Potting Up

This week more of the seedlings started in the IGG have been potted ready to take home.  The Red Bull Horn Peppers and Butternut Squash plants were all large enough to transplant and make room for more lettuce and herbs in the IGG.

Chuckles Dad came by and took about half of each variety home with him for his garden in Pemberton, which is great, since I planted too many of each and was wondering how large this years garden would actually have to be to accommodate all the plants I have started!

I still have a dozen Ancho pepper plants in the IGG, they are much behind these fast growing pepper cousins of theirs! 

Also, sprouting in the IGG are four kinds of lettuce and a whole tray of basil - want to make at least twice as much pesto this year as well as drying a whole lot more of it, I am almost out of my dried basil and it is to die for, it is so tasty.

Two weeks ago I transplanted the cabbage and kale started in the IGG into the garden and put one of the hoop covers overtop, they seem to be thriving.  Beside them I have put a couple of rows of snap peas, seeded right into the ground and a row of ....something else...luckily I did write this down in my Garden Book, but I don t have that here with me right now.  I think it was some of the Choi seeds.

And, the cut up sprouting potatoes from the fridge have now emerged from the ground so we will have a little taste of fresh spuds in a couple of months. 

I am off to the island this weekend with Bogey to visit young son and his little menagerie of dogs, cat and chickens.  I hope the weather is good, I am taking my camera and my wetsuit and hope to get a little photography and boogie boarding in with the kids!

The Orchard is In!

The orchard is in!

Last weekend I moved the two pear trees that we planted on the lawn, and besides being in the way for mowing the grass, they weren't really in the best spot for sunlight.

Behind the old riding ring is the most productive of the three apple trees on our property, so I lined up the two pear trees with that apple tree, all about 16 ft apart.

Once that was done, I was enthusiastic to finish the job, so I dug two more holes on the other side of the apple tree, then went to the local nursery and got a cherry tree and an apple tree.

The cherry is an Aaron variety which is self-pollinating, and the apple tree is a graft with Jonagold, Spartan, Royal Gala and Fuji branches on it, so it also self-pollinates. 

Self-pollinating is kind of misleading, as the bees are still needed to do the work, but with many fruit trees, another tree of the same fruit but different variety that blooms at the same time, is required to be nearby in order that cross-pollination takes place.  Because I wasn't sure what the apple trees are that we have, nor the cherry trees, I thought it would be best to choose varieties that don't depend on another tree for cross-pollination to occur.

I fed them with lots of the composted manure, so fingers crossed that they all take off!


This week I potted all the tomatoes that were started in the IGG and they are going home to the hoop houses today.  I seeded basil and four varieties of lettuce in the trays that were vacated.