spring garden
 

My 2010 spring garden is just about in. I like to have a few cool weather things out there before the tomatoes and the other things I call my summer garden. Like many areas, I have had a colder/harsher winter than normal but it seems both day and night time temps are finally evening out. I had started spring onions, cabbage, butter lettuce and parsley indoors and set those out in the garden this morning. We are supposed to get rain for the next three days. I hope it's not too stormy. I need some help getting my supports out of the shed for my sugar snap peas so those will have to wait until Sunday, I guess, if the beds are dry enough to plant by then.

Anybody able to get spring stuff planted yet or still waiting for the weather to settle?

We were starting off with a warmer than usual spring with all the daffodils, ornamental cherry trees, camelias, daphne, crocus and more that bloomed about a month ahead of schedule.

I followed the lead and planted lettuce, spinach, pepper cress, dwarf pak choi, kale and mustard on Valentine's Day. All are up and growing. I planted radishes and carrots about a week ago and will soon plant turnips and beets.

Most of my tomatoes and peppers are already in seed starting mix, should poke out in a few days and I hope to have them under the florescent lighting set up I created last week.

I expect I will be eating greens from my garden in April!

I've just planted a couple of dozen lettuce plants started from seed today, we are also expecting 3 or more inches of rain with some flooding over the next few days. My spring cabbage, broccoli, are outside hardening off, but still too small to set out. My onions are still very small and not growing very well. I started pulling carrots a month ago and have a good crop still to make if it doesn't heat up too soon. My cucumbers, squash and okra will be started in the greenhouse in the next week or so. Half of my peppers and tomatoes have been potted up and the rest are small seedlings or just popping up. Due to the wet weather I am not growing potatoes for the first time in many years. I am planning on growing more tomatoes than I have ever grown in order to try a lot of new varieties. I will stagger plantings right up through August. Oh yeah, I've got to plant some string beans in the next week or so.

I have my tomatoes planted and have recently sown seeds of 3 different cukes and have also started some Roma II beans. I also have a couple of different peppers planted. I will direct seed okra probably in May

This time last week we were having nighttime temperatures in the 20's. This weekend it's suddenly spring! Still a little cooler than usual, but nights will be no colder than the 40's for the rest of the week.

Now if it will just stay dry so I can get the garden tilled...

I managed to get my peas planted this morning. My goal is to get the tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and basil into the garden a month from now so I need to start getting those beds ready and adding some compost.

Our temps have been very spring-like here, a nice change. My night time temps sound like Blueassie's. Warmer nights make it a lot easier to go to the bus stop in the morning. I'm so tired of rain now! I miss seeing the sun! I would't mind watering if I could see a little sunshine.