Begonia is back!

Looking good!  It woke up a while ago, and is a nice size now.

-2 last night and everything is fine without covering -- even the volunteer buckwheat

.

White cabbage moth seen!!

FOY.  I havenèt yet added a second layer é row cover to buffer the tulle, but the plants are still small so good margin, so hopefully the mothès visit was fruitless... 

Plot: Bought yellow onion bulbs, Superior potatoes, pepper seedlings, and bush bean seeds

 ...

Sowed bulbs: Multiplier onions and yellow onions

Picked up some onion bulbs from Ritchies, mostly for the plot, but figured would try some here too.  For here was two giant multiplier onion bulbs, and a few small yellow onion bulbs.

Sprinkled some mrp and azomite in with the onions.

Tulled beets

Used the tall garden fencing as the supports.

Sowed grass

In the bare and topped-up spots.  Used leftover grass seed from past years.

Started ground cherries in PT

For the CG!  Kind of a late start, but will give it a try.

Community garden plot!

Oooo!  Didnt think Ièd get a spot this year, but surprise surprise, one opened up!  So I took it.  Itès a small bed, 8x3 or 8x4, and squirrels will be an issue, but Ièm excited to give it a try!

Hardening off tomatoes (many are very leggy, too tall for lights) and stevias

Weather forecast is very nice -- warm daytimes, lots of sun.  So, today started hardening the tomatoes and stevias.

Whatever imbalance in my homemade potting mix that affected the dill (leggy with poor roots) seems to be affecting several of the tomatoes too.  Not sure what their roots look like yet, but several are so leggy.  I'm assuming too much nitrogen, not enough of the other stuff.

The leggy tomatoes have outgrown the space under the lights, so I'm grateful for the warm weather to start getting them outside.

Dill direct sowed

Just in case the wimpy indoor-started dills don't pan out, direct-seeded some dill of the new seed pack ("Bouquet") in the north bed, along the north edge of the carrots.  Amended with mrp, az, and kelp (no alfalfa).

Carrots (Tendersweet) sowed in northwest corner of north bed

To use up the south edge of the broccoli tulle area.  For these I simply loosed the soil, amended with kelp/az/mrp (no alfalfa), sprinkled seeds randomly -- and did NOT cover with any soil.  I figured watering them in will probably bury them enough.

Potatoes (3 kinds) planted

Three kinds this year.  The cuts I did a few days ago have definitely all sealed over.  In all cases I amended with a sprinkling of mrp, azomite, and kelp (no alfalfa).

- Banana fingerlings:  Exclusively the harvest from last year that sprouted in the fridge this winter.  Locations:  Main patch is north of the a/c; some runts in a clump in NE corner of north bed.  Also poked a few along the north edge of the north bed within the grass, just for fun -- these ones I didn't amend at all..

- Superior (bought from Ritchie's a few weeks ago):  Three pots against the fence (two pots with three each, one pot with one), and a row in the middle of the central bed between the broccoli and kale/chard.

- Grocery store white (from grocery potatoes that sprouted in the fridge recently):  Three pots against the fence (two pots with three each, one pot with one), and a row in the middle of the central bed between the broccoli and kale/chard.

Basils looking great so far! Drought conditions seem to be working. First pruning.

I've been diligently avoiding over-watering the basils in the hopes of avoiding the issues I had with basil the last two years.  I water them probably less than half as often as the other plants.  And so far, so good.  

Did the first pruning of the most advanced plants.

Killed almost all short yellow zinnias due to not watering enough!!!

OOPS

Lesson learned:  Don't put other plants on the same shelf as the drought-loving basils, unless those other plants are in front and not tucked behind out of sight.

There's only one short zinnia that's alive, and it looks very puny with not much root system, but we shall see.

Up-potted stevias and other small-potted plants

^^^

Chitting worked great -- really got the eyes growing for the big kinds of potatoes

Great growth happening from many of the eyes, just from having taken them out of the fridge and somewhere warm!

The banana fingerlings, however, don't seem to be doing much since being taking out of the fridge.   Oh well, we'll see how it goes.

Zucchini and cucumbers started in PT

Zucchini will once again be Golden Glory and Eight Ball.

Cucumbers will once again be Eureka.  I'll do a round 2 of the cukes a bit later, to try to avoid having too many cukes ready all at once.

Hardly any beets sprouted!!! Sowed round 2 beets. Carrots more sprouted but sowed round 2 carrots too.

What the heck!  Why such low germination, especially for the beets?!?  My only guess is they cooked under the plastic on the hot sunny days a while ago.  Both kinds of sowed beets were equally low germination.  So, poked in some round 2 beets today, mishmash of the two kinds.

For filling in the carrots (in the bed, not the container that I sowed more recently), I had no patience to carefully poke so many new holes, so I just scattered the rest of the bolero seed package over top.

Watered them all in.

Chitted the potatoes

Placed all of the potatoes out onto cardboard in the seed-starting room (since it's the warmest room), and for the bigger potatoes I cut them in half with multiple eyes each.  Didn't cut any of the fingerlings, will just plant those whole.