Garden Update

I returned from a 17 day absence and checked on my seedlings. The soil was still pretty moist, but there was not any water left in the bottom of the tray. Some seedlings sprouted, but some appear to be failures. Here is what it looked like when I got home.

The stuff in the bottom right hand corner is the Arugula that I had planted a few weeks before I left as a test. It is pretty happy. Most of the Broccoli and Cauliflower sprouted, though I failed to write down what I planted where, so I don't know which is which. Hopefully that will become more obvious as they grow. I had planted two varieties of tomatoes, but only one sprouted. One variety was just a few seeds from a friend while the other was a variety that I purchased and have spare seeds for. Since I don't know which is alive, I planted more seeds from the variety I bought. About half of the pepper seedlings sprouted. There are three different varieties of pepper, but I planted different amounts of each, so I think I know which is which. After a little careful digging, I saw that at least some of the pepper seeds look like they have germinated and are trying to grow, so I'm hoping more of them will come up. That is not the case with the tomato seeds that didn't sprout. They look the same as when I planted them. The peanuts did not sprout and are all moldy and rotten. I planted more and I'm thinking that if I don't give them much water they won't rot and might sprout, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

As far as the stuff I planted outside before I left (onion sets, kale, scallions peas, and radishes), Only a few of the radishes have sprouted so far. A couple of the onion sets had been taken out of the ground by some mean animal. Those sets had grown some nice roots, so that seems like good news for the rest of them.

I did a bunch of work in the garden today and its starting to take shape pretty well. Here is what it looks like as of 4/3.

As you can see it is all separated into beds with paths between. Almost all of the garden has had last year's compost spread over it and then the soil was turned over. The only area that has yet to be done is approximately 30 square feet that will be used for a three-sisters planting of corn, pole beans, and squash (left side of the picture above). That stuff probably won't be planted for at least another month. A bunch more stuff was planted outside today:

- part of the cauliflower

- part of the broccoli

- the rest of the onion sets

- part of the rapini

- part of the arugula

- part of the bok choy

- part of the lettuce

I also did an at-home soil test that I bought from a supermarket for $5. It consists of 4 vials with a little powder packets in each one. One is for pH, one is Nitrogen, one is Potassium, and the last is Phosphorus. Basically you put some dirt and water in each and then add the power, shake them up, and they turn colors. It seemed like there were a lot of variables that could throw off the results like how dense to pack the soil, how wet the soil is, etc. I suppose I shouldn't complain for a $5 test. Anyway, the pH showed up as being ever so slightly acidic (probably a good thing), the Nitrogen was medium-t0-high (probably a good thing), the potassium was very low, and I couldn't tell where the phosphorus fell on the scale because it just looked dirt colored. I'm not sure I trust the tests, but at least the fertilizer I bought last year (pelleted chicken manure) has higher potassium and phosphorus and less nitrogen than most fertilizers. I'll top-dress (scatter it on top of the soil) with that fertilizer in the late spring or early summer.

Planting Day

Its still technically winter, but I managed to get some seeds in the ground today. Ideally I'd wait another week or so, but I'll be gone then, so I planned to plant a some cold-hardy stuff today. Here is what my garden looked like this morning.

Pretty barren, but hopefully not for long. In fact, the garlic I planted last fall looks like its thinking about growing.

I laid out a few spare patio stones to act as markers and stepping stones. I tossed some semi-rotted leaves from a pseudo-compost pile onto the area that I was going to be planting and then turned over the dirt with a shovel, mixing the leaves in. I raked the loose dirt flat and then planted. I put in Scallion seeds, Kale seeds, Radish seeds, and Onion sets. I had also planned to plant snow peas, but I couldn't find the seeds. Somehow after all this planning I am missing seeds!? I did turn over the dirt there, so if I can stop by a store quickly and find some seeds I should have time to stick them in the ground before I leave. Here is what the area looked like after I was done.

Its entirely possible that some or all of these plants/seeds will not make it, but I'm prepared for that. If they aren't alive when I get home, I'll just plant some more.

Wine Update

Yes, this is a post about wine, but first a quick update on the watering system. The 2-liter bottle emptied surprisingly quickly. It was empty in about a week. During that time, the soil looked pretty saturated with water. I'm not sure how healthy that is for little seedlings, but the arugula I planted didn't seem to mind too much since the majority of them sprouted. On the other hand, only a couple of the onion seeds sprouted and only one is still alive. After the bottle was empty, the water in the very bottom of the flat dried out and the soil started to dry out slowly. Its been 14 days now since I filled the bottle and the soil hasn't quite fully dried out yet and the plants are still happy. We'll be gone for about 17 days, so I'm planning on putting a bit of extra water in the bottom of the flat and just hoping there are plants when we get back. I figure there should be enough water, but we'll see how happy the different plants are with being saturated for a couple weeks. If they don't live, no big deal. If they are alive when we get back, thats a 17 day head start!

On to the wine.....

That picture is taken a moments after taking the carboy out of the snow. Actually, ice would be a better description. I packed the snow down real good when I first put it outside and during the various freezes and thaws it turned into pretty much solid ice. I had to break out the garden shovel to chip away at it and get the carboy out. The good news is that the wine looks in good shape. The wine was almost totally clear and there was a bit of sediment and some crystals on the bottom. Thats all good news. After racking the wine off the sediment, it is time to bottle! Jaime was kind enough to take a picture as I was bottling.

We sampled a bit of it and the two of us had very different opinions. I liked it and Jaime did not. The wine isn't quite done as it needs to rest a bit in the bottles, so I won't do a full review yet, but that should come in a month or so. Of course the critics are already raving about the wine.

Random Muffin Picture

Testing A Seed Starting Setup

For Christmas this year, I got a grow light setup. I'm planning on putting a timer on the light and planting some seeds next month before I go away on a 3 week trip. Hopefully they'll be sprouted and happily growing by the time I get back. The problem is how to make sure they stay watered while I'm gone. I'll be growing the stuff in seed trays which will be sitting inside a bigger tray (a flat). Underneath the flat I'll have a heating pad that should help keep it a bit warmer than it would otherwise be. It will look something like this:

There are a few things to note in the picture. First is that some of the trays look like they have dirt in them. They do. I planted some arugula because it is very fast growing and might actually be large enough to produce a bit of useful greens before I leave. I also planted a few onions just to try growing onions from seed rather from onion sets or transplants. Onions take a long time to grow from seed, so you need to start them in mid-winter if you want to grow them from seeds to onion bulbs. Another thing to note in the picture is that I put a bunch of empty trays in the flat. I did that to reduce the amount of evaporation and also heat loss. I also put some rags under the flat to insulate it and help keep the temperature up. The heating mat says it should raise the temperature 10-20 degrees above ambient depending on whether you insulate it or not. Since its in my somewhat chilly basement, I'd like it to be as warm as possible. Lastly, note the pop bottle in the picture. I said "pop" because I fall within the blue area on this map. The pop bottle is my attempt at a simple automated watering system.

I considered a couple more complicated watering system ideas that would probably work, but in the interest of saving my free time and money I decided to try the simplest idea and hope it works. If you take a full pop bottle (or any relatively stiff and airtight container), fill it up with water, flip it upside down, and quickly put the open end in water, you'll notice that the water doesn't all flow out. It wants to, but a vacuum forms in the bottle, and the keeps the water from flowing out. If you then raise the opening just above the water, some air will get it, which lets water out (equal to the amount of air that goes in). I'm pretty sure that is how the reservoir on our cat fountain works. When the water level gets low enough to let in a little air, the water comes out and raises the water level until the it is high enough to not let any air in anymore. I'm going for the same idea with my system. As you can see in the picture below, I modified the bottle a little bit.

I cut out a piece of plastic, drilled a hole slightly smaller than the opening in the bottle, and cut a channel from the edge of the plastic to the hole. I then caulked the plastic to the opening of the bottle. The plastic does two things. First, it stabilizes the bottle and helps to keep it from falling over. Second, it raises up the the opening of the bottle slightly. I tried to set it such that the bottle would be a height where it would keep the water level just high enough so that comes into the very bottom of the seed trays (they have little holes in the bottom of each). I'm thinking that the water should wick up into the soil and keep it wet. Its possible that this will either keep it way too way or not wet enough. That is why I am testing it out now. I'm going to try to not touch it for a while and see how well it works. Check back for an update!

Wine Progress

Last weekend I siphoned the wine off of the sediment (a second time). I tried a sample of it and was pleasantly surprised. The bitter, chemically flavor I tasted last time was mostly gone, though there was still a hint of it. I'm hoping that will keep going away.

Unfortunately, the wine still remains cloudy. It should have cleared up on its own, but since it hasn't, I put in a commercial clearing agent. That should theoretically gather particles together and make them large enough to precipitate out.

The next step is cold stabilization. Dropping the temperature down to around 32 will cause excess acid to precipitate out and also help kill off some or all of the yeast. Last year when I did cold stabilization, I just put the wine in the garage. That isn't really a well-controlled thermal environment, so I decided to try something that I had seen suggested online. Bury it in snow. If it is really cold for a long time, the temperature could drop too low, but its supposed to be semi-warmer for the next week or so. Its supposed to be above freezind during the daytime most of the week. The snow should keep the wine right around freezing and insulate it from any really cold temperatures overnight.

So I dug a hole in a snow pile on the side of the driveway and put the wine in it. Here is the wine in the hole.Here is what it looks like after piling the snow on. I packed it down firm enough to walk on. You can just see the airlock sticking up out of the top of the pile. I filled the airlock with vodka so that it won't freeze.
Speaking of warming temperatures, its almost time to plant the garden....well, kinda. Here is what the garden looks like 4 weeks before I am hoping to do the first plantings (the weekend of 3/13). I'm not too worried about there being snow on the ground, I'm just worried that the ground will still be frozen at this point. It wasn't last year, but I think last year was warmer than normal.

Garden Planning

I've done a bunch of work planning for the 2011 gardening season. First thing up is the garden map. There are some big changes from last year. I'm growing less cucurbits (squashes, zuchinni and the like) since they took up so much space in the garden last year. I wish there were ultra-compact cucurbits that only produced a small amount of vegetables, but even the supposedly smaller ones like the "Spacemaster" cucumber still took up at least 16 square feet and produced more cucumbers than we could use. So this year there is a focus on a broader array of smaller plants. I'm also going to try corn in a "three sisters" arrangement. That is basically corn with pole beans climbing up the corn stalks and cucurbits growing along the ground between the corn and beans.

I've also made a spreadsheet for tentative planting dates. Its clearly aggressive in terms of early plantings, but last year I could have planted things earlier than I did. I'm going to try to plant some very hardy stuff in mid-march right before I go away for vacation. If it doesn't survive, no big deal, I'll just replant it in early april. Remember also that the garden sits in a pretty mild micro-climate, so the growing season is longer here than it would be at a regular farm.

Lastly, the seeds have been purchased! It was about $40 worth of seeds, but the purchase of a heating mat for helping seed starts plus taxes and shipping brought the total up to almost $90.

Random Update

A couple quick updates from the homestead. First, I siphoned the wine off the sediment. The wine has been fermenting in the glass bottle at the bottom of the picture below. I siphoned it into the plastic container, cleaned out the glass container, and put it back into the glass container. I'll let it settle again and in a month or so I'll siphon it off any further sediment. I checked the specific gravity of the wine and it has fermented to moderately dry. It should be about 11.5% alcohol. I also took a sip of it, but I wasn't too impressed. It tasted somewhat too fruity, and it also has some chemically type flavors. Hopefully it will improve as it ages.

We had a recent heat wave that melted the accumulated snow in the garden. You can see the Brussel's Sprouts in the lower left corner. It looks like a couple of the plants are still somewhat alive, but I'm not sure what kind of shape they'll be in come spring.

My parents also got us a grow light setup that I expect will be a big help when it comes time to start vegetables indoors in the spring. Speaking of which.....I've started planning the 2011 garden layout, but I'm not at the point of buying any seeds yet. The biggest difference is that I likely won't be doing Zucchini or Spaghetting Squash nest year. They just took up way too much space in the garden last year. They produced well, but what do we need 35lbs of Spaghetti Squash for? Just too much production and too much space taken up by single plants. Not having those should allow for a more reasonable amount of several different types of veggies.