Moving a garden - part one

Due to a number of circumstances, we decided to move to a new (bigger) house, very close to where the UrbanHoe all started. Of course I could not abandon my much loved garden, so I took it with me. I was not too sure how this garden transfer would turn out, because I have never done it before. Here were the tips that I listened to:

• Transplant at dusk, or at night when the plants are sleeping - this causes less stress
• Dig very very deep as to not nip off any tap roots
• Remove as little dart from the root ball as possible
• Once you have them in the buckets, water them

Here are the last pics of the garden before we dug it all up. I'll note which plots we took, and which ones we left for the wonderful neighbors to tend to.

Farewell garden cottage

Hybrid Miller/Tammer salad, ate it

Arugula, left it there

Bolted chard, left it there

Green onions/scallions, left them there

Lettuce, took half

Carrots looking great, to bad I had to leave these guys

Elephant garlic, took it!

Heirloom Tomatoes, took them

Took 'em

I also took the fennel, the peas, some Yukon gold potatoes and some beets to see if they would make it.
Here are some of the pics from the transfer

 There were about 2x that many tubs by the time we packed the truck

The first harvest - Week 8

Two nights ago, we had our first Arugula salad of the season. It was perfect, fresh, and full of spice! Oh man it has a kick, just what I love about it. Arugula is just like any other leaf green, you can harvest the large leaves on the outside, and leave the smaller, younger leaves in the center for your salad next week. If you grow enough, you should be able to eat it every day and just rotate the plants you pick from. Also, arugula is an excellent re-seeder as well, as long as it is well established.

Arugula on bottom, lettuce seedlings on top

First arugula salad of the season, many to follow

Beautiful, flavorful, spicy organic radishes for tacos!

As for the rest of the garden, it's coming right along. Here is a look at how much it grew this week after 2 weeks torrential rain, and followed by a week in the mid-80's. That's what a garden calls love.

Sugar Peas

Organic Brandywine and cluster heirloom tomatoes

Fennel

 I had to start the carrots over, the rain got the best of them. They basically flooded, and I think the seeds rotted in the ground, well all but these 2 little guys. I laid some more seed down a week or so ago so the crop should start popping up soon with all this sun, but for now, this is all I've got.

Carrot survivors

Elephant Garlic getting big

Potatoes

Full view with duck barrier up

Romaine Lettuce

Surviving the storm - Week 5

Its been rough, raining, pouring, and well, lets face it, the old man is snoring. I was really worried about losing a lot of the direct seedlings with such heavy rain so early in the season. Although some have washed away, and some were literally pound into the ground, the rest have survived and are thriving, which is great so early in the season. These pictures were taken today, which means that we have finally caught up.

Broccoli from last season going to seed

Broccoli, that came out more like broccolinni

Here is some fennel that I just transplanted to the ground from a pot that I started in October. It finally took off, I had it in the wrong soil this whole time. It has doubled in size every week for 4 weeks.

Fennel

 Chard in the foreground, re-seeded from last year

Radishes are in!

 Radishes, Onions, and Sweet Peas

Arugula & Lettuce (at top)