Thinking Green(house)

(Written Jan 10)
Last night all of the little growies in the greenhouse that had sprouted got a good dose of an organic foliar feed. Three more flats got planted. There is only room under lights for one more flat. It is time to look into at least one more light. When going through the seeds last night to do the planting, I realized that I had forgotten to order Jalapeño pepper seeds. One packet of seeds won’t cover a minimum order, so an alternate source will need to be found. The stores don’t have many summer seeds right now.

The compost is accumulating really slowly right now. There are plenty of leaves available, but they don’t really make very good compost by themselves. The main thing going into the bins is wood ashes and kitchen scraps. The little snow we had did a good job of soaking through the piles, so the compost is heating and decomposing well.

The only thing in the garden to eat is onions, kale and spinach. Everything else is frost killed. Nothing appears to be coming back except some of the cabbage. I may replant some of the greens this weekend depending on the advice I get from Mr. Blackley at Renfrow’s.

Greenhouse Green

Almost everything from the first sowing in the greenhouse has sprouted. This in itself is a big improvement over last year. Of the three subsequent sowings, most of that has come up as well. The sprouted plants were moved to flats without cloches as they came up. Now it is a matter of moving the un-sprouted plants to a covered flat. Everything that had sprouted as of Monday received a foliar feeding of organic fertilizer.

The organic spray bottle fits on a garden hose. The spray is a little bit strong for tiny plants. It may be necessary to mix some of it in a spray bottle until the plants get a little bit larger and stronger. A new hose nozzle was purchased at the same time. It has not been tried yet, but it has a mist feature which should provide a more gentle spray.

The garden plants that were damaged by the hard freeze have not recovered. If they have not shown more resilience by the weekend they will be pulled off. I wonder if a new planting of any of the greens would be successful. There are cabbage, broccoli and pak choy plants in the greenhouse which will go into the garden as soon as they are large enough. They can be covered if another really hard freeze is predicted after they are set out.

David Segrest is an International REALTOR in Charlotte, NC. His email is david@segrestrealty.com , His webpage is http://davidsegrest.com , and his international real estate blog is http://dointernationalrealestate.blogspot.com/

Happy New Year

The New Year is starting mixed. Almost everything in the winter garden got killed by the sustained cold snap last month. The greenhouse is having exceptionally good results early on. It is hoped that the lessons learned last year will make the garden better this year. This year I will begin training to become a master gardener. The lessons there should improve my garden and maybe your garden as well. They will be shared as they are learned.

A Year in the Life of the Garden is the working title for a new garden book. The progress on that book can be followed at http://davidsegrest.com. It gets posted almost every day and is much more in depth than the blog. The postings began on December 7th at the beginning of the hard cold spell. The rationale being that creation begins with destruction, the cold snap definitely wreaked destruction on the winter garden.

As usual, I made a lot of New Year’s revolutions (resolutions). Some of them involve the garden and this blog and those I will share. The most important is to complete the Master Gardener Certification program. Another is to make a minimum of 15 posts per month to the blog. Every year I try to increase the yield from the garden. That is more of an aspiration than a goal, but this year the goal in that resolution is to develop an improved storage system for the produce we get so that less (much less) of it winds up in the compost because it wasn’t used.

David Segrest is an International REALTOR in Charlotte, NC. His email is david@segrestrealty.com , His webpage is http://davidsegrest.com , and his international real estate blog is http://dointernationalrealestate.blogspot.com/

Looking Forward, Looking Back

I expect this to be the last post for 2010. It has been a good year for the garden. 2011 should be even better. Looking forward…Looking back. There were lessons learned that should improve the garden next year. Fortunately some of them were learned from successes. A few were learned from disappointments.

The greenhouse did very poorly last year. I think it was mostly my fault and changes have been made to this year’s procedures. The tomatoes were delicious, but there were not enough of them. Everyone whom I spoke with seemed to have disappointing results in the tomato department. The things I did this past year have worked well in the past, so the only thing to really change is the location within the garden, which changes every year anyway. The problem seems to have been the extreme heat, which is not normal. The summer squash and cucumbers got wiped out by the spotted cucumber beetle. A lot of control methods were discovered on the internet. Most of them project a marginal success at best.

I have been accepted into the NC Agricultural Extension offices “Master Gardener Program”. It is hoped that I will learn enough to avoid some mistakes and improve results. By learning to help other people with their gardens and yards, I should learn to help myself.

David Segrest is an International REALTOR in Charlotte, NC. His email is david@segrestrealty.com , His webpage is http://davidsegrest.com , and his international real estate blog is http://dointernationalrealestate.blogspot.com/

Pepper Seeds

The name won’t be shared yet until the seeds are tried, but an internet search this morning found a new source of pepper seeds. They even had the seeds for the “ghost pepper”. The seeds were extremely reasonably priced. The “ghost peppers” were the most expensive thing I saw and they were only $4. Shipping is free on orders over $7.50.

My order included California Wonder Bell peppers, ghost peppers, cayenne peppers, jalapeños and cherry peppers. Other vegetables were available, but those were purchased before the planting season ended, because they have not been available when the greenhouse needs planting.

The snow has kept me out of the garden and the yard. My laziness has kept me out of the greenhouse. Today the weather is really beautiful, but the snow is still thick upon the ground. There is no excuse for the greenhouse, so maybe I will spend some time there this afternoon.

David Segrest is an International REALTOR in Charlotte, NC. His email is david@segrestrealty.com , His webpage is http://davidsegrest.com , and his international real estate blog is http://dointernationalrealestate.blogspot.com/

Santa Claus Visits Charlotte Gardeners

He was actually a day late, but he brought a gift of Snow. It was about 6”deep and it has not melted yet. Snow is wonderful for gardens for several reasons. It makes a wonderful blanket of insulation for any plants that have not already succumbed to the heavy frost. It also fixes nitrogen in the soil. Rain does this too, but the rain runs off fast and takes a lot of the nitrogen with it. It may actually take more than it gives. Snow melts slowly and the nitrogen seeps into the soil.

The snow of course forced me to take refuge in the greenhouse. 6 flats got planted this weekend. Three of the thyme plants have come up from the 5 flats that were planted last Sunday. The bottom heat from the heating pads is the only heat being used this year as a buffer to the weather. There is a small electric heater in the greenhouse, but that is to keep me warm.

The woodstove has made two fairly generous contributions to the compost bins so far this year. That means that the PH of the compost will need to be tested as it is used. If the PH is too high, some sulfur can be added.

David Segrest is an International REALTOR in Charlotte, NC. His email is david@segrestrealty.com , His webpage is http://davidsegrest.com , and his international real estate blog is http://dointernationalrealestate.blogspot.com/

Finally a Break in the Weather

47 degrees may not be “balmy”, but it is better than days that barely go above freezing. Tuesday provided a chance to work in the yard a little. The woodstove was cleaned out and the ashes added to the compost. A small patch of yard was cleaned with the bagging lawnmower and the mulched leaves were added to the compost as well. A little bit of compost even got turned.

The crucifers that were damaged by the frost have not recovered yet. Who knows if they will do so? The leaves that were tied over the cauliflower heads wilted. The cauliflower is a kind of brownish color. The broccoli leaves and cabbage leaves are drooping too. The turnips and mustard seem to be totally wiped out. Last year they did that and then came back so they will be left alone for a while.

The oregano is the thing that really surprises me. The cold does not seem to bother it at all. The onions collapse but they are still good and they come back when the weather warms up. Our meals may not feature items from the garden for a while, but at least we can make the store-bought food taste good.

David Segrest is an International REALTOR in Charlotte, NC. His email is david@segrestrealty.com , His webpage is http://davidsegrest.com , and his international real estate blog is http://dointernationalrealestate.blogspot.com/