On schedule

For perspective:  This year I am about a whole month ahead of where I was this time last year.  I didn't plant in the community garden till mid-May, and was still trying to re-sow more seeds in late May.   Given that I've already got flowering plants in the ground I am pleased.

A post about posts

Today I put in all the metal posts.  I'm using 6 ft. metal T-posts .  They are VERY substantial - 8 lbs each.  Easy to put in with my hand post driver.  I got about 24 put in in about an hour.  These posts are pretty good.   The only slight thing I would improve on them would be to add small upturned hooks like other fence posts usually have, which would assist with twining.   As they are, I have to physically wrap the twine around the post, so I can't affix the twine box to my belt which would have speeded up things.   I also went ahead and put up just a bit of twine in some rows where some plants already needed some help.

One thing went wrong with the tarp - we didn't put in enough fasteners, so some of them blew up partly.  This resulted in the squashing of about 6 F2 plants.  Bummer.  Still got N=58 left.  One of the broken ones even already had a tiny fruit!

Oh yeah, I hoed a buncha weeds too - so these are still under control for now....MUST get hay mulched down this next weekend!!!

Several plants have flowers already.

The F2s are doing mostly OK, not exploding yet but it's still early.  The ones planted 2 weeks ago are well established.  The F2s and heirlooms planted last weekend are about the same but at least all alive except the ones noted above..  A few looked pretty thirsty but the water was shut off since they were putting in irrigation lines, soI could not help them out. They will have to struggle by today.

Some of the F2s have really strikingly dark purple leaves.  Pics show these and a GZ non-purple heirloom for comparison.

Megaplanting

Today I planted the whole garden, thanks to help from a good friend.  We filled all 96 spots with tomato plants!   The final tally is, I believe, 66 or 67 F2s: 24 each in rows 1 and 2, and the remaining ones in row 3.   Adjacent to those are the F1 plant, and two IRs.  That left 3 more slots in the head of row 3 for heirlooms (GZ I think).  Row 4 is all heirlooms and hybrids:  OS, SS, ML, CP, BW, RC, LT. And, we got down 3 x 50' weed mats between the rows.

Still to do:  Mulch; weedeater; and , staking.

First planting in community garden

Sunday April 17: I needed some time alone in the community garden to clear my head after a week of funeral arrangements, family visiting and reminiscing about my dad.   Fortunately the weather was lovely today.  I planted 18 of my F2s (one flat of plants).  Planted nice and deep, about 6-8 inches deep that is, and at 2 ft intervals.  The soil has decent moisture.  I also supplemented each with a 1/2 scoop of Tomato Tone in each hole before planting.   Looking good so far.   Meanwhile the rest of the 80 or so plants are still waiting at home...

Cuke I liked

"Sweet success" was a good cucumber last year.  I will plant it again this year.  good size eating cukes, and not bitter!

I'm also going to plant a cucumber called "national pickling" from the ferry morse company.

Getting ready for big planting

So, the community garden plot is about 17' x 55 '.   I thought it was going to be 12' wide but turns out it's 17', so, that gives more room than I thought.  Based on that, it will be easy to have 4 rows set 3 ft. apart with a couple feet on the outsides too.   Therefore each row could have 20 plants at about 2.5 ft spacing = 80 plants.  I'm thinking to have 3 rows of just F2s and one row of heirlooms.  The tough thing will be choosing the numbers of each variety.   I will have to reduce spacing to 2 ft to fit more and that is kind of tight.

Last week I measured and hoed the 4 rows so the spacing is good.  Actually the rows are about 3.5 ft apart so (hopefully) the 3' wide mats will fit well.

The lot is actually not a perfect rectangle but a slightly skewed parallelogram.

Planted at home 4/16/16

In my home garden I planted today:  2x HC; BC; AN; BA; RC; 2 xFL.
Also got some lettuce going there.  Cukes and sunflowers will be next.

Was going to get the F2s planted in community garden this weekend, but I've postponed that till next weekend due to my dad's passing away.   Hope they can hold on another week before they crawl out of the pots!