Winter Gardening for Spring Vegetables

This is a start for gardening for the year.  The raised bed is the standard 4ft by 8ft raised bed that I've been building.  This is the 4th one so far.  The difference now is, I wanted a cover, to warm it up a few degrees.  Pus, protection from deer and rabbits once the cover is in place.

The cover consisted of:
6 2ft rebars.
12 copper brackets with nails
3 10ft long vinyl pipes
2 sections of 4 ft wide chicken wire
row cover.

All but the row cover came from the big orange home improvement store.  The row cover is from Johnny's Selected Seeds.  The chicken wire is held in place by plastic bale twine, recycled.

With row cover in place.  It looks like a conastoga wagon without the wheels.  The row cover wasn't quite wide enough, but I'll get some clothes pins to hold it to the chicken wire.

The rebar is easily removed, in case I don't want to keep this arrangement in place.

The tallest portion of the hoops is about 4 feet tall.  That height will be plenty tall enough for most vegetables, including tomatoes and okra.  But those are for May or June planting.  Here, I planted Oregon Giant snow peas, which grow 3  or 3 1/2 feet tall.  The packet states sow as soon as ground can be worked, so here we are.  Before planting, I sprinkled Plant Success mycorrhyzal inoculant on the surface and worked it in.  Probably more important, I used legume Rhizobium inoculant from Territorial Seeds - made a slurry in water, swirled the seeds around in the slurry, let them soak 10 minutes, then planted and watered in with the rest of the slurry.

Also planted, after adding Plant Success as sort of a "good wishes":
Boston Red Beets 1/2 row
Mini Bok Choy, from New Dimension seeds. 1/2 row
German Giant radish, 1/2 row.
French Breakfast radish, 1/2 row.

There is room for a row of spinach and a row of mesclun.  Room fills up fast.  May need to build a second raised bed for more winter vegetables.

As always this is an experiment.  I don't think it's too early.  I planted radishes and other cold tolerant vegetables in late January, 2011, and they grew nicely.

Hardwood Cuttings

No pics today - forgot camera.

This is an almost-all homework weekend.  However, I did a small amount of garden inspection.

Also applied rooting hormone to some hardwood cuttings.  I didn't expect them to root yet, at all.  And they have not.  I carefully removed the cuttings from the ground, and applied rooting hormone, then carefully placed them back into the ground.


Illustration is Laburnum, from commons.wikimedia.org.   The cuttings I'm experimenting with:  Linden "greenspire", Mulberry "Illinois Everbearing".  I also took 3 small hardwood cuttings from unnamed Laburnum, scratched the bark, and applied rooting hormone before placing them in the same raised bed.  Plus one cutting from Brunswick fig.  Because I can.  The fig cutting did not get rooting hormone.

None of these is "needed".  Just seeing what might happen.  I also collected some laburnum seeds.  Might plant those if I don't forget them.

Ukranian Beekeeping Stamps

From wikimedia commons. 2001  Ukranian stamps

Ukranian beekeeping stamp, 1994 and subsequent issues.

Also this one, 1999.

Honey Bees

"Alfred Dürer, 1514: Eros, Venus and the bees. "Eros stung by a bee, when he inhaled the pleasant fragrance of a rose, went crying to take refuge in the arms of Venus," Dear mother, I die, have mercy on me, a flying snake bit me painfully cheek " Anacreontic singing, 6th c. av. AD " from Launceston Beekeepers blog.


"Anacreontics are verses in a meter used by the Greek poet Anacreon in his poems dealing with love and wine" (wikipedia)


While on the topic of Greek mythology and bees, or honey, "MELISSEUS was the rustic Daimon (Spirit) of honey and the art of beekeeping... closely identified with the Euboian Aristaios, who was also the reputed discoverer of honey...Melisseus may also be related to the Titan-god Astraios (the starry one), for the amber-coloured (êlektron or soukinos) honey-sap (melissa) which bees were believed to collect from flowers and trees was often described as star-fallen (astron). from theoi.com

The herb Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis) has a lemon scent which is thought to attract bees. Lemongrass oil is used to attract swarming bees to new hives, and a bee phermone is reminiscent of lemon.  Lemon balm grows like a weed for me.  I've been trying to control it in my yard for a decade.  Now I'll replant some near the beehive, when I get that far. Pic from Wikipedia entry for lemon balm.

Ning and his Chickens

The sex-linked pullets are growing fast. I'm convinced they'll be bigger than Turkeys. Maybe ostriches.