Gardening: April 2018

April is such a busy time of year in my house. Between my work with the state librarian convention, several birthdays, running my daughter to all her activities (for some of the last times, though -- she just turned 16!), plus the day-to-day time commitment of teaching, I've not blogged much.

And I haven't done much with the garden, other than to let the plants grow! Fortunately, they do quite well on their own with a little water and plenty of sun in our south-facing, second-story room. In fact, the plants have done incredibly well. It seemed like no time at all has passed, but things have become a bit of a jungle.

In March my wife planted some of the lettuce, cabbage, and spinach in our garden. That freed some space for additional plant transfers. A number of pots had multiple starts, and I separated them out so many had just one or two starts per pot. I didn't have enough room (or time) to do all of them, and now I'm paying for it.

Tomato starts in the nursery. Some are more than two feet tall already.

Last weekend I went to Home Depot and spent $10 on eleven four-foot 5/16th wooden dowels. Those I cut in half to get 22 two-foot long stakes to support some of the tomato plants that were struggling to stand in the pots. 

The tomato starts on the left all got stakes, but the ones on the right are starting to grow together. Time to do something!

I quickly realized I could've bought $20 more in dowels -- or about 44 more stakes -- and still not had enough. But it was a start, and since we're getting close to planting outside I didn't want to spend more money if I didn't have to -- although things are getting really messy with the plants. Basically, time is short and I realized these are going to need to either get stakes in the pots or I'll need to plant them outside very soon.

Several of the young starts already have buds for tomatoes.

What I already had in storage from last year were dozens of four to six foot metal stakes for the garden, so I took a long look at the extended forecast. Last year we planted too early, and there were a few nights where frost caused damage to otherwise healthy plant starts. Our plan this year was to plant on the second weekend in May, about six weeks later than last year. But..... given the state of the seed starts, and the fact that the lows on the extended forecast into early May showed lows only in the low 50s, I decided to move a few plants outside. First I opened the windows in the 'nursery' and let the plants experience the wind and cooler temperatures for a night. But only one night.

Too soon? April 21 and the first 16 tomato plants are in the ground.

On Saturday, April 21, I moved sixteen Roma and Cherry tomato starts outside to the south raised bed (square foot) garden.  I also moved the remaining seed starts for cabbage and lettuce out to the garden.  To prep the soil for the new plantings, I added a bucket of compost from our composter as well as a bit of tomato / vegetable fertilizer. 

Our outdoor home composting bins. What we don't use from our vegetables, plus all our used coffee grounds and  a few other things go in here. It becomes rich soil in just a few months.  So yes, we grow our own dirt. And that also means we are, in fact, older than dirt.

I used a rake and a rotary cultivator to stir, then planted the tomato starts. Most of the transfers were between 12 and 30 inches tall. Once in the ground, I inserted a four-foot plastic coated metal post as a stake. I used recycled green velcro from last year's garden to secure the young plants to the stakes in several places.

Four days later, things seem to be going well in the garden.  Nothing has died (yet). If that holds true, we plan to keep lettuce in the front two rows until it's too hot, at which point we'll move out jalapeños and bell peppers from the 'nursery.'  We'll also have a row of Roma tomatoes and, on the back row, heirloom cherry tomatoes. 

Jalepeno, tomatillo, tomato, and bell pepper starts.

I'm also a bit concerned about adequate space in the gardens. Nearly everything we planted early on has taken root, and we might have to build another 4 x 8 garden to accommodate additional plants. Maybe even two more gardens. Either that, or we'll once again have some healthy starts to give away to friends in May! That's not a bad thing, either.