Gardening

Spring planting times are iffy.  The weather is uncertain.  Some years, the temperatures are warm in late April; sometimes the nights are chilly in early May.  I used to fight the weather using all sorts of odd methods.

Cover the raised beds with clear plastic, and the soil will heat up.   Surround the large plants with covering of water that warm in the daytime and maintain some warmth at night...  

Put plastic or cellophane hot caps over seedlings.  Used fabrics to cover seedlings.  Put warmed bricks around the.  You name it, I'm probably tried it.

But I've stopped that.   I've been a (mostly) organic gardener all my life (Well, I spray poison ivy carefully) and yet I've been fighting "time".  At this time 10 years ago, my tomato seedlings would be planted.  Now, I am waiting.

There just isn't a better time to plant than the right time.  And the right time for tomato and pepper  seedlings is when the nightime temperature reaches 50F.  So, because we have a streak of chilly weather in the mid-40Fs,  I'm keeping my seedlings inside under high-lumen fluorescent lights another week.  

On the other major gardening note (my trays of lettuces, radishes, pay choy, and celery) I am delaying putting them outside as well.  I set up 2 sawhorses to support the trays on my deck.  But I'm waiting.  And a good thing, too!  We have a serious hailstorm several days ago (rare for here at any time of year) and the hail would have ripped all the lettuce into shreds.  

I want the lettuce etc to have actual sunlight, exposure to the world will bring ladybugs to eat the aphids (a problem indoors where they are safe), and the routine rain will ease watering requirements (frequent and overflow is a problem indoors).  Plus, harvesting is convenient on the deck.  

I planted some brocolli, brussells sprouts, and purple cauliflower last year.  For whatever reason, they didn't grow well.  But they survives the Winter and have an early start for this year.  I harvested a brocolli head and some later side-shoots last week.  Brussels sprouts are always tricky, but this might be the first year I get any worth mentioning.  They are growing fast.

The snow peas are up and climbing the trellis.  It won't be long before they flower and fruit.  I've been missing them in my stir-fries.

I set up an odd trellis for my flat italian beans yesterday.  It is surprising how well mature beans can hide among the leaves, so I had the idea of setting new trellis at an angle in an old bed so the beans would hang down and be more obvious.  I had ignored it for several years so it had junk sapling roots in it that had to be dug and chopped out with a sharpened spade and an ax.  I even broke the old ax handle twisting it a bit and had to replace it.  But I got it done over several days.

I pounded two 8' rebar rods into the ground in front of the bed as supports, then lashed 2 more at an angle for supports to get the most sun for the beans.  Then set some 6' mesh rebar anchored at the bottom and attached at the top.  I have the bean seeds soaking in water overnight.  They sprout better that way and you can see which ones send out a root and which don't.

I'll take pictures of everything when the trays are on the deck sawhorses, the tomatoes and peppers are planted, and the beans are emerging.  The bare bean trellis didn't show up well in a picture.

I also have a lot of flower seedlings, but they aren't ready to plant yet.  Another 2 weeks.