jjannie's 2020 gardening

[jjannie]

With all the 'extra' time at home this spring we've gotten a good start on our gardening.
The greenhouse is a 'new' feature for us this year, so we're learning when to plant as we didn't want to heat it around the clock. Lately we've only had to run the small heater for couple hours overnight to keep no lower than 40*, so that's not too bad. so we did get some plants out there. We've also sarted some seeds but they haven't even sprouted yet. We built a potting bench using a fillet table that has a built in sink for countertop that is working out nicely. We have 4 auto-opening air vents in the roof - but with the sun on greenhouse we've already been over 120* so we made this opening we can set across in the doorway to keep the community cats from using our beds to do their business - it works - it also gives added ventilation so we aren't getting hotter than about 80*. 
We've been doing straw bale gardening for several years now - today was day 8 of the 11 days it takes to condition them (which means they start breaking down inside creating heat and compost inside) and they measured 145*-150* inside of them so they're already 'cooking' nicely so we suspect they'll be ready for planting very soon although we'll still need to protect any greenery from frost as the 10-day forecast does have low 40s - high 30s in it and we are always few degrees colder than they predict  - but having the warmth underneath a cover creates a nice greehouse effect that the plants love - then we can vent the frost covers during day so they won't burn.  
We enjoy starting our own plants from seeds when we can - this year we're using gro lights and its really given us stronger, healthier starts than we've gotten in years past. 

[wiperhunter2]

Wow Jil, that really looks nice and that grow light is working out great. Do you have to have the light on 24 hours a day, for it to work properly?

[jjannie]

We set the light up on timer to run 18 hours a day. Here are our updated pics taken 5 June. You'll see how things have progressed throughout all our garden areas ( we have some garden areas that are in the ground in two different locations, in straw bales, fire ring planters, raised boxes, even some in large pots and the greenhouse where everything is grown in raised beds).

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Limit of 10 pics per post so here's more from 5 June
[url=https://ibb.co/jWcMRsj]

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This is more 5 June from the ground-back area. We put the tomatoes in pots that are set on top of landscape fabric this year trying to avoid the neighboring pines' roots that have taken over much of these growing boxes. We'll see how this works. Just about everything is fenced off from the deer.

[wiperhunter2]

Wow, looks great, especially the stuff in the GH.

[fishskibum]

color me jelly and forgive me for coveting your goods
 that's a real nice greenhouse
and im gonna try some straw bail stuffs next season
Weve been on our spread 8 years now and its an everloving, evergrowing labor of luvs
and were always experimenting improving, failing and harvesting
The old man (my grandfather) installed a passion for for piscatorial pursuits and the gyo, shape your grounds and tend to them ethic
and these are the things that keep me grounded and happy
thanks for the link here ill try and start a thread share our work
but I need to get after my
#buildthewall

project

[MrsJ]

Your greenhouse looks wonderful.  I'm jealous, I've always wanted one, but thought it would be a lot of work to keep up with air circulation and temperature regulation.  So, I just have a large garden where I fight the weeds, birds and bugs.  It's great therapy for me to get outside and work in any garden, flowers, or vegies.  I live in Payson, Utah, where the temperatures are somewhat warmer than Idaho.

[jjannie]

color me jelly and forgive me for coveting your goods
 that's a real nice greenhouse
and im gonna try some straw bail stuffs next season
Weve been on our spread 8 years now and its an everloving, evergrowing labor of luvs
and were always experimenting improving, failing and harvesting
The old man (my grandfather) installed a passion for for piscatorial pursuits and the gyo, shape your grounds and tend to them ethic
and these are the things that keep me grounded and happy
thanks for the link here ill try and start a thread share our work
but I need to get after my
#buildthewall

project

Looks like your making nice progress. We have lot rock walls and back yard pond is framed with them. Some of our larger rocks are over 7ft - luckily they were placed by machinery. 

Is that rhubarb I see in foreground? What did you plant in front of rock wall where the drip line is running?

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Your greenhouse looks wonderful.  I'm jealous, I've always wanted one, but thought it would be a lot of work to keep up with air circulation and temperature regulation.  So, I just have a large garden where I fight the weeds, birds and bugs.  It's great therapy for me to get outside and work in any garden, flowers, or vegies.  I live in Payson, Utah, where the temperatures are somewhat warmer than Idaho.

 We've pretty much changed over to almost all raised beds of some sort - easier on our knees and backs. Our greenhouse is only 10X12 Harbor freight one. After watching a lot of videos on them, we've added a lot of structural support inside it, put 4 auto window openers on the roof, we have a Wi-Fi outlet that will operate based on temperatures for cooling or for heating. So far, we're only heating enough to keep things from freezing. Once it has safely warmed up we keep our sliding doors opened.  We had to place some deer fencing we framed up in the open doorway to keep the cats out (didn't want them sunning themselves on our young seedlings or using our nicer dirt as a litter box). We just lift it little and slide it out of the way to enter, so it works pretty well.  So far that has been enough air flow to not overheat the plants but once our temps get closer to 100 we may need to plug in an oscillating fan to cooling side of the outlet, it won't really cool it, but it may help blow the hotter air out faster. Also moving air helps increase pollination. 

That's a nice cart of produce in that picture - please tell me that was from last fall.  We love where we live, even though it isn't the easiest for back yard gardening, we make do but we don't thrive doing it, but we just keep trying.  Its almost for a challenge more than anything else.

[wiperhunter2]

Hey Jil, it's coming up on a month since you last posted some pics of your GH plants, do you have any new pics you could share? I bet it's really been growing good.

[MrsJ]

color me jelly and forgive me for coveting your goods
 that's a real nice greenhouse
and im gonna try some straw bail stuffs next season
Weve been on our spread 8 years now and its an everloving, evergrowing labor of luvs
and were always experimenting improving, failing and harvesting
The old man (my grandfather) installed a passion for for piscatorial pursuits and the gyo, shape your grounds and tend to them ethic
and these are the things that keep me grounded and happy
thanks for the link here ill try and start a thread share our work
but I need to get after my
#buildthewall

project

Looks like your making nice progress. We have lot rock walls and back yard pond is framed with them. Some of our larger rocks are over 7ft - luckily they were placed by machinery. 

Is that rhubarb I see in foreground? What did you plant in front of rock wall where the drip line is running?

---

Your greenhouse looks wonderful.  I'm jealous, I've always wanted one, but thought it would be a lot of work to keep up with air circulation and temperature regulation.  So, I just have a large garden where I fight the weeds, birds and bugs.  It's great therapy for me to get outside and work in any garden, flowers, or vegies.  I live in Payson, Utah, where the temperatures are somewhat warmer than Idaho.

 We've pretty much changed over to almost all raised beds of some sort - easier on our knees and backs. Our greenhouse is only 10X12 Harbor freight one. After watching a lot of videos on them, we've added a lot of structural support inside it, put 4 auto window openers on the roof, we have a Wi-Fi outlet that will operate based on temperatures for cooling or for heating. So far, we're only heating enough to keep things from freezing. Once it has safely warmed up we keep our sliding doors opened.  We had to place some deer fencing we framed up in the open doorway to keep the cats out (didn't want them sunning themselves on our young seedlings or using our nicer dirt as a litter box). We just lift it little and slide it out of the way to enter, so it works pretty well.  So far that has been enough air flow to not overheat the plants but once our temps get closer to 100 we may need to plug in an oscillating fan to cooling side of the outlet, it won't really cool it, but it may help blow the hotter air out faster. Also moving air helps increase pollination. 

That's a nice cart of produce in that picture - please tell me that was from last fall.  We love where we live, even though it isn't the easiest for back yard gardening, we make do but we don't thrive doing it, but we just keep trying.  Its almost for a challenge more than anything else.

This picture was taken the first year I had my garden here in Payson fall of 2002.  Before my hair turned white.  I still garden in the same place, but I do rotate where I plant my different vegies.  I usually have a good crop to harvest each year.

[jjannie]

Hey Jil, it's coming up on a month since you last posted some pics of your GH plants, do you have any new pics you could share? I bet it's really been growing good.

 I'll try to get some more today. It is growling well. We each ate a first ripe cherry tomato today during our walk-around checking on all that's growing. Seems many of the cukes that we saw early probably never got pollinated, or at least not well enough as they wither and eventually fall off. So we've plugged in oscillating fan to cooling side of that outlet so to put light breeze moving some air around a bit in there to assist the pollination of the cukes, and I am sure the tomatoes won't mind it as well.

[wiperhunter2]

Hey Jil, it's coming up on a month since you last posted some pics of your GH plants, do you have any new pics you could share? I bet it's really been growing good.

 I'll try to get some more today. It is growling well. We each ate a first ripe cherry tomato today during our walk-around checking on all that's growing. Seems many of the cukes that we saw early probably never got pollinated, or at least not well enough as they wither and eventually fall off. So we've plugged in oscillating fan to cooling side of that outlet so to put light breeze moving some air around a bit in there to assist the pollination of the cukes, and I am sure the tomatoes won't mind it as well.

When we first got back from Idaho, we had several squash that had not been pollinated, now that the bees are out in force, we are not having any problems. One thing that helps, is having a lot of clover in my grass, I think it helps to bring the bees in closer to my veg plants and they will evidently move over to the Veg plants.

[jjannie]

Hey Jil, it's coming up on a month since you last posted some pics of your GH plants, do you have any new pics you could share? I bet it's really been growing good.

 I'll try to get some more today. It is growling well. We each ate a first ripe cherry tomato today during our walk-around checking on all that's growing. Seems many of the cukes that we saw early probably never got pollinated, or at least not well enough as they wither and eventually fall off. So we've plugged in oscillating fan to cooling side of that outlet so to put light breeze moving some air around a bit in there to assist the pollination of the cukes, and I am sure the tomatoes won't mind it as well.

When we first got back from Idaho, we had several squash that had not been pollinated, now that the bees are out in force, we are not having any problems. One thing that helps, is having a lot of clover in my grass, I think it helps to bring the bees in closer to my veg plants and they will evidently move over to the Veg plants.

 I bet that would help - hopefully our fan will help things out. Here's our GH pics I took yesterday. We harvested 4 red cherry tomatoes - they were so yummy, we even pulled a carrot so we could see how they were doing - it was about 4 inches long, very sweet and tasty - looking forward to harvesting them later this season. 

[wiperhunter2]

Wow, that really looks great. I haven't tried any of our carrots but it sounds like yours are doing good. Can't say I've ever heard of pollinating plants by using fans but I guess it's possible, hope it works out for you. With our GH in Idaho we just open the doors during the day and the bees come in and do their thing.

[jjannie]

Wow, that really looks great. I haven't tried any of our carrots but it sounds like yours are doing good. Can't say I've ever heard of pollinating plants by using fans but I guess it's possible, hope it works out for you. With our GH in Idaho we just open the doors during the day and the bees come in and do their thing.

 your GH is way bigger than ours does it also have doors on both ends?  Our air feels very still in ours so we're hoping the fan will help. It sure makes it more comfy to be in there if nothing else. Forgot to mention we harvested all our first peas/pods as they were not flowering anymore the other day, and we've reseeded them for second crop. We just might get 3 crops this year since we can roll them into the garage if its going to hard frost. We also harvested the GH radishes so we'll be planting another batch of them.

[wiperhunter2]

Wow, that really looks great. I haven't tried any of our carrots but it sounds like yours are doing good. Can't say I've ever heard of pollinating plants by using fans but I guess it's possible, hope it works out for you. With our GH in Idaho we just open the doors during the day and the bees come in and do their thing.

 your GH is way bigger than ours does it also have doors on both ends?  Our air feels very still in ours so we're hoping the fan will help. It sure makes it more comfy to be in there if nothing else. Forgot to mention we harvested all our first peas/pods as they were not flowering anymore the other day, and we've reseeded them for second crop. We just might get 3 crops this year since we can roll them into the garage if its going to hard frost. We also harvested the GH radishes so we'll be planting another batch of them.

Yes, the Idaho GH has doors on both ends. Because the bees got such a slow start on pollinating the veg there in Idaho, the kids are thinking about starting there own bee hives next year. I'm not sure how that will work out but it sounds like a plan, guess we will have to wait a see. Wow, that is pretty crazy you are already starting another crop of pods, are they the same as snow pea pods, I posted pics of earlier in the week?

[jjannie]

Wow, that really looks great. I haven't tried any of our carrots but it sounds like yours are doing good. Can't say I've ever heard of pollinating plants by using fans but I guess it's possible, hope it works out for you. With our GH in Idaho we just open the doors during the day and the bees come in and do their thing.

 your GH is way bigger than ours does it also have doors on both ends?  Our air feels very still in ours so we're hoping the fan will help. It sure makes it more comfy to be in there if nothing else. Forgot to mention we harvested all our first peas/pods as they were not flowering anymore the other day, and we've reseeded them for second crop. We just might get 3 crops this year since we can roll them into the garage if its going to hard frost. We also harvested the GH radishes so we'll be planting another batch of them.

Yes, the Idaho GH has doors on both ends. Because the bees got such a slow start on pollinating the veg there in Idaho, the kids are thinking about starting there own bee hives next year. I'm not sure how that will work out but it sounds like a plan, guess we will have to wait a see. Wow, that is pretty crazy you are already starting another crop of pods, are they the same as snow pea pods, I posted pics of earlier in the week?

yes they are either snow peas or sugar snap peas, just can't remember which. We did start them really early riling them in and out. Look what we picked yesterday. Jeff wanted me to see all finger sized cukes that have set so while looking I found this one he hadn't seen - we were both shocked. It was likely our first one we saw a few weeks ago that we feared had maybe dropped off, LOL It was a very pleasant surprise that's for sure. Between the bales and GH we're going to have a LOT of them. Making a cuke, onion and tomato salad today.

[wiperhunter2]

That sounds good. What kind of cuke is that? I think the difference between snow peas and sugar snap peas is that the snow pea pods are flat and the snap peas pods are more round.

[jjannie]

That is one of the Armenian cucumbers. They will grow much larger of course, and start to curl a bit, but this is the size we prefer as the seeds are smaller and the taste even milder, and never need to peeled. Our peas are from Burpee and called Snowbird, and heirloom seed and say only 58 days to harvest.

[wiperhunter2]

I thought it might be, because of the color but was thinking they all curled, I did not realize they taste different when picked smaller but that makes total sense. 58 days to harvest is really good on the snowbird pods. Since I grow my snow pea pods in the same line as my green beans(GB), once the snow peas(SP) are done, I hopefully will be getting GB's but the SP's are still going strong.

[jjannie]

yeah they typically won't start curling until they get little larger. Our second batch started sprouting yesterday. These pods stay pretty flat like yours were until they start forming peas inside. But the pods alone work nice in a stir fry and our granddaughters get kick out shelling and eating any that have larger peas in them. once we get this round harvested, we'll start another round that we'll harvest in late fall - rolling them inside if any hard freezes are forecasted.

Jeff planted one half of SP that I was growing slips in the greenhouse for fun of it. Pretty sure it will never give anything to harvest but it'd sure make a nice looking houseplant - LOL. My slips are looking pretty good, and I hope they really start growing soon, but mine are never as grandiose as yours look so we'll see what I end up with once we harvest them later this fall.