The Dawg Patch

[GoDawgs]

Yesterday afternoon the very recently planted brassicas got covered "just in case".



It actually got down to 31 this morning, not too bad but lower than the forecasted 33. A light breeze kept away the frost. Now that the sun's up I pulled the plastic back so they don't cook today. They're still saying 29 tonight but they've been known to be on the high side.



Pickles decided to pull soil over potatoes just poking up, hill up those about 5" tall, bury all with leaves and pull a light row cover over all to keep the wind frmo blowing the leaves away. As I like to say, "You make it up as you go along". She's going to pull that cover back while on her morning walk this morning to let the sun warm things up a tad and then re-cover late this afternoon.



Meanwhile the first asparagus is poking up. These are second year seedlings so nothing will be cut from them this year. Maybe next year. They won't be covered so a 28 or 29 tonight might burn them.



And finally, an old Bridalwreath spirea is starting to bloom.

[PlainJane]

Keeping a close eye on our local forecast; may have to break out a tarp or 2.

[GoDawgs]

After taking a closer look at the several patches small patches of asparagus scattered about and seeing that there was more there overall, I decided to cut what was there and enjoy it before Mr. Frosty got it. So today we will have the first asparagus of the season annointed with browned thyme lemon butter. What a tasty combination that shouts "Spring"!



Two thermometers here say that it's 31 this morning. A local TV station says 27 and the Univ of GA mini station up the road says 27.5. There is light frost across the fields so I'm glad we devised a covering for the peas. We tented them by stretching old bed sheets over the lower 18" piece of trellising, clipped them in place with clothespins and anchored the bottoms with t-posts. I bought old bed sheets for almost nothing at an estate sale some years ago and they've been really handy for covering stuff.

Once again, we were making it up as we go along as we've never had to cover the peas before. Everything I read yesterday said frost and below 28 will damage peas. We'll see. They're mulched well so that will help too.





To be on the safe side I brought some stuff in from the porch. It's the usual March plant shuffle.

[GoDawgs]

And I'm happy to report that the asparagus was as good as I had anticipated! The peas did just fine under their makeshift tent. Had to pull the plastic back from that half bed of young brassicas when the sun cleared the trees this morning so they wouldn't cook. Tomorrow's low looks to be 30 so I'll probably leave the plastic off those tonight. The cover stays put over the potatoes though.

[GoDawgs]

I ended up leaving the covers over everything for that last cold morning and even covered the more mature brassica bed. It's a good thing I did because we had pretty heavy frost. I do see some signs of frost burn on the lowest leaves of the older cauliflower plants from the previous two uncovered nights but they'll be OK.

Yesterday morning was spent removing covers and hanging them up to dry on the big trellises. Also raked the mulch back over the half bed of recent brassica plantings, sowed 36' of carrots (plus 8' of @rxkeith's experimental carrot cross seed), about 9' more of turnips and pulled a little soil to the recently planted scallions.

After lunch the covers were dry so they got folded up and stashed back in the shed. That's all I had energy left for so it was basketball time.

This morning I prepped planting holes in the rest of that half bed for planting out the last brassica sets Sunday or Monday as those are supposed to be good transplanting days.

Tomato seeds will be started Monday or Tuesday. So far it looks like there will be one each of 18 full sized varieties and 6 new-to-me varieties of dwarf tomatoes. Time to get the cups prepared and labeled. I will also plant some sugar peas and plant some small sweet potatoes left from last year in a window box to start growing slips for this year.

Good grief, it seems that the year just turned and here we are already half way through March!

[GoDawgs]

Everything's covered again for tomorrow morning. The half bed with plastic (at the far end) had the cover folded back most of the day so that the plants wouldn't cook but I just put it back over for the night. Then I did a quick check of the potatoes (the two low covered beds at the near end) and found a few "peekers" that had pushed up through the leaves a bit since yesterday. More leaves went on top of them underneath the covers.



Yesterday I cleaned all the tomato cups....



.... because today was Tomato Seed Starting Day!



Regular tall varieties include one each of:

Amish Orange
Bella Rosa
Bill Bean
Chef's Choice Bi-color (at my brother's suggestion)
Chef's Choice Pink (another brother suggestion)
Creole Original
Daniel Burson
Eva's Purple Ball
Fake Annie (was supposed to be a RL red Early Annie but grew out as a tasty PL yellow tomato!)
German Johnson
Homestead
Mat-su Express
Punta Banda
Purple Russian
Rio Grande
Rosedale
Stump of the World
Super Sweet 100

Dwarf varieties (2.5' - 5' tall) are:

Elise's Fancy
Loxton Lad
Mano Cherry
Premus
Velvet Night
Wild Fred

I also started some Greek oregano seed and also three six-packs of Celebrity tomatoes which my former boss buys from me every year.

Tomorrow I need to stick some sweet potatoes in a windowbox to start the slip growing process. And there are some sugar snap peas that need to go into the ground if it's dry enough to work up.

[PlainJane]

Wow, you had a productive day.
I’m hoping this is the last frosty period. I’m ready for an actual spring with 3 weeks of 75/55 weather lol.

[GoDawgs]

It was a frosty 30 out there this morning. Tomorrow morning should be the last of this nonsense as by Thursday, they're forecasting three days with highs in the low 80's again! I really need to get the last of the brassicas planted out.

I didn't think about covering the Georgia Petite Indian hawthorns growing in front of the front porch. They're heavily budded and a few blooms starting to open. I'm hoping their location so close to the stone foundation has kept them a tad warmer than the areas away from the house. Each will get a sheet over it tonight if the damage isn't already done.



This morning I'm going to see if the soil under another garden trellis is dry enough to prep for planting snow and sugar snap peas. These are temp sensitive and need to finish before hot weather arrives in May. They should have been in several weeks ago but the area was still too wet from that earlier flooding.

Meanwhile, today I'll plant a few of last year's sweet potatoes in a window box. They should be making slips for planting at the end of April.

The arugula is finally seeding and the pods are swelling up. I'm not sure if they're mature enough to just cut stems, hang and let them dry so I'll let them dry on the plant for collection later.

Edited to get the right danged photo pasted in here!

[GoDawgs]

Well, I didn't get a sheet put over the hawthorns as planned because I got involved in basketball games and completely forgot about it. Fortunately no harm, no foul. They're fine today.

Boy, this morning it looked like it had snowed out there. Very heavy frost across the fields and yard. The cats' water bowls froze. One last kick in the pants from Mother Nature. Those sheets and row covers were really wet once all that frost melted on them! They got hung on trellises to dry...



and draped over tomato cages...



and clipped to grape vines on the fence. You make it up as you go along!



The potatoes had been hilled up and then had leaves piled over them with a row cover to hold the leaves down. They're mostly OK with just a few having a little bit of tip burn because they decided to push through the leaves overnight just to have a look around. Serves 'em right for being nosy. I pulled the leaves back this morning to let them get some sunshine after three days.





And finally, some cauliflower plants got some burn.



I didn't cover that full brassica bed on nights 1 and 2 but I'm sure glad I did for night 3. Next time I won't count on brassicas being tough.

No tomatoes up yet but it's just Day 3.

[Rockporter]

It was a frosty 30 out there this morning. Tomorrow morning should be the last of this nonsense as by Thursday, they're forecasting three days with highs in the low 80's again! I really need to get the last of the brassicas planted out.

I didn't think about covering the Georgia Petite Indian hawthorns growing in front of the front porch. They're heavily budded and a few blooms starting to open. I'm hoping their location so close to the stone foundation has kept them a tad warmer than the areas away from the house. Each will get a sheet over it tonight if the damage isn't already done.



This morning I'm going to see if the soil under another garden trellis is dry enough to prep for planting snow and sugar snap peas. These are temp sensitive and need to finish before hot weather arrives in May. They should have been in several weeks ago but the area was still too wet from that earlier flooding.

Meanwhile, today I'll plant a few of last year's sweet potatoes in a window box. They should be making slips for planting at the end of April.

The arugula is finally seeding and the pods are swelling up. I'm not sure if they're mature enough to just cut stems, hang and let them dry so I'll let them dry on the plant for collection later.

Edited to get the right danged photo pasted in here!

We have one of those hawthornes in the front garden bed and near the brick. I didn't even cover it during the artic blast we got here, it survived great and is full of blooms. I can't say the same thing for many other plants that were out there.

[GoDawgs]

Well, looky here at what I found this morning... the first tomatoes were born overnight! Purple Russian, Amish Orange, Bill Bean and Chef's Choice Pink.

[GoDawgs]

Wow! They're coming fast now! Twelve more tomatoes are up now since those first four this morning and under the lights.



The peppers have their first true leaves and are starting on the next set.



Today I got the last brassicas planted so that makes four groups staggered to stretch out the finish. I hope it won't get too hot before today's plantings are ready. We'll see.

I also planted some sugar snap peas and snow peas on both sides of this trellis.



The first time I tried growing sugar snaps the package said they got 18" tall and required no support. Wellllll... they got 24" and right when they were producing, a t-storm with big wind came through and left the biggest tangled mess I've ever dealt with. It was SUCH a pain trying to pick peas out of that without breaking vines. So I've added a stretch of 18" tall fencing to the bottom of the trellis for them to grab on to and hold on for dear life.

However, it was a 16.5' stretch of fencing but it was all I had so some baling twine fixed that problem. Solid as a rock. Again, we make it up as we go along. :LOL:

[GoDawgs]

All but one of the 26 tomato varieties are now up and running. If the Velvet Night isn't up in a few days I'll reseed it.

We had 0.6" rain this morning and then it cleared off completely. I'm sure the newly sown carrot and turnip seed appreciate it. More rain coming tomorrow. Right now it's 80 after hitting the high of 83.

This on and off heat has definitely made the daikon radishes bolt. A couple days ago I thought I saw some of them getting ready to push what looked like flower heads forming. Yep. Just about all of them.



I started three lines of daikons about 3 weeks apart. Maybe the other two will have steady weather now. One thing that has impressed me is the third line of itty bittys (far right). They were just breaking through when we had those three mornings of frost and 28-29 lows. It didn't phase them a bit! They're tough!

[pepperhead212]

That roller coaster temperature I get here every spring makes my Asian radishes bolt, too, along with a number of other things! Many I've given up on, but I still try some new ones sometimes.

[GoDawgs]

Rain, rain, rain and tornado watches today. We've been freight-trained with storms since yesterday around lunchtime but we're lucky that we've gotten just 2.3" so far whereas the areas about 15 miles north of us have had 5" and more. We're also lucky we didn't get any tornadoes close to us here. The storm line keeps rebuilding so it will be wet most of the day. A good day to bake bread!

Yesterday afternoon it almost cleared off a bit in between storms but we briefly lost power anyway. There was a loud pop followed by no power. It was the transformer outside as a stupid squirrel up there stepped in the wrong place and shorted it out. I was impressed that after I called it in, the power folks were here in 20 minutes to fix it. One less squirrel to steal tomatoes and corn!

During the brief break in rain I potted up the next four micro tomatoes. Left to right are Minibel (8.5"), Fat Frog (5.5"), Curley Kaley (4") and Lille Lise (6"). They were seeded on Feb 19.



The Minibel is already setting flower buds:



Meanwhile, Maglia Rosa is finishing up her second round of very tasty tomatoes. They've been hands down my favorites of all the dwarf tomatoes I've tried. She's put out a lot of cherries and now she's looking tired with leaves starting to fade. She's been a good one and has been moved to the porch for her last days where she can enjoy some real sunlight.



And the peppers are moving right along.



Time for a bite of breakfast and then baking some English muffin toasting bread.

[PlainJane]

I love Maglia Rosa too, and am sooo looking forward to harvest time. I did 4 plants this year instead of just the one.
Not that I want the wind or tornadoes, but would like to take some of your rain off your hands.
Happy bread baking!

[GoDawgs]

I think that approaching cold front is nudging the storm line towards the southeast. It looks like it's already drifted south of us so we might be on the way to weather improvement!

[GoDawgs]

That 3" of rain we had over the weekend flooded the bottom part of the garden again, including the trellis where I just planted snow peas and sugar snap peas last Thursday. I hadn't watered them at the time of planting because I knew "some" rain was coming in over the weekend. Little did I know how much or I'd have held off planting.

The standing water is gone now and I'll be pleasantly surprised if the peas don't rot in the ground. It's getting too late to buy more and replant. There's not enough cool weather time left. These were going to be pushing it as it was. Oh well, there's always next spring as they don't do well for me in the fall.

Last night the weather people said there was a chance of "patchy frost" and a low of 37. Last year we ignored a blurb like that and we got a freeze, not a frost and it killed the potato plants. So last evening we covered the taters with row cover which only took a few minutes since I already had the hoops in place "just in case". The lowest it got was 40. Better to be safe than sorry.



Some of the Kennebecs uncovered:



This morning I decided it was time to dig the first few leeks to see where they were and I'm pleased. On the left are the Autumn Giants and on the right are the Carentan. More white on them than last year's first effort had but this fall I'll plant even deeper and hill them even more. For lunch I chopped up two of them and cooked them in with the kale I cut last night. Good eats!



I also pulled more carrots. Those poor things! They've been through winter flooding, freezing and whiplash weather and are just stubby things this spring. I see that with the recent heavy rains a few are starting to crack. I also pulled the last two ready Kolibri kohlrabi.



Off to check out the leek recipes that I've printed off the internet this winter! 'Tis the season!

[Rockporter]

Have you thought about making your raised beds about 32" high so that when it does rain it wouldn't cause an issue for what you have planted there? It might also hold some extra water for the heat of summer and water thirsty crops. Just a thought!!!

[PlainJane]

Looks like a nice start to roasted veggie soup or curry.