April 2009 Gardening & Homesteading Journal

[A.T. Hagan]

Well, here it is April and spring is busting out all over. In fact it's been busting out here in Florida for a month now. In my area we typically get our last freeze the last week of March/first week of April but we haven't had one since the end of February and aren't looking like we're going to get one at all. The full moon falls on the 9th so if we haven't had one by then I think we'll be home free.

I sure hope so anyway because I started planting the warm season garden last weekend and don't care to play the "cover the plants" game! It's been pretty busy around the place these last several weeks as the usual heterodyning mess of conflicting needs wreak havoc on my ability to get anything done between the wife's Girl Scout events, the 4H obligations we've taken on since the Kinder Major joined and the usual family obligations and minor things like having to work for a living. We've got most of the container stuff that needed to be planted into the ground now but for the citrus that I've been waiting until the frost danger has passed. I have enough container stuff needing repotting into bigger containers that it'll take me several days to get it all finished and likely more media than I've got on hand which means another trip to Orlando for more coconut husk chips.

The Kinder Major's container flowers are going great guns much to her delight. She's been doing a good job of dead heading her petunias without having to be reminded. I do the watering for her since they're out there with all the other container stuff on the back porch. The new hanging plant rail is working well. The pennyroyal, thyme, and oregano have grown nice long trailing streamers and the mint appears to be about to join them.

The pecan trees, figs, mulberries, blackberries, and pretty much everything else have all broken bud and look to be doing well. Got a mess of fertilizing needing doing there. Somewhat unusual for this time of year we're getting some very nice rain last night and today and I'm delighted. No watering! The rose bed that I mulched in over the winter is really coming along. In another year or so when they've have a chance to put some more growth on it's going to look great.

Last night Diana and I started talking about putting in a more formal area in the backyard with two arches made from cattle panels to give some roses something to climb on and the rest of the circle defined by some trees that we have that need to go into the ground that aren't part of the orchard - a true bay tree, Swingle citrumelo, Carrizo citrange, three different varieties of trifoliate orange, and several more that I know what I want, but haven't yet found to bring home. I'm not sure just yet what will go on the inside. Some benches and a nice awning, possibly a gazebo though I've always been nervous around those things. It'll be slow in coming together so we've got plenty of time to think about it.

So far April is looking pretty good around here. How's the gardening month looking for you folks?

.....Alan.

[blue gecko]

This morning I cleaned out 3 more raised beds and got hoops and remay ready for them. My garden plan is coming along and I'm anxious to dig in the dirt. Peas are coming up and we are eating regularly from the lettuce bed. The trees are budding and the dogwoods are in full bloom. There are flowers EVERYWHERE and the scent of lilacs is heavenly! I've got vases of tulips, lilacs, narcissus etc parked around the house bringing the sight of spring to the indoors.

The new fruit trees are blooming and the new chicks are getting their second feathers. Life is good.

[booger]

The new greenhouse is up and running! Still needs a few finishing touches, as well as the shelves. I'll get pics later after it's completely done but, for now, it's doing great. It's 20' wide (E to W) and 13' deep (S to N), south-facing, attached to the house. On the east and west sides next to the house, there are big screened "windows" -- for now we shove pieces of blueboard into the metal frames on cold nights. It works great and is easy but we may go for something fancier later on. The floor is rock dust.

We built it with no money, other than $50 for the screening plus "borrowing" about $50 worth of rock dust from the next section of house (pouring that in the next week or two if weather cooperates). Everything else was scrap/salvage/recycled stuff.

Once the rest of the house is completed, the greenhouse will be once again rebuilt. Same spot but enlarged to 20' deep by 40' wide along the house-attached side. We learned a lot from the first version down the hill and we're learning even more from version 2. Hopefully, version 3 will be pretty darn close to what we want it to be.

[Renegade]

cool on the greenhouse boog!! Looks like you're on a roll.

I'm treading water on the greenhouse area...both figuratively and literally. Been too busy with other projects to work on it and we've had so much rain in the last week or so that all the gardening stuff in on hold.

got 4" today and got an inch of that in about 30 minutes. And that's on top of the 5" of accumulation I poured out of the gauge yesterday. One area that I had all nicely tilled up and ready for planting now has some very nice erosion ditches running through it and what didn't get washed off has turned to mud.

No, I'm not complaining. I just keep reminding myself that Florida dog days will show up eventually...

[blue gecko]

Woo Woo Boog!!! Looks terrific!

We got quite a bit of rain here too. No Gardening today. But the lettuce bed looks terrific and peas are up!

[DoubleD]

Very nice Booger!

Busy with planting, seed starting, transplanting, and digging/amending the new beds we constructed this spring. Forecast is for some springlike weather this weekend, so I plant to be in the garden as much as possible.

[A.T. Hagan]

Originally Posted by A.T. Hagan

Well, here it is April and spring is busting out all over. In fact it's been busting out here in Florida for a month now. In my area we typically get our last freeze the last week of March/first week of April but we haven't had one since the end of February and aren't looking like we're going to get one at all. The full moon falls on the 9th so if we haven't had one by then I think we'll be home free.

Looks like the joker is about to pop out of the deck. Our Tuesday night forecast is now down to 33. Everything on the place but for a couple of pomegranates has broken bud to include all four pecan trees. I had wanted to plant the rest of the garden this weekend, but now I'm dithering. We should have a clearer idea by Sunday I hope.

Booger those are some good photos. It's going to be a great greenhouse.

.....Alan.

[Renegade]

WC has us at 38 for Tuesday morning...with more rain tomorrow and Monday of course.

oh yea..reason I came to post...the canner is currently running at full steam!

will be back later with a pic!

[A.T. Hagan]

I am never taking my family to a plant sale again.

This weekend the environmental horticulture grad students over to the university are having a plant sale. They collect donations from area nurseries and there is no telling what they may get so you just have to go and look to see if there is anything you want.

So, off we went. We looked around, gave everything the once over and I picked out a couple of nice bald cypress saplings for less than half of what I'd been looking at them from an area nursery and was content. Then the Kinder Major came up and said, "Daddy, can I buy some flowers?" Well, if her big sister was going to get something then the K. Minor wanted something as well! So we got a zinnia, some snapdragons, and a euphorbia as thorny as a North Korean diplomatic incident that the K. Minor wanted. OK, that wasn't too bad, but while I was standing around waiting on them to decide on what they wanted (two little girls confronted with multiple choices...) I came across some nice low-light indoor plants that would be good for work and a basil plant to go onto the back porch. Still, that wasn't too bad so I sent the K. Major off to find us a cart to get it all to the car with. Before she got back Diana pointed out some Japanese magnolias and how pretty the blossoms are and 'wouldn't they look nice up by the gate?' Aarrgggghhhhh.

My part of the swag came out to twenty dollars. By the time we paid for everything the females wanted it was an even fifty dollars! I have no idea what we're going to do with those magnolias. I've never even considered them before...

Our Tuesday night forecast is stubbornly sticking to 33 degrees. Weather Undergound says thirty two so I'm not going to plant the garden this weekend after all so I won't have so much to cover up.

I did spend some time this afternoon working on the chicken tractor. Got the basic frame together, the two cattle panels bent and nailed into place. Tomorrow I'll start framing the ends. I priced hardware cloth last weekend and nearly passed out at what it costs now.

The other big project for the weekend is to get the K. Major to memorize the 4H Creed for the county event Monday night where she has to recite it in front of the judges. Seven sentences. May as well be the seven circles of Hell for the torments we are going through, but she, I and her mother nearly have it memorized now. We're all learning it together. We may turn it into a Vaudeville act and take it on the road....

.....Alan.

[Renegade]

those were the days....head, heart, hands, community, country, and some other things else I don't remember any longer...

we were too busy wanting to go saddle up and ride to worry with pledges and such...

kids today should have it easy to memorize stuff. Record it as an mp3...make it the only one of the player..set to repeat..let it play all night long while you sleep. By morning you'll know it, even if you don't realize it...

[DoubleD]

The peas are up (finally) and the first asparagus spear of 2009 has made an appearance.



While out running some errands yesterday, I ran across a potted catnip plant and could no resist purchasing it for my cat (and garden buddy) Sid. He approved heartily - finding it almost the moment I set it down with the other hardening off seedlings.



Had to put it in the greenhouse shortly thereafter or he would have eaten it down to nothing in short order. Planning to pot this up in a container and keep it on the deck for him.

Moved the second round of broccoli starts outside Saturday to begin their hardening off process. They will spend day time outside and nights in the greenhouse until they are sufficiently hardened off and ready to go into the garden proper.



Good weather this weekend, so I think I will be working on constructing the new retaining wall garden bed today.

[flourbug]

This year I tried radishes. I just tossed a bunch of seeds in a big planter. I have been harvesting 3 - 4 quarter sized radishes per day to use in a side salad, which is thinning what is left so they have more room to grow. They're now about silver dollar size. I can't believe how easy radishes are to grow. Definitely going to be a keeper. My spinach has been going gangbusters too. I am also trying turnip greens, and collards. Half of the turnip greens are about to become lunch. When in Rome...

[A.T. Hagan]

Great photos DD!

It hit 90 here today, humid, and the sand gnats about ran me crazy so I didn't feel bad for not getting more done than I did. I repotted all the little stuff we brought back from the plant sale yesterday. It's late in the season for the snapdragons, but I'm curious to see if I can keep them going past their usual time by limiting their light exposure. Repotting that euphorbia was a chore. Finally had to wrap my bandana around it so that I could wash the old media off its roots then get it into its new pot. I think it'll like the coconut media a lot better than the peat and perlite stuff it was in before.

Got a mess of watering done and fertilized the driveway flowerbed where the daylilies are starting to make a nice comeback after I separated them. I've got some Stella D'Oro lilies coming in a few weeks that will go into the rose bed along the front. Yet another fund raiser from the child's school...

.....Alan.

[booger]

Stupid freeze crap is hitting here, too, driving gardeners crazy. Hopefully, tonight will be the last of it. Spring gardens aren't going to produce much, if anything, this year before the heat hits and plants shut down for the summer. Fall gardens are where it's at this year, I'm thinking.

New babies below. Sheep: Mama, twin babies (one of each), and a young ram. Chicks (3 weeks old): 15 Dominiques, 13 Rhode Island Reds, and 2 Araucanas, assuming I counted accurately. We’re aiming to end up with around a dozen layers plus a rooster or two and the rest will end up in the freezer. They’re about three weeks old right now and staying in the greenhouse for a bit. Steve’s going to get a new coop built… soon.

[Renegade]

Alan, if you're going to get the same kind of wind we've had here today, you better tie an extra block to that chicken tractor or you'll be retrieving it from the neighbors! They called for 20-30mph this morning, but we had some gusts that were much higher than that. Had a straight line type gust come through this afternoon about 2:30 that I thought was going to blow some trees down before it let up.

cute kids, boog...both kinds!

oh, and I never got the pic from the other night. By the time I got around to remembering to get the camera, Shirley had already put everything up in the pantry. It was carrots anyway. A canner full of pints and 4 bags in the freezer. yum, yum....

[A.T. Hagan]

Oh yeah, plenty of wind this morning! It was only 47 degrees, but with a steady 20+ wind it chilled this son of the south right out as soon as I went out the door. The weather service is still calling for 33 so I'll be moving stuff into the greenhouse. Really ought to cover what I can of the in-ground plantings as well, but with this wind I'm not sure how effective that'll be.

I need to go pull up one of my carrots to see if they're ready yet.

.....Alan.

[blue gecko]

We dodged the bullet and missed the freeze!!!!! <<<<HAPPY DANCE>>>>>

[A.T. Hagan]

Going to be chilly tonight, but maybe no frost.
Tonight: Mostly clear, with a low around 35. Northwest wind 14 to 17 mph decreasing to between 6 and 9 mph. Winds could gust as high as 29 mph.

.....Alan.

[BirdGuano]

God I love Spring.

82F and sun yesterday.

52F and rain today...

Now I have to watch for mildew on my fruit trees since they just set fruit.

grrrrrrrrrr

[A.T. Hagan]

Looks like we missed the frost by a hair. I had some on the truck, but I didn't see any on the ground. We'll see how things look this afternoon.

.....Alan.

[A.T. Hagan]

Originally Posted by A.T. Hagan

Looks like we missed the frost by a hair. I had some on the truck, but I didn't see any on the ground. We'll see how things look this afternoon.

Well, it was actually two days before I was sure, but we did catch just a bit of frost. Replaced six tomato plant that I decided were not likely to come back. Some of the potato tops took minor frost bite. But here's the weird thing. None of the peppers out there took any damage?

The pecans got some of their new foliage burned, but not so bad that they have to start all over again. Neither of the mulberries did though, nor any of the figs. Odd, very odd.

Yet another front blew over today without dropping any rain.

Social obligations this weekend are making it hard to get work done, but I did replace the tomatoes that got bit as well as planting out some bell peppers, Tam jalapenos (no heat type) and some egg plant. Still have the hot jalapenos, pablanos, and some more tomatoes to go. Haven't decided yet if the tabascos and cayennes are going in the ground or in containers. Picked up some extra bell peppers for containers. I want to grow enough this year that I can dry a bunch.

.....Alan.

[A.T. Hagan]

It's been a busy four days while I was on Spring Break with the kids.

I dug the onions over the weekend. The three hard freezes we received hurt me there. It's a respectable harvest, but not as good as what I have done in the past when we received a more seasonable winter. We also finished off the last of the turnips. Still have some cabbage and collards out there that I'll let finish growing out. I thinned and weeded the carrots which gave me a nice double handful of baby carrots that I steamed with some of our cabbage and onions. The turnips I hid in the mashed potatoes much to the consternation of the Kinder who insist they hate the things.

With the harvesting done I planted a row each of Florida Speckled butter beans (pole limas), Blue Lake green beans, Dixie butterpeas, Pinkeye Purple Hull field peas (southern peas for our Yankee brethren), and a row of Zipper Cream field peas. All of the tomatoes, peppers, and a couple of egg plants are in the ground. Decided to put the cayennes and tabascos in containers along with the extra six bell peppers I bought the other day. The potatoes are coming along. The little bit of frost bite they took the other day doesn't seem to have slowed them much.

I did all the seeding on Monday so I could have it in the ground in time for the front that was supposed to come through on Tuesday. For once we got a nice rain out of it, very nice. Three inches worth which is more than we'd received in the previous two months combined and rather odd for April which is usually quite dry. It did some damage in parts of the state and exacerbated the flooding problems on the Suwanee and points north, but we had no difficulties.

Tuesday was largely lost for working outside due to the front, but that evening after it had finished I did manage to plant out the two cypress trees I'd bought the other day. There's a lesson there for you. If you're going to plant something close to your property line be sure your longest hose attached to the nearest spigot can reach it! Yep, mine is ten feet short. I needed to buy more hose anyway... I also planted out the Cherry of the Rio Grande an aquaintance gave me several years ago. It was about six inches tall then so I potted it up and kept it in the greenhouse until it was bigger. Now it's about five feet tall and was hogging a lot of space so I reckoned it was time to put it in the ground. Just before dark I repotted the tree form yellow hibiscus I bought a couple of months ago. It was horribly root bound as I expected so it took a while to break that up without losing any more root mass than I could help. I severely pruned the top to compensate for the loss, but it was looking a little scraggly anyway. By June it should be beautiful again.

The Kinder Major and I spent Tuesday morning and early afternoon running errands while it rained. Amongst other things we picked up another bale of peat moss as the cypress trees took the last of what I had on hand. Stopped by a favorite local nursery just to look and ended up buying the K. Major a couple of small pots of periwinkles and myself two small pots of a nice ornamental purslane that I'll using in hanging baskets. Maybe it'll seed itself in the yard...

I laid out the formal arrangement I want to put in the back yard, but after discussing it with Diana I think I'm going to move it. The original plan was to be able to look through both archways from the kitchen window, but it occurred to us it would be better to set it up as to offer a little more seclusion. For us or the kids, whoever needs it at the time...

This weekend I hope to get the squash in and maybe a little okra, but that'll be it until the sweet potatoes are ready to plant. Got a heap of mulching needing done and fertilizing too as well as working on the chicken tractors and doing the K. major's 4H bookwork. We'll see.

.....Alan.

[OKbirdwatcher]

Well, we're getting just a little disgusted with the weather around here.

Not one thing planted yet in the garden proper. Tomato plants and pepper plants waiting.....and waiting..... It's been too wet and too cool. We need some !!!

We do have spinach, lettuce, radishes, onions and carrots doing well in raised beds, which we have had to cover numerous times since planting on March 8. (Probably won't plant that early again. ) More rain coming in for the next 2-3 days.

DH is finishing the chicken coop and pen today. We're hoping to buy our first started pullets in a few days - Black Australorps and Production Reds from a neighbor.

[Susan4]

My Rx burn was a bust today so I got to garden instead Finally! Got in taters, shallots, garlic, peas and onions. I think we're off to butcher roosters here shortly too.

[booger]

FYI: Sheep are legitimate grounds for divorce. And cussing.