Life as a Spectator Sport

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Sunday, March 26, 2006

Tomatoes and peppers and basil, oh my!




Along with knitting, planting the vegetable garden keeps me sane. I'm trying to expand it each year, and if I plant everything I've seeded so far, I'll have to triple last year's area.

I started keeping a journal, mainly to remind myself of what was planted when.
?March 12, Currant tomatoes are up, planted Swiss Chard outside

March 13, planted Alderman peas outside

March 14, broccoli up, planted Hale’s Jumbo cantaloupe

March 15, planted Sugar Baby watermelons, Black Beauty eggplant, Purple Ruffles basil

March 17, basil up, cantaloupe up

March 19, watermelons up (only 3 of the 6). Snow and ice overnight

March 21, planted Dukat Dill, Greek Oregano, Tiffen Mennonite tomatoes, Heinz canning tomatoes, Stupice tomatoes, caraway, bulgarian carrot peppers, California Wonder peppers, Mulato Isleno peppers. Frost overnight

March 22, eggplant up (2 of 6)

March 23, transplanted five white currant tomatoes and six red currant tomatoes. Started Stein’s Late Flat Dutch cabbage, parsley and lettuce leaf basil. Put greenhouse together. Snow tonight.

March 24, put greenhouse together. Heinz Canning tomatoes are up. The elderberries have arrived but it’s too cold still to plant them.
Tomatoes are unbelievably fast growers. The White Currant tomatoes I planted on March 10 are eight inches high, so high they can't stay under the lights any more because they're hitting the bottom of the light bulbs. I can't put them out in the little greenhouse yet, because it will be too cold for them by the time I get home most nights. So I suppose they're going to go in front of the one remaining east-facing window that isn't already full of plants.

March, it appears, will not be going out like a lamb this year, which will be good for the blackberries, apples and pears, but not so good for the pots of lilac, cranberry, raspberry and blueberry sitting on my kitchen counter. They're about to grow right out of the pots, but I can't plant them until our nighttime temperatures are somewhere above 28 degrees.

More reports and pictures as things grow.
posted by Liz @ 8:51 PM     |


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