GA: Tomato "victim" for experiment! (cool nights coming up, and not yet sun-hardened)

Decided to throw caution to the wind and do an experiment by planting one tomato at GA now rather than waiting until the end of cool nights and before finishing the sun-hardening.

So, at the south-most edge, planted a Damsel.  Dug as deep as I could with the spade because the tomatoes are so dang tall.  Then sprinkled the usual (mrp, kelp, az, alfalfa) along with a few leaves.  Watered it, covered it more, added a few more of the amendments, then covered it the rest of the way.  The only babying I did was to tie it to the pole to help with wind support.

Several cool nights are coming up, the coldest being 8 degrees based on the forecast today.  Tomorrow will be full sun -- whereas the only sun hardening it's had so far is basically today with ~1 hour of morning sun!

So -- this will be a fun experiment to see what happens!

I'll probably try planting a pepper plant too for the same experimental purpose.

GA: Popcorn planted

First time trying to grow popcorn!

This variety is called "Robust" (the package says it's a popcorn variety), by OSC, bought from Ritchie's.

Here's the method I used:

Forked the bed.

Used hand to create planting holes every 8" in all directions.

Put sprinkling of this mixture (roughly):  3 parts kelp, 2 parts mrp, 2 parts az, and a scattering of alfalfa pellets.  (No leaves yet -- will add those later on top after they germinate.)

Half-filled holes with vermiculite.

Placed one to two seeds per hole, ~2" deep.  (The north-most three rows have one per hole; then the south-most two rows have mix of one to two seeds per hole.)

Filled up the holes with vermiculite.

Covered with frost cover -- just to block the seeds from birds.

Watered over the frost cover (the water seeped nicely through the cover).  Used the frost cover instead of burlap because I think it would be easy for birds to peck through burlap to get the seeds.

Later on, when I plant the sweet corn, I'll try an experiment so that some will use less or no vermiculite -- because it's a lot of vermiculite otherwise!

GA: Cold crops all planted! Took 2.5 days. Now to wait for warmer weather to start the warmer crops.

Yard carrots a FLOP. Re-sowed today

Ouch, the carrots sowed in the yard on May 4th were a total flop.  Well, not total, as two did sprout, but, yeah.  So after doing the GA carrots, I came home and used the identical technique in the yard.  Fingers crossed.

GA: Planted Carrots (readme for technique used), beets, rest of the red onions

CARROTS!  After the utter flop in my backyard from the May 4th sowing that yielded TWO seedlings, I changed my method.  Here's what I did:

- The usual breaking up of the soil.

- Raked it flatish.

- Used hand to break up little chunks on the surface.

- Used spacing square tool, used its orange "stick" to mark out 16 holes per square foot.

- Used finger to deepen/widen the holes.  (At first used the dowel, but it compressed the soil too much so I stopped and used finger instead.)

- Sprinkled amendments into each hole:  A mix of ~3 parts mrp, ~2 parts kelp, and ~1 part azomite (zero alfalfa).

- Put some vermiculite into each hole to leave a shorter hole and provide an easy-to-grow-through medium.

- Used corn starch gel method to place a few seeds in each hole.  I really liked this -- with a nice small cut in the bag and a nice firm gel it was easy to control the amount.

- Covered up with more vermiculite.

- COVERED WITH BURLAP (one layer) before watering.  Used bricks/rocks to hold down the burlap.

- After covering with burlap, then watered.  Do not water without the burlap because then soil ends up covering over the vermiculite which ruins the whole thing.  (I did it that way for the first bit at the east end of the bed before realizing it works way better with burlap on top before watering.)

That's it.  I used only one layer of burlap because (a) the forecast is very cloudy and rainy so not much sun to dry things up and (b) I didn't have a lot of burlap on hand.

So here's hoping this works!!!!  A one-and-done for carrot sowing is my goal!

BEETS:  This is another challenge for germination in recent years, so I used almost the same carrow-sowing technique noted above.  The exception is I didn't have the beet seeds in the gel (also didn't pre-soak them because they become annoyingly hard to handle when wet).  For some of them I put a dollop of plain gel and then put the seed on or in the gel; for others I didn't.  But for all I used vermiculate under and over.

And today I put in the rest of the red onions to fill out the east part of the leek bed.

GA: Planted potatoes, broccoli, chard, kale

Another busy day:

- Potatoes:  In the west bed (the slightly smaller bed) is the potato variety whose cut ones had less mold.  In the east bed (the slightly larger bed) is (a) the potato variety whose cut ones had a lot of mold, and in the SW corner of this bed are 6 potatoes from last year's harvest that sprouted, to fill in the bed.  Covered both beds right away with the same expensive agri-cover bought last year (which annoyingly has a few small holes already!).

- Broccoli:  In the 5-broc centre "row", the east-most is Belstar; the other 4 are Piracicaba.  Covered the bed right away (after planting the chard and kale in the same session) with one of the 5-set of huge sheets from VV, over hoops.  I can't get it taut and am a bit worried that it may tear badly quickly, but we'll see, and there are 4 others un-used to replace if needed...   I'm going to likely add a few more broccolis here soon, consisting of the wimpier ones.

- Chard:  In the broccoli bed.

- Kale:  In the broccoli bed.

GA: Open! Planted onions, leeks, parsley, celery, forget-me-nots, crimson clover

Day 1 of GA being open!

Sadly the weather this weekend and upcoming week is the pits -- cool and rainy.  But good for the cold-hardies.

So, today, these went in:

- Onions:  First, to the east are the ones from my home-sown seedlings consisting of New York Early, with a few Frontier in there; then the rest to the west are all from sets bought at Ritchies', consisting of (in no particular order) red, large white, normal white, and yellow.  All had some kelp, a few alfalfas, mrp, and az.  Leafs loosely scattered over top.  9 per square foot with a few leftovers tucked in throughout.  Covered right away using the short metal fences and a sheer curtain.

- Leeks:  All are from my home-sown seedlings.  I used the dowel to make nice ~6" deep holes, into which I added alf, kelp, mrp, and az.  Placed the seedlings, then when I watered them in the holes kind of filled up right away.  Leaves loosely scattered over top but then I decided I wanted to give them a few days so brushed most of the leaves to one side.  9 per square foot.  Covered right away using the short metal fences and a sheer curtain.

- Parsley:  ~5 seedlings.

- Celery:  ~6 seedlings.

- Crimson clover:  In the east part of the southmost bed.  Didn't amend the soil at all, just loosely raked it, scattered seeds randomly, raked to gently cover, watered.  More seeds were showing than I wanted, so scattered soil over top for better cover.

Round 2 squash (winter/summer) started, to fill in gaps

Started just a few more summer/winter squash in case the ones that haven't germinated yet, don't.

Oh no! The cut potatoes are moldy! Were upstairs in spare room / hot!

Ack!!!  I hope this doesn't mean they're going to all rot in the ground!

Moved them to the basement today after seeing the moldiness.  Lesson learned -- next year put them in the basement right away.  One type is on the washing machine, the other on the freezer.

DON'T RE-USE SOIL FOR INDOORS STARTS THAT WAS IN OUTDOOR-HARDENING OFF POTS!!! EGGS!!!!

Hoping I dodged a bullet here!  For the seedlings that had been hardening off outside and then flopped, I had been dumping their potting mix into the indoor potting mix mixing bowl to use for upcoming starts.  Then, tonight when I started potting up the sprouted seeds from a few days ago, what I did I see in there but what I'm sure are insect eggs!  They were a few millimeters long and sort of copper-coloured -- like the colour of those orangey long slow insects -- wireworms maybe? -- that I've seen in the yard.  

So, immediately I "dumped" that plan and dumped all that bowl into outside garden (I'm not worried about the eggs outside, just don't want some strange insect running ramping inside where there are no predators).

Cut the potatoes, so will have at least a week to heal

At the earliest the garden MIGHT be open next Saturday, in which case a week from today (Sunday) would be the soonest the potatoes could be planted.  So, this gives them a week to heal up from the cut.

And I forgot to write which varieties these are -- they're two that I bought at Ritchie's.  I have some fridge potatoes too from last year's leftover harvest that have sprouted, we'll see if those get planted too.

Started cukes, summer squash, winter squash, and watermelon

Started these in PT:

- Blacktail Mountain watermelon x 9 seeds

- Eureka cucumber x 10 seeds

- Waltham butternut squash x 9 seeds (these are all old seeds from the foil packet, to used them up before using the newer seeds)

- Scallopini x 4 seeds

- Yellowfin zucchini x 4 seeds (first time trying this variety)

- 8 Ball zucchini x 4 seeds

- Golden Glory zucchini x 4 seeds

- Dark Green zucchini x 4 seeds (first time trying this variety)

Transplanted yard kale, chard, parsley, and green onions

The chard and kale are in the ground and covered.

The green onions are in a pot and covered.  As the seedlings were dense, I dumped them out into water, and it's true what they say, it was fairly easy to separate them out this way though some I left together.

The parsley is in the ground uncovered.

Tomatoes and ground cherries starting hardening off

Today was just 30 minutes in full shade.

Will do the usual very gradual hardening off, which as of this year entails NOT going back upstairs under lights, just coming inside on the kitchen table when not outside.

Mystery: A bunch of outside zinnias gradually died -- piddly roots!

The tray of zinnias that has been going outside during the day and coming inside at night had been looking good (definitely behind the indoor zinnias but that's to be expected).  But then, over the past week or so, they've been dying!  When I pluck them out, they have almost zero roots.  I wonder if it's something with my mix -- maybe too much or too little lime or something like that?  

Looks like a few shorts will survive -- hopefully....

Put a few white onion sets in with garlic to fill gaps

In the gaps in the garlic bed, I put a few of the white onion sets bought from Ritchie's.  ~3 or 4 in total.

Carrots started via corn starch gel method and burlap

Here's what I did:

- Soaked the seeds in water for a few hours.

- Made the gel by adding ~2 Tbsp corn starch to 2 cups cold water; simmering/whisking until it gels.

- Let the gel cool for several hours.

- Put the cool gel into a baggie; stirred in the carrot seeds.

- After loosening the soil, used a finger to draw troughs.

- Squeezed the carrot seed gel into the troughs. -- Pretty sure there are some longish stretches of no seeds in the gel --- consider using less gel with more carrot seeds.

- Pinched the soil over top.

- Mist-watered.

- Covered with double-layer of burlap.

- Watered the burlap.

Garlic doing well! Most popped up! Covered with a sheet today

Keeping the garlic covered with a tulle-like sheet all season.

All peppers now starting hardening -- and one has a real Hungarian Sweet pepper on it! -- and pruning notes

To free up space under the lights, all peppers are now downstairs and in various stages of being hardened.  Will take things gradually for sure, and they won't actually be planted for QUITE a while yet.

One of the Hungarian Sweet plants has a pepper on it!  I let it be.

As for pruning, I've been pruning pretty much all peppers (sweet and hot) by necessity due to limited vertical space under the lights.  Most plants look pretty darn good, and some look downright amazing!  I'm not deliberately removing any flowers unless by virtue of pruning.