May 1, 2024: Premier voyage of the greenhouse! Propagation has been in full swing since January 2024. One little setback delayed my peppers for a month, however I am no longer frantic as I have a greenhouse to extend the season as long as necessary! The crops shown above are my Asclepius groups “Hello Yellow” and Orange tuberosa and the middle Common Milkweed. happy with the progress so far.
Managing the Temperature in the Greenhouse is going to be the challenge this season. I prefer my veggies to be full grown before they are “cooked” with high temps! The Palma Twin greenhouse fan with thermostat has kept a steady heat all winter long allowing my hydrangeas, yucca, kale and parsley to successfully survive. Newly propagated plants have been put in the greenhouse as soon as they showed they were sturdy enough to stand temperature shifts and real sunlight rather than grow lights
Red bush beans are already producing! So far I am very pleased with the color and sturdiness of the plants. I have been supplementing with fish fertilizer, something I have finally understood, that its “OK” to use fertilizer in potted plants. Plants in pots are dependent on us for nutrition, it was something that I was reluctant to try, but now I understand that there just isn’t the same soil dynamic as there is when you have worms and other organisims crawling around.
Cucumbers are doing well. For the past few years I have not been happy with the harvest, we will see how I can change this in 2024. I may just leave some in the greenhouse to compare how they thrive in there vs an outside plot. Every year is a new adventure.
This year we pruned the fruit trees again. Last year they shot up and I would say doubled in size! We need to keep them manageable and on the small side, after all they are dwarf varieties and should not be allowed to get too large. We sprayed horticultural spray application #1 and will continue following sprays to keep the fruit healthy. Last year was very successful as there were no bugs. The apples had spots on their skin due to the leaf-heavy centers, now we know that air circulation is key.
Nature never fails to surprise. After pruning the trees, I had used some heavier branches to support the side of my huglekulture bed. I have notice that it started to grow! Totally unexpected, and not so sure that it is really going to grow, but I am happy to see is sprouting nonetheless !
More to come…
Another rainy day, so on with the precip pants and raincoats. On days like this, there is no reason to go summit anything because you take a chance of seeing nothing but fog. On occasion, the cloud cover may be high enough to see all you need, but we opted to stay shoreline. Lewis Clearing 1.9 miles in, so roughly a 3-mile day.
summit and so we did the Bog preserve in Ausable Forks. The first portion of the trail is a boardwalk over the bog. A beautiful spongy array of mosses carpet the ground, while Lichen and bearded moss hang from the trees on both sides of the path.
I have heard of MicroGreens, but I have produced Micro Carrots! Actually, they weren’t all this size, 
but they were tiny, smaller than “baby carrots”. My beets had NO beets at all! just greens…which were pretty tasty, but, like the carrots a disappointment.
/ and other flying things have started to populate the Mason bee house. Happy to see life in it since I moved it from a different part of the garden. Bees have been more prevalent in the garden later in the season, although my roses did not bloom quite the way they did last season, there was a lot of activity.
tomatoes. I have given away many, and I have already dehydrated my first batch! The tomatoes in the raised beds are doing just OK. Most of the leaves have already died back, and the tomatoes are starting to ripen. This particular batch I raised from seed, the others that were Nursery purchased have been splitting due to too much water, so we have been bringing them in sooner before they start splitting, to ripen off the vine.
Grafedie in the Library 