Tuberous begonia update: Zero signs of insects (phew!)

(Also zero signs of begonia yet, but that's normal at this stage.)

I'm still keeping it in the kitchen though rather than the plant room, just in case.

Started kale and chard

Kale:  The same as last year -- Vates Blue Curled -- but mostly using seeds collected last year, and a few of the bought seeds separately.

Chard:  Good old Fordhook as always.

Started some peppers, and more celery and stevia

Peppers started:

- Witch Stick (bought last year but I can't remember if it gave the too-hot little ones or the decent long ones or if it gave nothing at all)

- Jalapeno

- Hungarian Yellow Sweet (oops, forgot to not start the sweet peppers until later)

Also started more celery and stevia to fill in the gaps.

Tuberous begonia update: NOT eggs after all I don't think

I unbagged the pot a couple of days ago (keeping it in the kitchen) -- what looked like eggs no longer look like anything.  I'm guessing it was some type of fungus maybe?  But everything looks decent now.  Will leave downstairs in the kitchen though for a while longer, just in case.

Started celery round 2 (bec most of R1 seedlings flopped, only 4 good ones)

Started stevia round 2 and New York onions round ~3 or 4

(To fill in gaps.)

OH NONONONONO!!!!! EGGS ON TOP OF THE TUBEROUSO BEGONIA SOIL!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today I happened to notice what looks like hundreds of small white eggs throughout on top of the soil of the tuberous begonia!!!!! WTF!??!?  This has never happened before.  I can only guess that if these are in fact eggs, some critter came in with the bulb when I brought in inside in the fall, and despite being in a paper bag with no water or anything for several months, somehow the critter survived and laid all these eggs!?!?!?   Maybe if there's only one, the eggs won't be viable?  Wow, what a mystery.

So I immediately took the pot downstairs and double-bagged it to make sure everything stays inside.  Will see if anything emerges from the "eggs"....   I sure hope these aren't critters because if so, obviously I'll have to toss the whole thing, and TB has been around for quite a few years, has been a nice tradition.

Not seeing sign of any eggs etc. on anything else.... fingers crossed.

~~~~~~  See updated posted Feb 12th:  Doesn't look like they were eggs after all... (fingers crossed)

Started stevia

Started round 3 New York Early onions -- directly in mix

(To fill in some gaps in round 2.)

Started cauliflower, and round 2 of leeks and green onions

Cauliflower = Early Snowball.  First time really trying cauliflower.

And more leeks and green onions because the green onions had bad germination rate and not enough leeks.

Started round 2 New York Early onions -- directly in mix

I decided it's way too annoying to sprout so many onioni seeds in paper towel and then try to plunk them into mix when they cling to fingers etc.

So for round 2 of New York Early onions, I put them directly from the seed pouch into my mix, in the ~6x6 tray of cells.  Put only one seed in each cell.

Wakey wakey, tuberous begonia!

^^^

Started broccoli (Belstar & Piracicaba), parsley, and celery

 Started broccoli (Belstar & Piracicaba), parsley, and celery.

Belstar is new to me this year, recommended by Susan M.

Started leeks (Varna)

^^^

Started onion seeds: Frontier, and green

And so it begins!

Started in PT:

•  Frontier onion seeds x 16 (left over from last year -- didn't realize so few seeds were left)
• Green onion seeds x a lot (from 2018 collected seeds)

GA: Completely finished for the year

I've officially finished pulling all the things, after a final harvest of chard, leeks, carrots, and beets.

It was a fun and rewarding year!

Key take-aways from this year:

- Insects were NOT a big problem at all!

- Weeds were a HUGE time-sucker!

- Next year I hope to put weed cloth or whatever it's called on the paths to reduce the amount of weeding needed.

- I loved it!

GA: Beet harvest (wimpy)

Harvested all of the beets sown July 18th.  They never bulked up -- a lot are quite small, a few are a bit bigger, but no really good nice big ones.

The yard beets never did great this year either other than a few big ones.

GA: Final carrot harvest -- TONS AND TONS!!!

Wow, I had no idea how many carrots there were!  Will definitely be donating a good chunk of them!

The original sowing, of Bolero, whose greens always looked wimpy so I thought there wasn't much carrotness underground, actually were great!  Tons and tons!

The ones sown July 17th -- "Red Cored Chantenay" -- their fronds always looked strong and sure enough, a great harvest there, too.  These ones were broad at the top with a quick taper, a shorter carrot overall.  Definitely a different shape than the narrow Bolero.

Did a taste test -- at first I thought Bolero were sweeter, but really actually I think they all taste the same!  (yum)

Leaf collection in full swing -- putting pre-soaked alfalfa below leaf layer

So far, have collected 2 garbage bags and 1 garbage bin worth of leaves.  I estimate 2 more garbage bins will probably be enough to cover the rest of the yard.  It's a lot less now that the central bed has gone back to the dogs as of a month or two agol

Below the leaves I'm scattering pre-soaked alfalfa pellets.  The only place that doesn't have the alfalfa is under the big rock pile in the south part of the west bed -- that's where I'll put carrots next year.

Garlic: Planted the rest of it

The second half of the garlic (some Elephant, some "regular") went in today.  Elephant in the north section, Regular in the lower section.  Two of the elephant bulbs were MASSIVE (they're the first two from the left in the northmost row here).

And, I added kelp as well as pre-soaked alfalfa to these ones, and scattered that over top of the first half garlic too.

All is covered by a thick layer of leaves.

One of the "regular" garlic bulbs was half-bad/shrivelled -- very disappointing at $25/pound plus tax!  But overall I still had enough to fill my ~4x4 foot garlic bed area.