Overnight lows dip - taking cover

Our unseasonably high level of rainfall is now accompanied by unseasonably low overnight temps. Most everything is fine, but my young chard, beets, radishes, mustard and lettuce need some protection. These should also help in the daytime to create some more warmth and help them grow.

Potting up tomato starts today

My tomato starts were started by seed 4 weeks ago in south-facing window. Luckily our windows are wide and tall and so capture a good amount of sun/light.

I plan to grow all my tomatoes this year in pots placed on the south side, in full sun.

Our sunniest area is also the most limited, space-wise, so I'm going to pepper the space with pots.

Today I'm selecting the strongest two of each variety and moving them to their new home.

I'm lining each pot with a layer of rock, a layer of compost, some blood meal, and then a mixture of organic potting soil and compost. And I'm planning to deep-pot in order to add dirt to the growing stock to give it more root space (to increase the plants' ability to carry nutrients) and stability.

My friends Pam and Kathy have generously offered to take the other starts off my hands.  :)

Saw this video on staking tomatoes and pruning suckers:

http://www.finegardening.com/how-to/videos/pruning-tomatoes.aspx

April in the garden

I don't have anything new to add this week, so am just sharing some photos from the garden this week.

Tomato Project

Battle tomato has officially begun. Shawn moved his tomatoes out to the potting hsed while I am leaving mine in the sunroom. I did transpalnt the garden tomatoes and plan on leaving htem in the potting shed. It cools down at night but I will have them under a light and covered in a clear palstic sheet so they should stay nice in cozy in the south window.

Tomato Project

The plants have the beginnings of buds on them this week, they are growing nicely. It is a little fuzzy but if you look close you can see the bud, really!!!

Spring

Ok it is snowing AGAIN, but yesterday I got a picture of some crocus's peaking up. Really hope this is the last storm it was a yucky weekend weather wise.

Celebrating spring sprouts

So the rain has let up for a day, but luckily the raised beds drain well. March has been unseasonably wet. The levels of rainfall are contributing to spring floods.

Seeded a few weeks ago anyway and today is a major sprouting day. Radishes and lettuce came up more than a week ago, but today we have snap peas, beets, mustards greens, chard and a peek from the early (short) carrots.  I'm always exciting to see the sprouts, watching for them, wondering if they'll actually show. It's a childish game but gives me a lift, genuine excitement, everytime. So today I am toasting the spring garden.

I've been reading Backyard Bounty (Linda Gilkeson) - a complete guide to year-round organic gardening in the Pacific Northwest. Some of things we can get away with here are counter intuitive to what I already know, but I'm going to try to stretch my space, which is limited by size and sun, to provide more. So I jumped in to planting so early.

I have been worried about the rain and potato towers, so this week Steven and I covered each tower with a heavy duty trash bag to collect the rain and then dumped it twice a day. It's working beautifully. Hopefully the rain will back off soon.