Design

I know they're coming. The summer vegetables, that is. I'm waiting for squash, tomatoes, and beans, in particular, having just about eaten my fill of greens and lettuce. My gardening companion (a good vegetable eater) commented this evening that he needs to eat lettuce at every meal, after putting away yet more freshly-washed and spun leaves. (These were actually harvested as one of the props for a couple of 1st grade plant classes, illustrating plant diversity -- they were impressed by the deer tongue, purple-tingled, and speckled lettuces, I think!) My gardening friends (hrrmph, they know who they are) that were early planters are already seeing zucchini flowers, at the same time mine barely have 4 or 5 leaves (I was late in planting). This may be a challenging squash vine borer year; the C. moschata squash (winter squash and tromboncino) will sail through probably, but I guess I can hope that the colder than usual winter had a detrimental effect on overwintering larva...

We're well past our last frost date, and unusually warm weather has jump-started the soil temperatures, I hope. It's been exceptionally windy this week, hard on young warm-season vegetables. I've been too busy to get recently purchased transplants (Lao round green and white; Thai green-striped, Thai round green, and a variety of peppers and tomatoes) in the ground, and I didn't think the soil was warm enough, either for them. I guess I could have checked, but I was still too busy -- largely encouraging other gardeners.... The seeds for the eggplants came from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds and I hope they produce some of the delicious small eggplants that we've enjoyed in SE Asia. Along with a lemon grass plant from another plant sale, I'm prepared for Asian stir-fries. I tucked eggplants and peppers into larger nursery pots, getting ready for a weekend away in the mountains, but put most of my tomatoes directly in the ground this evening. I can't say that...

It's tempting when the weather's mild to think about putting out tomatoes and peppers, and sowing seeds of squash and cucumbers, especially when the garden centers are full of plants. It's still too soon for us for the really warm-weather loving plants, based on the last 'average' frost date of April 15. But, there's a progression of sowing as the soil temperatures gradually warm. First, the really cold-hardy plants (garden peas, snow peas, sugar snap peas, fava beans, and onion plants), then as spring gets underway (but frost might still be a possibility), planting spinach, potatoes, carrots, beets, chard, more greens, and lettuce. Winter squash seed can be planted now, getting a jump on the long season they need, but basically the seeds wait until the soil warms up enough to trigger germination. It's always an interesting progression, swapping out bed space, checking soil temperatures, and watching the amount of rain and whether a cold snap might be in ...