This year I'm moving the tomatoes that will be in the garden to a different area, one that will get some shade late afternoon in the summer. I think all day blasting heat was a problem last year.

This is the bed before I got working on it Tuesday. It's called The Winter look.



Then I took the cardboard we'd been saving for the occasion and laid a double thickness over the bed to keep the weeds down.



I set up a washing station to wash all the buckets and spray them with 10% bleach solution. It was good to check that task off the list.



The pallets will be laid over the bed tomorrow. The last one needs a bit cut off the end to fit.

Today we made two trips to get potting mix, one yard per load. It's an hour and a half round trip so that pretty much shot the morning. After the first trip we had to shovel it all into the tomato buckets to empty the truck for the second trip.



The second load filled the last of the buckets, the 3'x3'x8" empty remainder of the Jerusalem artichoke bed and we wrapped the rest in a tarp for use at some point in the future.

It's been a long day but I'm glad the deed is done. Laying down the pallets tomorrow will be easy. The filled buckets have been pushed up together and tarped until it's time to take them out to the bed and plant them.

The Governor's Shelter In Place order started at 6pm this evening. On the way home we stopped at the package store for necessary and sufficient "groceries" so with that and the potting mix, we're good to go!

GitRDun! Looking great!

What a productive day. You may have a few sore muscles tomorrow.

Yesterday was such a pretty play to play in the garden and was devoted to finishing up two projects. The first was to finish the tomato bed by laying down the pallets where the buckets will sit. Done.



Then I started broadforking the bed where I'm going to plant Spring Treat corn tomorrow. It was a tiring job with that fork pulling up a lot of fine tree roots and I just ran out of energy after getting 2/3 of the bed done so I finished it today.

The front porch is getting full. Some of the flowers and a bunch of tomatoes are popping up under the lights and some stuff just had to move to the porch to make room. I potted up some peppers and an eggplant and out they went. On the right side of those are the new St. Kitts & Nevis Roselle plants.



Tomato insanity has hit hard. I started 21 different varieties, one of each, on April 1 and since yesterday 17 of them have popped up. More stuff will have to move to the porch so I can spread the tomatoes under the lights.

The sweet potato slips are starting to pop up. I laid four small sprouting sweets on their sides in a window box on March 24 and the first sprout came up March 31. Since the slips won't be planted until the first week of May, there should be plenty by then for both me and a friend to share.



It was also bread baking time. I make one called English Muffin bread. It's a nice toasting bread and that's the only way I eat it. Toasted with mayo spread on it and sliced hardboiled eggs piled on top for breakfast.



Today I'm going to start some okra sets, four each of Cajun Jewel and four Choppee. It's an experiment to prove or disprove a theory I have about that. The Cajun Delight, a compact variety I used to grow and can't find anymore, used to make nice sets. Other varieties all shot up really fast and got very leggy very early and I ended up direct sowing them. Cajun Jewel is supposed to be a compact variety so we'll see the results of Jewel versus Choppee. Maybe both will make nice sets. Maybe neither will. Maybe Jewel will cooperate but I'll have to direct sow the Choppee.

Shelter In Place? Harumph... I don't have time to go anywhere anyway. Spring's here!

This morning I got the Spring Treat corn planted in one of the raised beds. It's planted in seven 27" diameter circles with stakes marking the circle centers. Kind of hard to see the stakes.



This year I spaced the seed every 4" around the perimeter of each circle to make sure there are no skips. They can always be thinned. Last year germination was a problem but I think that was operator error. I jumped the gun too early due to warm weather that turned really cold two days after planting. :xeye: Today the soil was 71F.

"Houston, we have a problem in Pea Bed #1." The left end is starting to look puny and I'm really suspecting nematodes in that half of the bed. I haven't pulled any plants for examination yet but it sure looks like it.



I've gotten to the point where I think that if cool weather plants get a really good head start in cool weather, when soil gets warm enough for the nematodes to wake up (65) the plants can withstand them a lot better. The wet weather this spring forced late planting and then it's turned steadily warm while the peas were still pretty young.

I also got Warrior scallions planted out this afternoon once the clouds took over. This time I grew them in a 5” wide pot instead of making three small rows in an open pack. They did just fine and filled the other half of the scallion row. Another effort to stagger harvest.



Tomorrow I have a list of stuff to do. Weeding, mulching and dealing with the first flea beetles of the season. Spring is moving right along!

Amazingly productive couple of days; good for you!

PlainJane wrote: ↑Tue Apr 07, 2020 6:24 pm Amazingly productive couple of days; good for you!

It's bust-butt time from now through about the first week in May as beds get prepped and stuff gets planted. The last thing to go in will be the sweet potatoes on May 7. Then the garden shifts into maintenance mode.

This morning I broadforked the bed where cukes will be planted. It’s up in the corner of the garden where there’s a crape myrtle tree and those roots are invading the bed.



The half of the bed closest to the crape was a pain to fork with lots of fibrous roots and some more substantial but The Beast (broadfork) did it’s job. Thank goodness it’s done. I hope the tomatoes do well on those pallets because that bed has been fallow about three years. By now it’s most likely solid crape and grape roots and good for nothing else but supporting pallets!



Meanwhile, the garden stretcher is at work again. Yesterday my sister Pickles tilled up one of two new planned beds with the Mantis.



Today she planted the first two of four Blue Suede (southern highbush) blueberries in the prepped bed and added some transplanted Sunday Gloves daylilies on the near end. The other bed will eventually be for the Conover's Colossal asparagus plants I’ve grown from seed this spring and whatever else she decides to put in there. The area to the right of the back bed will be watermelon and spaghetti squash while the area to the right of the blueberry bed will be corn.



This is the only sage left of four that were planted in the spring of ’18. I’m amazed that it survived some nights in the mid and upper 20’s. It’s now blooming for the first time. I might have to take some cuttings of this one.




There's lots more on the garden task list but that rooty bed just took the starch out of me for now. Maybe I'll do some weeding and mulching this evening. For now, it's TIME OUT!

Jeepers I thought I had the sandiest soil on the planet but from those photos you might have me beat.
What kind(s) of watermelon will you be growing?

Good to see you had another productive gardening day!

Lucky you with that sandy soil, it would be very similar to what I have to buy by the truck load.

Ah, the sandy soil. Perfect for nematode existence. Never had them until I was building more raised beds and brought in a truckload of soil. Since a high level of organic matter seems to lessen their impact I keep trying to add stuff. That and trying to fallow beds when possible and starving them by mulching and keeping weeds out of fallow beds.

I always have my camera with me in the garden. It's my way of keeping track of stuff and it really does come in handy like when I'm wondering things like, "How did I do that last year?" or "Where were the shadows at 5pm in early April?" or "Wow, I've never seen *that* bug before!"

OK, here's a good example. This is the potato row eleven days ago on March 30., Kennebecs in the front, Yukon Golds behind them.



Here's the same bed today. Pickles gave them their second and last hilling and fertilizing yesterday. Wowsa, what a difference! That's what ten days of upper 70's-mid 80's will do for growth.



This is the upper northwest corner of the garden on Feb 2nd. That first bed would become the pallet bed.



Here's the same area this afternoon. It's really is starting to look like a garden!



Finally, here's a mixed bed that needs some attention. Supposedly those are Pheasant Eye daffs, a few stray seedling asparagus spears that poke up, some iris and lots of weeds. Behind the bed are the filled tomato buckets, covered and waiting to move out to the pallets when the time comes.



It's kind of been a long week and so I've been a slug today, not having the will or energy to go weed, mulch or fork up another bed. I am thankful that the corn hasn't popped up yet as all of a sudden the temp is supposed to drop down to mid to upper 30's tonight! Where did THAT come from? The Weather Liar didn't say anything about that until just yesterday. In a little while I'll bring the tomatoes, peppers, basil etc in from the front porch and park them on the kitchen table for the night. Just one night of that nonsense and back out they go tomorrow. 'Tis the season.

It got down to 37 here this morning. I'm glad I brought the tender stuff in from the front porch last night and put them on the kitchen table. Dwarf cherry tomatoes, some paprika peppers, eggplant, basil, roselle, sweet potatoes, etc. The temp is rising fast out there and no more cold mornings are forecast so I'll be taking the plants back out shortly this morning.

Yes, even in N. Florida we woke up to 56 degrees. Feels great though!
Love seeing the time comparison photos; I need to do more of that.

It definitely looks like a garden lol!

Pickles finally removed an old Knockout rose that had gotten way out of shape and was ugly. It wasn't worth an extended rehab. There's a Clematis planted by that post so she made a tube of old fencing around the post for the Clematis to climb on. The square area is something she threw together several years ago as a place to plant some asparagus I had grown from seed. It's all a work in progress.



Also in that area is a Tea Olive with a Wisteria frutescens 'Amethyst Falls' in front of it. Amethyst Falls is a lot more tame than its Wisteria sinensis relatives from Asia which will take over a place if given the chance. This one started blooming last week and needs a good haircut and shaping when it finishes.




This morning at 3:30am the weather alert went off for area tornado and severe t-storm warnings. By 4:30, when the alert was for a town 7 miles away, it was time to get up and get dressed. It wouldn't do to have your house blown away and be caught in your night shirt and barefoot.

We are so fortunate to be living in an area whose geography somehow diverts the worst weather. On the weather map there was a huge red blob just north and just south of us. When I saw that I told Pickles, "We're gonna hit the slot again." Sure enough. It all passed above and below us. By then it was 5:30 so might as well make coffee, eat breakfast and get on with the day. I hope and pray every Junctioneer is able to do the same!

We only got 4/10" rain out of all this hubbub but this afternoon I will do some mulching to lock it in.

So glad you were spared the severe weather. Always nerve wracking though.
My parents had a beautiful wisteria covering an arbor on their back patio. Many’s the hour I spent pruning and cursing that thing as it tried to penetrate the windows, the house roof and everything else in a 20 ft radius. The flowers are lovely in spite of all that hassle.

Yesterday it was time to do some re-potting, mostly peppers , an eggplant and roselle as plant roots were ready for more room. These are the new ‘St. Kitts and Nevis’ roselle I’m playing with this year. They can’t take a bit of frost and don’t like to be chilly so they won’t get planted until around May 15th. I probably started them too early as they’re fast growers.



I use these 24 oz cottage cheese containers with ¼” drain holes drilled in the bottoms. They make a nice sized transplant and they’re basically free once you’ve bought the cottage cheese. :rolleyes:



The sweet potato slips are coming right along. The seed potatoes are descendents from the 2016 crop, the first time I ever grew them . The variety is ‘Jewel’, it’s nematode resistant and that first sweet potato was an organic one that came from a Publix supermarket. They hold really well in storage.



These are some of the 21 varieties of tomatoes (one of each) we’re growing this year and we’re looking for heat tolerance, a good paste and a good cherry. They’re all OP so if I find what I want I’ll be saving the seed.



The peas are starting to bloom! That means about 20 days on average until the first picking.



And finally, today I got the first cherry tomato off the dwarf ‘Red Robin’. The first fresh tomato of the year and it was tasty, too. :thumb:



Here are two of the three dwarf ‘Whippersnapper’ plants. I’m amazed at how many blooms these suckers have! I hope the tomatoes taste as nice as the Red Robin. :

Question: did you split that Red Robin with your sister?

PlainJane wrote: ↑Fri Apr 17, 2020 6:40 am Question: did you split that Red Robin with your sister?

YEP!!!!

So envious of your plot and weather! Who is Pickles?