Garden Plantings

I don't know why I am so late this year (but the ladder fall, limping around, feeling tired, staying in bed late , and bad weather when I had the time to plant) all added up.  Things kind of got beyond me a bit this year...

Anyway, I have finally felt more active lately and got some useful work done.  Yay!  Well, better late than never.  At least they have time to produce SOME harvest.

The tomato seedlings are planted.  I had laid down permeable fabric beforehand and cut Xs where the seedling would go in; then stuck markers in the ground and pulled the cut-to-fit fabric aside.  Then I gave the soil some care.  I take a good few shovelfuls of soil into a bucket and mix organic fertilizer in as I add it back.  That way, there is basically a 5 gallon bucket of well-mixed loose fertilized soil for the seedlings to go into.  The tomato roots don't spread further than that.

So then I put the fabric back on and use a bulb-planter to make a hole for the seedlings.  Tomatoes grow roots from asny buried stem, so the deeper the better.  Early roots are better than early top growth!  [An exception is grafted plants.  The graft has to be above the soil line].

So I got them all planted this week.  I can fit 6 tomotes in a framed bed and there are 2 of them.  Here is one...

A close-up of one seedling. ..

The cage is made of concrete wire mesh.  22" in diameter and 5' tall.  I made them 25 years ago and they are as sturdy as when new.

This isn't new this year.  They are broccoli and purple cauliflower plants.  I planted them last year and they didn't do much.  But they survived the Winter and I' have hopes they will sprout.  There were more broccoli, but the ones that developed heads (and then smaller side-heads) were harvested and pulled.  One neat thing I've discovered is  that the green cabbage worms don't like purple leaves.  They are too easy for predators to find.

I'm trying an idea with the pole beans.  I made a frame of concrete rebar and bent some leftover wire mesh at an angle.  The idea is that the beans will hang down from among the leaves and will be easier to find and pick.

The beans are growing fast!  One month and they are 6' high!  I read a study once that suggested delaying planting of many crops.  The idea is the cool weather slows their growth and later-planted crops often surpass the early ones in total growth and productivity.  Well, I guess I am sure testing that this year (unintentionally).

I also planted small-seeded cucumbers, cantelopes, honeydews, and watermelon along the framed bed trellises (more concrete wire mesh).  Those may seem rather heavy fruits to grow on a trellis, but I have a bunch of plastic mesh bags to support the fruits.  Vertical space IS free, after all.

And after all that, I weeded the remaining areas of the beds.  If I have been late to the Spring-plantings, I am ready for the Fall plantings in late July.  Most people ignore Fall, but it has some advantages.  Summer warmth promotes fast growth, and Fall temperatures actually improve the flavor and extend the harvesting time for some crops.  I can have a second crop of snow peas, and most root crops turn starch into sugars, much as fruits do.

As farmers do, I fear the worst, but hope for the best.  Some years are better than others.  ;)

Random Thoughts

Sometimes connections occur to me.  Sometimes they make sense, sometimes not.

1.  I watched a new commercial a few days ago for Butterfingers.  It mentioned "crispety, crunchy".  And I immediately thought, no that should be "crispety, chrunchity", for logical verbal balance.  And sure enough, at the end, it said "crispety, chrunchity".  I may have missed my calling in life.

2.  My garden seeds finally arrived in the mail.  I have a boatload of new ones.  Well, my old seeds weren't going to last forever even refrigerated in sealed containers.

Sometimes, you HAVE to buy new ones even when there are still old ones in the fridge.  Germination rate is always important.

3.  I've been designing a new compost bin.  Yeah, any circle of wire actually works, but I like to build things and I put almost ANYTHING that will degrade into the compost.  Some of it attracts pests.  So it is time to make one they can't get into.

It is a 2-bin system.  The sides and back are hardware mesh wire, the front is removable slats.  I made one for a friend in 1992 with dado cuts for angled front slats.  It was amazing (and BTW, I saw it copied in a gardening magazine 6 months later) but it was some unnecessary work.  I figured out a better one.  But it is just the design right now, since I can't actually build it in the frozen soil right now.  But it is good to have all the parts figured out now.

4.  I clipped some azalea stems 3 years ago when I had a ridge leveled.  Some were white, some red, some purple.  They won't grow in the small planter cells, so I need to transplant them to larger ones.  But some bloomed a few days ago.

I have a corner of the back yard where nothing is growing but weeds; they will go there.

5.  The old perennial flower bed is going to become a cottage garden.  Random flowers that self-sow everywhere.  I have NO idea how it will work out, but there will be pictures regardless.