Buckeye Lake

Last fall we planted 3 fruit trees out at Water's Edge - Buckeye Lake. We planted one peach tree and two apple trees (one Granny Smith and one Red Delicious). The Granny Smith apple tree was damaged and had to be removed, but the Red Delicious tree is blooming (pictured above). We will need to replace the 2nd apple tree as this variety needs another tree for pollination. The peach tree (pictured below) still looks good. I'm hoping in a couple of years we will begin to have fruit on these trees. Hopefully the neighborhood kids will not damage the trees.

Shuffling seedlings

On the grow racks, we have trays with plants of all different heights. Some were started weeks ago and some just days. It is important that the grow lights be at the right height above the seedlings. We want nice healthy stems. At this point in the growing season I needed to do some shuffling. In some places I'm turning the trays so that no plant is growing at an odd angle to the light.

Broccoli

It continues to rain and rain and rain here in Columbus. The gardens are really too wet to plant most days, so the broccoli is just hanging out outside at the house waiting until we can work the ground over at Christian Assembly. The soil is far from ready for planting at Christian Assembly so we are just waiting for the right time. Its amazing how well some plants are looking and how some of the seedlings are just hanging on.

Garden License - Northwold

We now officially have our garden license for the Northwold property. This is a City of Columbus land bank lot that we will use for the gardening season. The price has gone up from $1 to $10, but that is really not that bad. There are some different parts of the agreement this year. One of the biggest changes is that all food crops needs to be in raised beds with untreated wood and at least 12 inches of uncontaminated soil. We did have a lead test done on the lot and feel the soil is safe to grow veggies directly in the ground. We will comply and plant our veggies in raised beds and some flowers in some other areas on the lot. There is so much potential with this lot and we will use it as a type of "production garden" for now.

Zinnias and Pansies

The flowers are looking good. We started some zinnias and painted daisies. Last year I started the zinnias way too early, put them outside when the temperature was too cold and lost all the zinnias. This year I've started the flowers a little bit later. Zinnias seem to grow fast based on last year experiment. This is the first year for the painted daisies so we will see how they do. I will be nice to have some color in the garden to go along with the veggies.

Cucumbers

The cucumbers have finally gotten their true leaves. I'm always amazed at the whole process of starting seeds. A seed often looks so plan and simple and then give it the right conditions - some light (or darkness), moisture and a little warmth and before long you see the little miracle that was tucked inside.

Peppers

We have several different varieties of peppers started including jalapenos, habaneros and bell peppers. I'm very concerned about the germination rate on the habanero peppers. Out of a packet of seeds (perhaps 40 seeds) I've only seen about 5 or 6 peppers germinate and it has been several weeks since the peppers were started. The other types of peppers have germinated slow as well, but the germination rate has been much better. Not sure if I need some type of heat mat or what might be the trick. For now I just keep making notes and starting more seeds. We've got another month or so before the soil will be warm enough to plant peppers in the ground.

Pumpkins

The pumpkins are looking good. There weren't a ton of seeds in the packet and I only planted one packet each of the Baby Boo and Jack-Be-Little pumpkins. The germination rate has been outstanding and it just a matter of waiting until the weather is warm enough to plants these outside. I've really got my fingers crossed these pumpkins make it to harvest. I think the kids will love the mini pumpkins.

Palms for the Compost

We celebrated Palm Sunday today at Epworth UMC. I though instead of the palms just get tossed in the trash, we'd collect the extras and take them out to the compost bins in the garden. I stripped the leaves from the stem in hope the leaves would decay and threw away the thicker stems. This make a perfect layer of green material. I shoveled some dirt over the leaves and there were some leaves in the next layers. It has been a while since the compost has been turned. I'm hoping as the weather warms the composting process will kick into high gear and we'll have nice compost for the fall.

Thistles

We've always had a problem with thistles at the Epworth Veggie Garden. It seems like underground there is an endless network of roots that send even more thistles up when one is pulled. I decided it was a good time to get a jump on the thistles and since the ground was still a little too wet to till I'd dig as many thistles up as possible. The area on the south side of the garden (with the iris and daylillies) seemed to be the worst. I spent several hours digging and digging and digging. We'll see in a couple of month if I made much progress in the war against the thistles or if I just generated that many more new thistles underground.

The Dirty Dozen

We are excited to be part of a group with the Growing to Green Program know as the 12 hub gardens or my favorite - "the dirty dozen". We are a diverse group of 12 gardens that will be working through out Columbus to help many other gardens. Tonight we had some pizza, Bill Dawson shared some various opportunities for volunteers to come to our garden, speaking opportunities and other garden group meetings. We worked with Barb to schedule some classes and then answered some question about our garden as well. Three much deserving gardens (located on the Hilltop, Franklinton and Linden) received some tools from the health department as art of a grant. As always its great to see and chat with our dirty dozen friends.

Takin' it to the Edge Garden - Potatoes

Week #2 out at Buckeye Lake gardening. We had more gardeners this week. Everyone took at break at 7PM for an Easter egg hunt with the other kids and came back with lots of candy. We cut up some seed potatoes and planted 2 boxes with 3 different varieties or potatoes and another 2 boxes were planted with onions. There is still alot of work to do in the garden, but we will take it week by week. With all the rain the garden is still a bit muddy in places. There are sticks to pick up as well and some leaves that need to be raked and relocated. As always the garden is a work in progress, but it is always great to see all of the excited gardeners!

God's Gardeners

Tonight we meet over at East Baptist Church with a group called God's Gardeners. The idea of the group is to bring together 200 church gardens for the 200th anniversary of Columbus in 2012. We already know a number of gardeners from other groups and its great to get together with other gardeners, especially this group where faith plays such a big part in gardening. I could listen all day about other gardens. The garden at East Baptist Church has a number of raised beds along with growing tables (sorry I didn't get any of those pictures). We also got a chance to see some of the seedlings that are being started in the church as well - tomatoes and peppers.

Seedling Update

The seedlings are looking great. The "better half" of the broccoli is growing well again after a brief period of cold temperatures outside (upper 20's) a few weeks ago. I hope to have all the broccoli planted outside within the next week so I can use the larger containers to transplant some tomato plants. The tomato plants look good and some are tall enough for the level of the lights to be adjusted. Many tomato plants have several sets of true leaves. I've already used some liquid Miracle-Gro on the older plants with true leaves to give them a little extra nutrients. The pepper plants are slow, but still look ok. I have to remember to be patient. When the weather warms up outside it's easy to plant some plants, but if the soil temperature hasn't warmed up enough the plants will not grow. Also, if you put a tender plant out and the night temperature dips too much you can have serious frost damage. When I see my garden friends are various meeting I try to keep myself grounded and check in to make sure I am not making stupid moves like I have in past season. Keep the tomatoes inside until around the 3rd week or May or later. The peppers, cucumbers and pumpkins will need to go outside a little later as as well.

Seed Starting - Pumpkins

Started some pumpkins this evening (along with Habanero peppers, cucumbers, zinnias and painted daisies). I love the mini pumpkins and I think the kids will really enjoy these if we can ever get them thru harvest. We tried some last year out at Buckeye Lake, but they were not watered regularly or care for like they needed. I will try to keep them inside until the soil temperature is warmed and the plants are stronger. I'll plant one variety at Buckeye Lake and I'm not sure where I'll plant the other variety.

Epworth Veggie Garden

We had a busy day at the Epworth Veggie Garden. Since Easter is just a couple weeks away, we decided we should paint the poles Easter colors and add some pansies. We also planted some rosemary, broccoli and lettuce. I headed up to Kurtz Brothers to get a truck load of leaf compost. We added this compost around some of the plants and spread the rest out in the garden. I'll till this compost in when the soil is dry enough for me to till. This compost will slowly provide some additional nutrients to the soil and help break up the clay. We'll probably look at adding some nitrogen to the soil when we add the tomatoes and peppers.

Soil Tests - Part 2 - G.C.G.C

Tonight at the G.C.G.C meeting (Greater Columbus Growing Coalition) Dr. Darrah from the CLC labs went over how to interpret a soil test. Our group had soil tests done on the Epworth Veggie Garden, Northwold city lot and Christian Assembly Garden. One of the interesting things I learned this evening was the fact that our soils has high amounts of Ca and very log Manganese. The soil at Epworth looks really good. We'll just add some nitrogen at the beginning of the season. Right now we are probably looking at some type of organic product like bloodmeal. The Christian Assembly Garden and Northwold lot will need some phosphorus. We will probably use bonemeal as the phosphorus source. One of the most interesting things I heard Dr. Darrah mention was not to worry about the pH levels of our soils unless we were growing potatoes or blueberries. We are still waiting the lead test on the soil at Northwold. Once we know this value we will decide if we will
plant directly in the soil or perhaps switch it up and build some raised beds. Either method is going to require a significant amount of soil and compost.

Removing Grass - Christian Assembly Garden

We're excited about expanding the garden at Christian Assembly. The entire back half of the property will be used for gardening this year. The first step is to get as much grass and roots as possible off the gardening area. We called in a friend with a Bobcat and he spent several hours removing grass, taking out rocks, replacing rocky soil with better soil and regrading the area. Removing the grass always seems like one of the most difficult tasks. The plan at this point is to remove all the grass, bring in a tractor to plow as deep as possible and add as much topsoil and compost as we can afford. The garden will be a work in progress for a number of years, but a number of folks are investing their time, energy and money into this site.

We've got leaves and grass clippings we are collecting on the back parking lot for composting. Through out the year we will add to this in hopes of rebuilding the original soil and adding the soil back to the garden.

Buckeye Lake - Takin' it to the Edge Garden

Tonight was our first night back out at Buckeye Lake - Water's Edge. I was anxious to show the kids the new gardening equipment. Seems like the most popular item was the gas can watering container. The kids love to water. We did start a few seeds in containers, but everyone seemed more interested in digging that starting seeds.

Broccoli

Over the past couple of weeks I've set the broccoli plants outside to harden off. If the temperature was predicted to be below freezing I've brought the plants back inside. One evening the weather forecast was for temperatures in the mid-30's. I woke up the next morning to temperatures in the upper 20's and some of the broccoli plants looked really bad. Not only did we have plants with yellowish leaves with issues with not enough light previously, but now we have a decent portion of plants suffering from being exposed to the cold and too much water (rain). We brought these plants back in the house to dry out and hopefully they will recover. We'll see what happens.

Soil - Epworth Veggie Garden

The picture above is from the Epworth Veggie Garden about a month ago. Most of the garden had standing water. One of the concerns was if soil microorganisms were about to survive these conditions. Once the soil dried a bit you could see cracks.

I was anxious to dig in the dirt a little to see if we had earthworms in the soil. Sure enough I found some worms. I'll get a truck load or two of leaf compost to add to the soil to help encourage more soil life. It seems like amending this clay soil is a constant battle. The soil is much better than 5 years ago.

Epworth Veggie Garden

I just couldn't wait any longer to get some plants in the ground. The weather was nice today, its April and suppose to rain this evening. I planted a couple rows of broccoli and a couple of rows of lettuce up at the Epworth Veggie Garden. The broccoli plants look a little rough, but I hope they will be okay. There have been some issues while hardening off these plants.

Broccoli and Light

So many different elements play a factor in healthy plants. Some of the basic needs are water and lights. If you are missing something you will eventually notice it in the plants. We have two grow racks with shelves, but not all the shelves have working grow lights. The though was just to get all the plants back in the "green room" when the temperature go below freezing. Some plants went on shelves without working grow lights and were there for about a week. Can you tell from the picture above with plants did not get enough light? I've got all the broccoli plants back outside since the weather has warmed up. I hope to get these planted in the ground within the next week if the weather cooperates.

Water

I asked Penny to watch over and water the seeds on the racks this week while I was out of town. When I came home I found this sprayer in the "green room" by the racks. What a great idea! I love it! Just pump it up a little and go. No need to refill all the little spray bottles!