Saturday, April 21, 2012

april garden arial

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A lot of good gardening weather this week!

Midweek, I moved my Meyers lemon out to its summer location. Its full of fruit this year and blooming again.

Today I shoveled 3 wheelbarrows full of compost to my garden beds, raked it down and did some planting. I usually turn the compost in every spring, but (mostly out of lack of energy) decided to try lasagna gardening this year. Since I have an irrigation system that needs to be lifted and redug when I turn the garden, its a big saving of time to forgo turning the garden. I layered on compost, racked to level, and will turn it locally to plant.

I planted six tomato plants today. Four (Beefsteak, Orange Blossom, Cherokee Purple, and New Girl) in brightly colored cages. One (Sun Gold cherry) has a 10 ft pole. And the sixth (Pink Beauty) is in the cold frame and will get a pole later, when the cold frame covers are removed. It is maybe the earliest I have ever planted tomatoes. What a year - such warm weather!(I'll plant another 6 tomato plants in a week or so at my community plot.)

I have 4 and a half rows of peas growing fast. I am working on getting a trellis for them (and the 3 rows of peas I planted at my parents' garden.) This is next weekends' garden job.

4 comments:

Marian(LondonUK) said...

Looking well planned and neat. I haven't seeded my Tomatoes yet. It may be too late for some that should have been done by the end of March. But I will try them, perhaps they won't know they are a couple few weeks late getting into soil!
Going to sow, Parsnip, Carrots, Spinach today direct at the Lottie. It is bright, chilly morning so good to get outside and hear the bird song. Enjoy your Sunday!
Marian (LondonUK)

Karen Anne said...

Would you say more about the Meyer lemon? How big is it? How much light does it need in the house? Thanks.

biobabbler said...

woah, planting tomatoes already?!? Jeepers. I'm in California and won't plant till May, but I'm also at 3500 feet, so it can (and HAS) even SNOW on May 15th.

I've read that NOT turning the soil over every year is GREAT for your mycorrhizal allies which can really boost plant health and productivity. Chopping up the soil every year breaks up all those tiny filamentous connectors they make, so I think your lasagna plan is a great one! =) Psyched to learn and hear about it.

Anonymous said...

It was a great week to plant seeds and transplant seedling as it will be raining for the next days (I am always too lazy to water then until they are out of the shock).
I had a bad luck with my pepper and tomato seedlings this year. I use sterile soil (coconut coir) but some how some of the seedlings got dump off. Some germinated weird, pihh...will see if I can get some new once. I actually teared up because of this.
Other than that my Brasilia heavy garden is doing great outside :]
Huli