February 23, 2002: Put up my Jewel cold frame today.  I like to get it put together at least a week before I plan on putting seedlings into it.  This gives me time to "fine tune" the solar vent that pops open one side of the frame.  This solar vent keeps the seedling from overheating on sunny days.  I plan on getting some lettuce seeds started in a few days.  Will have to wait to see what the weather will do.  They are predicting very cold temperatures so I might have to delay starting the seeds.  I like to get the seedlings started and in the cold frame by March 1.

March 2, 2002:  I should have known we would get snow after putting up my cold frame last week!!  We got 3 or 4 inches of snow about 4 days ago along with much below average temperatures.  I delayed starting my lettuce seeds a few days and planted them yesterday in plastic seed starting trays.  They should germinate in a few days while kept inside in the basement.  After germination, hopefully the weather will turn a little warmer, so I can put the plants in the cold frame without fear of losing them.  The forecast is calling for more snow tonight, but for warmer temperatures to return next week.

March 17, 2002:  Most of my seeds for my cool season crops have germinated and have been placed in the cold frame (lettuce, broccoli, cabbage, brussels sprouts).  Some of the seedlings have now been in the cold frame for about 10 days.  The seedling growth seems a little slow right now due to the lack of sun.  I will probably start my pepper seeds (green and hot) in another week, and my tomato seeds in another 10 days or so.  The robins have returned, which is a sure sign of spring!!

March 29, 2002:  Well, the weather around here has been anything but dull!!!  We had a round of heavy rain followed by freezing rain, sleet and snow three days ago.  I had to scrape the ice off the top of my cold frame.  Still, Indianapolis did not get hit nearly as hard as some other parts of the state.  All the seedlings in the cold frame are doing pretty good considering the weather!!!  I moved the tomato seedlings to the cold fame two days ago, and the peppers should not be too far behind.  I hope we have seen the last of that snowy winter weather.  I should be receiving my onion plants next week, and I hope that the weather will start cooperating.  I also plan on putting some of my lettuce seedlings out into the garden in another 10 days or so.

April 7, 2002:  I received my onion plants on April 1, and planted them the same day.  I ended up planting about 80 onion plants.  On April 6, I planted some of my lettuce seedlings out in the garden, which was about 30 plants.  Some of the seedlings were a little smaller than I would have liked, but I felt that the weather has maybe finally turned warmer to stay.  I covered the small lettuce seedlings with a floating row cover.  I will plant the rest of the lettuce seedlings next weekend, weather permitting.  The rest of the seedlings in my cold frame seem to be responding to the warmer weather and have started to grow a little better now.  The ground is still a little wet from all of the recent rains.  I guess we have it better here than in other parts of the country where they are experiencing drought conditions.  I emptied my finished compost from my black compost bin and spread it over my garden beds.  I will be adding compost materials to my green compost tumbler soon.  See pictures below.

April 13, 2002: We finally are having some warmer weather!!  The redbud trees are now blooming.  We had a high of 79 degrees a few days ago.  The forecast is for the warmer weather to continue.  We also had quite a bit more rain, too much really.  We have had more than enough rain for the time being.  I planted the rest of my lettuce seedlings that were in the cold frame out into the garden today.  The ground was very muddy, so I tried not to do that much digging, just planted them in the mud.  I removed the row cover completely to allow the ground to dry out a little bit.  I will be planting my broccoli, cabbage and brussels sprouts in about a week.  See below for a picture of what the seedlings inside my cold frame looked like a few days ago.

April 21, 2002: Well I asked for warmer weather and I got it!!!  Actually, the weather was too hot.  The temperatures last week got above 80 degrees for five days in a row.  I planted my broccoli, brussels sprouts and cabbage seedlings early last week and then the weather turned hot.  The newly planted seedlings wilted a little in the hot sun, but they will pull through.  My lettuce is not growing all to fast right now because of the unusual heat, but it will start to come around when the weather turns a little cooler.  Temperatures are predicted to turn cooler next week.  I am hopeful to get to pick some lettuce in about a week!!  I have put up my fencing around 3 of my plots to keep the rabbits out, as I have done for 3 years now.  All is well in my cold frame.  I only have tomato and pepper seedlings growing in the frame now.  I will not be planting those in the garden for another 2-3 weeks.  Besides, they are predicting a possible light frost in a few days.

April 29, 2002:  The weather has turned cool and VERY WET.  I had standing water all around my garden plots for about the last two days.  It has just today started to dry out a little.  Despite that, my plants in the garden seem to be doing fairly well, but the growth seems slower than it should be for this time of year.  I am still waiting on my lettuce to produce large enough leaves for me to harvest (see pic below).  I am trying several different varieties of lettuce this year.  I will report back on their progress.  The onions plants that I purchased are growing fine, but are slow growing as well.  I have started from seed via the cold frame the onion variety called "Super Star" this year.  Currently the plants are in the garden, but are very small.  I am curious to see how well they do.  All my cool season plants are in the garden and growing slowly.  I think I am getting a little bit of slug damage on some of these plants, but they should be alright.  I will not be planting my tomato or pepper plants for another 7 to 10 days yet.  The same goes for my bush green beans.

May 7, 2002:  Somebody please stop the rain!!!!!  We received about 1 1/2 inches of rain within the last 24 hours.  The ground was already saturated before all this rain, so now I have standing water all around my garden plots.  Luckily, my plots are built up enough so the water does not pool inside of them.  Still, I need to wade through four inch deep water to get to them.  I will gladly give some of this water to the drought stricken east coast.  Despite all the rain, my garden is doing fairly well at the present time.  I harvested my first bit of lettuce today.  This seems to be about a week late for an average year.  I suspect I will have some slug problems due to all of this wet weather.  I will have to monitor this in the coming weeks.  I hope to plant my paste tomato and pepper plants in the next week or so.  If I can get the ground to dry out enough, I also hope to plant some bush green beans

May 19, 2002:  Well it is now official, Indianapolis has had the wettest March thru May on record!!!!  We also broke a low temperature record this morning with a temperature of 32 degrees and we had some light frost.  I had anticipated the possibility of some frost and covered my tomato and pepper plants with row covers last night.  I am glad I did.  The plants seem fine today.  Because more frost is expected, I will keep the row covers on these plants for the next couple of days.  The ground has started to dry out just a little, but I think I will hold off planting my green beans for a few days more.  I am hopeful that we are through with all the flooding rains.  Now all we need is some drier weather and sun.  I have continued to harvest some of my lettuce, but not as much as I have hoped by this time.  All of my early planted vegetables have not been growing very fast.  I guess it is probably due to the goofy weather.

May 31, 2002:  The weather has finally turned more like "normal" with warmer temperatures and drier conditions, and the plants have responded positively.  I planted the first plot of green beans on May 24, and they are starting to sprout today.  This is about 2 weeks later than I normally plant these.  My lettuce has started to grow larger and I hope to continue to harvest more than I have in the past (see picture below).  The light frost of 10 days ago nipped the leaves of my tomato plants, but they are growing fine now.  All the other plants seem fine.  I side dressed organic fertilizer around my broccoli and onion plants on May 24.

June 9, 2002:  The weather has been warm/hot and relatively dry.  The warm weather plants are responding to the more summertime temperatures.  The green beans I planted about two weeks ago are starting to grow.  I will be harvesting a couple of broccoli heads today.  The heads are a little smaller than they have been in past years.  A few days ago, I planted about 40 lettuce seedlings.  These lettuces varieties are the more heat tolerant ones.  I also put up some shade netting to help them get off to a good start.  The spring planted lettuce is really taking off now, so I continue to harvest these.  A few varieties I have already harvested and pulled up to make way for the new seedlings.  I will be harvesting the romaine in a few days, but not all at once.  As the weather has turned hot and drier, I started to mulch the garden with dry grass clippings.  See pictures of the garden below that were taken 6-9-02.

   

June 24, 2002:  I have just returned from a one week vacation away from home and my garden.  The garden is doing well despite my absence.  The weather has turned very hot and humid and dry.  While I was away, two of my broccoli heads started to flower, so I had to compost them.  The rest were fine and were harvested.  The warm weather plants have really started to take off, including my peppers (see picture below).  My newly planted lettuce is doing relatively well despite the hot temperatures (see picture below).  I harvested the last of the early spring planted lettuce this morning.  The onions are growing fairly well and were looking a little dry so I hand watered them this morning (see picture below).  The green beans are growing well and will need to be watered soon if we do not get any rain within the next few days (see picture below).  I have not seen much insect damage on any of the plants as of yet (knock on wood).  I will be watching my beans closely for beetles.

July 6, 2002:  The weather has turned very hot and dry.  The 4th of July Holiday was an absolute scorcher with temperatures in the 90's and high humidity!!  The weather has turned less humid, but it is still hot.  Things are dry and we could use some rain.  I have been watering my lettuce, onions, and peppers.  My beans are doing very well and should be ready to begin harvesting in a few weeks.  I pulled up the last of my spring planted lettuce (Salad Bowl).  I just started to harvest some of the lettuce that I planted in the first week of June.  This lettuce seems to be doing better than the spring planted crop, despite the heat.  My Roma tomato plants are growing fast and have already grown above the top of the cages.  They seem to enjoy the heat.  I continue to harvest broccoli.  I would rate this spring's broccoli crop as fair.  The broccoli did not head up as well as in past years.  I have not been overly impressed with the quality of the "Green Comet" broccoli the last two years.  I think I will try the variety "Premium Crop" next year.  The "Packman" variety continues to impress me.  It has grown fairly well this spring and continues to produce abundant side shoots.  Today, I started the broccoli and cauliflower seeds for the fall crop.  Speaking of cauliflower, my spring crop was a waste and I pulled the plants up!  Only one of the plants had just STARTED to head.  I cannot wait on them.  I need the room to plant more green beans.  The onions appear to be doing pretty good and have started to bulb.  My cabbage is still a little small, but will probably start to harvest them within a few weeks.  The peppers are doing fine and are really starting to grow with all of the heat.

July 14, 2002:  The weather has been typical for this time of year.  We did have about 9 tenths of an inch of rain 5 days ago, but the ground is already dry.  I have just about completed harvesting the spring planted broccoli.  I have begun harvesting the cabbage.  The green beans are maturing very fast and I harvested some a few days ago.  I will be planting the second crop of beans soon.  I have one big green pepper on one of the green pepper plants, and the chili peppers are growing like mad with many peppers on the plants, but no red ones as of yet.  The forecast is for sunny, hot and dry weather for the next five days, so I will probably have to start watering soon.

July 24, 2002:  The weather has been hot, and humid, and very dry.  My garden missed out on the rain last night and today, so I have started to water.  I even watered my tomatoes for the first time this year!  Harvesting continues on my green beans.  I had to spray them with a little Sevin about 5 days ago to counteract the bean beetles.  I have planted my second crop of green beans and they have started to sprout (see first picture below).  My onion tops have started to flop over which is a sure sign that they are nearing maturity (see second picture below).  I pulled up nearly all of my broccoli plants and applied some fresh compost over that area.  I hope to be planting my fall broccoli seedlings in a few weeks.

 

August 24, 2002: Well, the weather has turned desert like!!!  We have only had about 2 inches of rain in the last two months.  Still, the garden is doing relatively well despite the lack of rain.  I was able to plant my fall broccoli and cauliflower seedlings at the end of July.  I also planted some more lettuce plants about the same time.  I hope to have more lettuce seedlings to plant within the next 3 weeks or so.  Before I went on vacation at the beginning of August, I watered in my newly planted seedlings and kept them covered with shade cloth.  I also pulled up all of my onions and left them to dry on hardware cloth for about two weeks.  When I got back from my vacation, I planted my fall crop of green beans where my spring onions were planted.  I have also been harvesting tomatoes like crazy.  I put up 8 containers of tomato sauce about 10 days ago.  See pictures of my roma tomatoes below.  My super chili hot peppers are doing very well and have also matured very fast (see the third picture below).  My green peppers are also growing very well and I have been harvesting these as well (see the fourth picture below).  I thought I would try to grow some fall carrots this year, so I planted these carrot seeds this morning.

October 20, 2002: It has been sometime since I last made an entry into my journal, so I have quite a few things to report.  We finally received some rain in the month of September.  Now, at least, the soil is staying moist.  The temperatures for September were above normal here.  This was ideal weather for my late planted beans, but was not so good for my fall crop of broccoli and cauliflower.  These plants experienced some leaf wilt during the hottest parts of the afternoon.  These plants are doing much better since the weather has turned cooler.  I began harvesting some of the broccoli two weeks ago, with still more to come.  The cauliflower heads are still small and will need some additional time until fully mature.  My late planted green beans grew very well with the unusually hot weather and I was able to harvest most of the crop before the first killing frost of two weeks ago.  Yesterday I pulled up all of the rest of my early planted beans, tomatoes and pepper plants and tilled those plots with my Mantis tiller.  My fall planted lettuce is doing very well with a little protection from a row cover and a small hoop house.  The late planted carrots are not growing as well, but I am still hopeful to get some harvest from them before the ground freezes.  The brussel sprouts are starting to mature and I will start harvesting them soon.

November 10, 2002:  Well, the 2002 garden season is coming to a close.  I pulled up all of my fall planted broccoli and cauliflower plants yesterday.  This fall crop was poor.  My brussel sprout plants are doing fairly well and the sprouts are starting to plump up to size (just in time for Thanksgiving dinner!), see below .  I continue to harvest lettuce with the help from a small hoop house covered with a row cover.  This fall lettuce crop is doing really well.  I hope to continue this harvest for another month or so.  My late planted carrots seem to be doing ok, but I will not know how well they have grown until I harvest them.  All my other garden areas are empty except for a healthy covering of leaves.

December 1, 2002:  I did harvest a decent crop of brussel sprouts about a week ago.  They made a fine Thanksgiving meal addition.  I am still hopeful to be able to harvest a few of the brussel sprouts that are remaining on my plants, even though the plants themselves are drooping.  I think the 2002 garden season is over for me today.  We had a low temperature of 15 degrees this morning.  I now know the low temperature limit for my floating row cover and hoop house over my lettuce!!  Still, I did manage to harvest about half of the remaining lettuce plants.  The rest I pulled up and threw in the my very full compost bin.  I also decided it was time to pull up my late summer planted carrots.  The small Nantes variety of carrots I planted was "Caroline Hybrid."  Most of the carrots were small but considering the harsh weather conditions at the time of planting, I guess they did not turn out too bad (see picture below).  I really like the idea of harvesting fresh vegetables from my garden in December!!  Now is the time to start planning for next year's garden.  I hope to order most of my seeds in January.