Busy Week Gardening - Plants Are Growing Fast - by Sunscape

The Plants

The peppers are enjoying being on the top shelf of the greenhouse soaking up the sunshine.

The cauliflower, lettuce, and onions are loving being on the cold floor of the greenhouse. I will be planting them outside next week in the large cold frame.

All of the spinach in the small tower gardens are filling in and I will start picking the larger leaves for salad this week.

Hydroponics

Look at the size of the spinach that is growing in the hydroponics.

Also, the Bok Choi has doubled in size since I started it last week and has grown larger since taking this photo.

Solar Lighting

After cleaning out the gardens at the front of the house, I put out the new lights that my husband had bought for me for Valentine's Day. They look so nice and bright at night too. The last solar lights I had for years finally gave out one by one.

Raspberry Patch

The Raspberry patch needed to be cleaned and cut back, so that was a task that I took on one morning.

I knew that I needed to get the dead canes from last year out and top the canes that were beginning to swell with new buds.

It looks a lot better and should be easy to harvest the fruit this summer.

Compost Bin

I decided to purchase this composting bin for all the kitchen scraps and some of the garden waste.

We set it up at the back of the property at the edge of the woods. We will be able to access it easily to add more material to it over the summer months. I have another one that can be set up beside it once this one is filled.

We have been saving kitchen scraps all winter long in a large bucket knowing that we would set up a composting area. It was nice being able to layer wet leaves and garden material that we cleaned from the gardens. Having the kitchen scraps to add was a bonus, it shouldn't be long before it all starts to break down.

It is halfway full at this point, I can't add anymore leaves until I have some green matter to alternate with.

Egg Fertilizer

I decided to make a fresh batch of Fertilizer from eggshells, even though I still have some leftover from last season. I crushed the shells and put them onto a parchment lined baking sheet. They baked slowly in the oven for two hours at 250°F. They dried perfectly and they powdered easily in the food processor.

For every ounce of powdered shells, I added 10 ounces of white vinegar to a very large jar. Once you add vinegar to the shells it will foam a lot, so you want a huge jar to be on the safe side.

The shells could have been finer, but the food processor didn't do as good a job as a blender would have. Next time I will do them in the blender for sure.

Once the foaming settles down, the shells float to the top of the water. This will sit on the counter for 10 days which will allow the mix to ferment. Once it is ready, one tablespoon of the calcium water will be added to each gallon of water. This will be used mainly on the tomato plants throughout the growing season. I will have to look up which plants would benefit the most from the liquid calcium. Off the top of my head I can't remember from last year, lol.

I hope you are enjoying getting outside in your gardens and I'm looking forward to your progress too.

Until next time, this is Sunscape
Sun. Scape. Ing Your Day