Busy Morning

It wasn't going to be a busy morning. The forecast said the rain wouldn't arrive until the late afternoon. I could harvest in the morning and then slowly do a little garden work here and there. I sat down to start writing my blog post and saw the black clouds moving in this morning. Whoops.

I ran out to finish my planting. The second round of carrots were planted between the tomatoes. They were supposed to be planted when the tomatoes and peppers were planted, but I ended up planting the tomatoes way too early for the carrots. Now is the time for my second succession.

I raked the bed smooth, uprooted all the weeds and amended it with the last of my greensand. I made three rows. The first row is Sugar Snax which is by far my favorite carrot to sow. The seeds are huge for a carrot. I can easily sow them an inch or inch and a half apart. The rest were more spotty. One row was shared. Half was the last of the Atomic Red carrots, the other half Big Top. The last row was Danvers. I'm really thinking that the Atomic Red carrots are not worth buying unless you really need a weird color. There were so few seeds in the packet. It only seeded about 13' of row. My other carrot packets had at least twice as much seed. I still have plenty of seeds for fall carrots and two of these packet I used last year too.

After covering my carrots seeds with just a bit of fine soil, I put on their burlap covering. The burlap helps keep the seed from washing away. It also helps keep the soil constantly moist since the seeds aren't covered very deeply. Sadly my burlap wasn't quite wide enough. So in one section the Sugar Snax row is uncovered. In another part it is the Danvers.

To make sure the carrot seeds get plenty of moisture I removed the row cover from my tomatoes and peppers. It should rain a lot tonight. I really hope it rains at least an inch since we need it. I thought about watering the garden today, but the weathermen all promise rain. Then again they have promised me this before and not come through with it.

Since the row cover is now off permanently, I added on the tomato supports. Six 4' T-posts and six cages went in. The cages are concrete reinforcing wire and have seen better days. The cages need to be retired. I'm hoping they have enough structure left to still support the tomatoes. I still need to get up the supports for my potted tomatoes. I probably have six 6' T-bars which I can use. I don't have cages. I might have to make something (ick).

I had been hardening off my tomatillos and some more tithonia. I figured that 3 days ought to be enough. Supposedly with soil blocks and newspaper pots there is no root disturbance so they transplant easier. However we all saw what happened to my basil. You can still have issues if they aren't hardened off enough. It is supposed to rain and be cloudy tomorrow too so it is a good day to plant. The tithonia wasn't going to be used, but I have a hole in my perennial bed where I took out some iris earlier this spring, so I just stuck that in. If it doesn't work, I'll have to buy something.

I harvested. Whoohoo! I love harvests. This time it was my Asian greens. I'll do a whole comparison of some of them later, but for now I'll just say that slugs love Asian greens. Now I need to start looking up some recipes. Anyone have any for Komatsuna or Holland Greens?

And last but not least in my busy morning is getting my derriere in motion for my lettuce successions. I didn't have any seeded when I left. I finally started another one today almost two weeks late. While I was playing with the soil block maker, I made blocks for my sunflowers. I had seeded them in the garden before I left. The Music Box sunflowers came up just fine except one. So I'm seeding another plant for that spot - this time inside. The Lemon Queen sunflowers from the Great Sunflower Project were mailed in a letter envelope with no padding. Many of the seeds were cracked. Of the eight seeds planted only one came up. I've got four seeds left and put them all in individual soil blocks. If that doesn't get me a Lemon Queen sunflower, nothing will. I'm crossing my fingers.

So it was a busy morning. I have so much to write about for future posts. Life is running away on me again.