Some late 2021 crop Mountain Merits curing in the Iron County, WI sun.



The Gotch

And the First Tomato Blossom of 2022 in the garden is…drum roll….Japanese Black Trifele.

@karstopography; (staring at unopened seed packets strewn hither-n-yon over desk) jeepers...blossoms...on March 9th?

Oy! Them what gots...gits!

The Gotch

I’m going to let these blossoms ride, probably won’t set anyway with the expected cooler weather over the next few days. Plants are looking pretty strong, though, most are up to about 15”-18” tall overall. This is one of my own plants raised from seed started on December 23rd, 2021 and nurtured until I put it into the raised bed on or about February 14th.

I’m trying to back off a bit on the use of fish emulsion early in the season, seems like that gets the green growth exploding, but seems to inhibit flowering some. I set up the beds with more tomato specific granular fertilizer and will come in with some foliar feeding, mainly kelp emulsion and a diluted fish emulsion here and there. I firmly believe the kelp helps in a number of ways with flowering and fruit set, plus helps inhibit BER.

I bought my tomato starts on February the 10th. I kept them in their nursery pots until March the 3rd when I planted them into the ground.

Indigo Blue Berries and Sunrise Bumblebee have blossoms.

What is blooming now?

Many things.

Pink Jasmine and Skyscraper Orange salvia. African Blue, Cinnamon, and Spicy Globe (in a hanging basket) basils. I assembled a grow bag of nursery plants for pollinators. Calibrachoa, pentas, and verbena.

Bradford pear tree in bloom.

Getting some tomatoes setting. Lots of blossoms. Weather looks favorable for a week or more. Hoping for a good number of sets.

In the pink...

Begonias, dwarf hibiscus, and Honey Bells cuphea...all in pots.

Big ones and little ones

Walking Iris, Neomarica northiana. Fragrant.

These are greenhouse pictures rather than garden pictures.

Pumpkin. Haven’t seen my garden in daylight in a few days , snapped this at 0400 before work.

You never know who might want to join you for some garden fun. This little Armadillo has been hanging out the last few days around the garden. I’m sort of worried about this little dude or dudette, out and about in the middle of the afternoon, it’s not very armadillo like. The armadillo was rooting around and actively trying to find something to eat. I went ahead dug up an earthworm from a bed and the armadillo gobbled it up.

Blooming on May 1st.

Star jasmine
Bells of Fire tecoma
Canna (dwarf)
Mystic Spires blue salvia

Oh the first blades of grass are so delicious!

@Bower those bunnies are shedding. Are they white in the winter?

Yes MissS, these are snowshoe hares and get a white coat in winter.