Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Naked Coldframe and Monday Updates

Two days ago I was blogging about impending frost. Tonight, it's heat. Tonight is the first night the coldframe gets to stay uncovered and without lightbulbs. The temperature was 75 today but the coldframe (ha) hit 106 degrees and it was completely uncovered. Since the forecast is for similar if not higher temps for the next five days, the next task is to get stuff out of there and get it planted a.s.a.p.

Updates:

The frost was extremely light and everything came out unscathed. I've permanently removed the row cover on the circle bed, but the green bed still gets covered every night for two reasons. 1) The bambi's haven't touched a single thing in this bed since I put it down and 2) It seems to be keeping pests down. My greens have no holes in them at all! *knocks wood*

Harvesting: I'm harvesting greens and herbs from the garden and window boxes regularly now. The kids have me shocked at the way they are snarfing down these salads. The chard, bok choi and even the really weird spotted lettuce are a getting eaten, with compliments even. They say it tastes different. In kid speak, this is good.

Visitors: Toad number three has been removed from the coldframe. In this terrible picture you can sorta see the little guy peeping out of a hole that used to hold a baby celery. I named him BP (Bad Peeper) and relocated him in the back bed.

Fruits: In more thrilling news, I think I may have at least quadrupled my cherry harvest this year, or at least the potential for it. I counted at least four green cherries today. Yahoo, that's a sundae for every member of the family!

Planted: In the garden today went 1 borage, six more tomatoes, eight peppers, three eggplant, three dahlias, five salvia, four basil, and four zinnia, Seeds were started for two kinds of sunflowers and about nine stalks of sweetcorn.

Sprouting: 2 kinds of watermelon and two kinds of cucumbers are up. I also have two pathetic cilantro that went straight to stretched even though it was in sunlight it's whole life. Cilantro hates me.

Suffering: Three tomatoes that are still in containers look like they have blight and have been moved away from the other plants. Something chewed up two pepper plants. They all got aluminum collars this afternoon. All the peas look healthy but they are growing pathetically slow. The bean's around the teepee seem to be pouting too. I think I'll give them some worm tea tomorrow and see if it helps.

Doing well: All the perennials seem to have survived the winter and are starting to take off. The potatoes seem to really love their bag. I added three more inches of dirt to them again today. The leaks are still tiny but you can tell they have "took". They just sat there for two weeks but are now definitely growing. The onions are big. I need to find out if I should trim their tops. The planter carrots could be harvested if I wanted baby carrots. I'll let them go a bit more.

Multiple tomatoes already have buds. It looks like a couple of peppers are starting to throw some too, but those will get picked off. The plants are too small to be allowed to bud yet.

4 comments:

Jezibels said...

Stacy, Wow this was a big post today! I was scared of the frost too, but everything still alive! Do you have a fence around all your greens for the rabbits?

Stacy said...

I'm glad it all survived!

Nope,no fence. We have a ton of hawks in this area though so the bunny population isn't that large. Plus they would have to figure out how to get under the row cover.

Daphne said...

I wish I could get some toads in my garden. Occasionally they show up later in the year, but so far none.

I'm glad your plants fared well with the frosts. We had some scattered frost predicted, but I just couldn't believe in frost this time of year (we live close enough to the ocean to get a moderating effect) and luckily my instincts were right or I'd have a lot of dead tomatoes. I kept worrying before going to bed if I made the right decision. I think I would have gotten more sleep if I'd just covered them up.

Stacy said...

I'm noticing more and more toads every year. I have no idea where they are breeding. There are not any ponds that close to my home.

I'm glad the frost missed you Daphne. Your garden is looking so lush a bad frost would have been tragic!