Tomato Planting

Planted the summer tomatoes yesterday - Better Boy, Early Girl, Sungold, Costoluto Fiorentino, Roma, and Cherokee Purple. 

Note that the shade offender is from a neighbor's tree - he has graciously offered to prune the branch that steals the late afternoon sun as it literally hangs well over our property line. This bed is the most precarious in terms of light due to being between two large trees but I think with the pruning we'll be getting at least 7-8 hours of direct sun.

I turned over the entire bed a few weeks ago with a couple of bags of steer manure and added a good amount of blood meal and bone meal to each hole when planting yesterday. I've been using the cages for about 25 years now and always start the seedlings with a large bowl around each to capture the water to get them started. We'll be out of town for a while soon so even with a friend watering while we're gone I want to get them as ready as possible before we leave.

Spring Is Here!

Now we get the rain, sopping wet since the middle of March and now well into April after a bone-dry winter. It's even threatened the respective home openers of the A's and Giants, fairly an untypical situation to be sure. This is the third year in a row that we've had rain extend well into the Spring months. It's all good as we really needed the rain, not only for the drinking water from the mountains but also for local gardens as watering can never substitute for the real thing from the sky.

 Arugula seedlings - seeds planted on April 7

 Mint growing - replanted last month in the rain

 The Greek oregano is looking healthy indeed

Greek bay laurel re-potted into a large wine barrel. Tag says it can grow to 40 feet!

I was finally able to get some seeds in the ground last weekend. Sown beets, chard, salad greens and lettuce, and radishes. Although it's very sunny today, we've had a cold front come in last night, accompanied with thunderstorms, and it's only in the mid-50's at best. It's looking like it will climb up to the 70's by Sunday and will remain dry and mild all next week so hopefully I can get the tomato seedlings into the ground this weekend with the hope that by the time we travel back East in a couple of weeks, they'll be well on their way. I also started some parsley seedlings in a flat on the porch.

Hoping to add a pot for continuous cilantro seedlings, some fennel and a few more things shortly.