Category Archives: Garden Thoughts
Putting Out Tomatoes
Yeah, we aren’t jumping straight from building the raised beds to planting tomatoes in one day. Sorry, we aren’t that good! However, down inside one of those raised beds is a great place to put some tomatoes that are ready to be hardened off, especially on a cool, blustery, April morning!
Seed Starting & More Mexican Vegetables
We are still planning on getting things planted around May 15th this year, so with that in mind we had to get some seeds started at the beginning of the week. (If you are looking for step-by-step directions on planting seeds, here’s my post from last year: http://thedemogarden.org/2011/03/29/planting-tomato-pepper-seeds)
Because each of our garden beds usually has a different arrangement of plants, we have to divide all the seeds into how many of each plants we need. You can also see my notation of 1 seed per pot. A lot of people will put multiple seeds in a pot “just in case” a couple don’t grow. I hate to do that, because then I’ve got a bunch of plants in a pot that I can’t easily separate without damaging the roots, and I have to snip the extras out. I prefer to plant 1 seed per pot, but then plant an extra pot or two of each (depending on how much extra space I’ve got). So the tomatoes pictured on the left say “Plant 4″ and what we really need is 2 plants. By doing it this way I know that we’ve got up to 4 healthy plants, 2 that we need and 2 more just in case. If only 3 of the 4 germinate, then I’ve already used up 1 “just in case.” It is pretty rare with fresh seeds to have poor germination.
We have almost 100 pots of tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant for the garden this year! Because of the planned late planting date, we are also starting a few other things indoors that wouldn’t necessarily have to be. Those include the Red Aztec Spinach, culantro (not to be confused with cilantro!), and Aka Red Shiso. The spinach and the culantro are for the Mexican garden and the Shiso is for the Beautiful Vegetables garden.
Here’s a look at the seeds of the Red Aztec Spinach (aka Huauzontle). They are quite small and look a bit like tiny snail shells. We actually did plant multiple seeds in each pot for these, since the seeds are so tiny!
The culantro seeds are also extremely tiny. There seems to be a range of seed sizes and shapes, which is unusual. Maybe the seeds weren’t cleaned very well? Again, we went with multiple seeds per pot.
I took a picture of the back of the culantro seed packet, since it has some interesting information. It is supposed to be more heat tolerant than cilantro, but I find it interesting that the seed packet suggests growing it in the shade…we’ll have to see how that works out!
As of today (Thursday) the Red Aztec Spinach is already growing, as are the marigolds for the edible flower garden. Everything else is still waiting to pop up. Of course, the jicama, thunbergia, and roselle are still growing too. Hard to believe that in about 5 weeks we should be out planting in our brand new raised beds!
Can YOU Predict the Weather?
Continuing on with our discussion from Monday about planting tomatoes and other warm season vegetables early, I want to take a look at what some of the long-term predictions are for the weather this summer.
Of course, one reason that everyone is thinking about planting early is just because the weather is so nice…like we expect April and May to be. As gardeners, we’re programmed to pay attention to the weather and plant when it seems right, with some guidance from the calendar and common sense. It stands to reason that we would want to plant now!
The other reason that so many gardeners are anxious to get their tomatoes planted early is because they are certain that the hot summer followed by a warm winter means we are guaranteed another scorching summer. We’re all desperate for some good tomatoes, and if planting a month early will do it, then let’s go!
I think it is interesting that the widespread assumption is that the 2012 summer is going to continue the trend of way-above-normal temperatures and continuing to be dry. After the winter of 2010-2011, where we hit low temperatures we hadn’t seen in years, we didn’t all assume that the summer was going to be record lows! If growing up on a farm, working on farms, and now being in Extension has taught me anything, it is that you don’t try to predict the weather, especially based on what you are currently experiencing!
I’d like to share a couple of general long-term weather forecasts from 2 very different sources. Then we can revisit the issue at the end of the summer and see if either (or both) turned out to be right.
The first forecast is from the K-State Climate Prediction Center. I participated in a webinar they hosted back at the beginning of March and found it very interesting. Their long-range models were showing that the trend for summer 2012 has a good chance of being below-average temperatures and above-average rainfall. (I’m liking that!) They did make a point of saying that February models are often inaccurate, and the range of possibilities did stretch from very cool and wet to slightly warmer and still dry. (Although last February the models were predicting very hot and very dry, which was only too correct!)
National Weather Service Jun-Jul-Aug Temperature Outlook
Their most recent long-range forecasts (from March 15th) show an “Even Chance” for above, normal, or below average temperatures and rainfall. The skeptic in me says that means they have no clue which model is going to be right! Still, that doesn’t seem to agree with the assumption that we’re in for another very hot, very dry summer.
The other forecast is from a source that generally makes me rather twitchy as an Extension Agent making research-based recommendations. That source is the Farmers Almanac. I don’t plant by the Farmers Almanac, never have, and probably never will. I don’t recommend other people plant by the Farmers Almanac either. However, I was in a local garden center last week that had copies and thought it would be interesting to check out what it said about the long-range summer forecast, given that I had already seen the K-State early model projections.
The Farmers Almanac has the eastern half of Kansas pegged for cooler than normal and dry weather this summer, and the western half of Kansas expecting cooler than normal and wetter than normal weather this summer. Interesting! The Farmers Almanac and the K-State predictions seem to at least partially dovetail. (In the interest of full disclosure, the Farmers Almanac predicted normal winter temperatures and precipitation for us this winter. Um. Yeah, that was obviously wrong.)
This is the closest I am ever going to come to predicting the weather on this blog. I think it will be very interesting to look back after the summer and see which (if any) of these predictions are correct. I have to be honest that I would be very much in favor of a cooler than normal and wetter than normal summer after last year!
How Early is Too Early to Plant?
With the unseasonably warm spring, it is even more tempting than usual to plant some of our summer vegetables early. With the memory of last summer still fresh, most tomato gardeners are looking for a way to get their tomatoes going soon so they can get a good crop even if the summer turns hot and nasty again. (More on that later this week!)
How do we decide if we should plant early or wait until the usual planting time? Is it okay to plant some things early, but not others?
I think it is important to remember that however warm it is on a given day or week in the early spring, that doesn’t prevent a cold snap before the beginning of May. Thinking back to 2007, many parts of the country experienced a warm, early spring followed by a swift dip down to well-below-freezing temperatures. We certainly do not want to set our vegetable gardens up for failure by planting too early.
In the Demo Garden, we really are not presented with this question this year, as we will not have all the raised beds and soil in place and ready to go before sometime in May.
My thought on planting early is that in a spring like we have been having so far, it would be crazy not to take a little risk and try planting earlier for some crops. What I plan to do in my community garden plot is to plant my tomatoes around mid-April rather than wait for May 1st. However, I am not just going to blindly go out and plant on April 15th! Conditions have to be right.
First, the long-term forecast for the 2 weeks between April 15th and May 1st should look nice and warm. If there is even a chance that it is going to get below 35-40 degrees one night, I would rather wait to plant. The other key factor is that I want the soil temperature to be nice and warm. As of this writing, the soil temperature was measured at 57-60 degrees on March 20th! However, with cooler temperatures and rain, that can drop. Tomatoes need at least a 55 degree soil temperature to thrive. Right now it is looking good, but I want to make sure it stays that way. The last thing is that I need to be prepared to provide some protection for those tomato plants if temperatures do dip down into the 30s.
How about other vegetables? Theoretically, when the soil temperatures reach 60 degrees peppers, eggplant, squash, melons, okra, and most other warm season vegetables can be planted. These vegetables really love the heat, so I will tend to wait to plant most of them until closer to May 1st. Likely it will not get cold enough to severely damage them, but they will grow better when the weather is consistently warm. Again, you can take a chance and plant earlier, just be prepared to provide some protection and replant if necessary.
I have some thoughts about the summer long-term forecast that I’ll share later this week. Stay tuned!
Starting Jicama Seeds
In our Mexican Garden this year we are going to make an attempt at growing Jicama. You may have seen it in the grocery store – a big, tan tuber with crunchy white flesh. (Yeah, I know that describes a lot of tubers.) Jicama is a vining plant that produces the edible tubers at the end of its growing season, which is typically 7-9 months. Obviously we are borderline as far as getting a crop here!
We got the seeds from Bountiful Gardens, and even though we aren’t sure when we’ll be ready to plant outdoors, I decided to get these seeds going. It’s going to be tight getting them to produce this year anyway without creating any further delay. If they get too big before the garden is ready, we’ll just have to put them in a pot for the time being.
Before starting, read the back of the seed packet! There’s all kinds of good information there! For instance, we learn that it is best to soak the seed overnight before planting and to plant the seeds 1 inch deep.
Here are the seeds soaking in a cup of warm water. I started with the water probably about 95-110 degrees. (Same temperature as for yeast when you are making bread!) It cools down as it sits, but no need to change the water.
The light stand is finally looking less barren! It has had a much longer break than usual this year. I also planted the seeds for the Thai Red Roselle (Edible Hibiscus) and for the Thunbergia (Black-Eyed Susan Vine).
Next week we will hopefully start some hanging basket tomatoes to hedge against not getting the garden planted in a timely fashion this year. In a couple more weeks, we should be ready to plant the bulk of the tomato and pepper seeds – IF it looks like we are likely to have the garden ready to plant by mid-May. They have been making good progress on the classroom area structure, despite the rain. However, I suspect it will be several more days before it is dry enough to even think about laying pavers.
