Denver urban gardens – Page 5

April shower bring May vegetables?

May 2, 2023May 2, 2023Posted in GardenTagged beets, carrots, community garden, denver, Denver urban gardens, Garden, peppers, radishes, seed starting, soil, squash, tomatoes, vegetables, yard, zucchini1 Comment

Well it’s shaping up to be another year of trying a little bit of everything to see how it goes.

The garden

The community garden is having our second monthly work day this weekend. The water is officially turned on for the season, which means things will really pick up soon! I’m still planning to keep the sensitive babies out of the ground for another few weeks but will start hardening them off soon.

My new plot

I’ve settled in to my new plot, and started committing to a layout. I installed two very tall trellises on the north end made from concrete rebar mats and u-posts.

I’ve also added a low tunnel running north to south which I plan to use for all of my non-pollinating plants like greens. Last year I had some bug problems with greens, and I’m trying out a breathable row cover that will keep out the bugs. I’m not interested in having to spray them. I think neem oil is gross.

Soil gloop

Everything is going pretty well except the soil in this plot is VERY different. It doesn’t drain well and is quite “gloopy”. Cohesive. Sticks together, packs tightly when wet. This has some implications for irrigation. I don’t think my plan to use ollas is going to work well in this soil. It just seems like the soil will plug up the pores in the terra cotta. I’ve already employed trenches to channel the sitting water, and may pivot to a drip system.

I anticipate all new challenges and adventures this year as a result. I took my old soil for granted. My old plot was located where compost regularly got dumped for years and was much easier to work with.

I’m considering getting a soil analysis from the Colorado University extension, and trying to figure out what help my soil might need.

Progress

So far, in the plot: (as of May 1):

Volunteer rhubarb, asparagus, dill, and cosmos
Seeds: carrot, lettuce, spinach, chard, parsnips, beets, snap peas, arugula, radishes
Transplants: cabbage, Brussels sprouts, shallots

Seedlings and prep

So far seedlings (as of May 1):

Winter sown: echinacea, poppies
Started indoors, brassicas: broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts
Started indoors, nightshades: tomatoes (currant, pink ping pong, San marzano, cherry hybrid), peppers (biquinho, poblano)
Started indoors, flowers: marigold (saved seeds from last year!), calendula, zinnias (saved!), nasturtiums
Started indoors, herbs: pineapple sage, rosemary, Thai basil, lemon basil, tulsi holy basil
Started indoors, alliums: green onions, leeks, shallots

Just started in biodegradable pots (May 1):

Luffa
Zucchini
Winter squash

On deck to direct sow after frost:

Beans
Cucumbers

Peppers. I put them outside for gardening and something munched on them!

The great tomato-cide

I was out of town for 7 days. I left plenty of water for the tomatoes to be ok (not thriving but ok) for 7 days. Unfortunately I left a window open right by my thermostat and it went below freezing most of the time I was gone, the heat ran A LOT, and my grow room is the hottest room on the heat run.

So, I came home to a tomato blood bath. Even gnome was stressed.

I left a Timelapse running all week so I even got to watch them die. Luckily adding some water perked many of them back up, and after a week many recovered. In addition to the recovery, I started with so many seedlings that a few losses were not catastrophic. I am amused and undaunted at this point. Sorry, tomatoes.

Old friend

I swing by my old plot every so often. To my surprise the spinach I planted last fall is still alive! All of the alliums are also thriving like they never missed a step.

Winter sowing update (April)

April 25, 2023April 25, 2023Posted in GardenTagged community garden, denver, Denver urban gardens, Garden, seed starting1 Comment

I tried winter sowing for the first time this year (see previous post from January) in attempts to satisfy my urge to start gardening in January. How did it go?

Care

I’ve checked on them about once a month and they still looked damp so I didn’t really water them. They’ve been on a shelf out in my yard without direct sun. All of them have top vents and bottom drainage. It has rained and snowed and frozen and gone into the 70s.

Check-ins

Limited vacancy in the grow house

March 26, 2023Posted in GardenTagged colorado, community garden, denver, Denver urban gardens, Garden, nature, peppers, seed starting, small space gardening, tomatoes, vegetables3 Comments

First batch of seedlings have mostly germinated and are ready to move out of the house!

In general I planted lots of extra seeds and thinned them out to extra plants as well. I intend to plant 1-2 of each probably, but it’s always good to have a few backups. I’d like to thin out the remaining seedlings as well but have a space issue.

Tomatoes- I transplanted 4 of each, for now, because that’s what I have space for. I’ll keep the ones in the plug tray going a bit longer and see if I can find homes for them. Tomatoes were planted as deep as possible up to their little leaves to maximize root development along the stem. I used taller clear takeout cups for many so that I can continue to bury more stem as they grow.

Brassicas- I dunno, I didn’t really have a plan for these in my garden but they’re cooler weather crops so they seemed like something I could transplant a little earlier than the rest. Plus I think they all looks pretty cool. I’ve got cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and broccoli. Although they look pretty different as adults, it’s clear from the seedlings that these guys are related! Very cool.

Peppers- the peppers are the slowest to germinate and develop roots, and grow, so I’ve got them thinned out into space-efficient square pots where they’ll likely live until transplanted outside. I’m growing biquinho and poblano, may also start some shishitos because I got some free seeds.

Tomatoes: ping pong, sweet red cherry, san marzano, and currant tomatoes

Obviously I’m about to have a crowded grow house, again, and the tomatoes and peppers are going to be long-term guests. I will soon face a decision about expanding the grow house to another shelf or two and adding more lights.

This really makes me want a greenhouse. In a month or so when temps are better I may explore mini yard greenhouse options, even if it’s just putting things out in clear plastic totes.

Spreadsheets and Seedlings

March 17, 2023March 23, 2023Posted in GardenTagged community garden, Denver urban gardens, Garden, garden 2023, seed starting, spreadsheets, vegetables2 Comments

It’s garden time!

Spreadsheets say it’s ok

I find that gardening has an overwhelming amount of information at any given time about any number of factors. In times of information overwhelm, I find myself craving order in the form of a spreadsheet (or several). So, I’ve been developing a gardening database since last year and it has made seed starting / planning slightly easier this year. Here’s how the planning part of my database is set up:

Table 1: The Timing Table. This is based on the Farmer’s Almanac average last spring frost and first fall frost dates for my area. Since most sowing recommendations are written as “x weeks before” or “x weeks after”, I just worked backwards and ahead from the Almanac dates to get a nice cheat sheet for calculating the dates. The next table also uses these to “look up” dates based on the recommended # of weeks before / after the frost dates.

Table 2: The Plant Catalog. I take info from the seed packets and populate a table with all kinds of info. Below is the section of the table where I’ve pulled in the recommendations for sowing indoors and/or outdoors “x weeks before last spring frost date” from the seeds, and used a formula to turn that into a date.

Table 3: The planning table. This is where I make my plan and record what I’ve actually done for seed starting. It pulls in info from Table 2 to pre-populate Start Inside Date and Start Outside Date. That helps me pick a good planning date to start the seeds for a particular plant. I pick a plant, populate the planning section with some dates, and then each weekend I can basically look at which seeds I should be thinking about starting. Then, when I actually sow some seeds I put that date in the “Actual” section so I can have that info for next year / later.

Yes, I realize this is overkill for a hobby garden. However it genuinely helps me to worry about it only once, and then trust the system so I can actually be a little less rigid with my schedule knowing that I have established some reasonable estimates for myself. It has helped prevent my mistake from last year of just starting everything in January (although lets be honest I had all of the same info last year I was just bored and impatient…). Plus I just love a system.

Seedlings so far

In addition to the winter sowing experiment, I’ve started several seeds so far!

In the last month I’ve started some pineapple sage, green onions, shallots, a few types of basil, and rosemary. Most of them are happily camping out on my window sill growing slowly until it’s time to go outside.

Today I filled this starter tray with a whole army of seeds and things should get exciting. I’ve filled it with plants that I think have a similar growing rate so they should all bump into the lid at around the same time:

Biquinho peppers (red, and yellow)
Poblano Peppers
Tomatoes (cherry red, ping pong, currant, and san marzano)
Cabbage
Brussels sprouts
Broccoli

In the past I’ve mixed plants in the same tray that have wildly different growing rates and had to evict the zucchini before the rosemary had even poke it’s head above ground. I’m hoping I dodged that this time.

Ground truth

If you recall I have a new plot this year! Last weekend I stopped by the garden for a garden planning workshop and visited my plot with the Master Gardener to pick her brain about planning my layout. The next day I was back to do some weeding and leveling. In the process I removed MANY dill plant skeletons (prepare for a bounty this year) and encountered some grasshoppers, asparagus, and a mystery tuber. Behold the stunning transformation: