On Pots and Pots

Yesterday was all about potting up. The first order of business was potting up the tomatoes that had grown big enough. Not all of them had. My tomatoes have been germinating sporadically, but I think I finally have enough to fill out the garden. There aren't enough of the Heinz, but I'll just add more Market Miracles since there are so many of them.

I grew the tomatoes in the 1 1/2" soil blocks. They are usually ready to plant up when I see the second pair of true leaves. But it is the roots that tell me when to pot up.

The roots start to grow out of the soil block. They have totally filled up the block and I want to give them more room for more roots. Tomato plants are all about how big of a root system they grow. The bigger root system you get the bigger plant you will have. It's all about making more roots. When I grow transplants I never let them get much bigger on top than on their root. I make sure they grow fast. So once I see roots coming out of the block I replant. Those six packs you buy in the nursery just don't grow as well. They are always root bound and have too much foliage for the roots they have. Yes you can recover them to an extent by picking off the lower leaves and burying the stem to make more root, but being root bound is a major stress on the plant.

I transplanted them into newspaper pots. I make the pots 4" tall and about 2 2/3" wide. I like pots that are taller than wide as again it makes for a better deeper root system once planted. I don't make newspaper pots like others do. I consider the newspaper to be an aid in making the soil cylinder. I do not put a bottom on the pot. I just roll up newspaper - only two layers thick. I don't want any newspaper to be in the way of the bottom roots when I plant. And I don't want to encourage the roots to wind around the bottom. I tack the top together with paper clips or masking tape. I don't even bother with the bottom. Then I take enough moist soil to fill up the bottom of the pot and pack it down well. It has to be compact enough to hold together when lifted. Then I drop in my soil block and fill in the edges.

I plant about 1/2" deeper than in the soil blocks. The plants when transplanting are small and don't have much stem to bury. In addition the roots will still fill out the whole paper pot before transplanting. That is the sign they are ready to go into the garden. The roots are coming out the bottom and coming out the sides.

While I was in the nursery I started some cucumbers. I didn't start all of them. I figure with the weather I'll do them in two waves. So in another week I'll start some more. The ones I started this time were the Diamant cukes. I've been growing these for years. They can produce in cool years if we get one. I'm also trying a new cuke. Little Leaf H-19. Both are parthenocarpic. So I don't need the bees to be active. Even periods with a lot of rain can set cucumbers. I'm hoping the latter one works well. I'd like to switch to it if possible. It has a lot of resistances, is open pollinated and doesn't ramble too much. We will see. I'll start those next week.

I also started some more green stemmed bok choy. I thought about the white stemmed one,but it bolts too fast if the weather heats up. It is really a better fall plant, but I like its flavor more than the green one.

My afternoon chore was to get the pots ready for the mints. I don't have the mints yet, but I will soon and they can go right into their new home. I mixed up soil for them. I used equal parts garden soil and compost then added some vermiculite and fertilizer. I know from soil tests that the soil they brought in is high in nitrogen and potassium, so I added extra bone char to even it out.

The one pot I did plant was the one next to the front steps. It still needs the mint in the front. Yes the non decorative ones I'm putting in front. I'm strange that way. In the back is a golden sage. I didn't get it for culinary use. I'm growing a regular sage for that. But it looks so dang pretty and I wanted something to grow tall.

I looked at the forecast and the lows won't be lower than the mid 40Fs for the next 10 days. I'm guessing April 9th was our last frost. Which is pretty unbelievable for the cold spring we had. We just haven't had any large temperature swings. My old hill had a frost on the 17th of April. This place is warmer than my last in spring. I could be planting tomatoes out now. They aren't nearly ready, but I'll have to plan for earlier planting dates at this location. The city really heats up faster. If I make a plastic tunnel for the tomatoes I can really plant pretty early I think.

But then can you trust the weathermen? Yesterday they all said the temps would be about 72F. My weather station said it got to 81.5F. Ten degrees over what they predicted. I've seen a lot of errors this spring that were 10F off. That is a lot to be off by when you are predicting in the morning for that afternoon. Sadly it really was hot and humid yesterday. I was going to plant any of the flowers and such that were big enough already since I suspect we won't get any more frosts. But after hauling dirt around for the pot, I went in to the coolness of my house. I'll have to get to that and weeding the paths, and planting my rose today or tomorrow.