Hey Beerman

Hey--beer man! Fresh Beer is my new mantra. Its almost easier to say what earwigs don't eat in my garden than what they do eat. Peas, strawberries, blackberries. They ate EVERYTHING else. This year they seemed particularly fond of turnip greens--which was fine--share and share alike. But when I dumped out 20 earwigs from a single head of lettuce yesterday morning...Game On! So I came upon this thread--that link above about earwigs not eating things...HA! Well then me and da kid poured out 3 Breckenridge Pale Ales into cat food tins and plastic cup bottoms and set them out. First earwig was toast in less than 5 minutes. This morning I ambled out and found the cat tins Full! and I mean full of earwigs. The plastic cups weren't so voluminous but still worthy. Tonight, we buy some malt liquor. Those little lushes will be so high...just before they die. Do you think they're fussy about the kind of beer? I'll report back with more info on Colorado Earwigs Beer Preferences.

Peas Everywhere

No..Not really--but I've harvested most of the snow peas for the year--probably one more decent sized harvest--think I really got the hang of picking them before they go bitter; both by feel and by look. Many shell peas still to be gleaned. Including the dwarf grays-which finally expressed their name. When fully plumped they're still little guys. Its the earwig that are eating turnips. I say--Let them eat turnip greens!
Tomatoes are finally taking off--peppers and eggplants are not quite as assertive.
Still haven't gotten everything into the ground--hopefully today.

The allotment hasn't germinated quite like I would like--the black beans have been poor--the cow peas are very poor and the garbanzo beans are um...not at all. Adzukis and calypsos are pretty good and the gourds are ok. Pumpkins and squash are fine. Oooooo I can't wait to see what happens.

Peas have arrived

Well then--once a month is better than nothin--
Down to 3 trays to plant--hope to have them in by Jun 21rst end of spring--
Garden harvests include--lettuces, baby beets (including new Bull's Blood stripy beat--much brighter than the chioggia), kale, snow,shell and sugar snap peas, turnips(yellow ball turnips are neato), of course ORACH, mignonette strawberries, yellow snow peas, radishes are done:( although the rattail radishes are just coming now.

The allotment has 21 different kinds of winter squash and pumpkin planted and almost all have come up--also hopi red and golden grain amaranth and blue corn around the walking stick kale.
The gourds are just coming up and only decent germination of the beans so far--garbanzos have come up nice tho.

At home the earwigs are back in force eating everything the get near. Fortunately I have a roadblock of the dwarf sugar peas keeping them from one side of the garden. The ate all my freaking cucumbers--Fark--had to reseed.

Froze some spinach--looks like the viraflay has Much longer staying power than the corrente or the bloomesdale. The Super Sugar Snaps are the clear winner along with the dwarf grays. Yellow snows are doing pretty well. Again none of the shell peas have done that well. One variety is doing okay -- my map got completely wiped out by a nighttime rainstorm--left it out over night==-=ughy! Many of the summer seeds were out too!!! Must have been nearly 50 packs of seeds out in the rain -- terrible! Don't know whether they're all ruined or not. Either way it was a gardening calamity.

Anyway--hope to get everything else in on Sunday and monday nights after the Buffalo Creek Tri.

more soon--or at least sooner

What's going on

Well shoot--guess I'm not very good at this bloggin thing. Things are moving along tho--harvesting radishes, spinach, orach (the world will end and somebody will be eating orach in my yard--talk about volunteers), cilantro, cress, chervil, oregano, thyme, dill, beet greens, chive and thinning lettuces, raddichio and endive--makes a good salad.

Dug out the old wood sorrel, russian sage and tansy--too big for the horseshoe garden. Kind of sad to see them go...but..a mans gotta do...

Planted some of the foxglove and they seem to have taken--still have thirteen trays to put out.

5 beds are done in the allotment plots--more to do--walking stick kale is planted- Hope it gets big--G's been talking about it for months!

Latest Germinations

The pictures are coming...something weird keeps sprouting in the food garden--not sure what it is but I suspect the seeds were in the soil I added...

7 Days
Celeriac

8 Days
Fenugreek
Watermelon
Oregano

9 Days

10 Days
Casper Eggplant
Tequila Sunrise Pepper
Sedge Grass

can't remember anything more now--I'll update later

The daily

Germinations
6 Days

• Bunny Tails Grass
• Neopolitano Basil
• Sweet Genovese Basil
• Osmin Basil
• Licorice Basil
• Italian Large Leaf Basil
• Charontais Mellon
• Sun Jewel Melon
• Edible Chrysanthemum
• Golden Sunrise Chard
• Bright Lights Chard
• Sweet Marjarom
• Lemon Basil
• Lime Basil
• Cinnamon Basil
• Sweet Petra Dark Basil
• Agrostitis(Grass)
• Garden Peach Tomato
• Cherokee Purple Tomato
• Striped German Tomato
• Pomadoro Tomato
• Red Currant Tomato
• Orange Banana Tomato

Planted Outside

• Snow White Carrot
• Yellowstone Carrot
• Nutri Red Carrot
• Red Core Chantenay Carrot
• Thumblina Carrot
• Osaka Purple Mustard
• Tatsoi
• Anise
• Dill

Outside Action

Plums are about to bloom
aspens are done seeding
daffodils under G's tree are in bloom
daffodils around corner pine blooming
daffodils in sandbox bed are blooming
pink darwin tulips in front starting
red emperer tulips are nearly done
forsythia is nearly done
purple/blue scilia in front made it through snow
crocus are done
chinodoxa in front are done
russian scilia north bed are done
muscari in fence bed are starting
white muscari in peony bed and front tri bed are starting
barrel species tulips are done
leucojum made it through storm and continues to bloom
only one daffodil came back in the front tri bed near garage

Snow is mostly gone

Something is sprouting all over the food garden that I don't recognize. Things that have gone to seed include borage, carrots, chia, lettuce, fennel, new Zealand spinach, mache and its none of these...hmm..no idea! All the transplanties seem to have made it through the night again and the great Beast Castor Bean has finally risen. Gotta get the rest of the carrots in asap. Most of the bulbs made it through the storm. Hyacinths seem unmoved. I've planted so many things in the sandbox bed over the last three years that it fun when something I've never seen pops up!

Gotta get some pictas up here.

Daily Report as follows:

New sproutlings
5 Days
Mexican mint marigold
Savoy cross kale
red Russian kale
Neapolitan basil
sweet genovese basil
bush green basil
ruby red chard
bright yellow chard

8 days
mignonette strawberries
golden strawberries
redventure celery
Utah celery

2 months
Castor Bean

Big Snow is a meltin

So 12 inches of snow last about 1 day in the springtime of Colorado--all the little transplanties seem to be doing well. New Germinations include

3 Days
Chiang Chang
Hon Tsai
Red acre Cabbge
Red Express Cabbage

4 Days
New Mexico Chile #2
Dwarf Blue Kale
Tuscan Kale
Ornamental Grass
Thai Basil

7 Days
Echinacea Paradoxa (Yea!)

Transplantin day

Spent the whole day yesterday in snowstorm transplanting--why--I don't know--could buy these things for a pittance--BUT the goal is to plant all the pots with things I grew from seed.
Including
Lobelia-
--cambridge blue
--white
--dark blue
Pansy
Marigold
Petunias
Geraniums
Echinacea Padilla
Wee Willie Dianthus
Baby's Breath
San Vitalia
Mahogany Midget Coreopsis
Digitalis
Impatiens
Dascia
--think that's all
still a bunch more to transplant and I'm running out of room--outta dirt and outta space under the lights. (sigh!)

got some purple dragon carrots in before the snow hit--got about 11 inches!

Now its melting off fast.

Big Snow

We have a huge upslope happening here on the front range. Its coming down faster and harder than it did all winter. So much for the early tulips, hyacinth, and chinodoxa...

Good day for transplanting. Just planted all my summer starters. Tomatoes, peppers, chards, kale, herbs and such and such. Pictures to come soon.