Greenhouse Haven

Season’s End in October

November 30, 2025

Overview

The gardening season effectively ended here in NY in October. We had our first hard frost early in the month, then had a few more weeks of milder fall weather. Most of my tasks for the month involved clearing spent plants, moving the fig trees into the basement, planting garlic, and building up the compost pile as much as possible before winter arrives.

I harvested the last of the dahlia flowers before the plants were killed off by the fall frost. In total I cut 240 dahlia flowers over the season, from 9 plants. They were more prolific than I expected, and the plants also got way bigger. I will need to utilize a more robust trellising system next year. I grew an assortment of zinnias and large marigolds that I also used as cut flowers for the kitchen table. My newest rose bush produced several lovely flowers and put on a lot of growth. I’m looking forward to seeing how much more it grows next year.

My three homegrown Howden jack-o-lantern pumpkins. We harvested the two green ones right before the frost hit and used them to decorate the front porch. In total I grew 69 pounds of pumpkins! 3 large jack-o-lantern, 2 medium pie sized, and one tiny decorative blaze. We also used the corn stalks along our front porch, I enjoyed having my own homegrown fall decorations.

The coleus plants were also killed off by the frost, but I took a bunch of cuttings beforehand. They have been relatively easy for me to root in water, and last year I managed to keep about 10 plants growing over winter. This gave me a jump start on the season and saved me from having to buy seedlings.

This year I purchased 1 Mexican heather and 1 cuphea plant from work to grow. They both did really well and were great for the pollinators. I saw humming birds quite frequently making use of the long flowers. I read online that these are both fairly easy to propagate via cuttings so I took a bunch before the frost.

I removed the leaves from the bottom of each stem and then coated them in rooting powder before carefully putting them in seed cells full of soil. I put them in a mini greenhouse for several weeks and watered occasionally.

Here they were all ready to be put in a mini-greenhouse. The extra humidity helped them to root faster.

Here’s how they looked at the end of October, nice root development. I transplanted about half of them which had visible roots up to 3-inch pots so they can continue growing.

Before the frost hit I also moved a bunch of plants into the basement. All the potted fig trees had to come in. They had been slowing down and had already lost a lot of their leaves by early October. But I didn’t want them caught out in the cold weather. I also moved in some pepper plants, and I dug up the rosemary to try to overwinter. I’ve not had success in the past, but I’m going to try again. Pepper plants are perennials in warmer areas and it would be nice to get fruit earlier in the season if I can keep a few plants alive. They are all sitting near a window and I have grow lights that I keep on all winter. Many of the dormant fig trees are at the other end of the basement where they do not get direct light. I try to water the trees once a week.

I planted out about 80 garlic cloves in their usual in-ground garden bed during the first week of October. I put down a couple of bags of fresh potting soil and compost on top of the bed to add some fertility. In each planting hole I added some slow-release fertilizer and worm castings as well. Once they were in, we added a thick layer of fall leaves to act as a mulch.

The final three strawberries from the tower before the plants went dormant for winter.

For the 2025 season I had a total of 102 harvest days, from January-October. I grew 215 pounds of fresh fruit, veggies, flowers, and herbs in my backyard garden over the course of the year. Can’t wait to see what will happen next year!

No comments on Season’s End in October
Indigo Hammering

November 24, 2025

Uncategorized

This year I struggled to get my indigo seeds to survive past the sprout stage. I started seeds indoors to get a head start on the season, but my first two attempts died before they were large enough to divide and pot up. I finally managed to have a few seedlings that survived to be planted outdoors in early June. I had 3 clumps of plants, but they did produce a few stems and some leaves. I put them in different locations in the garden, and they slowly grew over the course of the summer.

By mid-September I knew I had to harvest and use them before the plants were killed off by the frost. Since there were not a lot of leaves I decided to hammer the individual leaves onto fabric. I had a couple of plain cotton tea towels and used them as my canvas. There are many different types of leaves that can produce prints like this, I experimented last year with carrot, fig, sage, cosmos, and marigold leaves.

This type of project is pretty simple and doesn’t require any special equipment. I cut the stems and placed them in a cup of water to keep them from curling. I then grabbed a small metal hammer and a large piece of carboard to use as a backing to protect the fabric from my concrete porch.

Once I was ready to begin, I carefully cut the leaves off of the stems so as to not rip and break them. I arranged them in the pattern that I wanted on the tea towel, the first towel has a mirror image, so I laid the leaves on half the towel and folded it over. You do need two pieces of fabric to hammer the leaves between, so you will get 2 prints from each leaf. You can either use the same fabric or use scrap of some sort.

Once I had everything laid out in the way that I wanted, I very carefully folded over the other half of the towel and made sure there weren’t any huge creases. I then very carefully hammered each leaf, the image began to appear immediately. You want to make sure you get the whole outline. The veins are quite visible in some of the prints. Once I finished the whole towel I unfolded it and hung it up to dry. Hammering leaves or flowers is very different from immersion dye in that it does not need to soak or sit for the image or color to transfer. There’s no excess dye to wring out.

This was the result of the mirror image print. One side will always be darker than the other, the one you are hitting directly. The side that rests on the cardboard will be a little less crisp. Some folks use wood as the hitting surface but I’m not sure how that might change the print.

Each leaf print is unique, and I hit some of them better than others. But that’s all part of the fun.

For the remainder of the leaves, I decided to do a spiral shape. I used two towels, instead of mirroring half the image. Here are the finished products hanging up to dry. Once they were dry, I then removed the leafy bits by shaking out the towels.

In total I ended up printing 3 towels from a small harvest of only about 75 useable leaves. Made for a fun afternoon project before the cold weather set in.

No comments on Indigo Hammering
September in the Garden

November 11, 2025

Overview

September was a busy month, the garden was very productive, and I had a hard time keeping up with everything. The summer plants were in full swing, and I harvested pounds of tomatoes. The weather was also quite nice and we had a lengthy growing season before the first frost hit in October.

A regular harvest, the cherry tomato plants sprouted up all over the place from dropped fruit from last year, and I left many of them to grow rather than pulling them out. The chipmunks liked the tomatoes too, so I ended up harvesting many of them early and let them ripen on the kitchen counter.

I harvested and dried a bunch of flowers from the garden, including these marigolds and calendula. I also saved cosmos and coreopsis for future natural dye projects.

I grew a bunch of marigolds this season scattered throughout the garden. A couple of the plants in the dahlia bed grew to be as tall as the dahlias!

The compost grown pumpkins really came into production in September. I was worried about the lack of fruit earlier in the season, but I did manage quite a good harvest. Two of the jack-o-lantern sized ones remained green since they had a late start, but they made for good decorations.

This particular pumpkin grew about 3 feet off the ground because the vine started climbing a nearby shrub. In order to support the vine, we put a plant stand underneath with a cardboard box on top so it wouldn’t get stuck in the slots.

The final full-size unrip pumpkin growing near our magnolia tree. The vine stretched about 25 feet from the compost pile to the border with our neighbor.

I brought home a free passionflower plant from work in mid-August and by late September it was recovering and blooming. The flowers are very unique and pretty.

I finally managed to fill the compost bin for the first time all season once I started clearing out summer plants at the end of September. Last year’s compost with the pumpkins growing is just visible behind this bin. The compost in that bin is finished, and I will spread it in the garden in spring. Once that bin is empty, I will turn this bin into it, break up any large stems, and then let it sit and break down for a full year. Composting is a long, slow process, but once I flip the pile, I can basically forget about it. I’m very grateful that we get a bunch of fall leaves, free mulch! I add a bunch to the compost pile to balance out the fresh material and use leaves to protect the fruit trees over winter.

My one-year-old Cortland apple tree actually produced fruit this year! I harvested 3 small apples from it. Looking forward to seeing how many more it grows next year.

I also bought an additional apple and pear tree from Stark Brothers Nursery because two of mine from last year was not doing well and I wanted to have a replacement if it died over winter. Thankfully they both survived so that meant I had to find new places for the “replacement” trees. They had lived in pots with the fig trees all summer but we planted them out so they could get settled in before the frost hit. We planted them in early September, staked them for additional support and put down a layer of straw mulch to suppress weeds.

In September I finally had enough cucumbers at once to make a small batch of refrigerator pickles. I’ve never tried canning, but the fresh method works well for making a few jars at a time.

The potted bell pepper plants finally started producing small peppers in late summer. I ended up harvesting them all green and using them when I made pasta sauce. I’m still trying to get peppers right, but I never seem to get fruit until late August/early September, and they almost never have a chance to ripen to their proper color. I will be trying to overwinter some of the plants indoors to see if I can get a faster start to the season next year.

The last bowl of cherry tomatoes before I removed the spent plants to the compost pile. There were many days where I harvested 1-2 pounds of tomatoes.

I did manage to get a modest fig harvest this year from my established trees, a few pounds total. These are two of the late season Green Ischia figs I had with breakfast on hobbit day.

The fall blooming Shasta daisies provided a nice pop of color when most of the other plants were fading away. I still have kale, celery, and some herbs in the outside beds. I planted a few lettuce seedlings in the greenhouse so I’m going to see if they survive winter.

This season proved to be very productive on the whole. There were some surprising wins and some difficult challenges to content with. The year started off with a lot of rain and the spring was very cold and cloudy. As a result, the garlic suffered, but I had my best lettuce season yet. I experimented and grew corn successfully for the first time, not huge ears, but they were edible. My attempt at growing willow did not work out, and the woodchuck ate my squash plants and a lot of the leafy greens. The pumpkins were slow to start but still did well, the other winter squash plants did not do much. The tomatoes did phenomenal; I harvested 73 pounds total! The dahlias were a happy surprise, and I cut over 220 flowers. Next year I will need to stake them better, so they don’t all fall over. I had just over 100 harvest days from the garden over the course of the year. There’s no way to know what next year will bring but I’m looking forward to it.

No comments on September in the Garden
August in the Garden

September 24, 2025

Overview

The late summer garden was very productive. I harvested tons of tomatoes, cut lots of flowers, and finally saw my first few cucumbers and summer squash.

The first cucumber finally arrived on the outside plant in early August, the greenhouse plants followed a couple weeks later. I lost several outdoor plants to the woodchuck, but this one survived by being right next to the rose bush.

Pumpkin fruit also finally made an appearance in August. The huge vines growing from the compost pile put out female flowers at last. By the end of the month there were three growing, and one was almost ready to harvest.

I’m still waiting on this massive jack-o-lantern to fully ripen, but it is getting close. It’s about a foot in length and is currently mostly orange. There are still a couple weeks til the frost, so I may give it all that time.

This was the year that tomato plants took over. I planted a nice selection, and then freebie plants kept popping up all over from my homemade compost. Most of them were cherry tomatoes, and I removed a few but let most of them just do their thing. I’ve now harvested over 40 pounds of tomatoes, and don’t want to process any more of them. I made many batches of pasta sauce and gave a bunch away to friends and family.

I struggled with several types of plants this year, but thankfully most of the flowers did really well. This new rose bush put out several very pretty flowers, and I’m excited to see how much larger and established it will be for next year. It was a clearance purchase at the end of last season and was only about 4 inches tall when I planted it. One stem put on over a foot of growth this year.

The new cut flower bed was a highlight of the season. I’ve cut over 100 dahlia flowers from just 7 plants. The bed is overflowing with marigolds, cosmos, and nasturtiums as well. I will need to re-think staking for next year as most of the dahlia’s ended up flopping over the edges and growing sideways. I didn’t know how tall and thick they would get. Dahlias are not winter hardy, so the tubers will not survive if left in the ground; they are not a bulb like tulips. I should be able to dig up and save a bunch of tubers to replant next year. I will do that after the frost kills off the plants, but before the ground freezes.

There were several days when I cut 10 or more flowers and had to get out a second vase to display them on the kitchen table.

The pepper plants were very slow to grow this season, even with daily watering from the sprinklers. I finally got a few small bell peppers in late August. I’ve been harvesting most of them green to try and get the plants to grow more.

The Chicago figs started ripening in August, but the Green Ischia are slower. I have harvested about a pound of Chicago so far. I’ve sold several of my propagated fig trees from last winter, which is good. I still have quite a few and I might keep them in the basement. I will mostly likely try to propagate whatever branches I cut off of the mature trees this fall, but it would be good to have a few established small trees as well.

Most of the squash plants were destroyed by the woodchuck, but one summer squash plant was spared. I harvested several small ones in August, and we enjoyed them grilled and steamed with meals.

The zinnia plants were small but put out some very pretty flowers. This variety is called candy cane, I direct sowed the seeds in late May. I also have solid orange, pink, and red flowers. They have been added to a few of the kitchen vases alongside the dahlias.

No comments on August in the Garden
Tomato Season Has Arrived!

August 8, 2025

Overview

Late July brought the first few ripe tomatoes from the garden. I’m harvesting a handful of cherry tomatoes each day and the larger tomatoes are starting to ripen as well. I’m growing Early Girl, San Marzano, Roma, Cherokee Purple, Jersey Breeze, Honeydrop, Bumble Bee Cherry, and Ruby Crush.

I’ve been cutting a bunch of dahlias each week to put in a vase on the kitchen table. I planted out a bunch of spare plants in the bed where the garlic had been, after extensively weeding and clearing out the grass that had taken over. I had about a dozen tomato plants, a handful of coleus and basil, and a couple of snapdragons. Trying to use all the gardening space I can, and get the last of the mature plants in the ground.

My new rose bush has produced several flowers, and has put on a good amount of new growth. Very happy with this purchase, it seems to be settling in to its spot in the corner near the fence.

I harvested my potatoes in 2 different batches in July. I had 5 total grow bags, of two different varieties. Keuka gold and Dark Red Norland. I harvested about 4 pounds of each variety, and we have been enjoying them, mostly steamed with butter and sour cream.

I actually managed to grow a few full-sized ones this year, which was a vast improvement over my only previous attempt a few years back.

Once the potatoes were harvested, I potted up the last few of my pepper plants into the now empty grow bags and moved them out of the greenhouse. These are a mix of bell and snacking peppers. The fig trees behind them are all coming along quite well and many of them are growing figs. As of right now, I have harvested 4 figs this season. Hoping for a bunch more in August and September as the fruit ripens.

The first ripe Chicago fig

The small corn patch is doing quite well, and I have spotted a good number of ears of corn forming. I harvested the first one last week. It had good pollination, even though it was small in size, and tasted quite good when steamed. This square was native soil (sand), and we only added a bit of compost to each planting hole back in May. Next year I will try to do better at fertilizing and adding nutrients to the soil, to hopefully get larger ears of corn. Overall, I’m happy with how this experiment worked out.

Unfortunately, the attempt at growing winter squash amongst the corn does not seem to have worked nearly as well as I had hoped. As of right now I’ve only spotted one small decorative Jack-be-little pumpkin.

The compost mystery squash (bottom) and purposefully planted pumpkins (top) are sprawling like crazy and putting out tons of leafy growth. There are also lots of freebie tomatoes growing out of the other side of the compost bin. I have seen lots of male squash flowers, but it is hard to see under the leaves to see if any actual squash is growing. The one female flower I spotted at the end of a vine did not appear to be pollinated. Guess it’s just not my year for squash!

A handful of small dahlia and zinnia flowers heading for the kitchen island.

The Kevin Floodlight dahlias have been the most productive of my varieties. They are also the largest, a dinnerplate variety. This vase also contains 2 Ivanetti (purple globe variety). I’m very happy I made a dedicated flower bed this year. The dahlias are growing alongside cosmos, nasturtiums, marigolds, and snapdragons.

I started some seeds for succession crops for the fall. I direct sowed some beet and carrot seeds in a few gaps around tomato plants in the raised beds. Indoors I have started broccoli, cabbage, and lettuce seeds. I plan to start spinach, arugula, and pea seeds this weekend.

I have been harvesting and dehydrating lots of herbs including basil, lemon balm, oregano, and sage. I planted out my small indigo seedlings in late June and they have been slowly growing. I am hopeful that I will be able to do a couple of leaf printing projects before the growing season ends.

No comments on Tomato Season Has Arrived!
July Ups and Downs

July 14, 2025

Overview

My first ever Myrtle Brandy’s dahlia bloomed in early July! The flower is over 5 inches wide, and globe shaped.

I went camping the first week of July and when I came home the first thing I saw in the garden was a woodchuck eating one of my kale plants. So now in addition to voles, chipmunks, and rabbits, I’m also dealing with a woodchuck. He dug under the porch stairs and did a considerable amount of damage.

The woodchuck ate all the leaves off my zucchini and yellow squash plants.

It decimated the outdoor cucumbers as well, and the coneflower that were on either side. Thankfully I have a second batch of cucumbers in the greenhouse, so I should still get some harvests.

I first spotted the woodchuck as it was stripping a couple of kale plants of all their leaves. It also ate some of the chard leaves, but thankfully not the entire plant. It devoured all the lettuce plants in the same bed.

There has been plenty of good news amongst all the rodent troubles! Many of my tomato plants are currently covered in flowers and starting to produce fruit. There are some nice sized Early Girls and a few full sized clusters of cherry tomatoes in the greenhouse. I spotted the first slightly ripening cherry tomato in the greenhouse today!

The early girl tomato plants escaped their wire cages and are trying to sprawl all over the nearby plants.

The fig trees are doing much better this year than last season. Many of them are covered in figs, I counted more than 40 the other day. I harvested the first 2 right before I left for my camping trip, but will probably have to wait over a month for these ones to reach peak size and ripeness.

The mystery compost squash plant has grown very large and opened up it’s first male flower the first week of July. Hopefully it will begin setting fruit soon. It’s poking out of the bottom of the compost pile and sprawling across the lawn.

The greenhouse is very full. Tomatoes, cucumbers, peas, and nasturtiums are all climbing various trellises and shelves. There are a bunch of small fig trees, two of which are producing fruit. Lots of herbs, chard, kale, peppers, and flowers are all crammed in together. I also have a couple of trays of extra plants which I will most likely put out in the garden once the woodchuck problem has been dealt with. I still have kale, coleus, basil, and a few peppers that need to go in.

This is my first time ever attempting to grow corn, thankfully the groundhog hasn’t found this part of the yard. I have 22 corn plants and multiple types of winter squash all in the same space. The corn is over waist high right now, so it looks promising.

I plan to harvest the garlic and onions this week since they appear to be done growing. Most of the leaves on the garlic have died back and a few of the onions have flopped over. I just sowed some seeds inside for the fall. I have started lettuce, cabbage, and broccoli seeds so far. Might start more kale and arugula as well. When I clear the onions, I plan to direct sow a few beet seeds to fill in the empty spaces.

1 comment on July Ups and Downs
June in the Garden

June 23, 2025

Overview

We have just passed the summer solstice, and the garden is finally looking full and green. Albany has had a fair amount of rain over the past month, and lots of cloudy weather. It has been warming up over the last couple of weeks, and the summer plants are showing signs of growth. Most of the seedlings are now planted, the garlic is almost ready to come out, and the cucumber and squash seedlings are looking good.

A single day’s harvest of lettuce

The star of the show for the spring has been lettuce. I’ve never managed to grow this many lettuce plants before, or to have them be so healthy. I’ve been harvesting just the outer leaves of the plants, and the romaine is now producing full sized leaves.

I direct sowed a couple of rows of a mesculin mix in the greenhouse in late April. This produced a variety of seedlings including romaine, butter crunch, oak leaf, and merlot lettuce. I have enjoyed the range of colors and shapes that have been growing. I did not thin them and just let them all grow close together. Then in late May I started transplanting them out of the greenhouse corner into other areas because I needed that spot for the cucumber plants.

About a dozen of the lettuce plants went into planters and the rest were scattered about the garden beds wherever I could find room. The cool spring has allowed them to remain growing longer than I expected. Once the summer heat hits, they will most likely all bolt and start to go to flower. The plants stop focusing on leaves at that point, and they also become bitter. I’m taking advantage now while I have abundant leaves, and am sharing the harvests, since it’s more than 2 people can eat. I plan to sow some more seeds for a fall crop in August.

I started harvesting the garlic scapes about 2 weeks ago from some of my plants. I have made 3 total harvests. Removing the scapes, which are actually the flower stalks, encourages the plant to focus it’s remaining energy into bulb production. This final month is when the garlic bulbs put on most of their growth and bulk up. I will probably harvest the garlic in mid-July.

I made my first batch of pesto, using mostly garlic scapes along with a few sprigs of basil off of my small plants. I ended up with 2 cups. I’ve been enjoying it as a dip for chips and on sandwiches.

The flowers in the garden have been starting to pop all over the garden. This is on my new, small peach rose bush.

My two small yarrow plants survived the winter and are starting to bloom now. It is a medicinal herb that I can harvest for use in a first aid salve. It’s also good for certain pollinators because it has lots of tiny flowers.

The petunias in my homemade coco-coir hanging baskets are now blooming. I have purple and white flowers. They have been growing in the greenhouse but are now large enough to be moved outside and actually hung up.

I have been harvesting and drying my first few bunches of flowers, including lavender and chamomile for tea. The marigolds and cosmos can be used for natural dye.

The main garden bed is full of all sorts of plants, in various stages of growth. Garlic and onions run down the middle along with multiple tomatoes, peppers, kale, broccoli, lettuce, herbs and flowers scattered throughout. Beans are starting to climb the trellis on the end.

The first of the Early Girl tomatoes are starting to grow, as are some cherry tomatoes. It’s almost tomato season.

The greenhouse is quite full at the moment, lots of plants in the ground and also in containers. There are a bunch of tomatoes near the bamboo trellis with lemon balm, sage, peppers, nasturtiums, lettuce, kale, marigolds, and rosemary interspersed throughout. My small potted fig trees are in the greenhouse, and a couple are even trying to produce figs. The far right corner has 5 cucumber plants and we need to put in the trellis before they get too much taller. The far left corner has snow peas.

Typical late spring harvest, lots of herbs have been hung up to dry, and there are a bunch of strawberries growing on their tower.

My new raised bed is absolutely brimming with the dahlia plants. There are 7 in the bed along with some nasturtiums, marigolds, and calendula along the edges. The smaller plants are honestly getting crowded out, but I’m leaving everything to see what makes it.

The first dahlia flower is about to open! Can’t wait to see it in full bloom.

I have harvested about 9.5 pounds of produce from the garden so far this season! And that’s been mostly lightweight leafy greens and herbs.

1 comment on June in the Garden
Ready…Set…Plant!

June 1, 2025

Overview

The middle of May finally brought nice weather to upstate New York. It rained for the whole first week of the month, but there was a window of cloudy days in the 60/70 F range. During that time, I made huge strides for planting out my seedlings, hardening off the next round, and have direct sowed quite a few seeds as well.

Getting my seedlings some much needed sunshine during the hardening off process.

The large garden bed was looking pretty empty at the beginning of May, aside from some garlic and onions down the middle of the bed. Thankfully all 3 of my lavender plants in the bed survived the winter and were starting to put on new growth. Time to start filling it up!

My new Birdie’s raised bed has been planted. 7 overwintered dahlias as well as some nasturtiums, snapdragons and calendula. I also direct sowed some marigolds and cosmos along two of the edges, as well as one watermelon in a corner.

During a sunny day last week my dad tilled this section between our inner fence and the deck stairs. Once it was mostly weed-free I put down cardboard with a pile of garden soil and compost on top. This will hopefully turn into an explosion of squash plants in a couple months. I direct sowed summer squash, zucchini, and melons. We plan to add wood mulch to hold everything in place and slow down the weeds/grass from regrowing. I planted a couple of zinnias along the fence and there is one large strawberry plant in the corner which is growing 3 berries.

First couple of in-ground strawberries are sizing up!

The cold, wet spring has been bad for the summer plants, but it has been very good for the spring sown, cool crops. I’ve made several leafy green harvests like this and my peas in the greenhouse are starting to flower.

A bunny rabbit has proved to be a nuisance. It is currently small enough to fit through the chain link fence and has been eating some of my plants. It nibbled on 2 coneflower and one clump of chives. It completely ate 3 broccoli and 2 kale plants this past week. I have put covers on what I can, but soon the plants will be too tall. Hoping we can either catch the bunny or scare it away.

A few of the flowering perennials are starting to bloom including my first ever poppy flower! It’s huge and bright orange. The other two smaller poppy plants nearby are also working on flower buds, so hopefully there will be more soon, and perhaps in different colors. My rose bushes have leaves and are also working on flower buds.

I tried growing coreopsis from seed and got a few sprouts this spring indoors, but they are still tiny. I decided to purchase 2 small starter plants from work in order to get flowers this year. Coreopsis has small flowers and is a good dye plant, both for a dye pot and for hammering or steam transfer onto fabric. I plan to direct sow some of my seeds around the established plant to widen the patch.

Two of the three apple trees have several clusters of tiny fruit, the bees pollinated almost all of the flowers. In about a month, I will go through and thin out each cluster to one a single fruit. I will also probably cover the fruit with a mesh bag to try and protect them from pests. These are very young trees, but I am excited to get a couple of apples per tree come fall!

Here’s a before and after of my initial planting in the large in-ground garden bed. The second photo was taken about a week later. I cleared out a couple of flowering kale and mache plants and re-set the bed with new plants.

Peas, kale, peppers, broccoli, marigold, cabbage, radishes, basil, cosmos, and the first of the tomatoes. This section also has 3 small perennial lemon balm plants and a large lavender plant which is currently hidden behind the tomato.

Looking forward to getting more plants moved out in the coming weeks and hoping to see a lot of direct sown seedlings as well.

No comments on Ready…Set…Plant!
Springtime

April 28, 2025

Overview

Spring is finally arriving here in upstate NY! We had a very long and windy winter but new life is finally emerging. The fruit trees are waking up and the daffodils bloomed just in time for Easter. The magnolia tree is currently in full bloom, and a couple of tulips are growing.

Magnolia tree

Daffodils

Many of my perennial herbs survived the winter. I have several patches of oregano, lemon balm, mint, sage, and thyme. Several of the comfrey plants are just starting to peek through the dead stems from last year. The blueberry bushes are starting to bud. All 3 of the black currants that I got for free in the fall survived the winter, as did the thornless black raspberry.

New flush of black current leaves

New growth visible on a couple of my rooted elderberry cuttings as well!

Two of the apple trees are breaking dormancy and putting out new leaves. The third one, which got damaged by caterpillars last year has a few buds swelling. It lost most of it’s leaves so I imagine it will be making slow progress this year, but at least it is showing signs of waking up. I was afraid it might die off, but that is happily not the case.

All three of the new pear trees are also just starting to wake up, I expect to see leaves soon.

I started to tidy up the fruit trees by removing the bubble wrap, tree guards, and burlap/leaf mulch. I plan to give them all some fertilizer, compost, and new straw mulch soon.

I had my first small harvest from the garden this week! I harvested sorrel, a perennial in the greenhouse, and overwintered outdoor kale.

The chives in the greenhouse are looking good and I’ve spotted a few coneflower sprouts along with lots of self-sown chamomile all across the raised beds.

Chives in the greenhouse

The leafy greens and radishes that I direct sowed a couple of weeks ago are now sprouting, as are the 2 types of peas. I planted out a few onion sets and have another batch nearly ready to go out in the ground.

Hoping the peas will climb the shelf in the corner of the greenhouse. I added a few sticks to encourage them to head in that direction.

I have started to harden off a few of my cold weather crops by placing them in the greenhouse. I will leave them out for incrementally more time each day for about a week to get them adjusted to normal growing conditions before transplanting near the end of April/early May. So far, I have a few kale, cabbage, chives, and broccoli seedlings.

I am also hardening off a few of the larger fig cuttings so that they can get more sunlight and hopefully start growing more.

Azalea blossoms

Last weekend I cleaned up the strawberry tower which had overwintered in the basement. A couple of plants died, but there were about a dozen small runners growing amongst the more mature plants. I carefully divided them out so that there was only one plant per pocket and I put most of the runners in their own pots so that they can grow on without competition.

Before and after shots of the strawberries. I added some homemade compost, granulated fertilizer, and fresh potting mix to level out the soil and hopefully provide enough nutrients for the season ahead.

These are an everbearing variety, so that means I should get a bunch of small harvests until frost, rather than one huge glut like June-bearing varieties. I was very happy with how the strawberries did last year, and am looking forward to growing more. I now have extra plants so I might make either another layer of the grow tower, or a couple of hanging baskets, depending on how many of them survive the dividing process.

I planted all my overwintered dahlia tubers in a variety of small pots and a couple of them are already sprouting. I don’t know how many will make it, but I had over 30 tubers, of 4 varieties. I will be planting some of them in my new raised bed which has hardware cloth on the bottom to keep out the voles.

We assembled the new Birdie’s metal raised bed a couple of weeks ago and figured out where I wanted it. We then filled the bottom half with logs, branches, and leaves.

My dad then added a layer of topsoil and compost from out huge leaf/debris pile out back. The final 6-8 inches will be filled with purchased manure and raised bed soil. I expect the level to drop a good bit over the coming year as the leaves and sticks start to break down, but then next spring we will be able to top it up with more compost.

I’m so happy that spring has arrived and that new life is visible on so many plants. Green leaves and fresh shoots are so nice to see after a long, dull winter!

No comments on Springtime
Willow Cuttings

April 17, 2025

Uncategorized

At the beginning of March I ordered willow cuttings from a farm in PA. They had a small stock of their own cuttings available for sale, and I decided to go for it. I ordered 10 cuttings, and they arrived a few days later in the mail. I enjoy weaving with willow and have attended two classes, and want to make more items with willow. However, classes and materials (willow) are expensive, and not locally offered. I’m going to try to grow my own this year.

The cuttings arrived quickly, and each cutting was about 1 foot long. I left them in the fridge overnight, while I rehydrated a brick of coco-coir to use as the base of my growing medium for the cuttings.

Once again, I used clear plastic containers to plant in, this time I used 6 inch pots, instead of the small cups. These cuttings were quite a bit thicker and longer than my fig cuttings, and I wanted to be able to plant a couple of the growth points to help with the rooting process.

I’m trying something different this time around. I dipped the top ends of the cuttings in wax before planting. This is supposed to help them better retain moisture and protect them from disease. Not sure yet if it will work, but I had wax, so I decided to give it a go. I did not dip these cuttings in rooting hormone like I did for the figs, willow naturally produce rooting hormone and are supposed to root quickly from cuttings.

My light and airy homemade potting mix, which I use for all my cuttings. Coco-coir, pine bark fines, and a small amount of perlite. It retains moisture but doesn’t get soggy. Once all the cuttings were planted, I put them in a tote on a heat mat to make a miniature greenhouse. They were in an area with minimal light, so I was hoping the plants would focus on root growth.

The cuttings were planted on March 12, and left in the tote with the lid just cracked for the first few days. I misted them with water once to make sure the top of the soil wasn’t drying out. In less than a week there was visible bud growth as they broke dormancy and started growing. I did spot tiny roots around the edge of a couple of the containers, so I think they are going to all make it and do just fine.

By early April they all had shoots of new growth and some roots were quite visible around the bottom of the clear cups. A couple of them actually started to wilt and go brown, I think this was because the initial growing mix did not contain many nutrients for these fast growing plants. I potted them up into 6 inch pots and gave them fresh potting mix with a bit of compost.

They are all now in the basement under grow lights and a few are putting out fresh, healthy shoots. I plan to keep them in pots on the back patio so as to not have them become invasive in the yard. Don’t know what kind of a harvest I will get from potted, first year willow, but I’m looking forward to the experiment.

No comments on Willow Cuttings