July 2011

Everything is growing great! We have...
On the porch.
2 Cucumber plants. 2 Green squash. 12 or so tomato plants of different variety, including cherry, roma, beef-steak, money-maker and one I simply called "Big" (probably canning tomatoes). 4 jalapeno's started. 2 habanero plants. 2 Big black seed - loose head lettuce that I pulled from the grow camp. And a bunch of onions that came pre-started from a local farm and are only called "sweet".

I built a little shelf I call the "tomato shelf". Tomatoes have been a problem, they overwhelm the grow camp and they don't ripen or produce much on the hot tub due to they don't get sun until about 1pm. They need more sun and some wind, so this location solves both of those requirements, hopefully! This spot gets sun at 10am. It's just a test this year, but if it works out I'll build a better shelf.

In the Grow Camp.
Gourmet red lettuce and several black seed - loose head lettuce. Strawberries (more on them in a minute). 4 Spinach plants. More "sweet" onions. 2 or 3 green pea vines. 3 or 4 green beans. 6 carrots. And basil, dill, chives and sage for herbs.

 Herbs

 Strawberries everywhere!

 Onions, carrots and spinach.

The strawberries are doing too well in there and taking over, so I think I'm going to pull most if not all of them.

There's a steep hill on the other side of the porch that I want to populate with plants to cut down the erosion, so I might try moving all the strawberries here and see how they do...

This thing has some sickly looking tomato plants hanging out, but they all have tomatoes on them, surprisingly.

I don't much like this system, but we'll see how it does over time.

Planted 2011

Finally got everything planted today. Our weather has been either stormy or blistering hot with nothing in between, but today wasn't too bad so we got all the sprouts planted and outside.
Some like peppers, squash, cucumbers and tomatoes are in pots on the porch because they will over whelm the Grow Camp and block out everything else, as we learned from last year.

 This loose head lettuce was transplanted from grow camp. It was the strongest of the lot but it, and many others that sprung up on their own, were crowding out the beans and peas that we want to grow in there.
It didn't like being moved at all but it might recover...

A couple more steak tomato plants on the ground because I ran out of pots.

We plan on moving the tomatoes out next the grow camp so they get full sun. On the patio they only get sun from about 1pm on.

Hanging tomatoes are doing pretty good even though 2 of them were broken.

Chives, carrots and now a bunch of new sweet onions. This is the sunny spot in the camp and this time we put the small leaf stuff here in hopes it does better. Last year we put tomatoes in this spot and they overwhelmed.

Strawberries are really gaining ground by launching vines to different spots and then taking root.

Lettuce and strawberries are growing (taking over) on their own, none were planted this year, this all grew on it's own from last years crop.

Setup the timed sprinkler system again. 20 min at 7am and 20 min at 7pm.

Onions.

We did finally get a couple replacement clear panels for our cracked ones under warranty from the US distributor. They shipped them fast but they initially argued that the warranty for those was only 1 year. We showed proof from Costco that the warranty was 5 years on those parts and they honored it, but still tried to fight it. They were not very customer service orientated in my opinion. 

They tried to charge for the panels initially, but when it was proven that these are under a 5 year warranty, the women told us she was aware of that...? Then why try to first get money out of us, (on the first phone call, but then said "well, ok, no charge THIS time"). But yet the warranty IS in fact for 5 years and they acknowledged that? That is our ONLY complaint about this thus far. 

Starting out 2011

We had a pretty rough winter in MI this year. It's still getting down into the 30's even at the end of April so everything is getting a late start this year. So far we are starting everything from seed this year, which is my favorite way to do a garden. :)
I made a new cat-proof way to start all the seeds down stairs using a wire rack.

 I don't think the cats will even try to get up on that because the wires are spaced too wide.

Because we usually over plant I got a little more organized with the seeds this time and put all the past seed sprouts info into an Excel spread sheet. This shows how many seeds were planted vs how many actually sprouted each year that we've used them.

I've sort of been doing this all along but not very organized and all hand written.

Now I have it all in one file and can easily plant less of what I know will sprout.

Then I number each tray and make a table showing where all the seeds are planted. I start with them as circles and then fill them in with a sharpie as they sprout so I can get stats for next year.

The seeds all have a code which I write on the charts and the seed pouches to match everything up without having to write out the long names each time.

 The trays are numbered and I also mark a corner on the inside (in red) so I know the orientation of the tray compared to my chart.

Last year we used the plastic inner trays which ended up being a bit of a pain because the sprouts would grow though the bottom and we had to use a razor and slice open each little square to get them out.
This year I reused the big trays but got some organic squares for the inside. These can be separated easily and you just plant the whole thing. I was glad that they actually fit perfectly inside the big trays.

Ok, a little tight, but no problem.

 Then outside I have all the porch pots ready to go.

 And things like lettuce, cucumbers and hot peppers can all grow on the hot tub cover.
That rope is a wick to drain off any water that pools up on the cover.

 Out at the Grow Camp we already have some growth from last years crop.
All of the tomatoes are going to be in pots over here this year where there is more sun. We probably won't put many in the Grow Camp because they just grow too well and end up blocking the sun from other things.

 Chives

Lettuce

Strawberries

Onions

Still need to clean up the tomato mess from last year.

Our water is really hard so I'm going to try to clean up the sides where it's stained.

 We get a lot of wind right here, mainly due to what I call the "landing strip" and one of the clear covers cracked over the winter and now has a hole about the size of a quarter. I'm contacting the US Grow Camp distributor in NY for warranty replacement instructions. Haven't heard back yet.

 That's where we're at so far this year. As you can see the grass hasn't even really taken off here yet.
We are so ready for summer!