What Did You Do In The Garden?

[Prairie Rose]

@Dirtmechanic beautiful roses! Usually ours are budding up to bloom about now, but it's been so cold they haven't started yet.

@ducks4you no tomato loss...they're not really thriving yet though. They need more heat than what we are getting! I did lose most of my tiny pepper plants to a bunny...

Over the past few days I have picked up some perennials for mostly cheap. It got colder than normal a few days ago, and lots of plants at the big box store got cold nipped and then discounted. I have been picking and choosing...all my overtime money has to go somewhere, right? Today I purchased a big purple-leafed coral bell, a fig tree, and two apple trees. I am moving pots around in garden beds to decide layouts before I start digging again.

Also have a line out on a company that sells bulk mushroom compost as well as mulch, and will deliver. Might actually be able to start my extra raised beds this year after all.

 

[SprigOfTheLivingDead]

Planted all my cucumber and sweet pea currant (tomatoes) sprouts along my chicken run and tossed in more seeds just for fun. We'll see if the chickens let them survive.

Then, as I was planting things in my raised bed I look up to see ALL our guineas just walking over those cucumbers. I just about got my rifle. I told my wife if they start messing in my corn rows they're dead. She finally believed me and just today bought a defeatherer. Apparently one of the last out there since the place she ordered it from last night said they cant find anymore to even get in stock and someone came in this morning that had looked at it yesterday and blew their top when they found out it was purchased for pick-up. Anyways, if the weather cooperates we'll be harveating some guineas this weekend.

I also planted all my tomatoes and peppers in our raised beds and finiahed planting the squash seeds.

Oof! Now just 100 or so trees left and we're golden

 

[seedcorn]

Soooo, yesterday looked at frosted tomato/pepper plants. Tops dead black. No life to be found. So today, I go to one nursery, prices raised to $2.49 per 4 pack. No thanks.... Go to my stand by nursery, no price raise but only a 4 pack of Better Boys of which one of the 4 is really gnarly. So buy replacements. Go home, looked at the plants in the garden, low and behold, tomatoes are sprouting new leaves. Peppers looking like they are trying to live. So I will plant those bought today in holes. & I will be growing Celebrity and Big Boys as well. Anyone have an opinion on how bad stunted the frosted plants will be?

Beans & beets came up with the warmth of today-high 60’s.

 

[Prairie Rose]

I pulled some bindweed and moved a few more plants in pots around in the flowerbed, and have decided where the new apple trees will go.

Also there are bees going in and out of my empty hive....here's hoping that it's a swarm settling and not just some local hive robbing whatever traces of honey that are left in there. I would love to have bees again, although that's going to put my allergy treatment on a strict schedule!

 

[Cosmo spring garden]

Soooo, yesterday looked at frosted tomato/pepper plants. Tops dead black. No life to be found. So today, I go to one nursery, prices raised to $2.49 per 4 pack. No thanks.... Go to my stand by nursery, no price raise but only a 4 pack of Better Boys of which one of the 4 is really gnarly. So buy replacements. Go home, looked at the plants in the garden, low and behold, tomatoes are sprouting new leaves. Peppers looking like they are trying to live. So I will plant those bought today in holes. & I will be growing Celebrity and Big Boys as well. Anyone have an opinion on how bad stunted the frosted plants will be?

Beans & beets came up with the warmth of today-high 60’s.

I watched a video (the rusted garden) on youtube and he said to give the frost damaged plants some water soluble fertilizer and that would perk them up. I did that for my pepper, tomatoes and sweet potato plants and they are looking much better!

 

[seedcorn]

I watched a video (the rusted garden) on youtube and he said to give the frost damaged plants some water soluble fertilizer and that would perk them up. I did that for my pepper, tomatoes and sweet potato plants and they are looking much better!

Good to know.

 

[Zeedman]

Still dry here, so did the final digging on the home plots to prepare for planting next week. Spent the afternoon potting up the larger tomatoes & eggplant, some of which will be given to family & friends. I fixed a broken panel in the solar greenhouse & moved everything out there except the Moringa & water spinach. Night temps are still a little too cool for my liking, so put a small heater in there to keep the temp above 50 F. degrees.

Also spent about an hour with a splitting maul, whittling away at the above-ground portion of a stump on the East side of the main home plot. There is no clear path to bring in anything mechanical to pull/cut the stump, so it'll just be chop & dig the old fashioned way. Now we just have to dig the soil away from the roots, so I can get in there with a chain saw. If I can cut off everything 12" down, we'll just garden over the rest until they rot. The plan is to expand that garden by 20-30', once the stump & two trees shading that area have been removed.

DW spent the day putting in geraniums, petunias, zinnias, and impatiens. We also picked up some perennials; she has been wanting more delphiniums for several years, we finally found some new colors at a local family-owned nursery. They were marked down, apparently the whole cart overturned as they were being unloaded... but most were still in good shape.

Yesterday made the first of several planned loads of topsoil, to begin filling in part of the low ground in the rural garden. We discussed the future of that garden relative to our age & health, and decided to reduce it in size, abandoning the mud pit on the lowest end. So that garden will go from 100' X 100", to 53' X 100'. Some of that loss will be made up in the planned expansion of the home gardens, but it will impact my seed saving to some degree... to what extent, time will tell.

 

[seedcorn]

@Zeedman I’m tired just from reading what you accomplished.

Today I get to play in the wet sand box planting the new plants I bought to replace those that may or may not be damaged from frost.

I’m allowing them to live. My question, how will production be hurt on the tomatoes and peppers from the plants that the tops were frozen and killed? At ground level and 1” above are new leaves starting off of a green stem.

 

[digitS']

I will put this in garden work rather than a thread in the greenhouse forum. That could have been started in mid-March about maintaining safe overnight temperatures in there but it would be uneventful.

I have returned from starting the furnace in the greenhouse. It's 41°f in the neighborhood and, at 4:30am, won't warm up anytime soon. I've been up checking since 3:30. The furnace hadn't failed, I was a bit premature turning it off for the season, two days ago.

It failed twice this year but early rising meant that it only just dropped below 50°. The fail light the 2nd time indicated the problem the furnace guy said was not repairable, 2 years ago. Started right back up and I didn't need the backup electric heater and fan that has been standing by for 2 months. Not once

It is, of course, a relief to have made it to mid-May. The outdoor temperatures dropped into the 30's on four mornings last week. That was last week and the eggplant, peppers and basil that are still in there are now nearly home free!

Nearly all the tomato plants are on the deck, under a roof. They probably aren't very comfortable out there but most have been hardening off long enough that I can get them out to warm in the earliest sunshine in just a short while. Supposed to be a nice day!

Steve
Edit to say: no answer here to your question, @seedcorn. The last time I had frost-damaged tomatoes in the garden, it was just the tips of a few because I was out of buckets so just used big pots with drainage holes to cover. Frost came right through those holes!

 

[flowerbug]

hopefully we'll be getting our starts from the greenhouse today. will need to harden them off before transplanting, but so far the temperatures look reasonable for the next week.