Just a few peppers.

The other day I bought 4 pepper plants on a semi-impulse purchase; my reasoning is that homemade salsa will require it of course!  They are:  Banana, Poblano a.k.a. Ancho, "Mild Jalapeño", and "Salsa pepper", which is some sort of hybrid marketed as a salsa ingredient.  I don't want super hot peppers, just a little heat.  The poblano and "mild jalapeño" have Scoville numbers around 1000-1500 which is not super hot.

Well, the three most recent planted IR and the remaining KB didn't survive transplanting to the garden.  So I planted the 4 peppers in their spots.  I forgot to check if the one other IR was still alive. Probably not.  So no IRs this year for breeding purposes.

The pumpkins didn't look too good today - pretty wilty despite the moist ground...I drenched 'em with water but I don't have high hopes.  It's getting hot out there.  Summer heat is beginning and if the plants aren't well established by now they are gonna have a hard time.

On the other hand, in the home garden several of the plants are growing well, especially the IRxCP hybrid.

In one of the other community garden plots someone has a bunch of huge tomato plants.  Like chest high, big and lots of flowers.  Made me feel inadequate...Although they are planted too close together for my taste, so I give myself points for careful layout.  :)  

Later than last year

Just realized how far behind I am vs last year.  In 2014 I planted from Apr. 19 - May 3.  This year it was from May 18 - June 3.  A full month later.  C'mon guys, grow!!!

Noticing that although the seed starting mix certainly gives healthy plants, it might be good for the potting stage to use a mix of seed start mix plus other things to encourage more root growth.  E .g. Something with plant food?  Just a thought.  Maybe 5 inch pots instead of 4.   Maybe I should just build a freakin' greenhouse next spring.

At last, I finished planting.  I took a Tuesday off to do errands and this was number one on my list. I've mega-tarped out the community garden now.  The final count is 46 surviving tomato plants as of today, although I bet 3 or so won't make it .  Most are doing OK though.  We got some hard rains over the last few days, and unfortunately a few of the ones I planted on Sunday were buried a little by mud.  But boy the ground is good and wet.

In addition to the tomatoes I have: 2 basil, 2 pumpkins, about 3 or so garlics, and a row of 40-odd onion.

More plantin'

Today I got about 12 more tomatoes in the ground, did some weeding, and set down more tarp.  Not quite used all the tarp yet though .   I got 2 more tarp rolls and a big box of staples, and still need to get 1 down.   Only a few tomatoes died since last time. Sadly I hoed down a little one on a row end by mistake!!

Still got to plant 6 tomatoes and 2 pumpkins.

Finished transplanting to pots

Last night I finished transplanting remaining 2nd round seedlings into pots.  I ran out of new 4 in. pots but realized I had a lot left over from the first round - all the ones that "dropped off". But I was worried that those were contaminated with fungus.  So - I baked 'em!  in the oven at 190˚ F for ~25 minutes. Hopefully that will have zapped lingering fungus.  Then, I transplanted as the other day, with the seed starter mix wetted with Actinovate-fortified water.   Nice.    All the seedlings are looking nice and green and good sized so far.  Very different than the first go around.

In short, the first round of sowing had these problems: 1. Didn't use enough light (need closer and longer program on the timer, 15 hrs+).  2. Probably, was too wet and that started dropping off a little.  3.  Should have used Actinovate at the start.  4.  Transplanted into "potting soil" which is probably loaded with fungus.

Second sowing:  1.  Kept light closer and 15 hours on timer per day.  2.  Not too wet.  3.  Actinovate was used from the start.  4.   Transplanted into additional seed starter mix moistend with actinovate.   :)

Transplanting round 2: notes

It's May 21.   Tonight I transplanted about 10 of the round 2 seedlings into 4 inch pots plus some 5 in left over from last year.  I am simply using more of the M.G. seed starting mix as transplanting soil.  To prepare it , I put about 1/3 of a bag in a bowl and moistened it with a bit under a pint of water, in which I had mixed 1/4 tsp of Actinovate.   Plus, I pre- bleached my holding trays for the transplant pots.  I am trying to be really aggressive about controlling damping off.  

Since I really need to get everything in the garden next weekend (5/30/15) I will try to transplant everything this weekend so they have at least a week to harden off.

Community garden progress

On Sat. May 16 I planted another round of tomatoes to bring the garden total to about 29.  A couple from last weekend had died - little ones that probably had some unseen damping off when i planted them.   I replaced them with new ones.  Also, I planted 2 basil plants, 6 garlic cloves and about 40 onion sets.  We got rain today so the soil is in pretty good shape.

I will need more crampons and weed mat.   Maybe some straw mulch to cover up non-mat spots.   I gave up on cutting slits in the weed mat for the tomatoes - too much work, too many crampons, too much damage to the mats.  So I am now just putting the tomatoes between mats.  But I am keeping the mats closer together than last year.

I still don't have the whole garden covered but I have a couple of weeks before it will get to be a problem with weeds.

I really want to get the new tomatoes all in ground on weekend of May 30.