Side beds on April 14th.
This years gardening seems to be getting a better start than last years. 2009 was our first year gardening so we had a major learning curve, and while we are still learning; this year seems to be going so much smoother. Last year most everything was started fairly late. We’ve gotten a good head start this year, and might even be early on a few things.
We (read I, Amy can’t be blamed 
) transplanted the Brassicas out on about April 10th or so. We had been gone for a few days and left them under the row cover to continue hardening off and they were dry and wilted when we returned. I gave them a good watering and, since the weather had been so nice for several weeks, decided to transplant everything to avoid more watering issues. We got below freezing a night or two later, but everything survived just fine.
Two weeks later I am very surprised by the growth spurt of the brassicas. They are more than double the size of the few that remained in cups. I didn’t really see that they could be called root bound when I transplanted, but they sure have taken off since given more room.
Pea Sprouts.
The Peas are coming along nicely. The row cover was removed on April 24th and a fence put in place to avoid the dual purpose Garden Bed/ Litter box for the neighborhood strays. I am going to cut down one of the eight foot trellises that was used for tomatoes last year and use it for the peas.
I transplanted the Romaine Lettuce on April 14th and it has been doing well also. I don’t think it was quite doubled like the brassicas did, but it is taking off. I direct sowed a few more lettuce seeds the same day so we get a staggered harvest. I will likely put more in over the coming weeks.
The spinach that was sown March 28 turned out to have a very low germination rate. So far only three of eighteen have come up. I re-sowed the two squares on April 24th and will do a few more squares sometime in the following week.
The row cover that was removed from the peas/spinach bed was moved to the bed pictured with the black plastic, and I transplanted two squares of Parsley and one of Marjoram. These plants didn’t get their own separate divided tray space and the roots had grown together. I was careful separating them but they still all lost some roots in the transplant. I hope they recover ok.
New 4x16' tomato bed.
Finally, we completed and filled the new Tomato bed out back. I may have over-estimated, in our spreadsheet, how many plants we can squeeze into this bed , but we have a new 4×16′ bed to grow more this year.
Mel suggests that you can put indeterminates at one per square foot if you keep them suckered. This worked out well for us last year because of our late start, and it being a poor year for tomatoes generally. But some of the pictures of San Marzano’s and Beefsteaks that I’ve seen recently make me a bit skeptical of this spacing if we have a good year.
In our spreadsheet we have four Beeksteaks and nine San Marzano’s which would go in the 1×16′ on the north side of the bed, and seven Roma’s staggered in the middle along with Basil, Onions, Bell Peppers, Nasturtiums and Merigolds filling in the remaining squares. It looks great on paper, but we’ll have to see how it goes.
