New low tunnel is currently jam packed with pepper and tomato seedlings, most of them looking for a good home for local growers (Wasatch Front area, Utah). Using three layers to regulate heat and prevent sunscald: greenhouse plastic, shade cloth, and heavy duty frost blanket.
Crazy weather of Spring – some warm and sunny days, and likely light frost tonight. (update May 2nd: ground covered with frost the past two nights – would have been wiped out without frost blanket!) Good thing I did not succumb to the temptation to transplant four weeks ahead of schedule!
List of tomato seedlings available:
Tomato Seedlings Growing in 2019
But of the 615 varieties planted for seed saving, I need to replant 88 of them! A few because the seedlings were eaten by snails; but there were 36 varieties with ZERO germination! Plus another 46 varieties with only 1 surviving seedling. That’s a lot of extra time and effort from getting poor quality seeds!!
First ripe tomato of 2019 is again Totushka, discovered on April 24, from seeds planted on December 12, 2018. That’s 133 days; but I really did not care for them well. Metal Halide lights, which I did not use this past winter, are far superior for growing tomatoes indoors than are the weak T-12 fluorescent bulbs that I did use.
Other microdwarf varieties which produced ripe fruit at close to the same time include Gold Pearl and Regina:
Other signs of Spring –
A cracked robin egg found on the ground
Flowers in abundance:
Fruit trees heavily laden with blossoms this year:
Corn – I attempted to plant an extra early patch of Painted Mountain, Alpine Varietal, just to see how early I could get corn. Seeds planted on April 17; 128 seeds in a plug tray and kept warm indoors. Seeds began to emerge in less than 3 days, with most of them up within 5 days. Transplanted outdoors after 8 days, and some seedlings already had taproots that were 8″ long!
This little patch is covered for the night, with 33° F for predicted low.
Several varieties of lettuce also planted today (April 30, 2019):
Amish Deer Tongue, Jericho, Tennis Ball, Buttercrunch, Summer Bibb, Prizehead, Dark Lollo Rosso, Speckled, Bronze Mignonette, North Pole and Tango – with several more I would like to plant when I can find the time and garden space.
Several varieties of peas are also emerging:
Wando, Super Sugar Snap, Sugar Magnolia, Alderman, Little Marvel, and Amish Snap
Also planted on April 25th: nine large pots with Atlantic Giant Pumpkin seeds. After five days, no signs of life yet. Later – after 8 days, 5 have germinated.
LOTS more to come…
Delectation of Tomatoes, etc. 