Sleeping Beauty Melon

Katanya Melon
Sikkim Cucumber

Alibi Cucumber

Black Beauty Zuchinni

Golden Zuchinni

Jaune et Verte Scallop Squash

Today we got a warm sunny day. Tomorrow it may very well hail, but today it didn't, so the cucurbits came out of the freezer.

 After weeks and weeks of waiting for what was supposed to be the last frost, I've decided to go ahead and plant my cucurbits in pots for transplant, and keep them in the living room until the weather stabilizes. 

It took a trip to Steubers for an extra 75 pots and a brick of cocopeat to get started. I ended up planting all my seeds since I've never grown melons and squash before, and figured I'd kill most of them. With that reason, and the weather not being quite suitable for heat loving cucurbits, I thought better safe than sorry.

Armed with my 'good morning grumpy' mug full of chocolate chips, I sat on the front stoop and planted 100+ pots of cucurbits. Win! And the living room is now full of plants again @_@

"What is this plant?", you might ask. Well, we have absolutely no idea. It sprouted up out of the coco peat next to our thyme starts about a week ago.

It is not something I planted, but I am suspicious that Steve stuck a giant pumpkin seed in there with the herbs, and just isn't telling me. He's been going on and on about these giant pumpkins. "But where will we put it?", I ask him, "the pumpkin alone gets to be five feet wide!". After foiling his plot to take over the yard with enormous pumpkins, I wonder if he's planting them behind my back. He pleads innocent, but we'll see.

With the coco peat being coconut husk and all, at first, we figured that it must be a coconut. Well we had a huge 'DUH!' moment a day or two later when we realized, "Ugh, don't coconuts actually grow from COCONUTS???". There definitely wasn't a whole coconut in there somewhere, so it has to be something else. 

The coco peat comes from India, so our next guess is that it is a tree or plant native to India. I sent some pictures off to my mom, who lives there, and might know an Indian tree expert. We'll see if she can find us an answer. 

We'll continue to post updates on our mystery plant. Hope we can keep it alive!

 

Mmmm, worms! Thousands and thousands of happy, healthy, wiggly worms.

Well then! Time to fill these raised beds with some dirt! 

We decided to first lay down a six inch layer of organic material; waste hay, fresh manure and a thin layer of compost to inoculate it full of worms and microbes. This layer of material will decompose and in the process release heat which will warm the soil around the roots of our plants, and hopefully radiate some of this heat into the hoop houses. Warming up the garden beds allows us to get a head start on growing things.

On top of this layer of organic material, we're putting another 6 inches of home mixed growing medium; a mixture of compost, coco peat, home mixed organic fertilizer, and occasionally some fill dirt. This is one of my favorite tasks so far. Steve calls me a hippy for it, but I'm comfortable with my healthy appreciation of dirt.

The first step is to rehydrate the coco bricks. They come in dehydrated blocks that expand to several times their size. It takes about eight gallons of water and some elbow grease to break them up and turn them into light fluffy wheel barrels full of coco peat.

Soft, fluffy coco peat is a beautiful red color. Coco peat, or coir, is the ground up husk of coconuts. It's produced mainly in India and Sri Lanka.

Although not a local material, it is a more sustainable choice than peat moss, which is mined from hundred year old bogs that are a non-renewable resource. Luckily, coconuts grow on trees! 

 

We've been fortunate enough to be given access to a beautiful pile of 15 month old organic compost. Black gold teeming with worms! Thank you Easter, Codi and Shina!

    

To mix the soil, we dump it all on a flat surface, add about a gallon of perilite and stir it with pitchforks and shovels until it's all mixed together. The final product is a beautiful, airy growing medium, full of worms, beneficial microbes, bacteria and more! Doesn't that sound great! :-P

 

 

We accidentally dug up this little vole out of the compost pile. Luckily he survived the ordeal without getting hurt. On the downside, he had to set up a new residence in the big tree stump outside our garage. Good luck little vole!