Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Gardening in seattle, Unusually cold spring, Sun Dance ritual, accidental garden, secret garden, cold frames and planting bags

 Garden Update. Since all the other gardeners in the Pacific Northwest are complaining about the unusually cold  spring .... I thought I would too.   My lettuce , which should be on the table by now is  only about 3 inches high and my broccoli is so leggy  I hope it makes it.  Pretty much anything that was seeded  straight into the soil is just sitting there.  The vegetables  under the cold frames are doing alright:  tomatoes and cucumbers  and such.  The basil just poked their little heads out of the ground and said   'no way, we're NOT doin' this'  and disappeared.  Successes this year include  the potatoes and snow peas that were planted in my awesome homemade  planting bags.  And the  'secret ' bed is amazing even though it is shaded by a horse chestnut tree.   The secret bed is  an untended area   that was the old compost pile.  Mostly grass clippings and sod,  we emptied some of the potting soil  from well used containers on top of it.      I dug up some  volunteer potatoes from last year and threw them on there.  Within a week they were 6 inches tall. They are 18 inches now.  Quite a few  'extra' starts went on the pile as well.  Our  'island of misfit'  vegetables  is  rockin' out..... and blowing raspberries  at the pampered, well tended,  raised bed, veggies.  I can only assume the   rotting biomass underneath it has raised the  soil temperature. An  accidental  hot bed , if you will.
So, I'm thinking I need to get a bunch of Seattle gardeners together and do some sort of  sun dance ritual.  Or maybe go back to my hippie roots and  have a  old fashioned Evergreen drum circle in my back yard ( I'm sure that would make  my middle  america neighbors very happy).  But I need to do something!  I think I will talk to Jimmy about installing some sort of heating device under the beds for next year. But, that's next year.   Must...stay...focused..... on ...now! 

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