First Day of Spring

Planted out 36 varieties of tomatoes, four rows with 9 plants each. Links to descriptions of most of them are here. I found some frost damage on three or four of the many plants we started, particularly on smaller plants of "Marianna's Peace". "Boondocks" turned out to be regular-leaf plants, so it seems to be mislabeled. "Grightmire's Pride" included both plants with typical Oxheart foliage and small potato-leaved plants, which can't be right. Haven't planted the PL type yet, and haven't given any away, either. But "Boondocks Mystery" was popular with the Cub Scouts.

We still have 16 or 17 varieties to go, mostly cherry tomatoes and other small varieties. We should know more about tomatoes at the end of the season. Or at least, I hope we do.

From the Southwest:
Row 1: Early Challenge Hybrid, Boondocks (RL mystery plant), Red Rose, Ponderosa Pink, Absinthe, Anna Russian (oxheart), Aunt Ginny's Purple (PL), Super Beefsteak Hybrid, Fourth of July Hybrid

Row 2: Pink Berkeley Tie-Dye, Purple Passion (PL), Orange Russian 117 (sturdier foliage than the typical oxheart), Brandy Boy Hybrid (PL), Gary O Sena (PL), Black and Red Boar, German Head, Reif's Red Heart (oxheart), Moskvich

Row 3: First Lady II Hybrid, Royal Hillbilly, Brandywine OTV (PL), Barbara, Tidwell German, Better Boy (purchased, gallon plant), Heidi, Jetsetter (purchased), Nyagous

Row 4: Cosmonaut Volkov, JD's Special C-Tex, Black Krim, Anna Maria's Heart (oxheart), Momotaro, Goose Creek, Oxheart Pink, Marianna's Peace (PL), AAA Sweet Solano

I also planted in RootTrainers indoors:

Cucumbers: Cool Breeze (HPS), Suhyo TK (Pinetree), Natsuhikari (Evergreen) and Summer Dance (Pinetree). Weather has been warm during the day. Summer Dance started coming up on March 25, a day when the weather was getting cooler and rain was predicted.

Squash: Cougar(Harris), Sweet Zuke (Burpee), Kojac (T&M), Butterstick (Burpee), Magda (Willhite).

Melons: Savor (VBS), Extra Summer Sweet (Evergreen), Early Sugar Shaw (HPS), Summer Dream (Nichols), Lilly (Twilley).

Pole beans: Fortex (VBS) and Champagne (from Zeedman at Gardenweb). They started coming up on March 25.

Update, March 29: We had another family, and James, over to plant tomatoes tonight. They'll be sharing the garden. Planted cherry tomatoes and others, including a few repeat varieties. East fence, from the North: Porter's Dark Cherry, Rosalita, Sweet Chelsea, Black Cherry, Sweet Quartz, Haley's Purple Comet, Evans Purple Pear, Berkeley Tie-Dye, Green Zebra, Golden Egg, Yellow Submarine, Beam's Yellow Pear, Grightmire's PL (unknown), 2 plants

South Fence, from the East: Pop-ins, Green Grape, Grightmire's Pride (oxheart), Dr. Lyle (?), Big Beef, Mortgage Lifter, Momotaro, Aunt Ginnys?, Brandy Boy, Moskvich?, Cosmonaut Volkov.

Had some "help" from a toddler labeling some of the last tomatoes planted..

61 tomato plants. Crazy.

March 15: Official "frost-safe" planting date

Well, it was cold and windy on Saturday, nicer on Sunday and in the 70s today. David finished tilling and prepared a row for the greens and the rest of the beans I had started. Hope they didn't stay in their little containers too long.

Canadian White Blenheim has some blooms now, coinciding this year with a few stragglers on Blenheim and more on Golden Amber, which is further from the big CWB tree. Chinese also had a couple of blooms.
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Emerald Beaut plum is blooming right with our little Plumcot. Hope it will cross-pollinate. I took some branches over in a bottle-vase. Cassleman and Flavor King still have a few blooms open, too.

Time to get going in the garden.

March 11 - Frost

Surprise. We have light frost on the ground. Most of the tomato seedlings and the beans were outside, and some were on the porch (with an eggplant). So far, it looks like there wasn't much damage. Not cold enough to hurt the fruit trees.

I had watered the seedlings in the afternoon yesterday, and that may have helped protect them. Some of the water on the plants is frozen, and the box containing tomato seedlings has frozen droplets. Just a bare hint of damage on a few tomatoes so far. No frost in the 10-day forecast. March 1 is supposed to be the 50% chance of frost date around here, and March 15 is supposed to be the day when you can plant without significant chance of frost. So I guess this year is pretty typical. Frost on March ll.