I’m rather happy with how things went this morning!
The first order of business was to get the Spoon tomatoes, which are starting to bloom, into the ground, and plant some bush beans in the same bed.
I had nine transplants, so that worked out with using the trellis posts as spacing guides.
Since I was going to plant bush beans along the edge of the bed, I did things a bit differently from the other half. With the melons, I set out the collars, added a handful of manure into each one and worked that in, in situ, then made narrow trenches around each collar. For this half, I started out by making a shallow, flat trench along the length of the bed I’d be planting into, pushing soil up against the log wall, and towards the trellis line. I added manure into the trench and worked that into the soil before giving it a thorough watering. Then I added the collars, closer to the centre/trellis line, than the melons are. Then I watered it again, filling each collar with water, as well as the trench.
To transplant the tomatoes, I scooped out a hole in each collar, deep enough for the entire root balls, then added it back in after the tomatoes we in place. Even with filling each collar and letting it absorb water before hand, I was still pulling up dry soil! Once the tomatoes were in, I filled the collars with water again.
Each tomato got a pair of bamboo stakes set on either side, placed right against their collars. Later one, once I have the time and the ties, I will be adding cross pieces to make them sturdier, and also secure them to the wire trellis. Growing these before, I’ve been able to just wind their stems around a single bamboo stake but, after a while, it starts to get tippy, so I’ll better secure them this time.
Once done with the tomatoes, I made another long, narrow trench to plant the beans into. That got watered using the jet setting to drill the water deeper into the trench, which also helped level it out and even break up some of the clumps I missed. I didn’t have a full packet of the Royal Burgundy purple beans, but I had just enough to evenly space the seeds from end to end. I don’t expect a 100% germination rate, so we might end up with a few gaps, but these are new seeds, so it shouldn’t be too bad.
Once I spaced the beans out evenly, I pushed them into the soil in their little trench and covered them, then went over the trench with a more gentle flat spray of water to fill it and level out the soil again.
That done, I used the last of the grass clippings left in the wagon to mulch around the tomato collars, and the edge of the bed along the bean’s little trench. I ran out of grass clippings with just one corner left to cover, but I still had some leaves and grass clippings mulch set aside from the winter sown beds I could use.
Then it all got watered again, making sure to soak through the mulch.
With how dry that bed was, it’s really not possible to over water it.
Since this bed had been covered in plastic while we had our recent rainfall, I fully expected it to be so very dry. After working on the next bed, however, it turns out that it really didn’t make much of a difference. It still would have been that dry!
The next bed I worked on was the end of the garlic bed, where I’d winter sown some of the same seed mix of root vegetables that is in the high raised bed. Nothing survived in this bed, though.
I didn’t have time to break out the weed trimmer to clear around the bed, so I used a rake to knock the weeds and dandelion seed heads down and way from the bed. This little section still has netting over it, though the cats have still been lying on top of it! So before I started, I had to pull the netting away, starting at the garlic end, leaving it still tacked down at the other end. The bed then got a weeding, and finally some manure was worked into the soil.
Next, I used some of the small plant support stakes I was no longer needing at another bed, to add more supports for the very loose twine, including adding one in the very middle of the bed, where the twin crossed.
Once the soil was ready and watered, I made three round, shallow “bowls”, which got watered again. Each “bowl” got three squash seeds planted in them. On one side, I planted the White Scallop squash. On the other, Black Zucchini.
Then the “bowls” got watered again.
This garden bed was fully exposed to the rain we got, and yet it was every bit as dry as the bed I’d just worked on, that had been covered in plastic while it was raining! You’d never know we had any rain at all.
This bed had been mulched for the winter with a mixture of leaves and grass clippings, that had been pulled to one side of the bed in the spring. I was able to use that to mulch around the “bowls” the seeds were planted in, with a light scattering of mulch in the bowls, too. Once that was in place, the netting was put back in place. Then it got watered again.
Hopefully, the new supports will help keep the cats off!
By the time the squash is large enough that the netting will need to be removed, they won’t need the extra protection anymore. We shall see how many of the seeds actually germinate. If I end up with extras, I will thin by transplanting. Hopefully, this year, we will actually have a decent amount of summer squash!
So that is now done. In the main garden area, the only bed left is the trellis bed. I won’t work on that again until everything is planted, though.
From the looks of the weather forecast, I should be able to get lots done tomorrow.
Gosh, I’m so enjoying all the progress in the garden! I might be in a lot of pain when I’m done, but it feels so good otherwise, it’s totally worth it.
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 