gardens 2010-general update

Today was another beautiful but very windy day never the less I still had to get some plants in the ground. We work within a very small window for spring cole crops to be in   or they don't do well because of the summer heat. Not that it gets overly hot here like in many places but we do have a long season of hot weather that begins in  early June. It is supposed to rain again tomorrow which would delay planting until later this week   and then we would be pushing our limits on some of the crops.

So in 30 mph winds that couldn't pick a direction to blow from and higher gusts I was out leveling  my planting area in the front garden and laying down my feed bag weed barriers. I would love for one of the days we use them for it to be calm and serene out,  this trying to lay them flat and get soil on them quick enough so they don't blow away is a tough job. Anywho, I got the rest of my cabbage babies in the ground  as well as the 25 or so broccoli plants. A few were a bit tiny for transplant but I threw them in anyway. If  they don't make it I will plant some herbs in its spot after our last  frost date.

I was also able to get a couple small beds of  a few types of lettuce in  along with some red and white scallions and a "magic dragon stir fry mix". I really don't know what all the magic dragon contains  but from looking at the seeds it appears to be  cabbage or other cole crop types.  In the GH I planted a few  mung beans and I started four paprika seeds. These will probably  be the only peppers I grow this year, if the seed germinates. Last year I tried a couple times with this same seed and had no luck.

All the tomatoes are now in their little grow cups. In total we have 99 plantlings. Actually it is probably more like 95 but ummm... well... uhh... I looked at my baby  containers labeled eggplant and since I have never grown an eggplant I had no idea what the seedling was supposed to look like. To me the seedling looked  an awful lot like a tomato so I labeled it as  a candy tomato, which even if it was a tomato it wasn't that type. If it was a tomato it would be a super bush tomato, but that little oops  is  a completely different story.  Any way, we have some where around a 100  tomato plants growing and looking pretty good. I will take some cuttings off the mother plant in the loft  in the next couple weeks too, hopefully  we will have a most excellent harvest of tomatoes this year. Oh and by the way, I planted several more eggplant seeds in a  well marked container of their own just to see what the plantlings look like  and because I wasn't pleased with the amount of original seeds that germinated.

The onions are growing nicely as are all the peas. The spinach, turnips, radishes etc are all coming in nicely too, finally. I was beginning to worry  but  was successfully fighting off any urges to reseed any of the beds. The mustard and mesclun mix plants that are seeding are now flowering. They are  pretty even though they are quite plain. I think the only thing we are waiting to sprout that has been planted thus far are the potatoes  and some carrots aside from what I planted today.

Things will be fairly slow in the gardens from now until the last week  of April. Although most of our weather from here on out is nice we still do get the occasional frost  until then. I may try and plant some corn  in a  couple of weeks  in hopes that it won't germinate until the last frost date has passed. A net friend of mine that commercial farms does this in  Minnesota so I see no reason why I can't or shouldn't be able to do it in Ga.