More peas

The last 2 rows of mammoth melting snow peas are just starting to sprout.  It has been pretty dry lately, so I am watering them every few days.  With a little rain they should start to take off and I am wondering if they will catch the others even though they were planted 2 weeks earlier.

Tomatoes Planted

This afternoon I finally planted my tomatoes outside.  I ended up planting 31 plants: 5 black cherry, isis cherry, black Ethiopian, black prince, polish linguisa, 4 northern lights and one each of alpine and Kansas depression.

Of the 3 large rows I have one row has been surrounded by a trellis.  The trellis is 3’ wide at the base and 2’ wise at the top. It is 6’ high and approximately 11’ long.  It is pretty much an A frame but a little bigger and not quite that A shape.  The plan is that the tomatoes will grow up and then as they start to tip over, they will have the sides of the trellis to support them.

The other 2 rows have a 3’ stake driven into the ground beside every plant. As they grow that will betide off to the stakes and when they outgrow the stakes I am just going to let them tip.  There will be mulch around then so hopefully any tomatoes on the ground do not become too dirty.

Transplanting

Today the first of my transplants went in.  They were some red Russian kale and broccoli that I started inside before I left on vacation.  Consequently they are very leggy and I am not very hopeful about their survival but I figured I might as well plant them anyways.

The asparagus is still doing great, it is now producing about a lb a week, and I am still waiting for a couple plants to come up.  The asparagus beetles are out though and seem to be enjoying my plants.

I also finished building my trellis for the tomatoes.  The holes were all drilled and the sided all ripped down to size.  It is going to be 6 feet tall, 3 feet wide at the bottom and 2 feet wide at the top, for a little extra support.  The sides are ¾” square pcs that I ripped out wider boards from a skid.  It is going to be 11’ long with a support on both ends and the middle.  It is only going to work for 1 row and on the other 2 rows I am going to use 3’ wooded stakes as well as a few tomato cages that I have.

Planting Preparation

Today I used the ridging hoe to dig up the entire bottom bed.  This was to break up the soil and mix in the manure I spread there on Tuesday.  After drying out a bit, it is better composted that it initially appeared.  Tomorrow I am going to be working on the trellis for the tomatoes as well as cutting a number of stakes.  I decided not to build 3 different trellises and instead am just going to build the one and then use stakes for the other 2 rows.

The remaining mammoth melting snow peas were also planted.   I ended up using all the seeds I had with 200 seeds, seeding 27’ of doubles rows.  The peas that were planted almost a month ago are doing great and are about 6” tall.

I started to harden off the tomato plants last weekend and on Monday started to harden off the peppers as well.  My plan is to have the tomatoes in the ground next week around the 24^th and the peppers any time after the 26^th.  So far I haven't had any problems hardening them off they are tall sturdy plants.  Well the tomatoes are a little bendy just because I couldn’t get the light any higher than it was.

Manure

Yesterday our neighbor from down the road was over and he mentioned that if I needed any manure he had tons.  Well earlier today I was just trying to decide how to best use the remaining stuff I got from the field, I decided why not save this for my boxes and take him up on his offer.  I headed down to his place, where he even loaded up the truck for me with the tractor.  I figure I ended up with about 1000lbs from 2 ½ bucket loads.  Having him load it was amazing and sure saved me a ton of work.  It isn’t as decomposed as the stuff I have been picking up from the field and not quite as fine.  I like that it is a little bulkier because I added it all to the bottom bed where the tomatoes and peppers are going.  It does also seem to be a little richer, less topsoil mixed in with it so it will go perfectly after I mix it in. 

That was pretty much the extent of today’s activity.  I did also fill up the herb box with regular topsoil and set some aside in buckets for the last pepper box before I put the huge pile of manure on the garden.  I'm actually getting to the point where I don’t have any good topsoil left or have access to some, but I do have access to pretty much as much horse manure as I need.

Barnyard Field

today was the planting in the field for the potatoe for the  co-op.

the blue capijiner peas are up. it looks like they may have been up around wednesday.

also planted 200 onion bulds and a row of carots and row of parsnips

will expand on this later

First asparagus

Today is the first day back from vacation.  It was awesome and if I thought I could get limes to grow here I would try.  Obviously the first thing I did when getting home was check out my garden.  When I left there were a few asparagus spears starting to poke through the soil and today 2 of them were ready to cut.  Both on the smaller side but they are 4^th year crowns and had a difficult first 2 years.

I also checked my mammoth melting snow peas.  They all sprouted while I was gone but were just through, so it doesn’t look like they have been up long.  As well it appears if all of them germinated.

Another thing that sprouted was some broccoli, kale, bok choy that I planted on April 14^th but never documented.  I wanted to see if they would come up so just sprinkled a few seeds where they will be going this year.  It appears that they all have started to come up and the experiment was a success. 

As some things were sprouting others were put into the ground.  All 5 boxes were planted with carrots and parsnips.  There will be 8 kinds of carrots and then the hollow crown parsnip that I grew last year.  The carrots were planted on 6” rows and the parsnips on 8” rows.  It is tight spacing but the soil is richer than normal and has no compaction.   The carrots worked well with this spacing last year so thought I would try it out again.  I will also be watering them to make sure that the boxes don’t dry out.