My Crazy Life Around The Farm...: signs of spring

.....and the only medication is planting some seeds!!! I started a tray of 23 different varieties of peppers on 2/3/2013. Not every variety has germinated, but I have a good amount of baby pepper plants! Its so much fun to go down to the basement daily and check to see what has changed. I have set up my time lapse camera which is taking a photo once a day, so I'll create a video from that in a month or so. Here is some photos of the peppers as they are today (2/12/13).

About 75% of these are hot peppers. =) My gardening friends on Your Garden Show didn't
nickname me "Pepper Queen" for nothing last year... have to work hard to keep my title!!

These are bell peppers - King of the North (green ones on right) and Black Hungarian (darker one on left)
King of the North is supposed to be a great heirloom for us Northern pepper growers.

Love this macro lens photo of the Lemon Drop hot pepper.

My seed purchases this year came from 2 sources: the D. Landreth Seed company which is THE oldest seed company in the US (1794!) and almost went out of business so was doing my part to help keep a part of American Gardening history alive (www.landrethseeds.com).

Landreth seed order

My biggest seed order was my fav Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Co. (www.rareseeds.com), their annual seed catalog is gardeners heaven... and a great coffee table book with all the great photography of rare varieties in it.

Baker Creek seed order

Today was a nice sunny day with high temp of about 40, so walked around outside trying to find signs of Spring - which is 35 days away!

Tulips

Columbine starting to show new growth!

Lilacs budding out.

Forsythia buds

Narcissus/Daffodil and Glory-of-the-Snow in the back

Weeping Pussy Willow has catkins already

Chives coming back by the back door

Sedum starting to pop their heads out.

The next project I will have on my hands is to add wooden sides to the rest of my garden beds. I will be removing more wood panels from the red barn to use, hopefully that will give me enough so I don't have to buy more boards. Its still really wet right now, so will have to put down lots of newspaper in the paths if I try to start digging the sides. I need to thrown on some cover crop seeds (oats & field peas) for the beds that will have the later planted crops like peppers and tomatoes.

2 beds have the sides, 7 more beds to go...

The celery made it thru this winter with flying colors in the cold frame!! I had chopped it all down to the ground so it actually grew quick a bit in there!

I was super happy that I had no issues with the winds taking off
the tops of the cold frame, surprised actually!

Found one of last years oregano plants made it thru the winter without any protection!

Wish I could say that the rest of the winter would be nice and sunny with temps in the 40's like today, but I know better.... in fact I wouldn't be surprised if we still get more snow (grh). But seeing the changes in things outside make me know Spring is indeed near, and I can't wait to be busy working in my yard till its dark out with lots of dirt under my nails! Its the time of year I look forward to the most! The rebirth of things that once looked dead, and even more so, the rebirth of my soul.

So as I am creating this posting, it is exactly 18 days till the official start of Spring! I was walking around outside and I saw some great proof that Spring is definitely on its way! I had to grab the camera and get some shots of the signs of life I was able to find.

Scallia (?) bulbs poking out... usually the 1st flower I have blooming.

Bleeding Heart

Sedum

Lilacs budding

Not sure if Daffodils or Tulips

White perennial geranium

TONS of daisies coming to life in Frankie's garden.


Both Pussy Willows are budding... They made it successfully thru their 1st winter here! They have to be loving the amount of water in the ground right now!

Mo bought me a new tape measure.... no more having to go 25' marking...remeasure. 100' super tape measure - yippie! I used to tell people I had a 80x40' garden... now I know its officially 73'x33'. I was pretty close for never measuring!

Today in the mail I got my latest garden purchase. 2 products from the same company. The 1st is a liquid that is supposed to help with clay soil (which we have!!). Terra4M - according to their website: "breaks up and loosen clay, compacted soil, and hardpan. Creates organic matter, unlocks nutrients in your soil and neutralizes pH" Its actually a very interesting product. Here is a link to details about clay soil and how this product is supposed to help: Terra4M Clay Soil Details

The other product is called SoilRenu. This 10lbs worth of granules is supposed to treat 2000 sq ft. Here are the highlights of what this product does:

Replacing Lost Soil Microbes
Adding Humic and Fulvic Acid to Stimulate Plant Root Growth
Growing Nutritionally-Balanced Plants and Aiding in Root Formation
Reducing Insect Problems
Helps Detoxify the Soil Non-Chemically and it is Environmentally Safe!
Loosens Hardpan, clayish and rocky soils permanently

I have to wait to put these products on until temps avg 55 degrees. I can't wait to see if this really does help at all. Also found another similar product in my latest edition of one of my gardening mags - called John & Bob's Smart Soil Solutions - their website also has a lot of great information. www.johnandbobs.com (and fellow Yehls reading... I was disappointed as you to find out the owners were not John & Bob Yehl... I was hoping for some free samples....lol).

WINE UPDATE:

Sorry I haven't posted any thing about my wine making projects yet. I have 5 gallons of blackberry wine going strong. I used the blackberries from our garden that we froze last fall. I had to add over 9 lbs of sugar to get the sugar level to be correct for the yeast to have enough "to eat". I have racked it 2 times now and the fermentation is getting close to being done as the small bubbles are not as active as they once were.

I also started a small 1 gallon batch of grape wine with a red grape juice concentrate I purchased at my local brewery supply store. I was so happy to find out there was a nearby dealer so I can just run over to Bucyrus if I ever need anything in a pinch. They also have an online store - www.hopsshack.com Aaron is a really nice guy - if you buy anything from him - tell him you found their store thru Peggy. =) I'm trying to help their marketing efforts - I like to support small local shops!

mmmmmmmmmm.....alcohol! =)

So after the huge amount of snow we had got, we then got warmer temps along with LOTS of rain. Crazy flooding all over the Ohio area. We were pretty lucky at our house, no major damage. Had some water in the basement so that prompted me to make a major purchase of the SquidGee waterproofing products that I used in the basement landing. I wanted to test the product in that smaller area before shelling out a lot of $$ for major areas of the basement. Basically it is a plastic 'baseboard' that you use with this special adhesive that creates a water tight seal to the cement. You are supposed to drill weep holes at the floor level into the cinder blocks to re-leave any hydrostatic water pressure from your foundation walls. All the water then stays trapped in behind the baseboard, which you create an opening in so any major amount will then float into your sump basin. I measured for all the different 'rooms' of the basement and product was ordered and UPS shows it should be delivered tomorrow. So tomorrow night I will be busy trying to get at least one section installed. This Friday, Saturday & Sunday there are 60-70% chances of rain - estimated at 3"+. I can only IMAGINE what the flooding will be if we get all that is called for! I live on a hill and I might be trapped based on the lower roads being flooded out. The website for the waterproofing product is www.WaterProof.com - it has some good reading and explanation of the product. Its a LOT cheaper & cleaner than having floors dug up to put in drains! Its very easy to install yourself! Here are some pics of areas in the low sections of our basement as of now... Notice a theme? Litter boxes can come in handy to keep things dry & off the floor! =) I will post some during & after photos in the next week or so after I get this project completed.