Activities for the past week

What a difference a week makes. Just over a week ago, I was complaining about how cold it has been. Today, I am measuring temperatures in the mid eighties. Cauliflower which has been outside for at least a month doesn't even notice the high temperatures except that it grows faster and bigger. But some of the newer plantings are drooping just a bit. They will do fine. It's me who suffers when I observe leaves drooped over. This is why I want a large plant with extensive root structures to set out. They have enough of a root complex to survive an unexpected heat wave, whereas nursery plants with extensive growth but very compressed (one tiny starter planter's worth of space) roots will often not recover.

The bad news of the week is that the pesky flock of sparrows arrived and with them the telltale sign of their damage. They bite at the edges of the leaves of just about any new planting including salad greens, brassicas, turnips, and beans. I have covered some of the new plantings with bird netting to protect them. The sparrows will even stop a wildflower by biting off all the leaves, especially new growth.

Activities for the week included:

1) planting seed potatoes directly in the garden
2) setting out brassicas especially kales, cauliflower, and kohlrabi. I wish I had some brocolli ready to plant but these guys are just now starting to really grow in the greenhouse. It had been too cold for them to grow much prior to last week. I expect to be setting these out in two weeks.
3) Moving turnips to pint sized planters in the greenhouse. They will be put outside in two weeks.
4) Transplanting the first batch of onions to the garden. These were planted in late September in flats in the greenhouse. This is about four weeks later than I usually do but had no choice because there just wasn't space for them. They follow the winter carrots. I have a bumper crop of overwinter carrots this year and have been late digging them from the garden.
5) Set out more salad greens and planted some bush bean seed among them.
6) Started a serious planting of eggplant and sweet peppers in the greenhouse. Tomatoes can still be planted in the greenhouse but as usual my February plantings of tomatoes have come up and I have many more plants than I know what to do with. Since early plantings of peppers have not done well, I continue to start two or more six packs on a weekly basis.

I look forward to the first companion planting of corn, pole beans, and carrots directly in the garden during the first weekend of April, if the temperature stays warm enough to warm up the soil to 50 degrees f or higher. Nothing will make a gardener want to give up more than observing how summer crops respond to a early heat wave with cold soil (below 50 degrees). The plants stunt, turn yellow, and are very late to recover if at all. Pests of all types from sparrows to earwigs detect this and attack. Thus I pay close attention to soil temperature when planting summer crops.

And finally, the picture at the front of the post is that of my greenhouse full of brassicas. Notice the pint and gallon pots.

danh