Lets see…

The pumpkins are happy happy plants.  A few leaves got damaged by the frost, but the plants themselves are bigger than ever.

Zucchini is also very very happy.  I only planted 3 plants, and I’m seriously considering pulling one and making it only two.  At the rate their growing even those three plants are going to produce a ton of zucchinis….

Cantalope is less happy, but not dead, I’ll take it.

Watermellon is refusing to germinate.

Onions are doing well, I lost a few when I first put them out, but most of them are doing well.

Carrots have all sprouted and I’ve been working on thinning them out.

Peppers…..sigh.  I’m down to TWO surviving seedlings out of 15 or so I started.  And although all of the seeds I planted for the 2nd round sprouted about half of THEM have died off TOO (and they’re not even out of the seedling tray yet!!).  I have NO idea what I’m doing wrong there….I put the rest of the seeds double bagged in ziplocks in the freezer and I guess I’ll do alot of reading over the winter and see what I can do differently next year.

Popcorn is doing well.  The ones I planted in the container are several inches tall, the ones I  planted in the ground only got planted this last week so they haven’t sprouted yet.

Sunflowers which I planted at the same time as the last batch of corn are sprouting and look good.

The various herbs (pepermint, spearmint, and horehound) that I planted in containers last year are sprouting away no problem.

Garlic hasn’t sprouted…..I think I planted it to early in the fall (it sprouted before winter hit), and I think I THEN un-covered the containers to early this spring….oh well, will try again next fall with what I learned.

The giant tire flower planter is planted and done, pictures pending.  Its got strawberries, purple Asters (they look like purple Daisys, so cool), purple Blazing Star, some daffodils, some iris, and hopefully some night blooming primrose.

I’ve got the remainder of the daffodils around the property dug up and I’m waiting for them to dry out a bit before I ship them off to their new homes.

 

At some point over the winter I got the brilliant idea to see if I could acquire a used tractor tire to use as a flower planter to hide a stump in the front yard.  I only just a couple weeks ago managed to track down one from someone who didn’t want a fortune for it (dude, you’d have to pay to have it hauled off to recycle it, I’m not paying you $50 for it), and Friday set out to cut out as much of the sidewalls as I could using my reciprocating saw (Dewalt 18volt cordless).  Only to have the blade melt the rubber rather than cut it.  Oops.  Thats not going to work.

At that point a little light bulb went off, and I remembered a post over on Rural Revolution where they had cut a similar tire with their Saws-all, and had a similar problem.  They’d managed it using a different type of blade, so I shot off an email asking for the specifics of the blade in question, and got a response nice and quick (THANKS AGAIN!!!!).  For anyone wandering across this post with the same problem: the blade you want is THIS ONE, or similar type toothed blade.  Finer teeth just melt the rubber.  Even this one will melt the rubber if you’re unlucky, but it does cut it.

Did you know there’s about an inch of metal wire in the very inside of the sidewalls of those tires?  That was NOT FUN to cut through, I think when I do the other side of the tire I’m going to see if I can just punch through without having to cut in from the edge……

Yes, I said when I do the other side.  My poor little saw ran through two batteries cutting its way around the tire.  But it did it.  My hands HURT now though.  Its not even really the arthritis either.  I’ve cut wood and PVC pipe with the saw before, but this tire takes the cake.  That hurts.

Gonna look cool as a planter though, WAY better than the random stump and weeds.  Pictures when I’m done!

The baby pumpkin plants survived last nights dip below freezing with no apparent signs of problems.  The ends that you see draping over the edges get turned up for ventilation during the day, I turned them down for the photo.

*sigh*

Started various seedlings on schedule (using the end of April for the date of last frost, since everything I can find says thats last frost for my area).  Everything SPROUTED, and GREW way quickly this year.  Guess using proper lighting instead of a sunny window helps…..

Had to pot up almost everything a couple weeks ago as the roots were getting rediculous……and now everything, except the baby pumpkin plants, are looking really sad.  They’re still under the grow lights, I don’t have a green house to put them in yet.  I had some watering issues the first week or so, trying to figure out the proper watering needs now that they weren’t in the self watering tray, but they still look really sad…..lost a bunch of the pepper plants too.  I’ve restarted more seeds for those though its possibly late enough now I don’t know how much good that’ll do…..

Specifically for the seeds rather than the greens.  Anyone in the northern part of the country tried it?  It looks like its a late summer crop, cause the plants actually need the cold to produce large quantities of seeds…..anyone have any ideas, tips, variety suggestions?  I don’t know that I’m going to try it this year, but its come up in discussion between hubby and I several times now so I decided its time to start researching….