Planting tomatoes...finally

It's going to be HOT over the next 2 days - today, high 28, tomorrow 30 - wow! It was time to get those tomatoes in the ground - Elzy, Oma and I got together at the patch with our plants - Mr. Z was kind enough to chauffeur Elzy's starts to there...

We planted 2.5 beds with tomatoes in about 2 hours - oh, that included those 7 hot peppers from Rooibos. Not to worry, we have another free bed for more peppers since the tomatoes did not take up that much space (got more plants than expected in each bed - in fact, Mrs. R farmer mom came over to see what we were doing and thought 12" spacing too close for them tomatoes - oh well. Also curious as to what the other beds were for - Elzy kind of side-stepped that, in case the seeds don't happen? :) )

Our plantings were not as neat or uniform as Mr. R farmer's but then he has one of those planting machines where 4 guys sat behind the tractor and dropped the plantlings into funnels that plopped each plant into the trench...they were doing gazillion tomatoes (Roma type) -

Will take pictures later today of our plantings.

More seeding

Was at the patch bright and early this morning! Yesterday evening, we (Kat, Roiboos, and I) passed by to check on the transplanted Spinach and Lettuce - here they are, still doing ok...

This morning, decided to dig up the weeds and then proceeded to seed the dwarf sunflowers, fennel, squash, zucchini and melon. Oh, and the watermelon radish. It's going to be very warm this week but weather forecast calling for rain next week (timely).

We should be putting the potatoes, tomatoes into the ground in next day or 2....

frost watch

Checked the transplanted spinach and lettuce patch this morning after last night's ground frost - they looked fine, especially the spinach. The lettuce did look a little cold...

The seedings are still under their blanket of soil (smart) while the weeds are coming along nicely!

A weed by any other name...

Those green thingummies pushing up through the soil...

Here are the transplanted spinach - they look to be doing quite well!

But the same can't be said for the lettuce?

And these - wait, aren't they weeds, nice and healthy - we can always pretend they are a vegetable!

tag, tag

Have made about 20 tags so far from those handy wire hangers - have to raid the basement for more hangers. Am conducting a little experiment on the type of tape and marker to use for the labels part - stuck a prototype on a bed yesterday - let's see how it fares with the sun & rain! materials are: duct tape, clear packing tape to seal in paper and Sharpie vs Bic markers.

Will leave the test tag in the bed for another day or two for weathering :)

Ok, these tags are about 6x2 inches 'cos we don't want to have to go up that close to see what veggies are where! mind you, the tags are about 14 inches length (including stake part) so will be close to the ground (about 8-10 in) - hmm...guess we'll be tilting the label part.

sprouting?

Went by the patch this morning (the rain was coming down gently - perfect!). Ah, the smell of freshly turned soil...

There were little green pushing up through the soil in the beds - not referring to the transplants of yesterday - yes, the weeds are coming up faster than the seeds!

We may have our first weeding party this weekend -

This coming Sunday looks like cool, around 10 which likely means frost overnight. But, it can change... Maybe we can seed the rest of the veggies on Monday? - zucchini, squash?

staking out the beds - photos

Here are some pics (courtesy of Kat) of the group measuring and staking the beds on Sunday May 11/09 with those handy wire hangers and some hemp string. Oh yes, also working the soil a bit... our Lilith Patch on the farm!