Drowning in Tomato Plants

Been some time since I have posted, seems that life has become a little more crazy than normal. The garden has a good start but the spring weather is a little late in coming. This year it seems that every night goes to near freezing and the days don't make it much past 50. Although this seems like good conditions for spring plantings, it is making it difficult to get my summer seedlings outside to harden off. Outside already are close to 100 loose leaf salad seedlings and about 20 Swiss chard plants. I also seeded 3 types of radishes and dwarf sugar peas which all just showed signs of germination yesterday. This weekend I am planning on seeding 2 type of beets, 2 types of carrots and 1 type of spinach. With limited space, I am going to have to plant much less than would really like to go with.

As for the summer plant, I guess I went a little overboard - I started close to 75 pepper plants, 10 basil plants and over 125 tomato plants. Although this sounds a little crazy, I am expecting to give more than 75% of this to friends and family; I already gave out about 20 tomatoes to some master gardeners. Some of the 20 varieties of tomatoes are White Currant, Ernie's Plump, Opalka, Green Sausage, Hartman's Gooseberry to only name a few. Some of the ones I am really excited for are Riesentaube and Ildi, both grape tomato varieties and the only repeat variety from last year are Jen's favorite - Marglobe. I am going to try for close to 30 plants on my property this year.


Still to start indoors are the watermelon (have to choose between 3 types), yellow squash, acorn squash (2 types), and butternut squash. These should be started in the next 2-3 weeks for an outdoor plant date of sometime between May 15th and June 1st. By this time, I will also direct seed some string beans, cucumbers and corn; yes corn.....I am going to try 2 heirloom varieties of corn - 1 for popcorn and one for blue eating corn. The blue corn is called Blue Jade and can be kept in a container. It is suppose to be really tasty and wild to look at. I am still trying to figure out where everything is going but as I am now seeing, I will figure it out when it needs to be planted.

The garlic planted in the spring is now about 10" tall. I miscalculated the amount because I have what appears to be 50 head that has come up. In June-July I will dig it all up and get the bed ready for the fall planting of more. I just found some Garlic braiding websites so that should be fun to try. I also ordered 8 blackberry plants for fence. They are coming in 4" pots and will take some time to grow but we should have a small picking season next year. The blueberries will have to wait for more money and time but at least I have something started. The figs are a different story, different problem and deserving of its own post next time....

Food Harvested:
None

Things Planted:
Salad - 6 types of SSE Heirloom
Radish Seeds (3 types)
Dwarf Sugar Pea Seeds

Seeds Saved:
White Texas Cone Flower

Preserved/Cooked:
Homemade Chocolate and Butterscotch Pudding

Things to Remember:
1. Get vines from Taylor Park for the Arbor into the garden
2. Cukes against Barbara's fence
3. String beans against Woody's fence