Elliott didn't kill any plants!

Last Wednesday I put my tomatoes, garlic, and shallots in in a hurry so that I could leave town for a visit with my mother. I was rather nervous about leaving my garden because many of the seeds I put in over the last few weeks are just now sprouting, others have been up for awhile but are still small and tender, and the process of transplanting tomatoes is pretty brutal for the poor guys and they're very fragile for the first week or two afterwards.

Well, I couldn't be happier to see my tomatoes are for the most part looking no worse than the day I put them in. Elliott reports that they were pretty wilted while I was gone, but they seem to look fine now. I put E.B. Stone Planting Compost on them today as a mulch because the ground is a bit cracked in some places. Hopefully a little mulch will hold the moisture in (and makes the bed look much prettier).

Several garlics have already broken through the surface. I suspect the others will all be up in the next week or so. No shallots or elephant garlic yet, but it has only been 5 days.

My fava beans look FANTASTIC! Many of the plants are 6+ inches tall now and growing second and third stalks. The peas (sweet, snap, and snow) are all popping up. They vary in height from 1/2"-3" right now and a few sweet peas have started growing tendrils.

More strawberry starts have grown leaves. Maybe 8 or 10 have a leaf or two on them now, and a couple of those already have multiple leaves. The larger of my two rhubarb starts also has a beautiful green leaf that grew while I was away.

Seeds are sprouting all over the strawberry/flower/vegetable bed. My sunflower seeds are up and working on their first true leaves. I have a nice row of chard developing and a number of other seeds that I don't yet recognize. Many of these seeds are probably weeds, but I won't really know until they've developed a little further. I won't pull anything for awhile for fear of pulling out something I planted on purpose.

My potted Roma tomato is looking suprisingly stocky. It is close to a foot tall now and has an impressively thick stem with dense branches. I suspect I will have a very productive plant....hopefully in contrast with my tomatoes from last year which ended up long and somewhat spindly.

Today I went to Armstrong Garden Center to spend one of my Groupons from a couple weeks back. I spent it on three bags of compost and a variety of herbs (trailing rosemary, English thyme, chocolate mint, stevia, Italian oregano), an Artichoke plant, and a half dozen seed packets. Most of these (except the seeds) will end up in pots on my porch or driveway window sill. I'm looking forward to getting those all in over the next few days!

More plants!

Finished double digging the north vegetable bed today! It was late in the day but I convinced myself I needed to get the peas in...and now I'm glad I did. There's a roughly 20 foot row of peas with 3" spacing, alternating one snap pea to every two snow peas. This is partly because there were more snow pea seeds in a packet and partly because the plants only grow half as tall so I figure I'll need more of them to get roughly equal yields. the peas should be up in no time. They were all sprouting roots and stems already (from being between wet paper towels for 5 days) and I didn't bury them very deep.

I also planted a dozen or more sunflower seeds and two rhubarb starts.

If I have time tomorrow I'm hoping to get tomatoes, scallions, garlic, and shallots in...or at least dig a bed for them and plant on Monday or Tuesday.

Almost all the Favas have sprouted and sweet peas are pushing through here and there. Three strawberry starts have green in them and the seeds I planted among the strawberries may be starting to germinate as well! They could just be weed seeds, but at least some of the look like beet or chard seedlings. Only time will tell.


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