStartsMar222011#

More Transplants

Tonight I transplanted a final 6-pack of Yellow Stuffer tomatoes, 3 6-packs of Cueno Giallo peppers, 3 6-packs of Black Beauty Eggplant, 2 6-packs of Alma Paprika peppers, 3 6-packs of King of the North peppers and added 8 Alma paprika, 5 Letchi Tomatoes and 5 Black Beauty eggplants to the empty space in a 50-pack.

I'm impressed that 5/7 of the Letchi tomato seeds sprouted since they got completely dry. The peppers that survived their cooking episode are also really strong with nice big root systems. The only total loss pepper wise seems to be Fuego F1 and they were also completely dried out at one point. Plants are amazing.

Tomato Variety List

1. Chocolate Cherry
2. Principe Borghese
3. Costoluto Genovese
4. Kellogs Breakfast
5. Black Cherry
6. Maskota
7. Vilma
8. Venus
9. Sungold F1
10. Tamina

11. Anmore Dewdrop
12. Anmore Treasures
13. Big Sungold Select
14. Bursztyn
15. Carrot-Like
16. Grushka
17. Hahms Gelbe Topftomate
18. KBX
19. Kootenai
20. Lescana

21. Micro Tom
22. Minibel
23. Morkovnyi
24. Polyarnye
25. Promyk
26. Stupice
27. Sub-Arctic Plenty
28. Whippersnapper
29. Cow Tit
30. Darth Mater

31. Giant Paste
32. Long Tom
33. Romeo
34. Sweet Beverley
35. Ozarna Zebra F4 #125 Kozula
36. Zielony Green #132 Kozula
37. Malinowe Zebra #137 Kozula
38. Black Cherry
39. Green Zebra
40. Yellow Brandywine

Yes, I know Black Cherry is in there twice - one pot full is for Bruce & Betty at Stillmeadow.

Tomatoes Take 1

I'm ignoring the Yellow Stuffers and pretending that these are the first tomatoes I planted this year. ;-)

I did one tray - 10 4" round pots. I sprinkled a bunch of seeds in to a pot, sprinkle dirt over the soil and press it down. Each pot is numbered as is the tray and there's a tag buried in each as well. There'll be no confusion this year - I hope!

#1 came from Boondockers. The rest were all commercial seed packets from the America the Beautiful fund.

Tray 1
1. Chocolate Cherry (Boondockers)
2. Principe Borghese (T&M Taste of Italy)
3. Constoluta Genovese (T&M Taste of Italy)
4. Kelloggs Breakfast (Baker Creek)
5. Black Cherry (Thompson & Morgan)
6. Maskota (Thompson & Morgan)
7. Vilma (Thompson & Morgan)
8. Venus (Thompson & Morgan)
9. Sungold F1 (Thompson & Morgan)
10. Tamina (Thompson & Morgan)

Follow-up to the heat mat incident

Not much more came up in that tray. Guessing everything that dried out died. I did get some eggplant, some more Alma Paprika and a few King of the North. I'm going to give what's there a few more days, transplant it all into 6 packs and take it to Craftsbury.

I took two full 50 packs of Alma Paprika, 4 6-packs of Yellow Stuffer tomatoes and 2 of Black Beauty eggplant up today.

The boxes that Jolly Farmer plants come in are awesome for transporting trays.

Yellow Stuffing "Peppers"

So, it turns out the Yellow Stuffing "peppers" I planted the other day are actually a tomato. The packet says so, I just didn't notice it because of the large pepper-like image on the front! At least this explains why they're growing so fast...

A few days ago I left the humidity domes off the 20 row trays and cooked them dry on the heat mat. I'm guessing I may have killed a lot of the seeds since they haven't come up, but I transplanted the tomatoes out of the tray and turned the heat back on today in hopes that some will show up.

Updates

First batch of Alma Paprikas are doing well in their new 50 packs. Yellow Stuffers are up, Some of the Black Beauty eggplants are up. A handful of Letchi tomatoes are up. The rest is spotty.

I think my 2 tray heat mat is better used with just one tray. It really only seems to heat the edges which means I end up with tall leggy seedlings there before the centers are even out of the soil.

I let the soil dry out too much the other day. I left the domes off while the trays were on the heat mat. Hopefully it doesn't end up killing too many.

Transplanted Peppers

I have 132 Alma Paprika peppers in 50 cell trays now. There are 2 or 3 runts (that never shed their seed case on their own) and a couple that were still seed-bound which got tossed in the compost. There was one more healthy one but I broke the top off. Oops.

Two of the okra seeds are up. Maybe they didn't need to be on the heat mat? They're like an inch tall and big around like a sunflower!

There's also one rather stringy plant where the Yellow Stuffer peppers are. Not sure if it's a pepper or a weed.

More planting

The first tray of Alma Paprika peppers is still doing well. A lot of the plants are sprouting true leaves and I'm going to transplant them later this week. I need to get more potting soil first.

Last night and today I planted 2 more trays of veggies. I accidently planted ~130 more Alma Paprika peppers (the rest of the packet) because the packet looked the same as the one that King of the North came in and I wasn't paying attention. Oops! Oh well, it'll be nice to see how the plants compare.

Here's what got planted. The numbers represent the number of rows planted to each variety.

Tray 1
13x Alma Paprika pepper
1x Letchi Tomato garden cherry
6x Black Beauty eggplant

Tray 2
11x King of the North pepper
1x Red Burgundy Okra
2x Stevia
2x Fuego F1 pepper
3x Cueno Giallo pepper
2x Yellow Stuffer pepper

Peppers are sprouting!

The first pepper sprouts started showing up yesterday. Some of them poked themselves out of the soil and had to be replanted. Their fuzzy roots were cute! I think this happened because I just kind of sprinkled them into the rows and covered them with dirt this year instead of planting them one at a time. It saved a lot of time but some of them were probably just below the surface.

Today, everyone seems to be going in the same direction.

And so it begins

I planted part of a starter tray with Alma Paprika seeds from Seed Savers tonight. It's now sitting on a heat mat with a humidity dome over it. I didn't count but I'm guessing somewhere around 100 seeds. I'm currently planning on planting about 50 plants and the rest will be for sale at Stillmeadow Gardens.

I'm planting these 15 days earlier than I did last year. I really liked these peppers but they had trouble ripening for me. They stayed at the yellow stage for what seemed like several weeks. Hopefully I'll get enough ripe ones to save seed this year!

I switched to using 20 row trays this year. They're a lot easier than the 288 cell trays I used last year! It was nice to just sprinkle some seeds into the rows instead of painstakingly putting them into one cell at a time. The main reason I switched was that I think they'll stay more consistently moist this way.