Saturday, March 29, 2008

Veggie Garden 1

I have the earliest tomato blossoms in the area this year. I inherited 6 heirloom seedlings, planted in November, that were pot bound and P starved, but i resurrected them. I saw this week that they started blooming, so i decided now was a good time to put them in the ground.

A lot of old-timers around here say to plant on Good Friday, but this year it came a bit early, so i waited a week. Hopefully, we've seen the last frost.

If all goes well, we could have our first tomatoes in May!


This is our longleaf pine, a native species to this area. Oddly, the daffodils have not bloomed yet... And i saw some blooming just down the road, too. I must've got defective bulbs.









The soils in these parts are sandy and compacted, so I built these raised beds and amended the soil since we moved in. These are onions and garlic that i planted last fall. Sometimes they get a side-dressing of spent yeast from my beer fermentations...


Here are the tomatoes I transplanted today. They don't look so tall here, but it's a good idea to prune off the lower leaves and plant the stem deep. The stems will then produce roots, giving them a stronger root system.

I gave the plot some triple 13 (13-13-13) as a starter. I'm not going to mulch the bed this year because i always have cutworm problems.


I didn't want to put this photo in because there's nothing in it, but in the interest of completeness, i guess i have to show the bed pre-plant. I did put in 3 tomatoes, tho, but you can hardly see them yet.

7 comments:

Ciara Brehony said...

Oh to have a garden...
You know. One that someone else looks after, not just the big wild field we have here!

Emma said...

I hear you, Ciara. I love, love, love fresh herbs and veggies, but would I do the actual planting and hoeing and harvesting myself? I like to think I would, but I'm not very confident. However, I am a very enthusiastic cheerleader. And eater. He couldn't have a bigger fan.

The Dirt Dude said...

Maybe if i have success this year, i can send you some 'sun-dried' tomatoes at the end of the season... I actually dry them in the plant drier at work. Comes in quite handy when you get too many tomatoes at once!

Andrew Judge said...

Man. I need to get diggin'

Paddy said...

All that looks great.
I love the long leaf pine tree. I know, I know, it's the only inedible thing there, yet it looks amazing.

Andrew Judge said...

Mike - you inspired me to tackle the garden this weekend. We got some great weather, and I managed to get 4 tomatoes, 1 courgette (zucchini, to you), 6 varieties of lettuce and numerous alpines into the ground. Our lavender has also gone mental.

Paddy said...

Great splash of colour for the summer!