My Late May Garden, Step Two

Earlier in the day, we worked in the garden preparing the beds for planting the vegetables I purchased.  Then came the really fun part:  actually planting my vegetables.  Woo-hoo!

Below, Thomas and Danny have already planted my peppers--the sweet Giant Marconi and the jalapeños.  Here, they're working on the tomato plants.  One thing that I did new this year--as I planted each plant, I first dug the hole, then mixed three tablespoons of organic plant food into the soil in the hole.  Then, I separated the plant's roots a bit (to prevent it from getting root-bound), and planted it in the hole.  (July update:  my plants are doing fantastic, so I'm guessing the plant food helped!)

Peggy from The Growing Place recommended that I put cheesecloth over my butternut squash plants.  She said this would prevent moths from laying eggs at the base, thus killing the entire plant.  I figured it couldn't hurt, so I draped cheesecloth over the three plants and anchored the cloth with some bricks from our garage.  The cheesecloth should be removed when the plant blossoms, so that bees can pollinate them.

An update on the squash/cheesecloth situation to come soon.  :)

Here is the basil I planted the previous week:

The sweet peppers were planted and staked.  I used metal stakes, the same type I used for anchoring the chicken wire around my garden.  They're what I had, and they were free.

I also used garden tape to anchor the plants to the pole.  This is green tape, with Velcro on one side and soft, fuzzy material on the other.  The plant stems are kept safe, and the plant stays anchored on the pole.  I haven't had to purchase this tape yet, as a friend gave me some to use last year, and another friend gave me more this year.  *big smile of thanks*

A quick check of my strawberry plants and I saw lots of blossoms!  Maybe I'll get strawberries this year!  My neighbor Lorraine gave me the plants two autumns ago, so this is their second growing season.  Can't wait!  (Update on that soon, too!)

Looks like I'll have strawberries this year!!

I bought three types of tomatoes this year, and totally forgot about getting cherry tomatoes.  Oh, well.

 Tomato variety -- Early Girl.

 Tomato variety -- Better Boy.

 Tomato variety -- Rutgers.

 

All of the plants have lots of blossoms--a good sign!

That was it for the first day of planting.  We started the next day nice and sunny, ready all over again to plant the onions.  Below, you can see the empty bed waiting.  Well, there is a clump of garlic there in the back left which grew up from last year.  I just let that grow.

I spaced the onions about four inches apart, with the root part down and the stem part up.  Makes sense, huh?

After I worked some plant food between the rows of onions, Danny used my watering wand to water them.

The Overview

This is what the garden looked like at the end (before we planted the onions in the far back):

Back to life,
Christine

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