Tomatoes & Peppers planted

Just a quick entry - I planted my tomatoes and peppers this evening. They were started using the same method as last year. I'm giving them a little more space this year. That's probably more for harvesting than anything else. I'll get some pictures up next week.

I'm heading out with some friends for a weekend of camping and disc golf, so there will be no hops update until early next week. They are doing fine and I am seeing the Fuggles, Goldings and Nugget going strong. The new ones are slowly coming along. Scroll down and see some pictures from last week. They look just like that, only bigger!

Weekly Hop Update

Here it is a week later and there is a lot of growth to report. Overall, the plants I moved are all doing great, while the rhizomes I planted are all struggling. I'm not worried about them because I know they will pull through. You'll see what I mean later. The first picture shows the overall view of the hop yard. The Fuggles is at the bottom of the picture followed by Cascade, Goldings, Goldings, Cascade, Magnum, Nugget.

Here is the Fuggles. It's growing like crazy. I expect it will grow a good foot or so a week.

Next is the Goldings. I had to help the shoots get over to the trellis but once I did they took over from there.


The Return Of The Cascade! Last week the frost got the only growing shoot. I gently dug it up and found it was getting ready to push up another one, so I replanted it. Yesterday it popped through the soil. Now that it has a leaf out it will do just fine.Next is another Goldings. I had so many extra Rhizomes that I felt I should plant one more. This one sprouted in a week and is now doing fine.

Here is the Magnum. I really think the frost last week put a dent in this one. There was a third shoot that has died back. The small one on the left has stopped and the big one on the right has slowed to a crawl compared to the rest of the plants. A little warm weather should get this one going again.


Here is the Nuggett. It seems to be enjoying it's new home. I came home one evening and all the bines had started wrapping around the string. No help from me. It's already bigger around than it ever was in it's old spot. I've got another cascade that just seem to be taking it's own sweet time. I dug it up earlier in the week and there are shoots ready to pop up. We'll see if this is the week it decides to join the others.

Container Garden

This year I'm going to grow more vegetables in containers. I've got 4 large pots with potatoes, 3 with a lettuce mix, and a couple others I haven't yet decided upon. This first picture shows what I've got going as of this morning. We had a rain shower so everything is green and wet.
The next picture shows a mesclun mix. I probably planted a little too much here. I sprinkled the seeds along the top and set the pot out. It's a 12 inch self watering pot and I think it's working fine. The self watering part is a mesh piece that runs along the bottom of the pot. There is a large water reservoir built into the pot that the mesh runs into. The water reservoir holds at least a gallon and probably more. The mesh makes the water available to the pot without having it sit in water. As the water in the pot is used by the plants or evaporates, it is pulled through the mesh into the soil mixture. I noticed that the self watering pots had seedling up and growing well before the standard pot. In the picture above the standard pot is the square one. It was planted the same date as the two self watering pots just to the right of it.

Below are two of the four pots with potatoes. They were planted in late March and left outdoors. I've only watered once or twice as we have had a lot of rain this spring. The variety is La Ratte, an heirloom fingerling variety from Seed Savers Exchange. I'm also planting some in the garden just to compare

Garden Started

After the long cold spring I finally got around to planting some of the garden. I always feel better when that happens. Onions, shallots, spinach and carrots are planted. Tomatoes and peppers will be in the ground in a couple of weeks. More info to follow...

More Hop Progress (plus they're hard to kill!)

Things have progressed and here it is a week later. We had a heavy frost and that caused a set back for one of the plants.


Here are the Fuggles. They've done well this week with no apparent damage from the frost. I am starting to wind them around the strings. Once they get started they will twist around the strings themselves.

Below are the Kent Goldings. They are coming up all over the place. I did some digging and it looks like they grew laterally before they broke the ground surface. I'll have to come up with something to get the growing towards the trellis.

This is the Nugget. Notice how the tips of the shoots are pointing towards the sun. I'll probably start winding them around the strings this week. They needs a few more inches of growth first.

Unfortunately the Cascade got taken out by the frost. You can see the wilted brown shoot between the bricks. I dug this one up and found a new shoot so I'm pretty sure it will come around.

The Magnum is coming along fine. I didn't get a good picture so I decided to skip it this week. I also have another Cascade that I'm not sure about. I dug around it and it looks like it might be sending something up this week.


Here's what I mean about hops being hard to kill...This picture is some of the Fuggles. I dug this plant on April 6th (see my previous blog post). This little shoot is growing about 6 feet from where the original plant was.

Below is some of the Kent Goldings. It's coming up all over underneath the deck, despit my efforts to pull it all up and move it. I'll let both of these grow and cover part of the deck.