That’s all the news. Cold, rainy, hail-y and very little else going on in the garden.

No sprouts to take pictures of.

Is there something about watching seeds that prevents them from germinating? It has been very cold here, but it seemed pretty warm inside the frames.

Patience.

The peas and first round of seeds are in. (Peas above.) MB gave me a little plant monitor, which I’m using to check the temperature of the soil and air. I planted them on the right date, but it snowed yesterday and has been a little too chilly so I put a couple pieces of plexi on top of the containers.

The cold frame is definitely keeping the seeds nice and warm. No seeds have sprouted yet, but I’m watching them. I got my new drip system attachments in the mail, and am making gleeful plans to make the system better. I need to make a new tower to hold the barrel, since the amp that held it last year finally dissolved.

Santas Mary Beth and Mark got me an Easy Bloom for christmas. So this year I will have a helper in deciding if plants are sited appropriately. Flatbush Gardener posted a very helpful site to help me figure out when to plant my seeds. This year’s contestants are:

Seeds (mostly from Fedco

• Multicolored Pole Beans
• Scarlet Runner Beans
• de Bourbonne Pickling Cucumbers
• Little Leaf Cucumbers
• Red Russian Kale
• Be my Baby Cherry Tomato
• Genovese Basil*
• Thai Basil*
• Borage*
• Flying Saucers Morning Glory
• Daddy Mix Petunia
• Pink Wave Petunia
• Mission Bells California Poppies
• Beneficials Mix (to draw nice bugs)
• Black Beauty Zucchini
• Bouquet Dill*
• Lemon Cucumber*
• Chadwick Cherry**
• Pronto Beet
• Northern Pickling Cucumber**
• Butter & Eggs Marigold**
• Caserta Zucchini**
• Cascadia Bush Snap Pea**
• Scarlett O’Hara Morning Glory** (*=successful plants from last year, repeating this year; **=plants started last year, but squished by cat-love or melted in great seedling death of ‘08)

Perennials

• Concord Grape
• Rosemary Alta
• Mints (some survived, not sure which)
• Lavender (seems to have survived)
• Paul’s Glory Hosta
• Chives

I let the blog fall by the wayside as summer came to a close last year.

All in all, it was a successful garden, and I’m glad I documented the giant biomass with the Jenky Video.

My greatest triumph was the rainwater irrigation. I did not expect to be so pleased by it. The entire summer, I watered from the hose only twice. The rest of it was all drip and supplemental watering can from the rain barrel. Watching the rain barrel fill up in 10 minutes during a cloudburst was so exciting that I almost fell off the roof jumping up and down. The only stumbling block was that the emitters closest to the barrel clogged quickly. I am adding a Y-fitting with a 200 mesh filter this year. I think the cucumbers, chives and petunias needed more water, so I am changing the configuration significantly this year: the more water intensive crops will get flag emitters and I’ll run all the drippers on 1/4″ lines that come off a 1/2″ manifold. I should’ve done it that way last year, but my kit only came with 1/4″ lines, and I wasn’t sure if the whole project was going to work. A clear success, drip irrigation will get a small investment this year.

Though the vine was lovely, we only got two grapes. I believe I f’d up by pruning when it was too warm and all the fruit-force drained out the tips of the pruned canes. I submitted a question to the gardener’s question answerers at Brooklyn Botanical Grarden, and they advised me not to prune this year. I will try to layer some cuttings and make gifts for friends and maybe start over to get a more vigorous fruiting vine.

The compost went very well. I am in the swing of it, and feel good about it. At work, I kept a container in the freezer of all the compostables, and brought that home every once in a while. The best tomato last year was a volunteer that popped up in the aging compost at the end of the season.

All the tomatoes were knocked down by a big storm. The only other casualty was the Paulownia tomentosa, the giant weed growing by the fire escape. I wanted to see if it would grow to the 2nd floor. It was almost 15′ tall when it went down. Good compost fodder at a time of few browns.

The borage bloomed late, but the bees went haywire for it, and as soon as it bloomed, everything in the garden set fruit. This year, I’m starting it early to bring in the pollinators as soon as possible. Also, I think I saw a neighbor sneak in a 3 story beehive last month. Either that, or she bought the ugliest nightstand in the whole world.

Tuesday, I will go up to Build it Green for some windows to make a little greenhouse on top of my new raised beds. Unemployment has its perks.

The pickling was superb this year, and all gift pickles have been so well received that I have 4 people signed up for my Home Canning class already. (Yes, Mikeross, I’m counting you in.)

Tomorrow, I’ll post a list of this year’s intended crops. I’m more ambitious, but I know I enjoy the process, even the failures.