Past week I have operated a ferry service for the ladybugs/ladybirds which hibernate each winter in the northeast bathroom. Each day about 20 new ones appear and since the windows are screened it is easier for me to collect them in a small glass jar and carry them to the raised beds area where I release them. It is easiest to catch them when they are on the ceiling – simply hold the jar below them and nudge them with paper and they topple into the jar where they may momentarily play dead before climbing to the rim. More care and luck is needed for those on walls or windows and a square container would make it easier. I notice I wrote a similar article on April 2, 2014, so they may be a couple weeks earlier this year.
My compost powers my growing – each year I collect >100 leaf bags and add various ingredients and it is usually ready the following fall.
I have a number of raised beds for vegetable growing and past couple weeks with return of good weather I have been assiduously weeding and preparing the beds and seeding. Weeding is a chore but I seen no way around it. I pluck and drop and the areas between the beds now have good soil. The yellow rope on the left is my deer discourager, the theory being it will dissuade the deer from leaping the 5ft fence. So far no deer incursions.
The winter clover cover crops helped protect areas from weeds but the beds I neglected are covered in weeds which I individually remove. And the spaces between the garlic have to be weeded as well. Once weeded I rest the bed for a week allowing weeds I missed to surface and then be removed. Running the weeder spike over the surface each day uncovers weeds and their white roots and prevents them from gaining a foothold.
After about a week I add compost and maybe ash from the wood stove, then I scribe long parallel rows into which I drop the seed. Then mound the soil over the rows and pat it down and I am done. I used to place plastic strips notated with the veg name and date of seeding at the head of each row. I now simply insert a stick at the head of the row to remind me that this area has been seeded. I alternate the rows with radish (4 kinds), purple top turnip and chantenay carrots and black seeded simpson lettuce. In the greenhouse I have kale, cabbage, collard and lettuce which I will transplant this week.
I purchased good quality 1020 starting tray flats about 5 years ago but with continuous exposure they have become brittle and crack easily. For the far gone cases I have used sized 3/4″ plywood as a secure base for moving them around and have doubled up trays as well.
Another view of my small greenhouse which functions primarily as a tomato staging area.
Most of my tomato seeds have germinated and I am transplanting them into the 2″ soilblocks in the greenhouse. I have cut old venetian blinds into strips on which I write the name of the tomato and label each block individually. Two interesting newcomers are seeds I prepared myself last year. The one I have labeled MOS (my own seed) which was a Rutgers possibly cross fertilized with Cherokee purple or Ukraine purple – will be interesting to see how it turns out. A friend gave me a large red tomato last year and said it was an oxhead and urged me to keep the seed. I have several now growing in soil blocks but research on the internet reveals no oxhead though there are oxhearts so wait and see.