Teresa & Mike CHS - Our journal

[Mike CHS]

Our would-be Guardian Lamb was funny this afternoon but she usually is since she acts like a cross between a sheep and a dog that doesn't quite know how to act like a dog. Babs was trotting down the hill just behind the dogs and Mel decided mid step that he wanted to play fight with Maisy. Babs couldn't quite figure out how to be part of the fun so she got between both dogs and wound up with Maisy knocking her down.

 

[Baymule]

That has to bring a lot of laughter to you! What a funny girl!

 

[Mike CHS]

We are actually ready for the garden season to start although we still have some frost coming for a couple more days. All of our plant starts are up and getting hardened off during the milder weather. I just transplanted the last of our starts from wet paper towels to the seed flats this morning and I still waiting on one more batch of squash to germinate. We keep unopened seed longer than what is considered their life span and have pretty good luck with them. I do germination test the older seed though like I just opened up our first planting of Snow Peas that is five years old and I got a 100% germination rate. The Butternut Squash is 4 years old and they are just starting to sprout and will be ready to pot up in a couple of days.

I just potted up the Okra seed that will be growing in the garden and testing their germination also saves a lot of time in the garden since Okra doesn't like soil temps much under 70 degrees and won't germinate with it much cooler. I just put the seeds I'm testing in a wet paper towel and put that in a plastic sandwich bag and even hard seeds like Okra will germinate in 5-6 days. We start almost everything that will go into the garden except things like beans on a couple of shelves on our back porch.

 

[farmerjan]

Going to get some of my old seeds into wet paper towels and bags to test tomorrow... That will give them 6-8 weeks before they will go out in the garden even though they will go out on the porch daily in the sun when it is warm enough.

 

[Mike CHS]

Going to get some of my old seeds into wet paper towels and bags to test tomorrow... That will give them 6-8 weeks before they will go out in the garden even though they will go out on the porch daily in the sun when it is warm enough.

We have been doing that for a long time and it eliminates garden spots waiting on seed that won't grow.

 

[Baymule]

That sounds like a really smart idea. I have lots of seed. Once I buy a farm and start a garden, that would be a good way to see what grows and what doesn't.

 

[Mike CHS]

We picked our first batch of Asparagus this morning and we did some more tilling in the other beds. Sugar Snap Peas are coming up and we planted some Buttercrunch Lettuce and Romaine along with some cabbage and Parsnip and carrot seeds. We have a bunch of cabbage already started but we need to pot them up for planting in a couple of weeks. Our normal last frost is still about 10-12 days away so we will hold off on most of the seedlings. The potatoes are showing some growth but we will just keep covering them up with soil for awhile yet.

 

[Baymule]

Sounds like a bunch of delicious yummy vegetables will be showing up!

 

[Mike CHS]

There is some really nasty weather out there tonight. We had everything put up that would blow away but it seems that so far most of the heavy weather has been moving west of us by a bit.

 

[farmerjan]

We are supposed to get it starting in the morning.... not looking forward to it.