Garden Notes - April 2, 2014

 

 I have a cold frame!!  And it came just in time, too!

A shingle was blown off of our roof this past week, so a friend of ours, Russ, came over to fix it.  Russ is also an avid gardener and grows his veggies from seed.  Actually, he is far more experienced than I am, and I can learn a thing or two from him.

I was at the WMMGA Garden Symposium when Russ came over, and Michael showed Russ all the plants I have growing in the basement.  So, when I got home, I asked Russ for his professional opinion about my plants and he said, "They look good,except your lettuce is getting big. You should put them in a cold frame."

Well, I've been wanting a cold frame and just haven't gotten around to getting one.  Lo and behold, Russ had one to give me!  Twenty bucks!!  And he delivered it on Monday morning, two days later!

The weather is finally warming up a bit.  There were about a dozen robins on my front lawn on Monday, and I see the garlic coming out of the ground. I started bringing my lettuce, kale, spinach and cabbage plants outside on April 1st - yesterday.  Today was about 60 degrees outside, and I put the plants in the cold frame until about 7:00 tonight. Tomorrow I'll leave them out even longer.

I planted my tomato seeds on March 31st and I also got about a dozen-plus dahlia tubers started.  Everything is looking good, except I did lose 2 ageratum plants to "damping off".  My fault.  I watered the soil heavily when I transplanted them.  I was also a little nervous about a cabbage plant because it was flopping over and the stem looked like it was getting thin. However, the leaves look healthy.  I think some of the plants are just getting "leggy".  The lettuce is definitely "leggy".

As for seeds, I'm still waiting on the cleome.  The seeds take anywhere from 14 to 21 days to germinate.  I'm on day 14.  The lavender is also taking a long time, and the spinach didn't do too well.  I only got 2 spinach seedlings from the seed I planted.  I accidentally mixed the spinach seedlings with the pepper seedlings and couldn't figure out why one "pepper" plant had such long rabbit ears! (picture 6)

Time is flying!  I still need to get out and prune my apple trees and other fruit trees, as well as two blueberry bushes.  All the other blueberry bushes are still too young/small.  I also need to get my asparagus crowns in the ground.

Setting Up the Vegetable Garden

This has been an extremely busy time.  For more than a week, I have been gradually exposing the seedlings to higher and lower temperatures, as well as more and more hours of sun.  It's made for a lot of running around, since many afternoons have been both rainy and sunny.  I have been watching the weather reports to make sure that the plants never sat outside below 50 degrees.  They have been getting maximum sunlight, too, so I have had to make sure the plants didn't dry out.  All and all, they have gotten used to being outdoors.

The weather report said the cold nights were over - meaning not really going below 50 degrees, so I decided to start putting the plants n the ground.  I had fertilized the soil weeks ago, so all I have to do is dig the holes, add a little fertilizer for each plant (3 T).  It's an organic fertilizer for tomatoes and vegetables.

 

 

So far, I have planted 9 Bellstar Tomatoes, 7 Yellow Pear Tomatoes, 8 cabbage, 8 eggplant, 8 bell pepper, 8 watermelon and 7 cantaloupe plants.

 

 

For the tomato plants, I cut off the lowest branches, as they seem to suck up a lot of the plants energy/food, but won't bear fruit.  At least I don't think those branches will.  I read on a gardening website that it's good to do this, as well as plant a bit of the tomato plant's stem in the ground - I think this is so it will grow more roots and strengthen the plant.

 



So, now some of my concerns:

1. Only after I put the plants in the ground did I discover that the next 2-3 days are going to be cold.  One of the nights will actually dip down to 38 degrees!! I think I may try to cover the seedlings at night to protect them.  I'm not sure how yet, but I'm going to have to act fast.
2. I did not rake/level the garden as thoroughly as I should have, so it is pretty uneven in parts.  I'm not sure how this will effect the plants, but in the fall I'm going to rototill everything! I would have/should have done it this spring, but as always, I just can't seem to get to everything.
3. I'm worried about pesky critters eating my plants.  I still haven't figured out how I'm going to enclose this huge garden....
4. I did not even think to leave paths between the rows of vegetables, so it's going to be a little challenging moving about the garden.  I have only planted half of the garden, so I will be sure to leave myself more room when I plant the rest.
5. I did not put any stakes in for the tomato plants and am considering doing it this weekend so I don't disturb the roots later.