Gardeners Are Delusional/Optimistic

It feels like we've left planting bedding plants til kind of late this year, but we did finally get out and plant some things--jalapenos, bell peppers, tomatoes, cilantro, and marigolds--yesterday. We had, maybe a month ago, tossed some seeds--radishes, carrots, bok choi, lettuce mix, beets, beans--around and most of them sprouted. We also have a ton of little volunteer seedlings--mostly arugula because we let it go to seed at the end of the season, but also lettuces and sunflowers. As far as what we've eaten: We already harvested some arugula to use as microgreens (since most of it will have to come up as we continue to plant). We also chopped up some chives from our crazy chive plant (it's huge and blooms ever year) to add to some tofu fritters. After last year's fiasco with the compost, the garden seems to be bouncing back. We're just going to go with it and hope for the best. For me, personally, already the best part of gardening has been the great number of ladybug larvae I've seen crawling around the place. I love those things! Almost all insect life thrills me, even the stuff that is annoying or unpleasant to deal with like the black widow spiders. They of course will have to go along with the ants that have taken up residence on the patio. The other spiders can stay along with the praying mantis babies that are coming. (Death to all mosquitoes and roaches!)

FN Compost

Three new tomato plants
Basil
Marigolds

all added to the garden.

The seedlings are generally not doing well, nor are the transplanted things (several marigolds and both sets of cucumbers died, the lettuces are not sprouting, the green peppers are stagnant). A few clues as to why:  The part of the beds that we didn't work compost into (because there were established plants there) are doing much better than are the parts w/ the compost. We uprooted a dying basil plant to find that most of its roots had been eroded, eaten away. By what? I'm guessing the compost was still too hot (even though it was a commercial prep that advertised itself as being super-duper mild).

Sucks--and kind of pisses me off actually.

The newer things are planted in a buffer zone of potting soil just in case.

Frozen Thursday

We had to cover the tomatoes and peppers last night because the forecast was for freezing temperatures. Yes, it's May.

Lots of wind recently which is annoying, but the corn, sunflowers, radishes, and some of the lettuce mixes are sprouting. Well, everything is sprouting to some extent except for the beans. So we'll see.

In the past week, we've added bok choi to the garden and lots and lots of marigolds. (At least we know the marigolds will do well.)

Saturday Again?! (Never Enough Radishes)

I'm wondering what happened to the salad mix seeds we planted. One of about three hundred seeds has sprouted. The rest are probably either non-viable or too deeply planted (my fault). The turnips, radishes, and other lettuce mixes are sprouted at least. 

I don't think I mentioned that we also transplanted lemon cuke seedlings, which are struggling in the sad way cuke seedlings do. In the morning they're laying on their sides with their heavy little heads down on the dirt. They perk up with some watering and encouragement, but the same cycle happens again the next day.

Today's run to two nurseries yielded yarrow, 2-4 packs of marigolds, and a 4-pack each of lemon basil and regular old basil. Those will go in among the tomato plants, which is going to be a crowded little garden party considering we already planted marigolds there and seeded the ground with zlata and king bora radishes.

You can never have enough radishes.

Friday Night

Planted tomatoes tonight, five of them, and marigolds, and radishes, and ollas. We bought a six pack of bok choi and a little sage.  Lots of things sprouting in the garden and on the patio.

Daily Update

Fell close to (or below) freezing last night (was about 33 degrees when I checked around 3 a.m.) so Dave hauled in the tomatoes, eggplant, cucumbers, chiles, and basil plants. (He did it earlier than 3 a.m. of course.) I brought them back out again in the early afternoon when I watered everything.

In the garden, the red sunflowers, radishes, and a few of the lettuces are sprouting. Turnips, too, I think.

AGRA

Two photos from a visit to AGRA greenhouse last Saturday:

A few of the offerings.