A still from the new garden cam shows the other half of the garden. Notice the cold frame on the right side.

On April 19 I speculated that the second garden cam would be up and running within a week. It’s turned out to be closer to two weeks, but now everything is working well.

As with any project, or any part of a project, you might start with a general idea and then alter it as you go along. The original idea for the web cam, compliments of Nate and Jason, was to do a time lapse two-minute video showing the evolution of the garden through the season. We still plan on doing that in the fall.

As things change in the garden I hope to offer something of a play-by-play description. For example, garden cam 2 shows part of a cold frame that we put up last Friday. I use the cold frame to harden off the plants that have been growing inside. Broccoli and kale are happily waiting in the cold frame before being planted in the garden.

I’ll get tomatoes out there within a day or two, at least that’s the plan. Peppers are lagging this year, about two inches high, and cabbage should be ready to come out within a week.

Both cams give me the opportunity to share garden successes (and failures) during the growing season. My approach has always been to try this or that and see what happens. For instance, I have been fertilizing the seedlings with worm tea (made from worm castings in water with a few added ingredients). It is a wonderful fertilizer and has been used to prevent disease, such as blight. I’ll write more about worm tea in the future.

Feel free to check in with the cams anytime, day or night, although night shots are gray and white, thanks to the infrared feature on the cams. Without the infrared we’d see nothing but the blackness of night.

You can view cam 1 here, and cam 2 here. You can also view them by clicking the thumbnails on the upper left column of the homepage.