The Weekly Digs #62
Our project this past week was putting down our silage tarps where the garden will go. They are 24 x 105 feet tarps used to block out light from the plants underneath.
The idea is to have the grasses underneath die so that it is easier to prepare the garden and there is less weed pressure during the year. The company says it takes 3-4 weeks to work. I’ve found that the process of smothering weeds usually takes a little bit longer when it’s cool like it is in spring.
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We learned a lot as we laid out the tarps but the main thing was that you can never have enough sandbags. It is crazy windy on the hilltop and everytime we have come back after leaving the land we have had to adjust the tarps because they got blown over.
I’m super glad they have at least remained somewhat in place they aren’t cheap and I’d hate to have them blow away somewhere. We bought 50 sandbags and used 44. I took the other six for my garden at home.
I will probably still need to buy more. I got the tarps and sandbags from HERE.
At home we had our first substantial garden harvest shown below of beet greens and spinach. I made a quiche with the recipe from THIS BOOK and it was really yummy!
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Now time for some reality. A few of my indoor seedlings have really struggled this year. I haven’t had very good germination and my guess is that it’s a combination of older seed and not being able to get my trays warm enough for germination.
I’m waiting on some new pepper seeds as that has been the bulk of the issue. I was able to get about 36 out of 72 to sprout and grow. Even as they grow though they don’t look healthy like my other indoor seeds. So my plan of action is to pot up the peppers to the 4 inch blocks using the fresh new seed starting soil I made. And then when my new pepper seeds come in I will sow more indoors and perhaps directly.
Last year I did some direct sowing of pepper seeds (my first time ever) and it did really well. But as expected it was last to bear fruit. I may end up doing that again this year so that I can make sure we have enough for a year supply.
In the garden:
- We transplanted the last of the onions.
- Sowed more easter basket radishes after accidentally leaving the seed packet in the garden. Whoops! They were sprouting in the packet and I couldn’t stand to waste them so I planted them in a garden bed.
- Asparagus is just starting to pop up. We haven’t harvested any yet, but maybe by next week.
Below is my promised weekly garden update pictures. Not much as changed at this point. We are still having a lot of chilly days.
![YouTube video](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/PbSlQAb-H_E/hqdefault.jpg)