favorite week - planting corn and beans and transplanting tomatoes

This is one of my favorite weeks in the vegetable garden. Highlights are transplanting tomato seedlings outside and sowing bean and corn seeds.

I transplant my hardened off tomato seedlings to the garden when night time low temperatures are routinely above 45F and mostly above 50F. I transplanted my mom’s tomatoes today (Mother’s Day). In the next 10 days, no local temps below 45F are predicted, and over 50% of nights are above 50F. Another good measure is soil temperature, which should be above 55F for planting our tomatoes. I’m still trying to find my soil thermometer. (I know it’s here somewhere...)

Planting seeds in the ground is less risky than transplanting seedlings. If the soil is too cold and wet the seeds will rot and will not sprout, but there is a lot of leeway. Mostly, spring planted seeds will begin to grow when the soil warms up to the appropriate temperature.

I will plant corn and green bean seed directly in the garden, but my soybean seed I plant indoors in pots because the chipmunks eat the unsprouted seeds. Argh. I’ll plant a few big trays of soybean seeds inside.