I went out this morning to water everything. It was a beautiful sunny May day and I had read some tips from Burpee about how to water the tomatoes. I thought I'd tackle that today. Since we don't have a great hose at the moment I fill up a plastic juice jug that holds 3/4 of a gallon of water and then pour that into the water can that holds 2 gallons. It's nice because it's marked from 1/2g to 2g. I filled the juice jug 4 times and poured then started on the first tomato plant. I was able to eyeball when the watering can was about half way full then I'd move on to the next. Since the can only holds 2 gallons and we have 6 plants that need 1 gallon each once a week I had to refill it three times but I think it will be worth the trouble. The Burpee tip, along with other references, said that watering the tomatoes deeply but infrequently was the trick to getting a "bumper" crop. Since Smart Gardener suggested this method of watering as well I went with it. I finally finished watering the tomatoes and moved on to watering everything else. It seems the rain did our garden wonders and I know it seems like "wow one gallon plus all the rain" but that isn't the case. The rain we got lasted 2 days but only have us about .5 inches of water. So I water the beans which are going crazy. We have about 18 plants now and more were popping up. I thinned a couple of the new seedlings because I knew that I'd have to thin them later and didn't see the point of letting them grow any longer. After the beans I checked on the spinach and noticed that the plants are growing there second set of leaves already. They went much quicker than my spinach. I thinned a few plants out the other day and a few more today. I am no longer scared to thin. I officially KNOW that the reason my thumb was a slow was, was because it was actually a slow one. I was waiting way too long to thin and the plants weren't getting there nutrients. I watered the lettuce and the mesclun mix, which also has its grown up leaves coming in, and moved on to the onions, basil and lemon balm. The lemon balm has about 50 bright green and new leaves, the basil is looking fresher every day, and the onions are another inch taller. So things are good in Potagar Schoultz. Once I watered everything there I refilled the can and moved over to Patch.
Patch Progress...
I watered everything in the raised bed and noticed that my lettuce is not only bushier but taller and more of the carrots have real leaves on them now. Then I moved on to my prized strawberry buckets. The 5G bucket has finally filled all the way in you can't see any of the soil unless you move the leaves over and the 8G bucket has 2 strawberries coming in... SUPRISE SUPRISE!! The container doing the best is the Topsy Turvy it all of the sudden has big beautiful leaves and flowers on it. I couldn't believe it when I saw it. I don't know if moving the container up higher so it got more sun had anything to do with it but it's thriving. I had my major reservations about choosing the Topsy Turvy because of the issues I had in the beginning but I'm glad to be proven wrong on this one. It's pretty amazing to know that those beautiful little white flowers will soon be juicy red berries. I can't wait!
Finally, I watered all the strawberry containers and all the stuff in the greenhouse and went inside. I wanted to get some weeding, spraying, and research done today but I had a haircut at 2pm and it didn't go well so I put all that off for tomorrow. I spent the day inside trying to fix the disaster I call my hair at the moment but tomorrow I'll set out copper to deter the slugs and snails. I'll pick an insecticide and organic weed killer. And I'll hopefully get the sea magic and "predalure", I mentioned, and spray and put that out.
 |
| Yarn trellis for the beans. |
 |
| Strawberry flower on the Topsy. Amazing and Gorgeous! |
 |
| Another Topsy flower just opening up! |
 |
| The 5G (Right) and 8G (Left) buckets. |
 |
| Grown up carrot leaves! |
 |
| Patch, raised bed. Bushy taller lettuce, carrots, onions on the climb and radishes that have just hit there growth spurt. |
No comments:
Post a Comment