Thursday, May 5, 2011

...and the gardens are all in

The manthing has had quite a few days off over the last couple of weeks so we have been able to plug away at getting the gardens in. This has helped me in so many ways I can't count and I was a bit worried about getting it all in. As of Tuesday evening, everything is in the ground with the exception of the tobacco. I still have a small pile of tomatoes to get in somewhere yet, but am holding on to them to replace the turnips and peas as they are harvested.

What we thought was blackberry winter last week obviously wasn't as yesterday it was cold enough to build a fire and burn it through the night. Luckily we did not have a frost but we came very close to it. Doesn't it figure that well over a week after last frost date we almost have everything wiped out. I am sure some people lost a bunch of stuff somewhere down here because of it. The good thing is, that it is early enough in the season that anything that could have died from it can be replanted with no issue.

The tobacco is finally starting to grow well and the first 50 or so plants are nearly ready to go in the ground. Another hundred should be ready in a couple weeks and the remaining hundred should be ready to go in the first or second week of June. This still leaves plenty of time for the tobacco to grow and depending on how things go I may even do another round after that.

While everything is now in the ground, things are very slow to germinate or grow. We have had nice days but nights have stayed very cool so the soil is slow to warm up. I am trying not to go through all the beds and replant what is not growing but things better get busy soon. I can't stand not seeing progress in the gardens and I really want a cucumber.