Nobody's Mad

The first few seedlings appeared today, twelve days after planting, three days after increasing the moisture level in the potting soil.

Swiss chard normally germinate in 4-10 days.

Still keeping an eye on the garden as temperatures shift into high gear.  The lawn looked parched by yesterday, so I watered it in the afternoon.  I’ll move the next regular watering day for lawn, ornamentals and potted Christmas plants to Saturday– but remain ready to adjust that schedule if temperatures really take off. –MJH.

Although the radish seeds have swelled there has yet been no sign of green. They are several days late.

It turns out that although the top of the potting soil has been kept moist, half an inch down it is bone dry. I didn’t expect this in a plastic tray with no drain. Apparently the potting soil is not wicking – perhaps due to the baking we gave the compost to kill pathogens.

Today therefore I gave the seeds much more water than usual in hopes that some will penetrate farther.

We are hoping to wean our lawn and ornamentals away from the excess of water that we’ve been raining on them.  We’d like to see if we can water everything just once a week, except for the potted Christmas plants (two blue spruce, two deodora cedars, an arbor vitae and a poinsettia) which will be watered twice a week.  I am edgy about the lawn, with the spring heat we have been having, so we are keeping careful watch on it.  The Christmas plants were watered yesterday, Tuesday.  If they can hold out, the lawn and other ornamentals won’t be watered until Friday.  –MJH.

Some notes on the vines on the lowest level of the south side in Mariposa. They’ve been in place a few years and have seldom been pruned. Today I pruned a lot of deadwood out of the wisteria.

^*Lowes codes identify plants at Lowes Plants.

Tidied up the new veggie bed with several rakings and some flexible edging.

We’re still holding our breaths waiting for seed germination.  The radish seeds have swollen some more but no sign of green yet and no action from the other seeds.

Today I dug over the small Mariposa veggie patch for the second time. I also added the fertilizer, ash, and compost.

The radish seed set two days ago has pushed up to the soil surface but we won’t count it as germinated until some green appears. As best I can tell from Wikipedia, all the brassicas are dicotyledonous.

Today on Mike’s recommendation I added one-half ounce ash to the poinsettia and one and one-half ounces of Kellogg’s Azalea and Camellia Fertilizer (11% S, 7-14-7) to the old blue spruce.  I am to repeat the addition of ash to the poinsettia twice at one-week intervals. –MJH.

The 15-30-15 we use in small quantities is Miracle-Gro.

The 22-3-4 is actually 29-3-4 lawn fertilizer but 7% of the N is slow release so we count it as 22-3.4. It also has 3% S and 1% Fe – it’s the least acidic high N fertilizer that we could find in our three local stores.

We’re also using some fine white hardwood-ash, which we estimate is 0-1-5 and 25% lime.

We’re putting in a small patch in hopes of raising a few veggies before we head north.

South veggie patch chemical soil test results:

Soil tests pH7.5 indicated by soil meter, confirming that the soil meter reads one pH too high.