Click on a thumbnail picture below to see the full size version. 19 Entries. Wednesday, February 12 View Page I hope 2025 is off to a good start for everyone. The Collard Greens are encased in snow and ice. Overnight lows have been in the single digits down to around five degrees. Will they survive this winter?   Tuesday, February 25 View Page Waimea Valley's botanical garden on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii. Over 5000 types of tropical and subtropical plants. A nice escape from the cold in New England.   Thursday, February 27 View Page Beautiful gardens at The Royal Hawaiian in Waikiki Beach, Honolulu. Despite being in one of the busiest parts of the city, its very quiet here.   Saturday, March 15 View Page We visited the park and garden today for the first time since last November. The Winter Rye will probably start cranking in the coming weeks. We have to do a better job this spring of keeping it short before tilling.   Saturday, March 22 View Page A beautiful Spring day in Boston. We started some seeds from Johnny's today indoors for the vegetable garden: Brandywine OG Tomatoes Sun Gold Cherry Tomatoes Supersweet 100 Tomatoes Hybrid Paste, Plum, and Roma Tomatoes Grandero F1 OG Hybrid Bell Peppers, X3R Red Knight F1 Hybrid Hot Peppers, Red Ember F1 OG Hybrid Savoyed Spinach Sunangel F1 Basil Prospera Italian Large Leaf-Hybrid Downy Mildew Resistant (very important in the community garden) Summer Crisp Lettuce Magenta MT0 Marjoram Zaatar OG Greek Oreegano Portuguese Kale As far as the giant pumpkin, I am going to grow my own seeds for this first time this year from the DeMarco 266, which comes from the Young 1502 and the Connolly 1375, great shape and color, and proven in small spaces. The community garden will open for the year on 4/19 which will be mandatory clean up day. Soil samples will be taken. I will be using two small hoop houses this spring in the community garden and I am planning on three rounds of planting: One early start indoors around the middle of April that will go into the bigger hoop house. This will be a bigger transplant that will be indoors for around a month. A medium start indoors that will be indoors for around two weeks before going into the small hoop house. Direct seeding in the other two corners of my plot. I am still working on the above dates. While I will have hoop houses and black plastic, I will not have heating cables so I still have to be careful with the cold.   Friday, April 4 View Page The cold tolerance of Collard Greens is very impressive. These three survived the winter and are thriving now.   Saturday, April 19 View Page Today was clean up day in the community garden. It held up well over the winter. We raked and bagged a ton of leaves.   Saturday, April 19 View Page Our first time in here since 11/2 of last year. We took soil samples. Despite patchy Winter Rye, it still did a great job of blocking weeds.   Monday, April 21 View Page Happy Patriots’ Day Marathon Monday! I started two DeMarco 266 seeds this morning. The dome runs around 84 degrees. This will be my early start, large transplant, that will go into a hoop house. I will also be using clear plastic on the soil this year to help heat things up. Two more rounds of seed starting will follow…   Thursday, April 24 View Page The veggies are off to a great start. I want to do a better job of gradually hardening this year. Last year I left them outside in the bright sun too long early on and lost a few plants.   Saturday, April 26 View Page This is the first time I have germinated one of my own seeds. Crappy, cool, rainy day here. No rush to head outside in this weather with no heating cables.   Monday, April 28 View Page I am going to expose the pumpkin plant to more natural sunlight this year early on before transplant.   Wednesday, April 30 View Page Transplanted into a two gallon pot today and some afternoon sun. The Collards have bolted and I harvested today. Three of the six survived the winter. A very nice April harvest.   Thursday, May 1 View Page Soil test results just came back.   Saturday, May 3 View Page San Diego Zoo’s Food, Wine, and Brew Celebration. Our favorite event of the year. This zoo is also a botanical garden and some people come just for the plants. We set timers on the grow lights and left water in the trays.   Saturday, May 10 View Page We tilled both plots today. Not the best weather, but it had to get done. The soil doesn’t retain a ton of moisture so it really wasn’t that bad. We have never seen so many worms in our plots. The greens went into the veggie garden. We kept on top of the Winter Rye and tilling was so much easier this year. This old truck really comes in handy.   Sunday, May 11 View Page I direct seeded two DeMarco 266 seeds into this mound of potting soil that I added organics to. One of the seeds germinated late indoors so I added another fresh seed. Hopefully the .7ml clear plastic and a cut Polar Seltzer bottle will heat up the soil.   Sunday, May 11 View Page The greens are weak, despite a lot of hardening off. The tomato seedlings really overgrew them in the trays. I added some skewer stakes for support, they work great for small seedlings.   Sunday, May 11 View Page What a beautiful day.