planting day!!!

If you click on this photo, you can mouse over the beds to see what's growing where.

Well, its really great to do the big planting day with a helper. Amelia from SmartTart helped me plant in my community plot today. We got a ton of work done. My garden is suddenly full of seedlings.

Here's a list of our accomplishments:

- 15 tomatoes planted (with collars for cut worms)
- 3 hills of summer squash seedlings planted (Zephyr, Starship and Sunburst)
- new cucumber bed prepared and 3 varieties of seedlings planted
- gourd, squash and pumpkin seedlings planted along the south side fence
- new bed prepared in north-east corner
- the new north-east planted with chiogga beets, onion seedlings (small white and Spanish yellow) and Stuttgarter onion sets
- seed more carrots seeded where my early seeding failed
- seed more parsnips seeded since none sprouted from my early seedling
(Did I forget anything here Amelia?)

What a productive day! And many, many thanks to my awesome helper!

A few comments:

- I have killed so many cucumber, squash and watermelon seedlings in the past two days that I am feeling miserable. They are soooo delicate. Next year I will remember to plant many extras of these. Somehow, I just slip and step on them or bump the stem and it breaks off. Arrgh. I planted another tray of several varieties yesterday.

- I planted some large squashes along my fence. I wonder, are heavy fruited varieties OK on a sturdy fence? Big Rock is a 20+ lb pumpkin, Lakota is a 5-7 lb heirloom squash, and my watermelons are a big variety. Can the vines support the heavy fruits or will they fall off before ripening?

- I planted my summer squash in hills. Right now only 1-2 seedlings per hill, but I'll add more to replace the ones I squished. My question is why hills? Several people have asked me this now. I have just always read to plant squash in hills. I assume it makes the soil warm up faster if it is hilled. Is this the right answer?

- We made little cut worm collars by cutting off the bottom of the plastic pots and using the 1.5 inch pot rim as a collar. The plant can be pushed through the collar and planted deep with the collar remaining at the surface. I don't know if there are cut worms at my new community plot, but I'd rather not find out with my babied little heirloom seedlings.

- I planed to only plant 12 tomato seedlings, but couldn't part with a few and ended up squeezing in 15.

- Skippy was very good today. He liked having extra hands around to pat him. Amelia did comment that HE gets all the attention on my blog, but actually just snoozes in the garden. (Shhh, don't tell anyone...) I do have to add that he is great company when I'm on my own and he does a good job defending the plot intermittently against unseen and probably non-existent threats.

- I thought my original plot outline would be enough space, but already I'm looking for more space. Today we narrowed several paths, and extended the north plot to both the east and west. I hope I'll be able to get into the plot to water and harvest later in the season.

- I'd like to get a NSEW directional sign for my garden. Anyway, most of my community plot photos are taken from the brush pile to the east of my garden. So north is to the right, south is to the left, west is straight ahead.

- I went back to the plot to water our newly planted seedlings because the rain predicted to fall between 3 pm and 4 pm did not. At 5:30 I went over and watered. Of course heavy rains came in later in the evening. But if I didn't water, it would not have rained ....

- I have a very cute new cayenne seedling from Amelia. It is an exciting seedling because she grew it from seeds she saved from plants she grew last year. She grew a variety of peppers including yellow wax, cayenne and another variety. Peppers do self-pollinate, but have a fairly high rate of cross-pollination if bees are around (reference site). It will be interesting to see what the chiles from this plant look like. I will plant this plant and my seedlings in a week or so. In the meantime, I will continue to baby it...

And finally, another thank-you to Amelia! I really enjoyed her help.





(By the way, Skippy dug that little hole to the left in the bottom photo. That's where he napped today while we worked.)

chile and bell peppers (Capsicum)