Planting, Planting and more planting

Seeing the cold weather over the weekend Monday was circled as an exciting day where we would be able to transplant some of the veggies that have been asking to be planted.

It was the perfect day being sunny and warm for the first eggplant and basil to get transplanted out into the field.

Now that we have them out in the field we start to imagine when we will be able to harvest them and hope we have done everything so far to get a good crop.

Last year it was mid-May when we were able to begin harvesting basil and the middle of June for when we started getting small harvests of eggplant.

Tomorrow we have lots more transplanting to do. There are peppers, cucumbers, onions and shallots that need to get transplanted.

For a few of those we had to finish up prepping the area where they are getting planted yesterday.

Cucumbers are one crop we transplant and direct seed. The first planting we transplant so we can start them earlier in the greenhouse and then be able to harvest them sooner in the field while once the soil warms up direct seeding is better.

Lots of melons also got direct seeded after the cold snap and hopefully it leads to a bounty of them at the end of June and in July. There was three different varieties we did as they all have different times until they are ready to harvest.

We also direct seeded the first watermelons and one of two plantings we will be doing of summer squash. There are four different varieties of summer squash we are growing including two new ones this year.

The forecast said we were going to get in the mid-30s on Saturday morning and when we got to the farm it was around 33 degrees. Slightly colder than we had hoped for but we had protected the sensitive crops.

All of them were under row cover which had gotten wet from the 3/8” of rain we had Friday. We were going to sprinkle irrigate them but didn’t need to thanks to the rain.

By getting the plants and row cover wet it prevents it from getting colder than 32 as the water will freeze and protect what is beneath it while keeping it at that temperature.

This is the second consecutive year we’ve had a really cold morning in the first week of April but this year the plants were much stronger as they were in the ground for a few weeks already. Last year we had just planted tomatoes and then the forecast changed which affected the tomatoes slightly.

The first tomatoes were starting to touch the row cover that we had over them so we have taken that off with the warm weather this week and the plants hopefully growing a lot.

They also will be getting staked and the first string around them to keep them growing upwards making it easier to harvest.

By the end of tomorrow the greenhouse will be looking much emptier with so many less plants in it. The final succession of lettuce for the spring was seeded this week and in addition to lettuce we have leeks, tomatoes, basil and eggplant in the greenhouse.

While they have taken longer to grow with the cooler weather, they will grow much quicker and be ready sooner to transplant with the days like we are having this week.