Plants in the Ground

The high temperature was in the 80's today. We had a day like that about a week ago, too. with rain and cooler weather (in the 50s during the day) in between. More spring rain than normal this year.

We had a motley crew out planting today: me, a pregnant Mom, three kids, their Dad and two young men. David had a flat tire today, and went to buy new ones. We'll see how we did in placing the plants where they can get water from the drip lines.

Peppers: Ancho, Anaheim and Jalapeno. I gave Francisco some Chile de Arbol plants to put in his garden space.
Cucumbers - on the fence by Sparky's old house. The ones we planted today are bigger than the ones I planted out by the field fencing earlier. Maybe the warmer soil environment made a difference.
Grafted tomatoes on the field fencing (Black Krim and Gary O Sena) along with a purchased Giant Belgium.
Cherry and grape tomatoes: Napa Grape and SunSugar Red.
Beans: Fortex and Champagne. The Champagne plants are in a little better shape.

We also harvested Golden Sweet pea pods (from India) and used them in chicken curry (James made it). We'll have regular peas in a couple of days.

The early bush beans I planted have some curly beans on them: they are persnickety about the weather. I don't think I'll try planting them so early again.

Bro. Martin came by on Saturday for tomato plants and seeds for his family - cucumbers, melons, watermelons and edible gourds, plus winter squash and Zephyr. I gave Paula a Cherokee Purple plant in honor of her Cherokee heritage. Alma got a Sun Sugar and a Napa Grape. I don't have too many extra tomato plants anymore. That's a good thing, I think. Maybe I can keep myself from buying more plants, too.

Uh-Oh. Tooth Lice becoming more prevalent

Read about it here. As with most recent dietary/health news, more fruits and vegetables could help. Or oral louse traps.

Hope the first day of April is good to you.

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.

Popcorn Popping, planting greens

Today, the Flavor Delight Aprium tree and the Royal Rosa Apricot started blooming. It's a beautiful day, but probably not quite warm enough for honeybees to be really happy yet. Hope some other insects are out.

I plants some "summer turnips" using the Winter Sowing method today. An experiment. I really prefer turnips in the fall. Five 6-oz. deli cups fit in a fried chicken tray from Walmart. Cut some slices out of the bottom edge of the cups and poked some holes in the bottom of the chicken tray. The top is already vented. Used a UV resistant industrial marker (Sharpie) to mark the cups. We're comparing:

White Lady to Tokyo Cross
Hakeuri to Oasis
Just Right (a fall turnip) as control.

I don't think any of these, except maybe Tokyo Cross, are true, 100% turnips. They have sweet, non-hairy leaves which are much milder than regular turnip greens.

I also started some greens and assorted brassicas - 9 deli cups in a pumpkin pie tray from Costco, with plastic wrap snapped into the rim. Poked 2 holes in plastic above each cup, and a few extra holes. The sun is out now, and I don't want any over-heating.