This morning, I made sure to get a picture of our newest tomatoes.

These are the first Indigo Blue Chocolate tomatoes forming! We’ve got more Romas forming, too but, so far, no Black Beauties. They are blooming, though.

After I finished my morning rounds, I put the remaining transplants into as few containers as I could fit them, then loaded them into the car. Last night, I made sure to write out labels on Post It notes. When I went to the post office yesterday, and asked the store owner if I could bring my extra transplants, she had indicated a counter to leave them on, but there was no way they’d fit on there. There is a picnic table outside the door, though, so after clearing it with her, that’s where I set them up. She was really surprised to see just how many transplants I had! I told her a bit about the different varieties. I managed to squeeze 22 Romas into two bins, and all the Spoon tomatoes into one tray. Fifteen in total, I think. I didn’t really count as I combined the two trays into one. There were only 7 or 8 Black Beauties left, so they fit into one bin easily enough. The tomatoes are all so tall and really, really need to get into the ground!

I knew which group of peppers were the hot ones, so I had those set aside in a smaller tray. I had the bell peppers in groups by variety, but after taking the labels out when I transplanted half of them, I lost track of which was which! I still stuck labels on the tray with information about each variety.

This general store can get very busy, since it not only has the post office, but also sell liquor and gas. I hope that people will take all the transplants today but, if not, they are sure to be taken tomorrow. Our little hamlet is having it’s annual picnic and parade tomorrow, and the parade goes right past the store. The store itself is closed on Sundays, so having them on the picnic table works out well.

With these gone, I have just a few things left to transplant. The spearmint will go into a pot. Only one oregano survived, and I’m not sure how healthy it is, but I’ll try transplanting it somewhere as well. There are also the second variety of thyme to transplant, and I might just put those in a pot, too. That leaves the last of the onions to transplant. Today, I plan to pull the last of the bolting spinach and will transplant the onions there. If there are any left over, I’ll use them to fill spaces near the peas, where the lettuce and bok choy were choked out by the Chinese elm seeds. Thankfully, the trees are now done dropping seeds for the year. I also plant to re-sow some summer squash. They have a short enough season that there is still time for them to grow.

Once all the surviving transplants are in the ground, I can finally turn my attention to building those trellis beds! If I can get that done fast enough, we might even be able to direct sow a few other things with really short growing seasons, but at least that is no longer an urgent thing.

Little by little, it’s getting done!

The Re-Farmer