Sunday, April 26, 2009

April 26, 2009

Well, today was wierd.  I expected all day to be working over at the folks place, so I didn't jump into anything big in the garden.  It turns out this entire weekend was a non-working weekend.  I sure wish I would have known that going into the weekend.  Much more would have been done.  Still, as you can see from yesterday's post, a lot did get done.  Today I spent most of the day with the family, which is a good thing.  Doesn't happen nearly enough.  We even went for our first walk of the season.  We do a 3 mile power walk pushing the kids in jogging strollers.  It takes about an hour and it's a great exercise

Mostly, in the garden I battled the weather.  I'm not sure if it has anything to do with the droopy tomatoes, but I decided to make use of my three trays and split them up to give them some room to spread out.



We'll see if this helps.  Either way, they've got to go into their SWCs this week or next weekend.  DoubleD's got hers in the ground and I'm jealous.

Other than that, weather wise, I'm getting a bit mad at myself and my hoop cover this time of year.  Not only is it not keeping the night-time temps warm enough for my cukes, but it's allowing the daytime temps to wilt my lettuce.  Last night it got down to 38 degrees and the last temp I saw in the heat of the day (with extreme venting) was 99.  Grrrr.   I know I need to rotate crops, but next year I will ONLY cover heat loving crops, or ones that don't care (like carrots, radishes and other root crops).   Or maybe I'll build a true coldframe that I can put the cukes in and leave the rest uncovered unless it snows again.  Live and learn.

I also got a chance to see what my brother did in his yard.  I had to deliver the final piece of our joint Territorial Seed order.  His green tea plant showed up today.  Here he is modeling it.  It almost looks fake it looks so healthy after being cooped up in a dark box for days.



I can't wait to see it in a few years when it's filled out and he's harvesting from it.  Supposedly it will overwinter well here.  I'm excited.  I have no room for one here, but we drink enough tea that it would be a worthwhile investment.

Lastly, I wanted to share a few things.  First the good news.  Judy, my SFG mentor and wonderful hostess for this website, has come up with an idea for a webring for edible gardens.  Apparently there are several for ornamentals, but not for SFG or veggies.  I'm so ignorant when it comes to technologies these days (Moore's Law has left me behind big time), I don't even fully grasp what it would do.  However, if somehow I could link all my favorite gardening blogs and sites, that would be worthwhile and cool.  Thoughts?

Oh, and now for the new addition to my blog.  I've seen this widget in other blogs and got a kick out of it.  It's a spam ticker.  I see how few spams others get and am envious.  I get TONS.  I easily get three times the spam comments as I do quality ones, which is a shame.  So for grins, I figured out how to add one of my own.  I'm not sure what it says about my blog that spammers love it so much, hehe.  We'll see how long it lasts.

Enjoy your garden!

5 comments:

  1. I worry about how the weather affects my gardening, but I don't have the temperature extremes to cope with that you have to worry about, I should be grateful!
    This week we'll be going Cockington, Torquay, England, to visit the first place I encountered square foot gardening when I went there with my daughter a couple of years back. I couldn't believe just how productive was the 3 foot by 3 foot bed they were demonstrating. Everything from sweetcorn, to tomatoes, salad leaves, cabbages and more!

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  2. Your tomatoes look just fine to me? At least from the pictures you have been posting. Sometimes after repotting I get some wilting, but if I keep them well watered and then make sure their feet are not in water (good drainage - no standing water at their base) they usually perk right up in a few days time. Tomatoes may tolerate transplanting well - but all plants suffer set back from transplant shock. It usually results in about a week (sometimes two) of little or no growth and some stress to the plant that can show up as - (you guessed it!) wilting!

    I saw Judy's call for a webring but am also really uncertain as to how to do that (I need explicit instructions!). It's a great idea though - just not sure if I can execute on it. I have a links page but to do what she is describing requires a banner or border insertion. I imagine I could do it but would need to know "who" is next in the line up.

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  3. I really can't tell if your toms have problems or not, they'll be ok - i'm sure.

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  4. You really learn a lot from year to year, don't you! Heck, I'm still learning. I doubt I'll ever get it perfected ;-)

    I'm hoping our wilty tomatoes all survive. I think I'll not start mine so early next year.

    Granny

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  5. The plastic really doesn't hold in any heat as I have found out as well. The cold frame is much better but it drops a lot too. Wow, a green tea plant that is pretty cool. A lady that my Mom works with brought green tea back from Vietnam for her, it tastes amazing. The Webring sounds like a good idea.

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