Walt, remember that tomatoes are crazy ass vines...several heirlooms just want to do their own thing. Give them structure to go up not out, prune the stuff that touches the dirt and fart about with their watering until you figure out that plants sweet spot. Weird plants, really. It they flop, they flop. A fine excuse to try different varieties next year!
They’ll have to actually GROW first. I’m not sure they’re gonna live at this point. In other news, when it’s almost 70 degrees first thing in the morning and your compost pile is steaming, you’re pile is cooking.
Still haven’t transplanted shit outside yet due to cold temps. It’s going down to 4 degrees C tonight. They want out. Especially the cucumbers.
Almost done planting. Put in 20 tomatoes of all different varieties. over 30 pepper plants (Red,purple, green and orange bell peppers, jalapeno, cayenne, long thin cayenne, red hot cherry, habanero, chocolate scorpion and I think I am forgetting some), romaine lettuce, 12 eggplants, 6 broccoli, 6 cauliflower, cucumbers and celery.
Also my strawberries are finally doing good in their third year. Only bought one plant but now have around thirty. Had to pull a bunch out they spread so much.
@zyron Jesus fuck what are you going to do with all that eggplant? I'll admit I'm not the biggest eggplant lover but I had 2 plants last season and couldn't eat everything I grew. 20 plants is enough to feed the neighborhood!
Frost warning tonight, gonna be down in the 30’s. Glad I haven’t planted much ( and much of what I have isn’t performing too well ). Made it easier to cover.
Yeah, I keep telling myself that I’m delaying because of weather, not procrastination. I almost believe myself.
Everything is growing. One sad Brandywine tomato that I am going to prune back and stake to the cages. Give me a month before I just stop weeding altogether. Ha.
Tomorrow is the day. Finally. Shit gets transplanted outside. Despite some dead leaves on the tomatoes, they have tons of fast, new growth. I’m cautiously optimistic. And the cucumbers are going NUTS.
Even in the ever increasing heat, the lettuce just keeps giving. The butter lettuce is looking worse, but the romaine (Mint King, iirc) is putting a salad a day on the table still.
L to R here it's cucumbers, green beans, snap peas. The snap peas have been going strong, but the heat is getting to them some now. The CUCUMBERS are the troublemakers, they want to go wide, not up. I tied them up some to try and force them up. I will no doubt loose some blooms over it, but there are so many on the plants it's no big thing.
That is fantastic! Yeah I have the same issue with the cucumbers. They branch a lot but go sideways before they are long enough to train up.
They had latched on to the nearby pepper cages, started up those instead! Pesky things. Every year, I look at the newly formed garden and feel silly about how much space I gave things when I planted....and yet by the end of the year, there will be spots that are so tightly grown together that it is a pain to harvest. This is definitely going to be that spot. I will be ducking okra to squeeze between pepper cages to hunt rogue cucumbers.
Yeah, I have been intentionally making things more and more dense. With the automated watering and fertilizer regimen I have set up, I have no problem playing hide-and-seek for rogue veggies in the density. Things still grow really well and healthy. Finding a mutantly large cucumber that you've missed for 2 weeks is almost as good as finding $20 in a winter jacket pocket.
I transplanted one of my raised beds over the weekend... planted cucumbers, peppers, cantaloupes, peas, and something I don't know what it is... from seedlings. I also planted rows of romaine, butter lettuce, spinach, and swiss chard from seeds as I found transplanting them last year was a pain in the ass. Over the next couple of nights the other bed gets all the tomatoes, more cucumbers, squash, and a fresh rosemary seedling. I also picked up all the aluminum for my hollow square tube watering trellises idea that I had... complete with aluminum weld-in hose bung. That will be interesting to see how it works out... I'm cautiously optimistic. Cucumbers anxious to get out: The pepper seedlings are mind-blowing to me... came out the best ever: Finished the one bed... using the old wood supports for the first round of cucumbers. And I'm intentionally leaving the one end of the back yard overgrown, as the 2 cats are loving just hanging out and chasing stuff in the tall grass. And less to mow, so... win-win?
hell just plant some catnip back there and let it run wild. Those cats will be in heaven then. Plus, fewer bugs.